It was high time to leave the flat. The best way to start always seemed to be by making an exit as if he had a purpose and the purpose would soon present itself. The Yale lock clicked softly into the latch as the door closed and he drew across the deadbolts with two separate keys. The latch style locks on the main door and his own weren't worth the cheap metal they were made from. Even a relatively tame kick would admit entrance to a burglar or more commonly, a drunk without keys. The issue wasn't necessarily the lock but that the frame that would splinter and allow the latch to jump free. The fact that his own door and frame were both reinforced with steel was not known to any of the other tenement occupants or to anyone with a mind to rob that might happen to make the grave error of attempting to enter his flat. After all, he had always reasoned that a padlock was only a deterrent to an honest man.
Victoria Street was busy with tourists. Making his way through the throng, he registered the many faces from the many places all clamouring around, alternately in a massive hurry then stopping to attempt to make sense of a map the size of a tablecloth. Heading downhill, he made the Grassmarket and paused at the corner. To his left, there was the road under George IV bridge: he could nip into the Three Sisters or Bannerman's for a quick half and make his way towards Waverley Station or North Bridge? If he jinked left, then immediately right he would have to walk back uphill past Greyfriars Bobby and end up on George IV Bridge itself but that was likely to be even busier with tourists than here. Grassmarket it was then. He could cut up King's Stables and onto Lothian Road. That would be the West End of Princes Street and the best options for buses to wherever he needed to be. It seemed to be the most sensible option available. Besides, there were a myriad of decent boozers on the way, should the sudden exertion leave him a little bit dry.
He strode to his right through the pedestrianised area, over the cobbles and through the masses, internally revisiting the sparse facts he had. The son - Robert Reid. When jokingly questioned about whether he was called 'Rab' the client had become irate and dismissed the question as irrelevant. This tendered two pieces of information: 1) He was in all likelihood called 'Rab' by at least some people and 2) Daddy did not approve of nicknames. (Luke had made a mental note to refer to the Magistrate as 'Geoff' or 'G-Dog' or 'Jam Master G' if he was given even half an opportunity.) They were of similar ages, he and Rab. Both in their mid 30's. Highly unlikely they went to the same school but they were doubtless educated around the same time in the same city. At least they had that in common once he found him. They could even bond over how little they enjoyed the scorn of his father? The possibilities were endless.
In lieu of a physical description, the Magistrate had produced a photograph from his inside pocket: obviously printed for the purpose of giving to him. It was pristine and glossy, a head shot from a graduation. The man in it was smiling broadly with a large meaty arm draped over his shoulders. Luke had winced at the thought of a congratulatory hug from the Magistrate - his rib cage would need to be rebuilt from scratch. He bore only a passing resemblance to his father – the face was more angular with pronounced cheekbones and a narrower jaw. Possibly just because he was yet to put on the weight the Magistrate had presumably piled on during his late 30's. There was a diamond studded earring in the left ear and the only concrete resemblance between father and son were the blue grey eyes. The face was framed by blonde hair, oiled or gelled for the occasion. As he ran a hand through his own dark untidy curls, Luke knew that this picture was not a true reflection how Rab would look in everyday life.
Having reached a convenient pub and despite the fact that it was only halfway to the bus, he decided to nip in for a quick pint. As he swapped the glaring sun for the gloom inside he wondered about the man in the picture. How much of his success in education had been financially supplied by his father? Was he even bothered about the degree? As he paid for the pint, sipped a little to make it easier to carry and took it over to an empty table by the window, he wondered what it was like having a father who would choose to use that sort of a picture to aid in the search for his son. How would it feel to know that your own father chose to preserve the facade of your successful life, even if it potentially damaged the chances of finding you? Luke took a long swallow of lager and watched the people passing by the window. He very much doubted it felt good, but he wanted to hear it from the man himself. Still, the afternoon had barely begun. There was money in his pocket, a picture in his wallet of a strange man and a glass beading in front of him. It was good to be back at work.
