He didn’t hang around to find out, instead he was off again, helter-skeltering around the parked convoy. The chase was telling on him, his ribs aching so much he could barely keep upright. Just when he thought he was going to have to give up this game of hide-and-seek, someone or something (he hoped it was someone) grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the dark.
Not entirely dark, just enough light to make him realize he was somewhere in the hinterlands of the big top, the space where the performers waited to make their entrance. Ahead of him a tunnel led to the ring itself, it reminded him for a moment of the Colosseum. He had taken Marlee to Rome last year. They had eaten a lot of ice cream and pizza. All his recent memories were of holi-days.
There was enough light, too, to catch a glimpse of the knife glinting near his throat. His first thought was that it was Terence Smith with his Clue armory, but there was surely no way he could have got here so fast. He twisted his neck round, felt the knife scratching dangerously near an artery. The dead girl look-alike. She smiled. She had a feral look about her that didn’t invite smiling back. All that was needed were a few clowns and the night-mare would be complete.
“Shut up, okay?” she said. She sounded foreign, he didn’t know why that should be a surprise, everyone he encountered seemed to be foreign.
“Okay,” he agreed. She moved the knife an inch away from his neck. He was so close to her that he could smell the cigarette smoke on her, mingled with perfume. It made him want a ciga-rette. It made him want sex. An idea that surprised him, consid-ering the circumstances. He wondered if the earrings were the sign of a cult, some born-again Christian thing. She didn’t look like any Christian he’d met before, but you never could tell. Had she saved him from the police in order to kill him? That made no sense, but then nothing made any sense.
“You look like someone who’s dead,” he whispered. Yes, he had decided this was a conversation killer, but here he was using it anyway.
“I know,”she said. This was an unexpected answer. She lowered the knife a little more.
“Your sister?” he hazarded.
“No, friend,”she said, and with a shrug, “we look alike, that’s all.”
“Honda Man—Terence Smith—why did he attack you?”
Her green eyes narrowed and she laughed derisively. “The gimp?” she said contemptuously. “He’s idiot.”
“Yeah, I know he’s idiot, but he still tried to kill you.”
She made some kind of gesture that he suspected was obscene where she came from. Russia, by the sound of her.
“Da,”
she agreed. She seemed impressively unflustered by the fact that someone had just tried to kill her. He wondered if it happened to her a lot.
“I saw you at the circus,” he said.
“Circus is illegal now?” she said. She wasn’t good at small talk.
“What’s your name?” he ventured. “My name’s Jackson Brodie.”
I used to be a policeman
.
“I don’t have a name, I don’t exist,” she hissed, “and you won’t if you don’t shut up.” Really bad at small talk.
“We’re on the same side,” Jackson said. It seemed unlikely, but wasn’t his enemy’s enemy his friend?
“I’m not on
side
. Listen—”A little jab of the knife in his ribs to get his attention.
“That hurts.”
“So?”
He couldn’t imagine why he had worried about her being attacked. Another little poke with the knife in his ribs.
“Okay, okay, I’m listening,” he said.
“Stop putting your nose in places, I’m taking care of it.”
“Taking care of what?”
She dug the point of the knife further into his ribs, the bruised, aching ribs, and said, “We can go now,” in a decisive way that brooked no argument. She walked him across the circus ring, eerily dark and robbed of illusion, and made him crawl under the flap on the other side, behind the tiers of empty seats. Out on the grass, in the cool night air, there was no sign of Terence Smith or the police.
“I save your bacon,” she said and laughed, apparently pleased with her mastery of English metaphor. “Now get lost.” She started walking away, she was barefoot but she didn’t seem to notice. He followed her, limping along, a lame dog. “Fuck off,” she said without looking back at him.
“Tell me about your friend, the dead girl in the water,” he per-sisted. “Who was she?” She carried on walking but raised the knife so he could see it. It was smaller than he thought, but it looked sharp and she definitely had the air of someone who would use it without any qualms. He had respect for knives, he’d seen a lot of stabbing victims in his time, and most of them weren’t around to talk about the experience.
