While Flora Erskine was addressing Lord Lawford, hands behind her back, weight on her heels, written submissions disregarded with uncharacteristic élan, Alice Rice and Alastair Watt were being viewed with unconcealed rudeness by Paula Carruthers at Ian Melville’s flat. Alice watched with amusement as the woman, whose terse greeting had disclosed a horsey, received-pronunciation accent, adjusted her manner on hearing Alice’s equally rounded vowels, making it an iota more courteous. Paula Carruthers was unable to disguise her surprise at the voice answering her own-someone in the police force, of all places, with whom one might have been at pony club, teenage parties or, for heaven’s sake, school. The obscure etiquette governing such a situation seemed to be too much for Carruthers’ limited neurones, and she was unable to decide whether her visitors should be invited in, like friends or, at least, equals, or whether they should be required to wait at the door like Jehovah’s Witnesses, delivery men and petty officials. As the woman continued to ponder her social predicament, Alice spoke again. ‘It’s Mr Melville, Ian, that we’d like to speak to.’ Carruthers answered, still evidently preoccupied and decisionless, that he was in his studio and was not expected back until lunchtime at the earliest.
Melville’s studio in Stockbridge was cold, colder than the street outside, and that was chilly enough despite the sunshine. An open door revealed a large space divided in two by greying bed sheets suspended from the ceiling, a rip serving as access between them. The sound of an industrial heater on the far side echoed in the place, producing noise but little heat, certainly insufficient to make any impact on the temperature in the place, which was more like that of a fridge than anything else. Any models foolish enough to disrobe would, if they did not pass out with hypothermia, exhibit blue-tinged flesh, matt with goose pimples. Melville’s drawings were pinned up all over the bare brick walls: huge pencil or charcoal sketches of scantily clad acrobats, male and female, cavorting on the floor, revolving around pommel horses and flying, suspended in the air between two still swinging trapezes.
As Alice and Alastair were glancing at the pictures, Melville appeared through the rent in the sheet dividers and his previously untroubled expression changed, momentarily, to one of alarm on recognising his interrogators from earlier. As if he had not seen them he turned his back and crossed the room to a kettle, now boiling, and made himself a mug of Bovril. He was trying to keep the cold at bay in a thick jacket with some kind of fisherman’s jersey beneath it and his hands were protected by fingerless gloves, their wool spattered with droplets of brightly-coloured paint. Still ignoring his visitors, he carried his mug to a junkyard sofa and began to drink, expelling puffs of white breath between sips.
‘We want to talk to you about your whereabouts on the night that Sammy McBryde was killed.’ Alice fired the opening salvo.
‘You know where I was,’ Melville sighed, ‘I’ve already told you. I was here until about eight, and then I met Roddy Cohen for a drink. I was in the Raeburn Inn till ten, and then I went home.’
‘Had you pre-arranged the meeting with Cohen?’ Alice asked, knowing he had not done so.
‘No. I came in and he was there. Either I joined him or he joined me, I can’t remember which.’
‘He’s a friend of yours?’
‘Not exactly. A drinking pal, at highest. Roddy usually attaches himself, like a limpet, to anyone in the pub that’s in the company of a woman, in the hope of stealing her or becoming acquainted with any female friends in her trail. He sits and slavers and is, I suppose, rather gross, but he makes me laugh with his bizarre chat up lines and beseeching eyes. He’s also about the best painter I know. He wouldn’t perjure himself for me, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Was he still in the pub when you left?’ Alastair asked.
‘No. I think he’d gone earlier, so you’ll have to take my word that I left at ten.’
‘Did you go to Granton Medway at any time that evening?’
‘No. I would have told you if I had,’ Melville replied. He enunciated each word carefully, as if speaking to a particularly stupid child.
‘You didn’t tell us that you’d visited Elizabeth Clarke’s flat on the night of her murder, until you were confronted with forensic evidence that made any denial useless,’ Alice reminded him.
He smiled ruefully. ‘That’s true, and it was stupid of me. Maybe if you’re ever in a situation like mine you’ll find yourself behaving irrationally. The fear of being convicted of a murder you didn’t commit does funny things to a person. All I can say is, I don’t usually lie and I’m not lying now…’
Alastair broke in. ‘A man answering your description was seen in Granton Medway on the night that Sammy McBryde was killed.’
As her partner was speaking Alice watched Ian Melville’s face. The fear in his eyes was unmistakable, but fear of what? Being imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, or for one he did commit? Somehow, he managed to keep his nerve, and his voice was strong, defiant even, when he replied.
‘What am I supposed to say? I’ve already told you that I didn’t know Sammy McBryde and that I haven’t been anywhere near Granton Medway. I was at home watching the television when that man was killed. I know that as far as Elizabeth’s death is concerned it looks like I had the opportunity to kill her and, in many minds, the motive too, but truly, Sammy McBryde is a complete stranger to me. Why on earth would I want to kill him?’ He paused for a moment, looked his questioners straight in the eye and then went on the offensive, fuelled by anger. ‘The papers seem to be suggesting that there’s a serial killer on the loose. I am not a single killer, never mind a fucking serial killer. I wouldn’t know McBryde, or Pearson for that matter, if they came up and shook my hand. You’re wasting your time with me.’
A tall, dark man beside Melville in the line-up in the identity parade was sweating profusely; water glistened in the bright light on his forehead and neck, and he looked as if he might pass out with heat. Or guilt. Good, Melville thought, standing up straight, erect, shoulders back, chin up. The pose of an upright citizen with nothing to fear from the law, nothing to hide, the sort of person who co-operates with the police to the extent of assisting in line-ups to help them identify the guilty party. He willed himself to look straight ahead in an effort to catch the eye of his invisible accuser, to reassure the witness of his innocence and deflect him from choosing him.
Alice took her arm off the thin shoulder of the little skateboarder. He was shaking his head vigorously, eyes still fixed on the line-up of men before him from behind the smoked glass screen.
‘Naw, naw, none o’ they men, Miss. He’s nae there.’
‘Certain?’
‘Absolutely positive, Miss. The yin I seen… naw, naw, he’s nae there.’