“What’s the company’s name?”
He hesitated for the third time. “Eh, do you know, I can’t tell you. Commercial secrets, and all that. Apparently. So I’m told. I just got told to accompany … Eh, a more senior colleague, to the place. The company. The tech company. Techy.”
Beth looked at him. Eyes narrowed, one eyebrow arched.
“And are you going to get to do anything interesting?”
“Nah, not really. Just the usual trainee crap, you know how it is. Take minutes. Double-check contract offers.” He breathed out again, his racing heart beginning to calm down.
Beth hesitated for a second, and Stewart managed to go on the offensive.
“So, eh, you’ve been running?”
Her eyebrows pulled together. It looked like she was trying to work out if he was taking the piss. “Yes. The half marathon was today.”
“Right! Right, yes. To raise money for orphans, wasn’t it?”
“Breast cancer. You sponsored me, remember? Twenty quid.”
“Right! Right, yes. That’s right. Orphans was the last one?” He tried a smile.
She gave him a wan smile in return, and pulled one sweat-caked bit of hair away from her face.
“So how was the run?”
A radiant smile appeared on her face, like the sun shining down on him, arched eyebrow becoming unarched. “It was really good. It’s so amazing that they set up a half marathon especially for breast cancer. I didn’t get the time I was aiming for, but I came close. I feel great now. Plus of course, a bit more money for charity, paid for by us rich legal types!”
“Nice one. Did you raise a lot then?”
“Nine hundred pounds, I think. Somewhere around there.”
Stewart whistled. “Good work.”
“Thanks! And thanks for your own contribution.”
“No worries. Impressive you got out there and did a half. I’ve never run anywhere near that far in my puff.”
“No, but at least you get out and do some exercise, like the five-a-side football you play.”
“Sevens.”
“What?”
“Seven-a-side. I play seven-a-side football.”
“Right, sorry, seven-a-side. At least you’re doing exercise. So many people now just seem to sit around, and then they wonder why they become overweight. And look at the diet some people have. I mean …”
Stewart recognised the serious expression that settled on Beth’s face, one he’d seen already during previous monologues about the iniquities of modern life.
“Right, yeah, I totally agree. It’s shocking, really. But ah, I have to be heading now, I’m afraid. At …” Stewart checked his watch. Christ, quarter past three already.
“In fifteen, I’m meeting Da … vid. The colleague. Eh, well, I need to be out of here. Downstairs, ready to go. Getting picked up. By my colleague. By David. Don’t know if you know him? No, why should you. Ha. And, eh, anyway, shouldn’t you jump in the shower? I mean, I’ve heard it’s not good to let sweat cool on your body. You might get a cold, you know, or eh, yeah …”
She smiled again, and for a moment, Stewart thought that maybe none of any of the rest of it really mattered. “Yeah, you’re right. Before I give another lecture on things wrong with the world? How did you put it? Go off on one?”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
She shook her head, smile turning impish. “No.”
“You weren’t meant to hear it.”
“Then you shouldn’t have been bitching so loudly to Saz, and definitely not in the living room!”
He shrugged, smiled back. “Touché. Not bitching though, just an observation. Eh, we still on for tomorrow night by the way? The gig in the Oak?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. It should be awesome. I think you’ll really like her.”
Stewart nodded equally enthusiastically, and gave her a smile back, all the wider with his secret knowledge. He’d drop it in casually, that he was working with Dakar again. As if it didn’t matter. Yes. Perfect.
“Okay. Listen, have fun with your informal chat with your client who isn’t a client.” She smiled wickedly, before turning and walking away. A second later Stewart heard the bathroom door shut.
He hustled up the stairs to his own room, feeling the excitement course through him. Investigating a murder and the gig coming up afterwards with Beth, where she’d soon be dying to hear all about Dakar. It was going to be a good couple of days.
He stepped around the various mounds of clothes on the floor, dumped there until common decency got sufficiently outraged to demand he do a wash. They were only half piles at the moment, though, nothing for common decency to get worked up about. There were various tea mugs scattered around the surfaces as well, next to the bed, on the chest of drawers, but he ignored these as well.
