Set in Darkness (22 page)

‘I’m a bad bugger, me,’ she confided.

Clarke had her name now: Dezzi. Short for Desiderata. Not her real name: ‘Left that behind when I left home.’

‘And when was that, Dezzi?’

‘I don’t remember. A lot of years now, I suppose.’

‘You always been in Edinburgh?’

A shake of the head. ‘All over. Last summer I ended up on a bus to some commune in Wales. Christ knows how that happened. Got a fag?’

Clarke handed one over. ‘Why did you leave home?’

‘Like I said, nosy little beggar.’

‘All right, what about Chris?’

‘I always called him Mackie.’

‘What did he call you?’

‘Dezzi.’ She stared at Clarke. ‘Is that you trying to find out my last name?’

Clarke shook her head. ‘Cross my heart.’

‘Oh aye, a cop’s as honest as the day is long.’

‘It’s true.’

‘Only, this time of year the days are awfy short.’

Clarke laughed. ‘I walked into that one.’ She’d been trying to work out if Dezzi knew about Mackie, knew about the detective who was asking about him. Knew about the story in the
News
. ‘So what can you tell me about Mackie?’

‘He was my boyfriend, just for a few weeks.’ The sudden, unexpected smile lit up her face. ‘Wild weeks they were, mind.’

‘How wild?’

An arch look. ‘Enough to get us arrested. I’m saying no more than that.’ She bit into her bun. She was alternating: mouthful of bun, puff on the cigarette.

‘Did he tell you anything about himself?’

‘He’s dead now, what does it matter?’

‘It matters to me. Why would he kill himself?’

‘Why does anyone?’

‘You tell me.’

A slurp of tea. ‘Because you give in.’

‘Is that what he did, give in?’

‘All the shite out here . . .’ Dezzi shook her head. ‘I tried it once, cut my wrists with a bit of glass. Eight stitches.’ She turned one wrist as if to show it, but Clarke couldn’t see any scars. ‘Couldn’t have been serious, could I?’

Clarke was well aware that a great many homeless people were ill; not physically, but mentally. She had a sudden thought: could she trust any stories Dezzi told her?

‘When did you last see Mackie?’

‘Maybe a couple of weeks back.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘Fine.’ She pushed the last morsel of bun into her mouth. Washed it down with tea, before concentrating on the cigarette.

‘Dezzi, did you really know him?’

‘What?’

‘You haven’t told me one thing about him.’

Dezzi prickled. Clarke feared she would walk off. ‘If he meant something to you,’ Clarke went on, ‘help me get to know him.’

‘Nobody knew Mackie, not really. Too many defences.’

‘But you got past them?’

‘I don’t think so. He told me a few stories . . . but I think that’s all they were.’

‘What sort of stories?’

‘Oh, all about places he’d been – America, Singapore, Australia. I thought maybe he’d been in the navy or something, but he said he hadn’t.’

‘Was he well educated?’

‘He knew things. I’m positive he’d been to America, not sure about the others. He knew London, though, all the tourist places and the underground stations. When I first met him . . .’

‘Yes?’ Clarke was shivering; couldn’t feel her toes.

‘I don’t know, I got the feeling he was just passing through. Like, there was somewhere else he could go.’

‘But he didn’t?’

‘No.’

‘Are you saying he was homeless by choice rather than necessity?’

‘Maybe.’ Dezzi’s eyes widened a little.

‘What is it?’

‘I can prove I knew him.’

‘How’s that?’

‘The present he gave me.’

‘What present?’

‘Only, I didn’t have much use for it, so I . . . I gave it to someone.’

‘Gave it to someone?’

‘Well, sold it. A second-hand shop on Nicolson Street.’

‘What was it?’

‘A briefcase sort of thing. Didn’t hold enough stuff, but it was made of leather.’

Mackie had carried his cash to the building society in a briefcase. ‘So now it’ll have been sold on to someone else?’ Clarke guessed.

But Dezzi was shaking her head. ‘The shopkeeper’s still got it. I’ve seen him walking about with it. Leather it was, and the bastard only gave me five quid.’

It wasn’t far from Hunter Square to Nicolson Street. The shop was an Aladdin’s cave of tat, narrow aisles leading
them past teetering pillars of used goods: books, cassettes, music centres, crockery. Vacuum cleaners had been draped with feather boas; picture cards and old comics lay underfoot. Electrical goods and board games and jigsaw puzzles; pots and pans, guitars, music-stands. The shopkeeper, an Asian, didn’t seem to recognise Dezzi. Clarke showed her warrant card and asked to see the briefcase.

