Page 81 of Death on a Scottish Train

When I answered the door, he just stood there for a minute staring at me.

“Is everything OK?” I asked glancing down at my dress wondering if I’d managed to spill something on myself.

“You are beautiful,” he said. And then the swirling nerves started all over again, but it was more like a tornado in my stomach.

“Uh. Thanks. You clean up well, too.”

He grinned at that. Then he crooked his arm. I put my hand through, and he guided me to the car. After opening the door, he helped me make sure my long skirt made it into the seat. Then he grabbed my overnight bag from the doorway. He took my key to lock things up, even though I knew he had his own. After all, he owned my office and home.

When he climbed in the other side, there was a strange tension between us.

“So, I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about something, but I spoke to Jeremy Burns’s girlfriend the other day. And before you get mad, it was completely by accident.”

I told him what had happened at Jasper’s.

Discussing the case was our safe space. He listened intently, as he always did, as we made our way down the highway toward Edinburgh.

“Do you feel like she had a hand in the murder since she was there?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, she could have unknowingly done something if Jeremy told her to do it. She might be right about him keeping his hands clean. But, no, I can’t see her coming up with such a clever way to kill or stuffing him in a closet.”

“You dinnae sound like you care for her much.”

I grunted. “I didn’t mean she isn’t bright, but she might be more interested in hurting Jeremy than his partner at this point. I feel sorry for her in a way.”

“She’s dating a married man,” he said. There was no judgment in his voice, but he spoke from experience. He’d found his ex-fiancéin a compromising position with another man. The two of us had that sort of betrayal in common.

“Have you and your team gone through the client list? It seems to me this all may be related to him losing their money.”

“Aye, we have been. Most of them have alibis or were nowhere near the murder scene.”

“That’s the thing though. I don’t think the killer had to be there,” I said.

“What about the closet?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. And I had.

“What if he put himself in there?”

Ewan glanced at me with surprise. “Why would he do that?”

“The toxins in his blood may have meant he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. Maybe he had been looking for the restroom and mistook the office. His brain may not have been his own, and he could have been severely disoriented, as in out of his mind completely. Funny things happen when the brain isn’t getting the oxygen it needs. Perhaps he saw the door and thought he was going into another room.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “His face wasn’t the only thing that was swollen. There was a great deal of inflammation in his brain. The killer made sure his lip balm was dosed heavily, and perhaps, never even meant for him to die at the train station. I can’t imagine they would have picked such a public place to carry out the murder. In fact, they might have thought it would happen at the office or home.”

“So, you believe he could have been that far out of his mind that he thought the office was the loo.”

“We have no way of knowing. All I can say for certain is that he was most likely very confused between the palpitations in his heart, and what may have been going on his brain. As I said, he was likely quite disoriented.”

“That puts a different spin on things.”

I sighed. “I could be totally wrong. You understand that, right? Could be the killer was there. But it might have been too obvious. I feel like someone would have seen the victim being shoved into the office. Everyone I’ve talked to didn’t see any such thing. How about you?”

He nodded. “It’s the same. A few of the witnesses remember seeing him in the trench coat and fedora, but they have no recollection of anyone around him at that party. Except for one of the waiters. He argued with the waiter who served him that he wasn’t holding the tray correctly.”

“That sounds like Jacks. And if it didn’t happen at the train station and that was all an accident, it narrows down the possible suspects,” I said.