Saturday 17th December
The smell coming from the baker’s was irresistible. Without conscious thought Alice found herself at the counter, eye-level with a miniature glass oven laden with hot pies, sausages and bridies, each item surrounded by its own individual pool of grease. At last, an old-fashioned shop immune to the current trend for wraps and lattices or brie-and-bacon baguettes, specialising instead in egg rolls, crisps and Irn Bru. Back at her desk she bit into the Scotch pie, savouring its cardboard pastry and peppery interior. Scanning her list as she ate, she noted with dread that she still had four more refuges left to call in the city, excluding the Salvation Army and Jericho House. Her phone rang. It was DCI Bell. ‘Any results with the hostels, Alice?’
‘No, Ma’am, but I’ve still a number to do. What about the vehicle, has it been found?’
‘Not yet. Every second uniform is out looking for it, but it seems to have vanished into the ether.’
‘By the way, Ma’am, in the judgement, the words “unreliable”, “worthless”…’ She left her sentence unfinished, on hearing the dialling tone.
The supervisor of the Pilton Shelter appeared to be in no hurry to answer. As Alice hung on and on, impatient for a reply, her mind drifted back to Mair himself. What sort of man was he? What precisely did she know about him? His wife had been cool, detatched, living in a bubble of her own creation and unconcerned about the world outside her own door. Little appeared to penetrate the mind of his friend, Gannon, but maybe Mair used him precisely because of his lack of acuity, his lack of curiosity. Then again, perhaps Mair also did not see things too clearly or chose to insulate himself from reality until life no longer let him do so. The unusual thing about their man was the strength of his attachment to his sister and nephew, a love so powerful that he had been prepared to sacrifice his own marriage in order to go on looking after them. He was impulsive, hot-tempered even; Mrs Girvan had said that he had blown any chances he might have had of caring for Davie by swearing at the social worker in Bright Park. If it was me, if I was Mair, she thought, where would I go? What would I do? The job he had set himself was unfinished, four down and two to go, he must be aware that his luck could not go on forever. It was a simple calculation; at best, a lifetime in prison, at worst he’d be killed by the police whilst attempting to complete his self-appointed task. The Bradley children were now all dispersed, and his beloved sister, dead. Only Davie remained nearby and he would know where the boy was, he could still see Davie. That’s what I would do, she mused, get my fill, while I was still able to do so, of those I loved.
Without waiting any longer for the supervisor’s response she replaced the receiver, dialled the City Social Work Department and was able, without the fight she had anticipated, to extract the name, address and telephone number of the child’s foster parents. As she was holding on, waiting for another answer, Alastair returned to the office. He ripped open a packet of sandwiches. ‘Shitey press,’ he said loudly, ignoring her gesture for him to be quiet, ‘they’re all over the place. I had to fight my way back into the station and I got poked in the eye by one of their sodding sound booms. Of course, not as much as an apology from the swine responsible.’
Alice put down the receiver, acknowledging defeat. No reply.
‘Did the skateboarder identify Mair from the photograph?’ she asked.
‘So so… He thinks it could have been the man he saw at McBryde’s place. Who were you trying to speak to?’
‘Davie’s foster parents. Fancy a trip there? I’ve been thinking about Mair’s likely whereabouts and I reckon he’ll base himself somewhere close to them.’
‘Why on earth should he?’
‘Because before he’s caught he’ll want to see as much of the boy as he can. If I’m right, the Hendersons, Davie’s foster parents, may already have seen Mair. It has to be worth checking out. If they have, then it’s odds-on he’ll return and we could have the place watched. What do you think?’
‘What’s the alternative?’
‘Phoning round the rest of the shelters and ensuring that they get copies of the photos.’
‘Why do you think he’ll want to be close to the boy?’
‘Because he loves him. He even wanted to look after the child himself. How many uncles do you know like that? He doesn’t even have a wife in tow to help. Mair will want to be sure that the boy’s in good hands as a minimum.’