He walked over to his cupboard, taking off his tie. He chucked it venomously onto the bed and undid the top button of his shirt. Then he began searching for something he could wear that was exactly as informal as Dakar’s style, but extremely distant from what Dakar was actually wearing.
He had just fished out a pair of smart-ish jeans when his memory treacherously brought up Sudgeon’s words about how he’d be representing the firm. Knowing his luck, someone would give Sudgeon, or worse, Green, a detailed description of his casual sartorial style. And then he’d be for it. And wouldn’t Green love throwing the words ‘representative of the firm’ at him?
He turned sadly and walked over to the bed, picking up the tie where he’d dropped it. He began putting it back on, but then stopped. Well, it might not be much, but he would go open-necked. Very new Tory. Couldn’t criticise him if their own sad-sack politicians were doing the same, now could they?
Stewart went to throw the tie back down onto the bed, but stopped once again. He might need a tie at some point. Like if he had to go back into work.
He looked down at this small object of torture, his mind pulling in two different directions. Eventually he stuffed it into an inside pocked of his suit jacket.
Just in case. Couldn’t hurt.
Chapter 11
Stewart’s breath swirled around him in the air. The wind was getting up, getting underneath his long coat and making him shiver. Light clouds had appeared in the sky, the vanguard of the army of dark clouds coming to assert winter’s dominion during the coming months. He stepped back further into the doorway, a makeshift shelter from the wind, and ate the last bite of a huge sandwich he’d quickly put together for lunch.
Dakar pulled up after he’d been standing there for a couple of minutes, right on time. Stewart stared at his car. It was a tiny grey thing, more like a trainer than a car. He took off his substantial coat, and quickly got in, nodding to Dakar’s customary greeting. The car moved off silently into the Edinburgh traffic, Dakar concentrating on the road.
“Well, this is a nice set of wheels. Yours, is it?”
Dakar paused. “Thank you, my brother. It does not belong to me. I lease it from a company which specialises in electric cars, and I store it outside the office.”
“You’re hiring? I would have thought the books you wrote must have brought in enough cash to buy a car.”
Stewart thought he caught a glimpse of a smile. “I own as little as possible, my brother. If I need something, I will borrow it with money and treat it as a gift.”
Stewart nodded dubiously at this. His mind, the legal knowledge so tirelessly drilled in across years of dull lectures and problems, automatically told him that if you gave money in return for getting the use of something moveable, that was pretty much the exact definition of hiring.
There was silence in the car for a few minutes as Dakar drove.
“You decided not to change?” Dakar’s tone seemed innocent. Maybe the tinge of mischief Stewart thought he heard was just in his head.
Stewart took a breath. He’d prepared an answer to this question as he stood waiting for Dakar to arrive. He was representing
the firm. So he had to wear a suit. He hadn’t realised at the time he’d indicated his desire to get changed, but had realised before he got changed and thus had decided not to.
Nice and smooth, no cause for embarrassment.
“Eh, no. Well, you know. I’m representing the firm. So, yeah.”
Dakar kept his eyes on the road and said nothing.
“And well, also … Well, Mr Green, he seemed a bit, you know, a bit, intense, about me being professional. I mean, that comment about notes and a report, well, I’m ready this time, and I kind of thought the suit would, well, match. With taking notes, and reports. Professional. I mean, I think it looks more professional.” Stewart blurted the words out before he trailed off.
In the name of the wee man, Scott.
Pause. “Yes. I felt Mr Green’s intensity as well.”
Stewart braced for more, but Dakar remained silent. As the seconds passed, Stewart felt the tension leave him as it appeared Dakar would not be following up with any kind of insult, as Stewart had braced himself for. Young Scottish malehood was basically constant sparring. Whenever anyone opened themselves up by saying something stupid, everyone else laid in mercilessly. Sarcasm, imitations in stupid voices, constant jokes. And that was just your brothers and mates.
