Sunday
For some reason the fact that she had such a limited choice of clothes that morning, none of which remotely appealed to her, almost made her break down and weep. Instead Heather Brodie scolded herself roundly for her vanity, for her stupid shallowness, and in doing so managed to regain sufficient control of her emotions to continue sifting through her suitcase until she had got all that she needed. She looked disdainfully at the brown skirt and the blue shirt she had found. She had no recollection of packing them, and they would not go together at all. But she comforted herself with the thought that at least everything she was going to put on was clean, washed and ironed by her own hands. If only she had brought more clothes from India Street. Her make-up, too, would require attention if she was to appear confident and in control, if she was to seem to be the mistress of her own destiny.
The sound made by the flushing of the lavatory travelled through the thin plasterboard walls and alerted her to Pippa’s imminent departure from the bathroom, but she waited until she heard her sister pad in her slippers across the corridor and close her own bedroom door before she made her move. Today, their usual insubstantial morning chitchat would be unbearable and was best avoided. Anyway, what did it matter how she had slept, or how Pippa had slept for that matter? That was all it ever amounted to, and her inability to feign interest might cause more offence and was almost bound to be misunderstood. She could feel her own nerves jangling, making her jumpy and prickly before they had even exchanged a word. A silly quarrel of some sort was inevitable.
As efficient as ever, within less than fifteen minutes she had showered, dressed and put her face on, but instead of leaving the bathroom and going into the kitchen in search of breakfast, she sat down on the lavatory seat and waited, listening for the tell-tale noises made by her sister as she exited the flat on her way to church. Soon the characteristic tuneless hum which invariably accompanied Pippa’s removal of her waterproof from the coat-hook started up, interrupted by a thick ‘Bye bye, Heather’ spoken through the remains of the last piece of toast. Finally, a loud bang signalled that the front door had been shut.
In the peace and quiet that followed, Heather Brodie looked in the fridge. Seeing only goat’s milk, she rejected the idea of cereal in favour of stewed apple with cream, a treat, if sprinkled generously with brown sugar. But once the bowl was in front of her, looking exactly as she had imagined it would, she found that she hadn’t the appetite even to taste it and put down her spoon. Then, remembering with affection their mother’s thrift, she carefully placed the bowl back on the fridge shelf, together with a twist of paper on which she had written ‘untouched’.
The taxi driver, a bumptious individual sporting dark glasses against the grey, sunless northern sky, seemed determined to engage her in conversation. Though his overtures were met with monosyllabic replies, he continued pestering her relentlessly until, eventually, she responded. Talking to him would be less of an effort than not doing so, she thought. If she was lucky he would do all the work anyway. So, when he said in his matey Liverpool accent, ‘You’re going to St Leonard’s Street are you? You work there then?’
She replied, ‘No – no, I don’t work there.’
‘Reporting a crime at the police station are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Theft, is it theft then? I’ve been burglarised myself, you know. I know just how it feels, them in your house and everything. Like a rape, sort of. First time it happened we were living in Portobello, and the next time it happened it was where I live now, Silverknowes. Know what I think? I think they ought to confiscate all of them thieves’ possessions. That’d teach ’em to take other people’s stuff, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, it would,’ she replied earnestly.
‘What they take of yours then?’
She racked her brain trying to think what to say, then a ready-made list forced itself into her consciousness: ‘Em… a wallet, my husband’s wallet, a computer, my jewellery case…’
‘Your jewellery case?’ he interrupted, sounding appalled on her behalf, ‘was there much in it, then, by way of jewellery?’
‘A necklace… a ring, a brooch or two, sentimental value…’ she began, wishing that she had never weakened and entered this ludicrous conversation. Then inspiration came to her and she asked, ‘And you? What did they take from you – in the first robbery, I mean – and in the second, of course.’
By the time the cab drew up outside the police station, the man was still busy listing his stolen possessions, occasionally adjusting their details, reminding himself that the music centre taken was a Sanyo, not a Panasonic, and that the CD collection nicked from Portobello, no, from Silverknowes, had belonged, not to his daughter, but to his wife. Stepping out onto the wet pavement, she gave the cabby a very generous tip, finding herself unexpectedly grateful for his incessant animated chatter, an endless stream which had kept at bay her own thoughts, her own demons.
When she told the man at the reception desk that she had come to see DCI Bell, the old fellow nodded and asked her in a bored tone what her visit was in connection with. For a second, she was stumped, unable to answer, and then she pulled herself together. ‘To confess…’ she said, marvelling at the words as she spoke them, almost overawed by their implication. Saying them out loud to another person for the first time, to a stranger, made them real in a way that, up to that moment, they had not been. Safely inside her own head, they meant nothing, like a daydream of some dreadful revenge or a song unsung. The receptionist looked almost affronted by her answer and she heard him mutter down the phone, ‘Yes… a lady here wants to see DCI Bell, says she’s come to confess something. No, I don’t know what… course not… no, I didn’t like to ask her.’
The only windows in the interview room were snibbed tight shut, and the smell of cleaning fluid in the place was overpowering. On top of its scent, some kind of floral air-freshener had recently been sprayed in the space, strong enough to take the breath away and burn the back of the throat. Her immediate instinct was to turn round and walk straight out of the room again, but, instead, as instructed, she took her place at the table.
Opposite her, and already seated, she recognised the female Sergeant who had interviewed her in the flat. She seemed to have aged in the last few days, with dark circles under her eyes, and appeared distracted.
When the male Inspector entered the room he looked straight through her, as if she was some lower form of life not needing to be accorded the normal courtesies. He had a wide choice of seats, and ostentatiously chose the one furthest away from her. There he slumped over his mug of coffee, staring into the middle distance, choosing not to meet her gaze. He looked unkempt, slightly sordid, she thought, as if he belonged in the cells rather than on the floor above them. Once he was seated, their DCI, the stout, officious woman, put down the telephone.
‘Well,’ Elaine Bell said, crossing her arms and sounding stern, ‘I understand that you’ve a confession to make.’
‘Yes,’ Heather Brodie answered, sitting up straight, making herself as upright as possible, readying herself for the confrontation, the series of challenges, she was anticipating. To her relief her voice came across as strong and confident, as if it belonged to someone unintimidated by the setting or the situation.
