Shadow of the Castle

by Matthew Macleod

  The museum was long closed by the time he arrived but that was exactly what he had anticipated. Through the glass he could see the darkness broken by a light behind the security desk and the guard sitting behind it. From the desk light and the glow of whatever he was using to watch either TV or a film Luke could barely make out any features aside from the fact that he was completely bald which invariably made placing him in an age bracket all the more difficult. More than anything else he looked thoroughly bored. Luke waited in a dark corner outside the granite building and waited for him to come out – night security guys in his experience almost always smoked and even if he didn't it was more than likely he’d come out for a change of scene at some point. No sooner had the thought run through his head than the security guard seemingly received it telepathically. Stretching upwards and yawning wide he rose wearily to his feet and came round the desk towards the revolving doors. Instead of going through them however, he used his keys to unlock a fire door to the side after tapping at the console on the inside briefly and stepped out into the night. As he extracted a cigarette from a packet in his pocket, Luke did the same and walked out from the shadows in front of the building. Luke patted all of his pockets several times, feeling his lighter exactly where it should be but paused and let out a sigh of exasperation before resuming his frantic pocket searches. A voice from the doorway interrupted him.

  'You needing a light pal?'

  Luke acted startled before smiling and climbing the massive stone steps up to his saviour. The security guard was just shy of the 6-foot mark and looked to be the wrong side of 40. There was a tiredness in his face that was not entirely related to the unhealthiness of being stuck on constant nights. The hand that offered the lighter had A.C.A.B tattooed across the knuckles and Luke imagined there would probably be a spider web lurking under the shirtsleeves around the elbow. He smiled, took the lighter and lit up. Returning it to his new friend he stood beside him and they smoked in companionable silence. It was like the taxi driver and bus driver situation all over again as Luke could feel the only obvious question to ask bubbling forward in his subconscious and he eventually asked it.

  'On the nightshift mate?'

  A stroke of genius. Sherlock Holmes had nothing on him. Who else would be able to discern that the man who deposited himself behind a desk in the museum overnight was doing it as a job rather than a hobby. The guard merely seemed happy for the company as he graciously overlooked the idiocy of the question and answered it anyway.

  'Aye man. 7 til 7 in the morning.'

  Letting out his breath through pursed lips, Luke shook his head in sympathy before extending his hand.

  'I'm Luke by the way. Cheers for the light.'

  'Gavin.'

  The handshake was not the usual bone crushing effort that seemed to be part of the job requirements for any security job. It had even been administered with a smile.

  'How do you like the work Gav?'

  'It's OK I guess. Apart from the unsociable hours all I need to do is be here and take a walk around every hour. Rocket Science it ain't.' He paused briefly to smoke. 'What do you do yourself?'

  Luke considered lying but reasoned that it never seemed to work out for him in the end. There was no doubt in his mind that it would not land well in Gavin's camp given his interesting body art.

  'I'm an investigator of sorts. Kind of freelance. It's hard to explain.'

  As expected, Gavin visibly stiffened and his tone hardened.

  'Why are you here?'

  'Just chasing up a lead.'

  'About what?'

  Luke was keeping his eyes forward looking at the buildings across the street and the people milling around outside the pubs. He was fairly sure he wasn't going to get hit before he got his point across but he was more alert than he let on.

  'Missing person.'

  From the corner of his eye he could see Gavin relax slightly and turn away from him to look across the street as well. The sudden hostility had not been surprising but its intensity had been. Luke was weighing up how to ask about it without getting head butted when the situation was resolved for him.

  'Got a little bit arsey there didn't I? Sorry man, just been a bit on edge this week. Thought you might have been from the company checking up on me. Had a bit of an incident a few days ago and they aren't very happy with me.'

  The impression he was giving was that he wanted to talk about it so Luke remained silent. Sure enough, Gavin continued in due course.

  'It's the most ridiculous thing. It's actually unbelievably stupid but I'm getting my collar felt for it at the moment and I don't find it as funny as all the other guys seem to.'

  'What happened?'

  Gavin looked up and down the street slowly before continuing, avoiding Luke's eyes.

  ‘I’m the security guard here on a night, right? Just me. So anyone that goes in and out is my responsibility. I sign the cleaners in and out and the staff if they’re working late or coming in early. We keep the records in the sheet back there.’ He gestured towards his desk inside. ‘Just pen and paper, no need for an electronic copy or that. It’s just boring basic stuff.’

  Luke was unsure of the significance of any of this but maintained a polite interest. He was still studying the opposite side of the street and smoking. Gavin’s story had ground to a halt and he seemed to be faltering so Luke gave him a gentle nudge.

  ‘OK. I get that. So what happened that they’re on your back?’

  The security guard was carefully eyeing the toes of his boots and scuffed first one then the other off the top of the step. The action made him resemble an overgrown toddler.

  ‘Something went missing.’

  ‘What went missing? If it was something worth a lot of money surely they’d have canned you first and investigated later?’

