Alice replaced the receiver and breathed a long sigh of relief. DC Lowe strode to her desk. ‘The boss wants to see you, Sarge, and it’s urgent,’ he said, frowning and jabbing his finger at her as if to convey added force to the order.
The scent of coffee in the small office reminded Alice that she had missed her breakfast cup. Too much of a rush if the appointment at the Western was to be kept. DCI Bell looked up on her entry, busy brushing a mound of spilled sugar off her desk into a waste paper bin.
‘Ah, Alice,’ she said, and the relative warmth of her tone reassured her subordinate that she was not facing the dressing-down she had begun to anticipate.
‘I’ve been thinking things over…’ she continued, ‘and I’m persuaded by your… reasoning. I just hope to God that your unofficial sample of the man’s DNA proves identical to the official one we’ll get on arrest. That it’s not his wife’s, for example. Otherwise, I’ll be for the high jump. Anyway, after you left I got the ACC’s grudging permission for a check to be run on James Freeman’s telephone calls for two weeks prior to his death. We’ll see if he called his brother. A verbal result should be available either late this morning or early afternoon, the printout will follow later. We’ve got permission to do Vertenergy too.’
‘Excellent, Ma’am. I’ve already spoken to a Director of the company, a Mr Vernon, the chap that Alistair talked to yesterday, and he’s pretty positive that they didn’t tell Christopher Freeman about his brother’s change of mind. But a check would put it beyond doubt.’
The absence of the poodles from the bungalow made it appear, somehow, larger, more commodious, as if the grand proportions of the beasts had distorted the scale of the house. It also seemed unnaturally quiet, dull and lifeless, and Sandra Freeman herself seemed subdued, immobile and absorbed in the business of smoking her cigarette. Without much thought Alice enquired politely as to the dogs’ whereabouts.
‘He’s got the boys, both of them, up at the Mains for a good long walk,’ she replied, distractedly.
Slowly but surely the significance of this ostensibly innocuous piece of information began to sink in. Blackstone Mains was a remote destination, one off the beaten track, and a couple of Shetland ponies would be more welcome, less disruptive, on a bus than those two massive, ill-disciplined poodles. Anyway, few buses, if any, would pass on such obscure back roads, and only the closest friend would allow his vehicle to be soiled by the dogs and their messy ways.
‘I didn’t see the car outside,’ Alice said. Her hostess, briefly, showed some interest and then, expelling smoke forcibly through her mouth, said calmly, ‘No. It’s back in the garage, the one we got it from. In Liberton.’
‘What’s the matter with it?’ Alice shot back, allowing little time for thought or, more importantly, fabrication.
‘Mmm…’ Sandra Freeman paused. ‘The carburettor-dirt, yeah-dirt in the carburettor, I think.’
‘The garage,’ Alice said, while removing her mobile from her pocket, ‘that would be Tooles, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes! Yes! Tooles.’ Mrs Freeman was becoming vexed. ‘Why on earth do you want to know that?’
‘Because I need to check that the car is there. At the garage, I mean. You see, I think that your husband must have it, up at Blackstone Mains.’
Mrs Freeman rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger, and then forcibly stubbed her cigarette out.
‘Oh very well…’ she said, exasperation having replaced her previous irritability. ‘Very well. He does have it. There. He shouldn’t have it, of course. I know that. But… well, he does. Now, are you satisfied? Going to go up there and charge him now? That’ll be the toast of your enquiry I expect, eh? “Murdered Sheriff’s brother caught driving his own car without a licence”.’
‘Or insurance,’ Alice added, then continued ‘-but it’s not the first time, is it? His driving whilst disqualified, I mean?’
‘What exactly are you getting at?’ Sandra Freeman asked, her face creased with concern, brows furrowed, blinking rapidly.
Quickly, Alice thought things through. It would be a gamble, she knew that, but one that would surely pay dividends. If she could project sufficient certainty, then the woman’s own surprise would prevent her from making false denials, protecting her husband and painting herself into a corner.
‘On the night of his brother’s murder your husband had the car. That’s correct, isn’t it?’
The woman’s expression revealed that she had, indeed, been caught off balance, but she said nothing, playing for time, so Alice repeated the question verbatim, emphasising her assertion and then waiting patiently for a reply.
‘All right, all right. I was staying at my mother’s that night, down the road. So he kept the car, to go to the pub he said. The next morning he told me that he was worried that someone had seen him, reported him, a neighbour or some other do-gooder. And they would do that here, you know, in this neighbourhood. I said I’d help him. He needs his licence back. He’s a man, he needs to be independent.’
‘Same again on the night of Mr Lyon’s accident, eh?’
‘Yes, he took the car then, as well. But he wasn’t away that long. He said he had to get out, cabin fever or whatever, and we needed ciggies too.’
‘Mrs Freeman, you lied…’ Alice began.
‘I know I lied,’ the woman interjected. ‘Of course I bloody lied. I had to. Wouldn’t you have done it? He’s perfectly safe, you know, been driving for years, and it’s only a matter of days before he’s allowed to drive again. Legally. If either of us had told you the truth… well, what then? You’d probably have him disqualified for life!’
Climbing the flight of stairs, each upward step felt easier than the last, as if her legs were on springs, but on arrival at the office she found it empty of all life except for DC Lowe. He was on the telephone, receiver clamped between shoulder and ear, attempting to write something down whilst simultaneously flicking through a telephone directory. No. Not him, she thought. Too much of a liability. DCI Bell was in her office, puce in the face, struggling to fend the Press off, fiddling crossly with a rubber band.
‘No. I appreciate that. What do you expect me to say? If you are not getting satisfaction from Fettes or from here then, obviously, it’s your prerogative to go elsewhere. Indeed. The Chief Constable may well, as you suggest, view matters differently. Yes. It is entirely up to you. I expect that your Editor does know him well. Goodbye.’
She slammed down the instrument and began massaging her shoulder and neck. ‘A RIGHT FUCKER’ she mouthed silently at Alice, before, breathing out slowly and calming herself, she turned her full attention to her Sergeant.
‘Good news…’ she began, ‘the Sheriff spoke to his brother on the phone the day before he died, and there’s no record of Vertenergy contacting Christopher Freeman following their receipt of his brother’s letter.’
‘Yes, Ma’am. And Mrs Freeman lied…’ Alice replied. ‘Her husband has no alibi for either of the nights. A friend’s giving her a lift to the station and I’m going to ask DC Lowe to look after her when she arrives, get her tea and so on. If we go to the Mains he can keep an eye on her until we get back. The others are all out and about, and DI Manson’s not back yet.’
Heavy rain started to fall, overwhelming the tattered wipers on the Astra, reducing visibility in the city to a few yards. Crossing the Dean Bridge the traffic ground to a halt, filthy water streaming from blocked gulleys on either side of the road, flooding the slight depression opposite Eton Terrace. They stopped again at the lights by the Bristo Baptist Church, rainwater now beginning to drop through the roof onto Elaine Bell’s lap, ingeniously deflected to the side by the use of a laminated map adopted as a shield. Headlight to bumper the line of traffic flowed on, the Astra trapped mid-stream, until at the Barnton roundabout, the shower having finally dissipated itself, black sky gave way to blue and the sun emerged from its hiding place.