‘No, me. They’re all of me. We look identical at the same age.’
‘Is that one not Harry?’ Alice asked, pointing to one of a child with short hair, sticking out its tongue and brandishing a bow and arrow at the photographer.
‘Nope. None of them are, I’m afraid. I’m Aunty’s favourite, you see. But it evens out. Granny adores Harry.’
‘Well, down to business, I suppose,’ Alice said, getting out her notebook. ‘Where were you last Saturday night?’
‘On the Saturday night I was with Harry in his flat. We went to Smith’s first, then home. All night,’ she said, slightly petulantly. ‘I stayed the night there – as I’ve already told Mr Riddell more than once.’
Forgetting that he was supposed to wait until his sister’s interview had finished, her brother wandered into the room, his eyes fixed on the screen of his DS. Ella shook her head, exasperated at his absentmindedness. Catching sight of her, he said, irritably, ‘What?’
‘You were supposed to wait, dimwit, remember?’
‘Whatever,’ he replied, making no attempt to move from the armchair where he had sat down.
‘Where were you on the Sunday night, Harry?’ Alice asked.
‘Pub, then home,’ he replied, never looking up, his thumbs continuing to move feverishly over the controls on his little black box.
‘All night?’
‘Yeah. With her.’
‘Could either of you tell me,’ Alice asked, ‘whether your father would be able to take his own medicine from the bottle? Was he capable of lifting the stuff to his lips and drinking it?’
‘Nah…’ the boy replied, ‘he’d drop it or something.’
‘Yes, probably not,’ his sister confirmed, now opening a glossy magazine and showing it to her silent but fidgety child. ‘As Harry says, he’d drop it or miss his lips or something.’
‘Who usually gave him his medicine?’
‘Mum. It was always Mum,’ Ella Brodie replied, the boy remaining silent, apparently unaware in his absorption in his Nintendo that a further question had been asked.
Following Heather Brodie out of the kitchen, Alice walked towards the front door, and as she stepped over a new patch of blood-soaked carpet their eyes met. ‘Fanta,’ the woman said, a little smile playing on her lips, ‘it’s Fanta this time. Looks like she killed Cock Robin. She did it, detective, she’s the guilty party, I can assure you. Look, you can still see a few feathers… oh, and a leg.’
As Alice was returning to her car, trying to digest the information she had received, her phone went.
‘How did you get on with the widow?’ It was Eric Manson’s voice.
‘Fine. She was easy, talkative, seemed to say much what she had said before,’ she replied, searching in her pocket for her car key.
‘And the kids?’
‘They said exactly what Thomas said they would say, nothing new. They don’t think their father could have taken the stuff.’
‘Are you coming back now, then? I’m just off to see the old woman Brodie, somewhere in the wilds of East Lothian. You might even know the place. I could wait for you, pet.’ He sounded as if he wanted the company.
‘I’d planned to speak to Heather Brodie’s sister, Sir. I imagine she’ll say the same as before, but I think I’d better double-check it. She’s a part-time reception teacher at Hamilton Stewarts, over Cramond way.’
‘OK. Fine. See you back in the office in a couple of hours.’
Alice turned the car into the winding drive of the private school, and every so often its shock-absorbers squeaked in protest as they rocked over the sleeping policemen which broke the otherwise flawless surface. The car park seemed to be the exclusive preserve of shiny black SUVs with tinted windows, BMWs and Range Rovers, and the small police vehicle seemed like an unloved interloper amongst them, further marked out by its caked-on dirt and missing hub cap.
Following signs to the junior school across an immaculate gravelled area, Alice reached a pair of double doors guarded by a security lock. She searched in vain for a bell or an intercom, and just as her patience was running out, a heavily pregnant woman smiled indulgently at her as if she was a forgetful fellow-mum, punched in the code and allowed her to follow her in.
Inside was a large, glass-roofed atrium with classrooms leading off it on all four sides. In one corner, an anxious-looking schoolmistress stood poised over a CD player, and arranged around the walls were rows of empty chairs, as if awaiting the audience for a performance.
As the strains of ‘Colonel Bogie’ started up, Alice made for the nearest seat and suddenly pairs of children filed in, hands clasped and raised high for the Grand March. Within a couple of minutes a reel had begun, and through her feet she could feel the wooden floor begin to vibrate as fifty or more little children bounced up and down on it, the tartan sashes over their shoulders loosening and flapping free. Among them, like giants, moved members of staff. The tallest of these bore a strong resemblance to Heather Brodie – a paler, subdued version of her, like a poor prototype for the more glamorous younger sister.
When first spotted by Alice, the woman was dancing a Dashing White Sergeant, and dangling from the tips of her thin fingers were her partners, both little girls, neither of whom reached much above her bony knees. Her head was held erect, gaze directed straight ahead, and the footwork of her pas de basques was impeccable, high-stepping in time to the beat. She appeared determined to ignore the fact that all around her the children were skidding and spinning, not dancing, little boys and girls colliding, bouncing off each other, then falling in dizzy heaps to the floor and giggling.
As her threesome drew parallel to another, a schoolmaster with his own diminutive partners now jigging opposite her, she flashed him a token smile and then her mouth resumed its tight, trap-like set. After a further pairing, she looked short-sightedly around the hall, and when she saw Alice she bestowed on her a discreet nod of acknowledgement.
The sound of the final chord was the cue for her to disentangle herself from her tiny partners, one of them continuing to pirouette alone. The teacher set off resolutely towards the policewoman, and on reaching her extended her over-large hand and said, in a thin, quavery voice, ‘I’m Miss Michelson. The Head told me that you needed to speak to me, I assume it’s about poor Gavin’s murder. Sorry to have kept you waiting, we’re practising for a country-dance festival in Perth tomorrow.’
Then she sat down, legs to one side, ankles clamped together and hands folded in her lap. Alice followed the sequence of questions that she had asked earlier, and listened intently to the schoolmistress’s answers as she recounted the evening’s events. As she spoke, all the while she clasped and then unclasped her fingers. And the responses she gave accorded with those given by Heather Brodie in almost every detail, providing perfect corroboration of her account. She named precisely the same shops, precisely the same eating-place, dropping in precisely the same asides as she did so.
While she was in mid-flow, a little girl with anxious, wide saucer-eyes plumped herself down on the seat next to Alice’s, swinging her legs to and fro, then leant over towards her and said, ‘Guess what?’
‘What?’ Alice whispered, distracted by the child.
‘Boys’ poo is gold. It’s gold – they do gold poo.’
‘Really? How d’you know?’
‘Rhuari told me. He said I could buy…’
‘Helena!’ Miss Michelson said, interrupting the girl and tapping her gently on the knee with her left hand. ‘Off you go. It’s playtime now and I need to speak to this lady.’
Instantly, and apparently taking no offence at her peremptory dismissal, Helena slid from her seat and ran off to join a crowd of children who were milling around a tea trolley, chattering and jostling while they waited for their piece of cake.