Too Soon a Death: A Scottish mystery where cosy crime meets tartan noir: Borders Mysteries Book 2 (4 page)

‘And you say he drowned?’

‘Not necessarily, although he’d been in the water. So the man who was with him spoke English?’

‘With a strong accent. Eastern European, if I had to guess. He’d been in the wars himself, kept playing with a nasty scar on the side of his head. Told me the boy was his cousin and he’d burnt himself on a saucepan.’

‘I don’t suppose he mentioned where they were living?’

‘I didn’t think to ask. My main concern was to get the boy the treatment he needed. He was in a lot of pain and when he pulled back one of the filthy bits of towel wrapped around his hands I could see why. They were a mess.’

‘When was this?’ Zoe frowned. ‘I’m sorry for firing all these questions at you, George. I know I should leave it to the police, but I feel kind of involved, having seen him.’

‘That’s okay—I’d be the same. They came in late yesterday afternoon, although it was obvious the damage had been done a few days earlier.’

‘And he was dead less than twenty-four hours later.’

They sat in silence for a few moments then George placed his hands on his thighs and pushed himself up. ‘I’d better give the police a call,’ he said. ‘Do you know who I should speak to?’

‘I dealt with Detective Sergeant Trent.’

‘Ah, Dave. His wife’s having a baby too.’

Everybody knows everybody round here. Zoe followed George back out to the shop floor, where she saw Kate still deep in conversation, though with a different person this time.

George turned and Zoe assumed he was going to say goodbye. Instead, he wore a pained expression on his normally cheerful face. ‘I knew something was wrong,’ he said. ‘That boy wasn’t only in pain. He was terrified.’

FOUR

‘What was all that about?’ Kate asked when she and Zoe got back to the car. ‘One minute you were standing beside me, the next you’d disappeared into George’s little room with him.’

‘Just a pregnancy thing I needed his advice on.’

Kate snorted. ‘Aye, right. All respect to George, but you’re a woman and a doctor. You know more about it than he ever will.’ Despite her uncompromising tone, she didn’t press Zoe any further but put her ageing Volvo into gear and they sped off in the direction of Westerlea.

Used now to the silence while Kate drove, Zoe let her mind wander during the short journey. She imagined Ara—even if that wasn’t his name, she would use it until she knew otherwise—walking into the chemist with strips of dirty towelling wrapped around his hands. In life, his face had been contorted with pain, unlike the repose death had brought to it. But George said he looked scared too, so what caused that? And where did he and his cousin go after getting Ara’s hands bandaged? They couldn’t have travelled far, because the boy turned up dead a few miles away so soon afterwards.

She looked down at her swollen stomach. Was this preoccupation with the fate of a boy she’d never met another consequence of the mothering instinct she could still hardly believe had been awakened in her?

The car drew to a halt at the health centre’s front door and Kate turned to face Zoe. ‘Thanks for lunch. Do you want to come over to Mum and Dad’s on Saturday? They’re having a barbecue. Just a few friends and half a cow, you know the sort of thing.’

‘I’d love to, but I’ll be out for most of the day.’

‘Oh.’

Zoe could tell her friend was itching to ask where she was going, but had no intention of telling her. ‘I’ll be back late in the afternoon. When does it start?’

‘Not till about six.’

‘Perfect. I’ll have time to shower and change. See you then.’

The health centre’s automatic front door sat open. Convinced those early days of non-stop sunshine would cease as soon as the practice spent money on the comfort of its staff and visitors, Walter Hopkins had fought the purchase of several electric fans but was overruled by Paul Ryder, the practice’s senior partner. This hadn’t prevented him from bagging the largest fan for his own office, but Zoe saw to her satisfaction that now he was absent, Walter’s fan stood on the reception desk. She doubted he’d ever get it back.

Margaret Howie looked up and smiled, her hair fluttering around her plump face in the current of cool air. ‘Hello, Doctor Zoe. I didn’t expect you back today.’ The lynchpin of the practice, Margaret had outlasted all the other staff Paul had employed over the years, and her knowledge of its patients went far beyond any computer records.

‘I had to collect my car. Did Sergeant Trent get to see Paul?’

