Complicity

by Iain Banks

  Doesn't even smell too good right here; there's a wet-fish shop just behind us and a chip shop down the road but upwind; even the pavement looks greasy. Can't imagine they'll be bringing the Euro-heads of state down this neck of the woods for a black-pudding supper and a dirty video. Christ; that beano's only three weeks away now. Bet the Lothian police boys are enjoying this little outing when they've got all that to look forward to. I expected to be busy doing lots of Euro-articles for the paper in the run-up, right about now. Ah well.

  "He had a good Army record, your friend," McDunn says after a while.

  "So did Lieutenant Calley," I suggest.

  The DI ruminates upon this. He studies the cone of his cigarette, smoked down almost to the filter now. "Do you think he's politically inspired, your friend? Looks it, up till now."

  I stare up High Riggs as another taxi comes bumping down towards us. McDunn folds his cigarette neatly against the railing of the barrier we're leaning on.

  "I don't think it's political," I tell McDunn. "I think it's moral."

  The DI looks at me. "Moral, Cameron?" He sucks through his teeth.

  "He's disillusioned," I say. "He used to have lots of illusions, and now he's got only one: that what he's doing will make any difference."

  "Hmm."

  We turn to go; I drop my fag to the greasy pavement and grind the butt out with my shoe, then look up. The lights of the cab turning out of High Riggs and rattling down West Port swing across behind us.

  I stare. McDunn's saying something but I can't hear what it is. Funny noise in my ears. McDunn's tugging at my wrist with the handcuffs. "Cameron," I hear him say, somewhere in the distance. He says something else after that but I can't hear what it is; there's this weird roaring noise in my ears; high-pitched but roaring. "Cameron?" McDunn's saying, but it's still no good. I open my mouth. He taps me on the shoulder, then holds my elbow. Finally he brings his head round in front of me, putting his face between me and the fish shop. "Cameron?" he says. "You all right?"

  I nod, then shake my head. I nod again, pointing forward, but when he looks he can't see anything; the shop is dark and the street lights don't light up the interior.

  "Ha…" I begin. I try again. "Have you got a torch?" I ask him.

  "A torch?" he says. "No; got my lighter. What is it?"

  I nod my head at the fish-shop window again.

  McDunn flicks his lighter. He peers in, face close to the glass. He shields his eyes with his other hand, taking my hand with it.

  "Can't see anything," he says. "Fish shop, isn't it?" He glances up at the shop's sign.

  I nod back towards the unmarked car. "Tell them to reverse up Lauriston Street and put full beam on. On here," I say.

  McDunn looks narrow-eyed at me, then seems to see something in my face. He waves to the car. They put the window down and he tells them.

  The car whines backward up Lauriston Street, lights on.

  Full beam; we turn away from the glare and stand just to one side of the shop front.

  The fish shop has a pull-up front window. Inside there is a single slab of what looks like green granite, sloped a little off the horizontal, where the fish are displayed when the shop's open. It has stubby, rounded walls at each side and a little gutter at the bottom, near the window.

  On the slab there are bits of meat, not fish. I recognise liver — ruddy chocolate-brown and silky-looking — kidneys like dark, grotesque mushrooms, what is probably a heart and various other cuts of meat, in steaks, cubes and strips. At top centre of the slab there is a large brain, creamy-grey-looking.

  "Good Christ," McDunn whispers. Funny, it's that that brings the shivers, not the sight, not after that first glimpse and realisation in the taxi's headlights.

  I look back at the neat, almost bloodless display. I suspect even a Sun reader would know none of this came from a fish; I'm fairly sure it's human, but just to leave us in no doubt, at bottom centre of the slab there is a man's genitalia; uncircumcised penis small and shrivelled and grey-yellow, scrotum crumpled and brown-pink, and the two testes pulled out, one to each side, little egg-shaped grey things like tiny smooth brains, connected by slender convoluted pearly tubes to the scrotal sac, so that the final effect is oddly like a diagram of ovaries connected to a womb.

  "Halziel or Lingary, I wonder?" McDunn says, sounding a little croaky.

  I look up at the sign. Fish.

