Gillian Galbraith - No Sorrow To Die

Once more, she stopped speaking, staring straight ahead at the wall as if she was now alone in the room.

‘You couldn’t wait…’ Elaine Bell prompted.

‘So I cut his throat with a knife.’ She hesitated briefly, shuddering. ‘Blood went everywhere, a shower of blood all over me, all over everything. I wiped myself with my clothes and changed into some of Heather’s things, I only put them back in her bag today. I took some of their possessions from the flat so that you would think it was a robbery or something like that. I dumped my own clothes later.’

‘What did you do with the things you took?’

‘I threw them away by the Dean Bridge. Except the photo, I took it out of its frame… the one of Ella, that was beside his bed. I kept it in my bedroom drawer… but after I heard about Heather today I brought it with me. I can show you it now if you like?’

The DCI nodded, and Pippa Mitchelson opened her handbag, removed an old-fashioned compact, a small hankie and her purse from it, and then a black and white print of her niece playing on the beach. Giving it a final lingering look, she handed it over.

‘It’s one of my favourites. She had such a wide smile, always happy. She was always happy… a carefree child.’

‘Mrs Brodie,’ the DCI began, ‘you’ll have got the news – that Harry’s fine, and that he didn’t do it. Sergeant Rice is talking to him now, then we’ll release him. You’re free to go too, of course. But there is one other thing that I’d like to ask you about.’

‘Yes,’ Heather Brodie said wearily, feeling drained of all life, her head still reeling from her sister’s revelation.

‘I have to ask you,’ the DCI began again, ‘did Thomas Riddell, our Liaison Officer – did he give you details of our investigation? Tell you about the overdose, for example, the type of drugs used, whether supposedly “stolen” stuff had been found, and if so its whereabouts and so on?’

For a few moments Heather Brodie hesitated, aware that if she told the truth the kind auburn-haired policeman might lose his job, remembering how smitten with her he was, how sweet to her he had been right up until the last, and how she had used him. But then all the lies she had told came back to haunt her. Lies to Gavin, to Colin even, to Harry and Ella, the police… the list went on and on, and sometime it had to stop. So, without further thought, she nodded.

When the DCI returned to her office, Eric Manson looked at her enquiringly from his seat by the window.

‘Yes,’ she said shortly, lowering herself heavily into her chair, ‘it was Thomas.’

‘Stupid bastard.’

‘He’s just offered his resignation.’

‘Good. So he should. And the aunt, do we know yet why she drugged the man and cut his throat?’

‘Lost her nerve, apparently, that’s what she said anyway. She wasn’t sure about the drugs, she wasn’t sure they’d be strong enough. She gave him most of the bottle, most of two bottles, in fact. She says he became unconscious quite quickly, but carried on breathing. She knew that Heather hoped to be away until the morning, but might not be. She panicked and used the knife. Once she’d done that, well, it could only be murder. So she took the stuff to draw our attention away, make us think just what we did think. At first anyway.’

Elaine Bell sighed, resting her head on her hands, then adding, ‘I’ve seen it all… or I thought I had, Eric. But nothing like this in all my thirty years. And God alone knows how she’ll fare in prison… it’ll be like putting a sparrow amongst hawks.’

She shook her head, then she added, ‘The poor bloody wretch.’

‘Brodie?’

‘No… well, yes, him too. But her, I really meant her. The whole lot of them, actually. Ever since the Mitchelson woman’s confession and speaking to the child, Ella, I’ve been thinking about it. If it was my dad, if he’d been like that, what would I do? Fucking irony, isn’t it? Keep a dumb animal alive in a state like that, and the RSPCA would be after you for not putting it down. But a person you know, asking to be put… asking for death? It’s an odd, upside-down world we live in.’

‘Aha. And ours is not to reason why,’ the Inspector replied.

Her phone rang and she picked it up, mouthed ‘The Super’ and gestured for Manson to leave.

‘Now, Sir. If that suits you, yes, that’s fine by me,’ she said, trying to sound bright and energetic. ‘I’ll be along at Fettes in, say, twenty minutes.’

Receiving her in his spacious office, the Superintendent looked confident, pleased with himself and, for the moment, with his subordinate too. With this case solved he would go out in a blaze of glory, whatever happened to her.

‘I gather you’ve wrapped it up?’ he said, pulling out a chair for her.

‘We have, Sir. The woman’s speaking to her lawyer now.’

‘A right Lady Macbeth I expect, eh? But it’s the appraisal you’re concerned about, I appreciate that. Of course, we can discuss it, although I have now, as far as I’m concerned, committed my views to paper in their final form. But I can spare you half an hour or so to go over it. Would that do? I’ll explain it, go through the basis for my firmly-held views, but my wife’s due to pick me up in about half an hour or so. We’ll have to stop when she arrives.’

He leant back on his chair, linking his hands behind his great bull-neck, beaming at her, convinced already that she would eventually slink out of his lair, tail down, accepting defeat. On her knee she had the brown envelope containing all the evidence she had compiled to present to him, illustrating why she should be upgraded, documenting her successes, staff improvements, initiatives, skills, everything she could find to persuade him to tell the truth. The truth would do. If he would tell that, then she would have a chance, and a chance was all she needed. Because at interview she would shine. She knew it, but with this appraisal before them, no one would include her on the shortlist.

‘Just so I understand, Sir,’ she said slowly, ‘there’s no question of actually changing it, the appraisal – just “explaining” it?’

He nodded complacently. After all, all the balls were in his court.

‘No change whatsoever?’

‘No change whatsoever, Elaine.’

What the hell, she thought, I’ve nothing to lose. He had no scruples, so why should she hobble herself with them? And he would not know whether it was a bluff or not.

‘Did you enjoy your meal, Sir – the one in Claudio’s on Friday? I know I did. I’ll enjoy hearing your wife’s impression of the place. She certainly seemed to like it, to be enjoying herself. So, we’ve half an hour or so until she arrives, is that right? Unless, of course, we finish earlier.’

For a second the Superintendant was speechless, working out the full import of her words. His complexion now puce, he said, stiffly, ‘Good food, certainly…’ He held out his hand for the envelope. ‘Perhaps… there might be something in there that would help me revise my opinion… a little.’

‘Well, that was a turn up for the books, eh?’ the solicitor said to DC Littlewood as they were walking away from the interview room.

‘How d’you mean?’ the constable asked, opening the corridor door for the solicitor’s portly figure and standing to one side to allow his bulk to pass through.