‘Yeah, right,’ he said, ‘-and on your bloody own, I’ll be bound.’
Noticing a small outhouse with a corrugated iron roof, Alice went to explore it, bending double to go through the low doorway and finding herself in a foetid, unlit space. A loud moaning sound followed by a chorus of high-pitched squeals frightened her, and she peered into the blackness trying to make out the creatures responsible for the din. As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness she saw the curved outline of a large, prostrate pig. It was lying on its side, multiple teats exposed, and a mass of tiny piglets were tugging at them and scampering over each other, desperate to get their share. Delighted, Alice called out to her companion, ‘Come and see this, Sir.’
But DI Manson did not follow her into the hut. When she left it, eyes now dazzled by the sunshine, she found him sitting on the edge of a stone water-trough staring at the sole of his shoe, mobile phone in his left hand.
‘Thanks, Alice!’ he said. ‘Thanks to you I have stood on a massive bloody nail, and it’s gone straight through… and this place is covered in shit. I’m taking no chances, I’m going to get a tetanus jag right now at the surgery in Kinross. I’ll be back to pick you up in, say, two hours’ time. Norris himself is elsewhere, after all.’
As the rear of the car disappeared from the view, Alice noticed a ripple in the water of the trough as a stray raindrop fell from the sky. Soon, ripples collided with ripples as a summer downpour began, and she looked around for shelter, unwilling to intrude into the Portakabin, but keen to avoid a soaking. The porch would have to do; some refuge there, and as she ran towards it a red Escort bumped up the slope, coming to a halt with a heavy grinding noise. A woman got out, head bent against the rain, weighed down by four full carrier bags, and began to drag herself and her cargo to the doorway. Alice watched her slow, lurching progress, bags swinging against her legs, until finally they came face to face at the front door.
‘Hello. Where’ve you come from?’ the woman asked, surprise at Alice’s presence unmistakeable on her face.
‘Edinburgh. We got here about twenty minutes ago. I’m from Lothian & Borders Police.’
‘We? And how did you get here? I don’t see any car.’
As she spoke, the woman deposited two of her bags on the ground before shouldering the door wide open and entering the cottage. Picking up the remaining bags, Alice followed her inside, and they trailed together through a tiny hall into a cramped kitchen. The inside of the house, like the outside, was a work in progress. Nothing seemed to have been finished. The floor was covered with sheets of newspaper, but in the gaps between them bare chipboard could be seen. A few stacks of logs lay beside the stained wood-burning stove, and on either side of it were cupboard units, exposing their innards to all, each carcass doorless. Despite its shabbiness, the place felt homely, inhabited and warm. Odd touches testified to its owners’ affection for it: pots of fresh herbs on the window sills and a vase of wild flowers on the kitchen table. As Alice put the shopping on the floor, a black cat wound itself between her legs, purring loudly as if reacquainting itself with an old friend. Mrs Norris, now bagless too, turned her attention back to her visitor.
‘So who are “we”? And, like I said, how on earth did you get here?’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Norris, I should have explained. I’m DS Rice, from St Leonard’s Police Station in Edinburgh. I did have my Inspector with me, only he injured his foot on a nail outside. He’s taken the car-the one we used to get here-off to the surgery in Kinross. For a jag,’ Alice replied.
‘OK, but what do you want from us? By the way, would you like some tea, coffee or something?’
‘That would be lovely. Tea, if possible.’
Mrs Norris boiled the kettle, and then dunked a single, used teabag in both mugs before offering the watery mix to Alice.
‘So, how can I help you?’
‘Perhaps,’ Alice said, extracting the photocopy of the specimen handwriting from her jacket pocket, ‘…you could look at this for me.’
As the woman examined the paper, Alice studied her. She had a sort of worn beauty, and neither age nor experience had yet robbed her of its brilliance. Her hair was brown, threaded with white, and her eyes were of the lightest grey, pupils sharp against their faded colour. Her complexion, though, had been ravaged, as if she had been exposed to all weathers, a faint network of broken veins travelling across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. Her hands were swollen, tight-skinned and red, with short, clean nails. The woman began biting her lip, and she continued doing so even after she had raised her face from the paper.
‘Mmm. What do you want to know?’
