Fenton's Winter (20 page)

There was a short silence
before Jenny said quietly, "Tonight Tom, tell me tonight," then she
put the phone down.

Fenton was irked at Jenny's
failure to share his excitement but tried to rationalise it. She
had been working all night and hadn’t had any sleep but . . . she
had a point. He was not short of ideas. The trouble was that none
of them seemed to be proving right in the long term.

Ian Ferguson came into the room
while Fenton was still deep in thought. Thanks to that and the fact
that the rain was hammering on the window Fenton did not hear him
come in and was startled when he spoke. Ferguson apologised and
said, "Is everything all right? The way you rushed past me on the
stairs I thought maybe something dreadful had happened?"

"Just the death of another
theory," said Fenton glumly.

"Want to tell me?" smiled
Ferguson.

"There's not much to tell. I
thought I had discovered a fatal flaw in Saxon plastic, something
to do with patients' blood groups but apparently I was wrong."

"What made you suspect that?"
asked Ferguson.

"A number of things. Neil Munro
thought there was something wrong with the stuff too."

"But this is serious. Have you
spoken to Dr Tyson about it?"

"He assured me there was
nothing wrong with the plastic."

"How about Saxon
themselves?"

"I have no evidence to back up
my suspicions. I can't say anything."

"I see," said Ferguson. "But
surely there is something you could do if you think there's a
problem?"

"I have to find out what's
wrong with the stuff before I can do anything."

"Is there anything I can do to
help?"

Fenton thanked Ferguson and
said that he would let him know if he thought of something. He
requested that Ferguson say nothing to anyone else for the time
being.

"Mum's the word," replied
Ferguson.

When Ian Ferguson had gone
Fenton considered his own reluctance to confide in anyone. The
truth was that he did need help for he was getting hopelessly out
of his depth. The question was who should he talk to?Whom could he
trust? He had been tempted to tell Ian Ferguson everything but the
fact that Ferguson had considered resigning from the lab when the
going had got tough had prevented him from doing so. He needed an
ally without a question-mark over his character. The matter was to
resolve itself at lunch time when Steve Kelly came into the lab and
planked himself down heavily. "Do you fancy a beer?" he asked.

Fenton sipped his beer, aware
that Kelly was appraising him but unable to relax and talk
freely.

"You're a man with a problem,"
said Kelly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you are so up
tight about something that you are going to explode if you go on
bottling it up. I thought you might want to talk about it?"

"I don't know what you
m..."

"All right, forget I spoke,"
said Kelly turning to concentrate on his beer.

Fenton considered his own
obstinacy in the silence that ensued. Steve Kelly was as good as
they came, solid, blunt, unpretentious. He had a bit of a weakness
for the women but, in hard times he could do a lot worse than have
Kelly on his side. "All right," he confessed. "There is
something."

They sat down to talk in one of
the alcoves; the pub was still quiet before the lunch time rush.
Fenton told Kelly the whole story as the first sunlight for many
weeks, albeit weak and watery, rainbowed through the frosted glass
and played among the dimples of the beaten copper table tops.

"And there you have it," said
Fenton, finishing and taking a sip of his beer while Kelly digested
what he had heard.

"That is some story," said
Kelly, shaking his head, "I didn't bargain on anything like this.
To be frank I had thought that you and Jenny might not be hitting
it off or some such thing, but this...Jesus."

"Now you know."

"When are you going back to see
Murray?"

"Tonight," said Fenton.

"Want some company?"

Fenton accepted.

The intermittent screen wipe on Kelly's Ford Capri flicked
away the drizzle like a cow's tail dealing with summer
flies.

"I hope you gentlemen have a
productive evening," said Jenny as she got out of the car at the
hospital gates to go on duty.

"We'll try," said Kelly.

"Good night Jenny," said Fenton
softly, answering the look that was meant for him.

"Take care."

The Ford turned off the main
road and Fenton gave Kelly directions as he nosed it along the wet
side streets.

