Where The Shadow Falls

by Gillian Galbraith

  While waiting she read the traffic department’s efforts and her attention was drawn by a diagram of the accident locus. Tyre marks were shown in red with a cross at the point of impact. The final position in which the body had been found was also depicted together with a rectangle, representing Nicholas Lyon’s car. The first two pages gave a factual account of all observations made at the scene, including measurements taken, and, tantalisingly, the final line of the second page was headed ‘Conclusions’.

  The third sheet was handed sheepishly to her and she studied it eagerly. On the basis of the evidence available its author had concluded that Nicholas Lyon had been deliberately run down; the length of the tyre marks and the injuries sustained by him being consistent with a high-impact collision, maximum acceleration having occurred whilst the victim was near stationary, within the driver’s unimpeded line of vision. This judgement was fortified by the only relevant witness testimony available, which had referred to sounds consistent with sudden acceleration followed by another single sound suggestive of impact. A catalogue of the contents of the victim’s car appeared below the last paragraph, and Alice scanned the list quickly. Attached to the report was a photocopy of a handwritten note and the words ‘Meet’ and ‘5th’ were legible, although the name, or initials, between them was not.

  In her excitement Alice did not knock on DCI Bell’s door but strode straight in. The Inspector, her top few blouse buttons undone, seemed to be trying to pull an electrode off an area of skin below her right collarbone, and she looked up, furious at the interruption, a single unplugged electrode swinging limply in her hand.

  ‘Alice, what the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am, I should have knocked, I know. But there’s something important in the traffic report…’

  ‘Shut the bloody door, then!’

  The Chief Inspector slowly peeled a further electrode off her shoulder and returned the lead together with a mass of others to a small pouch.

  ‘A tens machine, Alice, since you didn’t ask. I don’t want any strange rumours circulating in this station. It’s supposed to help muscular pain, chronic pain. I borrowed it from a friend who used it when she was pregnant. So, what’s so urgent then?’

  Alice placed the traffic report on her superior’s desk, page three uppermost.

  ‘Look at the conclusions, Ma’am. Nicholas Lyon was murdered, as we suspected, but there’s more than that, and I think we should get forensics to check out Moray Place again.’

  Doing up her buttons and still plainly annoyed, DCI Bell muttered, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Mr Lyon must have, surely, been meeting someone there that night. Look at the note. I can’t make out who, I can’t read all of the writing, but we should follow it up…’

  Elaine Bell examined the photocopy carefully, ‘Maybe. OL… GL… F… No, I can’t make head or tail of it, either. But suppose he did meet someone there, that wouldn’t necessarily lead us to whoever ran him down…’ the Chief Inspector parried, still truculent.

  ‘No. There may be no connection whatsoever. On the other hand, there may be.’

  Diligently, Alistair Watt trawled through the statements taken from the neighbouring residents. Only Mrs Nordquist and her housekeeper reported seeing or hearing anything immediately before the accident, but it was not clear that any of the interviewees had been specifically asked by the uniforms if they had noticed any signs of occupation in number seventy-three before nine pm.

  Loud knocking on Mrs Nordquist’s immaculate white front door evoked no response other than a volley of deep, echoing barks, sufficient to wake the dead. Mrs Gunn, however, was at home, an apron concealing most of the décolletage on display despite her dress. Blackened marigold rubber gloves were discarded together with a cloth onto a kitchen table laden with tarnished silver. Having washed her hands at the sink she led her visitors into her drawing room.

  ‘Can’t think what more you can possibly want,’ she said conversationally, as if to break the ice.

  ‘It’s about the night of 5th July,’ Alice replied. ‘You told the constables that you saw and heard nothing of the hit-and-run.’

  ‘Correct,’ she nodded.

  ‘But,’ Alistair broke in, ‘we need to know if you saw anything beforehand. In particular, did you notice any lights or anything in the Sheriff’s house to suggest that someone might have been in it before the accident occurred?’

  ‘Mmmm… let me think.’ She paused for a few seconds, before continuing. ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t remember a single thing about it now. Nothing sticks in my mind about that date. Apart from the accident, of course.’

