She produced a colour photo showing a smiling woman holding aloft a laughing child. Teresa Mair may have carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, but in the picture a carefree mother was showing off her beloved boy. And what a boy. Endowed with heavenly looks, eyes as blue as borage, beneath a mass of wavy, golden hair. Alice was taken aback, appalled at herself as she realised that since reading the judgement she had imagined some drooling, malformed little thing, the antithesis of the comely image now before her eyes. In a single, shameful instant the child’s tragedy had become more real, and with it that of his mother.
‘Do you have an address for Donny?’ she asked, handing the print back.
‘Aye. I’ve got a note of Marie’s address. I dae ken if he’s gone back tae her, mind. He gave it tae me as it wis the only permanent yin he had and I’d asked him fer it. I wanted to ken hoo Davie wis getting oan and a’. I used tae sit wi’ him, you ken, sometimes if Teresa had tae go oot. Daen it ever since he wis a babby. All they kids cried me Granny Annie. Joanne an’ Kelsie used to play wi’ my older grandkids aifter they came back fae the school. Joanne loved wee Amy, my youngest yin,’ the woman looked fondly at the child at her side, ‘liked to be ma wee helper…’
Stenhouse Lane was a few minutes’ drive, but half a world away. No.14 had been painted a sweet, ice-cream pink, and the new Georgian-style fanlight above the door was flanked by a couple of shining carriage lamps. The rest of the houses in the lane had also been prettified by their owners, and the small enclave stood as a rebuke to the council houses surrounding them with their grey harl and uniformly drab appearance.
Marie Mair was killing time. At 11.30 am she intended to catch the bus to ‘The Upper Cut’ in Gorgie High Street and have her black roots bleached and a trim. In the meanwhile, the minutes were ticking away nicely with the help of day-time TV, her constant companion. What sort of man would sleep with his sister-in-law if she looked like that, she wondered, concluding, on seeing Melvin, the sort that no one else much would deign to have sex with. The crisps were stale, so she put them back in the packet and took a sip of her coffee, listening intently as Melvin was harangued by the show’s outspoken hostess, and then informed by his angry wife, now hugging her grossly-obese sister, that she was going to divorce him. Serves the bastard right, she thought, two-timing slimeball, and the studio, at one with her, booed loudly as Melvin exited right. The high Westminster chimes of her front doorbell interrupted another woman’s confession of her lesbian longing for her boss, and Marie Mair switched the TV off to go and answer her door. It would be the news soon anyway, and she did not want the woes of the world gaining entry into her cosy nest.
She displayed little concern when shown the police identity cards, leading her two visitors into her sitting room as if such guests routinely appeared. Even when they began asking questions about her husband, no anxiety was apparent, and her tone conveyed no sense of involvement. They might have been enquiring about the milkman or the postman. Occasionally, she would interrupt to tell them how much she enjoyed The Bill or to confess that before she decided on dog grooming she had considered a job in the force, like that Prime Suspect woman.
‘So, Donny moved out in about July of this year?’ Alice ploughed on.
‘Yes.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Like I said, I’m sorry but I’ve no idea.’
‘Mrs Girvan thought, perhaps, he’d gone to stay with a friend.’
‘You mean Billy?’
‘Maybe. Can you give us Billy’s address?’
‘He stays in Tranent. 14 Kirk Wynd.’
‘Why did your husband move out?’
‘I think I’ll not answer that one, if you don’t mind.’ She smiled politely, as if they were holding a social conversation and she had signalled that this topic was, regrettably, out of bounds.
‘I’m afraid I do mind,’ Alice said ‘We need to know. So could you tell us why your husband moved out?’
‘Do I have to tell you?’
Alice nodded, amazed that the woman did not appear to have realised that she was involved in a murder investigation, rather than simply engaged in a friendly chat.
‘Cause he was more interested in his sister, Teresa, and Davie and the rest of them than me. He might as well have been her husband. After Sammy left it got worse, he spent more time up at her house than in ours. I couldn’t get him as much as to change a light bulb here, but he was shopping, cleaning and babysitting all hours up at Bright Park. In the end I threw him out. I’d found someone else, someone interested in me for a change.’
‘You said you and Donny were living together when Davie’s court case was on?’
‘In June. Aye,’ she nodded.
‘Did he talk much about it?’
‘He never stopped talking about it,’ she said tartly. ‘He was up at the court in the High Street every day, every single day it was on, and in the evenings he’d rave about it to me. I didn’t want to know. I had my own life.’
‘Did he ever mention a Dr Clarke?’
‘Who’s she?’
‘Dr Elizabeth Clarke. She was one of Teresa’s doctors for the birth. You might have seen in the papers…’
‘I don’t read the newspapers. But there was doctor he was mad at. Said the judge had the hots for her, maybe that was the lady doctor. Imagine that, eh, a judge and all.’
‘And David Pearson, QC, did he mention him?’
‘He mentioned a QC, alright. He was forever going on about him, up his own arse he said. Tore Teresa and her witnesses to shreds in the witness box.’
‘Did he mention Flora Erskine?’
‘Who?’
‘Flora Erskine. She was in the case too, with the QC.’
‘I don’t remember him mentioning that name, but he did talk about Pearson’s helpers. He said he reckoned Pearson was showing off in the court half the time to impress all the other lawyers, like.’
‘Have you seen your husband since Teresa died?’
‘Just the once. He came to collect the rest of his clothes, and anything else he’d left behind. It was after Davie got taken away to Musselburgh.’
‘How did he seem?’
‘What you mean?’
‘What impression did you form of his state of mind?’
‘He seemed fine. He was a bit concerned having nowhere to stay, and that, and when I said that he couldn’t take the photo album he lost his rag. Otherwise, he took the break-up well. I don’t think he was that bothered about us splitting up or nothing, then I’d hardly seen anything of him or him, me. I’ve got someone else, maybe he has too, poor bitch. Why are you all interested in him anyway?’
Without answering, Alastair picked up a framed photograph which had been lying face down on a coffee table and passed it to Alice. It showed Marie Mair in flowing white wedding gown standing, hand-in-hand, with a tall, dark-haired man dressed in a grey suit.
‘Donny?’ Alice enquired.
‘Him and me on our wedding day in 1990.’
‘Have you got anything more recent?’
‘Nope. Donny hated having his photo taken, he was always so self-conscious.’
The squad meeting fixed for noon was ill-attended, the room barely half full, but this time no bodies were slumped dejectedly in their seats or gazing gloomily out of the windows. The news of a hard suspect had travelled fast and reinvigorated everyone, and the absence of so many of the regulars was attributable to the speed of DCI Bell’s reactions and her conviction that, finally, they might be on the right road. Copies of the photograph of Donald Mair were being circulated and Alice took the opportunity, while waiting for her boss to appear, to inspect the man, to memorise the face of their quarry. The print showed a young man with very short, dark hair, his bride’s hand clasped tightly in his own. Her figure had been cropped, leaving only her hand in his and a small white triangle of her dress. The bridegroom’s gaze was fixed on the ground, oblivious to any loving looks being bestowed upon him by his now invisible wife, seemingly entranced by the shine on his own black shoes. The camera had caught a shy creature, one keen to escape scrutiny, eager to return to the shadows. No wonder his wife had only been able to produce one image of him, a wedding photo, no doubt obtained under some form of sentimental duress. Alice looked up and saw Elaine Bell moving towards the board; glancing again she took in the newly made-up appearance and the spring in her boss’s step.