Deception is the Old Black

by V Clifford

  Martin and Frances sat side-by-side chatting, he with his drink and she playing footsy with the gravel. Their body language flirtatious; playful but not overly so. They chatted for ten minutes before Frances stood up and they kissed – pretty chaste. Viv crouched behind a four-wheel drive until Frances passed. Martin didn’t make a move for another five minutes. He tossed his cup into a bin and went back for his bike. But instead of mounting, he walked the bike up the steep hill of Gloucester Mews onto Wemyss Place, then right on to Queen Street. She kept well back until, to her astonishment, he entered through the back gate of Bute House. What was he doing in there? She had been in to cut the FM’s hair so many times and never once encountered him. What were the chances of that? That didn’t mean he wasn’t employed there. She thought through the possibilities. There was a small space, not big enough to be called a terrace, with pots and a bit of box hedging but surely not enough to warrant a gardener. What to do next? Should she return and rescue her car before it got towed? Or brazen it out and go into Bute House? She crossed the road and sidled in through the parking area. She could feign a change of appointment with the FM. She knew the security staff, so that wouldn’t be a problem. From the garden there was an entrance through the basement. One long corridor with many rooms off it led to a door at the end. On the south side of that was a stairway leading to the home of the most powerful woman in Scotland. A lead-lined door required a certain kind of pass card. She stood at the wall watching Martin secure his bike and clip his helmet to the handlebars. He rubbed his hair and ran his hands through it a few times, moulding it into style. The act of a vain man and not what she’d expected. He opened a pannier on the back of the bike and took out a card on a ribbon. He swiped the door and pushed it open while placing the card over his head to hang round his neck. Once he was out of sight she leaned against the wall and imagined what jobs he might do within Bute House. Just because he’d trained in horticulture didn’t mean that’s what he did now. In fact, it was a complete shot in the dark that she’d caught him leaving home to go to any job at all. Good work so far and the day had just begun. She jogged back to the car, which had a ticket stuck to the windscreen.

  Chapter Thirty

  She drove back to the Grassmarket, and feeling peckish, nipped into Bella’s. She flicked through The Guardian as she waited for her espresso and an almond croissant, then rocked back on her chair. Connections were beginning to stack up. Archie knew Roderick, Roderick was familiar with Bute House, Martin knew Bute House and was dating Frances who worked with Archie. So far the only crime that had been committed was the pushing over of an ancient Archer, a Queen’s bodyguard. Intent to harm the monarch would result in more than a slap on the wrist but would be difficult to prove with what they had at the moment. Treason carried a life sentence. The up side was he could no longer be hanged, drawn and quartered.

  Bella appeared with her coffee. ‘You’re looking distracted. Everything okay?’

  ‘Sure. Looking forward to this, though.’ She sipped the espresso and ripped off a piece of the croissant.

  The door to Bella’s opened and Gus walked in. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and smiled as he approached. She gestured to him to take a seat. ‘You in for breakfast?’

  ‘Well, now that I’m here I could join you. I saw you from the road and wondered if you’d mind company.’ He was tentative.

  ‘I’m glad to see you.’

  He frowned. ‘Probably not as glad as I am to see you.’

  She sensed a question in there. ‘Don’t you believe it!’ She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I am delighted that we are finally having breakfast together – although this isn’t how I’d imagined it.’

  Now he smiled. ‘The fact that you’ve imagined it is very heartening.’

  Bella came to the table with a flat white and laid it in front of him. He looked up. ‘That’s service for you. Thanks. Can I have one of those as well?’ He pointed to the croissant.

  ‘No can do. That’s the last one. I’ve got . . .’

  Viv interrupted. ‘We’ll share this.’

  He started to object.

  ‘It’s huge. I can’t eat the whole thing.’ Which was a lie. She regularly scoffed one of these in the middle of her morning. She regarded it as a healthy carbs fix.

  Bella disappeared and returned with an ordinary croissant and a jar of almond paste. ‘This might work as a substitute.’

  He grinned. ‘Women! So resourceful.’

  Viv’s mobile rang and on spotting Mac’s number she excused herself from the table. Outside on the pavement she listened as he brought her up to speed on recent developments.

  ‘Ruddy’s filled me in on Roderick. We’ve to go cautiously to avoid a media circus. Same old same old. As if we don’t know what we’re doing. I expect I’m getting the heads up so’s to keep you in check.’

  ‘What a nerve. The only reason he brings me in is to do the unorthodox stuff that you guys aren’t supposed to touch. So I don’t need looking after, I need more slack.’

  ‘No need to get snippy – we’re on the same team.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit that Roderick’s father is an MSP.’

  ‘Exactly! I rest my case. Keep calm and keep me posted on your every move.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Like that’s ever going to happen. Cheerio.’ She smiled through the window at the concern on Gus’s face.