  I sigh. "The locum," I tell him. "The doctor; Halziel." I start coughing.

  The lights behind us flash, just as I'm about to ask him for another fag. The car comes quickly across the street to us, turns to face down West Port, and the passenger's window opens again.

  "Found one of them, sir," Flavell says. "North Bridge."

  "Oh, my God," McDunn says, putting his free hand up to the back of his head. He nods down the street to the other car. "Get those lads here; the other one's lying in this fish shop, dissected." He looks at me. "Come on," he says, rather unnecessarily as we're still handcuffed together.

  In the car, he unlocks the cuffs and pockets them without comment.

  And so to North Bridge; slanting over the platforms and glass roofs of Waverley Station, newly painted, floodlit, the link between the old and the new towns, and barely a cobble's throw from the Caley building.

  There are two cop cars there already when we arrive. They're pulled up near the high end of the bridge, on the west side where the view looks across the station and Princes Street Gardens to the Castle.

  The decorated parapet of the bridge here holds a couple of large plinths, one on either side. On the east, where during the day you can see Salisbury Crags, the countryside of Lothian and the scoop of the Forth coast at Musselburgh and Prestonpans, the plinth supports a memorial to the King's Own Scottish Borderers; a group-sculpture of four giant stone soldiers. There is a similar plinth on the west side, where the cop cars are, blue lights strobing along the painted panels of the parapet and the grubby blond stonework of the plinth. Until now that plinth has been empty, sitting there unoccupied and unused except to provide temporary parking for the odd wittily removed road cone or possibly a platform for an adventurous rugby fan to demonstrate high-altitude pissing from.

  Tonight, though, it has another role to play; tonight it is the stage for Andy's tableau of Major Lingary (retired), in full-dress major's uniform, but with the insignia torn off, and with his sword lying, broken, beside him.

  He has been shot twice in the back of the head.

  McDunn and I stand looking at him for a while.

  In the morning, at Chambers Street, they feed me a fairly decent breakfast and give me back my own clothes. I was back in the same cell for the rest of the night, but this time the door wasn't locked. They're letting me go, after a few statements.

  The interview room at Chambers Street is smaller and older than the one at Paddington Green; green painted walls, lino floor. I'm becoming something of a connoisseur of interview rooms and this one definitely wouldn't rate a star.

  First there's a CID guy from Tayside wanting to be told the whole story about the man in the woods who became the body in the tunnel. Gerald Rudd, the man's name was; been on the Missing Persons list for twenty years, assumed to have walked into the Grampians and disappeared, and (ironically) he really was a policeman, if only part-time. A special constable and scoutmaster from Glasgow, he was already under investigation for interfering with one of the boy scouts. Coffee at eleven — they even send somebody out to get me fags — then another statement, punctuated by my coughs, to a couple of Lothian CID lads covering what I know about Halziel and Lingary.

  They haven't got much from last night. Inside the fish shop the display got even more bizarre — Andy had used the doc's fingers to spell out I LIED on the counter (only the «E» gave him any problems) — and somebody saw a white Escort driving away from the plinth on North Bridge shortly before Lingary's body was discovered. The car was later found abandoned on Leith Walk. They're dusting the fish shop and the car but I d
on't expect they'll find anything.

  McDunn comes in with another plain-clothes guy about half twelve. He introduces the other cop as Detective Inspector Burall, from Lothian. They're holding on to my passport and they still want me to keep them informed of my whereabouts, in case the Procurator Fiscal decides to prosecute on the Rudd case. I have to sign for the passport. I'm coughing a lot.

  "I'd get to a doctor about that cough," McDunn says, sounding concerned. I nod, tears in my eyes from the coughing.

  "Yeah," I wheeze. "Good idea." After I've had a walk and a few pints, maybe, I'm thinking.

  "Mr Colley," the Lothian cop says. He's a serious-looking guy, a bit older than me with very pale skin and thinning black hair. "I'm sure you'll understand we're concerned about Andrew Gould possibly still being in the city, especially with the European Summit coming up. Detective Inspector McDunn believes there is a chance Andrew Gould will attempt to contact you, and even that he might try to attack or kidnap you."

