I don't know why you're here – after all, my great passion in life is reading books, not killing people.
I understand your concern, though. I mean, they found that unfortunate woman in a gruesome condition. And suspicion falls on me because I am,
apparently, the only person in Edinburgh with a working knowledge of Dante's "Inferno". Is that why you've come to me? As I understand it from the newspaper reports, a line that was daubed in blood on the wall? Yes, well – any idiot knows that one: "
Per me si va ne la cittá dolente." A line that could have been taken straight from Dante 101, as I believe the Americans have it.
Well, please come in. In here. Do sit down. No, I don't mind if you smoke, even if our smoking ban has technically now given me more right to prosecute you than you have to be here in my home. I am, after all, a great believer in personal liberty of all kinds: that's why I chose the lot of the freelance reviewer, copywriter and – though I blush to admit it – poet. And why did I choose to live in Edinburgh? Oh, that's simple: the sheer beauty of it. The medieval skyline against the Pentlands as the sun sets in Spring. The diversity. Well, the diversity for Scotland, I mean. And the cultural amusements on offer.
Let me understand. You're not saying I had anything to do with this murder, are you? I mean that line from Dante is the kind of thing you'd get on a cereal box, for goodness' sake. I'd hope to have better taste if I were going to murder someone. Would you like an ashtray for your cigarette? Here. And do I detect the smell of a lunch-time pint or two on your breath? By the look of your clothes and your car, you and I share – if I may be so bold—a common distain for worldly concerns with appearance. But in your case, that may be because you're about to retire. In my case, I never shall. One can't quite retire from the creative life, hmm?
I can see you are an admirer of my pistol collection. A gift from my late uncle. His collection of Regency daggers is in the study, and those are his kukris in the hall, which you've no doubt already noticed: from the Ghurkhas. Those paintings were my mother's. An avid collector, at least she became one as soon as she worked out that she could pass them on to me tax-free before her death, bless her.
What's that? How long had I known the deceased?
Oh, come on. I hardly knew her as such. I'd been her tutor, so to speak, when I was undertaking one of those dreadful "writer in residence" things corporations seem to delight in organising in an effort to prove that they aren't just blood-sucking money-making machines. My editor put me on to it – I will be so bold as to guess that you spoke to him first, and that he then referred you to me as his tame medievalist. Yes? Naughty, naughty Andrew. I really must put him right – I'm not the expert he thinks I am.
Anyway, you were asking me how long I'd known her. As I said, I had met her perhaps twice before. The idea was that I would tutor groups of employees, offering them what Yeats calls, "monuments of magnificence", and that they would then attempt to create their own monuments of magnificence. Ridiculous, no? Such depths must one plumb, sadly, in the chase for craven material comfort. Yes. I began with some Petrarch, then a passage from the
Vita Nova. That's…oh. I see. A Dante fan yourself, eh? I'd never have thought so – merely because I'd had you down as a man of action. I can see how you're sizing me up, sitting there with your cigarette, narrowing your eyes, your gaze never leaving mine… you've been in a couple of scrapes in your time, haven't you? Ever shot anyone?
Sorry. I do understand that you're the one asking the questions.
But before your questions lead me there, I shall return to the victim. Catriona was part of a writing group at this insurance company. I had no interest in her whatsoever: insofar as I remember her at all, it was as one of those ageing career girls who realises life has passed her by. Probably childless, certainly unhappy, and with a need to discover new things in life – without, naturally, giving up on her comfortable berth in financial services. Quite the embodiment of our modern credo that one can have it all, I can remember thinking. She had a particularly poor grasp of the mechanics of language and, what's more, clearly expressed her itching concupiscence for another member of the group, a mild-mannered Italian chap called Antonio – Tony, as he chose to vulgarise it. Brown eyes and a slow, dim-witted smile. The shy sort, but one who responded warmly to the charms of that perma-tanned unfortunate whose demise has brought you to my door.
You might have thought this Tony would have known something of the great Florentine, I mean Dante, but of course not. Headpiece filled with interest rate derivatives or something – and a lot more attractive to women because of it, no doubt. Ah,
mulier radix omnium malorum est, as the good book should have said, what? Yes, thank you. I do understand that it's "cupiditas" in the original. Not bad for a policeman, if I may say so. Not that I mean to patronise, of course: state education these days is obviously not what it was when you passed through the hallowed portals of… let me guess… Leith Academy? Thought so.