‘The boss won’t approve. You’re taking things into your own hands again, Alice. Shouldn’t we check with her first?’
‘No. She might say no. I’m going anyway. Are you coming or not?’
‘Well, anything is better than more phone calls. Let’s leave by the back entrance, avoid the swine.’
Eskside West is a pleasant, cobbled street, leading up to the old bridge and separated only by an area of municipal parkland from the broad, slow-flowing river Esk. The Hendersons’ house, distinctive with its soot-blackened exterior and disabled ramp, was in the middle of an unostentatious Victorian terrace and easy to locate. No one was home. A neighbour, hauling black bags of rubbish to a skip, told them that he had seen the family leave to go shopping about an hour earlier. From the warm interior of the car, Alice gazed idly at the river. Frozen reeds protruded from its banks and the edges of the water had iced over. Seagulls paraded up and down on the grass, and two of the three arches of the bridge were blocked by mounds of branches, straw and an old tree trunk, the remnants of the last spate. In the shallows a mattress lay stranded on a bed of gravel, springs spilling out along with the rest of its entrails.
The indignant wail of a car horn drew her attention towards the traffic lights, and she noticed a family of four making their way towards the car. A man pushing a boy in a wheelchair, on his right a woman, laden with the double burden of the shopping and a baby in a sling. Their progress was slow and Alice stared at them as the boy’s erratic, uncoordinated movements and bright hair proclaimed his identity. While the man wrestled with the catch on the little metal gate leading to their large front garden, the two sergeants approached. A passer-by, eyes fixed on the boy’s lustrous head, bumped into Alice and mumbled an apology. She looked round, catching the stranger’s eyes.
‘It’s him,’ she said mechanically, staring at the man as he moved on.
‘Who?’ Alastair asked.
‘Mair! Who do you bloody think!’
Her lungs were hurting, her head down, arms swinging wildly, mouth full of warm saliva. A gallon of acid must have been pumped into her chest, the pain was so intense. All her attention was on her prey, her eyes streaming and puffs of frozen breath billowing from her as she ran. Catch him, catch him, CATCH HIM. And then she fell, hard, onto the unyielding ground, legs entangled in some kind of snake-like obstruction. Panting loudly, she raised herself up and found a toddler, reins fluttering in the wind, crying angrily beside her.
‘You’ll need to watch where you’re going, Lucy, you’ve tripped the nice lady up,’ the woman said, glancing apologetically at her child’s victim while lifting the uninjured tot off the road. Alice ran on in the direction she had seen Mair take, increasingly conscious of an agonising pain stabbing her knee with every footfall. On the High Street she stopped to recover her breath. Gasping noisily, she stood, hands on her hips, trying to scan the pavements on either side of the busy road. A few hundred yards ahead, on the river side, she noticed a cluster of pedestrians being jostled as a dark-haired man pushed through them into an Oxfam shop. Fat bloody chance it’s him, she thought, and unable to run any further, she hobbled towards her destination.
Circular racks of trousers, jackets and skirts barred her way as she crossed the shop-floor towards a counter where two elderly women, apparently oblivious to her presence, were chattering with each other. Edging past a skyscraper of stacked jigsaw puzzles, she noticed a narrow archway above which was written ‘Children’s Books’, leading to an additional room, and limped in its direction. The man within had his back to the entrance but he wheeled round instantly on hearing the sounds of an approach.
As Alice looked in Donald Mair’s eyes, she knew from the expression of fear that flitted across his face that he had recognised her as his pursuer. In that instant he launched himself at her, a human battering-ram, smashing her shoulder and the side of her face with his own. Her instinctive attempt to grab him failed, her grip broken at the sickening sensation as he slammed his knuckles into her nose. Excruciating pain engulfed her whole face and blood poured from both nostrils, streaming over her lips and cascading off her chin.
