‘That’s right, pet, you never,’ her mother replied quietly. ‘But dinnae worry, I’ll tell the lady fer you. Off you go.’
‘I would rather speak to Agnes… directly,’ Alice said.
Ignoring the policewoman’s words, Una Reid started shooing her daughter away with her hands and then replied firmly, ‘Naw, you can speak tae me instead. Agnes’s already oan a final warnin’, she’ll lose her job if she disnae go. But you can speak tae me… again.’
‘You sure, Mum? It’ll be alright then, I’d best go, eh?’ Agnes Leckie said, zipping up her tracksuit top, preparing herself to brave the downpour, huge drops of rain smashing onto the tarmac and soaking her trainers.
‘Aye. Off you go. Dinnae you worry yourself, pet. I’ll deal wi’ her,’ Una Reid answered, jerking her head in Alice’s direction.
Agnes lurched out from under the corrugated iron roof and squelched across the yard, her rounded arms flapping loosely at her sides.
‘Right,’ said Una Reid, watching her go, then finally giving Alice her full attention. ‘She’s away. You can speak tae me an’ I’ll tell you anythin’ you need tae ken. So… why are you botherin’ Aggie – my daughter, Agnes?’
‘I wasn’t “bothering” her,’ Alice corrected her, annoyed at not being able to speak to a possible suspect, ‘I was questioning her. We’re investigating Gavin Brodie’s death, as you well know.’
‘Aye. So whit dae you want wi’ her?’ Una Reid demanded, unabashed.
‘You didn’t tell me about Agnes, your daughter, and Gavin Brodie – the connection between them. You never mentioned Agnes’s troubles, the interdict that had to be taken against her to stop her harassing him, harassing his whole family.’
‘Naw, I didnae,’ the woman replied, then she paused as if thinking and said slowly, ‘I dinnae think it mattered. It wis history. You never asked me, neither.’
‘I didn’t know about it when I last spoke to you – that she had a grudge, to put it mildly, against the man.’
Una Reid gazed unblinkingly into the policewoman’s eyes before answering, and then said, ‘Aye, she does. And nae wonder! Who could blame her? Aggie went bust, lost her husband, an’ she blamed Gavin Brodie fer everythin’… everythin’. And she wis right. So dae I. Her business wis goin’ OK up until the bother wi’ the tax people, and her man couldnae take it when things started going wrong. He just walked away, walked oot on her. Aggie stopped lookin’ aifter hersel’. She’s bi-polar, see. It’s been diagnosed now, but not before she wis sectioned for it, mind, put intae the Royal. She blamed him fer everythin’ that happened. I done and a’.’
‘Has she ever been back to India Street, anywhere near Gavin Brodie, as far as you know?’
‘You’re jokin’ aren’t ye? Ye must be. No, Never. She’s shit-scared, terrified. But you’re no interested in that, are you? The court case and a’ that. No, you’re wonderin’ if she killed the man, aren’t you? Aggie? Jeez!’ she sighed. ‘Just to let you know,’ she added, hotly, ‘it’s ridiculous. you seen her for yourself. Are her prints all over things or somethin’? Course they’re fuckin’ not! Oh, and youse’ll have them, you know. Before she went into the Royal she wis in an’ oot the jail. Shoplifting, malicious mischief, drink and everythin’.’
‘OK, but we…’ Alice began, pausing momentarily to move further into the shelter in an attempt to avoid more drips going down her collar.
‘Aggie!’ the woman continued, fired up with anger at the thought, ‘Aggie can hardly get oot her bed in the mornin’ the now. She’s so drugged she can hardly think.’
‘Did you realise, when you got the job with the Brodies, who you were going to work for?’ Alice persisted.
‘No’ at first, it was a’ done through here, through the Abbey Park. Aifter the first few days I realised.’
‘And then, once you did realise, how did you feel about the man who had ruined your daughter’s life, seeing him every day?’
‘What d’you think I felt? I just about quit at first. But then, well, I needed the money. They’re private payers, like, good payers, too. And I didnae kill him, if that’s what you’re getting’ oan aboot the noo. Naw, I didnae need to. I watched him being punished day in and day out, that was reward enough for me. Why’d I bring his suffering to an end? I enjoyed seein’ it… got paid by him to watch it an’ a’.’