‘Yes, then he asked us all if we’d seen that poor boy. And my Hector’s phoned to say it’s on the news now. They’re calling him The Boy Under The Bridge.’

‘Not strictly accurate but hardly surprising. I wonder if anyone will come forward to identify him?’

‘Why did the police think he’d been here?’

‘His hands had been bandaged by someone who knew what they were doing.’

Seemingly satisfied with this response, Margaret said, ‘You had your fill of policemen last year. If I’d been on the desk, I wouldn’t have let that laddie near you this morning. I’ve told Penny she should have made him wait for Doctor Paul. A dead body wasn’t going anywhere.’

‘I didn’t mind.’ Zoe’s mobile rang. She pulled it out of her bag. ‘Excuse me, I need to take this.’

She knew who was ringing her but still hadn’t settled on what to call him. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Zoe. Can you speak?’

‘Yes. I’m at the health centre but not taking surgery. How are you?’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘And Helen?’

‘Oh, you know how it is. She has good days and bad. Today’s not one of her good ones.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘I was just calling to say I’ll be later than planned tomorrow. Have to wait for the MacMillan nurse to arrive. Can we say twelve o’clock rather than eleven?’

‘Of course, not a problem. We can make it even later, if you want.’

‘No, I can be there for midday. Have a safe journey over.’

‘Thanks. See you then.’

Margaret’s head turned away just a little too quickly when Zoe looked over at her, but unless her lip-reading was even better than Kate’s, she couldn’t have known what Zoe was saying, let alone who she was speaking to.

Paul’s consulting room door was wide open, signalling he didn’t have a patient with him. Zoe gave a start as she entered the room and he looked up at her.

‘Your beard’s gone.’

‘Hello, my dear.’ He ran a hand down one side of his face. ‘Come and sit down. Yes, for the first time in about twenty years.’

‘Did you get too hot?’

Paul cleared his throat. ‘No, I just thought it was time for a change.’

Unconvinced this was the real reason but not wanting to pry, Zoe said, ‘It suits you.’

‘Thank you. I think I owe you an apology. It should have been me who went with the policeman this morning. I heard you had to clamber down a steep path to the river’s edge, which couldn’t have been easy, given . . .’ His voice trailed away.

‘Given I’m so huge now,’ Zoe said, smiling. ‘It wasn’t easy but I managed. The annoying part was I couldn’t help them once I got there. And I made myself unpopular with Doctor Ferguson, the police doctor.’

‘I heard that too, but don’t worry. We’ve all had spats with him.’

‘Sergeant Trent suggested he isn’t the easiest person to handle. Even so, I can’t believe he managed to fall out with you.’

‘We worked together years ago and he hated how I did things. Accused me of being a pushover, said I needed to be less familiar and more assertive with the staff. As if that was the secret to getting the most out of people.’ Paul straightened his trademark tartan tie which, despite the heat, was still firmly knotted around his collar. ‘I suppose we should make allowances for him. He’s never been the same since his wife took off with her gym instructor.’

After allowing a moment’s silence to signal her sympathy for Ferguson, Zoe asked, ‘How much did Sergeant Trent tell you when he came here?’

‘Only that the body of a young Asian boy has been found on the bank of the Tweed near the Chain Bridge and he had a piece of paper with our address and phone number in his back pocket. You didn’t recognise him but his hands had been professionally bandaged, so the chances are he’s been here for treatment.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve just come from speaking to George Romanes. He’s the one who bandaged the boy’s hands. He also gave him the note because the burns were so bad he thought a doctor should treat them. He’ll have spoken to Sergeant Trent about it by now, so we’re out of the loop.’

‘What a pity you had to be dragged into the situation at all.’

‘My only concern is that the police find out who the boy was and why someone killed him.’

‘DCI Mather thinks it was murder, then?’

‘He wasn’t there.’

‘Oh. I thought he ran things down here now.’

Zoe wondered where he had got that idea from. ‘I believe there are a few layers of management above him, although he does seem to attend a lot of meetings.’

Paul coloured slightly. ‘Was the boy dead before he hit the water?’

‘I couldn’t find any indications of drowning. And there’s evidence he’d been pushed off the bridge rather than jumped from it of his own accord. But we’ll have to wait for the post mortem to be sure.’

