Nine Lights Over Edinburgh

by Harper Fox

  The door to Grace’s room was open. Her little bedroom, though better decorated than the rest of the flat, allowed no place to hide. McBride could see into every corner from here. “Wait a bit,” he muttered and lurched to his feet, setting the receiver down.

  He stumbled into the communal hall and slipped halfway down one flight of steps on the oilcloth before he could catch himself. His nosy old bitch of a downstairs neighbour was there on the instant—the first time in his tenancy McBride had been grateful to see her. “Mrs. Calvi, have you seen my Grace? Has she been here?” If you don’t know, you interfering old bat, no one will.

  But she didn’t. Grace hadn’t. And as for knowing, McBride knew perfectly well for himself. He turned—feeling his tired, aching body like a lead suit around him, making him lumber when he had to fly—and began the long trip back to the phone.

  “Libby,” he said when he got there. “Have you told anyone?”

  “Only you. The school called me. I’m just gonna call Amanda—then my mother. She might’ve gone there…”

  “No. Don’t. Don’t call anyone.”

  “What?”

  “Call the school back and say she’s come home sick. No—I’ll do that. And not a word to anybody else, do you hear me?”

  A terrible silence from the receiver. Then a thin voice, a ghost voice, so unlike his round, real Libby’s that McBride wanted to run from it, run and hide himself forever: “This is something to do with you, isn’t it? You and your fucking work. Somebody’s snatched my girl because of you!”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. But you have to promise—”

  “Oh, I promise. Here’s what else I promise. You have that child home by dark—whatever it takes, you miserable, irresponsible, feckless bloody sot—or I’ll find you. With a knife between your ribs. Do you hear me?”

  The line clicked and went dead.

  ***

  Darkness fell at four, and Grace was not found. Libby didn’t carry through on her threat. She was too busy weeping, silently, curled up in a chair in the living room of the Corstophine house, face buried on her knees. McBride stood over her, fists clenching and unclenching in the pockets of his coat.

  He had gone to the school first. No trouble there—all the staff knew Grace’s dad was a policeman. If he said she had flu and needed a few days off, they had no questions. He had kept his tone light, his voice steady. He had walked along the route from the bus stop to the school gates, looking for anything—scuffs on the pavement, a dislodged hair clip—and finding nothing. Then he had called in on Libby’s mother and Amanda Campbell in turn, doing a creditable impression of a man calling in on the off chance. Grandma fell for it, not noticing he checked the gravel on her driveway on his way out, glanced at her gate and fence for any trace of frantic nail scratches, for a caught hair or fibre. When he had done the same at Amanda’s house, her keen, kindly face had creased immediately with concern, and he had backed away from her, saying he was late for a meeting.

  Which had been true: he’d sat, blind and deaf, through the preliminary investigative session at Harle Street. The Israeli general had asked him brief, concise questions, requiring only monosyllables by way of reply. “Were there metal detectors set up at the venue? Do you believe it was safe?” No and no, and Lila Stone’s basilisk gaze deflecting off him harmlessly, and he had been out and home, where another message had been waiting.

  “Libby,” he said. “Can you listen to me?” He waited until she nodded, a tiny movement of her tangled hair. “I have to keep going as normal. I have to make it look good.”

  “Make it look good, copper.”

  “I have to get the evidence back on a case I’ve been working, and I have to recant everything I’ve said about it. They’re giving me twenty-four hours to do that. Then they’re gonna call again and tell me when and where to hand it over. And then we get Grace back.”

  Libby stopped crying. She lifted her head. McBride looked at her pretty face, blurred with grief. She said, calmly, “This is over Sim Carlyle, isn’t it? He’s got her.”

  “Didn’t we warn you, copper? Didn’t we say this would follow you home?”

  “I don’t know.” Cold fire sprang up in Libby’s eyes, and he amended shakily, “Yes, it’s about Carlyle. But I don’t know who’s holding Grace. All I’m saying is…we have to do as they say. Wait, and not tell anyone. He’s…” A stone lodged in McBride’s throat. It had been there all day, but suddenly he felt it, unbearably massive and hot. He struggled not to choke on it. “He’s ruthless. We can’t mess round with him, Libs. He will hurt her if we don’t play dice.”