  Four girls teetering on platforms more suitable for the North Sea, wearing pelmets exposing ample thighs, staggered towards her. They giggled as they passed and she grimaced at their toxic wake, ducking so as not to inhale spray from armour-like hair-dos and a cocktail of cheap scents. She couldn’t work out if they were returning from, or starting early for, a night out. She shook her head and grinned as she wandered back into Bella’s.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yes. Completely normal. Don’t you love living at the centre of the universe?’ She waved to Bella who came to the table with a fresh cappuccino without Viv having to order it. Too much espresso and she’d be jangling. ‘Mind-reader. Thanks, Bella.’ She blew over the top of the cup, separating the froth from the coffee. ‘Mmmm. I’m so looking forward to this.’

  ‘Thanks for being so tolerant with my dad. As I’m sure you could tell he’s old school. Keen to see me settle.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Not so much. I’m not a great catch.’ He tapped his temple. ‘Too messed up.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as sanity – only versions of madness that have become socially acceptable.’

  He smiled. ‘No, really. No one could sleep in the same bed as me and get out alive.’

  ‘Wow. Are you boasting?’

  He laughed. ‘I wish. No, I get night terrors. Kick out probably; even punch out. Who’d want to be on the receiving end of that?’

  She thought of Frances, who had no recollection of her behaviour in the night. ‘Do you know it’s happening? I mean when it’s happening or afterwards if you fall back to sleep would you remember what you’d done?’

  ‘I have so far. Crikey, it would be terrible if I didn’t. I hope there isn’t some poor . . . Well best not to go there. This is pushing my luck, but I wondered if you would come and visit the old house. You’d have to wear your thermals even though it’s August.’

  Her belly clenched. What was he really asking her to do? He already knew she was a body and soul townie. ‘When did you have in mind? I’ve got a job on that means I can’t go anywhere at the moment but . . .’

  He shook his head. ‘No. No, it’s fine. It’s not right of me to ask.’

  ‘No, it’s fine to ask. But I’ve got to finish what I’ve started.’

  He nodded. ‘I suppose. There’s not much that I can’t do so long as there’s wifi.’

  ‘Let me see how I get on. It might be that I get it wrapped up within a couple of days, then it’d be no problem.’ She sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.

  ‘How long have you known the FM?’r />
  ‘Since way before she had titles.’

  ‘She sounded so familiar with you. It made me think of all the things in a woman’s life that it wouldn’t occur to me to ask about.’

  Viv raised her eyebrows in a question.

  ‘Well it hadn’t occurred to me ask her who cut her hair or who she goes to for beauty treatments. But those are the people in a person’s life who get to know them intimately.’

  She nodded. ‘Can’t deny that. But we also have an unwritten contract that we wouldn’t share that info. I mean how long would my clients keep using me if I gossiped? Not long I’ll tell you. Edinburgh is a village. I’d soon be unemployed. Ditto when I write for . . . oh never mind.’

  ‘No, go on, I’d love to hear this. I thought you said you were a hairdresser.’

  ‘I am, but as I said before I do . . .’

  ‘Yes, I’m getting it. But . . .whatever that other stuff is that you’re doing I’d love to hear about it.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. I occasionally write things for a newspaper under a pseudonym. And I do a bit of, let’s call it research, for the police.’ She laughed at the look on his face. ‘Don’t look so surprised. There’s no such thing as a stereotype. You should know that. There’s always more to people than you think, and the more people try to put others into boxes the more they’ll find them squealing to get out. Tidy people are a myth. People can look tidy, but their lives, their psyches, rarely are, and if they appear that way it’s by design and you’ve got to ask what they’re covering up. You know – swans and all that.’

  His eyebrows knitted.

  ‘Swans look beautiful on the surface but are paddling like fury beneath.’

  He nodded. ‘So how come you know so much about people? Can’t just be hairdressing.’

  ‘It could be hairdressing, but I did a degree in anthropology, and you might as well know that I also have a PhD.’

  His face was a picture of doubt. He sat back in his chair. ‘So that’s why Mac called you doc?’

  She grinned. ‘That’s what he calls me when he’s pissed off with me, but yes if he did call me “doc” that would be why.’

  He rubbed his hands across his face then broke into a smile. ‘This is a learning curve. You’re too brainy for me. I’m a simple soldier cum biographer. I mean I’m not much of a thinker.’

  ‘Now I know you’re lying.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘But that’s what I mean. You are presenting a stereotype that isn’t true. It’s what people have come to expect, but it simply isn’t true. Convenient maybe, but true not so much!’

  Bella slipped a saucer with the bill on it across the table. They both grabbed at it. She won.

  They walked back up the Grassmarket and she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’ll let you know when this job is done.’

  ‘Or let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’

  She nodded and continued on up the West Bow.

