Luke accepted this with a small nod of his head. Back to the drawing board, but at least this wasn't his man laid out in front of him. He dreaded to think what the Magistrate would have made of that.
Geoffrey Reid was still in his office as the evening drew in across Edinburgh's Old Town. Standing at the window, looking out over Princes Street and beyond where the street lights were coming on and the vehicle taillights stretched out in every direction carrying with them the noise of the city. They were all people heading back from work to their homes, heading out to start nightshifts or travelling in anticipation of a night out. Claire knocked tentatively on the heavy office door and ended up entering anyway when there wasn't any response. Peeking her head round the frame, she was surprised to see that he was just standing with his back to her not doing anything in particular and hadn't seemed to hear her knock or come in. She stepped into the office and let the door close behind her. The soft click of the latch slipping home was unexpectedly quiet for such a large door but it seemed to be enough to startle Geoffrey as he spun round quickly.
'Sorry Sir. Is there anything else you need from me tonight?'
He seemed to be looking right through her. She noticed that he appeared to have aged in front of her eyes over the past few days, looking more drawn and tired than he had up until this point. His eyes suddenly refocused and he saw her as if for the first time and attempted a weak smile.
'Nothing else Claire. Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow.'
With that he turned back around with his hands behind his back and continued staring aimlessly out the window. Claire paused at the door, officially dismissed but under the impression that he wanted her to stay. She had one hand on the handle before she turned back over her shoulder and asked one last time.
'If you're sure?'
The lack of reaction was taken in the affirmative and she re-opened the door as quietly as she could manage and crept out in the adjoining reception area. Her bag and jacket were ready to go on the chair and she collected them as she left, taking the lift down to the ground floor deep in thought. As she exited into the crowds on the Royal Mile she looked up and down the street. To get back down to her flat she would turn to her left and follow the gentle downhill slope across the cobbles but she didn't feel like going home just yet. The day had been long and confusing. Too much running around with very little idea of why. What she needed now was a drink – after all she was still dressed in her skirt and blouse and the bow she put in her hair was going to be wasted if she just went home.
There were easily upwards of forty pubs either on the Mile or within a five-minute walk of it but she had already turned to her right to walk uphill before turning right again and walking down the Mound, reaching the steps that would take her all the way down and out on Princes Street itself. From there it was only another fifteen or twenty-minute walk to the Bull on Leith Walk. She was passing close to a hundred alternative establishments on her route but she had the feeling only a drink in the Bull would satisfy her. As she descended the stairs she found her phone in her bag and texted Grant to see if he was working. Before she had reached the street level he had replied that he wasn't but that he'd planned on going there in about half an hour for a drink. How convenient for both of them.
Grant had just fallen asleep on the sofa entirely by accident when the text message had come through. Waking with a start he had tried to decipher how long he had been out and read the message at the same time, succeeding in successfully accomplishing neither. Rising into a seated position he realised he'd been asleep for no more than fifteen minutes but his head was almost entirely clear. Squinting and refocusing he saw Claire's message and felt a jump in his chest. Having had no intention whatsoever of leaving his flat for the rest of the evening he was on his feet and phoning a taxi before he even bothered replying. The cab would be there in 12 minutes which gave him enough time for a shower (5 minutes), brush his teeth (2 minutes) and find clean clothes to wear (time unknown). Tapping a quick response that he hoped came across as casual he hurried into the shower and left his phone on the side. Most planned nights out tended to be disappointing purely because the build-up and hype could never match the actual events but a spontaneous outing like this filled him with a bit of quiet hope. Glimpsing himself in the mirror he hoped that his eyes weren't too bloodshot and the toothpaste would drag the smell of booze out of his mouth sufficiently to make a passable impression.
Mark was alone in the flat he shared with Deek in Craigmillar. Sprawled out on the sofa his long hair was untied and spread out behind him. Teasing a bit of it between his fingers it felt greasy and he was trying to remember the last time he washed it. On the TV there was a DVD playing – one he had seen close to a hundred times before now. Without even watching it, he would know which line was coming up and every now and then he'd find that he'd actually let his eyes slip shut but could still picture the exact image of what was on the screen. It was early evening, not that you could tell with the flat's curtains being almost permanently closed, and Deek had cut out a couple of hours prior after receiving a phone call which had seemed to upset him. It was unlike Deek to get upset about anything – in fact, Mark thought back to try and remember if he'd ever seen him worked up and so far, was failing.
The day that Derek had been up in court to receive his prison sentence, Mark was sat in the gallery feeling like the biggest scumbag that had ever walked the earth. There hadn't been a huge number of people in the courtroom for the final sentencing – it wasn't headline news and frankly Deek probably had more chance of seeing family members in jail than out – so Mark was feeling rather conspicuous. He wore dark trousers with “proper” shoes and a shirt and had even taken the time to tie his hair back in a ponytail and removed his earring for the proceedings despite the fact that he wasn't even on trial. Derek was wearing jogging bottoms and a polo shirt and Mark had cringed as soon as he walked in and saw him. “At least TRY and look presentable dude!” had flashed through his mind as he returned the enthusiastic wave thrown his way by the man in handcuffs. In direct violation of all the instruction that he had doubtless been given by his court appointed lawyer, Derek shouted to his friend.
