DCI Bruce whirled round at speed in a full circle on his revolving chair. It could have been simply joie de vivre, but Alice sensed that the man had done it to proclaim his dominance over his territory and over the only subordinate present, herself. Returning to his place at the front of his desk he pressed the ends of his fingers together, as if praying, and began to speak.
‘That’s very useful stuff, in its way, Detective Sergeant. Almost, but not quite, makes up for missing my meeting…’ he smiled with no warmth. ‘Anyhow, the toxicology report should make entertaining reading, so I suggest that you go off and harry the lab for me. It’s over three weeks since the post mortem and this case, surely, deserves some priority.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘And when you talk to Nicholas Lyon again, bring him in here, eh? Just to let him know what he’s got himself into.’
‘What has he got himself into, Sir?’
‘A murder enquiry, remember?’
‘I hadn’t forgotten that, Sir, but he’s not really a suspect at present, is he? Mr Lyon’s the… the… well, the bereaved. He lived with the victim for over forty-five years. We’ve got nothing to suggest that he was involved in any way, and I’d much rather see him in his own home; he’ll be more relaxed there.’
‘Get real, Sergeant! He didn’t come to us, did he? We had to go and winkle him out, and that speaks volumes in my book. He’s a suspect as far as I’m concerned! So let’s give him a dose of reality and bring him in here “to assist us”. In fact, I’ll do the interview myself to make sure we get everything we need.’
The Professor’s desk was almost invisible beneath the array of empty coffee cups and polystyrene mugs stacked on it, and the man’s expression betrayed irritability when he looked up from his computer screen as the policewoman entered.
‘I’ve tracked the report down, Alice.’ He sounded defensive. ‘It’s with Doctor Zenabi for his signature. We were going to email it to you later this morning, but if you want to pop in and collect it, his room is further down this corridor, third on the left. He should have signed it by now.’
‘There were one or two things I need to ask you, first, if you’ve got the time, Professor?’
‘When have I ever got the time on a lecture morning? But fire ahead. I can give you until eleven o’clock, and then I’m off to give a talk on “Paradoxical Undressing”. Law students on this occasion. No, we’d better make that quarter to eleven, in order to give me time to get to Old College.’
‘I’ve spoken to the Sheriff’s partner and he told me that on the Monday night, Freeman planned to take an overdose of amitriptyline…’
‘He?’
‘He.’
‘Well, the toxicology certainly confirmed that,’ the Professor said, gathering together, as he spoke, a couple of lever-arch files from a desk drawer. ‘It was an unexpected finding-that it was in his system, I mean. There was none among the drugs swept from the various cabinets and drawers in Moray Place. Did he tell you where the man got it from?’
Alice nodded. ‘From their other house, in the country, in Kinross-shire. Nicholas, that’s the Sheriff’s partner, had some. He told me that he was given it a while ago when his mother died, and that he’d never got round to throwing it out because…’
‘Mind you,’ the Professor interrupted, ‘it wasn’t the cause of death. He was undoubtedly alive when he was attacked. After all, we took over 150 millilitres of sub-dural blood from the brain, a massive haemorrhage. But it was certainly a fatal dose, the amitriptyline, I mean.’
‘What sort of condition would the Sheriff have been in between, say, about seven o’clock and ten or thereabouts?’
‘Well, you’ve got to remember that he’d been knocking back alcohol a bit-not that much-about fifteen milligrams, no more than a few double whiskies, I suppose. By that time, seven onwards, I’d say that most of the effects he’d be feeling really would be from the drink. Maybe his speech would be a little more slurred with the two in combination… he might have been a bit slower in thought, too. Unsteady. As the evening progressed the effects of the drug would begin to kick in.’
‘And there was no sign of him having been forced to eat or swallow anything? I’m thinking of the pills?’
‘No. Certainly, the oral examination showed nothing unusual.’
‘At the post mortem you never mentioned any motor neurone disease, Professor?’
‘No. Did he have it?’
‘Well, Mr Lyon said that he was diagnosed with it about eight months ago and had begun to experience some pretty unpleasant effects; largely difficulties with speech and swallowing. That kind of thing.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Would it be possible to look again? I mean, to check to see if he did have the disease?’
