A lone car came from behind, driving slowly with its lights on full beam. In the pure white light the wooden walls took on their true colours, some red, some blue and some black. The one directly across the road from Spargo became green, as did the door in its centre.
It wasn’t the right place, it couldn’t be. The door had no handle or keyhole. Weeds grew from the gap at its base, it hadn’t been opened for years. His imagination conjured up the possibility the biker wanted him here, wanted him out of the way while he broke into his house and killed someone else. He pictured Letchie’s swollen face and pop-out eyes. Enough was enough. He reached into his pocket for the remote.
The car that had come into the street stopped some way off. Spargo lost interest in it when its driver got out and walked back up the street. He wrongly assumed the man had kept walking away, but further up the road he had crossed to the arches. Now, Spargo realised, he was coming back down, walking slowly towards him. When Spargo stopped, the man stopped. When Spargo stepped sideways, so did the man.
Spargo was about to run to his car – having worked out that unless the figure was an Olympic sprinter he would reach it well before him – when the thud of drawn bolts made him hesitate. The green door beside him was being dragged back from the inside with short, juddering tugs. Forgetting the distant figure Spargo turned sharply towards it. Saw, in dim light from inside the doorway, the biker’s unmistakable bulk.
The body in Spargo’s basement was big news. From the media frenzy Midge knew it had happened in Spargo’s road but not Spargo’s house, only discovering the latter fact a lot later when he drove there and saw police everywhere. He returned later and saw Quinn again, and a man up a ladder. He considered texting Mr Luis again but remembered he hadn’t actually done it last time. In any case, he was supposed to be watching Dr Jessica, not her father.
The next time Midge returned to the road the police were gone and there was Spargo, backing his Volvo onto the road. Midge kept his distance, and when the Volvo straightened up he followed it, hanging well back. At the end of the road Spargo turned towards the city. After a mile or he turned right at the Commonwealth Pool, towards Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags. Midge, still some way off, was caught by red traffic lights.
At a roundabout in Holyrood Park Midge took a chance and turned left, managing to catch up with the Volvo as it passed the tented structure of Dynamic Earth. Surprisingly, Spargo kept going. Didn’t turn off towards the old town. Another half mile or so and he turned down a back street.
Midge, locally born and bred, knew every alley and lane. From the mess Spargo made of the last bit of the journey, it was clear he did not. When the Volvo finally stopped in a backstreet under the only working lamppost, Midge stopped his car and sat and watched. At first he thought Spargo might be after a woman, but if that was true he was in the wrong place. And besides, from what Midge was learning about the man, picking up women on the street was not his style.
He slumped low in his seat, grateful to whoever had smashed all but one of the street lights. Spargo was out of his car now and seemed to be dithering, inspecting the boarded up arches. Midge locked his car and walked back up the road – with luck Spargo would think he was leaving. He was sure Spargo would soon return to the Volvo. Couldn’t believe anyone in their right mind would leave a car in a place like that without someone with a shotgun guarding its wheels.
Midge knew the road. One of the arches, he wasn’t sure which, was the back way into wild-man Mongo’s place. He stepped into the road to get a better view, and as he did so he heard the scrape of a door. Ribbons of light from a doorway lit the huge bulk of Mongo. Midge pressed himself hard against the viaduct wall, he’d had dealings with Mongo, he couldn’t risk being seen. Mongo worked for the Roslin man – and the penalty for sniffing around the Roslin man would be a good kicking. Or something much worse.
The biker grunted. Spargo froze. He grunted again, perhaps recognition, perhaps welcome. He didn’t beckon or speak, he just stood statue-like as Spargo, his thoughts on spiders, flies and parlours, stepped inside.
The biker’s parlour looked and felt like a railway tunnel and was marginally brighter than out on the street. On one wall a single light bulb in a broken glass fitting provided a pool of dim light in which Spargo saw ladders, a cement mixer and buckets, a collection of old tools and a wheelbarrow. The buckets had rusted and the mixer looked ancient.
