Last Orders (a Gus Dury crime thriller) (4 page)

* * * *

My feelings about being this deep in the heart of Leith
were conflicted. I'd grown up here, but without the store of happy memories
most people associate with childhood. Every street still hugged me like a
returning son, I loved the place, I just couldn't bear being here for long.

Leith was changing, the old bricks and mortar buildings
crumbling to decay and being ripped down. In their stead came the chrome and
glass wank-itechture that was infesting the entire city. Most of the flats they
flung up when money was cheap were unsaleable now but it didn't seem to stop
them. Ever the eye to the main chance, or ever hopeful, I couldn't decide
which.

I came off Commercial Street and took myself onto
Lindsay Street. Fitz had given me the details of a midwife who worked out of
Leith Mount. He didn't know her, or even of her. All he had was a name on a
computer screen and a few details, some of which listed Caroline Urquhart as
one of her patients.

There was a car park for the practice, I took a look for
the white Micra that belonged to Janice Dawes, the midwife I was about to
doorstep. Fitz had supplied the reg-number for her car so it was a simple
matter of waiting for her to show. They were always on the go, these midwives,
so with any luck I wouldn't have to wait long.

I found the car in the staff-parking bays and stationed
myself under the overhang of the roof. I was sparking up a Silkie when the door
to the practice wheezed open. It was an Asian woman, heavily-gone, and a doting
husband holding the door for her. I couldn't halt the smile I had for them. Did
I still want some of what they had? I didn't doubt it, but I knew that boat had
sailed without me on it a long time ago.

I was on my fourth or fifth Silkie when the sound of
comfortable shoes squelching on wet tarmac came towards me. It was a squat woman,
not exactly heavy but not exactly doing the Dukan Diet either. She had that
hard-won look, the one that gets some women tagged as
pushy
, or as we
were prone to say in this neighbourhood,
not backwards at coming forwards
.

I watched her wrestle a bag into the passenger seat of
her car and start to make her way round to the driver's door. She was opening
up as I leaned over the roof.

'Hello, Janice is it?'

She thinned eyes. 'Yes.'

I tried a smile, for all the good it would do me. 'I was
wondering if I might have a word with you.'

The aperture of her eyes returned to normal. She pulled
her chin back into her neck, 'Do I know you?'

'No. I don't think so ...' I looked up to the heavens,
tried to inveigh that familiar Scots expression of disgust for the weather. 'Looks
like rain.'

I knew she'd caught me indicating the interior of the
car, that's probably why she flicked the central-locking and walked round to my
side of the vehicle.

'I'm not carrying any drugs, if that's what you're after.'
Her tone was sharp, the look in her eyes nothing short of fierce. I pitied the
poor junkie that would try jumping her.

I tried to laugh off the inference, even if it had been
a particularly low blow to take. 'You have me all wrong; look, I really do need
to have a talk with you ... about one of your patients.'

She looked perplexed now. The tight bun her hair was
tied in seemed to grip her features into a more angular slant. 'What on earth
are you on about?'

'Caroline Urquhart ...' I let the name hang between us
like gunshot.

'Caroline ... Are you a relation?'

I'd tried and failed with that tack before. 'No. I'm
employed by her father.'

'Her father ... she never mentioned any family.'

I could see I had her interest now; I waved a hand
towards the car, held it out. 'That's a spit of rain ...'

I sensed cogs turning behind those steel-grey eyes of
hers. She looked at me, then quickly back to the door of the practice she'd come
out of. I could sense some concern for Caroline but I could also sense a huge
dose of uncertainty for what the hell I was all about.

I stepped towards her, ramped it up. 'Look, I don't care
what you think of me, but that girl and her baby need help; now either you're
going to be the one to help her or we're relying on someone else out there
being a very good Samaritan.'

She fiddled with the keys in her hand. She looked at me,
in the eye, then averted her gaze towards the ground. A sigh, 'I haven't seen
her in weeks.'

'How many?'

'Two, three ... maybe a bit longer. She just vanished
... I was very worried because she was in a bit of an emotional state.'

'How do you mean?'

