Troubled Waters

by Galbraith, Gillian

  Thinking that the sooner he started the sooner he would finish, he squatted down beside the body, his paper suit crackling as he did so. Bending over the boy’s face, its youthfulness struck him immediately, that and its loveliness. Caravaggio alone might have done such a face justice. His gaze travelled downwards to the bloated, gas-distended torso. That aspect of the boy’s anatomy would perhaps be portrayed elsewhere, in textbooks seen only by students of forensic pathology. In their gruesome pages he would be accorded a figure number, not a name, and God help his parents if they ever stumbled across the plate.

  Something, a crab perhaps, had nibbled away the edge of an earlobe. Continuing unconsciously in work mode, he registered the minuscule abrasions on the side of the boy’s face, and his hands with their thick washerwoman wrinkles. A rock, or maybe the barnacles on it, had cut into the loose skin on one palm, most likely as he drifted about in the shallows, scraping along the seabed. But it was not the slight, superficial striations on the skin that drew his eye, or kept his attention. When the body was turned over, to the left of the boy’s spine, opposite his heart, five large incisions were revealed. He had not died of drowning. Not with those white cuts. Days at sea, with water caressing every inch of his skin, cleaning him, leaching the blood from the wounds, might well account for their appearance. No, this was not rock damage, pier damage or even propeller damage. Dr McCrae bent further over the body, examining each wound minutely. The edges were the same in every case: clean and regular. Sharp force wounds. In all probability they were made by the same implement, a knife of some sort.

  While the doctor continued his inspection, recording the precise extent and location of every injury, checking as far as possible beneath the victim’s clothes and hair for any other concealed damage, examining his airways, the young constable outside, guarding the door of the shed, was making a phone call. As he did so he was exposed to the full force of the wind as it howled through the gaps in the red sandstone cliffs, buffeting the harbour walls and making the open sea beyond them boil. While he waited to speak to Chief Inspector Bell, the constable studied the horizon, tracking a squall as it made its way landwards, rippling and darkening the water as it moved across it, disfiguring it as a frown disfigures a face. Rain began to fall on the harbour, blowing horizontally, driving into his eyes and making his acne sting. Cold, and increasingly impatient to break his news, he fidgeted, fingering the coins in his jacket pocket and playing with the zip. Today, he knew, was his lucky day. Already he had rehearsed what he would say. He wanted to sound articulate and confident. Credit was on offer, and he intended to be the one to get it.

  ‘Chief Inspector Bell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Unable to hear her answer due to the background noise, he said, ‘Sorry. What did you say?’

  ‘Yes. It is Chief Inspector Bell,’ she confirmed, enunciating extra clearly.

  ‘This is PC Alan Learmonth,’ he gabbled, flustered by the tone of vague annoyance he detected in her reply. ‘It was . . . I just wanted to let you know we’ve got your man. He’s dead. Dr McCrae is with him now.’

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  He repeated what he had said, turning in towards the shed, trying to cut down the noise of the wind.

  ‘What man?’ came the irritable reply.

  ‘Hamish Evans? The one you’re looking for in relation to the Stimms murder case. I recognised him from the posters, the circulars. He’s the body the coastguard took out of Belhaven Bay.’

  ‘Fine. And Dr McCrae’s with him now, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right. Thank you. Goodbye.’

  It was, he thought, a most unsatisfactory exchange. The chief inspector would probably not even remember his name, maybe had not even heard it with all that racket going on. And worse yet, it was not clear that she had taken on board the fact that he had been the one to recognise the body, that it wasn’t the police surgeon or anyone else. None of the glory would go to him, and his chances of joining the CID had not improved one bit.

  On their return from the mortuary, Mr and Mrs Evans had, immediately and independently, gone to the drinks cupboard and got out a bottle. In the car on the journey home to the Dean Village they had sat side by side, scarcely exchanging a word, too shocked by what they had seen to formulate a sentence, never mind comfort one another. Feeling disorientated, adrift in an unfamiliar world, Christopher Evans sat cradling his tumbler of Highland Park between his hands. He stared out of the window onto the Water of Leith below as if the sight of the river was holding his attention, but his focus was elsewhere.

