Thursday
As Alice Rice walked into the hallway of the flat in Bruntsfield Place the next morning, she noticed droplets of fresh blood on the light grey carpet, and on the kitchen floor, a trail of tiny red splashes led to the sink. Mrs Brodie herself appeared quite at home in her sister’s flat, either unaware of the spatters of blood or unconcerned by them. She sat with her legs crossed, dressed in a towelling robe, her wet hair clinging to her unmade-up face, the magazine that she had been reading open on the table before her. In one hand she clutched a wad of paper hankies as if she might, at some stage, need to stem the flow of tears, but her eyes were not red-rimmed, and when she began speaking her voice sounded normal, unaffected by emotion.
Leaning over to get her cup of tea from the nearby kitchen unit, she inadvertently, knocked over one of the countless plastic containers that littered every available surface in the room. Rows of yoghurt pots lined the windowsills too, most of them empty, a few containing a single, parched, yellowing seedling.
‘One of Pippa’s many hobbies,’ she said, almost apologetically, picking up the container and adding, ‘my sister, Pippa Mitchelson. This is her flat. I’m staying with her.’
Glancing at the spilt soil on the lino, Alice noticed a red pool below the woman’s bare foot, and watched as two dark streams of blood trickled down her ankle and dripped off onto the floor. The other leg, too, appeared to have countless little nicks on it. As she puzzled whether she should say something and, if so, what, Heather Brodie caught her eye. Seeing her uneasy expression she looked down at her legs and said, reassuringly, ‘Oh, don’t worry, sergeant, I’ve come prepared.’ She began to dab her legs with a couple of the hankies, adding, ‘I ran out of cream. I was shaving them when you rang the doorbell, so I finished the job in a hurry, botched it and ended up in a bloodbath. You know how it is…’
Alice nodded, and waited until the woman had staunched the blood before saying, ‘Mrs Brodie, we’re still trying to work out everyone’s movements on the Saturday night, trying to prepare an exact timetable. So we need to know a little more from you. You said that you left India Street at about 6 pm?’
‘Yeah,’ the woman replied, concentrating on the cuts, depositing a heavily blood-soaked paper hankie onto the kitchen table and bending to hold another in place.
‘Why isn’t it Tom finding out these things? Mr Riddell, he’s the one who was allocated to us. I thought he was supposed to deal with me, to liaise with us,’ she said, adding, slightly querulously, ‘we’ve got to know him, too. He’s a friend.’
‘He’s busy at the moment, I’m afraid,’ Alice said. ‘If you could just remind me where you went that evening?’
‘To Pippa’s, my sister’s. Well, not here to her flat, but out with her. We’d planned to spend the evening out together, like I told you.’
‘So where did the pair of you go?’
‘Em… to the shops, window shopping, in the St James Centre. Next, John Lewis – those sorts of places – then we had supper together.’
‘Where did you eat?’
‘The Norseman on Lothian Road – smoresbrod or whatever it is called. Great thick slices of over-priced bread. She likes it, but we hadn’t booked it or anything.’
‘And then?’
A caterwauling of faint, breathless miaows started up, and Alice watched as a long-haired tortoiseshell cat slunk through the door, weaving its way towards Heather Brodie and winding itself between her legs, its fluffy tail waving snakelike behind it.
‘Who’s this?’ the policewoman asked.
‘Fanta, Pippa’s companion. She’s come to see her kittens. She’s a rescue cat, used to be called ‘Cade’, as in ‘Cavalcade’, but that was meaningless, so Pippa changed her name. The new one fits her better, I think, but she doesn’t come when called.’
‘Where are the kittens?’
‘In that corner, up on the unit, behind the microwave. They were born there, two pure white and one black. I’m getting one of the white ones.’
Restraining herself from getting up and going to see them, giving them a stroke even, Alice watched as the cat leapt up and disappeared behind the microwave, contented purring soon replacing the anguished high-pitched mews. With luck she would see them on the way out.
‘After the Norseman, where did you go?’
‘Further down the same road, to the theatre, to see A Woman of No Importance.’
‘Who was in it – taking the leading roles?’
Looking for the first time slightly vexed, as if the question was pointless, she replied, ‘Since you ask, it had Martin Jarvis in it. That’s why I wanted to see it.’
‘You’re a fan of his? Was he good?’
‘Yes, I like him. I think he’s a superb actor and he was wonderful as Lord Illingworth.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then,’ she said slowly, her voice tailing off as if she was re-living the moment in her head, ‘then I walked home on my own. It took a while, you’ll appreciate. I didn’t look at my watch, but I’d have got back at about eleven or maybe half past, I think.’
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Brodie. You said, last time, that you’d planned to spend the night with your sister but you changed your mind. Why, what made you change your mind?’
‘Oh,’ Heather Brodie said, standing up and tossing the blood-stained collection of hankies in the bin, ‘who knows? I can’t really remember. A voice in my head told me to go home and, for once, I listened to it, obeyed it. That’s the best I can do.’
