‘What else do you know about them?’ she asked, impressed, amused by his enthusiasm for such relative arcana.
He sipped his wine, meeting her eye, then smiling widely as if at a private joke, ‘Well, for a start, that you’d find them pretty difficult. In fact, I’d hazard you wouldn’t last a day. Half a day even.’
‘Why?’
‘They’re not keen on women in any form of power.’
‘Oh, unlike the Catholic Church with its unbroken succession of female popes, not to mention all the she-cardinals and priestesses, you mean?’ she retorted, sounding more heated than she felt.
‘Satan!’ he said, placing his hand over his cat’s ears.
‘Satan?’ she repeated, bemused.
‘I thought we were speaking about the Elect? My cat, Satan, probably shocked by your jibes, dug his claws into me. Anyway, what are you complaining about – wasn’t one Pope Joan enough for you, an unforgettable double first, pregnant and papal?’
‘We are talking about them, the Elect. Tell me more. Please,’ she said, watching as the Siamese yawned, rose on the man’s lap, arched his back, slid sinuously to the floor and then padded out of the open doorway.
‘That cat’s so easily bored! One of their tenets is that a woman mustn’t put herself in “a position of authority” over a man, any man. Once married she can’t look for paid work, and while working and unmarried she can’t, for reasons obvious to them, rise to anything much above a receptionist or secretary. All in all, it’s like life in the fifties, only worse. Madmen plus. You, I’m sorry to say, would probably be classified by them, using their terminology, as a “Loudmouth”. As a Catholic, I’m one of the Slaves of Satan – the Lord of the Flies, incidentally, not my cat. Although I am, of course, his slave too.’
‘Thanks. And the “Chosen One”, is he their Pope or what?’
‘A sort of Mega-Pope. He’s more like a cross between Jesus and the Holy Father, I’d say. His edicts have to be obeyed because, according to them, the Holy Spirit speaks through him. His word is law, whether forbidding the keeping of pets – creatures are to be eaten or used only – or banning mobile phones, TVs, computers and faxes, as “transmitters of filth”. Thinking about it, maybe he has a point? Anyway, failure to obey his edicts can lead to excommunication.’
‘Surely that’s almost impossible nowadays, living without technology? Who would give them a job? No mobiles, no computers . . .’
‘It did present them with a problem, although, luckily, most of them run their own small businesses. They’re a highly commercial sect. You see, they aren’t allowed to work for “worldlies”. It must have been maddening for them, like running the marathon on one leg or knitting with one needle. Fortunately, in about 2005 things improved because, as their Chosen One put it, “the Lord saw things anew”. Or, as you and I might put it, He changed His mind.’
‘What happened to all of the faithful who had been excommunicated for sending a fax or whatever?’
‘Sadly, they are still languishing in the outer darkness, on the grounds that God may move on but no one can “second-guess the Lord”. Early enlightenment is not on, apparently.’
‘The woman I’m interested in is no longer in the Elect,’ Alice said, taking another sip of the Bergerac, noticing that his glass remained all but full. His nose still hovered above his wine, assessing it, but he did not drink.
‘Do you like this white?’ he asked.
‘Very much, thank you.’
‘Good, it has a lovely bouquet, I think. This woman, did she leave or was she pushed?’
‘I don’t know. I plan to go back and speak to her parents again.’
‘Well, there’s one thing you should know about them, Alice, for the purposes of your job. Their founding principle, their charter, to use business jargon, is the doctrine of separation. Hence no eating with “worldlies” like us, no sharing even of a common wall and all of that. As far as they are concerned, we live in a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. Contact with us leads to contamination. We’re iniquity, you and me; and me, obviously, more than most. So, when you’re speaking to them, don’t assume that you’re both on the same side. Their loyalties are always to each other, their fellow “holies”, not to any “worldly”. Whatever crime she, perish the thought, might be investigating and whoever is under suspicion. Now, why not stay to supper?’
‘I must get back to work, find out more about them. The ones in Edinburgh. Find out more about her,’ she said, swallowing the last of her wine and putting her glass down on the table beside her chair.
‘Stay. Please,’ he said, and seeing her rise to her feet he rose to his own and added, ‘if Ian was still alive you wouldn’t be working non-stop, would you? Everyone has to eat. It’s past nine. I’ll lend you my book about them, that’ll save you bags of time. There’s a stew in the oven, ready now. There’s more than enough for two. Please – you’d be doing me a favour.’
