Ken McClure - Fenton's winter

"No," said Fenton. "Just go, see you in the morning."

Jenny threw him a kiss and closed the door behind her.

"What trouble?" asked Fenton.

"Fiona Duncan called me. She pointed out that 'The White Horse' is very near Lymon Place and I've got fair hair and broad shoulders."

"Just what we needed," muttered Fenton, trying to think at the same time.

"I'm sorry about this," said Kelly.

"I think we had better go to the police before they come to us." said Fenton.

"Do you think if I strangled Fiona I could ask for one other case to be taken into consideration?"

"I'll come round to your place," said Fenton.

Fenton apologised to Mary Kelly for having got her husband into his present predicament but she was in a less than forgiving mood and her look came straight from the freezer. As they left Kelly gave his wife a peck on the cheek and said, "See you later."

Don't bet on it, thought Fenton.

"Good evening sir," said the desk sergeant, expecting a lost dog story.

"I think you are looking for us," said Fenton, feeling as if he were throwing away a key.

The sergeant stared at them until he saw a six foot tall dark man accompanied by a shorter man with fair hair. "Good God," he said and lifted the telephone. Jamieson was summoned from home.

Fenton and Kelly were held separately during the wait, each accompanied by a silent constable. Fenton found his room oppressively quiet and free from distraction, furnished only with a table and four chairs and painted in institutional pastel green. At least the table creaked when he put his elbows on it and, in this respect, it was more communicative than the constable. There was a vaguely unpleasant smell of disinfectant about the place, something that made Fenton wonder why it had been necessary to use it in the first place. It conjured up visions of lice and filth and vomit and generally added to his feelings of unease.

"Any chance of a cup of tea?" he asked.

The constable shook his head mutely.

An awful thought struck Fenton. As yet, no one had asked for his name or any other details. Everything was being saved for Jamieson. It would be a surprise for him when he walked through the door. He wondered what he would say.

"Oh Christ! This is all I needed," said Jamieson. "Mr smart-arse Fenton.

Fenton struggled to adopt the right facial expression but couldn't find it. Aggression was out, definitely out in the circumstances, but contriteness went against the grain, especially with Jamieson. He settled for something along the lines of a British tourist being harangued by a foreign official in a language that he did not understand.

Jamieson finished his opening salvo and settled down to enjoying his work. He was going to play this particular fish for a while.

"Why did you do it Fenton? Revenge? Was that it? He cooked your mate, you cooked him?"

Fenton spluttered out a denial but the truth was that he had not seen the poetic justice angle. Things were even worse than he thought.

"How long have you been a practising homosexual Fenton?"

Fenton clenched his fists.

"Is that why you got beaten up in that pub Fenton…in the toilets wasn't it?"

Fenton made for him. The constable dived in to restrain him while Jamieson just smiled.

Jamieson was in his element, he had not had so much fun for ages. He ran rings round Fenton, laughing away denials, playing him out, reeling him in, digging the hook in deeper until, at last, he saw the fight in Fenton begin to subside. It was always the moment he enjoyed most. He brought his face close to Fenton's and said threateningly, "Let me tell you this laddie, it gets very boring being taken for a mug by every half-arse who's seen The Pink Panther. You might just ponder on the fact that Nigel Saxon would be alive today if you had contacted us as soon as he called you. Fenton pondered the fact.

Fenton and Kelly were released at a quarter past midnight, a sober and wiser pair. They exchanged stories of their questioning as they walked down the High Street to collect Kelly's car. "Do you know, he suggested I was queer," complained Kelly. Fenton managed to summon up a smile in the darkness while a distant clap of thunder echoed over the roof tops. "Bloody rain," he said.

Fenton went back to the Kellys' flat where Mary Kelly was waiting up. She seemed much happier to see Fenton this time and apologised for her earlier frostiness. Fenton said that it had been understandable.

"So what happened?" asked Mary Kelly.

"We got our bottoms smacked," replied Kelly.

"About sums it up," agreed Fenton.

Mary Kelly went to bed leaving Fenton and Kelly drinking whisky and mulling over the past two days.

"Did Saxon kill Neil Munro or didn't he?" asked Kelly.

Fenton tilted his glass slowly from side to side, keeping the fluid level horizontal. "It pains me to say it but I think he might have been innocent. I think he was about to shop the real murderer when he got killed for his trouble. The killer must have got wind of what he planned to do and turned up early."

"The same man who called on Sandra Murray?" suggested Kelly.

"He could have killed Saxon but not Neil. The killer must have been in the lab when Neil discovered the truth about Saxon plastic. It couldn't have been a stranger.

"You do realise what you are saying?" said Kelly softly.

Fenton nodded. "If the killer wasn't Saxon it must be someone in the lab. Someone who primed the fair haired man to ask the right questions. Someone who knew what would happen when you added hydrochloric acid to potassium cyanide…"

The thought put both men to silence.

"But why?" asked Kelly.

Fenton shook his head.

"Did you tell the police about Sandra Murray's visitor?" asked Kelly.

"No, did you?"

"No."

"Here we go again," said Fenton.

Fenton got up and went over to the window. "The rain's stopped." he said. He drained the contents of his glass.

It was very late and the streets were practically deserted as Fenton walked home. The temperature had fallen with the clearing of the skies but the air was still and the stars twinkled brightly above him as he rounded a corner and saw the source of the eerie white light that lit up chimneys on tenement roofs. A full moon hung in the sky like a communion wafer. A cat fled from a dustbin and dissolved in shadow.

Fenton fell into a troubled sleep but kept waking at almost hourly intervals until at four o'clock he got up and made coffee. He had gone through each member of lab staff in turn at least three times and had still failed to find any motive for killing Neil. It was safe to eliminate all the females for Neil's murder had demanded physical strength but that left all the men. The motive had to be linked to the Cavalier organisation Fenton decided. That was the link between Saxon and the fair haired man. It was reasonable to propose that that was the connection between Saxon and the killer in the lab.

Charles Tyson? He had defended Saxon plastic throughout and had done everything possible to dissuade him from pursuing the faulty plastic angle. What was more Jenny had noticed that he had known what Ross had been talking about when he mentioned the 'Tree Mob.' He was also unmarried and never spoke of his personal life. But what about Ross himself? Ross had told him about the club in the first place but that might have been cleverness on his part, a ploy to make himself the least likely suspect…Fenton gave up. There was no way he was going to guess who the killer was. The fair haired man was the key to the puzzle. He must know who Neil's killer was. Fenton resolved to contact Jamieson in the morning.

Fenton phoned Kelly when he got into the lab and Kelly agreed to come too. They arranged to meet at noon and adopted Fenton's suggestion that they should use the Honda to avoid lunch time traffic and parking problems.