‘Anyway, maybe she’s ambidextrous, dear – it’s not that uncommon, is it?’ Eric Manson said. ‘You haven’t explained how she knows what she knows. How could she know about the Nortriptyline and the Ora… Ora… the other stuff? We didn’t tell her. How did she know where the computer was found, about the knife, the jewellery-case being in the river? None of that was in the papers. And McConnachie confirmed that the knife was likely to be the one that was used, and she identified it as her own too. How the hell do you explain away all of that, then?’
‘I can’t… unless, maybe, Paxton told her? If he was the one who did it, then he’d know all the details. He could have told her.’
‘Yes,’ Eric Manson answered belligerently, ‘but why the fuck should we think he did it? He’s not the one confessing to it. And, as you said, his DNA’s easy enough to explain away. One of his neighbours already confirmed that she saw him coming up the stairs after he’d seen the woman off that night. Other than his lying through his teeth and his having access to the drugs, we’ve got nothing on him, really, no real reason to suspect him. He didn’t even try to suggest that Brodie could have taken the stuff himself. If he had known what went on he would have been clear about that, like she was, he would surely have told us categorically that the man could have taken the stuff himself.’
‘True,’ Alice conceded, ‘but… I don’t know what it is, something doesn’t feel right…’ her voice tailed off. ‘Anyway, I thought Livingstone said it was him who threw the wallet in the river.’
‘Did you see that smile – the smile she gave me?’ Elaine Bell asked, recreating it in her own mind and shuddering theatrically as she spoke. Then she added, ‘Alice, you wait here. I’m going to speak to the Super, he’s here at the moment… and Eric, you come too, I want you to tell him what you think too.’
So saying, she disappeared down the corridor, bustling towards her office with her subordinate tagging along obediently behind her. As they disappeared from view, the interview-room door opened and, mobile in hand, Heather Brodie emerged, looking to the left and right, an anxious expression on her face.
‘Could I make a phone call?’ she asked meekly, catching the Sergeant’s eye.
‘To your lawyer or someone? Who d’you want to call?’ Alice asked, surprised by the request.
‘I’d like to call my son, my son, Harry. I need to call him. Now that I’ve spoken to you, got everything out of the way, I need to talk to him. He’ll organise things for me, including a lawyer, he’ll tell Ella for me, Pippa too. Is that all right? I’d rather they heard it from me.’
Looking at the woman, pale as death, it seemed rude, unkind to deny her this one thing. Without more thought Alice nodded her agreement, and then, before the first key had been pressed, she asked, ‘Are you left-handed or right-handed?’
Heather Brodie was holding her phone in her left hand, her right index finger raised above the keypad. She paused momentarily before answering. ‘Both,’ she replied, ‘I use both my hands. I can’t remember the word for it… you know, I’m ambi… ambi… something or other. I’m lucky, I can use my left hand and my right hand. Why? Why do you want to know?’
‘Just curious,’ Alice answered.
A few minutes later Elaine Bell reappeared. The calm expression on her face vanished as soon as she caught sight of her suspect talking on the phone, and she said angrily to Alice, ‘What the hell’s she doing?’
‘Er… I gave her permission. She’s just letting her son know what’s going on…’
‘Christ Almighty! You let her? Have you forgotten that she’s just confessed to murdering her husband? What the hell were you thinking of! Other members of the family may have been involved with it, there may be evidence in their control, stuff that they’ll now destroy, get rid of…’
Shaking her head, the DCI walked straight up to the woman and calmly plucked the mobile phone from her hand, murmuring a curt apology as she did so. Heather Brodie looked stunned, but she said nothing, her mouth dropping open in amazement.
At that moment, Thomas Riddell, his jacket thrown nonchalantly across one shoulder, strolled past the assembled group, but he stopped in his tracks on catching sight of Heather Brodie, a warm smile lighting up his features.
‘Heather… Mrs Brodie. I didn’t know you were coming in today. You should have told me. What are you doing here?’