Fortunately Dakar seemed to have been absent on the day at school where they taught you how to be male.
Stewart settled into silence as Dakar drove. He’d had a shufti at where Colinton was, to the south-west, but before the bypass. He knew it wouldn’t take too long to get there.
He thought again about tomorrow night, telling Beth that he was working with Dakar again and seeing her reaction. Maybe, this time, he could even convince Dakar to speak with her for one of the one-hour slots he did for the rich and famous. As a favour. She’d love him forever for that one.
Stewart settled down happily as they passed over The Meadows and onto Bruntsfield place, heading for Holy Corner, where the church architecture still dominated, the buildings remaining even after the Church’s influence had long waned. They took a right, heading down Colinton Road, a way that Stewart was unfamiliar with.
The traffic grew lighter as the surroundings themselves slowly melted from city into suburb, and the sky itself seemed to lighten, as if the clouds were trapped by buildings in the centre of Edinburgh. Rows of sandstone tenements gave way to semi-detached homes which in turn gave way to free-standing bungalows, sports grounds and parks becoming more and more frequent as Dakar drove.
“It used to be an old mill town, Colinton.” Stewart jerked out of his seat as Dakar spoke.
“Eh, is that right, is it?” Stewart looked around at the buildings as they passed them.
Pause. “Yes. The Water of Leith provided them with their power. At one point, in the 18th century, one of the mills provided the special paper to the Bank of Scotland, to print their notes. They’re all gone now, of course.”
Stewart looked at him, unsure of what to say.
“I used to work here, when I first became a police officer. More often in Oxgangs, at the three high-rises that used to be there. Allermuir, Caerketton and Capelaw. But I was also in Colinton quite a lot. Or passed through it, perhaps that is the better term. There was not much need for the police.”
Stewart nodded. High-rises. The ones in the Gorbals in Glasgow had been pretty godawful before they were brought down, by all accounts. Plus, of course, well, Trainspotting. It hadn’t necessarily been high-rises, but the style was probably the same.
“Right, yeah. Awful places, eh?”
Pause. “When they were first built, they were the future. A village in the sky. And they were very modern at the time. But slowly families moved out, and no-one else moved in, and so over the years they became darker places, certainly. Lonely places. Although the sense of community in a high-rise was a powerful force.”
Stewart nodded again, dubiously.
“We had to make our own entertainment. Getting onto the tops of the lifts, going up and down. And climb down the outside of the building, jumping from landing to landing.”
Stewart looked back at the skyline, now bereft of the high-rises, with some respect. Insane certainly, but there had to be bravery mixed in there too. Something caught his attention in what Dakar had said.
“We?”
Pause. “I grew up in a high-rise, in Glasgow. Plean Street, out in Yoker, before I moved to Cumbernauld.” Dakar paused for a second – or was it hesitation? – before he continued. “Colinton has always been rich, or certainly richer than its cousin, Oxgangs. I didn’t realise at the time, but that always bothered me, I think. How two places could be so close to each other, and yet so unequal.”
Stewart waited for Dakar to continue, but instead the man pulled over onto the side of the pavement. They were in a well-kept street in Colinton, outside an impressive house, dark solid stone across two stories. A small wall with a row of high bushes behind it obscured the lower house from the road.
A driveway was off to one side, leading up to a garage, but a tree on one side of the driveway leaned down over it, its branches obscuring much of the garage from the road. Next to the driveway entrance was a small break in the wall with two steps leading towards the house.
They both got out, into the cold air, and Dakar headed for the gap. They followed a path of paving slabs to the front door through a small, well-kept garden, the grass in the middle ringed by an earthen square where flowers continued to live, awaiting their fate as winter approached. Dakar knocked sharply, and a few moments later a short, slim women stood in front of them.
She had large round glasses, with brown hair cut short in a bob. She was dressed smartly, open-collar pastel shirt with white, oriental-style trousers and no shoes. A light scarf was wrapped around her neck, one end forward over her shoulder, the other trailing down her back. Woven bracelets decorated both of her wrists.
