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hesitantly for Steven’s liking. He let his silence prompt McClintock to elaborate. I was a DS at the time so I knew what was going on. I was friendly with a woman DC on Currie’s team so you could say she kept me in the picture. I remember she got very upset over the Mulvey affair, I think that’s what decided her to leave the force.’
    ‘That upset?’ said Steven.
    ‘She reckoned Currie’s team were going over the score, to use her words.’
    ‘And were they?’
    McClintock paused, pretending he was concentrating on the traffic at an intersection before saying. ‘Depends how you look at it. They weren’t to know that old mother Mulvey and her simple-Simon son were going to top themselves, were they?’
    ‘Whether they knew or not, they appear to have been the reason for it,’ said Steven.
    ‘Whatever,’ conceded McClintock. ‘Well, the great British public had their way in the end. Four of our lot hit the street on the early retirement train and Jane decided to leave the force of her own accord.’
    ‘Jane’s your girlfriend?’
    ‘Ex-girlfriend.’
    ‘Not the best kind of publicity for the force.’
    ‘You could say.’
    ‘But it recovered?’
    ‘Blood under the bridge.’

FIVE
     
     
     
    ‘ So what’s Sci-Med’s interest in this?’ asked McClintock as he returned from the bar carrying two pints of beer. They were sitting in an old fashioned pub in Inverleith Row where McClintock appeared to be well known judging by the nods and asides made at the bar.
    ‘ David Little was a top-flight medical scientist,’ said Steven.
    ‘ Ah,’ said McClintock, putting down the glasses carefully but still slopping some on the tabletop. ‘I get it. You’re looking for some reason to spring one of your own?’
    ‘ Nothing could be further from the truth,’ said Steven, bristling at the suggestion. ‘The evidence against him was overwhelming.’
    ‘ Damn right it was,’ growled McClintock.
    ‘ On the other hand, if a man like Hector Combe says on his deathbed that he did it and that the police fitted someone else up for it – someone who just happened to be a brilliant medical scientist – then we do take an interest.’
    ‘ Come on man, that was just Combe taking one last swing at his natural enemy, the police. He was opening up old wounds and rubbing salt into them. It was just his way of saying good-bye. That was Combe all over, evil bastard.’
    ‘ Combe knew about Julie Summers’ fingers being broken,’ said Steven, taking a sip of his beer and watching McClintock’s reaction over the rim of the glass.
    ‘ I’m not with you,’ said McClintock, opening a new packet of cigarettes and lighting one with an old style Zippo lighter: it made the air smell of petrol.
    Steven waited until McClintock had taken a first lungful and exhaled it before saying, ‘It was never common knowledge that her fingers had been broken in the attack. It didn’t come out in court and the newspapers never got hold of it but Combe knew,’ said Steven. ‘He made a point of telling the Rev Lawson all about it in great detail.’
    McClintock looked doubtful. ‘All sorts of details get circulated in the prison system,’ he said. ‘And nobody knows how they get there in the first place. I bet half the buggers in pokey know where Lord Lucan is. Combe knowing that is no big deal.’
    ‘ Probably not,’ agreed Steven, ‘but all the same I’d like to check the forensic reports on the case before I call a halt.’
    ‘ The forensic stuff was all in the file,’ said McClintock.
    ‘ Only the stuff that was used in court,’ said Steven. ‘Come to think of it, I’d like to see the full scene of crime report, sample lists, photographs, the lot.’
    ‘ Are you sure this is really necessary?’ asked McClintock.
    ‘ No, but it’s what I want to do,’ said Steven.
    ‘ But why?’ exclaimed McClintock. ‘If it gets out that someone is taking another look at the Julie Summers case, the press are going to want to