Seeing him, the woman frowned as if troubled, but did not reply. After a few seconds, Alice, feeling the need to fill the uneasy silence, answered his question. ‘She’s just confessed to her husband’s murder, Thomas.’
Instantly, Riddell’s smile disappeared and he looked, with panic in his eyes, at Heather Brodie’s face; but she, as if ashamed, bowed her head, deliberately avoiding meeting his gaze.
‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for one second. Not for one second. What on earth are you doing, Heather? Why are you telling them these lies? Why are you doing this?’
As he was speaking he moved instinctively towards her, his hands outstretched as if he was going to touch her, but she shied away, ensuring that Alice remained between her and the distraught man,
‘Thomas!’ Elaine Bell’s voice rang out, ‘I need you to collect Mrs Brodie’s sister. Go and bring her in right now, please.’
As he did not move, she insisted, ‘Now! And speak to the turnkeys on your way. See if there are any cells free below. And, Alice,’ she added, ‘you get the children, both of them, this minute. We’ll just have to hope that we’re not too late already!’
Racing across a red light from the Pleasance, Alice cursed her own crassness. It was so obvious if you thought about it for a single second, so blindingly obvious, but she had overlooked it, missed it completely. What a moron! What a fool she had been! By now blood-soaked clothes could have been burnt or dumped somewhere, or other elaborate lies concocted or, God forbid, Harry and Ella absconded, the pair of them going to earth completely. And she would be responsible for it, and possibly now remain a Sergeant for all eternity.
As she reached the top of the hill on St Mary’s Street, she pushed her foot down on the accelerator, revving impotently, but nothing happened because nothing could happen. The car in front was jammed tight against its neighbour, as she was, as they all were ad infinitum into the distance. And neither the traffic lights nor a blue light could work magic. Gripping the steering wheel unnaturally tightly, she recreated the scene in her mind’s eye, seeing again Heather Brodie’s pleading expression, hearing the apparently innocuous question; but this time, when asked, she did the Right Thing and refused the request. She heard herself solving part of the problem by offering to phone on the woman’s behalf instead, or at least arranging a lawyer for her.
Of course, she thought, it might still be all right. It was not impossible, all might not be lost. Suppose, just suppose, she had been right, suppose the woman had not killed her husband, had been making a false confession for some labyrinthine reason, then all might be not lost…
Yes, she reassured herself, it might still be all right. Stuck in the traffic, her engine now switched off, she began to analyse the roots of her unease about Heather Brodie’s guilt, trying to figure out if there was any real substance to her misgivings. No-one in their right minds was impressed by talk of ‘intuition’. After all, everyone had it and often competing claims were made on the basis of it, none of which were capable of any form of rational justification. It was no more than witchcraft, really.
So, thinking about things properly, logically, what exactly had Mrs Brodie said? She had claimed to be ambidextrous, but had not appeared to be so, with her throat-slitting gesture or when holding her mobile phone. And, surely, an educated woman like her would have known the word for it, if she was indeed ambidextrous? If she was determined to confess and wished to be believed, the safest answer to the question posed about whether she was left or right-handed would be the very one that she had given, and she was fly enough to know that, so her reply might mean nothing.
; What about her stated motive for confessing, the protection of her lover, Colin Paxton? Possible. But he had appeared to be telling the truth earlier, and a witness had seen him returning to his flat after their rendezvous. So, his involvement did not seem probable in any case. Anyway, could he not look after himself? He was articulate, competent, not someone easily confused. If he chose to do so, he was capable of shouting from the rooftops his innocence. She must know that.
But if she was not confessing to protect him, then who else could it be? And how, if she was not the murderer, did she know so much about the killing itself, about the disposal of the ‘stolen’ goods, the fact they had been dumped under the Dean Bridge and in the river, the fact of the overdose, the precise drugs used for it? Why had she phoned Harry, her son, expecting him to arrange things and to be the conduit for such shattering news to his sister and aunt? Was Ella not the competent, responsible one? The boy’s childhood reports suggested that he would buckle under pressure, be unable to cope with that sort of shattering news. And he had seemed hostile to his mother, unwilling even to kiss her. Thomas Riddell had noticed his coldness too, remarked on it. Why had she chosen him, him of all people, to be the first to receive such dreadful tidings, never mind expecting him to pass them on to the others?
