‘You two took your time. Where the hell have you been?' Dave Donaldson pushed himself out of his armchair as Mcllhenney and Price appeared in the doorway of the Strand Palace bar.
`Bloody Aldershot,' growled McIlhenney. The flicker led us all the way to bloody Aldershot.' He glared at the DCI. 'Rank has its privileges, so get them in. Mine's a pint, and Garen'll have the same.'
Okay, I'll swing for that. You sound as if you've earned it.' He stepped across to the bar, a few feet away, and ordered the drinks.
`How about you?' asked his Sergeant. 'Did you have any more excitement?'
'Nah. She went straight home from the wine bar. Her mother was still there. She seems to be in residence, so I don't imagine that Ariadne'll have a gentleman caller through the night.' He nodded to Price. 'I left one of your night-shift colleagues there just in case, though.'
He handed a precisely metered pint of ale across to Mcllhenney, who looked' at it sceptically.
`When I got back here,' said Donaldson, returning to their table with the other beers, 'there was a SOCO report waiting for me, about the Noble house. The Scene of Crime people went over the place today. Their report was interesting. They found definite signs of an attempted break-in, via a small, unalarmed mezzanine window.'
‘Oh aye? said the Sergeant, his level of interest and his eyebrows rising simultaneously.
`That was all, mind you. There was no concrete evidence that anyone had been inside, but the window had been attacked, and although, as I said, it would have been a tight fit, it was big enough to admit a slim-built person — a youth, maybe, or a woman!
`Could they say how recent this was?' asked Price.
Donaldson shook his head. 'No, not for sure. They reckoned the marks were pretty fresh but they couldn't put an exact date on them. They lifted a print, though, off the window frame, and some strands of wool, like from a glove.'
`Wearing gloves, yet leaving prints?' Mcllhenney queried.
`That's what I said to myself too, but the report reckoned that the housebreaker would have had to take a glove off to get any purchase on the window.'
Did you check whether an attempted break-in had been reported by either of the Nobles?'
`SOCO were up to that one, Neil. That was included in their report. There's been nothing notified to the police at that address, ever, apart from an incident a year ago, when Ariadne complained that she had been receiving anonymous letters.'
‘Eh?' said the big Sergeant, choking in mid-swallow. 'What happened?'
`The local CID dealt with it. Apparently there had been three letters addressed to her husband, accusing her of having a bit on the side. Their investigation was fruitless, but the letters stopped anyway, according to the Nobles.'
‘Do any of them still exist, sir?'
Donaldson laughed. 'Apparently wee Maurice was so outraged that he burned the first two. His wife hung on to the third, and gave it to the police. They couldn't get a thing from it other than the fact that it was done on word-processing software, printed on a high-quality laser and posted in Tottenham. Once the investigation had been abandoned, Ariadne asked for the letter back, so that it could be destroyed as well.'
Mcllhenney looked at him in astonishment. 'And they gave it to her?'
Apparently so. Who knows, maybe strings were pulled.' `Some strings, sir. Are we going to do anything about it?' Donaldson shrugged. 'I don't know. I'll speak to Arrow and to Andy Martin in the morning.'
McIlhenney's expression grew grim. 'When were you in touch with Edinburgh last?'
About an hour ago. There's no change; he's still unconscious.' They sat in silence for a while, until eventually Mcllhenney went back to the bar for three more pints.
`So tell us about the soldier,' said Donaldson as he resumed his seat.
Mcllhenney glowered at him again. 'Bloody Aldershot, like I said. He caught a train at Victoria, so like good coppers we got on too. When we get to the other end, does he order a taxi? Does he hell! He's a fit lad so he walked the two miles instead. Eventually he arrives at a bloody Army camp.
`There was a security post there, and he showed a pass. That stuffed us. I mean, we could hardly walk up to the Redcaps and say, "Excuse me, but who was that soldier boy who just walked in here?" We couldn't do anything but turn around and come back. A waste of bloody time,' he growled.
`Not altogether. At least we know where he's based now; there can't be an infinite number of RAOC Lieutenants there.' McIlhenney shook his head. 'We could have worked out where he was stationed, and as for identification, we managed to get some decent pictures at Victoria. We dropped them off at the Yard on the way back here.'
Donaldson nodded approvingly. 'Well done. We'll show them to Arrow first thing in the morning. While we're at it, we can discuss what to do about Ms Tucker's possible midnight caller… and about those anonymous letters!'