Gillian Galbraith - Dying Of The Light

With the car idling at a red light, Simon Oakley peeled the silver paper from around his packet of Polos, rested the now unstable column of sweets on the dashboard and put four of them into his mouth.

Alice did not like mints, but she watched with interest as he chewed them up methodically, then helped himself to another three, never offering one. And it seemed to her that some fundamental rule of hospitality or, perhaps, comradeship was being broken. After all, he did not know that she would have refused one had it been offered. He appeared, in his confectionary-crunching, simply unaware of her presence. Or, and worse yet, careless of it despite their proximity, like a stranger in a railway carriage. Alistair would not have done that, he would have offered her his last crisp, but then, they were friends. Unless it was cheese and onion, of course, or salt and vinegar or… She must try to get to know her new colleague.

‘Simon,’ she began, ‘who d’you think killed Isobel Wilson?’

‘Er…’ he swallowed his mouthful, ‘like a p… p… polo, Alice?’ Then he corrected himself, ‘No, no, of course, you don’t like mints.’

‘Quite right, but how on earth do you know that?’ she asked, disconcerted by his remark, blushing at the thought of her hasty judgement.

‘I don’t, really, but you did turn down the peppermints that Ruth was distributing in the office after the meeting.’

‘Well, thanks for the offer. Anyway, what do you think?’ An unusually observant colleague.

‘A disgruntled punter, maybe?’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps, someone who needed her services but was r… r… revolted by his own need? Well, that it should be met in such a way? It would f… fit with the likely time of death Doctor Zenabi gave us. Some time between about 9.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m. That would be office hours for her.’

‘And a punter who just happened to be carrying a knife?’

‘Possibly. A gangland type? Or maybe a married man lured of the s… s… straight and narrow by one of them?’

‘Like a hungry, obese person is lured off the straight and narrow by a chocolate gateau, cake-slice at the ready, you mean?’

They turned right onto a short drive, leading from Claremont Park to ‘Jordan’, a grand villa built of red sandstone and with an immaculate Jaguar parked on its gravel sweep. Bill Keane led them into his drawing-room, coffee already laid out on a tray for visitors, and stood with his back to a flame-effect gas fire, warming his mustard-coloured corduroys on the faint heat it provided. If the Wilson killing did not focus police attention on the residents’ clean-up campaign, then nothing would. That was surely the silver lining from that particular cloud.

‘Yes,’ he said, handing back the photograph of Isobel Wilson to Alice, ‘I’ve come across her. I know most of them by sight, although not by name, you’ll appreciate. She always wears a baseball cap, usually hangs about with another girl.’

‘Did you see her on Tuesday night?’ Alice asked.

‘No. We went out, straight after work, and had an early supper in the Grassmarket and then walked on to a concert at the Festival Theatre.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘I can’t be sure, I’d guess maybe half eleven or later. After the performance we went on to the Dome for a drink.’

The door opened and a solid, middle-aged woman, spectacles suspended on a chain and bouncing off her pneumatic bosom as she walked, marched into the room bearing a large plate covered in shortbread pieces. Don’t take one, Alice willed Simon, looking at her own empty coffee cup and watching him drain the dregs from his own. She knew a trap when she saw one.

‘Yes, do take more than one, constable,’ Audrey Keane said acidly, watching with a fixed smile as the sergeant removed the two largest slabs, resting one on his saucer and starting to eat the other immediately, releasing showers of sugar to fall onto the deep pile of the beige carpet.

‘Since I have you here, officers,’ Mrs Keane said, ‘I’ll just take advantage of your visit to fill you in with what we have to put up with,’ and she smiled at her husband, who blinked at her on cue.

‘Yesterday, once more, I found two used condoms on our own little lawn, and I heard that Mrs Keir, at number thirteen, had the unpleasant experience of interrupting a fornicating couple at the bottom of her stair. Two days ago I myself, believe it or not, was accosted by a kerb-crawler who was abusive, obscene actually, when I put him right. Oh yes, and when I went onto the West Links on Thursday with my grand-daughter, Katie, I stopped her, in the very nick of time I might add, from picking up a used hypodermic syringe. I am, I have to admit, almost at the stage of thinking that one less – one less streetwalker, I mean – would be a good thing!’

DS Oakley, mouth still filled with shortbread, nodded as if sympathetically, and Mrs Keane, spurred on, continued to address her captive audience.

‘As for S.P.E.A.R., don’t get me started! The van attracts them, you know, like flies to… well, waste. If it parked somewhere else I’d bet my bottom dollar they would follow it and go somewhere else too. And we’ll have no more “tolerance” zones, thank you very much. All very well to impose them when it involves other people’s toleration rather than your own. Perhaps, they could be “tolerated” in the vicinity of Holyrood, somewhere by the new Parliament building. Save the MSPs a journey!’

‘Audrey!’ Bill Keane said, in a shocked tone.

‘Well,’ his wife continued, unabashed, ‘despite your valiant efforts, sweetheart, and I mean that, valiant efforts, the “problem” has not been solved. And for as long as it continues, Katie, and all the other small children we know, are at risk of jabbing themselves with needles, catching Aids and so on. And these constables need to understand how we feel…’

I understand only too well, Alice thought, unconsciously stroking the miniscule scab on her palm. And Ellen Barbour’s account of her career, with its high-living and free choices, seemed a million miles from the grubby world of prostitution on display in the dark, unsavoury crevices of the City. Places where the meter ran not by the hour but by the minute, and warm flesh could be bought for the price of a Chinese meal for two.

‘To get the full picture of what we have to bear, they should really speak to Guy, shouldn’t they, darling?’ Audrey Keane said, belatedly offering the shortbread to her husband.

‘Guy?’ Alice asked.

‘Guy Bayley, the head of our group. Our founder, in fact,’ Bill Keane replied, ignoring his wife’s outstretched arm and smoothing both his winged eyebrows with his fingertips, checking his reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece as he did so.

Talman Secondary gave the impression that it had been formed by the occurrence of an earthquake at a trailer park. Portakabins had been attached to each other at unexpected angles, creating asymmetrical E or T shapes, some ornamented by tired graffiti, and the tarmac on which they rested had wide fissures, like the edges of tectonic plates They had an unsettled, temporary appearance as if their unfortunate inhabitants might be awaiting the clearance of the site followed by the construction of permanent school buildings.