  ‘Nothing expensive man. Just stupid. The boys have been riding me for two days over it and I’m sure the company isn’t believing me that no one came in or out except for the people on my list.’ His tone was becoming pleading. ‘I was at my desk all night. I never leave apart from coming out for a tab and I need to punch the code in at the door before I go out and come back in. I need to use my keys as well.’

  Slowly, the cogs in Luke’s head were turning and he was beginning to get an inclination of where this was going. Any self-congratulation on his idea to come by here in the first place would have been premature – he needed to be certain first. Finishing his smoke, he looked around for an ashtray and seeing none turned back to Gavin who was in the process of flicking his down the steps and onto the street. Luke followed suit and asked a question as casually as he could.

  ‘It wasn’t a skeleton that went missing by any chance was it?’

  Gavin’s head whipped round so fast that Luke was shocked he hadn’t snapped his neck clean. His mouth was hanging agape and he seemed genuinely shocked.

  ‘Aye. That was it. A stupid display skeleton from the first floor. Worth nothing as far as I can tell but it’s genuine human bone, you know? These crackpots donate their bodies when they die so that folk can gawp at them. Just assumed it was some weirdo during the day and no one noticed for some reason. How did you know that?’

  Luke’s hand found the other man’s shoulder and he smiled.

  ‘Just a lucky guess for now I reckon. You fancy showing me all the ways in and out of the building? If I’m right, then I think we both just might be home clear.’

  Princes Street Gardens were closed to the public of an evening to dissuade people from sleeping rough or drinking in public. There was no real reason beyond the fact that it was so central and so well known that it would be nigh on impossible to police effectively, especially under the cover of darkness and the other areas of greenery in Edinburgh had not traditionally fared well when it came to acts of physical violence and other forms of depravity in the dark. For this reason, the gates in the high, spiked fence that ran around it were closed and locked every evening and reopened every morning.

  Mu
ch in the same way that a lock is only a deterrent to an honest man, 5 feet of railing with spikes never have been enough to keep anyone out who desperately wanted in. Such was the case again tonight as a figure stalked down the Mound and along Princes Street heading West, keeping close to the fence. The difficulty, they had found, was never in the act of scaling the fence. It was always in finding a location that was quiet enough to do so unnoticed. On they walked, hood raised up to shroud their face and head with hands thrust deep into the pouch style pocket in the front. The warmth of the day was quickly becoming a distant memory as the dark stole away any residual heat that was left. The pavements were busy but somehow the figure managed to walk straight down without turning to the left or to the right – ordinary members of the public tend to acquiesce to the actions of the most insane looking or acting – and the West End itself began to stretch upwards into the sky. Buses and taxis flew past bathing the pedestrians in light and noise before passing on by into the distance, the red lights out the back blinking and flashing as they pulled up to stop after stop after stop. The hooded figure was quickly getting out of breath with the exertion and the pace but the shoes that scuffed along the pavement kept pounding out the rhythm that was looping around and around in their head – “Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up.”

  Turning left onto Lothian Road, they found themselves in front of a church. The denomination was unknown to them and frankly of no interest. All that mattered was that the front gates were usually left open to allow tourists to take pictures or inspect the ancient gravestones out front. The church itself of course remained securely locked. Slipping inside the courtyard, the figure bent close to one tombstone after the other, tracing the carved letters carefully with their finger. They read the names that he never knew and the dates and years that had all long since passed. Moving from one to the next methodically, they gravitated towards the darkest area at the very back of the church wall where they quickly scanned for anyone taking notice from the street before jumping up, grabbing the rough stone with their hands and pulling themselves up and over in one smooth motion. Landing in an almost controlled sprawl in the dirt on the other side they remained motionless and waited for shouts of challenge from the street but none came.

  Between the wall of the churchyard and the gardens there was the characteristic fence but out of sight from everywhere there was time to make moves carefully and avoid a spike through the foot. One more hurdle and they found themselves in the gardens. The noise from the streets and pavements was dampened by the foliage and when there was a gap in the trains that departed and arrived seemingly constantly, there was a peacefulness to be found here especially in the night-time. Breathing slower and deeper, the figure adjusted their hood to ensure it was still giving them as much coverage as they wanted and started walking back the way they had come only this time at a leisurely pace and without anyone to avoid them. Staying close to the treeline, they continued East with the railway lines to their right and beyond that the steep crags that rose into the sky with the castle sitting atop them.

  At the same time, Geoffrey Reid was leaving his offices and locking up himself. Having let Claire go three hours previous he had fully intended to catch up on some case notes but had found himself sitting with the papers in front of him, reading and re-reading without taking a single word in. Sighing deeply, he leaned back in his chair and extended his arms behind his head, stretching towards the window. Tilting his head backwards he stared once more at the vaulted ceiling that seemed improbably far above him and remained motionless for a while.