Turning round she saw Alistair blocking the doorway into the street. When Mair charged at him she watched as her friend swung a heavy wooden lamp at the man’s temple, the cracking contact causing him to stop in his tracks, legs buckling beneath him as if they could no longer bear his weight.
The Hendersons were an organised pair, the sort that not only have a family first-aid box but also know where to find it and how to use it. Alice’s bloodied nose was bathed and anointed by Elizabeth Henderson, while her husband busied himself making a pot of tea. They both recognised the man in the photo. He was the one who had come to their door, only a week earlier, offering to tidy up their oversized, neglected front garden.
‘Did you take him on?’ Alice asked, her voice uncharacteristically nasal.
‘No,’ Elizabeth Henderson replied, putting the hank of lint back into its box, ‘He was a bit odd. The garden is a mess, and we could do with help, but we don’t have the money. I told him that. Then he said he could do DIY work in the house. To be honest, he spooked me a bit.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s hard to say. He was polite, I never felt in danger or anything, but he was so desperate, begging almost, beseeching us. I suggested that he try in Inveresk-there are big houses in that part of the town-but he wasn’t interested, which seemed a bit odd. I thought he wanted to talk, but Ken thought that was fancy on my part…’
An ear-splitting shriek pierced the air and Alice looked round, startled, to find the source of the cry, and saw Davie smiling beatifically at an illuminated lava lamp. Elizabeth Henderson got up and patted his head fondly, and he appeared, momentarily, to catch her eye before returning his attention to his toy.
‘Is he alright?’ Alice asked, shaken, her ears still ringing from the eerie noise. ‘It sounded like he was in pain or terrified of something.’
‘He can’t help it, and I don’t think it means anything. He does it several times a day, sometimes at night too, and we’re just beginning to get used to it…’ the woman replied, handing her a cup of tea. ‘I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time, so did Ken, even though we’d been warned. I thought the boy had been burnt or scalded, hurt in some way, but there he was, smiling sweetly away to himself.’
The kitchen door bumped open and Alastair Watt entered, Donald Mair, now in cuffs, beside him. Both men were breathing noisily and their faces were cherry-red from the exertion of the chase. Mair’s head was bowed and Alice watched as he slowly raised it, took in his surroundings, caught sight of Davie and beamed. When the child, unaware of his uncle’s proximity, let out a little coo of pleasure as a big bubble of red lava erupted upwards, the man’s tender smile broadened. Despite the sweat running down his forehead, the curl of damp hair clinging to his bruised brow and his laboured breath, he appeared happy, as if being with Davie, simply looking at him, was enough for complete contentment.
‘Can I say goodbye to the laddie?’ he asked.
Without speaking, his escort moved towards the child, allowing Mair to accompany him. The prisoner placed his cuffed hands on the boy’s soft curls and twirled the fine, golden hair in his fingers before kissing the crown of his head. Davie’s attention, briefly, left his toy and he gurgled happily again as if aware of a familiar, benign presence at his side.
‘But he doesn’t want a solicitor, Ma’am,’ Alice said to DCI Elaine Bell defensively.
‘He needs one, so get him one anyway. The duty solicitor, please,’ her superior responded.
‘He’s adamant that he won’t have one, Ma’am. I can’t force him. He says he’ll speak to us but he wants nothing to do with “the law”, as he calls them. He knows his rights, and I told him it would be in his interests to have a lawyer in attendance, but he’s unshakeable.’
‘Just get the duty solicitor, Alice. Alright?’
So Alice sat and watched as Mair talked his way into prison, the tape recorder picking up every syllable and every pause, catching every word in order for it to be used against him. His legal representative might have been on Mars for all the attention he paid to her increasingly desperate attempts to protect him from himself. As he spoke it was like witnessing the actual moment when the dam bursts, the instant when the might of all the accumulated water causes the first crack in the massive structure and it forces its way out, splintering and smashing everything in its way.
