Gillian Galbraith - Where The Shadow Falls

Georgie, now biting into a loganberry, shook his head. ‘I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed, Sergeant, I’ve never said I knew him. I wouldn’t have claimed that. Your informant, whoever he, or she, is, has got it wrong.’

‘OK,’ Alice persisted, ‘but you were talking about Geanbank, and about Mr Lyon?’

‘I may have done.’

‘So can you explain…’ the question remained unfinished on her lips as the kitchen door opened, and a figure, face and body hidden by vast armfuls of flowers, barged in, dropping his cargo at one end of the table.

It was Ivan McKellar. And he seemed every bit as surprised to see DS Rice as she was to encounter him once more.

‘Mr McKellar… I didn’t realise that you knew Mr De… er… Georgie.’

‘No,’ he hesitated before continuing. ‘Well… Edinburgh’s a small place, eh?’

‘But how d’you know Mr De Tea?’ DC Lowe butted in, unable to contain his curiosity, ‘How come you know him?’

Georgie took control, smiling beatifically at the company and displaying, once more, his even white teeth. ‘We met, officers, in the “Grape and Grain”, you know, on the High Street. We’d both gone there for a bite to eat and, well, Ivan was on his own. It was after his uncle’s funeral, actually. Not so very odd, really… to make a new friend.’

As he was speaking, two young women, both hauling carrier bags and talking noisily to each other, drifted in, deposited their burdens on the floor and continued nattering together until they became aware that their conversation was being listened to by all the others present in the room.

‘Lorna and Eileen, meet DC Lowe and DS Rice,’ said Georgie brightly, breaking the tense silence that had replaced the girls’ chat.

Emerging back onto the street and before they were out of their host’s earshot, Kevin Lowe began to talk.

‘Sarge, I think I’ve got it. Really. See, that Nicholas guy was… well, gay, eh, and so’s his nephew. Maybe they, him and that “Georgie” fellow, killed the two of them… he’s Nicholas’s only living relative. He’ll cop the lot.’

‘What about his mum?’

‘Yeah, but they’d fallen out and all… they didn’t get on, but a gay nephew, that’s quite different. There’d be a lot in common. And you can’t deny it’s odd, I mean Georgie sleeping with the uncle and then, coincidentally, meeting the man’s nephew! And the smiler’s got no alibi either. We should really check them out.’

‘If Georgie did sleep with the uncle…’ Alice mused.

‘Well, he said he did… he admitted it. Why should you doubt it?’

‘I just do. And, if Georgie was involved, he’s far too intelligent to drop himself in it. So, you’d expect him to deny any relationship with the Sheriff, not boast about it and then repeat the same story to me. Unless he’s a positively pathological exhibitionist, of course.’

‘A what?’

Three pages; one, two and four. She searched her desk in case the missing sheet was hidden beneath the patchwork of paperwork that covered its entire surface, temporarily losing page two under newly disturbed documents in the process. No page three and nothing on the computer either. She shouted across to DC Littlewood, now busy tending a pot plant.

‘Tom, there’s a page missing.’

‘Sorry, Sarge. I’ll check the fax in case I overlooked one.’

While waiting she read the traffic department’s efforts and her attention was drawn by a diagram of the accident locus. Tyre marks were shown in red with a cross at the point of impact. The final position in which the body had been found was also depicted together with a rectangle, representing Nicholas Lyon’s car. The first two pages gave a factual account of all observations made at the scene, including measurements taken, and, tantalisingly, the final line of the second page was headed ‘Conclusions’.

The third sheet was handed sheepishly to her and she studied it eagerly. On the basis of the evidence available its author had concluded that Nicholas Lyon had been deliberately run down; the length of the tyre marks and the injuries sustained by him being consistent with a high-impact collision, maximum acceleration having occurred whilst the victim was near stationary, within the driver’s unimpeded line of vision. This judgement was fortified by the only relevant witness testimony available, which had referred to sounds consistent with sudden acceleration followed by another single sound suggestive of impact. A catalogue of the contents of the victim’s car appeared below the last paragraph, and Alice scanned the list quickly. Attached to the report was a photocopy of a handwritten note and the words ‘Meet’ and ‘5th’ were legible, although the name, or initials, between them was not.

In her excitement Alice did not knock on DCI Bell’s door but strode straight in. The Inspector, her top few blouse buttons undone, seemed to be trying to pull an electrode off an area of skin below her right collarbone, and she looked up, furious at the interruption, a single unplugged electrode swinging limply in her hand.

‘Alice, what the fuck are you doing?’

‘Sorry, Ma’am, I should have knocked, I know. But there’s something important in the traffic report…’

‘Shut the bloody door, then!’

The Chief Inspector slowly peeled a further electrode off her shoulder and returned the lead together with a mass of others to a small pouch.

‘A tens machine, Alice, since you didn’t ask. I don’t want any strange rumours circulating in this station. It’s supposed to help muscular pain, chronic pain. I borrowed it from a friend who used it when she was pregnant. So, what’s so urgent then?’

Alice placed the traffic report on her superior’s desk, page three uppermost.

‘Look at the conclusions, Ma’am. Nicholas Lyon was murdered, as we suspected, but there’s more than that, and I think we should get forensics to check out Moray Place again.’

Doing up her buttons and still plainly annoyed, DCI Bell muttered, ‘Why?’

‘Because Mr Lyon must have, surely, been meeting someone there that night. Look at the note. I can’t make out who, I can’t read all of the writing, but we should follow it up…’

Elaine Bell examined the photocopy carefully, ‘Maybe. OL… GL… F… No, I can’t make head or tail of it, either. But suppose he did meet someone there, that wouldn’t necessarily lead us to whoever ran him down…’ the Chief Inspector parried, still truculent.

‘No. There may be no connection whatsoever. On the other hand, there may be.’

Diligently, Alistair Watt trawled through the statements taken from the neighbouring residents. Only Mrs Nordquist and her housekeeper reported seeing or hearing anything immediately before the accident, but it was not clear that any of the interviewees had been specifically asked by the uniforms if they had noticed any signs of occupation in number seventy-three before nine pm.

Loud knocking on Mrs Nordquist’s immaculate white front door evoked no response other than a volley of deep, echoing barks, sufficient to wake the dead. Mrs Gunn, however, was at home, an apron concealing most of the décolletage on display despite her dress. Blackened marigold rubber gloves were discarded together with a cloth onto a kitchen table laden with tarnished silver. Having washed her hands at the sink she led her visitors into her drawing room.