Blood in the Water E-Book

Gillian Galbraith

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: An Alice Rice Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 325

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

'If it was me, if I was the murderer, Alice thought, where I go? What would I do? The job he had set himself was unfinished, he must be aware that his luck could not go on forever. It was a sumple calculation; at best a lifetime in prison, at worst he'd be killed by the police whilst attempting to complete his self-appointed task.' Introducing Alice Rice, Edinburgh detective. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, she races against time and an implacable killer to solve a series of grisly murders among Edinburgh's professional elite in the well-to-do New Town. 'There is not a dull page from start to finish' – Alexander McCall Smith 'this is a really accomplished debut: atmospheric, detailed, and hitting every requirement for a satisfying crime novel' – Waterstones 'The New Rebus' – Sunday Express

Leseprobe

BLOOD IN THE WATER

Gillian Galbraith

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With grateful thanks for all their help to: David Bowen, Douglas Edington, Lesmoir Edington, Diana Griffiths, Jinty Kerr, Dr Elizabeth Lim, Aidan O’Neill and Alisdair White. Any errors in the text are my own.

DEDICATION

To Ma, with all my love

Contents

Title PageACKNOWLEDGEMENTSDEDICATION12345678910111213141516About the AuthorCopyright

1

Thursday 1st December

‘Look, you can see it on the screen. That’s the baby… there. It’s now about, say, two inches from crown to rump and weighs, maybe, a quarter of an ounce… you can see the little heart beating… and everything that should be there seems to be there…’

Dr Clarke slid the transducer over her patient’s pregnant belly, keeping a careful eye at all times on the black and white image on the ultrasound screen. Mrs Greig smiled and grasped her husband’s hand more tightly. He craned over her towards the screen, attempting to make out, amongst all the shades of grey, any recognisable human form.

‘Can you tell the sex yet?’ he asked.

‘No. The sex organs only begin to differentiate in the third month, and even then assessing gender can be difficult. We’ll do a more detailed scan later on in the pregnancy and we should get a better idea at that stage. Otherwise, if you are having amniocentesis the fluid can be checked and a more certain result given. What are you hoping for?’

‘A girl,’ Mr Greig said firmly.

‘A healthy child, girl or boy,’ his wife corrected.

‘Well, I’ll see you in about six weeks time when we’ll take blood for the AFP estimation. In the meanwhile, you’ll be under the care of your GP, but don’t hesitate to contact the hospital if you have any problems.’

As Dr Clarke left the ultrasound room her patient was getting dressed. The white-coated consultant walked slowly towards her office, wondering why she felt tired so early in the day. She glanced at her watch registering that she had twenty minutes before she was scheduled to start her twelve o’clock Monday appointment in the High Risk Maternity Clinic. Sufficient time for a cup of coffee and a skim of the newspaper. The office that had been allocated to her for the morning was small and uncomfortable. One entire wall was occupied by textbooks and periodicals, and a desk-top computer with all the paraphernalia associated with it seemed to have taken over the rest of the room. The sole window was obscured by a large leafy pot plant, a legacy from the previous occupant, which despite getting the lion’s share of any available light was in the process of dying untidily. The much reviled architecture of the new Royal Infirmary at Little France came out well in comparison with this, at least, and her own bolt-hole in the new hospital now seemed palatial in comparison to these dingy quarters. Clearing a stack of charts from the seat of the only chair available, she sat down and took a sip of her black brew.

Elizabeth Clarke was a tall woman, elegant in an understated way, with greying brown hair and pale blue eyes which communicated little emotion and surveyed the world with a distant, unblinking gaze. Her permanent expression of slight disdain and regal carriage gave her a patrician air, powerful enough to ward off all but the most confident. She wore almost no make-up, the slightest brush of mascara, but had begun to wonder whether she could still afford so little assistance with her appearance. As she began to daydream her mind drifted, once more, to her life and the absence of any man in it. They only complicate things, she thought, better no man than the wrong one, experience had taught her that much. But no sooner had she reassured herself than the voice of doubt whispered in her ear that she was too critical, unnaturally choosy, incapable of looking at any man other than as a potential spouse, and that she must change, learn to live in the moment and let things take their natural course, stop analysing every relationship to death and expecting perfection. She should settle for an ordinary, flawed mortal like everyone else. Her meditation was ended by the harsh tones of her beeper signalling the arrival of her first patient in the High Risk Clinic. Downing the dregs of her coffee, she rose to her feet and began to pick up the pile of medical records on her desk.