‘I did do it,’ he began. ‘I killed them and each of them deserved exactly what they got…’ Alice nodded as if she understood, and, encouraged, Mair continued.
‘Teresa’s at rest now. We thought we’d get justice from the courts, but they are not courts of justice-injustice, more like. I know, I was there every day, so I saw it for myself. Teresa was not, WAS NOT, offered a Caesarean section by anyone…’ His voice rose in anger and he looked round as if to ensure that he had everyone’s full attention. Again, Alice nodded sympathetically at him, but she said nothing.
‘I know that. That’s what caused all the trouble, believe me. She was petrified, shit-scared, before Davie was born, she didn’t want to go through it all again, and if she’d known she could have had a section she’d have been at the front of the queue. We’d talked all about it, long before the laddie was born. But that Dr Ferguson said in court, in the actual courtroom, that he’d offered her one and she’d turned it down. Just lies from start to finish, but, of course, it was just her word against his, and you should have seen him, smart suit, smart tie, with the plums fairly falling out of his mouth. He’d even fixed the records, the hospital’s own records. There was no second meeting! When Dr Ferguson said it was supposed to have happened, Teresa, Sammy and the kids were on holiday in Ayr, but Teresa only remembered that once she got home after the trial was over and when she was talking to Granny Annie about it… so that Dr Clarke was lying when she said she’d checked with Ferguson and he’d said he’d offered…’
‘Why?’ Alice asked, ‘Why should Dr Clarke have been lying?’
‘I told you, she must have been lying, because Teresa was not offered a Caesarean section by anyone, I said…’
Alice interrupted. ‘Maybe she was telling the truth. It’s possible that she did ask Dr Ferguson and he, to protect himself, lied to her. She was his boss after all. He wouldn’t want to admit to her that he’d failed in something so important.’
‘Naw,’ he shook his head, ‘they’re all liars. They’re all in it together. Protecting each other, like, protecting the hospital too. And the judge was no better. He believed every word she said. She could have been singing nursery rhymes to him and he would have been happy enough. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, bewitched by her he was, and, make no mistake, she knew it. Smiling at him in her expensive suit and expensive shoes… and poor Teresa could hardly find the money for a new skirt for her own court case. You see, everything went on the kids, and she needed, she really needed that compensation money…’
‘Why did you kill Sammy?’ Alastair asked.
‘Because he deserved it!’ Mair responded immediately and aggressively.
‘Why did he deserve it? We need to know. Tell us, please,’ Alice said, keen to placate him and keep the flow running.
‘Because the wee shite left her to drown when she depended on him. She bloody loved him, too. Sammy was fine when the wean was a baby. Claimed him then, acted the proud dad even, but once things got hard, once the doctors started to say that he wasn’t right, that he would never be right, then Sammy didn’t want to know. Never changed him once, never got up in the night once. When Davie’s screaming began he’d just leave the house… leave it all… leave it all to Teresa. He was a useless cunt but he broke her heart when he left… and he wouldn’t even help her with the court case. She might never have killed herself if he’d stayed. It wasn’t because he’d found out anything… He didn’t know. I checked on that before I killed him.’
‘Found out? Found out what?’ Alice asked, puzzled.
‘That he wasn’t the dad.’
‘Do you know who the dad was?’
‘Of course I know. I was, I am.’
Noting the sergeants exchanging glances, Mair bellowed at them, ‘I know what you’re bloody thinking, but you’re wrong! It wasn’t incest and that’s not why he’s the way he is, it was the birth! I was adopted by Teresa’s parents when I was 10. Okay? You must be sick, the pair of you. I took their name, Mair. We are not blood relations, I’ve got no fucking blood relations. I don’t know how it happened with Teresa, it shouldn’t have, but it did, and just the once, believe it or not. But it was not incest. Davie should have been perfect. You’ve seen him, he would have been, if it wasn’t for those fucking doctors. Teresa and I knew from the moment he was born that he was mine. There’s photos of me as a baby and he was the split. Got the same birthmark even.’