“Did Terence Smith kill your friend?” They passed a knot of people who didn’t even give them a second glance—the barefoot girl, the knife, the limping man, the dubious dialogue—Jackson supposed they were taken for Fringe performers.
“You’re big nuisance, Jackson Brodie!” the girl shouted. They reached a main thoroughfare and suddenly there was traffic and people everywhere. Jackson vaguely recognized the street, it was near the museum on Chambers Street, near the Sheriff Court, scene of his disgrace this morning. Hard to believe it was still the same day.
He was desperately trying to make sense of things before she es-caped him. Terence Smith had tried to kill the crazy Russian girl. The crazy Russian girl was a friend of his dead girl. Terence Smith had attacked him and told him to forget what he had seen. Jack-son thought he meant the road-rage incident, but what if he meant what had happened on Cramond Island? Because he was the only witness who knew the girl was dead, apart from the crazy Russian girl. And Terence Smith had just tried to kill
her
. For the first time since he’d taken his unwelcome dip in the river, he could see something that made sense. A tangible connection, not just a coincidence.
The Russian girl was waiting to cross the road, hovering on the edge of the pavement, looking for a gap in the cars like a greyhound impatient for the trap to open. The traffic slowed to a halt at the red light just as he caught up with her, and he made a grab for her arm to hold her back. He half-expected to be stabbed or bitten, but she just glared at him. The green man on the pedes-trian flashed and beeped behind them, people hurrying across. It turned back to red and she was still glaring at him. He wondered if he was going to turn to stone.
A sudden loud bang made Jackson jump. He had once watched his own house explode and tended to be wary of loud noises.
“It’s firework,” the girl said, “for Tattoo.” Sure enough, in the distance, a huge flower of glittering sparks bloomed above the Castle and fell slowly to earth. Then, without warning, she leaned toward him and put her lips close to his ear as if she were going to kiss him, but instead she said, “Real Homes for Real People,” then she laughed as if she had made an incredibly funny joke.
“What?” She turned to go, pulling her arm away, and he said, “Stop, don’t go, wait. How can I get in touch with you?”
She laughed again and said, “Ask for Jojo.”And then she crossed on the red man, holding up the cars with an imperious salute. She really did have perfect legs.
B
y the time he ducked into the Traverse, Julia and the rest of the company were long gone. He presumed Julia would be at home, but when he finally made it back to the flat, there was no sign of her, even though it was after midnight. He tried phoning, but her phone was turned off. He was so tired that he hardly noticed when she slipped into bed next to him.
“Where were you?” she said.
“Where were
you?
” he said.
Question with a question
. It felt like an old war, one he’d fought several times. His phone rang before hostilities escalated. Louise Monroe asking him what he was like when he was fourteen. She had a son, it turned out. He wouldn’t have figured her for a mother.
“Why are women phoning you in the middle of the night asking you about your teenage years?” Julia asked sleepily.
“Maybe they find me interesting.” Julia chuckled, deep and throaty, it set off a cough, and by the time she’d recovered, it was too late to ask her why she found that so funny.
L
ouise dialed his number from her car and, before he even had time to say anything, asked, “What were you like when you were fourteen?”
“Fourteen?”
“Yes, fourteen,”she repeated. The sound of his voice was a kick. He was just the right side of wrong.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I was no altar boy, certainly. A bit of a tearaway, I suppose, like a lot of lads at that age.”
“I know absolutely nothing about fourteen-year-old boys.”
“Well, why should you?”
“My son’s fourteen.”
“Your son?” He sounded astonished. “I didn’t realize you were ...”
“A mother?” she supplied. “I know it’s hard to believe, but there you go, it’s the old story—sperm meets egg and bam. It can happen to the best of us.” She sighed. “Fourteen-year-olds are a nightmare.” She realized that she was clutching the steering wheel of the car as if she were in rigor mortis.
“What’s his name?”
“Archie.”
What’s his name?
That was a question a parent would ask, Louise thought. When Archie was born, the people who asked, “How much does he weigh?” all had babies themselves.
Guys who weren’t fathers hadn’t been interested in Archie’s weight or what she was going to call him. So, she deduced, Jackson Brodie had kids. She didn’t want to know about that, wasn’t interested in secondhand guys with baggage. Kids were baggage, stuff you lugged around. Luggage.
