Gutted (22 page)

‘Jesus, you’re a fine swinger, I’ll give you that.’ He was yawing from side to side; it was a certain leg break on the cobbles below.

After plod was dragged back through the window I heard the pair of them running for the door. I knew I had a couple of minutes on them tops. And that was if my heart held out. I tightrope-walked across the ledge of the wall and jumped into the back alley.

THE TIMES I’VE
cursed edinburgh buses for clogging the roads and spewing out fumes, but Christ, I was grateful for this one. As I caught the doors they were closing. Driver said, ‘I should put you on the street!’

‘Do me a favour – I’m just about there as it is.’

He took the fare from me and crunched the gears, grunting and moaning as though I’d jumped his bus with the sole intent of pissing him off.

I planted myself at the front and copped looks from the folk who’d avoided the seats reserved for the elderly and disabled. I was tempted to say,
Look, I’ll move if anyone wants it
. . . but kept it to myself. I was still panting after the run and needed to conserve my energy for the next stop on my journey to the bottom of the heap.

I wanted to see what Mark Crawford would have to say for himself when I hit him with the fact that I knew the dog that he was using for target practice on the hill the night Moosey died was registered in his name. The vet’s little revelation put a whole new perspective on things; well, did for me anyway. His legal-minded father, I’m sure, would have some way of wriggling out of it. Things had gone from weird to weirder on this one; I just didn’t get the boy from Ann Street straying so far from the straight and
narrow
. For sure, he’d lost a sister, he had the motive, but something wasn’t stacking up.

I left the bus and took a slow schlep through the better end of town. I sparked up a Bensons and had a quick check that there was no filth on me. I seemed to have dropped them – at least, I couldn’t spot any obvious contenders for the role in the street behind me.

Ann Street’s front gardens are what can only be described as elegant. Whenever I see this kind of finery in the city I always think of Stevenson, the creator of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
. He grew up round this way and managed to weave a story that summed up Edinburgh’s dichotomy nicely: beautiful on the outside, rotten on the inside.

I felt a twitch begin on my shoulder blades as I took the gate of the Crawfords’ home. The working-class programming told me I should be doffing cap and trudging to the rear of the property. The twitch migrated, set itself up in my chest as my heart rate increased.

I pushed the buzzer, chucked my tab into the rose bushes.

No one answered. I pressed again.

Movement.

Slow footsteps towards the window. I could see a white shape flit behind the glass, then the door was opened an inch or two.

‘Hello, Mark,’ I said.

‘You can fuck off.’

‘Nice words . . . Bet the neighbours adore you.’

He widened the gap a little, spat at me. I watched him step back and try to slam the wood in my face but I was ahead of him, had my shoulder in place to take the weight and propelled myself forward. The door slipped from Mark’s hands, slammed into the wall.

‘Butterfingers,’ I said.

He watched me for a moment then backed up the hall, balling fists.

I stepped inside. Closed the door behind me, sang at him, ‘I think we’re alone now . . .’

He lunged. I saw the swing of his heavy right hook and stepped
in
to block it with my forearm. I had my own right at the ready, sledged him in the gut. He dropped to the floor, gasping. The young yob curled up, taking a fair share of Persian rug with him. I grabbed him by the collar, raised him.

‘Get in there, y’daft wee cunt.’

He found it impossible to straighten. He walked like Groucho Marx into the living room, wheezing and spluttering. I put the sole of my boot on his arse and forced him onto the couch. He curled up again, still gasping for air.

‘What the fuck are you playing at, laddie?’ I said. ‘That was the most pathetic put-up I’ve ever seen . . .’

‘Fuck off.’ He could only manage a whisper.

‘I mean, running with the Sighthill massive and that’s the best you can do? I’m ashamed for you.’ I took out another Bensons, sparked up. As I walked about the place Mark kept his eyes on me. ‘I mean, what did you think you were up to there, Mark? Playing the hard man, eh? Running with the young crew to get closer to Moosey, and maybe, just maybe, the chance to pay him back for what he did to . . . Christine?’