Eleanor Hutton was well-known to Dr Clarke. A patient who, more often than not, was the author of her many misfortunes and considered all advice given to her as optional. This was her fifth pregnancy, another ‘mistake’, and each new gestation had been more difficult to supervise than the last. The woman was a law unto herself. In between babies she turned up, erratically, at the Diabetes Clinic, usually when her condition was completely out of control. For a few weeks she would take note of whatever strictures had been directed at her, only to relapse into her careless ways until the next time. She was fat, jolly and untidy, invariably clad in tight clothes usually revealing, in unexpected places, rolls of white flesh. Dr Clarke, against her better judgement, liked her patient.

‘But I ken whit I’m daein backwards, doctor…’ Eleanor protested.

‘Yes, Eleanor, but you must turn up for your appointments, all your appointments. You’ve missed the last three. We’ve no recent record of your weight, the baby’s size, whether it has been moving as it should, the foetal heart rate. There’s been no booking scan, you’re unsure about your last menstrual period, we haven’t been able to test your urine… Where do I begin?’

‘Ehm… ma diabeetis is under control,’ the patient volunteered, to placate her physician.

‘Maybe. As you don’t do half your blood-sugar tests I’m not convinced you’d know. I’ve told you before you are exposing your baby to a real risk. If this is another big one—and Debbie was over eleven pounds, wasn’t she?—it might die in the womb. These big babies sometimes do, often shortly before they’re due to be delivered. So we need to monitor their health, their size, particularly carefully… And you smoked all during your last pregnancy.’ Dr Clarke was unable to suppress a sigh of exasperation.

‘Ye’ll see, doctor, I’ll attend frae noo on. You jist tell me when tae turn up and I’ll be there. I’ve gi’en up the fags this time, gi’ed them up as soon as I kent I wis expecting.’ Eleanor smiled broadly, exposing denture-free gums, evidently considering, as usual, that her assurances of past and future compliance would be taken at face value.

‘If you have difficulty getting to the hospital I can, if necessary, arrange for you to be picked up by an ambulance for your appointment,’ Dr Clarke persisted.

‘I’ll be there doctor, dinnae worry yerself again.’

Dr Clarke left the clinic musing over the unfairness of human reproduction. Patients like Eleanor Hutton conceived as soon as blink, were careless of the health of their unborn children and yet usually carried to term. Others tried and tried, mangling their sex lives in the process, resorting to every quack device on the market only to conceive and then lose the child despite their meticulous care.

Collecting her coat and a battered leather case bulging with papers from her office, she left Lauriston Place and the old Royal Infirmary buildings and set off in the direction of South Bridge. When she got to Blackwells bookshop, she stopped to browse amongst the CDs in the music department and eat a hurried sandwich. On emerging onto the wet street, she congratulated herself on making only one purchase, Elgar’s ‘Sea Pictures’ with Janet Baker. Temptation was usually succumbed to more fully; you could not have too many CDs. Crossing the road, she noticed, at a bus stop on the other side, Eleanor Hutton standing sheltering from the persistent drizzle. The pregnant woman was smoking a cigarette. The doctor was aware of a further temptation, the temptation to snatch the fag from the woman’s mouth and stamp it out on the wet pavement in front of her. Instead, hoping to embarrass her patient into some minimum of care for her unborn child, she simply gave a nod of recognition, watching intently as Mrs Hutton, on meeting her eyes, surreptitiously dropped her cigarette to the ground and extinguished the lipstick-stained stub with the heel of her boot.

‘It’s ma last yin, doctor, ye ken hoo nervous I aye get in hospitals. Nae mair fi’ noo oan.’

Dr Clarke nodded politely again, inwardly acknowledging the futility of any further discussion.

