‘Mr Laming?’ I said, trying not to gasp but still far from having enough breath to speak clearly. ‘Don’t touch the lift. Don’t do anything to it.’
Mr Laming had got to his feet and was scratching the dome of his head, his cap pushed back as he stared at me.
‘Are you…?’ he said but came up short of sensible suggestions.
I took a good deep breath and spoke very calmly.
‘There has been a terrible accident,’ I said.
‘Poor Miss Mirren,’ said the gormless boy.
‘Today,’ I went on. ‘Someone has fallen down the lift shaft and I’m sure he’s dead.’
Mr Laming and the boy both turned to look at the floor of the lift and then back at me.
‘Doon there?’ said the elder man. ‘For sure?’
‘Onto the top of the carriage,’ I said. ‘I just saw him. He’s on the roof. We need to get the police. I’ll ring them if you stand guard here.’
His eyes narrowed a little at that.
‘Madam, pardon me, but-’ he said.
‘My name is Mrs Gilver and I’m a private detective,’ I said. ‘I was trying to find Mirren when she died and just this morning I was given the job of finding Dugald Hepburn too. I hope to God I haven’t.’
But of course there was not a particle of me that doubted it. Mr Laming rubbed his face hard with one large and oily hand, rasping his stubble and leaving a dark streak across one cheek.
‘There’s a hatch,’ he said, pointing up at the roof of the lift carriage. ‘I’ll just take a wee keek.’
I nodded. I needed him as an ally and he would be the better for seeing it with his own eyes, for not half-wondering if this were some kind of madwoman he was humouring. He closed up the enormous toolbox and lugged it into the lift, positioning it under a small, brass-edged panel I had not noticed before. Then he stepped up onto it and, reaching above his head, slid open a latch and very cautiously raised the trap-door. I think the fact that it rose at all set up doubts in him and I too suffered a pang of confused panic. Was not the body lying on that side of the roof, slightly curled around the rope where his cheek had grazed? Should not the hatch be weighted down, immovable?
Mr Laming grabbed the edges of the hole and, with a little bounce, hoisted himself off the top of his toolbox and popped his head up into the darkness. He swore, just once, quite loud and echoing, and dropped back down again, stumbling to the floor and leaning back against the wall of the carriage. He took his cap off and stared at me.
‘Aye, that’s Dougie Hepburn, right enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll get this thing stopped and you away and ring the polis, hen.’
‘Again,’ I said, staring back at him. He bent and opened his toolbox once more.
‘Hector,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘You get away hame to your mammy. This is no place for you. Not today.’
After a few false starts into stock cupboards and one nasty moment at the head of a basement staircase which dropped down from right behind an inward opening door, at last I found the corridor into the back offices and, there, a telephone. Even then though I fumbled and wasted time, because it seemed that the instrument was attached to some internal exchange with more buttons and levers than an ordinary telephone. I pressed and pulled them all in turn, with mounting panic, and must at last have hit upon the right combination because eventually a voice came down the line asking me for the number.
‘Police,’ I said. ‘As quick as you can.’
‘Isn’t that Aitkens’?’ said the voice, with deep suspicion.
‘Yes,’ I said louder. ‘We need the police here. And an ambulance too.’
‘Aitkens’ is shut today,’ said the exchange. ‘To whom am I speaking?’
‘Put me through to the police station this instant,’ I said and by now I was almost shouting.
‘But who are you to be in there when it’s closed?’ the girl said, a plaintive and insistent note creeping into her voice. ‘What’s going on there?’
‘Yes, all right, if you prefer it that way,’ I said. ‘I’m a burglar and I’ve broken into Aitkens’ and that’s not all. There’s a dead body here too. Perhaps I murdered him. What do you say to that?’
‘If I hear reports of a crime being committed while I’m properly carrying out my duties,’ she said, with a kind of prim boastfulness which made me want to reach down the telephone line and shake her teeth from her head, ‘I’m supposed to report it to the police straight away.’
‘Hallelujah,’ I said, and hung up hoping that the way I banged down the earpiece might have deafened her.
There were no whistles this time; the first Mr Laming and I knew of the police arriving was when we heard the front door handle being rattled and fists pounding upon the glass. I hurried across the haberdashery floor and through the foyer towards the three large silhouettes waiting there and with some struggle threw back the bolts.
I had been hoping for Constable McCann and dreading the inspector but I did not recognise any of these men I was letting in.
‘Dugald Hepburn has thrown himself down the lift shaft,’ I said. ‘I think he’s dead.’
For just a moment they all stared at me and then the most senior of them, a sergeant I thought, stuttered into action.
‘Did you see it?’ he said, striding away from me. ‘This way, boys, back corner.’
‘No,’ I said, trotting after him. ‘I found him.’
‘Over here,’ called Mr Laming’s voice and, perhaps in response to some note they could hear in the way he said it or perhaps because they knew the man and knew he did not always sound that way, all three of them broke into a run. I sped up too but then from behind us I could hear thumping on the outside door again and I wheeled round.
It was Alec, standing peering in at the door with his hands around his eyes making a visor. When he saw me he mimed enormous relief, clapping his hand to his chest, but before I had got the door open he had had time to register my expression and was worried again.
‘Dandy, what the hell?’ he said. ‘I’ve just come from the police station. I went to meet you, like we said, and you weren’t there and hadn’t been there and then three of them went pounding off and wouldn’t say where they were going. I thought something had happened to you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I changed my mind. I came here – there’s a wake going on and- Oh Alec! It happened again.’
‘What-?’ he said and then we both turned towards the door as the light darkened. The inspector was standing there flanked by a pair of constables. He moved forward very deliberately, nodding to one of the men to lock the door behind him.
‘Your pal here was at the station looking for you,’ he said to me.
‘Inspector,’ I said, ‘I’m so sorry – I don’t know your name. There’s been a horrible accident. Another one.’
‘Aye, and you reported it,’ he said.
‘Dugald Hepburn has thrown himself down the lift shaft. I saw him.’
‘Good God,’ said Alec. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No, no, I don’t mean I saw him fall,’ I said. ‘I mean I found him.’
‘Again,’ said the inspector. ‘And what are you doing here?’
‘There’s a reception going on upstairs,’ I said. ‘For Miss Aitken. Just the staff.’
The inspector nodded to his men and, apparently understanding, they made for the stairs.
‘Just the staff and yet you were invited?’ he said, returning his attention to me.
‘Now steady on,’ said Alec. I could tell that he was troubled but I could not follow what it was that was troubling him.
‘Is there a doctor coming?’ I said. ‘I think he’s dead, but I can’t be sure.’
‘You said you didn’t see him fall,’ said the inspector.
‘I didn’t see him fall, but I touched him and he was warm. I’m sure of it. Well, not cold.’
‘And were you invited?’ the inspector said.
‘Don’t answer, Dandy,’ Alec said. I blinked at him. Suddenly he seemed to be very far away and rather smaller than he should be.