‘On you go then,’ the DCI continued, as if encouraging her in something innocuous like a theatre audition or the opening speech in a school debate. Conscious that they were all now staring expectantly at her, Heather Brodie cleared her throat and said, ‘I’ve come to confess to the murder of my husband, Gavin. I killed him…’ Then she stopped abruptly, hoping that she had now said enough, enough for their limited purposes at any rate. What more could they need?
‘How?’ the DCI asked, leaning towards her, ‘how exactly did you do it?’
She hesitated before answering, blinking as she gathered her thoughts. ‘First of all I drugged him, gave him an overdose of his own drugs. Then I… I cut his throat using our kitchen knife.’ As she said it, she made a horizontal slitting motion with her right hand as if she was cutting her own throat.
‘But why?’ Eric Manson demanded. ‘Why did you do that? Cut his throat, if you’d already poisoned him?’ The room was now in complete silence, the DCI’s gaze fixed on her interviewee.
‘Because… I lost my nerve. After I’d given them to him, I wasn’t sure that the drugs would do the trick – kill him, I mean.’
‘Why didn’t you give him more?’
‘He was comatose by then, he couldn’t drink. Anyway, to tell you the truth, I didn’t think of it.’
‘What did you give him in the first place?’ Eric Manson persisted.
‘Em… the Nortriptyline and the Oramorph, a mixture of the two, but…’ she said, now sounding slightly impatient, ‘I’m not sure why you need to know all of this, though. It’s like twenty questions, or something. I’ve already told you that I’m confessing to this. I’ll plead guilty at my trial – to Gavin’s murder, I mean. You needn’t worry.’
Feeling oddly indignant that they felt the need to interrogate her, she glared at each of the police officers in turn.
‘Right,’ Elaine Bell said coldly, returning her glare. ‘Let’s get down to business, then, shall we? The Nortriptyline and so on – where did you get it from?’
‘The bottles?’ Heather Brodie began, ‘over time, I mean. Every time we got a new prescription I’d collect it – well, draw off a little of the contents and store it for later use. I stockpiled the stuff. Quite a lot, well, enough, anyway. Actually, when the time came there was enough in the bottles.’
‘How would you know what “enough” was, and which of his drugs to give him?’ Alice asked.
Heather Brodie hesitated for a few seconds, and then replied, ‘It wasn’t difficult. Don’t forget, I’d been giving him his medication every day for months and months. I know the effect each one has on him. Anyway,’ she added, sounding more confident. ‘I spent six years as a nurse before I married. A while ago, of course, but I haven’t forgotten everything I learnt.’
‘And the burgled stuff,’ Eric Manson said, ‘the wallet, the computer and so on, what did you do with that? And why, why did you do it, take your own things?’
‘I took the computer and the rest of it so that it’d look like an “outside” job, then you’d be looking for a thief, someone who’d just come in. Obviously, once I’d cut his throat I knew that no-one would doubt that he had been murdered, so I needed to make it look as if someone had come into our house and killed him, someone who’d been robbing our house or whatever.’
‘What did you do with the stuff?’ the DCI enquired.
‘I dumped it, in the first place I could think of… er… down by the Dean Bridge in amongst the bushes there. And some of it I put in the river. I threw the knife into the Water of Leith, the jewellery case, the wallet too.’
‘Giving your husband an overdose of his own drugs…’ Alice said slowly, ‘poisoning him with his own medication? Didn’t it occur to you beforehand that you’d be found out? Even if you hadn’t finished him off with a knife?’
‘I had thought about it beforehand, yes. But I don’t agree. I reckoned I’d be all right. You saw the condition that he was in. There was nothing left of him, he was knocking on death’s door. People would just think he’d died of the disease.’
‘Then why did you do it?’ Elaine Bell shot back at her. ‘If he was knocking on death’s door anyway, you didn’t need to do it. You wouldn’t have had long to wait, would you?’
Heather Brodie looked defiantly at the DCI and said in a hard, determined voice, ‘You couldn’t begin to understand, could you? You have no idea, no idea… I did it because I had had enough. Enough. He was supposed to die by last July, then by this June, but he just hung on – clung on like a desperate rat, drooling and dribbling, hissing and muttering, having “accidents”, spitting… He’d hit me twice, lashed out at me like a madman, caught me once in the eye and the other time on the jaw. He wasn’t human any more.’ She hesitated briefly, letting the meaning of her words sink in. ‘He’d become a beast, a miserable, vicious beast… an animal in nappies.’
‘And the insurance policy?’ the DCI asked, looking down at her notes.
‘What?’
‘Well, you wouldn’t get any money, would you, if he died after February 2010.’
‘Yes,’ she hesitated, ‘that’s right, I wouldn’t. But where did you find the policy?’ She smiled politely at Elaine Bell, as if expecting an answer from her.
‘In your desk,’ Alice replied.
‘It’s his, it was his desk, actually.’
‘And now,’ Alice continued, ‘why are you telling us all of this now? Why did you come here today to confess to your husband’s murder, why not yesterday or the day before – or tomorrow for that matter?’
‘Because,’ Heather Brodie said, meeting her gaze steadily, ‘things have altered, haven’t they? You’ve all changed tack, and now you’re after Colin, my Colin. You think he’s involved – supplied the drugs, or whatever. My “accomplice”. Well, he didn’t. I told you, he didn’t need to. I’d been thinking about how I would do it, if things got too bad, for weeks, if not for months.’
‘Your toy-boy,’ Eric Manson butted in, rolling his eyes heavenwards.
‘How do you know we’re after Colin?’ Alice asked.
‘Because someone at his work, a friend, told me that you’d collected him.’
‘You’re coming here today, confessing to us today… because you want to spare Doctor Paxton any more questioning?’ Alice enquired, scepticism apparent in her voice.
‘No, of course not. It’s because I don’t want him involved, I’ve told you. Because he’s not involved. He had nothing whatsoever to do with it. He’s not the one who killed my husband, I am. He had no idea I was going to do it. Probably wouldn’t believe it if you told him.’
Once they were outside the interview room, Elaine Bell folded her arms again and turned to her Inspector, saying in a low voice, ‘So, what do you think, Eric? Think she did it? Seems pretty believable to me.’
He nodded, his brow corrugated in thought. ‘Aye… she knew about the overdose, the type of drugs used, about where all the “stolen” stuff was. Not a word of any of that has been in the papers. The only way she could know about it would be if she’s the one – the one who did it, eh? How else?’
‘Alice?’ the DCI said, keen to get a further opinion. The Sergeant shrugged her shoulders. ‘Yes, maybe. Maybe she did it, but I’m not sure… I’m just not sure.’
