Ken McClure - Fenton's winter

As the shower head cleared its throat and spluttered into life Fenton shivered in its margins until the temperature had settled down. The controller was faulty, making the water either too hot or too cold until adjusted with micrometer accuracy. Fenton made do with tepid rather than play around any more.

He soaped himself and tried to remember what the stranger he had seen in the lab with Neil Munro had looked like, the woman he now knew to be Sandra Murray. About five foot three seemed to be the limit of his recollection. Marvellous, he thought…Fenton of the Yard.

He turned the water off and stepped out to towel himself down, pausing briefly to listen if the rain had stopped outside. There was no sound coming from the dark skylight above the washroom although he could see water running down it. Condensation from the shower, he decided. No rain would be an unaccustomed bonus but the fact that the wind seemed to have dropped as well made it all seem to be too good to be true. It was. He stepped out of the lab into thick fog.

The Honda's headlight beam bounced off the swirling mist creating a translucent corona that slowed him down to a crawl as he edged out on to the main road and wiped his visor more in frustration than of necessity. Bloody weather, he grumbled inwardly for, to Fenton, Edinburgh's weather was part of a vendetta being waged against him personally. His meteorological paranoia now suggested that the fog was a gambit to prevent him finding Braidbank Avenue.

He knew vaguely that Braidbank would be part of a well heeled, comfortable sprawl of leafy avenues that fringed the lower slopes of the Braid Hills in Edinburgh so he headed off in that direction, slowly at first because of the fog, but then gathering speed as the fog thinned with his climb out of the city. He slowed to turn off Comiston Road and began to work his way through the quiet back-roads.

The contrast between the Braids area of Edinburgh and the Glasgow streets where he had found Mrs Lindsay could hardly have been more marked. Braidbank Avenue, when he found it was absolutely silent and exuded an aura of solidity and order. Twin rows of Victorian mansions stood like rocks of the establishment amidst mature and cultivated greenery. They stretched out like troops guarding a royal route for two hundred metres or more up to an intersection where they separated into echelons left and right.

There would be no Scobie or Ally to worry about here, no ineffectual bawling and screaming. This was where life's winners lived; these were the homes of the successful, either by profession or birth, where cheque books and pens substituted for fists and razors, where quiet telephone calls removed troublesome intruders without obliging the caller to do so much as lay down his gin and tonic or lift his eyes from the pages of 'Scottish Field.' It was an open-plan fortress with no walls or gates and its garrison recognised each other by accent and attitude.

'Fairview' boasted a black, wrought iron gate that squealed on its hinges when Fenton pushed it open. He closed it slowly to avoid any further histrionics but the latch still fell with a loud metallic clang when he turned his back. His feet crunched on the gravel making him sure that everyone within a two mile radius must be aware of his presence but there was no sign of stirring from within the house. He pressed the polished brass bell push, an action that had no audible effect, but he waited just in case something had happened deep inside the dark temple. He was about to try again when the area in which he stood was suddenly bathed in light and a series of rattles came from behind the front door.

"Yes?" said the silhouette of a large ungainly man who now filled the doorway.

"I wonder if I might have a few words with Miss Sandra Murray?" said Fenton.

A silence which probed the edge of embarrassment followed before the man said, "Come in."

Fenton had to wait in the hallway while both outer and inner doors were secured with double locks and, in the case of the outer one, a chain. At his host's bidding he followed him into a subtly lit room and accepted an invitation to sit.

Now that he could see him more clearly, Fenton saw that the man was even more ungainly than he had taken him to be. He was very large, well over six feet, with narrow, sloping shoulders that hung above the fat of his middle. His general untidiness was accentuated by the fact that his double breasted jacket had been buttoned on the wrong hole and his squint tie bore distinct signs of egg as did the front of his jacket along with contributions from other past meals. Hair jutted out from his head at odd angles almost nullifying the attempts that had been made to comb it. He peered at Fenton through metal framed glasses, perched on his nose like a see-saw at rest.

"What did you want to see my sister about?" he inquired.

Fenton thought he detected an effeminate nuance in Murray's voice. His suspicion was reinforced by the way Murray held eye contact a little too long.

"I would prefer to speak to Miss Murray personally if that's possible?" replied Fenton.

"You can't." said Murray.

Fenton waited for an explanation but none was forthcoming and he got the impression that Murray was enjoying his discomfort. "Is she indisposed?" he asked. The word had been forced on him by the sheer elegance and quality of the room and its furnishings. No one could be merely 'sick' in such surroundings; they would have to be indisposed.

"No," said Murray. "She's dead."

Fenton was shaken. He had been expecting some trivial explanation like flu or an evening class but dead? Once again he noticed that his host was observing his reaction like an owl. Murray appeared to have deliberately engineered the shock for his own ends. Fenton's discomfort grew. "I'm sorry," he said, wondering whether or not he should inquire further.

In the event the Murray took the initiative. "She was knocked down by a car," he said, "The bastard didn't stop."

"How awful," said Fenton.

"Were you a friend of Sandra's?"

Fenton confessed that he had not known her at all. He responded to Murray's exaggerated frown with the reason for his visit.

"Another one!" exclaimed Murray, fixing Fenton with an unwavering stare.

Murray was making Fenton feel distinctly uncomfortable but the significance of what Murray had just said now superseded everything else. "Another one? I don't understand," he said.

"You are the second person to come here from the Blood Transfusion service." said Murray. "Don't you people ever talk to each other?"

Fenton was annoyed. Why had Steve Kelly not told him that he himself intended visiting Murray? He apologised for the intrusion, explaining that he himself had no direct connection with the Transfusion Service but was a biochemist from the lab where his sister had kindly donated blood to help with a research project.

"Ah yes, with Dr Munro. Sandra told me about it."

Fenton felt a sudden excitement creep over him. "What did she tell you Mr Murray?" he asked.

Murray's fingers scratched at his unruly hair and he screwed up his eyes as he tried to recall what his sister had told him. "Something about a new plastic, I think. Dr Munro wanted to do some tests."

Fenton had to make a conscious effort to control his excitement. He asked, "Did she happen to say what kind of tests Mr Murray?"

Murray replied, “I'm sure she did but it wouldn't have meant much to me. Sandra was the scientist in this family. I'm an artist. Science is a complete mystery to me."

"I understand," said Fenton, swallowing his frustration and trying to keep calm. "But is there nothing you can remember Mr Murray?" he prompted.

Murray lapsed into dramatic silence as if he were in a trance. Fenton, although outwardly remaining calm, felt as if his head were full of broken glass. The seconds ticked by.