‘How are you so sure that Sammy never knew?’
‘I told you. I made certain. When I saw him, before, like, we had a wee chat, I brought some cans and he was happy to share. I asked him if he fancied having a kid with Shona and he said no, one was enough for him. I said how come he never saw Davie? He said he didn’t care, and never wanted children anyway, didn’t like them. Sammy. He was just a fucking animal. I’d have looked after Davie even if he wasn’t mine. I’d have done it for the wee boy himself and for Teresa…’
‘Why the lawyers? Why were they to blame in all of this? What had David Pearson ever done to you?’ Alastair interrupted.
‘You know perfectly well.’
‘No. No, I don’t.’
‘He and his sidekick got the hospital off, didn’t they? The Infirmary would have had to pay up if it hadn’t been for them. The doctors destroy Teresa and Davie’s lives and walk away scot-free, all thanks to the top QC, Mr Pearson. You should have seen him in action. He fairly laid into Teresa, all oh-so-politely. He got her so confused she wouldn’t have been able to give you the day of the week. Made it sound as if she was lying when she was the only one in the whole fucking building who was telling the truth. “So, Ms Mair,” he says, all hoity-toity, “on a previous occasion you did turn down a Caesarean section?” and she said she had, she never said she hadn’t. But this pregnancy was different, she was so scared. Then he goes on, “But you expect us to believe that this time if you had been offered the same procedure you would have given a completely different answer and gone for the section?” and she said she would have. Because she would have. And all the time he keeps glancing at that Erskine woman, and she smiles back at him, like they’d scored a point in a match or something. I overheard them, the pair of them, talking together, and they were laughing away and do you know why? A video of Davie’s day had just been played in the court, showing his routine if you like, and there he was smiling, like he’s always smiling, only this time at the camera. “His lovely looks will add a couple of noughts to the figure for damages,” the QC says wittily, and his girlfriend laughs. That’s the way they look at things.
The judge wasn’t much better. He got so impatient with Teresa when she was muddled that she panicked. She could hardly speak, she was so nervous, and then when Pearson started to get things all mixed up for her she was nearly in tears. You’d think she was fucking on trial or something. The judge didn’t help her, he just kept saying “Keep your voice up, please, Ms Mair”, as if she could help herself, and “Please answer the questions you’ve been asked”, when she couldn’t understand the fucking question, never mind answer it. I seen him, too, the judge, I mean. I was sitting outside the courtroom at the end of the last day, and there he was, as bold as brass, talking and laughing with Pearson, like they were all dressed up for some kind of game, but now they could relax as the contest was over and the spectators had gone home. A fake wrestling bout or something.
And every day Teresa goes home to Davie and the other kids in that flat and she believes, she still believes, that because she’s told the truth they will get the compensation and they’ll be able to buy a proper house. Like the one she seen in all the experts’ reports, wi’ a garden for Davie, and a ramp, and special equipment too. She believes it! Her baby… our baby… was damaged, through no fault of hers, and all she’s asking for is the means to make his life and the other kids’ lives, better. And if there was any fucking justice that’s what would have happened. But what she didn’t know, what we didn’t know, was that they were all in it together, Dr Clarke, Dr Ferguson, Pearson, Flora Erskine and the judge. All old pals together, on the same side, playing their game to their rules, and Teresa didn’t understand any of it. She believed she’d get the money because she’d told the truth… and she’d made such plans, told the kiddies they’d have a room each, have holidays like other families, get a car… maybe even get some help wi’ Davie. She was so bloody trusting. Then she fucking goes and kills herself…’ Mair broke down in tears and Alice, instinctively, put her arm around his shoulders.
