The Road to Hell (31 page)

Karol, who seemed familiar with his neighbour, nodded vigorously. Then, almost barging Alice out of the way, he began to make up his bed on the mat.

Kneeling down beside the old man who had spoken, taking care to avoid his bottle of water, Alice asked him, ‘Is Taff here?’

‘I’ve no idea, dear. Best ask Janice, she’s in charge tonight. She went out earlier. There was a wee bit of bother, someone brought some smack in. Nothin’ she
couldn’t deal with, she’s a big lady, luckily. But she should be back by now. She’ll likely be checking on the bedding.’

‘Turn out they fuckin’ lights!’ someone shouted. ‘I’m trying to get some sleep here!’

As if in response to his words, the dormitory was plunged in darkness, the only remaining light coming through the doorways leading to the outer hall. Immediately the atmosphere in the place
became calmer as people snuggled down in their sleeping bags, making themselves comfortable and settling down for the night.

Standing by the light switch was a vast woman, her hair tied back into a couple of bunches like a little girl in a nursery. She was casting her eye over the sleepers, her mouth moving silently
as she counted them.

‘Janice?’ Alice asked.

‘Forty-one, forty-two . . . Aye. Do you need something, pet?’ Her eyes remained on the figures on the floor, her lips still moving as she continued the count.

‘I’m from the police. I need to speak to someone called Taff, if he’s here.’

‘He’s here. I served him his dinner myself. Three times and that was without a sweet. See those chairs stacked in the far corner? He’s the one at the end over there.’

Trying not to disturb the sleepers, Alice made her way towards him. He had a torch in his hand and was reading a book. Some of the light was reflected back onto his pale face, and she could make
out one of the features she remembered from the CCTV footage, the large hooked nose with the scar running diagonally across it.

‘Excuse me, are you Taff?’ she whispered, conscious that most of the noise in the place had died down.

‘Maybe. I might be or I might not b –’ The last part of his reply was lost as he doubled up, coughing uncontrollably, spluttering, unable to breathe.

‘Want another sweetie for your cough, Taff?’ a female voice in the darkness piped up.

‘No thanks, Effie.’

A crooked smile spread across Taff’s pale face as, now panting slightly, his coughing having subsided, he looked up at Alice.

‘So, love, what are you wanting?’ he asked, inhaling deeply as if it might be his last breath. He looked tired and had rings as dark as bruises below his bloodshot eyes. Every so
often, a crackling, wheezy sound accompanied the movement of his chest.

‘You’re a hard man to find!’

‘You think so?’

‘I do. I’m from the police. I’ve been trying to track you down for weeks. You were a friend of Moira Fyfe. I saw you at the FAI. You were her best pal . . .’

‘And? She’s dead and buried now. History, apparently.’

‘But you knew her. How come you know the Reverend McPhee?’

‘Who?’

‘The Reverend Duncan James McPhee.’

‘I don’t know any McPhees, dear. You must be thinking of someone else.’

‘You had his signet ring. You recently tried to dispose of it at the Cash 4 U near Lauriston Place. If you didn’t know him, can you tell me how you came by it?’

‘No problem, pal. I didn’t know who it belonged to. A friend of mine gave it me. Alex. He gave it me. Well, strictly speaking it was more of a swap really. I had something he wanted
rather badly and he had the ring.’

‘Alex?’

‘Alex . . . Higgins. Well, that’s what he calls himself. Alex must have known the McPhee man, I suppose.’

‘Where,’ she began, now feeling tired, her limbs suddenly heavy and stiff at the thought of this seemingly never-ending trail, ‘where exactly would I find Alex
Higgins?’

‘You’ll find him at the Ferry Road Hostel, at least that’s where he lives just now. He’s happy there, been there for months and months. That’s where I came across
him. They were hoping to get a house for him but nothing’s come up yet.’

‘Did he give you anything else?’

‘Since you ask, love, that’s all I got from him. Why d’you ask?’

