The call to his flat had remained unanswered, but he had told her that she was free to come to his studio any time of the day or night. A visit from her would not constitute a disturbance whenever it took place. He would welcome it. And, anyway, where else could he be?
She entered the crumbling building by the Henderson Row doorway, and feeling the cool air of the place she remembered the last time she had gone there, less than a year earlier. Then it had been in the depth of winter, early December, and the mist of her breath had been visible in its freezing interior and the space had seemed threatening, entirely alien to her. Ducking under the grimy bed sheets that formed a makeshift barrier between the two studios, she recognised Kathleen Ferrier’s low tones, singing Mahler’s ‘Das Lied von der Erde’. Nature would renew itself once more, she thought, but not for Nicholas Lyon to tend or tame, and a picture of the gardens at Geanbank, rank and overgrown, appeared before her eyes.
The unplastered brick walls of the dilapidated studio were covered, as before, with sketches of human figures, cavorting at the circus, riding bareback, or performing exercises within a gymnasium. Her study of the drawings ended when her attention was caught by the sound of the hammer and she saw Ian Melville, seated on a sofa in the corner of the room, concentrating hard, absorbed in fashioning a picture frame and blithely unaware of her entrance. She began to move towards him, but stopped at an easel to view the drawing resting on it. A light pencil sketch of a naked woman reclining on a bed. The work betrayed tenderness; imperfections recorded but not dwelt upon; a portrait, not simply a ruthless exercise in observation. Looking at the head, she started on recognising her own face, felt momentarily rattled to find herself scrutinising someone else’s image of her, as if she was indulging in some form of extreme egoism.
‘When did you do it?’ she asked, her voice sharper than she had intended.
The man looked up and she watched as his face reddened, suffused with blood, more embarrassed now than ever when naked, as if his drawing of her had exposed something far more personal than his own unclothed body. He recovered quickly.
‘When do you think? Early in the morning when you were still asleep. D’you mind? I’m just making a frame for it, to give it to you.’
A quick succession of unwanted thoughts flitted through her head before she answered. Had he drawn all the other women that he had slept with? Was the picture a form of record of a conquest, like the notches on a Spitfire’s wing? Would it have been worse if he had photographed her, unconscious and asleep, instead? She glanced again at the picture and found that what she saw allayed the sudden panic that had risen within her. It was not some stolen glimpse of a meaningless encounter; rather a depiction that could only have sprung from genuine intimacy, true sympathy with the subject.
‘No, I don’t mind. I’ve just come from the hospital. Nicholas Lyon’s dead. He died less than an hour ago.’
She had not expected his death to affect her as it had, but somehow in her mind his fate had become linked with that of her mother. If he could just survive, then she, too, would survive. And the sadness she had felt, gazing at the still, small figure in the hospital bed had, to her shame, expanded, swollen and consumed her, releasing all the anxieties she had been trying to control, to make her day-to-day life possible. But all she could think about then, and now, was her beloved mother in the shadow of that evil disease.
The next morning Alice was swearing to herself, unable to find the paper copy of Doctor Zenabi’s report in among the midden of papers covering her desk. Alistair plonked a mug of tea on her diary.
‘You heard?’
‘Heard what?’ she asked, irritation at this interruption clear in her voice.
‘The Sheriff’s partner. He died last night.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘How come? Anyway, apparently, he’s got a child. A grownup daughter actually. The boss wants us to spend the morning tracking her down.’
‘Well, Bingo!’ Alice said, abandoning the search and taking a sip from the mug, ‘we’ve done it already!’
‘What on earth are you going on about?’
‘Yesterday night… I spent some of it with the old fellow at the hospital. A nurse came in, just before he died. She would have shooed me away unless I claimed to be a family member. So I said I was. He couldn’t be left to meet his Maker on his own.’
‘Jesus Christ, Alice. You could have mucked things up nicely! Anyway, haven’t you got a home to go to?’
She smiled at him. ‘I have, thanks, and I can do without the lecture. Don’t worry, pal, I’ll speak to the DCI about the phantom child. By the way, I’ve just been on the phone to traffic. Dan there says that they’ve found a few flakes of paint. It seems the car was white and, they reckon, probably, one of the smaller, cheaper makes. Some of the slivers are with the lab now, so they think they’ll have a better clue as to the exact type before too long. They’re attempting calculations on the tyre marks as well, and the photographers are busy at the scene. Dan also said that some uniforms brought in a few shards of broken glass but they’re not sure if they’ve come from the vehicle we’re looking for. Apparently, the fragments are dirty, as if they’d been at the locus for a while. After I’ve seen the boss and explained things, let’s go and see Mrs Nordquist again, eh?‘
‘Certainly. With you as my chaperone.’