‘Alice?’ It was Ian.
‘Yes,’ she answered, her voice dull, but her heart suddenly thumping against her ribs as if trying to escape its cage. Simply at the sound of his voice at the other end of a phone.
‘I’m back. Have you had lunch yet? Could you spare half an hour or so, so I can see you. I’ve something to tell you.’
‘No, I haven’t had lunch. Whereabouts were you thinking?’
‘Say, that café in Stockbridge, in twenty minutes or so.’
She arrived first and took a table in the window, watching the people passing on the street outside, trying to calm herself by breathing in and out more deeply. Every time the door opened she looked up, and eventually, five minutes late, he walked in. Seeing her he came over and tried to kiss her cheek, but instinctively she turned her head away.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, sitting beside her, looking anxiously into her face.
Where to begin? It was, of course, the very question that she had been anticipating, but all the answers that she had envisaged herself giving fell away, and she heard herself muttering ‘Nothing,’ like a sulky schoolgirl. After a second, she spurred herself on and tried again. ‘Well, no, not nothing actually. Something. Why did you tell me on Wednesday night that you’d been at your studio when you weren’t? I went there at about 10.45 and looked round about it for a bit and you were nowhere to be seen. I saw Susie and she told me that there had been a power cut, and the place was out of action until the next day…’
‘I know, I know, that’s what…’ he began, frantically waving the bemused waitress away as you might a troublesome wasp.
‘And London. I don’t even believe you were there. You told me before that you’d cleaned the stone you used for the wishbone lithographs… you told me at the time you did it. No address, no call, no text. What’s going on?’
It had all fallen out in a breathless rush, but as she had promised herself, nothing had been kept back, no accidental traps were left for the unwary. She had shown her complete hand, including, by the tone of her voice, her annoyance, her hurt at his deceit. Hearing her words, he looked taken aback, but said not a thing. Seconds passed in silence between them, feeling like hours.
‘Well?’ she heard herself say, her tone more like a magistrate than a lover.
‘I… I… I was intending to tell you…’ he began, but stopped again, moving towards her and holding out his hand for her to take. ‘I was intending to tell you…’
‘What?’ she said, sounding horribly shrill in her own ears, wanting the worst to be over and forcing herself to add, ‘tell me what? That it’s finished? That we’re finished and that it is all over? Fine. OK. I understand that, but what I’d like to know…’ She ground to a halt, but it was all right, she had somehow got it out, so that all that was left for him to do was to nod his head. He would not have to say a thing. But as he listened to her, the expression on his face had changed, and he looked distraught, hurt, like a dog who had received an unexpected blow.
‘No! No! Alice… that’s not what I wanted to say. Not what I wanted to tell you,’ he said.
‘Well, what is it then?’
‘Not that, not anything like that. Christ Almighty! How could you even think such a thing?’
‘What can I get you?’ a waiter asked, pad at the ready, looking expectantly at them for their order.
‘Not now, nothing,’ Ian answered, then added for politeness’ sake, ‘later. We’ll order later, thank you.’
‘What is it then, tell me,’ Alice said once the man had gone, already feeling a wave of relief rushing over her at his passionate denial, able to muster a weak
joke: ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’
He took her hand in his and looked into her eyes. ‘That’s not so far off the mark… On Tuesday last…’ he swallowed, but continued speaking, ‘I discovered that I’m a father. I’ve got a three-year-old son. I knew nothing about him, I promise you. Nothing, I promise you. His mother, Paula, never let me know that she was pregnant. I lived with her for a little while on and off when I was in St Bernard’s Row, but it was never serious for either of us.’
‘Why is she telling you about the boy now?’
‘She isn’t. She didn’t. It wasn’t her. She didn’t tell me, it was her sister. Paula died in a car accident about two months ago…’
‘So, why didn’t you tell me that, about the boy? Why lie?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know, I’m sorry. I was ashamed, having a child, and having done nothing for it – for him. Like some kind of deadbeat. I did go to London, I promise, but it was to meet his grandparents, talk to them. Before that, on the Wednesday night, I went to the sister’s house, that’s where I was. I saw him for a little while before he went to bed, I talked to her.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked, still trying to digest the news.
