‘Yes. Yes. I’ve got a reserved one in the oncology car park, a privilege I could well do without.’
As the car drew up at the barrier, a fat man in a peaked cap, sweating profusely, peered in at the driver’s window, frowning as if to repel any interlopers. Hastily, Alice’s mother passed across her appointment card and the bouncer, pudgy fingers obscuring most of the writing, examined it.
‘Busy today?’ Mrs Rice enquired politely.
‘Aha. The pole’s already been up n’ doon like a hoor’s breeks,’ he muttered, head still bowed, engrossed in his inspection, before continuing, ‘Okay hen. In ye go. Furst oan yer left.’
The radiotherapy staff trooped out, one of them putting a comforting hand on Alice’s shoulder as he passed. Seconds later the red light above the door went on, signalling that the treatment had begun. Inside, Olivia Rice lay semi-naked on a hard metal bed, with little more than a paper towel to preserve her modesty. She stared up at the ceiling, willing herself to relax, conscious that her neck muscles were on the edge of spasm. Everyone had said that she would be fine, the rays would cure her, not kill her. And the small tattoo on her breast, delineating the target area, had been minutely aligned with the machine. ‘One thousand and one… one thousand and two,’ she began counting, but before she reached ‘One thousand and five’, her six seconds of radiation were up and she heard a strange clicking sound followed by a passage of whirring, announcing that her first session was complete. The middle-aged nurse returned and freed her from the bed and the contraption above it, directing her behind a screen where she was reunited with her clothes.
Seated in the corridor, Alice crossed, uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs before, on automatic pilot, beginning to recite a Hail Mary. Self-consciousness returned with the first ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God’ and she laughed at herself, parroting mumbo-jumbo, but found that she was unable to leave the prayer incomplete. Just as she had decided to rise from her seat and investigate the magazine table, her mother reappeared, calm and smiling, chatting animatedly with the radiographer about the virtues of pink fir-apples.
It was just too unlikely, she thought. And, looking at Georgie, affable, amusing Georgie, she could not imagine the James Freeman that his partner had described forming any kind of alliance with him, never mind a one-night stand. He poured more tea into her cup, before resuming his stool amongst the books and beaming, magically, at her again. Although she returned repeatedly to the original meeting in the Boar’s Head, he took no offence, patiently answering all her questions. She knew it was the lynchpin, without it little more would be left than a chance meeting between two gay men, both of whom worked in the same area of Edinburgh. Ivan became a suspect because of Georgie, and Georgie became one because of Ivan.
‘So you’re sure it was him, the Sheriff, because of the likeness to the newspaper photo?’ Alice asked.
‘Yes. I never bothered reading the actual obituary. But I remember his looks all right.’
‘Not because of anything he told you?’
‘No.’
‘Did he say anything much?’
‘Well, we chattered for a bit, as you do, got to know each other… Not so different, really, from the heterosexual world, you appreciate.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest…’
Georgie quickly touched her elbow, grinning again to reassure her. ‘That’s all right, Miss Rice, I didn’t think you did.’
She tried a different tack. ‘James Freeman, you know, was not far off eighty.’
‘No!’ The man seemed thunderstruck.
‘The chap you met, I take it, didn’t seem so old?’
‘Certainly did not. No. Let’s change that. Was not. I’m not some kind of gerontophile, I can assure you. No wonder Ivan seemed a bit taken aback when I told him about the liaison. It’s a miracle he didn’t run away screaming.’
And then the light dawned. The photo, used in the papers, and which she had not seen, must have been an old one. She racked her brain for anything else she could remember about the dead Sheriff.
‘When you talked, did the man have a speech impediment?’
‘Christ almighty! What else? No, not that I can recall. What did you have in mind?’
‘Ws for Rs. You know, “Wound the wagged wocks, the wagged wascal wan…”’
‘No. Definitely not. I’d have noticed that.’
‘What about a scar-on his body. Cutting right across his chest?’
‘This is beginning to sound as if I picked up an aged monster… er, no disrespect to the Sheriff intended. No, no scar either. I take it all back. The man I slept with was normal, normal body, normal voice and not Methuselah. I did not, repeat did not, sleep with the deceased judge! I take it all back!’
Then he ruffled his hair with the tips of his fingers, laughed and said, ‘What I want to know, detective, and this could be your next assignment, is who the hell did I bestow my favours on? As my old flame used to say-
“You know it’s mad and bad as well,
To copulate when stocious.
You do not know your lover’s name,
And the sex will be atrocious!”’
A single trail remaining, and all that was needed now was a phone check. It was the obvious thing, except that permission from on high would be required, and those breathing the chilly air had seemed singularly unimpressed by her theory. An alternative, albeit imperfect strategy would now have to be deployed. She searched for Vertenergy’s phone number and found it scrawled on a Post-it attached to the front cover of her diary.
‘Detective Sergeant Rice here. I understand that my colleague, DS Watt, spoke to a Mr Vernon from your company yesterday. Could I speak to him, please? There are a number of new matters that have arisen.’
The receptionist, boredom unconcealed, said that she would send someone to find him; he was certainly in the office but had not been answering his phone. In the meantime, Alice would have to be put on hold. A minute or two of complete silence and then she was unceremoniously cut off. Re-dialling, fortunately, produced another receptionist, one abashed to hear of the mishap and prepared to leave her desk to find the Director.
‘Hello, Sergeant Rice. What can we do for you today?’ The man’s voice was cheery, eager to please.
‘It’s in relation to the Scowling Crags wind farm, Mr Vernon. I understand that all of your dealings, originally at least, were with the late James Freeman, but that later his brother Christopher Freeman became involved…’
‘That’s right. Christopher Freeman informed us that permission would be granted to use Blackstone Mains as the access strip for the development.’
‘After you received the Sheriff’s letter withdrawing permission for the inclusion of Blackstone Mains, did someone from your company contact Christopher Freeman to tell him of the withdrawal?’
‘No,’ the man sounded puzzled, ‘I wouldn’t think so. You see, at that stage, we dealt solely with James Freeman. I doubt anyone here was aware, then at least, that the land was jointly owned. Even if they did know it, the assumption would have been that Freeman was consenting on behalf of all the landowners of Blackstone Mains. We’d have no cause to contact Christopher Freeman. I’m not sure anyone then knew that he even existed. Normally, we would have tried to tie up the “legals” before embarking on the quest for planning, but we couldn’t this time, too many applications to risk being barred by “cumulative effect”.’
‘So you’re pretty certain that no-one from your company phoned Christopher Freeman for that purpose?’
‘Well…’ Mr Vernon hesitated before replying. ‘Yes. I’m in charge of the Scowling Crags development. I didn’t talk to him and I can’t think of anyone else who would have done so. I could check it with Roger I suppose…’ he paused again. ‘No. It’s pointless. He was off on holiday then, so there’d be nobody. I bet my life on it that no-one from here contacted Christopher Freeman. We were very relieved when he contacted us.’