‘Me, obviously.’
‘Why on earth?’
‘I’ll be more mysterious as a divorced woman. I’m too old to be a sodding spinster. I’m not signing in as Miss Norton or Msss bloody Norton. Are you Miss Rice tonight?’
‘Of course. I thought half the point of the classes was to meet available men.’
‘Well, this crew’s much better than the car maintenance lot, I can tell you that for nothing,’ Bridget said. ‘These ones can speak, the mechanics just grunted at each other, and that one… is not bad-looking.’ And she pointed a finger, unobtrusively, on her lap at a man sitting opposite them.
Once they had all changed they were paired-up for manoeuvres in the pool. Alice waddled, practically doubled-up, to the water’s edge, weighed down by a massive lead belt and cylinders and encased in an unflattering skin-tight wetsuit. Tripping on a flipper, she smiled weakly at her companion, a balding surveyor from Leith, as they began to practise the hand signals that they had been taught for ‘OK’, ‘distress’ and ‘danger’, prior to immersion. As she lumbered into the water, she noted through her mask that Bridget had been buddied with the last person to join the group, a man too beer-bellied for any of the available wetsuits and who, when asked to introduce himself to the class, had described himself as ‘a successful entrepreneur in waste management’. While Bridget was flopping into the pool, the man continued talking to her until she disappeared below the surface in a whirlpool of bubbles, swiftly followed by him.
On meeting her friend underwater at the deep end, Alice flourished an ‘OK’ hand signal at her and nearly choked on her regulator when Bridget turned sideways to face her and then, gesturing at the entrepreneur, signalled ‘tosser’ in a speedy hand movement.
Quill played with a piece of greasy wrapping paper on the floor of the kitchen as Alice emptied the remains of her fish supper into the bin. She poured herself a glass of white wine and went to phone her mother.
‘Mum, how are you tonight?’
‘The wound’s still a little sore, darling, but so far so good, no swelling in my armpit and we got wonderful news today. They’ve checked the lymph nodes and they’re all clear, so I’ve only got radiotherapy now, no chemotherapy.’
‘I’m so glad, I can’t tell you how pleased I am. Dad must be thrilled too.’
‘He certainly is, and so am I. We found a bottle of champagne in a cupboard and it’s finished already. I’ll have to go back to the Western in a month or so to get inked up for the radiotherapy, but I’ve only to have five weeks’ worth of doses, so with luck I’ll be all clear by my birthday. How was your first sub-aqua lesson?’
‘Fine. Fun. I’ll persevere and try and get my open water certificate, I think. I don’t know if Bridget will carry on though, she’s already talking about electrical engineering courses.’
4
He brushed the bee, nonchalantly, off his bare hand and lifted the first layer from the hive. Every year the supers seemed to get heavier, and yet, paradoxically, they contained no more honey. Fitting his hive tool between two filled frames, Sir Archibald Learmonth levered one loose and then carefully raised it to examine the white seal covering either side. Nowadays, he strained to see anything through the fine gauze of his bee veil, and he cursed modern beekeeping equipment; it made the beeman’s task well nigh impossible. He swung the frame forwards and backwards in order to see if any honey would escape from the few remaining uncapped cells. No, the sticky fluid remained inside, so he added the frame to his pile for extraction. Next, the checking of the brood boxes to see what the varroa was up to. Picking up his capping fork from the roof of a nearby hive, he raised his trembling hand over an area of drone brood, before stabbing the fork into it and examining the larva impaled on its tines for any signs of the mite. Good, not a single black speck to be seen, those expensive strips had done their business. Carefully, he wiped the whitish goo off the fork onto the bird table. Another treat for the blue tits.
Under his broad hat he gradually became aware of a tapping sound, and looked round to see his wife at the window signalling for him to come in. Blast her! The job was only half done, and he’d just put a new cardboard cartridge inside the smoker; most of it would be wasted now. What on earth could be so important that it could not wait until the whole job had been done? He would have to explain to her, again, that the bees did not like being disturbed, and therefore any operation that had to be carried out on them must be allowed to be completed in order to avoid too many disturbances. Crossly, he re-built the hive, replacing the queen-excluder, stacking the supers, topping the whole with the crown board and the roof. He gathered together his full combs, swept the few remaining bees off with a large feather and headed towards the back door, his morning ruined.