Beside her, as always, stood a small glass, filled to the brim with golden fluid. It rested within a hand’s reach of the striped deckchair, which sagged beneath the weight of the solid Swedish matron. She did not rise from it to greet the two detectives when they were shown into her paved back garden. Instead, she pulled up the rug that concealed her naked body until it almost reached her chin. On one side, however, an expanse of pink flesh was visible. Conscious of their surprise, she said to her visitors in a matter of fact tone: ‘…the sowna. I haff von in the basement.’
Both officers towered over the seated figure, feeling awkward and ill at ease, unsure of the etiquette in this situation. Their hostess, in contrast, seemed unflustered, relaxed even, despite the unmistakeable tension of her visitors and her own relative undress. Eyes half closed, she said: ‘Why don’t you both jusst sit on the ground, officers,’ before adding, as an afterthought, ‘I haff only von deckchair ant I neet it.’
And so the interview began with her interrogators squatting at her feet, each wishing that they had taken the initiative earlier and requested, or even demanded, that the session be conducted indoors. Alice, painfully conscious that any authority she might once have possessed had evaporated on finding herself at eye level to a bare knee, began: ‘I understand that you were the first one to find Mr Lyon on Wednesday night. Is that right?’
‘Yess.’
From under the rug Mrs Nordquist found a cigarette, and endeavoured, ineffectually, to light it while preserving her decency.
‘Can you tell us how that came about, you finding him, I mean?’
The remaining lobster-red arm extended itself to grasp the glass, and a large swig was consumed before any answer was forthcoming.
‘Waal, I wass upstairs in my betroom actually-it faces the street-ant I heard a car. The noiss of sutten acceleration… high speet. From nowhere. Then there was the sort of… thut… ant then the sount of the car drifing away. I looked out,’ she stopped momentarily and sighed before continuing, ‘ant there he wass. Nicholas, I mean, lying on the copples, blut all around him. Sso I put down my hairbrush ant ran out to see him. His eyes were clost. I shouted “Mrs McColl, Mrs McColl! Nine, nine, nine.” She gott the ambulance ant brought blankets to keep him varm. I state with him… but he nefer opened his eyes or spoke.’
Alice looked up at Mrs Nordquist’s face. Her lower lip was trembling and she was blinking copiously, fighting to keep control of her emotions. Wordlessly, the policewoman passed her the glass of aquavit and wordlessly, she drank from it, draining every last drop.
‘And when did all this happen?’ Alistair asked.
‘The night before lasst. Oh… say, nine o’clock, possibly, a little after when I heard the noisses.’
‘But you didn’t see anything happen? The collision? The first thing you saw was Mr Lyon, injured on the street?’
‘Yess. I nefer saw the car. Most probably, it must have been parked in Moray Place or something. It wass the sutten acceleration that first… well, that seemed so ott.’
Freya padded through the French doors to join her mistress, and stood expectantly in front of her. Gently, Mrs Nordquist raised both of the dog’s ears in her hands and then sank her face into its warm head. As the detectives began to rise from their prostrate position, it stared at them with its sinister yellow eyes and let out a long, low growl which stopped them in their tracks. The noise only ceased when Mrs Nordquist came up for air and relaxed back into her deckchair. And then, and only then, did her visitors exit her domain.
Mrs McColl, an Aberdonian Scot and as conventional as her Scandinavian employer was unconventional, sat with her knees tight together on a leather-covered stool in the state-of-the-art kitchen. In fact, the place was more of a food laboratory than an ordinary, domestic kitchen, the stainless steel and glass units lending it an air of sterility. Oddly, the housekeeper was wearing a nylon housecoat, a garment completely at odds with her space-age workplace, an environment which would more harmoniously have suited a skin-tight silver one-piece rather than this incongruous throwback to a gentler age.
‘When did you first become aware of the accident, Mrs McColl?’ Alice enquired.
‘The time? Och, mebbe about half nine or thereabouts I’d say. I was doing the washing up-we’ve a Miele, quiet as a mouse you know-and I heard her shouting, screaming something. I ran upstairs, looked out the door and saw her in the street, bending over someone who’s been knocked down. I phoned the ambulance right away. Then, after that, for you… the polis, I mean.’
