Set in Darkness (21 page)

He’d go mad if he stayed in the flat. He wiped the foam from his face and put his shirt back on, grabbed his jacket and was out. Walked the streets, looking for people to talk to, then into the bookies for half an hour, warming himself by the heater, pretending to study form. They knew him in there: highly unlikely he’d place a bet, but he sometimes did, always losing. When the lunchtime paper came in, he took a look. Page three, there was a story about a sexual assault. He read it closely. Nineteen-year-old student, grabbed in the Commonwealth Pool car park. Jerry flung the paper down and headed out to find a phone box.

He had Nic’s office number in his pocket, called him there sometimes when he was bored, holding the receiver to the stereo so Nic could hear some song they used to dance to. He got the receptionist and asked for Mr Hughes.

‘Nic, man, it’s Jerry.’

‘Hiya, pal. What can I do you for?’

‘Just saw the paper. There was a student attacked last night.’

‘The world’s a terrible place.’

‘Tell me it wasn’t you.’

A nervous laugh. ‘That’s a sick kind of joke, Jerry.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘Where are you? Got any mates
listening in
?’

The way he said it made Jerry stop. Nic was telling him something, telling him someone could be listening in – maybe the receptionist.

‘I’ll talk to you later,’ Nic said.

‘Listen, man, I’m sorry—’ But the phone was dead.

Jerry was shaking when he left the phone box. Jogged all the way home, fixed another joint. Put the TV on and sat there, trying to get his heartbeat down. Safer here; wasn’t anything could touch him here. This was the only place to be.

Until Jayne got home.

Siobhan Clarke had asked Register House to run a search for Chris Mackie’s birth certificate. She’d also begun asking around about Mackie, concentrating on Grassmarket and the Cowgate, but spreading out to take in the Meadows, Princes Street and Hunter Square.

But this Thursday morning she sat in a doctor’s waiting room, surrounded by pale and sickly sufferers, until her name was called and she could put aside the women’s magazine with its alien articles on cookery, clothes and kids.

Where, she wondered, was the magazine for her, one that concentrated on Hibs FC, hashed relationships and homicide?

Dr Talbot was in his mid-fifties and wore a weary smile below his half-moon glasses. He already had Chris Mackie’s medical records laid out on his desk, but checked that Clarke’s own paperwork – death certificate; authorisation – was in order before beckoning for her to move her chair in towards the desk.

It took her a couple of minutes to substantiate that the records only went back as far as 1980. When Mackie had registered with the surgery, he’d given a previous address in London and had stated that his records were held by a Dr Mason in Crouch End. But a letter from Dr Talbot to Dr Mason’s address had been returned ‘No Such Street’.

‘You didn’t pursue this?’ Clarke asked.

‘I’m a doctor, not a detective.’

Mackie’s Edinburgh address was the hostel. Date of birth was different from that on Drew’s filing-card. Clarke had the uneasy feeling that Mackie had laid a false trail all
the way along. She went back to the records. Once or twice a year he’d attended the surgery, usually with some minor complaint: a facial cut turned septic; influenza; a boil requiring to be lanced.

‘He was in pretty good health, considering his circumstances,’ Dr Talbot said. ‘I don’t think he drank or smoked, which helped.’

‘Drugs?’

The doctor shook his head.

‘Is that unusual in someone who’s homeless?’

‘I’ve known people with stronger constitutions than Mr Mackie.’

‘Yes, but someone homeless, not doing drink or drugs . . . ?’

‘I’m no expert.’

‘But in your opinion . . . ?’

‘In my opinion, Mr Mackie gave me very little trouble.’

‘Thank you, Dr Talbot.’

She left the surgery and headed for the Department of Social Security office, where a Miss Stanley sat her down in a lifeless cubicle usually reserved for claimant interviews.

‘Looks like he didn’t have a National Insurance number,’ she said, going through the file. ‘We had to issue an emergency one at the start.’

‘When was this?’

It was 1980, of course: the year of Christopher Mackie’s invention.

‘I wasn’t here at the time, but there are some notes from whoever it was interviewed him initially.’ Miss Stanley read from these. ‘“Filthy, not sure of where he is, no NI number or tax reference.” Previous address is given as London.’

Clarke dutifully jotted it all down.

‘Does it answer your questions?’

