No Sorrow To Die

by Gillian Galbraith

‘I didn’t… until yesterday,’ Heather Brodie answered, ‘but after those letters I knew. I thought he had finally listened to his father, put him out of his misery. He felt he owed it to him. That he couldn’t bear the thought of him in a home.’

  ‘What letters?’

  ‘The Genetic Counselling Service one, I found it on top of the hall table in his flat and I couldn’t resist taking a look. They wanted to counsel him about Huntingdon’s. He must have decided to have the test and heard he’s got it. It must have been positive.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, darling?’ Pippa said, squeezing her sister’s hand. ‘When Ella was tested – and she doesn’t have it, now does she? – she was called in. They call you in even if the result is negative.’

  ‘Always? Do they really?’ Heather asked, in a relieved tone.

  ‘Always. What was the other letter? The one from the Abbey Park Lodge?’

  ‘So, he still may not have Huntingdon’s?’

  ‘Yes, yes. But tell me about the letter.’

  ‘It was the one you handed to me at the flat, from Mrs Drayton, the manageress. Our initials are the same, mine and Harry’s. They’d put “Mr” before my initials, by mistake, so I thought it was for him and I forwarded it on to him in the flat. But it was meant for me. He must have learned from it that I was intending to put his father in there, into a home. I’d never discussed it with the children. I had to be the one to make the decision… I couldn’t involve them in something like that.’

  ‘I know. I knew you had taken that decision.’

  ‘How? Who told you?’

  ‘Ella, last week. Harry told her and she told me, you see. Anyway, you shouldn’t have worried,’ Pippa said, trying to reassure her again. ‘Harry and Ella were together the night when it all happened, you knew that. Remember?’

  ‘That’s what I thought at first. But after that phone call, I worked out that Ella had spent the evening, and the night, with Vicky, Harry’s girlfriend. That’s what I thought Vicky said.’

  ‘I don’t know what she said, but maybe you got it wrong.’

  ‘Maybe I did. I can’t remember her exact words any more. But if it wasn’t Harry, then who was it… God, not Ella – please, please God.’

  ‘No,’ Pippa said quietly, ‘not Ella, darling. Me.’

  ‘You?’

  Thomas Riddell pushed the door open and advanced quickly towards the sisters, finding them both now sitting bolt upright.

  ‘You’ll have to leave now, Miss Mitchelson,’ he said, looking at her anxiously and tapping her on the shoulder. ‘You’ll need to go into the other interview room. The Chief and Inspector Manson are both on their way, and they’ll be here in less than a minute.’

  Elaine Bell listened dumbfounded to her sergeant.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, but I am sure that it wasn’t Heather Brodie. And Pippa Mitchelson has no alibi.’

  ‘OK, but that only gets us so far. Why? Why would she kill her brother-in-law?’

  ‘Love, I think.’

  ‘She was in love with the man?’ the DCI interrupted, incredulous.

  ‘No. Ella. She loves Ella.’

  DI Manson came over to join them, shaking his head.

  ‘She doesn’t want one?’ Elaine Bell asked.

  ‘No, Ma’am. Says she doesn’t need a solicitor. Wants to get everything over now. Right now.’

  ‘Alright. Alice, you take the lead this time. I still don’t fully understand what’s been going on, but we can’t wait. Wouldn’t want her to change her mind. But be very, very careful. Do it completely by the book… everything. Nothing must go wrong.’

  Once they were all seated inside and the tape was running, Alice began, ‘Miss Mitchelson, would I be right in thinking that you were not with your sister on the Saturday night?’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman smiled bleakly, tenting her long fingers and pressing their red tips together, ‘you would be right.’

  ‘But you covered for her?’

  ‘That’s what she thought, and she was right, of course. I always cover for her. I knew whenever she was going out to meet Colin. She would tell the children that she was going to meet up with me, and obviously I’d tell them the same. I had to, didn’t I?’

  ‘You always knew when she would be out of the house… when she was with him, anyway?’

  ‘Shall we speed things up a bit, dear? Mr Riddell kindly collected me, but I would have come here myself. As soon as I’d heard about Heather’s foolish, selfless act I had to, really, didn’t I? So, shall I just tell you everything… would that be in order?’

  The DCI and Alice exchanged glances, and then Elaine Bell said, ‘Yes, you do that, please.’