‘I don’t know. Get to know him, first of all, I suppose.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Hamish. Hamish John Melville.’
‘No, Pippa, I’ll do it,’ Heather Brodie said, making no effort to disguise her impatience at her sister’s ineffectuality, ‘I know how it works. It’s got its own idiosyncrasies…’ So saying, she almost barged her sister out of the way, turned the key in the lock and simultaneously pushed the door with her right shoulder. Her forceful tactic worked, and the pair of them walked into Harry Brodie’s flat, a dark and dingy basement in Raeburn Mews. Heather Brodie was feeling annoyed. She had not wanted company on this occasion, particularly on this occasion, and was finding her extended stay with her sister rather a trial.
Pippa was far too neat, too quiet, too set in her ways, and seemed to have nothing better to do than mope about re-arranging her immaculate possessions on a daily basis. And she seemed to have sunk into a decline, ever since that interview with the police. But how many times would she have to repeat ‘It went fine,’ and explain that they had been believed, reassure her that the police would never discover their lies. How much more bloody reassurance could she give? And, for that matter, how much more silent resentment could she endure? And today Pippa had taken to shadowing her. Had she no life of her own? No friends? Were they not living in each other’s pockets enough already?
The cursory inspection Heather Brodie made of the place revealed the expected mess: unwashed clothes strewn on unhoovered carpets, dirty dishes stacked beside the sink, and books and papers scattered throughout as if a strong wind had blown them there.
She was quite accustomed to the sights and smells of her son’s quarters, since every fortnight or so for the past year she had gone there and cleaned them out. Today, however, the squalor of the place struck her with new force. In the company of her sister, she suddenly saw it through her eyes and imagined the thoughts that were likely to be passing through her mind. And Pippa, of course, only had dealings with six- to eight-year-olds, and then only during school hours, so she had, could have, no real experience of a normal nineteen-year-old boy and his habits.
And Harry was certainly entirely normal, the state of his flat testified to that, although it would, no doubt, be considered an abhorrence, an abomination, by his spinster aunt. And, actually, for the record, no amount of discipline, chastisement or reward would have turned him into a tidy boy, she thought crossly to herself, so it had nothing to do with his upbringing or lack of it, and everything to do with his… his character and his heredity. Gavin had been an untidy creature, too, always was.
‘This is disgusting,’ Pippa said, stooping to pick up a greasy frying pan from the top of the television set in the boy’s bedroom.
‘But quite normal – for students,’ her sister replied, evenly.
‘Ella doesn’t keep her flat like this. It’s always immaculate.’ The riposte was immediate.
‘Ella, Ella, Ella! Ella can do no bloody wrong, though, can she, Pippa?’ Heather Brodie said, unable to stop her annoyance bubbling to the surface and exploding as it did every so often. ‘She’s always been your favourite. I know that, Gavin knew that, Harry knows that. Ella too. You don’t even try to hide it. Ever since she was born she’s been perfect as far as you’re concerned, hasn’t she?’ The injustice of it rankled. Only a childless woman would be so blatant in her partiality.
‘Yes, perfect,’ the spinster replied defiantly, bending over Harry’s unmade bed, lifting the duvet up and emitting a horrified gasp as she did so.
‘What is it now?’ Heather Brodie asked.
‘What on earth is that?’ Pippa Mitchelson replied, sounding appalled and holding up a copy of Nuts magazine between her thumb and forefinger, an open centrefold showing a naked girl smiling and cupping her breasts in her hands.
‘They all do it, read it, I mean,’ Heather Brodie said in as matter-of-fact tone as she could muster, taking the magazine from her sister and adding, ‘though not Ella, obviously.’ As she took it a scrap of lined paper fell out and floated down to the floor. In a trice Pippa Mitchelson picked it up, her face breaking into a smile as she said excitedly, ‘It’s a poem, Heather. I’ll read it out, shall I?’
Without waiting for an answer, she cleared her throat and then began chanting out loud in a sing-song voice:
‘In the olden days,
In the golden days,
You held my hand in yours
And led me to the sea,
You did that for me.
