“Still, the scene that faced him looked too contrived. Too tidy

Wilma rattled on. “I’ve managed a few trace enquiries an’ all this week. Passed them back to the letting agents. Helps that I know the area. Plus I’ve progressed some of the divorce cases. Including our pal Cowie,” she proffered a sly smile.

“So, yes, I reckon I’m getting on pretty well. How about you?”

“I’m working my way through George’s client list,” Maggie eyed the bundle of folders in front of her. “Cases look pretty straightforward now I’ve had time to get my teeth into them.” She toyed with a pencil. “All except one.”

“Which one’s that?”

“Client goes by the name of Argo.”

“Argo?” Wilma queried. “That rings a bell.” “Woman reckons her husband is trying to kill her.” “Och, her? She’s a head banger, that one.” “How d’you know?”

“Come across her at the hospital.”

“So what do we do?”

Wilma snorted. “I know what I’d do.”

Lead player

“What’s that, then? No,” Maggie hesitated, “on second thoughts, Wilma, I don’t want to know. Anyhow,” she yawned again, “it’s time we were both in our beds. You’ve had a long night and I’ve to be up for Colin in the morning.”

“Before I go,” Wilma ventured, “you were saying about me looking the part…” She tugged at the PVC skirt, trying in vain to cover her modesty. “And it set me thinking.”

Maggie cast her eyes to the ceiling. “What bright idea did you come up with this time?”

“Well, you know how you’re the lead player? In the business, I mean.”

“Am I? Seems to me it’s you that’s been taking most of the initiative so far.”

“It’s mebbe me that’s been doing most of the talking,” Wilma offered a sly grin. “But it’s you that took the plunge, picked up the pieces, moved the agency forward.”

“It’s not as if I had much choice.”

“Just because you were a bit low to begin with doesn’t mean you”re not the mainstay, the face of the business.”

“We-ell…”

“Oh, come on. You’re the real deal, Maggie Laird. The one who’s out there: talking to legal firms, prospective clients, doing presentations. And I’m the back-room assistant – doing undercover work, running checks, helping you with the billing.”

“With the notable exception of tonight’s little outing.”

Wilma ignored this. “If we’re going to make a go of George’s business, a real go, isn’t it high time you had a makeover?”

“If you mean improve my appearance…” Loud sniff. “I can’t afford to be buying new clothes. And, anyhow, George likes – liked – the way I look.”

“Mebbe so. But George wasn’t exactly hip, was he?” Maggie winced. “Not exactly.”

“Well, I was thinking,” Wilma continued unabashed, “you know how you’ve been trying to find out stuff about that James Gilruth?”

“Ye-es.” Guarded voice.

“Did you know he owns a hair salon in Thistle Street?”

“He does?” Wilma had Maggie’s full attention now. “You could have a restyle. Check him out at the same time.”

Cunning

Maggie clapped a hand to her curls. “But my hair’s always been like this.”

“My point exactly. A decent cut would take years off you. I’ve made you an appointment, as a matter of fact.”

“You’ve what?”

“10.30 on Thursday.”

“But…”

“By way of cunning detective work,” Wilma countered with a smug grin, “I managed to establish that the Gilruths are booked in Thursday morning – him and her. Sharon, the wife’s called. She’s a Torry quine, like me.”

“You know her, then?”

“Only by sight. Comes from a family of fish processors. Big bucks in that, so we’ve never exactly socialised,” Wilma sniffed.

“Plus she was one of Gilruth’s hairdressers, and you know what they’re like: only interested in two things – money and men. In that order.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a generalisation?” She wondered if some stylist had crossed Wilma in the past.

Wilma struggled to her feet. “Anyhow, Thistle Street. 10.30 Thursday. My treat. It’ll cheer you up, and…” Maggie wondered what was coming.

“You can do some digging while you’re there.”

Death pronounced

The body lay spread-eagled on the slab. X marks the spot – the phrase leapt into Brian’s mind. Just as quickly, he dismissed it. Still, the scene that faced him looked too contrived. Too tidy. Brian pictured the last corpse he’d come across: a teenage prostitute down the docks with her throat slit. In his experience, death wasn’t tidy at all.

A veil of haar had drifted in off the North Sea, making the air smell raw. Threads of mist blurred the halogen edges of the arc lights which illuminated the scene. In the background a generator hummed.

The SOCOs were already in place, bent silently on the process of collecting trace evidence. Inside the police tent, others were at work, garnering what intelligence they could. A flashbulb popped. And another, as a photographer recorded graphic images of the scene.

“Where’s the CSM?”

“Here, sir,” a dark figure clutching a clipboard appeared out of the gloom.

Evidence

Gingerly, Brian stepped along the metal walkway laid by the IB team to preserve evidence. Behind him, the twin towers of the ancient St Machar Cathedral pierced the sky. On either side, weathered gravestones cast weird shadows.

There were tombs, too: slabs of stone manoeuvred by unknown hands into this, their final resting place. Some were level with the ground, some raised on plinths, an unyielding replica of the soft, warm bed their occupant had long left behind.

Below the hovering haar, he could make out small tributes: an open book fashioned from white marble, a heart-shaped granite stone, a curly-haired alabaster cherub. Those touching memorials would have been placed there for infants, he supposed: the countless wee mites who’d succumbed to the infections and the fevers of Victorian times.

Brian Burnett wondered, as he picked his way through the mist, whose bairn he’d be looking at tonight. He scribbled his signature. “Who called it in?”

“Phone box. Wouldn’t give a name.” “Responding officers?”

“Souter and Elrick. Oh, and some community bobby from Tillydrone.”

“Where are Souter and Elrick now?”

“I sent them back to HQ. Told them to file a report.” “Right,” Brian rubbed chilled hands together, “what stage are we at here?”

“Death pronounced. Duty doctor’s not long away.”

More tomorrow.