Sunday
After escorting the tearful lady to her kitchen, the young constable pushed open the bedroom door with the tip of his highly polished boot and peeked gingerly round the side of it. Involuntarily he inhaled, and then whipped his head back into the hallway, retching convulsively, his hand now clamped over his mouth. His companion, PC Rowe, seeing the horrified expression on his mate’s face, instantly and enthusiastically stuck his own head round the door and remained there, spellbound, taking in everything and relishing the sight before him as if at a show.
‘We’d better phone the Sarge, eh?’ he said excitedly, remaining fixed to the spot and continuing to drink in the scene before his eyes. ‘Looks like there’s been a fuckin’ bloodbath in there, eh?’
Within twenty minutes, a small, overweight woman with a purposeful air, dressed in a paper suit and bootees, marched into the hallway of the Brodie’s India Street flat. Immediately, and as if it were her own, she started taking control of the situation and issuing orders to the uniformed officers.
‘Constable,’ DCI Bell began, looking hard at Rowe, ‘no-one seems to be at the door logging movements in and out.’ And though he had no idea who the middle-aged woman was, the young man said, ‘No, Ma’am. I’ll see to it the now,’ and immediately disappeared, obeying her unspoken command.
Passing through the vestibule he cannoned, in his blind haste, into another detective, similarly clad in green paper, who had her head down and was perching on one foot like a heron, pulling on the final bootee. On impact, she careered over and fell heavily onto the tiled floor, cursing under her breath as she toppled. Appalled at what he had done, PC Rowe put out his hand to pull her up, but she stayed where she was, still fitting the overshoe, and only once it was on did she grasp his outstretched hand and allow herself to be hauled up by him.
To his surprise, once the woman was upright again, she towered over him, and seeing his worried expression she said with a grin, ‘Don’t look so worried. No bones broken.’ She was pretty, even with a paper shower cap halfway down her forehead, and when she smiled at him he found himself relaxing and smiling in return.
DCI Elaine Bell, with DS Alice Rice now following in her footsteps like her shadow, strode towards the bed in Gavin Brodie’s room. The bedroom shutters had been partly opened and the man himself lay motionless, his head tilted backwards, a crescent-shaped cut dividing his exposed neck in two. Blood, spurting from the wound, had been pumped by his heart onto the wall behind him, its final contractions creating a sprayed arc until, the pressure diminishing, it landed on the headboard and sides, the hoist, his pillows and his own head. A glass of water on the bedside table was stained a deep, dark red, and a framed photograph of a little boy playing on a beach had been showered too.
The face of the dead man was unnaturally pale, waxen, as if all blood had been siphoned out of the overly skull-like head. Clad in his light blue-and-white-striped pyjamas he resembled, Alice thought, one of the starved inmates of a concentration camp. Sharp bones protruded through his yellowish skin, and between his cracked lips his teeth were bared like a dog. She had seen worse, but not often, and at least if it had been in the open air, the fresh air, the smells of death would have dispersed. Here a strange cloying aroma enveloped them, as if the air itself was diseased.
As the two women bent over him, their heads a few inches from the glistening slice in his cartilaginous neck, a couple of photographers entered the room, one with a video camera at the ready, nattering to each other while awaiting their instructions. With her eyes still fixed on the wound, Elaine Bell said crisply, ‘Get a move on, boys. Do Homes and Gardens… the whole house, outside and in. And I want mid-range and close-ups in here − the body and all the blood-spatters. All of them, mind. And…’ she added, after a moment’s hesitation ‘get all the exits and entrances too. Doors and windows.’
‘Alice?’ she said, straightening up and raising the bed covers for them both to peer inside and inspect the whole cadaver.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the sergeant replied, shifting her gaze from the emaciated torso to her boss’s face.
‘See what the constables have learned so far, eh? One of them should have spoken to Mrs Brodie by now. I’ll need to talk to her myself later in the station, but get the rough sequence of events from them. I need to speak to the Super again. Our friend, the Prof, is due to arrive soon. Keep an eye out for him. Oh, and the Fiscal too, and bring them here the minute they come.’
PC Rowe was sitting stiffly at the wooden kitchen table, made uncomfortable by the heavy silence but unable to break it, and he glanced up as the sergeant approached. He looked fidgety and ill at ease, and as she came towards him he rose from his chair, relief transforming his features. In truth, he had no experience of the effects of shock and was embarrassed in the presence of grief, unable to think of anything to say, his limited repertoire of comforting platitudes having long since been exhausted. Any further questioning of the widow seemed unthinkable. She seemed unaware of his presence, remaining from minute to minute completely motionless, staring into space through sightless eyes.
