Taking the first available seat he saw, Manson sat down next to a feverish-looking young man who was wiping his nose, rheumy-eyed.
‘How about over here?’ Alice whispered to her colleague, gesturing towards a possible sanctuary, a small recess with a couple of old people seated together in it, the old man’s stick resting between his bandy legs. Thinking that this was bound to be a safer bet, she manoeuvred her way through the sneezing patients to a chair beside the old couple. With luck they would be attending for geriatric, non-contagious problems such as dry skin, varicose veins or ingrowing toenails. Looking puzzled and slightly irritated, the Inspector followed, sitting down beside her and immediately picking up a dog-eared copy of Hello.
However, no sooner had he sat down than a harassed mother, with three children in tow, parked herself on the remaining chair in the recess. Sighing, she set the two larger infants down at her feet and began jiggling the baby up and down on her lap. The toddlers, both as pale as chalk, soon started investigating, then sucking, the nearby collection of coloured building blocks. The baby, meantime, a torrent of mucus pouring from its nose, seemed determined to clamber from its mother’s lap onto Alice. Feeling no urge to cuddle it, she leant away, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on her magazine. Other people’s children held no allure for her, even when healthy.
Initially the mother kept a tight grip on the child, physically restraining it and pointing at pictures in a book to entertain it. Every so often she put a hand to its red forehead until, unexpectedly, she turned to Alice and said, ‘Could you keep him for a second or two, just while I go to the toilet? I don’t like taking him in there with me.’
Despite her fear of catching flu or something far worse from the baby, Alice answered faintly that she would. She was ashamed to voice her terror of infection, and too cowardly to refuse such an apparently reasonable request.
Once on her lap, the baby looked up into her face for a few seconds, registered mild alarm, and then began bawling inconsolably at an ear-splitting volume. She tried everything she could think of to quieten him, jiggling him up and down, putting her arms around him, making comic faces, all to no avail. Everyone in the room now seemed to be staring in their direction.
‘You’ve had children, Sir, what should I do?’ she whispered in desperation.
His eyes never leaving the picture of a pouting Angelina Jolie, Manson said, ‘Try Incy Wincy Spider or something…’
‘I don’t know it.’
‘Then try “Round and round the garden”.’
‘I don’t know that either.’
‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake!’ he replied, his ears now hurting from the constant screeching. Flinging down the magazine, he scooped the startled child from her lap.
‘Incy Wincy Spider climbed up the water spout, down came the rain…’ he sang.
Suddenly the baby sneezed loudly, showering him with a fine spray of green snot, and simultaneously made a strange parping noise below.
Fortunately, at that point, the mother returned and a nurse’s voice announced, ‘Eric… Eric Manson?’ Hearing his name, the Inspector dropped the baby like a hot brick onto its mother’s knee and he and Alice rose simultaneously, following the nurse down the corridor to the doctor’s consulting room.
Still finishing off the notes for his last patient, Doctor Paxton signalled for them to come in. This appointment would require his full concentration, he thought. It was not the sort of thing he was used to, and if possible he hoped it would not be repeated. Turning from his computer he said, ‘And how can I help you, officers?’
‘We need information about a patient of yours, Gavin Brodie.’
‘Yes, that’s what I had understood from the call. But what exactly do you need to know? A copy of his records was sent to the pathologists, and I provided someone from St Leonard’s with a list of the drugs he was taking.’
A nurse knocked on the door, waited and then came in with a cup of steaming coffee.
‘Would you mind if I had it?’ the doctor asked, ‘I’m already behind schedule.’
‘No problem, on you go,’ Eric Manson replied, eying the drink longingly and then looking around the room, his eye caught by a large, full-colour illustration of the inner ear or, possibly, some reproductive organ.
‘The prescriptions for Nortriptylene and Oramorph… what quantity of each drug was contained in each bottle?’ Alice asked.
‘You mean if it was full? I don’t know, not off the top of my head. The pharmacy would, though. I could get the information from them for you,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and taking a sip from his cup, then putting it back carefully in its saucer.
