The Road to Hell (30 page)

‘Gracious! What are you suggesting?’

‘Nothing. I’m simply reporting a fact. I’m just trying to find out anything I can about the man.’

‘I know nothing whatsoever about that side of his life. He wasn’t some sort of Tom Jones type, a “swinger” or anything like that. In fact, he was rather prudish as a
young man.’

‘Can you think of anyone who’d wish him ill?’

‘Mild ill, slight ill? Too many to count. You don’t climb as high as he’s done without alienating people along the way. By blocking someone’s preferment,
“stealing” a position someone has earmarked for himself or herself, slighting people by picking them up and putting them down to suit yourself and your needs. It happens in every area
of life, doesn’t it? And the Church is no different from the rest in that respect.’

‘But no one in particular springs to mind?’

‘I can think of no one who wanted him dead, if that’s what you are hinting at. There are a fair few, I suspect, who would have gloried in his fall. I hope I wouldn’t be amongst
them, but that’s a different thing, isn’t it? Many might have paid to see him humbled – but not injured, let alone killed.’

Crossing from the end of Chambers Street, Alice saw the heavy iron gates of Greyfriars Churchyard before her. Little illumination from the streetlights penetrated the gateway.
As she glanced up, the moon’s light seemed to be fading before her eyes. An endless stream of clouds scudded across its face, driven by the same wind that was now lashing her cheeks and
trying to pull her coat off her back. Unsure which path to take, she started off to the left to avoid having to head into the icy gusts.

By the light of her torch, she peered into a succession of low-walled grave enclosures. Those with roofs had padlocked gratings to prevent the living from camping inside them, but the few which
remained open to the heavens were ungated and provided shelter of a sort. There was a terrace of them, stretching into the distance southwards like a street constructed for a race of midgets or
children.

As she approached one particularly ornate memorial, something moved inside its four walls. The thing rustled a few dead leaves before squeezing through the railings and scampering over her feet.
Involuntarily, she gasped, frantically dancing from one foot the other to shake it off.

Shuddering with revulsion, she scanned the walls of the mausoleum with her torch, revealing the relief of a skull with a fat cherub lounging below on a pile of fleshless bones. As she shone the
torch downwards, a hunchbacked rat on a recumbent effigy came into view, its eyes reflecting the light back to her. For a moment they stared at one another, the rat immobilised in the beam.

‘Boo!’ a loud voice said behind her. She whirled round, suddenly terrified, finding herself inches away from an unshaven face peering out of a hoodie. In the obscurity he appeared
ghostly, like a medieval monk in a cowl. As if aware of the impression he was making, he raised his hands and released a long, low howl.

Brandishing her torch as a weapon, she raised it above her head ready to strike. Immediately, he stopped and backed away.

‘OK – OK, calm doon. It wis just a joke! Nae harm meant!’

‘Well, it wasn’t bloody funny,’ she replied, aware that her whole body was now trembling. Slowly lowering the torch she kept its beam shining in the man’s eyes, until he
said plaintively, ‘Could ye no’ move it just a wee bit, hen. You’re blindin’ me.’

Trying to sound calm and in control, she said, ‘Police. I’m looking for Taff. Is he here tonight?’ Her voice sounded unnaturally high, like a choirboy’s treble.

‘I dae ken. But if he is, he’ll be under yon scaffolding – through the Flodden Wall. Everyin’s there. Sleepin’ below the wooden boards.’ He pointed in a
vaguely downhill direction, then, looking her in the eyes and smiling winningly, he added, ‘Can you spare some change, hen? It’s awfy chilly, an’ I’m needin’ a cup
o’ tea.’

Alice handed him a pound coin. As he palmed it he said, as if he had had a change of mind, ‘Tell ye whit, dearie. I’ll save ye the bother. It’s a wild night. Taff’s no
there, right? I seen him earlier and he was complaining aboot the cauld. He’s chicken-hearted. He’s away fer the free grub at the night shelter.’

‘Sure about that?’

‘Scout’s honour. Would I lie tae you?’

Distrusting his reliability, she checked out the scaffolding and found a couple of homeless men bedded down underneath it, both cocooned in blankets and polythene sheeting. The ends of the
polythene flapped noisily in the gale, adding to the sounds made by the creaking metal and producing a constant cacophony which was loud enough to wake the dead. One of the men was lying on a
mattress of planks and the other was huddled close to the boundary wall, a lining of old newspaper insulating him from the cold, wet stone.

Shining her torch on their faces, apologising as she did so, she examined them. Neither of them was Taff. One, his hand protecting his eyes from the glare, let out a stream of foreign-sounding
invective at her but his companion told him off, calling her ‘Petal’ and apologising to her in a melodic Geordie accent.

Hurrying back towards the gate with her torch in her hand, now desperate to leave the dark, windswept place, she wove in and out of the tombstones, trying to avoid any that had fallen. Through
the moans of the wind, she heard the ringtone of her phone. Putting it to her ear, she heard a breathless, male voice.

‘Is that you?’ The inquiry sounded urgent.

‘I don’t know. Who do you want to speak to?’ She racked her brain, trying desperately to put a name or face to the voice, but nothing came.

‘You, Alice.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Are you scared?’

‘No, I’m not,’ she lied instinctively, a shiver passing through her body as she pleaded again for an answer, ‘but who are you?’

She looked round, trying to catch a glimpse of him, overwhelmed by the conviction that he was close by and could see her as he spoke. Her fear made her nauseous.

