CHAPTER 10 NOVEMBER                                                       Thursday. The Scouts were there. The Scout Master was called Kenneth. He talked Allan into it - demonstrating moves, showing how to hold the rope, climbing up alongside a boy in trouble, encouraging, showing him how to use pressure holds, explaining the importance of balance and agility rather than strength. The boys gathered round.          ‘Sir! Can you go up that without your feet Sir?’          ‘Can you do it Sir?’          ‘Go on Sir!’          ‘Stop calling me 'Sir'. I'll only do it if you stop calling me 'Sir'. OK?’          ‘Yes Sir,’ they said in unison.          Later the boys were on the wall and Allan was helping. Checking that each boy who was holding a rope had gripped it correctly.          ‘Hello.’          He looked round. A young man was standing beside him He was dressed in a tee-shirt, black tracksuit trousers and PAs. His face was familiar.          ‘Hello ....’ Allan turned back to the wall ‘That's good!’ he shouted to the boy above them. ‘Now try to move left on to the holds at the level of your knees. You'll find hand holds under the ledge above. Remember to lean back slightly.’ and then ‘.... sorry. Have we met?’          The young man stuck out his hand. ‘Steve McElroy. Remember the policeman at your work a few weeks ago?’          ‘Oh yes.’ Allan took his hand.          ‘I was watching you just now. Very impressive. Can you do it without hands too?’          ‘I don't usually do that kind of things. The boys ..’ His voice trailed away.          ‘Doing your bit for youth. That's impressive too.’ Steve was mocking him. ‘When will you knock off?’          ‘I'm just going as a matter of fact.’          ‘I'll buy you a coffee,’ said Steve. ‘The stuff at the cafeteria here is just about drinkable.’          ‘No. No thanks. I must be going.’          ‘There's no one waiting for you back at your cottage is there?’          Allan froze, but Steve just laughed. ‘Come on I might even buy you a bun as well.’          Steve took two sugars. He stirred the cup for a long time and then looked up at Allan.          Allan said, ‘You've been checking up on me.’          ‘Aye we have.’          ‘Why?’          ‘We are interested in you.’          ‘This wasn't an accident bumping in to me tonight then.’          ‘No it wasn't.’          ‘So?’          ‘So I'd, I mean, we'd like a little help from you. It's quite all right we don't suspect you of anything. Not anything criminal that is.’          He dunked a doughnut in his coffee and watched the brown stain creeping upwards through it. Allan's mind was darting about in search of an explanation. Nothing.          ‘One of the reason's why we are interested in you is because we don't suspect you of anything. You arrived at Gairnock after Tommy Harkness was killed and so we know you had nothing to do with it. And Bob Chalmers my boss thinks you're ok because of that stunt you pulled off when you saved his nephew....What's the matter? Do you have something against Bob Chalmers?’          ‘No.’          ‘Come on. What is it?’          ‘Nothing.’          ‘He thinks a lot of you,’ said Steve. ‘That's why he asked me to keep an eye on you.’          ‘Thanks for nothing.’          ‘We need your help Allan.’          ‘Why?’          ‘There are a lot of loose ends in the Harkness case. You could help us to tie them up.’          ‘I thought it was ... suicide.’          Allan said the last word with scorn.          ‘And you don't think it was suicide?’          ‘Do you?’          ‘No.’          Allan was surprised. ‘Then why have you said it was?’ His coffee was getting cold. He took a sip.          ‘We didn't. It was the Procurator Fiscal who said that.’          ‘So why don't you think it wasn't suicide?’          ‘I can't tell you that. But Bob Chalmers might. I'd like you to come and see him.’          There was a long pause.          ‘When?’          ‘Soon.’          ‘What do you want from me?’          ‘Just some information. You see a this whole thing revolves around the work which Tommy was doing. We got a copy of his files from your computer but we can't make head or tail of the stuff. I'm supposed to be our local Police expert on computing. I've got a degree in computing - I have - don't look so surprised. But I don't have your kind of expertise.’          ‘Do the Police not have their own experts?’          ‘Yes we do. But ...’ He fiddled with his spoon. ‘ .... we don't want to bother them at the moment.’ He met Allan's eyes directly. ‘Let's just leave it at that for the moment shall we.’          ‘What if I say no?’          ‘It's a free country,’ said Steve. ‘We can't force you.’          They sat. Steve took another sip of coffee. ‘I was wrong. It's not drinkable.’          ‘Is that all then? I have to go.’          ‘Tommy Harkness was murdered and it was a particularly brutal murder. The people who did it are still walking around. Doesn't that worry you?’          ‘The PEOPLE who did it!’          ‘It takes more than one person to string up a conscious and fully fit man like Tommy.’          There was another long pause during which Allan studied the surface of the coffee in his cup. A group of the scouts burst through the glass swing doors. The cafeteria echoed to shouts and yells. Two of the boys were scuffling. Another had a half-nelson on his companion. Kenneth was trying to call them to order.          