Gillian Galbraith - Dying Of The Light

At the approach of the strangers, the dog began to growl and, instantly and as if embarrassed, the constable took his arm away from his companion, flashing his torchlight in their faces. Recognising Alice, he breathed a sigh of relief. He explained that Mrs Craig, the elderly lady, had been taking her dog for its final outing of the evening when she had noticed what appeared to be an arm sticking out from the bushes. As he was speaking, he swept the beam of his torch over the snow-capped greenery, seeking out the supposed limb and eventually stopping on an indistinguishable black object. Naturally, he said, he knew better than to interfere with a crime scene, so he had immediately radioed for help and begun to cordon off the area.

Following Alistair’s eyes downwards to a loose strand of tape on the ground, writhing sinuously, snake-like in the wind and attached to nothing, he stammered that Mrs Craig had become tearful and had accidentally released her dog lead. This allowed Sheba to wander off towards the corpse. Unfortunately, her paw prints would be all over the scene. She had returned when called, but he had not felt able to finish the barrier.

Another beam of light on the snow, swinging rhythmically like a metronome, left to right, right to left, advanced towards them, before being raised upwards to scan their heads. Immediately the Labrador began to bark, snapping furiously, pulling and straining on the lead to reach the invisible stranger and almost yanking the old woman off her feet in its enthusiasm. Suddenly it broke loose and jumped, hurling itself upwards at the newcomer, only to be felled by the thrust of a knee, dropping to whimper and yelp in a heap on the ground. Having dealt with the dog, the beefy stranger calmly peeled off his woollen balaclava, exposing his face for the first time.

‘I think it’s a bloke called Simon – Simon Oakley. A DS with ‘C’ Division. A benign but lazy bugger, apparently. He must have been nearby, responded to the call-out too,’ Alistair whispered to Alice, as she and the dog’s distraught owner bent down together to stroke it and check that it was uninjured. Oakley, his head bent against the driving snow, joined them and patted its back.

‘Sorry, self-defence, but the d… d… dog will be fine. Anyone called the DCI yet?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Alice said, still caressing the Labrador, ‘we’ve only just arrived. So we’d better check things out first. I don’t fancy getting anyone out on a night like this only to discover that we’ve found an old stick or a comatose tramp.’

As Alistair Watt tried to take a statement from the witness, his fingers so numb that he could scarcely grip the pen, Alice Rice, with DS Oakley following in her footprints, set off towards the patch of undergrowth. Tussocks of dead grass and dried, skeletal weeds tripped them as they worked their way forwards, snaring their hands, catching their calves and entwining their ankles. Cursing, having fallen for a second time, Alice looked down at her feet, only to catch a glimpse of a colourless female face looking back up at her. As the bulb in her torch began to fade she and her companion knelt beside the figure and he touched the woman’s neck, feeling for a pulse, his fingers becoming tangled in a necklace of beads. Her arms were crossed on her breast as if to receive a blessing or as laid out by an undertaker. But, below one of her hands and over her heart, a dark stain extended.

Elaine Bell turned over in her bed and lay on her left side but found her breathing no clearer. Her head still felt heavy, her sinuses and left nostril blocked completely. Carefully, she rolled onto her right, conscious, as she did so, that now both nostrils were tightly sealed and she opened her mouth to gasp for breath. Beside her, releasing growling snores, lay her husband, blessedly unaware of her restlessness in his dream-free sleep. Easing back the duvet cover, she slid her legs over the side of the bed and managed to get out without making it creak.

A thorough inspection of the bathroom cabinet revealed only three empty bottles, each with a film of brightly-coloured viscous material the bottom and crystallised sugar making the glass sticky. She turned the one with most in it upside down, but the thin layer of congealed cough mixture remained solid. Her attempt to get some of it with the end of a toothbrush failed, providing only a few small globs of the medicine. Nestling behind a box of sticking plasters she found a discoloured sachet, a fat friar’s face beaming from its wrapper, promising ‘blessed’ relief from chronic catarrh.

In the harsh light of the kitchen she shook out the sachet into a large, enamel jug and added a kettleful of newly-boiled water. The stinging of her eyes told her that the mixture was producing a powerful, irritating vapour, but her nose remained blithely oblivious to everything. Desperate for relief she flung the towel over her head, craning her face into the steam and inhaling deeply as she did so. Despite a burning sensation deep in her lungs she persisted until her cheeks and forehead seemed to be on fire. Only a few more minutes to endure, she thought, and such acute discomfort must be rewarded by results. As her hand fumbled blindly on the table for the egg-timer, the telephone rang. She tore off her towel and ran into the living room to answer it before the din woke her husband.

‘Hello, DCI Elaine Bell,’ she said, noting angrily to herself that her voice sounded as nasal as it had before she had scalded her face.

‘It’s Alice, ma’am. I’m at the Seafield Cemetery with DS Watt. We’ve got a body… er… an unburied, newly dead one. A female, middle-aged. And it could well be a murder.’

Having dressed at speed, Elaine Bell looked in the mirror. Her hair, still wet from the steam, clung to her temples, old mascara had run below one eye and her face was puce. ‘The alkie look,’ she muttered grimly to herself, feeling her cheeks anxiously and finding them still hot to the touch. ‘And on a freezing night like this I’ll get bloody Bell’s palsy to boot.’

Seeing a strange figure, head crowned in a woolly bobble hat, tartan scarf wound tightly over the mouth and nose, advancing purposefully towards the taped area, Alice ran towards it, intent on blocking the way.

‘Sorry,’ she said breathlessly, ‘only police are allowed here for the moment.’

A muffled voice, but one entirely familiar to her, replied testily, ‘Don’t be silly, DS Rice, it’s me – DCI Bell. Your boss, remember?’

‘Sorry, ma’am. But your clothes… it’s a bit like a burka, or is it a chador?’

‘Never mind that! Has anyone actually succeeded in identifying the body yet?’

Alice handed over a leaflet and waited patiently while her superior read it.

‘Is it some kind of “Wanted” poster or something? What is it exactly?’

‘It’s produced by S.P.E.A.R. ma’am – you know, the prostitutes’ charity. It’s one of their publications, they hand them out from their van to the working girls to warn them about any particular ne’er-do-wells, batterers and the like.’

‘Fine. So where did you find it?’

‘It was in the woman’s pocket. First thing tomorrow I’ll go round to their office in Restalrig with a photo and see if they know her. Find out if they’ve a name, an address for him, too. He may have left it on her, I suppose, as some kind of calling card.’