Paul sighed. ‘He looked so young in the photograph Trent had on his phone. What a wicked world this is when a teenager taking his own life is the least bad alternative.’

‘George said he spoke no English, and if he wasn’t living around here, identifying him is going to be difficult. And without knowing who he is, how will the police find out who killed him?’ Zoe paused, aware of the distress which had crept into her voice. She must control these emotions.

Paul reached out and patted her arm. ‘Now we know we’re not involved, let’s talk about more cheerful things. How’s your building work coming along? Will everything be done in time for the baby?’

‘They’ve finished indoors already. This weather’s helped—no days have been lost to rain at all. Outside’s still a mess but that’s hardly a priority.’

‘It was a wise decision to stay there.’

‘I was lucky Robbie Mackenzie let me have the cottage. Kate says he never usually sells any of his properties. I have her to thank for that.’

‘It’s not what you know but who you know round here. And didn’t he fix you up with a good builder too?’

‘Better than the one I had before, that’s for sure.’ Zoe’s smile faded as she remembered the steading conversion she had planned to make her home. She was about to return their conversation to safer territory by asking after Paul’s son when a knock sounded on the door and Colin Barclay entered the room. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Paul wasn’t alone.

‘Sorry for interrupting, Doctors. I’ll come back later.’

‘I was about to leave,’ Zoe said, rising from her chair. ‘He’s all yours.’

‘There’s nothing you can’t say in front of Zoe,’ Paul said. ‘You look worried. Is there a problem?’

Colin moved forward, stopping at Zoe’s side and giving her a close-up of the tattoo on his forearm nearest her, an anchor entwined with rope which she knew was matched by a compass on the other arm. She remembered the first time Walter had spotted these and caused such a stooshie—her favourite of the Scots words she’d learnt in the past year—that Margaret had felt obliged to call her out of surgery to calm things down. All of Walter’s prejudices, which had nearly succeeded in blocking Colin’s recruitment, had come to a head and resulted in a ferocious verbal assault against the male practice nurse. Having herself been the subject of Walter’s resentment for several months after joining the practice, Zoe had admired the dignity with which Colin handled the situation. An uneasy truce now existed between the two men, although this worked mainly because they avoided each other whenever possible.

‘That dead boy the policeman showed us on his phone,’ Colin said. ‘When I was putting the signed prescriptions into an envelope to take to the chemist I remembered something.’

FIVE

Colin fidgeted with the pen tucked into the breast pocket of his tunic. ‘I said I’d never seen the boy, but now I’m not so sure.’

‘You need to tell Sergeant Trent,’ Zoe said. ‘People often don’t remember things when they’re asked. It isn’t till later, when they’ve had a chance to think, that something comes to them.’

‘I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. Or look an idiot.’

‘Why do you think the police do appeals on the television?’ Paul said. ‘They know it jogs people’s memories.’

‘What exactly is it you’ve remembered?’ Zoe asked.

‘I think I did see the dead boy, yesterday at the chemist’s when I dropped off the prescriptions.’

Paul and Zoe glanced at each other but said nothing.

‘I was about to go in through the front door when this tall bloke with a crew cut barged out without even looking at me. Nearly knocked me over. I was conscious of someone behind him holding back to let me in but I was so annoyed I wasn’t paying attention.’

‘And you think it was the boy in the picture?’ Paul asked.

‘I’m pretty sure it was.’ Colin sighed. ‘Doesn’t sound much, now I’ve told you. Hardly worth bothering the police with.’

‘A policeman I know likes to compare an investigation to doing a jigsaw puzzle,’ Zoe said. ‘They have to put together lots of small pieces in order to see the big picture.’

‘But what if I’m mistaken?’

‘I don’t think you are,’ she said.

The next morning, Zoe was tempted to take Mac with her but knowing he couldn’t safely be left in the car because of the heat, she took him for an extra-long walk. Aside from her obligation to the dog, she was determined to keep as active as possible for her own sake. The main challenge she faced was being able to reach her boots. She would struggle to tie them before long.

They got back just as the postie pulled up on the road outside Keeper’s Cottage.

‘Morning, Doctor!’

‘Hi, Donald. How are you?’ Zoe went to the red van’s window and took the bundle of envelopes, fliers and catalogues he offered her.