Beggars Banquet (23 page)

Berkely’s mother had died two months before. She had never told him the truth about his birth, spinning instead some story about his father being dead. But in sorting through his mother’s papers, Shaw discovered the truth - several truths, in fact. His mother had been in love with Walter Scott, had become pregnant by him, but had been, as she herself put it in her journal, ‘discarded’ in favour of the ‘better marriage’ provided by Margaret Winton-Addams.

Shaw’s mother accepted some money from Scott and fled to the United States, where she had a younger sister. Shaw grew up believing his father dead. The revelation not only that he was alive, but that he had prospered in society after having caused Shaw’s mother misery and torment, led to a son’s rage. But it was impotent rage, Shaw thought, until he came across the love letters. His mother must at some point have stolen them from Scott, or at least had come out of the relationship in possession of them. Shaw decided on a teasing revenge, knowing Scott would deduce that any blackmailer in possession of the letters was probably also well informed about his affair and the bastard son.

He used the tour party as an elaborate cover (and also, he admitted, because it was a cheap travel option). He brought with him to Britain not only the letters, but also the series of typed notes. The irony was that he had been to Edinburgh before, had studied there for three months as part of some exchange with his American college. He knew now why his mother, though proud of the scholarship, had been against his going. For three months he had lived in his father’s city, yet hadn’t known it.

He sent the notes from London - the travel party’s base for much of its stay in England. The exchange - letters for cash - had gone ahead in the Café Royal, the bar having been a haunt of his student days. But he had known his final note, delivered by hand, would tempt Sir Walter, would lead him to the top of the Scott Monument. No, he said, he hadn’t just wanted Sir Walter to see him, to see the son he had never known. Shaw had much of the money on him, stuffed into a money belt around his waist. The intention had been to release wads of money, Sir Walter’s money, down on to Princes Street Gardens.

‘I didn’t mean for him to die . . . I just wanted him to know how I felt about him . . . I don’t know. But Jesus’ - he grinned - ‘I still wish I’d let fly with all that loot.’

Rebus shuddered to think of the ramifications. Stampede in Princes Street! Hundreds dead in lunchtime spree! Biggest
scoor-oot
ever! No, best not to think about it. Instead, he made for the Café Royal himself. It was late morning, the day after Berkely’s arrest. The pub was quiet as yet, but Rebus was surprised to see Dr Jameson standing at the bar, fortifying himself with what looked suspiciously like a double whisky. Remembering how he had left the doctor in the lurch regarding Sir Walter’s body, Rebus grinned broadly and offered a healthy slap on the back.

‘Morning, Doc, fancy seeing you in here.’ Rebus leaned his elbows on the bar. ‘We mustn’t be keeping you busy enough.’ He paused. There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. ‘Here, let me get you a stiff one . . .’ And he laughed so hard even the waiters from the Oyster Bar came to investigate. But all they saw was a tall, well-built man leaning against a much smaller, more timid man, and saying as he raised his glass: ‘Here’s to mortality, to old mortality!’

So all in all it was just another day in the Café Royal.

We’re called there at all hours of the day and night, sometimes by clients, sometimes by the police themselves. There is something about those stations, something unwholesome, and it leaves its mark on you. Put me in a room full of lawyers, and I’ll tell you which ones spend a lot of time in police cells and interview rooms, and hanging around corridors and empty offices, fingers tapping impatiently against briefcases. Those laywers have a tired, drawn look. They look like morticians. They lose colour and smile less than they used to. And they look nervous and cynical at the same time, their eyes flitting over you as if you’d been accused of something.

Today, I was sitting in Detective Inspector Jack Preston’s office. He’s a friend of mine, insofar as we’ve been known to share a drink, a meal, a joke. We have met socially at parties full of other CID men and lawyers. That’s why he was doing me what he called a ‘favour’. We were having a quiet word, the door closed, about a client of mine. Jack was keen to see my client put away, but knew I could mount a reasonable defence. He wanted to do some trading. He would drop a couple of charges if my client changed his plea.

This is the way the law works. It’s the only thing that stops the courts blocking up completely. ‘Plumbing’, Jack calls it. He says we’re all plumbers’ mates, trying to keep the
merde
flowing.

I was putting the case for my client, not really trying too hard, just enjoying the exercise, when there was a knock at the door.

‘Yes,’ Jack called. A head appeared round the door.

‘Sorry, sir, I know you didn’t want to be disturbed.’

Jack waved the young man inside and introduced him as DC Derek Halliwell.

‘What is it, Derek?’

‘The eleven o’clock identification,’ DC Halliwell said. Jack checked his watch. It was two minutes to eleven.

‘Christ,’ he said.

I smiled. ‘Time flies.’ It was true I’d been in his office a while. We’d been chatting, that’s all. Some gossip, a few stories, a cup of coffee.

‘Do it without me,’ Jack said.

‘It’s not that, sir. We’re one short for the lineup.’

‘Have you had a look around?’

‘Nobody’s available.’

