‘Yeah,’ the woman replied, concentrating on the cuts, depositing a heavily blood-soaked paper hankie onto the kitchen table and bending to hold another in place.
‘Why isn’t it Tom finding out these things? Mr Riddell, he’s the one who was allocated to us. I thought he was supposed to deal with me, to liaise with us,’ she said, adding, slightly querulously, ‘we’ve got to know him, too. He’s a friend.’
‘He’s busy at the moment, I’m afraid,’ Alice said. ‘If you could just remind me where you went that evening?’
‘To Pippa’s, my sister’s. Well, not here to her flat, but out with her. We’d planned to spend the evening out together, like I told you.’
‘So where did the pair of you go?’
‘Em… to the shops, window shopping, in the St James Centre. Next, John Lewis – those sorts of places – then we had supper together.’
‘Where did you eat?’
‘The Norseman on Lothian Road – smoresbrod or whatever it is called. Great thick slices of over-priced bread. She likes it, but we hadn’t booked it or anything.’
‘And then?’
A caterwauling of faint, breathless miaows started up, and Alice watched as a long-haired tortoiseshell cat slunk through the door, weaving its way towards Heather Brodie and winding itself between her legs, its fluffy tail waving snakelike behind it.
‘Who’s this?’ the policewoman asked.
‘Fanta, Pippa’s companion. She’s come to see her kittens. She’s a rescue cat, used to be called ‘Cade’, as in ‘Cavalcade’, but that was meaningless, so Pippa changed her name. The new one fits her better, I think, but she doesn’t come when called.’
‘Where are the kittens?’
‘In that corner, up on the unit, behind the microwave. They were born there, two pure white and one black. I’m getting one of the white ones.’
Restraining herself from getting up and going to see them, giving them a stroke even, Alice watched as the cat leapt up and disappeared behind the microwave, contented purring soon replacing the anguished high-pitched mews. With luck she would see them on the way out.
‘After the Norseman, where did you go?’
‘Further down the same road, to the theatre, to see A Woman of No Importance.’
‘Who was in it – taking the leading roles?’
Looking for the first time slightly vexed, as if the question was pointless, she replied, ‘Since you ask, it had Martin Jarvis in it. That’s why I wanted to see it.’
‘You’re a fan of his? Was he good?’
‘Yes, I like him. I think he’s a superb actor and he was wonderful as Lord Illingworth.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then,’ she said slowly, her voice tailing off as if she was re-living the moment in her head, ‘then I walked home on my own. It took a while, you’ll appreciate. I didn’t look at my watch, but I’d have got back at about eleven or maybe half past, I think.’
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Brodie. You said, last time, that you’d planned to spend the night with your sister but you changed your mind. Why, what made you change your mind?’
‘Oh,’ Heather Brodie said, standing up and tossing the blood-stained collection of hankies in the bin, ‘who knows? I can’t really remember. A voice in my head told me to go home and, for once, I listened to it, obeyed it. That’s the best I can do.’
A young woman entered the kitchen with a toddler balanced on her hip, and, as they arrived, the child opened her eyes, rubbed them and said in a sleepy voice, ‘Aunty Pippa – where’s Aunty Pippa?’
‘No,’ said Heather Brodie, opening her arms wide to receive the child, ‘there’s only Granny here today, Katy, I’m afraid.’
‘Mum!’ her daughter said in mock reproach, lifting the child and trying unsuccessfully to pass her into the outstretched arms. But the little girl clung onto her mother more tightly, turning her head away from her grandmother.
‘Well, it’s true, darling,’ Mrs Brodie answered, frowning. ‘We both know she prefers her aunt.’
‘Only because she has more to do with her. She sees her nearly every afternoon when I’m at Uni. Sometimes I think Katy prefers her to me, she cries when it’s time to come home with me. But I don’t take it amiss… do I?’ She lowered the toddler onto the ground and then went over to her mother and kissed her.
‘Is Harry coming?’
‘Yes. He’s just parking the car.’
‘So, sergeant,’ said Heather Brodie, turning her attention back to the policewoman, ‘here they are. I gather you’d like to talk to them too?’
As she was speaking, Harry Brodie slouched into the kitchen. He was wearing a dark blue hoodie and carrying a copy of The Hungry Caterpillar. When he saw the child, he immediately went towards her, smiling broadly, and put the book on her lap.
‘Harry, darling…’ His mother got up to kiss the boy.
‘Mother,’ he replied coldly, accepting the kiss but making no attempt to return it. He then deliberately avoided meeting her gaze, concentrating his attention exclusively on the others, as if snubbing her.
‘No kiss for me?’ she said good naturedly, offering him her cheek.
‘Yes. No kiss for you,’ he spat back, now looking her straight in the eye, ignoring the presence of a stranger. The woman paled but said nothing.
‘I would like to talk to them,’ Alice said, resuming their previous conversation, ‘but separately from you and from each other, please. But I’ve a few more things to clear up with you first.’
‘Very well,’ Heather Brodie replied, signalling to her children that they should leave the room. They chattered to each other as they went out, with the child stumbling after them.
‘Boys!’ she said, as if to explain her son’s behaviour.
‘Could you tell me a little about your husband. For example, could he take his own medication, measure it out, lift the bottle and so on?’ Alice asked.
‘I always gave it to him,’ Heather Brodie replied, sitting down and pulling the loose sides of her robe together.
‘No one else? The children, his mother?’
‘My mother-in-law? You must be joking. She found it “too distressing” to have anything much to do with him. For which read “Too busy”. She had far better things to do with her time – bridge, NADFAS, the Conservatives.’
‘Could he have taken it himself?’
‘He could lift things sometimes, but things got spilt.’
‘So he could have taken his own medicine?’
‘Yes, certainly – drunk it from the bottle, say, but not measured it out or anything like that. Why?’
‘We need to get an impression of… of his abilities shortly before he died. Did he know what was in his medicine bottles, what they contained?’
‘He must have done. He was given the stuff in them every day, more than once a day.’
‘One other thing. Did your husband ever attend a day centre?’
‘A few times. He had to,’ Heather Brodie said, sounding defensive, ‘but only if everything else had failed. I did need some time to myself, just occasionally, anyone would have. He was getting worse, you know.’
‘Which one did he go to?’
‘The one in Stockbridge, on Raeburn Place. Frankly, it was a pretty good hell-hole, but it served its purpose.’
‘Finally, Mrs Brodie, and I’m sorry to ask, but did he ever express a wish to die? Did he want to die?’
‘Yes,’ she replied quietly, ‘he wanted to die. He spoke about little else, but after a while I stopped listening.’
Several times while she was talking to the policewoman, Ella Brodie’s fair hair fell across her eyes, but each time she flicked it away again with a languid toss of her head, a few loose strands always remaining. Seated on the sofa, she was trying not only to answer the questions put to her but also to keep her fractious child content, holding up framed photos of another toddler and showing them to her.
‘Is that Katy?’ Alice asked, looking first at the image and then at the little girl.