‘Can you identify the handwriting, please?’
‘Er… yes, but I’d like to know why, first, if I may.’ Blood had been drawn from the bitten lower lip.
‘Because we need to know the identity of the writer for the purposes of an ongoing investigation.’
‘Oh. Well…’ she hesitated, ‘it’s Colin’s writing, I think.’
‘Colin Norris. Your husband?’
‘Yes. My husband’s writing.’
‘Can you tell me where he is at the moment, Mrs Norris?’
‘Why, has he done something stupid again?’ Alarm was evident in her voice.
‘Again? Maybe. I don’t know. That’s why I’d like to speak to him.’
Mrs Norris sighed. ‘He’s in Edinburgh, helping his mother for a day or two. She lives in Gayfield Square.’
Mrs Norris was kind. Learning that her uninvited visitor could not be picked up for a further hour and a half, and seeing the discomfiture this state of affairs produced, she suggested that the policewoman entertain herself in the sitting room. She would find magazines for her, leave her in peace and attend to some household chores. Afterwards, they would have some lunch. A few copies of Which magazine, plus an old National Geographic, were handed over before Mrs Norris disappeared, her industry confirmed by the ensuing smell of furniture polish. Alice padded about the room, taking in her surroundings. On a mahogany sideboard sat a large silver cup, tarnished, and engraved with a short inscription. ‘Kilgraston School – 1971 – Senior Tennis Champion – Hilary Morrison’, and directly above it was a faded photograph of the 1971 tennis six, with a youthful Mrs Norris in the centre, holding a silver shield above her head. Further along the same wall was another framed photo, this time depicting the Glenalmond First Fifteen, and one of the names below the array of sturdy adolescents was that of Colin Norris. Elsewhere in the room the observant would have noticed, in amongst the frayed covers and thin curtains, relics of a more privileged existence, when shopping was done at Jenners and Forsyth’s rather than Ikea and B &Q.
Hearing the sound of the table being laid in the kitchen Alice entered it, intending to offer her services, to be met with cool stares from the boy and girl from the Portakabin. Mrs Norris, busy, and clearly flustered, introduced them.
‘DS Rice, this is my daughter, Rosanna, and her… er… boyfriend, Jason.’
Rosanna and Jason, as if no introductions had been made, sank into their chairs and began helping themselves to the bread and soup laid out before them. But when Alice took the chair next to her, Rosanna stopped eating to speak.
‘A policewoman, eh… maybe you could help Jason?’
‘How?’ Jason asked, glaring angrily at his girlfriend.
‘With the charge.’
Jason nodded, mollified, looking now at Alice expectantly.
‘See, Jason’s on a charge,’ the girl continued, ‘and he’s already up for something else. Maybe you could get it dropped for us, eh?’
Curious, Alice asked, ‘What’s the charge?’
‘You tell her, Jason, eh?’ Rosanna giggled.
The youth blushed before answering, ‘Er… peein’ in folks’ letterboxes.’
Eric Manson arrived back at exactly the time promised, and from his breath it was apparent that he had consumed his lunch in a pub. Hobbling out of the car he instructed his Sergeant to take th
e wheel, disability now to the fore, and then reclined on the back seat, legs up, eyes closed, snores vibrating his torso before they had even reached the motorway. On waking at the City boundary he became irascible, demanding that Alice ferry him to his house, rest having been advised. But on passing a service station he ordered her to stop and teetered unsteadily out, clambering back into the car clutching an undistinguished bouquet which he then transferred uneasily from hand to hand until his final disembarkation at ‘The Hollies’.
Consequently, Alice arrived alone at Gayfield Square, delighted to have shed her companion, still pondering on the slow smile she had noticed lighting up Mrs Manson’s face as she escorted her lame husband through their doorway.
A departing resident let her into the tenement building. The stone stairs leading to the topmost flat were worn and uneven, and as Alice trudged upwards she was assailed by scents of cooking: wafts of a curry-scented breeze on the first floor, bacon frying on the second and, she hazarded, chopped onions on the third. Now breathless, she rang the old-fashioned doorbell and the door, after a short delay, was opened by an elderly woman, well-spoken and immaculately turned out in a polo-neck jersey with pearls and a tweed skirt. In the drawing room, Colin Norris, unshaven and clad in a paint-spattered boiler-suit, was standing on a wooden stepladder admiring his own handiwork. Only about one square foot of the old cream paint remained on the ceiling, the roller tray now empty of Snowdrop White. Unaware that his mother had company he shouted: ‘Who was that at the door, Mum?’