‘Not sure about what, exactly?’ Eric Manson retorted. ‘She’s just told us that she did it. So why don’t you believe her? What’s not to believe?’
‘Her confession… I’m not completely convinced that it’s true, it doesn’t ring quite true. The gesture, the throat-slitting one – she used her right hand, did you see?’
‘So?’ the Detective Inspector snapped.
‘So… you, Ma’am, when you were reading out your notes, told us that the Professor said in the P.M. that the killer was likely to be left-handed… It’s on the board too.’
‘Aha, that’s right,’ Elaine Bell confirmed. ‘That’s what he said, the killer’s likely to be left-handed. Not is left-handed, only likely to be.’
‘Anyway, maybe she’s ambidextrous, dear – it’s not that uncommon, is it?’ Eric Manson said. ‘You haven’t explained how she knows what she knows. How could she know about the Nortriptyline and the Ora… Ora… the other stuff? We didn’t tell her. How did she know where the computer was found, about the knife, the jewellery-case being in the river? None of that was in the papers. And McConnachie confirmed that the knife was likely to be the one that was used, and she identified it as her own too. How the hell do you explain away all of that, then?’
‘I can’t… unless, maybe, Paxton told her? If he was the one who did it, then he’d know all the details. He could have told her.’
‘Yes,’ Eric Manson answered belligerently, ‘but why the fuck should we think he did it? He’s not the one confessing to it. And, as you said, his DNA’s easy enough to explain away. One of his neighbours already confirmed that she saw him coming up the stairs after he’d seen the woman off that night. Other than his lying through his teeth and his having access to the drugs, we’ve got nothing on him, really, no real reason to suspect him. He didn’t even try to suggest that Brodie could have taken the stuff himself. If he had known what went on he would have been clear about that, like she was, he would surely have told us categorically that the man could have taken the stuff himself.’
‘True,’ Alice conceded, ‘but… I don’t know what it is, something doesn’t feel right…’ her voice tailed off. ‘Anyway, I thought Livingstone said it was him who threw the wallet in the river.’
‘Did you see that smile – the smile she gave me?’ Elaine Bell asked, recreating it in her own mind and shuddering theatrically as she spoke. Then she added, ‘Alice, you wait here. I’m going to speak to the Super, he’s here at the moment… and Eric, you come too, I want you to tell him what you think too.’
So saying, she disappeared down the corridor, bustling towards her office with her subordinate tagging along obediently behind her. As they disappeared from view, the interview-room door opened and, mobile in hand, Heather Brodie emerged, looking to the left and right, an anxious expression on her face.
‘Could I make a phone call?’ she asked meekly, catching the Sergeant’s eye.
‘To your lawyer or someone? Who d’you want to call?’ Alice asked, surprised by the request.
‘I’d like to call my son, my son, Harry. I need to call him. Now that I’ve spoken to you, got everything out of the way, I need to talk to him. He’ll organise things for me, including a lawyer, he’ll tell Ella for me, Pippa too. Is that all right? I’d rather they heard it from me.’
Looking at the woman, pale as death, it seemed rude, unkind to deny her this one thing. Without more thought Alice nodded her agreement, and then, before the first key had been pressed, she asked, ‘Are you left-handed or right-handed?’
Heather Brodie was holding her phone in her left hand, her right index finger raised above the keypad. She paused momentarily before answering. ‘Both,’ she replied, ‘I use both my hands. I can’t remember the word for it… you know, I’m ambi… ambi… something or other. I’m lucky, I can use my left hand and my right hand. Why? Why do you want to know?’
‘Just curious,’ Alice answered.
A few minutes later Elaine Bell reappeared. The calm expression on her face vanished as soon as she caught sight of her suspect talking on the phone, and she said angrily to Alice, ‘What the hell’s she doing?’
‘Er… I gave her permission. She’s just letting her son know what’s going on…’
‘Christ Almighty! You let her? Have you forgotten that she’s just confessed to murdering her husband? What the hell were you thinking of! Other members of the family may have been involved with it, there may be evidence in their control, stuff that they’ll now destroy, get rid of…’
Shaking her head, the DCI walked straight up to the woman and calmly plucked the mobile phone from her hand, murmuring a curt apology as she did so. Heather Brodie looked stunned, but she said nothing, her mouth dropping open in amazement.
At that moment, Thomas Riddell, his jacket thrown nonchalantly across one shoulder, strolled past the assembled group, but he stopped in his tracks on catching sight of Heather Brodie, a warm smile lighting up his features.
‘Heather… Mrs Brodie. I didn’t know you were coming in today. You should have told me. What are you doing here?’
Seeing him, the woman frowned as if troubled, but did not reply. After a few seconds, Alice, feeling the need to fill the uneasy silence, answered his question. ‘She’s just confessed to her husband’s murder, Thomas.’
Instantly, Riddell’s smile disappeared and he looked, with panic in his eyes, at Heather Brodie’s face; but she, as if ashamed, bowed her head, deliberately avoiding meeting his gaze.
‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for one second. Not for one second. What on earth are you doing, Heather? Why are you telling them these lies? Why are you doing this?’
As he was speaking he moved instinctively towards her, his hands outstretched as if he was going to touch her, but she shied away, ensuring that Alice remained between her and the distraught man,
‘Thomas!’ Elaine Bell’s voice rang out, ‘I need you to collect Mrs Brodie’s sister. Go and bring her in right now, please.’
As he did not move, she insisted, ‘Now! And speak to the turnkeys on your way. See if there are any cells free below. And, Alice,’ she added, ‘you get the children, both of them, this minute. We’ll just have to hope that we’re not too late already!’
Racing across a red light from the Pleasance, Alice cursed her own crassness. It was so obvious if you thought about it for a single second, so blindingly obvious, but she had overlooked it, missed it completely. What a moron! What a fool she had been! By now blood-soaked clothes could have been burnt or dumped somewhere, or other elaborate lies concocted or, God forbid, Harry and Ella absconded, the pair of them going to earth completely. And she would be responsible for it, and possibly now remain a Sergeant for all eternity.
As she reached the top of the hill on St Mary’s Street, she pushed her foot down on the accelerator, revving impotently, but nothing happened because nothing could happen. The car in front was jammed tight against its neighbour, as she was, as they all were ad infinitum into the distance. And neither the traffic lights nor a blue light could work magic. Gripping the steering wheel unnaturally tightly, she recreated the scene in her mind’s eye, seeing again Heather Brodie’s pleading expression, hearing the apparently innocuous question; but this time, when asked, she did the Right Thing and refused the request. She heard herself solving part of the problem by offering to phone on the woman’s behalf instead, or at least arranging a lawyer for her.