  Alistair caught Alice’s eye and she removed Mrs Gunn’s signed statement, now folded, from her pocket and handed it to the woman. She ostentatiously unfolded it, looking bemused, disturbed even, as if touching it might, in some way, soil her.

  ‘Oh, how interesting,’ she purred on reading it. ‘It’s what I remembered when I spoke to that young WPC. Of course! I’d been to drinks at Helen’s that night. You know,’ she paused, ‘there were lights on… in Freeman’s place, I mean. But nobody asked me about that, they just wanted to know if I’d seen anything of the accident. Or heard anything, obviously. No-one asked me about the house. I did see lights on. I thought it was you people actually as, goodness knows, you’d been practically living there.’

  ‘Iona,’ a voice bellowed, and Hamish Gunn hobbled into the room, doubled up, head almost parallel with the floor. On seeing the visitors, he attempted, briefly, to straighten up, groaned and relapsed back into his crooked state.

  ‘It’s jiggered, darling. Completely jiggered!’ he said, shaking his head, addressing his wife.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘I parked the car in George Street, was just getting out of it, when suddenly, “snap!” and it had gone. Completely gone.’

  ‘No golf with Freddie at Muirfield this afternoon, then. I’ll phone him for you.’

  As the woman left the room her husband lowered himself carefully onto a sofa, looking up at the Police officers.

  ‘What can I do for you, Sergeants?’ he said, eyes closed tight shut, as if the effort required to show good manners had become too much.

  ‘In the circumstances, sir, we’ll be very quick. It was just to see if you remembered seeing any signs of life in Sheriff Freeman’s house before Mr Lyon was hit in the accident?’ Alice said.

  ‘Christ knows!’ He grimaced, clearly in pain.

  ‘It was the night…’ Mrs Gunn shouted, ‘remember, darling, of Helen’s drinks party. We walked home from Douglas Gardens. There were definitely lights in his house.’

  ‘Well, I don’t remember any,’ the man replied cantankerously.

  ‘Well, they were there, sweetheart.’

  ‘Maybe! Maybe! But I don’t remember any, and I’m off to bed. Give me a hand up the stairs will you, Iona?’

  Eric Manson was in a quandary. Should he peek again? But if so what might he find? He might scare himself to death. Preparing himself for the worst, he gently removed the tartan slipper, peeling off the heel, then easing the toe end forwards, minimising any unnecessary pressure on the forefoot. A finger at the top of the sock and it, too, could be removed without pain. Slumped on the lavatory seat he raised the sole for inspection and was horrified to note that the puncture mark was not only red but ridged too, a clear zig-zag pattern extending from it in all directions. Bloody Hell, he thought, this is SERIOUS. Spying his sock down on the floor he bent over to retrieve it, repelled by the prospect of its contamination, but relieved to note on examination that it was textured, replicating precisely the ominous pattern he had observed on his foot. Good. So far, no red line extending from the wound upwards to his heart. Presaging death.

  ‘Complete wanker!’

  The voice, by his cubicle door, alarmed him. He had been so absorbed in the inspection of his injury that he had not heard anyone joining him in the gents.

  ‘Pussy footing about in his tartan ba
ffy!’ A different voice this time.

  ‘Marilyn, not Eric. Marilyn Manson. Marilyn. Happy Birthday, Mr Chief Constable… Happy Birthday to you. Boo Boo Be Do,’ the first voice crooned.

  Incandescent with rage, but unable to risk clambering off the loo seat, infected bare foot exposed to the filth on the toilet floor, Eric Manson fumed impotently. Little bastards!

  A word from him, though, and they would be off, he thought. Unpunished. Stifling little mewls of pain, he pulled his sock on and laid the slipper on the floor, toes pointing like a ballerina, ready to put his foot into it. But the sound of heavy footsteps signalled his tormentors’ premature exit, the door swinging behind them.