The ground beneath his feet was dry and dusty. What must once have been soil was now impregnated with discarded builders’ refuse, screws and nails, brackets and hinges – debris trodden underfoot by generations of builders’ boots. The biker jammed the door back in its frame. Secured it with two long bolts.
The arch was high and wide. It housed, beyond the builders’ junk, what looked to Spargo like an old army hut that fitted into the arch perfectly. All he could see of it was the end facing him – two boarded-up windows and a closed wooden door. The biker grunted again and nodded towards it. When Spargo didn’t move a tattooed arm propelled him forwards.
Four steps made from stacked concrete blocks led up to the door. Spargo, with the biker close behind him and invading his space, stepped up and turned the doorknob. He expected more squalor, more darkness and cold. Instead he got brilliant light, a gust of warm, moist air and the unmistakable smell of a bottled gas heater. A row of bright lights hung from the roof beams, each with a cone-shaped translucent shade. If military authenticity was intended then the effect was spoiled by the fluorescent, economy bulbs.
Spargo’s first impression of the room was influenced by church halls jumble sales he’d attended with his mother, the indoor equivalent of today’s car boot sales but presided over by middle-aged, matronly women. A long run of trestle tables, placed end-to end, hugged the left wall, with flags spread on them in the manner of tablecloths. Arranged on them was an assortment of military bric-a-brac: badges and medals, buckles and belts, holsters, torches, goggles and gas-masks.
The right hand side of the hut had no tables. Its floor space was taken up by much larger items – bundled camouflage netting, field telephones and shell cases, radio sets and signal lamps. Jammed tightly behind them, against the wall, a line of tailors’ dummies displayed military uniforms in olive drab or black and blue and grey, their shiny plastic faces half-hidden beneath forage caps, steel helmets, or lost completely behind sinister balaclavas.
Hanging on the wall at the end of the room and arranged like a museum display, were rifles, swords, pistols and bayonets. A tripod-mounted machine gun had been set up beside a partly open door as if guarding it. A sign hanging from its muzzle proclaimed it was not for sale. Montgomery did not simply collect, he also sold. Most of the items had the same small white price tags Spargo had seen in the shop.
It did not surprise Spargo there was no pewter; it wouldn’t look right amongst combat stuff. Lost for words he tried to take everything in. The biker, to one side of him, turned to him and grinned. Showed surprisingly intact white teeth. He took out his cigarettes and lit a roll-up. Like the earlier one, it burst into flame.
‘Been collecting since I was a boy.’
Spargo now knew how Alice felt when she fell down the rabbit hole. It became clear to him he was expected to wander around the displays, and doing his best to treat the place as a museum he did just that. Occasionally he picked things up, inspected them and replaced them exactly as he found them.
It was during his second circuit of the room that he realised the kit on display had been arranged according to the flags it sat on. He inspected small groupings of personal items, penknives and watches, cigarette cases and lighters – lighters all made from steel or brass, not at all like the one he had. But there wouldn’t be any, he realised. Not here.
‘There nothing German,’ he said. ‘There’s no Third Reich flag. There’s nothing Nazi.’
Since disposing of his roll-up the biker had kept close. Keeping an eye on his stock.
‘Is that what you want? Nazi?’
‘I didn’t come to buy. I assumed you were interested in the pewter.’
‘You showed Oberon a lighter.’
Oberon. That figured. ‘I showed it to get her interested. It’s not for sale.’
Somewhere beyond the machine gun a floorboard creaked. Spargo turned his head and saw the door at the end open slowly. An echoing voice came from a darkened room beyond it.
‘John Spargo…’
Spargo, caught off his guard, simply stared. He hadn’t mentioned his name to Montgomery. Or Oberon. The door opened fully and the owner of the voice stepped into the light.
‘Are you expecting to be given any more pieces like that, John?’