  Outside his window the city was darkening and the skyline stretched as far as the eye could see – these historic buildings reduced to jagged dark outlines in the gathering gloom. The jutting spire of the monument; the colosseum style pyramids of the art gallery; the Free Church College and associated buildings rising majestically against the moon and all deep in the shadow of the castle. As he gradually levered himself back into a sitting position he picked the papers up one more time and managed to look at two lines before flinging them to the far side of the desk. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and extracted a brass ring that had numerous keys hanging from it, sorting through them carefully until a small grey one was selected between his pudgy fingers. Leaning down awkwardly, he flipped down a veneer cover at the top right corner of his desk drawer to reveal a tiny keyhole into which the key disappeared. There was a click and with a slight tug the entire top section of the drawer pulled out independent of the rest.

  A false bottom in a cupboard or drawer was so common it was borderline on the cliché but his secret top did all he required of it. The drawer's twin on the opposite side had no such feature but maintained the 3 inches of solid wood at the top before the split in order to preserve the illusion. Geoffrey Reid had very seldom been in this drawer but liked having it just in case. It contained only two things – a bottle of expensive whiskey from which he had drank precisely twice and a handgun acquired extremely illegally. The only shot he was after at the moment came in liquid form and after he had taken a pull straight from the neck, he resealed it and locked it away. Feeling emboldened by the alcohol in his system, he had stood, hit the lights and stalked out into the night.

  The car that was parked around the corner in his private spot was the very height of luxury, just like everything else that the Magistrate bought and owned. He had paid for it outright of course and ignoring the fact that the ridiculous top speed far exceeded not only the speed limit but the scope of city driving by a degree of measures, he was very proud of it. The amber liquid had warmed him from deep inside and he thought briefly about whether he'd be over the limit – after all it wasn't like he had poured himself an exact measure – but dismissed it out of hand. Waiting for a taxi home and needing to get one back in the morning were both out of the question as far as he was concerned. Lowering himself into the leather seat, he sat for a moment before pressing the “Engine Start” button and allowing the car to idle powerfully on the street. What he needed to combat his anxiousness was a plan of action.

  The same two names kept coming up in all his private enquires so far and now was the time to make a move. Deek and Mark, they told him. Mark and Deek. Over and over, they cropped up time and again. It seemed strange that Grant hadn’t mentioned them… Still. The plan entered his mind, fully-formed:

  1. Get home and sleep

  2. Get a hold of Derek Sutherland and Mark

  3. Have them brought to his offices in the morning

  4. Find out what they know

  5. Punish them regardless

  The minor details would work themselves out on the journey home or through the night. It wouldn't be prudent to send Grant to pick them up so he'd have to use a couple of cops on his payroll. Even if he was in the mood for administrating the punishment himself, despite his size and strength, he might want Grant around for their meeting as a bit of back up. Slipping the car into gear, he pulled away into the road feeling much better and headed for home through the dusk.

  Chapter 20

  Out in Craigmillar, Deek and Mark were sprawled across the sofa and floor respectively. It had been a long time since either of them had spoken or checked the time – their only interactions consisted of passing a joint back and forth between them at varying intervals without as much as a word. The stash in the spare bedroom was slowly decreasing and the money in the floor safe was building up. They were both quietly confident that they could shift the rest of the gear and have enough to stay out of the game for a while. Or resupply and carry on. Both talked about the idea of quitting the gig but the money had been easy today with very little effort and when it came to weighing up the pros and cons at the key moment, all the raids, the hassle and the burns faded away in comparison to the days they made four figures of cold cash from the comfort of their living room without even have to turn off the games console. Mark could feel his eyes becoming heavier and heavier. A strand of hair had fallen down into his left eye but from his recl
ined position, propped up on one elbow, he couldn't seem to muster the effort to free a hand to remedy the situation. From behind him on the couch, there was a coughing fit that slowly abated before the joint materialised over his shoulder.

  'What time is it Mark?'

  'No idea man. Gotta be gone midnight.'

  He took the joint and held it without smoking. Unusually, Mark had overindulged to an extreme that was only usually seen with the likes of Deek. It had been the endless flow of customers in and out all day. One straight after the other, all bearing cash and snacks. All spending a little while in their company, being sociable. All sampling the wares they had just purchased with the happy retailers.

  'Here, Deek?'

  'Hmmmm?'

  'You know what our problem is?'

  There was no reply from the couch but Mark knew he was listening. In fact, without even turning round, he knew that Deek would have moved from his sideways position and adopted the “Let it alone Mark, I'm just resting my eyes” pose of flat on his back with his head propped on the end, the lengthy legs well over the other side and his hands clasped delicately over his stomach. This was the final stage his mate went through before succumbing to sleep and passing out properly but it usually took a good quarter of an hour before he'd stop responding.

  'Our problem, my lanky amigo, is that we're too nice.'

  The slow exhalation from behind Mark made him roll over from one elbow to the other so he was facing away from the TV and towards Deek. Sure enough, he was in the exact position he had expected with his eyes shut. When he replied there wasn't as much as a hint of movement in any other part of his body other than the mouth.