His telephone rang and, apologising silently, he picked it up. ‘I can’t speak, love… no, really. A patient. I’ll call you later… yes, promise.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, turning his attention back to his visitors.
‘When did he last get a new supply of each drug?’ Alice asked.
‘Both were new on the Friday, the Friday before he died. He’ll have hardly used any by the Saturday night. We could calculate the exact amount left – obviously I know his daily dosage. So once we know what the bottles contained we could work out what was left for the junkies or whatever…’ So saying, he made an expansive gesture with his right hand and sent his coffee cup flying.
‘Bother! Sorry, sorry,’ he said quickly, taking some paper tissues from the box on his desk and starting to mop the spillage up.
‘Would Mr Brodie have been able to open either of the bottles if he wanted to?’ Eric Manson enquired, watching the doctor beadily as he dabbed ineffectually at a sodden sheet of paper.
‘No, I don’t think he would have had the necessary co-ordination. But I must admit I’m not sure about it, he might have managed.’
‘Would he have understood what was in any of his bottles, would he have known that it was his medicine or whatever?’
‘Well,’ he paused in his cleaning, clearly applying his mind to the question, ‘I doubt it. But maybe? He was pretty far gone, but you just never know with those patients, do you?’
‘Well, we certainly don’t, doctor, that’s why we came to you,’ Eric Manson said truculently, annoyed at the man’s inability to provide them with any black or white answers, any certainties.
Smelling the unmistakeable delicious aroma of chips, Alice looked round the murder suite in search of the source, ignoring for a moment the remaining soggy ham-salad sandwich in its triangular box on her desk. She had made a bad choice, but perhaps whoever had been to the chippy might be interested in a swap.
Thomas Riddell, the Family Liaison Officer, who was making one of his rare visits to the office, was glued to his computer screen and appeared to be making do with soup from a plastic cup. No luck there, then. At the other end of the room, Alistair Watt was leaning against his desk, carefully picking out lumps of apple from his fruit salad and throwing them in the bin.
‘Eleven sodding bits out of twenty,’ he complained, scowling in disgust at the pink, watery mess that remained.
Alone among the company, DI Manson was not having his lunch. He was standing with his back to them all, staring out onto Arthur’s Seat, and his sausage roll was getting cold on the window sill.
‘So, how did you and Eric get on this morning?’ Elaine Bell asked Alice, wiping grease from her mouth with a paper napkin. ‘Could Brodie have taken the stuff himself – tried to commit suicide or not?’
‘No,’ Alice replied, noticing that, unfortunately, it was her boss who had the chips, ‘probably not. But Dr Paxton wasn’t all that helpful. He left it all slightly open. It doesn’t sound as if it would have been impossible for him to take the stuff himself, just unlikely.’
‘Then let’s assume, for the moment,’ the DCI said, ‘that he couldn’t take the stuff himself then, where does that leave us?’
‘Someone must have given it to him, or forced him to drink it, I suppose. Probably someone in the family, or close to him at any rate. Maybe it wa
s accidental, an accidental overdose by someone? Clerk’s never done that kind of thing, drug people I mean. Why would he, anyway? So perhaps someone close to Brodie thought they’d help him out or something? Fed him the stuff, knowing he wanted it, that he wanted to die but couldn’t manage it himself.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Thomas Riddell broke in, in his usual ponderous manner, tipping his cup to drain the last drop. ‘I’ve met all the family, got to know them, relate to them, and that wouldn’t be my impression. None of them would do that. Anyway, the children were together on the Saturday night and…’
‘And why not them, exactly?’ Eric Manson said, turning round and facing Riddell. ‘Who else would do it?’
‘Well, certainly not Heather,’ replied the Liaison Officer, taken aback by the fierce tone of his superior.
‘I think you mean Mrs Brodie,’ the Inspector corrected him, his mind temporarily back on his work. Bloody Liaison Officers! What a breed they were, more like social workers than policemen. Supposed to be the force’s eyes and ears in the family, but before you know it, they’d been turned, become the family’s eyes and ears within the force. And this great big lummox was no different. He was probably under the woman’s spell already, with her baby-blue eyes and refined ways. He would be a sucker for someone like that.
