The Road to Hell

by Gillian Galbraith

  ‘Alas, poor Ailsa – but she has nothing to do with us,’ the DI said, removing the paper napkin from his bacon-and-egg roll and looking at his breakfast fondly. ‘We’re busy, Liz, with Crime. C.R.I.M.E. You and I are off to solve the mystery of the naked corpse in the gardens. Sounds like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story, eh?’

  ‘Do we know why he was naked, Sir?’

  ‘I certainly don’t, love, but I can make a few guesses. Perhaps he was a midnight naturist who blew his gasket while out on a stroll? Or maybe he was mid-tryst in the gardens with the gardener when his ticker gave out? Or, a long shot, he might have been having a swim in the Water of Leith when his clothes were stolen by somebody . . . then he died of cold.’

  ‘Or, and forgive the speculation,’ the Constable chipped in brightly, ‘a giant hoover might have descended from the heavens, scared him to death and sucked every natural and man-made fibre off his body.’

  ‘Exactly. At the moment, God alone knows. DC Galloway’s there already and he’s talked to the poor folk who found the stiff. So to speak. We’re short this morning, as DS Rice is to join us later, she’s seeing her GP. She got cuts in her face when a vandal threw a brick through a window. By the way, how do you think she’s coping?’

  ‘Coping?’

  ‘You know – you’ve been working with her these last few days – coping with the grief, shock or whatever. I thought she looked a bit pale, stressed and everything. Maybe she came back too early.’

  ‘She seems pretty sharp to me.’

  ‘Good. Good, glad to hear it. We’ll be seeing her later, after she’s seen the doctor. She’s got to talk to the fiscal about Moira Fyfe too, hand over all the papers.’

  Looking at the dead man, DC Cairns felt embarrassed on his behalf. For some unknown reason, hearing about him she had conjured up in her imagination the vision of a muscular, youthful corpse with well-defined pectorals and pert buttocks, such as she might have admired on a Grecian vase or an underwear ad. Instead, on display was a flaccid, middle-aged one with a sagging bottom, love-handles and swollen ankles. Someone’s granddad was splayed out on the ground in front of her, face down, in the buff, subject to the scrutiny of all and with a strange, greenish, leopard-spotted slug lodged between two of his toes.

  Puffing out steam in the cold air as he jogged, DC Galloway arrived at her side and stood looking at the body for a second or two.

  ‘No clothes anywhere,’ he sighed. ‘We’ve searched the whole place and there’s nothing. Not so much as a pair of Y-fronts or a single sock. But surely to God he can’t have walked bollock-naked through the town to get here?’

  ‘It does seem a bit unlikely. Someone else could have taken them, I suppose?’

  ‘The phantom clothes-collector, you mean?’ DC Galloway said in tones of disbelief, shaking his head at her suggestion.

  ‘No, not a clothes-collector. A thief, or possibly whoever murdered him, if anybody did. Or, for all we know, he may have been dumped in there like that, starkers, by others. They would have clothes on.’

  ‘Someone just might have noticed that, a . . . ’

  ‘Good, because we’ll have no clue from footprints or anything like that,’ DC Cairns interrupted, thinking aloud, taking no heed of his words. ‘The ground’s like concrete and has been for days. Nothing will show up there.’

  ‘As I was saying before you interrupted me,’ the Constable said, fixing her with his unblinking eyes, ‘someone lugging a naked corpse is an odd enough sight to attract most people’s attention. We’ll soon find out, anyway. The DI says we’ve to make a start on the door-to-doors. Clarendon Crescent, Eton Terrace, Lennox Street, you’re to do them, and I’m on the other side of the road, Buckingham and Belgrave . . .’

  Lennox Street lay at right angles to the Dean Gardens, separated from the park by elegant railings, which somehow survived the demands of the Second World War. Beyond the railings was a roadway of patched tarmac dividing the two sides of the street. The street itself was short, its buildings low, comprised largely of two bay houses, each crowned with ornate balustrades and constructed of honey-coloured stone. But Edinburgh’s smut-laden air had not left the dwellings unmarked: the miasma had penetrated their fabric, leaving stains of black soot on them like the blemishes on a centenarian’s skin. Dainty, decorative lamp-posts punctuated the pavements, and some of the residents had softened their frontages by growing ivy or other creepers over their own stretches of filigreed ironwork.