“Yes?” Her eyes had narrowed as she took in their appearance. One hand gripped the doorframe tightly.
Pause. “Good evening. We are looking for Sarah-Anne Mannings.”
“Yes, that’s me. What can I do for you?” The words were spoken with as much warmth as the air around them.
Dakar smiled. “My name is Sebastian Dakar. This is Stewart Scott. We have been asked to investigate the murder of your husband, Daniel.”
“And who asked you to do that?”
Stewart looked at Dakar, Mannings’ last words ringing in his ears.
But Dakar was already answering. “Technically, it is a firm called SSM. But truth be told—”
“Right, so it’s Tom then.” The woman looked at Dakar for a second in silence, then over at Stewart. She had a calculating look in her eye. Stewart held his breath, involuntarily. After a few more seconds of silence, she sniffed. “I suppose you’d better come in.”
Chapter 12
“Tea? Coffee?”
Sarah-Anne had ushered them down a long hall into a big, open-plan area that combined a kitchen and a living room, with a kitchen worktop separating the two. The living room extended further around the corner, to the back of the house, with some comfy chairs, a sofa and a large TV. A couple of French windows ran along the back wall, showing a small patio of white paving slabs and a good-sized back garden.
The room, as if in keeping with the woman’s appearance, was clean yet disordered, with magazines spread out on various tables and chairs and flowers dotted around the place. There were numerous bookshelves, the books spilling out of them. They seemed mainly to be about ancient cultures from around the world. There was one on ancient Norse mythology, a couple regarding Celtic cultural practices and even one about the Native Americans. There was an easel in a corner of the living room, with the beginnings of a star on it.
But there was something annoying Stewart about the room, something putting him on edge. He cast a glance around again. He just couldn’t put his finger on what … And then it came to him. The tick-tock of the clock on the wall was extremely, extremely irritat
ing.
They sat at the kitchen counter in a couple of high chairs, on the dining room side. Sarah-Anne faced them over the worktop. “It’s mainly instant I’ve got, coffee-wise, although I can brew up a fresh pot of coffee if you don’t mind waiting.” She pointed to a small metal coffee pot.
“Nothing for me, thank you, my sister,” Dakar said.
“I’m not your sister.”
Pause. “Not biologically, certainly.”
She looked at him a moment longer, and then over at Stewart. “And you?”
“I’d take a cup of tea, if that’s all right.”
She nodded at this return to normality, turning to the tea cupboard. “What kind?”
Stewart gulped. He didn’t drink real tea, only the fake, made-up stuff that had pictures of berries on the box and gushed on about infusions. He hated asking for it. He still remembered the first time he’d asked for one of those at a mate’s flat. His reputation had barely survived the following few minutes.
“Eh, any kind of mint tea or berry tea would be great.” She turned back to him, holding a flowers of the forest tea in one hand. He nodded gratefully and she flicked on the kettle.
“Now, I suppose you want to ask me some questions about Daniel and what happened that night.” Her words remained blunt, her tone one of duty rather than pleasure. Stewart got his notepad out of his satchel.
Pause. “Yes, my sister. I am full of sorrow for your loss. Are you well enough to speak to us?”
Sarah-Anne exhaled and gave him a small smile, the first time her expression showed any kind of warmth. “Yes, thanks.”
Pause, nod. “Forgive me, but before we start … These books.” Dakar indicated some of the titles Stewart had been looking at. “Yours?”
Sarah-Anne’s expression became suspicious, but eventually she answered. “Yes. I’ve always been fascinated by ancient cultures. Things like putting a coin on each eye of a dead person so they can pay the ferryman. And why people believed in stories like that.”
Stewart stumbled over that sentence, but made sure he got it down. Definitely one for the report for Sudgeon and Green. Assuming he sent a report to Sudgeon and Green. Still needed to work that one out.
The Price to Pay Page 5