This should not happen, she thought, the boundaries should remain clear, delineated in black and white, not dissolving into shades of grey. This man had taken the lives of four innocent people. Smashed his fist into her face. But the distorted picture of the courtroom drama he had conjured up had been instantly recognisable to her. She, too, had been bamboozled by procedures and formalities, had strained to make sense of that arcane world and prevent its denizens from manipulating her within it. Gruff judicial admonishment had robbed her of the power of thought and of the ability to speak, and an oblique approach in cross-examination had left her unsure of the significance of her own answers, afraid to volunteer anything in case it could be used against her. The camaraderie she had witnessed between opposing Counsel had troubled her, seemed sinister, although it had been explained that they were all hired guns who would as easily, and as willingly, argue the opposite case, having no conviction, however passionate they might seem in court. Alice was familiar with the cosy establishment club in which professionals respect each other and honour their arcane rituals, but view with suspicion those outside it; those like Teresa Mair with no letters after their names and an unashamed fondness for daytime television.
‘What happened on the day Teresa died?’ Alice asked gently.
‘She sent all the kids except Davie off for the day’s school. She kept him back ’cause he gets home early from his special school. She asked her neighbour, Granny Annie, Annie Girvan, to watch him, saying that he’d a wee cold so she’d kept him off, and asking if it’d be okay for her to go up town to do a day’s shopping. Then she went back to the flat and took all the sleeping tablets she’d got. I think she knew I’d find her, ’cause I’d said I’d come to the flat about two. She needed Davie’s bath-sling adjusted and she couldn’t do it herself.
She left a wee note, and you know what it said? Just one word, “Sorry”. Sorry, for fuck’s sake! She should have been the last person in the whole world to say sorry. She had nothing to apologise for. She looked after John Bradley’s kids better than anyone else could have done and they were happy, then Davie came and nothing, nothing was too much trouble for her. She’d be up half the night stroking his head and then get the rest of the kids off and take him to his hospital appointments, with no car or nothing, then do all the washing, cleaning, shopping. She never stopped, and all she was asking for was what she was due. Their future depended on it. If she’d had that section Davie would have been born fine, just another kiddie like the rest of them. Granny Annie even tried to tell that David Pearson man the truth. She’d tried to say that Teresa had told her that she was scared, that she didn’t want another childbirth, but she was shut up completely, and every time she tried to get it out the judge kept saying, “Could you just restrict yourself to the questions that you’ve been asked, Mrs Girvan”.’
‘And the bits of paper… you know, with the writing on them. They’re from the judgement?’ Alice asked.
Mair smiled, pleased to solve the riddle and take the credit.
‘Yes, I wanted everyone to know. I wanted them to know that it was me killing the people involved and why they had to die. The papers connected them all, eh? You got it. I took the words from Theresa’s judgement. I kept the copy she’d been given by her lawyers. That fucker wrote that my sister was “unreliable”, “untrustworthy” and the like, but he got it all wrong. The QC, he was the misleading one, it was Sammy who was worthless. I’d like to have got Dr Ferguson first, because he seemed to really enjoy lying, he was the one that frightened Teresa the most. She couldn’t believe he’d just make up a whole conversation with her, or that he’d alter the hospital records. She was shocked, genuinely shocked, that a professional would behave like that. It had never crossed her mind, before the case came to court, that Dr Ferguson would do that. The lawyers had told her that it would be her word against his, but she thought he’d realise he’d made a mistake, she didn’t think a doctor would just lie about something so important. I don’t know what word I’d have chosen for a cunt like that.’
‘How did you get in to see Dr Clarke in Bankes Crescent?’ Alastair asked.
‘Easy. I knew where she worked and followed her home. I knocked on her door and asked to speak to her about Teresa. She remembered, of course, and I was surprised how simple it was. Guilty conscience, maybe. I don’t know. Anyway, she just let me in…’
‘And Sammy?’
