‘So, how did you and Eric get on this morning?’ Elaine Bell asked Alice, wiping grease from her mouth with a paper napkin. ‘Could Brodie have taken the stuff himself – tried to commit suicide or not?’
‘No,’ Alice replied, noticing that, unfortunately, it was her boss who had the chips, ‘probably not. But Dr Paxton wasn’t all that helpful. He left it all slightly open. It doesn’t sound as if it would have been impossible for him to take the stuff himself, just unlikely.’
‘Then let’s assume, for the moment,’ the DCI said, ‘that he couldn’t take the stuff himself then, where does that leave us?’
‘Someone must have given it to him, or forced him to drink it, I suppose. Probably someone in the family, or close to him at any rate. Maybe it was accidental, an accidental overdose by someone? Clerk’s never done that kind of thing, drug people I mean. Why would he, anyway? So perhaps someone close to Brodie thought they’d help him out or something? Fed him the stuff, knowing he wanted it, that he wanted to die but couldn’t manage it himself.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Thomas Riddell broke in, in his usual ponderous manner, tipping his cup to drain the last drop. ‘I’ve met all the family, got to know them, relate to them, and that wouldn’t be my impression. None of them would do that. Anyway, the children were together on the Saturday night and…’
‘And why not them, exactly?’ Eric Manson said, turning round and facing Riddell. ‘Who else would do it?’
‘Well, certainly not Heather,’ replied the Liaison Officer, taken aback by the fierce tone of his superior.
‘I think you mean Mrs Brodie,’ the Inspector corrected him, his mind temporarily back on his work. Bloody Liaison Officers! What a breed they were, more like social workers than policemen. Supposed to be the force’s eyes and ears in the family, but before you know it, they’d been turned, become the family’s eyes and ears within the force. And this great big lummox was no different. He was probably under the woman’s spell already, with her baby-blue eyes and refined ways. He would be a sucker for someone like that.
‘Mrs Brodie’s very upset – about her husband, I mean. And the two children obviously really loved their father. They were close, I’d say an unusually close family unit. The kids were together on the night as I said. The young lad seems very angry, acting up, taking out his grief issues against his mother. Ella has Katy, so she’s better able to channel…’
‘What are you on about now?’ Eric Manson butted in, ‘and who the fuck is “Katy”?’
‘She’s Ella’s daughter.’
‘And the father?’
‘He’s not on the scene. But the rest of them, like I said, they’re a close family unit…’
‘Quite,’ Elaine Bell said, cutting off Riddell midstream. ‘And that’s exactly why we’ll check them out.’
‘Sure, but the man’s throat was cut,’ Riddell said, bemused. ‘That’s what killed him… isn’t it?’
‘Yes. That’s right,’ the DCI replied, speaking unnaturally slowly as if he might find it difficult to follow, ‘that’s correct. But we still need to know, don’t we? Because, otherwise, some smart-arse Counsel will use it to confuse the jury – if it ever gets that far. And Clerk’s still denying having anything to do with Brodie, don’t forget. No confession from him. So, I’m taking no chances. We’ll talk to the family again, check them out, and that Una Reid woman, too. Apart from anything else, they may have a different view as to whether Brodie could have taken the stuff himself. And if he could have, then we may be off this particular hook.’
‘D’you want me to speak to Hea… Mrs Brodie?’ Thomas Riddell said, rising from his chair as if already on his way.
‘No,’ the DCI said, gesturing for him to sit down again. ‘Alice can do that this time, can’t you, Alice?’
Without waiting for a reply, she continued, ‘And Eric, you can check out the old woman, Brodie’s mother, for us. And Alice, find out if he ever attended the Raeburn Place Day Centre. I reckon that’s where Clerk spotted his victims. Anything else, anyone?’
DC Littlewood entered the room, both arms laden with carrier bags and dropped them noisily onto his desk.
‘Sandy and me are having people in tonight,’ he said by way of explanation.
‘Sssh!’ Elaine Bell said. ‘We’re trying to think in here.’
‘Sorry, ma’am. One thing, though…’
‘Later,’ she replied impatiently, adding, ‘What do you think about it all, Eric?’
The Inspector did not turn round, so she repeated the question, speaking more loudly.
‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘I think that Clerk is scum, S.C.U.M., complete and utter scum. That’s what I think.’
‘Thanks. That’s very helpful,’ Elaine Bell said sarcastically, rubbing her hands over her eyes as if wearied by his response.
‘Ma’am…’ the DC tried again.
‘Yes?’
‘It was just to pass on a message. While you were talking to the ACC, the lab phoned to say that the eliminatory sample that the woman, Una Reid, gave matches stuff taken at the scene. And the rest of the family’s samples do too.’
‘And?’ Her bored tone suggested that she expected nothing from this quarter.
‘And… that was it. They’re still trying to find a match for the other stuff. No luck so far.’
‘Mmm. Well, it would have been odder if the family hadn’t left traces of themselves about the place, wouldn’t it? Alice, you’d best speak to the children too. I’m not sure that our Inspector’s up to it today.’
8
Thursday
As Alice Rice walked into the hallway of the flat in Bruntsfield Place the next morning, she noticed droplets of fresh blood on the light grey carpet, and on the kitchen floor, a trail of tiny red splashes led to the sink. Mrs Brodie herself appeared quite at home in her sister’s flat, either unaware of the spatters of blood or unconcerned by them. She sat with her legs crossed, dressed in a towelling robe, her wet hair clinging to her unmade-up face, the magazine that she had been reading open on the table before her. In one hand she clutched a wad of paper hankies as if she might, at some stage, need to stem the flow of tears, but her eyes were not red-rimmed, and when she began speaking her voice sounded normal, unaffected by emotion.
Leaning over to get her cup of tea from the nearby kitchen unit, she inadvertently, knocked over one of the countless plastic containers that littered every available surface in the room. Rows of yoghurt pots lined the windowsills too, most of them empty, a few containing a single, parched, yellowing seedling.
‘One of Pippa’s many hobbies,’ she said, almost apologetically, picking up the container and adding, ‘my sister, Pippa Mitchelson. This is her flat. I’m staying with her.’
Glancing at the spilt soil on the lino, Alice noticed a red pool below the woman’s bare foot, and watched as two dark streams of blood trickled down her ankle and dripped off onto the floor. The other leg, too, appeared to have countless little nicks on it. As she puzzled whether she should say something and, if so, what, Heather Brodie caught her eye. Seeing her uneasy expression she looked down at her legs and said, reassuringly, ‘Oh, don’t worry, sergeant, I’ve come prepared.’ She began to dab her legs with a couple of the hankies, adding, ‘I ran out of cream. I was shaving them when you rang the doorbell, so I finished the job in a hurry, botched it and ended up in a bloodbath. You know how it is…’
Alice nodded, and waited until the woman had staunched the blood before saying, ‘Mrs Brodie, we’re still trying to work out everyone’s movements on the Saturday night, trying to prepare an exact timetable. So we need to know a little more from you. You said that you left India Street at about 6 pm?’