Blood in the Water (Alice Rice 1)

by Gillian Galbraith

  10

  Tuesday 13th December

  Every year Edinburgh is taken by surprise when it snows, as if the stuff has no business falling so far south and on the capital at that. Its annual presence fails to dislodge the city fathers’ belief that their metropolis is a snow-free zone, requiring no special precautions, no special measures, a site untouched by winter and its cold heart.

  When Alice awoke, the city had undergone its yearly transformation and Broughton Place was carpeted in white, a surface undisturbed by anyone or anything, a virgin field awaiting despoliation by its residents on their way to work. Looking out of her bedroom window she watched as little eddies of snow rose from the church roof at the east end, only to fall, spilling like icing sugar onto the sparkling surface below. She dressed quickly in a thick woollen jersey, jeans, boots and an old skiing jacket. The collar and lead were slipped over Quill’s neck and they set out for their pre-dawn walk. Inverleith Park was deserted, and the dog, freed from its lead, spun round and round in circles, chasing his tail and puffs of snow, barking loudly and revelling in his own speed and energy.

  By eight am the peace of the snow-bound city had been shattered, its smooth covering replaced by chaos and its silence by an angry, impotent roar. Broughton Street, a small incline leading upwards from London Street to one of the main arteries of the capital, had been closed to all comers. An articulated lorry had jack-knifed across it by the Catholic Apostolic Church, smashing a bus-shelter and turning the road into a dead end. The traffic on George Street was moving at a snail’s pace, led by a bus crawling from stop to stop with a retinue of desperate drivers in its wake, each praying that the one in front would not brake too suddenly on the untreated, treacherous rink. Even The Mound was impassable, its underground heating system failing on its first call into service of the year. The roundabout at the top of Leith Walk was at a complete standstill: thick, white, exhaust fumes filled the air from the queues of trapped vehicles, each one revving ineffectually at the slightest sign of any advance. And Princes Street itself was blocked; a black cab, wheels spinning uselessly, showered the nearby pedestrians with a fine spray of slush. In short, the city had been disabled by the snow, found wanting, unable to cope, as if confronted by the unexpected demands of monsoon rains or hurricane winds.

  Alastair was at his desk, his long fingers clamped around a mug of steaming tea, clasping it to his chest as if it was a hot water bottle. Inspector Manson was also in the office, leaning against the coffee machine and sipping from a polystyrene cup, a chocolate biscuit in his free hand. As Alice approached he sneezed noisily, rocking himself with the impact and spilling the contents of his cup onto her.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, dear.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ she replied evenly, ‘I’ll send the dry cleaning bill on to you.’

  He smiled, watching her intently as she dabbed her breast with a hanky.

  ‘Was the meeting with Dr Ferguson any use?’ she asked him, her head still down attending to the stain.

  ‘Total waste of ruddy time for all concerned.’

  ‘Nothing at all, Sir?’

  ‘Well, let me see… He knew Dr Clarke and didn’t like her. He described her, and I quote, as “another stuck-up bitch”. He was convinced that she didn’t rate him highly enough professionally, didn’t recognise his true genius. He said that the only reference she’d ever written for him was lukewarm at best, more communicated by what she didn’t say than by what she did. But that was all. Nothing deeper. Like all the others he conceded that she was a good doctor, caring etc, but too stand-offish with the rest of the staff. Also, she was unable to delegate, he said, to him at least. He appeared genuinely shocked when I asked him if she might have had any connection with the black market in hospital drugs. Seemed to think that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. So, as I said, a total waste of police time, my precious time. I hear your trip to Kinross wasn’t any better.’

  Alice shook her head, ‘No, not completely valueless, Sir. I think we can now safely exclude Jane MacVie as any sort of suspect, but that still leaves Ian Spurgeon in the frame.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath, dear,’ Manson said, licking a crumb from his upper lip, ‘all roads still lead back to Melville, mark my words.’

  Having swallowed his mouthful the Inspector sneezed again, trumpeting like a charging bull elephant and spilling the remnants of his coffee onto the floor.