A young woman entered the kitchen with a toddler balanced on her hip, and, as they arrived, the child opened her eyes, rubbed them and said in a sleepy voice, ‘Aunty Pippa – where’s Aunty Pippa?’
‘No,’ said Heather Brodie, opening her arms wide to receive the child, ‘there’s only Granny here today, Katy, I’m afraid.’
‘Mum!’ her daughter said in mock reproach, lifting the child and trying unsuccessfully to pass her into the outstretched arms. But the little girl clung onto her mother more tightly, turning her head away from her grandmother.
‘Well, it’s true, darling,’ Mrs Brodie answered, frowning. ‘We both know she prefers her aunt.’
‘Only because she has more to do with her. She sees her nearly every afternoon when I’m at Uni. Sometimes I think Katy prefers her to me, she cries when it’s time to come home with me. But I don’t take it amiss… do I?’ She lowered the toddler onto the ground and then went over to her mother and kissed her.
‘Is Harry coming?’
‘Yes. He’s just parking the car.’
‘So, sergeant,’ said Heather Brodie, turning her attention back to the policewoman, ‘here they are. I gather you’d like to talk to them too?’
As she was speaking, Harry Brodie slouched into the kitchen. He was wearing a dark blue hoodie and carrying a copy of The Hungry Caterpillar. When he saw the child, he immediately went towards her, smiling broadly, and put the book on her lap.
‘Harry, darling…’ His mother got up to kiss the boy.
‘Mother,’ he replied coldly, accepting the kiss but making no attempt to return it. He then deliberately avoided meeting her gaze, concentrating his attention exclusively on the others, as if snubbing her.
‘No kiss for me?’ she said good naturedly, offering him her cheek.
‘Yes. No kiss for you,’ he spat back, now looking her straight in the eye, ignoring the presence of a stranger. The woman paled but said nothing.
‘I would like to talk to them,’ Alice said, resuming their previous conversation, ‘but separately from you and from each other, please. But I’ve a few more things to clear up with you first.’
‘Very well,’ Heather Brodie replied, signalling to her children that they should leave the room. They chattered to each other as they went out, with the child stumbling after them.
‘Boys!’ she said, as if to explain her son’s behaviour.
‘Could you tell me a little about your husband. For example, could he take his own medication, measure it out, lift the bottle and so on?’ Alice asked.
‘I always gave it to him,’ Heather Brodie replied, sitting down and pulling the loose sides of her robe together.
‘No one else? The children, his mother?’
‘My mother-in-law? You must be joking. She found it “too distressing” to have anything much to do with him. For which read “Too busy”. She had far better things to do with her time – bridge, NADFAS, the Conservatives.’
‘Could he have taken it himself?’
‘He could lift things sometimes, but things got spilt.’
‘So he could have taken his own medicine?’
‘Yes, certainly – drunk it from the bottle, say, but not measured it out or anything like that. Why?’
‘We need to get an impression of… of his abilities shortly before he died. Did he know what was in his medicine bottles, what they contained?’
‘He must have done. He was given the stuff in them every day, more than once a day.’
‘One other thing. Did your husband ever attend a day centre?’
‘A few times. He had to,’ Heather Brodie said, sounding defensive, ‘but only if everything else had failed. I did need some time to myself, just occasionally, anyone would have. He was getting worse, you know.’
‘Which one did he go to?’
‘The one in Stockbridge, on Raeburn Place. Frankly, it was a pretty good hell-hole, but it served its purpose.’
‘Finally, Mrs Brodie, and I’m sorry to ask, but did he ever express a wish to die? Did he want to die?’
‘Yes,’ she replied quietly, ‘he wanted to die. He spoke about little else, but after a while I stopped listening.’
Several times while she was talking to the policewoman, Ella Brodie’s fair hair fell across her eyes, but each time she flicked it away again with a languid toss of her head, a few loose strands always remaining. Seated on the sofa, she was trying not only to answer the questions put to her but also to keep her fractious child content, holding up framed photos of another toddler and showing them to her.
‘Is that Katy?’ Alice asked, looking first at the image and then at the little girl.
‘No, me. They’re all of me. We look identical at the same age.’
‘Is that one not Harry?’ Alice asked, pointing to one of a child with short hair, sticking out its tongue and brandishing a bow and arrow at the photographer.
‘Nope. None of them are, I’m afraid. I’m Aunty’s favourite, you see. But it evens out. Granny adores Harry.’
‘Well, down to business, I suppose,’ Alice said, getting out her notebook. ‘Where were you last Saturday night?’
‘On the Saturday night I was with Harry in his flat. We went to Smith’s first, then home. All night,’ she said, slightly petulantly. ‘I stayed the night there – as I’ve already told Mr Riddell more than once.’