The mention of his sister forced him to sit upright, spew words: ‘You don’t know a thing, nothing. You’re just a washed-up fucking alkie who’s got nothing better to do with his days than go about noising other folk up.’

I laughed. ‘Been doing your homework on me, Mark . . . Wise. I’ve been doing mine on you too. It turns out that dog on the hill, one I rescued, it’s registered to you.’

He said nothing.

I pressed him. ‘Is that an official “no comment”? Doesn’t look very good, Mark. How do you think the police would take that news?’

He rose, shook his fist. ‘The police think you’re the one.’

I drew on my tab. ‘Now what would give them that idea? Your father, perhaps?’ I let that suggestion sting, watched him for a reaction. There was none. He stood before me, trembling.

‘What were you doing up there, Mark? The night Moosey was
killed
. The man who they say killed Christine, little Chrissy, your sister . . .’

He ran at me with his hands out. I stepped aside and booted him in the knees. He clattered into the fireguard, brought down an ornamental poker. He curled on the floor again, clutching his legs.

‘Mark, I’m not fucking messing with you . . . Two men are dead, there’s money missing, and some serious people are unhappy about the whole fucking situation. Now, believe me, I might just be the best friend you have. Come clean and tell me what you know or you’re gonna be going the same way as Moosey and Tupac.’

He gritted his teeth. They were among the whitest teeth I’d ever seen – made me realise just how young this lad was. I knelt down, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Mark, I mean it . . . tell me what you were doing up there. Did you lead those lads on? Did you tell them about the money Moosey was carrying, was that it?’

He writhed on the floor, teeth still gritted. ‘You don’t know a fucking thing – you’re just a dumb fucking alkie.’

‘Mark, I know about the fifty grand. I know Moosey was carrying it that night and I know what the kind of crew you were running with will do for fifty grand.’

‘You don’t know fuck all.’

He started to get up. I rose with him, supported his elbow; he snatched it away. ‘Moosey got what he fucking deserved, he killed my sister.’ He bawled at me, ‘He killed my fucking sister!’

His nose was inches from my face. I could see the tears spilling from his eyes as he roared, ‘That man killed my fucking sister!’

I grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him. ‘Mark, tell me what happened on the hill. Who killed Moosey that night?’

I was shaking him hard as the door to the living room was flung open and Katrina Crawford walked in. She was holding two heavily laden carrier bags in each hand, swung them before her and dumped them on the couch. She crossed the distance between us and forcibly snatched her son from my clutches.

‘Leave him be,’ she yelled, ‘he’s just a boy.’

I felt my brow roll up to the ceiling; I flung up my hands. ‘I
have
this
boy
of yours on the murder scene . . . He was so stupid he registered his bloody dog!’ I grabbed him by the collar, spun him to face me. He was still gritting his teeth. ‘Tell her, tell her about the dog . . . Tell her how you didn’t even have the marbles to register it under a false address. Makes me think you’re just not cut out for the life of crime, Mark.’

His mother manhandled him out of the room, led him upstairs. I followed. When she got halfway up the wide staircase, Katrina Crawford turned. ‘I bought that dog for him . . . and I want it back.’

I laughed, ‘You bought it . . .’

Mark looked at his mother, wondering where this was all going. She spoke: ‘I bought the dog, it’s my property. Are you going to give it back?’

I smiled. ‘Not a fucking chance.’ I turned for the door, said, ‘Tell the police. Maybe they’ll haul us both in for a chat, Mrs Crawford.’

She turned her head slightly, removed a hand from her son’s shoulder and tucked a stray curl of hair behind her ear. I thought she might say something but she merely opened her mouth, almost imperceptibly, then closed it again.

‘Och, you don’t like that idea,’ I said. ‘Wonder why.’