  ‘Well… where shall I begin?’ the middle-aged spinster asked, shielding her tired eyes with her left hand, then answering her own question. ‘At the beginning, of course. On Friday last Ella told me… she said that Harry had discovered from a letter that their mother was going to put Gavin in a home. She was crying, almost hysterical at the thought. She said she couldn’t bear it. Katy was beside her, she couldn’t understand what was going on, so I put her on my knee as Ella talked and talked. She said that she was going to save her father, put him out of his misery like he wanted, like he kept asking her…’

  She stopped speaking, looking into the distance.

  ‘So?’ The DCI prompted.

  ‘Sorry. So I said not to worry. But I couldn’t let that happen could I? Ella’s a brave girl, a very unselfish girl, and she would have done it, you see. She has the courage to do it – to kill him. I knew she would…’ her voice tailed off, but she began again, a tear running now down her cheek.

  ‘I couldn’t let that happen. Ella has everything to live for. She’s young, beautiful. She’s got Katy to look after. Her whole life is in front of her. And, goodness me, Katy needs her mother, doesn’t she? Any child does… And what do I have to lose in comparison? No one needs me, you see. I had so much less to lose. I had to be the one. For Ella… Gavin too, in a way.’

  ‘So?’ The DCI repeated, mechanically.

  ‘So I did it… on the Saturday. I knew Heather was going to be out with Colin. I had my key. I waited for Una to go, and then I gave him a cocktail of two of his drugs and waited. While I was waiting, I lost my nerve. I thought perhaps they won’t work, perhaps the ones I chose were not strong enough. I couldn’t wait any longer.’

  Once more, she stopped speaking, staring straight ahead at the wall as if she was now alone in the room.

  ‘You couldn’t wait…’ Elaine Bell prompted.

  ‘So I cut his throat with a knife.’ She hesitated briefly, shuddering. ‘Blood went everywhere, a shower of blood all over me, all over everything. I wiped myself with my clothes and changed into some of Heather’s things, I only put them back in her bag today. I took some of their possessions from the flat so that you would think it was a robbery or something like that. I dumped my own clothes later.’

  ‘What did you do with the things you took?’

  ‘I threw them away by the Dean Bridge. Except the photo, I took it out of its frame… the one of Ella, that was beside his bed. I kept it in my bedroom drawer… but after I heard about Heather today I brought it with me. I can show you it now if you like?’

  The DCI nodded, and Pippa Mitchelson opened her handbag, removed an old-fashioned compact, a small hankie and her purse from it, and then a black and white print of her niece playing on the beach. Giving it a final lingering look, she handed it over.

  ‘It’s one of my favourites. She had such a wide smile, always happy. She was always happy… a carefree child.’

  ‘Mrs Brodie,’ the DCI began, ‘you’ll have got the news – that Harry’s fine, and that he didn’t do it. Sergeant Rice is talking to him now, then we’ll release him. You’re free to go too, of course. But there is one other thing that I’d like to ask you about.’

  ‘Yes,’ Heather Brodie said wearily, feeling drained of all life, her head still reeling from her s
ister’s revelation.

  ‘I have to ask you,’ the DCI began again, ‘did Thomas Riddell, our Liaison Officer – did he give you details of our investigation? Tell you about the overdose, for example, the type of drugs used, whether supposedly “stolen” stuff had been found, and if so its whereabouts and so on?’

  For a few moments Heather Brodie hesitated, aware that if she told the truth the kind auburn-haired policeman might lose his job, remembering how smitten with her he was, how sweet to her he had been right up until the last, and how she had used him. But then all the lies she had told came back to haunt her. Lies to Gavin, to Colin even, to Harry and Ella, the police… the list went on and on, and sometime it had to stop. So, without further thought, she nodded.

  When the DCI returned to her office, Eric Manson looked at her enquiringly from his seat by the window.

  ‘Yes,’ she said shortly, lowering herself heavily into her chair, ‘it was Thomas.’

  ‘Stupid bastard.’

  ‘He’s just offered his resignation.’

  ‘Good. So he should. And the aunt, do we know yet why she drugged the man and cut his throat?’

  ‘Lost her nerve, apparently, that’s what she said anyway. She wasn’t sure about the drugs, she wasn’t sure they’d be strong enough. She gave him most of the bottle, most of two bottles, in fact. She says he became unconscious quite quickly, but carried on breathing. She knew that Heather hoped to be away until the morning, but might not be. She panicked and used the knife. Once she’d done that, well, it could only be murder. So she took the stuff to draw our attention away, make us think just what we did think. At first anyway.’