‘Pretty much,’ she admitted. The night he’d died, that was as close to ‘Chris Mackie’ as she was going to get.
Since then she’d been moving away from him, because he didn’t exist. He was a figment, imagined by someone with something to hide.

The who and what she might never discover.

Because Mackie had been clever. Everyone else had said he kept himself clean, but for the DSS he’d camouflaged himself with filth. Why? Because it made his act the more believable: bumbling, forgetful, unhelpful. The sort of person a hard-pressed official would want rid of pronto. No NI number? Never mind, issue an emergency one. Vague address in London? Fine, leave it be. Just sign your name to his claim and get him out of the cubicle.

A call on her mobile to Register House confirmed that there was no birth record of a Christopher Mackie on the date she’d given. She could try the other date she had, or spread the net wider, ask Register House in London . . . But she knew she was chasing shadows. She sat in a cramped café, drinking her drink, staring into space, and wondered if it was time to write up her report and call an end to the hunt.

She could think of half a dozen reasons for doing so.

And just four hundred thousand for not.

Back at her desk, she found over a dozen messages waiting for her. A couple of the names she recognised: local journalists. They’d tried calling three times apiece. She screwed shut her eyes and mouthed a word her grandmother would have clapped her ear for using. Then she headed downstairs to the Coms Room, knowing someone there would have the latest edition of the
News
. Front page: TRAGIC MYSTERY OF MILLIONAIRE TRAMP. As they didn’t have a photograph of Mackie, they’d opted for one of the spot where he’d jumped. There wasn’t much to the piece: well-known face around city centre . . . bank account well into six figures . . . police trying to establish who might have ‘a claim on the cash’.

Siobhan Clarke’s worst nightmare.

When she got upstairs, her phone was ringing again. Hi-Ho Silvers came across the floor on his knees, hands held in mock prayer.

‘I’m his love child,’ he said. ‘Give me a DNA test, but for God’s sake give me the dosh!’

Laughter in the CID suite. ‘It’s for yoo-ou,’ someone else said, pointing to her phone. Every nutter and chancer in the kingdom would be getting ready. They’d call 999 or Fettes, and to get them off the line, someone would eventually admit that it was a St Leonard’s matter.

They all belonged to Siobhan now. They were her children.

So she turned on her heels and left, ignoring the pleas from behind her.

And headed back on to the streets, finding new people to ask about Mackie. She knew she had to be quick: news travelled. Soon they’d all claim to have known him, to have been his best pal, his nephew, his executor. The street people knew her now, called her ‘doll’ and ‘hen’. One old man had even christened her ‘Diana, the Huntress’. She was wise to some of the younger beggars, too; not the ones who sold the
Big Issue
, but the ones who sat in doorways, blankets around them. She’d been sheltering from a downpour when one had come into Thin’s Bookshop, blanket discarded and a mobile phone to his ear, complaining because his taxi hadn’t turned up. He’d seen her, recognised her, but kept the diatribe going.

The foot of the Mound was quiet. Two young guys with ponytails and cross-breeds; the dogs licking themselves while their owners shared a can of headnip.

‘Don’t know the guy, sorry. Got a fag on you?’

She had learned to carry a packet with her, offered them each a cigarette, smiling when they took two. Then it was back up the Mound. John Rebus had told her something: the steep hill had been constructed from New Town rubble. The man whose idea it had been had owned a business at the top. Construction had meant the
demolition of his shop. John Rebus hadn’t found the story amusing; he’d told her it was a lesson.

‘In what?’ she’d asked.

‘Scots history,’ he’d replied, failing to explain.

She wondered now if it had been a reference to independence, to self-made, self-destructing schemes. It did seem to amuse him that, when pushed, she would defend independence. He wound her up, telling her it was a trick and she was an English spy, sent to undermine the process. Then he’d call her a ‘New Scot’, a ‘settler’. She never knew when he was being serious. People in Edinburgh were like that: obtuse, thrawn. Sometimes she thought he was flirting, that the jibes and jokes were part of some mating ritual made all the more complex because it consisted of baiting the subject rather than wooing them.

She’d known John Rebus for several years now, and still they weren’t close friends. Rebus, so far as she could tell, saw none of his colleagues outside work hours, apart from when she invited him to Hibs matches. His only hobby was drinking, and he tended to indulge where few women did, his chosen pubs museum pieces in a gallery marked prehistoric.

