Gillian Galbraith - Where The Shadow Falls

‘Suppose this. Suppose that,’ Body said sarcastically, patience clearly frayed.

‘Suppose,’ Alice battled on, ‘Nicholas Lyon and Christopher Freeman met in Moray Place that night. I don’t know why, but suppose they did. Both of their phone records could be checked to see if either called the other. The Major might have wanted to talk about the inheritance or whatever… their affairs on any view had suddenly become linked. Suppose Christopher Freeman leaves the house, presumably not having achieved whatever he wanted, and kills Nicholas Lyon, runs him down with his car. It would explain the absence of the white-and I saw it myself-Volkswagen Polo, the timing of its disappearance, and the new DNA, if it’s there.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Body said angrily, ‘this is no more than a mass of conjecture, one theory on another. And the little hard evidence that exists will probably melt like spring snow in the hands of a half-competent counsel.’

‘Has Christopher Freeman got an alibi for the killings?’ DCI Bell asked quietly.

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ Alice conceded, adding desperately, ‘but only from his wife.’

‘And no car’s been found,’ the Assistant Chief Constable added.

‘Thank you very much, Sergeant Rice, I’ll speak to you later,’ DCI Bell said, and Alice, now dejected, waited to be dismissed.

‘I think, perhaps, Sergeant, you might more usefully go and see Mr Du Thuy and his friends. Too many coincidences there for my liking,’ Laurence Body added, escorting her to the door.

‘Whereabouts do we go, Mum?’ Alice asked, worried that they would be late. Peering round in all directions as if still trying to find her bearings, her mother said, ‘Keep going to the top of this road and then, I think… take the first right.’

‘And you’re sure they’ll have a space there? The place seems to be jam-packed.’

‘Yes. Yes. I’ve got a reserved one in the oncology car park, a privilege I could well do without.’

As the car drew up at the barrier, a fat man in a peaked cap, sweating profusely, peered in at the driver’s window, frowning as if to repel any interlopers. Hastily, Alice’s mother passed across her appointment card and the bouncer, pudgy fingers obscuring most of the writing, examined it.

‘Busy today?’ Mrs Rice enquired politely.

‘Aha. The pole’s already been up n’ doon like a hoor’s breeks,’ he muttered, head still bowed, engrossed in his inspection, before continuing, ‘Okay hen. In ye go. Furst oan yer left.’

The radiotherapy staff trooped out, one of them putting a comforting hand on Alice’s shoulder as he passed. Seconds later the red light above the door went on, signalling that the treatment had begun. Inside, Olivia Rice lay semi-naked on a hard metal bed, with little more than a paper towel to preserve her modesty. She stared up at the ceiling, willing herself to relax, conscious that her neck muscles were on the edge of spasm. Everyone had said that she would be fine, the rays would cure her, not kill her. And the small tattoo on her breast, delineating the target area, had been minutely aligned with the machine. ‘One thousand and one… one thousand and two,’ she began counting, but before she reached ‘One thousand and five’, her six seconds of radiation were up and she heard a strange clicking sound followed by a passage of whirring, announcing that her first session was complete. The middle-aged nurse returned and freed her from the bed and the contraption above it, directing her behind a screen where she was reunited with her clothes.

Seated in the corridor, Alice crossed, uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs before, on automatic pilot, beginning to recite a Hail Mary. Self-consciousness returned with the first ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God’ and she laughed at herself, parroting mumbo-jumbo, but found that she was unable to leave the prayer incomplete. Just as she had decided to rise from her seat and investigate the magazine table, her mother reappeared, calm and smiling, chatting animatedly with the radiographer about the virtues of pink fir-apples.

It was just too unlikely, she thought. And, looking at Georgie, affable, amusing Georgie, she could not imagine the James Freeman that his partner had described forming any kind of alliance with him, never mind a one-night stand. He poured more tea into her cup, before resuming his stool amongst the books and beaming, magically, at her again. Although she returned repeatedly to the original meeting in the Boar’s Head, he took no offence, patiently answering all her questions. She knew it was the lynchpin, without it little more would be left than a chance meeting between two gay men, both of whom worked in the same area of Edinburgh. Ivan became a suspect because of Georgie, and Georgie became one because of Ivan.

‘So you’re sure it was him, the Sheriff, because of the likeness to the newspaper photo?’ Alice asked.

‘Yes. I never bothered reading the actual obituary. But I remember his looks all right.’

‘Not because of anything he told you?’

‘No.’

‘Did he say anything much?’

‘Well, we chattered for a bit, as you do, got to know each other… Not so different, really, from the heterosexual world, you appreciate.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest…’

Georgie quickly touched her elbow, grinning again to reassure her. ‘That’s all right, Miss Rice, I didn’t think you did.’

She tried a different tack. ‘James Freeman, you know, was not far off eighty.’

‘No!’ The man seemed thunderstruck.

‘The chap you met, I take it, didn’t seem so old?’

‘Certainly did not. No. Let’s change that. Was not. I’m not some kind of gerontophile, I can assure you. No wonder Ivan seemed a bit taken aback when I told him about the liaison. It’s a miracle he didn’t run away screaming.’

And then the light dawned. The photo, used in the papers, and which she had not seen, must have been an old one. She racked her brain for anything else she could remember about the dead Sheriff.

‘When you talked, did the man have a speech impediment?’

‘Christ almighty! What else? No, not that I can recall. What did you have in mind?’

‘Ws for Rs. You know, “Wound the wagged wocks, the wagged wascal wan…”’

‘No. Definitely not. I’d have noticed that.’

‘What about a scar-on his body. Cutting right across his chest?’

‘This is beginning to sound as if I picked up an aged monster… er, no disrespect to the Sheriff intended. No, no scar either. I take it all back. The man I slept with was normal, normal body, normal voice and not Methuselah. I did not, repeat did not, sleep with the deceased judge! I take it all back!’

Then he ruffled his hair with the tips of his fingers, laughed and said, ‘What I want to know, detective, and this could be your next assignment, is who the hell did I bestow my favours on? As my old flame used to say-

“You know it’s mad and bad as well,

To copulate when stocious.

You do not know your lover’s name,

And the sex will be atrocious!”’

A single trail remaining, and all that was needed now was a phone check. It was the obvious thing, except that permission from on high would be required, and those breathing the chilly air had seemed singularly unimpressed by her theory. An alternative, albeit imperfect strategy would now have to be deployed. She searched for Vertenergy’s phone number and found it scrawled on a Post-it attached to the front cover of her diary.