‘Sure about that?’

‘Aye. I’m sure about that. I said why d’you ask?’

‘Can you give me your full name?’

‘Do I have to?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Edward Alexander Welsh.’

‘Taff?’ It was the same voice which had offered him a sweet earlier.

‘Aye?’

‘Shut the fuck up, pal, will you?’

‘Alice?’

To her relief, the unfamiliar voice at the other end of the receiver sounded female, light and musical, quite unlike that of her anonymous caller.

‘Yes.’

‘Hi, it’s me. Celia.’

Celia Bloody Naismith. Other than the stalker, no caller could be less welcome.

‘Celia. Hello,’ she said, aware as she spoke that her tone sounded both guarded and leaden. With luck, this would be attributed to grief.

‘How
are
you?’ Sincere Concern, as enunciated by a failed am-dram enthusiast, dripped down the line, and when Alice failed to respond at once the question was repeated with a
new note, one of anxiety. Somehow the woman’s attentions would have to be fended off.

‘Fine, thank you. How are you?’

The response was immediate.

‘Don’t do this to me, Alice, please. Not to me. Really, how
are
you?’

All the worse for hearing from you, Alice thought, but she managed to prevent herself from saying so, replying instead, ‘I’m fine, thank you, Celia.’

‘Of course!’ Celia shot back as if she had just had a revelation, and could not contain herself. After a suitably dramatic pause, she elucidated: ‘You’re in that blasted
office of yours, aren’t you? So you won’t be able to speak to me. Freely, I mean. How silly of me! How could you talk there? There of all places. Forgive me, Alice, for my stupidity.
But we’ll speak properly sometime soon. I’ll make sure of it. You must come over to my house or something. I don’t think you’ve ever been here, have you?’

‘No.’

‘We’ll soon put that right. Now, I’ll tell you why I’m giving you a bell, apart from just to see how you’re coping, and I hope you’ll understand . . .’
Her voice tailed off, rising in pitch for dramatic effect.

‘Try me, Celia.’

‘What I would like, what I want, and I do hope you don’t mind me asking, is to have one of Ian’s works. I really don’t like asking you. I didn’t mention it before,
you know, when we spoke about . . . things. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off . . . but you’re the gatekeeper to his oeuvre now, so to speak, aren’t you? I’m
certain, quite certain, that Ian would want me to have something of his because . . . because . . . well, we were, purely artistically, of course, soulmates. Naturally, you shared a certain amount
with him, I know that, but on the creative side . . . well, that was where we bonded. He and I, I mean.’

‘You’d like one of his paintings?’

‘Not necessarily in that medium, Alice, because he did other things too, didn’t he? It could be a drawing, an etching, a lithograph, a collage. He used so many different techniques
in his art. But, yes, I would like something created by him.’

‘Have you anything in mind?’ Alice asked, managing to keep her tone colourless. It took effort, because with every word the woman said, she could feel the embers of her antipathy
being fanned. If this conversation continued much longer, they would spring to life and produce a fierce blaze.

‘Sort of. What I’d like to do – what would be the sensible thing in this situation to do – would be to go to his studio and look through his stuff? Then I could put aside
one or two pieces. He gave me one before as well and I could pick that up at the same time, couldn’t I? I don’t know if he told you about it. They would be just for me, you understand,
Alice, not to sell or anything like that. They would be, purely, mementos of him. And it’s so important that his stuff is kept safe, and appreciated. It would help me to remember him at his
best, happy in his studio, instead of . . . well, at the end. You know, broken, after that final, horrible row . . .’

‘I’m sorry, Celia, but what are you talking about?’

‘Oh, you know. The big row and everything.’

‘You had a row with him? You didn’t tell me that before.’ Alice was startled, though not displeased, by the news.

‘No, of course not. Don’t be silly. Not him and me. The row you and he had.’

‘What do you know about that?’ Alice said sharply, the words escaping her lips before her brain had a chance to censor them.

