‘Out, out to the cabin, please, sweetheart, and you too, Jason… you can collect any cereal or whatever you need from here, but I have to talk to the Sergeant again and in peace and quiet.’
Neither of them made a move, the music continued to blare and Jason began to pour milk into a mug.
‘I said OUT!’ Mrs Norris shouted, and the teenagers’ startled expressions testified to the rarity of such an outburst. The boy, having recovered his sang froid first, made a revolving gesture with his index finger by his temple and they slouched out in unison, staring at Mrs Norris as if she had sprouted horns, increasing the volume of the music in defiance.
Mrs Norris sat down and Alice took a chair opposite hers.
‘I need to know where you were between about seven and ten on the night of Monday 12th June, if possible,’ she began.
‘Can’t you tell me first what this is all about?’ the woman beseeched.
‘Not at the moment. I’d rather, please, get your answers to my questions, and after that I’ll explain what we’re concerned about.’
Hilary Norris walked over to the Raeburn and removed a grimy calendar from a shelf on the extractor hood.
‘I live by this. I’d be lost without it. We write down any appointments, social stuff… everything on it. Colin hasn’t got a diary either, and Rosanna relies on me completely.’ She turned back the pages to June and read “WI. Smoke.” Yes, I remember… I went to my WI meeting, there was a talk about dyeing and spinning wool, I won the garden gem competition that evening. Then I drove to Perth and waited outside Smoke- it’s a club-to pick up Rosanna when she came out.’
‘So you were away from the house. Between what hours?’
‘Probably left at about 6 pm and… well, Rosanna is always reluctant to leave, so we wouldn’t get back until, maybe, 2 am or so.’
‘Did Rosanna leave to go to Smoke from here?’
‘No, she was at Jason’s house, in Kinross. They had tea and then left there together.’
Alice nodded. ‘Do you know where Colin was that night?’
‘You saw, Sergeant, there was nothing in the calendar for him. So he’d be here.’
‘And on the night of Wednesday 5th July, can you tell me where you were between about eight and ten?’
The woman sighed, picking up the calendar again. ‘Riding. Film.’
The telephone rang and she picked it up. ‘Yes, speaking,’ she rubbed her forehead distractedly. ‘Has it not been paid? No, no. I see. And how much for did you say? Mmm. Well, I’ll send off a cheque today and I do apologise.’
‘Riding. Film?’ Alice reminded her.
‘Of course. Rosanna goes riding at 7.30 on Thursdays for an hour, and after it, for a treat, she and I went to see “The Devil Wears Prada”. Not really Colin’s kind of film.’
‘So he stayed at home. When did you get back from the film?’
‘I don’t know, but I could work it out, I suppose. The riding is supposed to stop at 8.30 pm but it never does… usually at least quarter of an hour late. Then we’d have to get to Dunfermline. The film started, I think, around 9.30 pm, and we wouldn’t get home before, say, 11.45 pm.’
‘And was Colin there that night?’
‘He’d be here, yes. Otherwise there would have been something in the calendar. He was home when we got back.’
‘Anyone else with him? Here, I mean?’
‘No, no-one. I don’t think so. Just ask him anyway. Please, Sergeant, please… can’t you tell me what this is all about?’
‘Well, you’ll have seen in the papers about Sheriff Freeman. His murder, I mean. Your husband has been writing threatening letters to him.’
‘What-Colin? Don’t be ridiculous! Are you sure it was Colin?’
‘You identified the handwriting. So did he. So have the graphologists. Can I ask you, have you ever heard your husband mention Nicholas Lyon?’
‘No. It doesn’t ring a bell with me. Should it? Who is he?’
‘He was Sheriff Freeman’s partner, and the victim of a hit and run accident.’
‘You know,’ the woman began, looking directly into Alice’s eyes, ‘Colin would never hurt those people. But he is living on the edge. He hated, and that is the word, the right word, James Freeman. So did I, actually. All our hopes had to be dashed so that he could become richer and he knew that, you know. Knew what would happen to us. Colin had explained it to him but… well, I don’t suppose he did it very well. It meant too much to him. He probably came across as a madman with a glittering eye…’
Tears began to form in her eyes and she closed them, slowly allowing the drops to trickle down her cheeks unmopped, ‘… but he wasn’t always like that, you know. He’s just had such bad luck. Honestly, Sergeant, he’s not your man. He is desperate and depressed, but violent? Never. Please…’ she implored, ‘please don’t… don’t push him over the edge.’
Every time his shoe came to rest on another step, a sharp pain hit the ball of his foot, shooting down the length of the big toe. He inhaled deeply, pungent cigar smoke cloaking the stench of human urine, attempting to rest his weight on the banister and spare his throbbing limb. Another sodding ten storeys to go. Only animals live in Niddrie, he thought, animals that soil their own high-rise nests. A gob of spit landed on his shoulder and he looked upwards into the delighted faces of two skinny boys suspended above him, before they danced off, laughing like drains, in search of new quarry. On the next landing he had to step over a figure, curled in the foetal position and breathing loudly, nearly losing his balance in the process and silently cursing the social work department’s failure to attend to such cases. What else had they to do? And his hard-earned taxes squandered on suchlike well-intentioned lard-arses.
The wound in his foot was feeling hot; in fact, it was on fire. He became morbid. Bloody septicaemia will carry me off before the tetanus manages to lock my jaw. And no antibiotics even offered, although, God knows, they’re fundamental enough for this kind of infection. All those years of contributions, and never to enjoy my own retirement. Never to wake up with one decision only to make; which course to spend the day on. Of course, she’ll be all right then, living the life of Reilly and maybe, stranger things had happened, finding another man. Still, he thought, Kathryn would visit him on his deathbed, tears fairly gushing down her face, regretting humiliating him, realising only then his true worth. And for the stone, something tasteful, white marble with black lettering and, possibly, an obituary in Stationwide.
How would they describe the wound, though? Obviously, as sustained on active service but, unfortunately, it would have none of the glamour of a fatal gunshot injury or stabbing. If they simply used the words ‘penetrating injury’, omitting any reference to his foot, that would sound all right. ‘Fatal injury sustained in the line of duty’ had a good ring to it, and was, well, would be, perfectly correct. Perhaps he should expressly stipulate no guitars for the service, otherwise that minister-boy might ruin his service with some fucking Kumbaya-like chants. There should be a few readings from the Bible, naturally, but none of those nancy poems except, maybe, that one about a ship on the horizon. ‘She is gone’ and everything, but maybe it should be changed to ‘He is gone’ or maybe it was talking about the ship? For added poignancy there would have to be flowers, possibly even a piper.
As he reached the eleventh floor, a woman signalled frantically to him and he followed her into her flat. Curtains of a transparent red material covered the lounge windows, letting little light into it. Relieved to take the weight off his foot, DI Manson slumped into an armchair, his hostess sitting, erect, on a small settee on his right.
‘Mrs Munro, I presume?’
‘Aye.’
He smiled at her encouragingly, ‘You said, on the phone, that you’d information to give us about the road accident, that you’d rather give it to us in person. The one mentioned in the appeal, the one in Moray Place on…’