When the Devil Drives

by Christopher Brookmyre

  ‘You managing a wee bite there, son?’ Catherine asked, feigning the tones of a concerned mother worried about her child’s faltering appetite.

  ‘Best crime-scene catering we’ve ever had,’ Beano replied, proffering the plate towards her. ‘They’re giving it away at the kitchen’s back door. Obviously tonight’s corporate gig is off and the chef didn’t want this stuff to go to waste. Beats the usual greasy burger from some dodgy van.’

  Catherine helped herself to a vol-au-vent, and had to concur.

  Beano went back to his conversation with Zoe, comparing notes on how they had spent their last days off and apparently trying to outdo each other in terms of confessing to having no life. Zoe at least had some kind of purpose going on, training for a forthcoming marathon, but she bemoaned how this was the ideal hobby when you had no mates, or at least no mates whose schedules overlapped with your own.

  Beano probably edged it, admitting to having spent an unhealthy number of hours playing video games with his flatmate.

  ‘What makes it worse is that it was the new Mortal Kombat. I think it has worrying implications for my personal growth that I’m still playing essentially the same games as when I was about ten. Graphics are a bit better these days, but nothing else has changed, which is kind of embarrassing. When I was first playing it on my Super Nintendo I thought that by this point in my adult life I’d actually be living Mortal Kombat, some kind of action hero, but naw: there I am, all growed up, a polis on his day off still sitting on the couch mashing buttons.’

  It was an unwelcome reminder of last night’s conversation with Drew, about which she was feeling a little guilty today, not to mention embarrassed. It was that final remark, comparing the game Duncan wanted to the situation she’d been called to deal with: pompous and over-dramatic, essentially ‘my job is so important and I’m the only one who understands what’s real’. Precisely the kind of shit she hadn’t ever wanted to hear coming out of her mouth, the cards she had never wanted to play in her marriage.

  She was worried, though. Something about this bothered her, prodded at her deepest maternal instincts. It wasn’t always about protecting your kids from danger, but about protecting them from the worst that could happen, and that didn’t necessarily mean something happening to them.

  Maybe it was disproportionate, maybe it was irrational, but the fear that filled her mind whenever she thought of her boys playing violent games – even kidding on they were soldiers with their toy guns – was that this would foreshadow a future reality. She was horrified by the prospect of one of them one day hurting somebody. As their mother, there would be the responsibility of knowing she could have stopped whatever had got into their heads. And as their mother, she bore a fear of what it suggested was already inside them as her sons.

  But perhaps worst of all was her knowledge of what they’d be carrying forever once they had done something irreversible.

  ‘Did you say you played violent computer games when you were ten?’ she asked Beano to confirm.

  ‘Yeah. Like I said, graphics weren’t up to much in those days, but according to the press a wee red blob representing blood was going to warp my fragile young mind. Turns out they were right.’

  ‘How?’ Catherine inquired.

  ‘I joined the polis, didn’t I? Must have been mental.’

  Catherine remembered why she seldom sought out Beano for serious insight into anything, and wondered what it ought to be telling her that she had done so today.

  ‘How’d it go with the laird?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Worse than useless. He’s in bits. Huddled in his wee study, surrounded by his creature comforts.’

  She thought back to her final question, one that he gave the very strong impression he had never considered. What colour there remained had drained from his face and Catherine feared for a moment that he was going to be sick. He was a picture of shock, and not a little fear.

  ‘That said, it being good practice to disclose all my observations, I should mention that his creature comforts seem to revolve around the theatre, and that there’s photos of him creeping the boards as a student.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘Probably nothing, but there’s a couple of things I’m reluctant to overlook. One is that Sir Angus is no stranger to stagecraft. He had to give up his dreams a long time ago, but maybe still has the gift for a performance.’

  ‘And what’s the other?’

  ‘That if you wanted somebody killed, the best alibi in the world would be standing right next to the victim when he gets shot.’

