Gillian Galbraith - No Sorrow To Die

‘True,’ Alice conceded, ‘but… I don’t know what it is, something doesn’t feel right…’ her voice tailed off. ‘Anyway, I thought Livingstone said it was him who threw the wallet in the river.’

‘Did you see that smile – the smile she gave me?’ Elaine Bell asked, recreating it in her own mind and shuddering theatrically as she spoke. Then she added, ‘Alice, you wait here. I’m going to speak to the Super, he’s here at the moment… and Eric, you come too, I want you to tell him what you think too.’

So saying, she disappeared down the corridor, bustling towards her office with her subordinate tagging along obediently behind her. As they disappeared from view, the interview-room door opened and, mobile in hand, Heather Brodie emerged, looking to the left and right, an anxious expression on her face.

‘Could I make a phone call?’ she asked meekly, catching the Sergeant’s eye.

‘To your lawyer or someone? Who d’you want to call?’ Alice asked, surprised by the request.

‘I’d like to call my son, my son, Harry. I need to call him. Now that I’ve spoken to you, got everything out of the way, I need to talk to him. He’ll organise things for me, including a lawyer, he’ll tell Ella for me, Pippa too. Is that all right? I’d rather they heard it from me.’

Looking at the woman, pale as death, it seemed rude, unkind to deny her this one thing. Without more thought Alice nodded her agreement, and then, before the first key had been pressed, she asked, ‘Are you left-handed or right-handed?’

Heather Brodie was holding her phone in her left hand, her right index finger raised above the keypad. She paused momentarily before answering. ‘Both,’ she replied, ‘I use both my hands. I can’t remember the word for it… you know, I’m ambi… ambi… something or other. I’m lucky, I can use my left hand and my right hand. Why? Why do you want to know?’

‘Just curious,’ Alice answered.

A few minutes later Elaine Bell reappeared. The calm expression on her face vanished as soon as she caught sight of her suspect talking on the phone, and she said angrily to Alice, ‘What the hell’s she doing?’

‘Er… I gave her permission. She’s just letting her son know what’s going on…’

‘Christ Almighty! You let her? Have you forgotten that she’s just confessed to murdering her husband? What the hell were you thinking of! Other members of the family may have been involved with it, there may be evidence in their control, stuff that they’ll now destroy, get rid of…’

Shaking her head, the DCI walked straight up to the woman and calmly plucked the mobile phone from her hand, murmuring a curt apology as she did so. Heather Brodie looked stunned, but she said nothing, her mouth dropping open in amazement.

At that moment, Thomas Riddell, his jacket thrown nonchalantly across one shoulder, strolled past the assembled group, but he stopped in his tracks on catching sight of Heather Brodie, a warm smile lighting up his features.

‘Heather… Mrs Brodie. I didn’t know you were coming in today. You should have told me. What are you doing here?’

Seeing him, the woman frowned as if troubled, but did not reply. After a few seconds, Alice, feeling the need to fill the uneasy silence, answered his question. ‘She’s just confessed to her husband’s murder, Thomas.’

Instantly, Riddell’s smile disappeared and he looked, with panic in his eyes, at Heather Brodie’s face; but she, as if ashamed, bowed her head, deliberately avoiding meeting his gaze.

‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for one second. Not for one second. What on earth are you doing, Heather? Why are you telling them these lies? Why are you doing this?’

As he was speaking he moved instinctively towards her, his hands outstretched as if he was going to touch her, but she shied away, ensuring that Alice remained between her and the distraught man,

‘Thomas!’ Elaine Bell’s voice rang out, ‘I need you to collect Mrs Brodie’s sister. Go and bring her in right now, please.’

As he did not move, she insisted, ‘ Now ! And speak to the turnkeys on your way. See if there are any cells free below. And, Alice,’ she added, ‘you get the children, both of them, this minute. We’ll just have to hope that we’re not too late already!’

Racing across a red light from the Pleasance, Alice cursed her own crassness. It was so obvious if you thought about it for a single second, so blindingly obvious, but she had overlooked it, missed it completely. What a moron! What a fool she had been! By now blood-soaked clothes could have been burnt or dumped somewhere, or other elaborate lies concocted or, God forbid, Harry and Ella absconded, the pair of them going to earth completely. And she would be responsible for it, and possibly now remain a Sergeant for all eternity.

As she reached the top of the hill on St Mary’s Street, she pushed her foot down on the accelerator, revving impotently, but nothing happened because nothing could happen. The car in front was jammed tight against its neighbour, as she was, as they all were ad infinitum into the distance. And neither the traffic lights nor a blue light could work magic. Gripping the steering wheel unnaturally tightly, she recreated the scene in her mind’s eye, seeing again Heather Brodie’s pleading expression, hearing the apparently innocuous question; but this time, when asked, she did the Right Thing and refused the request. She heard herself solving part of the problem by offering to phone on the woman’s behalf instead, or at least arranging a lawyer for her.

Of course, she thought, it might still be all right. It was not impossible, all might not be lost. Suppose, just suppose, she had been right, suppose the woman had not killed her husband, had been making a false confession for some labyrinthine reason, then all might be not lost…

Yes, she reassured herself, it might still be all right. Stuck in the traffic, her engine now switched off, she began to analyse the roots of her unease about Heather Brodie’s guilt, trying to figure out if there was any real substance to her misgivings. No-one in their right minds was impressed by talk of ‘intuition’. After all, everyone had it and often competing claims were made on the basis of it, none of which were capable of any form of rational justification. It was no more than witchcraft, really.

So, thinking about things properly, logically, what exactly had Mrs Brodie said? She had claimed to be ambidextrous, but had not appeared to be so, with her throat-slitting gesture or when holding her mobile phone. And, surely, an educated woman like her would have known the word for it, if she was indeed ambidextrous? If she was determined to confess and wished to be believed, the safest answer to the question posed about whether she was left or right-handed would be the very one that she had given, and she was fly enough to know that, so her reply might mean nothing.

What about her stated motive for confessing, the protection of her lover, Colin Paxton? Possible. But he had appeared to be telling the truth earlier, and a witness had seen him returning to his flat after their rendezvous. So, his involvement did not seem probable in any case. Anyway, could he not look after himself? He was articulate, competent, not someone easily confused. If he chose to do so, he was capable of shouting from the rooftops his innocence. She must know that.

But if she was not confessing to protect him, then who else could it be? And how, if she was not the murderer, did she know so much about the killing itself, about the disposal of the ‘stolen’ goods, the fact they had been dumped under the Dean Bridge and in the river, the fact of the overdose, the precise drugs used for it? Why had she phoned Harry, her son, expecting him to arrange things and to be the conduit for such shattering news to his sister and aunt? Was Ella not the competent, responsible one? The boy’s childhood reports suggested that he would buckle under pressure, be unable to cope with that sort of shattering news. And he had seemed hostile to his mother, unwilling even to kiss her. Thomas Riddell had noticed his coldness too, remarked on it. Why had she chosen him, him of all people, to be the first to receive such dreadful tidings, never mind expecting him to pass them on to the others?