Forgetting that he was supposed to wait until his sister’s interview had finished, her brother wandered into the room, his eyes fixed on the screen of his DS. Ella shook her head, exasperated at his absentmindedness. Catching sight of her, he said, irritably, ‘What?’
‘You were supposed to wait, dimwit, remember?’
‘Whatever,’ he replied, making no attempt to move from the armchair where he had sat down.
‘Where were you on the Sunday night, Harry?’ Alice asked.
‘Pub, then home,’ he replied, never looking up, his thumbs continuing to move feverishly over the controls on his little black box.
‘All night?’
‘Yeah. With her.’
‘Could either of you tell me,’ Alice asked, ‘whether your father would be able to take his own medicine from the bottle? Was he capable of lifting the stuff to his lips and drinking it?’
‘Nah…’ the boy replied, ‘he’d drop it or something.’
‘Yes, probably not,’ his sister confirmed, now opening a glossy magazine and showing it to her silent but fidgety child. ‘As Harry says, he’d drop it or miss his lips or something.’
‘Who usually gave him his medicine?’
‘Mum. It was always Mum,’ Ella Brodie replied, the boy remaining silent, apparently unaware in his absorption in his Nintendo that a further question had been asked.
Following Heather Brodie out of the kitchen, Alice walked towards the front door, and as she stepped over a new patch of blood-soaked carpet their eyes met. ‘Fanta,’ the woman said, a little smile playing on her lips, ‘it’s Fanta this time. Looks like she killed Cock Robin. She did it, detective, she’s the guilty party, I can assure you. Look, you can still see a few feathers… oh, and a leg.’
As Alice was returning to her car, trying to digest the information she had received, her phone went.
‘How did you get on with the widow?’ It was Eric Manson’s voice.
‘Fine. She was easy, talkative, seemed to say much what she had said before,’ she replied, searching in her pocket for her car key.
‘And the kids?’
‘They said exactly what Thomas said they would say, nothing new. They don’t think their father could have taken the stuff.’
‘Are you coming back now, then? I’m just off to see the old woman Brodie, somewhere in the wilds of East Lothian. You might even know the place. I could wait for you, pet.’ He sounded as if he wanted the company.
‘I’d planned to speak to Heather Brodie’s sister, Sir. I imagine she’ll say the same as before, but I think I’d better double-check it. She’s a part-time reception teacher at Hamilton Stewarts, over Cramond way.’
‘OK. Fine. See you back in the office in a couple of hours.’
Alice turned the car into the winding drive of the private school, and every so often its shock-absorbers squeaked in protest as they rocked over the sleeping policemen which broke the otherwise flawless surface. The car park seemed to be the exclusive preserve of shiny black SUVs with tinted windows, BMWs and Range Rovers, and the small police vehicle seemed like an unloved interloper amongst them, further marked out by its caked-on dirt and missing hub cap.
Following signs to the junior school across an immaculate gravelled area, Alice reached a pair of double doors guarded by a security lock. She searched in vain for a bell or an intercom, and just as her patience was running out, a heavily pregnant woman smiled indulgently at her as if she was a forgetful fellow-mum, punched in the code and allowed her to follow her in.
Inside was a large, glass-roofed atrium with classrooms leading off it on all four sides. In one corner, an anxious-looking schoolmistress stood poised over a CD player, and arranged around the walls were rows of empty chairs, as if awaiting the audience for a performance.
As the strains of ‘Colonel Bogie’ started up, Alice made for the nearest seat and suddenly pairs of children filed in, hands clasped and raised high for the Grand March. Within a couple of minutes a reel had begun, and through her feet she could feel the wooden floor begin to vibrate as fifty or more little children bounced up and down on it, the tartan sashes over their shoulders loosening and flapping free. Among them, like giants, moved members of staff. The tallest of these bore a strong resemblance to Heather Brodie – a paler, subdued version of her, like a poor prototype for the more glamorous younger sister.
When first spotted by Alice, the woman was dancing a Dashing White Sergeant, and dangling from the tips of her thin fingers were her partners, both little girls, neither of whom reached much above her bony knees. Her head was held erect, gaze directed straight ahead, and the footwork of her pas de basques was impeccable, high-stepping in time to the beat. She appeared determined to ignore the fact that all around her the children were skidding and spinning, not dancing, little boys and girls colliding, bouncing off each other, then falling in dizzy heaps to the floor and giggling.
As her threesome drew parallel to another, a schoolmaster with his own diminutive partners now jigging opposite her, she flashed him a token smile and then her mouth resumed its tight, trap-like set. After a further pairing, she looked short-sightedly around the hall, and when she saw Alice she bestowed on her a discreet nod of acknowledgement.
The sound of the final chord was the cue for her to disentangle herself from her tiny partners, one of them continuing to pirouette alone. The teacher set off resolutely towards the policewoman, and on reaching her extended her over-large hand and said, in a thin, quavery voice, ‘I’m Miss Michelson. The Head told me that you needed to speak to me, I assume it’s about poor Gavin’s murder. Sorry to have kept you waiting, we’re practising for a country-dance festival in Perth tomorrow.’