  ‘Anyone ever tell you you’re a very cynical person, boss?’ Beano asked.

  ‘Aye. Mother Teresa, when I lifted her for soliciting.’

  He let out a dirty laugh then resumed tucking into his pile of canapés with unseemly alacrity.

  ‘Christ, don’t let DI Geddes see you guzzling like that,’ Zoe told him. ‘It’ll give her another possibility to ask if that’s that why we call you Beano.’

  Catherine smiled. Poor Laura, she had never worked it out and, this being the Glesca Polis, nobody was ever going to tell her.

  Despite a reputation for being outspoken to the point of abrasive, Laura had been surprisingly withdrawn when she first arrived from Edinburgh, but had gradually emerged from her shell over the year or so since. Catherine had initially thought it was to do with getting used to being on a new force in a new city, but gradually deduced it was more to do with what Laura had left behind, and she didn’t mean the job.

  Laura didn’t talk about it explicitly, but there were allusions that Catherine couldn’t fail to pick up on. Suffice to say, Catherine would have given a great deal for half an hour in a locked interview room with Laura’s ex, whoever the bastard was.

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ Beano said through a mouthful of choux pastry.

  Catherine watched Laura march towards them, having emerged from one of the tradesmen’s entrances at the side of the building. She looked both flustered and perturbed, a sight all the more discomfiting for its rarity.

  ‘Something vexes thee?’ Catherine asked, the lighter tone an attempt to offset the fact that Laura looked in genuine fear of a bawling out.

  ‘The numbers don’t add up,’ Laura said.

  ‘What numbers?’

  ‘The RSB junket. We got everybody’s details, didn’t let anyone leave until we had verified ID, addresses, all contact details. We did it exactly as you ordered.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘When I checked the list, there are only thirty-three names on it.’

  ‘How many should there be?’

  ‘There’s thirty-six seats on that mobile gantry, and when I asked the chef he said it was thirty-six covers for dinner.’

  ‘Is there a means of verifying whether thirty-six people actually showed up for dinner, and whether all the seats on the gantry were occupied?’

  ‘That’s what’s “vexing” me, boss,’ Laura said, dropping her voice a little, as though afraid of being overheard. ‘The maître d’ says he had a list of place settings to show everybody where they were sitting. There was one pinned up on display for the guests, but his staff had a copy too, for laying the tables. Not only could he find neither of them, but when he went to print me a fresh copy the file had been deleted from the computer. So, as it turns out, had the finalised list of guests the bank emailed to the castle. Bottom line is, there was a person here last night that somebody on the inside doesn’t want us to know about.’

  Catherine turned to Beano.

  ‘Cynical, you say?’

  Convergence

  Jasmine met Polly for their mutually reluctant drink in a basement bar on Bath Street called Kave. The place was Polly’s suggestion, a regular haunt of hers. It was large and spacious, booths lining the outer walls, sofas tucked into cosy corners, benches and long tables for bigger groups either side of the oval-shaped bar in the centre. The music wasn’t too loud, which would make conversation easier, though that might not
turn out to be a blessing as the evening wore on.

  She found Polly at one of the booths, waving to her from the back of the leather-upholstered horseshoe. Polly needed to gesticulate because Jasmine hadn’t spotted her on the first pass. This was partly because she hadn’t physically seen her in four years and partly because she’d been looking for someone sitting alone. There was another girl sitting at the booth with Polly, her face just as familiar now that Jasmine saw it close up.

  ‘You remember Carol?’ Polly said. ‘Another Canonmills High refugee here in the west.’

  Jasmine placed her now; she had been in her class for French in third year. She gave her a smile and offered to buy them both a drink while she was on her feet. Inside, she was fuming slightly. Polly had called in back-up. What was doubly annoying was that Jasmine had thought about doing the same. She had considered phoning her schoolfriend Megan, who was now a junior doctor at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, but then decided it was a bit off to spring a surprise, not least because Polly hadn’t known Megan very well. Jasmine hadn’t had much to do with Carol at school, but Polly had decided to bring her along, presumably in case she and Jasmine couldn’t find anything much to talk about. In that case, maybe Jasmine should be grateful.