Of course, she thought, it might still be all right. It was not impossible, all might not be lost. Suppose, just suppose, she had been right, suppose the woman had not killed her husband, had been making a false confession for some labyrinthine reason, then all might be not lost…
Yes, she reassured herself, it might still be all right. Stuck in the traffic, her engine now switched off, she began to analyse the roots of her unease about Heather Brodie’s guilt, trying to figure out if there was any real substance to her misgivings. No-one in their right minds was impressed by talk of ‘intuition’. After all, everyone had it and often competing claims were made on the basis of it, none of which were capable of any form of rational justification. It was no more than witchcraft, really.
So, thinking about things properly, logically, what exactly had Mrs Brodie said? She had claimed to be ambidextrous, but had not appeared to be so, with her throat-slitting gesture or when holding her mobile phone. And, surely, an educated woman like her would have known the word for it, if she was indeed ambidextrous? If she was determined to confess and wished to be believed, the safest answer to the question posed about whether she was left or right-handed would be the very one that she had given, and she was fly enough to know that, so her reply might mean nothing.
What about her stated motive for confessing, the protection of her lover, Colin Paxton? Possible. But he had appeared to be telling the truth earlier, and a witness had seen him returning to his flat after their rendezvous. So, his involvement did not seem probable in any case. Anyway, could he not look after himself? He was articulate, competent, not someone easily confused. If he chose to do so, he was capable of shouting from the rooftops his innocence. She must know that.
But if she was not confessing to protect him, then who else could it be? And how, if she was not the murderer, did she know so much about the killing itself, about the disposal of the ‘stolen’ goods, the fact they had been dumped under the Dean Bridge and in the river, the fact of the overdose, the precise drugs used for it? Why had she phoned Harry, her son, expecting him to arrange things and to be the conduit for such shattering news to his sister and aunt? Was Ella not the competent, responsible one? The boy’s childhood reports suggested that he would buckle under pressure, be unable to cope with that sort of shattering news. And he had seemed hostile to his mother, unwilling even to kiss her. Thomas Riddell had noticed his coldness too, remarked on it. Why had she chosen him, him of all people, to be the first to receive such dreadful tidings, never mind expecting him to pass them on to the others?
Thinking of Thomas Riddell, a picture of his anguished face as he heard the news of Heather Brodie’s confession appeared before her, and she could hear his impassioned words ringing in her ears. Not very professional of him, she thought to herself primly.
And then, slowly, realisation dawned. That was the answer. Of course, he had not been professional, because his relationship with Heather Brodie went far, far beyond that. It was personal, possibly very personal. And he, obviously, like the rest of them, would know every single detail of the investigation, however obscure, however unlikely, and if he knew it, then so, too, might she. If she had asked him about it, then he, in his susceptible, over-enamoured state, might well have told her. Told her everything.
And that momentary hesitation when hearing about the insurance policy, the flicker of surprise, had been genuine. Because, as she had said, it was not her desk but her husband’s. The files had become increasingly disordered, not because she had lost interest in them, but because her accountant husband could no longer attend to them, with the disease getting its claws further and further into his flesh. So, she might not even have known about the policy.
But one question remained: who the hell was she protecting with her false confession? Who had actually killed Gavin Brodie? Suddenly, and from nowhere, Una Reid’s chilling question came into her head, her throaty, smoke-scarred voice sounding eerily triumphant: ‘Why’d I bring his suffering to an end?’
Only someone who loved him would do that. His children or his mother. And, immediately, the answer came to her. She had no doubts, that must be it. Heather Brodie had broken the news to her son, rather than her daughter, because it was intended not for onward transmission to the others, but to let him know that she had confessed, was now shielding him and protecting him from the consequences of his crime. And how would he react to such tidings? Jesus Christ. What a God-awful muddle!
When Alice finally reached the door of the basement flat in Raeburn Mews, it was ever so slightly ajar, and loud music could be heard inside. She knocked sharply, then called out, but got no response. With trepidation she pushed the door further open and slipped inside. Unaccompanied drum music was reverberating in the small space, played at a volume high enough to hurt the ears, making the boy’s flat feel like a mad house.
As she entered the sitting-room, the first person she saw was Harry Brodie. His thin torso was bare and he was holding a bread knife in his hand. He looked up as she came in, startled, and she noticed his knuckles blanch as he tightened his grip on the knife.
‘What on earth are you doing in here?’ he demanded.
‘The door was open. We need to see you.’
‘What?’ he shouted, then he turned down the volume on the nearby speaker. ‘What did you say?’
In the silence she repeated, ‘We need to see you.’
‘OK,’ he said, moving towards her, the knife still in his hand.
‘Could you put it down, Harry?’
‘You mean the knife… sorry, it’s just for the bread though – to cut the bread,’ he replied, putting it down on a breadboard on the low coffee table beside her. A loaf, together with a pot of jam and a packet of butter, was also on the board. He looked at her calmly, expectantly, waiting for her to explain herself.
‘Did you get a call from your mother?’
‘No – why?’
‘Sure about that? She said she was going to call you. I saw her do it.’
‘No. I could have missed it I suppose, I’ve been having a shower. Maybe she called then. What did she want to speak to me about?’
There was no easy way to break the news.
‘Because… she’s just walked into the station and confessed to the murder of your father.’
‘Fucking hell!’ the boy said, dropping onto a chair as if his legs had buckled under him.
‘You had no idea?’
‘Of course I had no fucking idea!’ he shouted, shaking his head. ‘No fucking idea. I knew she was planning to put him in a home. I knew she had found another man. I knew she didn’t love him… but, no, I didn’t know that. It never crossed my mind that she’d do that. Ella, for sure… but not Mum. She just didn’t care enough about him. All his pleading was just water off a duck’s back, I thought, and God knows, she wouldn’t have had long to wait. Not Mum, though…’
‘You talked about it – you, your mum and Ella? About taking your father’s life?’