  In front of the mirror he gazed at his reflection. Too pale. Ghostly. And only yesterday his pleas for a different course of antibiotics had been refused yet again. If that sodding doctor has got it wrong, he thought, bile overflowing, I’ll… I’ll… I’ll… I’ll die! And no painkillers left. Inspiration came quickly, and he fished in his pocket for the Boots bag. Inside it was a small bottle of Calpol, an errand completed for his daughter-in-law. A sweet, strawberry flavour coated his taste buds and he swallowed half the contents, impressed by his own ingenuity, reassuring himself with the thought that babies don’t feel pain.

  On Alice’s desk was a note in DC Littlewood’s meticulous hand.

  ‘Lab rang this morning. Report not available for a further week or so due to backlog. Results are through. Analysis of hair follicle samples and comparison with alien door handle samples from Moray Place reveal the DNA is from the same source.

  P.S. Bob says he prefers Glenfiddich.’

  Too many roads, Alice thought, were beginning to lead to Christopher Freeman. His DNA was in the Sheriff’s house, but his wife had said that the brothers had not met for years. Somehow, too, he appeared to have known of James Freeman’s change of mind about the access strip almost as soon as the wind farm company did, countermanding the instruction immediately. Yet he had given the impression that he had not been in recent contact with his brother. Urgently, she checked Holmes to see if the statements from their neighbours had been put on the system. Four residents of Frogston Road had been questioned and none of them recalled seeing a ‘For Sale’ sign on the Volkswagen Polo, although every single one of them said that they were familiar with the vehicle, aware that it was owned by the Freemans.

  Her arrival at the bungalow was greeted coolly; the Major was present and on his own. His wife, he explained, had gone to collect their dry cleaning. He showed Alice into the sitting room, ostentatiously switched the cricket off and then they sat in the armchairs, facing each other. Both now tense, conscious that a duel was about to begin.

  ‘This seems to be becoming rather a habit, Sergeant,’ the man began dryly.

  ‘Yes, sir, but I had to leave prematurely last time, our talk seemed unfinished.’

  ‘Well, let’s finish our “talk” this time, shall we?’

  ‘Can you tell me how you knew your brother had decided not to go ahead with the wind farm, to keep Blackstone Mains out of it?’

  The man blinked and swept his slick-backed hair with this hand.

  ‘The company. Vertenergy told me. Obviously.’

  ‘How did they tell you? By phone, letter or what?’

  He paused before answering, ‘By phone, as I recall.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘How do you mean “when”?’ he said crossly.

  ‘When did the company inform you by telephone of your brother’s decision?’

  A longer pause. ‘The day before I wrote the letter.’

  ‘That letter was dated 13th June… one day after your brother’s death, and we informed you of the killing on that very day.’

  ‘So, what are you suggesting? That I’d be too paralysed with grief to attend to a business matter? I think you’ll find I’ve never pretended to be close to James. On the contrary, I told you that we didn’t hit it off.’

  ‘No, what I was wondering about, sir, was the land. It belonged to you and James, both of you. On James’ death…’ her sentence remained unfinished.

  ‘On James’s death, it should by all rights have come to me,’ Christopher Freeman said, before correcting himself, ‘well-normally.’

  ‘But,’ she continued, ‘it went to Nicholas Lyon. Your brother’s partner, and before we spoke to you, as I recall, you were unaware that your brother had a partner at all…’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Can you tell me, Mr Freeman, what Blackstone Mains being part of the Scowling Crags development would mean to you in financial terms?’

  ‘None of your bloody business, Sergeant!’

  ‘You won’t tell me?’ she enquired evenly, eyes never moving from his.

  ‘Correct. I won’t tell you. It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with you, with the Police or any so-called investigation. It’s a purely personal, financial matter.’

  Alice nodded her head slowly before continuing, ‘Obviously we can get such information from Vertenergy, sir.’

  ‘Well, get it from Vertenergy then.’

  ‘Going back to the car…’

  ‘The car! The car! What is it with the bloody car and you people?’ he interrupted, exasperated.

  ‘Going back to the car,’ she continued, ‘you told me, sir, that you sold the car as scrap to a stranger. When exactly did you buy your new car?’