‘Well . . .’ the woman hesitated, as if savouring the moment, ‘as you may know, he did tend to confide in me. As I said, we were soulmates after all. But, truly, Alice you had
no cause . . .’

‘No cause?’

‘To be jealous. Of me, of my relationship with him. It was completely different from yours with him, obviously. I met him on a spiritual, cerebral level, as you might say. Not on a more
elevated plane, I’d never claim that, but on a . . . different plane. On the night he died he was – and I don’t really need to tell you, do I? He was
so
upset. I’ve
rarely seen a man drown his sorrows like that. I told you that, didn’t I?’

‘No, you didn’t, you didn’t tell me that. You said he was getting argumentative, that was all.’

‘Well . . . perhaps I underplayed it a bit because – well, you were so raw. Actually, it was as if he wanted to blot everything out, but I was . . . how can I put this . . . a
confidante, a rock in his time of trouble. I calmed him down. That’s what friends, real friends, are for, I always think.’

Alice closed her eyes, feeling that she would not be able to take much more of this conversation. Resolved to terminate it as quickly as possible, she said, ‘You’d like to meet at
the studio? Did you have a particular day in mind?’

‘As a wage slave, with your police work and everything, it would have to be in the evening for you, wouldn’t it?’

‘That would probably be easier, yes.’

‘Well . . .’ Celia thought out loud, ‘let me see. I’m going to Benjamin Ross’s opening at The Gallery tomorrow, and the next day I’m supposed to see that
splendid mime artiste that everyone’s been talking about. She got rave reviews. How about the next night? Friday? Shall we say Friday? What about seven, unless you have a late
“shift” or whatever it’s called. You don’t work nine to five, do you? How about 7 p.m. at his studio?’

‘Fine,’ Alice replied, prepared to agree to almost anything simply to get the woman off the phone.

Listening to her, the revulsion she felt was almost visceral, and a picture flashed into her mind of some kind of scaly, venomous reptile lumbering from side to side on heavy legs in pursuit of
her. A creature with hooded eyes and a ribbon of a tongue that flickered in the air, probing, as it tried to pick up the scent of its prey.

Putting down the receiver, relieved to break off the connection, she quickly switched on her computer. She was hoping to see something which would distract her, put all thoughts of Ian,
‘broken’ by their row, out of her mind.

But it was no use. The damage had been done, and as her eyes scanned the text of the witness statement, they took nothing in. Her attention had been wrested away, her brain busily going over old
and unproductive ground as if it was fresh and fertile. Part of her seemed to have learnt nothing from the useless hours spent churning over the same old stuff, was oblivious to the futility of it
all. That endless sapping round was beginning again.

Had she, in all her foolish jealousy, brought about Ian’s death? The path of logic leading to such a conclusion was well worn. Her dislike of Celia had led to a row. If they had not had
that row then he would not have drunk so much. Had he not drunk so much he would not have stepped out in front of the car. QED.

Had it not been for her and her stupid, small-minded dislike of Celia, he would still have been alive. It was inescapable, but also too painful to bear. And now she knew that he had spoken to
Celia about their row, confided in her, confided in that bloody reptile.

Alice stood up, determined to do something, anything, any activity which would disrupt this agonising train of thought. Work would keep her sane. Alex Higgins must be found. She would go now,
this very minute.

Walking out of the door, she almost collided with DC Cairns who was dawdling in the doorway, glancing at her newspaper while eating a sugar-covered doughnut.

‘So, does our friend Taff have a record?’

‘No. I checked him out last night. The shelter are going to let me know when he leaves, and where he’s going.’

‘What about Higgins? Has he a record?’

‘I need his real name.’

‘Are you off to see him now?’

‘Higgins, you mean?’

‘Yes. If so, I’m to come with you. The DCI phoned when I was on my way up the stairs. Where does he live?’

‘According to Taff, in the hostel on Ferry Road.’

‘“The Lifehouse”, you mean.’