MY DOCS WERE
pounding off the pavement. I lit out before I was being cable-tied by plod in the Crawfords’ front yard. I could see it coming, this lot were playing for keeps. It was looking as if I was up against more than a connected family. No one acts that arrogantly in the face of damning evidence unless they’ve got some serious protection.

At the end of Ann Street I ran into the jolly-hockey-sticks brigade. A crowd of students, chinless Home Counties types, Oxbridge rejects up here to drink our bars dry of gin at mummy and daddy’s expense. They were acting up, playing slapsie and yaw-yawing at each swipe as it landed. As I waded through them I caught sight of a bloke tending his garden. He was in his element, lapping up their antics. It was the kind of metaphor for what Scotland had become that I didn’t want to see. I thought: This life I could not get used to. There might be comfort in reward, but what you had to sell to reach this level I wasn’t putting on the market. Ever.

A north wind T-boned me at the junction. Fastened my coat just as a Volvo estate pulled up. It was Katrina Crawford.

‘I didn’t mean to make you agitated,’ she said.

I almost laughed – when was I never? Said, ‘Oh no?’

She scanned the junction. A Tesco home delivery driver was
drumming
his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for her to pull out. ‘I’d really like to talk to you if that’s okay, Mr Dury.’

‘What about?’

The driver sounded his horn. The judge’s wife turned down the corner of her mouth, waved him away impatiently. ‘Would you like to get in?’

I didn’t answer that one; walked round the front of the car and opened the passenger’s door. I slumped in the seat and eyed her cautiously.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

We drove through the city, avoiding the main thoroughfares; it was a big car but she handled it effortlessly. Small chat was all I got from her, nonsense about the state of the roads since the trams work had gone ahead. I wanted to pull on the handbrake, say
Cut the shit
, but I sat back and observed her. Katrina Crawford wasn’t the type to show nerves. Likely she’d had too much practice at her New Town dinner parties to be fazed by a near-jakey like me.

She pulled the Volvo up outside the Parliament, took a slot in the car bays in Holyrood Park. ‘It seems nice out. Shall we go and sit by the swan pond?’

‘Okay.’

I played it cool, as cool as I could be. I wanted to grab her paisley-swirl pashmina, tighten it till she told me what the fuck was going on with her son and the murder of Tam Fulton, why I was being put in the frame for it and just what kind of a mug did she take me for?

As we walked through the park she yabbered; more small chat. ‘It’s so lovely here. They want to build on all the green belt now, though.’

‘Oh, I think Her Majesty wouldn’t be too chuffed with her view of the Craigs being interrupted. This patch of green’s safe enough . . . Some people in Edinburgh you just don’t mess with.’

She didn’t register a hit; politely smiled. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

‘If it was up to me I’d be building on all the golf courses. Not that we need more developments in Edinburgh, but we do need
fewer
golf courses . . . everywhere. Do you play golf, Mrs Crawford?’

A wide smile. ‘Yes, a little. You can call me Katrina.’

We schlepped on, sticking to the path. Had a feeling we were being followed but there was no sign of it. I hadn’t met the plod yet that could manage to tail me without making himself known, so I put it down to paranoia, or the fact that I was getting jumpy.

My mind had been on Moosey. Swung the pendulum from being pissed off for getting me wrapped up in another below-radar city killing to something approaching sympathy. The more I imagined what must have been going on, the more I saw Moosey as a pathetic pawn.

Katrina took a seat on a bench by the side of the loch. ‘Here will do.’ A smile; fine lines formed at the sides of her mouth. She put her bag over her shoulder, asked me to sit.

‘I’d sooner stand.’

She didn’t respond, looked ahead.

The wind came sharp below the Craigs, whistling down over Saint Margaret’s Loch and smacking the senses. Made me feel like a drink, said, ‘Why don’t you tell me about Christine.’

She lost her composure, seemed less communicative. The strap of her bag fell from her shoulder. She watched it rest on the crook of her arm but didn’t move to correct it. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’