‘You should be. You really should be. I’m waiting for you.’

‘Who are you?’

Then she heard a click and the line went dead.

Slamming the car door shut she sat motionless, feeling safe at last. She held her head in her hands and tried to force her brain to make sense of everything. As before, the
caller had withheld his number. One fact could be denied no longer. Someone, in a twisted and unpredictable fashion, was pursuing her, intent on terrorising her. In isolation each incident could,
almost, be explained away, but together they formed a sinister pattern: the music played down the phone, the brick through the studio window, the chilling calls and the person following her. Put
them together and the threat felt real enough. It was real enough, only a fool would pretend otherwise. This was no prank, no silly joke to be shrugged off. Someone was stalking her, playing with
her, intent on terrifying her or making her lose her mind.

Dropping her head, she felt overwhelmed, impotent in the face of such a nameless, shapeless force. And as she cast around for a way of escape, a voice in her head reminded her that there was no
one to turn to for help. She was alone. Ian was gone, beyond all her pleas for assistance. Her parents had been frightened from the first day she joined the police, convinced she would be beaten up
or murdered in the course of duty. She inhabited a world entirely alien to them, one sometimes violent and sordid, and they were too old, innocent and powerless to provide comfort, never mind any
kind of defence. Simply confiding in them would make the remaining hair on their heads stand on end. Everything about her current predicament was so far outside the scope of any of her
friends’ experience, it would probably sound like self-dramatising nonsense or a cry for help. They had their own lives to live.

No one at work must know, of that she was certain. A few of the episodes could be explained away as wrong numbers, the acts of vandals or, possibly, and far worse, as signs of neurosis. Had she
really heard her own name, or dreamt it? Word might spread in the station that she was ‘fragile’ following her lover’s death, and before she knew it she would be steered gently
towards the occupational health people, with a diagnosis of ‘stress’. A big, black mark would ruin her career.

She was teetering on the edge. And that bloody fiscal, Sean Lloyd, had almost made her fall off. Only his shocked face when she shouted the word ‘Incompetence’ at him had stopped her
from really letting rip. Because he had somehow released a surge of anger from somewhere deep and hidden within her, such that she herself had been taken aback by its ferocity. But worse than that,
his complaint had contained an inescapable truth; she had forgotten to check those bloody photocopies. Something she had never failed to do before.

Maybe she was losing her grip. How could she not, when half her mind was occupied, day after day, with Ian.

But, if forced to take leave, without the daily grind of work, all her thoughts would return unbidden to dwell obsessively and exclusively on that one dismal, unchangeable fact. That Ian was
dead, and she would never see him again. Never touch, or be touched by, him again. And now this.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to quieten her pounding heart and to think straight. Who the hell could it be? There had been so many people she had arrested, imprisoned,
whose lives she had derailed. Police work did not lead to popularity among those who committed crimes. If she was looking for someone who wished her ill, she was spoilt for choice.

She must keep calm. She looked out onto the steps of the museum and watched idly as a sheet of newspaper was tumbled along by the wind. Seeing it tossed to and fro, it dawned on her that her
search for a solution was going nowhere. It was like trying to catch a ghost in a net, or smoke in a sieve. All that she could do was to try to be extra alert, and hope that at some stage the
person or persons who were menacing her would overplay their hand and make themselves, in some way, visible. That they would emerge into the light.

Apart from the small cuts on her face, she had come to no harm so far. She would not let fear paralyse her. She would use it as a spur to keep going. Telling herself out loud to get a grip, she
turned the key in the ignition.

The twin baroque towers flanking the domed apse of St Cuthbert’s were both brightly lit. Beyond lay a sea of darkness stretching towards Princes Street, and the church
itself seemed like a beacon in the night.

One of the red double doors on the east side was propped open and a band of smokers clustered round it. A young woman with piercings in her nose, forehead and lower lip was dodging hither and
thither between them, laughing loudly, playing tig with another teenage girl. The smell of food mixed with the cigarette smoke got stronger as Alice moved from the grand outer hall, with its
symmetrical stone staircases, to the inner hall beyond.

As she walked by a trestle table covered in empty serving dishes, an elderly woman bearing a large flask asked whether she would like tea or coffee.

‘Neither, thanks. I’m looking for someone called Taff.’

‘I don’t know anyone called Taff. Is he Polish? If so you’d best ask Stephen,’ she replied, pointing towards a large man who was sitting at one of the tables set up on
the right side of the hall. The room had been arranged to look like a café. He was talking excitedly to a small audience of bystanders, waving a heavily-tattooed arm in the air.

‘No, he’s not Polish.’

‘Then probably best to ask around or try one of the Bethany people. I’m from St Cuth’s so I don’t know the men, I’m afraid. We’re just providing the venue for
the night.’

Walking between the bed mats, Alice saw a smartly-dressed man folding up a couple of blankets and directing someone else to the mat closest to him. Approaching him, Alice said, ‘I’m
looking for Taff.’

The man turned to face her and then let fly an unintelligible rant, gesticulating excitedly and ending his tirade by throwing his blankets on the matting.

‘He’s Polish, and he doesn’t like this place. He wants to go home,’ a voice from the floor said. It was an elderly man, his balaclava-encased head peeping out from the
top of his sleeping bag. ‘Aren’t you, Karol? Polski, eh? You’re a Polski, aren’t you?’