Dying of the Light (24 page)

Having been sent to Julie Neilson’s home by her
tight-lipped
boss, the first thing that struck Alice on entering it was how unnaturally neat and tidy it all was. The common stair leading up to it was dark and dismal, with two light bulbs broken and the other in a terminal state, flickering uncertainly and making a strange clicking sound.
Graffiti
adorned the hallway’s chocolate-coloured walls, and flakes of peeling paint hung off them like bark on a dying tree. The landings had been sticky, never a good sign, and the stairs leading to them were as unswept as her own.

In contrast to the communal squalor, the flat at number 35 shone like a beacon of domestic pride. All the
furniture
inside it gleamed as if newly polished, and a spotless cream carpet covered every inch of floor space. Three pairs of shoes, two of them tiny, lay neatly beside the door, and on noticing Julie Neilson’s unshod feet, Alice removed her own. The woman herself looked exhausted, drawn and pale, with long features and a down-turned mouth. As soon as Alice sat down, she rose from her chair and, apparently unaware of what she was doing, started plumping up the cushions that she had just crumpled.

‘I know you’ve already spoken to the Sergeant on the telephone,’ Alice began, uncomfortable to find herself seated and her hostess standing, ‘but we need, if possible, the best description you can give of the man that Muriel went off with last night.’

Julie Neilson nodded, her attention now turned to the curtains, which, although they would have appeared perfect to most onlookers, evidently required some kind of fine adjustment.

‘Aha. Ah cannae say much, hen, though. Ah’d
some-wan
wi’ me, so Ah wisnae payin’ that much attention tae her fella. Aw Ah can say wis that he wis big, ken, a big strappin’ lad.’

‘Over six foot?’

‘Aye, a wee bit.’

‘And his figure?’

‘Aha… well built, ken.’

A huge plasma screen in the corner of the room
evidently
needed to be polished again and Julie Neilson had begun to rub it with a duster, becoming completely absorbed in the task. As she worked, her sleeves fell away from her forearms exposing their underside, and
revealing
strange textured skin like that of some kind of reptile. The whole area from wrist to elbow was covered in
horizontal
scars, each touching the other without a millimetre of undamaged flesh between them.

‘And his face, his clothes – can you tell me anything about either of those?’ Alice asked, unable to take her eyes off the pitiful spectacle.

‘Never seen his face… tae far awa’ fer that, an’ his claithes were normal, like, a big waterproof jacket, grey mebbe, an’ he wis wearin’ a hat an’ a’.’

‘What kind of hat?’

‘Eh… wan like what the cowboys wear. A… a… a…’ She hesitated, trying to think of the word.

‘Stetson?’

‘Aye, a Stetson… wi’ a broad brim.’

For a few seconds, the woman sat down again next to Alice, indicating with her hands the width of the brim, until her attention was caught by a small pile of magazines on a low table which, plainly, she considered disordered. Instantly, she rose again to remedy the imperfection.

‘Did you hear the fellow’s voice at all?’

‘No, he wis tae far awa’… an’ the wind wis roarin’ an everythin’.’

Having tidied the offending magazines, the woman returned to Alice and stood in front of her, looking down anxiously into her face. She asked, ‘D’ye think she’ll be a’ right?’

No, Alice thought, but said, ‘She may well be fine, and we’ll find her. Has this ever happened before, Muriel
failing
to call you, I mean? You know, having forgotten to phone or something like that?’

‘Naw,’ the woman shook her head. ‘She’s like clockwork, ken, that’s why Ah paired up wi’ her. She’s completely reliable – she aye calls.’

Tam McNeice looked up from his drink, saw the
policeman
marching towards him, put his hand into his crisp packet and took out some crisps. The heads of a couple of drinkers turned towards him, curious, aware that some kind of scene might ensue and unwilling to miss it. One of them raised a glass to him and gave him a cheery wink.

‘That was a pack of lies you told me, McNeice,’ Inspector Manson said, now standing opposite the man,
out of breath and red in the face from recent exertion. ‘I’ve spoken to your neighbours, and they all say they never saw you on the twelfth, that there was no party at your flat.’

‘Naw… Ye dinnae say,’ McNeice replied, putting a couple of crisps into his mouth.

‘Yes, I do fucking say. So where the hell were you?’

‘I thought ye might be back. Been wasting yer time, eh, ploddin’ up an’ doon the stairs an’ all, jist when ye’d hae better things tae dae?’

‘Aha. But I’ll not be wasting any more of it here, I’ll just take you off to the station this minute, you wee bastard.’