McDonald House, the building containing the Faculty of Advocates’ consulting rooms, was recessed off the High Street down a small, ill-lit wynd. Its large, well-furnished waiting room was warm, plentifully stocked with glossy magazines and reminiscent of a slightly stuffy gentleman’s club forced, unwillingly, into the twenty-first century. As Dr Clarke lowered herself thankfully into a red leather armchair, CDWorld in hand, Kate McLeod, her solicitor from the Scottish Health Service Central Legal Office, spotted her and came to sit next to her. The young woman’s face and clothes were streaked with rain, and she hauled behind her a large shopping trolley, weighed down with blue cardboard files. Seeing the doctor’s quizzical gaze on it, she volunteered that all her colleagues were supplied with the trolleys in order, they assumed, for their employers to avoid any liability for injuries caused by the carrying of the reams of paper needed for most consultations. Extracting one of the files from the trolley, she opened it and handed the doctor a two-page document, explaining that it had just been e-mailed to her by their opponents, and was a report from the pursuer’s expert witness, Dr Manning.

While Elizabeth Clarke was reading the report, two men dressed in black jackets and waistcoats, with sponge-bag trousers and shiny shoes, approached her armchair. Looking up, she recognised Robert Philip QC and his Junior, Simon Stewart. Both were known to her from previous court battles. The Silk was a fat man; his starched collar disappeared into the folds of his neck and two pendulous dewlaps overshadowed his tie. Yards of white shirt were visible in the gap between his waistcoat and his trousers, and a gold fob watch chain strained across his belly, emphasising its prosperous rotundity. His Junior was also corpulent, but looked less likely to melt on a hot day, some signs of muscle and bone still apparent.

After cursory greetings they went downstairs, the Silk leading the way to room fourteen, took their seats and laid out their papers on the large mahogany table that dominated the chamber. Once seated, Dr Clarke was irritated to find that she felt nervous. She was conscious that her heart was beating, thumping against her chest, and that the place had suddenly become uncomfortably warm and airless. It was so stupid, this fear. She had no reason to feel apprehensive, no cause for any anxiety. All that they wanted was her expert opinion, an opinion she was eminently qualified to provide. Breathing slowly in and out, she reminded herself, it’s not me this time, it’s not me that they’re after.

Robert Philip quickly sketched out the case, reading when necessary from the Closed Record. It was a medical negligence action. A woman had gone into hospital for a sterilisation operation, involving the blocking of her fallopian tubes. The surgeon treating her had performed, before the sterilisation operation, a dilatation and curettage procedure. His patient had, allegedly, not consented to the additional procedure. Subsequently, she had developed septicaemia. She attributed the development of the septicaemia to the unauthorised ‘D&C’, and now wanted compensation from the NHS Trust responsible for the hospital.

Listening to the crisp, unemotional summary of events, Dr Clarke wondered whether the lawyers involved had any idea of the degree of concern that a suit, such as that being so coolly discussed, engendered in the doctors under attack. Whether they liked it or not, they would have to live with the allegation of negligence day after day, probably for up to six years or so, until they were found guilty or innocent of the charge against them. To exonerate themselves they would have to endure days in a witness box being harangued by an aggressive young Turk intent upon making his reputation by destroying theirs. Any hidden insecurities they felt in carrying out their difficult jobs were exacerbated by the litigation and would eat away at them. Even if the case against them was finally dismissed, their professional confidence was dented, the shadow of a stain on their record.

The afternoon passed slowly, with Dr Clarke explaining in detail precisely what was involved, in surgical terms, with a D&C procedure and a sterilisation operation using fallope rings. When asked, she drew, on paper thrust hurriedly before her, diagrams of the relevant anatomy, the uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and ovaries, and Robert Philip quickly scrawled the names of the organs, or structures, onto her drawings. As she spoke, Junior Counsel took copious notes in his old fashioned blue jotter and, she observed with amusement, sketched caricatures of his Senior whenever she became remotely repetitious. Before long the atmosphere in the windowless room became heavy with the odour of warm work-clothing, and she was much relieved when Philip announced, at about six pm, that their meeting would have to end, as he had to pick up his child from kindergarten. Not for the first time she considered the fate of the offspring of the professional classes, in a nursery or some other care practically from birth onwards, their needs always secondary to their parents’ ambition. Better not have a child at all, for the child’s sake; there was no longer any question in her mind about that. It was a modern myth, this ‘having it all’ for women, about as achievable as a cache of fairy gold or a clutch of phoenix’s eggs. Choices had to be made, and she had made hers.