‘Five measly quid he gave me,’ Dezzi grumbled. ‘Genuine leather.’

The man was reluctant, until Clarke mentioned that St Leonard’s was just around the corner. He reached down and placed a scuffed black briefcase on the counter. Clarke asked him to open it. Inside: a newspaper, packed lunch and a thick roll of banknotes. Dezzi seemed to want a closer look, but he snapped shut the case.

‘Satisfied?’ he asked.

Clarke pointed to a corner of the case where the scuffing was worst.

‘What happened?’

‘The initials were not my initials. I attempted to erase them.’

Clarke looked more closely. She was wondering if Valerie Briggs could identify the case. ‘Do you remember the initials?’ she asked Dezzi.

Dezzi shook her head; she was looking, too.

The shop was badly lit. The faintest indents remained.

‘ADC?’ she guessed.

‘I believe so,’ the shopkeeper said. Then he wagged a finger at Dezzi. ‘And I paid you a fair price.’

‘You as good as robbed me, you sod.’ She nudged Clarke. ‘Stick the handcuffs on him, girl.’

ADC
, Clarke was thinking,
was Mackie really ADC?

Or would it prove another dead end?

Back at St Leonard’s, she kicked herself for not checking Mackie’s criminal record sooner. August 1997, Christopher Mackie and ‘a Ms Desiderata’ (she refused to give the
police her full name) were apprehended while involved in a ‘lewd exhibition’ on the steps of a parish church in Bruntsfield.

August: Festival time. Clarke was surprised they hadn’t been mistaken for an experimental theatre group.

The arresting officer was a uniform called Rod Harken, and he remembered the incident well.

‘She got a fine,’ he told Clarke by telephone from Torphichen police station. ‘And a few days in clink for refusing to tell us her name.’

‘What about her partner?’

‘I think he got off with a caution.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the poor sod was nearly comatose.’

‘I still don’t get it.’

‘Then I’ll spell it out. She was straddling him, knickers off and skirt up, trying to haul his pants down. We had to wake him up to take him to the station.’ Harken chuckled.

‘Were they photographed?’

‘You mean on the steps?’ Harken was still chuckling.

Clarke heaped more ice into her voice. ‘No, I do not mean on the steps. I mean at Torphichen.’

‘Oh aye, we took some snaps.’

‘Would you still have them?’

‘Depends.’

‘Well, could you take a look.’ Clarke paused. ‘Please.’

‘Suppose so,’ the uniform said grudgingly.

‘Thank you.’

She put the phone down. An hour later, the photos arrived by patrol car. The ones of Mackie were better than the hostel pictures. She stared into his unfocused eyes. His hair was thick and dark, brushed back from the forehead. His face was either tanned or weather-beaten. He hadn’t shaved for a day or two, but looked no worse than many a summertime backpacker. His eyes looked heavy, as though no amount of sleep could compensate for what they’d seen. Clarke had to smile at the photos of
Dezzi: she was grinning like a Cheshire cat, not a care in her world.

Harken had put a note in the envelope:
One other thing. We asked Mackie about the incident and he told us he wasn’t a ‘sexual beast’ any more. Something got lost in the translation and we kept him locked up while we checked if he’d had previous as a sex offender. Turned out he hadn’t
.

Her phone rang again. It was the front desk. There was someone downstairs for her.

Her visitor was short and round with a red face. He wore a Prince of Wales check three-piece suit and was mopping his brow with a handkerchief the size of a small tablecloth. The top of his head was bald and shiny, but hair grew copiously to either side, combed back over his ears. He introduced himself as Gerald Sithing.

‘I read about Chris Mackie in the newspaper this morning, gave me quite a turn.’ His beady eyes were on her, voice high and quavering.

Clarke folded her arms. ‘You knew him, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. Known him for years.’

‘Could you describe him for me?’

Sithing studied her, then clapped his hands. ‘Oh, of course. You think I’m a crank.’ His laughter was sibilant. ‘Come here to claim his fortune.’

‘Aren’t you?’

He drew himself up, recited a good description of Mackie. Clarke unfolded her arms, scratched her nose. ‘In here, please, Mr Sithing.’

There was an interview room just to the side of the front desk. She unlocked it and looked in. Sometimes it was used for storage, but today it was empty. Desk and two chairs. Nothing on the walls. No ashtray or waste bin.

