Capital Offence

Chapter 36

Sunday 23rd June

3 days left

Jamie couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was doing something he’d later regret. The following day Donald and Vaila sat in the study of his house at Duddingston, waiting for him to make the running. The atmosphere was tense, and hadn’t been helped by Linda’s reaction to Vaila. Jamie had indicated that he was holding a business meeting and wasn’t to be disturbed, but Linda had made sure she was on hand to greet the guests as they arrived. Linda bristled instinctively as soon as Vaila appeared. Damn! Their paths must have crossed at University after all.

Vaila was clad as usual in black - a baggy wide-necked sweatshirt, leather trousers, and large boots with side straps and buckles. Jamie had told Linda that the meeting concerned the Pearson case. She looked Vaila up and down, then greeted her with heavy sarcasm. “Hello dear. You’ll be one of the lawyers I imagine.”

“I could give you an honest answer. But then you’d know I wasn’t.”

“Well I hope you’re going to make sure that disgusting creature fries.”

“It won’t be Ole Sparky. Although I’m sure you’d prefer that.”

“I don’t care. As long as he ends up dead.”

“Life’s cheap, yeah?”

 The wide neck of Vaila’s sweatshirt had slid low to one side, revealing the soft white skin of her neck and shoulder. Linda stared at her with disdain.

“I know it is.”

Vaila was furious. She made her way through to the study and threw herself down in a chair. She scowled at Jamie, who tried to brush the matter aside. He turned to Donald.

“I think we’d better recap on what we’ve uncovered. Vaila here has been helping me with some enquiries. Vaila - Donald as you know has been trying to follow the Patsy connection and anything else where there seemed to be loose ends.”

He turned to Donald. “I’m afraid you’ve been working in the dark until now. How did you get on this afternoon?”

After their conversation that morning Donald had decided to pay a visit to the hospital where George Leonard had died, to see if there was anything else he could pick up from the staff. Donald looked quite pleased with himself as he prepared to reveal his findings.

“I tracked down the nurse who was on duty the night that Mr Leonard died. She’s still shattered about the accident with the tubes. She was convinced that everything was secure - she can’t see what caused the problem. However, she did remember something George said shortly before the accident. It seems he was on the mend. He managed to say a few words.”

Jamie and Vaila waited, expectantly.

“She still doesn’t know what it was about, but apparently he said something that sounded like an order for a Chinese take-away. ‘Dim sum.’ or something. Then ‘Annie go.’”

“Are you sure it was dim sum?” asked Vaila.

“She’s definite about the ‘Dim’. It could have been dim simmy, or something dim.”

“Simmy dim?” prompted Jamie. “Sim dimmy?”

“Wait a minute!” Vaila exclaimed. “Could it have been simmer dim?”

“Yeah, it was something like that. Either nonsense words, or something foreign.”

“No, I don’t mean something like that. I mean exactly that. Simmer dim!”