‘Could I see you for a second, constable?’ Alice said, smiling at the woman as if asking her permission to borrow her companion for a moment. She did not look up, and showed no sign that she was aware that someone else had joined them. Without further invitation the young man raced out of the kitchen, closing the door behind him.
‘Have you spoken to her yet?’ Alice enquired.
‘Not really. Just a quick chat when we first arrived.’
‘And?’
‘She found the body…’ he began breathlessly. ‘She went into his room. She’s got her own one. Opened those shutter things as usual and found him lying there. Dead an’ all. She got on the phone to us straight away. She reported it.’
‘And you were the first on the scene?’
‘Me and him,’ he said, pointing to the passing figure of the other constable.
At the sound of approaching feet they moved away from the hall door to allow a group of SOCOs to enter. Alice caught sight of a rotund, freckle-faced man ambling behind them, weighed down by an oversized black attaché case. Seeing her he beamed cheerily in her direction, adding a wave for good measure, and noting the constable’s curious expression she said, ‘That’s the Crime Scene Manager, an old pal of mine. Now, did Mrs Brodie say when exactly she last saw her husband alive?’
‘Yep. She saw him at about 4.30 p.m. yesterday. She spent the evening out and she didn’t look in on him after that.’
‘Anyone else see him after her, as far as she knows?’
‘Erm…’ the constable hesitated, and then said apologetically, ‘I hadn’t quite finished speaking to her, so I’m not sure about that one.’
Despatching a slightly crestfallen PC Rowe to see if the pathologist had arrived, Alice re-entered the kitchen, and sat down opposite Heather Brodie. A huge vase of red roses obscured her view of the woman’s face. As she moved it to one side, she said, ‘They’re lovely − a present?’
‘Yes, a gift,’ the woman replied, looking at them. ‘From… ah, my mother-in-law.’
‘The constable who was with you, PC Rowe, says you last saw your husband at about 4.30 p.m. Would anyone else have seen him after that?’
Such a long silence followed the question that Alice was just about to pose it again, when in a dull voice the answer came.
‘Una, I expect. She’d have given him his supper, his bath. Tidied him up…’
‘And when would Una have done that?’
Another long pause followed, then the woman said, ‘Seven… Quarter-past, maybe, that’s her usual time.’
‘And who is Una, exactly?’
‘She’s…’ the woman hesitated, ‘his carer. Una Reid, my husband’s carer. We employ her. She comes from Abbey Park Lodge… you know, the home, the place in Comely Bank.’
DCI Bell swept into the kitchen, accompanied by a giant of a man with a pale moon-face, which rounded off, unexpectedly, into a luxuriant auburn beard. Once inside he stood erect, fingering his moustache-ends nervously, fashioning them into points by twirling their ends to and fro between his thumbs and index fingers.
‘This is Thomas Riddell, our Family Liaison Officer, Mrs Brodie,’ Elaine Bell announced, feeling the need to introduce him to the widow but not herself, she, apparently, needing no introduction. Sitting down next to the woman, and without any preamble, she started to fire a burst of staccato questions at her.
‘Anything gone from this room? Anything sharp, like a knife, for example?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve checked then?’
‘No, I haven’t… I’ll just check now, will I?’ Heather Brodie asked, seeking the policewoman’s leave before, looking slightly dazed, she got up slowly and walked towards an old-fashioned Welsh dresser, rummaging inside both its drawers before saying, almost apologetically, ‘I don’t think anything’s missing from here. But,’ she paused briefly, ‘… a knife’s gone from the block. Usually there are five in it. Now it’s only got four. I can see the space for it from here.’
‘Could it be in the dishwasher, the sink, somewhere like that?’ the DCI responded immediately.
‘No,’ Heather Brodie answered. ‘I never use those knives. They were given to us as a wedding present, but I didn’t like them, so I never used them.’ For the first time she lifted her deep blue eyes and looked directly into the Inspector’s face, being met by an unblinking, rather stony, gaze.
‘Have you noticed anything else missing − anything shifted, disarranged… out of place, as if a stranger had been at it?’
The woman nodded.
‘Well?’ the DCI shot back, not troubling to disguise her impatience, the need for further elaboration blindingly obvious to her. Riddell, the liaison officer, threw his boss a reproachful glance, wordlessly reminding her that shock could cause confusion, but he got no expression of understanding or remorse in return.
