‘ Need me?’ exclaimed Lawson quietly. ‘Sometimes I feel like Canute trying to turn the tide.’
‘ We all feel like that from time to time,’ said Steven. ‘The number of people who actually make a difference in our world is painfully small. The rest of us just have to do our bit and hope that our contribution will fit in somewhere.’
Lawson smiled wanly for the first time and said, ‘You sound as if you’ve given the subject some thought?’
‘ I lost my wife Lisa to cancer,’ said Steven. ‘When it happened, I saw pointlessness everywhere. Believe me, I’m an expert on it.’
‘ I suppose it would be too much to hope that it was religion that got you through it?’
‘ It would,’ agreed Steven flatly.
‘ So…’
‘ Thoughts of my daughter, Jenny, got me through the worst. I thought she might need me — or at least I convinced myself that it would be better for her if I stayed alive rather than taking “the easy way out”, as people mistakenly call it.’
‘ You’re still bitter,’ said Lawson.
‘ I didn’t realise it showed,’ said Steven.
‘ It does when you speak of your wife,’ said Lawson.
‘ Maybe in time I’ll get over it,’ said Steven, ‘just as you’ll get over your experience with Combe.’
Lawson pursed his lips then said, ‘Why did you ask about Julie’s fingers?’
Steven considered fielding the question but then admitted, ‘I’m trying to find out how Combe knew about Julie’s broken fingers. They weren’t mentioned at the trial or in any of the newspaper reports of the time.’
‘ I can tell you that,’ said Lawson. ‘It’s because he did it.’
Steven walked slowly back to the car. Combe could not have committed the crime and yet he’d obviously made a very good job of convincing Lawson that he had. But why? If he had been setting out to make trouble for the police as a final act of malice, why bring in a minister of the church as an intermediary? Why go through the motions of seeking absolution and losing his temper when it wasn’t forthcoming? What was that all about?
As he got into the car, Steven conceded that his visit to The Firs had resolved nothing. If anything, it had actually heightened his feelings of unease. The fact that Combe had elaborated on just how he’d broken Julie’s fingers to Lawson was something he found particularly disturbing. It was almost as if he had wanted to draw attention to this aspect of the attack and his suggestion that Lawson touch the scars on his cheek as proof of a continuing link to the dead girl was quite bizarre. He wondered if David Little’s face had been marked during the attack but most of all he wondered again why had there been no mention of the broken fingers in the prosecution evidence given at the trial. Maybe the answer to these questions would be in the police files. He checked his watch and saw that there would still be time to drive into Edinburgh and visit police headquarters before catching the last London flight home.
Fettes Police Headquarters in Edinburgh had no great claim to architectural merit but the functional buildings were situated in a pleasant area of the city near the botanical gardens and facing the impressive facade of Fettes College, one of Scotland’s leading public schools. Steven noted as he drove past that they were also close to the Western General Hospital, where David Little had carried out his research. He had given no warning of his visit so he had to show his ID and state his business to several uniformed men before finally being shown into the office of Inspector Peter McClintock.
‘This is a bit of a surprise,’ said McClintock. ‘Official is it?’
‘Not exactly,’ smiled Steven.
‘You were in the vicinity so you thought you’d just drop by and say hello?’ said McClintock.
‘You could say,’ replied Steven, instinctively feeling that, given time, he could like the man.
‘Well if it’s not official, do you fancy a pint?’
‘Sounds good,’ replied Steven, well aware that informal exchanges of information were usually of much more use than those confined to official channels — a bit like the black economy being more efficient than the real one.
‘So how come I was shown to your door?’ asked Steven as they drove away in McClintock’s car. He hadn’t come across McClintock’s name in any of the files on the case.
‘I was the one who got landed with Hector Combe’s confession when it came in. I sent it on to you guys when I found your sticker on the Summers file. Evil bastard, Combe.’
‘So I understand. So you weren’t actually involved in the Julie Summers case at the time?’ said Steven.
‘Not directly,’ said McClintock a bit too hesitantly for Steven’s liking. He let his silence prompt McClintock to elaborate. I was a DS at the time so I knew what was going on. I was friendly with a woman DC on Currie’s team so you could say she kept me in the picture. I remember she got very upset over the Mulvey affair, I think that’s what decided her to leave the force.’
‘That upset?’ said Steven.
‘She reckoned Currie’s team were going over the score, to use her words.’
‘And were they?’
McClintock paused, pretending he was concentrating on the traffic at an intersection before saying. ‘Depends how you look at it. They weren’t to know that old mother Mulvey and her simple-Simon son were going to top themselves, were they?’
‘Whether they knew or not, they appear to have been the reason for it,’ said Steven.
‘Whatever,’ conceded McClintock. ‘Well, the great British public had their way in the end. Four of our lot hit the street on the early retirement train and Jane decided to leave the force of her own accord.’
‘Jane’s your girlfriend?’
‘Ex-girlfriend.’
‘Not the best kind of publicity for the force.’
‘You could say.’
‘But it recovered?’
‘Blood under the bridge.’
FIVE
‘ So what’s Sci-Med’s interest in this?’ asked McClintock as he returned from the bar carrying two pints of beer. They were sitting in an old fashioned pub in Inverleith Row where McClintock appeared to be well known judging by the nods and asides made at the bar.
‘ David Little was a top-flight medical scientist,’ said Steven.
‘ Ah,’ said McClintock, putting down the glasses carefully but still slopping some on the tabletop. ‘I get it. You’re looking for some reason to spring one of your own?’
‘ Nothing could be further from the truth,’ said Steven, bristling at the suggestion. ‘The evidence against him was overwhelming.’
‘ Damn right it was,’ growled McClintock.
‘ On the other hand, if a man like Hector Combe says on his deathbed that he did it and that the police fitted someone else up for it — someone who just happened to be a brilliant medical scientist — then we do take an interest.’
‘ Come on man, that was just Combe taking one last swing at his natural enemy, the police. He was opening up old wounds and rubbing salt into them. It was just his way of saying good-bye. That was Combe all over, evil bastard.’
‘ Combe knew about Julie Summers’ fingers being broken,’ said Steven, taking a sip of his beer and watching McClintock’s reaction over the rim of the glass.
‘ I’m not with you,’ said McClintock, opening a new packet of cigarettes and lighting one with an old style Zippo lighter: it made the air smell of petrol.
Steven waited until McClintock had taken a first lungful and exhaled it before saying, ‘It was never common knowledge that her fingers had been broken in the attack. It didn’t come out in court and the newspapers never got hold of it but Combe knew,’ said Steven. ‘He made a point of telling the Rev Lawson all about it in great detail.’