  Libby got up. She walked, spine erect, across the living room and into the hall, where she pulled open the front door. McBride was bemused for a second: had she heard a knock that he hadn’t? But only winter night lay beyond, a black rectangle streaked with the season’s first snow. That would please Grace, McBride thought—she’d been making controversial deals with God for a white Christmas for weeks. He realised Libby was holding open the door for him to leave. “All right,” she said softly as he went to stand beside her. “You go and play dice, Jimmy. Get out of this house, and don’t ever come back to it until you’ve got my daughter.”

  Chapter Seven

  McBride spent the night looking out into Fettes Row. The tall Georgian windows had alcoves deep enough to sit in. He pulled the phone to the limit of its extension cable, placed it before him and leaned against the alcove wall.

  Once or twice, despite everything, he dozed. His tired brain immediately tried to start dream cycles for him, and in these everything was instantly solved: he heard Grace turning her filched set of keys in the door, and there she was, shamefaced, looking to him to forgive her crimes, intercede for her with Libby.

  As he always had. McBride jolted back to awareness. In part it was love, but in part it was the easy way out. Nicer to be her ally than her disciplinarian, even though it forced poor Libby into a game of—he almost smiled—good cop/bad cop.

  Snow was catching in the cracks between the cobbles, clinging to the windward arcs of the wrought-iron railings. If you were so damn worried about the Freemason’s Hall, McBride asked himself irrelevantly, why didn’t you say something?

  But it wasn’t irrelevant, was it? Lila hadn’t gagged him. He could have complained, insisted on better arrangements. It had been easier to wrap himself up in his tartans and his indignation and let the woman take the fall.

  It was always easier to knee-jerk, to react instead of thinking. More than half his decision to continue his pursuit of Sim Carlyle had been a protest against Lila’s ban. He could have obeyed her and backed off.

  And, had he done so, Grace would have been here. If he listened hard, he could almost hear her breathing through the open bedroom door, hear the little purring snores she began in deep sleep. No. Only the slow growth of frost ferns on glass.

  This was his fault.

  McBride endured an hour or so of this realisation, marked off in bloodred light on the answer phone’s clock. Then he got up. He hadn’t checked his weapon back into the Harle Street armoury after the chaos of the night before. He never normally wore it on the streets, but its weight had been reassuring on his shoulder, after he had turned in his blood-soaked regalia, got changed and headed down into the underworld to meet his little grass. He’d locked it into its cupboard under the kitchen sink when he’d got back, and there it was still.

  The cupboard opened easily. Typical, he thought—usually he had to wrestle the key in the lock. He extracted the weapon, raw misery rising up in him. He could taste it. He’d lost his child. He might as well have taken her onto the Grassmarket and given her away. His muscles slackened, and he slumped against the kitchen cupboards, a deep groan tearing from him.

  Tobias Leitner had called him a good man. Well, it would take someone who’d only known him five minutes to harbour that illusion, wouldn’t it? McBride would soon have put him straight, if he had lived. If he could have only fucking endured to l
ive. He turned the gun in his hands. How many had he fired off? Three? That left five, and God knew he only needed one.

  He thought about the one Leitner had taken for him. Why? McBride didn’t buy his pushing-you-out-of-the-way story. No, not at all: Toby had jumped. “I couldn’t bear to see another good man go down.”

  He hadn’t seemed like a fool or a poor judge of character. He’d clung to McBride—trusted him, used the shield McBride was offering. McBride remembered his weight in his arms and smelled once again the rich tang of his blood and wondered at the sense of bond that had sprung up in that moment in his heart. As if they’d known each other always.

  All right, McBride could die. It would be like him, wouldn’t it—seeking the path of least resistance, the easy route out. Leaving the women in his life to take the fall.

