Main snorted at the bit about Close being in complete agreement with the headmaster. He said out loud, “You’re so far up the headmaster’s arse Arthur, it’s a wonder you can see where you’re going!”
He immediately regretted what he’d said. He thumped his fist into his forehead and berated himself loudly. “Christ! What’s wrong with you?” he demanded. “They are ordinary, nice people, doing what they think is right. They’re trying to help you for Christ’s sake!”
Main slumped down in a chair with the gin and took a big gulp. “Get a grip,” he said quietly. “Get a grip.”
He gazed at the news on TV while the gin got to work on his fraying nerves, and then he remembered that there had been some mail behind the front door when he came in. He brought it in from the hall and sat back down in the chair to open it. An estimated electricity bill for forty-seven pounds and eight pence, an exhortation from an insurance company to ‘consider your family’s future — what would happen to them if you were to die?’ it wanted to know. Main threw it in the bin. The third felt as if a card were inside an envelope and bore a second class stamp. Main opened it and saw the pastel-coloured flowers on the front and the scrolled, ‘With Deepest Sympathy’ across the top in gold. He flipped it open. ‘Thinking of You, George and Martha Thornton,’ it said.
Main screwed up his face. Who the hell were George and Martha Thornton? Then he remembered. They were the couple he and Mary had met on holiday last summer. He was a grocer from Leicester and she was probably the most stupid woman he had ever met in his life. Main looked at the front of the card again and thought, thank God they don’t make ‘Sorry The Bastards Dug Up Your Son’ cards. Eventually, he remembered that there was a packet of chicken curry in the freezer.
McKirrop’s celebrity status lasted three days. Three more reporters sought him out in that time, each hoping for a new angle on the satanic ritual story but McKirrop told them all exactly what he had told Rothwell. In all, he only made another hundred pounds. There was not a high premium on what an old wino had to say. There was a vague promise of some more money for the entire group if they agreed to be the subject of a social investigation for a Sunday colour supplement but that would be at some time in the future, they said. The magazine was presently committed to covering the current vogue for Bonsai trees, the popularity of Western clubs in central Scotland — for which the clientele dressed up as cowboys — and an in-depth study of drug abuse in inner city housing schemes. The reporter thought some time round August maybe.
McKirrop had shared £150 in all with the others. That left him £250 that he had hidden from them. Maybe it was time to move on. Maybe a move to London. It might be warmer down there. But first, he had resolved to try his luck with the library card he’d taken from Rothwell’s pocket. Maybe there was some perfectly innocent explanation as to why Rothwell had had a doctor’s library card in his pocket but if there was, he wanted to hear it. After all, it was only going to be the cost of a phone call. And to a man of his means...
McKirrop brought the card out of his pocket and looked at it again. Maybe he wouldn’t call Rothwell immediately. Sotillo wasn’t a common name; there couldn’t be many of them in the phone book. There might even be a reward for the card if he was to tell the good doctor that he had found it in the street. Every little helped.
There was no phone book in the booth. McKirrop had to ask directory enquiries for the number and then remember it in his head because he had nothing to write it down with or on to. He kept repeating the number over and over while he sought out the digits with clumsy fingers. The number rang four times before it was answered by a woman.
“I want to speak to Dr Sotillo,” said McKirrop.
“Who shall I say is calling?”
“Just tell him he may hear something to his advantage,” said McKirrop. He could hear the woman laughing in the background while he waited. “That’s what he said, darling,” he heard her say. The receiver was picked up and a voice said, “Hello, who is this? What do you want?”
McKirrop was taken aback. He remained speechless for a moment, then he put down the receiver without replying. The voice he had heard belonged to the man on the canal bank. Rothwell. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind.
This put matters into a new light altogether. Rothwell wasn’t Rothwell at all. The man had lied. He had probably lied about being a reporter too, thought McKirrop. He had been right to be suspicious about that at the time. The question now was why? Why had Dr Ivan K. Sotillo pretended to be a reporter? What was his real interest in what had gone on in the cemetery that night? And most important, what was in it for John McKirrop?
As McKirrop returned to the canal, his mind worked overtime on what Sotillo might be up to. As he remembered, Sotillo had simply listened to his story, the same one he’d told the police, and had seemed quite happy with that. In fact he had even been keen that he should tell any other reporters the same thing. So that was it! Sotillo had been making sure that the story he had told the police was the story to be publicised. That suited Sotillo because... like him, he knew different!
That fact, decided McKirrop, was going to cost Dr Sotillo an awful lot of money. If he played his cards right, when this game was over he might well be able to afford a move to somewhere a good deal warmer than London. He remembered looking at a book in the local library last week while he was in there one morning keeping warm. The Magic of Provence it was called. The photographs had been beautiful. Provence, decided McKirrop, was the place for him.
Despite feeling that he held the whip hand, McKirrop was reluctant to take on Sotillo single-handed. He remembered the uneasy feeling that he had experienced when being alone with him on the canal towpath and how there had been a threatening air about the man. Sotillo might be a doctor, but he was no soft touch. There was more to him than met the eye and just how much more McKirrop had an idea it might be better not to find out. He decided reluctantly that he would need help, some kind of back-up, even if it were only the presence of a witness.
McKirrop had to concede that his circle of friends and acquaintances had shrunk to practically zero over the past couple of years. If he was brutally honest, he would have to admit that he did not have one true friend in the whole wide world. This had been true for some time, but it was he first time that he had been forced to confront the fact head on. He didn’t like the feeling.
For one brief moment his acquired capacity for blocking out the past was seriously threatened. As if a veil had been lifted from his eyes, he was forced to remember a happy, successful individual with a wide circle of friends and colleagues who all liked him and saw him as the fun-loving, carefree life and soul of any party. His name had been John McKirrop. The name was the same but the only people he associated with these days were the people in Bella’s group. If he were to recruit help it would have to come from there and that was not an encouraging prospect.
McKirrop eliminated the members of the group one by one until he was left with Flynn and Bella herself. He didn’t trust Flynn, but if matters should turn violent at any point, Flynn was the only one who would be of any use in that kind of situation. Could he be trusted if he paid him enough? His idea was to offer Flynn twenty pounds to accompany him to a meeting with Sotillo and to stand by to help in case of any threats or trouble, but McKirrop could imagine Flynn changing sides with no compunction at all if it suited him.
Bella was a woman and had therefore to be discounted from any participation in rough stuff. McKirrop smiled to himself at his gallant and mistaken notion — the truth was that Bella could probably beat the hell out of most of the group. He began to warm to the idea of using Bella. She was the nearest thing to a friend that he had, and she probably had deterrent value as a witness. Sotillo wouldn’t try anything with a woman watching. McKirrop decided he would ask her tonight.