“Busy watching porn in the pub?”
“Why would you say that?”
Norrie knew he had the man’s attention. He could see his agitation. He was enjoying this. “I saw it through the window.”
“Like to watch, do you?”
“I’ve made a career from observation.”
“It would be a bad career choice for you to continue this conversation.”
“Listen, I’m an old friend of John Arbogast’s and I’m going to have to ask you to give me that laptop.”
The man started to laugh, “You’ll be wanting me to pay for your taxi home as well you daft old goat.”
“I had a word with your friend, Annabelle, last night. I know about the video files.” He snatched at the laptop and dragged it across the table, the far edge scraping off the wooden surface, “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” The laptop was showing the home page of Newsnational when he first looked, “Are you one of those cyber nats? A nasty bunch I’m told.”
“Did you read that in the paper?”
“It’s not true what they say. You sometimes can judge a book by its cover, and you look like trouble to me.”
The man reached under the table and switched off the power. The laptop screen went blank after a few seconds.
“The computer is like you, old and knackered. If it’s not connected to the mains it doesn’t work. In other words the show is over.”
“I’m keeping this laptop.”
“No you’re not,” Norrie watched as the man leaned over and threw the contents of a pint over his crotch. Norrie flinched and in that moment Ian took back the laptop, “There you go old fella; I’ll see you later.”
The man ran, laptop in hand, and by the time Norrie had got out on the street his prey was nowhere to be seen. A passing wag asked him if he had ‘pished himself’ but Norrie wasn’t laughing. He went back into the pub and asked the barman if he had recognised the man he was sitting with, ‘Oh aye, that’s Ian,’ but he couldn’t remember his surname, only that he was a local and a regular.
That night Norrie paid a second visit to Annabelle Strachan.
***
James John Arbogast. He read the text again and then rang Chris back.
“Are you sure that’s right?”
“That’s what the computer says. I’ve no reason to doubt it. Is he a relation of yours?”
“I don’t know,” Arbogast was confused. A thought was brewing but he couldn’t bring himself to accept the reality, “What address do we have for the car?”
“He’s not a local. Says he’s living somewhere in the Lake District. Kendal, I think. Do you want me to send that over too?”
“Ideal.”
Sitting back in his seat he watched as his mother stared out of the window and wondered what she had been up to all these years, “Were you two in touch and you didn’t mention it? Why didn’t you say something?”
He hadn’t realised he was speaking out loud. A hand on his shoulder made him jump. It was Janine, the ward nurse.
“Mister Arbogast, you’ll have to keep the noise down. You’re upsetting the patients and their families. There are young children here.”
“The man that was here earlier,” His eyes were wild; they made Janine feel uneasy. “How long’s he been coming here; what does he call himself?”
“If you’ll come with me perhaps we could discuss this somewhere more private. It’ll give you time to calm down.”
“I’ve not time for that. What was he called? I need you to tell me. Please.”
“He’s a friend of your mother’s – James Johnson; he’s been coming here for years. In fact he’s here more often that you are. I suppose they must have been close.”
“You have no idea. And you’re sure that is the name he uses, James Johnson?”
Arbogast’s phone vibrated in his suit pocket. Chris had sent over the address: 234 Evesham Road, Kendal, Lake District, LA8 7RU.
“Mr Arbogast are you OK? You look quite pale.”
“Yes, I’m fine. Look, I’m sorry if I was out of line. I’ve had a tough week and I’ve just been given some unexpected news.”
“I hope everything’s OK.”
“In a manner of speaking I suppose you could say it is; my father’s come back from the dead.”
Back on Espedair Street, Norrie Smith could see that Annabelle Strachan was home. He arrived at the flat at the same time as a neighbour, and shouted after her to hold the door.
“I’m a friend of Annabelle’s. Is it OK to go up?”
He knocked on her door and stood to the right so that she wouldn’t be able to see who it was through the peep hole. The door opened and he could see her peer out. He pushed on the door and walked in.
“We need to talk.”
“You can’t just barge in like this. It’s illegal.”
“Phone the Police then,” he held up his mobile, “Feel free to use my phone. Let’s get them round and we can all have a good chat. What do you think?”
“What do you want?”
“Who did you meet earlier?”
“What do you mean? I didn’t meet anyone?”
“I saw you talking to this man in the Granary Bar,” he held up the phone which showed the two of them sat in the pub.
“Have you been following me you sick—”
“—I don’t have time for this, Annabelle. That man had the video; I saw the pair of you watching it in public. You make me sick. John’s a good friend; he deserves better than this.”
“You followed me?”
“I don’t trust you. Turns out I’m bang on the money with that one. Tell me who the man is and I’ll go away.”
“I won’t. You can’t make me.”
“You’ll fucking tell me,” Norrie shouted, globs of spittle escaping with the fury of every syllable, “Or I will phone the Police right now. Do you think your employers will want to keep you on when they find out you’ve been trying to smear Policemen with sordid little sex videos? Do you think that’s the image they want to portray? You’ll have a job finding new work with a reputation like that won’t you? It would make quite a good story too. I know a lot of people that work in the tabloids who would lap this up, so cut the crap and tell me who this guy is.”
