Gillian Galbraith - Where The Shadow Falls

‘Never mind that, Sergeant. I’ve not finished. This Nicholas Lyon man, are you saying that he was a ff… fixture, that he’d-well, that they were married or whatever?’ Major Freeman’s words were slurred.

‘I don’t think they’d been through a Civil Partnership ceremony if that’s what you mean, Major, but they seem to have been as married, in effect, as any heterosexual couple. Now, going back to the letters. Your brother was receiving threatening letters…’

‘About being a poof?’ Sandra Freeman giggled, putting her hand over her mouth.

‘No, Mrs Freeman. Not about that. The letters seemed to be concerned with the Scowling Crags wind farm. Someone didn’t want it to go ahead. Have you received any letters, threatening or otherwise, about the wind farm, Major Freeman?’

‘No. Not a dickie bird from anyone about it. Should I have? Mind you, I don’t suppose anyone much knows that I have any involvement in it.’

‘Why’s that, sir?’ Alice asked.

‘Because James does everything. To do with Blackstone, I mean. My only contribution was the idea. The tenants have been there forever, and I mean forever; there are no written leases or anything. If something had to be done then James saw to it. Actually, he didn’t exactly trust me, but that was fine by me. As it happens, I didn’t exactly trus… sst him either, but he’s… efficient.’

Christopher Freeman turned his attention to his wife. ‘Are you not going to eat, my honey? You’ll fade away!’ he said smiling, patting a chair and beckoning her to sit beside him. Her resentment visibly dissipated, she sidled across to him, pecked him on the cheek and began to eat her meal.

‘Perhaps,’ Alice said, ‘I could show you a copy of one of the letters in case you recognise the handwriting?’

‘On you go, but we won’t, will we, darling?’ the man said, winking at his wife.

‘No, we won’t,’ Mrs Freeman answered, inspecting the copy letter with no real curiosity.

‘Could I borrow the material that Vertenergy produced in support of their planning application, please, sir? I understand that you’d get copies of most of it from the company.’

‘You’d be welcome to it if I had any, but I don’t. I told you I’ve had nothing to do with the scheme. It was just my idea. James organised everything with everybody, including the company.’

Mrs Freeman placed her knife and fork neatly side by side on her plate before gathering it and her husband’s crockery up and depositing them both in the sink. From the fridge she extracted a highly coloured trifle and showed it, lovingly, to her husband.

‘Sweetie,’ he purred, ‘my favourite.’

She laid it on the kitchen table, returned to her seat and lit up a cigarette. ‘Light one for mm… me, eh, love?’ her husband pleaded, dipping his spoon in the trifle and scraping off a layer of cream. She pouted at him, extracted one from its packet and lit it from her own. Major Freeman leant back on his chair, stretched an arm around her and inhaled deeply. Alice lifted up the box and prepared to leave.

‘One more thing, Sergeant,’ Christopher Freeman drawled.

‘Yes?’

‘The poof. Nicholas… whatever. I never saw him in Moray Place. Did he…’ the man’s question tailed off as he started on his pudding again.

‘Did he… what, Sir?’

‘Oh never mind, Sergeant. I forget.’

‘Have you been to Moray Place recently, Major?’

The man shook his head, still savouring his mouthful.

Tears coursed down the old man’s face, slipping off his jowls and tainting the coffee that he was trying unsuccessfully, with a trembling hand, to drink. Nothing he did seemed to staunch the flow and his eyes felt gritty, an ache in their very sockets. Twice the kind waitress had approached him to check that he was all right, and twice he had tried to allay her anxieties with a silence and a nod of his head.

I never wanted money, land, anything, he raged to himself. Just James. And I would lose every penny I ever had for him to stay here with me. That bloody motor neurone disease. Without it he would never have chosen to die. I know, he told himself, I know that the disease forced it on him, but what about me, left on my own?

But worse still to witness James’ suffering and be able to do nothing. And what kind of God confronts his creatures with such an impossible choice? What kind of God, after such a choice has been made, allows a murderer to make it meaningless and transforms a peaceful end into a terrifying death? Couldn’t he just have been allowed to slip away in his sleep as he had planned?

The sight of a gold-tipped black umbrella resting on a nearby table delivered another blow. It was identical to James’ brolly. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be reminders, ambushing him and overwhelming him. The effort of hiding his emotions, ostensibly functioning as normal, left him exhausted, drained of all life. And now, today, for the first time, he realised that he no longer looked forward to returning to their home. It was no more than an empty shell without James. What did it matter if the weeds grew tall? The lawn remained unmown? They would never again walk, hand in hand, enjoying the beauty of the garden that they had created. Somehow, the conversation with the solicitor, Mr McKay, had impressed upon him, as nothing else had, the finality of his lover’s departure; and an endless line of grey, cold days stretched before him. A new half-life, or existence; one devoid of all warmth and colour.

With a thud a large, sealed box was dropped onto Alice’s desk, startling her and causing the tea in her cup to spill onto her opened newspaper. She looked up, annoyed, into the smiling face of DC Lowe.

‘Special delivery for you, Sarge. Nicholas Lyon dropped it off yesterday and the DI said to pass it on to you, as the expert, like. The boss knows you’ve got it and he wants it checked out immediately. The Evening News is planning a front page spread on the Freeman murder and he’s shitting himself because he’s got nothing to fend them off with. I overheard him on the phone to Charlie at Fettes trying to postpone the next press conference. Not like him, eh?’

Opening the flaps of the box Alice looked inside and found eight ring binders, all devoted to the Scowling Crags wind farm proposal, produced by Vertenergy. She pulled out the topmost one and flicked through previous felling plans, site layouts, habitat maps and visibility diagrams. Nothing of any use there. The next volume was headed ‘Environmental Statement’, and she scanned a paragraph entitled ‘People and Safety’:

‘13.02-Under certain combinations of geographical position, time of day and time of year, the sun may pass behind a rotor and cast a shadow over neighbouring properties. When the blades rotate, the shadow flicks on and off; the effect is known as Shadow Flicker. It occurs only within buildings where the flicker appears through a narrow window opening…

‘13.04-Shadow Flicker frequency tends to be related to the rotor speed and the number of blades on the rotor and this can be translated into “blade path frequency” and measured in alternations per second or hertz. Two main concerns have been raised regarding the effects of Shadow Flicker and they are not exclusive to wind turbines: (1) they may cause seizures in people who are photo-sensitive and (2) they may cause considerable annoyance to people.’

Further down the same page was a table headed ‘Detailed Dwelling Assessment’ and in it each property scheduled to have a turbine at 11.5 rotor diameters to the east, south or west of it, was listed. In all, eleven houses were named: Foxhill Farm and Farm Cottage; Blaestane Cottage; Cockers Toll Cottage; Ballinder Farm and Farm Cottage; Wester Broadhill Cottage; Easter Broadhill Cottage; Struieford Cottage; Gowkshill Farm and Scowling Crags Farm. Another nearby page showed proposed turbine locations on an enlarged section from the Ordnance Survey map with all of the nearby dwellings marked with a red star.