‘Funny, then, that nobody at Triton, your club, saw you?’
‘Not really, Chief Inspector,’ he replied. His voice sounded hoarse, so he cleared his throat and repeated, ‘Not really funny. It’s a big place, lots of machines, a swimming pool, showers. Not a difficult place to hide… if you wanted to.’
‘OK, I follow that. Maybe the Geordie was the same. Lots of people, busy, jolly Christmas crowd, that sort of thing?’ Please God, another ‘yes’.
‘Exactly. That’s exactly what it was like. Still, I’m surprised that no one could remember me being there, if that’s what you’re going to suggest to me. Not even Brian?’
‘Brian?’ she replied, inviting him to enlighten her.
‘Brian. Irish Brian. He’s one of the barmen. I could have sworn he served me with at least one pint. He’ll probably remember me.’
‘That would be a bloody miracle,’ Eric Manson growled, looking hard at the doctor.
‘It would be a little… odd,’ the DCI said, in a slightly perplexed tone, ‘since the Geordie was closed on Saturday night. There’d been a flood, you see. So, “Irish Brian”, and everyone else, now that I think about it, would be elsewhere.’
‘So, “Doctor”,’ Eric Manson said, raising crooked fingers on either hand to put inverted commas around the man’s title, and leaning closer towards him, ‘where the fuck were you?’
All the remaining colour drained from Colin Paxton’s face and he said, in an apologetic tone, ‘I’m sorry, sorry, I think I’m about to be sick.’ No sooner had he said the words than he bent forward and threw up onto the table, copiously, splashing himself and the nearby Inspector.
‘Bloody Hell!’ Manson shouted, leaping to his feet, his chair tumbling to the ground behind him.
Later, in a different interview room, the same group reassembled. Paxton seemed somehow smaller, dressed in borrowed clothes, his head bowed and licking his lips incessantly as if he had just crossed a desert.
The DCI looked quizzically at him, inviting him to begin but saying nothing herself.
‘I wasn’t at the club… or the pub. I was seeing Heather,’ the doctor said, head bowed.
‘That’ll be Heather Brodie, your patient’s wife, eh?’ Eric Manson said, as if helpfully clarifying matters.
‘Yes,’ the man replied, in a low voice, closing his eyes briefly as if unable to face them.
‘So, tell us,’ Elaine Bell said, ‘what exactly did happen on Saturday night?’
Slowly, the story of the evening at Il Gattopardo and in his flat emerged, he having to be prodded occasionally to ensure that his narrative did not dry up. When he had finished Eric Manson leant across and snarled, ‘So, you’re knockin’ off a sick man’s wife, right? No, sorry, correction, a dying man’s wife… then, after that…’
‘Eric! That’s enough,’ the DCI reprimanded him, alarmed by the fury in his voice and the ferocious expression on his face.
‘Why didn’t you accompany Heather Brodie home?’ she asked the doctor.
‘I would have… I would have liked to, but I’d have had to stop before India Street anyway, and there’s always the risk…’
‘The risk?’
‘That we’d be seen. It would be awful for Heather, and if the GMC caught just a whiff of it I’d be struck off…’
‘For knocking off a dying man’s wife? Surely not?’ Eric Manson sneered.
‘That’s why you lied?’ Elaine Bell asked, ignoring her colleague’s aside.
‘Of course, I had to. Why else would I?’
‘What do you think, Alice?’ the DCI asked, after they had congregated once more in the murder suite, leaving their interviewee in his room to stew in his own juice, pacing up and down, uncertain what would happen to him next.
‘About Paxton?’
‘Of course.’
‘I think he’s telling the truth this time. He’s petrified. I don’t think he was lying.’
‘But do you think he was involved? In the killing?’ the DCI asked.
Before Alice had time to answer, she added, ‘What I don’t understand is, why? Why would Heather Brodie or Paxton, alone or together, bother to kill Gavin Brodie? If they wanted him out of the way, he was on his way out already. They would hardly have had to wait. And they weren’t really waiting anyway, they were already getting on with their lives together. He couldn’t have lasted more than… what, a couple of months or something? He was wasting away in front of their very eyes. Why would they take the risk?’