‘No, probably not. We released the body for the funeral and I think we’d be short of blocks. I’m not sure we’ll have taken enough from various areas of the brain. We might also have needed tissue from the tongue and I’d probably have had to involve Professor Donaldson, the neurologist but-’ he hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t advise going down that route anyway. There’s no point, we know already the cause of death. The Sheriff could’ve had motor neurone disease in its early stages and nothing would necessarily appear on post mortem, but his general practice records are being sent to the department. Why don’t I phone Maureen and see if they’ve got here? If a diagnosis of MND was made during his lifetime it’ll be in there and more reliable, in all probability, than any made at post mortem. In life, you see, you get fasciculations, clear symptoms, signs etc. Let’s phone Maureen and ask her to bring them if they’ve arrived, eh?’
The secretary bustled into the office bearing a thick brown folder and pointing at her watch.
‘You’ll need to get a move on, Professor, or you’ll be late for the students.’
Professor McConnachie nodded non-commitally, and began to examine the file, pulling aside clinical notes and charts until he reached the correspondence section.
‘Here it is, Alice. The Sheriff went to the Murrayfield and saw a neurologist there. I know him, actually. A chap called Kennedy. He seems to have made a fairly confident diagnosis-let’s see… slurring of speech, excess saliva… history… electromyalgic results, CT scans… fasciculations. It’s all there.’
‘And the date of the letter?’
‘Er… 4th November 2005.’
‘A thoussand pieces you know, not the bikkest I haff effer done but, well, pussles relax me.’ Mrs Nordquist twirled a minuscule jigsaw piece between her fingers and then began to concentrate intensely on the puzzle tray on the table before her. Surreptitiously, Alice attempted to make out the image being formed. Upside down, it seemed to be no more than a mass of squiggles, possibly in the form of an alien with multiple auras encircling it.
Without looking up Mrs Nordquist inserted her piece, took a sip from the little glass beside her and said conversationally, ‘The Scream… do you know? Munch’s masterwork? It’s one off my faforites. But I can eassily talk at the same time, so you jusst carry on, Detectif Rice.’
‘Well, perhaps I should begin by letting you know that I’ve met Nicholas, Mr Lyon.’
‘Yess?’ Mrs Nordquist did not appear to be disconcerted by the news.
‘Yes. And I got the impression from him that when you told us that you and the Sheriff were strangers to each other, that was not quite true.’
‘Well, maybe, but I also said he wass a goot neighbour.’
‘In fact, you were friends?’
‘Yess.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us about Mr Lyon? You must’ve known that such information was exactly the sort of thing that we needed.’
Mrs Nordquist sighed deeply and slowly put down her next jigsaw piece.
‘Becoss I knew what James would haff wanted ant what he would not haff wanted. The Police, anyone, really, to know he wass gay. He wass very olt-fashioned. I could haff told you, but it didn’t seem right. So I jusst made jokes, I wass nervouss. It wass his secret to impart, not mine.’
The woman’s speech stopped abruptly as her housekeeper entered the room bearing a tray with lunch on it. After it had been placed on the coffee table in front of her, Mrs Nordquist said, ‘Ant the bottle, Mrs McColl-where iss the bottle?’
Mrs McColl looked defiantly at her employer, but on being met with an equally unblinking stare, she signalled her defeat by shaking her head and muttering ‘It’ll be the death of you… your precious aquavit!’
Her servant vanquished, Mrs Nordquist began to poke at her food idly, and then continued: ‘James wass my friend. Nicholas too. James wass deat. What difference does it make, eh? Effentually, you’d find Nicholas. It’s your jop.’
‘Why did you phone Nicholas that morning?’
Mrs Nordquist stabbed a piece of asparagus and raised it to her mouth.
‘Wouldn’t you haff? The man’s luffer wass dead, for heffen’s sake. Kilt!’
‘What exactly did you tell him?’
‘That James had been murdered, ant that you were all ofer their houss.’
Holding Alice’s gaze as she did so, and to show that she had now lost all appetite, Mrs Nordquist flicked the green spear off her fork onto the cream carpet below her, and Freya’s muzzle emerged from its hiding place under the sofa to snap up the titbit.
DCI Bruce looked into the mirror compact that he had found in his desk drawer. A fine-looking man, he concluded. No-one had ever actually paid him such a compliment, or likely ever would, but its absence had never dented his belief in the truth of such an observation had it been made about him. Red hair and blue eyes. An excellent Celtic combination. Today, maybe, the skin looking a little pallid and freckled, but more than made up for by the manly auburn moustache. At the afternoon press conference he would photograph well again, any pallor being put down to overwork, and such an impression could only do him good.
