Where The Shadow Falls

by Gillian Galbraith

  If such involuntary incarceration had been the price for his career then they had paid it. And when the militants had gone mad and smashed the closet doors around them to sawdust, he and James had declined to join in, having become accustomed to their private retreat and the double life that society had, once, enforced upon them. It was too difficult, breaking the habits of a lifetime. Of course, James had been a master of the half-truth, the distraction. He was a verbal-impressionist: a single well-chosen word and the inquisitors would create for themselves some unsuitable female consort for him, her nonappearance immediately explicable to them, and they would secretly pat themselves on the back for their perspicacity in the face of such subtlety. Others again, just assumed that he was asexual, had no ‘passionate parts’, and, insulting as it was, he let it pass. ‘Confirmed bachelors’ were not threatening and needed no further investigation.

  It was just a case of triggering expectations, people seeing what they expected to see despite the truth staring them in the face. And with his simple assent their well-worn carapace would be stripped away, never to be replaced. Still, no harm could now come to James or his career with such an admission, and pretence would be futile, maybe even dangerous. A private life was a thing of the past.

  ‘Yes,’ Nicholas replied baldly, interlinking his fingers to control the shaking that had begun in his hands.

  ‘For many years?’

  ‘For forty-five years and three months exactly.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come forward to help us… when the Sheriff was killed? You must have known; it was in all the papers.’

  Another simple question to which no simple answer could be provided. Difficult to think where to begin, but a start must be made somewhere. The incompatibility of their early relationship with James’ advancement, perhaps? Or the motor neurone disease? The amitriptyline, even? Something must be said, seconds were ticking by. But Christ, what? He felt like a snail being torn out of its shell, soon to be exposed in all its vulnerability.

  ‘I’ll tell you, Sergeant, as best as I can.’ She appeared sympathetic; maybe she would listen, even comprehend. Certainly, silence was no longer an option.

  ‘My relationship with James has never been public. If it had been you would have been here much sooner. We are just an old married couple really… but nobody, well almost nobody, knew that. I mean KNEW that. Some suspected, maybe others guessed. James’ career had to be protected, you see, and to be honest, his privacy, our privacy… what business was it of anyone else? But the tabloids would have taken a prurient interest in James-gay Sheriff found dead-in both of us, I suppose. Now? Now, maybe it is acceptable, but then it wasn’t, and we got used to things the way they were. Why should he, or I, put up with being called an “old poof” and all the other far more unpleasant things that go with such a label? Why should we, on sufferance only, be allowed into polite society? And what a misnomer that is! We managed very well without them all.’

  ‘So, you didn’t come forward as you didn’t want the nature of your relationship to become public?’

  ‘Yes, that’s partially true. It was part of the reason, but there was another, too, which you may or may not understand…’ His speech ended, nervousness having drained him of all energy. It felt so unreal, listening to his own voice laying bare their lives, exposing secrets that should have gone to the grave with them.

  ‘Go on, please, Mr Lyon.’

  ‘About eight months ago James began to have difficulty with his words. Not in remembering them or anything like that. More, in articulating them, his voice changed and his speech seemed to become slurred. Sometimes badly so, especially when he was tired. Next thing, he couldn’t swallow his food, kept choking, and it frightened him. It frightened me, too, actually. I had to learn the Heimlich manoeuvre, for all the good it did. Eventually, I bullied him into seeing a neurologist, and the man carried out various tests, scans and so on and then we got the news…’ The old man paused again as if reliving the moment.

  ‘The news?’ Alice prompted.

  ‘The news that he had motor neurone disease, a form of it anyway, something called “progressive bulbar palsy” to be exact. James’s intelligence would remain unaffected but, slowly, inexorably, crucial muscles would cease to function until, eventually, he wouldn’t be able to breathe unassisted.’

  ‘Why would that mean that you wouldn’t come forward when James was murdered?’