  On the sofa, directly behind him, sat his wife. Her eyes were closed, and though present physically, she was absent in both mind and spirit. The enormity of her loss was incomprehensible to her, her brain no longer obeyed her orders, wandering off, uninstructed, retrieving memories of Hamish’s third birthday, then settling on yesterday’s shopping or darting in search of a great aunt’s name. But always, always, like a butterfly around a flowering buddleia, it was circling about Hamish, coming back to settle on him, reminding her that he was dead, laid out in a fridge in the Cowgate, the beautiful white skin of his chest as mottled as a toad’s, his face bloodless and looking as soft as soap.

  Gazing at him, changed as he was, she had known in her heart, as much as her head, that it was him. Something in him had reached out to her and spoken to her. Twenty-four years ago, they had been linked; linked literally, viscerally, and even now, in death, some shadow of that bond remained.

  Often, when he was small, subject to the usual illnesses, she had been frightened for his very existence. Once she had seen her only child, she had tied her life to his. No little boy of hers would wander alone in the valley of death, so, as she had told him, wherever he went she would go. She had meant it then and he was still, would always be, her son, her little boy. Nothing could change that. She would not break her word and desert him now. How, she wondered, had she not known of his death? Surely, something should, would, have told her. Why had the sun not failed to rise, the moon not turned red, the earth not ceased turning on its axis? How could she not have known? With him dead, how had her own heart continued to beat, blood flow in her veins?

  ‘You alright, Eve?’ her husband asked.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she replied, ‘You?’

  ‘I’m OK too.’

  Between them, as neither could tell the truth, words had lost their meaning. But language was not required, because their eyes did not lie. Looking only for a millisecond into his, she had seen that he had shattered into a thousand pieces.

  ‘What time are they due?’ she asked.

  ‘Any time now,’ he replied, moving away from the window, standing in the middle of the room, paralysed, unsure where to go next. That inspector and her sidekick were likely to arrive in minutes, but there was no point in going to the door until they arrived. So he remained where he was, standing motionless in no man’s land, until a knock at the door resolved his quandary.

  Normally, in their marriage, Christopher Evans spoke for the couple. After all, he made his living by his tongue, came alive at the sound of his own voice, and usually could not get enough of it. His rich, brown tones, which conveyed integrity, solidity and reliability, convinced jurors that his clients must be cut from the same cloth. Someone who sounded like that would, surely, not be able to defend a guilty person? His wife, by way of contrast, lived largely in her own head, and rarely felt the need to burden others with her thoughts or views. But, confronted by Alice, and as if they had reached an unspoken accord, Helena Evans took on the role of their spokesperson.

  ‘Neither of us had seen him since he went to London,’ she replied, answering that question, as she had its predecessors, carefully and truthfully. Already, with the strain of the day’s events, she was hoarse.

  ‘Have either of you spoken on the phone to him since then?’

  The man nodded his head and the woman said no.

  ‘Like I told you before,’ he clarifi
ed, ‘I spoke to him when he was in the airport, on his way home.’

  ‘Did he often go to London?’ Alice asked.

  ‘About once every two months,’ Mrs Evans said, not looking up, running her forefinger around the edge of her wine glass.

  ‘If he took his car to the airport, where did he usually park?’

  Seeing his wife’s blank look, the man said, ‘One or other of the long stays. He always took his car.’

  ‘Do either of you know if he intended to visit his girlfriend immediately on his return?’

  They exchanged glances again, and then Mr Evans chipped in, ‘When I spoke to him in the airport, he was a bit bothered about her – agitated. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he went straight to see her. She was plainly on his mind.’

  ‘When visiting her, have you any idea where he usually parked?’

  They both shook their heads.

  ‘Were you aware of the cause of his agitation, had there been any falling out between them?’

  ‘A falling out between Hamish and Mandy? You mean a row? No. Why? He never said anything to me about a row. Did he say anything to you, Chris, about a row?’ the woman, clearly perplexed, asked her husband.

