Dying of the Light (9 page)

Alice did not like mints, but she watched with
interest
as he chewed them up methodically, then helped himself to another three, never offering one. And it seemed to her that some fundamental rule of hospitality or, perhaps, comradeship was being broken. After all, he did not know that she would have refused one had it been offered. He appeared, in his confectionary-
crunching
, simply unaware of her presence. Or, and worse yet, careless of it despite their proximity, like a stranger in a railway carriage. Alistair would not have done that, he would have offered her his last crisp, but then, they were friends. Unless it was cheese and onion, of course, or salt and vinegar or… She must try to get to know her new colleague.

‘Simon,’ she began, ‘who d’you think killed Isobel Wilson?’

‘Er…’ he swallowed his mouthful, ‘like a p… p… polo, Alice?’ Then he corrected himself, ‘No, no, of course, you don’t like mints.’

‘Quite right, but how on earth do you know that?’ she asked, disconcerted by his remark, blushing at the thought of her hasty judgement.

‘I don’t, really, but you did turn down the
peppermints
that Ruth was distributing in the office after the meeting.’

‘Well, thanks for the offer. Anyway, what do you think?’ An unusually observant colleague.

‘A disgruntled punter, maybe?’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps, someone who needed her
services
but was r… r… revolted by his own need? Well, that it should be met in such a way? It would f… fit with the likely time of death Doctor Zenabi gave us. Some time between about 9.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m. That would be office hours for her.’

‘And a punter who just happened to be carrying a knife?’

‘Possibly. A gangland type? Or maybe a married man lured of the s… s… straight and narrow by one of them?’

‘Like a hungry, obese person is lured off the straight and narrow by a chocolate gateau, cake-slice at the ready, you mean?’

They turned right onto a short drive, leading from
Claremont
Park to ‘Jordan’, a grand villa built of red sandstone and with an immaculate Jaguar parked on its gravel sweep. Bill Keane led them into his drawing-room, coffee already laid out on a tray for visitors, and stood with his back to a flame-effect gas fire, warming his
mustard-coloured
corduroys on the faint heat it provided. If the Wilson killing did not focus police attention on the
residents’
clean-up campaign, then nothing would. That was surely the silver lining from that particular cloud.

‘Yes,’ he said, handing back the photograph of Isobel Wilson to Alice, ‘I’ve come across her. I know most of them by sight, although not by name, you’ll appreciate. She always wears a baseball cap, usually hangs about with another girl.’

‘Did you see her on Tuesday night?’ Alice asked.

‘No. We went out, straight after work, and had an early supper in the Grassmarket and then walked on to a concert at the Festival Theatre.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘I can’t be sure, I’d guess maybe half eleven or later. After the performance we went on to the Dome for a drink.’

The door opened and a solid, middle-aged woman, spectacles suspended on a chain and bouncing off her pneumatic bosom as she walked, marched into the room bearing a large plate covered in shortbread pieces. Don’t take one, Alice willed Simon, looking at her own empty coffee cup and watching him drain the dregs from his own. She knew a trap when she saw one.

‘Yes, do take more than one, constable,’ Audrey Keane said acidly, watching with a fixed smile as the sergeant removed the two largest slabs, resting one on his saucer and starting to eat the other immediately, releasing
showers
of sugar to fall onto the deep pile of the beige carpet.

‘Since I have you here, officers,’ Mrs Keane said, ‘I’ll just take advantage of your visit to fill you in with what we have to put up with,’ and she smiled at her husband, who blinked at her on cue.

‘Yesterday, once more, I found two used condoms on our own little lawn, and I heard that Mrs Keir, at number thirteen, had the unpleasant experience of interrupting a fornicating couple at the bottom of her stair. Two days ago
I myself, believe it or not, was accosted by a kerb-crawler who was abusive, obscene actually, when I put him right. Oh yes, and when I went onto the West Links on
Thursday
with my grand-daughter, Katie, I stopped her, in the very nick of time I might add, from picking up a used hypodermic syringe. I am, I have to admit, almost at the stage of thinking that one less – one less streetwalker, I mean – would be a good thing!’

DS Oakley, mouth still filled with shortbread, nodded as if sympathetically, and Mrs Keane, spurred on,
continued
to address her captive audience.

‘As for S.P.E.A.R., don’t get me started! The van attracts them, you know, like flies to… well, waste. If it parked somewhere else I’d bet my bottom dollar they would follow it and go somewhere else too. And we’ll have no more “tolerance” zones, thank you very much. All very well to impose them when it involves other
people’s
toleration rather than your own. Perhaps, they could be “tolerated” in the vicinity of Holyrood, somewhere by the new Parliament building. Save the MSPs a journey!’

‘Audrey!’ Bill Keane said, in a shocked tone.