Inside the kitchen of his Heriot Row house, the former Sheriff Principal of Lothian and Borders pulled off his hat and veil and then collapsed into an armchair, extending his legs and allowing his wife, wordlessly, to bend down and pull off his green Wellington boots. Hairy woollen socks encased his legs, and the elderly woman casually flicked a bee off one of them into a glass tumbler, before releasing the creature back into the garden.
Alice introduced herself and the old fellow, now mollified with a cup of tea and a biscuit, turned his attention to her.
‘I’ve come to see you in connection with the death of one of your brother Sheriffs, James Freeman. I understand that he was under you until he retired about ten years ago. I wondered if you could tell me anything about him,’ she began.
The Sheriff nodded benignly, crunching his mouthful of ginger snap, before replying: ‘Perhaps you could be more specific, Detective Sergeant Rice. What sort of thing exactly would you like to know?’
‘Just about anything you can tell me, Sir. His job-was he good at it, for example?’
‘I couldn’t fault him. He was absolutely first rate, always completely reliable, never shirked anything, including the residence stuff or even crime. His judgements were routinely well written and well reasoned, and he was very rarely overturned. Of course, he loathed our administrators, everyone does, but he took his turn on committees and so forth. As you are probably aware, for most of his time in Edinburgh, I was in Perth, but he was one of my Sheriffs for his last three years up until his retiral.’
‘Did you know anything about his personal life?’
The Sheriff looked keenly at Alice from beneath his unruly eyebrows, and when he spoke he sounded wary.
‘Very little. In fact, only what James chose to tell me. Obviously, as an unmarried man, albeit elderly, there were rumours-there always are-but I paid scant attention to them. I have been the subject of gossip in my time, plenty of it, so I don’t place much credence on such tittle tattle… however entertaining it may be.’
‘And what did Mr Freeman choose to tell you?’
‘Almost nothing. Simply that he had never married and would now never marry.’
‘And the rumours?’
‘Surely you can imagine?’ the Sheriff said impatiently. ‘Girls, boys, sheep-two legs good, four legs better-that kind of thing. It must happen in your own workplace. Certainly, the idle tongues waiting to be exercised in the ordinary Court enjoy nothing better than clacking about the orientation of those around them, any new liaisons or break-ups, no-one’s safe, but it’s all pretty harmless.’
‘I know Sheriff Freeman retired a good while ago, but can you think of anyone who might have a grievance against him, having been locked up by him or whatever?’
The retired judge sighed. ‘No. Most of the young neds he sentenced will be middle-aged men with their own children in tow now. Maybe even householders. Anyway, he didn’t end up with much crime. You see he was happy to listen to endless debates, complicated skirmishes over contractual terms and the like, civil proofs; and many of his brethren were less amenable to that sort of thing so they tended to get… well, the crime. Furthermore, any malcontent dealt with by him would have waited a very long time for revenge, and frankly, as a m
otive I find it pretty implausible.’
‘Did you ever visit his house in Moray Place?’
‘No, nor did he ever come here. I never went to Geanbank either. We weren’t friends in that way.’
‘Geanbank?’
‘It’s his house in Kinross-shire, somewhere near Carnbo. Deep in the countryside, I believe. Maybe you’d even get heather honey there…’
A precious afternoon off and here she was supping with the devil in a seedy bar in Roseburn. It had come to this. Alice savoured the taste of the white wine on her palate, oblivious to the incessant chatter of the man by her side. She sensed his eyes on her, uncomfortably aware that his real object was to possess her, not just any information she might choose to impart to him. It was nothing personal, any woman would do. And this time she had nothing to tell him and, worse, he had lured her to the pub on false pretences; he had no news either and his bar-room patter was no substitute. What the hell. They both understood the value of their relationship; the need to nurture and preserve it. Her companion, a pasty-faced crime reporter, finished his cheese toasty, offered Alice a refill and, when she declined on the pretext of her imminent return to the office, snatched up his jacket and hurried off in order to catch the four thirty at Musselburgh.
