Capital Offence

Chapter 33

Thursday 20th June

6 days left

It didn’t take long for Macferry to contact the home of J. Sproule. The first number he tried was wrong, but the elderly lady who answered the phone said that the person he wanted was her nephew, who now lived in a small house in North Queensferry. Macferry had the number from his list before the old bird had finished rambling on. He thanked her and said he had to get on, then hung up as she launched into a diatribe on the naming of the man’s third child.

“...so I said to him he should christen the wee soul Dominic, because that was the name I’d have given my son if I’d ever been blessed. And this was his third - they might not have any more - so it was the least...” Click. Whirrr.

Macferry dialled the number in North Queensferry. Naturally enough, the man was out at work. Macferry knew this was likely to be the case, but had no inclination to wait for evening. He explained to the man’s wife that he was researching an article on the Prime Minister, and was speaking to other friends of the great man. The woman was obviously desperate to get her husband mentioned as an old pal of the PM, but as she rambled on it became pathetically obvious that the two men had never been mates.

“They did once share a tent together on Arduous Training - they were both in the CCF together - it was so funny - Jim always tells the story about how they put some rashers of bacon on a rock while they tried to light their Primus, and the bacon blew away! It sounds amazing!”

“Mmmm. I’ve noted that down. Jim Sproule. Did you know Jim in those days?”

“Yes - we met while we were still at school - I was at the kind of sister school, and we used to share teachers for subjects that not many people did, and we met then, and...”

“So you knew Jamieson Maclean back then too.”

“...well kind of to see in the street and so on - I wouldn’t say Jim and he were bosom buddies - I mean we never went out with him, but a friend of mine once went out with his brother Dave, and...”

“What happened to Dave?”

“I don’t know, really - I haven’t heard anything since we all left school, but...”

“Who did Jamie Maclean hang out with at that time?”

“...well there was a whole gang of us, we used to meet under Binns’ clock on a Saturday night, and...”

“Who in particular did Maclean hang around with  - like his close mates?”

“...I think the story about the bacon is really funny, don’t you? - and you could...”

“I’ve got a note of it. It’s hilarious. Maclean’s close mates, though?”

There was a pause, as Mrs Sproule was forced to re-engage her brain. When she spoke again, there was a note of distaste in her voice. “Some of them were not quite... They came from corporation schools.”

The way the woman dismissed the bulk of the population whose parents hadn’t chosen to beggar themselves to pay for a middle class fee-paying education pissed Macferry off big time. He knew the script though.

“A bit rough, then?”

“Well, some of them were quite nice really, but, you know, they went to schools that didn’t wear uniforms - don’t you think it’s a false economy? - and socially divisive...”

“Did you know their names?”

“I didn’t really know their second names, but...”

She reflected that the lack of a surname hadn’t stopped her letting one of them put his hand in her knickers behind one of the pillars around the Royal Scottish Academy - the Parthenon-shaped art gallery on Edinburgh’s Princes Street, at the foot of the Mound. Malkie something. He was a bit declassé too, but he was cute. Not the type you ever went out with seriously, though... She’d seen him once, years later, in a play at the Traverse. Unbelievable! Imagine him, acting! Maybe she should have kept in touch...