‘Mrs Brodie’s very upset – about her husband, I mean. And the two children obviously really loved their father. They were close, I’d say an unusually close family unit. The kids were together on the night as I said. The young lad seems very angry, acting up, taking out his grief issues against his mother. Ella has Katy, so she’s better able to channel…’
‘What are you on about now?’ Eric Manson butted in, ‘and who the fuck is “Katy”?’
‘She’s Ella’s daughter.’
‘And the father?’
‘He’s not on the scene. But the rest of them, like I said, they’re a close family unit…’
‘Quite,’ Elaine Bell said, cutting off Riddell midstream. ‘And that’s exactly why we’ll check them out.’
‘Sure, but the man’s throat was cut,’ Riddell said, bemused. ‘That’s what killed him… isn’t it?’
‘Yes. That’s right,’ the DCI replied, speaking unnaturally slowly as if he might find it difficult to follow, ‘that’s correct. But we still need to know, don’t we? Because, otherwise, some smart-arse Counsel will use it to confuse the jury – if it ever gets that far. And Clerk’s still denying having anything to do with Brodie, don’t forget. No confession from him. So, I’m taking no chances. We’ll talk to the family again, check them out, and that Una Reid woman, too. Apart from anything else, they may have a different view as to whether Brodie could have taken the stuff himself. And if he could have, then we may be off this particular hook.’
‘D’you want me to speak to Hea… Mrs Brodie?’ Thomas Riddell said, rising from his chair as if already on his way.
‘No,’ the DCI said, gesturing for him to sit down again. ‘Alice can do that this time, can’t you, Alice?’
Without waiting for a reply, she continued, ‘And Eric, you can check out the old woman, Brodie’s mother, for us. And Alice, find out if he ever attended the Raeburn Place Day Centre. I reckon that’s where Clerk spotted his victims. Anything else, anyone?’
DC Littlewood entered the room, both arms laden with carrier bags and dropped them noisily onto his desk.
‘Sandy and me are having people in tonight,’ he said by way of explanation.
‘Sssh!’ Elaine Bell said. ‘We’re trying to think in here.’
‘Sorry, ma’am. One thing, though…’
‘Later,’ she replied impatiently, adding, ‘What do you think about it all, Eric?’
The Inspector did not turn round, so she repeated the question, speaking more loudly.
‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘I think that Clerk is scum, S.C.U.M., complete and utter scum. That’s what I think.’
‘Thanks. That’s very helpful,’ Elaine Bell said sarcastically, rubbing her hands over her eyes as if wearied by his response.
‘Ma’am…’ the DC tried again.
‘Yes?’
‘It was just to pass on a message. While you were talking to the ACC, the lab phoned to say that the eliminatory sample that the woman, Una Reid, gave matches stuff taken at the scene. And the rest of the family’s samples do too.’
‘And?’ Her bored tone suggested that she expected nothing from this quarter.
‘And… that was it. They’re still trying to find a match for the other stuff. No luck so far.’
‘Mmm. Well, it would have been odder if the family hadn’t left traces of themselves about the place, wouldn’t it? Alice, you’d best speak to the children too. I’m not sure that our Inspector’s up to it today.’
8
Thursday
As Alice Rice walked into the hallway of the flat in Bruntsfield Place the next morning, she noticed droplets of fresh blood on the light grey carpet, and on the kitchen floor, a trail of tiny red splashes led to the sink. Mrs Brodie herself appeared quite at home in her sister’s flat, either unaware of the spatters of blood or unconcerned by them. She sat with her legs crossed, dressed in a towelling robe, her wet hair clinging to her unmade-up face, the magazine that she had been reading open on the table before her. In one hand she clutched a wad of paper hankies as if she might, at some stage, need to stem the flow of tears, but her eyes were not red-rimmed, and when she began speaking her voice sounded normal, unaffected by emotion.
