reference library. What was most interesting about it was the profile of the droplets. They were shaped like minuscule teardrops."
Alex frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means that the paint wasn't wet when it made its way on to the clothing. These were tiny, tiny drops of dried paint that were undoubtedly transferred to her clothes from a surface on which she was lying. Probably a carpet."
"So somebody had been painting something in the place where she was lying? And they'd got paint on the carpet?" Weird asked.
"Almost certainly. But I have to come back to the odd shape. If paint drips from a brush, or spatters on a carpet, the droplets would not look like this. And all of the droplets we looked at in this case shared the same profile."
"Why didn't you put all that in your report?" Alex asked.
"Because we couldn't explain it. It's very dangerous to the prosecution case to have an expert witness in the box answering, 'I don't know.' A good defense advocate would leave the questions about the paint to last, so what the jury would remember most clearly would have been my boss shaking his head and admitting he didn't know the answers." Soanes pushed his papers back into the folder. "So we left it out."
Now for the only question that mattered, thought Alex. "If you looked at that evidence again, would you be able to come up with a different answer?"
Soanes gazed at him over his glasses. "Me personally? No. But a forensic paint expert might well be able to provide a more useful analysis. Of course, your chances of finding a match twenty-five years later is negligible."
"That's our problem," Weird said. "Can you do it? Will you do it?"
Soanes shook his head. "As I said, I'm very far from being an expert in the area. But even if I were, I couldn't authorize tests without a request from Fife Police. And they didn't ask for tests on the paint." He closed his folder with an air of finality.
"Why not?" Weird asked.
"I would presume because they thought it was a waste of money. As I said, the chances of finding a match at this late stage are infinitesimal."
Alex slumped down in his chair, deflated. "And I'm not going to be able to change Lawson's mind. Great. I think you just signed my death warrant."
"I didn't say it was impossible to have some tests conducted," Soanes said gently. "What I said was that they couldn't be conducted here."
"How can they be conducted anywhere else?" Weird said belligerently. "Nobody's got any samples."
Soanes pulled at his lip again. Then he sighed. "We don't have any of the biological samples. But we do still have the paint. I checked before you came." He opened the folder again and took out a plastic sheet divided into pockets. Tucked inside were a dozen microscope slides. Soanes removed three of them and lined them up on the desk. Alex stared down at them hungrily. He couldn't quite believe his eyes. The specks of paint were like tiny flakes of blue cigarette ash.
"Somebody could analyze these?" he said, barely daring to hope.
"Of course," Soanes said. He took a paper bag from his drawer and placed it on top of the slides, pushing them a little closer to Alex and Weird. "Take them. We have others we can analyze independently, should anything come of it. You'll need to sign for them, of course."
Weird's hand snaked out and enveloped the slides. He gently put them in the bag and slid it into his pocket. "Thanks," he said. "Where do I sign?"
As Weird scribbled his name on the bottom of a log sheet, Alex looked curiously at Soanes. "Why are you doing this?" he said.
Soanes took off his glasses and put them away carefully. "Because I hate unsolved puzzles," he said, getting to his feet. "Almost as much as I hate sloppy police work. And besides, I should hate to have your deaths on my conscience should your theory prove correct."
"Why are we turning off?" Weird asked as they hit the outskirts of Glenrothes and Alex signaled a right turn.
"I want to tell Lawson about Macfadyen sending the wreaths. And I want to try and persuade him to get Soanes to test the samples he's got."
"Waste of time," Weird grunted.
"No more than going back to St. Monans to knock on the door of an empty house."
Weird said nothing more, letting Alex drive to police headquarters. At the front desk, Alex asked to see