Funeral Note

‘Sauce’ Haddock

Most of the time, when someone begins a sentence with ‘I have to say. .’ what it really means is, ‘I’m going to say. . whether you like it or not.’

I probably shouldn’t say that I was beginning to get very fond of the chief constable’s ex-wife, but I will. . regardless. I don’t mean that I fancied her. If I did I would definitely keep that to myself. No, I liked her, pure and simple. I could tell that Jack had reservations about her but I found her bold and provocative, things I like in a person, and I could detect no side to her, none of the aloof superiority that cops, and particularly young ones like me, often encounter in our dealings with those my mum calls ‘members of the professions’. She was friendly and had treated me as an equal in every encounter we’d had.

‘What are those?’ I asked her after she’d finished describing Mortonhall Man’s last meal.

‘Classic kosher dishes,’ she replied. ‘Jewish food, as approved by ritual and the local rabbi. One of the few things I miss about New York City are the delis.’

‘Are there any of those in Edinburgh?’

‘There’s the Viareggio chain,’ she pointed out, ‘but they’re Italian. There are no kosher ones that I know of, but they’re not places I’ve ever looked for over here.’

‘His last meal,’ I continued. ‘Would it have been homemade?’

‘Possibly,’ she conceded. ‘If you can trace kosher-approved suppliers in the area, you might get a lead to him.’

‘How about kosher restaurants? Are there many in Edinburgh?’

‘From memory,’ she murmured, ‘I think there’s only one. . and it’s entirely vegetarian, so you wouldn’t get chicken broth there, or stuffed fish either.’

‘What about the matzoh balls?’

‘Nor them; there’s egg in the recipe. Hey,’ she laughed, ‘did you hear about the blonde who thought the matzoh was an endangered species?’

I was still grinning when I put the phone down.

‘Who’s made your day?’ the boss called to me.

‘Dr Grace, the pathologist.’

‘What were you talking about?’

‘Circumcision.’

Even Jack reacted to that. ‘You what?’ he exclaimed. ‘With the chief’s ex?’

‘I’m not kidding,’ I told him. ‘She gave me a lecture on the subject: not how it’s done, but who has it. Are you circumcised?’ I asked him.

‘Mind your own fucking business. What are you asking me that for?’

‘Call it a statistical survey. More people are than you’d imagine.’

‘Ray is,’ Becky volunteered.

McGurk actually started to turn pink. ‘Can we leave DI Wilding’s tackle out of this, please,’ he moaned. ‘If you must know, yes I am.’

‘And you’re not Jewish.’

‘Of course not. You don’t have to. .’

‘I know,’ I said, cutting him off in mid-sentence. ‘That’s what Sarah explained.’ I paused, for a little effect. ‘That’s before she said firmly that our man was.’

‘Come again?’ the DI murmured, dryly. ‘Did the rabbi who did it put his initials on his work?’

‘Hardly,’ I replied, slightly narked by her sarcasm. I shook my head and repeated what Sarah had told me. . leaving out only the line about the blonde and the matzohs.

Her reaction was the same as if I’d shaken her awake. She blinked, once, twice then focused on me. If Becky Stallings has a fault as a team leader, it’s her occasional tendency to slip into cruise mode, rather than driving full on at the task in hand. When she snaps out of it, though, she’s a formidable operator. Half an hour earlier she’d begun to echo Jack, chuntering on about her team having been stuck with a job that uniform should be doing, putting a name to the dead man from the evening before, when we should have been tasked with putting the screws on Kenny Bass. That disappeared in an instant as she started to gnaw on the bone I’d given her.

‘She’s a hundred per cent certain about that?’ she exclaimed.

‘As near as damn it. “That’s the way to bet,” is what she said.’

‘How much do you know about the Edinburgh Jewish community? How big is it?’

‘I’ve got no idea,’ I admitted.

‘Then find out.’

Half an hour later, after some intensive research, followed by a few phone calls, I was up to speed. ‘There are around eight hundred Jewish families in the Edinburgh area,’ I reported to the DI. ‘They worship in two active congregations but there’s only one full-time rabbi in Edinburgh, Rabbi Hyman. I’ve just spoken to him. He doesn’t know of anyone who’s missing, and he’s certain that if there had been a death among his flock, he’d have been called in. But he’s willing to look at the body, to see if he knows him.’

‘When?’ she asked.

‘Right now. It’s Friday; their Sabbath starts in a few hours. He’s preparing for this evening’s service, but he’s agreed to meet me at the mortuary in half an hour.’

‘No great hopes, though?’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I described our man. He said that it only fitted three or four people, no more than that. Those are all active in the community and he said that if any of them died it would be big news. He was shocked when I told him how we found the body, but he did say that the white shroud was “appropriate”; his word.’

‘Okay,’ Becky said. ‘You’d better get down to the Cowgate, now.’

‘Yes, boss, I will, but there’s more. I did a search on kosher food as well. Like the pathologist said, there’s only that one vegetarian place in Edinburgh, and the food itself wouldn’t be easy to source. There’s one supermarket that stocks a range of kosher products, but it’s not extensive. However, I did find a kosher restaurant in Glasgow; it’s called Solomon’s, and it isn’t veggie. I phoned it, and spoke to the guy who owns it; it’s named after him, by the way. Chicken broth with matzohs and geffilte fish are both regulars on the menu. The timescale we’re looking at, according to the autopsy findings, has Mortonhall Man eating his last meal on Wednesday evening. Mr Solomon says he was open then, and busy, but when I described the man, he said yes, it was possible he might have been a customer.’

‘Did you tell him that we’re trying to find a dead man?’

‘No. I didn’t need to do that. All I said was that we were trying to trace a man who might have eaten there. Then I said that I’d pulled his menu off the internet, and I asked him how the broth and the fish were, casual like. I said they were my favourites. He said they’re his best sellers, and that I should call in.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘Sure.’ I checked my notebook and read it out.

‘Then what are you waiting for? Get the most presentable face shot that we have of the body and take him up on his invitation.’

I raised a slightly impertinent eyebrow. ‘Is that before or after I go to the morgue?’

‘Sod that,’ she grunted. ‘I’ll meet the rabbi. It’ll be a waste of time anyway. I’m beginning to get an idea of what’s happened here.’