  ‘Nothing to me,’ he replied, taking a long, deep drink from his tumbler, and then feeling the need to clarify his earlier remarks, adding, ‘On the phone, I tried to speak to him, find out what was wrong, but he didn’t want to talk about it. I thought it was just a misunderstanding. I know he was angry about something. He wanted to see her, speak to her.’

  ‘Did you know Mandy, had you seen much of her?’

  ‘No,’ the woman replied, feeling suddenly exhausted, ‘it doesn’t work that way with Hamish. He was always a bit shy about these things. It’s always been the same, ever since he first started going out with girls. To begin with you just hear a name, a new name – it’ll start bobbing up in conversations. Then, eventually, he’ll bring the girl home for tea. We’d only met her twice – well, I’d met her twice. Chris hadn’t, had you, dear? He was off the first time. You were doing something, weren’t you, dear, but I can’t for the life of me think what . . .’

  ‘Golf, at Gullane,’ he said morosely.

  ‘That’s right. You were playing golf with Derry, a friend of ours. Have you told her . . . Miranda, about Hamish, I mean?’ the woman asked, looking anxiously at Alice.

  ‘No, I haven’t. She’s dead.’

  ‘Mandy?’ the woman replied, incredulously. ‘How d’you mean? How can she be dead? Did she drown too then . . . with Hamish or something? Did you know that, Chris? That she’s dead, too? ‘

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ the man said, looking hard at Alice, the bits of the jigsaw beginning to fall into place. Carefully, he placed his glass on the wing of his armchair as if it had been a distraction. Suddenly, he was completely sober.

  ‘Did you know she was dead when you called at my office, asking questions about Hamish’s whereabouts, Inspector?’ he asked.

  ‘When did she call at your office?’ the woman cut in.

  ‘A couple of days ago, I called a couple of days ago,’ Alice replied. ‘Yes, I knew Mandy was dead then – but not Hamish, I didn’t know about him. Mandy was taken out of the Forth last Tuesday morning.’

  ‘Are their deaths connected?’ Mr Evans asked, then he added, as if it was an afterthought, ‘with Mandy, was it murder? Is murder suspected?’

  Alice nodded her head.

  ‘He was a suspect?’ he asked.

  ‘What are you going on about, dear? Hamish, a suspect? Hamish is dead!’ his wife exclaimed.

  ‘With Hamish . . . murder is suspected too, I daresay,’ Evans remarked, picking up his glass but taking nothing from it.

  ‘Really! What are you talking about, Chris?’ his wife demanded angrily. ‘That’s not what the constable said, that’s not what they said there . . . it could have been an accident, couldn’t it? Murder! Hamish murdered! He’s dead, that’s enough, isn’t it? Why should it be murder? You’ve been dealing with criminals too long, dear.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alice replied. ‘We won’t know for sure until after the post mortem. But, I should tell you, our forensic examiner’s initial impression was murder. It’s certainly the assumption that we’re proceeding on at the moment. The pathologists will confirm one way or another.’

  ‘I’m sorry, officer,’ Mrs Evans said, tears now streaming down her face, ‘I’ll have to go. I’m not feeling well. Chris, will you manage?’

  He nodded his head, touching her hand lightly with his own as she passed by his chair on her way to the door.

  ‘What was Mandy like?’ Alice asked, once she had left.

  ‘I asked you if he was a suspect, but you didn’t answer me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. He . . . we needed to eliminate him as a suspect. She was dead, he had gone missing. Inevitably, we thought about him. What was Mandy like?’

  The man sighed before answering, ‘Mandy, Mandy. Why are we talking about Mandy? Hamish, my son, my only child, is dead. Hamish is my concern.’

  ‘I know. And I’m very sorry about it all, but I do need to know. Their deaths may well be related. In finding out about her, we’re finding out about him – about, in all probability, their killer.’