The air outside was cold, a sharp refreshing cold after the foetid warmth of the consulting room. Deliberately exhaling the used air from her lungs, she breathed in deeply and, pulling up the collar of her dark blue coat, walked up the High Street towards the Castle, turning right to go down the Mound towards Princes Street. She felt a surge of childish delight on seeing the mass of white lights on the huge Christmas tree opposite the twin gothic towers of Playfair’s New College, the brilliant strands swinging wildly in the wind that was beginning to rise. In ten minutes the Dean Bridge and her home at 1 Bankes Crescent came into view, partially obscured by the bare winter trees that flanked the north side of the Dean Gardens. She removed her gloves to unlock the impressive black front door that served the three flats and picked up her mail. Nothing more than the usual advertising circulars and a couple of dull looking brown envelopes. No Christmas cards yet.

Elizabeth Clarke had never subscribed to the view that drinking alone amounted to the taking of the first, few, faltering steps along the road to perdition. A maxim coined by some bibulous married man, never short of domestic company. Anyway, if it did, she was half-way to hell already and quite determined to reach journey’s end. The long gin and tonic she poured herself would simply allow her taut mind to relax, enabling her to enjoy the Elgar more fully and dull the shrill, ever-present voice in her head which told her that she should be doing something, achieving something. She took the new disc from its box, put it into her CD player and switched the sound to the speakers in her bathroom.

The warm water enveloped her, caressed her aching limbs. She stretched out her arm lazily for her mobile phone, thinking that once she had spoken to her mother she would be free of all responsibilities, at least until after supper, when she would have to compile the medical report commissioned by those aggressive solicitors in Glasgow.

‘Hello Ma, it’s me. How’s your back been?’

‘It’s much better, darling, it’s really the pains down my legs that are more troublesome now, but they’re beginning to lessen. I’ve been taking those anti-inflammatories you told me about. More importantly, how are you? How was work today?’

‘Fine. I was at the old Royal Infirmary for a clinic, probably one of the last I’ll ever have there, I expect, so I didn’t have to take the car to Little France for a change. I’d almost forgotten what a pleasure it can be to walk to work. In the afternoon, I had to consult in a legal case in the High Street and I could go straight there from the hospital. Otherwise much as usual. I’m glad your back’s better. I wondered whether you had any idea what you’d like for Christmas? I thought you might enjoy that new book on the Mitfords, and I could get you some fine soap too. What do you think?’

‘I got the Mitford book from the library yesterday, but I’d love the soap. What about you, have you thought of anything? Is there any new disc you’d like?’

‘Not at the moment. I’d like a surprise. I know it’s more difficult but I’d prefer it if you can be bothered. By the way, I got excellent news today, I’m off on Christmas Day and Boxing Day so I’ll be able to come home and spend a night. We might even manage a service at St. Mary’s.’

‘Wonderful! I was beginning to think that we were going to be out of luck this year. I’ll order a turkey from Fenton Barns and we’ll get a ham too. You’ll be pleased to hear that Aunt Judith can’t make it, she’s…’

‘Sorry Ma, I’m going to have to go. Someone’s ringing the doorbell. I’ll phone you back later tonight or sometime tomorrow evening.’

Dr Clarke put down the phone, dressed in haste and ran to the front door. Despite the delay her caller was still waiting for her.

2

Friday 2nd December

An icy wind blew on platform twelve of Waverley Station. A wind that cut like a cold blade through clothing, and which seemed to have travelled unimpeded from the steppes of Siberia. While her fellow-passengers huddled together in groups like cattle in a snowstorm, each gaining shelter from the other, Detective Sergeant Alice Rice paced up and down the length of the platform in a futile attempt to keep warm and make the train arrive sooner. She stopped her restless activity only to listen to the flat tones of the station announcer:

‘The train from Glasgow due to arrive on platform twelve at nine am has been delayed and is now expected at nine-fifteen am.’

