Watchman

by Ian Rankin

  “Where’s he gone?” he asked.

  “Edinburgh, I think,” said Sheila Flint, her face wrinkling slightly as she remembered something. Then, slowly and quietly, she closed the door again.

  “This is a nightmare,” said Stevens. There was no other explanation for it. Soon now he would wake up and everything would be as it had been five years ago, when he was on the crest of his career. Edinburgh? People came from Edinburgh, they didn’t go there. Why in God’s name had Flint gone to Edinburgh?

  “We can follow him,” Janine was saying. “You can pay for the fares out of the money you’ve saved by not paying me any money this past week.”

  “How did he get away? I thought you were watching?”

  “Well, I had to find a phone, didn’t I? There was this pub, and I thought I could call from there, but then the barman offered to buy me a drink. He was Scottish, and the place was quiet. I suppose he wanted the company. Anyway, I had a drink and then I telephoned . . .Jim? Jim?”

  Slowly, with great calculation and perhaps even a touch of heroism, Jim Stevens had begun to bang his head against the solid mahogany door.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “I’D BE A LOT MORE use to you if you’d give me a gun.”

  Miles blew his nose, breathed in the sharp, brand-new air, and examined the Sir Walter Scott monument. He was seated on a damp bench in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens, with Collins, cold and looking it, standing in front of him.

  “How do you know that you can trust Monmouth? He’s been screwing you around all this time, what’s to stop him now?”

  The monument, darkened by time to a suitably Gothic shade of black, pleased Miles more than he could say. He remembered climbing to the top once, back in his student days, and feeling claustrophobia while he climbed the narrow, winding stairwell, then fear when, at the top, he found that there was only a narrow circuit to traverse, the wind blowing fiercely and too many people trying to move up and down the stairs. It had seemed the perfect image of Scott’s novels.

  “I suppose this is why they called you Walter Scott, eh?” said Collins now, changing the subject in an effort to elicit any kind of response from Miles.

  A bitter wind was blowing the length of the gardens, and Miles was the only person mad enough to be sitting down in such unpleasant conditions. Those who walked past, swinging heavy shopping bags, mistook him for a tourist and smiled sympathetically, as if to say, fancy coming to Edinburgh at this time of year.

  Collins didn’t look like a tourist. He looked like a beggar. He wrapped his coat a little more tightly around him and decided that if Flint would not answer him then he would not speak. He had been to Edinburgh once before, many years ago, on a fund-raising venture. He knew that fifty minutes would take him to Glasgow, and that from there it was a simple if lengthy journey by train and boat to Larne. Waverley Station was a short walk away: why didn’t he just make a run for it? Would Flint be crazy enough to shoot him in so public a place? One look at that contemplative face gave him his answer: of course he would. Flint had changed into the kind of man Collins was used to dealing with, and he wasn’t sure that he liked the change. He had felt some sympathy for the old, scared, confused Miles Flint. This new character would not appreciate such sentiment. But then what did it matter? He couldn’t run back to Ireland anyway, not like this. Those men in the meat van would still be sniffing around, and what could he tell his commanding officer about his own kidnapping by a member of MI5? If he had blown great big holes in Flint and that snake Monmouth, then yes, he could have returned. But he was not at all sure that he wanted to go back, for he knew that once back he would be forced to take sides again. He wanted to disappear, to become ordinary and invisible, to escape Miles Flint’s smile . . .

  Miles was thinking of Sheila. He had come to this spot with her several times, of course. Right now, following his instructions, she would be clearing out of the house and selling the Jag to the dealer in Highgate. He had emptied their bank account for the price of the train fares north and the hotel. No one would think of looking for him at the most expensive hotel in Edinburgh, would they?

  He watched Collins shuffle backward and forward in front of him, becoming ever more impatient, becoming agitated. That suited his plan, too. Everything would fall into place. He had given Collins his own room, showing his trust. But there was a connecting door. The hotel clerk had looked askance at the request, but Miles had gone on smiling. Trust me, his smile said, as I am trusting Will Collins, the enemy become ally.

