‘Ava, I’m sorry.’

Ava’s hands made claws against the screen, and she ground her teeth together so hard that her jaw was an agony. Ailsa was apologising to her for something she couldn’t possibly have foreseen. Apologising in the knowledge that Ava was going to have to view the footage and witness her dreadful death. Apologising for leaving her.

Still she watched.

Dr Ailsa Lambert, who had celebrated her seventieth birthday a month earlier, who had served the people of Edinburgh and Scotland throughout a distinguished career, took another twenty-six minutes to die. Her body twitched, arms and legs flailing.

No one came.

She vomited, clawed at her face, sucked in insufficient oxygen, until Ava could hear the bubbling rattling in her friend’s lungs.

Blood made its way out of Dr Lambert’s mouth and nose.

Still, no one came.

The neat, focused, pin-sharp woman who had been friends for decades with Ava’s parents, who had been a second mother to her, became a scrunched-up ball of dysfunctional cells on the floor. The tell-it-like-it-was teacher to many a police officer, scenes of crime officer or expert, a woman who didn’t suffer fools lightly, perished slowly and in agony. She, who had cared for so many families, carried them through their pain with extraordinary empathy – knowing what information to share and what to spare, understanding what language would soothe and what would patronise. A woman who had dedicated her entire professional career to promoting justice, relief and healing.

The gas finally finished with her at 4.02 p.m., her last expulsion of air a ghastly drumroll of phlegm. Ailsa, who Ava had believed invincible, lay alone on the floor of her own morgue until 5 p.m. when her secretary entered to say goodnight.

Stepping straight back out of the suite when the gas hit her, the secretary called in a specialist crew. The building was emptied, suits with oxygen supplies were donned, and finally, at 5.44 p.m., an attending officer stopped the video camera from recording. Only then could Ava stop watching.

‘Fuck!’ she bellowed, ripping the monitor from the ties that bound it to the computer stack and throwing it across the room where it hit a wall, denting the plasterboard and landing in a broken heap. The young man who’d shown Ava in raced into the room, took one look at her face, and backed out without a word.

In that instant, DCI Ava Turner made Ailsa Lambert a promise, one she intended to keep no matter the consequences or the cost.

Already hooked? Get One For Sorrow now!

Acknowledgements