Then she sat down, legs to one side, ankles clamped together and hands folded in her lap. Alice followed the sequence of questions that she had asked earlier, and listened intently to the schoolmistress’s answers as she recounted the evening’s events. As she spoke, all the while she clasped and then unclasped her fingers. And the responses she gave accorded with those given by Heather Brodie in almost every detail, providing perfect corroboration of her account. She named precisely the same shops, precisely the same eating-place, dropping in precisely the same asides as she did so.
While she was in mid-flow, a little girl with anxious, wide saucer-eyes plumped herself down on the seat next to Alice’s, swinging her legs to and fro, then leant over towards her and said, ‘Guess what?’
‘What?’ Alice whispered, distracted by the child.
‘Boys’ poo is gold. It’s gold – they do gold poo.’
‘Really? How d’you know?’
‘Rhuari told me. He said I could buy…’
‘Helena!’ Miss Michelson said, interrupting the girl and tapping her gently on the knee with her left hand. ‘Off you go. It’s playtime now and I need to speak to this lady.’
Instantly, and apparently taking no offence at her peremptory dismissal, Helena slid from her seat and ran off to join a crowd of children who were milling around a tea trolley, chattering and jostling while they waited for their piece of cake.
‘They’re all obsessed,’ the schoolmistress said fondly, shaking her head, her eyes continuing to follow the girl.
‘After The Norseman?’ Alice asked, nudging her onwards, reminding her where she had got up to in the story.
‘After that…’ the woman replied, her washed-out blue eyes finally moving from the child and onto Alice’s face, ‘we went to the theatre to see A Woman of No Importance. It had Martin Jarvis in it. We both love him. We had no booking at The Norseman so we took pot luck.’
‘Really?’ Alice said, thinking to herself how unconvincing it all was. The sisters’ versions tallied unnaturally well, the very expressions they used were identical. Everything matched, and all just too closely. They sounded more like echoes of one another than two independent voices, and that effect could not have not been achieved by accident or coincidence, but as a result of planning. They had conferred together, exchanging and agreeing all the details. Something was going on.
‘What,’ Alice began, conscious as she asked the question that it might push this highly-strung woman beyond her limits, is A Woman of No Importance about?’
A new-born baby rabbit finding itself staring into the eyes of a stoat could not have looked more petrified. But Miss Mitchelson drew on her reserves, managed to control herself and said, in a cracked voice, ‘You know… I simply cannot remember. I slept through large chunks of it. I haven’t been sleeping well lately for some reason. Martin Jarvis took the part of Lord Illingworth, I know that much. Otherwise it’s completely slipped my mind. Perhaps, thinking about it, the trauma of Gavin’s death… has blanked it out, somehow. But Heather could tell you, I’m sure of that. You could always ask her, if you really need to know.’
The theatre’s website was of little use, as the play’s run had come to an end, so Alice, deciding to try her luck with a human being, phoned the theatre instead. When the receptionist answered the call she was still trying to get her head around number nine of the ‘Ten Ways To Titillate Your Lover’ in her magazine. It must surely be for Olympic athletes only, she thought, turning the page upside-down in wonderment. Finally wresting her attention away from the article, she answered her caller, parroting, ‘Martin Jarvis, on Saturday?’
‘Yes, he was in a starring role in your recent production of A Woman of No Importance, is that right?’
‘Martin Jarvis was in A Woman of No Importance?’
‘Yes, was he? On Saturday last?’
‘Sorry, I’m temporary here,’ she replied, then, turning away from the receiver, shouted, ‘What you sayin’? He what?’ In the background, Alice could just make out the voice of a man bellowing at the receptionist.
Her voice returned. ‘He was, but he got sick, like, so for the last few performances it was his understudy. What’s that?’ she bawled at her colleague before returning to the line. ‘Simon,’ she said, ‘Simon… something or other took over for him.’
‘On the Saturday, for the Saturday performances?’
‘Yer. Yer. On the last performance on the Friday and all Saturday.’
‘Are you certain about that? someone told me he was playing the part last Saturday.’
‘We certain?’ the receptionist shouted to her informant, and after a short pause she came back and continued, ‘He wasn’t even in Edinburgh on the Saturday. He’d gone home.’
Dusk was beginning to fall as Detective Inspector Manson drove down Haddington’s High Street, drawing furiously on his cigar, inhaling and re-inhaling its smoke endlessly, his car windows sealed against the cold. Chains of sparkling Christmas lights were hung between the elegant Georgian buildings on either side of the street, lighting it and the people below as they scurried from shop to shop, parcel-laden, racing against closing time. Just as he passed the Victorian statue of a rampant goat, he was forced to swerve in order to dodge a mud-spattered Land Rover, which, accustomed to the local car etiquette, had reversed from its parking place into the main thoroughfare as if it had right of way.
