Falling Fast

by Neil Broadfoot

  But not much easier. Oh no. Charlie owed Derek much more than that. He rolled over and reached for the phone. Noticed he had a message and pressed play. Mark Kirk’s whining, Leith-stained tones filled the room, amplifying Charlie’s headache. ‘I did whit ye asked likesay, Charlie,’ Mark said on the answerphone. If a rat could talk, Charlie imagined this was what it would sound like. ‘Gote the car nummer here, it’s…’

  Charlie listened, eyes closed. Thankful when Mark hung up and the message ended. An annoying little cunt, but useful. Especially when he was offered an extra half-gram in his next hit for doing a little legwork.

  He sighed and picked up the phone. No more putting it off. Dialled the number and waited. He could imagine what the response would be to him breaking the golden rule and phoning not once but twice in two days.

  Fuck it. From now on, they were doing this his way.

  17

  After getting through first edition, Doug managed to slip out of the office and head back to Prestonview. The Buchan story was more or less dying away to aftermath now, anyway. A few more politicians had come forward to offer their sympathy to Richard Buchan and his family, and the DNA tests confirming it was Katherine had come back, but other than that, nothing.

  All that was left now was for her family to bury her and then try to find an answer, a justification, for what had happened.

  He had heard talk in the office of the Tribune running a feature on suicides; the psychology, the warning signs, what family and friends could do and what groups like the Samaritans were doing to help prevent things like this happening, but Doug didn’t want any part of that. He’d done his job. Reported a crime, got the story ahead of everyone else. The rest was clean-up duty.

  Mike started pulling a pint of Guinness almost as soon as Doug walked in the door. After all the Chinese last night, he didn’t particularly feel like it, but he smiled and paid for it anyway. It wasn’t worth upsetting the landlord for.

  ‘So, Mike, how’s it going?’

  Mike gave Doug a world-weary smile. ‘Ack, you know, same old same old. Nothing much happening, really. Still no sign of Derek, although his old man, Sam, was in here for a wee while last night.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ Doug said. ‘S’been a while since he’s been around, what with all the cameras up at his place. What was the occasion?’

  ‘None from what I could tell,’ Mike said. ‘He just said he wanted to get out of the house for a bit. All this is getting to the guy, though, poor bastard was as white as a sheet.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Doug murmured. It couldn’t be easy living in a small town where your son was regarded as the devil.

  ‘So, I see you got the story on the girl who jumped off the Scott Monument,’ Mike said, attempting to change the subject.

  Doug just nodded. Again, he wondered if stating the blatantly obvious was a required skill for being a pub landlord.

  ‘Terrible way to go,’ Mike said, shaking his head slowly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Doug said flatly.

  ‘So, do the police know what happened?’

  ‘Not completely, not yet, although they’re leaning towards the suicide angle. If someone killed her, they would have had to be Houdini to get away from there without being noticed.’

  Mike grunted agreement, then disappeared behind the bar. He was just starting to clean glasses when the door opened and a tall, thin man with a wisp of pure white hair walked in, dragging an ancient-looking Golden Labrador with him.

  ‘Morning, Mike,’ he said, ignoring Doug completely.

  ‘Morning, Jimmy,’ Mike replied. ‘That you and Jess just heading home from your walk?’

  ‘Yeah, and an interesting walk it was, too,’ Jimmy said as he patted what was left of his hair back into place.

  ‘Oh, how so?’

  ‘Well,’ Jimmy said, his tone showing he had been aching for someone to ask him that very question, ‘we were out on our usual walk down the pathway, and you’ll never guess what we found. An abandoned car, which had been vandalised.’

  Ooh, Doug thought, hold the front page.

  ‘Badly damaged?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Not too badly,’ Jimmy replied, annoyed to be interrupted mid-story. ‘Tyres slashed and a window smashed. But that’s not the interesting thing. What is, is what else we found.’

  ‘And what was that?’ Mike asked. Doug could tell he was quickly growing bored with the conversation.

