But worse still to witness James’ suffering and be able to do nothing. And what kind of God confronts his creatures with such an impossible choice? What kind of God, after such a choice has been made, allows a murderer to make it meaningless and transforms a peaceful end into a terrifying death? Couldn’t he just have been allowed to slip away in his sleep as he had planned?
The sight of a gold-tipped black umbrella resting on a nearby table delivered another blow. It was identical to James’ brolly. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be reminders, ambushing him and overwhelming him. The effort of hiding his emotions, ostensibly functioning as normal, left him exhausted, drained of all life. And now, today, for the first time, he realised that he no longer looked forward to returning to their home. It was no more than an empty shell without James. What did it matter if the weeds grew tall? The lawn remained unmown? They would never again walk, hand in hand, enjoying the beauty of the garden that they had created. Somehow, the conversation with the solicitor, Mr McKay, had impressed upon him, as nothing else had, the finality of his lover’s departure; and an endless line of grey, cold days stretched before him. A new half-life, or existence; one devoid of all warmth and colour.
8
With a thud a large, sealed box was dropped onto Alice’s desk, startling her and causing the tea in her cup to spill onto her opened newspaper. She looked up, annoyed, into the smiling face of DC Lowe.
‘Special delivery for you, Sarge. Nicholas Lyon dropped it off yesterday and the DI said to pass it on to you, as the expert, like. The boss knows you’ve got it and he wants it checked out immediately. The Evening News is planning a front page spread on the Freeman murder and he’s shitting himself because he’s got nothing to fend them off with. I overheard him on the phone to Charlie at Fettes trying to postpone the next press conference. Not like him, eh?’
Opening the flaps of the box Alice looked inside and found eight ring binders, all devoted to the Scowling Crags wind farm proposal, produced by Vertenergy. She pulled out the topmost one and flicked through previous felling plans, site layouts, habitat maps and visibility diagrams. Nothing of any use there. The next volume was headed ‘Environmental Statement’, and she scanned a paragraph entitled ‘People and Safety’:
‘13.02-Under certain combinations of geographical position, time of day and time of year, the sun may pass behind a rotor and cast a shadow over neighbouring properties. When the blades rotate, the shadow flicks on and off; the effect is known as Shadow Flicker. It occurs only within buildings where the flicker appears through a narrow window opening…
‘13.04-Shadow Flicker frequency tends to be related to the rotor speed and the number of blades on the rotor and this can be translated into “blade path frequency” and measured in alternations per second or hertz. Two main concerns have been raised regarding the effects of Shadow Flicker and they are not exclusive to wind turbines: (1) they may cause seizures in people who are photo-sensitive and (2) they may cause considerable annoyance to people.’
Further down the same page was a table headed ‘Detailed Dwelling Assessment’ and in it each property scheduled to have a turbine at 11.5 rotor diameters to the east, south or west of it, was listed. In all, eleven houses were named: Foxhill Farm and Farm Cottage; Blaestane Cottage; Cockers Toll Cottage; Ballinder Farm and Farm Cottage; Wester Broadhill Cottage; Easter Broadhill Cottage; Struieford Cottage; Gowkshill Farm and Scowling Crags Farm. Another nearby page showed proposed turbine locations on an enlarged section from the Ordnance Survey map with all of the nearby dwellings marked with a red star.
Eric Manson strolled past Alice’s desk to his own and emptied a black bin bag, full of correspondence, onto it, sighing deeply as he did so.
‘Could I have a quick look, Sir?’ Alice asked.
‘Be my guest, doll, I’m off to talk to the boss and then I’m going to see what Forensics has come up with, if anything.’
She combed through the pile, item by item. It was composed largely of e-mails, typed submissions and a few pre-printed postcards; and, diligently, she wrote down the names of all the senders. A few of them kept recurring: Angus Kersley, Joanna Hart, David Oxford, Gavin Logan and Morag McTear. Morag McTear’s contribution was contained in a slim folder and her address was marked, together with her name, prominently on the first page. She lived in Gowkshill Farm and her date of birth was also marked: 11th January 1920. An old lady. For Angus Kersley two addresses had been given: Wester Broadhill Cottage and ‘Barleyknowe’ in Ravelston Dykes, Edinburgh. Hundreds of the e-mails had come from another source, jhcocker@cockerstoll.com. Enough to be going on with.
When Alice rang Angus Kersley he was, by her good fortune, in Ravelston, suffering from a broken ankle, instead of at work, attending to his legal practice in his Alva Street office. Home turned out to be a half-timbered mock-Tudor mansion in the middle of the comfortable suburb. Even the garage had been decked with dark horizontal beams, and the front garden showed signs of slavish adherence to current gardening trends, with alarming clumps of black-leaved plants, tussocks of arid grasses and not a flower in sight. The delay between the pressing of the doorbell and the door being finally opened was explained by the large plaster cast encasing the man’s left leg and foot. He guided her to his study, his leaden limb dragging against the deep pile of the carpet, leaving a broad trail behind him.
The sight that met her eyes on entering the room amazed her. It was like gaining access to some kind of military headquarters. Pinned on the walls were large-scale maps, most of them of the Scowling Crags wind farm area. Each one displayed something different. One mapped out the turbine locations relative to the houses within the development. Another showed the system of tracks required for the wind farm, together with the ‘borrow pits’ from which the track construction materials would be quarried. Others showed the hydrogeology of the area and others still depicted the principal archaeological sites either within the development or close to it. Part of one wall was devoted to lists, each written in a neat, workaday hand with no pretension to style. They contained the names of the members of the local Council and the names of the members of the various committees of the Council. The names of those on the Planning Development and Control Committee were all underlined in red. Vast piles of pre-printed postcards lay strewn about the floor, together with blank sheets headed ‘Petition Against Scowling Crags Wind Farm’.
Kersley’s computer was on, and Alice noticed that some of the material that Vertenergy had produced appeared to have been scanned into it.
‘A day off?’ she said conversationally, as he closed his study door.
‘A day off paid work,’ he corrected her, in his distinctive Morningside accent. The telephone rang and he picked it up.
‘Sorry, Alistair, I’m busy just now. We’ll speak at the big meeting and I’ll bring along forms for your group then. Have you discovered how much the Post Office charge for a drop? Mmmm. OK. Speak to you later.’
‘I need to…’ Alice began. The telephone rang again and, once more, he picked up the receiver.
‘David. OK. I can’t talk now. I suggest that you contact the RSPB to see if their ornithological data about the geese is correct. No, I haven’t got a number for them. You’ll have to fish it out yourself. It’ll probably be in the book.’
‘Sorry,’ the man said, turning his attention back to Alice. Yet again the telephone rang.