'She was alone, apart from that boy, and she said she
didn't plan to keep the child. She'd asked me about adoption straight away.'

'She had a boyfriend?'

The nurse's top lip twitched, she looked out to the
medical practice again. 'I don't know, just a young lad. He didn't have a job,
anyway. I think he was wary of Caroline coming to the hospital for some reason.
The officialdom, the forms and so on ... they were both terrified of them.'

'And that worried you?'

The midwife tightened her brows and drew a deep breath, 'Yes,
of course. She's due any day now, you realise.'

'
What
?'

'Yes. Very soon. I have to admit, I've been beyond
worried for her ... what did you say your name was?'

I steered her back on course. 'Does it matter? ... Look,
you must have an address for her?'

'A place down in the flats. I went there a few times but
it's since been boarded up. I don't think anyone's living there. Do you think
it was a squat, maybe?'

I nodded. 'Yeah, more than likely.'

The midwife started to tug at the sleeve of her jacket,
she looked nervy now. I could see her demanding I report to Social Work with
her if I gave her any more room for manoeuvre.

'Look, I really can't tell you any more,' she said.

I made to move, put my hands in my pockets. 'Just one
more thing ... let me have the address and I'll be on my way.'

* * * *

At one time, I'd taken to schlepping up Calton Hill to
sit on a bench and watch the world go by. I admit it, I'd been known to take
the odd tin or two along. On any given day, rain or shine, you could be
guaranteed a host of tourists and locals alike. They were a distraction, but
there was a way of avoiding them. If you got within spitting-distance of the
National Monument you were screwed — and likely to be handed a camera, asked to
take a photograph for someone — but there was a bench overlooking the Old Town
that nobody went near.

So, I'd sit there, just clocking the sky and the
concrete smear that was the city beneath. I'd become detached, near
alpha-state; and that wasn't the tins.

It all went tits up for me when they started knocking
the shit out of the place to develop a site next to the Cooncil offices. There
was talk of turfing people out their homes with compulsory purchase orders. A
Save Our Old Town campaign got going. It was Capitalism gone mad and I couldn't
get my head around it. To say it soured the view was putting it mildly.

I left the bench alone when the diggers went in. The
Scottish Government was putting a stop to cheap tins anyway, so that was gonna
hit my recreational skite right on the head.

As I reached Leith's Banana Flats I wondered what the
view was like from up there. That was the thing with Edinburgh, the scene was
forever changing. You just never knew what was round the next corner. You
thought you knew the place and then it surprised you with the news that,
actually, you didn't know it at all.

The midwife had given me an address for a flat that was
on a street I'd never known existed, and I grew up in Leith. When my brother
and I were young enough to go bikes we played boneshaker over the cobbles. I
couldn't see any kids nowadays doing that, unless you could get it on the
Nintendo Wii.

The address was at the back of a winding row of
properties that the builders had been slap-happy with. It looked like an
Airfix-kit scheme. There were tenements in the city standing the test of
centuries but these boxy hovels looked to have passed their shelf-life about
twenty years ago. The residents obviously agreed, ripping apart the ones that
had already been burned out and chucking their charred contents on the street.

The walls were covered in graffiti. Tagging, mainly. You
get your school of thought that this kinda thing ruins an area; me, I say, how
much worse can they make it? Scrubbing it off's only turd polishing.

I took to a stair that smelled of piss. Even with all
the windows panned in, the piss was still rank enough to make me want to chuck.
I stuck my face behind my jacket and waded through the detritus of aerosols,
needles and White Lightning bottles. The place I wanted was the last in the
row; I wondered if it was truly the end of the road.

I could see why the nurse would think nobody lived here.
I wouldn't — and I'm not the one stopping at The Balmoral. I pressed on the
door's windowpane; there was no give, it wasn't opening up. As I looked in the
letter box, a blast of damp hit me but I also detected some movement.

'Probably bloody rats ...'

I banged on the door.

Nothing.

Tried again on the windowpane.

A clang this time. Like a door closing.

I hollered in the letterbox, 'Caroline, is that you? My
name's Gus, Gus Dury, your father asked me to find you.'