  ‘This,’ said Jimmy, theatrically pulling his prize from his pocket. It was a wicked-looking lock-knife, blade about ten inches long with a heavy, brass-and-wood handle.

  Mike put aside the glass he was worrying at with a tea towel and leaned forward, eyes fixed on the blade. He seemed to go pale. Doug suddenly lost the little interest he had in his pint. ‘That’s some knife,’ he said. ‘You said it was next to the car?’

  Jimmy looked at Doug as though he were seeing him for the first time. ‘Yeah. Down by the side of the car.’ His voice rose with excitement as he delivered his knockout blow. ‘There was blood there, too. A lot of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone was mugged down there. Or worse.’

  He rambled on, explaining his theories about what might have happened, but Doug wasn’t listening. He was too busy trying to fit scenarios together. A wrecked car. A pool of blood. A knife that looked like it would be more at home hacking its way through jungle than in Prestonview. Prestonview. Home of Derek McGinty’s parents. Had their boy made it home? Jumped someone and tried to steal their car? Or had he forced that person to drive him here and then decided to get rid of the witness? Where was he now? With his parents?

  ‘So,’ Doug asked, interrupting Jimmy mid-sentence. ‘You taking that knife to the police, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy gave Doug a look of open disgust. ‘What else can I do?’ he sneered. ‘Keep it? What do you think I am, a ghoul or something? I’m goin’ straight up to the polis station with this’, he waved the knife in an alarming arc in front of the bar, ‘just as soon as Mike gets me something to steady my nerves.’

  18

  Ronnie Selkirk slurped noisily at his coffee as he surveyed the dining room of the Royal Scot Hotel, his face twitching with disgust at the tables of dead-eyed executives, business travellers and affluent tourists who thought Scotland began at ‘Lock’ Ness and finished at ‘Edinbro Castle’. At the table next to them, a bored-looking teenager toyed with the shredded remains of a sandwich; a watch worth more than a mortgage payment glinting on his wrist. Ronnie felt a surge of contempt for the little shit, swallowed it down with another mouthful of coffee.

  ‘You’ve done okay for yourself, Hal,’ he said. ‘Nice digs they’ve got you in here.’

  Hal smiled and nodded slightly, knowing a place that reeked of money like this would be driving Ronnie nuts. He had no objection to wealth – Hal’s conservative guess was Ronnie had made a few million in his time – he just hated people who flashed the cash. It was a very Edinburgh attitude.

  They had met years ago, when Hal was working on a product launch for an insurance firm getting into banking. Hal had organised the media and the press work with Ronnie, who led the firm’s legal department and insisted on seeing every line of copy before it went out.

  ‘I’m gieing those bastards not one line they can use against us if this goes wrong,’ he had told Hal in his office, which was at the other end of Princes Street in the West End – at the time, known as the heart of Edinburgh’s thriving financial industry.

  They had worked together closely, Hal briefing executives and staff who they offered up for interview to the press on the lines that Ronnie insisted on. With Ronnie also handling the work that made the bank a legal entity, he ultimately set the timetable of when the bank was ready to go and Hal could launch.

  As they worked together, a grudging respect and then friendship grew between them. While Ronnie would drive Hal nuts with his unwillingness to embellish a line for a press release or an interview, he also had a dry wit and easy charm that made him a popular bos
s, and Hal quickly learned that his nickname in the office – though never repeated to his face – was Uncle Ronnie. It wasn’t long before Hal was being invited to dinner with Ronnie, his wife, Angie, and their three-year-old girl, Amy, at the family home just outside Edinburgh. Even now, years later, they kept in touch, swapped Christmas cards and baby pictures, kept each other up to date with the latest relevant gossip that could lead to business for either of them.

  ‘So,’ Ronnie said, leaning away from the table and running a smoothing hand over his goatee, ‘you didn’t ask me here for morning coffee. Whassup, Hal?’

  Hal smiled again. All business. Typical Ronnie. ‘Well, you know I’m up here working on the Buchan story,’ he said, dropping his voice slightly and leaning across the table a little. ‘The party wanted a sympathetic media line, especially with all the noise Buchan is making with his sentencing ideas. I just wanted to check with you, see if there was anything you thought I needed to know?’