  In this street at 11 a.m. on a weekday morning, only the elderly remain at home. Those of working age had long since vacated their reserved parking spaces and were now busy drafting dispositions, diagnosing illnesses or powering up and down the lanes of Drumsheugh Baths or those of other elite health clubs. Their offspring, too, passed their time elsewhere, dressed in brightly-coloured blazers, getting to know each other, networking in the nurseries of Heriot’s, the Academy, Fettes or Stewart Melville.

  When DC Cairns arrived at a doorway halfway along the street, excited yelps and barks greeted her before she had even rapped with her knuckles. The instant the cerise-painted door opened, a trio of long-haired dachshunds cascaded out, nose to tail, milling around the young policewoman’s ankles and looking up at her with their anxious black eyes. Feeling a damp nose on her calf, she was sorely tempted to give the most insistent of the dogs a quick kick, to push it away as an example to the others. But she managed to restrain herself, and as she waited there was a high, piping sound followed by words of command: ‘Toffee! Marmite! Pushkin! Inside, the lot of you!’

  It was the voice of the pack leader. Immediately, the three little dogs trooped back indoors, and a large lady with buck teeth and a mass of fair curls watched them return into the hallway. Noticing Cairns’s fixed smile and assuming it to be one of admiration for her pets’ conduct, she declared, ‘Obedience classes!’ Met with a look of blank incomprehension, she added, ‘Me – I teach them.’ She had a whistle around her neck which bounced off her bust as she walked, and as DC Cairns followed her inside, the three dachshunds, all in a line, led the odd procession. When they reached the drawing room, without further instruction, each animal filed into its own bed, all of them looking up expectantly at the two human beings as if for further entertainment.

  ‘I saw or heard nothing, nothing unusual, I’m sorry to say,’ Lavinia Travers began, exposing an excessively large area of gum and tooth with her generous smile. ‘More’s the pity! We could do with a little excitement around here. Nothing has happened since Mr Furnell, across the road, turned himself into Miss Furnell. In Morocco, Tunisia or some other nice hot place like that. I’ve only been to the Gambia myself. That was not a police matter, of course, and now we have two ladies of the house, Miss Furnell and Mrs Furnell. Although, oddly enough, they’re married.’ She grinned toothily again, her eyebrows shooting up in an inquiring look as she waited, expectantly, as if for some exciting titbit to be offered in return.

  ‘The description I gave you. No one comes to mind?’ DC Cairns ploughed on, determined not to be distracted by the woman’s gossip, however diverting it might be.

  ‘No. Could be any old middle-aged man and, frankly, they all look the same to me nowadays . . . unlike you, diddums,’ she added in a comforting tone, bending down to stroke Pushkin, the dachshund closest to her hand.

  ‘A man with reddish hair, balding and with hazel eyes? There aren’t that many redheads about, are there?’

  ‘True. At a pinch I suppose it could be Duncan McPhee. He’s the only ginger hereabouts. A bad-tempered fellow who lives with his poor beleagured wife somewhere or other in Learmonth Terrace. I call him “Ginger Snap”, not to his face, obviously, just behind his back . . . because he is. It’s only the truth. He’s on the Garden Committee, the Tennis Courts Committee, the Amenity Committee, the Committee Committee. He’s a “Committee Man” and he makes my life a misery. He’s the worst sort of Holy Willie.’

  ‘Holy Willie?’

  ‘He’s a Church of Scotland min
ister for his sins – or, more likely, ours.’

  ‘Do you know his exact address?’

  ‘No. As I said, Learmonth Terrace, I think, but I’m not sure and I may be talking out of turn now. But you’re just as likely to find him further up this street. That’s where a certain lady lives, another keen committee member. They’re tireless, the two of them, often needing to discuss “committee matters” at all sorts of odd hours. I’ve come across him late at night, going home, when I’ve been putting the dogs out. They’re both extraordinarily conscientious.’

  ‘Did you see him go into Dean Gardens at any time yesterday or . . .’

  ‘No,’ Lavinia Travers replied, interrupting the question. ‘He always uses the Clarendon Crescent entrance, so I’m none the wiser. I can’t see it from here.’