Thinking of Thomas Riddell, a picture of his anguished face as he heard the news of Heather Brodie’s confession appeared before her, and she could hear his impassioned words ringing in her ears. Not very professional of him, she thought to herself primly.
And then, slowly, realisation dawned. That was the answer. Of course, he had not been professional, because his relationship with Heather Brodie went far, far beyond that. It was personal, possibly very personal. And he, obviously, like the rest of them, would know every single detail of the investigation, however obscure, however unlikely, and if he knew it, then so, too, might she. If she had asked him about it, then he, in his susceptible, over-enamoured state, might well have told her. Told her everything.
And that momentary hesitation when hearing about the insurance policy, the flicker of surprise, had been genuine. Because, as she had said, it was not her desk but her husband’s. The files had become increasingly disordered, not because she had lost interest in them, but because her accountant husband could no longer attend to them, with the disease getting its claws further and further into his flesh. So, she might not even have known about the policy.
But one question remained: who the hell was she protecting with her false confession? Who had actually killed Gavin Brodie? Suddenly, and from nowhere, Una Reid’s chilling question came into her head, her throaty, smoke-scarred voice sounding eerily triumphant: ‘Why’d I bring his suffering to an end?’
Only someone who loved him would do that. His children or his mother. And, immediately, the answer came to her. She had no doubts, that must be it. Heather Brodie had broken the news to her son, rather than her daughter, because it was intended not for onward transmission to the others, but to let him know that she had confessed, was now shielding him and protecting him from the consequences of his crime. And how would he react to such tidings? Jesus Christ. What a God-awful muddle!
When Alice finally reached the door of the basement flat in Raeburn Mews, it was ever so slightly ajar, and loud music could be heard inside. She knocked sharply, then called out, but got no response. With trepidation she pushed the door further open and slipped inside. Unaccompanied drum music was reverberating in the small space, played at a volume high enough to hurt the ears, making the boy’s flat feel like a mad house.
As she entered the sitting-room, the first person she saw was Harry Brodie. His thin torso was bare and he was holding a bread knife in his hand. He looked up as she came in, startled, and she noticed his knuckles blanch as he tightened his grip on the knife.
‘What on earth are you doing in here?’ he demanded.
‘The door was open. We need to see you.’
‘What?’ he shouted, then he turned down the volume on the nearby speaker. ‘What did you say?’
In the silence she repeated, ‘We need to see you.’
‘OK,’ he said, moving towards her, the knife still in his hand.
‘Could you put it down, Harry?’
‘You mean the knife… sorry, it’s just for the bread though – to cut the bread,’ he replied, putting it down on a breadboard on the low coffee table beside her. A loaf, together with a pot of jam and a packet of butter, was also on the board. He looked at her calmly, expectantly, waiting for her to explain herself.
‘Did you get a call from your mother?’
‘No – why?’
‘Sure about that? She said she was going to call you. I saw her do it.’
‘No. I could have missed it I suppose, I’ve been having a shower. Maybe she called then. What did she want to speak to me about?’
There was no easy way to break the news.
‘Because… she’s just walked into the station and confessed to the murder of your father.’
‘Fucking hell!’ the boy said, dropping onto a chair as if his legs had buckled under him.
‘You had no idea?’
‘Of course I had no fucking idea!’ he shouted, shaking his head. ‘No fucking idea. I knew she was planning to put him in a home. I knew she had found another man. I knew she didn’t love him… but, no, I didn’t know that. It never crossed my mind that she’d do that. Ella, for sure… but not Mum. She just didn’t care enough about him. All his pleading was just water off a duck’s back, I thought, and God knows, she wouldn’t have had long to wait. Not Mum, though…’
‘You talked about it – you, your mum and Ella? About taking your father’s life?’