  She told herself to get a grip as she placed her order at the bar. It was a few drinks and a blether, not a peace summit.

  A couple of rounds in, her trepidation was just a slightly awkward memory. She had thought about staying on the mineral water, especially given it was a school night, but as she didn’t have a car to drive anyway she decided she might as well make use of the disinhibiting properties of a few scoops. Whether or not it was the alcohol, Polly and Carol turned out to be easy company.

  Jasmine found herself doing most of the talking early on, as Carol launched into a bit of grilling on the subject of her ‘interesting’ job. They were questions Jasmine was becoming familiar with, and thus more experienced at answering, so she was able to keep it general and, more importantly, keep it light. Everyone became more relaxed and comfortable once they moved on to the common ground of their school years, a subject that proved largely inexhaustible for the remainder of the evening. Jasmine found it pleasant to be able to reminisce about what now seemed simpler, easier days, though at the time they felt anything but. She enjoyed hearing different perspectives upon the same incidents and the same people, sufficient to make Jasmine wonder whether she’d been going around with blinkers and ear-muffs for five years, as so much seemed to have been going on beyond her notice.

  It was interesting to learn a little about what had happened to some of the characters she remembered, but it only served to emphasise the separation she felt from those times and those people. They had once loomed so large in her world; now they were merely names and stories, drifting away on the tide of life and getting smaller as the distance grew. It made her grateful to have cultivated this contact with Polly, grateful too to Polly for bringing Carol, as Jasmine often felt she’d been left a little isolated by the events of recent years. She had a compelling urge to ensure they got together and did this again soon, an impulse not entirely down to the vodka.

  The music had become louder as the evening wore on and the place grew busier. They ended up talking at the tops of their voices to be heard, huddled all the closer in their booth, increasingly oblivious of their surroundings except when going to the bar or the toilets.

  A girl rather purposefully approached their table and for a moment Jasmine thought she might be handing out fliers for a club, but when she got Polly’s attention, she stood up and welcomed her with a hug. The girl slid into the booth next to Polly as she sat down again, perching on the outside edge to indicate she wasn’t joining them for long.

  Polly introduced her as Katrina, her former flatmate. They ran into each other in Kave fairly frequently, so there wasn’t a great deal of catching up. Katrina was just saying hello, as well as informing Polly with an impish grin that there was ‘a guy pure checking you out’.

  ‘Where?’ Polly asked, interested and wary at the same time. There was mischief here, as there always was around this subject, but she couldn’t quite read it.

  ‘We’re over in the alcove,’ Katrina said, gesturing towards a darkened niche at one end of the room where purple drapes and velveteen pouffes were arranged in a way intended to suggest ancient Araby, but conveying more camp than Bedouin. ‘I could see him watching you. Couldnae take his eyes aff, in fact.’

  ‘Where’s he sitting?’ Polly asked.

  ‘At a booth over there,’ she indicated, gesturing with a nod to a spot over her shoulder. ‘Don’t look,’ she added.

  Polly was leaning around anyway, desperate to see.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Seemed quite mature,’ Katrina replied, smirking.

  Polly craned her neck and finally worked out who Katrina meant.

  ‘Ya bitch, he’s pure ancient,’ she said, and they both burst out laughing. ‘Must be in his bloody fifties. Oh, shite, he’s getting up.’

  It was Jasmine’s turn to crane her neck, while Polly and Katrina returned their attention to the table lest they make eye contact. She was too late: she only saw a figure disappear around the curve of the bar, catching a glimpse of the back of a grey-haired head and a long dark coat.

  Jasmine looked to the table where the man had left a half-finished drink.

  ‘Nursing that same pint the whole time as well,’ said Katrina. ‘Stingy bastard.’

