‘Aye.’
He smiled again, nudging her to share whatever titbits of information she had, but she made no response. ‘Well?’ he said, his smile becoming a rictus.
‘Ye’re nae happy, eh, ah can aye tell.’ She nodded her head sagely.
‘I’ll be happy enough, I assure you, if you could just tell me what you know about the accident.’ His cheeks ached from his attempt to maintain a good-natured expression.
‘Na… na… yer nae a happy man. Ah can tell it, ken. Ye cannae hide it… it’s leakin’ oot ye.’
‘Look, Mrs Munro, I came here expecting to get information about the accident, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just attend to that, please.’ His smile not yet curdled to a snarl.
‘Och, Mister, ah see things. Things ye’ll never see. Ah seen the accident too. A big motor whammin’ intae that wee man.’
Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought.
‘So you saw it, the accident? Whereabouts were you at the time? Were you in Moray Place?’
‘Ah wis here, here in ma’ ain lounge.’
Pain, and now frustration, had taken its toll on the meagre supply of manners long ago coached into the policeman, and aggression, always lurking just below the surface, took control. ‘Well, if you were in your bloody lounge, lady, how the hell did you see anything in the centre of Edinburgh?’
Mrs Munro viewed him with pity. ‘D’ye never watch the telly, eh? Psychic powers. Some folk are blessed wi’ them. Ah seen the accident in ma heid. OK? That OK wi’ you? A wee man hit by a white motor car.’
‘White? How do you know it was white?’ His interest had been rekindled, but Mrs Munro was a beginner, an untalented one at that, not sharp enough to pick up crucial signals.
‘White, blue, red, what difference does it make, eh?’
Clutching the change in his pockets, clicking coin on coin like worry beads, he tried one more time:
‘Mrs Munro, did you see the accident in Moray Place?’
‘Yer aura’s black noo, ken. If it changes tae red, ye die. I telt ye, didn’t ah. Ah saw the accident, in ma mind’s eye. Ah’ve psychic powers. Ah ken a’ aboot you an’ a’. Yer hurt, eh? Deep inside…wounded… There’s a wurd, a wurd’s coming… it’s… flatfoot.’
When Alice smelt the smoke she expected, for an instant, to see Elaine Bell sitting hunched over the computer, fag in hand, instead of DCI Bruce’s ramrod figure, upright, savouring his illicit pleasure. He looked sheepish at her entry. His fingers moved, momentarily, as if he was going to stub the cigarette out before he raised it back towards his mouth and took another, unashamed, draw.
‘How did you get on, Alice?’ He was daring her to say something.
‘So-so. Hilary Norris can’t give him an alibi, so we’ve just got his word that he was at home. I timed the journey. His house to Moray Place, I mean, and it took, maybe, fifty-five minutes or so. He’d have had plenty of time to leave the house and be back at it for her return. Have we got the results on the car yet?’
‘That battered hulk! It’s got enough bumps and scratches on it to have killed an army. Traffic, if you can believe it, still have given us nothing on the paint match, and the CCTV’s a washout. No bloody resolution.’
‘And the DNA?’
‘Still in the pipeline. The bastard certainly seems to have a motive, eh?’
Alice nodded but said nothing.
‘So, Sergeant, did he do it?’ DCI Bruce enquired.
‘Maybe. He felt righteous anger, for sure, and he’s unapologetic for terrorising that old pair with his letters, but would he go further than that? I don’t know. Perhaps the Sheriff got it right. Norris’s impotent, really. He doesn’t finish things, succeed at things… his wife reckons he’s breakdown material. What do you think, Sir?’