‘I’ll get you later, you fucker,’ shouted Manson, his words lost behind the glass.
Hand still pressed hard on his horn, he turned right into the Sidegate, past the entrance to St Marys, heading south across the Tyne on the Waterloo Bridge and then hugging the Lennoxlove Wall for a mile or two. To his jaded eyes, the countryside before him looked dead, bare-leaved and black-earthed, no crops yet through with their promise of life to come. The vast expanse of East Lothian sky was tinged with crimson from the sun’s dying rays, and, suddenly and unexpectedly, he felt unutterably miserable, intimidated by the oppressive, unnatural silence, and made desolate by the empty, alien landscape. He speeded up on the deserted road, determined to finish his task as quickly as possible and return to the city with its bright lights, its warmth and its people. Return to Margaret.
As he passed the turn-off to Samuelston, a pheasant dashed out of the verge, straight under his wheels. Immediately he jammed on his brakes, trying to avoid it, but he heard, and felt, the thump as he hit it square on. A few stray feathers floated upwards, one brushing his windscreen. In his rear-view mirror he watched the wounded bird, lying in the middle of the road, a single wing flapping piteously, its body getting smaller all the time. He knew he could not go back to finish it off. It would die soon anyway, he told himself. The next person’s wheels would have to do the deed for him. Correction. For it.
For over a minute Manson stood outside the front door of the old manse, summoning up all his strength, all his energy, preparing to knock and begin the wearisome business of interrogation once more. But it was no good, his mind remained constantly plagued by uninvited thoughts, the host of jagged fears which now ran amok in it. And all the while, his eyes roamed over the moonlit garden, taking in the two herbaceous borders, trimmed evenly for the winter, and the perfectly circular pond set between them, its margin now fringed with ice. Beyond lay an avenue of pollarded Whitebeams leading to a rose bed, the plants there throwing their sharp shadows onto the hard ground. A drystane dyke, with not a stone out of place, marked the boundary of the garden, and in the distance lay the pale undulations of the Lammermuir Hills, their gentle curves sculpted by the passage of time.
This old woman must have some staff, gardeners in abundance, to keep the place up so well, he decided, pulling himself up to his full height in preparation for meeting a County lady and, in all likelihood, a bit of a Grand Dame.
Just as he raised his hand to knock, a Honda Civic crawled up the short driveway and drew to a halt behind his own car. Inside it, three immaculately-clad old ladies began to unbend their stiff limbs to begin the long process of disembarking from the vehicle, one of them, apparently, fankled up with her own stick. The driver, the fittest, was the first to get her swollen feet onto the ground, and with her head now down, handbag swinging on her wrist, she made unsteadily for the door. The policeman stood to one side, allowing her unimpeded access to the porch. Once there, and seemingly oblivious to the man’s presence, she proceeded to ring the doorbell. Having done so, she bestowed a gracious smile on him while pulling the ends of her coat collar close together against the cold air.
When Erica Brodie opened the front door her eyes lit immediately on her friend. She said, excitedly, ‘Well done, Beatrice! In you come. I’ve got the tea on. Did you manage to pick up Honor and Marigold as we discussed?’
‘Of course,’ Beatrice replied, starting to remove one arm of her dark-blue husky jacket and edging towards a row of coat hooks in the outer hall.
Having seen to Beatrice, Mrs Brodie noticed the stranger standing to the side of the doorway and said, sounding slightly irritated, ‘I am sorry, I didn’t notice you there. Can I help you?’
‘Well, I’d like to speak to you…’ the inspector began, but was cut short in imperious tones.
‘Could you possibly come back tomorrow? We’re just about to play a four at Bridge…’
As she was still speaking, the two remaining elderly ladies shuffled past Manson, beaming at him benignly as they did so, and starting to ease off their jackets with arthritic fingers.
‘No,’ Eric Manson answered, more forcefully than he had intended, but feeling the need to regain control of the situation. This was a police matter after all, it had priority over any social engagement.
‘No? No?’ Mrs Brodie repeated coldly, taken aback by the man’s persistence. Whatever charity he was collecting for had just lost its donation. Unless it was the lifeboats, then she would just have to grit her teeth and pay up. Those brave men battling the waves in their sou’westers deserved every penny they got.
‘I’m sorry,’ the man tried again, ‘I should have told you immediately. I’m from Lothian & Borders Police, and I need to speak to you now. It’s about your son, Gavin Brodie. We need to find…’
He stopped speaking, noticing a trio of powdery faces clustered behind the woman’s shoulder like benevolent barn owls, each fixing him with unblinking, curious eyes, nodding, eager for him to continue.
Sensing their presence behind her, Erica Brodie turned to face her bridge partners and said, with distinct testiness, ‘Beatrice, perhaps you could show Honor and Marigold to the drawing room, and then close the door. I’ve laid the tea things out and the fire is lit. Just help yourselves. I need to speak to… er… this gentleman, on a private matter.’