  Ronnie grunted slightly, took a moment to study his friend closely. He genuinely liked Hal, Angie and Amy did too, and it was good to see him again. Though not under these circumstances, and not when he was about to fall into such a deep pit of shit.

  ‘What’s the background you’ve been given by the party?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a lot,’ Hal replied. ‘I got a briefing from the guy who hired me, Edward Hobbes, who’s one of the party chiefs at CCHQ in London. He got my name from a client I did some damage control work for about eighteen months ago.’ Hal shrugged. ‘Anyway, Buchan’s seen as a bit of a loose cannon, not the most popular in some circles when they’re trying to make Scotland love the Tories again. Seems to have been a bit estranged from the daughter; nothing major, I’m told, just didn’t like her choice of career. Married for twenty-seven years, happily enough, apparently. But…’

  ‘But what?’ Ronnie asked. Stupid question, he already knew.

  ‘So far, so boring. I dunno,’ Hal shrugged, stirred his coffee, ‘I just get the feeling I’m missing something, you know? And I thought maybe the name rang a bell with you, maybe you knew him when he was a full-time lawyer and just starting out? After all, the ages tally.’

  Ronnie smiled. Typical Hal. He always was creepily intuitive. Like when he caught a whiff of what was going on with Ronnie and Megan at the bank.

  He never said a word though, never threw it in Ronnie’s face. Even when he took him home to meet Angie and the family. It was, Hal told him one night after too any brandies, his business. Do what you need to do, Ronnie, just keep it away from home and your family.

  Do what you have to do. Good advice.

  ‘Come on,’ Ronnie said, finishing his coffee in a gulp and standing up. ‘Let’s go for a walk. There’s a few things you need to know and’, he cast a scornful gaze around the dining room, ‘we don’t want to upset folks at their breakfast.’

  19

  Lizzie Renwick had the most violently coloured hair Susie had ever seen. It was dyed a bright, almost gaudy shade of purple and braided with green, orange, and yellow beads. It must, Susie thought, be hell to live with when she had a hangover.

  They were sitting in a small workroom behind the main display area of the gallery on Candlemaker’s Row. Despite her reservations about the size of the place, once inside, Susie found herself standing in a huge, open-plan space filled with sculptures, murals and paintings. Photographs – both landscapes and portrait shots – lined the walls, vying for attention with elaborate glass sculptures, friezes and prints.

  The shop, Lizzie had explained, would remain closed for the immediate future, but she had thought Susie would like to meet her there in case she wanted a look at Katherine’s desk.

  Lizzie was a tall, angular woman with a flat chest and incongruously wide hips. She moved with neat, birdlike motions, worrying at a nail as she smoked a cigarette and perched opposite Susie on a high stool. It reminded Susie of the type of seats she had been forced to sit on in high school art classes – her least favourite form of torture.

  ‘So, how did you and Katherine meet?’

  ‘At an exhibition opening at the Fruitmarket gallery.’ Lizzie’s voice was coloured with the faint lilt of an Irish accent. ‘We got talking, found we had similar tastes in art, wanted the same things, and stayed in touch.’

  ‘So how did all this…’ Susie nodded out towards the main area of the gallery, ‘come about?’

  ‘Oh, it was Katherine’s idea. She’d seen some of my work, said she would like to try and get one of the galleries in the town interested.

  ‘When she couldn’t, she decided to open a place where she could display the works that she – we – like, and promote them.’

  Susie could see tears form in Lizzie’s eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was wistful. ‘That was Katherine, once she decided to do something, there was no stopping her.’

  Thinking how she had died, Susie could believe it. The strength of will it must have taken to throw herself from the top of the Scott Monument, knowing it meant death.

  ‘And how is the business doing?’