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything…’

  ‘Maybe not, sir,’ she said firmly, ‘but I’d still be grateful if you could try to remember.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know precisely. After I’d disposed of the old one.’

  ‘And when was that?’

  ‘I told you before, weeks ago, I can’t remember exactly.’

  ‘No, sir, I appreciate that, but perhaps you could give me the name of the garage from which you bought your new car? Otherwise, I suppose I could get the same information from DVLA.’

  ‘Tooles Garage. Tooles in Liberton.’

  ‘Finally, sir, can you tell me where you were between about seven and ten pm on Monday 12th June and eight and ten pm on Wednesday 5th July?’

  ‘No problem. I was here with Sandra. Sandra will back me up in that. You’d better ask her. So that’s it, is it? You lot sure that I did it, eh!’

  Alice shook her head ‘No, sir. If we were, we’d be in the station right now and I’d have cautioned you long ago.’

  Walking up Comiston Road, polythene-encased dry cleaning flapping on two coat hangers, Sandra Freeman became aware that every so often the hems of the clothes were sweeping along the pavement, and rued her decision not to take the car. Worse still, friction seemed to be attracting the swinging load towards her legs, impeding her movement and making her gait thoroughly abnormal, constant stops and starts required in order to untangle her limbs. At this rate it would take at least another quarter of an hour before she was at home, she thought, looking up at the sky anxiously for signs of impending rain.

  Her mind drifted, returning as it habitually did to domesticity and the practicalities of life. Dog food was needed; Chris could get it from the local pet shop this time. He could exercise his charm on the fat lesbian behind the counter, suffer the usual humiliating grillings about the absence of lustre on the boys’ coats. Maybe even render a cheque and see if his writing, lacking loops to the same extent as her own, was declared ‘not sexy’. The cheek of it! And actually, it was probably the very reverse of the truth. A small, cramped hand meant dynamite under the sheets, the only place where full abandon was sanctioned. Her indignation evaporated on seeing the familiar figure of DS Rice, sitting in a parked car, now rolling down the driver’s window and beckoning her towards the vehicle.

  ‘I could give you a lift home, if you like, Mrs Freeman?’

  The woman did not need to be asked twice, and with almost indecent haste bundled her cleaning onto the back seat and then herself into the front. Signalling to re-join the traffic, Alice said casually, ‘I’ve just seen your husban
d, he said you were out and then, by good luck, I saw you. Maybe we could finish our chat on the way to your house?’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Sandra Freeman replied, lighting up immediately.

  ‘Your car. The new one. When did you get it?’

  ‘Not a minute to spare, eh! The day after Chris got rid of the other one.’

  ‘Chris… er, the Major sold the other one, didn’t he? Can you tell me how?’

  ‘I really don’t know. He said he needed a new one and who am I to disagree with that?’ she smiled. ‘I’m the driver, of course, and the other one was a rustbucket. It had a hole in the floor, water actually came in, if you can believe it.’

  ‘Can you recall a sign in the car, a “For Sale” sign?’

  ‘No… but that’s how Chris sold it. I remember now. He told me.’

  ‘And on Monday 12th June between about seven and ten pm and on Wednesday 5th July between about eight and ten pm, where were you?’

  ‘That first date, that’s the night James died, eh?’ the woman asked, inhaling deeply.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was at home with Chris…’ a cloud of smoke issued from her mouth. ‘The second date, I don’t know. Is that the date Nicholas Lyon was hit?’

  ‘Yes. Do I turn left here?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Yup, left now. I was there with Chris. He was with me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Sandra Freeman said tartly, distrust now evident in her voice.

  ‘Here all right?’ Alice enquired, drawing the car to a halt.

  ‘Here’s ideal.’

  ‘And you said you were the driver?’ Alice asked, hardly expecting an answer, the woman, cigarette dangling loosely from her lips, now wrestling open the car door, ready to extract her load from the back.

  ‘Yes. Chris lost his licence a while ago. But he gets it back at the end of the month.’

  She assembled everything in her head before leaving her desk and this time she knocked, although the impulse to barge in was stronger, if anything, than before.