“You have kids?” she asked. Just couldn’t help herself.
“Just one, a girl,” Jackson said. “Marlee. She’s ten. I know nothing about ten-year-old girls if it’s any consolation.”
“Archie’s not a criminal,” Louise said as if Jackson had accused him of something. “He’s basically harmless.”
“I nearly landed in court for stealing when I was fifteen if it’s any help.”
“What happened?”
“I joined the army.”
Jeez. Archie in the army, there’s a thought.
“This is why you’re calling?” he asked. “For advice about parenting?”
“No. I’m calling to tell you that I’m on a housing estate in Bur-diehouse.”
“Great name for a housing estate.” He sounded weary.
“I’m outside a shop that’s been boarded up. I think it used to be a post office. There’s a fish-and-chip shop on one side, a Scot-mid on the other side. Single story, commercial properties, no flats above, nothing remotely residential.”
“Why are you telling me this and should you be there in the dark on your own?”
“That’s very gallant of you, but I’m a big girl. I’m telling you because I thought you’d like to know that this is the address that Terence Smith gave to the court this morning.”
“Honda Man gave a false address?”
“Which is an offense. As you know. I told you that you were an idiot to plead guilty. And by the way, no one else caught the reg-istration of the car involved in the road-rage incident, so you held up the investigation by withholding vital information.”
“So sue me,” Jackson said. “I’ve just seen him, actually, he was trying to kill someone else.”
“Terence Smith?” she said sharply. “Please tell me you didn’t have another go at him?”
“No, although the police were keen to question me.”
“Jesus, what is it with you?”
“Trouble is my friend.”
“He was trying to kill someone? Is that one of your fantasies?”
“I don’t have fantasies. Not about people killing each other, anyway. If I tell you what happened, you’ll think I’m even more paranoid and delusional than you do already.”
“Try me,” she said.
“I saw a girl who looked like my dead girl, she even had the earrings.”
“You’re even more paranoid and delusional than I thought.”
“Told you.”
“You see dead girls everywhere.”
“No, I see the same dead girl everywhere.”
He was officially a lunatic, she decided. Strangely, that didn’t make him less attractive. She sighed and said, “Anyway, cheers. I’m off home. Sleep well.”
T
here were rules. The rules said, you don’t fool around with wit-nesses, you don’t fool around with suspects, you don’t fool around with convicted felons. And Jackson Brodie managed to be all three at once.
Yes, Louise, you surely know how to pick them
. And, of course, you don’t fool around with a man who already has a woman.
At least that explained why he was in Edinburgh. “For the Festival,” he had said when she first interviewed him, but he hadn’t seemed like the Festival type. Still didn’t. But
Julia
was in a play.
“What’s Julia like?”The naming of her had provoked an unexpected, visceral spasm of jealousy in Louise.
Hold your tongue, bite your lip
.
“She’s an actress.”That had surprised her. He frowned when he said her name.
Be honest
. Honest was hard sometimes, even with herself. She was a natural dissembler. Even the word “dissembling” was a way of dissembling, of not just saying
liar
. Be honest, Louise, you fancy Jackson. Such an inane, adolescent word, “fancy.” LOUISE MONROE FANCIES GRANT NIVEN written in the school toilets in fourth year. PC Louise Monroe and DI Michael Pirie in the back of an un-marked squad car in the wee small hours of his leaving “do.”
“Christ, I’ve always fancied you rotten, Louise.”
The dull gleam of his wedding ring in the dark, the push and shove of unbridled lechery that kick-started Archie. How odd that babies, the absolute inno-cents at the top of the moral heap, were created out of such vul-garity. The beast with two backs. Maybe it wasn’t that she fancied Jackson exactly, maybe she just saw in him someone who had weathered the world and still had something left to give. “You can’t have it both ways,” one of her girlfriends said. “Tough
and
tender, men are like steaks, it’s one or the other.”Tough and tender, a con-tradiction in terms, Hegelian synthesis. Dualism, the Edinburgh disease. It was possible, Louise was sure, but perhaps only in a far-flung corner of the galaxy. Or with Jackson Brodie. Maybe.