Where The Shadow Falls

by Gillian Galbraith

  In the warmth of the Harbour Cafe she sipped her coffee, teeth still chattering like castanets, whilst Bridget busied herself examining their open water certificates.

  ‘What nnn… next,’ Alice asked, ‘… you… you going to become an advanced one… or even a dive master… er, mistress?’

  ‘Not likely,’ Bridget replied perkily, ‘I told you, I am going to check out electrical engineering classes. I need some sparks in my life.’

  ‘So you’re not going to do more of this… ddd… diving stuff, then?’

  ‘God, no! It’s far too cold and unpleasant for me. Did you hear what they’ve promised us next? Coldingham! I don’t care if the water is as clear as crystal there, which I doubt, wild horses wouldn’t persuade me to attend for another jolly minibus excursion with…’ she hesitated momentarily, ‘our new friends. If I can’t get into electrical engineering, plumbing sounds…’

  ‘Congratulathions, ladieth!’ Uninvited, the waste entrepreneur took a seat at their table and beamed broadly at them both, exposing toothless gums. ‘Unfortunately, I failed thith time, broke my dentureth on my regulator, thadly. Ith the thelery thoup good, Bridget?’

  Bridget caught Alice’s eye, gave the extended arm diving signal for ‘danger’ while ostensibly stretching for her shoulder bag, muttered, ‘My phone’s going, I’ll have to answer it,’ and jerked her head in the direction of the exit for a joint retreat. Alice, however, remained seated, smiling fixedly at the man, concerned that he should not be publicly abandoned, leper-like, among their mutual acquaintances. He had chosen to join them after all.

  ‘Tho… eh… eh…?’

  ‘Alice,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Indeed, tho Alith…’ he smiled again, apparently keen to please, ‘have you got your friend Bridget’th number?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she lied. Kinder to extinguish all hope.

  He took a gulp of his cappuccino, surfacing with the creamy lips of a black-and-white minstrel, and then scanned the entire room. ‘Oh… there’th Thuthan, I’ll think I’ll go and join her, thee how she got on.’

  So saying he picked up his tray and lumbered off in the direction of a plump blonde, leaving Alice, leper-like, alone amongst their acquaintances.

  Rain had transformed the cottage and its surroundings. The dried-up river-bed was awash with torrents of muddy water, and the yard in front of the cottage had become a quagmire, a patchwork of puddles in which the duck and her offspring were dabbling, raindrops bouncing off them as if they were made of plastic. Alice stepped carefully out of the vehicle, inadvertently landing in a runnel of rainwater and sinking heel-deep in mud. Although only seconds passed before she reached the shelter of the porch, she was drenched, hair sticking to her forehead, legs splashed to the knee. Mrs Norris appeared quickly and recognised her from their previous encounter.

  The old sheets of newspaper on the kitchen floor were now torn, sodden with muck from outside, and she was busy replacing them, a dry stack ready beside the ancient Raeburn. Her dejected state became obvious the moment she opened her mouth, her voice sounding flat, drained of all vivacity.

  ‘I know Colin’s still at the station helping you, his mother told me, and she warned me to expect another visit.’

  Alice smiled, attempting to reassure her. ‘It’s simply that you may be able to help us with our enquiries. Possibly, help Colin too.’

  Loud music, all heavy drum rhythms and shrieking electric guitars, could be heard coming ever closer, and Jason and Rosanna traipsed in, radios in hand, and began grappling with chairs at the kitchen table as if they intended to have their breakfast there.

  ‘Out, out to the cabin, please, sweetheart, and you too, Jason… you can collect any cereal or whatever you need from here, but I have to talk to the Sergeant again and in peace and quiet.’

  Neither of them made a move, the music continued to blare and Jason began to pour milk into a mug.

  ‘I said OUT!’ Mrs Norris shouted, and the teenagers’ startled expressions testified to the rarity of such an outburst. The boy, having recovered his sang froid first, made a revolving gesture with his index finger by his temple and they slouched out in unison, staring at Mrs Norris as if she had sprouted horns, increasing the volume of the music in defiance.

  Mrs Norris sat down and Alice took a chair opposite hers.