I put my ear to the slot.

There was no movement anymore. The place was grave-still
— too still — I sensed there was someone in there. I toyed with the idea of
putting my foot to the door when, suddenly, a whoosh of stale air came at me as
the door's windowpane came through.

I caught a glance of a pot in flight.

I fell back.

My back smacked off the concrete landing just as I saw a
blur of shaved head loom over me and cosh me across the face with a heavy fist.

Next thing I saw was the dancing canaries.

* * * *

'Hello, can you hear me? Hello ... hello.'

My head felt like Chewbacca had taken a dump in there. I
was still on my back as I opened my eyes to find a young boy looming over me
with dark panda eyes.

'Can you hear me?' His Converse All-Stars slapped at the
landing as he padded about my supine form.

'Yeah. Just, maybe lower the volume.' I turned my gaze
away, leaned up on one arm and caught sight of the pot that had come through
the window. I kicked out at it, sent it skidding down the landing.

The lad spoke, 'Are you okay? Can you move?'

I tried to steady myself but everything was spinning. 'I
think so.'

'Would you like to come inside?'

'What?' I felt weary. 'Did you chuck the pot?'

He shook his head, theatrically. 'Oh, God, no ...' He
leaned over and tried to help me to my feet.

My knees caved. I stumbled a little, then found some
balance. I leaned into the lad and headed through the door. He sat me on an old
crate, an orange velour cushion the only concession to comfort.

The lad spoke. 'I don't know who that was chucking the
pot ... they come and go, you know. He was edgy, must have been on the run or
something.'

He wasn't the only one. 'And who are you?' I rubbed at
my head, checked my fingertips. There was a line of blood. I felt beyond my
hairline, the damage seemed minimal.

'I'm Craig. I was staying here, for a bit. I just came
back to collect a few things.'

I knew the accent wasn't local, but I couldn't place it.
If Ayrshire was like a condensed version of Glasgow then I could be onto
something.

'Are you with Caroline?' I said.

Craig brought me a wet cloth, said, 'There's no ice.
Sorry.'

I nearly laughed. 'I wouldn't have expected it. You've
not much of anything.'

He gripped his palms together, looked at the floor. 'It's
a squat ... what do you expect?'

I could feel some semblance of normalcy returning. At
least the brighter lights had gone out, although a few dark motes still crossed
my eyes.

'So ... Caroline?'

He turned away, 'How do you know her?'

I ran the wet towel over the back of my neck and tried
to stand. I'd regained some balance, at least the room had stopped swaying. 'What
does that matter? Look, she's pregnant and about to give birth, she should be
in hospital.'

Craig's slightly-camp demeanour vanished in a second; he
turned, tried to rush past me, but I found just enough strength to grab his
arm.

He gasped, 'Let go of me.'

I felt breathless, dizzy. The sudden exertion was a step
too far.

'Oh, fuck.'

Craig shrieked, 'Jesus you're bleeding hard.'

The pain shot through me, head to toe, seemed to touch
every fibre of my being. This time there was no stopping my guts turning over.
I chucked on the floor.

'I think you should have your head looked at ...'

'You're not the first person to tell me that, Craig.'

My stomach tightened again, I retched again. I was
toppling onto one knee as Craig reached out for me.

'I think you're the one that needs the hospital,' he
said.

I looked up, caught his eyes. 'Trust me ... Caroline
needs it more.'

Something sparked in him and I had it down as humanity.
If this was the bad influence my minister employer had spoken about then he
needed to go back to his Bible and check his facts.

'Craig, please, take me to Caroline ... before it's too
late.'

* * * *

We went from a squat to a flea-pit one-bedroom flat in
Gorgie. It was an old tenement that had been sub-divided so many times the
bathroom was in a hall cupboard and the kitchen squashed along one wall of the
living room. The heavy hardwood doors and exposed floorboards added a false air
of faded grandeur to the place that a few years ago must have been close to the
condemned list. TV's property porn had a lot to answer for, they'd be reselling
us avocado sinks as trendy must-haves soon enough.