As she raised her glass for the final swig, Alice became aware that the newly vacated seat beside her had become occupied. Turning, she found herself looking into the dark brown eyes of Ian Melville and saw him flinch as their eyes met; he had not expected to meet her in O’Riordans. Perhaps he had not expected to meet her ever again, and his disquiet on doing so could not be disguised. No wonder. Not so long ago he had been a murder suspect pursued by her, interrogated by her, afraid of her, and now here they were sitting together, side by side, like old friends. As she made to rise, he spoke.
‘Stay, Alice, please. I didn’t mean to disturb you. If it bothers you I’ll move… there are plenty of other tables.’ It sounded genuine.
‘Thanks for the offer,’ she heard herself say, ‘but there’s no need to go. I’d welcome the company.’
And it was true. His company would be welcome, but she had, somehow, expected her brain to bridle her mouth as it usually did, keep back the truth and give only some anodyne reply, nothing as forward as a welcome. It must be the drink. But he had remembered her name, and no longer required, in using it, to preface it with her rank, and she had remembered his. The sparring that they had engaged in during those tense interviews the previous year meant, in some bizarre way, that they knew each other. No. Correction. The truth was that she knew a fair amount about him, but he knew little of her. He was a painter, a good one; he had proved himself, ultimately, to be an honest man. He was rational and loyal. And, to his eternal credit, he had taken an immediate dislike to DI Manson and had, without difficulty, routed him. Finally, she had always found his irregular, angular features alluring. Others could feast their eyes on fair-haired men with perfect, symmetrical faces. They left her unmoved.
Forty minutes later they left the pub together and strolled down the steps that led to the walkway running alongside the Water of Leith, inhaling the scent of brewing effluent and lime blossom that accompanied the river on its winding course through the city. Deep in conversation they passed through the cold shadow cast by the Belford Bridge, high above them, their words echoing eerily within the archway, past the Dean Village and on to the final stretch that led to Stockbridge and their immediate destination. Opposite the Rotunda of St Bernard’s Well their hands linked, though neither of them was conscious of having taken any initiative.
The sign for Geanbank was nailed to the picket fence that marked the entrance to the driveway on the Carnbo to Cauldstones Road. The drive itself was flanked on either side by wild cherry trees, giving the place its name, and the fields beyond contained Highland cattle, long-haired and red-coated, their tails flicking incessantly to ward off the summer flies. Swallows chattered under the eaves of the house, their nests clinging perilously to the deep arches of the gothic windows where the mud used by them had splashed onto the soft yellow render of the building. The double front doors were locked, so Alice followed the perimeter of the house to the back door, but received no response when she rang the bell.
Stretching behind the house was a large walled garden and she looked in wonder at its perfect order. A caged area for soft fruit: raspberries, strawberries, black currants and red currants; straw laid lovingly beneath them all. Apple trees, espaliered, and row upon row of neat vegetables, each bed provided with the additional shelter of a dwarf privet hedge and not a single weed in sight. A feat that could surely only have been achieved by an Edwardian staff of gardeners. The shrill cry of a cockerel drew her attention to the farthest corner of the enclosed ground and she moved towards the noise-maybe someone would be feeding the chickens. On arrival, she saw a group of Light Sussex hens scratching up the earth and, occasionally, pecking at a stray grain of corn. All sure signs of life, but still nobody about.
She returned to the front of the house and noticed, for the first time, a figure in the distance, busy at the far end of the lawn tending to a wide herbaceous border. By the time she reached the man she was breathless. He was dressed in faded dungarees and a battered cap protected his head from the sun.
‘Excuse me, are you one of the gardeners here?’
‘Yes, I do the garden.’
Her enquiries were interrupted by a call from Detective Inspector Manson on her mobile phone. The tone of his voice conveyed urgency, that this was to be a monologue to which attention must be paid. If she had checked out Geanbank then she should return to the office immediately, as DCI Bruce had ordered the whole squad to attend the next meeting, re-scheduled for two pm. If she left now and put her foot down she’d miss nothing.
