The Secret Life and Curious Death of Miss Jean Milne Read Online Free PDF Page B

trade, Doctor, and I will do my best not to teach you yours. Observe the open boxes, the travel cases, the handbags. There has obviously been a rough and frantic search for valuables.”
    But Dr Sturrock simply pointed with a flick of his pencil and said: “I count, one, two . . . six gold rings on the lady’s fingers. The search for valuables may have been rough and frantic as you suggest, but it was none too diligent.” He finished making his notes and said: “I’m sending for Templeman from Dundee. He knows his business and if the body’s to be lifted to the mortuary then, by rights, it’ll be under his jurisdiction.”
    “But this is a matter of great urgency!”
    “Havers, man. This poor lady has been waiting for a good fortnight. She’s in no rush. I’ll away home for dinner – Mrs Sturrock has a choice bit of beef. I will return later with Dr Templeman. My best advice to you is to ensure that the photographer is finished with his work before we get back and disturb the scene any further.”
    And, with that, he snapped down the little brass catches in his portmanteau and went out the door again. But no sooner was he out the door than he opened it again and returned for a moment. “If it’s any help to you, I can tell you this,” he said. “She was definitely alive on October 16th. It was a Wednesday about dinner time, I’d say between half past twelve and one. I was on the tramcar, going along Strathern Road. Just before we got to Fairfield Road I looked up from my newspaper and saw Miss Milne.”
    “You’re certain sure it was her,” said Mr Sempill, “definitely on the 16th?”
    “No doubt. You know yourself she was . . .” He hesitated. “Well, speak only good of the dead, but she was odd and she went about dressed, how to say it kindly . . . dressed awful young for her years.” And then he said: “I’m away to my beef dinner. Good morning,” and rattled the door shut behind himself.
    I suppose that left the Chief Constable at something of a loose end, and because Dr Sturrock had spoken to him in a less than respectful manner, he decided to take it out on me and the constables.
    He had us chasing round the place, beating the bushes in the garden, catching our uniforms on thorns, getting our knees muddy all in the hopes of finding some forgotten clue, another poker that the killer had chosen to discard in the undergrowth or, well I don’t know what, and the worst part is neither did Mr Sempill. He was simply casting about for things to do because he had no idea what to do and, I’m sure, because he feared that he might be held to account for having failed to do something.
    He ordered me to break Miss Milne’s postbox and take out all her letters and sort them into three heaps: one for circulars, advertising materials, newsletters from the church or any societies she may have attended, another for bills and such like, and the last for personal and private correspondence, all arranged by date, all piled up on the kitchen table. I sat there with a wee butter knife from the drawer slicing the envelopes, taking out the letters, glancing through them, piling them up, each with its envelope, each in order. Miss Milne had a wide circle of correspondence. We knew she liked to travel because she would stop at the police office with the key to the small gate and tell us she was away here and there, off to London for weeks and months at a time or on wee trips to the Highlands, and there were letters from the folk she met on her travels. Letters from men.
    “Have you not finished that, Fraser? Well stop anyway. I need you out there with me, knocking on doors. Some of the neighbours must have a notion of what’s gone on here. Some of them must have noticed something or other.”
    I scraped the kitchen chair back from the table and put on my hat. I was following, loyally, I knew well enough my duty and yet the Chief Constable’s bruised feelings were still chaffing and he urged me: “Come along,