‘It’s a Police officer, dear, it seems she wants to speak to you. I’ll get some tea and leave you both to it.’
As the man descended the ladder Alice glanced at him. Everything about him looked wary, on guard. The second their eyes met, he covered his with his hand, massaging his temples and sighing audibly for her benefit. When he lowered his head once more to discard his roller, she noticed that the few grey curls left on it were thin, unwinding before taking their final bow and leaving his scalp forever. Although he must have been well over six feet, he appeared smaller, as if trying to minimise his presence by stooping, camouflaging his physical bulk. Because of his diffident manner Alice was taken by surprise when he took the initiative, leading her to the sofa and then sitting close beside her, an action too open and hospitable for such an apparently timid creature. She showed him the photocopy and the caption and he identified both writings as his own, seeming puzzled at the need for doing so.
‘I need to ask you, Mr Norris-where were you between seven pm and ten pm on Monday 12th June?’
The man waited a few seconds before answering. ‘I’ve no idea, Sergeant. Does it matter?’
‘Yes, sir, it matters. Can I ask you to think again?’
Again, there was an unusual delay before he spoke: ‘Well, that’s ages ago now, and I’m sorry but I haven’t a clue.’
‘What about between eight and eleven pm on Wednesday 5th July?’
‘Last week, eh? I don’t know, but I’d probably be at home. I don’t go out much nowadays.’
‘If you were at home, sir, would anyone have been with you?’
Colin Norris looked the policewoman directly in the eye as he answered. ‘My wife, she’d have been there, I expect. I can’t be sure, I’ll have to think about it, but we’re both normally there. What’s all this about anyway? Couldn’t you just cut to the chase, please?’
‘Of course, sir. The specimen of writing on the photocopy was extracted from a series of letters written to Sheriff Freeman. You may have read about him in the papers. He was recently murdered.’
Had the man harboured any genuine doubt about the nature of her enquiries, it was now dispelled. He began to pat his curls and run his fingers through his little remaining hair.
‘In the papers,’ he repeated, nodding.
‘Yes, and I understand that you wrote those letters-threatening letters-to the Sheriff.’
Again, Alice caught the man’s eyes, and this time he held her gaze.
‘I did write them, yes.’ Although hoarse, his voice sounded unashamed, unrepentant.
‘Could you tell me why, sir?’
He nodded again, apparently keen to take up her invitation.
‘Yes. I wrote them because I was, quite frankly, desperate… DESPERATE. I wanted him to stop the wind farm development. He could have, you see. It was in his power. He owned the access strip, and without it, without his co-operation, the whole thing would have foundered… and then, of course, I’d have been all right.’
‘Why were you so desperate for the wind farm not to go ahead?’
‘Because,’ the man sighed, ‘…because if it did, my life would be over.’
‘What do you mean “my life would be over”?’
‘I expect you have been there, Sergeant, to my house, I mean?’
‘Yes, I was there this morning.’
‘Then you may understand. A tiny bit. That cottage is… well, my last chance really. I used to be in shipping, highly-paid too, then I lost my job. Our office in London was “downsized”. Actually, I was the only casualty, through no fault of my own. Naturally, I picked myself up and managed to land a job in insurance but… well… I’m not a salesman, so after two years they “let me go”. Next I tried selling wills, it was a kind of franchise, and… in a nutshell, it didn’t succeed. But Hilary, my wife, kept my spirits up, she’s always believed in me. You know she even got a job herself. Bloody good effort… Christ,’ he shook his head, ‘and I’ve led her a bloody dance. Eventually we used everything we had, every last penny, to buy the cottage, and since then I’ve worked day and night to do it up. So has she. When it’s finished… well, how could it fail? As a bed and breakfast, I mean. It’s such a perfect spot. You’ve seen it, it’s Shangri-La, the real thing. How could we fail there, how could anyone fail there…’
‘And the wind farm?,’ she reminded him.