  ‘I need to know where you were between about seven and ten on the night of Monday 12th June, if possible,’ she began.

  ‘Can’t you tell me first what this is all about?’ the woman beseeched.

  ‘Not at the moment. I’d rather, please, get your answers to my questions, and after that I’ll explain what we’re concerned about.’

  Hilary Norris walked over to the Raeburn and removed a grimy calendar from a shelf on the extractor hood.

  ‘I live by this. I’d be lost without it. We write down any appointments, social stuff… everything on it. Colin hasn’t got a diary either, and Rosanna relies on me completely.’ She turned back the pages to June and read “WI. Smoke.” Yes, I remember… I went to my WI meeting, there was a talk about dyeing and spinning wool, I won the garden gem competition that evening. Then I drove to Perth and waited outside Smoke- it’s a club-to pick up Rosanna when she came out.’

  ‘So you were away from the house. Between what hours?’

  ‘Probably left at about 6 pm and… well, Rosanna is always reluctant to leave, so we wouldn’t get back until, maybe, 2 am or so.’

  ‘Did Rosanna leave to go to Smoke from here?’

  ‘No, she was at Jason’s house, in Kinross. They had tea and then left there together.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Do you know where Colin was that night?’

  ‘You saw, Sergeant, there was nothing in the calendar for him. So he’d be here.’

  ‘And on the night of Wednesday 5th July, can you tell me where you were between about eight and ten?’

  The woman sighed, picking up the calendar again. ‘Riding. Film.’

  The telephone rang and she picked it up. ‘Yes, speaking,’ she rubbed her forehead distractedly. ‘Has it not been paid? No, no. I see. And how much for did you say? Mmm. Well, I’ll send off a cheque today and I do apologise.’

  ‘Riding. Film?’ Alice reminded her.

  ‘Of course. Rosanna goes riding at 7.30 on Thursdays for an hour, and after it, for a treat, she and I went to see “The Devil Wears Prada”. Not really Colin’s kind of film.’

  ‘So he stayed at home. When did you get back from the film?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I could work it out, I suppose. The riding is supposed to stop at 8.30 pm but it never does… usually at least quarter of an hour late. Then we’d have to get to Dunfermline. The film started, I think, around 9.30 pm, and we wouldn’t get home before, say, 11.45 pm.’

  ‘And was Colin there that night?’

  ‘He’d be here, yes. Otherwise there would have been something in the calendar. He was home when we got back.’

  ‘Anyone else with him? Here, I mean?’

  ‘No, no-one. I don’t think so. Just ask him anyway. Please, Sergeant, please… can’t you tell me what this is all about?’

  ‘Well, you’ll have seen in the papers about Sheriff Freeman. His murder, I mean. Your husband has been writing threatening letters to him.’

  ‘What-Colin? Don’t be ridiculous! Are you sure it was Colin?’

  ‘You identified the handwriting. So did he. So have the graphologists. Can I ask you, have you ever heard your husband mention Nicholas Lyon?’

  ‘No. It doesn’t ring a bell with me. Should it? Who is he?’

  ‘He was Sheriff Freeman’s partner, and the victim of a hit and run accident.’

  ‘You know,’ the woman began, looking directly into Alice’s eyes, ‘Colin would never hurt those people. But he is living on the edge. He hated, and that is the word, the right word, James Freeman. So did I, actually. All our hopes had to be dashed so that he could become richer and he knew that, you know. Knew what would happen to
us. Colin had explained it to him but… well, I don’t suppose he did it very well. It meant too much to him. He probably came across as a madman with a glittering eye…’

  Tears began to form in her eyes and she closed them, slowly allowing the drops to trickle down her cheeks unmopped, ‘… but he wasn’t always like that, you know. He’s just had such bad luck. Honestly, Sergeant, he’s not your man. He is desperate and depressed, but violent? Never. Please…’ she implored, ‘please don’t… don’t push him over the edge.’