Obediently the old ladies turned away. To the sound of a stick clacking on bare floorboards, they began their stately progress down a narrow corridor as directed.
‘What about Gavin?’ Erica Brodie asked, her brows furrowed and her gnarled thumbs flicking in and out of her clenched fists.
‘It might be better if I could talk to you inside, in the warmth, where there’s a seat for you. This may take a little time,’ Eric Manson said firmly, conscious of her great age, moving towards the woman as if to follow her inside. But she remained immobile, blocking the doorway, so that their bodies came closer together than either would have chosen. Manson leant back on his heels slightly and Erica Brodie began to speak.
‘No, thank you. I would prefer that things remained private. Marigold will eavesdrop if she possibly can, and my legs are quite steady, I can assure you.’
So he questioned her where they stood, his exhaled breath snowy white in the cold, marvelling as she spoke at her composure. Occasionally the slightest change in her voice betrayed her distress, together with the incessant movement of her thumbs, and when once, instinctively, he moved towards her again, arm outstretched to comfort her, she responded by backing away from him, as if his touch might weaken her.
‘So, you think it unlikely that he could take his medicine without help?’ he continued.
‘Very unlikely,’ she replied in her plummy voice. ‘In fact, I’d go so far as to say completely impossible. He could do almost nothing for himself… just like his father before him.’ She added, in a tired tone, ‘Is that it?’
‘Almost. I’m sorry to ask you – but did your son want to die?’
‘Of course he did. Just as I do. Now, is that it?’
‘Yes,’ he said, impressed by her fortitude, recognising someone of the old school and finding himself strangely touched by her. She was like a little, fluffed-up robin redbreast, bold and unafraid, prepared to take on anyone within her own territory.
She turned to go in, but then stopped and asked him, ‘And Heather, the “grieving” widow – how is she coping?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he answered truthfully, surprised by her new, unmistakeably sarcastic tone.
‘Well, I’m sure everyone’s rallied round. Particularly her new man.’
‘Her new man?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘How do you mean, her new man? Who is her new man?’
‘I don’t know his name, or his address. Still, I’m doing better than you chaps. At least I’m aware of his existence.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I thought,’ she replied serenely, ‘that you might want to know.’
‘How do you know about him? Have you seen them together, or did she tell you about it or what?’
‘It is not, Inspector,’ the woman said, with a look of exaggerated disbelief, ‘the sort of thing my daughter-in-law would be likely to tell me, now is it? Nor have I caught her with the other man.’
‘So, then, how do you know?’
‘Because, antediluvian remnant that I am, I still have all my senses. In the last few months her hair has miraculously turned back from grey to auburn, she’s wearing new clothes, the bathroom is filled with different potions, scents, lotions. If she had a scarlet letter ‘A’ for adulteress tattooed on her cheek it couldn’t have been much clearer…’ she hesitated, ‘to a woman.’
‘So you’re sure, quite sure, about this new man?’ Manson asked numbly, apparently still talking about Heather Brodie, but in his mind, in fact, drifting back to Margaret. Talking about Margaret. If this old woman had any doubts about her daughter-in-law, could even change her mind, then he would be alright. They would be alright. He and Margaret.
‘Absolutely. I’m not in the habit of spreading false rumours – even about Heather,’ she replied bitterly, limping through her front door and thereby informing her uninvited caller that he was dismissed.
Chugging back to the office along the old A1, Manson turned the wipers off, their noisy swishing too intrusive and distracting for him to bear. Then the undimmed headlights of an approaching car caught the raindrops on his windscreen, nearly blinding him, and he hastily switched them back on again.
In his dark mood, the village of Tranent seemed like the end of the earth, metal shutters barricading its tawdry shops, dirty water stagnant in its gutters and the only pedestrians about being drunks, shambling from doorway to doorway on its sodden, litter-strewn pavements. The place was no more than a fucking midden, he said to himself, as he accelerated along its main street, ignoring the speed limit and swinging wildly round a bend in his haste to leave.
The ‘Honest Toun’ appeared little better, the firth beyond Fisherrow not sparkling as it sometimes did, but looking like thick brown soup under a grey, lifeless sky. The two solid colours merged on the horizon. Even the bungalows lining the Milton Road seemed squat and misshapen. And now, thanks to Heather Brodie and her shenanigans, he would get home later than ever. The woman would have to be challenged by him, in person, in her den – well, her sister’s den. He would have to be the one to confront her with the old woman’s suspicions. Not a hint of any affair from Thomas Riddell, of course – the inefficient git! And it was exactly the sort of thing he should have been burrowing about to discover. What else was he for?
