City of Strangers

by Louise Millar

  The man put on stupid wee glasses with a designer label to look. ‘Oh, him? Aye, I know him. That wasn’t his name, though. He was called Youssi something. He was here last year.’

  ‘Youssi?’ Sula motioned to Ewan, and he wrote it down.

  ‘Aye – Youssi Jabir or Jaboor or something. He was from Lebanon.’

  ‘Cash in hand, was it?’ she asked.

  The man appraised her with sparkling blue eyes that looked unnaturally animated within the wrinkles around them. ‘The guy was down on his luck. Told us he was saving to get a flight home. His mother was sick. What you gonna do?’

  ‘Right,’ Sula said. ‘And you are?’

  The man turned sideways and pointed his hand diagonally for her to shake in an affected manner.

  ‘John Brock. I’m the developer.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  ‘Kent, Kent! You in there?’

  The man hid in the toilet.

  The coughing had started twenty minutes ago.

  The husband had heard it. Run down the stairs.

  The man sat on the toilet, spluttering helplessly, wanting to kill him.

  ‘Come on, Kent,’ the husband shouted. ‘Just want a quick word.’

  Stumbling back into the storeroom, the man knew it was time.

  Cigarette smoke drifted under the door, making his cough worse.

  And that grating voice. It sounded as if he were lying on the ground.

  ‘Come ooooonn. Kent! I just want to talk to you. We both know that you were here when the guy died. That was you, wasn’t it, Kent?’

  The man sat there, shaking. He screwed up his eyes to keep the memory out, but it was no good.

  He was back there, that night in February, and it was happening again.

  It was the noise that woke him. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was. It mimicked rain. A drip, drip, drip.

  Then all became clear.

  Footsteps. On the fire escape outside. Clumsy and staggered. Then, upstairs, the flat door opening and shutting. The faint click of a key turning.

  He knew then they were coming for him. That they knew he was hiding and were going to surprise him, and force him out, just like they did before.

  His chest tightened as if on a rack, ready to snap and release his thumping heart from his body. He stood up, tiptoed to the stool and peered to see how many there were.

  The backyard was shadowy and lit by faint pools of lamplight from the street light in the alley. The tower block was mainly in darkness.

  Footsteps moved across the floor above.

  He listened, eyes wide on the ceiling.

  Upstairs?

  It was when he turned back that he saw the masked man.

  He was in the yard, approaching the tenement from the back gate. Next door’s security light exploded, illuminating him for a second before he dived away. A white suit covered him from his head to his feet, a white surgical mask on his face.

  The security light went off.

  Now, there were new footsteps on the wet fire escape. Softer, faster. Then a smash of glass. Above, an alarmed shout. The rain thundered outside. Now heavy footsteps across the ceiling. Another smashing sound on the fire escape. A door opening and an alarmed conversation. Two sets of footsteps now across the ceiling. An agonized yelp, then a sound that left nothing to the imagination. A vicious, dull, horrible crack, followed by a thud that shook the ceiling.

  Now the footsteps shrank to one person again. Almost balletic, like a child’s. They moved around lightly. Then the door on the fire escape shut again.

  Now. Was this it? Were they coming for him? Had someone in the tower block seen him through the storeroom window and called the police?

  He peered cautiously out.

  The masked man was under the fire escape, pulling a plastic bag from his pocket. He placed it on the ground, removed his plastic shoes and stood on it. Then he removed his white gloves, mask and body suit, replaced the white plastic shoes, stuffed the suit, gloves and mask into the plastic bag, and crept off, disappearing over the back gate, into the night.

  The man stumbled off the stool. His chest tightened further across his lungs, not allowing them to inflate. He punched at them, inhaling with a grating sound. Dropping to the floor, he gasped, trying to hold on to the stool, but he missed. His head and shoulders fell forward.

  Everything went black.

  The door in the storeroom banged again, shaking him from his thoughts of that night.

  ‘Kent! Come on, man. Open the door.’

  He crept out on all fours.

