Ken McClure - Fenton's winter

There was, of course, Interpol. Fenton had been brought up on films where Interpol were brought in but, on reflection, he could not recall a single real life incident where Interpol had played a major successful part. Once across the channel it seemed like it was home and dry for the villains. Even the occasional international arrest seemed to flounder in a welter of legal wrangles and territorial jealousies. The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that a private operation, based on sound mercenary principles stood the best chance of making Saxon pay for what he had done.

To Fenton International Plastics was a name from the newspapers. He had no idea where the company was located and no notion of how to go about approaching them. The trouble with large companies, he felt, was that so few people of importance seemed to be accessible within them. Such fish always surrounded themselves with smaller fish who, in turn, surrounded themselves with even smaller fry. Fenton could see himself splashing around in the water margins for some time, being shunted from one two metre square office to the next and having to explain to frayed collars and cuffs that what he had to say was not for their ears.

That in itself would be a problem, for suggesting, even obliquely, to a minion that what he had to say was not for his ears would be tantamount to an Israelite expressing agnostic tendencies while crossing the Red Sea. The resulting maelstrom of obstruction and red tape could be fatal to the spirit.

Fenton told Jenny what he had in mind. She exploded. Fenton had never seen her so angry. He reeled as her temper ignited like a stick of dynamite. "How dare you?" she blazed. "Is there no end to your arrogance?

Fenton sat, wide eyed and speechless on the couch. He could not believe what was happening. "Arrogance?"

"Yes arrogance! You always know better. The police are stupid. Interpol are useless. Everyone is incompetent where you are concerned. Well, understand this! Nigel Saxon's arrest is a matter for the police, not you. Leave it alone! I have had enough. Do you understand? Just forget it or…or I'll leave you." Jenny burst into tears and Fenton got up to gather her in his arms. "All right," he promised quietly. "I didn't realise."

Jenny banged her fist on his shoulder. "I know damn it," she said. "I know."

Jenny's outburst had shaken Fenton but it had been what he needed for he now recognised that the hunt for Nigel Saxon had become for him an obsession. It irked him so much that Saxon appeared to have gotten clean away with his crime that he had thought about little else for many days to the detriment of everything else in his life. He promised Jenny that there would be no approach to International Plastics, no more talk of Nigel Saxon. They would go back to being Tom and Jenny, the folks who lived on the hill.

Jenny drew the curtains and turned up the gas fire as the wind got up outside. She switched on a small table lamp and put an album on the stereo before lying along the couch with her head on Fenton's lap. For once, the wind contributed to the feeling of cosiness inside the room. Fenton's fingers played the opening bars of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on the back of her neck.

"Tom, I'm sorry," said Jenny softly.

"Don't be. You were right."

"I do love you."

Fenton kissed her hair in reply.

The music, the warmth, the soft lighting and the hiss of the fire lulled them into a comfortable drowsiness. It was shattered when the telephone rang. Jenny got up to answer it and padded out into the hall in her stockinged feet. She came quickly back and stopped in the doorway looking ashen. "It's for you," she said. "I think it's Nigel Saxon!"

Fenton rose like an automaton. He felt cold all over as he sidled past Jenny into the hall and picked up the receiver. Slowly he said, "Fenton."

The dialling tone filled his ear and brought instant relief. He let out the breath he had been holding and put the phone down. "No one there," he said, knowing that Jenny was standing behind him.

"It was him, I know it was," said Jenny evenly.

"Maybe a wrong number, someone who sounded like him."

"He asked for you by name. Saxon has a distinctive voice and he phoned here several times to ask how you were when you were in hospital. It was him," said Jenny in an unwavering monotone.

"But why? Why phone me? He knows Neil was a friend of mine. I would be the last person in the world to help him." said Fenton.

"I don't know why. I only know it was him."

Fenton rubbed the back of his neck.

"What are you going to do?" asked Jenny.

"Nothing I can do," replied Fenton.

In spite of their efforts to re-create the earlier peace of the evening the phone call had ruined it. The warmth, the music, the cosiness were still there but the mute telephone rang in their ears until bedtime. They had gone to bed and were just on the point of falling asleep when it rang for real.

"I'll get it," said Fenton getting out of bed and hoping against hope that it would be anyone in the world rather than Saxon.

It was Nigel Saxon.

"You've got a nerve," hissed Fenton.

"Just hear me out, that's all I ask.

"Well?" snarled Fenton, continuing to listen against his better judgement.

"I know what you all think but I didn't kill Neil Munro. Believe me. I didn't do it."

"Is that the best you can do Saxon?"

"All right, all right, I know it looks bad, that's why I made a run for it but I didn't do it!"

"Then give yourself up."

"My feet wouldn't touch and you know it. All the police want is a nice quick conviction to regain some credibility and I fit the bill to a tee. No, there's only one way I can prove my innocence."

"Go on."

"I have to give the police the real killer."

Fenton paused before saying, "Assuming that it isn't you, and I don't say for one moment that I believe you, how do you propose doing that?"

"I think I know who the real killer is."

"Who?"

"I don't want to say just yet, but when I'm sure I may need your help. What do you say?"

Fenton was in a quandary. What did he say? What would Jenny say? Was Saxon lying and, if so, what was his angle? What did he have to gain? Could he be telling the truth? "How long before you're sure?" he asked.

"A day, maybe two."

"Two days, then I tell the police."

"Thanks."

"Where are you?"

The phone went dead.

Fenton returned to the bedroom, half afraid to meet Jenny's eyes. She said, "It was him, wasn't it?"

"It was him."

"Why? What in God's name did he want?" asked Jenny in exasperation.

Fenton told her.

Jenny held her head in her hands and said, "Oh my God, what next?" She slapped down her palms on the bedcovers and looked up at him. "Promise me one thing," she said. "If Saxon suggests any kind of meeting, you won't go alone. Take Ian Ferguson or Steve Kelly, or better still tell the police but don't go alone."

"I promise."

Fenton fell asleep but woke at two and was unable to drop off again. He lay in the darkness listening to the sound of the wind but felt so restless that he was obliged to get up before he woke Jenny with his constant changing of position. He pulled on a dressing gown and went to the kitchen to make coffee.

When he came through to the living room it was icy cold so he relit the gas fire and huddled over it while he faced up to the old questions. A stream of doubts turned up again like unwelcome relations on the doorstep. Why could real life not be like the films with a beginning, a middle and an end? Goodies and baddies and never any doubt which was which. Things had just appeared to have resolved themselves nicely when this had to happen. The arch villain turns up pretending to be innocent and the big question now was, was he pretending?