Out of habit, he lit another cigar, but after the first drag he felt slightly sick, persevering only in order to calm his frayed nerves, comforted by its familiar orange glow in the darkness. As he reached the traffic lights by the King’s Theatre he rolled down his window and chucked the stub out, the ashtray inside already overflowing with his dog ends.
Sitting at her dining room table, Pippa Mitchelson felt distinctly uneasy as she began to wrap a pink teddy bear in Christmas paper, the prickly feeling at the back of her neck telling her that every movement was under the unblinking scrutiny of the morose man seated opposite her. All her attempts to engage him in conversation had failed, and now, with every second that passed, she felt more awkward and anxious, intimidated by his fixed gaze and silent, oppressive presence. Realising that if she wrote on the gift tag she would have to use her spectacles, she dithered, unwilling to put them on in front of him. Maybe she should just wait until he had gone before she put pen to paper? And soon, please God, Heather would return and the man’s attention would shift away from her and on to her sister. That was who he had come to see, after all, that was what he had said. So it must be true.
Self-consciously, and with shaking fingers, she tied a bow in the red ribbon round the present and then peered, short-sightedly, about the table in search of the kitchen scissors to snip its end off. They were out of her reach, and the paper would unwrap itself if she let go of it, so, momentarily, she stopped as she tried to figure out what to do next. While she was still thinking, the policeman wordlessly handed the pair to her as if he had read her mind. And this confirmation that she was being watched, observed by him, made her yet more uneasy, so that when, after a brief silence, the next track of Rutter’s carols started up she almost jumped in the air with fright.
The song, ‘Shepherd’s Pipe’ was one of which she was particularly fond, but hearing it now as if through this stranger’s ears, this worldly if not actually world-weary man, it suddenly sounded unbearably sentimental, stickily twee. She felt an overpowering urge to turn it off, but could not summon the courage to make such a decisive move. Instead, she sat through it, increasingly embarrassed by its sweetness, offering another prayer that Heather would appear soon and remove this unwanted limelight from her.
Eric Manson, his mind freewheeling for once, found himself oddly moved by the sight of the childless spinster, spending her time wrapping presents for other people’s offspring. A crib, with cotton-wool snow on the roof of the stable and a plastic baby Jesus in the manger, had been placed on the sideboard, and beside it a Christmas tree stood with white tinsel and fairy lights wound around its evergreen branches. All arranged, no doubt, by those trembling, oversized hands, and for her own lonely pleasure.
Glancing surreptitiously at the woman’s face, he was struck by her quiet dignity, her resolve in going on with her life as if everything was normal, as if everything remained the same when, in fact, chaos had begun to encroach, its cold waters now lapping around her feet. Listening to the music, he wondered what it could be, it was pretty and melodic for sure. Perhaps he would manage to get a glimpse of the cover before he left. Buy a copy of the CD and put it in Margaret’s stocking. Margaret… but before he became lost in thoughts of his wife once more, the telephone rang and the shy schoolteacher rose to answer it.
‘So you’re stuck,’ he heard her say, her voice sounding strained. ‘Don’t worry, love. Yes, I’ll pick you up. At Waverly in two hours. Yes, I’ll be there.’
Putting down the receiver, she turned to him and said wearily; ‘That was Heather. She missed the train she was supposed to catch. So she’ll not be back for another couple of hours, I’m afraid. I have to go out myself in about fifteen minutes. I’m babysitting for Ella while she goes to her art class, and I can’t let her down. Probably best that you come back tomorrow morning?’
Elaine Bell, feeling tense after an afternoon preparing for her appraisal meeting with the Super, strolled into the murder suite. Her labours had renewed her sense of the enormity of the injustice the man was trying to commit, to perpetrate against her. Her record was exemplary, all her appraisals bar his proved it, she deserved the promotion, and if she had to go into battle to achieve her due then she bloody well would. Bring it on. The sooner the better.
‘So, Alice, how did it go?’
The sergeant looked up as the DCI came in and pushed her report to one side, accidentally knocking an all but empty coke can to the floor.
‘Very interesting. I learnt a lot. For one thing…’
At that moment Eric Manson returned, bringing with him the stench of stale cigar smoke, and came over to join them. Seeing the can rolling around the floor he said, petulantly, ‘That was mine.’
‘It’s empty,’ Alice replied.
‘Not quite.’
‘Never mind that,’ Elaine Bell said irritably, moving quickly away from her Inspector, overpowered by the miasma clinging to him. ‘How have you both got on?’
‘Mrs Brodie doesn’t think that her son was capable of taking the stuff herself. So he must have been given it, fed it or whatever,’ Eric Manson said, his arms now tightly crossed against his chest.
‘And young Mrs Brodie, Heather Brodie. What did she say? She should really be the one to know, I suppose? She tended to him, saw him every day after all.’
‘Yes, and she thinks he could have done it by glugging it straight from the bottle. The children don’t, though, but apparently she was the one to give it to him. Not them or old Mrs Brodie. She said that he wanted to die… he told them so every day.’