  At that moment a well-dressed old man, with a black Homburg hat pushed to the back of his head, shuffled past Miss Travers’s window and she exclaimed excitedly, ‘Isn’t that Lord Spurgeon? If so, it’s his second trip this morning. I wonder where he’s off to now?’

  Without waiting for a response she rushed over to the window and positioned herself slightly to one side, most of her figure being obscured by a thick, lined chintz curtain, and watched the man’s progress until he disappeared out of view. DC Cairns was unable to prevent herself from smiling, amused at the woman’s unabashed snooping.

  ‘City bound,’ Miss Travers muttered to herself, oblivious now of the policewoman, ‘but with no briefcase. Mmm. Shopping, most probably, except that the Tesco van called yesterday, so he might be off to the New Club.’ She glanced at her watch and added, as if expecting some comment, ‘But it’s too early for lunch, isn’t it?’

  Her brow still furrowed in thought, Lavinia Travers returned to her armchair, looked her guest in the face, smiled as if at an accomplice, and then picked up the threads of their conversation.

  ‘I’m not sure what Mrs McPhee makes of it all – the “committee work”, I mean. Poor dear. Blinkered like an old mare hauling a milk cart. So, what exactly has Ginger Snap been up to then? Bit of a Jammie Dodger, is he? Up to his old Twix? It must be more than a parking fine, otherwise you wouldn’t be interested, now, would you?’

  No signs of life were visible at the McPhees’ house, and ringing the bell at the front door produced no response. Determined to follow up every possible lead, the young constable retraced her steps to Lennox Street. Standing on the doorstep of the house that Lavinia Travers had indicated, with the wind whistling up the street and rattling the joints of the scaffolding at the southern end, she had second thoughts. The information she was acting upon was probably no more than the meddlesome outpourings of a spinster neighbour who didn’t have enough to do with her time. Feeling distinctly uneasy, she peered down into the basement window but saw nothing, and while she was wondering whether she still had time to retreat, dignity intact, the main door opened.

  Behind it stood an ancient, white-haired woman who was leaning forward at an unnatural angle, supported by a Zimmer frame. Catching the old woman’s watery eyes, Cairns felt herself becoming agitated. This woman was obviously not somebody’s mistress! It was preposterous! There could be only one explanation. Miss Travers, with her impish sense of humour, must have set her up, and was, in all probability, watching her this very minute, shaking with laughter at her discomfort while safely concealed behind those thick curtains. This ‘older woman’ had one foot in the grave, and was more likely to be in need of an undertaker than a toy boy.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she began, any remaining confidence draining away, ‘but I wondered whether Duncan McPhee was here by any chance?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Duncan McPhee.’

  ‘I’m sorry, dear, you’ll have to bellow,’ the old lady said, bending even further towards her. ‘I’m as deaf as a post nowadays.’

  ‘Is Duncan McPhee here? I understand that he lives nearby on Learmonth Terrace.’

  ‘He’s not here, dear. If I were you I’d try Learmonth Terrace. That’s where he lives, you see?’

  The old lady smiled kindly at the constable, thinking to herself that the girl’s youth probably explained her cluelessness. On the other hand, perhaps she had been born terminally dim.

  ‘You’re on the committee for the Dean Gardens?’ DC Cairns blustered on, aware of the complete non sequitur but determined to establish if there was so much as a smidgen of truth in any of the information given to her by the mischievous spinster.

  ‘Yes, I am. But, really, it’s in name alone now. I do little more than adorn the notepaper. Is that what you’re after? A key to the gardens? Why didn’t you say so? That’s all handled by the Reverend McPhee, as I expect you know.’

  The Reverend McPhee’s wife enjoyed driving. Her car was inexpensive, a second-hand Fiat Panda, but it was speedy and, more importantly, it had an excellent sound system.

  Accelerating past a lorry which was straining slowly up a steep gradient, thick grey smoke coming from its rusted exhaust, Juliet McPhee held her breath. Gasping for air after half a minute, she closed the window before more of the poisonous fumes seeped in.

