Gillian Galbraith - Dying Of The Light

‘To begin with there was a boy. I didn’t recognise him though. He’s not one of mine.’

Now, apparently completely relaxed, the priest rested his face on his elbow, stroking his ear-lobe, his eyes never leaving the DCI’s face.

‘When did he leave?’ She asked, clearing a stray curl from her forehead.

‘Maybe about nine or thereabouts.’

‘And when did you leave?’

‘Well after him. I’d say at about 11.00 p.m.’

‘What were you doing in the place between 8.30 and 11.00 p.m.?’

‘Praying.’

‘Praying! For two and a half solid hours?’ Elaine Bell said, amused scepticism written on her face.

‘I am a priest, Chief Inspector. Most evenings I’m out and about visiting – the sick, the bereaved, anyone who needs me, really. I have to take my chances when I can.’ His unblinking, simian gaze did not leave hers until, put in her place, she flinched, lowering her eyes as if to check her script. Something about his presence disquieted her.

‘Mmm.’ The DCI cleared her throat, and Alice became aware of an uncharacteristic hesitancy in her questioning. The priest now stared expectantly at the Chief Inspector, but she remained silent. Perhaps she was unused to dealing with the clergy or, at least, had not met one quite like this.

‘Now, about Isobel Wilson,’ she started again, an anxious look on her face, ‘I assume you knew the woman?’

‘Should I?’ the priest replied instantly. ‘Who is she?’

It was a foolish error in the DCI’s approach, and one of which she was immediately conscious, the hint of a blush beginning to rise upwards from her neck to her already flushed cheeks.

‘Erm… she was a prostitute working in Leith, Seafield.’

Francis McPhail sat up straight, an amazed look on his face.

‘Why on earth would you assume that I would know her? Seafield’s not even within my parish boundary.’

‘No,’ the Chief Inspector said, trying to recover her lost momentum, ‘but you still might know her. To be clear on this matter, er… Father… are you telling us that you did not know her?’

‘I certainly am. I’ve never even heard the name.’

‘Well, they don’t always use their real names. So, do you know, or ever use, any of the working girls down there?’ Outrage, followed by anger, transformed the man’s features, and when he spoke his tone was emphatic, impressing upon all that no quibbling with his answer would be tolerated.

‘Let’s be clear about this, shall we? I do not “use” anyone. I have never “used” anyone or needed to. As far as I am aware I do not know, am not even acquainted with, any of the “working girls” in Leith or anywhere else. Perhaps you would now have the courtesy to tell me what this is all about?’

Having watched her superior conduct many interviews, Alice expected a terse response to the implied reprimand. After all, the man was being questioned because DNA from his blood had been found on the body. And the Chief Inspector’s mild-mannered reply, surprised her.

‘Of course,’ Elaine Bell began almost apologetically, ‘our enquiry is concerned with the murder of Isobel Wilson. A prostitute killed on the ninth of January. We are asking everyone, everyone we can think of anyway, to assist us to that end.’

‘And me,’ the priest said evenly, his anger now controlled if not yet expended, ‘what precisely makes you think that I could assist you “to that end”?’

But the tables were not to be turned this time, the interrogated becoming the interrogator. He had gone too far. Nothing would be allowed to compromise the investigation, not even the normal requirements of good manners.

‘I’d rather not answer that question at present, Father,’ the DCI said firmly, re-asserting her control over him, and this time he took it meekly, simply nodding his head.

The interview over, Elaine Bell returned to her room, closing the door slowly behind her. She leant against it and breathed out. The creep had fancied her! Clearly fancied her! And the way he had looked at her had temporarily unsettled her, making her lose the place, flustering her. Hopefully, no one else in the room would have noticed.

Then she shook her head as if shaking the very notion out of it, deciding that it was a ludicrous one anyway. She was a middle-aged woman in a crumpled suit with more grey than brown in her hair, unfanciable by anyone, including her own husband. And no doubt that fact, more than any other, accounted for her delusion, which was all it must have been. The man was a priest, for Heaven’s sake! Unlikely to be eyeing up anyone, far less a dowdy policewoman firing impertinent questions at him, in the course of a murder investigation. An investigation with him as the suspect.

‘Quite a delicate operation ahead, eh, sir?’

‘In what way, teddy?’

Alice and Eric Manson were travelling together in the Astra to number five Rintoul Place in order to check out Eddie Christie’s alibi, and the Inspector was at the wheel. Periodically, he lifted one hand off it to flex his fingers in and out in his immaculate leather driving gloves, like a cat extending and retracting its claws.

‘Smart, eh? A Christmas gift from the wife,’ he said, waving an arm in her direction.

‘Very lovely, sir. As I was saying though, a delicate operation, this morning’s task.’

‘As you said, but I have no idea what you are on about, Boo Boo.’

‘Could we stop this bloody bear nonsense, sir?’ she replied, annoyance surfacing at his prolonged joke.

‘Can’t “bear” it any longer, eh?’ he smirked. ‘Bit grizzly now, bi-polar even?’ He laughed uproariously at his own wit, and Alice could not help smiling, amused at his amusement.

‘OK, OK, so what exactly is the problem, dear, Bambi… Rudolph… Dum…’ his voice tailed off, unable to think of any other names to sustain the gag.

‘Well, asking Mrs Christie about her husband’s whereabouts. She’ll surely want to know why we’re interested in them?’

‘No problem. I’ll handle it, just leave it all to me. Man o’ the world stuff.’

Subtlety, Alice knew, did not form part of Eric Manson’s social repertoire, and as she walked behind him past a car with a disabled sticker towards a front door with a cement ramp, she stopped, a thought having crossed her mind. Meanwhile, the Inspector peered through the open front door, and when Alice caught up with him, it was to be greeted by a woman, past middle age, seated in a wheelchair.

In her sitting room Manson attempted to begin his interview but, being well acquainted with his ways, Alice could tell that he was feeling uneasy, and thus likely to flounder and cause needless offence.

‘Mrs Christie…’ he paused. ‘We simply need to ask you a few questions about your husband’s whereabouts on the ninth of January.’

‘Really!’ the woman said, surprised. ‘Well, I’ll help you if I can.’

‘Now, can you tell me where he was on the ninth of January between about 8.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m.’

‘That would be a Tuesday, eh?’

‘Aha, yes.’

‘He’d be here with me. He has three sets of double French on Mondays, so Tuesday evenings are always devoted to marking. He does it in here, beside me. Nice to have company, as he’s out all day, you see.’

‘Sure about that, that he was here with you all evening?’

‘Yes. He made us our tea at six, he brings home salmon on Tuesdays, then he did the homework. He always does on Tuesdays. I’d have noticed if he hadn’t. Why do you need to know where he was then anyway?’

‘Er…’ Eric Manson hesitated, ‘to help us with our enquiries – a murder enquiry.’