“His name’s Ian.”
“Ian who?”
“Ian Wark. He edits a website I designed for him. He runs Newsnational.”
Norrie’s mind cut back to the pub. That was the website he had been looking at when he grabbed the laptop.
“You gave the video to a journalist – why?”
“He said he needed it. We’re together. Well we have been on and off. Mostly off of late. I thought this might help.”
“Get back in his good books?”
“Yes,” Annabelle looked beaten. She was leaning back against the hall wall and couldn’t look Norrie in the eye.
“He’s been suspended you know.”
“Because of the video?”
“No, your boyfriend has been spreading gossip about a number of my former colleagues at Police Scotland.”
“Former colleagues?”
“Never mind that; I’d advise you to watch your step. The Police are likely to be knocking on your door any day now. They don’t take kindly to having their own guys dragged through the mud. Stay offline.”
“Don’t come back here.”
“You had better hope I don’t see the need to come back.”
The door slammed as he left. Annabelle stood for what felt like an eternity and wondered how she was going to get herself out of what was fast becoming an uncontrollable me
31
Arbogast sat in the snug of the Scotia bar with a folded newspaper and a pint of IPA. He had been staring blankly into space for around an hour, taking short sips from time to time. His head felt heavy. There was pressure building above his nose and a tingling in his forehead. His sense of disappointment was absolute. When he had arrived the bar was practically empty. It was eight o’c
lock now and the mid week band was setting up in the lounge. The pub had filled up and groups of post work bar flies were eyeing the extra seats around him, ‘Anyone sitting there, mate?’, ‘There’s someone due. My friends are coming.’ They would back off unconvinced. Arbogast knew it was a matter of time before he would need to move, or end up suffering the brunt of someone else’s banter.
With suspension came a sense of being surplus to requirements. He was technically involved in shaping what should be the biggest case of his life and yet here he was cast out of Major Crime, rubbing shoulders with Jake Rake and the Bad Boys, an eager if unpleasant sounding Johnny Cash tribute act. Rosalind posed another problem. They had clearly been having problems for some time but the idea of being a father changed things. He had been wrong to push her away; he knew he had to tell her, the thing was when? She wouldn’t be happy at the moment either, and politically speaking this row couldn’t have come at a worse time. Quite how Donald managed to survive this unscathed he couldn’t work out. He ordered another pint. How many was that? Four maybe, no it must be nearer six. I should go home. Then he became aware of people around him.
“Are you alright there?”
“Fuck off and leave me alone,” he was waving his hands to ward off the stranger.
“You were sleeping there, shouting in your sleep.”
“Who are you?”
“We’ve been sat here for an hour. You’re lucky you haven’t been thrown out. If you were sitting at the bar you would have been.”
“No, you’re not listening. Who are you? What is this?”
“Do you even know where you are?”
“Of course I do. It’s the Clutha.”
All he could hear now was laughter. He tried to stand up but the booth he was in was tightly packed. When he stood up his thighs caught on the bottom of the table, lifting it up and pushing it towards the window. Glasses toppled over and drink swept down across the table and onto the laps of what appeared to be four men. There was a crash followed by a lot of shouting. He was promptly ejected from the pub. Landing on his arse, he sat on the pavement, the skin on his hands bloodied after scraping along the tarmac. The shock of being moved had upset his stomach. He expected to burp but when he did he vomited down his front. He could hear people muttering. Looking up he saw two middle-aged women, watching him with disgust.
“Look at the state of you.”
“Try looking in the mirror yourself sometime, love. The hangover will pass but you’ll always be an ugly fucker.”
He had picked himself up and was trying to walk in a straight line, before he realised he was going the wrong way. Turning himself around he felt he was starting to sober up. I’ve got to get home, back to Rose. The woman he’d insulted kicked him in the shin as he walked past, her cigarette butt bouncing off the back of his head as she flicked it at her slow moving target. He raised his left hand with middle finger outstretched as he lumbered on.
“Fuck you too.”
About an hour later Arbogast arrived back at the flat on Lyndoch Place. For years he had rented it, but when Rose moved in she had the idea of buying; it was in her name and he had nowhere to call home. He tried the keys but the locks had been changed. Cursing, he punched the metal door entry system, tearing more skin from his knuckles. Idiot. He put his finger on the buzzer and kept it there. Rosalind answered.
“OK, who is this – do you know what time it is?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Is that you, John? I told you to stay away. Given the headlines today I would’ve thought that would be obvious.”
“I need to see you, Rose. I’ve got a plan.”
“There have been reporters at this door all day. You’re mad to come here, especially if you’re hammered.”
“I’ve had a drink, but I’m not drunk.”
“I can hear it in your voice.”
“You always say that.”