‘I don’t know, but something I came across yesterday might explain it,’ Alice replied. ‘In Heather Brodie’s desk I found some insurance policy documents. If Brodie survived beyond early February next year, which is a month or so away, then she would not get a payout of two hundred thousand pounds. If he died before then, she would.’
‘He had to die before then for there to be a payout? Why didn’t you tell me this last night?’ Elaine Bell demanded crossly. ‘It might have been useful to have known that this morning, don’t you think? For questioning Paxton, if nothing else.’
‘Er… I think I thought…’ she racked her brain, wondering why she had failed to pass on the news.
‘Oh, never mind,’ the DCI interrupted in a tired voice, ‘We’ve got him for a bit longer, I suppose. But we’ll still need a lot more evidence, motive or no motive It’s all circumstantial so far.’
‘I don’t know, we’ve a fair amount against them both now, haven’t we?’ Eric Manson commented, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he wiped a spot of something from the shoulder of his jacket with a paper hankie.
‘No, we haven’t, Sir,’ Alice said bluntly, too exhausted from lack of sleep to bother how her intervention might sound. ‘Surely any prints or DNA in the house can be easily explained away? He’ll not have been on the database, but if the unidentified stuff is his, prints or DNA, it was in the kitchen and the bedroom wasn’t it? He’ll account for it on the basis of his role as the man’s doctor. And there was nothing on the knife or anything else, thanks to the river and the rain. We’ve no witnesses. All we’ve got so far, surely, is opportunity, means and now, possibly, motive. Nothing concrete. And what did they do? Poison him and then cut his throat, but why both? And why would they take stuff, then throw it away?’
‘Well, if it was them,’ the DCI answered, ruffling her hair distractedly with her hands, ‘they’d take the stuff just to make it look like an outside job. But I’ve no idea at the moment why they’d do both.’
‘Have we heard from the pharmacy whether there was enough in the bottles for the overdose?’
‘Yup. There was enough – well, enough if we can rely on Paxton’s prescription records. Which, of course, is rather a big if now.’
‘Presumably,’ Alice said, ‘we should discount, for the present, at least, Heather Brodie and Paxton’s evidence about the victim’s ability to take the stuff himself?’
‘Yes, I agree. We’ll go with the old lady and what‘s her name Reid’s version, the children’s too, that he couldn’t do it himself, and he no longer knew what was in the bottles.’
‘One other thing, Ma’am,’ Alice said, tentatively, keen to avoid provoking another outburst, ‘amongst the stuff in Heather Brodie’s desk there were papers, court papers. He had to raise an action to stop some madwoman pursuing him, scratching his car, yelling at Harry and Ella, breaking his windows. It all happened quite recently. Just last year in fact. Should I check the woman out? I’ve done a bit of digging with her neighbours, and apparently she works at the Abbey Park Lodge.’
‘Mmm, does she now,’ Elaine Bell responded, her interest engaged immediately, falling silent as she thought things through. A few trails seemed to have led back to that place. And, remembering the Dyce enquiry and her failure to follow up a possible lead, she nodded.
‘On you go. We’ll leave Paxton to sweat in here for a bit longer. In the meanwhile, we’ll re-do her closest neighbours, and make a start on his. Maybe someone will be able to say whether he left th
e place with her, when, or have seen the pair of them go into India Street together, anything. Anything to show that he’s still lying. Because if he is, with a bit more pressure, I reckon he’ll break.’
‘And if he doesn’t, then that leaves her, the Brodie woman,’ Eric Manson said, adding grimly, ‘and she’ll be the only one left in the picture.’
‘That’s it then, Detta,’ the manageress of the Abbey Park Lodge said, airily, ‘there’ll be no more raisins sprinkled in the clean underwear, eh?’
‘Em… like I told you, I just spilt them there… the sultanas, like.’
‘Raisins, sultanas, whatever… they all look like rodent droppings, don’t they? And once could be accidental, twice carelessness even, but six times? No, I don’t think so. However, I… no, we, will manage to forget all about this little incident, I’m sure, and you’ll not be going to the lawyers, to the Industrial Tribunal either. Is that right, dear, you’ll give up your claim now, eh?’