'Orite man. Cheers for coming! Good to see you.'
Mercifully the judge had not yet entered but the few other attendees all fixed their eyes on Mark who hastily parked himself in whatever seat was nearest. A man in a suit beside Derek reached up the considerable distance to his waving hand in order to attempt to drag it back down and whispered upwards towards his face. Derek's rapturous grin froze a minute and he blinked slowly, clearly remembering the sincere promise he had probably given his lawyer not 5 minutes earlier to sit quietly and politely. He gave Mark a final thumbs up with the sort of face a schoolchild would make if they'd forgotten their homework and turned back around to face the front. He was taller than the lawyer sat beside him and when the judge entered, he was nudged gently to stand up. Ungainly as ever, his body seemed to unfold upwards until he stood straight, nearly a foot above his lawyer looking every bit like a manacled insect of some sort and its bespectacled handler. As the judge began to speak, Mark was finding himself rather impressed with this lawyer as he managed to keep Derek's natural enthusiasm down just low enough to avoid any contempt of court issues. It put him in mind of a toddler at a church service who wanted to react to every sentence and express his interest with no ill will whatsoever. The details of how the arrest occurred and the charges being levelled were given to the court and Mark's shame grew, spotting his cheeks crimson. He hardly needed reminded of the events of that fateful evening.
The basic information given to the court was that officers had entered the premises with a valid search warrant by way of a battering ram as the defendant had not answered the door. In one of the bedrooms they had discovered a substantial amount of Moroccan Brown hashish with a street value of whatever made up number they chose to use that particular day. The quantity was high enough that there was zero chance of getting away wit
h pleading “personal use” but nowhere near high enough to warrant the picture that was being painted of Derek in court as being the hash kingpin of the Lothian and Borders area. This hadn't stopped Deek saying it was all his and even when confronted with sets of scales and hundreds of small plastic baggies he had insisted that he had them so he could carefully track how much he was using. What caused Mark's guilt was not the fact that his mate had got busted or even as most people assumed, that he had just so happened to be out of the flat when the raid happened. Neither had it been that his own staunch denial coupled with Derek's assertion that he lived there alone meant that only the latter was being prosecuted.
Snapping back to the present the judge had begun his sentencing. There had been little doubt from the beginning that he would have to take some time inside due to the fact that the charge was “possession with intent to supply” and even with a class C drug it carried a custodial sentence. The judge himself was practically ancient to Mark's eyes, easily in his 60's, but was far less harsh during his summing up than the prosecution had been. The tone of it was not as ominous as he had expected and when the proclamation came that the sentence was 12 months there was a sense of relief from Mark, Deek and his lawyer, matched only by the frustration of the prosecution service who never seemed to be pleased with anything short of the gallows for anyone involved in drugs. Derek had raised his fist discretely towards his lawyer for a fist pump which the confused man in the suit had grasped and shaken up and down. Mark made a note to catch up with the wee specky guy and buy him a pint – after all the guy had been appointed to take the case rather than taking it for any financial benefit and had done his mate proud. As Deek was led away he caught Mark's eye, gave a shrug and shouted.
'Catch you up bud. Be good.'
Then he was taken below to begin a sentence which wouldn't even last 6 months before he was back out with good behaviour.
Back in the flat in Craigmillar, Mark was still staring at lengths of his hair between his fingertips, bending it slowly, looking for split ends. The courtroom had been surreal but even then his lanky pal hadn't allowed the harsh realities of life to get him down. If life was something you couldn't take seriously and get out alive then all that would be left at the end would be Deek and a bunch of very chill animals. As strand after strand failed the inspection on cleanliness and being intact, Mark was thinking about calling him to find out if he was OK. It wasn't like him to keep things from him and he had seemed a bit upset when he rushed out. On the other hand, Mark was pretty baked and the paranoia that was gnawing at his subconscious could have contributed to his misreading of the situation entirely. He sat up and took the joint from the ashtray and lit it again. What never really helped in these situations was that despite Deek's behaviour since returning from prison a few months prior giving nothing to justify this worry, Mark always thought back to when he had left on the night they got raided. Thought about the subtle advice he was given in the pub to maybe stall there for a couple of hours. Thought about how he hadn't even phoned Derek. How he had sat and drank and listened to the sirens screaming past and sat drinking long after they had departed in the other direction. Every time he was left alone in the flat too long he thought about the drugs in the other room and waited on the door being broken through by the police in retribution for his betrayal. Instead of checking in with Deek on the phone he just carried on smoking and watching the film as the evening slid by outside the closed curtains.