But in the new days,
Such black and blue days,
I held your hand in mine
To lead you to the sea,
May the Lord forgive me.’
‘It doesn’t scan very well,’ she said dismissively. ‘D’you think he wrote it? It seems to be in his handwriting.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Heather Brodie answered, impatient to get on with the job in hand, ‘he’ll have written it. He likes poetry. He’s written his own since he was a very little boy. And it scanned perfectly well, Pippa, I thought. He’s good at rhythm, always has been. His English teacher even told me.’
‘No,’ Pippa said, looking at it again, ‘let me see. First line six, no seven, syllables. Second line the same. Third line, nine syllables…’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Pippa!’ Heather Brodie remonstrated angrily, ‘I don’t care how many syllables. We haven’t got time to analyse the poem. We’re supposed to be tidying up his flat. Couldn’t you just finish making the bed?’
‘Very well,’ her sister answered huffily, pulling the rest of the duvet back inch by inch as if afraid she might expose a severed body part. On the other side of the room Heather Brodie opened the curtains, letting daylight flood onto the disordered interior. She lifted a baseball bat from the carpet, disentangling three wire coat-hangers which had become attached to it and each other, and walked towards the door, intending to put it in the hallway. As she was doing so the telephone rang. She dropped everything immediately and picked it up, curious, but also determined that Pippa would not be the one to answer it.
‘Harry Brodie’s flat,’ she said, tension making her sound slightly hostile.
‘Oh, is that you, Mrs Brodie?’ a surprised voice asked, and Heather Brodie immediately recognised the high-pitched tones of Vicky MacSween. The girl was a friend of both of her children and Harry’s current girlfriend.
‘Yes, Vicky, it’s me,’ she said, and hearing the impatience in her own tone, added, in an attempt to make herself sound less intimidating, ‘Can I help you?’
‘Is Harry there?’ Obviously not, Heather Brodie thought, otherwise he would be answering the phone instead of me, but she simply said, ‘No, Vicky, I’m afraid he’s not. Would you like me to leave a message for him?’
&
nbsp; ‘Is Ella there?’ Biting her tongue, her mother said, ‘No, sorry. She’s not here either. You could try their mobiles?’
‘Mmm… I will.’ A long silence followed.
‘So, Vicky, would you like me to leave a message in case they’ve switched them off, or what?’
‘OK. Yes, thanks. Could you tell Harry that I’ll see him tonight at about 8 pm at my place, and could you tell Ella that I’ve still got her jacket from last week. She left it in my flat on Saturday evening before we went on to the pub. I meant to give it to her before she left in the morning, but I’ll just give it to Harry when I see him tonight.’
‘Ella left it with you last Saturday? OK. And you’ll give the jacket to Harry. Righto. Anything else?’
‘Nope.’
Now deep in thought, Heather Brodie put the phone down and began picking up some of the sheets of A4 paper scattered all over the floor. As she was doing so her sister stooped to help her, but after she had gathered a few of them she came to a sudden halt.
‘They’re all mixed up – look,’ she said, holding up one of the sheets. ‘This one looks like English Literature, and this one…’ she added, pulling out another from the sheaf, ‘looks like a language paper or something, and this one,’ she tried to extract another sheet without losing her grip on the rest, ‘must be Russian studies.’
‘And?’ Heather Brodie said, still bent double, gathering up the papers, ignoring their contents and continuing to collect them in a single pile.
‘Well, they must be his lecture notes, mustn’t they? We’ll need to keep them separate. He’ll need them separate, for his essays and his revision if nothing else.’
‘Then,’ Heather Brodie said, conscious that her tolerance of her sister and her annoying ways was now at a dangerously low ebb, ‘he’ll just have to separate them out after we’ve put them all together into one pile, won’t he?’
‘Of course,’ her sister replied, aware of the unspoken reprimand, now wishing that she had never volunteered to help with the flat-cleaning, wasting a precious Saturday. She could have gone to the Botanics, checked out the Dean Gallery or simply cleaned her own flat, for that matter. It would have taken her mind off everything. And Heather simply did not understand the meaning of the word gratitude.
No Sorrow To Die Page 17