No more than a bland statement of fact. The bulletin tailed off without explanation or apology. While Alice was digesting this information and considering whether she could be bothered to put pen to paper to complain, a little man, smelling strongly of drink, sidled up to her. His clothes had ‘charity shop’ written all over them. Oversized black plastic shoes with pristine brown laces, ill-fitting sheepskin coat and fake cavalry twill trousers exposing nylon Argyll-patterned socks. One of the hopeless combinations of poverty, drink and middle age, to whom the capital could no longer offer a home. She became aware of the stench of warm lager fumes close to her face.

‘’Lo, hen,’ he exhaled into her breathing zone.

She could have moved away, pretending to have heard nothing, but she chose instead to respond, thinking it would make the time pass more quickly.

‘Hello,’ she replied, smiling in a half-hearted fashion. Sensing a green light the drunk immediately launched into a practised monologue, something about Glasgow’s virtues and Edinburgh’s vices, meandering into the state of Scottish football and the Pope’s nazi past. He seemed to require only an occasional nod from Alice to keep up his inane patter. Before he could start on a new topic, Alice became aware of a train drawing up on the platform. She smiled politely at the little man and, intending to detach herself from him, began to move along the train looking for a less-crowded carriage near the front. A journey of over fifty minutes in his company, in a badly ventilated space, would be beyond the call of charity, duty or anything else. She settled down at a table for four, occupied only by an austere-looking woman wearing blue-tinted spectacles. She looked up from her newspaper momentarily to see who was intruding into her space. As Alice unfastened her briefcase and took a copy of a statement from it she became aware of the familiar scent of stale lager. She glanced up to see the grinning face of her small companion as he edged himself towards the vacant seat by her side. He flopped down into it noisily, introducing an additional smell, the sweet, sickly smell of the unwashed.

‘’Lo, hen.’

This time the greeting was directed at the bespectacled lady passenger who, in an attempt to avoid engaging in conversation with anyone, seemed to have shrunk into herself. In response she smiled, with her mouth only, at the drunk, and then immediately lowered her eyes again. If she believed that the coolness of her response would stop any further unwelcome conversation she was wrong.

‘Hen. Hen!’ he persisted. ‘This lady…’—he gestured expansively towards Alice—‘…this lady’s ma wife, Mary. We’ve been married about ten years now. Oh, we’ve had our ups and doons, what couple’s no, but I’ve stuck by her through thick and thin and she’s always…’—he gazed at Alice fondly—‘been there for me…’

Alice was paralysed by surprise into inaction. As the urge to dissociate herself from the drunk, even to a stranger, grew, she heard him say:

‘We’ve just been blessed with the one bairn. A wee boy. We cry him Jesus.’

‘Excuse me,’ Alice said to the woman opposite, ‘before this journey I’d never met this man. He is not my husband. We have no child.’

The woman nodded her understanding and Alice found herself then smiling, weakly, at the little man. She wondered why on earth she was smiling at him. A desire to avoid hurting his feelings after this public rejection? No, more likely a concern to avoid any transition in him from affability to aggression. He was drunk and Scottish after all. Having successfully unnerved the two female passengers, the man closed his eyes and began, in what seemed to be seconds only, to snore loudly.

Glasgow Sheriff Court was packed with people: a strange assortment of sharp-suited lawyers, anxious-looking litigants, police, social workers and sullen-faced criminals. As Alice was trying to find out from the reception desk which court she was due to attend, she was tapped on the shoulder. Turning, she recognised Anna O’Neil, Deputy Procurator Fiscal, and an old friend from university.

‘The trial’s off…’ Anna said. ‘The accused pled guilty to a lesser charge. You won’t be needed. The advocate depute’s released all the witnesses.’

A broad grin spread across Alice’s face. She could have shouted for joy, the relief at not having to appear in court was so immense. She had prepared herself for the ordeal, felt ready for it, but experienced not a tinge of regret that she would be deprived of the opportunity to voice the testimony she had been rehearsing in her head for the last few days.

Alice Rice had entered the police force, on the accelerated promotion scheme for graduates, in the belief that whatever else such a career could lack, it would, always, provide interest. A challenging job, not necessarily well paid but with endless variety and the chance to do something worthwhile. It had taken only a few months on the beat for her to realise that a great deal of the work was mundane, repetitious and thankless. Fortunately, she was an optimist, believing that as she progressed up the organisation the new horizons facing her would be stimulating and to some extent this had proved true.