"You don't live up here if you
work for the Health Service," said Kelly noting the size of the
houses."

The headlights caught an
elegant lady, swathed in furs, out walking her dog.

"I suppose it just had to be a
poodle," said Fenton as they passed.

"Very nice too," murmured
Kelly, looking sideways and not referring to the dog.

"Forget it," said Fenton. "You
couldn't keep her in dog food. Take the next on the left."

Kelly turned slowly into
Braidbank Avenue and Fenton directed him to Fairview where he
stopped and turned off the engine to restore satin silence to the
night.

"How do we play it?" asked
Kelly.

"By ear," said Fenton. "Let's
go."

Kelly pushed open the gate.
Fenton anticipated the squeal.

"Did it ring?" asked Kelly as
he pushed the bell.

"Yes," replied Fenton.

Murray appeared in the doorway.
"Yes?"

"It's me again Mr Murray, Tom
Fenton. I was here last night."

"Yes?" repeated Murray without
any acknowledgement of Fenton's last visit.

"I wonder if we might have
another word with you?"

Murray's contorted his face as
he strained to see Kelly in the shadows. Fenton introduced them and
Kelly held out his hand. Murray ignored it and turned round.
"Come," he said and led the way inside.

Kelly shot Fenton a glance as
they followed Murray indoors but Fenton pretended not to notice.
Murray sat down in the chair he had been sitting in, judging by the
book and the half empty glass beside it, and gestured to the two
men to sit like candidates for interview.

Fenton noticed that the
'formal' double breasted jacket of the last occasion had been
replaced by a more casual Fair Isle pullover whose already
intricate pattern had been augmented by dried tomato seeds,
custard, the ubiquitous egg and some green stuff that defied visual
analysis. Murray seemed to be in a constant state of agitation,
continually searching through his pockets without ever seeming to
find what he was looking for.

Fenton waited for a few moments
then coughed to attract Murray's attention. The pocket searching
stopped and Murray stared at Fenton without blinking until Fenton
spoke.

"We are puzzled about the man
who came to see your sister Mr Murray. Are you absolutely certain
he said that he was from the Blood Transfusion Service?"

"Yes," said Murray without
hesitation.

"Then you saw him?" asked
Fenton.

"Yes."

"Can you describe him?"

Murray produced one of his
dramatic pauses before saying, "Why?"

"I know this is going to sound
strange but the BTS say that no one called to see your sister Mr
Murray."

Another long pause then Murray
decided that the easiest course of action was to answer the
question. "He was of medium height and build, slim, fair and
somewhere in his middle twenties."

Fenton felt a crushing sense of
disappointment for there was no way that Nigel Saxon could be
described in these terms, not even by a loving mother. With
unerring accuracy the slings and arrows of his particularly
outrageous fortune had homed in on him again.

Fenton let Kelly continue the
conversation with Murray while he wondered how to fit this latest
piece of information to the puzzle. He became aware of Kelly asking
about the fair haired man. "Is there anything more you can tell us
about him Mr Murray?"

"Well...there was his
ring."

"Ring?"

"He was wearing a ring...I
recognised it." Fenton could sense the reluctance in Murray's voice
as Kelly continued to probe.

"Go on."

"He was wearing a Cavalier Club
ring," said Murray finally.

Kelly and Fenton both looked at
Murray's hands and he saw them do it. "No, I'm not a member," he
said.

Fenton felt the tension in the
room. He detected in Murray the same reluctance to speak of the
club as he had in Ross in the lab. He noted that Kelly seemed not
to share his own ignorance.

Murray got up from his chair
and crossed the room to a silver drinks tray. Without asking he
poured out three whiskies from a crystal decanter and handed them
round. He sat down again with slow deliberation, adjusted the
glasses on his nose and said, "Now, you will tell me what this is
all about." It was not a request, it was a directive.

Fenton could see that the eyes
behind the glasses had gone cold and hard, the first indication of
the inner man, he thought. It had come as no great surprise for he
had already deduced that there must be more to Murray than the
bumbling eccentric he had seen so far. You did not end up living in
Braidbank by being a complete clown.