‘Yes,’ he said angrily, ‘and don’t look so surprised. We talked about it, but not with Mum any more. It didn’t affect her, she’d somehow managed to stop “hearing” it. But Ella and I talked. Sometimes about very little else. Every time I saw him, every single time, he asked me to kill him. Ella too. Granny, probably, for all I know. Can you imagine that? I doubt it. But, yes, we talked about it. I think you’d find that anyone, anyone in that hellish position, would talk about it. And… think about it. Eat, bloody sleep and breathe it too. Jesus,’ he said, hiding his face in his hands.
‘Why would your mother phone you to arrange things… a lawyer, that kind of thing, not Ella?’
‘What d’you mean? Why wouldn’t she phone me? Maybe she rang Ella too, are you sure she didn’t?’ he paused before continuing. ‘Probably not, though, because I won’t crumble, but Ella will. She and Mum are really close, always have been. She’ll not be able to cope. Anything happens to Mum and she goes to pieces, can’t take it. It happened when we had a cancer scare, when Mum had a car crash too. Mum is Ella’s Achilles heel, you see, and Mum knows that better than anyone.’
As Alice stood watching the boy, the door slowly opened and Ella slipped in with the child, Katy, holding her hand. Her face was red, tears streaming down her cheeks. The stealthiness of her entrance suggested that she had been outside, listening to her brother’s words.
‘It can’t be true… not Mum,’ she said, looking first at Alice and then at her brother, waiting for either of them to deny it.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Alice said. ‘She came to the station and told us this morning.’
‘But… but why? I don’t believe she could do it. Mum couldn’t kill him. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it, even if she wanted to. I could, but not her. I even told Aunt Pippa that I was going to, and I meant it, I would have… if Dad was going to go into a home, and you said that he was, Harry, that he’d rot in there, it would be even worse for him… but Mum could never have killed him, any more than you, Harry.’
‘When – when did you tell her that?’
‘Who?’ the girl asked, her voice quavering.
‘Your aunt Pippa?’
‘On the Friday… before he died.’
‘What did she say?’ Alice asked.
‘She said not to be silly, not to think about such a thing. She kept saying that I was a mother now, had Katy to look after. She said that I mustn’t worry, all would be well in the end.’
Pippa Mitchelson, Alice thought to herself. The one person left who had no alibi. And they had all known that and done nothing about it. Had somehow completely overlooked the timid spinster, seeing her only as a foil for the others.
‘Only for a few minutes,’ Thomas Riddell said, ‘otherwise I’ll be for the chop. I’m just letting you in to comfort Heather, nothing else. She needs somebody from her family. She was worried the boy might hurt himself when he got the news.’
‘I understand,’ Pippa said, ‘and thank you very much, Thomas.’
Once seated beside her sister in the interview room, Pippa Mitchelson put her arms around her, rocking her gently as she had done before, long, long ago in their childhood years. Then she had been the confident one, the big sister, able to put things right, to soothe the younger one, take away her troubles. Until, one day, their roles had been reversed, and she had found herself the comforted instead of the comforter. Her new role, that of the less-worldly one, the lonely, unfulfilled spinster, had not been chosen by her, and by the time she had become conscious of it, it was too late. It fitted too well, too snugly and she could not shake it off. With her long fingers she swept a strand of hair from her sister’s temple, rearranging it behind her ear and wiping away the tears that were glistening on her cheeks.
‘It’s alright, sweetheart, it’s alright. I’ve just heard. Don’t worry. Harry’s fine. The female Sergeant brought both the children here. Katy, too… Ella’s been speaking to that chief detective woman. But you needn’t worry any more. Harry didn’t do it.’
‘Thank God!’ Heather Brodie replied, sobbing unashamedly, ‘thank God.’
‘But what made you think that he had – that it was Harry?’
‘I didn’t… until yesterday,’ Heather Brodie answered, ‘but after those letters I knew. I thought he had finally listened to his father, put him out of his misery. He felt he owed it to him. That he couldn’t bear the thought of him in a home.’
‘What letters?’
‘The Genetic Counselling Service one, I found it on top of the hall table in his flat and I couldn’t resist taking a look. They wanted to counsel him about Huntingdon’s. He must have decided to have the test and heard he’s got it. It must have been positive.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me, darling?’ Pippa said, squeezing her sister’s hand. ‘When Ella was tested – and she doesn’t have it, now does she? – she was called in. They call you in even if the result is negative.’
‘Always? Do they really?’ Heather asked, in a relieved tone.
‘Always. What was the other letter? The one from the Abbey Park Lodge?’
‘So, he still may not have Huntingdon’s?’
‘Yes, yes. But tell me about the letter.’
‘It was the one you handed to me at the flat, from Mrs Drayton, the manageress. Our initials are the same, mine and Harry’s. They’d put “Mr” before my initials, by mistake, so I thought it was for him and I forwarded it on to him in the flat. But it was meant for me. He must have learned from it that I was intending to put his father in there, into a home. I’d never discussed it with the children. I had to be the one to make the decision… I couldn’t involve them in something like that.’
‘I know. I knew you had taken that decision.’
‘How? Who told you?’
‘Ella, last week. Harry told her and she told me, you see. Anyway, you shouldn’t have worried,’ Pippa said, trying to reassure her again. ‘Harry and Ella were together the night when it all happened, you knew that. Remember?’
‘That’s what I thought at first. But after that phone call, I worked out that Ella had spent the evening, and the night, with Vicky, Harry’s girlfriend. That’s what I thought Vicky said.’
‘I don’t know what she said, but maybe you got it wrong.’
‘Maybe I did. I can’t remember her exact words any more. But if it wasn’t Harry, then who was it… God, not Ella – please, please God.’
‘No,’ Pippa said quietly, ‘not Ella, darling. Me.’
‘You?’
Thomas Riddell pushed the door open and advanced quickly towards the sisters, finding them both now sitting bolt upright.
‘You’ll have to leave now, Miss Mitchelson,’ he said, looking at her anxiously and tapping her on the shoulder. ‘You’ll need to go into the other interview room. The Chief and Inspector Manson are both on their way, and they’ll be here in less than a minute.’
Elaine Bell listened dumbfounded to her sergeant.
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, but I am sure that it wasn’t Heather Brodie. And Pippa Mitchelson has no alibi.’
‘OK, but that only gets us so far. Why? Why would she kill her brother-in-law?’
‘Love, I think.’
‘She was in love with the man?’ the DCI interrupted, incredulous.
‘No. Ella. She loves Ella.’
DI Manson came over to join them, shaking his head.
‘She doesn’t want one?’ Elaine Bell asked.
‘No, Ma’am. Says she doesn’t need a solicitor. Wants to get everything over now. Right now.’