  I look at McDunn, who's nodding, mouth compressed. I have to admit the idea of Andy paying a visit had occurred to me as well, after that I LIED. Burall continues: "We'd like your permission to station a couple of officers at your flat for a while, Mr Colley; we'll put you up in a hotel if this is agreeable to you."

  McDunn sucks through his teeth, and I almost want to laugh at the sound now. I don't; I cough instead.

  "I would advise you to say yes, Cameron," McDunn says, frowning at me. "Of course, you'll want to pick up some clothes and things first, but —»

  The door swings opens and a uniform guy rushes in, glances at me and whispers into McDunn's ear. McDunn looks at me.

  "What sort of present for you would he leave at Torphin Dale?"

  "Torphin Dale?" I say. The sickness comes back. Oh Christ oh Christ oh Christ. It's like I've been kicked in the balls. I have to struggle to make my mouth work. "That's where William and Yvonne live; the Sorrells."

  McDunn stares at me for a moment. "Address?" he says.

  "Four Baberton Drive," I tell him.

  He glances up at the uniformed guy. "Got that?"

  "Sir."

  "Get some cars out there, and get one for us." Then he's up out of his chair, nodding at Burall and me. "Come on."

  I stand up but my legs don't work too well as we walk quickly out of the station into a bright, cold afternoon. A uniformed driver runs out ahead of us, pulling on a jacket and blipping the doors on an unmarked Cavalier.

  A present for me, at Torphin Dale. Oh, sweet Jesus, no.

  "Come on! Get out the way!"

  "Now, Cameron," McDunn says.

  Burall puts the radio handset down. McDunn asked me for the telephone number of William and Yvonne's house; Chambers Street is ringing there now and they'll call us if they get through.

  "Come on!" I mutter under my breath, willing the road to clear for us.

  The driver's doing his best; we've a siren going and blue lights flashing behind the grille, we're darting in and out of the traffic and taking a few risks, but there's just too much traffic. What are all these people doing on the road? Why aren't they at work or at home or on public transport? Can't the bastards walk?

  We go wailing across the red lights at Tollcross, snarling traffic up in all directions, take the right-turn lane heading up Home Street, dodge a little old lady on the pedestrian crossing at Bruntsfield and scream down Colinton Road through thinning traffic. The radio gibbers away at us; I lean forward, trying to listen. A patrol car's there at the house; no sign of anybody. My hands are hurting; I look down and see they're clenched tight, tendons standing out on my wrist. I sit back, thrown to one side as we swerve for a car coming suddenly out of a side street. The radio tells us the garage doors are open at the house. The beat cops can't get any answer at the front door.

  We sweep across the by-pass. I'm sitting back in the seat, staring at the headlining of the car's roof, coughing now and again, tears in my eyes. Oh Christ, Andy, please, no.

  We enter the executive development of Torphin Dale between the tall sandstone gateposts of the old estate; on Baberton Drive, everything looks the way I remember it apart from the orange-and-white parked in the short driveway from the bottom of the cul-de-sac to the house. The three garage doors are all tipped open. I don't know why but this gives me a bad feeling.

  William's Merc is there; Yvonne's 325 isn't.

  We pull into the drive. It takes a second for me to remember that I'm not handcuffed to anybody. The driver stays in the Cavalier, talking into the radio.

  A uniformed cop comes down the drive from the front door, nodding to Burall and McDunn.

  "No answer, sir. We haven't looked inside yet; my mate's round the back, looking in the garden."

  "There a door from the garage to the rest of the house?" McDunn asks.

  "Looks like it, sir."

  McDunn looks at me. "You know these people, Cameron; they in the habit of leaving the place unattended like this?"

  I shake my head. "Pretty security-conscious," I tell him.

  McDunn sucks on his teeth.

  We walk into the garage under the tip-up doors. The usual garage stuff, if you're filthy nouveau riche; packing cases, golfing gear, the Jet Ski on its trailer, a work bench, a grid on the wall holding neatly arrayed car and garden tools, most of them gleaming and unused, pairs of ski-boot bags and ski bags hanging from the wall, a steam-cleaning outfit, a little mini-tractor lawn mower, a big grey-black wheelie bin and a couple of mountain bikes. The triple garage is huge but still cluttered; if Yvonne's car was here it would be positively crowded.