But there was a cost attached. She hated the process of giving evidence as a witness. Each time she had to do it she dreaded the next more, and yet the task was central to the job. There was no way of avoiding it, and bad luck seemed to arrange matters so that she spent hours being cross-examined when her colleagues were in and out of the box having given little more than their names. No-one could have been more meticulous in their preparation for court, but for all the hard hours spent, she invariably was left feeling that the accused’s lawyer, wily solicitor or new-born advocate, had got the better of her. How could she be so easily tripped up, when all she was doing was trying, to the best of her ability, to tell the truth?

And there was another insidious effect of the job that she was becoming increasingly aware of and disconcerted by. She no longer seemed to be at home anywhere, at ease, anywhere. Her gender, resolute middle-classness and graduate status all marked her off as alien within the force, and now even in the civilian world she often found herself adrift. Her friends from university, with one exception, had all gone into either the law, publishing or business. None of them had ever had a handful of their hair wrenched out by a distraught female shoplifter, or been spat at by an irate protester. They would never have to tell the parents of a small child that he’d been killed by a drunken driver on his way home from school. The points of contact between her world and that of her friends seemed to be growing fewer as time passed.

Also, and it was a big also, she was the only one to have remained unmarried, unpartnered and childless into her thirty-fifth year. Her single state was easily explained. It was not that she was unattractive, quite the reverse; she was positively good-looking, being tall, just over six feet, clear-skinned and with dark hair and hazel eyes. Men were attracted to her as wasps to jam on a late summer afternoon. The real problem, in her estimation at least, lay in her unashamed independence, which gave the impression of complete self-sufficiency. It was, in fact, a front created by her in childhood and which she had never since had the courage to discard.

No vegetation adorned the stern lines of the St Leonard’s police station. Its dirty, yellow-ochre brick met the dull grey of the pavement seamlessly, and the only concession to the fad of landscaping community buildings had been the planting of a few rowan trees, now sickly and requiring the protection of metal grilles. Inside, the station was humming. News of a killing on the north side had just come in from the station at Gayfield Square and the chosen murder squad was assembling for its first briefing from Detective Chief Inspector Elaine Bell. Alice stuffed her bacon roll back into its brown paper bag while scanning the unoccupied seats for Alastair Watt’s friendly face. Back row, third from the left. The team could have been much worse, she decided. She would have to work with him, DCs Irwin, Littlewood, McDonald and Sinclair, and the only fly in the ointment was the inclusion of Eric Manson, Detective Inspector Manson. She reached the vacant chair next to Alastair just as DCI Bell began her briefing.

‘As you will all know by now, there has been a murder in Bankes Crescent, and officers from Gayfield Square are in attendance at present. The victim is a Dr Elizabeth Clarke, a medical consultant, aged about forty-one. She was found in her flat at No. 1 Bankes Crescent this morning round about nine am by her cleaning lady, a Mrs Ross, when she let herself in. We don’t have much information so far, but it seems that she was killed by having her throat cut, probably some time about six to twelve hours ago. A little piece of lined paper with the word ‘unreliable’, written in green biro, was found at the victim’s feet. Gayfield have already taken some statements, but I’d like Alice and Alastair to interview Dr Clarke’s nearest neighbours. Get the usual stuff plus any information that you can about the victim. Eric can go to the Royal Infirmary, the new building, to speak to the doctor’s colleagues at work. I’ve already spoken to a Dr Maxwell, from her department, and I’d suggest beginning with him. He worked beside the victim for years…’

DCI Bell looked pale, ivory white with blue-black rings bordering her eyes, unconcealable by any make-up. She was a workaholic, and her addiction, knowingly nurtured by her superiors, was destroying her health. The everyday business of the station overloaded her already frayed circuits, and the additional workload imposed by the killing would likely result in a burn-out of some kind. For the duration of the investigation she would become, like most of those involved, an occasional visitor to her own home and her husband provided scant sympathy, having long been disenchanted with ‘the force’ and its unreasonable demands. The woman he had married had yearned for a home and children and, in their absence as the years went by, had metamorphosed into an alien creature, more accustomed to giving orders than taking them.