Kelly's look suggested that
Fenton should answer so he did, saying that they themselves were
not at all sure what was going on but it did seem likely that the
man who had come to see his sister was in some way mixed up in the
deaths at the Princess Mary Hospital.

Murray looked at him like an
owl contemplating his dinner. He asked slowly and quietly, "Are you
suggesting that my sister's death might not have been an
accident."

Fenton moved uncomfortably in
his seat. "It's possible," he said.

"Do police know of this?"

"All we have at the moment Mr
Murray are suspicions," replied Fenton. "The minute we have
anything more we will inform the police immediately."

"You mean that you haven't told
them," said Murray, construing correctly what Fenton had said.

"Not yet," Fenton agreed.

"Murder is not a game for
amateurs Mister Fenton," said Murray.

"We realise that Mr Murray but,
in this case, I think the professionals need all the help that they
can get...judging by their success so far..."

Murray conceded the point with
a slight nod of the head. He said, "I want to be kept informed of
any progress you make, particularly if it concerns my sister."

"Of course," said Fenton.

"Spooky bloke," said Kelly as
they walked down the path to the gate.

"Spooky is the word," agreed
Fenton. He was glad to be out of the place. "Tell me about the
Cavalier Club," he said "Or are you a member too?"

"I wasn't even a Boy Scout,"
said Kelly, looking over his shoulder before pulling away from the
kerb. "I don't know that much myself but what I do know I don't
like." He paused to look both ways at the intersection before
turning right then took the Capri up through the gears. "As I
understand it, it started out as a club for homosexuals in the
city."

"There's nothing too unusual in
that these days," said Fenton.

"But this one grew into
something else, something much bigger."

"What do you mean?"

Kelly slowed for the traffic
lights. "It's difficult to define but in every society there are a
group of people who consider themselves above society in every way,
I don't just mean that in the legal sense, I mean in terms of
morality and social convention."

"You mean like the Marquis de
Sade or the Hellfire Club?"

"That sort of thing," agreed
Kelly.

"In Edinburgh? Are you
serious?"

"I'm afraid I am," said Kelly
with a seriousness that Fenton found uncharacteristic. "So they're
a group of weirdos. It's a sign of the times."

"No, there's more to it than
that," said Kelly. "This lot have power."

The traffic lights changed and
Kelly moved off.

"How can they have power?"
asked a disbelieving Fenton.

"The size and status of their
membership decides that," said Kelly.

"So there are a lot of kinky
people around, that doesn't make them powerful."

"Depends on who and what they
are," said Kelly.

Fenton was still reluctant to
believe what Kelly was suggesting. He said, "All right so you find
the occasional judge that likes spanking schoolgirls' bottoms, that
makes him vulnerable not powerful."

"Only while he remains in a
tiny minority. As soon as you get a lot of judges with the same
frame of mind it gets uncomfortable for schoolgirls."

"You're serious about this
aren't you?" said Fenton.

Kelly stopped at another set of
lights. He turned to Fenton and said, "Let me tell you a story.
When the club first started some local yobs thought they would go
in for a spot of poof bashing but they miscalculated. Most gays are
ordinary law abiding citizens, bank clerks, office workers and the
like, people who know nothing of violence and fair game for the
yobs but the Cavaliers were different. They were experts in pain
and violence. The yobs came second, a poor second as it happens.
One of them finished up in a mental home and hasn't come out. The
others refused to say what had happened to them they were so afraid
so no charges were ever brought."

"Jesus."

"He is definitely not a
member."

They drew to a halt outside
Fenton's place. "What now?" said Kelly.

"A drink," replied Fenton,
avoiding the real question and indicating with his head that Kelly
should come up to the flat.

'A drink' became several and
Kelly's wife phoned to ask if he was there. Fenton said that he was
and asked if she wanted to speak to him. "No, no," said Mary Kelly.
"As long as he's there with you Tom," she added with plain
meaning.