This village shop, Alice thought irritably, should have gone out of business long ago with the rest of them. The days when shopkeepers could lean on their counters exchanging local gossip with every shopper, however paltry their purchase, were thankfully over and their replacement with brightly-lit, soulless supermarkets could only be a cause for rejoicing.
‘Well, ma lass, what can ah dae fer ye?’
‘Just the crisps and the Irn Bru, thanks.’
The old lady fingered the crisp packets and can before placing them slowly in a carrier bag and, smiling up at Alice, apparently quite unconscious of her customer’s impatience, she continued with her chat.
‘Ye’re just visiting, eh?’
‘That’s it.’ Such brevity should convey the hint.
‘Who were ye seein’?’
None of your business. ‘I was at Geanbank. I just saw the gardener there and now I’ve got to hurry back to Edinburgh.’
‘Gairdner, there’s nae gairdner there. Just Nicholas.’
‘Sorry? What did you say?’
‘Ah says there’s nae gairdner at Geanbank. Just Nicholas… well, ye ken…’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘Och, he’s a fine man, dinnae git me wrang. But he’s no’ the Sheriff’s gairdner, no, no. He daes the gairden a’richt. Daes it well, an a’. But he’s no the man’s gairdner… He’s his-well, ken, his wife, ye could cry him. Ma sister cleans their hoose. They’ve separate rooms but-ah kent the both o’ them fer the last ten year since they moved… Well, ye can tell, eh? Live an’ let live, ah always say, but Nicholas’s nae the gairdner.’
‘What’s Nicholas’s surname?’
‘Lyon. Ah always thocht he wis mair the lioness though…’ She chuckled merrily, pleased with her own joke, before her laughter turned itself into a bubbling cough.
Nicholas Lyon did not put down the string he was weaving around the peonies when he saw the Astra return to the gravel sweep. He wound another length of it between their reddish stems and then tethered the twine, finally, to a thin metal support. It had to be done. Otherwise a strong wind could come at any time and destroy the plants, never mind the damage the rain would do, rotting their glorious cri
mson heads while they were still tight in bud. He had done all he could to protect them and, if he had the time, he’d stake the delphiniums too. James loved delphiniums, ‘delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red)’ and neither of them had ever tolerated chrysanthemums in any colour. The woman approaching him seemed to be quite young, the same one he had seen before; her leaving had seemed too good to be true.
‘Mr Lyon? I’m Detective Sergeant Alice Rice of Lothian and Borders Police. Could we go inside the house? I’d like to talk to you.’
Looking at the elderly gentleman putting the kettle on the Aga in his kitchen, Alice cursed her own stupidity. Of course the face was familiar, she could place him now. He was the fellow she had seen at the Sheriff’s service, sobbing, overcome by grief. The image of him had remained fixed in her mind simply because at the funeral he had been almost the only one, bar Mrs Nordquist, to exhibit any kind of sorrow.
‘Mr Lyon, I need to talk to you about the Sheriff, James Freeman.’
The old man nodded his assent as he poured out the tea into two mugs. But his eyes never met hers, they flitted nervously to the floor, to the ceiling, left and right, and all the while he blinked copiously.
‘I understand that you lived together?’
The question had come, as he had known it would. Nicholas Lyon thought long and hard before replying, although he had already allowed himself ample time to rehearse any response. ‘Lived together.’ He knew exactly what was meant by this apparently innocuous phrase. That he and James lived together as homosexuals, inverts, nancies or whatever… There were few such objectionable epithets with which he was not familiar. People must have known, of course they must, but never the people that counted. Or, if those people had known, then it had not mattered as James had been so discreet. He, both of them, had never chosen to venture out of the closet. Maybe it was claustrophobic inside, but, fortunately, they had only ever needed each other and, anyway, it had been necessary. Many, no doubt, had found it suffocating, undignified certainly, but they had coped and nothing in James’ private life had prevented him from becoming a QC nor, eventually, from being elevated onto the Shrieval bench.
Where The Shadow Falls Page 5