“It’s always true. Look, you can come up, have a coffee, but you’re not staying. OK?”
“Fine.”
Going back through the front door Arbogast expected the flat to have been transformed, but it was just the same, more or less. He stood in the hall staring at the walls for a while.
“Are you alright, John?”
“There’s something different.”
“It’s exactly the same.”
“No its,” He scanned the hall with his index finger, “The picture’s missing.” He could see that there was a lighter patch on the hall wall. A print he had bought at the modern art gallery of an art deco camel. He could never remember the artist’s name.
“It fell off.”
“Fell off my arse. You never liked that picture.”
“It was too old.”
“It was art.”
“I didn’t like it, and you don’t live here, so I thought what the hell.” She walked into the spare room and came back out holding the small, oak framed print.
“Here you go, have it; stick it wherever you like.”
“I’ve nowhere to put it.”
“Did you come here to talk about home decoration or did you actually have something to say. You look terrible and what’s that smell?”
Arbogast stood in silence, clutching the painting to his chest. This hadn’t gone the way he had planned. He had fine tuned the conversation in his head 20 times before he got to the front door. But then he’d gone off on an art hunt and he was back at square one.
“It’s just that—”
“—it’s just that what?”
“I want us to have the baby.”
Rosalind walked away, into the living room. He followed but she stood with her back to him, looking out onto the street. The curtains were open and lamp post outside cast an orange glow on her face.
“It’s too late for that, John.”
“We talked about this.”
“It’s in the past. I’m not sure I even want to.”
“But you’ve always said this was your dream.”
“That was before I got the job.”
“Well you’re not there now are you?”
“This is not a conversation I’m having right now. Sorry.”
Arbogast was getting angry, his plan wasn’t panning out, “Is it even mine? Maybe that online site had it right; maybe it is Graeme Donald’s?”
“You know I would never do that. We’re not all living in the gutter. We don’t all have fucking video libraries of our top ten conquests.”
“You’re just doing this to spite me,” he was shouting now and Rosalind gestured to keep the noise down.
“You’re going to keep it, and what’s more, I’m going to be able to see our child.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing yet.” She knew that wasn’t true, but she could see John was losing the plot. Rosalind just wanted him to calm down and leave.
“You can’t possibly be thinking of getting rid of it.”
“Rid of ‘it’. Can you hear yourself talking? Look, I’m going to have to ask you to go. It’s been a long day. You’ve had a lot to drink and we can’t speak when you’re like this.”
Arbogast was starting to lose it. She could see the emotion in his eyes and moved back out into the hall. She heard someone outside and opened the door. It was their neighbour, Sharon.
“Hi Rosalind, how are things—”
“—I’m glad you’re there. John’s just leaving.”
John Arbogast stood in the hall, print still in hand. He knew he’d talked himself into a premature departure, “I’ll see you later. But remember this is not just up to you.”
“Sober up, John, and we can talk another time. Be in no doubt, though, that this decision is entirely mine.”
She stood with Sharon and watched as he staggered down the steps. He turned on the landing, determined to have the last word, but by the time he looked up he was met by the cold echo left in the close as the door slammed shut.
32
More than a week had passed and questions w
ere being asked about the investigation’s slow progress. A steady flow of funerals were being held; each one covered in the press, but with decreasing interest as the grim procession of death continued. Graeme Donald had been in contact with the anti-terror department at the Ministry of Defence, but so far they had been unable to pinpoint exactly where the plastic explosives had come from. Officials believed the material might have been part of an order sent by UK PLC to the Libyan government in 2010 as a result of the thawed relations between Britain and Colonel Gaddafi’s regime. In Scotland the move had not been popular, with memories of the Pan Am plane bombing at Lockerbie still deeply entrenched in the public’s psyche. Gaddafi was not a man to be trusted. Ironically his death had led to the liberation of an arms shipment, which would have been stored at one of the many Libyan munitions dumps. Exactly where they had been found was impossible to say. None of the official records had survived and the current government was unable or unwilling to help. How the explosives got back into the country was the question no-one seemed able to answer. Graeme Donald sat back in his chair and tried to think. He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
“Is this a good time?” It was Ian Davidson.
“As good a time as any, what is it?”
“I’ve been thinking about the reports on Ying.”
“Is that right?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to pry into your personal life, but I think we may have uncovered a link to those reports and the bombing.”
The Chief sat forward in his chair, he needed to hear something positive, “And?”
“The website the article appeared on is Newsnational, an online platform for radical nationalists. It’s been particularly active of late with the referendum coming up—”
“—I assume you’re going to get to the point?”
“But we haven’t known who has been writing the material. There are no contact details on the site and Newsnational is registered through a Korean ISP.”
“I still don’t see where this is going.”
“Bear with me. Our IT guys have been doing a bit of digging and we’ve managed to identify the host.” Ian Davidson stopped for dramatic effect but he only succeeded in making his boss angry, “For god’s sake man. Out with it!”
The Nationalist Page 13