Looking into his anxious blue eyes, she saw he meant it. At that instant his cat returned, weaving itself lithely between his legs. Bending down to stroke it he smiled, saying, ‘Slave that I am, there’s only so much of Satan’s exalted company I can take.’
13
On Sundays, as on every other day of the week, the Co-op in Pitt Street remained open. Mr Wilson, overworked, short-staffed and with the greenish hue of a man suffering from a bad hangover, accompanied the policewoman in the direction of the cheese counter, assuring her that she would find Sam Inglis there, somewhere among the stock.
‘Please be as quick as you can,’ he said, trotting beside her on his thick little legs, his nostrils flaring wide as they neared the fish counter, the air around it heavy with the aroma of smoked haddock. Unexpectedly, he stopped dead for a moment, a wave of bile rising in his throat, steadying himself and breathing laboriously. Who was it last night who had said that vodka acted like a tonic? Six, mixed with Coke, seemed to have had the opposite effect on him. Could heads explode? He leant against the end of the counter, closed his eyes and hoped to die quickly.
‘Are you OK?’ Alice asked.
‘I must have eaten something last night that doesn’t agree with me,’ he replied, forcing himself onwards, but feeling desperate, on the verge of tears.
Around the corner, a stacked trolley at his elbow, Sam Inglis was busy behind the cheese counter refreshing and reorganising yesterday’s display. He was arranging a batch of clingfilm-covered Stilton wedges artistically, if not appetisingly, on top of a wheel of French Brie. On the back of his head, at a jaunty angle, was a pork pie hat made out of white, plastic mesh. It was many sizes too small, and covered little more than the crown of his black, greasy hair. He looked as if he had been in a fight. One of his eyes was almost closed, the lid yellowish, swollen and bruised, and a gash disfigured the bridge of his nose.
‘Sam,’ the manager said, his hand over his mouth as he gagged at the sight of a slice of Dunsyre Blue, ‘this is Inspector Rice, she’s from St Leonard’s Street Police Station. She’s looking into Mandy Stimms’ death. She needs to talk to you. Christ! What’s happened to your face?’
‘Talk to me here?’ the man said. ‘What does she want to know about Mandy?’
‘No, not here,’ Mr Wilson said tetchily, suddenly all but overcome by the fumes from a plateful of over-ripe Gorgonzola morsels which had been left on the counter for customers to sample. ‘You can speak to her outside, where you go for your fag break.’
‘What about the customers?’ Inglis asked. A woman at the counter was waiting expectantly, obviously rehearsing her order in her head and about to speak.
‘Where’s Flo? Couldn’t she take over?’ the manager asked weakly.
‘She had to relieve Ginny at the bakery. Ron’s off.’
‘What about Jane, is she not available? I thought she was supposed to be in this morning.’
As Inglis paused to consider where Jane might be, the woman pointed at a wedge of apple-smoked cheddar and announced, ‘I’ll take some of that –
and some of the . . . what’s it called, Stinking Bishop – yes, a bit of that too. I like it with chutney.’
‘Stinking Bishop? What’s that, when it’s at home?’ Sam Inglis said, looking inquiringly at his boss, unsure whether to serve the customer or obey his earlier instruction.
Shaking his head in his exasperation, thinking longingly of the Alka Seltzer tablets in his pocket, Mr Wilson gesticulated for Inglis to go. ‘Right, right, right. I’ll do it,’ he said, tying the strings of a spare apron around his waist, a sickly smile on his face. ‘Just one minute, madam, I’ll be there in a tick. Some of the apple-smoked? We’ve no Stinking Bishop, that’s . . . ah . . . something or other with herbs in it. Can I get you anything else instead?’
Leaning back against the wall of the Co-op car park, Sam Inglis wasted no time in lighting up. His roll-up looked ludicrously small between his large, nicotine-stained fingers and in seconds he was puffing away as if his life depended upon it. Off-duty, he undid the only button left on his white coat, sighing contentedly now his full belly was released from constraint. As he did so Alice noticed a mass of scratch marks across the back of both of his hands, now scabbing over.
‘What do you want to know about Mandy?’ he asked between deep draws on the roll-up.
