by William Paul
‘Yes. They do.’
‘How do you spell Ramensky? Have you got an address?’
Ramensky spelled out his name and told him his address. Another flashback came to him; strong whisky, Van Morrison music, the carved legend of A Present from Malaga arcing towards his face. It made no sense to him. He shook his head and instantly regretted it because his brain seemed to slap about like a sodden sponge.
‘That’s fine then, chum,’ the policeman said. ‘Put your feet up again if you like. Don’t worry. We’ll have you out of here soon.’
He went out, leaving the cell door open. Ramensky stared after him, shivering, knowing that it could only be a matter of time before they appreciated who he really was and slammed the door shut on him for good.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Monday, 07.20
Fyfe dozed in the back of the black cab on the way back into the city, forced to put on the seat belt and tighten it radically to prevent himself sliding about. The driver, a huge man in a Russian-style fur hat that was crushed against the roof, drove far too fast on the empty roads and didn’t let up on the bends so that centrifugal force pushed Fyfe from side to side until he clamped himself in one corner with the belt. The driver talked at the same speed he drove, tossing subjects back over his shoulder in the hope that his passenger would take him up on one. Politics, sport, religion, the price of potatoes, bankrupt millionaires, the theft of charity boxes from pubs; the entire range of stories culled from recent newspapers.
‘See that old wifie that was done in yesterday,’ the driver said. ‘That kind of thing would never have happened a few years ago. It’s the schools I blame. They don’t teach respect any more. No respect for their elders. I would bring back hanging. There would be more respect in this world if we stretched a few necks now and again.’
Fyfe didn’t argue with him. He occasionally made noises out of politeness to pretend he was listening but the torrent of unwanted conversation washed over him. He sat with his eyes half closed, rolling his neck slightly to ease its stiffness. He thought back to the drunken philosopher at the party telling him about Zeno’s paradox and the impossibility of travelling the distance between two points and actually arriving. He had died in the night and this was hell, he thought, trapped in the back of a black cab with a garrulous driver on a journey that never ended.
Then there was Ramensky’s homespun idea about transferring the spark of life that kept old Zena McElhose alive to his dying daughter, and Hilary’s throaty giggling as she asked how much it would cost to hire a contract killer. There was an obscure pattern in all this, a combination of disparate events somehow designed to steer Fyfe in a certain direction. And he could see where it was leading him, straight towards one Donaldson MacDuff, the local godfather everybody knew to go to if you had a need to get rid of someone for whatever reason. And the intriguing element, potentially the final piece of the pattern, was MacDuff himself attempting to get in touch with Fyfe. Was it just coincidence? If not, maybe sometime in the future he would have a philosophical conundrum named after him. Fyfe’s Vexation?
‘Which number was it?’ the driver asked.
The taxi was entering a long street of terraced houses and a jumble of hedges and fences. It was the street where Hilary lived. Fyfe, wondering where to go, had asked to be taken to her address. He looked up at the first-floor living-room and bedroom windows as the taxi cruised sedately past. The curtains were drawn. Behind them she was lying alone. He would have liked to go up there, climb into bed beside her and mould his body against hers. But it wasn’t going to happen. They still had to go through much more of the mating ritual before they got to that stage. What he had planned to do was knock on the door with a bottle of milk and a bag of fresh rolls and demand breakfast. But he was already changing his mind when Sally had sleepily kissed him goodbye with the easy familiarity of long acquaintance, casually stroking the inside of his leg in a gesture of shared intimacy. Then looking through the rear window to see Sally on the doorstep with the two dogs beside her, a snapshot of domestic bliss and happy families. At his own home, he told the taxi driver to take him to Hilary’s but he knew then it wasn’t where he meant to go.
‘Change of plan,’ Fyfe said. ‘Do you know the Soft and Gentle sauna parlour?’
The driver stopped the slow-moving cab and turned round in his seat. His bushy eyebrows rose and merged with the fur hat. ‘Soft and Gentle? Sure I know it,’ he said disapprovingly.
