With My Little Eye (12 page)

DCI Laird frowned at Tash, who had produced her own pen and shorthand book. ‘Sergeant Brownie will keep the record,' he said.

Douglas smiled at him. ‘We also like to keep a record,' he said.

The DCI's nostrils flared slightly as at a bad smell. ‘Very well. I have asked you all to be present because we have been making little or no progress in the matter of the death of Stan Eastwick. There seems to be no doubt that he died of carbon dioxide suffocation, but beyond that we have no starting point. Usually we prefer to interview witnesses separately so that they do not influence each other's accounts, but when an enquiry refuses to get started, like this one, sometimes the only answer is to gather people together in the hope that they will refresh each other's memories.'

‘And contradict each other?' Douglas suggested lightly.

‘That would be a bonus,' said DCI Laird more seriously. ‘Now, Mr Young, according to your own statements you and Miss Jamieson were here on the Monday and you were the only occupants to be here constantly, without a break. So you start off. Tell me all about that day.'

‘A tall order,' Douglas said, ‘but we'll do our best. Weatherwise I remember it as an ordinary sort of April day. Sunny with occasional clouds and a single shower around lunchtime. Tash and I were preparing a report on the Hamilton Building Society's proposal to sponsor a housing and related development on a hundred hectare site near Gorebridge. They have it under consideration now but if they consider what we wrote I doubt if they'll go ahead, so I feel free to talk about it. Our work entailed periods during which I was thinking or sketching and Tash was free to look out of the window, alternating with periods when I was dictating and we both had our heads down. Then she would be typing or doing sums on the computer while it was my turn to look out of the window. Between us I think that one or the other of us would have been looking over the back gardens for about two thirds of the time, discounting the time we spent making and eating a snack lunch.

‘But what you most want to know about is the comings and goings. Of course, our office looks out to the back gardens. Anybody could have arrived at the front of the house, if they came quietly, and have walked round to the back door without being seen by either of us.

‘Between eight thirty and about nine thirty, we settled down to work. During the same period most of the adult residents seemed to go off to their various businesses. Yes, Tash?'

‘While I was looking out at the back, Mr George Eastwick drove off in his brother's van.'

George Eastwick gave a triumphant nod as though he had been proved right in the face of argument.

‘Did you see him return?'

‘No. Mr Young wanted to dictate just then.'

‘Presumably,' Douglas said, ‘Mrs Jamieson must have driven off in her people carrier. We wouldn't know about that – it's very quiet. She took her family with her – other than Tash, who was with me – and we knew they were back not long after lunchtime when we heard the children playing Vulcans and Borgs in and out of the trees.'

‘Vulcans and Borgs?'

‘From
Star Trek
,' Tash explained.

‘Ah. I'm not at home often enough in the evenings to keep up with television.'

‘I was shopping for clothes, mostly for the children,' said Mrs Jamieson. ‘They grow at such a speed. In some ways it's been convenient, alternating boys and girls – girl, boy, girl, boy – but it does make handing down clothes difficult. And boys are so hard on clothes. Especially shoes. They'll look you straight in the eye and swear that they
never
play football on the way home from school, when one toecap is worn away and the other's hardly marked. We all had lunch in a burger bar and then we came home and we were in for the rest of the day.'

‘We'll come to you in a minute, Mrs Jamieson,' said the DCI when he managed to cram a word in. (Tash's mother made a moue and mimed zipping her mouth.) ‘Mr Young?'

D
ouglas's brow was wrinkling of its own accord as he tried to remember details of a day that had not developed any special significance until later. ‘Stan Eastwick came out,' he said at last. ‘His retirement had been finalized by then and he was trying to catch up with the tidying up in the gardens, which had rather been neglected during all the kerfuffle of his retirement and people moving in. The shrub roses were overdue for pruning and he went to and fro between the roses and the greenhouse, taking cuttings I think. I lost sight of him after that except that a baker's van must have come to the front door because I heard Stan answer his door below our window and he said something about wholemeal loaves, so the man in the van must have walked round the house instead of driving round by road.'

Tasha coughed and held up her hand. ‘I saw Stan again later,' she said. ‘He was forking over the bed where he'd taken out the shrubs with the red berries. I think I told you about it when I made my statement.'