Chapter 4
The number 37 bus ran all the way from Penicuik through the town and out to Silverknowes. The route went through deprived areas and rich areas alike, coasting over the Bridges and along Princes Street to the West End, down across the Dean Bridge and up to Crewe Toll roundabout. Beyond that, it ran through Pilton and Muirhouse before terminating in Silverknowes. Luke jumped on along Queensferry Road and settled himself in a seat on the lower level. The destination for him was a pub in Pilton called 'The Archer'. There had never been any serious trouble for him in these areas but he understood the apprehension that people tended to feel going there. The stories they'd heard and the reputations that had been built surrounding these areas were really a throwback to the 80's at best: when the skag had really taken hold and thrived. When Muirhouse was the heroin capital of Europe and the problems that came with that made it a tough place to live and an easy place to die. No matter the changes that are made, a bad reputation was hard to shift. And to a certain type of person, a tough reputation was hard to build and the benefits of willingly shirking it were almost entirely outweighed by the respect that seemed to come from living in these areas.
Depending on who you asked, these streets had either been some of the most dangerous in Edinburgh at one point or still were today. The only people who ever professed to think any different lived there. They would talk about the great sense of community. They would refer to any trouble as just being the 'young ones' running wild. Or even just dismiss it entirely as boys being boys. The best place to go for information in a time like this was the sort of establishment he was headed to now. You could trust the people to be honest without the grandstanding or pretension you tended to get in the more reputable places.
The Archer was the sort of boozer that people were warned about before they visited the city. Even if they had no intention of visiting the area, they would doubtless hear stories. It became less clear with each retelling how much of it was bluster and legend but Luke Calvin had been brought up in the area and he knew the script. People would say it didn't even have a ladies’ toilet; apparently the most damning indictment of an establishment that polite society could place on a location. The implication was fairly straightforward – No ladies’ toilet: No women. A watering hole so rough and ready that it wouldn't be graced by anyone of the fairer sex. This was untrue.
The second most prevalent story was that it had no windows. Not a single source of natural light, the drinking and fighting all taking place outside of the gaze of even the sun itself. That it was a low brutish building made of brick teeming with low, brutish men with fists of stone and hair trigger tempers. This was partially true. There were indeed no windows in the pub and it did look as though it was built to survive nuclear war. In fact, he genuinely believed that should he find himself alive in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, all he would have for company would be the cockroaches and a few guys taking liberties with the unmanned taps in The Archer. In terms of the clientele, the rumours were closer to the truth. He supposed that if you were used to sipping Mimosas in a bar on George Street with a seemingly random word as a name, an inexplicable door policy and happily paying £12 a pop for the privilege you could possibly become unstuck as soon as you walked in the door. These opinions were held by men who had watched too many Westerns. They would push the door open and every head would turn. The jukebox would skip and fall silent. All the chatter would stop. Then someone would wrap a pool cue round their head and that
would be the end of that.
Anyone who had ever been there knew this to be nonsense of course. It was true that there was a higher proportion of 'amateur' pugilists than you would usually have but no one ever went out for a quiet pint looking for trouble. One of his favourite characters was a man who insisted he was 70 but was probably a fair bit older by the name of 'Tam'. He hadn't volunteered a second name when they first met and Luke saw no benefit in asking over the intervening years. He was his first port of call if he needed information; all the man appeared to do was sit in the local pubs and drink. He knew everyone and everything and unusually for these areas, he was well liked by everyone. Slightly hunched and occasionally making use of a tripod style walker, he had a scruffy white beard down to his chest. The hair on his head was equally strikingly coloured and hung past his ears. Aside from these two things, he was always impeccably dressed – blazer as a minimum, usually a waistcoat underneath and a great overcoat all year round. Tam had once volunteered to Luke the exact explanation for a so called 'rough pub' that he said fit the bill for any establishment of that reputation…
'You see son, the problem with somewhere like this is that people decide this is a rough boozer.'