  ‘I am coming to that,’ the man said reproachfully, twisting and untwisting his hands. ‘James was a very determined man, you know. I would have nursed him until the end, I didn’t care. But he decreed otherwise and was implacable. He decided that he would end his own life. The thought of God’s reaction troubled him for a bit, but he concluded that no benign deity, worthy of such a name, would expect any creature to suffer a slow, terrifying death if an alternative quick, clean one was available. Even if that alternative death was suicide. So, he began planning his end. He did it meticulously, like everything else he did. He didn’t fancy Switzerland, that… er… Dignitas set-up. He chose the house in Moray Place. He used the house, particularly, during the week, and I think he saw it as the home of his ancestors in an almost Japanese way and thought it would be fitting to return-to wherever-from there. Also, and crucially, he didn’t want me involved in any way.’

  ‘Involved in what respect?’

  ‘In his suicide. If he had done it in Geanbank then… well, that was ours. Our home. I almost never went to Moray Place. It had always been his, whatever other houses we owned. He was going to take my amitriptyline-old stuff, I got it when my mother died-and the Brahms double violin concerto. Said he’d like to go listening to celestial music with a dram or two for company. I suspected when he left here on Monday afternoon that he’d determined to do it that evening. He’d choked at lunchtime and some of the muscles in his tongue had begun to twitch. Anyway, it was so different when he said goodbye. He didn’t cry or anything like that, James almost never cried, but he looked hollow… lost… it’s hard to explain. I tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn’t. He said if I had no involvement, knew nothing about it, then I’d be quite safe from the Police. I phoned the house the next morning and there was no reply. I was in the process of collecting my things to go there when Liv called.’

  ‘Liv?’ Alice interrupted.

  ‘Liv Nordquist, our neighbour. She knew-about us, I mean. James trusted her completely. She knew about the disease too. She told me that James had been murdered… and that you, the Police, were already involved. So I’ve been waiting for you to come.’

  Finally, Nicholas Lyon looked into the policewoman’s eyes and she nodded her head for him to continue.

  ‘That’s it, really. Why I didn’t come forward. In the papers it wasn’t “Gay Sheriff found murdered”. No. No-one could speculate about some homosexual crime of passion, or any of that sort of thing. And, yes, I believed that James was going to die that night but not… that he was going to be killed. I reckoned you’d come to me in the end. You see, James had lived as straight in the world, but my very existence made that a lie. And all I cared about, then, was that he was dead. Nothing else mattered.’

  After the policewoman had gone, Nicholas Lyon wandered into the rose garden, desperate to calm himself, to restore his shattered nerves and dispel the fears that seemed to have taken control of his mind. A momentous change had occurred and it had happened against his will. Now, the known had become the unknown; the familiar, unfamiliar; and in this new, unwelcome environment he would have to survive.

  ‘Tuna fish today-nice chunks of greasy… eh, flesh. How would that suit you, Quill?’

  Miss Spinnell opened the cupboard above the sink and scrabbled blindly inside, delving for the chosen tin. Two forefingers landed in a pool of oil and she withdrew them quickly, smelling them before reaching back inside and extracting the opened can.

  ‘They’ve done it again,’ she muttered to herself, ‘drinking the very milk from my cartons, and now the very… dog
flesh… from my, eh… eh… tinister… boxes.’

  Quill’s dish was soon full of a strange assortment of ingredients from the store cupboard, but he gobbled it down greedily before lapping up the bowl of Ribena that had been thoughtfully laid out for him.

  When Alice arrived and knocked on the old woman’s door she was surprised by the silence that greeted her before Miss Spinnell’s thin voice could be heard. Where were the usual clanks, clicks and rattles that always heralded the relaxing of her domestic security, appropriate for a nuclear reactor, protecting her Broughton Place flat? The door did not open its usual ten inches, a single chain remaining, for inspection of all visitors.

  ‘What do you want, caller?’ The tone sounded surprisingly aggressive.

  ‘It’s just me, Miss Spinnell, I’ve come to collect Quill.’

  ‘I’m afraid that will be quite impossible tonight, I’ll have to keep him with me. I have been locked in here by those rogues. My door, simply, will not… out… ehm… open.’