‘Did you see the car involved in the accident… anything?
‘No, I’m sorry. All I saw was the man, Mr Lyon, lying in the street. I recognised him when I went out with the blankets.’
‘Had you heard anything before you became aware of your employer shouting?’
‘No. I’m really very sorry but I was busy putting away the supper things. I only heard her voice because… well, she was screaming, she sounded hysterical.’
‘Did you know Mr Lyon or Sheriff Freeman?’ Alice persisted.
‘No,’ the woman looked her inquisitor in the eye. ‘I didn’t know either of them. Mrs Nordquist does, so I have seen them both, on occasions, when they’ve visited here. I saw more of the Sheriff. The little I saw of them… well, I liked them. Mrs Nordquist was always very pleased to see either of them, and the Sheriff, you know, helped her a lot after her husband left her. And not just with the legal stuff; as a real friend, I mean. I think, and I may be speaking out of turn, but I think he was helping her to get off… well, the drink. She almost never touched the stuff in the old days. My life was a great deal easier then, when she was happy, I mean.’
‘Alice, love, I’ve left a little note on your desk,’ DI Manson said cheerily to her as she passed him on her way to the Ladies. The ill-suppressed glee in his voice forewarned her that its contents would not please her. Sure enough. It contained an instruction from the DCI that she now telephone all the garages round the edge of the capital; places like Musselburgh, Tranent, Penicuik, Portobello, Ratho and so on. Sheer unadulterated drudgery, probably given to her as a punishment for her unauthorised impersonation and, more damningly, the lack of remorse shown by her for it. At their meeting earlier that morning, Robin Bruce had impressed upon her his disappointment and disapproval of her conduct. And he had conveyed something altogether more sinister; that if the matter were to be taken no further she would, in some intangible way, be in his debt.
‘DS Rice, apart from anything else, scarce resources might well have been wasted in the search for Mr Lyon’s non-existent daughter.’
‘I know, Sir. I’m sorry, too, but I don’t think that’s very likely. Tracing the woman would have fallen to the murder squad, so I’d have heard about it and immediately explained that she didn’t exist.’
‘And if you hadn’t heard… because, say, you were out of the office attending to something or other?
Good point, she thought, but said only: ‘Well. As I say, Sir, I’m sorry. But Mr Lyon had nobody. I knew that he had nobody. And he was, obviously, dying. If I hadn’t pretended to be a member of the family the nurse would have kicked me out.’
‘Before you went to the hospital you didn’t know he was dying. What the hell were you doing there anyway?’
‘It sounded, from your report, as if he was close to death’s door. You said it was “likely to prove fatal” after all, and traffic was involved. I knew him a bit. I liked him. To be honest, I wanted to see him. It all happened in my own time.’
‘Well, we’re lucky that the Infirmary isn’t making more of a fuss about the whole thing. As far as I am concerned you can visit whomsoever the hell you like, in your own time, but do not, I repeat, DO NOT ever impersonate a relative like that again. Is that clear? This is a murder enquiry and you-you nearly sent us off on an expensive wild goose chase.’
‘Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.’
‘Oh, and Alice?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘For the moment, at least, this’ll go no further. Be our little secret, eh?’ And he winked conspiratorially.
And looking at the Yellow Pages she felt genuine penitence; ‘Boswell’s Garage’, ‘Butchart Motors’, ‘Chas’s Auto Repairs’, page after page of similar entries. But not for holding the man’s hand as he died. Jaded already, she picked up the receiver and dialled the first number.
‘Hello, is that Allanton’s Auto Services?’
‘Aha.’
‘This is DS Rice of Lothian and Borders Police. We need to know if any cars have been brought into your premises this morning, following an accident, for repairs. Or if you’ve had any phone calls asking if any such vehicles could be attended to in the near future?’
‘Eh?’ Apparent incomprehension.
‘This is the Police. Can you tell me, have you had any damaged cars brought in this morning for repairs?’
‘Eh? Damaged cars?’ Had she somehow lost the ability to speak English, she wondered.
‘Yes, damaged cars. Have any been brought into your garage this morning to be mended?’