  Every time his shoe came to rest on another step, a sharp pain hit the ball of his foot, shooting down the length of the big toe. He inhaled deeply, pungent cigar smoke cloaking the stench of human urine, attempting to rest his weight on the banister and spare his throbbing limb. Another sodding ten storeys to go. Only animals live in Niddrie, he thought, animals that soil their own high-rise nests. A gob of spit landed on his shoulder and he looked upwards into the delighted faces of two skinny boys suspended above him, before they danced off, laughing like drains, in search of new quarry. On the next landing he had to step over a figure, curled in the foetal position and breathing loudly, nearly losing his balance in the process and silently cursing the social work department’s failure to attend to such cases. What else had they to do? And his hard-earned taxes squandered on suchlike well-intentioned lard-arses.

  The wound in his foot was feeling hot; in fact, it was on fire. He became morbid. Bloody septicaemia will carry me off before the tetanus manages to lock my jaw. And no antibiotics even offered, although, God knows, they’re fundamental enough for this kind of infection. All those years of contributions, and never to enjoy my own retirement. Never to wake up with one decision only to make; which course to spend the day on. Of course, she’ll be all right then, living the life of Reilly and maybe, stranger things had happened, finding another man. Still, he thought, Kathryn would visit him on his deathbed, tears fairly gushing down her face, regretting humiliating him, realising only then his true worth. And for the stone, something tasteful, white marble with black lettering and, possibly, an obituary in Stationwide.

  How would they describe the wound, though? Obviously, as sustained on active service but, unfortunately, it would have none of the glamour of a fatal gunshot injury or stabbing. If they simply used the words ‘penetrating injury’, omitting any reference to his foot, that would sound all right. ‘Fatal injury sustained in the line of duty’ had a good ring to it, and was, well, would be, perfectly correct. Perhaps he should expressly stipulate no guitars for the service, otherwise that minister-boy might ruin his service with some fucking Kumbaya-like chants. There should be a few readings from the Bible, naturally, but none of those nancy poems except, maybe, that one about a ship on the horizon. ‘She is gone’ and everything, but maybe it should be changed to ‘He is gone’ or maybe it was talking about the ship? For added poignancy there would have to be flowers, possibly even a piper.

  As he reached the eleventh floor, a woman signalled frantically to him and he followed her into her flat. Curtains of a transparent red material covered the lounge windows, letting little light into it. Relieved to take the weight off his foot, DI Manson slumped into an armchair, his hostess sitting, erect, on a small settee on his right.

  ‘Mrs Munro, I presume?’

  ‘Aye.’

  He smiled at her encouragingly, ‘You said, on the phone, that you’d information to give us about the road accident, that you’d rather give it to us in person. The one mentioned in the appeal, the one in Moray Place on…’

  ‘Aye.’

  He smiled again, nudging her to share whatever titbits of information she had, but she made no response. ‘Well?’ he said, his smile becoming a rictus.

  ‘Ye’re nae happy, eh, ah can aye tell.’ She nodded her head sagely.

  ‘I’ll be happy enough, I assure you, if you could just tell me what you know about the accident.’ His cheeks ached from his attempt to maintain a good-natured expression.

  ‘Na… na… yer nae a happy man. Ah can tell it, ken. Ye cannae hide it… it’s leakin’ oot ye.’

  ‘Look, Mrs Munro, I came here expecting to get information about the accident, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just attend to that, please.’ His smile not yet curdled to a snarl.

  ‘Och, Mister, ah see things. Things ye’ll never see. Ah seen the accident too. A big motor whammin’ intae that wee man.’

  Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought.

  ‘So you saw it, the accident? Whereabouts were you at the time? Were you in Moray Place?’

  ‘Ah wis here, here in ma’ ain lounge.’

  Pain, and now frustration, had taken its toll on the meagre supply of manners long ago coached into the policeman, and aggression, always lurking just below the surface, took control. ‘Well, if you were in your bloody lounge, lady, how the hell did you see anything in the centre of Edinburgh?’

  Mrs Munro viewed him with pity. ‘D’ye never watch the telly, eh? Psychic powers. Some folk are blessed wi’ them. Ah seen the accident in ma heid. OK? That OK wi’ you? A wee man hit by a white motor car.’

  ‘White? How do you know it was white?’ His interest had been rekindled, but Mrs Munro was a beginner, an untalented one at that, not sharp enough to pick up crucial signals.

  ‘White, blue, red, what difference does it make, eh?’