  All the time, in her mind she was accompanying the soprano in ‘Soave sia il vento’, and the sound she was making in her brain was every bit as pure, as crystalline, as that made by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. It was blissful, she thought, to be on one’s own, surrounded by incomparable music, with the blue Lomond Hills on the left, the shadow of clouds scudding across them and sunlight falling on the Kinross plain.

  And, best of all, there was no Duncan beside her barking orders: ‘Overtake now!’, ‘Indicate now!’, ‘Park there!’ or trying to ‘rationalise’ her route. He would never learn. It was easier to obey his commands than resist them, but obedience, too, took its toll.

  If she timed it right, she thought, squinting at the clock on the dashboard over her glasses, she could ensure that she arrived home in his absence, and luxuriate in a few more hours of solitude, with Ailsa alone as company. Thinking about her husband, she reminded herself that she must be fair to him. After all, once upon a time, long, long ago, his dominant traits, his natural authority and his orderliness had attracted her. That had to be admitted. In their early days, she had found them almost reassuring, believing that his strong character kept the forces of chaos at bay, protected her.

  But those charms, his charms, had dimmed once she had realised what lay at the true core of his being. Fear. An unspoken, unending dread that he would lose control and be discovered, be found out. That people would see through him and he would be found wanting, shrink, and become wee Dunkie McPhee again, the miner’s boy. Nowadays, the pliant and those he had overtaken socially were ordered about, lorded over. Those he considered above him had their egos massaged until they, too, were overtaken. Then he showed his teeth.

  And at all times, offerings were made to his real deity, the great God of Respectability. Doubtless it was not his fault, this weakness, but, surely to goodness, by the age of fifty-five he should have got over it, have exorcised those ghosts from his past? Had I known then, she said to herself, growing angrier by the second, that I had been chosen to function as some sort of pass or membership card to help him to join the middle classes I would have declined his moonlight proposal. Refused his kisses.

  But remembering that night, she softened towards him He had trusted her, allowed himself to relax with her as with no one else, regaled her with funny stories of unexpected, idiosyncratic snobberies within the pit community. He had chosen to expose his vulnerability completely to her, confident that she would never betray him, privately or in public. No greater compliment could be paid by anyone to anyone.

  Of course, his judgement had been sound because she had never parted with his secret, knowing that to do so would destroy him. Even the children remained ignorant about large parts of his childhood: the sugar or ketchup sandwiches, fifth-hand shoes and the endless darning. And, in his way, he had been a good father, even if he had lied to them about th
eir own grandparents, their antecedents, air-brushing them beyond recognition.

  However, she could, she decided, have done a lot worse. Well, worse, anyway, and so could he! Once, she had been a catch with her abundant blonde hair and trim figure. Time would likely weld them more tightly together, and, perhaps in old age, he would finally relax, grow to accept himself and stop pretending to be what he was not. Finally, he would grow up.

  ‘Thou shalt not worship false gods,’ she muttered to herself, removing the Cosi fan tutte disc and inserting Mozart’s Requiem in its place.

  Seeing the towers of the Forth Road Bridge ahead of her and with ‘Qui Tollis’ belting out, she began searching in the ashtray for spare coins, deliberately slowing down to give herself time to collect a pound’s worth. While she was picking up speed, amusing herself by racing a goods train rattling over the Rail Bridge, it suddenly came to her that there were no toll booths any more and she laughed out loud at her own inability to register change. It showed how often she crossed the water.

  As she drew into Learmonth Terrace, the bright winter sunshine that she had been enjoying was immediately blotted out by the screen of large sycamore trees parallel to the road. Halfway up the street she saw an empty space almost opposite her own front door, and blessing her good luck, she manoeuvred into it. Her suitcase was heavy and now she would have no distance to carry it. As she walked up the front steps of her house, Yale key at the ready, a uniformed constable approached her, inquiring if she was Mrs McPhee.

  13

  Once the mortuary assistant had removed the cloth, Juliet McPhee allowed her eyes to rest on her husband’s face and body. An overwhelming urge to keen to the heavens like an Arab woman rose in her breast, but she controlled herself and remained silent. She was shocked by her own impulse. But he looked so slight, so childlike and vulnerable. She longed to kiss his cheek, cradle his head in her arms, comfort him. Unthinkingly, she reached out to touch him, drawing back her hand just before she was asked not to.