I'll just go and put the kettle on for some tea, shall I? Very good. I always take tea around this time. No, there's no need to follow me through to the kitchen. Oh, very well then, if you insist. Come.
There – that's me, at the back of that photo. Seamus Heaney's graduate class in modern Irish poetry at Harvard.
Ma jeunesse dorée, quoi. And here are the kukris and swords, as I was saying. Oh - the swastika on that poster? Oh yes.
Triumph of the Will. Leni Riefenstahl, 1936. A little peccadillo, my interest in the fascist aesthetic. Andrew, my editor, keeps pestering me for an article about it, but every time I write something, he says it's too high-brow and that the peasants – I mean the
readers, excuse me – wouldn't get it.
And that's the bedroom in there. Yes, weights and a rowing machine. Well, you know, in my line one does tend to put on weight if one doesn't exercise. Yes, yes – very good. That is indeed a Ninja star on the wall. As I said, I have a certain… aesthetic fascination, if you like, with weaponry. And disciplining the form. But I assure you, an interest in the ideas behind the aesthetic is as far as it goes for me. Now come, into the kitchen with you. Nothing more sinister in here than a carving knife, and even that's as dull as most of the books I'm sent to review.
So, sit there if you like– and please continue your questions. No, I'm not necessarily suggesting that this Antonio – Tony – did it. But I did take them all out for a drink once. Andrew says it's good to do that, apparently one's more likely to get asked back for more tutoring if one makes friends with them. So I duly took them out for a drink, and after a couple of rounds I noticed the two of them whispering in the corner together. She was fiddling with her earrings and hair—I won't insult you by suggesting what that means—whilst he was leaning in conspiratorially, touching her hair, as I noticed. I all but expected them to make as beasts of the field would in a sports bar off George Street. As my nocturnal perambulations have given me cause to believe, casual carnal satisfaction is no longer the sole province of feckless youth. These days, even middle-aged company executives, such as they were, go to it with the luxury of gilded flies. Oh you are good –
King Lear, quite right. If only all public servants were as well educated, then we might have a better country.
But I digress.
There they were, touching each other and all other manner of preliminary, when she suddenly went red and walked away. Some of the other women of the group went over to speak to her, but she appeared inconsolable. I judged it prudent in my position as a creative writing tutor not to get involved, and so said nothing. Antonio/Tony himself appeared unconcerned, and spoke and laughed with some of the men in the group – I assumed he was talking about business, so loudly were they braying about numbers. The heavy use of sporting and military metaphors also gave me a clue that they were discussing their work, rather than Catriona.
The last thing I can remember – and this really is extraordinary – is that the woman came up to me, still crying, and blurted out, "A bastard – just like the rest of them.", and then walked out. I turned to where the other women sat, but they simply looked back at me blankly, then carried on talking.
The next week, I turned up at the appointed hour to find there was no Catriona. As you will know, that was on the Tuesday morning, shortly before her body was found. Where was it found? Well, I can't remember. Where? In the water of Leith? By Telford Bridge? Good God – not far from here. I had no idea…
Anyway, at the writing class or whatever you choose to call it, I asked them if they knew where Catriona was that day. Naturally, no-one had any idea. At the end of the class, suspecting that something might have gone amiss during our night out between Catriona and her intended Antonio, I asked him what all her tears had been about. Apparently, he had had the effrontery to confess to her that he was married: a fair thing to say, given that nothing had as yet passed between them. Unfortunately, though, it would appear that she took exception to this fact. If you ask me, she had clearly got her hopes up, which would explain her comment to me about bastards– though why she chose to void this spleen in my direction, I have no idea.
What's that? You'd like me to come down to the station with you? But of course – I imagine you'd like me to put some context around why someone might have chosen to crown their crime with a quote from the "Inferno", is that right? I'm sorry? You're going to question me under caution? Well, really. I think that's preposterous.
Will you at least let me go and get a copy of
La Divina Commedia from the study, Dante's masterwork that contains the line you found with the body? I'm sure I'll be able to help in your enquiries once you are satisfied I have nothing to do with this. Thank you – I won't be an instant. Oh, and by the way – I have to use this ladder because the edition I'm looking for is high up on the study wall. You'll hear a click when I open the cabinet next door, and then another one when I close the cabinet, and then I'll be back here in just a moment. No, no – I insist. No need to come with me – it will take me twenty seconds, and then I'll meet you at the front door. You can examine the kukris, whilst I fetch the poetry. With you in one minute.