The unannounced entry into his office of the Assistant Chief Constable, Laurence Body, jolted him out of his reverie and he dropped the mirror back into its hiding place before rising from his seat.
‘Well, DCI, I hope you have some progress to report. There seems to have been precious little to date.’
Thank God the Detective Segeant had phoned. ‘I do, actually, Sir. I heard from DS Rice that the toxicology report confirms that the Sheriff took a fatal overdose of that drug-am… whatever.’
‘The amitriptyline?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘So?’
‘Er… so what, Sir?’
‘So, do we know whether the Sheriff was already dead when he was hit over the head or whether the drug killed him? Whether only a corpse was battered?’ Body’s irritation coloured his voice.
DCI Bruce cleared his throat, trying to gain time to think. This possibility, now so obvious, had not previously occurred to him. He would rely on Professor McConnachie’s post-mortem remarks.
‘The cause of death was the blows, the Prof told me that at the mortuary,’ he said, trying to sound confident.
‘And did the Professor have the toxicological results to consider then?’
The Chief Inspector was just formulating an evasive reply when Body answered his own rhetorical question. ‘Of course not. He wouldn’t then be aware of any competing cause. For Christ’s sake!’ He sighed with exasperation before continuing, ‘And we have no suspect as yet, I understand?’
‘Actually, I’m just about to see one. The Sheriff’s partner.’ The day had been saved.
Nicholas Lyon leant against the window-sill and looked out through the smeared glass across St Leonard’s Bank and the broad sweep of Queens Drive and onto Salisbury Crags beyond. A scene so carefree and sunlit that it seemed to belong to his past, not to this dreary, painful present. All his life he had been protected by the law, by James and James’ knowledge of it; and here he was in the front line, unprotected and under attack. And all because of James. Even his own body was letting him down, palms clammy and sweat trickling down his brow. He closed his eyes, slowly breathing in, trying to blot out the alien world in which he found himself, with its institutional smells and unashamed ugliness.
Suddenly, the door of the interview room was thrown open and a small red-haired man entered, shoulders back, head erect, with the now familiar policewoman following behind him. Nicholas sensed that this time there would be no gentle preliminaries, no charade of ‘assistance’. The manner of the entrance proclaimed that an interrogation was about to begin, however it might officially be described. He could feel his heart-rate rise, the pounding in his chest audible to him, if not everyone else.
‘So, Mr Lyon, the Sheriff took the amitriptyline himself, did he?’
‘Yes. He must have done, if you found it in his blood, and as he had planned, in Edinburgh.’
‘And you knew all about it?’
‘Yes. Well, no… not exactly.’ The old man was becoming flustered, ‘I mean, I knew that he intended to take it and I thought that he was going to do so on Monday night, but I couldn’t be sure. You see, it’s difficult to explain, but James didn’t want me to know… when, exactly, I mean.’
‘How did you discover that he was dead?’
‘Like I said to the Detective Sergeant, our friend, Liv Nordquist, phoned and told me.’
‘And why, in God’s name, didn’t you immediately make yourself available to us for the purpose of our enquiries? The Sheriff had, after all, been murdered.’
It was difficult to explain. More than that. Maybe impossible, or at least impossible to explain to this strange martinet. But, again, he must try.
‘James was dead, Chief Inspector, and he never liked people to know that he was gay. He came from a long line of military men, generals and brigadiers, that sort of thing… Service people. You know the sorts of views they tend to have about people like us.’ Seeing the DCI’s expression of surprise, he corrected himself quickly. ‘James and me, I mean. Anyway, most people didn’t know that he was gay, or that he had a partner. If I had turned up… well, that would all be over, wouldn’t it? And word of his homosexuality would get out, it would have, wouldn’t it? Into the newspapers and everything.’ He glanced up at the policeman, seeking his reaction, expecting agreement but not finding it.
‘Not nowadays. You’ll have to do better than that, Mr Lyon.’
The old man, sensing that he was not being believed, looked dismayed. His words began to tumble out, a new note of desperation in his voice.
‘But I knew you would find me… I suppose if I had come forward sooner you’d have got whatever information I can give you sooner, but, you see, I don’t know anything. I have no idea who killed James or why anyone would want to. If I can’t help now then I couldn’t have helped then either.’
‘Did the Sheriff have other lovers?’
‘I’m sorry, what are you talking about?’ The old man appeared bemused by the question.