  ‘Kent!’ Bang, bang. ‘Kent! Come on, man. I need to know if you saw something. My wife’s out there, God knows where, trying to find out what happened. And I’m thinking you must know something. I know you were here!’

  The man crawled behind the boxes. His hands crept over the plastic bag. The one he’d found that night.

  It was a few hours before he spotted it. First, he woke on cold tiles, head in a vicious clamp, nauseous. Freezing, he’d thrown on a blanket, and stood up, stiff and sore, and staggered to turn on the wall heater.

  The night’s events returned in a toxic rush.

  Climbing onto the stool, teeth chattering, he saw now it had been no dream. Tiny fragments of glass lay at eye level on the fire-escape stairs. He listened, dreading a groan or scraping noise above.

  Nothing.

  Maybe the other man had gone. Injured, he’d dragged himself out.

  Two men, the new occupants of the flat above, fighting over something that was nothing to do with him.

  That was it. That was the easiest version to believe.

  That way, he was still safe.

  Even though he knew it wasn’t really true.

  And then, as he was stepping down, he saw it. Lying under the fire escape. A solitary white glove, wrinkled up like a used condom, smeared in brown, lying on wet weeds.

  The rack began to wind again in his chest. If he left it, Mr Singh would see it. Pick it up, look up. The police would come. The rack tightened.

  But if he brought it inside. Kept it. Just in case.

  He fashioned a pole out of Mr Singh’s mop and broom, tied together with twine. It took two attempts to hook it; then he dragged it towards him. The blood was fresh, smeared on the fingers. Before he could think what that meant, he stuffed it in a plastic bag, and hid it behind the fridge.

  There. It was gone. As if it had never happened.

  He was still safe.

  ‘Kent, come on.’ The banging worsened on the storeroom door.

  Footsteps sounded on the other side of the room, from the shop.

  The door handle turned three times as usual.

  ‘OK?’ a whisper came. Mr Singh walked in. ‘What is going on?’

  The man’s eyes moved to the door.

  Mr Singh looked pained. ‘Him again? Go back inside.’ He nodded to the hiding place behind the boxes. He waited, then strode to the door and opened it. ‘Mac, what can I help you with?’

  There was a grunt of surprise. ‘Hey, Mr Singh. Just looking for your pal there.’ His voice was slurred with drink.

  ‘He’s not here. He’s left. As I say, he was just here for a few days.’

  There was a snort. ‘See, I’m not sure that’s true. Because I came down here last night and heard him snoring. So, I’m not saying you’re a liar or anything, but . . .’ He laughed. ‘You’re a liar! No, sorry . . . Didn’t mean it. Are you sure he’s just not in here somewhere? Can I just . . . ?’

  A new firmness entered Mr Singh’s voice. ‘No, you can’t. And while you’re here, I wanted to say, if I find you stealing cigarettes from my storeroom again, I’ll call the police, neighbour or no neighbour.’

  The husband laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, that’s fine. You do that. How’s council feel about you renting out a storeroom? Pretty sure that’s against the law having people sleeping in shops. Taking rent off them.’

  Mr Singh kept his calm. ‘I helped out a friend for a few days. N
o rent changed hands. Story over. Now you need to get yourself upstairs.’

  Mac continued, ‘But I’m not going. Because a guy died in my flat, and your pal Kent was here when it happened. I know that. And he knows something. I know he does.’

  ‘Kent?’ Mr Singh said, aggravated. ‘Who’s Kent? Listen, pal, you need to get on your way. Last time I’m asking.’

  There was a sound of tussling, and the back door slammed.

  The hammering started again. The husband began to shout, ‘My wife’s not here because of you. You know something, and you’re gonna fucking tell me what it is.’ The door buckled as if he’d kicked hard. ‘You’ve fucked everything right up, you cunt.’

  Another kick, then silence. A creak of stairs, then the door slammed up above. Loud music drummed through the ceiling.

  Mr Singh whispered, ‘Robbie. You OK?’

  The man watched him wild-eyed, trying to breathe.