Victory, the manageress thought, as she looked into the little Irishwoman’s resentful eyes, was almost in her grasp. It was true, as the manuals said, that management sometimes resembled a game of chess, but, fortunately, every so often one’s opponent turned out to be not a Russian Grandmaster but, as in this case, an ass. And yes, she would admit it, hers was an unorthodox approach, certainly not one recommended or sanctioned by those manuals, but innovation and flexibility were surely the hallmarks of the competent manager? This morning, fortune had favoured the brave, and Julia from H R.’s timid advice could now be consigned to the wastepaper bin of industrial relations. And, as ‘brown cow’ did not always, inevitably, follow ‘How, now,’ Agnes, too, might get nowhere with her complaint.
Detta O’Hare, her head lowered as if in church, nodded mulishly, and then turned to leave the manageress’s office, hitting her elbow on the door frame in her haste to escape.
A few minutes later, and feeling reinvigorated by the routing of the woman, the manageress found herself informing the police sergeant that no Agnes Hart worked in their premises.
‘No.’ She shook her head, replacing the cap on her gold Parker pen with a single assured movement, ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there. No one with that name works here. As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, I am familiar with the names of all my staff.’
‘You’re quite sure about that?’ Alice enquired, ‘because this is where a neighbour told us she works.’
‘Yes.’
‘Any other Agneses employed here?’ Alice asked doubtfully, with little expectation of a useful reply.
‘Two. Agnes Cauld and Agnes Leckie. They’re both on bed-making duty in the Drumsheugh Wing, or at least they should be. If they’re not there, then try the lifts, they may be cleaning them out.’
As Alice entered the first room after the fire doors, Agnes Cauld’s large posterior greeted her as the nurse bent over a resident’s bed, smoothing the covers for him. Unaware of the policewoman’s presence, she began to swing it playfully from side to side, singing as she did so, all to the evident delight of the hairless old fellow below her who began excitedly clapping out a calypso rhythm, determined to keep his jolly nurse’s company for as long as possible. Amused, Alice watched them for a few seconds, then cleared her throat loudly to alert them to her arrival.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said, turning round to face the policewoman and smiling broadly, her bright smile remaining undimmed as Alice asked her name and about the likely whereabouts of her namesake.
‘Agnes? Easy. Agnes will be smokin’…’
Then she added in singsong voice, ‘A-smokin’ or a-shakin’. Agnes is always a-smokin’ or a-shakin’. A-shakin’ or a-smokin’.’
The designated staff smoking area for the home amounted to no more than a corner of tarmac in the yard, minimal shelter being afforded by a ragged piece of corrugated iron over the triangular piece of ground. Standing in the corner, her head sunk low into her shoulders to prevent it from touching the edge of the roof, was the woman Alice was looking for. She was absorbed in her own thoughts, inhaling deeply from her cigarette, then watching the stream of smoke as she exhaled it forcefully through pale and pursed lips. On either side of her were piles of bloated rubbish bags, overspills from the nearby dustbins, and the air was rank with the stink of rotten cabbage and bad fish. By her feet were dozens of small blue polythene bags, most of which appeared balloon-like, inflated to near-bursting point with some kind of self-generated noxious gas. But she appeared oblivious to it all, to the awful odour, to the light rain falling all around her, and to the approach of the stranger, because all her attention was focused on one thing and one thing alone, her cigarette.
The woman was unusually short and almost spherical in shape, her elasticated tracksuit bottoms encircling the globe of her waist and clinging to it, cruelly outlining her vast, protuberant belly. Beneath it, and in its shade, her little feet were shod in scuffed white trainers, both of which had their pink laces undone. A pair of raisin eyes peered out from behind her fleshy cheeks, and her mouth, when not occupied in exhaling smoke, moved incessantly as if she was talking to herself.
‘Agnes Leckie?’ Alice asked, approaching the woman, trying to work out the wind-direction, to ensure that she would not be downwind of the rubbish pile.
‘Aye,’ answered Agnes, looking at the stranger with little curiosity, her trembling hand raised to her mouth, ready for another draw. ‘Who are you?’
If Alice had said that she was from the refuse department the woman could not have shown less interest in her answer, and when asked if she had ever used ‘Hart’ as a surname, she nodded, showing no curiosity whatsoever as to how this police officer could know such a thing or why she would wish to meet her.
‘And you knew Gavin Brodie, didn’t you?’ the Sergeant continued, ‘when you were still called Hart, I mean. I need to speak to you about him.’