  ‘Oh,’ Lizzie said, shaking herself slightly, ‘very well. We were just getting ready to start drawing up plans for a new exhibition by Eric Mullard, the photographer.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know…’

  Lizzie flashed uneven, yellowing teeth in a small smile. ‘No reason for you to,’ she said. ‘He’s not well known. Nude poses and abstracts, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Ah,’ Susie nodded, none the wiser. ‘Lizzie, Katherine’s father said that you and her were close. Did you notice anything in the last few weeks that was out of the ordinary? Did she seem distracted or worried about something? Did she say anything to you?’

  ‘No… she seemed her normal self. I mean, she was excited about the new show and everything, but nothing out of the ordinary. Although…’

  Susie looked up. ‘What?’ she asked gently. ‘It could be important.’

  ‘Well, there was one thing, about a week ago. I came back after lunch, and she was on the phone. I don’t think she saw me, and I didn’t want to interrupt, but I heard what she was saying.’ Lizzie looked away. Susie could tell she felt guilty about eavesdropping on her friend.

  ‘Who was she on the phone to?’

  ‘I don’t know, but whoever it was, she wasn’t happy with them. She kept on saying “It’s the price we agreed. It’s the price you pay.”’

  ‘Can you remember anything else?’

  ‘No, not really. Except that she slammed the phone down and swore. Katherine never swore. That’s why I remember it. I thought it was just a customer who was getting pissy about paying, but it really upset her.’

  ‘Could you check the books for me just in case, see if there are any accounts outstanding?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ Lizzie replied, worrying at her nail more ferociously than ever. ‘I already have. You see, Katherine was never the most… forceful… person in the world. She found it difficult talking to people. The poor girl was painfully shy. I think that’s why she wanted me to work with her here, to help her with the business side of things.

  ‘Anyway, I checked the accounts – I was going to phone the customer back and try to sort it out myself – but I couldn’t find anything.’

  ‘You mean there were no outstanding accounts?’

  ‘No, none at all. So, whoever it was Katherine was on the phone to, it wasn’t a customer. Or at least, not a customer I knew about.’

  Susie nodded. Could mean anything. Worth looking at, anyway. She pushed the thought aside, wanting to get on with the interview and ask the question she had been wanting to ask since her encounter with Richard Buchan yesterday.

  ‘One other thing, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘Did Katherine have a boyfriend or anyone else that she saw regularly? Someone else, who may have known her as well as you, that we might be able to talk to?’

  ‘Eh, no, not that I know of,’ Lizzie said, her eyes darting away. She was lying – or covering for someone. Susie
could feel it.

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Lizzie replied brightly, grinding out her cigarette and meeting Susie’s gaze as she did so. Good recovery, Susie thought to herself. Almost too good, practised. ‘I’m a little thirsty. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ Susie replied, making sure Lizzie knew she would leave when she was good and ready and not before. ‘I’ve only got a few more questions. Shouldn’t take long, but a coffee would be great.’

  Lizzie hid her disappointment well. ‘Coming up,’ she said, hopping from the stool. ‘How do you take it?’

  ‘Black,’ Susie replied. ‘Just black.’

  20

  Derek shifted slightly in the driver’s seat, trying to find a comfortable position as he drove. No use, no matter what he did, his ribs moaned in protest. Fuck it, he would just have to live with it.

  After his run-in with Charlie, last night had worked out better than Derek could have hoped. He managed to drive to a small Travelodge just outside North Berwick, where the kid at the desk was too busy trying to hide the porn magazine he had been looking at to bother about the fact his latest guest looked like roadkill. He had handed over a key with no hesitation, not even looking twice at the room card Derek had filled in using Charlie’s name and address.

  In his room, Derek tried to tend his wounds the best he could. He tore up a towel to make bandages for his ribs, tying them tight to hold them in place, then checked the wound on his head. He had been lucky. It was a deep cut, about three inches long, and the pain was incredible, but at least he could still feel it. If Charlie had decided to use the blade instead of the handle to hit him, he’d be dead now.

  He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, too wired from the fight, but the moment he lay down, he passed out. After the last few weeks, it was luxury. A warm, soft bed. He woke up at about eight that morning, his entire body bruised and aching. He comforted himself with the thought that he felt better than Charlie, if he had even survived.