‘Me…’ he said airily, ‘I think he had the means and the motive, but until we get the results it’s all so much hot air-that’s what I think, for what it’s worth.’ Seeing Alice’s surprise at his apparent humility he took a final drag, idly blew a smoke ring, and dropped the dog-end into a saucer before continuing. ‘Haven’t you heard, yet? And you a detective, Alice! I’m offski, away-back to Torpichen. Elaine Bell has risen from the grave, mysteriously cast off her “ME”,’-he mimed the quotation marks-‘and is returning here to take the reins. Her weeks of sick leave are up and she’s raring to go, eager to get back into harness. Nothing to do, obviously with our… MY lack of progress in this most important case, or her coup with the Mair case. Simply, the Assistant Chief Constable assured me, a question of the best uses of resources, even if it does, strangely, involve changing horses mid-stream…’
As he was speaking DCI Bell walked back into her office, raising her head to inhale, to the full, the pungent aroma. Seeing Alice, she smiled at her before turning her attention to her colleague.
‘Robin, you should try the patches. They do work, you know. I’m hardly even…’ she inhaled deeply again, ‘tempted now, and no worse-tempered than any other post-menopausal woman.’ So saying, she repossessed her office, laying out her few photos, and putting her coffee-mug back in her drawer. Leaving, Alice made a surreptitious thumbs-up signal to her boss, returned by the slightest nod.
Oddly, Miss Spinnell’s door was open that evening, and sensing his mistress’ proximity Quill began to howl, whining and jerking at his tether. Wondering idly if she would find an empty flat, the phantom pilferers having somehow finally removed everything and rendered all security useless, Alice tapped on the door and headed down the dark passageway towards the kitchen. In it she could hear Miss Spinnell’s voice, raised in feeble fury, in a one-sided telephone conversation.
‘Indeed. And you, I need to know who you are! So I can report you to your superiors. I see. Well, “Just Paul”, I’d like to speak to someone with two names if you please, a Christian name and a surname, preferably.’
‘Oh!’
She dropped the receiver as if it had burnt her and turned, eyes rolling in all directions, towards Alice.
‘He put the phone down on me! Well, “Just Paul”, we’ll see about that.’
‘What’s the matter, Miss Spinnell?’
‘I failed it. He said that I’ve failed it,’ she whispered, chin trembling, fear in her eyes.
‘Failed what?’
‘My cholesterol test!’
‘Don’t worry,’ Alice said soothingly, ‘it doesn’t mean much. There are statins, blood-pressure reducing-’
‘But for days and days before I had no butter, no cream, no milk even… I’ve never failed anything in my life, you know. The shame!’
Baffled, as usual, Alice patted a bony little shoulder, forgetting Miss Spinnell’s dislike of being touched, her hand being shrugged off with a shudder of revulsion.
‘Thank you, dear,’ the old lady said coldly, moving rapidly out of range.
‘Quill all right today?’ Alice asked, thinking it best to change the subject.
‘Well, no. Not “all right today”, in fact, needing treatment, I expect. I’ve kept it for you.’
‘Kept what?’
‘His sick,’ she said, beckoning her visitor towards a dustpan resting on a coal scuttle.
In amongst a revolting brown, scummy mass, scraps of wrapping paper had been regurgitated and were visible; red, gold and black.
‘But you’ve been feeding him Mars bars, Miss Spinnell?’
‘Precisely. A Mars a Day Helps You Work, Rest and Play. But not in his case.’
Walking beside the dog up the tenement stairs to her flat, Alice contemplated the strange symbiotic relationship that had evolved between herself and her neighbour through their shared pet. The old woman’s day only seemed to begin with the arrival of her life-enhancing charge, and her reluctance to part with him grew on each visit. Initially, the care she had lavished on the mongrel had exceeded that of any professional kennel keeper, leaving Alice with a career, a pet and no anxieties about her dog’s welfare. However, as the years were passing, Miss Spinnell’s repertoire of eccentricities was multiplying, impinging on every area of her life including her dog-minding abilities. Spaghetti hoops yesterday, a Mars Bar today. But, Alice thought, the balance remained in the old lady’s favour. True, the now flatulent Quill would become barrel-shaped before his time, but it was unthinkable to deprive Miss Spinnell of her greatest solace and only protector. Without the dog to guard her and her fortress, the imaginary thieves might run amok, make her life unbearable. And, anyway, Quill loved her with or without her marbles. Somehow, the status quo must be maintained for as long as possible.