Leaning over to get her cup of tea from the nearby kitchen unit, she inadvertently, knocked over one of the countless plastic containers that littered every available surface in the room. Rows of yoghurt pots lined the windowsills too, most of them empty, a few containing a single, parched, yellowing seedling.
‘One of Pippa’s many hobbies,’ she said, almost apologetically, picking up the container and adding, ‘my sister, Pippa Mitchelson. This is her flat. I’m staying with her.’
Glancing at the spilt soil on the lino, Alice noticed a red pool below the woman’s bare foot, and watched as two dark streams of blood trickled down her ankle and dripped off onto the floor. The other leg, too, appeared to have countless little nicks on it. As she puzzled whether she should say something and, if so, what, Heather Brodie caught her eye. Seeing her uneasy expression she looked down at her legs and said, reassuringly, ‘Oh, don’t worry, sergeant, I’ve come prepared.’ She began to dab her legs with a couple of the hankies, adding, ‘I ran out of cream. I was shaving them when you rang the doorbell, so I finished the job in a hurry, botched it and ended up in a bloodbath. You know how it is…’
Alice nodded, and waited until the woman had staunched the blood before saying, ‘Mrs Brodie, we’re still trying to work out everyone’s movements on the Saturday night, trying to prepare an exact timetable. So we need to know a little more from you. You said that you left India Street at about 6 pm?’
‘Yeah,’ the woman replied, concentrating on the cuts, depositing a heavily blood-soaked paper hankie onto the kitchen table and bending to hold another in place.
‘Why isn’t it Tom finding out these things? Mr Riddell, he’s the one who was allocated to us. I thought he was supposed to deal with me, to liaise with us,’ she said, adding, slightly querulously, ‘we’ve got to know him, too. He’s a friend.’
‘He’s busy at the moment, I’m afraid,’ Alice said. ‘If you could just remind me where you went that evening?’
‘To Pippa’s, my sister’s. Well, not here to her flat, but out with her. We’d planned to spend the evening out together, like I told you.’
‘So where did the pair of you go?’
‘Em… to the shops, window shopping, in the St James Centre. Next, John Lewis – those sorts of places – then we had supper together.’
‘Where did you eat?’
‘The Norseman on Lothian Road – smoresbrod or whatever it is called. Great thick slices of over-priced bread. She likes it, but w
e hadn’t booked it or anything.’
‘And then?’
A caterwauling of faint, breathless miaows started up, and Alice watched as a long-haired tortoiseshell cat slunk through the door, weaving its way towards Heather Brodie and winding itself between her legs, its fluffy tail waving snakelike behind it.
‘Who’s this?’ the policewoman asked.
‘Fanta, Pippa’s companion. She’s come to see her kittens. She’s a rescue cat, used to be called ‘Cade’, as in ‘Cavalcade’, but that was meaningless, so Pippa changed her name. The new one fits her better, I think, but she doesn’t come when called.’
‘Where are the kittens?’
‘In that corner, up on the unit, behind the microwave. They were born there, two pure white and one black. I’m getting one of the white ones.’
Restraining herself from getting up and going to see them, giving them a stroke even, Alice watched as the cat leapt up and disappeared behind the microwave, contented purring soon replacing the anguished high-pitched mews. With luck she would see them on the way out.
‘After the Norseman, where did you go?’
‘Further down the same road, to the theatre, to see A Woman of No Importance.’
‘Who was in it – taking the leading roles?’
Looking for the first time slightly vexed, as if the question was pointless, she replied, ‘Since you ask, it had Martin Jarvis in it. That’s why I wanted to see it.’
‘You’re a fan of his? Was he good?’
‘Yes, I like him. I think he’s a superb actor and he was wonderful as Lord Illingworth.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then,’ she said slowly, her voice tailing off as if she was re-living the moment in her head, ‘then I walked home on my own. It took a while, you’ll appreciate. I didn’t look at my watch, but I’d have got back at about eleven or maybe half past, I think.’
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