The location of Dr Clarke’s flat was obvious from the number of police vehicles parked outside the imposing stone building that began the crescent and abutted Eton Terrace. A young constable, still too thin for his uniform, was on duty logging movements in and out of the big black front door. The building was attached to its neighbour by a monumental screen wall with three blind arches, resembling three closed eyes. It overlooked the Dean Gardens, an area perfumed with the unlikely scent of beer from the Water of Leith that passed through it, having collected brewery effluent further upstream. Dressed in paper suit and bootees, Alice climbed the thickly carpeted stair that led to Elizabeth Clarke’s flat. The outer hall was painted a deep oxblood red, and a number of small watercolours of naval ships decorated its walls. Noting that photographers and other scene-of-crime officers were busy in the drawing room, she took a detour into the doctor’s study instead. It was dominated by a pair of large, shiny, black speakers. They were entirely out of keeping with the rest of the furniture in the room, all of which had been arranged to allow them pride of place. The floor was covered in neat piles of papers and copies of medical journals had been filed, by title, along the skirting-boards. A Georgian writing desk lay open with a set of original medical records on it, yellow post-it stickers protruding from some of the papers.

She moved to the victim’s bedroom, on the upper floor, and found it almost monastic in its orderliness. The bedclothes had been turned back in expectation of the night to come, and on a bare table by the bed were three books, a novel by Lermontov and two textbooks: Fetal Monitoring in Practice and Obstetrics by Ten Teachers. The air was heavy with the scent of freesias: a huge vase of the yellow flowers had been placed on the windowsill and, as in the study, a pair of large black speakers was present. There was no other furniture in the room. A white panelled door led from it into an en suite bathroom, and all of the four walls within were composed of mirrors. Disconcertingly, on entering the bathroom, Alice found herself reflected from every angle, a few white hairs evident amongst the brown now. She wondered how anyone could endure, never mind enjoy, such unvarnished scrutiny every time they entered the place, far less undressed in it. The bath was still full, the water bluish with dissolved soap, and an opened copy of the Spectator lay discarded on the still wet bathmat. The room felt as if its occupant might return at any minute.

Alice left and went downstairs to the living room, which bustled with professionals intent on doing their jobs, the victim’s body already having been removed. A huge area of pale carpet in front of a chintz-covered sofa, and the sofa itself, was suffused with dark blood. It had splattered onto the high ceiling, dripped onto the ornate cornice and one of the walls. Two large oil paintings, views of Edinburgh in the nineteenth century, had splashes on them as if Jackson Pollock had been let loose to improve them with a bucket of red paint. Aware that she was in the way of the fingerprint men, she moved into an ante-room and found every inch of wall space taken up by shelf after shelf of CDs. The size of the woman’s collection rivalled her own, and a cursory inspection suggested their tastes were similar too. A huge metallic CD player stood in the centre of the small room, like a silver idol, and a series of switches were labelled, in cramped, irregular handwriting, ‘bedroom’, ‘bathroom’, ‘study’ and ‘kitchen’. Elgar’s ‘Sea Pictures’ was in the machine.

Alastair Watt entered the shrine, his large bulk suddenly making the space, or lack of it, feel claustrophobic. He made even Alice feel petite. As he was unable to stand upright in such a low ceilinged cupboard, he signalled her out into the living room. She followed him and they stood together by one of the large sash windows.

‘Dr Clarke doesn’t seem to have had many neighbours,’ he explained. ‘The flat below here is unoccupied, it was sold about two months ago, and the basement’s occupied by Mr Roberts, a deaf old codger unable to hear his own doorbell. I kept battering at his door until he finally appeared, but it seems he neither saw nor heard anything. Apparently, he hardly knew Elizabeth Clarke anyway, just about enough to say hello on the street. They’d never as much as visited each other’s flats.’

‘What about No. 2 Bankes Crescent?’ Alice asked.

‘I checked that out too. It’s been divided into student flats and they’ve all gone home for Christmas. Same with No. 1 Eton Terrace, except for one permanent resident on the second floor, an old lady, a Miss Penrose. I think we should go and speak to her. I’ve told her what’s happened here.’