  Mr Singh reached out a hand. ‘Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve tried my best for you, but we need some help here. I need to call someone.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It’s getting out of control. I’m not worried about the council. But the guy’s right. I lied to the police about you being in here when that guy died, because you begged me to, Robbie, and I shouldn’t have done it.’ He bent down. ‘Are you listening?’

  At the sound of his name, the man began to cry. Sobs wracked through him at what his life had become. ‘I can’t. I can’t!’

  Mr Singh removed the boxes one by one, and held out a hand. ‘Come on, let’s fix this, eh? Before it gets worse? I won’t let anything bad happen to you, I promise.’

  ‘No!’

  The music thudded louder now through the ceiling.

  Mr Singh stood up. ‘Right, I’m going to shut the shop and make us a cup of tea.’

  Robbie rocked forward, anguished. ‘They’re going to find out. They’re going to take me away.’

  Mr Singh switched on the kettle. ‘Robbie, you can’t live here. We need to get that sorted. And it’s not your fault. The guy was dead, Robbie. It was nothing to do with you. The police said it was instant. He fell in the kitchen, hit his head. You didn’t cause that.’

  ‘No. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  No longer knowing what to do, the man reached into the cavity and pulled out the plastic bag.

  Mr Singh’s kindly expression changed as he saw the dried blood. ‘Robbie, what have you done?’

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Grace spent an hour in the supermarket car park, compiling her transcriptions and notes on her laptop, then drove the long way back to the city via Kincardine, and pulled up at the hotel near the airport that she and Mac had booked after Thailand.

  Checking for the silver four-by-four, she booked a room, took her laptop and camera bag upstairs, and sat down at the desk. She rang Ewan and left a message to ring her back if he had news. There were three new messages from Mac. No longer thinking about it, she deleted them automatically.

  She opened her laptop. It was time to start writing. This afternoon, a French journalist somewhere would recognize François Boucher’s name in a newswire or Twitter feed. Time was running out.

  She laid out her photos and wrote a headline, to start herself off – ‘Do You Know This Man?’

  Then a subhead: ‘Scots Today photojournalist Grace Scott returned from honeymoon to find a dead stranger in her Edinburgh kitchen. Here, she documents what happened when her obsession to discover his identity led her into a world of stolen identities, organized crime and families ripped tragically apart.’

  She sat back and played with her photos, wondering which one Scots Today would choose as an opener.

  Nothing fitted. Not the arrest shot of François Boucher, not the letters, or portraits of Lucian’s contacts.

  There was only one that would work.

  She flicked through her memory card, just as she had done here, three months ago, till she found it.

  It was perfect.

  The eerie light in the kitchen, the dark shoes lying on the floor.

  ‘Do You Know This Man?’

  Would Scots Today dare use it?

  Would she dare show them?

  An ache came for Nicu, and his allegiance.

  She took a deep breath, hoping Scots Today had a good lawyer to work out if she was in trouble for photographing a dead body at a crime scene.

  Her fingers hit the buttons: ‘I’m not sure when I knew the dead man was in my flat. Just that there was an odd stillness when I opened the door, the sense of a presence, but at the same time, not.’

  She typed on, recalling how Mac had tossed a coin in Gallon Street to decide who went to Morrisons to buy food and who entered the flat to make tea and turn on the heating. How her emotions at finding the body were so affected by the recent death of her own father. The depth of the connection she felt to the anonymous man. The need to find his family.

  Her decision to photograph him.

  Grace typed for two more hours, then sat back, looking out at the industrial landscape, recalling her mood that next day.

  Wondering how this story would end.

  She checked her phone. Two more messages from Mac.

  She wrote on.

  Ewan returned her call when she was halfway through.

  ‘Hey, you still hiding?’ he asked.

  ‘Yup, in a hotel, writing – and bad news. He’s not Mathieu Caron. Must be another of Caron’s thugs.’

  Ewan tutted. ‘OK, well, you need to be careful.’

  ‘Did you go to Lucian’s workplace?’

  He perked up. ‘Aye – it was interesting.’ He explained about Youssi.