‘Well,’ his wife continued, unabashed, ‘despite your valiant efforts, sweetheart, and I mean that, valiant efforts, the “problem” has not been solved. And for as long as it continues, Katie, and all the other small children we know, are at risk of jabbing themselves with needles, catching Aids and so on. And these constables need to understand how we feel…’

I understand only too well, Alice thought,
unconsciously
stroking the miniscule scab on her palm. And Ellen Barbour’s account of her career, with its high-living and free choices, seemed a million miles from the grubby world of prostitution on display in the dark, unsavoury
crevices of the City. Places where the meter ran not by the hour but by the minute, and warm flesh could be bought for the price of a Chinese meal for two.

‘To get the full picture of what we have to bear, they should really speak to Guy, shouldn’t they, darling?’ Audrey Keane said, belatedly offering the shortbread to her husband.

‘Guy?’ Alice asked.

‘Guy Bayley, the head of our group. Our founder, in fact,’ Bill Keane replied, ignoring his wife’s outstretched arm and smoothing both his winged eyebrows with his fingertips, checking his reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece as he did so.

Talman Secondary gave the impression that it had been formed by the occurrence of an earthquake at a trailer park. Portakabins had been attached to each other at unexpected angles, creating asymmetrical E or T shapes, some ornamented by tired graffiti, and the tarmac on which they rested had wide fissures, like the edges of tectonic plates They had an unsettled, temporary
appearance
as if their unfortunate inhabitants might be awaiting the clearance of the site followed by the construction of permanent school buildings.

The headmistress, a flustered Asian lady with ebony hollows below her tired eyes, directed them briskly towards the staff room, assuring them that Mr Christie would be in there and that they would not be disturbed before three o’clock. Knocking on the flimsy door, they entered to find an elderly man sitting gazing at a couple of lethargic goldfish in an aquarium, a rolled-up newspaper sticking out from his jacket pocket.

When he stood up, Alice was surprised to see how small he was, such height as he had being in his spine rather than his legs. From her own six-foot vantage point she found that she towered over him, overlooking the extensive bald patch on the crown of his head which was in a perfect pear-shape.

Until he was shown the photograph in the S.P.E.A.R. leaflet, Eddie Christie played dumb, firmly refuting any suggestion that he might have used prostitutes in
Edinburgh
or anywhere else. When confronted by his own picture, he stared hard at it as if in disbelief, and then a faint smile flitted across his lined features and was gone.

‘OK, sergeants, how can I help you?’

‘Our enquiry,’ Alice said, ‘is concerned with the death of Isobel Wilson, a prostitute working in the Leith area’.

‘And?’

‘We understand that you knew her?’

‘No, no, not… I don’t think so…’

‘It may s… s… save time,’ Simon Oakley interrupted, ‘for all of us, if we tell you that S.P.E.A.R., who produced the leaflet, informed us that the photo you are looking at was taken on Ms Wilson’s phone, and that she reported you to the centre shortly after you had b… b… beaten her up.’ He rested his heavy buttocks on the edge of a table and crossed his arms, glaring at the man, an
expression
of impatience on his face.

‘Well, I don’t accept any of that, obviously, but now you mention it she does seem familiar.’

‘You knew her?’ Alice asked.

‘“Know” might be putting it a bit strongly, other than in the bibli –’

‘Fine. You were acq… acq… acq… ac…’ Simon
Oakley
stammered uncontrollably, then shook his head in
frustration and tried again. ‘You had m… m… met her before the occasion on which you hit her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell us where you were between, say, 5.00 p.m. and 10.00 p.m. on Tuesday night?’ he continued.

‘Last Tuesday?’

The policeman nodded.

‘Easy. With my wife at home, marking homework.’

‘And your wife’s name, and address?’

‘Rona Christie. We live at number five Rintoul Drive.’

‘We’ve got Isobel Wilson’s phone. The one she took the photo of you with. We’ll get the date off it. Why did you h… h… hit her on that occasion?’

‘You really want to know?’

Simon and Alice looked at each other in disbelief before answering ‘yes’, simultaneously.

‘Because she called me “Crocker”.’

‘So?’ Alice asked.

‘It’s part of a school chant, chanted by my pupils. Or, in this case, ex-pupil. “Who’s oaf his rocker, Crocker, Crocker…Crocker Christie!”’

‘She was an ex-pupil of yours?’

‘So I discovered.’

DI Eric Manson handed Alice the pathologist’s report and she leafed through it quickly, learning a few facts of which she would rather have remained in ignorance, including that the woman had been five months pregnant when she died. The stab wound to her chest had damaged the left ventricle, completely severing the left anterior descending coronary artery and perforating her left lung. The cause of death was given as a stab wound, haemothorax, external blood loss and haemopericardium.