  Collins sat down on the damp bench. He needed Flint’s trust, the trust that would give him one of the handguns. With a handgun he would feel warmer and so much more secure. He still couldn’t believe Flint’s tale of finding the pistol in Champ’s tea caddy. What had the old fool been doing hiding it there in the first place? With a gun in my hand, he thought, I would shoot Miles Flint. He didn’t want to, but he would, in the way that one would extinguish a smoldering fire. Miles had become too dangerous by half, and did not realize that he could not win whatever game it was he thought himself playing. Collins would shoot him, but only enough to cripple him and make him safe again.

  Then he would head south and seek out Monmouth, and he would shoot him dead. There was no question of that.

  “Let’s go up,” said Miles.

  “Up where?”

  “Up the monument, of course. Come on.” And he almost sprinted to the doorway, where the attendant took his money and mentioned that this was the last day the monument was open.

  “Closing for the season,” he said.

  “Is there anyone else up there?” Collins asked.

  “On a day like this? No, not a soul.”

  Good, thought Collins, then this is where it ends.

  Miles climbed ahead of him, his hands touching the cold stone walls. He had given Billy precise details of which train Partridge and the old boy were to take, and what they were to do upon arrival. He was not giving them time to think or to plan. He wanted them dazed, fuggy, off balance. Especially Partridge, for whom this little circus had been arranged. They would travel north by the slowest of trains, one which stopped at countless small stations. They would feel like death when they arrived.

  But could he trust Billy? The man had betrayed him, had betrayed everyone. He was an agent of chaos, and he would produce chaos whenever and wherever he could. Miles didn’t care. No matter how much Billy gave away, Partridge would still come north. He might not come unprepared, but he would come.

  And that was all Miles needed.

  “Not far now,” he said, feeling the blood pumping through him, taking rests at the various levels of the ascent. Still, he didn’t feel like a museum beetle any more. He was the hunter.

  “Why is it,” he called back to Collins, “that human colonies work toward chaos while insect colonies work toward harmony?”

  “You and your bloody insects,” came the reply up the steps.

  Collins was gaining strength with every moment, filling himself with the power and the speed that would be needed to disable Flint, to take him out of the game. He had to exhaust him, had to keep him talking, using up vital stamina.

  “We’re dead men,” he called into the half-light. “I can see it clear as day.”

  “The good guys never die,” said Miles Flint, his breath short.

  “Yes they do, they do it all the bloody time. Give me a gun.”

  “You’re going to have to trust me, Will, at least until tomorrow morning.”

  “Well, don’t blame me if you die a terrorist instead of a martyr.” Collins had reached the top step and walked out into a fierce squall. The walkway was tiny, and there was no safety mesh, nothing to stop anyone from plummeting to the well-tended ground below.

  “Jesus,” he whispered.

  “Scared of heights?”

  “Not until now.” His face had lost all color, and he began to feel a vein of sweat on his spine.

  “But what a view, eh?” said Miles, pointing northw
ard towards the Forth estuary. “I should never have left this place.”

  “There’s probably some truth in that sure enough.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just this wind, it could blow a man right off here to his death.”

  “Do you think that’s why I brought you here?”

  “Well, is it?”

  “No, but I did think you might have a similar plan in store for me.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  “You’ve changed your mind?”

  Collins pointed to Miles’s coat. “Your hand’s not in that pocket because it’s cold.”

  Miles nodded.

  “Even so,” said Collins, moving forward, “maybe it’s worth the chance, eh? I mean, if someone was pushing you toward your grave, wouldn’t you try just about anything to stop him?”

  “You know what I’d do.”

  “Well, what are you going to do now?”

  They were a foot apart, and as Miles began to draw his hand from his pocket, gun firmly in place, and Will Collins made to grab his shoulders, planning to break maybe both legs, they heard a noise on the stairwell, and both froze, listening as the steps grew nearer, two individual rhythms, two people approaching. Miles angled the pistol away from Collins and toward the doorway.