‘Alright. Alice, you take the lead this time. I still don’t fully understand what’s been going on, but we can’t wait. Wouldn’t want her to change her mind. But be very, very careful. Do it completely by the book… everything. Nothing must go wrong.’
Once they were all seated inside and the tape was running, Alice began, ‘Miss Mitchelson, would I be right in thinking that you were not with your sister on the Saturday night?’
‘Yes,’ the woman smiled bleakly, tenting her long fingers and pressing their red tips together, ‘you would be right.’
‘But you covered for her?’
‘That’s what she thought, and she was right, of course. I always cover for her. I knew whenever she was going out to meet Colin. She would tell the children that she was going to meet up with me, and obviously I’d tell them the same. I had to, didn’t I?’
‘You always knew when she would be out of the house… when she was with him, anyway?’
‘Shall we speed things up a bit, dear? Mr Riddell kindly collected me, but I would have come here myself. As soon as I’d heard about Heather’s foolish, selfless act I had to, really, didn’t I? So, shall I just tell you everything… would that be in order?’
The DCI and Alice exchanged glances, and then Elaine Bell said, ‘Yes, you do that, please.’
‘Well… where shall I begin?’ the middle-aged spinster asked, shielding her tired eyes with her left hand, then answering her own question. ‘At the beginning, of course. On Friday last Ella told me… she said that Harry had discovered from a letter that their mother was going to put Gavin in a home. She was crying, almost hysterical at the thought. She said she couldn’t bear it. Katy was beside her, she couldn’t understand what was going on, so I put her on my knee as Ella talked and talked. She said that she was going to save her father, put him out of his misery like he wanted, like he kept asking her…’
She stopped speaking, looking into the distance.
‘So?’ The DCI prompted.
‘Sorry. So I said not to worry. But I couldn’t let that happen could I? Ella’s a brave girl, a very unselfish girl, and she would have done it, you see. She has the courage to do it – to kill him. I knew she would…’ her voice tailed off, but she began again, a tear running now down her cheek.
‘I couldn’t let that happen. Ella has everything to live for. She’s young, beautiful. She’s got Katy to look after. Her whole life is in front of her. And, goodness me, Katy needs her mother, doesn’t she? Any child does… And what do I have to lose in comparison? No one needs me, you see. I had so much less to lose. I had to be the one. For Ella… Gavin too, in a way.’
‘So?’ The DCI repeated, mechanically.
‘So I did it… on the Saturday. I knew Heather was going to be out with Colin. I had my key. I waited for Una to go, and then I gave him a cocktail of two of his drugs and waited. While I was waiting, I lost my nerve. I thought perhaps they won’t work, perhaps the ones I chose were not strong enough. I couldn’t wait any longer.’
Once more, she stopped speaking, staring straight ahead at the wall as if she was now alone in the room.
‘You couldn’t wait…’ Elaine Bell prompted.
‘So I cut his throat with a knife.’ She hesitated briefly, shuddering. ‘Blood went everywhere, a shower of blood all over me, all over everything. I wiped myself with my clothes and changed into some of Heather’s things, I only put them back in her bag today. I took some of their possessions from the flat so that you would think it was a robbery or something like that. I dumped my own clothes later.’
‘What did you do with the things you took?’
‘I threw them away by the Dean Bridge. Except the photo, I took it out of its frame… the one of Ella, that was beside his bed. I kept it in my bedroom drawer… but after I heard about Heather today I brought it with me. I can show you it now if you like?’
The DCI nodded, and Pippa Mitchelson opened her handbag, removed an old-fashioned compact, a small hankie and her purse from it, and then a black and white print of her niece playing on the beach. Giving it a final lingering look, she handed it over.
‘It’s one of my favourites. She had such a wide smile, always happy. She was always happy… a carefree child.’
‘Mrs Brodie,’ the DCI began, ‘you’ll have got the news – that Harry’s fine, and that he didn’t do it. Sergeant Rice is talking to him now, then we’ll release him. You’re free to go too, of course. But there is one other thing that I’d like to ask you about.’
‘Yes,’ Heather Brodie said wearily, feeling drained of all life, her head still reeling from her sister’s revelation.
‘I have to ask you,’ the DCI began again, ‘did Thomas Riddell, our Liaison Officer – did he give you details of our investigation? Tell you about the overdose, for example, the type of drugs used, whether supposedly “stolen” stuff had been found, and if so its whereabouts and so on?’
For a few moments Heather Brodie hesitated, aware that if she told the truth the kind auburn-haired policeman might lose his job, remembering how smitten with her he was, how sweet to her he had been right up until the last, and how she had used him. But then all the lies she had told came back to haunt her. Lies to Gavin, to Colin even, to Harry and Ella, the police… the list went on and on, and sometime it had to stop. So, without further thought, she nodded.
When the DCI returned to her office, Eric Manson looked at her enquiringly from his seat by the window.
‘Yes,’ she said shortly, lowering herself heavily into her chair, ‘it was Thomas.’
‘Stupid bastard.’
‘He’s just offered his resignation.’
‘Good. So he should. And the aunt, do we know yet why she drugged the man and cut his throat?’
‘Lost her nerve, apparently, that’s what she said anyway. She wasn’t sure about the drugs, she wasn’t sure they’d be strong enough. She gave him most of the bottle, most of two bottles, in fact. She says he became unconscious quite quickly, but carried on breathing. She knew that Heather hoped to be away until the morning, but might not be. She panicked and used the knife. Once she’d done that, well, it could only be murder. So she took the stuff to draw our attention away, make us think just what we did think. At first anyway.’
Elaine Bell sighed, resting her head on her hands, then adding, ‘I’ve seen it all… or I thought I had, Eric. But nothing like this in all my thirty years. And God alone knows how she’ll fare in prison… it’ll be like putting a sparrow amongst hawks.’
She shook her head, then she added, ‘The poor bloody wretch.’
‘Brodie?’
‘No… well, yes, him too. But her, I really meant her. The whole lot of them, actually. Ever since the Mitchelson woman’s confession and speaking to the child, Ella, I’ve been thinking about it. If it was my dad, if he’d been like that, what would I do? Fucking irony, isn’t it? Keep a dumb animal alive in a state like that, and the RSPCA would be after you for not putting it down. But a person you know, asking to be put… asking for death? It’s an odd, upside-down world we live in.’
‘Aha. And ours is not to reason why,’ the Inspector replied.
