With the cleaner now clanging about outside, careless of her presence and pressing need, Alice sat down, praying for her speedy exit. Eventually, Mrs McClaren departed in her own good time, ‘Little Bubbles’ still tripping from her lips. Alone at last, Alice looked at her appointment letter, an anodyne missive simply requesting her presence at the Infirmary for a blood check. No more than a formality, of course.
The lady at the main reception desk in Little France was deep in conversation with her neighbour, something about her son’s infatuation with a female parasite and him blowing all his college money on pieces of hair, hair extensions if you please, for her. And for his birthday all the girl had managed had been a bottle of cheap aftershave and a packet of Maltesers. Unwilling to interrupt, but conscious that she might appear to be eavesdropping as she was, Alice managed to catch the speaker’s eye and was directed wordlessly to a seating area in close proximity to the chattering staff. Before she had reached the middle pages of a vintage Heat magazine, a female doctor called her name and she traipsed after her through a labyrinth of corridors to a small, unassuming office.
As her flesh was being swabbed she felt the need to talk, conscious of the incongruity of being manhandled by a complete stranger in silence, so she said, ‘I was much relieved that the victim proved clean – so this should be just a formality, eh?’
‘Assuming the needle belonged to the victim, aye.’
Seven words, stating the obvious, but until they had been said it had not seemed so to her. Of course, the woman had been a junkie, and needles were often shared.
‘I could have caught something from someone else’s blood on the needle?’
Now concentrating on the task of siphoning blood from her arm, the medic said, ‘Aye, but it’s unlikely. She’d been dead for days, after all, and she’ll have got the thing before she died. The virus itself dies quite quickly. It’s a tiny risk, but we can’t take that chance, eh?’
No. We certainly can’t, Alice thought, praying that Isobel Wilson used the needle exchange, and telling herself that worrying would alter nothing, other than to add a few more grey hairs to her scalp. Oh, but ignorance had been bliss.
As she passed the cafeteria the scent of coffee tickled her nose and she followed it, having had no breakfast and determined to remedy the omission before returning to the hurly-burly of St Leonard’s. She took a seat by the window looking out onto a sky so dark it seemed undecided whether or not morning had broken. Earlier it had not seemed so bleak, but gathering above the new horizon were lead-coloured snow clouds, filled with the promise of blizzards to come.
‘Alice!’
She glanced up, surprised to see Professor McConnachie slipping his large frame into the seat opposite her, clear-eyed and without a trace of the mortuary pallor for which he was renowned.
‘Didn’t expect to see you here!’ he continued, beaming widely with all his gap-toothed charm and putting his tray onto her table.
‘No, I’m just here for a test… a blood test.’
‘Of course,’ he replied brightly. ‘In connection with that needle-stick injury, I suppose?’
She did not want to talk to him about it, she was still trying to reconcile herself to the news she had received and its implications. Best, she decided, to try to shift the conversation onto him and his recent spell as an inpatient.
‘How are you, Prof? Jock told me you lost a lot of blood. Have you been discharged now?’
‘Mmm,’ he replied, sipping his coffee and immediately spilling some of it into his saucer. As he poured the slops back into his cup he continued. ‘I’ve been for a check-up today, restored with the blood of others. They pumped five pints into me, I gather. I wonder who is circulating in me now?’
‘Sorry?’ Her mind was still somewhere else.
‘Blood donors, Alice. Are you one? You know, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, policewoman… all or any of them could be circulating in me now.’ Having re-filled his cup, he took a noisy slurp and then spoke again. ‘Mind you, just as well it wasn’t an organ I suppose,’ his voice tailing off in thought.
‘Why?’
‘Something I read not so long ago. Apparently, if you have a bone marrow transplant, and your own marrow is irradiated, then your blood will contain cells bearing the donor’s DNA indefinitely. Maybe kidney transplants have the same effect, for all I know.’
She nodded her head, trying to concentrate on what he had said and succeeding until her phone rang. Its strident tone made her jump.
‘Alice, where the hell are you?’ It was Elaine Bell, direct as ever and with real urgency in her voice.
‘Er… fairly close by. Little France, so I could be back in the station by, say -’
‘Set off right now. Something’s happened, and either we’ve got the wrong man inside or a copycat’s been spawned and is on the rampage in Leith. I need you now. We’re short-handed, Tom’s on a course and Simon’s been laid low by a stomach bug. I want you here to help Eric with Lena Stirling, to talk to some of the Leith residents again – that Keane man for a start. By the way, did you have any joy with Guy Bayley?’
‘Not much. He only seems to have seen the Russian prostitute we’ve spoken to already, no punters.’
‘He was at the bloody locus on both nights, he must have seen something. You’ll need to chase him up, too
12
Glancing through the glass window into the interview room, Alice saw Eric Manson and he appeared uncharacteristically relaxed, leaning back on his chair, his hands linked on his belly, favouring Lena Stirling with a charming smile. The prostitute, in contrast, sat hunched, evidently tense, biting the fingernails on her right hand. As the policewoman came into the room their heads turned simultaneously to look at her, but, immediately, they turned back, their conversation continuing as if no interruption had taken place.
‘He was called… eh, Billy, no, Robbie – I’m right, eh?’ the DCI said, still beaming at the girl.
‘Aye. He’s called Robbie,’ she assented quickly.
‘And he’d have been in the year above me, so that makes him about fifty-two or so, that right?’
‘Aha. He’s fifty-two this April.’
‘What does he do, what’s his job?’
‘The now?’ she enquired.
‘Aye. The now.’
‘Em… he’s a plumber. He wis in social work… worked wi’ the Council fer years ‘n’ years. Then he decided he needed a change, took up plumbing.’
‘Does he know about you,’ the DI pursed his lips, ‘about your job, I mean?’
‘Naw,’ she shook her head dolefully, ‘…thinks I work for BT, in sales, ken.’
Alice pulled out a chair, its legs screeching on the bare floor as she did so, the girl wincing at the sound.
‘And your father, Robbie,’ the inspector continued, his curiosity not yet sated. ‘He used to go out with a lassie in my class. Susan… Susan… Susan… Susan something or other. Went out together since they were, must have been… fourteen, fifteen. Did they stay together?’
‘Aha… Burn. Susan Burn. She’s ma mum.’
‘And what does she do the now?’
‘Her job, like? Eh, she’s a classroom assistant – remedial teaching, ken, oot Dumbiedykes way.’
‘Isn’t it amazing!’ Eric Manson said, turning to face his sergeant. ‘I know both of Lena’s parents. We were at school together, secondary school. I think that’s incredible!’ Lena Stirling looked singularly unimpressed, despite his exclamations. It seemed neither remarkable nor unbelievable to her that a policeman should, once, have known either of her parents. Why shouldn’t he?
‘When you next see them, eh, tell them I was asking after them, eh?’ Eric Manson said warmly.
‘How’d I dae that then,’ the prostitute said, sarcastically. ‘Mum, ken, the last time I wis in the polis station, well, this Inspector telt me… somethin’ like that, dae ye think?’