Fleshmarket Alley (2004) (5 page)

“Long time no hear,” Hetherington said. “What’s so special about this one?”

“I know the family,” Siobhan said. There was no way she could keep her voice quiet enough for Tibbet not to hear, so she rose from her desk and went out into the hallway. The odor was out here, too, as if the station were rotting from within. “They live in a village in West Lothian.”

“Well, I’ll circulate the details. What makes you think she’d head this way?”

“Call it an exercise in straw-grasping. I promised her parents I’d do what I could.”

“You don’t think she could have gone on the game?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Girl leaves village, heads for the bright lights . . . you’d be surprised.”

“She’s a hairdresser.”

“Plenty of vacancies for those,” Hetherington conceded. “It’s almost as portable a career as streetwalking.”

“It’s funny, though,” Siobhan said. “There was some guy she’d been seeing. One of her friends said he looked like a pimp.”

“There you are, then. Has she any friends she could be crashing with?”

“I’ve not gotten that far yet.”

“Well, if any of them live up this way, let me know and I’ll pay a visit.”

“Thanks, Liz.”

“And come see us some time, Siobhan. I’ll show you Dundee’s not the ghetto you southerners think it is.”

“One of these weekends, Liz.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Siobhan ended the conversation. Yes, she’d go to Dundee . . . when it appealed more than a weekend slouched on the sofa, chocolate and old movies for company; breakfast in bed with a good book and Goldfrapp’s first album on the hi-fi . . . lunch out, and then maybe a film at the Dominion or the Filmhouse, a bottle of cold white wine waiting for her at home.

She found herself standing by her desk. Tibbet was looking up at her.

“I’ve got to go out,” she said.

He glanced at his watch, as if about to make a note of her time of departure. “Any idea how long you’ll be?”

“Couple of hours, if that’s all right with you, DC Tibbet.”

“Just in case anyone asks,” he explained sniffily.

“Right then,” Siobhan said, picking up jacket and bag. “There’s a coffee there if you want it.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She headed out without another word, walked downhill to her street, and unlocked her Peugeot. The cars in front and behind hadn’t left much room. It took her half a dozen maneuvers to squeeze out of the space. Though she was in a residents’ zone, she noticed that the car in front was an interloper and had already been given a parking ticket. She stopped the Peugeot and scribbled the words POLICE NOTIFIED on a page from her notebook. Then she got out and stuck it beneath the BMW’s wiper blade. Feeling better, she got back into the Peugeot and drove off.

Traffic was busy in town, and there was no clever route to the M8. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, humming along to Jackie Leven: a birthday present from Rebus, who’d told her Leven came from the same part of the world as him.

“And that’s supposed to be a recommendation?” she’d replied. She liked the album well enough but couldn’t concentrate on the lyrics. She was thinking of the skeletons in Fleshmarket Alley. It annoyed her that she couldn’t work out an explanation for them; annoyed her, too, that she’d placed her own coat so carefully over a fake . . .

Banehall was halfway between Livingston and Whitburn, just to the north of the motorway. The off-ramp was past the village, the signpost bearing the legend “Local Services,” with drawings representing a petrol pump and a knife and fork. Siobhan doubted many travelers would bother to make a diversion, having had view of Banehall from the highway. The place looked bleak: rows of houses dating back to the early 1900s, a boarded-up church, and a forlorn industrial estate, which showed no sign of having been a going concern at any point in its existence. The petrol station—now no longer in operation, weeds pushing up through the forecourt—was the first thing she passed after the “Welcome to Banehall” sign. This sign had been defaced to read “We are the Bane.” Locals, not just teenagers, called the place “the Bane” with no sense of irony. A sign farther on had been altered from “Children—aware!” to “Children—a war!” She smiled at this, checking either side of the street for the hair salon. So few businesses were still active, this presented few problems. The shop was called just that—The Salon. Siobhan decided to drive past it until she’d reached the far end of Main Street. Then she turned the car and retraced her route, this time turning into a side street which led to a housing scheme.