  Alice sighed. Work had been arduous enough without having to endure the additional burden imposed on her by her neighbour’s gradual loss of all remaining wits.

  ‘Perhaps, if you undid the locks, the internal ones, you could free yourself?’ she said slowly, attempting to keep the impatience she felt out of her voice, reminding herself of her beholden state.

  The reply sounded querulous, doubtful: ‘I’ll give it a try, this once.’

  The usual cacophony of metal on metal could be heard before the door swung open to reveal a slightly startled, blinking, Miss Spinnell with Quill sitting beside her, restrained by a lead.

  ‘Your dog must be tested,’ the old lady said stiffly.

  Alice was baffled. ‘Tested? Tested for what?’

  Miss Spinnell’s bulging eyeballs, in unison for once, travelled heavenwards. It was all so obvious. How could this socalled policewoman (God help us all) not understand?

  ‘His hearing. A hearing test. Men-men-I repeat, MEN… have been in my flat and locked the pair of us in, but was there so much as a howl, a growl, a bark even, to warn me? There was not. This… this,’ she struggled for the word ‘this… eh, horse… this hound… has a hearing problem and a carefree… er, caring owner would have detected it eons ago. Things could, possibly, then have been done, but it will be too late now. Poor Quill must be stone deaf.’

  So saying, she patted Quill’s soft head before blithely issuing her order, ‘Off you go, boy.’

  The phone rang in Alice’s flat. It was Alistair. Thankfully, no effort would be required.

  ‘Did Bruce have a go at you, too?’

  ‘Yes. I missed the meeting completely. I gather you did too. Not a great start, eh?’

  ‘Nope. How did you get on at Freeman’s other place?’

  ‘Well, it’s a long, long story. I met the Sheriff’s other half and I reckon that the plentiful alien DNA in Moray Place will turn out to have come from that source.’

  ‘Why on earth didn’t she come forward?’

  ‘Because she’s a he.’

  ‘Oh, really! Do you…’

  ‘Hang on, there’s more. On the night he was killed the poor bastard was attempting to do away with himself.’

  ‘Christ! Why?’

  ‘Nicholas, his partner, told me that the Sheriff had motor neurone disease and didn’t want to wait and let the illness take its natural course.’

  ‘And did you believe the man?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Why wouldn’t I? I’m not sure what I’d do if I found out I had something like that. Freeman, apparently, took an overdose of amitriptyline. I think I might well choose to opt out, too.’

  ‘Maybe, but when his partner was killed he didn’t appear, didn’t help us in any way whatsoever, and that’s bloody odd, I’d say. He might have told you about the amy… whatever, in the knowledge that an explanation would be required-for the drug I mean. Any idiot would know there’d bound to be a PM.’

  ‘True, but there was nothing at the post mortem to suggest that the Sheriff had been forced to ingest anything. Anyway, I’m due to speak to Lyon again, but, remember, if this was the dead man’s widow we wouldn’t be quite so quick in assuming that she’d done it. We’d all be falling over ourselves, trying to understand her predicament. Comfort her, even. He didn’t abscond, disappear or anything, he simply waited for us to find him at the home he shared with Freeman. That’s not such suspicious behaviour in their particular circumstances.’

  ‘I’m not convinced. Don’t forget, there was nothing in the post mortem report about any disease at all, and the drug could have been added to food or drink. And who’d give a stuff about the Sheriff being gay nowadays? I don’t think it hangs together at all.’

  ‘Well, Professor McConnachie was pretty sure about the cause of death, and it looked convincing enough. The big holes in the skull. I think we should go back to him and see if there was any evidence, from the brain, spinal cord or whatever, about motor neurone disease. If the old man had it, then his partner’s version of events could be possible.’

  She paused, thinking, and then continued: ‘Certainly, there’d be no need for Lyon to whack him over the head if he knew the Sheriff was already full of a fatal dose of amitriptyline… and, like I said, there’s no evidence of any force-feeding. Anyway, even if the old fellow was wrong about any press interest in their relationship, as long as his belief was genuine then it would still explain his action-or inaction. Wouldn’t it? By the way, Alistair, why did you miss the meeting?’