He’d been living on and off for years with Dr Patience Aitken, but that seemed to be over, not that he was saying anything about it. At first she’d thought him shy, awkward, but now she wasn’t so sure. It seemed more like a strategy, a wilfulness. She couldn’t imagine him joining a singles club the way Derek Linford had done. Linford . . . another of her little mistakes. She hadn’t spoken to him since The Dome. He’d left precisely one message on her answerphone: ‘Hope you’ve got over whatever it was.’ As if it was her fault! She’d almost called him back, forced an apology, but maybe that was his game: get her to make the move; contact of any kind the prelude to a rematch.

Maybe there was method in John Rebus’s madness. Certainly there was a lot to be said for quiet nights in, a
video rental, the gin, and a box of Pringle’s. Not trying to impress anyone; putting on some music and dancing by yourself. At parties and in clubs there was always that self-consciousness, that sense of being watched and graded by anonymous eyes.

But next morning at the office it would be: ‘What did you get up to last night then?’ Asked innocently enough, but she never felt comfortable saying more than, ‘Not much, how about you?’ Because to utter the word alone implied that you were lonely.

Or available. Or had something to hide.

Hunter Square was empty save for a tourist couple poring over a map. The coffee she’d drunk was asking permission to leave, so she headed for the public toilet. When she came out of her cubicle, a woman was standing by the sinks, hunting through a series of carrier bags. Bag lady was an American term, but it suddenly seemed right. The woman’s padded jacket was grubby, the stitching loose at the neck and shoulders. Her hair was short and greasy, cheeks red from exposure. She was talking to herself as she found what she’d been looking for: a half-eaten burger, still in its greaseproof wrapper. The woman held the comestible under the hand-dryer and let hot air play on it, turning it in her fingers. Clarke watched in fascination, unsure whether to be appalled or impressed. The woman knew she was being watched, but stuck to her task. When the dryer had finished its cycle, she pushed it on again with her finger. Then she spoke.

‘Nosy little beggar, aren’t you?’ She glanced towards Clarke. ‘You laughing at me?’

‘“Beggar”,’ Clarke quoted.

The woman snorted. ‘Easy amused then. And I’m no beggar, by the way.’

Clarke took a step forward. ‘Wouldn’t it heat up quicker if you opened it?’

‘Eh?’

‘Heat the inside rather than the outside.’

‘You saying I’m cack-handed?’

‘No, I just . . .’

‘I mean, you’re the world expert, are you? Lucky for me you just happened to be passing. Got fifty pence on you?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

The woman snorted again. ‘I make the jokes around here.’ She took an exploratory bite of the burger, spoke with her mouth full.

‘I didn’t catch that,’ Clarke said.

The woman swallowed. ‘I was asking if you were a lesbian. Men who hang around toilets are poofs, aren’t they?’

‘You’re hanging around a toilet.’

‘I’m no lesbian, by the way.’ She took another bite.

‘Ever come across a guy called Mackie? Chris Mackie?’

‘Who’s asking?’

Clarke produced her warrant card. ‘You know Chris is dead?’

The woman stopped chewing. Tried swallowing but couldn’t, ended up coughing the mouthful out on to the floor. She went to one of the sinks, cupped water to her mouth. Clarke followed her.

‘He jumped from North Bridge. I’m assuming you knew him?’

The woman was staring into the soap-flecked mirror. The eyes, though dark and knowing, were so much younger and less worn than the face. Clarke placed the woman in her mid-thirties, but knew that on a bad day she could pass for fifty.

‘Everybody knew Mackie.’

‘Not everybody’s reacted the way you just did.’

The woman was still holding her burger. She stared at it, seemed about to ditch it, but finally wrapped it up again and placed it at the top of one of her bags.

‘I shouldn’t be so surprised,’ she said. ‘People die all the time.’

‘But he was your friend?’

The woman looked at her. ‘Gonny buy me a cup of tea?’

Clarke nodded.

The nearest café wouldn’t take them. When pressed, the manager pointed to the woman and said she’d caused trouble, trying to beg at the tables. There was another café further along.

‘I’m barred there as well,’ the woman admitted. So Clarke went in, fetched two beakers of tea and a couple of sticky buns. They sat in Hunter Square, stared at by passengers on the top decks of the passing buses. The woman flicked the Vs from time to time, dissuading the spectators.