  He hauled himself off the kitchen floor. He returned to his post in the window and watched the phone.

  ***

  There was much less distance between McBride and Lila Stone now. Same office, same desk, but they stared at each other across a far-narrower chasm. He could almost smell her fear. Or was it his own? “Thank you for seeing me, Superintendent.”

  Hearing her rank seemed at once to sting and reassure her. Her face assumed its supercilious mask, the one that normally triggered all McBride’s instincts of mischief and rebellion. She looked wasted this morning, the light reflecting off Edinburgh’s first serious snowfall blisteringly cruel. McBride didn’t suppose it was doing him any favours either, a suspicion she confirmed a moment later. “I’d like to say it’s a pleasure,” she said. “But you look dreadful. It had better not be a hangover, Detective Inspector.”

  Thank you, you cow, for opening the door. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It…it is a hangover, I’m afraid. You must know by now that I have a problem with alcohol.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of that. What I can’t believe is that you are—and that you’re telling me.”

  “Well,” McBride said dryly, “the therapy must be working.”

  “You’ve been going to your meetings?”

  “Aye, but not here. Your police ones are for wine-sipping pussies, if you don’t mind my saying so, ma’am.”

  Stone rubbed her eyes. “What would it matter if I did? No, I don’t mind. I’m just glad you’re finally getting help somewhere. Do you want me to take you off duty?”

  “Business as usual. And make it look good, copper.” “Christ, no!” He forced himself to relax; cleared his throat. “That is…. not unless you think it strictly necessary, ma’am.”

  “No. No, not if you’re taking appropriate measures. Is that what you wanted to see me about?”

  “No. I’m afraid it’s worse than that. My work on the Sim Carlyle case—as you observed yourself, it wasn’t all done while I was perfectly sober. I’m not sure—wouldn’t be prepared to swear in court, anyway—that the evidence I’ve gathered is all accurate or even admissible.”

  “What?”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve really f—screwed up over this.”

  “McBride, are you watching your language with me?”

  “Well. Perhaps I haven’t been as respectful as… Anyway, do you understand? I need to rescind some statements and reports I made over Carlyle. I take admissibility very seriously—”

  “As do I, and believe me, in ordinary circumstances you’d be in a world of trouble. As it happens, the evidence you turned in last night backs up your former statements perfectly.”

  McBride swallowed. It made a sharp little noise, like a bitten-back sob, and he turned it into a cough. “You…you’ve seen the photos?”

  “Not personally. But the memory cards have gone to the lab for upload and enhancement, and the preliminary results look very good indeed. Listen—I want Carlyle off the street just as much as you do, even if you did disobey my orders. I’ll deal with your insubordination later, when—” Her eyes became distant, and McBride wondered how the sentence would have ended. When I’m not under investigation myself? “—when I have time. For now, let’s just use what we have. And those photos look to me like a sewn-up case.”

  McBride tried once more. “I used a snitch to get them. Carlyle could argue entrapment at the least.”

  Lila frowned. She shook her head. “McBride, what is wrong with you? You’ve happily entrapped this city’s bad bastards for as long as your records go back. Don’t worry—I’ll sort out any issues like that.”

  He couldn’t speak. He got up, head spinning, and made for the door. Before he could open it, she stopped him. “I’m glad you can stay on duty.” He turned, trying to look interested, not really caring. “Half the squad’s off with flu, and the Israelis want backup from us to help protect Zvi for the remainder of his visit. I’ve assigned you surveillance with one of their agents. He should be here by now, so off you go, and…well done, Detective Inspector. Really, well done. Admitting the problem is a big step to the cure.”

  ***

  “James.”

  It was the first time McBride had heard his given name that morning. He had only just noticed Lila had dropped the unwanted familiarity. He halted in the corridor. It was different when you invited someone.