‘Gavin Brodie? Oh aye, fire away,’ she replied, wrinkling her adipose features in disgust, ‘I’ve no’ forgotten him… No’ likely tae forget him.’
‘Before I ask you about him,’ Alice said, ‘can you tell me where you were on Saturday night, last Saturday night?’
‘This is like oan the telly, eh! Me ’n’ Gareth went to see his friend. Then I went back to ma ain flat. Whit’s all o’ this tae dae wi’ Gavin Brodie?’
‘On your own – were you at home on your own?’
‘Aye,’ she said rubbing her stomach round and round as if to polish it, ‘well, almost oan ma ain. After the wee wan’s born me ’n’ Gareth will move in tegither. I’ve taken his name already, “Leckie” for the wee wan’s sake. Like I said, whit’s all o’ this tae dae wi’ Gavin Brodie?’
‘You know who I’m talking about? The Gavin Brodie who lived in India Street?’
‘Aye, there’s only the wan fer me,’ she said, drawing deeply on her cigarette. ‘I ken him, but what’s a’ this tae dae wi’ me? He’s the wan you should be interested in – wrecked ma business, broke up ma marriage, made me ill. That wis a crime! You wouldnae believe it, but when I wis at college I used to be petite, I wis only seven stone. I could fit, nae bother, into a size eight. I’m oan a diet now, no crisps or chocolate, like, jist fags.’
‘How did he wreck everything for you?’
‘Because it wis his job tae keep me right, see? He kept the accounts for ma business. I’d a wee sandwich shop oan Henderson Row, below ma flat. Thanks tae him, all ma tax wis wrong, he got it a’ wrong, an’ the next thing the taxman wis aifter me. I got letter aifter letter, but I couldnae pay ’cause I didnae have the money. So the tax people made me bankrupt an’ then I lost the lease of the shop, then my man dumped me because he wis stressed to bits.’
She stopped speaking, dropped her cigarette butt onto the tarmac and ground it up with the heel of her trainer, then added, ‘Still, he got his come-uppance, didn’t he?’
‘His “come-uppance”?’ Alice repeated, her voice sounding nasal, a sudden whiff of bad eggs making her clamp her nostrils between her fing
ers. But Agnes Leckie did not respond, too busy attempting to prise another fag from the foil-covering within the packet.
‘How do you mean, “got his come-uppance”? Who did he get his “come-uppance” from?’ Alice said more loudly, moving towards the care assistant, eager to inhale the cigarette smoke now drifting about her head. The little woman took another draw, threw away her match and said, smugly, ‘God, hersel’. By givin’ him that disease.’
‘Have you been back, recently, to India Street, or anywhere near Gavin Brodie?
‘Me? Em… em, naw.’
‘Sure about that?’
‘I never done, naw, I never done that. I’d be put inside if I’d done that.’ Agnes sounded agitated, and she began scratching a rough, inflamed area on her forehead.
‘Aggie… Aggie,’ cried an anxious voice in the distance, and a little later Una Reid’s solid figure appeared, running towards the shelter with a newspaper held over her head, to protect it from the persistent rain.
‘You’ll hae tae make the last three beds…’ she began breathlessly on her arrival, ‘I done the rest of the Drumsheugh wans but I cannae dae it all mysel’. I’m supposed to be helpin’ the residents wi’ their breakfasts now.’
Agnes Leckie glanced at the newcomer, nodding her head several times in response, but she made no move to leave the shelter. Instead, she returned her gaze to Alice as if expecting the interview to continue.
‘Come oan, Aggie!’ Una Reid said excitedly. ‘Mrs Drayton kens that you’re here. She saw you leavin’ the dining hall, an’ she’s been watchin’ you ever since frae her office.’
‘Mrs Hart – er, Ms Leckie, stay here, please. There are a few other things I need to know,’ Alice began, but she was quickly interrupted by Agnes Leckie who, as if she hadn’t spoken, squealed in a high voice, ‘Mrs Drayton? She’s no’ seen me, has she, Mum?’
‘Aye. Mrs Drayton, the manageress. So get a move oan, eh, Aggie.’
‘I never went nowhere… nowhere near Gavin Brodie,’ Agnes said, her face now scarlet and tears rolling down her fat cheeks.
No Sorrow To Die Page 16