‘In that wonderful place, they plan to dump thirty turbines. The view from the cottage, instead of being… unsurpassed, would be totally blighted. Then who, in their right mind, would want to come to a place like that on holiday? To look out over a mass of those ugly great things and listen to their perpetual clicks and whirrs. Nobody, that’s who. But I’m not going to let them destroy everything.’
‘So that’s why you threatened the Sheriff?’
‘Yes, that’s why I threatened him. But what else could I do? What would you have done?’ he pleaded, and, getting no response, continued. ‘It was nothing to him. A bit more money for an already rich man. I tried, just once, to speak to him about it, but he brushed me aside, said he was in a hurry, had to go to a meeting or something and then he left. Rude bugger! But, you see, without him, his participation, the thing can’t go ahead, however willing every other landlord in the scheme is. I’ve fallen pretty low, you know. I can’t even educate my own child properly, as I’d like. As Hil would like. But I can’t… I can’t hit rock bottom. I’d take her with me. And the worst of it is, believe it or not, she’d stay with me. But we are going to make a go of this. I’ll grow the vegetables, do the general maintenance, even be the butler, and she’ll cook. She’s a cordon-bleu, you know. Eventually, we’ll maybe be able to send Rosanna to public school, just for her last two years…’
‘You threatened the Sheriff. Maybe you killed him, too?’
‘You think I murdered Sheriff Freeman?’ the man asked, disbelief patent in his voice.
‘You threatened to put “a stop” to him, didn’t you?’ Alice answered.
‘I know, I know I did.’ He seemed irritated. ‘I had to. Obviously. I had to threaten him otherwise he wouldn’t stop it, would he? The wind farm, I mean.’
‘So did you do it? Kill him?’
‘Of course not,’ Colin Norris was now speaking fast, ‘of course not. It’s a ridiculous idea. They were only words. Words on paper. I wouldn’t do that, and if I had, you’d be the last person I’d be telling…’
‘Quite, sir. What about Nicholas Lyon?’
&n
bsp; ‘What about Nicholas Lyon, whoever he is?’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘Jesus Christ!’ the man laughed out loud, ‘what are you going on about? I don’t even know who he is. What in heaven’s name do you think I am? I only wrote letters, silly letters, for God’s sake!’
Abruptly, Colin Norris stood up as if to stop any further questioning.
‘Have you got a car, Mr Norris?’ Alice rose beside him, maintaining eye contact.
‘Yes, a white Vauxhall Corsa. It’s parked in the square.’
13
As instructed, Alice lowered herself down the buoy chain, hand under hand, until she became aware from the solid ground beneath her fins that she had landed on the sea-bed. An arm gripped hers and she manoeuvred herself along the line of student bodies until she reached the last link, the beer-bellied waste entrepreneur. This undersea world was indeed, as they had been promised, a silent one, and also, unfortunately, a sightless one. In the turbid waters around Oban that Saturday, visibility was non-existent, and without a tight hold on a companion, any of the students could have become lost in the murk in seconds. Shoals of colourful underwater life might well have been gliding inches above their heads or grazing on their flippers, but in that cold, grey, impenetrable liquid they would have been unaware of it all, eyes near useless.
A message was passed in sign language from diver to diver, hand touching mask, that a circle was to be formed; and, obediently, the students huddled in a tight ring with the instructor in the middle. Each of them then, in turn, flooded and cleared their masks and demonstrated some vestigial understanding of neutral buoyancy. Alice attempted to hover motionless in the water, awaiting her go, and became aware of an unwelcome sensation. Cold water was trickling down the neck of her dry suit, weaving between her shoulder blades, headed for her buttocks. Sticking a thumb up to signal her impending ascent, she attempted to catch the instructor’s attention, but he, too, could only see things in front of his nose and was concentrating on assessing Bridget’s cack-handed attempt to buddy-breathe with him. The trickle of water now becoming a flood, Alice decided to make for the surface, freeing her hands roughly from her startled companions and rising at an increasing speed. She broke the water about five metres south of the buoy, blood seeping from her nostrils, overjoyed to rejoin the fresh, clear, sunlit world.
Where The Shadow Falls Page 14