‘I’ve nae idea. Derek! Derek! Come and speak, there’s a lassie on the phone…’
After three hours of non-stop calling, all she had to show for it was a black transit van in Loanhead, a motor bike in Ratho and a minibus in Port Seton, and none of them seemed likely candidates for the Moray Place accident. DI Manson rose from his chair, stretched and yawned and ambled over to her desk.
‘Alice, dear, I’ve just heard from the DCI that you are to prepare the press release for the witness appeal. It seems you’ve been on the phone for ages so he told me to tell you myself. Also, he wants you, for some reason, to draft something in case there’s to be another television appeal. He’ll do the appearance, obviously. Now, I’m just off for my tea. I could get you something only… I’m off to the pub after that. Oh yes, and you are to make arrangements for text messages in connection with the appeal. And… no, that’s it.’
Maybe the woman would be late, held up by a benevolent deity, Alice thought. But the ominous sound of the cleaning trolley, mop clanging against the bucket, confirmed the nuns’ claim that He moved in mysterious ways. Mrs McLaren pushed her chariot towards the bank of wastepaper baskets and began tipping the rubbish, untidily, into a black bin-bag. An organic, vinegary odour clung to her, occasionally masked by drifts of air-freshener or furniture polish, and as she propelled the cart onwards, using it as a makeshift Zimmer, wafts of her overpowering perfume were dispersed throughout the room. The job bored her; she was not one of nature’s domestics and her own home would not have borne inspection, too much of a busman’s holiday for her to flick a duster in any of its nooks or crannies. Lavatories alone provided her with job satisfaction; immaculate porcelain and glistening mirrors. So unlike offices, veritable death-traps of cables, usually attached to expensive machines.
‘No’ still here are ye, pet?’ she said conversationally, smiling warmly at Alice’s presence. But her prey was wary, unwilling to engage in conversation, knowing only too well where it would lead, and nervous of participating in their well-rehearsed dance, having suffered bruised feet too often.
‘I am indeed,’ Alice responded, trying to sound cheery, ebullient enough to deflect any further probing.
‘Still no man then, eh?’
There had been no preamble this time; none of the customary circling around the subject; the pretence that anything else about the Sergeant was of any interest. The woman’s touch was sure, as ever; she had managed to destroy, bring crashing to the ground, her listener’s self-esteem, although minutes before it had been fine, high even. Alice immediately found herself wondering how to describe Ian Melville. She could say pertly, ‘No, I have a boyfriend now,’ only it sounded defensive, oddly undignified too, as if they were the stuff of teen magazines. But to say, ‘No, I have a lover now’ seemed over-explicit, an unnecessary whiff of carnality, the hollow boast of a desperate exhibitionist. Seconds passed like minutes as she perfected her chosen reply, all the while mocking herself for doing so.
‘I have, thanks.’
Nicely judged, she thought, before castigating herself again for wasting time on the semantics of an unwelcome exchange. The door banged open and DCI Bruce rolled in, eyes slightly glazed, bumping the edge of a desk before reaching his target. Alice.
‘S’at woman not finished yet?’
He gestured wildly at the cleaner who, over-sensitive to the hint, gathered her tools together and departed, shaking her head at the man and mouthing, mid-exit, a single word. ‘Fu’.’ And it was true, the inspector had been drinking; drinking to celebrate the end of the day’s work, drinking to celebrate his birthday, and drinking most of all to forget the lack of progress in his case. Companions had come and gone, few occupying the nearby bar-stool for any length of time. He sat down heavily on his subordinate’s desk and looked at her, saying nothing, gazing into her eyes. His face was only a few inches from hers. Had his gait or unnerving proximity not given away his intoxicated state, his beery breath would have, but he was neither aggressive nor threatening.
‘Alice… Alice… Alice… you-you of all people should not be working late.’
Nor would I be but for your sodding orders, she thought bitterly, but said, soothingly, ‘Nearly finished, Sir,’ while logging out and collecting her keys and purse from a drawer. Then she bent down to pick up her bag from the floor and, simultaneously, he reached over to touch her hair, but finding no resistance, toppled downwards, eventually smiling up at her from her own lap. Gingerly, as if handling an unpredictable beast, she lifted his head up, until, equilibrium temporarily restored, he was able to right himself. Before he had a chance to lunge at her again, she sprang out of her chair, and made a dash for the door. Heels clacking down the stairs, she sped away angry, irritable enough to spit at her own shadow.
‘He’s nae worth it, hen, trust me!’ shouted Mrs McLaren, sweeping the steps and innocently salting the wound.