Capital Offence

Chapter 20

Thursday 6th June

20 days left

Donald had agreed to do some follow up work on the woman that Stuart Pearson claimed to have passed the afternoon with on the day of the murders. Stuart (or Dave) said he knew her only as Patsy. She had revealed in the course of an afternoon’s drinking session that she made some pocket money from time to time by strutting her stuff in Edinburgh’s tackier dives. The defence team had been unable to flush her out, but Donald was determined to stay on the case.

I’m not doing this on my own again, he thought, as he headed unsteadily up past Pollock Halls of Residence, avoiding a pool of chicken vindaloo, lager and stomach acids.

Apparently, Patsy had a small flower tattooed on her left buttock, in a position where it would be observed only by those intimately acquainted with her, either through her choice, or because they’d bought a pint in the right pub at the right time for a floor show. Donald had spent a dispiriting few hours trailing round Edinburgh’s tattoo parlours on the off-chance that someone would remember a client called Patsy with a flower she sat on. He’d been taken aback to discover that this distinguishing feature was nowhere near as rare as he’d naively imagined. In fact, he could hardly walk down the street now without speculating what bizarre depictions were wiggling unseen within folds of underwear, accompanied by secret piercings of gold studs and rings. Up to that point he had never heard of a ‘clit glit’ - even now he wasn’t sure whether he’d either heard or understood correctly.

Whooo...

So a bird called Patsy with a flower on her bum - bloody thousands of them. Still, no harm in keeping up the search.

*      *      *

The red light fourth from the left had been flashing on the telephone console for a few minutes. The three on the left were steady red, the others unlit. But the fourth one winked away silently. If phones made a noise then the newsroom would rapidly become unbearable, but the flashing light system made things workable.

Forbes Macferry looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. It was mid-morning - not a busy time on a daily paper. A time for subbing press releases and agency material. A time for nicking stuff off teletext and rewriting it sufficiently to avoid paying a fee, knowing that by the time the story went to press it would be general knowledge anyway. A time for writing the horoscope.

A time for working on that meticulously-researched piece of investigative journalism which would win awards.

Macferry remembered the time he’d broken a piece on abuse at a kid’s home. At that time the paper was crap at handling exclusives. It was so bloody establishment the Editor was terrified to draw attention to himself or his rag in any way. But this story was so shit-hot there was no way they couldn’t run it. Spiking it would only have led to an even bigger stink about cover-ups.

The wee red light kept flashing.

And there were pictures. There were exclusive pictures of the whole manky place, snatched by a smudger who’d been allowed in briefly by one of the kids without telling the people in charge. The paper ran one of them - a wee print about an inch and a half square in the banner at the top of the page advertising the next day’s exclusive. That’s the beauty about exclusives - you can punt them up front - sell a few more copies.

Of course, the Editor saw this and kacked his breeks. What the hell’s this exclusive nonsense then? Have to get the lawyers on to this - make sure we’re bombproof. He still couldn’t risk pulling the story. But the pictures - that was different. How d’you mean we didn’t have permission to be in the building? I don’t care if one of the kids let us in - he’s not in charge.