Chapter 18
Victoria Street in the Old Town was beginning to liven up again with the evening's revellers as Luke sat in his window seat with his coffee and cigarettes. The notebook that contained all his notes so far was sat close to hand and he had opened a new, clean one and begun the laborious process of translating the scribbles and lines into something more coherent and legible. The idea had always been that once the notes were correlated and collected into one clean copy the solution would present itself to him. The “Eureka” moment would jump out of the paper and ink and he'd leave with his deer stalker atop his head, opium pipe close to hand and pull away the curtain of deceit from in front of whoever had erected it leaving the clear truth exposed to the light. This was always the theory and never the practice but there was no harm in cleaning up his notes on the off chance it would happen eventually.
The only loose end at the moment was the Magistrate's highly suspicious behaviour from the very outset and beyond which was hardly something tangible that he could pursue. The lines on the paper were beginning to fall out of focus after his long day and bizarre anatomy lesson at the police station. Putting the notebooks aside he turned his attention back to the window, watching the people walking up and down on the pavements far below in groups spanning the entire width of the walkway or in single file, awkwardly squeezing past one another. Along his eye level were the terraced walkways above the shops, the back of St. Columba's Free Church and the upper level of the High Street where taxi drivers carefully negotiated the small roundabout through the thinning crowds of tourists and carried on under the castle towards Lothian Road.
The Castle was still visible above it all and Luke found it hard to believe that it hadn't been more than 48 hours since he had sat in this exact spot, unable to sleep and watched the castle peering out of the late night gloom. The sheer number of new people that had entered his life since then and all the questions and difficulties that they had brought with them were threatening to cloud his head even more than the dreaded boredom of not working had up until that point. Despite the brief period where there had been a sense of concern from some parties that the elusive junior Reid might be laid out on a pathology slab, Luke had not been able to shake the belief that his quarry was still around somewhere: both he and Rab were able to see the same castle night after night. Based on that fact alone he was sure that he'd be able to track him down and bring him back to whatever sort of life he was leading up until now, just as soon as he got a decent foothold from which to launch his search.
The strangest feeling he had was that the skeleton was in some way connected to the whole scenario. All he had to do was work out how and every other piece of the puzzle would just slot into place. With that in mind, his best option at this point in time was to sift through the list of former employers of Rab and pay them a visit when he had a chance and pray that then the answer would present itself. That was the theory anyway. He sighed. As simple as that.
On the chessboard by his side there was a puzzle laid out that he had set up some point previously. He couldn't recall exactly at what point in the past three days he had done it or where he'd copied it from but he had done little more than glance at it. Now it looked positively inviting compared to trying to untangle the confusing mess that his thoughts and notes were becoming. Every candidate move he considered resulted in him losing significant material on the next move and he carefully manoeuvred one piece after the other before replacing them back in the starting position. The pointless shuffling was strangely reminiscent of what he felt he'd been doing himself the past few days. Moving uncertainly from place to place before returning to the original location with nothing visibly different. There was probably some deep seated psychological reason why he continued to persevere with his pursuit of chess despite the fact that he remained poor at it but his internal train of thought was abruptly derailed by the buzzer going at the door. Getting up to answer, he was surprised to see Old Tam's figure at the door. The great beard and long silver hair were impossible to confuse with anyone else even through a small display from this far off. What he was doing out of his local area was the main concern. He picked up the phone.
'Hello?'
'Orite son. It's Tam.'
Luke's confusion at having Tam show up out of the blue was quickly replaced by a very real concern regarding whether the old man would manage the three floors up to his flat. Realising that it was improbable if not impossible, he made the decision to go down himself and see what he wanted.
'You wanting to com
e in Tam. It's a long way up....'
'No son. Nah, just come down for a chat if you have a second.'
'Be down in a minute.'
He grabbed a hoody from his room as well as his phone, wallet and keys and headed out the door as quickly as possible. Pausing briefly, he returned for his notebook and then applied the locks on the way out. What did it seem to be recently with people too unhealthy to survive three floors worth of stairs and appearing at his door uninvited? Hurrying down the three flights, he opened the front door to see the smiling whiskered face of Tam beaming back at him. Dressed as always in a shirt and tie with his massive overcoat, his head was uncovered and alarmingly his walker was nowhere to be seen.
'What are you doing all the way up here without your walker Tam? You learnt to fly or something?'
'I got a lift up son, don't worry yourself. Take an old man to that Irish pub I see there' he pointed downhill towards the Grassmarket 'and buy him a stout or two.'
The evening had grown chillier gradually but neither man seemed to feel it since they both had enough layers to keep out the worst of it. It hadn't quite gone 8pm yet and the foot traffic would get heavier again before the clubs opened. They walked side by side, Tam's dodgy knees and ankles setting the pace. Luke lit two of the cigarettes from his packet and handed one to Tam who took it and popped it in his mouth without as much as looking. He rambled on about everything and nothing as they walked towards the pub which was less than 50 yards from Luke's front door but took a lot longer to reach due to his companion’s numerous physical ailments. Luke knew better than to ask him what the purpose of this unexpected house call was – Tam never parted with his information until he had his alcohol based fee within his hands.
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