Allan turned back to Steve. His voice was sarcastic.          ‘So what do you want me to do? Accompany you to the station?’          ‘Actually we would like to keep the whole thing quiet. Do you know a pub called 'The Gantocks' in Cable Street?’                   *      *      *      *      *                   The Gantocks lay in unfamiliar territory, but he reckoned that he could find it as a moth finds a mate by travelling up the scent-gradient of the alcohol fumes. That strategy was frustrated, however, by the presence of a bar on every street corner. Some had lost large chunks of their names and others hid the lettering among an even larger freehand script in rainbow coloured spray-paint which declared the allegiance or denounced the hate objects of the local street gangs.                   Chalmers and Steve McElroy were sitting together at a table in the inner recesses. He didn't see them at first and not having the self-confidence to walk up the bar and order a drink, he stood dithering until Steve raised an arm and waved him over.          The Gantocks was a rough place devoid of the civilising influence of women. Stained wooden tables, dark green Victorian glasswork and discoloured gold-edged mirrors with adverts for extinct species of tobacco formed the basis of might be called 'the decor'. A stone floor and hard wooden benches suggested that no luxury was here allowed to deflect a man from the purpose of serious drinking. The odour of beer and tobacco was so strong that Allan suspected it would cling to his clothes for a month.          ‘Glad you could come Allan,’ said Chalmers half rising to shake his hand. ‘What'll it be?’          ‘Eh, an apple juice please.’          There was a distinct pause as Chalmers gathered up his smile and put it back on his face. He slide a note across the table. ‘Steve, would you do the honours?’ Then he turned again to Allan. ‘So you found the place then.’          ‘Oh aye.’          Another pause. Chalmers looked round over his shoulder to see what was keeping Steve. He drummed his fingers on the table. He had thick short fingers and muscular hands which curled easily into fists. Steve put the change down beside Chalmers who gathered the coins carefully, frowning as though he believed there should have been more.          ‘Steve explained what we are about.’          Steve said. ‘I didn't explain very much. You said ...’          ‘Aye. Aye, We want your help Allan. We need the help of a computer expert like yourself to tidy up a few loose ends. Now-a-days everything seems to have something to do with computing and old cops like me are finding it harder and harder to keep abreast.’          ‘What can I do?’          ‘We need someone to go over some computer stuff for us and tell us what it means. Steve here knows a thing or two about computers but even he is a bit flummoxed. We got a lot of stuff from MCI which used to belong to Tommy Harkness and we want to close the file on Harkness you see and so we need to know what it's all about.’          ‘You want me to go through the computer files and translate them into ... into what exactly?’          Chalmers screwed up his eyes. Then he wiped his face with the flat of his hand and ended up elbow on the table and with his chin on his fist.          ‘I don't know what. I'm groping Allan and that's a fact. There is something badly wrong ....’ He thumped a fist gently on the table. ‘.... and I want to know what it is and I don't know where to start. I need you to look at the stuff and tell me what it means. What was Harkness doing? What was his job?’          ‘I can tell you that without looking at the files because I am doing the same job myself at the moment.’          ‘Now you are talking. Go on tell me.’ He took a swig of beer and wiped the froth off his lips with the back of his hand. Then with both elbows on the table he looked straight into Allan's eyes. His eyes were pale blue and they had a very disturbing directness about them. Allan took a deep breath.          He described the way the chips were made in Taiwan and then shipped to Gairnock. He told how the basic chip design was over-connected and how the chips were then modified for special purposes and then further modified to customer order. He told them how the bulk of the processing was carried out by programs sent over from head quarters and how at Gairnock they only made minor modifications to take account of customer requirements. He told them about the testing programs and about the burn-out process which fixed the modifications and made further testing impossible.          As he talked, Chalmers seemed to wait on every word and Steve nodded in agreement. But Allan was becoming increasingly irritated. He knew his description was superficial twaddle - the sort of thing Henry Quinn spouted on his induction courses or which anyone could read every week in the Computer Guardian. Steve with his degree in computing could have given Chalmers the same chat and probably better. They hadn't brought him all this way for this?          Chalmers said, ‘Would Harkness have been able to change any programs without telling anyone?’          The question stopped Allan's mind dead in its tracks.          ‘That's difficult to say.’          ‘Try.’          ‘I suppose he could have reprogrammed one of the programs. His difficulty would have been to swap that for the real program on the assembly line. Has ... Has this got anything to do with his death?’          ‘It might have,’ Chalmers said slowly. His expression did not change and his blue eyes were unblinking. ‘How difficult would it be to make a swap?’          ‘I don't know. I haven't tried.’          Chalmers sat upright and rocked on his chair as though re-arranging his buttocks. He folded his arms and leaned forwards again.          ‘How about finding out for us?’          Steve looked uncomfortable. He was stroking his chin, watching the bartender clean glasses, checking his shoes for dog-shit.          Allan said ‘No.’          ‘Another drink?’ Chalmers pointed at his glass.          ‘No thanks.’          Chalmers laid the palm of one hand flat on the table and drummed with the other. He looked at the ceiling. He considered Allan face for a while and then said quietly ‘Allan. I need your help. It's important.’          ‘To tidy up loose ends? To close the file?’          ‘Keep your voice down please. No not to tidy up loose ends. To solve a murder. A particularly cruel and vicious murder of a young man who was ... ’ pause ‘ ... a decent sort of guy.’          ‘You knew him?’          He said ‘I just want to find out why he was murdered.’          ‘Why are you so sure he was murdered? The official verdict was suicide, remember?’          Chalmers unfolded his arms and sat up straight. The palms of both hands were flat down on the table as if he was going to do press-ups.          ‘No one commits suicide by hanging himself from a hook with his feet still on the ground.’ He rocked forwards emphasising each sentence with his forehead. ‘No one commits suicide immediately after phoning his mother and arranging to see her that weekend. No one commits suicide when ... ’ His voice had been rising but suddenly it was quiet and his anger deflated. ‘ ... there are other reasons as well.’ He sat back and closed his eyes for a second. The fingers began to drum again.          ‘Will you do it please Allan. We need a computer expert on the inside so to speak. Someone we can trust.’          ‘On the inside? Do you mean inside MCI?’          Steve took a long breath, rolled his eyes and looked away from Chalmers.          ‘What if I said yes? What would you expect me to do exactly?’          ‘You tell him Steve.’          Steve leaned forwards and it was Chalmers turn to study his shoes.          ‘First of all we would like you to decipher the computer files we got from Harkness's directory.’          ‘But that could take weeks working full time.’          ‘And we would like you to find out certain things for us about how possible it would be for people within MCI to do certain things. For example would it be possible for a worker in MCI to trace a chip on the assembly line all the way to its final location in a computer?’          ‘You want me to be a spy inside MCI?’          ‘ .... Yes. In a way.’          Chalmers broke in. ‘We want certain questions answered which can only be answered by someone who actually works for the company. We are not a rival company trying to steal company secrets for commercial advantage we are police trying to solve a murder.’          ‘I still don't see why you don't get the information the legitimate way by asking MCI. The police have powers don't they?’          Chalmers spoke slowly and deliberately looking him straight in the eye. ‘Not if they are officially off the case,’          The light dawned.          ‘This is unofficial. You want me to be an unofficial police spy. And you want me to translate the files for you because you can't ask Police experts to do it for you ... because its unofficial. And if I went snooping around in MCI and they rumbled me you would never have heard of me ... would you? ... because its unofficial.’          Steve said ‘You'll have to tell him.’          Chalmers looked at Steve for a long time. The fingers drummed. Then he faced Allan again. His voice was low and calm and almost sad.          ‘You're quite right. It is unofficial. We have been told to drop the case by the Procurator Fiscal. Officially we can still tidy up loose ends but we are supposed to be closing the file.’          He stopped and stared into his beer and kept his eyes there as he went on.          ‘But unofficially the file is not closed and it is not going to be closed.’ He was looking at his glass but he wasn't seeing it. ‘Tommy you see was our man. Not a policeman but a friend who agreed to help us.’ He lifted his glass and drained it.          ‘How do I know all this is kosher?’ said Allan.          Chalmers thought for a while. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his wallet, a notebook and a pen. He extracted a business card from his wallet, found a page in the notebook and wrote something on the card. He offered it to Allan. It was Chalmers' own card. He had written another address on the back.          ‘That's Tommy mother. Why don't you contact her and have a chat and let her tell you how inconsiderate it was of her son to commit suicide.’          Allan read the address. ‘I take it that's Perth Scotland?’ He put the card in his pocket. ‘OK,’ he hesitated. ‘I'll think about it.’          ‘I need another drink,’ Chalmers said. He put a handful of change and a couple of crumpled notes on the table. ‘Set them up Steve.’          