Gillian Galbraith - Where The Shadow Falls

Eric Manson strolled past Alice’s desk to his own and emptied a black bin bag, full of correspondence, onto it, sighing deeply as he did so.

‘Could I have a quick look, Sir?’ Alice asked.

‘Be my guest, doll, I’m off to talk to the boss and then I’m going to see what Forensics has come up with, if anything.’

She combed through the pile, item by item. It was composed largely of e-mails, typed submissions and a few pre-printed postcards; and, diligently, she wrote down the names of all the senders. A few of them kept recurring: Angus Kersley, Joanna Hart, David Oxford, Gavin Logan and Morag McTear. Morag McTear’s contribution was contained in a slim folder and her address was marked, together with her name, prominently on the first page. She lived in Gowkshill Farm and her date of birth was also marked: 11th January 1920. An old lady. For Angus Kersley two addresses had been given: Wester Broadhill Cottage and ‘Barleyknowe’ in Ravelston Dykes, Edinburgh. Hundreds of the e-mails had come from another source, jhcocker@cockerstoll.com. Enough to be going on with.

When Alice rang Angus Kersley he was, by her good fortune, in Ravelston, suffering from a broken ankle, instead of at work, attending to his legal practice in his Alva Street office. Home turned out to be a half-timbered mock-Tudor mansion in the middle of the comfortable suburb. Even the garage had been decked with dark horizontal beams, and the front garden showed signs of slavish adherence to current gardening trends, with alarming clumps of black-leaved plants, tussocks of arid grasses and not a flower in sight. The delay between the pressing of the doorbell and the door being finally opened was explained by the large plaster cast encasing the man’s left leg and foot. He guided her to his study, his leaden limb dragging against the deep pile of the carpet, leaving a broad trail behind him.

The sight that met her eyes on entering the room amazed her. It was like gaining access to some kind of military headquarters. Pinned on the walls were large-scale maps, most of them of the Scowling Crags wind farm area. Each one displayed something different. One mapped out the turbine locations relative to the houses within the development. Another showed the system of tracks required for the wind farm, together with the ‘borrow pits’ from which the track construction materials would be quarried. Others showed the hydrogeology of the area and others still depicted the principal archaeological sites either within the development or close to it. Part of one wall was devoted to lists, each written in a neat, workaday hand with no pretension to style. They contained the names of the members of the local Council and the names of the members of the various committees of the Council. The names of those on the Planning Development and Control Committee were all underlined in red. Vast piles of pre-printed postcards lay strewn about the floor, together with blank sheets headed ‘Petition Against Scowling Crags Wind Farm’.

Kersley’s computer was on, and Alice noticed that some of the material that Vertenergy had produced appeared to have been scanned into it.

‘A day off?’ she said conversationally, as he closed his study door.

‘A day off paid work,’ he corrected her, in his distinctive Morningside accent. The telephone rang and he picked it up.

‘Sorry, Alistair, I’m busy just now. We’ll speak at the big meeting and I’ll bring along forms for your group then. Have you discovered how much the Post Office charge for a drop? Mmmm. OK. Speak to you later.’

‘I need to…’ Alice began. The telephone rang again and, once more, he picked up the receiver.

‘David. OK. I can’t talk now. I suggest that you contact the RSPB to see if their ornithological data about the geese is correct. No, I haven’t got a number for them. You’ll have to fish it out yourself. It’ll probably be in the book.’

‘Sorry,’ the man said, turning his attention back to Alice. Yet again the telephone rang.

‘Nope. It’s Councillor Garth you need to speak to, and you can forget the Community Council, they’re hopeless. I’m afraid I’ve got someone here so I must go. Bye.’

So saying the man took the phone off the hook and they both, momentarily, enjoyed the silence before Alice attempted to re-start the interview.

‘It’s about the Scowling Crags wind farm, Mr Kersley. You seem to be part of the group, quite possibly its leader judging by the stuff your study’s now filled with, and all those telephone enquiries…’

‘I am, for my sins. Absolutely,’ he replied. ‘I’ve a house within the proposed development, Wester Broadhill, and I’d planned retiring there. But the place will be ruined if the developers get their way. How can I help you, Sergeant?’

‘First of all, can I ask you where you were on Monday 12th June between, say, seven pm and ten pm?’

‘Easy. I was here, preparing for the next day. I’m a solicitor. I had a complicated fatal accident enquiry in Glasgow Sheriff Court, all about a suicide in a mental hospital. I had to work on it until about two am to try and master some of the more arcane stuff about staff rotas and so on.’

‘Was there anyone here with you?’

‘Aha. My wife, Angela. She can confirm it for you if you want. She’ll remember all right, because we had a blazing row that night as we were supposed to be having dinner with friends and I said I couldn’t go. Caused some unbelievable fireworks.’

‘Those lists on the wall, the Councillors and so on. Is that your handwriting?’

The man looked bemused. ‘Yes. It’s mine.’

Alice handed over a sheet bearing examples of the anonymous letter writer’s script.

‘Can you tell me, do you recognise that writing, Mr Kersley?’

The man examined the paper carefully before handing it back.

‘No. It’s very distinctive. Artistic looking. Why?’

Alice ignored the question. ‘Would it be possible for you to give me a list of all the people in your group?’

‘No problem. Anything else you need?’

‘Thank you. Do you know who the landlords are, I mean those allowing Vertenergy to put up the turbines on their land?’

‘Yes, of course. I tried, personally, to persuade some of them not to go ahead. Let me see… they’re mainly absentees, of course. Well, there’s Tony Theobold, Kenneth Winston and the retired Sheriff, James Freeman. The dead one. Is that why you’re here?’ A look of anxiety passed across his face.

‘Was Sheriff Freeman one of the ones you met with?’

‘So that’s what this is all about. I see,’ he smiled weakly. ‘My leg’s been in plaster for over six weeks, Sergeant, so I couldn’t have killed him even if I had wanted to. And I didn’t, by the way. Either want to. Or kill him. Yes, I met with James Freeman at the cottage. It must have been months and months ago. Spring, I think. The daffodils were certainly still out. He was polite, as you’d expect, but obstinate. He lectured me about clean, renewable energy, although, to be fair, he did listen to my counter-arguments. It was all very civilised.’

‘Forgive me for asking, but are there any members of your group who feel particularly passionate about the development, stopping it, I mean?’

‘I wouldn’t know where to begin. They all, I repeat, all , hate it. Really hate it! Would any of them kill someone to stop it? I don’t know. No-one sane for sure. But why don’t you come and see for yourself? There’s to be a big meeting in Perth Town Hall, four days hence, on Sunday 9th July. There’s no admission charge and virtually all of us plan to attend. There’s supposed to be groups from all over the country.’