He swept his hand behind him, gesturing across the stained pool table. His half pint and nip sat in front of him and Luke was in the middle of attempting to salvage some pride after losing two frames badly. For a man that struggled to walk when it was cold, he could certainly still work the cue.
'Someone decides that this is rough. Then he tells someone. And they tell someone.'
His hand was listing off these connections one by one. Counting up on mangled fingers. 'And maybe someone kens someone who kens someone who once got a hiding in here off someone and that's it. It becomes fact.'
Underneath his right eye was a long hook shaped scar, looping up through his broken nose and into the centre of his forehead. The bright blue eye was framed on the top by another scar which was conveniently covered almost entirely by his bushy eyebrows but Luke had been forced to feel it during a particularly dramatic retelling of the origin story. Both eyes were fixed on him now and a smile beamed broadly through the fuzz.
'All hearsay mind. But now. Now.' He wagged his finger and took a sip of whiskey.
'Now someone who reckons he's a hard case gets telt. And he reckons he'll decide. So in he nashes. Chest out and the boys behind him. Causes bother and gets the script read to him. And that's the cycle started.'
Luke rapped a red towards the top left hand corner and it thumped deep into the pocket and dropped. Chalking the cue with the remnants of a cube, he glanced back at Tam who was now staring reflectively at nothing in particular somewhere in the nicotine stained ceiling.
'Aye son. That's it then. Folk will come in looking for trouble and they'll find it. No because it's here waiting, but because they're bringing it in with them. The boys aren't bad boys. Nah, they're jist normal gadges wanting a quiet bevvy and a bit of crack.'
The next red rattled in the jaws of the centre pocket but rebounded luckily and dropped opposite. Luke raised his hand to apologise for the luck but Tam was still educating him and hadn't even noticed. Only one more ball to go now and the black was sitting nicely in the centre. As he chalked up, the older man looked back at him again and pointed a finger.
'You played it right son. You played it right. You walks in that door there, didnae give anyone any lip. Nae dodgy looks. Just ordered a pint and drank it. Just another gadge in for a drink. I ken't as soon as I seen you that you'd be nae bother to anyone.'
Tam took another swallow from his half pint and chased it with another nip. Luke cracked the final red straight into the top corner and landed the cue ball directly behind the black in the centre of the table. Although he was pleased he'd behaved correctly the first time he'd come in, his pride was hurt somewhat by the suggestion that he'd come across as a wet blanket or a pushover. As he settled down to line up the black he glanced at the old man who was looking at him, beaming. He drew back the cue as Tam concluded.
'A knew you could handle yerself son. I can always tell a scrapper when I see one. Dinnae be getting yir pampers in a twist just yet eh?'
The black ran slowly into the top right pocket as Luke straightened up and smiled back at Tam. The old man raised the last of his whiskey to his mouth and winked.
'Mind the in-off there son.'
The white was trickling straight for the top left pocket. It teetered on the lip for a moment before dropping in to the sound of Luke's groan and the rest of the pub laughing.
Hopping off the bus at Pilton Bank, Luke raised his hand behind him and murmured the customary 'thanks driver' to the heavily tattooed gent behind the wheel. It felt a bit like asking a taxi driver if he'd been busy or what time he was on 'til – somehow these statements were hard-wired into everyone regardless of age, class or status. Striding off down past the old arcade, he headed for The Archer. There was the usual array of bookies and chippies down here but the old arcade had at one time housed a reasonable number of decent shops of all varieties. When they closed it had hurt the community and apart from the endless cycle of big brand supermarkets buying out the large shell at the top of the road and closing down due to harassment and shoplifting, not many had ventured in and remained for any length of time.
