Ken McClure - Eye of the raven

He thought about what he was going to say to Macmillan and where the Tracy Manson development might take him if — and it was a big ‘if’ — he were to be given the go-ahead to follow it up. The trouble was that it wasn’t strictly Sci-Med territory and he had agreed to pull out of Edinburgh if new DNA tests showed that Little was the guilty man beyond doubt. But Verdi’s involvement with the girl on Little’s computer was a coincidence too far. He hoped he could convince Macmillan to let him follow his nose for just a bit longer? Santini’s behaviour towards him had removed any concern he might have had about the sensitivities of the local police. Any shit that life cared to throw at Santini was fine by him. With a bit of luck Macmillan might feel the same.

When he’d dried himself — using gentle dabbing with the towel over the black and blue bits — he reapplied the strapping to his ribs, feeling and looking a bit like a ballet dancer getting it all wrong. He got dressed and called Macmillan at his home number to give him the news about the report from the hospital lab and the forensic findings of chloroform involvement. Predictably, Macmillan was relieved.

‘ I don’t know what the damned man was thinking about,’ he said. ‘You’d expect better from a man of his rank.’

Steven shook his head silently in disagreement. Over the years he had learned not to be surprised at the tactics of those at the top and had concluded that that was often how they’d got there in the first place. Courtesy, civility and concern for others were little more than veneers to be applied after the tooth and claw fight to get exactly what and where they wanted to be.

‘ When will you be fit to travel back?’ asked Macmillan.

‘ Actually I was thinking that there’s still the business of why Verdi thought he should beat me up in the first place,’ began Steven tentatively.

‘ I’m not with you,’ said Macmillan, sounding as if he sensed he was about to be subjected to some unwelcome pressure.

‘ I don’t know if you remember but pornographic material was found on David Little’s computer in his laboratory at one point.’

‘ I remember,’ said Macmillan. ‘He wasn’t prosecuted.’

‘ No, but the girl featured in the porn found on his computer just happens to be the same girl who was involved in framing me at Verdi’s sauna,’ said Steven, playing what he hoped was his trump card.

‘ You know that for sure?’ asked Macmillan.

Steven told him about the matching scars on her back and Macmillan gave a long sigh. ‘Absolutely bizarre,’ he said.

‘ Paul Verdi has to be the common denominator,’ continued Steven. ‘And because this happened before the murder, the only connection between him and David Little was Little’s wife, Charlotte: she was Verdi’s secretary at the time. I thought that maybe I should go have a word with her but only if you’re agreeable, of course?’

‘ I’d rather hoped that we’d seen an end to this affair,’ said Macmillan.

‘ There’s still something untidy about it,’ said Steven.

‘ So you keep saying.’

The seconds seemed to pass like hours before Macmillan said, ‘All right, go talk to her. We’ll review the situation after that.’

Steven put the phone down and smiled. To hell with the pain it caused him. He checked that he had an address for Charlotte Little in the file — he had — and then decided on an evening of self-indulgence. He would watch the live Sunday night football match on the Sky Sports channel and have a few beers while he did so. He would then have a good night’s sleep with a day off to look forward to before driving down to Norfolk on Tuesday.

‘ You did say somewhere with subdued lighting?’ said Susan Givens, sounding as if she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Not somewhere with good food or nice surroundings?’

‘ I know it sounds odd but you’ll understand later,’ said Steven who had phoned her next morning to make arrangements for the dinner he’d promised her.

‘ I’m beginning to wonder about you,’ said Susan.

‘ Trust me, I’m a doctor,’ said Steven.

‘ So am I, so let’s cancel that one out, shall we?’ replied Susan. ‘There’s a Spanish place down in Dundas Street called, Los Gemelos. Its electricity bills can’t be too large as I remember. I could hardly read the menu last time.’

‘ I’ll call it,’ said Steven. ‘Pick you up at seven thirty?’

‘ Maybe I’ll bring a torch,’ said Susan and gave him her address.

‘ Good Lord,’ said Susan when she saw Steven’s bruising. ‘Now I understand your affection for the dark. What on earth happened?’

‘ I got mugged,’ replied Steven, who wanted to leave it at that and Susan seemed content with his reply until they were in the restaurant sipping Rioja by candlelight and waiting for their starters.

‘ So, were you mugged by chance or for a reason?’ she suddenly asked, her eyes watching his.

‘ It wasn’t unconnected with the case I’m working on,’ Steven confessed.

‘ The rape and murder case?’

Steven nodded.

‘ Why?’

‘ They wanted to warn me off,’ said Steven.

‘ But from what you told me and from the tests I carried out, there was no problem with the conviction you’d been worried about?’ said Susan.

Steven nodded. ‘Maybe I was getting too close to something else,’ he said.

‘ Gosh, I’m glad I wasn’t asking the questions,’ said Susan, unconsciously touching her cheekbones in sympathy. Do you often get beat up?’

‘ Not often.’

They paused while a plate of tapas was laid between them on the table.

‘ Why did you become a doctor?’ asked Susan.

‘ The usual reason,’ replied Steven.

‘ Care and concern for humanity?’ asked Susan with a tongue-in-cheek smile.

‘ My folks wanted me to be one,’ smiled Steven back. ‘There’s nothing like becoming a doctor for making your mum happy.

Susan smiled. ‘I admire your honesty,’ she said. ‘So you really didn’t want to be one?’

Steven shrugged. ‘At that age, if your mother and father want you to do medicine and your school wants you to do medicine and the rewards seem attractive enough, you end up doing it. You do it without really thinking what it’s going to be like to spend the rest of your life dishing out pills for depression, lancing boils and telling people they’ve got six months to live. It takes a special kind of person to do that the way it should be done and they are far fewer on the ground than people imagine. I suppose I’m just not that kind of person. I don’t like people enough.’

‘ So what kind of person are you, Steven Dunbar?’ asked Susan.

‘ It’s easier to say what I’m not,’ smiled Steven. ‘I often look at the recruitment pages and think, God, I’m the exact opposite of that. Maybe I’m just a selfish loner.’

‘ Well, we can’t all be Mother Theresa,’ said Susan, ‘any more than we can all be dynamic, self-starting team players, giving a hundred and ten percent to the Acme brush company or whatever. Some of us have too much imagination and that’s a dangerous thing. It tends to be socially subversive. We ask questions so we’re made to feel guilty.’

‘ A comfort,’ smiled Steven.

‘ Did you ever practice?’

‘ I did my registration year and then I joined the army. I trained in field medicine and generally played boys’ games with what the papers like to call, an elite regiment.’

‘ Games?’ probed Susan.

‘ If you come back, they’re games,’ said Steven. ‘It’s more serious if you don’t.’

Susan gave a little shake of the head. ‘Different world,’ she said. ‘So why did you leave?’

‘ It’s a young man’s thing. I was looking at middle thirties and getting cold feet about having to convince some drug company that I was a dynamic, self-starting, team-playing, company man — in order to earn a living — when I got lucky and landed the medical investigator’s job with Sci-Med.’