‘You went out with her?’
‘Depends what you mean,’ he said dismissively, removing a strand of stray tobacco from the tip of his tongue.
‘I heard from a colleague that the pair of you went out together, is that true?’
‘Who was it?’ he said, looking at her with narrowed eyes. ‘John, was it John? No, I know who. Irene, eh? She’d not be able to keep her mouth shut. What if I did? It’s allowed, isn’t it? I’m fancy-free, you know. No ties. There’s nothing wrong with that for a bachelor boy, is there?’
‘How long did you go out together?’
Across the tarmac he spied a lorry driver getting out of his cab and, as if Alice was not there standing directly in front of him, he shouted over her, ‘Hey, Dougie! How d’you get on?’
By way of answer the man gave him a double thumbs down, before heading for the back door of the store and going in.
‘Hibs,’ he said morosely, assuming she would be able to fill in the missing details herself.
‘How long?’ Alice repeated, looking into his dull eyes in search of a spark of intelligence.
‘Oh aye. Mmm . . . a week, a fortnight. Not very long. She didn’t suit me, you see. The search for Sam Inglis’s lady continues . . . as they say on “The Apprentice”. Luckily, the world’s full of women, there’s no shortage of them.’
‘Why didn’t she suit you?’
‘You lot ask a lot of questions, don’t you?’ he said, with a hint of aggression.
‘Yes,’ she replied, unperturbed, ‘it’s my job. We’re investigating a murder – possibly, a double murder. So I’ll ask you again. Why didn’t she suit you?’
‘Did you ever meet her?’ he asked, blowing his smoke upwards and watching it disappear.
‘No. Not in life anyway.’
‘Right. Well, you’d know if you had. If you’d spoken to her. She wasn’t what she seemed – what she looked like. She was gorgeous, actually, really gorgeous to look at. But . . .’ he stopped as if he had explained all that anyone might need to know.
‘But?’ she prompted him.
‘But,’ he repeated, suddenly looking angry, ‘it was all “don’t touch”, “hands off”. She was frigid, wasn’t she? What d’you want me to say? She wasn’t keen that way – to do it. Seemed shocked I’d even want to. What else did she think I’d want? She was a grown-up, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Did you ever “do it” with her? I’m sorry to ask, but I have a good reason for doing so.’
‘I bet you do,’ he replied, looking over her shoulder and waving at another lorry driver in his cab. Finishing his fag, he dropped it on the tarmac, and ground it with the heel of his grey lace-up shoe.
‘So?’ she asked.
‘Naw,’ he said. ‘Her loss, I can assure you. Why do you ask, dearie?’
After a couple of seconds’ thought, the policewoman replied, ‘Because she was expecting a baby.’
‘Never! I do not believe you. Oh, I get it, you thought it might be mine, eh? No, no, and no. You can forget it, just forget that. I never got beyond first base – not even to first base. Nothing to do with me. Her? I’d not have believed it. It must have been that wee shite, Hamish, eh? I’d not have believed it.’
‘You knew Hamish?’
‘Aha. I knew him. Smug wee bastard, he was too, showy, flashing his money about.’ He leant back against the building once more, relaxed, hands behind his head.
‘Did he take Miranda from you? That’s what I heard.’
‘Him? Naw, like I said, I dumped her. I’d no time for her.’
‘Where were you last Monday night, say, from six or so onwards?’
‘Monday . . . I don’t know. At home, probably, in my flat. I’d be playing on my Xbox, something like that. I wasn’t out, I know that. I was saving for a night out with my pals at Jackio’s on the Wednesday.’
‘Could anyone confirm that? Do you share the flat? Or a neighbour, would a neighbour be able to say he or she saw you, heard you even?’
‘I told you. I was on my Xbox. Raz was out, seeing his wee one. He spent the night there with Sharon and the wee one. I was on my own.’
Alice’s phone rang and she turned to one side, to take the call.
‘Alice,’ said DC Cairns, ‘we’ve just heard from that woman in Casselbank Street, in Miranda Stimms’ tenement. The one that’s been away in France. Since you’re nearby, you may want to talk to her after the Inglis guy. Otherwise I could go.’
‘No, I’ll do it. Phone her back and say I’ll be there in, say, half an hour. No, less than that –twenty minutes.’
