Gillian Galbraith - Dying Of The Light

Elaine Bell, cheeks strangely flushed and dressed in last night’s crumpled clothes, attempted to brief them, racked intermittently by paroxysms of sneezing, her eyes streaming throughout. She fired occasional questions at them with an air of exhausted irritability, becoming more tetchy with every answer.

Listening half-heartedly, Alice’s concentration slipped and she began to speculate, wondering idly whether her superior might be the source of all winter infections within the city, the Typhoid Mary of the common cold. She watched as paper hankie after paper hankie, used to dab the woman’s dripping nose, was screwed up and flung forcibly into a nearby wastepaper basket. Around it the floor was now littered with her misfires. If Avian flu were, finally, to breach the species barrier through the medium of a single infected human being, then Elaine Bell, surely, would be that one. A morsel of underdone Indonesian chicken entering her flu-ridden system and mankind’s nemesis was assured.

Alice’s rumination was interrupted when the Chief Inspector’s attention suddenly shifted onto her.

‘Alice… Alice! if you could just wake up, please? How did you fare at S.P.E.A.R. this morning?’

‘Fine,’ the sergeant answered, surprising herself by the crispness of her response. ‘Ellen Barbour, the manager of the Resource Centre, was able to identify the woman in our photograph. She’s an Isobel – known as Belle – Wilson, and I’ve got an address for her…’ She fumbled in her pocket and extracted a torn piece of paper, ‘…at Fishwives Causeway. it’s just off Portobello High Street. Ellen, er… Ms Barbour, says that Wilson’s a drug user, and has been for years despite whatever help they’ve been able to provide. The old chap in the S.P.E.A.R mugshot, he’s called Eddie Christie, but they’ve no address for him. Ms Barbour reckons the best way of tracing him now would be through another prostitute, Lena Stirling. She often worked in a pair with Isobel. And guess who reported Christie to the project, and got his face on the leaflet? Isobel Wilson. A couple of weeks ago he knocked her about in the General George car park when she, allegedly, gave him lip.’

Having methodically allocated the day’s tasks, Elaine Bell wiggled her toes back into her scuffed shoes and, moving stiffly, rose to her feet, signalling the end of the meeting. And then, finally, noticing the newcomer to St Leonard Street, she introduced him to the squad while she was leaving the room, his presence only noted as an obvious afterthought.

‘Oh, and the stranger in our midst, people, is DS Simon Oakley and he’ll be with us for the duration of the investigation. Unfortunately, Alistair Watt seems to have contracted some kind of dizzy-making virus. Labyrinthitis… vestibulitis… some kind of itis or other. Anyway, he’s off for the foreseeable future, at home, vomiting whenever he stands up. So let’s all hope it’s not catching.’

The old woman stroked the Siamese cat’s smooth, dark ears, watching entranced as it closed its blue eyes in ecstasy, webbed toes flexing in and out with pleasure, kneading the eiderdown like dough. Under the bed covers she tried to curl her body around it, resting her head beside its rounded skull, and the passage of time, briefly, stood still with her absorption in a perfect moment. The buzzing of a bluebottle, a few inches above them, started the clock once more. The excited cat sprang up, a long white streak leaping into the air, and landed silently on the quilt with the fly in its mouth, soon crunching it noisily in its delicate jaws. Brushing a single wing off the blanket, Mrs Wilson glanced at her watch. Eleven already. She would need to get up now if she was to make the doctor’s surgery by twelve.

Groaning inwardly, she pushed off the bed-clothes and began the long journey to the edge of the bed, grasping the side of an armchair to pull her unwieldy body the last few inches. With a loud bang her swollen feet landed on the bare floor boards. No bloody tea this morning, she thought to herself, wondering whether they had run out of teabags or whether, maybe, the milk was sour. Or, and most likely of all, Isobel had overslept as usual.

Having become breathless trying unsuccessfully to turn on a bath tap, she admitted defeat and gave her face a cursory wipe with an evil-smelling flannel before beginning the troublesome process of getting dressed. Buttons no longer fitted buttonholes; hooks, eyes and even zip fasteners seemed to have become smaller, impossible to grip, fiddly and frustrating. A final yank and her skirt was on, hem crooked but sitting below the line of her knee-length socks. Only the battle with her shoes remained, and she jammed the left one on, whimpering as her big toe hit the leather shoe-end unexpectedly. The right foot was a good size larger than the left, and she looked down at the misshapen flesh, noting the generous curve of a bunion and the clawed, gnarled toes. Hard to believe she had once favoured peep-toes in all weathers, scarlet nail varnish drawing attention to her best features. Time left nothing unchanged, and none of its changes were for the better.

Porridge today, she thought, a hot breakfast to keep out the cold, and fit for a king if topped with a little pinhead oatmeal. And then she remembered the milk crisis, and began to conjure up, instead, a picture of a slice of hot buttered toast awash with raspberry jam. Of course, the pips might get stuck in her dental plate, but by the time she reached the bread-bin she could feel her mouth watering.

When the doorbell rang she shouted, ‘Isobel! Get the door fer us, hen. I’m no’ dressed yet.’ Then she waited, expecting to hear the familiar, angry thuds as her daughter trudged across the floor. But when the ringing continued, and no-one stirred, she dropped the bread into the toaster, shuffled across the hall and undid the bolt, peeping timidly at her visitors.

Jane Wilson took the news of her only child’s death unnaturally well, Alice thought. She asked few questions and seemed neither dismayed nor surprised by the answers. It was as if she had been expecting just such news, had already grieved in expectation of it and had no tears left to shed when the moment actually arrived. She was like those wartime wives and mothers, nerves constantly stretched, waiting to read the worst in a telegram from the Front. As Alice spoke, the woman blinked hard and licked the corners of her mouth, shaking her head constantly, as if by disagreeing with what she was being told, she could change it.

While she was leaving the flat in the company of the two sergeants, the little Siamese cat slid through the opening door and strolled across the landing. The first time it happened DS Oakley managed to grab the animal and post it back into the flat, but as it came out again, it skittered past him and tiptoed down the stone stairs towards the open tenement door and the busy street outside. The old woman started to wail, crying out the cat’s name and hobbling ineffectually after it. And, miraculously, it stopped and began cleaning itself, licking its immaculate front paws and smoothing its face with them. The overweight policeman waited motionless on the step above it, breathing heavily, and then suddenly pounced, two podgy hands clamping around its waist, lifting it high in triumph. His complexion, usually high, was now ruddy with isolated pale patches around the nose and mouth, sweat shining on his brow. Unperturbed by its capture, the cat continued to groom itself and allowed itself to be deposited in the hallway, wandering off towards the kitchen, its kinked tail waving sinuously behind it.