‘No problem. Sammy didn’t know I hated him, I didn’t always. When he lived in Bright Park we used to go out for a pint together occasionally. Like I said, I’d brought along a couple of cans… Next thing I knew I was in, and he was telling me all about his new life with Shona. It was all Shona this and Shona that and how they wanted to move out of Granton. He didn’t give a shit about Teresa or Davie, cut them out of his life like they were disposable…’
‘How did you get to Flora Erskine?’
‘That was a bit more difficult. I had to take a chance with her. I’d followed her from the High Street a few times, so I knew where she lived, and I’d watched her, I knew she lived alone. I’d seen her in court too. I got to know all her movements. Then, on the night I rang the doorbell and she came to the door, I just pushed her in. There was no chain or nothing. One minute I was on the doorstep, the next I was in her hall with her. She was easy anyway, small and frightened. Quite different from how she seemed in court, all puffed up in her black gown and wig. I felt sorry for her, nearly changed my mind, but then I remembered her laughing at Pearson’s fucking jokes about Davie’s good looks and it wasn’t too difficult.
Pearson, now Pearson, he was a challenge. I’d followed him, too, to his old nice house, his lovely house, up near Morningside, and I’d seen his wife and some old woman who kept popping in and out. So I knew that’d be tricky, and then there was his fucking bike too. But I got lucky. I was up at Parliament House late one evening trying to work out what to do about the judge and I saw someone come out and recognised him: David Pearson QC, no less and he started walking home. His bike was fucked, I think. I had the knife on me, nowhere safe to leave it, in the pocket of my parka. I think God was on my side, really. It started pelting down, bucketing, so hard it was difficult to see. It was my chance and I took it. No one else seemed to be about in the Meadows, so I killed him there and then. Used a ciggy packet for the word, the only paper I had. The blood went everywhere but the rain helped a lot, and no-one would look twice in weather like that at a soaking man in an old parka. Didn’t seem to be anybody about anyway, and my car, by chance, was really close. In Chambers Street, just down from the Meadows…’
‘All those people killed for Teresa and Davie,’ Alastair said, thinking out loud.
‘No,’ Mair corrected him, ‘not just for them, although that would have been enough. For all the other Davies too, and their mums. It was someone’s fault that Teresa killed herself, and someone’s fault that Davie was born damaged, but no one would have paid. Well, now they have, and Clarke, Pearson and Erskine won’t be able to bugger up anyone else’s life and Sammy won’t let any other woman down. I’m only sorry I couldn’t finish the job, get the judge and that liar. That would have been justice, but this time played by my rules.’
Though he continued speaking for a further ten minutes, Donald Mair said nothing new but returned, time after time, to the injustice done to his sister. It was his obsession and his torment, and it had transformed an ordinary, kind man into some sort of pitiless avenging angel.
With the job done, exhaustion set in, leaving Alice on the edge of tears. The pain in her nose had returned with a vengeance, and she felt dirty and dishevelled, in need of fresh air. She collected her coat from its hook, listening, as she did so, to the sounds of hearty laughter coming from the murder suite, all tension now spent and a trip to the pub imminent. But she had no stomach for celebration.
She left the car near the Palace of Holyrood and walked slowly, with Quill at her heels, towards the ruins of St Anthony’s Chapel. She followed the eastern path to Dunsappie Loch and then climbed more steeply to Salisbury Crags. By the time she reached the cleft at Cat’s Nick, dusk had fallen and the cold light of the full moon had turned the rock crimson, deepening the shadows between the columns and silvering her route. Gentle rain began to fall, but she persevered, undeterred, until her feet were on the summit of Arthur’s Seat, and only then, breathless, did she allow herself a rest. Her bodily aches and pains had not silenced the insistent voices in her head, demanding an answer. How could Mair have seen so much and yet so little? How could such a man have killed so many people? She had no answer.
Alice looked down onto the myriad lights of the city twinkling benignly below her, and watched as a single, flashing blue one moved slowly and inexorably in her direction.