‘Was he married?’
‘You know, I don’t know! Certainly, I’ve never seen his wife if he had one, but I don’t honestly know. That sounds awful!’
‘Did he have many callers, visitors or whatever?’
‘Well, Moray Place isn’t a curtain-twitching sort of area but… No. I can’t say I have seen many visitors. But I have to repeat, we lead our own, rather busy lives, and the comings and goings of our neighbours largely pass us by. Half the time I think he wasn’t here anyway.’
‘What sort of man was he, Mr Gunn?’ Alistair said.
Hamish Gunn blinked several times, theatrically, as if to convey deep thought before replying, and spoke ponderously.
‘I’d say he was reserved. Yes, I think that’s how I would describe him. I expect he had been good at his job, certainly had a distinct gravitas about him. Naturally, I know some lawyers-it’d be difficult to live in Edinburgh and not do so-but while many of them knew him by name, I don’t think that even they knew him socially. A friend of mine in the office once told me that Freeman was a first-class shot. I’ve a gun in a syndicate on Buccleuch land but, to be frank, I never felt inclined to invite him along as a guest. The few times I have talked to him he seemed rather too dry for my liking, almost as if he had some sort of distaste for his own kind.’
‘Remember the fire, darling?’ Mrs Gunn interjected.
‘Oh yes, he did do rather well then, didn’t he?’ her husband replied. ‘We had a fire in our basement, officers, and he and some of the other neighbours helped us to remove pictures and so forth. He came up trumps then. I invited him to the post-blaze drinks party but, again, he refused us… I think he said he was off on holiday or something. When I think about it, he really would be the last sort of person I’d expect to meet a violent end. An inoffensive man.’
‘Did you see anyone coming to his door yesterday or last night?’ Alice asked.
‘Mmm… I didn’t, darling, did you?’ Mrs Gunn looked at her husband.
‘No, no, I think I can safely say that I never saw a soul. I was at a meeting until, oh, about ten o’clock, and then I walked home. I must have got back here at, say, half past ten, and after that I never left the house. And tonight we’ll certainly be barricading ourselves in. In fact, I think I’ll get a locksmith to add a few more Yales, maybe.’
‘Did either of you hear anything?’
‘Goodness, no, the walls are solid stone, not plasterboard. Someone could be screaming blue murder… Sorry, a bit insensitive of me-but I never heard a squeak,’ Mrs Gunn volunteered and her spouse nodded his assent.
The Sheriff’s other immediate neighbour on the other side led the two detective sergeants into her downstairs drawing room. Although a large room with a high ceiling, it had few pieces of furniture within it, and such items as were present were evidently expensive and simple in design. No clutter marred any surface, and the wall-space was devoid of pictures barring one large print, an abstract, placed exactly at eye-level on the wall. Lilies scented the air and two glass vases stood equidistant from the picture, on an aluminium table below it.
The woman resumed her seat, gesturing for Alice and Alistair to sit down by her. She gulped unselfconsciously, and with no urge to offer hospitality, from a tiny liqueur glass filled with golden fluid. The viscous liquid clung to her upper lip, emphasising the dark shadow on it, her full thatch of thick black hair confirming a hirsute tendency.
‘Well, what can I do to help, detectifs?’ Mrs Nordquist’s strongly accented contralto voice betrayed her Scandinavian origins.
Alice launched in. ‘We were hoping that you might be able to provide some information about Sheriff Freeman.’
‘Mmm, he wass not a doc lover, that I can tell you!’ She gave a brittle, intoxicated laugh.
‘Jusst a few days ago he wass at me… where’s your poopascoopa, Mrs Nordquist… always so bothered about the little doc dirt! Still,’ she corrected herself, ‘that’s not what you want to know.’ She paused. ‘He wass a goot neighbour really, no trouble, but I hartly knew him. Not a goot laugh though, always so serious. I sometimes wondered if he hat any fun in his life. Wheneffer I saw him he was busy, lots of papers… that great big briefcase.’
