Gillian Galbraith - Where The Shadow Falls

DCI Bruce’s complexion, usually pale, was clay-coloured and his lips seemed to have been drained of blood. His tie had come loose and he was manically pacing up and down the murder suite. Once the entire squad had assembled, chattering together uninhibitedly, he stood stock still. The hum continued unabated.

‘Shut up, people!’ he commanded, and, electrified, every mouth closed.

‘Thank you and not before sodding time. I’ve just heard that last night, 5th July, probably at about nine o’clock or so, Nicholas Lyon was run down in Moray Place. The car driver didn’t stop and no accident’s been reported by any driver at that location. In other words, an effing hit-and-run, one likely to prove fatal to boot. An ambulance was called and he’s currently in the Western. The traffic department are still scouring the scene. We’ve no way of knowing, as yet, whether the Sheriff’s death and Mr Lyon’s accident are connected, but it would seem a remarkable coincidence if they weren’t. Accordingly, that probability needs to be considered. Alice, how did you get on with Major Freeman?’

‘OK, I think, Sir. He hadn’t any letters and seemed completely unaware that his brother had been subject to threats in any form…’

The DCI interrupted her. ‘Eric. I want you to go and liaise with traffic. All information must be shared, chat up the redhead in charge-what’s her name-Yvonne something or other. Tell her all about the connection between the two victims.’

‘Aye, aye, Sir. Yvonne Woolman’s her name,’ DI Manson said, stirring his coffee but remaining seated.

‘Well, move your arse, Inspector, and get on to it now. This very minute, OK?’

The policeman left the room, mug in hand, looking uncharacteristically chastened.

‘Alistair, how did you get on checking the stuff on the computer?’

DS Watt shook his head. ‘I didn’t get much, I’m afraid. I’ve discovered that there are hundreds of environmental protection groups, landscape guardians and so on, some of them general and some of them associated with particular wind farms or wind farm clusters, but there are no organisations that I’ve been able to find connected exclusively to Scowling Crags. I don’t think we’re going to get anything much from that source.’

‘Bugger. Alice, go on with what you were saying about Major Freeman?’

‘Just that he hadn’t received letters or threats. However, I did get the Vertenergy stuff from Nicholas Lyon and I’ve made contact with one of the anti-wind farm activists, a chap called Angus Kersley. He doesn’t seem to think…’

She stopped in mid-sentence noticing that DC Lowe had put up his hand.

‘Yes?’ the DCI said, looking menacingly at the constable.

‘Sir, I missed yesterday’s meeting, so I may be well out of order, but couldn’t the Sheriff’s murder and the hit-and-run on Nicholas Lyon be about… well, their homosexuality? Maybe someone’s got a grudge against gayboys. One of these fundamentalist Christians or something. That boy, Georgie…’

‘Thank you, Lowe,’ Bruce said coldly, cutting the man off mid-sentence, and then turning his attention back to Alice.

‘Go on then, Sergeant.’

‘He, Kersley, gave me the impression that he didn’t think that anyone in his group would have killed Freeman, but there’s a meeting on Sunday and I’m going to go and see what’s what.’

‘OK. I want DCs Lowe, McDonald and Trotter to go and help with the door to doors round about Moray Place. No doubt there’ll be uniforms there too. Someone must have bloody seen something. Speak to the officer in charge, Sergeant Joseph.’

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, Alice.’

‘Who reported the accident? Got the ambulance?’

‘That Nordquist woman. By the way, I want you to check on garages within the city. See if any vehicles have come in this morning, eh? Liaise with the traffic department.’

Alice nodded her head.

‘Should we get protection for Mr Lyon, Sir?’

‘No. He’s past that I reckon, in intensive care, so never mind him. After I leave here I’m seeing the ACC and he’s not going to be pleased. Trust me. We’ve got nothing-except a second sodding body! You are all going to have to re-double your efforts… I’m not carrying the can for this one.’

The intensive care unit was intimidating, leads and monitors beside each bed and frail lives depending upon them. The staff, however, seemed relaxed, busy measuring out the medications for the evening, so familiar with proximity to death as to be blasé about it. If they had been employed on a confectionery production line in a sweet factory they could not have looked less troubled, more at ease in their own environment. But the air was not scented with chocolate or peppermint, it had an astringent quality, the smell of disinfectant and mortality.

Alice peered at the beds through the windows of the locked double doors, but was unable to make out Nicholas Lyon’s figure. Her view was obscured by two closed sets of curtains in the middle of the room. Like oversized shrouds, she thought. And suddenly, the sight of the whole set-up filled her with such despondency, such a feeling of leaden hopelessness that she weakened, and began searching for an Exit sign. As she was wandering down the corridor she noticed a single room opposite the ‘Care of the Elderly’ ward and decided to investigate it. If he was not there, then she would go, she had done her bit, done her best. Peering round the door gingerly, she recognised the old man in a solitary bed, accompanied only by a single monitor, and came to stand beside him. Little evidence of the injuries he had sustained was visible. One side of his face was livid with bruising, his temples sunken. And his complexion had become colourless, near translucent, as if he had been sculpted in pale marble. The only sign of life in the room was the flashing of a little red light monitoring the flow in a tube running between the patient’s hand and a drip pack. Briefly, she watched it pulse, mesmerised.

‘Who are you? Are you family? Only family are allowed now.’ A nurse had entered and looked disconcerted to find her charge with company.

‘Yes, Mr Lyon’s daughter.’

On impulse it had emerged; a clear, conscious and defiant lie. But without her he would be alone, and she sensed that he was near journey’s end. The nurse left the room discreetly and Alice remained, on tenterhooks in case of her return, unwilling to leave him on his own whatever the proprieties might be. A few minutes later, Nicholas Lyon let out a deep sigh, as if of relief, and it was immediately followed by the mechanical scream of the monitor, signalling that his heart had ceased to beat.

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.