‘You did indeed,' said the DCI. ‘Did anybody answer the front door to the baker's man?'

‘I did,' Betty McLeish said. ‘He caught me just before I left the house to go and have lunch with my husband. There's a good little restaurant just along from the garage and if Seymour isn't lunching with anyone else we usually lunch there together. I was just getting into my little car when he arrived. It was the usual driver and our order had already been placed by phone so all I had to do was to take the money out of the box that sits on a high shelf behind the sergeant there, and pay him.'

‘That's not very secure,' said the DCI. ‘Anybody could walk in and help himself. Or herself,' he added fairly.

‘Well, it's never happened yet. And there's never very much in it, just enough so that whoever's here can pay for any delivery that comes to the door. Nobody else came to the front door all morning except the postman and nobody need have seen him. He never rings the bell. The mail just appeared in the box at the outside front door and I suppose Tasha sorted it out and put it through the appropriate doors as usual.'

‘I don't remember that particular morning but I always do that,' Tash said. Now that her relationship with Douglas was generally recognized she had begun using his first name in company. ‘I'd have remembered if that day had been different. We were supposed to be going out that morning to check something but Douglas got the information he needed over the phone so we were able to stay in and get on with the report. Douglas needs to get his mail early and while I'm collecting it I may as well pop the rest of it through the letter slots. It only takes me a second or two but it can save the others a few minutes and I don't think anybody minds. I mean, nobody gets a disproportionate number of angry-looking envelopes with windows.'

‘We seem to be running a public service,' Douglas said. ‘But that's all right. I think that that's all I can tell you.'

‘We'll see about that later,' said the DCI. ‘Let's finish the morning first. Mrs McLeish, who else did you see or hear between breakfast and answering the door to the baker's van?'

‘Nobody,' Betty said firmly. ‘It was a very quiet morning, which was good because it let me get on with the ironing. I knew that there would only be Douglas and Tasha for lunch and they always look after themselves when they're going to be here. I just made sure that there was bread and eggs and cheese in the fridge for them.'

‘Thank you. Now, Mr Eastwick. Tell me about your morning.'

George seemed to have decided that his connection, through Stan, with the university was now thoroughly broken and he was reverting to the dialect of his younger days further north. ‘You a'ready heard it. Stan was pottering in the garden and greenhouse. There was naebody came 'cept Jock Swithin as works for McColm the bakers. I'd waited in for him because we was out of bread and Stan walked down to the village to gi'e his pal some seedlings. He said his pal would gi'e him dinner.'

‘And what did you have for your lunch?' the DCI asked.

‘I'd just had a jam sarnie when Jock rolled up, so as soon as I'd put the bread away I went out. I've been doing a wee electrical job for a wifie lives next to Seymour McLeish's garage. She telled me you checked with her. I was home by around five but Stan was still no' back, least I jaloused he wasn't but I suppose he was maybe a'ready deid.' George coughed and raised a hand as though to brush away a tear. ‘I made a fry-up, watched a whilie of TV and then bedded down on the Lilo on the sitting room floor.'

DCI Laird moved on. Professor Cullins and Hubert Campion had been at work in the university and several witnesses had already attested to that. They had then attended a function in the staff club – a presentation to a retiring member of the senate.

‘That covers the morning – for the moment,' the DCI said. ‘No doubt we shall have to return to it more than once but for the moment—'

Tash had been looking concerned. Now she looked up from her shorthand book and frowned at the DCI. ‘It's not quite complete,' she said. ‘You never came back to me. There's one small missing piece. I don't suppose it means anything but I'm sure you'd prefer to have the whole story.'

‘No doubt about that,' Laird said. He sounded patronizing, as if to an intelligent child.

‘Well, I've only just remembered something.'

‘I already explained,' said DCI Laird patiently. ‘That's why we're having a round-table discussion. Sometimes people refresh each others' memories.'

‘Well, that's what's happened. While we've talked, the details of the whole day have been coming back to me. Mr Eastwick's van came back during the afternoon. I didn't see who was driving it, but it took the path behind the raspberry bushes as far as the greenhouse. That's a tarmac path, it's quite wide enough for the van and there's space to turn it round by the greenhouse door. It came back and drove away just a minute later. I still didn't see who was in it.'