‘Was he married?’ Alistair tried again.
‘No chans! What lady would haff him? No, no, I don’t mean it. Yess, maybe someone desperate… butt really desperate… even more desperate than me!’ She cackled heartily at her own joke.
Raising her liqueur glass to her mouth again, she nodded again, as if her visitors could neither need nor want any further information.
‘Did you see anyone call at his house yesterday or last night?’ Alice persisted.
‘I wass in the garten at the back of the houss yesterday, so I wouldn’t see anyone at hiss door. Last night? Oh yess, I had my bridge friends around-Lillian, Helen ant Annie. We played until, maybe elefen o’clock, ant then I went to my bed… alone ass ussual.’ She directed a rueful smile at Alistair who, on cue, shifted uneasily on his seat. From the corner of her eye Alice noticed a shadow pass the open door, and then Mrs Nordquist’s deep voice boomed out, as if she was alone in the room.
‘Freya! FREYA! You batt doc. Come in here, right now! I know what you’re up to…’
Obediently, a large Weimaraner sloped into the drawing room and sank to the floor by its mistress’s feet. A sugar-cube was inserted into its mouth which it crunched noisily, before looking upwards beseechingly for another morsel. Mrs Nordquist’s attention, however, had shifted to her own glass and the need for a refill.
‘Enough… enough, Freya, my botyguard. We haff guests. Iss there anything else I can tell you?’
Alice shook her head and Alistair asked: ‘Can you remember when you last saw the Sheriff?’
Mrs Nordquist adjusted her hair while replying.
‘Ass I sait, it would be two or three days ago… we jusst sait hallo in the street in passing.’
‘So you didn’t really know the Sheriff or anything much about him, would that be right?’
‘Thatt would be… yess, we were strangers to each other, really. Neighbours jusst. A fine person, but no fun for me wiss thatt man!’
At three forty-five pm, Alice set off at a brisk pace on the downhill walk from the St Leonard’s Street Station to the Cowgate. The Police mortuary, a plain modern building constructed of burnt sienna coloured brick, was her destination. She had been instructed to attend the post mortem and she knew that the new DCI would be present too. As she slipped through the door to the inner sanctum, she saw that he had already stationed himself on one side of the body, standing a little distance back from the table. The Chief Pathologist, Professor McConnachie, was craning over the Sheriff’s head, apparently examining the man’s teeth, and in doing so he was inadvertently exposing his own extensive bald patch. The perfect curve of his undamaged skull contrasted cruelly with the Sheriff’s cracked and bloody cranium.
‘Natural dentition in the lower jaw… upper jaw natural too. No dentures,’ Professor McConnachie muttered, ‘no signs of injury to the buccal cavity itself. Tongue grossly normal…’
He straightened himself up, pushed his gold-rimmed spectacles up with his wrist and then turned his attention to the Sheriff’s hands, prying the fingers apart to inspect closely the undersides and nails. Beside him the mortuary attendant was waiting, scalpel posed theatrically above the corpse’s abdomen, for a signal from the Pathologist to proceed with the incision. Doctor Zenabi gave it, miming the anticipated action as he spoke. ‘On you go, Jock.’
Alice shuddered as the blade began to penetrate the Sheriff’s unclothed body. His nakedness did not disconcert her, she had assisted in the undressing of the body earlier in the day, and any sensation of shock had long since worn off. She had already observed his long toenails, prior to placing the toe tag, and the massive scar that ran across his chest, suggesting a seamstress, or surgeon, less talented than Doctor Frankenstein. He was just flesh now; aged, faded flesh, heir only to decomposition. The distinct smell of cigarette smoke, sweet and stale, on clothing, wafted in her direction as a Police photographer moved towards ‘the head end’ as the mortuary attendant insisted on calling it. Jock himself was completely absorbed in his own task, exposing the internal abdominal organs for inspection in situ prior to their removal for dissection by the Professor.