where St Mark’s Place met Argyle Crescent. A traditionally built home, with stone graduating from brown to black by years and precipitation, it stood out from its neighbours by virtue of the miniature turret rising at one side. Ava remembered the Chief joking about how his home was literally his castle, and it looked exactly like a tiny replica of one. He and his wife had loved the place, moving there a decade ago and as far as Ava knew they had been planning to remain there for the foreseeable future. A future that had been stopped firmly in its tracks. The house had been filled with warmth and laughter whenever Ava had visited in the past. This trip would mark the end of all that. It would never be the same again. Not for her, and certainly not for Glynis Begbie once Ava had delivered the dreadful news. She waited in her car a while as Mark Knopfler sang of jackals and ravens, half expecting Begbie’s wife-cum-widow to step out of her front door, a sixth sense leading her onto the street and into Ava’s path. She didn’t appear. Ava clicked off the radio, made sure her clothing was tidy, and walked the few steps up the front path to the door.
‘Ava! How lovely to see you, my darling. George didn’t warn me or I’d have baked. Honestly, that man. So distracted all the time …’
‘Glynis,’ Ava cut in. There was a second when she said nothing, that television moment as Ava always thought of it, where somehow just the physical presence of a police officer unexpectedly on the doorstep was all the omen required to trigger knowledge and grief. It didn’t come.
‘Come on in, quickly now. You’ll freeze out there. Probably just my age but I feel the cold all the time these days. Give me your coat. I’ll call George on his mobile and get him back. He’ll kick himself if he misses you.’
‘Glynis,’ Ava said again. ‘Let’s sit down.’ There it was. That fractional falter of her smile, the double blink before she responded.
‘Of course. Come into the lounge. Forgive the mess, I was just writing some cards. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of something hot?’
Ava sat down on the sofa and waited until Glynis had perched on an armchair.
‘I’m sorry to have to bring you this news, but George has been found dead in his car. The initial indications are that it was suicide.’
Glynis’ mouth slackened, her brow drew in. There was a small shake of her head. Ava had seen it too many times, that moment of defiance, the refusal to accept the news of a death. She waited for Glynis to speak. It was always a question first. Where? When? How? Most often in a suicide: Why?
‘Something was wrong,’ Glynis said, her voice a thin tremor in the air.
Ava stared at her. ‘His heart again? Had his doctor given him bad news?’
Glynis shook her head. ‘Not that George told me. As far as I knew he was recovering well. But for the last couple of weeks he’s been, I don’t know, sullen. Not like him at all.’
‘I’m sorry to ask this, but did you suspect he might be a risk to himself? Had he talked about it?’ Ava asked.
‘No. No, I’d have told someone. Where is he now?’
‘On his way to the … he’s going to Ailsa Lambert’s office. She’ll take good care of him,’ Ava said.
‘It’s too late for that, isn’t it? His dinner’s in the oven. Plenty of green veg. Nothing high in fat or sugar. He hated it, the diet since his heart attack. Still, he always cleared his plate without complaint. Before, we used to have a cream cake every Friday, as a treat, you know. Hasn’t had one for six months. I think that was the thing he missed most.’
‘Glynis, let me make some calls for you. You should have your family here.’
‘I’d like to go and see George first if you don’t mind. There’ll be an autopsy if I’m not mistaken?’
‘Yes,’ Ava whispered.
‘How did he do it?’ Glynis asked, her mouth a tightly pressed trembling line across her face.
‘Car exhaust fumes,’ Ava said. Glynis tried to rise from the chair, wobbled, took her seat again. ‘Let me get you a glass of water. Don’t try to move.’ She walked to the kitchen and began opening cupboards to find a glass when feet shuffled in behind her.
‘Would he have suffered? I want the truth, Ava. I was married to a policeman for thirty-five years. There’s no point lying to me.’
Ava ran the cold tap to make sure the water was fresh as she thought how to answer the question. George Begbie’s wife was no fool, and the detail of the cases MIT handled wouldn’t have passed her by. Such was the baggage that came with marrying a police officer.
‘Headache, nausea. He’d have felt faint. Probably there’d have been a sense of panic if he was still conscious when his body recognised it was starved of oxygen. He may have had chest pains, especially given his medical history. Possibly some sort of seizure at the end,’ Ava said. ‘I’m so sorry. I wish …’
‘Please don’t,’ Glynis said. ‘I’ll take that water now.’
Ava handed her the glass and leaned back against the kitchen cupboards rubbing her temples.
‘You said something was wrong. Can you be any more specific?’ Ava asked.
‘There were a few late night phone calls. A couple to his mobile, at least one on the landline. He never told me who they were from. Made a joke about it to distract me. Then a package was left on our doorstep once when we were out shopping. No label. I told him he should call the police. He knew he was still a target given the number of people he’d put inside. He took the package to his shed, told me it was some rubbishy free samples. I always knew when he was lying.’
‘And you think whatever it was might have been enough reason for him to have …?’ Ava broke off.
‘George hated suicides. Said it was the cruellest thing to do to another human being. If you’re right and that’s what he did, then I have no idea who the man was I’ve been living with for more than half my life. I’d like to go and see him now please.’
* * *
They arrived at Edinburgh City Mortuary half an hour later. Dr Ailsa Lambert met them at the door, greeting Glynis with a hug. Ailsa held back her own tears as she showed them into the autopsy suite. There was a body beneath a sheet on a steel table.
‘I’m sorry I can’t offer anything more appropriate than this room. Everywhere else is in use. Are you sure you’re ready to do this, Glynis? I can formally identify him. You don’t need to make this your last memory of George,’ Ailsa said.
‘I need to,’ Glynis replied, crushing a handkerchief in her hand and staring at the concealed bulk of the man she had loved for decades.
Ailsa pulled back the sheet to reveal naked head and shoulders. There was an intake of breath from Glynis. Ava reached out an arm to put around her shoulders, tempted to look away but there was no scope for cowardice when Glynis was having to be so brave. Still, it was dreadful to see. Death was never so final as when you had to stare it in the face. Ava hated the slackness of the Chief’s jaw and the way the flesh of his cheeks had rolled back towards his ears, as if his body couldn’t be bothered to pretend to be human any more. Life had literally deserted him.
‘Why is he so red?’ Glynis