  Jasmine faked a laugh, concealing the complete change in her mood. She had quickly triangulated the sight-lines and concluded that the unfinished pint was on precisely the table she’d have chosen if she was surreptitiously surveilling the occupants of this booth.

  He’d been nursing the same drink for a long time, staying in position, not returning to the bar, not going to the toilet and not consuming much alcohol. He had got up and left as soon as he realised he’d been noticed, moving swiftly out of sight, quite possibly leaving the premises, and doing so via the door on the blind side of the bar, from Jasmine’s point of view.

  Pure ancient. In his fifties.

  Suddenly Jasmine wasn’t having fun any more. A big part of her wanted to leave, but she didn’t want to take off at short notice, not when everything had been going so well. Nor did she want to admit defeat and have her evening ruined by this. It was, after all, still possible that the guy had been just some bloke whose date didn’t show, or even some old lech perving on the sight of some young women who were oblivious of his rapt attention. In either instance he might well have bailed in embarrassment when he got caught looking. However, Jasmine’s instincts insisted otherwise.

  She switched to mineral water as a precaution, though she had sobered up very fast anyway. The conversation kept flowing but she felt disconnected from it now, faking responses to conceal that she could only think about the man who might be following her.

  Polly asked if she was getting tired, observing that she hadn’t said much for a while, and she seized the opportunity to make her excuses, citing a long run of early starts.

  Promises and phone numbers were exchanged on the pavement at the top of Kave’s stairs, the trio’s parting proving an extremely protracted affair. Carol seized Jasmine’s mobile at one point, expressing incredulity that she wasn’t using certain social networking utilities, and drunkenly demonstrated how to set up accounts on her phone. She launched several applications that Jasmine didn’t even know the device had, and which she had no intention of launching again once Carol handed it back.

  A black cab was passing with its yellow light on as Polly and Carol began meandering towards Hope Street, trying too hard to look sober as only tipsy people ever do. Jasmine was about to hail it when Polly announced that they were headed to Central Station and asked if she was going that way too.

  Her more cautious instinct told her to grab the wee black bus and get herself delivered to her front door, but the memory of her initial flight from the silver Passat still it
ched. She was on to this guy tonight. In all probability he would have given it up when he was noticed in the bar, but if not, there was a chance she could burn this bastard. She wanted a face.

  Hope Street was very quiet at that time of night, making it impossible for anyone to conduct a foot-follow without being seen. She stole a few backwards glances as they progressed, but the only people visible further back were two older women dressed for a night out. There were other options, however. A group of three girls, moving as slowly as they were, would be easy enough to track from a parallel street. He could skip a block east to Renfield Street and keep pace, stopping at each junction to watch them cross as they made their progress down the hill. Besides, if he had any brains, he’d have worked out where they were heading and would be waiting at Gordon Street to acquire them there, or maybe inside the station itself.

  Polly and Carol said some more goodbyes, then they finally parted company with Jasmine, heading off to the low-level trains that would take them to Uddingston and Hamilton respectively.

  Standing on the concourse all alone, drunks meandering past like malevolent bumblebees, all of a sudden Jasmine didn’t feel so bold about noting anybody’s face. She glanced at the station clock on the departure board: she hadn’t realised it was quite so late. The last trains were leaving, a time of the evening when it was sensible to avoid all eye contact, so scanning strangers to see if they might be the man from the bar was quite definitely contra-indicated.

  She just wanted to get home now, and to make sure she wasn’t followed as she went.

  She got on to the rearmost carriage of the Cathcart Circle train and remained standing by the door, though there were plenty of seats. She didn’t see anybody in her carriage who looked a candidate for the man who’d bailed out of Kave, and she kept her eye on the platform, watching who else was getting on further forward. The carriage got busier in the last couple of minutes before departure, and her view further down the platform was obscured as an arriving train disgorged a surprising number of passengers presumably heading for the clubs or for nightshifts.