  ‘Because DI Manson noticed in your report on the funeral that you described Mrs Nordquist as tearful, and he thought she ought to be talked to again, the tears suggesting something other than neighbourly feeling. This being Edinburgh and all. Also, he said DCI Bruce asked her to ID the body in the mortuary, before we managed to contact Christopher Freeman, and she’d been completely unbothered by the prospect. Odd, with her weeping at St Giles.’

  ‘And did you find anything?’

  ‘No. Mrs Nordquist had been imbibing again; actually I’d say she was drunk this time. Anyway, I couldn’t make head or tail of what she was saying, with her accent and all, and she kept trying to press that liqueur stuff on me. She got furious when I wouldn’t join her and then edged towards me on the sofa and started crying. We’ll have to go again, or on reflection, perhaps, just you.’

  5

  DCI Bruce whirled round at speed in a full circle on his revolving chair. It could have been simply joie de vivre, but Alice sensed that the man had done it to proclaim his dominance over his territory and over the only subordinate present, herself. Returning to his place at the front of his desk he pressed the ends of his fingers together, as if praying, and began to speak.

  ‘That’s very useful stuff, in its way, Detective Sergeant. Almost, but not quite, makes up for missing my meeting…’ he smiled with no warmth. ‘Anyhow, the toxicology report should make entertaining reading, so I suggest that you go off and harry the lab for me. It’s over three weeks since the post mortem and this case, surely, deserves some priority.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And when you talk to Nicholas Lyon again, bring him in here, eh? Just to let him know what he’s got himself into.’

  ‘What has he got himself into, Sir?’

  ‘A murder enquiry, remember?’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten that, Sir, but he’s not really a suspect at present, is he? Mr Lyon’s the… the… well, the bereaved. He lived with the victim for over forty-five years. We’ve got nothing to suggest that he was involved in any way, and I’d much rather see him in his own home; he’ll be more relaxed there.’

  ‘Get real, Sergeant! He didn’t come to us, did he? We had to go and winkle him out, and that speaks volumes in my book. He’s a suspect as far as I’m concerned! So let’s give him a dose of reality and bring him in here “to assist us”. In fact, I’ll do the interview myself to make sure we get everything we need.’

  The Professor’s desk was almost invisible bene
ath the array of empty coffee cups and polystyrene mugs stacked on it, and the man’s expression betrayed irritability when he looked up from his computer screen as the policewoman entered.

  ‘I’ve tracked the report down, Alice.’ He sounded defensive. ‘It’s with Doctor Zenabi for his signature. We were going to email it to you later this morning, but if you want to pop in and collect it, his room is further down this corridor, third on the left. He should have signed it by now.’

  ‘There were one or two things I need to ask you, first, if you’ve got the time, Professor?’

  ‘When have I ever got the time on a lecture morning? But fire ahead. I can give you until eleven o’clock, and then I’m off to give a talk on “Paradoxical Undressing”. Law students on this occasion. No, we’d better make that quarter to eleven, in order to give me time to get to Old College.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to the Sheriff’s partner and he told me that on the Monday night, Freeman planned to take an overdose of amitriptyline…’

  ‘He?’

  ‘He.’

  ‘Well, the toxicology certainly confirmed that,’ the Professor said, gathering together, as he spoke, a couple of lever-arch files from a desk drawer. ‘It was an unexpected finding-that it was in his system, I mean. There was none among the drugs swept from the various cabinets and drawers in Moray Place. Did he tell you where the man got it from?’

  Alice nodded. ‘From their other house, in the country, in Kinross-shire. Nicholas, that’s the Sheriff’s partner, had some. He told me that he was given it a while ago when his mother died, and that he’d never got round to throwing it out because…’

  ‘Mind you,’ the Professor interrupted, ‘it wasn’t the cause of death. He was undoubtedly alive when he was attacked. After all, we took over 150 millilitres of sub-dural blood from the brain, a massive haemorrhage. But it was certainly a fatal dose, the amitriptyline, I mean.’