  ‘Wow,’ Grace said. ‘So Lucian was using a fourth name in Edinburgh, to hide from Mathieu Caron maybe. So what did they say about him?’

  Ewan told her. ‘Quiet, hard-working. Nobody took much notice of him. It’s a big development, though. There’s a lot of guys working there. The owner, this John Brock guy, didn’t even know who we were talking about for a while.’

  Ice crept through Grace’s veins. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘John Brock. The developer. It’s driving me nuts. I know that guy’s face from somewhere.’

  Her house-warming party at Gallon Street.

  ‘So where was this place?’ Grace said quietly.

  ‘Some warehouse development in Leith. Youssi painted the flats, then disappeared. Cash in hand. Nobody spoke to him much.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You OK there? Sula nearly took my balls off for doing that for you.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks. How’s your story?’

  He started to tell her, but she wasn’t listening.

  Lucian Grabole had worked at John’s warehouse with Mac.

  ‘Ewan, I’ve got to go,’ she cut across him. ‘If I send over what I’ve done so far, would you look at it? See what you think of the angle?’

  ‘No problem.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Mac knew Lucian Grabole?

  Grace sat at her laptop in shock, knowing she couldn’t write any more. She sent her part-written story to Ewan, and went to the window.

  When she’d asked Mac about Lucian Grabole, he’d said no – was that because he knew him as ‘Youssi’ from Lebanon?

  She folded her arms across her chest.

  It was time. She had to face him.

  By the time she headed towards Leith, Edinburgh’s rush-hour traffic had dried the roads to a slow sludge.

  She parked and watched the warehouse, realizing she could see Ross Turn across the street. The warehouse had transformed since her last visit in March. The restaurant was open on the ground floor now, the menu clearly displayed on the wall. The two floors of double-height flats were finished, all sign of work gone, a ‘For sale’ sign in the window of one.

  She craned to see Mac inside the studio space at the far end. No lights.

  Tentatively, she lifted her phone.

  There was a tap o
n her window. She jumped, putting it down. John Brock waved.

  ‘Hello, stranger!’ he said, as she opened the door. ‘You’re back. How d’you get on with your story?’

  ‘Um. Not quite sure yet. Is Mac around?’

  ‘Aye. He’s in the office on a call with the builder. Come on in.’

  John gave her a cheerful kiss on the cheek, and they headed across the road. ‘He’ll be pleased to see you. Face like a wet rag all week. So how d’you get on? Find your guy?’

  She told him scant details as they headed through the giant double doors of the restaurant entrance, which gave access to the upstairs flats. They passed the closed door of John’s office, where Mac was on the phone.

  ‘Come on, he’ll be a while. I’ll show you round while you’re waiting – changed a bit since you were last here, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, looks amazing. Sorry I missed the opening,’ she said as they entered the restaurant. ‘Was the other photographer OK?’

  ‘Absolutely fine – no bother.’

  The main seating area was stunning, with John’s usual eye for design: hardwood floors and exposed brick, white tablecloths. A specially commissioned blue stained-glass window by a Scottish contemporary artist was the main feature of the room. Tall picture windows overlooked the water. A mezzanine floor with extra seating sat at the top of a spiral staircase, with even better views across the docks.

  John walked with the gait of a country landowner surveying his estate. Then he led her to Mac’s studio. It, too, was transformed. A vast white space with an ingenious suspended bar hanging in the centre. John explained how it could be moved around the room, depending on use. He also showed her how the walls and floor opened up to create a large photography studio and a DJ corner, and how blocks of the floor raised to create a catwalk for fashion events, or a stage for gigs. A balcony circled the room, allowing space for more spectators, again with views across the water. Three giant gold-and-violet abstract art installations on the wall heralded Mac’s entry into gallery exhibitions.

  Sadness gripped her. Mac had achieved something amazing here, and she hadn’t been listening to him. It had all come together for him, too, finally. His eye for design, his gift for bringing people together for events. His business sense. She’d not believed in this project.