Scotch Mist by Elizabeth Darrell Page B

around. The leather purse held fifty euros, a credit card, half a dozen postage stamps and a slip of paper on which was written Jean Greene’s address. A pair of spectacles were in a black leather case. There was also an old-fashioned gilt powder compact, a pale pink lipstick, a handkerchief with an embroidered thistle in one corner, and a plastic folder containing a faded photograph of a very young man in the dress uniform of the Drumdorran Fusiliers. Written in red ink on the back was the name Tammy. A nickname? Never having met Hector, Max was unable to tell if this was an image of him on joining the regiment. He could be a brother or a cousin. Or lover.
    Max soon dismissed the idea of a lover. This handbag had clearly been owned by a very unadventurous woman. A doormat, according to Jean Greene. What he found in the suitcases bore out that description. The skirts, jumpers, trousers and blouses were more suited to a sixty-year-old than to a woman in her late thirties. A swift glance at the underwear explained why Hector McTavish had his mind more on music when they went to bed than on exciting his wife.
    The first things Max saw on unzipping the holdall were two brown bottles crammed with pills. They told him nothing. The labels had been mutilated. Someone had tried to soak them off, then scratched at them with a sharp point so even the name of the dispensing pharmacy was effectively removed. An analysis of the contents would soon identify the medication. Two full bottles? Had Eva been a recreational pill-popper, or had she suffered from a condition that had to be controlled daily? Clare had made no mention of it on the hospital report, and she surely would have done.
    Apart from a polished box which held Eva’s passport, birth and marriage certificates, a folder stuffed with bills, invoices and bank statements, and two bunches of keys, all the bag contained was a thick plastic sleeve protecting a cream brocade dress, matching shoes and a folded plaid on which was pinned a Celtic brooch. Eva’s Burns’ Night finery. All-in-all two things were surely missing. A mobile phone. And a suicide note.
    As he placed everything back on the shelf Max wondered how best to progress this unwelcome complication. McTavish would have been told of the true cause of his wife’s death by the hospital doctors. Had the news come as a further blow, or had it been no surprise? Was it possible that Eva had met him that evening, and had he made her ingest the fatal mixture? Easy enough to overpower a woman, tie her down, then cram pills in her mouth and force her to swallow them with large quantities of vodka. Messy though. And where would McTavish have done the deed?
    There was a small copse with picnic tables and stone barbecues used by families during the summer, and all year round for dog walking. That would be ideal. The only snag with that was that McTavish had not been on base long enough to know of it.
    Brushing that aside, Max continued to pursue the theory by imagining McTavish then bundling his semi-comatose wife into his car, driving the short distance to the Sports Ground where he deposited her on a seat in the stand, before hotfooting it to join colleagues who would doubtless swear he had been with them the entire evening during the settling-in activity. He nodded thoughtfully. It was possible. The priority must be to search for a suicide note.
    Returning to his car, Max headed for the married sergeants’ quarters. Jean Greene was fairly certain to be at home giving her dolly-like daughter her lunch. She was, and greeted him like an old friend.
    â€˜Max! I didn’t expect to see you again,’ she said with the attractive smile he remembered from yesterday. ‘You’ve come at the right time to have a sandwich and a glass of wine with me. Come you in. Come you in,’ she repeated warmly, leading the way to the room brightened by her colourful throws.
    For a woman who had seen Billy Greene and