‘They stop motorways being built with direct action and, if necessary, I’ll take it,’ Sue Lamont said. ‘Make no mistake, I’ll lie down in front of the bulldozers, chain myself to their cranes…’
‘But by then the permission will have been granted,’ the man interjected impatiently. ‘We need to ensure that the council refuses the application. I suggest that we start liaising with other groups, the ones on Lochawe, Lewis, the Ochils, to find out how they’re tackling the problem. I heard yesterday that THH’s application at Muirness was turned down.’
Conscientiously, Alice continued to record the views expressed in her notebook, hampered as before by ignorance of the names of most of the speakers, attempting to memorise their faces for later identification by her father. Dougal Thomson leant back in his chair, blew noisily on his coffee and grinned, revealing his broken teeth.
‘I’ve been busy on the computer getting stuff from Companies House. Firstforce are not a big company, in fact, they’re not even a Scottish company as they’ve been pretending. They’re just a collection of four individuals from Bradford, all with the surname of “Owen”, who have somehow allied themselves to an Italian conglomerate called “Grupposerck”. And, what’s more, their most recent balance sheet shows a loss of seventy thousand pounds. So all their talk of community funds and guarantees for the dismantling of the scheme after twenty-five years may mean very little indeed. Now, if that’s not ammunition I don’t know what is. I suggest that at our next meeting, in nine days, on the twenty-first of June, we compose a letter about them to our Councillor and get him to raise it with the planners.’
Alexander Rice gazed at the photographs in the album on his knee. His wife, Olivia, smiling and holding aloft their new baby, Alice, with their elder daughter, Helen, standing, bemused, beside her. His eyes rested on his wife’s beloved red hair, wild curls encircling her face as if it was haloed by flame. The awful realisation that her wonderful mane, now more white than auburn, would all fall out, brought the tears back and he quickly turned over the page. A single black and white image confronted him. Olivia, still in her wedding dress, laughing, neck outstretched, as he, in full morning suit, genuflected on one knee before her, re-enacting his proposal of marriage. A photograph out of sequence, unexpected, and for which he had not prepared himself. He let out a low moan of sorrow, embarrassed himself by his own reaction and gulped down another swig of the raw whisky from the bottle by his side. The album had been selected to provide him with comfort, but he slammed its covers together, disappointed that it had proved itself to be a catalyst for grief rather than any source of help.
On her return Alice found her father on his own, ostensibly tranquil and composed, reading the newspaper. She noticed immediately the glass with the empty quarter of Strathfillan beside it. Not his whisky, a brand given to him and usually, in turn, quickly given away. Something was undoubtedly amiss.
‘Dad-please tell me, I know there’s something wrong.’
Without replying he patted the seat of the armchair beside his own, gesturing for her to sit next to him. As soon as she was seated, his arm reached across for his drink, slumping back onto his knee when he realised that the bottle had already been drained of all comfort.
‘Please, Dad, tell me what’s wrong,’ she said again, as seconds passed and he remained silent.
‘All right…’ he began slowly. ‘It’s about your mother, I’m afraid. She was at the Murrayfield this afternoon seeing a specialist and… well, she’s got breast cancer. That’s why I needed, to be frank, to get you out of the house. So that we could discuss it, alone, together. The hospital finally confirmed it today. On Wednesday they plan to take the lump out, and then she’ll have chemotherapy…’
His voice tailed off, tears now pouring down his face, eyes tight shut in desperation, oblivious to everything except his all-encompassing grief. Instinctively, Alice put her arms around his neck, but his undisguised distress frightened her as if, as in her childhood, he knew something that she did not; that the battle with the disease was already lost, and any remaining hope futile.
Half an hour later, having attempted to console her father with such reassurance as she could muster, she climbed the stairs to her parents’ bedroom and peered through the doorway of the dimly-lit room. She felt the need to be near her mother for a little while, even if she had already fallen asleep, and was completely unaware of her presence.
‘Alice?’ It was her mother’s voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Come in, darling.’
2
Skimming through a report on the probable time of death, Alice gagged on her egg roll.
‘Blowflies had already laid their eggs in a white fluid in the mouth and rectum… maggots, together with a few pupa, were found in the bi-lateral avulsion injuries on the lower limbs.’
She returned the document quickly to its file and made her way to the ladies. The female toilets in St Leonard’s Street Police Station were kept scrupulously clean, the air permanently scented by noxious floral sprays that hissed conspiratorially every so often as they discharged their asphyxiating perfume. She dried her hands on the starched blue roller towel while scrutinising her reflection in the mirror. Looking back at her, and equally unsmiling, was a tall, dark-haired woman with hazel eyes and a wide mouth. Suddenly, the tongue shot out at her, only to be as hastily retracted as the sound of flushing became audible from an adjacent cubicle. She departed before her colleague had unlocked the door.
On returning to her office, DCI Elaine Bell looked wistfully around it. Her few personal possessions, no more than a mug, brown with caffeine, and a faded photograph of her twin nieces, were safely in the carrier bag. She wandered over to the window to gaze onto the crescent of Salisbury Crags, their reddish rock now bathed in late afternoon sunshine. A view unequalled in the town, peaceful, providing balm to her troubled soul. From nowhere the ache in her shoulder joints returned, and she retrieved from her desk drawer the last two painkilling tablets, conscious that they now provided no more than the hope of relief rather than relief itself. Five weeks rest, at home, might help shift the ME, the doctor had said, and rather to her surprise her husband had encouraged her to take the time off. Maybe he still cared. However, dread was the principal emotion she felt on contemplating such a period of leisure, all alone, and to be spent in their spotless, modern house in the new estate at Cammo, surrounded by complacent housewives. It sounded like an eternity. Without the adrenalin, the excitement of her work, all those old, unwelcome preoccupations might return to unsettle her. The sound of children’s laughter in the street, and on the television, advertisement after advertisement for nappies or baby food, somehow reviving hopeless dreams.
She should never have agreed to see that occupational health quack; after all, she had coped, managed to thole the pains for long enough. And then, to cap it all, she’d had no say whatsoever in the selection of her temporary replacement. If the Chief Constable knew half as much about DCI Robin Bruce as she did, Bruce would have remained in charge of his disgruntled troops at Torphichen Place. In her younger days she had suffered a bruised buttock or two at his hands. The man had been a compulsive bottom-pincher with no desire to be cured. Maybe nowadays the climate of political correctness or, more likely, fear of the law, would have wrought some change in his behaviour. On reflection, perhaps her buttocks were no longer tempting, insufficiently pert. This unpleasant train of thought was derailed by a knock on the door.