  ‘I’ll drive,’ Alice said, moving towards the driver’s door.

  ‘You must be joking, it’s like a skating rink out there,’ Alistair replied.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, maybe I should drive today.’

  ‘No thanks, I’ll be fine.’ As if it had been an offer.

  Alistair stooped to fit himself into the car, knocking his head on the central mirror and cursing as he tried to find the seatbelt.

  ‘What’s been happening since I’ve been off?’

  ‘You should be off now. You’re still sniffing and I’ll catch it.’

  ‘Keep your window open.’

  Alice began to wind down her window and icy air swept through the vehicle. She continued until the last sliver of glass became invisible.

  ‘You have no mercy… Please, please shut it, you’re not in peril. But what has been happening?’

  ‘Not much really. Cohen was a rare freak, just the thought of him makes me shudder, and not with pleasure before you suggest it, and he gave me nothing except the creeps. I suppose Melville’s still odds-on, though I’d put money on that it wasn’t him. Photos of him were shown throughout the Medway to no avail, and McBryde’s workmate, Davie something or other, didn’t recognise him.’

  ‘Anyone got anything on McBryde from his family?’

  ‘No. DS Travers traced his mother to an old folks home in Portobello, but she was away with the fairies and thought that Sammy attended the Queen, you know, polishing her crown, feeding the corgis etc.’

  ‘There must be something, surely?’

  ‘Not at the moment. I met up with Jane MacVie and she’s found her Saviour, so she’ll be turning the other cheek. No bloodlust there, and two evangelicals corroborated her story. The boss is wearing herself out, sneaking out for fags and downing cough mixture like sherry.’

  Alice coughed, unable to speak, and then glared at her partner. ‘I’ve caught it already!’

  He did not respond to the joke, but answered seriously.

  ‘Alice, do you find this one gets to you? It gets to me. I keep seeing that poor doctor’s blood on her ceiling, and the smell of Pearson’s post mortem seems to have stuck in my nostrils. I feel this bastard’s presence, his anger, fury even, and I’m sure, somehow, he’s dying to do it again. Usually, I’m OK. You know, not too bothered, but…’

  ‘Me, too. It’s as if he can do whatever he likes and we just follow, as if we’ve got hooks in our mouths and we’re on his line. When I close my eyes to sleep I see the wound in Pearson’s neck. Don’t know why, I’ve seen enough gore in my time… but it’s the one that keeps coming back.’

  Large snowflakes had begun to land on the windscreen of the Astra by the time they reached the coast at Musselburgh, and they continued to fall until the car had strained up the brae that leads from Wallyford to Tranent. Then, as abruptly as it had all begun, the snowfall ceased. Tranent seemed to have fallen asleep under its white blanket; chimneys smoked and lights shone, but all its inhabitants were safely wrapped up indoors. When the pits closed the place closed too, and precious little of the spoils of that dirty industry ever filtered back into its dark streets. No grand public buildings or monuments had been erected there, courtesy of any of the black barons, just a miners’ welfare club and a Masonic Lodge. Before the bypass all the traffic on the A1 rumbled through Tranent, creating the semblance of a pulse, but its beat had disappeared with the opening of the motorway. No heart was pumping now, no life left, the sleep of the dead.

  At the Brig Inn they turned right, s
lithering down the untreated slope by the disused coal-railway towards the collection of shuttered workshops that led to Windygoul. The snowy weather had been unexpectedly kind to the estate; beneath its immaculate covering the usual detritus of litter, cannibalised car-parts and dead grass were concealed.

  Sharon Calder’s door was opened by a smartly dressed young woman, bent double, holding the collar of an Alsatian to prevent it from jumping up on the callers. She explained to them that she was Miss Calder’s social worker and was just leaving, but that she would go and see if her client was prepared to talk to the police. Alice patted the coarse hair of the dog as they waited patiently in the hall before being shown into a sitting room. Sharon Calder was there, reclining on a sofa with her slippers off, breastfeeding her baby. To shield herself from their gaze she adjusted her cardigan, obscuring all sight of the child. She was pretty, with downward sloping green eyes and soft brown hair, but appeared prematurely careworn; fine lines already corrugated her forehead and bracketed her mouth. Over her left eye was a massive bruise, blue-black in colour and extending up into the temple and down over the cheekbone. It had begun to heal, its dark border merging into yellowing skin.