‘Lovers. Other gay lovers. Other than you. It’s simple enough. Did the Sheriff have other gay lovers?’
No. I was his lover, his friend, his companion for over forty-five years. I was all he needed.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘What about when he was in Edinburgh, with you left in the country?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘But you didn’t know?’
‘Does anybody know what their lover does every minute of every hour of every day sufficient to know for certain that they are faithful, Chief Inspector?’
‘So the simple answer is that he could have done so?’
Of course, he could have done so. I could have done so but, you foolish man, I knew his heart. He would not have done so any more than I would have done so. A truth apparently beyond your imagination or experience.
‘Yes, he could have done so.’
‘And are you aware whether anyone might have any kind of grievance against him due to his job?’
‘No. He retired over ten years ago, but even when he was on the bench I never heard of anything like that. Once, ages ago, I remember him telling me that a woman pelted him with an egg as he left the Sheriff Court in Haddington. Otherwise, I can’t recall anything or anyone.’
Interfering Scottish fucking Executive. Them and their bloody rules, DCI Bruce thought to himself. I NEED a cigarette. I don’t just want a cigarette, I need one, and without one all that I can think about is a smoke and where the next one is coming from. Something to calm my shattered nerves and stop the constant re-running in my head of the meeting with the ACC. No less than a sodding fiasco, and a further obstacle on the road to promotion. When would DCI Bell be returning, indeed! As if the man could not wait to replace him. But a little nicotine would restore his confidence, restore his self belief. Oh, it was intolerable! This interference with the rights of individuals, particularly individuals doing important and responsible jobs and who needed, physiologically, needed a good drag to function at top level. Without it he could not listen to this drivel for a second longer.
‘Perhaps you could take over now, DS Rice?’ DCI Bruce said as he rose, departing with unconcealed haste, intent on achieving his single, easily accomplished goal. And it would not be, ignominiously, behind the bike shed either.
‘Mr Lyon, maybe we could continue this interview at Geanbank in a few days’ time?’ the policewoman asked.
‘That would be fine. Thank you, I’d prefer that.’
Alice looked at the exam paper.
‘(12) There are several factors that may affect underwater visibility. Tick those that do:
A – Weather.
B – Water movement.
C – Ambient pressure.
D – Suspended particles.’
The weather must, surely. Bright sunshine could only make things clearer. Tick. Water movement? If there are lots of waves, then stuff, like sand, would be mixed into the water. Tick.
Ambient pressure? Christ knows. Leave it out.
Suspended particles? Of course. Tick
‘(13) Almost all injuries caused by aquatic life are attributable to (fill in space) action by the animal. Tick, as appropriate:
A – Unpredictable.
B – Unprovoked.
C – Defensive.’
Alice racked her brain for an example. A shark attempting to bite a lump out of a diver. That would do. Let’s see; thoroughly predictable and therefore, possibly, avoidable. Routinely unprovoked and offensive in nature rather than defensive. Tick ‘unprovoked’. She wished she had read ‘Knowledge review – Module 3’ of the Open Water Diver Manual last night instead of another chapter of Ishiguro’s bleak novel, which had reduced her to tears. As she began to scrutinise Question 14, at first sight completely incomprehensible, she became aware of Bridget craning over her question sheet. The invigilator had left the room.
‘Well, what’s the answer to Question 12?’ Her friend murmured.
‘No idea, I’ve opted for A, B and D.’
‘And 13?’
‘Again, I haven’t the faintest, but I’m going for “Unprovoked”. What’s the answer to 14, Bridget?’
‘I’ve put “Establish buoyancy; Drop weight belt; Stop; Think; Act relaxed and signal”. I had it all written down on my palm.’
‘My palm wouldn’t be big enough!’
The urgent whispering in the room ceased as the invigilator returned, bearing a cup of coffee for himself.
‘Now, students, your time’s up. If you exchange sheets with your neighbour we will correct the exam.’ Before Alice had a chance to pass her sheet on to the man on her right Bridget snatched it from her grasp and thrust her own onto Alice’s lap, wheedling conspiratorially, ‘Last week, 90%. This week 92%? Eh? Top o’ the class for me?’
‘These things matter!’ hissed the waste disposal entrepreneur.
‘I know,’ nodded Bridget before adding blithely, ‘that’s why I intend to come first.’ And then she muttered to Alice, ‘water off a Dux’s back, eh!’