Miss Penrose’s flat was smelly, its air thick with a perfume-mix of wet dog, used cat litter and overcooked cabbage. A dark tunnel of a hall, containing an overflowing cat tray, led to an ill-lit poky sitting room. In among dilapidated pieces of furniture were five small wooden clothes-horses, each laden with a selection of irregularly-shaped bits of towel, dishcloths and strange yellowish undergarments. The only heat in the room came from an old-fashioned one-bar electric heater. Steam was rising from the clothes-horse closest to it and condensed on the tightly snibbed window. Miss Penrose, having welcomed her guests with complete composure, resumed her seat on a shabby, upright armchair with her dog, Piccolo, on her lap. She was stick-thin, with almost translucent skin, and fragile birdlike bones were visible in her tiny, liver-spotted hands. Standing upright she would only be about five foot tall, but she was bent double by osteoporosis, her face now held permanently parallel to the floor. Her sparse white hair revealed expanses of a baby-pink scalp. She was dressed in a strange assortment of hand-knitted things, a tracksuit bottom and an incongruously large pair of blue trainers. In recognition of her company she began to manhandle some cloudy glasses and a decanter on a tray, readying herself to offer sherry.

‘No drinks for either of us, but thank you very much. We’re on duty,’ Alice said, noticing the old lady’s crestfallen reaction as with trembling hands she replaced the stopper into the decanter.

‘Did you know Dr Clarke?’ Alastair asked quickly, as if inquisition was some sort of substitute for conversation.

‘Of course I did, quite well. Such a pretty woman. Kind too. She used sometimes to come along for a chat with me. She loved Pico, of course, even though he’d twice tried to bite her. No teeth, fortunately.’ She stroked the toothless ball of matted grey fur on her lap, parting its mothy fringe to reveal two little black eyes gleaming malevolently below.

‘You’ll catch them, eh? He’s not much of a guard dog and I’m on my own too… and there’d not be much that I could do.’ It was a statement of the obvious; a snail without a shell on a scorching day would have had a better chance of survival.

Alistair nodded, conscious of the thin reassurance, but unable to give more.

‘Had you known her long?’ he continued.

‘Ever since she moved into Bankes Crescent, and that must have been, maybe, ten years or so ago. She used to walk in the gardens, sometimes she even jogged, and that’s how I got to know her. Through Pico really. I used to make a lot of my friends through him. But not now, as he can only manage a few yards.’

‘Were you at home yesterday evening?’

‘Yes, I went to bed early as it was so cold, and I was feeling a bit stiff. Old bones. I fell asleep with the radio on and I didn’t wake up until that horrible medley at the end of the World Service transmission. It’s at about six am or so. I wasn’t aware of anything out of the ordinary until I heard the commotion caused by the arrival of all those police cars.’

‘Did you see anyone coming to the door at No. 1 Bankes Crescent yesterday evening?’

‘You know, I never saw a thing. I shut my curtains at about five o’clock. I took Pico to the park during the Archers and I was back just before they finished at seven-fifteen pm. Then I took myself off to bed.’

‘Can you tell us anything about Elizabeth Clarke?’ Alice cut in. ‘What sort of person was she?’

Miss Penrose smiled, initially pleased to conjure up the company of her friend.

‘She was considerate. A quiet person. At first she was very reserved with me. Many times over the years, when I’ve been ill, she got my shopping for me. She worked too hard for her own good and I told her so. She was usually back home far too late. I called her Dr Finlay… our joke. She liked a joke. Pico got fond of her, always a good sign, I think. He’s a Dandie Dinmont, you know, Kennel-Club registered as “Piccolo Glorious Flute of Liberton”, to give him his full name. When my big dog, Dipper, died…’

A single tear trickled down her powdery cheek, to be wiped away discreetly with the side of a finger that carried on in the same movement to tuck a strand of unruly hair back into its clip. Miss Penrose came of a generation reluctant to display deep emotion in front of strangers, believing that if she did so she would be guilty of ‘making an exhibition of herself’. The cost of her self-control was more difficult to disguise; a stick-thin