‘Alcoholic poisoning,’ said Inspector Cruickshank, putting a hand under her elbow to keep her moving, ‘is the medical term. In layman’s terms he drank too much and his heart gave out. At least a bottle of whisky as far as we can make out, never mind the beer, and only a wee ham sandwich to soak it up. Dr Rennick said he had never seen anything like it.’
‘How on earth do you know -’ began Daisy, then stopped and grimaced. ‘Oh, how revolting, Inspector really.’
‘And the death certificate will show…?’ I said.
‘Heart failure following on excessive consumption of alcoholic liquor,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘We need to be scrupulous as far as the certificate goes. But let’s call it heart failure plain and simple when we speak of it. I’m a great believer in taking care of the living and letting the good Lord take care of the dead.’ A surprising statement to come from a policeman, I thought, unblinking zeal in the pursuit of justice being rather more usual.
‘Well, I guess,’ said Cadwallader, as though rolling some idea around in his head.
‘Look around you,’ said Inspector Cruickshank. ‘Look at them all in their blacks and their armbands. Dudgeon was their friend and you can be sure near every one of them gave the Burry Man a nip yesterday. What good would it do to go using a word like poisoning and make them think they had killed him?’
I glanced around at the villagers, and felt myself beginning to agree.
‘And,’ he went on, ‘it would awaken some very unwelcome ghosts.’ I saw Daisy rolling her eyes, but when she spoke her tone was quite polite.
‘Ghosts, Inspector?’
‘Figurative ghosts,’ he assured her. ‘There was a case here before, of what might have been alcoholic poisoning. And we never got to the bottom of it.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Recently?’
‘Oh no, years ago,’ said the inspector. ‘Must have been four or five years ago now. Four more like; I remember it was about a year after the end of the war. Two young… gentlemen, I suppose you’d call them. Came on a sketching holiday and ended up dead.’ His voice was hard. ‘They went on a drinking spree along the High Street and once they were in their cups they let it slip that the pair of them had been conshies. The next morning they were found, face down and dead, down the lane behind the Sealscraig.’
‘Poisoned?’ asked Buttercup.
‘Hard to say,’ said the inspector. ‘Could have been. They were certainly well pickled. Or they could have passed out and died of hypothermia, lying out all night.’
‘Two of them, though?’ I asked.
‘That was the trouble,’ said the inspector. ‘Two young men in good health. The other possibility was that they were deliberately intoxicated then taken away and laid so that they’d smother in their sleep. As I say, we never got to the bottom of it and it made for a very troubled air about the place until we finally let it be. I’ve no wish to bring it all back to folk.’
I held no brief for conscientious objectors, and I did not want to dwell on the tale but, about the current instance, something still troubled me.
‘Inspector,’ I said, ‘if you did say it was poisoning, although it would be horrid for everyone, at least it would stop the same thing happening again. I mean, I’m as loath as the next to give fodder to the Temperance gang, but in this case, just this once, don’t they rather have a point?’
Inspector Cruickshank’s face twisted up into a wry grin.
‘Oh, don’t worry, Mrs Gilver,’ he said. ‘They don’t wait for ammunition. They’ll have started already. Go to the church tomorrow morning if you don’t believe me.’ At that moment we passed a pair of bobbies and Cruickshank, unable to resist the chance to inspect a couple of his troops unannounced, raised his hat to us and marched towards them.
‘So that’s that,’ said Cadwallader. ‘Now, where the hell is Freddy?’
We mounted the steps to the terrace above us to scour the crowd for her and stood watching the three quite separate occasions which seemed to be taking place all at once in the street below. Children were perched on every wall, windowsill and kerbstone, licking at toffee apples and ices, or were jostling at the stalls and plucking at their mothers for more pennies, intent on winning or wheedling another sticky treat while the going was good. The women more or less ignored the stalls and sideshows, choosing instead to stand around in laughing, chattering groups, seeming not to look at the children at all until a bark of reproach or a swift cuff to a passing ear gave the lie to it. In the same way, they seemed not to be looking at one another, but I was sure that each new dress or old hat was being studied and would be discussed amongst little knots of particular friends later on, just as I was sure that Daisy and Buttercup would be ready to share with me their thoughts on Mrs Turnbull’s terrible shoes and Mrs Meiklejohn’s surprisingly good pearls. Finally, the men. Perhaps we had chosen an unfortunate spot as our vantage point, slap between the Stag’s Head and the Queensferry Arms, but it seemed that all around working men, well-scrubbed for the day, with scraped cheeks and slicked-down hair were staggering into pubs, staggering out again, blundering along the street towards the Forth Bridge Saloon or, if they stood in gossiping groups of their own, waving like ears of wheat in a breeze and taking the occasional sudden step to the side when their balance threatened to leave them altogether. Three scenes then: the children out of Hogarth, the women from Brueghel, and the men, I fear, straight from an illustration in a Temperance pamphlet. All that was missing was Buttercup.
At last, I spied a head of bright curls disappearing around the bend towards the Hopetoun Road.
‘There she is,’ I said.
‘She’s going the wrong way,’ said Daisy with a querulous note like a tired child and Cadwallader too looked at his pocket watch and threatened to glower.
‘I’ll catch her and you two go ahead,’ I said. ‘We’ll meet up at home.’
With that, I plunged into the crowds again and began dodging in and out, threading my way towards my object, now and then catching just a glimpse of the glinting head. It really was the most peculiar colour. At last, after a determined effort – she was covering the ground at some speed – I called out and reached for her arm, but instead of the handful of silk georgette sleeve I had been expecting, my fingers closed on rough cotton, slightly sticky, and the head turned to reveal the face, shadowy under the eyes and blotchy with tears, of Joey Brown the barmaid.
My first thought, I am heartily ashamed to say, was that I should take great delight in telling Buttercup of my mistake in the hope of stamping out the April Sunrise for ever. Following hard upon this, though, came the proper recognition of what stood before me.
‘My dear,’ I said, ‘whatever is the matter?’
Miss Brown took her trembling lip between her teeth, and shook her head wordlessly, while tears continued to fall.
‘Come, come,’ I said. ‘Sit and tell me what’s happened.’ I drew her down on to a low wall, but she only gulped and hung her head. ‘Or is there anyone I can fetch?’ I said, getting desperate. She shook her head vehemently, curls bobbing. ‘I say, I hope no one has hurt you?’ I went on, this idea only just occurring. ‘If one of these young men has made a beast of himself, Inspector Cruickshank and two of his men are just around the corner and -’
‘No!’ said Miss Brown at last, looking up wildly. ‘Thank you, madam, it’s nothing like that. It’s just… My father wants me to go and see her and… I just can’t. I can’t go there.’
‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where can’t you go?’
She did not answer, but only continued to weep. I had been patting her arm absent-mindedly, but only at this point did it occur to me that the cotton sleeve I was patting, which had registered as sticky in the first instant, was sticky with new dye, and that more of this dye, obviously hastily and clumsily applied, had rubbed off on Joey Brown’s neck. Of course, mourning.