‘Has the knife turned up yet?’ she asked Manson, folding the pages and filing them temporarily under a coffee mug.

‘Nope. The dogs have been all over the place and
uniforms
have hoovered the entire area, but nothing’s shown up so far, doll.’

‘Simon told me yesterday that an approximate time of death’s been given?’

‘Yeah, well… Professor McConnachie’s never
prepared
to commit himself, obviously, but the boss kept on pressurising him, and sometime between about 9.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m. Tuesday ninth is the best they can do.’

‘And no sign, from the swab or anything else, of recent sexual activity?’

‘Condoms, dear. One of the tools of her trade, I hear.’

‘I was thinking more of the combings and so on.
Anything
else happen while I’ve been away, sir?’

He opened his eyes unnaturally wide, and nodded his head vigorously. ‘I thought you’d never ask’, he sighed.

The usual game to be endured. And the quicker it was begun the quicker it would end.

‘Well, I’m asking now, sir.’

‘We’ve got a match from a bloodstain, with the DNA, I mean. And the shit may well soon hit the fan so I’d duck if I was –’.

On Elaine Bell’s unheralded entry into the murder suite he fell silent, watching his superior like everyone else as she patrolled the room, eyes raking the place, clearly in search of something. Approaching Alice’s desk she swept up the blue-and-white-striped mug, breathing a sigh of annoyance as she did so.

‘Bloody cleaners! Rearranging everything,’ she said through gritted teeth. Alice smiled an answer,
uncomfortably
aware that she was now in close proximity to a hornet, its angry buzz warning that it was liable to sting at any moment. Keep still. Say nothing and it will fly past, she thought, trying to maintain her now fixed smile.

‘And don’t let it happen again, Alice!’ the Chief
Inspector
spat.

Perhaps she should just shake her head in apparent remorse and remain silent, play safe and avoid any more unwelcome attention, thought Alice. On the other hand, she had no idea what it was that she was not to let happen again, so it might. At any moment. Was she an accessory to mug theft, perhaps?

‘Or you, Simon!’

The DCI’s attention, though not her physical
presence
, had shifted on to her other sergeant. Unfortunately
for him, he was not familiar with the finer points of the Elaine Bell’s body language and blundered in, a sweet still in his mouth.

‘Sorry, ma’am. I’m not sure what you are t… t…
talking
about?’ he asked nervously, cheek swollen with his humbug.

Instantly, she whirled round to face him.

‘Contamination, DS Oakley, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s thoroughly unprofessional, I’m sure you’d agree. The single hair from DS Rice was bad enough, but your blood… God save us all! Fortunately, being present when the body was found, seeing the scene myself, I got the lab to check the elimination database and, fortunately once more, you’re both on it, but we would have looked complete arses otherwise!’

‘It must have been the b… b… brambles,’ DS Oakley stuttered ‘I was c… c… cut to shreds.’ He looked to Alice for support, and glancing up momentarily at their
superior
, she nodded her head in agreement.

‘Brambles, alopecia… I don’t care what caused it, but it is not, I repeat not, to happen again. Is that understood?’

The two reprimanded officers nodded again and the Chief Inspector, venom now drawn, bustled out of the room, blue-and-white mug quite forgotten.

‘If only you’d listened, Alice…’ Eric Manson said, with phoney regret.

‘Was that all? The only traces being mine and Simon’s?’ Best ignore his jibes.

‘No, there’s another two, one from blood and the other semen, both less good than those of Simon the Pieman and his dancing bear, but they managed to get a match for one of them at least. The blood. You and I are off to see Mr Francis McPhail of Jerez Street this very evening.
They got his DNA in 2005 for drink-driving, and he’s the match.’

When she did not immediately rise from her chair to follow him, he said, ‘Come on, Bruno. Time to perform!’

A woman was on her knees scrubbing the stone landing outside McPhail’s flat, her ample rump waggling slowly in the doorway, following the rhythm of her outstretched arms. Her bucket blocked their way up the stairs.

‘We’re looking for Mr McPhail?’ the Inspector said loudly, ensuring that he could be heard above the din of the cleaning.

‘He’s away at the church,’ she replied, hardly looking up.

‘Which church?’ Alice asked.

‘St Aloysius, further down the road. Obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ whispered the Inspector as they retraced their steps down the stone stairway to the street below.

The exterior of the church was vast but completely plain. No more than a rectangular, red-brick box with shallow slits for windows, each one positioned a few feet below the stark horizontal created by the flat roof. A structure so simplified and bereft of ornamentation as to fill any onlooker not with awe or wonder but instead with a kind of desperate depression; that humanity could waste time, money and energy in constructing anything so dull and mundane. Ambitionless. A piece of architecture either consciously subverting centuries of tradition, churches built to uplift the faithful and glorify God, or dictated by the excessive penny-pinching of a dying faith.