‘Take me there then.’
It wasn’t far. A five-minute trip in the near-deserted streets with not a person to be seen among all the greyness and litter swirling in the wind. The city looked like a set for a post-holocaust film. The driver had lapsed into silence, probably preparing a diatribe on loose morals to be inflicted on his next passenger. The Soft and Gentle had basement premises on a steeply sloping road that had a classic view of the castle from the pavement and a licence to open from 6 a.m. To cater for early risers, was the local joke.
‘Bit early isn’t it, mate?’ the driver said, accepting the fare through the open window of the cab.
‘It’s an emergency,’ Fyfe replied. ‘Matter of life and death, you might say.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Monday, 07.51
Ramensky walked past the entrance to his own home with his head down and his hands deep in his pockets. A white and orange police car was parked outside it, and another one further down the drive at the big house. No one was about. He should have been back from work a few hours ago. Marianne would be beginning to get worried about him. Lorna would be sleeping peacefully, doped up by her latest dose of medication, dark blue veins showing through the parchment white skin of her little arms and legs.
Ramensky stopped, turned on his heel and marched past his home in the other direction. If a policeman came out now he would give himself up, tell the whole story and hope for the best. He would tell them how he didn’t have the guts to go through with his crazy plan. They wouldn’t believe him, of course. The man hadn’t believed him. He had laughed. So what? What could they do to him? Could they hold a gun to his daughter’s head and threaten to kill her unless he told the truth they wanted to hear? No, but they could put him in prison and prevent him being with his daughter when she died. They could do that.
Ramensky stopped again, turned, marched back. The strength and coldness of the wind were making his eyes water, driving tear-tracks over his cheeks like slimy slug trails. He could hardly believe what was happening when they threw him out of the cells earlier that morning, handed him his shoe laces, trouser belt, and other belongings in a big brown paper envelope, patted him on the back and wished him well. They simply didn’t realise who he was, having failed to make the connection. He tried to tell them but his swollen tongue made it difficult for him to speak properly and they just smiled patronisingly, thinking he hadn’t fully sobered up, and hurried him out the door. He fully expected to feel the toe of a boot on his backside to hurry him up as he went.
It might happen again if he tried to explain himself here, except that Marianne would recognise him and the police would have to listen. But Marianne would be furious that he had turned to drink. She would shout and rage at him, hit him, but then she would do what he feared most; she would ignore him. She would sit in the armchair, cuddling Lorna close, staring into space, and hum tunes with no beginning and no end. It frightened him to see her like that.
He opened his mouth wide and let the freezing air in at his swollen tongue. It acted like the touch of a cold cloth on a fevered forehead, drawing out some of the dull pain. His head was still sore, his badly bruised face still tender, his legs weak, his whole body fragile. He couldn’t face Marianne in this condition. What he needed was a drink. That would help him to think more clearly and decide what he should do next. He had money. His wallet, retrieved from the envelope, proved to have survived the night better than him. Explanations could wait.
Ramensky closed his mouth. He stopped, turned, marched
away. He didn’t look back.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Monday, 08.10
Edinburgh Castle loomed on the skyline at the top of the hill. The steps down to the entrance of the basement sauna parlour were edged with wind-battered shrubs in heavy pots. A pale neon sign saying Soft and Gentle hung over a set of narrow double doors. Only one side was open. Fyfe’s shoulders were too wide for the gap. He had to turn sideways to pass through into a vestibule with an interior door in front of him and a hotel-style reception desk blanked out by a broad expanse of glass striped by alternate lines of opaque and clear. He saw somebody move behind it, a barely recognisable human shape that was continuously broken up and re-formed as it rippled over the lines of glass.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said a husky voice. ‘Welcome to the Soft and Gentle. Do come right in. Just push the door.’
