‘So how did you get in?’
‘Back door: there’s a path three doors up that takes you there. When I got no reply to the bell, I thought he might be sitting out in the back garden. We did that sometimes. But he wasn’t. The kitchen door was open. I went inside and I found him. . like that.’
‘Did you touch anything?’
‘No. I stepped into the hall, though; just in case he was still alive. But then I felt the carpet all sticky with his blood and I realised he couldn’t be. I lost it a bit and I just ran straight out the front door. I nearly peed myself. I couldn’t go back inside, so I squatted down between the two cars and did it there.’ McGurk glanced to his right and saw a damp line leading from the driveway across the pavement to a roadside drain. ‘When I could get my breath back properly, I found your card and rang you on my mobile.’
‘He’s been dead for quite some time,’ Stallings told her. ‘I’m going to ask you this informally; one way or the other I have to. Have you been here before in the last twenty-four hours?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I’ve just asked you.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Grey protested.
‘If you have. . We’ve had cars doing regular drive-bys of this place. If you have, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll have been seen by one of them, if not by some of the neighbours.’
‘Ma’am, you can ask me informally, formally, any way you like. You can give me a fucking lie detector. I’ll tell you the same thing every time. I haven’t been here since last weekend. That was the last time I saw Theo.’
‘Very good,’ said the inspector. ‘Let’s leave it for now, but you’ll need to give us it formally for the record.’
‘Of course,’ said the constable, beginning to recover her self-control. ‘Can I do it soon? I’m on night shift.’
McGurk smiled. ‘We can get you the night off, Mae.’
‘So I can spend it staring at the ceiling and thinking about that in there? Thanks, Sarge, but I’d rather work.’
‘Okay. Look, you know what to do. Give us a statement: type it up, print it and sign it. If we need to interview you after we’ve seen that, we’ll get in touch. On that basis, you can go for now. You’ll need to leave us your shoes, though.’
‘But I told you exactly what happened. Do you still not believe me?’
‘It’s not that. They might have picked up something other than Theo’s blood, a trace left by whoever did for him.’
‘Yes, I see.’ She opened her car door, sat in the passenger seat and removed her shoes, then handed them to McGurk, who took them carefully from her, suspending them from a single finger on each hand.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘On your way.’
The detectives watched her as she reversed out into South Bughtlin Road and drove off, slowly and carefully, past an ever-growing number of neighbours who had emerged from their homes, realising that something was happening beyond the Sunday norm.
‘I hope I was right to do that,’ McGurk murmured.
‘It was my decision as much as yours. I’d have said if I disagreed. She’s given us her story, now she’s best off out of it. She’s not on my list of suspects.’
‘So who is?’
‘Who isn’t? Anybody who ever met that charmer in there. Realistically, John Dean’s got to be at the top, though.’
‘Agreed, because he and Weekes had a fight yesterday.’
‘And because he told me that he wanted to see him dead, when I spoke to him afterwards.’
‘He said that?’
Stallings nodded.
‘And then came right back and did it?’ McGurk queried. ‘How likely is that?’
‘Confession first, crime second? I wouldn’t rule it out. Maybe he felt it was something he had to do.’
‘And maybe not. If that was the case, wouldn’t he have called us as soon as he did it?’
‘If it’s not him, we have to move on to Lisanne.’
‘Lisanne didn’t do it.’
‘I’d expect you to say that; you’re seeing her socially. You realise that means you can’t have anything to do with any part of the investigation that involves her?’
‘Sure, boss, but how long’s he been dead?’
‘He’s cold and he’s stiff. Several hours. Maybe since yesterday.’
‘Then I repeat, Lisanne didn’t do it. I didn’t just drop her off on Friday: I stayed the night, and I was there all morning. About midday, she drove me to my place. I changed clothes and we went to the Botanics for the afternoon, then did an early movie and back to mine. We were there until this afternoon, when I came into the office to meet you and she went home.’
‘Lucky for her you were available and horny.’
McGurk shot her an uncharacteristically hostile look. ‘If you doubt me, you can send a SOCO to my place to go over the sheets.’
‘Hey, calm down, Jack. That’ll only happen if they find her DNA in the house.’
‘They probably wilclass="underline" she’s been there a couple of times, remember. If they find her prints in blood on the handle of a knife, that’s another matter, but they won’t.’
‘Fair enough,’ Stallings declared. ‘Whatever, I’m the one who breaks the news to her, once we’re set up here. Is the mobile police station on its way?’
‘Yes. I’m beginning to think we should put bunks in it.’ As he spoke, a blue people-carrier swung into South Bughtlin Road and headed towards them. ‘That looks like DI Dorward and his team.’
‘Good. I was beginning to feel lonely. We should get organised ourselves. Door-to-door interviews first.’ She looked at the houses on either side of the one in which the body lay. ‘Unless things have changed since yesterday, these are unoccupied.’
‘I’d guessed as much,’ McGurk agreed. ‘Since we’ve been here there hasn’t been as much as a twitching curtain either side. I don’t imagine that Weekes died quietly. If they’d been occupied, somebody would have been bound to hear something.’ He looked along the street. ‘It’s a shame this neighbourhood’s so quiet. It would have made life easier if there was a closed-circuit camera here.’
‘It would. Mind you, the closed-circuit coverage is quite extensive in Edinburgh. Find out where the nearest cameras are and arrange to review their footage for the last couple of days. See if anything or anyone jumps out at you.’ Stallings broke off as a red-haired man approached in a crime-scene tunic. ‘DI Dorward,’ she said. ‘Sorry about your Sunday.’
The newcomer shrugged. ‘What’s new? Weekends are our busy time.’ He took Mae Grey’s shoes from McGurk’s extended fingers and passed them to an assistant. ‘Thanks, big man. Whose are these?’
‘The woman who found the body.’
‘Have you been inside?’
‘I only stood in the doorway. DI Stallings has, though.’
Dorward turned back to her. ‘Yours too, please. There are some disposables in our van that you can have.’ He watched as the inspector slipped her shoes off. ‘Now there’s a shapely ankle,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Right,’ he called to his team. ‘You know what to do. I want the house taped off, front and back. Any sign of the doc?’
‘Just coming, Arthur,’ a female voice called from the roadway. Beyond her, Stallings saw DC Haddock emerging from a Mini.
‘Jack,’ she announced, ‘I’m going to take young Sauce and call on Lisanne. It’s best she hears about it sooner than later. You get things under way here when the HQ van arrives.’
‘Yes, boss,’ McGurk replied. ‘But, Becky. .’
‘Sure.’ She grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell her that you’d have come but I wouldn’t let you.’
Sixty-eight
The tide was on its way out, and so Bob knew where he would find her. He walked down towards the beach, but rather than follow the main path from the car park, he took another track, one that headed westward and had been cut to allow a gentler descent for the horses which were exercised there.
Once, when Alex was a child, eight, as he recalled, she had broken a house rule, and she and her father had argued. Since she had inherited much of his nature it had ended with her stalking through the front door, declaring that she was running away from home. He had followed her at a distance as she had headed up Goose Green, through the narrow alley that divided the villas along Marine Parade, then across the bents and down to the sand. He had followed, never letting her out of his sight, and she had marched on, never once looking back.