  ‘Does Ian Spurgeon live here?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Not now,’ Sharon Calder replied.

  ‘Have you any idea where he is living now?’

  ‘I don’t know where he stays, permanent like, but I know where he is. He’s in hospital in Haddington, the Roodlands Hospital, with two broken arms.’

  ‘How long has he been in there?’ Alice persisted.

  The girl looked at her social worker inquiringly. ‘Maybe since… eh… 28th November. That’d be right, eh, Miss Short?’ Her companion nodded her head and Sharon Calder went on. ‘Aye, he got out on the 26th, came here on the 27th and the boys done him over on the 28th. I mind it was then, I had an appointment at the clinic.’

  Alastair spoke. ‘Would you mind explaining to us what happened?’

  The girl looked down at her baby, stroked its head and then continued without lifting her eyes from her child.

  ‘Ian was in Saughton, but youse’ll know that already. Went in maybe late 2001. He moved in wi’ me after Janie left, poor cow. I felt sorry for him and all, losing the wee boy and everything. When he went inside I visited him regular, wrote letters, done everything I could and it wasn’t easy getting time off work, expensive too with all those buses. By the end I’d got to know the place really well, knew some of the wives, like I was one of them. Then I made my big mistake, I got friendly with a boy, had a few drinks and fell pregnant to him. Course, he didn’t want to know me after he found out I was expecting. Next time I sees Ian he knows all about it, I’d told one of the girls and she’d passed it on to her man and he’d told Ian. But Ian was great. I’d expected him to shout at me, bawl the place down but he was fine. Said it was all okay, we could still be together and that he’d treat the child like his own once he was out…’

  She stopped and pressed the child more closely to her before continuing. ‘Jesus! If that’s how he’d treat his own. He came here on the 27th and seen the baby, took her in his arms and gave her a great big smacking kiss. I thought it was all going to be alright, that we’d be a family like, him, me and the bairn, ’cos he didn’t seem angry or nothing, just glad to be out and happy to be with the two of us. Next day he came back from the Brig, about tea-time, and he was steaming. He had a go at the both of us, grabbed the baby off me like she was a doll or something and flung her onto the settee and then started hammering me, kicking, punching and all the while screaming that I was a whore at the top of his voice. Mr McSween from next door heard him and came running in. He managed to pull Ian off me, even though he’s an old man and then Ian turned on him. I picked up the baby and ran to my Mum’s and we locked the door. One of my brothers was in the house and he phoned Alec, the eldest, and then the two of them went into my house and beat the shite out of Ian. Mr McSween got the police and Alec and John were taken to the station but they’re not being charged with nothing. Ian got took by ambulance to the hospital, lights flashing, both his arms got broke in the fight…’

  ‘He’ll never beat up a woman or a child again,’ Miss Short said quietly.

  Sharon Calder carried on. ‘He’s got both arms in a stookie, ken, plastered, the now. A friend of mine works as an auxiliary in Roodlands and she told me, said she’d heard the doctors discussing his injuries and they said he’d be lucky if he could lift a pint when he got out, the boys had done such a thorough job on him.’

  The appointment was for four-thirty pm and must be kept, Alice knew that. To distract herself she looked around the dentist’s surgery, scanning the drill, the little basin, the tooth colour charts, flitting onto the shiny autoclave, and then her gaze inadvertently landed on, and became transfixed by, the dentist’s hairless hand, thumb balanced on the plunger of the hypodermic, free hand flicking the full cylinder. And the needle. The needle seemed to go on forever, designed surely to penetrate the armour-plated skin of a rhinoceros, not her soft, pink, throbbing gum. Fighting against the urge to leave, and obeying a command, she opened her mouth and felt only a sharp jab instead of the excruciating pain she had braced herself to withstand. Every muscle and sinew relaxed, and she listened to the drill at work as if it was in someone else’s mouth rather than her own. A quick wash with the pink liquid and she was out, face frozen, hamster-cheeked, and a small stream of saliva running unstoppably from the side of her mouth, but with no further appointments for six months.

