at the ceiling. What if Lawson had repainted it a dozen times since? Would there still be evidence? He let his heart rate subside to something approaching normal, then, muttering a prayer to Weird's God, he tilted his head back and looked up.
Shit. The ceiling wasn't blue. It was cream. All this, and for nothing. Well, he wasn't going away empty-handed. He climbed up on the bench seat and chose a spot right in the corner, where it wouldn't be noticed. With the sharp blade of the screwdriver, he chipped away at the paint, catching the flakes in an envelope he'd taken from his briefcase.
When he had gathered a decent amount, he climbed back down and picked out a decent-sized chip. It was cream on one side, and blue on the other. Alex's legs trembled and he sat down heavily, overcome with a turmoil of emotion. From his pocket, he pulled the color chart Jason had left behind and looked at the blue oblong that had jogged his visual memory of twenty-five years ago. He lifted the edge of the curtain to let daylight in and placed the flake of paint on the swatch of pale blue. It almost disappeared.
Tears pricked at Alex's eyes. Was this the final answer?
Chapter 44
Duncan had made three further attempts to talk to Graham Macfadyen, but he had steadfastly refused to budge on his demand to speak to Lawson, and Lawson only. He'd allowed Duncan to hear Davina's cries, but that had been the single concession he'd made. Exasperated, Lawson decided he'd had enough.
"Time's rolling on. The baby's distressed, we've got the media breathing down our necks. Give me the phone. I'm doing the talking now," he said.
Duncan took one look at his boss's flushed face and handed over the receiver. "I'll help you keep it on track," he said.
Lawson made the connection. "Graham? It's me. James Lawson. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get here. I understand you want to talk to me?"
"Damn right I want to talk to you. But before we get into it, I should tell you that I'm recording this. As we speak, it's going out live via a web-cast. The media have all got the URL, so they're probably hanging on our every word as we speak. There's no point in trying to close down the site, by the way. I've got it set up to jump from server to server. Before you can even find where it's coming from, it'll be somewhere else."
"There's no need for this, Graham."
"There's every need. You thought you could close me down by cutting the phone lines, but you think like last century's man. I'm the future, Lawson, and you're history."
"How's the baby?"
"Pain in the arse, actually. It just cries all the time. It's doing my head in. But it's fine. So far, anyway. It's come to no harm yet."
"You're harming her just by keeping her from her mother."
"It's not my fault. It's Alex Gilbey's fault. Him and his friends, they kept me from my mother. They murdered her. Alex Gilbey, Tom Mackie, David Kerr and Sigmund Malkiewicz murdered my mother, Rosie Duff, on 16 December 1978. First they raped her and then they murdered her. And Fife Police never charged them with the crime."
"Graham," Lawson interrupted, "that's in the past. What we're concerned about now is the future. Your future. And the sooner we end this, the better your future will be."
"Don't talk to me as if I'm stupid, Lawson. I know I'm going to be sent to prison for this. It doesn't make any odds whether I give up my hostage or not. Nothing's going to change that, so don't insult my intelligence. I've got nothing left to lose, but I can make damn sure that other people take a hit too. Now, where was I? Oh yes. My mother's murderers. You never charged them. And when you reopened the case recently, with a big fanfare of trumpets about how DNA would solve old crimes, you found you'd lost the evidence. How could you do that? How could you lose something so important?"
"We're losing control," Duncan whispered. "He's calling the baby, 'it.' That's not good. Get back to the baby."
"Kidnapping Davina isn't going to change that, Graham."
"It's stopped you sweeping my mother's murder under the carpet. Now the whole world's going to know what you've done."
"Graham, I'm as committed as I could be to dealing with whoever killed your mother."
A hysterical laugh crackled down the line. "Oh, I know