She found the Jardines’ house easily enough, but there was no one home. No signs of life in neighboring windows. A few parked cars, a child’s trike missing one of its back wheels. Plenty of satellite dishes attached to the harled walls. She saw homemade signs in some of the living-room windows: YES TO WHITEMIRE. Whitemire, she knew, was an old prison a couple of miles outside Banehall. Two years ago, it had been turned into an immigration center. By now it was probably Banehall’s biggest employer . . . and it was marked for further development. Back on Main Street, the village’s only pub boasted the name The Bane. Siobhan hadn’t passed any cafés, just a solitary chip shop. The weary traveler, hoping to use a knife and fork, would be forced to try the pub, though it gave no indication that food would be available. Siobhan parked curbside and crossed the road to the Salon. Here, too, there was a pro-Whitemire sign in the window.

Two women sat drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. There were no customers, and neither of the staff looked thrilled at the potential arrival of one. Siobhan brought out her ID and introduced herself.

“I recognize you,” the younger of the two said. “You’re the cop from Tracy’s funeral. You had your arm around Ishbel at the church. I asked her mum afterwards.”

“You’ve got a good memory, Susie,” Siobhan replied. No one had bothered to get up, and there was nowhere left for Siobhan to sit but one of the styling chairs. She stayed standing.

“Wouldn’t mind a coffee, if there’s one going,” she said, trying to sound friendly.

The older woman was slow to rise. Siobhan noticed that her fingernails had been decorated with elaborate swirls of color. “No milk left,” the woman warned.

“I’ll take it black.”

“Sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

The woman shuffled over to an alcove at the back of the shop. “I’m Angie, by the way,” she told Siobhan. “Owner and stylist to the stars.”

“Is it about Ishbel?” Susie asked.

Siobhan nodded, sitting down in the space that had been vacated on the cushioned bench. Susie immediately got up, as if in reaction to Siobhan’s proximity, and stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray, her last inhalation now issuing from her nostrils. She walked over to one of the other chairs and sat down in it, swinging it to and fro with her feet, checking her hair in the mirror. “She hasn’t been in touch,” she stated.

“And you’ve no idea where she could have gone?”

A shrug. “Her mum and dad are freaking out, that’s all I know.”

“What about this man you saw Ishbel with?”

Another shrug. She played with her fringe. “Short guy, stocky.”

“Hair?”

“Can’t remember.”

“Maybe he was bald?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Clothes?”

“Leather jacket . . . sunglasses.”

“Not from around here?”

A shake of the head. “Driving a flash car . . . something fast.”

“A BMW? Mercedes?”

“I’m no good with cars.”

“Was it big, small . . . did it have a roof?”

“Medium . . . with a roof, but it could’ve been a convertible.”

Angie was returning with a mug. She handed it over and sat down in Susie’s vacated space.

Siobhan nodded her thanks. “How old was he, Susie?”

“Old . . . forties or fifties.”

Angie gave a snort. “Old to you, maybe.” She was probably fifty herself, with hair that looked twenty years younger.

“When you asked her about him, what did she say?”

“Just told me to shut up.”

“Any idea how she could have met him?”

“No.”

“What sort of places does she go?”

“Into Livingston . . . maybe Edinburgh or Glasgow sometimes. Just pubs and clubs.”

“Anybody apart from you she might go out with?”

Susie mentioned some names, which Siobhan jotted down.

“Susie’s already talked to them,” Angie warned. “They won’t be any help.”

“Thanks, anyway.” Siobhan made a show of looking around the salon. “Is it usually this quiet?”

“We get a few customers first thing. Later in the week’s busier.”

“But Ishbel not being here isn’t a problem?”

“We’re managing.”

“Makes me wonder . . .”

Angie narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Why you need two stylists.”

Angie glanced towards Susie. “What else could I do?”

Siobhan felt she understood. Angie had taken pity on Ishbel after the suicide. “Any reason you can think of why she’d leave home so suddenly?”

“Maybe she got a better offer . . . Plenty of people ship out of the Bane and never look back.”

“Her mystery man?”

It was Angie’s turn to shrug. “Good luck to her if that’s what she wants.”

Siobhan turned to Susie. “You told Ishbel’s mum and dad he looked like a pimp.”

“Did I?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “Well, maybe I did. The shades and the jacket . . . like something out of a film.” Her eyes widened. “
Taxi Driver
!” she said. “The pimp in that . . . what’s his name? I saw that on the telly a couple of months back.”

“And that’s who this man looked like?”

“No . . . but he was wearing a hat. That’s why I couldn’t remember his hair!”

“What sort of hat?”