  Chapter Thirty One

  She returned to the flat and immediately booted up her laptop. YouTube had come up with the video of the MSP’s son drinking vodka in the kitchen at Bute House. Someone took that video, so there were others there on that night up to similar high jinks. If she found them she’d probably find Roderick again. First she scoured his social media pages and followed leads to friends from the same school he’d been to. The original video was filmed during a school leaving party so they might now be spread a bit wider geographically. The FM’s son had been coerced into hosting it since his was the only house big enough to accommodate so many.

  Eventually she found one young man who hadn’t deleted his photographs. The inside of Bute House was too grand not to be recognised. They’d even taken a group photograph sitting on the staircase in the public entrance, with each boy holding a bottle of beer up and cheering for the camera. No video of this, though. She wondered if they had all just been mucking about or had the video been taken intentionally to embarrass the FM? If they’d wanted to really embarrass her they’d surely have caught her own son doing something naughty. But they hadn’t; they’d filmed the son of an MSP.

  She sat back in her chair and tried to think herself into what the mood on a night out with a crowd of young guys might be like. Perhaps exultation at being released from school uniform? Or at the prospect of leaving home? What about girls? Fear of girls? After all, they’d spent their school days exclusively in the company of boys. It was an interesting choice to have a party, marking a rite of passage, without girls. Didn’t they want a night with girls, and if not, why not? Best not to jump to conclusions. What else could this mean? She continued scanning the photographs. From what she could see they weren’t particularly bad. No one was snorting coke off the FM’s desk with a fifty-pound note. If the worst thing they’d done was swigging vodka in the kitchen, the FM had gotten off lightly. Not much of a story and yet it had been splashed over the front pages of national newspapers. A slack weekend for the press? Or more to the story than she’d picked up? The slightest slur with a politician was game on. The FM had gone away for a night and hadn’t expected or given her permission for the party but, if the stories had any foundation, her son had been bullied into letting his mates in with their booze. What had started as a few beers had grown legs when the media got hold of the video. No smoke without fire. Was the video given to them by the photographer? Or had it gone viral on YouTube? Something else to check.

  Where did Martin Martin fit in with any of this? He knew Bute House, he’d dated Frances, he was on the CCTV footage with his hand tucked into his jacket. It wasn’t much to go on unless they found something which proved he intended to shoot the Queen. Archie had taken responsibility for the attack on the old Archer, with a reluctant Roderick. Roderick and Archie were more than friends. Did Roderick and Martin know each other? She rubbed her hands over her face, too many connections swirling round her head. She settled down to a session with Facebook. First she relocated the page with the photographs and wrote down all the other places in Edinburgh he’d ‘liked’ and matched those with others who’d been at the party. She checked those ‘liked’ pages with the ones on Martin Martin’s page. A laborious task, which took an age, but paid off. It couldn’t be coincidence that the Turkish café on the shore at Leith Docks came up again and again. She sat back and stretched, then jumped up. Time for another outing.

  The phone rang. She stared at the number on the display. It was Jules, the editor of a newspaper she wrote the occasional column for. It had been a while since she’d heard from her. ‘Hi, Jules. Long time no hear.’

  ‘You know the form, Viv. Internet’s a bogie. No one needs a pen and paper any more.’

  Viv chuckled. She hadn’t heard that saying in ages. ‘It’s okay, I’m not fishing for work.’

  ‘No, I hear you’re busy doing a job for Marconi.’

  ‘Well, you heard wrong. I’m busy cutting hair as usual.’

  ‘You’d give me a heads up if you got wind of anything?’

  ‘You wish. Besides since when did you need actual facts? From what I’ve read recently information comes more embellished than it used to.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how difficult it is to get folks to pick up a newspaper, even if it has an outrageous headline or tits on the front page . . .’

  Viv smiled. Jules was never one to mince her words. ‘Don’t even go there.’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine for anyone selling a car to go there, but not for me trying to sell local news.’

  ‘Spare me your histrionics. Life’s a bitch and all that. Now surely that isn’t the only thing you rang for?’

  ‘No, we’re needing help on features and you’re my first call.’

  Viv was pretty far down Jules’ list of freelancers. She laughed again. ‘Sure. When were you thinking about?’

  ‘Staff problems. A maternity cover coming up. Could become permanent if she goes gooey on me.’

  ‘I’m not interested in anything permanent, s
o no need to dangle that myth in front of me. I might be able to do a couple of features though, but not straightaway.’

  ‘You can’t be that busy with hair.’

  Viv could almost hear Jules grin. She must have got hold of some snippet that was worrying at her, and she’d not let it go until she got what she’d called for. But there was no way that Viv could give her anything new about the Queen’s attack. Was there another mole or was it the same person giving details from the NTF?

  ‘Look, Jules, when you’ve got specific dates send me an email and I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Sure you don’t have anything to share with me?’