  Elaine Bell sighed, resting her head on her hands, then adding, ‘I’ve seen it all… or I thought I had, Eric. But nothing like this in all my thirty years. And God alone knows how she’ll fare in prison… it’ll be like putting a sparrow amongst hawks.’

  She shook her head, then she added, ‘The poor bloody wretch.’

  ‘Brodie?’

  ‘No… well, yes, him too. But her, I really meant her. The whole lot of them, actually. Ever since the Mitchelson woman’s confession and speaking to the child, Ella, I’ve been thinking about it. If it was my dad, if he’d been like that, what would I do? Fucking irony, isn’t it? Keep a dumb animal alive in a state like that, and the RSPCA would be after you for not putting it down. But a person you know, asking to be put… asking for death? It’s an odd, upside-down world we live in.’

  ‘Aha. And ours is not to reason why,’ the Inspector replied.

  Her phone rang and she picked it up, mouthed ‘The Super’ and gestured for Manson to leave.

  ‘Now, Sir. If that suits you, yes, that’s fine by me,’ she said, trying to sound bright and energetic. ‘I’ll be along at Fettes in, say, twenty minutes.’

  Receiving her in his spacious office, the Superintendent looked confident, pleased with himself and, for the moment, with his subordinate too. With this case solved he would go out in a blaze of glory, whatever happened to her.

  ‘I gather you’ve wrapped it up?’ he said, pulling out a chair for her.

  ‘We have, Sir. The woman’s speaking to her lawyer now.’

  ‘A right Lady Macbeth I expect, eh? But it’s the appraisal you’re concerned about, I appreciate that. Of course, we can discuss it, although I have now, as far as I’m concerned, committed my views to paper in their final form. But I can spare you half an hour or so to go over it. Would that do? I’ll explain it, go through the basis for my firmly-held views, but my wife’s due to pick me up in about half an hour or so. We’ll have to stop when she arrives.’

  He leant back on his chair, linking his hands behind his great bull-neck, beaming at her, convinced already that she would eventually slink out of his lair, tail down, accepting defeat. On her knee she had the brown envelope containing all the evidence she had compiled to present to him, illustrating why she should be upgraded, documenting her successes, staff improvements, initiatives, skills, everything she could find to persuade him to tell the truth. The truth would do. If he would tell that, then she would have a chance, and a chance was all she needed. Because at interview she would shine. She knew it, but with this appraisal before them, no one would include her on the shortlist.

  ‘Just so I understand, Sir,’ she said slowly, ‘there’s no question of actually changing it, the appraisal – just “explaining” it?’

  He nodded complacently. After all, all the balls were in his court.

  ‘No change whatsoever?’

  ‘No change whatsoever, Elaine.’

  What the hell, she thought, I’ve nothing to lose. He had no scruples, so why should she hobble herself with them? And he would not know whether it was a bluff or not.

  ‘Did you enjoy your meal, Sir – the one in Claudio’s on Friday? I know I did. I’ll enjoy hearing your wife’s impression of the place. She certainly seemed to like it, to be enjoying herself. So, we’ve half an hour or so until she arrives, is that right? Unless, of course, we finish earlier.’

  For a second the Superintendant was speechless, working out the full import of her words. His complexion now puce, he said, stiffly, ‘Good food, certainly…’ He held out his hand for the envelope. ‘Perhaps… there might be something in there that would help me revise my opinion… a little.’

  ‘Well, that was a turn up for the books, eh?’ the solicitor said to DC Littlewood as they were walking away from the interview room.

  ‘How d’you mean?’ the constable asked, opening the corridor door for the solicitor’s portly figure and standing to one side to allow his bulk to pass through.

  ‘Her confession to killing Gavin Brodie. Jim Nicholl, from my firm, he was the duty solicitor, remember? Only a few days ago when you lot were busy charging our client, Norman Clerk, with exactly the same crime. To be dropped now, I gather.’

  ‘Oh, aye. And the cannabis, the assault and everything else, are they to be dropped too? I don’t think so,’ DC Littlewood said with grim satisfaction, remembering Alice’s bruised face, ‘so your “client” will be in Saughton for a wee whiley yet.’