All the establishments around here had the same steel shutters that rolled down every night and rolled up every morning. Like a housing association of vandalism and terror, any newer place that went without had their windows panned within a week and the steel erected within two. When the shops were shut, the signs above read as normal – the big chain bookmakers, the post office, the family owned take away place – but the shutters proclaimed a different tale once they were down. Disco Dave had been here “2k13” and by his own assertion and lacking any other proof, Luke was forced to believe that he must indeed be “on top non stop”. It made no difference that the local shop had been “Established 1972” because the real scoop was that the reader’s mum had apparently been established in 1972 by “YMR – Kick to kill. Kill for fun.” Night would fall and the shutters would hide the contents of each shop and replace it with their own particular brand of petty rivalry. Tags scrawled over mentions scrawled over nonsense. The many layers of shifting alliances and dominant gangs.
Luke raised the cigarette packet to his mouth and extracted one with his lips. Replacing the packet, he grabbed the lighter and flicked it deftly at the end until it was sufficiently glowing. The number of smokers in these allegedly impoverished areas never seemed to decrease, regardless of how often or how much the price was increased each budget. Money wasn't as much of a concern for him as it seemed to be for most people, but every time he saw the pitiful amount of change he got out of his ten spot for 20 cigarettes, he made a mental note to quit. It was a mantra he repeated several times a day; every one that he didn't really want or need was accompanied by the thought, no matter how fleeting, that this could be the last. Reaching the door of The Archer, he leant against the brick to finish smoking before he entered. The smoking ban had been an unmitigated fiasco when it was first introduced but he could not deny the merit in it now. Gone were the days where you'd sit inside, the air thick with smoke, and just crush one after the other. He'd easily gone through forty of an evening if the booze was taking control enough. The absence of the large glass ashtrays was also a boon: one less weapon in a pub was never a bad thing.
For the first couple of weeks and onwards, people had moaned non-stop about having to get up, leave your pint and stand in the cold and wind to smoke. It was an inconvenience. It was an interruption to half a century of tradition for some of the older boys who would light up inside out of habit and be escorted out on their wobbly legs as quickly as the barmaid could manage. Luke took a long drag and exhaled through his nose as he took the final pull. Crushing it out in the metal tray that looked like a letterbox, he thought that the inconvenience was worth it. It probably helped people cut down. And the camaraderi
e that existed between smokers now was stronger due to their being shunned together. Huddled outside, away from the warmth and the others, they became closer and stronger. It was not entirely unlike Pilton itself, he thought as he pushed open the door and walked into the dull roar of The Archer.
Chapter 5
Geoffrey Reid was sitting in his office on The Mound, not quite 100 yards from the High Court. His wing-tip shoes rested on a desk that wouldn't have looked out of place in a banquet hall – rich mahogany, polished to a high shine and with countless drawers and compartments. It was a legitimate Victorian writers desk complete with ink well and the remnants of blotted and dripped stains all left for the sake of authenticity. He had paid £5000 for this desk – a fact that he was more than happy to disclose to anyone who asked and indeed a few who didn't.
When it came to the law, there was always the assumption that justice was blind. Not in the sense that most people would jokingly take it, but in the sense that it treated every person and every circumstance on its own merits. Not on any pre-existing status, colour, creed or religious persuasion. This was the law executed as it should be; based purely on the facts. Anyone with half a brain cell rolling around in their head knew this to be false. Even with the best of intentions, a man is prone to prejudice. A suit and some nice shoes will get a lot more respect and better treatment in the exact same circumstance as a man who is dressed shabbily. A good education and a reputable occupation can buy you more leeway than the most watertight alibi in the world.
This was a point that the Magistrate felt very strongly on, but not in the way that one would expect. He believed that justice should not be blind: That a man of good standing was allowed some form of elasticity in terms of all things legal and especially when it came to sentencing. People of a certain calibre didn't deserve to be cooped up with reprobates and criminals like rats. This was his opinion and this was how he ran his courtroom. Never to any extent that would lead to any sort of professional repercussions but enough to satiate the innate need in himself to cement his ongoing belief that he was – in fact – better than the rest of them.
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