  McDunn knocks at the door into the rest of the house. He frowns, looks back at Burall. "We got any disposable gloves with us at all?"

  "In the car," Burall says, and jogs back to the Cavalier.

  "You've been here before, have you, Cameron?" McDunn asks.

  "Yes," I say, coughing.

  "Right; let us know about any nooks and crannies, will you?"

  I nod. Burall comes back with a handful of the sort of gloves you can buy at service stations for working on the car. We all get a pair, even me. McDunn opens the door and we go into the utility room. Nothing in the cupboards in the utility room; nothing in the kitchen.

  The four of us spread through the house; I stay with McDunn. We walk through the main lounge, looking behind the curtains, the couches, under the tables, even up inside the hood of the central fireplace. We head upstairs. We check one of the back bedrooms. The officer in the rear garden, walking back towards the house, sees us; he waves and makes a hands-out shrugging motion, shaking his head.

  McDunn inspects the drawers built into the divan bed. I look in the built-in wardrobe, sliding my mirrored image out of the way, my heart in my mouth.

  Clothes. Just clothes, hats and a few boxes.

  We go to the main bedroom. I try not to think about what we were doing here the last time I was in this room. I have that roaring noise in my ears again and I've got a cold sweat and I feel like I could just collapse at any second. I have a weird, invasive feeling, being here with the detective inspector, clumbering around the expensively delicate domesticity of this house with no William or Yvonne here.

  I look in the dressing room while McDunn checks under the bed, then looks out onto the balcony. I open the dressing-room wardrobes. Lots of clothes. I pull them back, hands shaking.

  Nothing. I put the mirror doors back. I walk towards the bathroom. I put my hand on the door; a pale, pastel light shines from the room as the door starts to open.

  "Cameron?" McDunn says, from the bedroom. I retreat, padding through, leaving the door half-open. He's looking out the window towards the drive. He glances at me, nods. "Car."

  I go to the window; a red BMW325. Yvonne's car.

  It's as if the car's hesitating, just in front of the drive, put off by the patrol car and the unmarked Cavalier parked in front of the garage.

  Then it parks across the bottom of the drive, blocking our way out but leaving an escape rou
te for itself. McDunn looks suspicious but I feel relieved. If Andy was here, he's long gone; that's an Yvonne move.

  And it's her. Sweet Jesus, it's her, it's her, it's her. She gets out of the car holding a big black torch about two foot long, her face set in a frown. She's wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a sweatshirt. She's had her hair cut again. Her sharp, lean-featured face is un-made-up and looks aggressively distrustful. She looks wonderful.

  "That Mrs Sorrell?" McDunn says quietly.

  "Yes," I say, on an outrush of breath, something in me easing. I want to cry. Yvonne looks away up the drive as another patrol car swings in. She puts the torch away as the car pulls to a stop and two uniformed officers get out. She walks up to them, nodding back to the house.

  "Let's get down there and see what she's got to say, shall we?" McDunn says.

  We go past the dressing-room door. "Just a minute," I say. McDunn waits as I go through the dressing room. I press the door to the bathroom open. The pale light spills out onto me.

  Nothing. I look in the shower, the Jacuzzi, the bath. Nothing. I take a swallow and a deep breath and join McDunn to head downstairs.

  "Cameron!" Yvonne says as we get to the bottom of the stairs. She's putting a newspaper and a couple of pints of milk down on the telephone table. The two cops from the second car are behind her. She glances at McDunn then comes up to me, hugs me, holding me tight. "Are you all right?"

  "Fine. Are you?"

  "Yes," she says. "What is all this? Somebody from the paper said you were the man they were holding for all those murders." She pulls away, still with one arm round my waist. "Why the police?" She looks at McDunn.

  "Detective Inspector McDunn," he says, nodding. "Good afternoon, Mrs Sorrell."

  "Hello." She looks at me, stepping back but still holding my hand, searching my face. "Cameron, you look…" She shakes her head, sucking on her lips. She looks around and says, "Where's William?"