Sithing sat down, looked around as though intrigued by his surroundings. Clarke had gone from scratching her nose to pinching it. She had a headache coming on, felt dead beat.

‘How did you come to know Mr Mackie?’

‘Complete accident really. Daily constitutional, back then I took it in the Meadows.’

‘Back when?’

‘Oh, seven, eight years ago. Bright summer’s day, so I sat myself down on one of the benches. There was a man already seated there, scruffy . . . you know, gentleman of the road. We got talking. I think I broke the ice, said something about how lovely the day was.’

‘And this was Mr Mackie?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Where was he living at the time?’

Sithing laughed again. ‘You’re still testing me, aren’t you?’ He wagged a finger like a fat sausage. ‘He was in a hostel sort of place, Grassmarket. I met him the very next day, and the day after that. It got to be a routine with us, and one I enjoyed very much.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘The world, the mess we’ve made of it. He was interested in Edinburgh, in all the architectural changes. He was very anti.’

‘Anti?’

‘You know, against all the new buildings. Maybe in the end it got too much for him.’

‘He killed himself in protest at ugly architecture?’

‘Despair can come from many quarters.’ His tone was admonishing.

‘I’m sorry if I sounded . . .’

‘Oh, I’m sure it’s not your fault. You’re just tired.’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘And maybe Chris was tired, too. That’s the point I was making.’

‘Did he ever talk about himself?’

‘A little. He told me about the hostel, about people he’d met . . .’

‘I meant his past. Did he talk about his life before he went on the street?’

Sithing was shaking his head. ‘He was more of a good listener, fascinated by Rosslyn.’

Clarke thought she’d misheard. ‘Rosalind?’

‘
Rosslyn
. The chapel.’

‘What about it?’

Sithing leaned forward. ‘My whole life’s devoted to the place. You may have heard of the Knights of Rosslyn?’

Clarke was getting a bad feeling. She shook her head. The stems of her eyes ached.

‘But you know that in the year 2000, the secret of Rosslyn will reveal itself?’

‘Is this some New Age thing?’

Sithing snorted. ‘It’s very much an
ancient
thing.’

‘You believe Rosslyn’s some sort of . . . special place?’

‘It’s the reason Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland. Hitler was obsessed with the Ark of the Covenant.’

‘I know. I saw
Raiders of the Lost Ark
three times. You’re saying Harrison Ford was looking in the wrong place?’

‘Laugh all you like,’ Sithing sneered.

‘And that’s what you talked about with Chris Mackie?’

‘He was an acolyte!’ Sithing slapped the desk. ‘He was a believer.’

Clarke was getting to her feet. ‘Did you know he had money?’

‘He’d have wanted it to go to the Knights!’

‘Did you know anything about him?’

‘He gave us a hundred pounds to carry on our researches. Beneath the floor of the chapel, that’s where it’s buried.’

‘What?’

‘The portal! The gateway!’

Clarke had the door open. She grabbed Sithing’s arm. It felt soft, as if there were no bones beneath the flesh.

‘Out,’ she commanded.

‘The money belongs to the Knights! We were his family!’

‘Out.’

He wasn’t resisting, not really. She swung him into the revolving door and gave it a push, propelling him out on to St Leonard’s Street, where he turned to glare at her. His face was redder than ever. Strands of hair had fallen forwards over his eyes. He began talking again, but she turned away. The desk sergeant was grinning.

‘Don’t,’ she warned.

‘I hear my Uncle Chris passed away,’ he said, ignoring her raised finger. As she made for the stairs, she could hear his voice. ‘He said he’d leave me a little something when he went. Any chance, Siobhan? Come on, just a few quid from my old Uncle Chris!’

Her phone was ringing when she reached it. She picked up the receiver, rubbing at her temples with her free hand.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice.

‘You’ll be the mystery tramp’s sister then?’ Clarke slipped into her chair.

‘It’s Sandra here. Sandra Carnegie.’

The name meant nothing to her for a moment.

‘We went to the Marina that night,’ the voice explained.

Clarke screwed her eyes shut. ‘Oh, hell, yes. Sorry, Sandra.’

‘I was just phoning to see if . . .’

‘It’s been a hellish day, that’s all,’ Clarke was saying. ‘. . . there’d been any progress. Only no one’s telling me anything.’

Clarke sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Sandra. It’s not my case any more. Who’s your contact at Sex Crimes?’