‘But,’ she continued, ‘it went to Nicholas Lyon. Your brother’s partner, and before we spoke to you, as I recall, you were unaware that your brother had a partner at all…’
‘So?’
‘Can you tell me, Mr Freeman, what Blackstone Mains being part of the Scowling Crags development would mean to you in financial terms?’
‘None of your bloody business, Sergeant!’
‘You won’t tell me?’ she enquired evenly, eyes never moving from his.
‘Correct. I won’t tell you. It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with you, with the Police or any so-called investigation. It’s a purely personal, financial matter.’
Alice nodded her head slowly before continuing, ‘Obviously we can get such information from Vertenergy, sir.’
‘Well, get it from Vertenergy then.’
‘Going back to the car…’
‘The car! The car! What is it with the bloody car and you people?’ he interrupted, exasperated.
‘Going back to the car,’ she continued, ‘you told me, sir, that you sold the car as scrap to a stranger. When exactly did you buy your new car?’
‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything…’
‘Maybe not, sir,’ she said firmly, ‘but I’d still be grateful if you could try to remember.’
‘Oh, I don’t know precisely. After I’d disposed of the old one.’
‘And when was that?’
‘I told you before, weeks ago, I can’t remember exactly.’
‘No, sir, I appreciate that, but perhaps you could give me the name of the garage from which you bought your new car? Otherwise, I suppose I could get the same information from DVLA.’
‘Tooles Garage. Tooles in Liberton.’
‘Finally, sir, can you tell me where you were between about seven and ten pm on Monday 12th June and eight and ten pm on Wednesday 5th July?’
‘No problem. I was here with Sandra. Sandra will back me up in that. You’d better ask her. So that’s it, is it? You lot sure that I did it, eh!’
Alice shook her head ‘No, sir. If we were, we’d be in the station right now and I’d have cautioned you long ago.’
Walking up Comiston Road, polythene-encased dry cleaning flapping on two coat hangers, Sandra Freeman became aware that every so often the hems of the clothes were sweeping along the pavement, and rued her decision not to take the car. Worse still, friction seemed to be attracting the swinging load towards her legs, impeding her movement and making her gait thoroughly abnormal, constant stops and starts required in order to untangle her limbs. At this rate it would take at least another quarter of an hour before she was at home, she thought, looking up at the sky anxiously for signs of impending rain.
Her mind drifted, returning as it habitually did to domesticity and the practicalities of life. Dog food was needed; Chris could get it from the local pet shop this time. He could exercise his charm on the fat lesbian behind the counter, suffer the usual humiliating grillings about the absence of lustre on the boys’ coats. Maybe even render a cheque and see if his writing, lacking loops to the same extent as her own, was declared ‘not sexy’. The cheek of it! And actually, it was probably the very reverse of the truth. A small, cramped hand meant dynamite under the sheets, the only place where full abandon was sanctioned. Her indignation evaporated on seeing the familiar figure of DS Rice, sitting in a parked car, now rolling down the driver’s window and beckoning her towards the vehicle.
‘I could give you a lift home, if you like, Mrs Freeman?’
The woman did not need to be asked twice, and with almost indecent haste bundled her cleaning onto the back seat and then herself into the front. Signalling to re-join the traffic, Alice said casually, ‘I’ve just seen your husband, he said you were out and then, by good luck, I saw you. Maybe we could finish our chat on the way to your house?’
‘Fine by me,’ Sandra Freeman replied, lighting up immediately.
‘Your car. The new one. When did you get it?’
‘Not a minute to spare, eh! The day after Chris got rid of the other one.’
‘Chris… er, the Major sold the other one, didn’t he? Can you tell me how?’
‘I really don’t know. He said he needed a new one and who am I to disagree with that?’ she smiled. ‘I’m the driver, of course, and the other one was a rustbucket. It had a hole in the floor, water actually came in, if you can believe it.’
‘Can you recall a sign in the car, a “For Sale” sign?’
‘No… but that’s how Chris sold it. I remember now. He told me.’
‘And on Monday 12th June between about seven and ten pm and on Wednesday 5th July between about eight and ten pm, where were you?’
‘That first date, that’s the night James died, eh?’ the woman asked, inhaling deeply.
‘Yes.’
‘I was at home with Chris…’ a cloud of smoke issued from her mouth. ‘The second date, I don’t know. Is that the date Nicholas Lyon was hit?’
‘Yes. Do I turn left here?’ Alice asked.
‘Yup, left now. I was there with Chris. He was with me.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Sandra Freeman said tartly, distrust now evident in her voice.
‘Here all right?’ Alice enquired, drawing the car to a halt.
‘Here’s ideal.’
‘And you said you were the driver?’ Alice asked, hardly expecting an answer, the woman, cigarette dangling loosely from her lips, now wrestling open the car door, ready to extract her load from the back.
‘Yes. Chris lost his licence a while ago. But he gets it back at the end of the month.’
She assembled everything in her head before leaving her desk and this time she knocked, although the impulse to barge in was stronger, if anything, than before.
‘Come in.’
Alice advanced through the door and was disappointed to see the Assistant Chief Constable, Laurence Body, seated in the Chief Inspector’s office.
‘Yes, Alice,’ DCI Bell said.
‘Well, Ma’am,’ she began, disarmed by the unexpected presence, ‘it’s about Mr Freeman… sorry, Sheriff Freeman and his partner, Mr Lyon.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve new information that might help us, but I could always come back later, tell you when you’re free. You know, after the Assistant Chief Constable, Sir, has…’
Wordlessly, Laurence Body rose from his seat, went to the window, collected from beside it another chair and then placed it beside his own. He smiled reassuringly at the Sergeant and, with a courtly gesture, indicated for her to take the seat. Oh fuck, she thought, worried that in such august company the power of speech might desert her or, at least, the power to persuade. Treat it like a presentation, she told herself, but a subversive answer in her own head replied that she had not prepared for any such thing, expecting instead some form of dialogue, ideas exchanged, tested, accepted or rejected, all in the course of an ordinary conversation.
‘Well Ma’am, Sir…’ she began, voice sounding weak already. ‘I think Christopher Freeman murdered the Sheriff and the Sheriff’s partner, but we may have great difficulty in proving it.’
‘Go on,’ Body said eagerly, clearly rapt.
‘First of all, motive. James Freeman, the eldest son, inherited all of the Freeman wealth, the vast house in Moray Place, land and so on, except for a single farm, Blackstone Mains, which was shared with his brother, Christopher. Originally, the elder brother was pro-wind farm and seems to have got Vertenergy involved or at least acceded to their wind farm plan. From Alistair’s enquiries with Vertenergy it seems that their lease of Blackstone Mains for a twenty-five year period would’ve netted the brothers a sum in excess of one and a half million. And for Christopher Freeman-almost anyone I suppose-that’s a huge amount of money. As far as I can see, he lives in pretty reduced circumstances. He doesn’t seem to have had any sort of career and his house in Frogston Road West reeks of genteel poverty. But the money won’t have mattered so much to the Sheriff: he was already rich, and he’ll have got a fat pension from the government. Also, he knew he was dying. Nicholas Lyon said that when James Freeman entered into negotiation with the company he was keen on renewable energy, global warming and all that. Over time, though, he changed his mind about wind turbines, possibly due to some extent to his partner’s arguments, appeals or whatever. Christopher Freeman, however, didn’t know that his brother had a partner, male or female. If his brother didn’t have a partner then it wouldn’t be an unreasonable assumption, even taking into account their strained relationship, that in the event of the Sheriff’s death the land would remain in Freeman hands, that it would be left by James Freeman to Christopher Freeman…’