  Clutching the change in his pockets, clicking coin on coin like worry beads, he tried one more time:

  ‘Mrs Munro, did you see the accident in Moray Place?’

  ‘Yer aura’s black noo, ken. If it changes tae red, ye die. I telt ye, didn’t ah. Ah saw the accident, in ma mind’s eye. Ah’ve psychic powers. Ah ken a’ aboot you an’ a’. Yer hurt, eh? Deep inside…wounded… There’s a wurd, a wurd’s coming… it’s… flatfoot.’

  When Alice smelt the smoke she expected, for an instant, to see Elaine Bell sitting hunched over the computer, fag in hand, instead of DCI Bruce’s ramrod figure, upright, savouring his illicit pleasure. He looked sheepish at her entry. His fingers moved, momentarily, as if he was going to stub the cigarette out before he raised it back towards his mouth and took another, unashamed, draw.

  ‘How did you get on, Alice?’ He was daring her to say something.

  ‘So-so. Hilary Norris can’t give him an alibi, so we’ve just got his word that he was at home. I timed the journey. His house to Moray Place, I mean, and it took, maybe, fifty-five minutes or so. He’d have had plenty of time to leave the house and be back at it for her return. Have we got the results on the car yet?’

  ‘That battered hulk! It’s got enough bumps and scratches on it to have killed an army. Traffic, if you can believe it, still have given us nothing on the paint match, and the CCTV’s a washout. No bloody resolution.’

  ‘And the DNA?’

  ‘Still in the pipeline. The bastard certainly seems to have a motive, eh?’

  Alice nodded but said nothing.

  ‘So, Sergeant, did he do it?’ DCI Bruce enquired.

  ‘Maybe. He felt righteous anger, for sure, and he’s unapologetic for terrorising that old pair with his letters, but would he go further than that? I don’t know. Perhaps the Sheriff got it right. Norris’s impotent, really. He doesn’t finish things, succeed at things… his wife reckons he’s breakdown material. What do you think, Sir?’

  ‘Me…’ he said airily, ‘I think he had the means and the motive, but until we get the results it’s all so much hot air-that’s what I think, for what it’s worth.’ Seeing Alice’s surprise at his apparent humility he took a final drag, idly blew a smoke ring, and dropped the dog-end into a saucer before continuing. ‘Haven’t you heard, yet? And you a detective, Alice! I’m offski, away-back to Torpichen. Elaine Bell has risen from the grave, mysteriously cast off her “ME”,’-he mimed the quotation marks-‘and is returning here to take the reins. Her weeks of sick leave are up and she’s raring to go, eager to get back into harness. Nothing to do, obviously with our… MY lack of progress in this most impor
tant case, or her coup with the Mair case. Simply, the Assistant Chief Constable assured me, a question of the best uses of resources, even if it does, strangely, involve changing horses mid-stream…’

  As he was speaking DCI Bell walked back into her office, raising her head to inhale, to the full, the pungent aroma. Seeing Alice, she smiled at her before turning her attention to her colleague.

  ‘Robin, you should try the patches. They do work, you know. I’m hardly even…’ she inhaled deeply again, ‘tempted now, and no worse-tempered than any other post-menopausal woman.’ So saying, she repossessed her office, laying out her few photos, and putting her coffee-mug back in her drawer. Leaving, Alice made a surreptitious thumbs-up signal to her boss, returned by the slightest nod.

  Oddly, Miss Spinnell’s door was open that evening, and sensing his mistress’ proximity Quill began to howl, whining and jerking at his tether. Wondering idly if she would find an empty flat, the phantom pilferers having somehow finally removed everything and rendered all security useless, Alice tapped on the door and headed down the dark passageway towards the kitchen. In it she could hear Miss Spinnell’s voice, raised in feeble fury, in a one-sided telephone conversation.

  ‘Indeed. And you, I need to know who you are! So I can report you to your superiors. I see. Well, “Just Paul”, I’d like to speak to someone with two names if you please, a Christian name and a surname, preferably.’

  ‘Oh!’

  She dropped the receiver as if it had burnt her and turned, eyes rolling in all directions, towards Alice.

  ‘He put the phone down on me! Well, “Just Paul”, we’ll see about that.’