Fyfe did as he was told. The door opened stiffly, held back by the thick carpet on the floor beyond. On the other side was a surprisingly large area like a doctor’s waiting-room with chairs and sofas against the walls and a central low table piled with magazines. A wide-screen television with breakfast television presenters mouthing silently was suspended from the ceiling in one corner. There was a low buzz of extractor fans and a mumble of piped music just audible over the burble and hiss of a coffee-making machine. The wallpaper was red and black, like the aftermath of a bad accident. Framed pictures with individual spotlights were either erotic or abstract; it was hard to tell with a cursory glance. At least three corridors and two closed doors led off the space. Elaborate plaster cornices vanished into walls showing where the partition walls had been constructed.
Two women stood up and flashed professional smiles from behind masks of make-up and glossy lipstick as Fyfe entered. Both had sun-lamp tans. One was small and well endowed, standing unsteadily on high heels, wrapped in a nurse-style uniform of short skirt and tight blouse. The other was taller, slimmer, wearing similar high heels, short skirt and blouse. She sucked deeply on a cigarette and released the smoke from the corner of her mouth in a controlled stream that was almost a contemptuous gesture. Fyfe liked her instantly and wanted to rescue her from all this. He smiled back.
‘What can we do for you, sir?’ said the smaller one.
‘Quite a lot probably,’ Fyfe replied, looking straight at the tall one. ‘But I’m afraid I’m already on duty so I’ll have to pass.’
‘Are you sure? I’m Selena. This is Patricia. We’re here to make sure you have a good time. Anything you want we can provide.’
‘I’m sure you could but at the moment I’ve got business with your boss, Mr MacDuff. It would please me greatly if you informed him I was here.’
‘Who are you?’ Selena asked.
‘David Fyfe.’
‘Does he know you?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Is he expecting you?’
‘Oh no.’
‘I’ll see if he is in.’
Selena disappeared down one of the corridors. Patricia sat down, crossed her legs and sucked deeply on her cigarette. Her body language spoke volumes about Fyfe as a time-waster who was denying her the opportunity to earn quick commission.
‘Business good?’ he asked.
‘No.’
She opened out a newspaper on the adjacent chair and leaned over to read it. A colourful Page Three girl flaunted her chest among a few short paragraphs of black and white text. Fyfe looked down at the magazines. They were all soft porn. He picked one up and flicked through the pages. A female body made up of many different parts writhed and twisted and contorted in the rush of images. A succession of changing faces leered out at him. He thought he caught Patricia watching him even more contemptuously. He got a fright and dropped the magazine when a fat man grabbed his arm.
‘David, my friend. How good it is to see you.’
‘Morning, Donaldson.’
‘Come to my office. Have you had breakfast? Have something. I’m having a couple of rolls. Would you like one? Selena is just going to run to the carry-out for me.’
‘A black pudding roll would be nice.’
‘With brown sauce?’ Selena asked.
‘Please.’
MacDuff kept hold of Fyfe’s arm. He pulled him along a corridor into a tiny, windowless office decorated with the same brothel wallpaper, stuffed with filing cabinets and dominated by a wide desk that split it in half. He half climbed, half squeezed round the edge of the desk and flopped into the swivel seat that squeaked in protest. Fyfe sat in the chair opposite him. The only object on the desk was an old-fashioned adding machine with a long tongue of cash-roll paper looping out of it.
‘Before we get down to business will you tell me one thing, Donaldson,’ Fyfe said.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Do you really get punters coming in here at this time in the morning?’
‘Of course.’ MacDuff leered obscenely. ‘Sexual desire does not conform to a strict timetable. Lust comes upon us at any time.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘I am. Look at that.’ MacDuff pointed and Fyfe turned to see one of four red lights illuminated above the door. ‘First of the day. That’s Patricia in her cubicle and earning her keep.’
‘That should put a smile on her face,’ Fyfe said.
‘She’s good. She will certainly put a smile on his.’ MacDuff’s mood changed in mid-sentence. ‘You didn’t tell the girls who you were, did you?’ he said anxiously.