Sam Inglis tried to interrupt the call.
‘I’ll need to be getting back soon. Mr Wilson won’t be able to be on the tills and do the cheese counter. All the tills are short this morning.’
‘Tell her twenty minutes, OK?’ Alice repeated.
‘OK,’ DC Cairns replied.
‘Like I said, I need to get back,’ the man said, crumpling an empty Rizla packet in one hand.
‘One other thing,’ Alice said, ‘what happened to your face?’
‘You’d have to ask my mum and dad about that.’
‘The injuries?’
‘Raz and me had a falling out. You should see his gob.’
‘And your hands?’
‘What about them?’ he answered, baffled.
‘The scratches?’
‘Oh, that,’ he replied, holding them out in front of him. ‘They’re always there. I’ve a wee boat, just a dinghy. I keep it along the coast, near my parents’ house.’
‘How would you get scratches from a boat, I don’t follow?’
‘Not from the boat, from the brambles. Where I keep it, they grow all about the place. I get scratched every time I take it out.’
‘Not really boating weather though, is it?’
‘No, Inspector Rebus, you’re quite right,’ he laughed, good-naturedly. ‘It isn’t really boating weather, but it needs maintenance, varnishing and the like. This is when I do it, in the winter. So it’s ready for the good weather.’
‘Where do your parents live?’
‘Limekilns. You know Limekilns? It’s a wee place in Fife, just up from the bridges.’
A demonstration by cyclists against inconsiderate and dangerous motorists held up Alice’s progress to Casselbank Street. Hundreds of them in their helmets and brightly coloured Lycra shorts were deliberately clogging up both carriageways of Leith Walk, riding four abreast or in single file in the middle of the road. They were spread among all the traffic, ensuring that no one could overtake or undertake them, barring all escape routes. Three of them cycled as slowly as they were able without falling off their bikes immediately in front of the policewoman, chatting to each oth
er as they went, impressing upon all the car drivers backing up behind them that they, too, were entitled to use the public roads, demanding equal respect for their two wheels. The driver in the car behind Alice, an irate young woman in a red Audi, opened her window and shouted provocatively at them, ‘Get out my road, you wankers! I’ve got a sick child in here – I’m on my way to the doctor!’
‘Tough shit!’ one of the cyclists shouted back, rising from his seat to give her a better view of his buttocks and waggling them at her. A couple of the protestors who had been blocking a Volvo in the next lane, dropped back to peer in her windows and check the truth of her claim. Seeing only her full shopping bags in the back, one rapped on her window and the other, a white-haired man in his fifties, inserted himself between Alice and her, somehow managing to go even more slowly than before, eventually coming to a halt and crashing to the ground in an undignified heap. Thirty minutes later, having travelled less than a mile, Alice finally ran up the tenement stairs to knock on the door marked ‘Lavery’.
‘Inspector Rice? Forgive me, dear, if I’m a bit . . . well, dopey, not awfully with it this morning,’ the woman said, yawning, as she showed Alice through into her kitchen. The contents of her rucksack had been dropped in the middle of the floor, which was littered with dirty clothes for washing. A pair of muddy walking boots stood on a newspaper on the kitchen table, a half-empty bottle of milk peeking out of one of them. Over the back of a chair, like the discarded case of a giant pupa, was a bright green sleeping bag. Its orange lining was stained, and a pair of woolly socks was laid neatly on top of it. Next to it a fan heater was blowing at full power and the windows were all opaque, white with condensation.
‘Maybe I should open one of them?’ the woman said, wrinkling her nose, tugging at the nearest window but failing to break the seal of ancient paint that glued it shut. Defeated, she murmured, ‘Sod it!’ scrawled a double line with her fingers across the steamy pane and added, ‘Sorry about the mess. I’m just back from my hols, literally just back, I was camping in France. We travelled back yesterday and all last night. On the ferry, on the train and then by bus. Christ, I can hardly keep my eyes open. There were no bloody seats on the train, we had to stand until Berwick. I had a bit too much to drink, too. Makes the time pass, eh, but you pay in middle-age, oh yes, you pay!’ She ambled unsteadily towards a chair, kicking a canvas wash-bag out of her way and sending it flying against the skirting board, murmuring ‘Goal!’ under her breath.
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