When Steve had gone to the bar Chalmers said to Allan, ‘Whether you agree to help us or not I hope you will be very careful. If you ever want to contact us don't use my number on the card. Here. Give me that card again.’          He wrote another number on the back.          ‘You can contact Steve at that number. Just phone there and leave a message and he will meet you at the sports centre.’          ‘Is that really necessary?’          ‘I don't want you on my conscience as well.’          He watched Steve talking to the barman, then let out a sigh and turned to Allan again.          ‘Only Steve and myself and Jocylin McCarrie, that's Detective Sergeant McCarrie who is in my team, know what we are about. And now you of course. I'm taking a risk by telling you as much as I have. It is important that the information goes no further. I may explain a bit more to you if you decide to do what we ask. But in the meantime, for your own safety as well as of others don't breath a word of this meeting. To anyone. Do you understand?’          He offered cigarettes.          ‘No vices at all? Well not that kind anyway. Eh?’ He lit up and put the packet away smiling to himself. ‘I am worried about you living in that country cottage of yours. It's too isolated. And with you cycling about you are a sitting duck for a hit-and-run driver. It is not as though I could spare men to keep an eye on you.’          Steve returned with the glasses.          ‘Why do you drink that's gnat's piss?’ Chalmers said pointing at Allan's glass.          ‘Can't kick the habit.’          ‘I was saying Steve, that his cottage is too isolated for his own safety.’          ‘It has some advantages,’ said Steve.          They both laughed. Allan looked from one to the other and they both laughed again.          ‘Are you going to explain the joke?’          ‘That's quite a love nest you've got there Dr Fraser,’ said Chalmers as Allan blushed angrily. ‘It's ok lad. We're men of the world aren't we Steve?’                   *      *      *      *      *          The following Saturday, early, Allan cycled to the station, caught the first train to Glasgow and from there travelled through to Edinburgh. The package was waiting there for him. Then he caught a train to Perth.          At the tourist office in Perth he got a map of the city and information on bed-and breakfast places. He chose a terraced granite building overlooking the Tay. The landlady did not mind him sitting in the room for most of the afternoon. Alone at last in the quiet of that room he unrolled the bundle of printout and began to read.          By mid-afternoon on the following day he was satisfied. The ‘Jack-tape’ and the first file on the ‘Tommy-tape’ were identical. The second ‘Tommy-tape’ file was similar. It was a program to check another type of chip. He was not sure which type but buried in the middle of both types of program was a short sequence of code. It forced the program to skip one of the checks. If the program hadn't skipped it would have found Jack's secret passage. So the checks did exist. They hadn't been missed out by mistake. Conspiracy, not cock-up.          He had come prepared with another envelope. The ‘Jack-tape’ went into this and, as he made his way back into Perth, he stopped off at a small sub-post office and posted the package to himself - Poste Restante - Fort William. He wrapped the ‘Tommy-tape’ with its printout in a plastic bag and stuffed it into his haversack. He checked the telephone directory and then walked to the north side of town. In a housing estate off the Inverness road he found a semi-detatched bungalow with a red tile roof and a small well kept garden. As he hesitated by the gate the door of he house opened and a small woman appeared. She wore an apron and gardening gloves and she carried a wicker gardening basket. She had grey hair and a sad expression. Mrs Harkness had good cause to be sad. He walked on to the end of the road, stopped for a while and then set off towards the station.          Back in Gairnock, late that Sunday evening, Allan phoned the number Chalmers had given him. The person who answered sounded like Steve's father.          ‘Is that all? Just 'See you at the sports centre tomorrow' Shall I ask him to phone you back? No? Ok I'll tell him when he comes in.’          Before making his way back to Burnside Cottage he cycled round to Jack's place. Jack, he had decided, had to be told before the clown did something they would all regret.                            *      *      *      *      *          The ledge, wide as a pavement and covered in sharp ribs and bumps, sloped outwards to an edge. Nothing was visible beyond the edge except billowing mist. The ledge was also covered in running water which was being delivered from above. Whether it was simply rain or surface water dripping down from the cliff above was not clear but it was cold enough not to be liquid.          He was soaked through, his fingers were numb, his boots were full of water and yet Allan was happy. He was securely belayed to a spike on the wall behind him and with one foot propped on another spike in front of him he drew in the rope carefully, feeling for the moving resistance which marked the progress of the climber below. And as he did so he sang Dougie McLean's nostalgic ballad 'Caledonia' or as many of the words as he could remember.          ‘ ................... that you will see.’ ‘... the changes that have come over me.’          A hand suddenly appeared over the edge and closed on a rocky rugosity. A torrent of water was instantly diverted over the hand and down the sleeve of the arm attached to it.          ‘Eeeyyyaaarrrch!’ said a voice.          Ian's head appeared over the edge and then another hand. He let go with the first hand and held his arm out while a mugful of water poured out of his sleeve. He looked up at Allan.          ‘See today. Today's a hell of a good day for being bloody miserable.....’ He stepped up and took a higher hold. ‘..... and so ....,’ He climbed on to the ledge. ‘..... I don't see what the hell you have to be so bloody cheerful about.’          They rearranged the rope, re-tied the belay and Allan set off up the cliff. The climb was getting steadily easier and soon degenerated into an upward walk. Ian and Hamish joined him shortly and they untied the rope.          ‘.... Caledonia here I come ....’          ‘Have you ever seen this guy so bloody cheerful?’ said Ian.          ‘No,’ said Hamish. ‘It's positively obscene.’          ‘You mark my words,’ said Ian. ‘There's a wummin at the bottom of this.’          ‘I take it things are going well then,’ said Hamish. ‘Did you get that business of the tapes solved?’          ‘Yup,’ said Allan ‘See things. Things is goin' well.’          And they were. The tape and the printout had been handed over in a plastic shopping bag to Steve McElroy at the Sports centre. He had told Jack. He had told him that the matter was in the hands of the authorities now and that he was to cut it out. Definitely out. O.U.T. Out!          ‘You told us before that you had been given some job you found boring.’          ‘Ah that's finished,’ said Allan. ‘They brought a guy over from the States to do that. He's OK. But they've put me on another job helping with voice recognition systems. It's still not my scene but it doesn't have daily deadlines so I can spend some of my time thinking about other things.’          ‘Thinking about women, I'll bet,’ said Ian.          *      *      *      *      *          He was right of course. Allan did spend quite a bit of time thinking about Rosa. But their project had taken centre stage again. There was a subtle change in his relationship with Rosa. Even when he had been at Mrs McCulloch's place in Loch Ranza Road it had seemed to him, and much to his surprise, that he had the edge over Rosa as far as sharpness of mind was concerned. Perhaps it was because she was preoccupied with office politics, perhaps it was, as she said, because she was 'over the hill'. But the advantage he had over her had increased in recent weeks. Rosa continued to call in the evenings, but they tried to avoid rekindling the passion of that amazing weekend. Rosa made it quite clear that she did not intend that the affair should continue, but now and again, in little ways, there were sparks which showed that the fires were still alight. Once when they were standing together at the table looking at some document, both leaning forwards, supporting their weight on their hands, she suddenly drew her little finger across the back of his hand raising goose pimples. And once as they were going in through the front door of the cottage, she in the lead and a step higher, she turned round to find their eyes on the same level, and they had to embrace. But they stuck to their task, with Allan taking more and more of the initiative.          He persuaded her that they had been tackling the problem in the wrong way. They had been trying a frontal assault. His approach was more subtle. It required a flanking move, putting in place additional and seemingly peripheral aspects of the theory, nibbling away at the problem.          And something else. He found evidence of a side of Rosa he had never suspected. Some of his dirty clothes disappeared and reappeared a few days later washed and ironed. New things, like washing up cloths and scouring pads, appeared mysteriously in the cupboard under the sink. Old things, like tea-caddies and pots of marmalade, moved to new, tidy but unexpected positions in his kitchen. It was as though he had acquired an invisible guardian angel. He tried telling himself that this was really helpful, but he found it mildly irritating nevertheless. Control over his own domestic arrangements, too recently wrested from Jean, was in danger of slipping from him again.          He was happy when he was alone tackling the hard clean rock of theory rather than the shifting scree of personal relationships.                   *      *      *      *      *          Ian and Hamish were for going down by the quickest route but Allan talked them into coming with him to the summit. At first they grumbled but the rain stopped and the mist became luminous and spirits lifted as they emerged from the clouds into a hard brilliant light to stand on the sunlit ridge. Their shadows were projected on to the white billows below them. Each saw his own shadow surrounded by a halo, the shadow arms were huge, extending outwards from the centred head like the hands of a massive clock, sweeping the rainbow circumference. An archipelago of glinting peaks in a white ragged cloud-sea stretched to the horizon.