Coolly taking a sip of his beer, McNeice replied, ‘Then ye’ll get promotion, eh? Takin’ in the Leith Killer…’ and he raised his hands and clawed them like a grizzly bear, a big smirk on his face, ‘all by yersel’, an’ a’.’

Conscious suddenly that everyone in the pub now seemed to be listening to their exchange, some of them gathering round for ringside seats, Eric Manson asked, in a slightly more conciliatory tone, ‘Just tell me where you were on the night of the twelfth, eh?’

‘Well, big fellow… luckily, it’s a’ comin’ back tae me the noo. I wis havin’ ma time wasted by yous people. The twelfth is ma birthday, like I says, an’ I wis to be havin’ a pairty in ma hoose, but I got merry that little bit early, in the morn, an’ you know what? Some soddin’ polisman took me down tae the cells in Portobello. So there was no pairty like what I had planned, an’ I wasted ma time in the pokey. Sorry aboot that, ma memory’s nae whit it wis. If ye’ve any puff left, go tae the polis office doon the street and they’ll tell ye that. Spent a’ day an’ a’ night there. And whit’s mair, ye can believe them, eh?’

Driving to the Seafield cemetery to assist DC Littlewood in searching the place, Alice cursed her own carelessness. In her haste to leave the flat, following the DCI’s call, she had forgotten to pick up her coat and could see it, in her mind’s eye, still hanging on its hook in the hall. She turned, briefly, to check the back seat in case she had made a mistake and saw on it Simon Oakley’s oversized anorak. It would have to do, she thought, and it would be considerably warmer than her own coat. He would not mind.

As she pushed open the car door, a shower of hail appeared from nowhere, and after waiting a couple of minutes in the hope that it would stop, she put on the large padded jacket. She quickly zipped it up before
taking
the plunge into the cold, hostile air. In the far distance she could just make out her colleague, looking
methodically
from side to side as he patrolled, shoulders hunched against the cold, hailstones ricocheting off his head and shoulders. She set off, trudging between the first row of gravestones, alert to anything and everything, and
followed
the line of stones towards the boundary wall. After five minutes she reached the path at the northern end and turned back, into the wind, to march down a parallel row. Half way along the second corridor, one of the memorials caught her eye.

The stone had been carved from black granite, gold lettering naming the deceased, and in its shadow was a strange little shrine. Within a glass case were two teddy bears, each leaning against an arm of a crucified Christ, their paws clasping a miniature bottle of scotch to their fat little bellies. While she was standing in front of them, wondering at their oddity and curious about the
individual
commemorated, she noticed a collecting box with
‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ printed on it. Without thought she put her hand into her coat pocket in search of any loose change, her fingers scrabbling around to find any coins, but found, instead, a small, irregular-shaped item together with something circular. Head bowed to protect her face from the hailstones, she examined the objects in the dull morning light. One was a yellow smiley badge with an oversized pin as a catch, and the other was a small gold crucifix. The sight of it frightened her.

As the cross still rested in her palm, DC Littlewood’s voice rang out from near the crematorium, carrying faintly over the noise of the gale now rising around them.

‘I’ve finished my area, Sarge, and there’s nothing here. Have you found anything yet?’

‘No,’ she bellowed back, still thinking, twiddling the cross between her fingers and finding it hard to tear her attention from it. Eventually she made up her mind, and added, ‘I’ve got one other thing to check over, Tom, then I’ll come and join you.’

The exact spot where Isobel Wilson’s body had been
discovered
was not hard to locate. Countless feet had trodden a path to it, and a couple of bunches of roses, their blooms now brown and shrivelled and the wrapping paper in
tatters
, lay where the woman had rested. Without a covering of snow to simplify everything, the large, burial ground looked shabbier and smaller than before, but the
overgrown
bed in which the body had been hidden remained distinctive, a bedraggled, wind-lashed mess in amongst the stillness of the manicured lawns. Instinctively, Alice began to walk through it, hurrying in the cold and feeling the rough grass brushing against her legs again,
receiving 
an occasional jab from some wood-stemmed weed or dying nettle, but seeing and feeling no brambles. Twice more she forced herself to walk through the bed, vigilant for their looped barbs or any other prickly vegetation, but found nothing capable of inflicting a cut or scratch on anyone. And she was not wearing trousers.

‘Alice… Alice!’ It was DC Littlewood again, his voice louder than before, desperate to be heard above the roar of the wind.

‘Yes? Hang on a sec, I’m just coming.’

‘That was the boss on the phone. They’ve found her. A uniform’s with the body. It’s past the turn-off to Fillyside Road, on waste ground at the end of the prom. We’re to set off there this minute.’