Susie’s enthusiasm drained away. “Dunno . . . just a hat.”

“Baseball cap? Beret?”

Susie shook her head. “It had a rim.”

Siobhan looked to Angie for help. “A fedora?” Angie suggested. “A homburg?”

“I don’t even know what those are,” Susie said.

“Something like a gangster in an old film would wear?” Angie went on.

Susie was thoughtful. “Maybe,” she conceded.

Siobhan jotted down her mobile phone number. “That’s great, Susie. And if anything else comes back to you, maybe you could give me a call?”

Susie nodded. She was out of reach, so Siobhan handed the note to Angie. “Same thing applies to you.” Angie nodded and folded the note in two.

The door rattled open and a stooped, elderly woman came in.

“Mrs. Prentice,” Angie called out in greeting.

“Bit earlier than I told you, Angie dear. Can you fit me in?”

Angie was already on her feet. “For you, Mrs. Prentice, I’m sure I can shuffle my schedule.” Susie relinquished the chair so that Mrs. Prentice could sit in it, once she’d divested herself of her coat. Siobhan got up, too. “One last thing, Susie,” she said.

“What?”

Siobhan walked over to the alcove, Susie following her. Siobhan lowered her voice when she spoke. “The Jardines tell me Donald Cruikshank’s out of prison.”

Susie’s face hardened.

“Have you seen him?” Siobhan asked.

“Once or twice . . . piece of scum that he is.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“As if I would! Council gave him a place of his own—can you credit it? His mum and dad wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

“Did Ishbel mention him at all?”

“Just that she felt the same as me. You think that’s what drove her out?”

“Do you?”

“
He’s
the one we should be running out of town,” Susie hissed.

Siobhan nodded her agreement. “Well,” she said, slinging her bag onto her shoulder, “remember to give me a call if anything else comes to you.”

“Sure,” Susie said. She studied Siobhan’s hair. “Can’t do something with that for you, can I?”

Involuntarily, Siobhan’s right hand went to her head. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know . . . It just . . . it makes you look older than you probably are.”

“Maybe that’s the look I’m aiming for,” Siobhan replied defensively, making her way to the door.

“Wee perm and a touch-up?” Angie was asking her client as Siobhan stepped outside. She stood for a moment, wondering what next. She’d meant to ask Susie about Ishbel’s ex-boyfriend, the one she was still friends with. But she didn’t want to go back in and decided it could wait. There was a newsagent’s open. She thought about chocolate, but decided to look into the pub instead. It would give her something to tell Rebus; maybe even score her some points if it turned out to be one of the few bars in Scotland not to count him as a onetime customer.

She pushed open the black wooden door and was confronted by pockmarked red linoleum and matching wallpaper. A design mag would call it “kitsch” and enthuse over its revival of seventies style . . . but this was the real, unreconstructed thing. There were horse brasses on the walls and framed cartoons showing dogs urinating, bloke-style, against a wall. Horse racing on the TV and a haze of cigarette smoke between her and the bar. Three men stared up from their dominoes game. One of them got up and walked behind the bar.

“What can I get you, love?”

“Lime juice and soda,” she said, resting on a bar stool. There was a Glasgow Rangers scarf draped over the dartboard, a pool table alongside with ripped and patched felt. And nothing to justify the knife and fork on the motorway exit sign.

“Eighty-five pence,” the barman said, placing the drink in front of her. At this point, she knew she had only one gambit—
Does Ishbel Jardine ever come in?
—and couldn’t see what she’d gain from it. For one thing, the bar would be alerted to the fact that she was a cop. For another, she doubted these men would add anything to her sum knowledge, even if they had known Ishbel. She raised the glass to her lips, and knew there was too much cordial in it. The drink was sickly sweet, and not gassy enough.

“All right?” the barman said. It was challenge more than query.

“Fine,” she replied.

Satisfied, he came back out from behind the bar and resumed his game. There was a pot of small change on the table, ten- and twenty-pence pieces. The men he was playing with looked like pensioners. They slapped each domino down with exaggerated force, tapped three times if they couldn’t go. Already, they’d lost interest in her. She looked around for a ladies’ loo, spotted it to the left of the dartboard, and headed inside. Now they’d think she’d only come in for a pee, the soft drink conscience money. The toilet was clean, though the mirror above the sink had gone, pen-written graffiti replacing it.