‘Yes,’ he said angrily, ‘and don’t look so surprised. We talked about it, but not with Mum any more. It didn’t affect her, she’d somehow managed to stop “hearing” it. But Ella and I talked. Sometimes about very little else. Every time I saw him, every single time, he asked me to kill him. Ella too. Granny, probably, for all I know. Can you imagine that? I doubt it. But, yes, we talked about it. I think you’d find that anyone, anyone in that hellish position, would talk about it. And… think about it. Eat, bloody sleep and breathe it too. Jesus,’ he said, hiding his face in his hands.
‘Why would your mother phone you to arrange things… a lawyer, that kind of thing, not Ella?’
‘What d’you mean? Why wouldn’t she phone me? Maybe she rang Ella too, are you sure she didn’t?’ he paused before continuing. ‘Probably not, though, because I won’t crumble, but Ella will. She and Mum are really close, always have been. She’ll not be able to cope. Anything happens to Mum and she goes to pieces, can’t take it. It happened when we had a cancer scare, when Mum had a car crash too. Mum is Ella’s Achilles heel, you see, and Mum knows that better than anyone.’
As Alice stood watching the boy, the door slowly opened and Ella slipped in with the child, Katy, holding her hand. Her face was red, tears streaming down her cheeks. The stealthiness of her entrance suggested that she had been outside, listening to her brother’s words.
‘It can’t be true… not Mum,’ she said, looking first at Alice and then at her brother, waiting for either of them to deny it.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Alice said. ‘She came to the station and told us this morning.’
‘But… but why? I don’t believe she could do it. Mum couldn’t kill him. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it, even if she wanted to. I could, but not her. I even told Aunt Pippa that I was going to, and I meant it, I would have… if Dad was going to go into a home, and you said that he was, Harry, that he’d rot in there, it would be even worse for him… but Mum could never have killed him, any more than you, Harry.’
‘When – when did you tell her that?’
‘Who?’ the girl asked, her voice quavering.
‘Your aunt Pippa?’
‘On the Friday… before he died.’
‘What did she say?’ Alice asked.
‘She said not
to be silly, not to think about such a thing. She kept saying that I was a mother now, had Katy to look after. She said that I mustn’t worry, all would be well in the end.’
Pippa Mitchelson, Alice thought to herself. The one person left who had no alibi. And they had all known that and done nothing about it. Had somehow completely overlooked the timid spinster, seeing her only as a foil for the others.
‘Only for a few minutes,’ Thomas Riddell said, ‘otherwise I’ll be for the chop. I’m just letting you in to comfort Heather, nothing else. She needs somebody from her family. She was worried the boy might hurt himself when he got the news.’
‘I understand,’ Pippa said, ‘and thank you very much, Thomas.’
Once seated beside her sister in the interview room, Pippa Mitchelson put her arms around her, rocking her gently as she had done before, long, long ago in their childhood years. Then she had been the confident one, the big sister, able to put things right, to soothe the younger one, take away her troubles. Until, one day, their roles had been reversed, and she had found herself the comforted instead of the comforter. Her new role, that of the less-worldly one, the lonely, unfulfilled spinster, had not been chosen by her, and by the time she had become conscious of it, it was too late. It fitted too well, too snugly and she could not shake it off. With her long fingers she swept a strand of hair from her sister’s temple, rearranging it behind her ear and wiping away the tears that were glistening on her cheeks.
‘It’s alright, sweetheart, it’s alright. I’ve just heard. Don’t worry. Harry’s fine. The female Sergeant brought both the children here. Katy, too… Ella’s been speaking to that chief detective woman. But you needn’t worry any more. Harry didn’t do it.’
‘Thank God!’ Heather Brodie replied, sobbing unashamedly, ‘thank God.’
‘But what made you think that he had – that it was Harry?’
No Sorrow To Die Page 19
