The Last Darkness by Campbell Armstrong

think of.’
    â€˜He grew vegetables,’ she said. ‘He occasionally played bowls.’
    Vegetables and bowls, Perlman thought. This wasn’t what you’d call a keg of dynamite.
    â€˜He specialized in growing different types of broccoli.’
    Perlman wondered if his heart could take these revelations. ‘The problem is, Miss Houston, broccoli and bowls aren’t the kind of things that get men killed. Drug deals, theft, revenge, aye, definitely. But growing broccoli isn’t a dangerous pursuit.’
    â€˜You’re looking for something underneath, right? Solicitor’s sleazy secrets, stuff like that. I can’t think of any, Detective.’
    â€˜Forgive me for this, but Ihave a personal question –’
    â€˜You’re going to ask if we were an item, right?’
    â€˜You’re a mind-reader.’
    â€˜We were friends. Nothing more. We sometimes had dinner. He behaved very well towards me. He didn’t try to grope me under the table. Are you satisfied?’ She looked at him with some hostility, as if he’d wrongly attacked her virtue.
    â€˜Lou said. I’m sorry. I had to ask. Look at it from my point of view. What if you had a boyfriend who was jealous of your relationship with Joseph Lindsay, say, and what if this boyfriend, in a fit of insane jealousy, decided to kill the lawyer?’
    â€˜But I don’t have a boyfriend –’
    â€˜Fine. So we eliminate that possibility. One less road to explore. Saves time.’
    â€˜You always suspect the worst of people?’ she asked.
    â€˜Not always,’ Perlman said.
    Sandy Scullion interrupted. ‘What about his clients, Miss Houston?’
    â€˜Generally old people with too much money and property. Mr Lindsay handled a lot of wills.’
    â€˜I’ll need a list of them,’ Scullion said.
    â€˜I can do that for you.’
    â€˜I’m also going to need access to his house.’
    She hesitated. Scullion said, ‘It’s necessary.’
    â€˜There’s a spare key in his desk.’
    â€˜His family. What do you know about them?’
    â€˜His wife died sixteen or seventeen years ago. A stroke, I think. His daughter Michaela lives in Australia. His son David is in Canada. Both married. They don’t come back to Scotland often.’
    â€˜Do you have phone numbers for them?’
    â€˜They’re in Mr Lindsay’s address book. I don’t envy you the job of calling them with news like this.’
    Scullion said, ‘You haven’t mentioned friends.’
    â€˜He wasn’t an outgoing man. I’d say he had acquaintances more than close friends. He used to do work for a committee that had something to do with Palestine, but I don’t know a whole lot about that part of his life. He’d drifted away from it, though.’ She fell silent, buried her face in a clump of Kleenex, and sobbed quietly.
    Lou Perlman’s instinct was to comfort her, because he was a sucker for a weeping woman; show him a woman crying and he’d rush to the nearest flower shop and buy out the whole lily supply and have it wrapped and ribboned, toot sweet.
    Scullion was already uttering sympathy. ‘Take your time, there’s no hurry.’
    Billie Houston dropped the tissues into the trash and looked up at the ceiling and sniffed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘When you’ve worked for a person for eight years you …’
    â€˜It’s all right,’ Scullion said.
    â€˜I can’t believe somebody killed him. And the way he died … Where were we? Friends. Right. He had dinner once a month with a man he’d known for years. An old friend from university.’
    Scullion asked, ‘Do you have a name?’
    â€˜Yes. Artie Wexler.’
    Perlman was instantly intrigued. ‘Artie Wexler? Fellow of about sixty, sort of square jaw, hair like a wig?’
    â€˜I only saw him once,’ she said. ‘I