"Now, then," he said briskly, "tell me which of the faces in that photo of mine are the ones you're interested in."
Taking his cue from McLeod, Adam produced the photo he had torn from his copy of the Edinburgh Evening News and laid it on the coffee table in their midst.
"Actually, there's only one," he told Lennox. "It's this woman here."
Turning the photo around so that Lennox could see it, he pointed out the figure that had claimed his attention earlier in the afternoon.
"As you're probably well aware," Adam continued, "today's accident out on the Lanark Road was the sixth incident of its kind since the beginning of this year. Given the circumstances, the police are interested in interviewing anyone who was present at the time the crash occurred. So far, this woman remains unaccounted for. Since you managed to catch her on camera, we were wondering if perhaps you might have some idea who she is."
Lennox was staring at the photo. When he looked up a moment later, he had an odd expression on his face.
"It's funny you should ask about her," he told his visitors. "She's the one I call my phantom lady."
McLeod remained carefully noncommittal. Without taking his eyes from Lennox's face, Adam asked, "Why is that?"
Lennox pulled a grimace. "Are you sure you really want to know? As stories go, it's pretty weird."
"You'd be surprised how often a so-called weird story can provide just the clue the police have been looking for," McLeod said. "Tell us what you know, and we'll make the best we can of it."
Lennox looked slightly dubious. "All right. But don't say I didn't warn you."
He rocked back in his seat, his face screwed up in a reminiscent scowl. "Beginning last December, I drew duty as part of a two-man team assigned to carry out a weekly survey of local traffic incidents. The survey was intended to supplement an editorial feature on defensive driving over the holidays, but it didn't stop there. When the first of these Lanark Road fatalities occurred, on New Year's Day, my mate Bill and I got sent out to cover the story. When we got back to the photo lab with my film, this woman you're interested in turned up amongst the spectators.
"At the time I didn't think anything of it," he went on. "She was just another face in the crowd. But then, about a month later, the second accident occurred. That same afternoon I'd been out with a couple of pals to see a football match over in East Kilbride. We were heading home along the Lanark Road when we saw the emergency vehicles converging on the scene. Since news is news, we stopped to investigate, and I took the usual battery of photos. You can probably imagine how surprised I was when I got this second lot of photos developed and spotted the same woman hovering in the background of nearly every shot."
He paused and bit his lip. "Maybe you're going to think I'm crazy, but ever since then, each time Carnage Corridor claims another victim, I've made a point of getting out there to take photos for the record. I always keep my eye out for the phantom lady, but I've never yet glimpsed her in the flesh. I don't know her name, still less what she could possibly be doing there. All I know is that when I get back home and develop the film, she's always present somewhere in the pictures."
He broke off with a hollow laugh. McLeod was quick to catch Adam's eye.
McLeod said, "Could we maybe see these photos of yours, Mr. Lennox?"
The photographer eyed him askance, then relaxed when he saw that neither of his visitors looked the least bit dubious or amused. Shrugging, he said, "Sure, why not? This thing's been eating at me for months. Maybe you people will be able to come up with a rational explanation."
He got to his feet and left the room. When he returned a few moments later, he had with him an accordion folder bulging with prints and notes.
"Here you are," he said, presenting the folder to McLeod. "If you have a look, you'll see for yourself I'm not making any of this up. I'll go make us some coffee."
He left them alone to go over the contents of the folder while he went through to the kitchen. The photos were clumped into chronological groupings, each grouping labelled and dated. Adam and McLeod shared the groupings out between them. Lennox's phantom lady was a ubiquitous presence throughout, a pale figure haunting the borders of nearly every scene.
In addition to the expansive collection of standard-sized prints, there were also a number of enlargements. The quality of the imaging was much sharper in Lennox's own prints that it had been in the newspaper version, affording Adam with a more detailed impression of a high-browed oval face framed in a shoulder-length mop of thick, dark curls. It was a face that would have been pretty, had it not been white and drawn with some inner tension, even pain. But Adam was quick to discern something else more worthy of comment than that.
"Noel," he murmured, "have you noticed that in all of these pictures, this woman appears to be wearing the same sweater?''
The sweater in question was a light-colored cardigan, open down the front.
"Aye," McLeod muttered back. "It's pretty much what you might expect, this time of year."
"Yet she never seems to change it, regardless of either the season or the weather," Adam observed. "Take this photo from the batch labelled February fifth. Everyone else
in the picture is heavily bundled up against the cold. But here's our phantom standing in the midst of them in only a sweater. No hat, no scarf, no gloves…"
He broke off as Lennox returned from the kitchen with a trio of mugs balanced on a tray. Overstepping one or two photos that had escaped onto the floor, the lanky photographer plumped his tray down on the coffee table before quirking an eyebrow at his visitors in mute inquiry.
"I can well understand why this case has fascinated you so," Adam said. "Your phantom lady constitutes almost as big a mystery as these recurrent accidents."
"In other words," said Lennox, with a rueful twist of his lips, "you don't have any answers about her either."
"Not yet," Adam admitted. "However," he added with complete candor, "you've furnished us with something new to think about. Perhaps, if we're lucky, this angle on the case may lead us to the solution we've been looking for."
"An obvious next step," said McLeod, "is for us to try and put a name to this phantom lady of yours. Do you think we might borrow some of these prints?"
"Take any ones you want," Lennox said. "I've got all the negatives." He added with a grimace, "You know, if either of you had asked me six months ago if I believed in ghosts, I'd've told you no. Lately, though, I'm not so sure." Adam and McLeod stayed long enough to drink a cup of coffee. Shortly thereafter, they took their leave, armed with a collection of prints culled at random from Lennox's personal archives.
"Curiouser and curiouser," Adam remarked, as he and McLeod made their way out to the car. "Two hours ago I was prepared to shelve the notion that we might be dealing with some kind of apparition. Now I'm not so sure."
McLeod clucked his tongue in mild frustration. "Ghost or no ghost, this woman has to have a history," he said. "Somewhere, there's got to be a record of her existence. All we have to do is look in the right place."
Chapter Six
ADAM pondered the problem all the way home. Back at Strathmourne, he took time out for a shower and a change of clothes before retiring to the privacy of his library to scribble down some of his ideas. He had been at his desk for scarcely a quarter hour, however, when the in-house telephone emitted a buzz.
Adam lifted the receiver. "Yes, Humphrey, what is it?"
"Pardon the disturbance, sir, but you've a call from Mr. Lovat. Shall I put him through?"
"By all means."