Her phone rang and she picked it up, mouthed ‘The Super’ and gestured for Manson to leave.
‘Now, Sir. If that suits you, yes, that’s fine by me,’ she said, trying to sound bright and energetic. ‘I’ll be along at Fettes in, say, twenty minutes.’
Receiving her in his spacious office, the Superintendent looked confident, pleased with himself and, for the moment, with his subordinate too. With this case solved he would go out in a blaze of glory, whatever happened to her.
‘I gather you’ve wrapped it up?’ he said, pulling out a chair for her.
‘We have, Sir. The woman’s speaking to her lawyer now.’
‘A right Lady Macbeth I expect, eh? But it’s the appraisal you’re concerned about, I appreciate that. Of course, we can discuss it, although I have now, as far as I’m concerned, committed my views to paper in their final form. But I can spare you half an hour or so to go over it. Would that do? I’ll explain it, go through the basis for my firmly-held views, but my wife’s due to pick me up in about half an hour or so. We’ll have to stop when she arrives.’
He leant back on his chair, linking his hands behind his great bull-neck, beaming at her, convinced already that she would eventually slink out of his lair, tail down, accepting defeat. On her knee she had the brown envelope containing all the evidence she had compiled to present to him, illustrating why she should be upgraded, documenting her successes, staff improvements, initiatives, skills, everything she could find to persuade him to tell the truth. The truth would do. If he would tell that, then she would have a chance, and a chance was all she needed. Because at interview she would shine. She knew it, but with this appraisal before them, no one would include her on the shortlist.
‘Just so I understand, Sir,’ she said slowly, ‘there’s no question of actually changing it, the appraisal – just “explaining” it?’
He nodded complacently. After all, all the balls were in his court.
‘No change whatsoever?’
‘No change whatsoever, Elaine.’
What the hell, she thought, I’ve nothing to lose. He had no scruples, so why should she hobble herself with them? And he would not know whether it was a bluff or not.
‘Did you enjoy your meal, Sir – the one in Claudio’s on Friday? I know I did. I’ll enjoy hearing your wife’s impression of the place. She certainly seemed to like it, to be enjoying herself. So, we’ve half an hour or so until she arrives, is that right? Unless, of course, we finish earlier.’
For a second the Superintendant was speechless, working out the full import of her words. His complexion now puce, he said, stiffly, ‘Good food, certainly…’ He held out his hand for the envelope. ‘Perhaps… there might be something in there that would help me revise my opinion… a little.’
‘Well, that was a turn up for the books, eh?’ the solicitor said to DC Littlewood as they were walking away from the interview room.
‘How d’you mean?’ the constable asked, opening the corridor door for the solicitor’s portly figure and standing to one side to allow his bulk to pass through.
‘Her confession to killing Gavin Brodie. Jim Nicholl, from my firm, he was the duty solicitor, remember? Only a few days ago when you lot were busy charging our client, Norman Clerk, with exactly the same crime. To be dropped now, I gather.’
‘Oh, aye. And the cannabis, the assault and everything else, are they to be dropped too? I don’t think so,’ DC Littlewood said with grim satisfaction, remembering Alice’s bruised face, ‘so your “client” will be in Saughton for a wee whiley yet.’
‘Nope, you’re wrong there,’ the lawyer replied, lurching down the stairs and raising his voice to ensure it could be heard over the sound of his own heavy footsteps, ‘not anymore. He’s in the Royal now. He wasn’t taking his drugs, you see. He had a psychotic episode and attacked one of the prison officers. Anyway, Jim will have to tell him the good news – as soon as he’s safe to visit again.’
Heather Brodie was standing in the reception area with her son and daughter beside her, all of them waiting patiently for the police lift they had been promised. But, catching sight of the lawyer, Heather rushed over to speak to him. Ella, lifting up her small child, followed behind her. Only Harry remained where he was.
‘Hello? I understand you’re looking after Pippa – my sister, Miss Mitchelson. She will be alright, won’t she?’
‘That’s correct, my firm will be representing her. Not me personally, for various reasons, but don’t you worry, we’ll do our best for her,’ the lawyer said, putting on his overcoat and straining to button it up.
‘But… she will be alright, won’t she? She won’t be kept in prison?’ Ella asked anxiously, her face blotchy, stained by tears, and the little girl in her arms distracting her by fingering her mouth.
‘Hard to say at this juncture,’ the man replied, glancing through the glass door at the rain hammering down and bouncing off the pavement in St Leonard’s Street, unfurling his umbrella in readiness for the dash to his car.
‘How d’you mean?’ the girl exclaimed. Her brother had joined the group and was now standing behind her.
‘Well, looking to the long term, we’ll have to see what the prosecution will accept, won’t we?’ he replied, distracted, having just noticed that two of the spokes of his umbrella were poking through the material. The twins must have been playing spaceships with it again, he would look like a down-and-out or some kind of comic tramp.
‘But,’ Heather Brodie persisted, deliberately putting herself in front of him to stop him leaving, ‘everyone will appreciate that she didn’t do it for herself, won’t they? That it was a mercy-killing. So they’re bound to be lenient with her, aren’t they? She only did it because she had to do it. She’d nothing to gain from killing Gavin, everything to lose.’
‘Well, I’m not sure I’d quite go along with that… no, I can’t quite go along with that,’ he replied, impatient to leave, snapping the popper shut on his now-closed umbrella, having decided not to expose himself to ridicule by using it. This would be no legal-aid job, and the tattered mess would create quite the wrong impression. Better to accept a soaking.
‘Why not? It’s true!’ Harry said.
‘A mercy killing? No, that’s not what she described to me, or the police, I gather. She said that she did it for Ella – not really for Mr Brodie.’
‘So?’ the boy demanded, unable to conceal his frustration.
‘Well, that was her fatal mistake – purely from a legal perspective, you understand. You see, if Ella had done it for her father, killed him as he had begged her to, that clearly would have been a mercy-killing, a culp. hom., the Crown would likely accept a plea to culpable homicide and she would have got…’ he paused, thought briefly and then continued, ‘well, who knows? Maybe even probation if she was lucky. But this? This is quite a different kettle of fish.’
‘So what is it then, if not a mercy-killing?’
‘I’ll have to speak to Senior Counsel, obviously, but it looks much more like murder to me.’