‘My laptop’s gone from in here. It was in its case… and Gavin, my husband, his wallet’s been taken too, I think. It was always kept by his bed. Not that he ever used it, but he liked it to be there. It’s not there now. It was always kept beside the water glass… but that’s full of blood now. And it’s gone. They’ve taken all his bottles of medicine, pills, everythi…’ Her voice tailed off into a sob.
‘Mrs Brodie?’ Thomas Riddell said, ‘have you got anyone you could stay the night with, or even for the next few days − children, or your mother? You won’t want to spend any more time here than you need, I’m sure. And then we can get on with things… after that we’ll get the place cleaned up for you.’
‘Yes. A good idea. Leave the house,’ Elaine Bell said curtly, before the widow had time to reply. She added, in a softer tone, ‘We’ve a few more… er, things to attend to here. It’ll take maybe another half an hour. Then it would be helpful, if you wouldn’t mind, if you came with us to the station. We need a little more information from you. So I’ll get a WPC to collect some overnight things for you right now.’
‘Ma’am,’ PC Rowe stuck his head round the door. ‘That’s Professor McConnachie here the now. I showed him into the victim’s bedroom and he told me to come and get you.’
‘One other thing,’ Heather Brodie said, aware that the Inspector’s attention was shifting away from her, ‘I think my jewellery case’s gone too. I looked for it last night when I got back, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’d taken a bracelet out earlier that evening. None of it was good, but it was all of sentimental value. A photograph, one of my daughter, in an antique silver frame, it’s gone too. My husband kept it by his bed.’
Professor Daniel McConnachie was leaning over the gash in the dead man’s neck, examining it closely through his half-moon spectacles and humming Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ rapidly through his teeth. Alerted by the rustling of Elaine Bell’s paper suit he looked up as she bustled towards him, Alice following in her slipstream.
‘Ah, the two lovely ladies have arrived. And how are you both?’
‘Lets just get on with it, shall we?’ the DCI answered, feeling out of sorts, unwilling to engage in their usual raillery.
‘As you wish, Elaine,’ he began, gesturing expansively at the blood-spatters on the wall as if it at a sample of Chinese silk wallpaper. ‘It’s obvious that this isn’t an accidental death. The wound’s not self-inflicted either, by the look of things. There is a hesitation mark, a tiny one… but I don’t doubt that we should treat this as a homicide nonetheless. Have you found the weapon?’
‘Maybe,’ the Inspector said cagily. ‘A knife may be missing from the kitchen. Where’s the hesitation mark?’
A latex-encased finger was pointed at a single minute slit-mark directly above the gash.
‘What’s that mean?’ the policewoman asked.
‘Just what it says − hesitation, dithering. In suicides it’s usually a little experiment before the final cut, and much the same, really, in homicide. A moment of indecision before the deed’s done.’
‘So what d’you think we’re dealing with here?’
‘But that’s your job, Elaine, isn’t it?’ he replied tartly, still smarting from her initial show of impatience. He continued his inspection of the dead man’s fingernails, one of which was unnaturally long.
‘OK, OK, I’m sorry. Please… it might be helpful. A fair amount of stuff seems to have been taken from the house, and presumably the injuries are consistent with that − with a botched robbery, I mean, with Brodie being killed in the course of it?’
‘Possibly,’ the professor answered, but his shrugged shoulders suggested that he was not persuaded.
‘Well, if not that, why not that?’ Elaine Bell asked, exasperated by his guarded response.
‘Because of the knife − the throat-cutting,’ a voice from the door said. PC Rowe had slipped into the room and been unable to stop himself from answering, alerting all to his presence despite knowing the likely consequences of his speech.
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ The DCI spun round, glaring at the young man.
‘But the boy’s right, of course,’ the professor said, magisterially. ‘Your average thieving ned, robber and so on, doesn’t cut throats, does he? If disturbed or whatever, he, or they, just grab the nearest weapon…’ He hesitated, looking round the room. ‘Something like that lamp over there or… or the carafe, even. They beat the person to a pulp, don’t they? Beat them about the head. They don’t come, like a surgeon, prepared with a knife.’
‘These ones didn’t come prepared either,’ Elaine Bell interjected. ‘They just used what they could find.’
‘Even so…’
‘And they took stuff, quite a lot of stuff.’
‘Could be mementoes of the killing or something like that − who knows?’
‘Mementoes! A wallet, a computer, a jewellery box? I don’t think so.’
‘All I’m saying,’ the professor answered, gazing at the corpse, ‘is that you’d best keep an open mind, Elaine, hadn’t you? Remember what happened last time? Of course, this might well be the handiwork of an opportunist thief or thieves. But it might, just might, be that of a cold-blooded murderer. I wouldn’t exclude that possibility quite yet.’