‘A few stitches. We’ll just keep her the one night. Psychological Services will assess her in the morning.’
After which, Fox knew, she’d either be sent home or transferred elsewhere.
‘If you wait twenty minutes,’ the nurse added, ‘she may well drift off.’
Fox glanced in Jamieson’s direction. ‘You know he’s a reporter?’
She followed his look, then nodded.
‘What’s he been asking you?’
‘I’ve not told him anything.’
‘Can’t security kick him off the ward?’
She turned her attention back to Fox. ‘He’s not being a nuisance.’
‘Has he asked to speak to her?’
‘He’s been told it’s not going to happen.’
‘So why is he still here?’
The nurse’s tone grew cooler. ‘Why don’t you ask him? Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ She brushed past him and returned to her desk, where a phone was ringing. Fox stood there a further thirty seconds or so. Jamieson was back in his chair, busy texting. He looked up as Fox approached.
‘What are you expecting to get from her?’ Fox asked.
‘That’s the very question I was about to put to you, Inspector.’
‘Not another one!’ the nurse was complaining into the receiver. When she saw that they were watching her, she turned away, cupping a hand over the handset. Jamieson had been about to push his phone’s mic in Fox’s direction again, but he lowered his arm instead. Then he turned and started to leave. Fox stayed where he was. The nurse was ending the call, shaking her head slowly.
‘What’s up?’ Fox asked.
‘A man’s just tried to do away with himself,’ she answered. ‘Might not pull through.’
‘Hopefully not a normal night,’ Fox offered. She puffed out her cheeks and exhaled.
‘Two a year would be more like it.’ She noticed Jamieson’s absence. ‘Has he gone?’
‘I think you did that.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘He’ll be down at A and E, if I know Brian.’
‘Sounds like you do know him.’
‘Used to go out with a friend of mine.’
‘Who does he work for?’
‘All sorts. What is it he calls himself…?’
‘A stringer?’
‘That’s it.’ Her phone was ringing again. She made an exasperated sound and picked the receiver up. Fox considered his options, gave a little bow in her direction, and headed for the lifts.
Downstairs, he got a plastic bottle of Irn-Bru from the vending machine. No sugar tomorrow, he promised himself, heading outside. The sky overhead was black. Fox knew there was nothing for him to do now but drive home. He wondered if the budget for the investigation might stretch to a local hotel room. He’d spotted a place behind the railway station, not far from the park and the football ground. It would save the commute next morning – but then what would he do with himself the rest of tonight? Italian restaurant… maybe a pub… There were some ambulances parked up outside the hospital entrance. A couple of green-uniformed paramedics were shooing Brian Jamieson away. The reporter held up his hands in surrender and turned away, pressing his phone to his ear.
‘All I know is, he tried blowing his brains out. Can’t have been much of a shot, because he was still alive on the way here. Not so sure now, though…’ Jamieson saw that he was about to pass Malcolm Fox. ‘Hang on a sec,’ he said into the phone. It seemed he was about to share the news, but Fox stopped him.
‘I heard,’ he said.
‘Hellish thing.’ Jamieson was shaking his head. His eyes were wide and unblinking, brain racing.
‘Many guns in Kirkcaldy?’ Fox asked.
‘Might have been a farmer. They keep guns, don’t they?’ He saw that Fox was looking at him. ‘It was outside town,’ he explained. ‘Somewhere off the Burntisland road.’
Fox tried to stop himself looking interested. ‘Got a name for the victim?’
Jamieson shook his head and glanced back towards the paramedics. ‘I’ll get one, though.’ He offered Fox the same self-confident smile as before. ‘Just you watch me.’
Fox did watch him. Watched him make for the doors to the hospital, the phone to his ear again. Only when he had disappeared inside did Fox walk quickly towards his own car.
The police cordon was at the junction of the main road and the track to Alan Carter’s cottage. Fox felt acid gathering somewhere between his stomach and his throat. He cursed under his breath, pulled in to the side of the road and got out. The parked patrol car had its roof lights on, strobing the night with a cold, electric blue. The solitary uniform was trying to tie crime-scene tape between the posts either side of the track. The wind had whipped one end of the roll from his grasp and he was fighting to control it. Fox already had his warrant card out.
‘Inspector Fox,’ he told the uniform. Then: ‘Before you do that, I need to get past.’
He returned to his car and watched the uniform move the patrol car forward, leaving space for Fox’s Volvo to squeeze through. Fox offered a wave and started the slow climb uphill.
There were lights on in the cottage and just the one car outside, Carter’s own Land Rover. As Fox closed the door of the Volvo, he heard a voice call out:
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Ray Scholes was standing in the doorway, hands in pockets.
‘Is it Alan Carter?’ Fox asked.
‘What if it is?’
‘I was out here yesterday.’
‘Regular bloody Jonah, then, aren’t you?’
‘What happened?’ Fox was standing directly in front of Scholes, peering past him into the hallway.
‘Had a good go at topping himself.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘If I lived out here, I might do the same.’ Scholes sniffed the air, looked at Fox again, and relented, turning and heading indoors.
Fox himself hesitated. ‘Don’t we need…?’ He looked down at Scholes’s feet.
‘Not a crime scene, is it?’ Scholes answered, walking into the living room. ‘Cordon’s just to stop weirdos drifting up here for a gawp. Thing I’m wondering is, what are we going to do about the dog?’
Fox had reached the doorway of the living room. The fire had been reduced to a few embers. To the left of it, Jimmy Nicholl lay panting in his basket, eyes open just a fraction. Fox crouched down and stroked the old dog’s head and back.
‘No note,’ Scholes commented, popping a strip of chewing gum into his mouth. ‘Not that I can see, anyway.’ He waved a hand across the dining table. ‘Hard to tell with all this mess…’
Mess.
Papers strewn everywhere, removed from their folders. Crumpled, some torn into strips, others swept to the floor. Those left on the table were spotted with blood, a darker pool where Carter had been seated on his chair.
‘Gun?’ Fox said quietly, his mouth dry.
Scholes nodded towards the table. It was half-hidden beneath a magazine. Looked to Fox’s untrained eye like an old-style revolver.
‘How was he when you spoke to him?’ Scholes asked.
‘He seemed fine.’
‘Until you came calling, eh?’
Fox ignored this. ‘Who found him?’
‘Pal of his. Makes the regular walk from Kinghorn. They neck a few glasses of whisky and off he toddles. Only today he comes waltzing in and finds this. Poor old bastard…’
Fox wanted to sit down, but couldn’t. He didn’t know why; it just felt wrong. Scholes’s phone rang. He