Driving home that evening, Eric Manson put on Classic FM, and found himself bathed in the haunting sound of Albinoni’s ‘Adagio for Strings’, the solemn and moving music a strangely fitting accompaniment to his mournful frame of mind. It was true, they had solved their case, but he could not celebrate that. Not that bloody catastrophe, no. No nips or pints for him in the pub this evening, no banter, no knees-up for having cracked this one.
Feeling his eyes becoming hot, tears prickling at their edges, he shook his head violently from side to side as if such a movement might shake away his grief, then turned the radio off, forcing himself to concentrate on the road ahead. It must have been the sad music, and he must be over-tired too, that explained it. Or maybe, he was getting a cold from that sickly baby sneezing all over him. Anyway, nothing like a bout of righteous anger to drive the blues away, he decided, egging himself on by thinking about all the hours that they had spent on the Brodie woman’s lies, not to mention her fancy-man’s contributions. Wasting all their precious time and muddying the waters terribly. But that poor teacher, that poor bloody woman. Unworldly, a holy fool. In some ways too good for her own bloody good. Too good for her adulterous sister, for sure.
And, Christ, the fucking coven was supposed to be having another of their interminable gatherings in his house that evening, monopolising Margaret and marginalizing him again. Witches to a woman. But if they saw him in a miserable mood they would scent his weakness immediately. A single glimpse of his bloodshot eyes and they would know that he was wounded, vulnerable, and take strength from the fact. But he had not given up yet, oh no. Margaret would stay his, stay married to him, because he would see them all off, and any fancy man too. Tomorrow, he would be feeling better, stronger, somehow he would sort it all out. She must still love him.
He traipsed up the garden path, feeling lower than ever, and came to a halt on the doorstep, breathing in, pulling his shoulders back and forcing his mouth into a confident grin. So fortified, he strode into his hall, and as he did so, all the lights in the house were switched on and a raucous cheer went up. He saw that his hallway was crowded with people, with his friends and with his family, and, bewildered, he stood blinking in amazement at them all. As he waited, struck dumb, Margaret elbowed her way through the assembled throng towards him. Her face shining with delight, she planted a huge kiss on his lips, and as he responded the crowd erupted, clapping and whooping at the pair of them.
‘Surprise! And happy thirtieth anniversary, my darling,’ she whispered in his ear. Glancing at her he was struck by how pretty she looked, dazzled by her figure, now shapely in a cream outfit with the navy embroidery on the collars. It was her going-away dress.
‘What do you think?’ she said twirling round like a model in front of him. ‘I tried out lots of new outfits, but I didn’t like myself in any of them. So I dieted for weeks and weeks, very difficult when you’re trying out new recipes for a party too, and yesterday, for the very first time, I managed to do up all the buttons on this!’
Tears welled up in Eric Manson’s tired eyes, and he felt that his legs were about to give way, but he put his arm around his wife for support, kissed her cheek, then took a long draught from the champagne flute that had been thrust into his hands. Opposite him, a glass in her hand too, stood Elaine Bell. She gave him a quick thumbs-up, which, smiling wanly, he returned.
Walking along Henderson Row, Alice, too, was finding it difficult to get the events of the day out of her head. She could still see Pippa Mitchelson’s figure in the interview room. The woman had seemed so awkward and vulnerable in there, so utterly incongruous in such a setting. In a classroom of small children she might, possibly, wield some authority, but outside it she had none. She seemed almost bemused by the world, like a nun released from her convent too late, no longer able to survive in changed times. She spoke like the schoolteacher she was, in an unhurried, measured way, a manner suited to the times tables or dictation, but not to the confession of a killing that she had carried out.
And listening to the lone spinster, most of Alice’s sympathies had been with her, because she had so obviously lost her way. Love had led her astray, had been her only motive. And the sight of her, stricken, when, for a second, she re-lived the moment when she cut the man’s throat and was sprayed with his still-warm blood, would remain with her forever, Alice thought, however much she might wish to forget it. Handing her over to the turnkeys, watching them laugh uproariously at their own in-jokes while manhandling her, listening to her old-fashioned expressions of gratitude as her cell door was opened for her, had been heartbreaking. Now she was just another body in the system, waiting to be processed like the rest of them, and there was nothing to be done to change that, nothing she could do. Pippa Mitchelson’s life was over, whatever sentence was pronounced on her.
Once she saw Ian, she told herself, her mind would stop racing and she would be able to distance herself from the Brodies, get everything back into its proper place, into perspective. Finally they would be able to talk freely, in private, and she would tell him about the woman’s tragedy, the man’s tragedy, in fact, the whole bloody family’s tragedy. The very act of telling their story, of putting it into words, would help to make it all easier to understand, to accept. Things would fall into place, as they usually did. And, embracing one another at last, they could smooth any ruffled feathers, reassure each other and find the way back to their old, comfortable world.
Of course, and naturally enough, he would give her more news of the boy. This child who had, somehow, entered their lives through a back door, and had no mother. Only a father.
When she had considered children at all, and idly at that, she had only ever imagined her child, their child. She had wanted their child, never someone else’s. Not some other woman’s child. Loving their child would be easy, it was unimaginable not to love such a wondrous new being. But what did she know about children? Nothing. Despite her best efforts, the squalling baby in the surgery had found no comfort in her arms. So how would she manage? And, as importantly, would she, could she, love this unknown boy? Because if he became part of their family, in fact, made them into a family, she would have to. And what would happen to them, all of them, if, for some reason, that never happened? Perhaps there was no way back to that old, comfortable world?
Pushing her head through the sheets that separated the two studios from each other to enter Ian’s part, she heard a high-pitched laugh and saw, sitting on the only chair in the unheated space, a dark-haired little boy. One of his hands was bright blue, as if it had been dipped to the wrist in a pot of paint, and the other one was bright red. Seeing her, he instantly held them both up to show them off, and then clasped them together, marvelling loudly to himself as parts of them turned purple. He then clamped one onto each side of his face and, as if life was for laughter, giggled again at her, showing his magically perfect little milk teeth and creasing his fat red and blue cheeks.
Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, he wriggled off the seat of his chair, bent forwards to splay his hands on the stone floor, admired their imprint and toddled across to her. When she stooped down beside him, wanting to be nearer his level, he looked with his innocent eyes into hers and then, saying nothing, held out a red hand for her to clasp in her own. Taking it, feeling the slimy, warm paint between their palms, she realised with pleasure that all her attention, all her being, had, for the last few minutes at least, been focused on the small child, drawn completely into his world, his life as he lived it moment by moment.