  The face in the doorway froze, eyes fixed on the gun, then was framed by the two arms that came up, trying to stretch above the head in a show of surrender.

  “Mr. Flint? Mr. Miles Flint?”

  “And you are?”

  “Jim Stevens, Mr. Flint. I’m a reporter.”

  “Well, Mr. Stevens, you’d better join us. And this is—?”

  Stevens was followed onto the walkway by Janine. She had her hands in her pockets and seemed determined not to look afraid.

  “My assistant,” said Stevens.

  Miles recognized the woman who had been watching his house.

  “Put your hands down, Mr. Stevens. I’ll put this away. It wasn’t for your benefit, rest assured.”

  Miles slipped the gun back into his pocket, and Stevens lowered his arms.

  “I want to ask you a few questions about—”

  “No need,” interrupted Miles. “I’ve sent a tape recording to your newspaper office. It should make everything clear.”

  “But I don’t work there anymore.”

  “You don’t what?” This from Janine, who had taken her hands from her pockets and now stood with them planted firmly on her hips.

  “This is Mr. Collins, by the way,” said Miles. “His is one of the voices on the tape.” Collins smiled toward Janine, who smiled back at him, her eyes showing interest.

  “By the way, how did you find us?” asked Miles, resting against the parapet.

  “Oh, I’ve still got friends here. I worked here for years. A wise newspaperman gets to know the hotel clerks, the night porters. And then I thought, well, you’re the boardinghouse type, quiet, anonymous, but you’re playing some sort of game, so you’d go for the opposite, try to outmaneuver anyone who might be looking for you.”

  Collins gave Miles a contemptuous look. Miles knew what he was thinking: if this man can outwit us, others can too.

  “Oh, and I’m not the only person looking for you.”

  “What?”

  “And what’s your first name, Mr. Collins?” Janine was asking.

  “William.”

  “What do you mean,” said Miles, “someone else is looking for me?”

  “That’s right,” said Stevens, part of his attention lost to the dialogue going on between Janine and Collins.

  “Yes?” prompted Miles.

  “Well, according to the hotel clerk I spoke to, someone else has been asking questions, flashing around a bit of cash. Only they didn’t have my sources.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “No.”

  “It looks to me,” said Collins, “as though that snake Monmouth’s been blabbering.”

  “Who’s Monmouth?” asked Stevens, nose twitching. Janine had started to point out local landmarks to Collins.

  “The other man on the tape,” said Miles.

  “And this tape will answer all my questions?”

  “Oh yes, definitely.” Miles was examining the parapet. “Long way down, isn’t it?”

  “Very.”

  “I love your accent,” Janine was telling Collins. “Irish accents make me all shivery.”

  “Yes, it is a bit chilly up here,” Stevens called to her, and she stuck out her tongue at him. “Look, why don’t we all go for a drink, eh? I know a pub near the station—”

  “Sorry, we have work to do.”

  “Well, later maybe. Or tomorrow?”

  “OK,” said Miles. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Fine.” Stevens was smiling. He knew when someone was selling him Korean tartan. “Do you know the Sutherland Bar?”

  “I used to drink there as a student.”

  “Well, that’s fixed then. Janine, let’s go. I want to phone London and get someone to send me this mysterious tape.”

  But Janine and Collins were busy in conversation, their voices muted. They seemed not to have heard Stevens, who, beginning to blush, turned back to Miles Flint and returned his grin. “Well,” he said, “she can catch me up.” He made toward the stairwell. “Oh, and Mr. Flint?”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope you have a permit for that gun.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  WAVERLEY STATION, LYING UNDER glass and metal, had changed much since his last visit. It had become fashionably and garishly open-plan, with a taped skirl of maltreated bagpipes and a bevy of high-profile station staff ready to answer the traveler’s every question. The flooring reminded him of some dappled ice-rink surface, and video screens everywhere informed passengers that all trains were running upward of five minutes late due to a local dispute.

