the house, but there was no back door. He peered in through the living-room window. There were flecks of blood on the insides of a couple of the panes. Fox’s fingers brushed a small plant pot balanced on the outside ledge. He lifted it and saw a key lying there. Either a spare, or left by the police. He unlocked the door and went inside.
Jimmy Nicholl’s basket was no longer in the living room. Fox wondered if he should have asked Teddy Fraser how the dog was doing. Didn’t pets often pass away soon after their owners? The room smelled of woodsmoke. The remains of a charred log sat in the grate, a fine layer of ash coating the top of the mantelpiece. Fox started leafing through the paperwork on the table. Sure enough, the news clippings related to the life and death of Francis Vernal. One lengthy story was headlined ‘The Inner Turmoil of the Activist Patriot’. It looked to Fox as though the media at the time had soon switched their focus from eulogies to something meatier: the dead man’s private life. There was a blurry photo of his attractive wife, and mention of Vernal’s ‘heavy-drinking lifestyle and string of affairs’. The same photo of the lawyer had been picked up by several newspapers. He was addressing a Scottish National Party rally. It was outside a factory earmarked for closure. Vernal was in full flow, one hand bunched into a fist, mouth open wide, teeth bared. Fox glanced through the window to check that the cab-driver was still in his car. He was whistling and had opened a newspaper.
Francis Vernal had died on the evening of Sunday, 28 April 1985, the same day Dennis Taylor played Steve Davis in the World Snooker final. His car had been spotted by a van driver. It had left the road near Anstruther. A Volvo 244. Must have been travelling at speed. Vernal was in the driver’s seat, dead. His body was taken to the Victoria Hospital, at which time the bullet hole in the side of his head was identified as such. A heavy drinker and smoker, he had also been prone to bouts of depression. His beloved Nationalists seemed to have stalled in the polls, and Vernal’s dream of a Socialist Scots Republic looked destined to remain unrealised in his lifetime. Fox sifted through the newsprint. Some passages had been underlined. Alan Carter’s handwritten notes were almost indecipherable. There were screeds of them. No sign of a computer or laptop, meaning nothing had been typed. Fox was wondering who had given him the job, and why. Suddenly, a photo caught his eye. Another rally, but taken longer ago, Vernal in his early twenties by the look of it. A bit more hair on his head, and slimmer around the chest and stomach, but still with mouth wide open and fist clenched. There was another young man standing next to him, and Fox was stunned to find he recognised him. It was Chris – his father’s cousin Chris – looking just the same as in the photo where he was carrying Jude on his shoulders. Fox lifted this picture from the table and stared at it. It had been clipped from the Fife Free Press . There was no date, and only a few lines of explanation: an SNP picnic on the links at Burntisland; ‘the noted Edinburgh lawyer Francis Vernal gives the speech of the afternoon’. With Chris Fox standing at his side, laughing and leading the applause …
Fox paced the room a couple of times, the photo still in his hand. Then he folded it into his pocket, looking around him as if fearing someone might have noticed. There was a telephone on a chest of drawers behind the door, and he crossed over to it. An address book sat next to it. It was open and had been turned over. Fox lifted it and saw that it was open at the page for surnames beginning with C. Paul Carter’s name was there – home and mobile numbers listed. Fox flipped through the book, not sure what he thought he would find. A few business cards fell out and he stooped to pick them up. One was for an Indian restaurant, another for a garage. But the third
Jimmy Nicholl’s basket was no longer in the living room. Fox wondered if he should have asked Teddy Fraser how the dog was doing. Didn’t pets often pass away soon after their owners? The room smelled of woodsmoke. The remains of a charred log sat in the grate, a fine layer of ash coating the top of the mantelpiece. Fox started leafing through the paperwork on the table. Sure enough, the news clippings related to the life and death of Francis Vernal. One lengthy story was headlined ‘The Inner Turmoil of the Activist Patriot’. It looked to Fox as though the media at the time had soon switched their focus from eulogies to something meatier: the dead man’s private life. There was a blurry photo of his attractive wife, and mention of Vernal’s ‘heavy-drinking lifestyle and string of affairs’. The same photo of the lawyer had been picked up by several newspapers. He was addressing a Scottish National Party rally. It was outside a factory earmarked for closure. Vernal was in full flow, one hand bunched into a fist, mouth open wide, teeth bared. Fox glanced through the window to check that the cab-driver was still in his car. He was whistling and had opened a newspaper.
Francis Vernal had died on the evening of Sunday, 28 April 1985, the same day Dennis Taylor played Steve Davis in the World Snooker final. His car had been spotted by a van driver. It had left the road near Anstruther. A Volvo 244. Must have been travelling at speed. Vernal was in the driver’s seat, dead. His body was taken to the Victoria Hospital, at which time the bullet hole in the side of his head was identified as such. A heavy drinker and smoker, he had also been prone to bouts of depression. His beloved Nationalists seemed to have stalled in the polls, and Vernal’s dream of a Socialist Scots Republic looked destined to remain unrealised in his lifetime. Fox sifted through the newsprint. Some passages had been underlined. Alan Carter’s handwritten notes were almost indecipherable. There were screeds of them. No sign of a computer or laptop, meaning nothing had been typed. Fox was wondering who had given him the job, and why. Suddenly, a photo caught his eye. Another rally, but taken longer ago, Vernal in his early twenties by the look of it. A bit more hair on his head, and slimmer around the chest and stomach, but still with mouth wide open and fist clenched. There was another young man standing next to him, and Fox was stunned to find he recognised him. It was Chris – his father’s cousin Chris – looking just the same as in the photo where he was carrying Jude on his shoulders. Fox lifted this picture from the table and stared at it. It had been clipped from the Fife Free Press . There was no date, and only a few lines of explanation: an SNP picnic on the links at Burntisland; ‘the noted Edinburgh lawyer Francis Vernal gives the speech of the afternoon’. With Chris Fox standing at his side, laughing and leading the applause …
Fox paced the room a couple of times, the photo still in his hand. Then he folded it into his pocket, looking around him as if fearing someone might have noticed. There was a telephone on a chest of drawers behind the door, and he crossed over to it. An address book sat next to it. It was open and had been turned over. Fox lifted it and saw that it was open at the page for surnames beginning with C. Paul Carter’s name was there – home and mobile numbers listed. Fox flipped through the book, not sure what he thought he would find. A few business cards fell out and he stooped to pick them up. One was for an Indian restaurant, another for a garage. But the third
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