‘I told them who, not what.’
MacDuff considered the statement carefully and nodded. ‘It’s just that they get nervous if they know the police are around.’
‘So do I.’
‘How did you know I would be here anyway?’
‘I know everything about you, Donaldson. We have hidden cameras recording your every movement.’
For a second MacDuff looked wary and uncertain, then he realised it was a joke and he laughed, gurgling like a partially blocked drain. Fyfe sat back in his chair. MacDuff was the biggest crook in the city but, apart from a couple of promptly settled parking tickets, didn’t have a single conviction. Not even any youthful indiscretion to blot his record. He was an unscrupulous and highly successful entrepreneur in a specialised area of business covering sex for sale, protection rackets, and debt enforcement. He was only in his mid-thirties but already looked two decades older. He was dissolute, overweight, and unrepentant, rather relishing his physical resemblance to Marlon Brando in his role as the Godfather, complete with wheezy voice, puffy face, and inevitability of dying of a heart attack before too long.
‘So what can I do for you, David?’ He used a handkerchief to dab at the sweat on his forehead that had been brought out by his short journey to collect Fyfe from the reception area.
‘You were looking for me, Donaldson. I am the mountain come to Mohammed. Or is it the other way around?’
‘Oh yes.’ A look of annoyance came and went. MacDuff scowled at his chunky silver watch. ‘I was drunk. I tend to do stupid things when I’m drunk.’
‘Don’t we all.’
There was no formal deal between the two of them, no question of payment either way, although this was not the first time they had sat facing each other in the cramped, seedy office. MacDuff fed Fyfe with discreet and occasionally useful nuggets of information on low-life intrigue because he liked the sense of power it gave him. Fyfe offered him nothing in return except the illusion of having a tame DCI on a string. He had covered up the episode of the cocaine in the cubicle because he knew the blame would be delegated down on to the girl who worked it and the poor girl was already having a hard enough time. He didn’t care how MacDuff had interpreted it.
‘It’s about the killing of this dear old lady,’ MacDuff said.
‘I thought it might be.’
‘Why did you think that?’
‘No reason. Just a hunch. I am senior investigating officer on the case, after all.’
‘Are you?’
&n
bsp; ‘Somebody has to be.’
‘Anyway, it’s about this lady.’
‘Mrs McElhose.’
‘That’s her. How old was she?’
‘Seventy-three.’
MacDuff shook his head sadly and looked at the ceiling. His eyebrows squashed themselves together in the area directly above his nose as though they were being sucked down a hole there. ‘Three score years and thirteen. I’ll never see that kind of age.’
‘Neither will I,’ Fyfe agreed.
‘People who live to be as old as that deserve respect. The Chinese respect their old. All the Orientals do. My mother lives with me. She’s over seventy. I look after her well.’
‘What’s your point, Donaldson?’
‘You’re not wired up to record this, are you?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘I should have you frisked.’
Fyfe held open his jacket. ‘Get one of your girls to give me the once-over. Just don’t send me the bill afterwards.’
MacDuff shoved the tip of his little finger into one nostril and rotated it through two hundred and seventy degrees. He pulled it out and examined the end. At that point Selena arrived. When she opened the door it banged against the back of Fyfe’s chair. She was carrying the lid of a cardboard box holding the rolls and cups of steaming hot coffee. She leaned over to lay it down on the desk and Fyfe got a flash of the back of her thighs right up to the buttocks. He couldn’t make out whether she was wearing knickers or not. She left without saying a word. MacDuff seemed to have forgotten about his idea of having Fyfe searched. He checked the paper bags and handed one to Fyfe. The black pudding was hot and the sauce tangy. Milk wasn’t an option for the coffee because there was none. It burned his throat.
‘This bloke comes to me and says he wants somebody bumped,’ MacDuff said through a mouthful of bacon and egg.
‘Why would anyone ask a fine upstanding gentleman like yourself such a question, Donaldson?’