  By the look of things, the early morning commuter rush had just ended. Taxi drivers were catching up on the day’s news headlines, their beefy arms resting against warm steering wheels. The station was lit, the day being dark, a real hyperborean landscape. The glare of the interior was igloo-like, while the ramps leading up to Waverley Bridge were like boltholes to the surface of the world.

  There was little hurry here, the people moving at a winter’s pace, retaining their energy. There were no tourists to deal with, only some business travelers and people coming into the city for a day’s shopping. Although a public place, it was openly private in its attitude. It would do nicely. He signaled to his companions.

  “You know what to do?”

  “Yes, Mr. Partridge,” said Jeff Phillips.

  Billy Monmouth had told Partridge all he had needed to know. He had said that Flint was planning a nasty little surprise. He had said that Flint was not coming in alone, but had Collins with him. These revelations had made the logistics nice and easy. It didn’t matter so much about Flint himself. For the moment, Partridge really wanted only the Irishman, for he was the last piece of evidence. He felt the absurdity of it all. At first it had seemed so simple and so viable, but when one killed someone, a whole chain of events came into being which grew and grew and would not stop growing, leaving everyone powerless and trapped within the chain. He couldn’t break that chain now if he wanted to. He wasn’t coming empty-handed to meet Flint. He had a good enough proposition to put to him, one which Flint was certain to accept. They would play it like an honest game of cards between two players who know each other for incorrigible cheats.

  He had questioned Billy Monmouth thoroughly. Did Flint have any other evidence? No transcripts? No signed statements? Billy had been very definite in his answers, and it seemed that Flint had slipped up here: he had thought Collins such a strong trump that he had dispensed with any alternatives or backups. That was foolish of him. Billy had said that he was a changed man, that the incident in Ireland had unhinged him. He was uncoordinated, rambling, half living in a fantasy world of Berlin Wall shootouts and car chases.
There would be none of that today.

  Partridge felt himself prepared for any scheme Flint might throw at him. Slowly, with Phillips and the woman a few yards behind him, he made his way across the concourse toward platform 17.

  He wished that he had taken the opportunity on the train to wash himself and maybe even shave. It had been an appalling journey, and the more frustrated he had become, the slower the train had moved, until it had seemed that everything was standing still and that he was moving forward by himself, was running, having broken free of his chains.

  He walked to the end of platform 17, his hands by his side, intimating that he was not in possession of any kind of weapon. In fact, he was carrying a small revolver in his jacket pocket. To combat the cold, however, he wore an overcoat, and the gun, buried beneath this coat, was for use only in the direst emergency. He didn’t believe he would have any need of it.

  There were no train spotters about. The end of the platform did not offer overhead shelter from the morning’s needle-fine drizzle, and he turned up his coat collar. The trains that arrived at this platform were local services from Dundee and Fife, no farther. He saw from the flickering video screen that a train was due in from Cowdenbeath. Now where on earth was that? He seemed to recall that a football team from there appeared somewhere in the Scottish league, but couldn’t be sure. Looking back up the length of the platform, he saw Phillips standing with the woman, who was held in toward him as though unwillingly. He motioned for Phillips to move farther away. It would ruin everything if Flint were to see them both. Phillips moved away quickly, right out of Partridge’s sight. He would reappear when the time was right.

  There were no obstructions to Partridge’s view. He would have fifty yards’ warning of Flint’s approach. It seemed extraordinary that he should have enlisted the aid of Collins under any circumstances. Partridge was still not sure that he fully believed it. Perhaps Monmouth was playing some sort of trick on him. Well, he would soon know one way or the other. They would be here at any moment.

  From out of the Waverley tunnel came a slow, tired-sounding diesel engine, pulling three dingy carriages behind it. The Cowdenbeath train, he presumed. It pulled into platform 17 and drew to a halt. A crowd of people began to disembark. This, he thought, must be Flint’s plan: he will arrive just at the height of the confusion, hoping to catch me off guard. Partridge craned his neck to search above the heads of the herd, who were now walking briskly along the platform away from him.