The accent wasn’t Scots, it was Estuarine English, an Essex boy speaking sharply and quickly as if words cost him money. Its owner, short and wiry and probably in his forties, stepped through the doorway and into the light. Spargo took in the man’s angular features, his high cheekbones, his high forehead and prominent cleft chin. His fair hair was long and swept back. His tweed jacket – the kind worn by a local squire on a foxhunt – hung open, as did the top two buttons of his shirt. Gold rimmed glasses set it all off, as if placed on his face as a fashion accessory.
‘Pieces like what?
‘Did you bring the lighter with you?’
‘The lighter is not mine to sell.’ It felt like a lie. Since giving the woman money he had been trying to convince himself it was now his.
‘Then why did you come here, John?’
‘Not sure. Curiosity?’
‘Killed the cat, surely.’ Seeing Spargo’s expression he added ‘Joke. Well, John, did you bring it? Come on, let’s see the bloody thing. Nobody here is going to take it from you.’
Without a second thought Spargo took out the lighter and handed it over. He began to wonder if he had a genetic defect that got him mixed up in these things.
If the man kept the lighter, too bad, he had lost nothing. Better, perhaps, if it was out of the way.
‘Nice piece,’ the man said. ‘Shame about the damage. Saltwater corrosion is a real bugger. Lucky for you it’s silver and not brass, because brass would be long gone. But of course, you know that. Nice eagle John. Has to be gold, condition it’s in. My name’s Day, by the way, Nick Day. That’s Day, as in 24-hour things. That’s another joke, John.’
No handshakes. No proffered hands.
‘It’s not for sale.’
‘So you keep saying.’
‘I’m doing someone a favour. He had Mr Montgomery’s address.’
‘Montgomery is not his surname.’ He turned the lighter over in his hand. ‘This someone. Are you saying he sold you this?’
‘What can you tell me about it?’
‘It’s a small chunk of gold on corroded silver.’
‘So it’s worthless?’
Day shrugged. ‘Did I say that, John? But the lighter’s not what I’m interested in, is it, you said that yourself. You asked Oberon about pewter. That would be Bob Kalman’s pewter, am I right? Is he the someone we are talking about?’
‘How do you know about Kalman? Who told you my name?’
‘I keep an eye on the market and an ear to the ground. If something new comes up then I want to be there, know what I mean, John?’
Day perched himself on the end of a flag-draped table. The toe of his hand-made brogues didn’t quite touch the floor so he pointed one down until he made contact with it. Kept it there, as if earthing himself.
‘Before Ian died he told me about you. Like he told me about Bob Kalman.’
A bead of sweat ran down Spargo’s spine. For a second it distracted him and he wondered if his fear showed.
‘Ian?’ he asked. ‘Ian Letchie?’
‘Ian, yes. I’ve known him for years. Pity about what happened. Couldn’t have been very nice for you, finding him like that.’
Spargo swallowed hard. He considered making a break for the door but Montgomery’s bulk seemed to occupy the whole of the bottom half of the hut. Then there was the door in the archway. Without The biker’s help he’d need a tractor to drag it open.
‘You and I need to talk, John, we need to take a short drive. My friend’s little scout hut here is very pleasant but his heater gives off fumes, they catch in my throat.’
Spargo followed Day out of another door, into a dark lane on the other side of the railway arch. At first he was relieved Montgomery hadn’t come. Then he wondered if Day was the kind of person who didn’t want witnesses.
Day stopped, paused, and reached into his pocket. Hazard lights flashed close by, car doors clicked and headlights blazed. A big car, a saloon with personalised plates. Probably a Lexus. Spargo stopped too.
‘Give me a good reason why I should go with you.’
‘That’s easy, John. The way I see it, you want to know about your lighter and I want to know about Bob Kalman’s pewter. It’s up to you. I’m offering information for information. If I’m wrong then keep walking. If not, then get in.’
In the city Day drove sedately and kept to the limit. Once on the Edinburgh by-pass he opened up, managing to touch 80. Spargo pulled his seat belt tighter.
‘You said a short ride. This isn’t a short ride.’
‘Anxious are we, John? Say the word and I’ll pull over. Bloody long way for you to walk home, but that’s your problem.’