  A fat Santa Claus, having escaped from his grotto for a fly smoke, winked at her, reminding her that Christmas was coming and that all her shopping remained to be done. Maybe even making a pass at her. Despite the weather, the stores were full, crammed with people milling about apparently aimlessly, looking for inspiration in amongst all the tinselled tat. Briefly she joined the throng in a clothes shop, wandering amongst the pullovers and socks until she came to, determined to make a list and do all her shopping in a single, well-executed strike.

  At home there were three messages on her answerphone. One was from the DVD shop to inform her that Delicatessen was four days overdue, one was from her sister reminding her that her brother-in-law’s birthday was in two days time, and the third was from Anthony Hardy. It was short and to the point as usual.

  ‘Hello. It’s me. Fancy a drink tonight at Colliers? Phone me if you’re not going to make it. Otherwise I’ll see you there at six-thirty.’ They had known each other for years, had met in a cold lecture theatre and clicked immediately. For all of a minute Alice contemplated staying in, visualising a long, luxurious bath followed by a diet of mindless television, and then, snapping out of it, she went to change.

  An open fire was blazing in Colliers and Anthony had secured the table nearest to it; he was engaged in erecting a house of cards out of dog-eared coasters and did not see her enter. It was clear that he’d come straight from the Advocates’ Library; his work clothes were visible beneath his overcoat and his shiny black lace-ups stood out amongst all the slip-ons, moccasins and scuffed trainers lined up along the bar and clustered together by the giant television screen. An unsmiling barman gave her the glass of white wine she’d finally been able to order and she moved to join her friend at his table. He looked up, gave her a brotherly kiss and then stared morosely into his dram.

  ‘It’s happened. I’ve finally broken up with Andrew,’ he said. It was no surprise to Alice. His relationship had been on the edge of the abyss for months, teetering dizzily between renewed passion and despair, and she had provided a sympathetic ear throughout it all.

  ‘I’m sorry. When did it happen?’

  He sighed. ‘Yesterday. Well, yesterday we decided that we would split up, but we’ve been trying to work things out, as you know, since May. I can’t talk to him any more, he says he can’t talk to me either. Every time either of us speaks, the other misunderstands it. It’s got to the stage that we hardly dare say a word in case another argument starts. Funn
y, because it used to be so easy, we were always talking, always had things to talk about…’, he shook his head miserably. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ve lived together for such a long time and everything’s so inextricably mixed. We’ve agreed custody of the cat and the dog and I’m getting both, thank God. I’ve known for ages that this would happen, but now that it has I don’t know what to do. Obviously, we’ll have to sell the flat, and I suppose I’ll look for somewhere else in the city. Andrew’s away at a conference in Leeds so I’ll have the place to myself tonight.’

  ‘You told me, last time in the pub, that you thought he was seeing someone else. Was he?’

  Anthony took a sip of his drink. ‘I don’t know for sure…’, he ruminated. ‘In a way it doesn’t make much odds. If he was it was because he wasn’t happy rather than the other way round. He keeps saying that there’s no one else, and, on balance, I believe him. I think I’d rather it that way, that our relationship had just worn itself out. I don’t want to be replaced immediately. God knows I looked long enough for Andrew, and for all his faults I don’t think I’ll ever find anyone half so lovable. It’d be galling to see him out with someone new too soon. Now I’ll be quiet. You’ve listened to all my worries enough times before. We’ll switch to you. How’s your love life, sweetheart?’

  ‘Cruel of you to ask. I’ve had to resort to desperate measures. Again.’

  ‘Well…’ he said coaxingly, ‘…tell me.’

  ‘Only if you promise, promise, solemnly promise, not to tell another living soul?’