Passing through flimsy, oak-effect doors, they entered a well-lit nave, its white-painted surfaces bedecked with brightly coloured tapestries, each embroidered with a fish, a lamb or a lily, as if depicted by a child. Facing them, behind the altar, a massive stone crucifix was attached to the wall, a relief of the crucified Christ carved on it and the whole sculpture lit by a raft of concealed spotlights. A circlet of barbed wire adorned Christ’s head and his eyes looked upwards seeking deliverance.

As Alice and her companion processed towards the only occupied pews, those next to the altar step, the Inspector whispered, ‘What’s the awful pong, Yogi?’

But he had misjudged how his voice would carry, and his last words echoed around the space – ‘Yogi… Yogi… Yogi…’

‘Stale incense, sir,’ Alice replied, her voice hardly audible, fearful that her words, too, would be magnified as his had been. Arriving at the step, they automatically separated, taking a side each as if they had discussed the matter beforehand. Alice’s gentle tap on the white-haired man’s shoulder made him start with surprise, dropping the rosary he had been fingering to clatter onto the floor below.

‘Very sorry to disturb you, sir,’ Alice began, ‘but you’re not Mr McPhail, I suppose?’

‘No.’ The impropriety of the question, in such a place, was communicated forcefully to her by his stern
expression
. The next man along, eyes clamped shut in prayer, shook his head impatiently in answer to her query, and the third one in the row did the same, her voice having carried to him. Defeated, she manoeuvred her way back through the empty pew to find the Inspector waiting for her.

‘Any luck?’ he mumbled under his breath.

‘No.’

‘Me neither. The bastard must have gone.’

While they were still engaged in a whispered
discussion
, an elderly woman joined them and asked in a broad Irish accent, ‘Would it be Father McPhail, now, that you’re after?’

‘It might well be,’ the Inspector replied, smiling politely, and unconsciously adopting her brogue. ‘And where would we find him?’

‘Well, you’ll have to wait your turn like everyone else… he’s taking confessions at the minute. I’m number eight, so you’ll be numbers nine and ten. Keep your eyes skinned, mind, or other bodies after you in the queue will nip in before you and take your place.’

Sitting on the hard bench, Alice watched as Eric Manson, passing the time in between bouts of
fidgeting
, methodically hunted down any smut available in the
Good News Bible
, from Susanna and the Elders to Onan and his seed. Each one was discovered in seconds, a
testament
to the boredom of his own churchgoing years and a retentive memory. She knew them all, of course, and a few more besides; too many masses, benedictions and complines to fill and too little reading material.

After over an hour had limped by, the elderly woman emerged from the side-chapel followed by the priest in his white surplice and purple robe. He beckoned Alice, as if to signal that her turn had arrived, and she rose together with the Inspector.

‘Father McPhail… Father Francis McPhail?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

The dumpy figure seemed untroubled by their approach, as if used to dealing with pairs, handling inseparable couples. Despite his small stature, he had a magisterial
air; they were in Christ’s house perhaps, but he was their earthly host. His strange, deep-set eyes looked out at them with an enquiring expression from beneath arched eyebrows. The eyeballs seemed to have no white, vast brown pupils taking up all the space, more like a
chimpanzee’s
than a man’s.

‘I am DI Manson of Lothian and Borders Police,’ the inspector began, and then hesitated, grimacing on
hearing
his last words returning to him, before continuing softly, ‘and I’d be grateful if you would be good enough to help us with our enquiries at the station, at St. Leonards Street.’

Francis McPhail looked astonished at the request, disbelief gradually becoming apparent on his face, but he quickly recovered his composure and said sternly, ‘Of course I’ll help you, officer, but first of all I must finish taking confession. Two of my parishioners have still to be seen, and if it’s all right with you, I’d like to see to them before accompanying you to the police office.’ So, for another forty minutes, the police officers waited in the unheated church, their breaths becoming visible, legs and arms crossed in an attempt to maintain their body heat until, to their relief, the priest emerged from the sacristy, clad now in black jacket and trousers.

The removal of the suspect from his own surroundings had been DCI Elaine Bell’s idea, but he remained
ostensibly
at ease, comfortable in himself and with the world around him, despite the alien environment. Alice glanced at her watch. Nine p.m. already.

‘Good of you to assist us, sir… er… Reverend, sorry… Father,’ Elaine Bell began, unusually courteous, seemingly
thrown by the man’s dog-collar. In reply, he nodded affably, looking straight at her, his dark eyes shining, unashamedly curious to discover why he had been summoned.

‘Well, can you tell me where you were on Tuesday the ninth of January, between the hours of, say, 8.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m.?’