‘Good. That may be our answer then, if there was enough in the bottles, that he took it himself for some reason. Knowingly or unknowingly. Anything else, Eric?’
‘Aha. The old woman thinks that her daughter-in-law is carrying on with someone. She doesn’t know who, but she’s adamant that the bitch is having an affair.’
‘The “bitch”?’ Elaine Bell said, her surprised tone allowing the inspector to reconsider his choice of words.
‘Mrs Brodie. Heather Brodie.’
‘Maybe that explains it, then,’ Alice said slowly, thinking out loud, ‘what’s going on. Because Heather Brodie’s been lying to us, got her sister to cover for her too. She wasn’t at the theatre on Saturday evening. The actor she claimed to have seen, Martin Jarvis, wasn’t performing on the night she supposedly saw the play. And she was a great fan of his, she told me, so I don’t think she can put it down to some sort of mistaken identity. Perhaps she was with this man or something. Maybe that’s why she was lying.’
‘She’s been lying? Bloody Hell, the stupid, stupid cow! Do we know who he is, yet?’ Elaine Bell demanded.
Eric Manson shook his head. ‘I went there this evening, to Pippa Mitchelson’s house, to ask her, find out who he is, but she’s stuck in Perth. Won’t be back until after ten.’
‘Well, we’ll have to find out what she was actually doing and who she was with. Neither of you have seen Una Reid again, eh? She might be able to help us out. She’ll have seen Heather Brodie and the rest of them at close quarters… unguarded. She’ll know if the woman was up to something and, quite probably, who with too. And, Eric, I don’t want Mrs Brodie to know that we’re interested in her. Not yet.’ She paused, thinking, ‘On the other hand, I’m not sure how much all of this matters. We’ve got Clerk, he’s inside and we’ve plenty of evidence against him, haven’t we? Brodie died at his hands, McConnachie was crystal clear about that. Thank God. In a way this is all just a sideshow really.’
Aware that her contribution would be unwelcome, Alice said tentatively, ‘I don’t think it is, Ma’am – a sideshow, I mean. Apart from anything else, I’m not sure the evidence we’ve got is that good, the evidence against Clerk.’
‘What on earth d’you mean?’ Elaine Bell said, frowning angrily.
‘Well, Gavin Brodie did go to the Raeburn Place Day Centre. We know that.’
‘Yes, yes, I know that too. And your point is?’ the DCI spluttered, interrupting her. ‘That’s probably how Clerk chooses his victims – finds disabled people, chats to them, learns where they live, works out their security and so on. He meets them through Robert, and I bet he came across Brodie that way.’
‘Possibly,’ Alice replied, ‘but it may also leave a big question-mark over the significance of the fingerprint evidence.’
‘What on earth are you going on about?’
‘Well, a wheelchair’s not like a fridge or a washing machine is it? It moves about the place with its owner, or at least he moves about with it. So, Brodie and his wheelchair go to the day-centre that Clerk goes to as well. All he needs to do is claim that he sometimes helped push people about or some such thing, then the prints are worthless or near worthless. And maybe it’s true, maybe he’s not our man. He left traces of himself all over his first victim’s flat. Ron Anderson’s too. He doesn’t take trouble. So, why just one set of prints in Brodie’s place, on the wheelchair?’
‘And the book?’ Elaine Bell said, hotly. ‘That’s a bit more difficult for him – for you – to explain away, I think you’d agree.’
‘Mmm,’ Alice said, hesitating, conscious that her next piece of information would cause further consternation, ‘not really. I asked Mrs Brodie if her husband had disposed of that Jeffrey Archer, and she said she wasn’t sure but that it was quite likely. Apparently, as he got worse and worse, they had to bring in aids to help with him, rails, commodes, hoists and so on. Extra space was needed. They had a clear out to make room for all the equipment. She said that he loved “airport reading”, as she called it, had a huge collection of paperbacks. She sold the bookshelves and got rid of the A-M section in one of the charity shops in Stockbridge. Archer was one of his favourites, along with Dan Brown. Their system wasn’t perfectly alphabetical, she said, but not bad. The book was an odd thing for Clerk to keep, too, having thrown away a wallet, jewellery and all that.’
‘And the remarkably similar M.O.?’
‘Cutting the throats of invalids? It’s a remarkable coincidence if Brodie happened to overdose himself on the very night that someone else had chosen to kill him, don’t you think? I’d say it’s much more likely that one individual did both, even if we don’t yet know why. I know we’ve charged Clerk, but as things currently stand I don’t think we’ll get a conviction. Not with what we’ve got at present, will we, Ma’am?’
‘Alright, alright, you’ve made your point. Find out who the merry widow’s having it away with, eh? Don’t ask her, go and see that carer woman at the Abbey Park Lodge. Let’s see what Mrs Brodie was actually up to. But, for Christ’s sake, don’t let her know we’re onto her.’