‘Do you know who killed my mother? Did you have anything to do with it?’
Day sputtered and turned to face Spargo. ‘I might be a lot of things, John, but I don’t make a habit of killing people’s mothers. Look at me, John. Do I look like the kind of man who goes around killing old ladies?’
Spargo kept his eyes on the road. Didn’t want to say what he thought. ‘But you know about it. You’ve heard about it.’
‘I hear a lot of things. Your mother’s death was all over the papers. Tell me what you know about Ian Letchie.’
‘What about him? Did you have anything to do with his death?’
‘Do me a favour, get this crap out of your head. I don’t go around killing people. Ian came to see me the day he died – and I’d rather that bit of information didn’t go any further. Just because he came to me doesn’t mean I know anything about what happened afterwards. Strangled, wasn’t he? Not sure I could do that to a man. If I had to kill someone it would be a bullet at long distance. Less personal, know what I mean?’
Spargo responded with an unseen grimace. Day continued:
‘Ian Letchie didn’t come to Edinburgh just to see me, John, he had another appointment. Don’t ask me who with because I didn’t ask, I assumed it was newspaper work. As I said, I’ve known him for years. I’m not saying he worked for me exactly but we had an understanding, a gentleman’s agreement. If he found the right stuff I would find the right buyer.’
‘Some people would call that receiving.’
‘You’re a great one for tact and diplomacy.’
‘So Letchie came to you about Kalman, am I right? He told you about the submarine and the pewter.’
‘No John, that’s what troubles me. He should have come to me but he didn’t. I learnt about the U-boat from his newspaper article. Back in summer he did a piece on a Californian firm diving a wreck. I phoned him and he said he didn’t know much about it because they were playing things close to their chest. To encourage him to keep me informed up-front I gave him a bundle of notes – one thousand notes actually, John. Wish I hadn’t bothered. Might as well have set fire to them. I learnt more from his press articles than from him.’
‘Kalman says they are heading out to recover their equipment.’
‘I’m not that fussed, John. Old warships are not my line, they’re rust-buckets, there is nothing in them worth having. I was more pissed about Ian leaving me out of the loop than I was about the money.’
‘What about gold? Could the boat have been carrying gold? Kalman says no, but why spend that much on exploring it?’
‘What I’ve learned is that an American consortium funded the
dive with big money. And when I say big I mean big, so big I didn’t dare muscle-in on it. Who wants a knife in the ribs anyway, know what I mean John?’
‘Kalman told me his job was to identify the sub,’ Spargo said. ‘He says he did that. He proved it was the one they were looking for. They told him to search it and he found a pewter dinner service. He told the funding guys about it but they weren’t interested. Did Letchie tell you all that?’
‘Not until the day he died. He opened up. Gave me the impression something had changed. You know what I think, John? I think he had some kind of deal going, and maybe it wasn’t turning out as he’d hoped. Do you have any idea what that deal might have been?’
‘Me? Why should I?’
‘You’ve got the lighter. What else have you got?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That isn’t what Ian told me. I’d hate to think you are telling me porkies, John.’
‘I don’t have any pewter. Kalman offered me a tankard. I refused it.’
‘I don’t mean pewter. Ian said Kalman gave you some books.’
Spargo stiffened. Hoped Day hadn’t noticed.
‘If that is what Letchie told you then he got it wrong. Kalman gave me the lighter. He said nothing about books.’
‘Ian said they were from the U-boat.’
‘That’s ridiculous. You should have known he was lying. Books couldn’t have survived down there. What are these books? Did he say anything about them?’
‘He said they were diaries. He said others were looking for them so I guessed they had to be important.’
‘What others? Who?’
‘If he knew, he didn’t say. Okay, Ian didn’t actually say Kalman gave you the books. He said you had the books.’
‘I don’t have any books.’
‘If that’s true then I’ve been misled, I’d assumed it was the reason Ian was in your basement, to search for these books, these diaries. How is it you know Kalman, anyway?’
The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park Page 27
