‘My good man,’ I said, ‘- since you won’t introduce yourself properly to me – you are being so ridiculous that I begin to suspect some political motivation. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve discovered rabble-rousers where I’d least suspect them. But let me say this as slowly and clearly as I can.’
‘I have a few questions for you, Mrs Gilver,’ he said, opening a notebook and unscrewing the cap on his pen.
‘I am a detective,’ I went on, ‘brought here last week by Mrs Ninian Aitken to help find her missing granddaughter. Your surgeon decided that the girl died by her own hand and I was in full view of the Provost, Lady Lawson, and Mrs Aitken herself when it happ-’
‘What is your full name and address, first of all?’
‘Today I was invited to an interview with Mrs Haddo-’
‘And your next of kin?’
‘-Dugald Hepburn’s grandmother-’
‘Or someone of good standing who might be persuaded to vouch for you?’
‘-who wanted my help in finding him.’
‘That’s right,’ said the inspector. ‘You were asked along by two families who were having trouble with their youngsters and now, it’s safe to say, their youngsters will trouble them no more.’
I gaped at him.
‘That’s an extraordinary insinuation,’ I said.
‘Two young people dead, the same stranger present both times, unexpected, uninvited. There’s extraordinary for you.’
It was ludicrous, preposterous, as impertinent as it was baseless and actually, surely, not even coherent on its own terms when one faced it squarely. What had he just said?
‘Uninvited,’ I repeated to him.
‘Mrs Aitken told me last week that she didn’t ask you to the jubilee. She didn’t know why you were there that day at all, she said to me.’
‘And today?’
‘Nobody up in that tearoom could tell me what you were doing there.’
I nodded. ‘Very well, let me see if I understand you, Inspector. After – one assumes – too many evenings in the cinema gallery, you are accusing me of killing two innocents and making it look like suicide?’ He said nothing. ‘And the central plank of my guilt is that I insinuated myself into the jubilee and the funeral tea without the families’ blessing and perhaps even against their wishes.’ Again he was silent. ‘So, tell me, am I supposed to have been hired specifically to kill the children? Are the Aitkens denying inviting me to cover their guilt? Wouldn’t they deny all knowledge of me in that case? Would they have invited me to the house, for luncheon?’ He frowned. ‘Or did they engage me in good faith to find Mirren and Dugald? Do I just happen – most unfortunately for them – to be some kind of homicidal maniac who killed them for reasons of my own?’
‘You were there,’ he said, in very firm tones although his expression was more troubled than I had yet seen it. ‘Both times. Right there. And it’s all just a bit too convenient for everybody, if you ask me.’
I took my time before answering. It was not clear to me whether this man were a fiend or a fool but I knew I had to tread carefully around him.
‘Very many people were there when Mirren died,’ I said at last. ‘Most of us in the presence of most others. And who can say who was there when Dugald met his end, Inspector? We don’t know when it- Hah! Your young constable said he thought an hour or two, didn’t he?’
‘He’d no business sticking his-’
‘And I expect the doctor is making the same calculation right now if he hasn’t already. Well, then, two hours before I found Dugald’s body I was…’ I looked at my wristwatch. ‘… I was at Roseville at number one hundred and twenty Pilmuir Street, talking to Mrs Haddo.’
‘I’ll be asking her about all of this too,’ he said.
‘Ah, back to your dramatic conspiracy again,’ I said. The look that flashed across his face then startled me and at last I stopped thinking about my own plight and my outrage over it and began to think of it from the inspector’s point of view. That is, I tried to do so, but there was a great gaping hole in the middle of his theory and I had nothing with which to fill it.
‘What do you know?’ I said. My tone must have been very different, all inquisitiveness and no annoyance now. Was I imagining that he shifted a little in his seat? Could that be a sheen of sweat suddenly on his brow? I sat forward and stared hard at him. ‘You do know something, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Two young lovers kept apart, both go missing, a detective is employed to find them, one kills herself – as far as we all know – and then the other, broken-hearted, does the same. That story sounds well rounded enough to me. What is it you know that’s making you baulk at it?’
‘I’m the one asking the questions,’ he said, rather late in the day if anyone were keeping tally.
‘Do you have children?’ I said. ‘I have two. I cannot imagine a state of affairs where the death of my child could be – as you said – “convenient for everyone”.’
He hesitated, as though considering.
‘Tell me,’ I breathed. ‘Perhaps I could help if you tell me.’
He got as far as taking a breath, readying himself to begin speaking, and then we both jumped as a sharp rap sounded on the door. The inspector barked out a short word I did not understand – it sounded like the code a shepherd might use to keep his dogs in order – but it must have been an invitation to enter for the handle turned and the doctor stuck his head around the door. His eyes flared at the sight of me.
‘A minute of your time,’ he said to the inspector.
‘First reckonings?’ the inspector said. The doctor nodded.
‘You wait here, you,’ said the inspector to me as he rose. Perhaps I had been imagining the wavering towards sharing what he knew, then. Perhaps he had been gathering breath for a fresh onslaught of insults.
They went outside and pulled the door closed behind them, but I was very gratified to see that the handle, perhaps exhausted by years of being wrenched and rattled by angry prisoners, had failed to latch. Silently, the door swung open about three inches and I could see the dark line of the inspector’s shoulder in the gap.
‘Broken neck, broken vertebrae, one leg, a wrist and minor abrasions,’ the doctor said.
‘Any sign of struggle before the fall?’
‘If you’re asking about handprints on his back,’ said the doctor, ‘there’s nothing. I’d say he either fell or jumped, facing the way he was going, about sixty feet, which would easily take him from the top landing to the roof of the lift on the ground floor.’
‘And can you tell me when?’
‘From the temperature of the body, in that cold lift shaft, assuming he hadn’t been taking any strenuous exercise just before he died, and before I’ve had a chance to look at his medical records,’ said the doctor – the inspector gave an audible sigh – ‘about half past two o’clock, I’d say.’
I am sure I saw the inspector’s shoulder stiffen.
‘Half two?’
‘Between two and three, let’s say.’
‘Right,’ said the inspector. He glanced behind him, saw the door sitting ajar and closed it. I could just hear the sound of his footsteps and the doctor’s moving away.
I smoothed my hair and resettled my hat, jabbing the pin in very firmly. Then I opened my bag and took out my gloves. I was still working them on – Grant is very fussy about well-fitting gloves and it takes me an age when she is not there to help me – when a constable knocked and entered, looking up at me from under his brows.
‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ he said. I stared pointedly at the cup on the table in front of me, which now had a disc of congealed milk floating on top and a dark orange tidemark round the edge.
‘You can get me a taxi,’ I said. He gave me a pained look and left again. I waited. Various footsteps passed along the corridor outside in either direction. I took my gloves off again. I put my bag back on the floor. Presently I moved the teacup down onto the floor too; the sight of it was beginning to repulse me and I was getting thirsty enough to wish I had drunk it while it was warm.