  ‘Nope, you’re wrong there,’ the lawyer replied, lurching down the stairs and raising his voice to ensure it could be heard over the sound of his own heavy footsteps, ‘not anymore. He’s in the Royal now. He wasn’t taking his drugs, you see. He had a psychotic episode and attacked one of the prison officers. Anyway, Jim will have to tell him the good news – as soon as he’s safe to visit again.’

  Heather Brodie was standing in the reception area with her son and daughter beside her, all of them waiting patiently for the police lift they had been promised. But, catching sight of the lawyer, Heather rushed over to speak to him. Ella, lifting up her small child, followed behind her. Only Harry remained where he was.

  ‘Hello? I understand you’re looking after Pippa – my sister, Miss Mitchelson. She will be alright, won’t she?’

  ‘That’s correct, my firm will be representing her. Not me personally, for various reasons, but don’t you worry, we’ll do our best for her,’ the lawyer said, putting on his overcoat and straining to button it up.

  ‘But… she will be alright, won’t she? She won’t be kept in prison?’ Ella asked anxiously, her face blotchy, stained by tears, and the little girl in her arms distracting her by fingering her mouth.

  ‘Hard to say at this juncture,’ the man replied, glancing through the glass door at the rain hammering down and bouncing off the pavement in St Leonard’s Street, unfurling his umbrella in readiness for the dash to his car.

  ‘How d’you mean?’ the girl exclaimed. Her brother had joined the group and was now standing behind her.

  ‘Well, looking to the long term, we’ll have to see what the prosecution will accept, won’t we?’ he replied, distracted, having just noticed that two of the spokes of his umbrella were poking through the material. The twins must have been playing spaceships with it again, he would look like a down-and-out or some kind of comic tramp.

>   ‘But,’ Heather Brodie persisted, deliberately putting herself in front of him to stop him leaving, ‘everyone will appreciate that she didn’t do it for herself, won’t they? That it was a mercy-killing. So they’re bound to be lenient with her, aren’t they? She only did it because she had to do it. She’d nothing to gain from killing Gavin, everything to lose.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I’d quite go along with that… no, I can’t quite go along with that,’ he replied, impatient to leave, snapping the popper shut on his now-closed umbrella, having decided not to expose himself to ridicule by using it. This would be no legal-aid job, and the tattered mess would create quite the wrong impression. Better to accept a soaking.

  ‘Why not? It’s true!’ Harry said.

  ‘A mercy killing? No, that’s not what she described to me, or the police, I gather. She said that she did it for Ella – not really for Mr Brodie.’

  ‘So?’ the boy demanded, unable to conceal his frustration.

  ‘Well, that was her fatal mistake – purely from a legal perspective, you understand. You see, if Ella had done it for her father, killed him as he had begged her to, that clearly would have been a mercy-killing, a culp. hom., the Crown would likely accept a plea to culpable homicide and she would have got…’ he paused, thought briefly and then continued, ‘well, who knows? Maybe even probation if she was lucky. But this? This is quite a different kettle of fish.’

  ‘So what is it then, if not a mercy-killing?’

  ‘I’ll have to speak to Senior Counsel, obviously, but it looks much more like murder to me.’

  Driving home that evening, Eric Manson put on Classic FM, and found himself bathed in the haunting sound of Albinoni’s ‘Adagio for Strings’, the solemn and moving music a strangely fitting accompaniment to his mournful frame of mind. It was true, they had solved their case, but he could not celebrate that. Not that bloody catastrophe, no. No nips or pints for him in the pub this evening, no banter, no knees-up for having cracked this one.

  Feeling his eyes becoming hot, tears prickling at their edges, he shook his head violently from side to side as if such a movement might shake away his grief, then turned the radio off, forcing himself to concentrate on the road ahead. It must have been the sad music, and he must be over-tired too, that explained it. Or maybe, he was getting a cold from that sickly baby sneezing all over him. Anyway, nothing like a bout of righteous anger to drive the blues away, he decided, egging himself on by thinking about all the hours that they had spent on the Brodie woman’s lies, not to mention her fancy-man’s contributions. Wasting all their precious time and muddying the waters terribly. But that poor teacher, that poor bloody woman. Unworldly, a holy fool. In some ways too good for her own bloody good. Too good for her adulterous sister, for sure.