‘You’ll be aware, Mr Melville, of the death of Dr Elizabeth Clarke,’ Alice began.
‘I read the papers like everyone else, yes.’
‘Can you tell me where you were between five pm on Thursday evening and nine pm the next morning?’
‘Am I a suspect?’ Melville asked defensively.
‘No. You’re simply assisting us with our enquiries. Is that alright with you?’
The man hesitated before replying, ‘Fine.’ His anxious expression undermined his words.
‘So can you tell me where you were…’
‘On Thursday evening I worked in my studio until about eight or so, and then I went home.’
‘Where is your studio?’
‘Stockbridge. Anyone see you at your studio?’
‘I don’t know. I certainly didn’t see anyone else there. Does that matter? I can show you the work that I was doing if necessary.’
‘After leaving the studio you walked home to St Bernard’s Row?’
‘Yes. I collected a carry-out from the Chinese and spent the rest of the evening in, watching the television, until I went to bed.’
‘Were you on your own all the time?’
‘Yes, but I have no one to confirm I was actually there, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘Any phone calls to you or made by you?’
‘No. I don’t think so. I use a mobile anyway.’
‘What did you watch on TV?’
‘I can’t remember now. I think I watched a DVD, something I’d got from the shop.’
Alastair decided that his turn had come, and catching Alice’s eye, cut in.
‘I understand that you and Dr Clarke went out with each other up until about a year ago?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Why did the relationship end?’
Melville didn’t answer immediately. He looked at his interrogators keenly, as if trying to assess what they might already know, and then committed himself.
‘You already know the cause, I’d guess. We broke up as Liz decided to have a termination, as she called it-an abortion, to have our child aborted.’
‘You hadn’t agreed to this?’
‘I wasn’t consulted. I was presented with a fait accompli.’
‘Had you been aware that Dr Clarke was pregnant?’
‘No.’
‘If you’d been told, what would your reaction have been?’
‘I’d have been delighted. What can I say? I loved Liz, I would have wanted my child to be half her, Liz to be the mother of my children.’
‘So you would have tried to stop her having an abortion?’
‘Obviously, if I had known.’
‘And you’re a Catholic?’
‘Lapsed. A lapsed Catholic.’
‘What was your reaction when you heard what she’d done?’
Melville’s expression changed to one of hostility, disbelief that such a stupid question could be uttered. What the hell would you feel if your baby had been killed? When, at last, he spoke, he spoke slowly.
‘At first I didn’t believe her… I couldn’t believe it. But it’s not the kind of thing you make up, is it? So when the news sank in I was… furious, disgusted, sad… appalled. We had a tremendous row.’
‘Disgusted?’ Alice asked.
‘Disgusted with her. I never thought she could do such a thing, not her. It made me think of her differently-she had killed our child.’
‘Who ended the relationship?’ she continued.
‘She did… Liz did. After the row she refused my calls, never answered my letters, and on the one occasion when I waited for her to return to Bankes Crescent from work, she cut me dead, wouldn’t say a word and shut the front door in my face.’
‘Have you had any girlfriends since Dr Clarke?’
His hackles rose again. None of your business.
‘No, I haven’t even been looking. I told you, I loved her and it’s not easy to get someone like that out of your system, even after what she did.’
Alastair showed Melville a photo of Sammy McBryde. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Never seen him in my life before.’
‘Can you tell us where you were yesterday evening between four-thirty pm and, say, eleven-fifty pm?’
‘I worked in my studio until about eight pm or so, then I met a pal, Roddy, for a drink at the Raeburn Inn. I left there at about ten, I think, and went home. It’s just round the corner from the pub. I watched the TV until I went to bed.’
‘Anyone at home with you? Any calls?’
‘No. I can’t prove that I was there, but I was.’
‘Can you give us Roddy’s full name and address?’
‘Roderick Cohen, St Stephen’s Street. I’ll get the flat number.’
No one brushed the stairs within Alice’s tenement in Broughton Place; they belonged to everyone in the block and so were cleaned by nobody. The last time they’d been swept was when one of the flats was for sale; a potential purchaser could not be expected to overlook the squalor routinely disregarded by the residents.
Alice trudged upwards, blind as ever to the dust, stopping only when she reached Miss Spinell’s flat on the second floor. Without the aged spinster’s help as a dog-sitter she would have been unable to keep Quill, her collie cross mongrel, and she was painfully aware of her dependence on the animal for company, a source of silent support and uncritical adoration, and on Miss Spinell’s goodwill as his daytime keeper. Fortunately, the old lady needed the dog as much, if not more, than Alice, as in his absence day after endless day would be spent alone behind the multiple mortice and Yale locks with which she fortified her front door. Alzheimer’s was creeping up on her in the form of a thief, a thief who made free with the contents of her fridge, her pan cupboard and her underwear drawers. One day her favourite aluminium cooking pot would have disappeared, the next a tin of sockeye salmon would appear half-consumed beside the ice cubes, and her numerous locks no longer provided any protection against the quick-fingered scoundrel.
Alice knocked on the heavy door and waited patiently for the characteristic thuds, clicks and bangs which always preceded its opening. Finally, her identity having been confirmed from behind the last chain, Quill was released to her with the usual polite little nod that signalled the changeover of custody. The dog ran, yelping excitedly, up to their flat on the third floor and waited patiently as Alice fished in her bag for her keys. As the door swung open, she caught the end of a message on her answerphone. Bridget’s voice: ‘Sorry you’re not in. Had thought we might meet up tonight. I’ll try again later in the week.’
She breathed a sigh of relief. No white lies needed to excuse her reluctance to leave home again, just the prospect of a drink in the company of her own thoughts. She poured herself a glass of New Zealand white, unable, as she sipped it slowly, to switch off. Ian Melville seemed believable, but he had a motive or two for killing his former lover, and the opportunity; his house and studio were less than ten minutes from the victim’s flat. Of course, he had no alibi, but he seemed, somehow, an unlikely killer. Surely, if he had done it, it would have been in the heat of the moment, a crime of passion. Yet Dr Clarke’s cleaner said that no knives were missing, which meant the murderer must have brought his own blade with him. So it must have been a premeditated crime, just like Sammy McBryde’s. The paper chase connecting the killings and the calculated way in which they had been carried out were as if someone wanted to ensure that they got the credit for both.