  It was wholly different when it came from Toby Leitner. McBride spun round. He couldn’t be here, of course: McBride’s thumping head was putting out echoes. Leitner was in hospital, unless he’d died in the night and…

  But the man leaning in the doorway to the squad room didn’t look much like a ghost. He was dressed with casual flair in an open-necked shirt and a long black coat whose lines emphasised his tall grace. His left arm was in a sling, but even that looked tailored to fit him, and he seemed otherwise healthy, his warm colouring restored. McBride took the breath he needed to reinflate his lungs. “What…what are you doing here?”

  “I work here. For today, anyway—your superintendent told me to pick a member of her team to partner me on surveillance. So I picked you.”

  “Was it just my imagination? Didn’t you get shot yesterday?”

  “Shoulder wound. And not my gun arm. It takes a lot worse for General Sharot to give you a day off.”

  McBride thought fast. Business as usual was one thing; he could find time and privacy to make calls, try to figure out some way of activating his underground network without alerting Carlyle. Stuck in a car with a Mossad agent, he was lost. “I’m glad you’re better. Listen—I’m not the best choice of partner for today. There’s some sort of flu going round the department, and…”

  “Yes. You look terrible. Come with me, though—it’s easy duty. You won’t have much to do.”

  Together they followed the concrete stairwell down into the car park. McBride hadn’t been there since the night of the Christmas party, and his skin crawled with memories. Who the hell had he been back then? He couldn’t even recognise that man, whose biggest concerns in life had been the blow job he’d just got off his partner and where his next lead in the Carlyle case was coming from. He must have been sleepwalking. Well, he was awake now.

  He was sharply aware of Toby at his side. The staircase was narrow. Their shoulders touched as they walked. McBride could pick up the tang of antiseptic, hospital soap and under it something very subtle and expensive, like ferns and good leather. Also a trace of blood… “Are you sure you should be out of hospital?”

  “General Sharot thinks so. I’m good enough for car duty, anyway. Ah, there she is.”

  McBride glanced dully in the direction he indicated. He was almost past reaction, but a flicker of something went through him at the sight of the massive, purring BMW parked alongside the Lothian and Borders squad cars and unmarked Granadas and Mondeos. The old McBride might have given a whistle and run an appreciative hand over her bonnet. “Well,” Toby said, shrugging, taking the keys from the deliveryman, “this will be less conspicuous parked outside the Israeli embassy than a battered Ford. And that’s all we have to do today—sit outside and make sure no one untoward goes in. Come on.”
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  McBride obeyed. There was an easy command in Leitner’s voice, a trick like Amanda’s of making him want to obey and thus not feel ordered at all. Perhaps in his normal state McBride would have found it annoying. But at this moment, undone, unstrung, it was a painful relief to have something to follow. He stood on the kerb, hands in his pockets, adrift.

  “James.”

  Toby was holding the door for him. Shivering, avoiding his concerned gaze, McBride got in.

  ***

  The car was a warm velvet cave. Leitner had run the heaters all the way across the New Town to St. Michael’s and now, parked down the road from the embassy building, was keeping the engine ticking over. From time to time he flicked the windscreen clear of gathering snowflakes. It was hard for McBride to believe in a world beyond the fragrant interior wrapping him round: a world just three yards away, where old ladies struggled with their shopping on the ice, and a larger world, where somewhere in some unimaginable fucking corner of his city, Sim Carlyle held captive his little girl.

  No. Belief was impossible. Not Gracie, who, though she’d had a tough time through the divorce, had never known a harsh word or a blow. Who’d never missed a meal or passed an unsheltered night.

  God, what if she was cold? And that was suddenly the least of the things McBride could imagine for her: he leaned forward, imagining them all.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Aye, just…” McBride coughed his throat clear of a moan of fright and sat up. “Shoelaces. New shoes.”

  “Oh. Not because I bled on the old ones?”

  “What? Oh no. No, they were hired, like the rest of the gear.”

  Leitner nodded. His attention was fixed, like a good surveillance man’s, on the steps of the embassy ahead. McBride could only see his fine-cut profile. “Was any of it redeemable?”

  “The socks, maybe. Don’t worry—good tartan’s meant to have blood spilled on it. I left Lila to explain it to McCall’s.”