Head Shot

51

Charlie Johnston was none too pleased to have been summoned from the betting shop in the middle of his day off, but the big career constable knew better than to show it to the acting chief superintendent. He stood to attention in front of her desk, in his hastily donned tunic, al too aware, suddenly, that it was covered in fine cat hairs.

'You wanted to see me, ma'am?' he began, his speech as stiff and formal as the rest of him.

'Yes. Relax and sit down, please. I want to talk to you about something that happened a week or so back, when you were on nights, minding the Oxgangs office. You were cal ed out to a sudden death, I understand; in a doctor's surgery.'

Johnston nodded, vigorously. 'Aye, that's right, ma'am. DrAmritraj.'

Then he paused, as if it had dawned on him that for all young Haddock had said, he might be on the carpet after all. 'Ah didna like leaving the office, like,' he assured Rose, 'but a'body else was busy, and the paramedics were gettin' bolshie.'

She read his thoughts. 'It's al right; I'm not questioning your judgement, Charlie, don't worry. No, I just want you to tell me what happened when you got there.'

The constable leaned back in his chair and scratched his head. 'Well, ma'am, there wisna much to it really. There was this bloke, and he was deid.' He chuckled, grimly. 'No doubt about that right enough. He was as deid as he's ever goin' taste be.'

'Tell me about the doctor.'

'There's no' much taste tell about him either. He was an Asian bloke… nothing unusual about that these days… and he was in a hurry taste get home.'

'Did you question him?'

Johnston looked offended. 'Oh aye, ma'am. It's al in my report.'

'Fine, but tell me. How did he explain the man being there in the middle of the night?'

'He said the bloke had cal ed him, complaining about chest pains. He said the guy was feart of hospitals, so rather than upset him, he took him taste his surgery to give him a check-up, put him on a machine, like, and he had hardly got there when the fella took a big coronary and popped off. He said he was ten minutes trying to bring him round, but it was nae use.

'So he just called the ambulance taste take him away.'

Rose looked him in the eye. 'Not the police? Only the ambulance?

You're sure about that.'

'Dead sure, ma'am. It was a wee paramedic lass that phoned me.'

'And how did the doctor react when you arrived?'

The middle-aged officer cocked an eyebrow. 'Ye mean was he pleased taste see me like?'

She nodded. 'That'l do.'

'Naw. He was just wantin' hame, like the ambulance crew were wantin' back taste the Royal.'

'Had you ever met him before?'

'Who? The deid fella, like?'

'No,' Rose said, patiently. 'The doctor.'

'Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. Never in ma life. He was a new one on me, like.'

'Do you know many of the doctors up in Oxgangs, Charlie?'

'Ah thought Ah knew them a', ma'am, but like Ah said, no' this one.'

'Have you seen Amritraj since then?'

'No, ma'am.'

She leaned across her desk and pulled her in-tray towards her. 'The dead man, Essary,' she said. 'You'd remember him if I showed you a photograph, would you?'

'Oh aye, ma'am. Ah've got a good memory for faces… especial y if they're deid.'

She ripped off the second sheet of the Strathclyde memo, and slid it over to him. 'Is that him?'

Johnston picked it up and gazed at it for a few seconds. Then he nodded, slowly. 'He looks a bit better there, ma'am, a bit mair life about him, ken; but that's him a'right: no doubt about it.'