‘Well, Mr Eastwick?' said the DCI.

George Eastwick's skin had paled under its tan, ending with a grey tinge. He hesitated. ‘Aye,' he said at last. ‘I'd forgot, 'cause we'd done it so often afore, but the quinie reminds me. Stan asked me to fetch him a fresh gas cylinder frae the uni.'

DCI Laird exchanged a meaningful glance with his sergeant. ‘Who did you meet at the university, where did you pick up the fresh cylinder and at about what time?'

George flared up – quite unnecessarily, Douglas thought.

‘I'm answering nae mair dashed questions until I hae my solicitor wi' me.' He heaved himself to his feet and glared down at Douglas and Tash. ‘You twa was supposed to be awa', that day.'

‘I got my answer over the phone without going to look,' Douglas said.

‘Ye bogger. Ye're a' fart and nae shite.' George opened his mouth and closed it again quickly. It was dawning on him belatedly that whatever he said might only be digging a deeper pit. He glared at the three officers in turn. ‘You've naethin' on me,' he said. ‘Naethin'. An' you'll get your heids in your hands to play wi' gin you try it on.' He turned and stumbled out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

‘For the moment,' said the DCI, ‘he's right. You two men go after him. Take him in. If you have to be specific, charge him with whatever comes to hand, perhaps his threatening behaviour just now. It's too early to bring up suspicion of murder. But seal up the flat downstairs and above all don't let him tamper with anything.'

The two policemen hurried out after George Eastwick. The woman officer laid down her pen for the moment and worked her right-hand fingers. The DCI watched her sympathetically. She had been doing a lot of shorthand hurriedly for quite a long time without respite. He was also taking time for thought. When she seemed more comfortable he began speaking again.

‘Thank you all for being so cooperative,' he said. ‘As you just heard me say, it's too early to be talking murder. Mr George Eastwick's behaviour suggests that he may be guilty of something serious but I learned years ago that if you fix too early on one suspect you may be pinning the tail on the wrong donkey. Several weeks of plodding routine may enable us to determine whether he is indeed guilty and perhaps even to prove it – if only we had the faintest idea how and why.
Why
isn't so important – the law doesn't require a motive to be proved. But
how
is crucial. Can anybody offer me the first, faint beginning of an explanation?'

There was an utter silence in the room.

‘I dare say the routine processes of investigation will turn up a method. But
why
? Assuming that George Eastwick took action against his own brother, can any one of you suggest a motive?'

The silence became more total, which had seemed impossible. He sighed. ‘Very well. The granny flat downstairs will be sealed and opened only for forensic examination.' He smacked his hand down on the table. ‘Whatever happened down there, traces must have been left and we … will … find … them.'

It was a dramatic moment but it was followed by anticlimax. Betty McLeish looked up at the wall clock. ‘Lordy!' she said. ‘Where has the morning gone? Who's staying for lunch?'

The DCI and his sergeant agreed to accept a sandwich apiece, which they ate at the very end of the long table. While the residents shared a pan of curried chicken, it was noticeable that the two officers said nothing – not, Douglas thought, out of discretion but so as not to miss a word that was said by the others. Douglas wished them luck. The morning's papers had been full of a scandal involving an MSP and an actress; the ladies of the household, with whom Tash included herself, had no intention of discussing anything else.

F
or all his brave words it appeared that Detective Chief Inspector ‘Sandy' Laird was still getting no further with the case. Just as a computer can arrive at answers apparently by magic, a body of people receiving information in tiny fragments and discussing those fragments can arrive at answers, some of them usually approximating closely to the truth. The word circulating among the residents of Underwood House was that George Eastwick had remained stubbornly silent. Nothing had been found pointing to method or motive and when the time allowed by the law for inquisition of suspects had run out he had been released. The phrase ‘police bail' was bandied about without being properly understood. He was banned from the compact semi-basement flat, which remained sealed except when vague figures, usually in white overalls, could be seen poking around, apparently without purpose or understanding, and he was believed to be staying in Edinburgh, in lodgings approved by the police. Winnie the bulldog bitch settled down happily, sharing accommodation with Rowan.