  Before continuing he paused, looking across at the policewoman, searching her face as if checking her sincerity, and then continued. ‘OK. Like Eve said, I only met her once, so remember that. She was nice, I liked her actually. She was a bit Olde Worlde, if you know what I mean. Mandy was unlike any of his other girlfriends, they were glamorous, with-it, in comparison. She was . . . well, like Julie Andrews if you get my drift. It was almost as if she was foreign. Thinking about it, now, it’s hard to explain. Timid, as timid as a wee mouse. But I could see what he saw in her. She was pretty, very pretty – defenceless in a way. I don’t know . . . all I can say is she wasn’t like the others, wasn’t much like anyone I’ve ever met. It was almost as if she was, or had been, stuck in a time warp. As if she was stuck in the fifties, or something.’

  ‘And you knew nothing of any row?’

  ‘Nothing – nothing of what it might have been about. If they had had a row.’

  ‘Did Hamish ever mention anyone called Anna, a friend of Mandy’s, who may have been living with her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know that she was pregnant?’

  ‘Who? This Anna girl?’

  ‘No, Mandy.’

  ‘Mandy! You’re joking!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mandy? I have to admit, I’m surprised, amazed, in fact. She didn’t seem like that type. I wonder if Hamish knew. I can’t believe he did. She must, I suppose, have been stringing him along. I wouldn’t have thought that of her. She wasn’t that type at all. And God knows I’ve met them. Meet them often enough in my job. Are you absolutely sure about that?’

  ‘Sure. Could it not have been Hamish’s baby?’

  ‘No, it could not. Hamish was infertile. We . . . he had no MMR. Eve couldn’t stand the idea of the jabs. He got it when he was eleven, mumps, very badly. He was hospitalised, it was so serious. Of course he recovered, but we were told he was infertile, would always be infertile. He said he didn’t care, he didn’t want children and said that if he changed his mind he’d adopt. If Mandy was pregnant, whoever it was by, it wasn’t by Hamish. Maybe that was what the row was about, maybe that was why he was so keen to see her?’

  Back in the office, late on the Saturday afternoon, Alice was determined to catch up on her paperwork. After six, with luck, she would have broken the back of it, then she could go to the cottage in Kinross-shire and take a look at it. Marvel at it and, if there was time, seek out Ian’s friend too. If it was too dark to see properly her car headlights would do to light it up, and she would still be near it, could breathe the air around it, feel as if she had taken possession of it. In only three days the place would finally be hers, and already the previous owners had moved out.

  Her mind elsewhere, daydre
aming, the phone call from Aileen Tennant caught her off guard, and for a moment she could not place who the woman was. Fortunately, she added after her name ‘counsellor’, and a picture of her, pale as a ghost, sitting in her drab office in Windsor Gardens, appeared in the policewoman’s mind.

  ‘Mrs Tennant,’ she replied, ‘how can I help you?’

  ‘There’s one thing, Inspector Rice, which I’ve been worrying about. It’s probably nothing at all, but I thought I ought to tell you all the same. You can decide whether it matters or not.’

  ‘Yes?’ She stirred her newly-made coffee, wanting a drink, hoping the conversation would not go on too long.

  ‘Miranda Stimms’ notes were due to be filed away. For some reason I took a last look at them and, reading them again, something made sense. When you were in the office and I had them in front of me there was an abbreviation, but I couldn’t for the life of me, at the time, remember what it stood for.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘TE.’

  ‘And now you can?’ She took a quick swallow of her coffee, burning the back of her throat and almost gasping out loud in pain.

  ‘Yes. But I don’t know if it’ll get you any further. But she thought it was very important, and I had planned, I remember, when I first noted it down to look it up, but work’s been very busy, my home life too, and I completely forgot. “The E”, it was her religion. Like being a protestant or a Jehovah’s Witness or something like that. She was one of “The Elect”. Or rather she wasn’t. She’d given it all up, but it still seemed to bother her an awful lot, be on her mind. Anyway, I thought I ought to tell you, in case it matters.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll look it up myself, see what I can discover about it. Presumably the file will be simply stored somewhere, not destroyed? We might need it as evidence.’