Jack thought about it. ‘Well, she knows me, I can’t do it.’ Then he had an idea. He turned to me. I widened my eyes.

‘You want
me
to appear in an ID parade?’

‘You’d be doing us a big favour, Roddy.’

‘Would it take long?’

He smiled. ‘You know it wouldn’t.’

I sighed, a little theatrically. ‘Only too pleased, Inspector, to help police with their inquiries.’

Jack and DC Halliwell had a laugh as I got to my feet.

We were standing in the anteroom.

‘You might have warned me,’ I said.

‘I’m telling you now,’ Jack said.

It was the Marshall case. Sophie Marshall had been mugged, and had died of her injuries before help could arrive. Her attacker had left her propped against a wall, and had taken only cash and jewellery. The hell of it was, I’d known Sophie Marshall. Well, I’d met her a few times, as had Jack. She’d been a court usher. We’d met her both professionally and at drinks parties. She’d been a good-looking young woman, full of life.

‘Thing is,’ Jack confided, ‘you know and I know that the MO fits Barry Cooke.’

I nodded. Barry Cooke was a young thug of the district who had mugged before and served time. He’d left the victim propped against a wall. I recalled his barrister saying in mitigation that Cooke had left the victim in that position to make him more comfortable. From the moment they found Sophie Marshall, the police suspected Cooke. They took him in for questioning, but he had a good alibi and a keen young solicitor. The evidence against him was circumstantial. It wouldn’t hold up in court.

‘But now you’ve got a witness?’ I said, interested.

Jack nodded. He seemed nervous. ‘A young woman, says she saw somebody near the scene about the time Sophie Marshall was attacked. We’ve brought Cooke in, see if she can point the finger.’ He shrugged. ‘That would just about do it.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Who is she?’

‘The witness?’ Jack shrugged again, lighting a cigarette for himself, despite the No Smoking signs on all four walls and above the door. ‘Just someone who lives near there. Actually, she lives on the floor above Marshall, but she didn’t know her. She’s not what you’d call the perfect witness.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Wait till you see her: cropped hair, ring through her nose, tattoos. She’s Ray Boyd’s girlfriend. Know him?’ I shook my head. ‘He’s got a bit of a temper on him. He was in court a couple of days ago for assault. Got off with it though.’

I nodded. ‘I think I recall the case.’

The other members of the lineup were milling around, and now the anteroom door opened and Barry Cooke was led in. I didn’t look at him. There was a quick briefing from Jack, and we were told to go into the ID room. There, we were arranged into a line. I was wearing a jacket borrowed from DC Halliwell, to make me look more ‘casual’, and I’d taken off my tie. I still looked a good deal more formal than the others in the lineup, one of whom was a police officer.

I ended up as Number Four. Barry Cooke was right next to me. He was about a foot shorter than me, with thick unkempt hair tied back into a matted ponytail. His mouth was missing a few teeth, and his face was scarred with acne. I tried to look straight ahead of me, but of course he knew who I was.

‘You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘No talking!’ one of the policemen ordered.

Then the witness was brought into the room. Jack was with her, along with Cooke’s solicitor, an upstart called Tony Barraclough. Barraclough recognised me, but didn’t let it show. He’d probably been forewarned by Jack.

The witness was about Cooke’s height and age. It struck me that they might know one another, but then this parade wouldn’t have been necessary. She was an ugly little thing, except for her eyes. Her eyes were pretty, the way she’d once been pretty all over. But she’d scraped and savaged herself, pierced herself. She wore her underclass like a uniform.

She stopped in front of Number One, then passed Two and Three and stopped in front of me. I stared straight ahead, and she moved on to Barry Cooke. But she walked right past him to Number Six. I could see hope fade from Jack’s face. His shoulders sagged. Eventually, she walked past us again. I thought this time she was going to stop at Cooke, but she was standing in front of me.

Then she reached up and tapped my shoulder.

‘That’s him,’ she said, ‘that’s the bastard.’

Jack shuffled his feet. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh, I’m sure all right. Definitely him.
Bastard!
’ And she slapped me hard across the face.

Two uniformed officers led her away, still screaming. Everyone looked a bit shaken up. I rubbed my cheek where it stung. Barry Cooke was watching me intently. Jack was having a quiet word with Tony Barraclough. Jack was smiling, Barraclough nodding. Then the lineup was dismissed, Cooke went off with Barraclough, and Jack came over to me.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said.

‘Do you think I should press a charge for assault?’

‘What do you reckon?’

I shrugged. ‘You say her boyfriend’s often in trouble?’

‘Not often.’

‘Maybe she’s seen me in the courts.’

‘Yes, that’s possible. Decided to have a go at you. That makes sense. Otherwise . . . well, I mean, you and Cooke, you’re chalk and cheese.’

‘Further apart than that, I think.’

‘Well, anyway, sorry.’ He pointed to my cheek. ‘I can see the outline of her fingers.’

I rubbed the cheek again. ‘I hope it fades before I go home.’

‘I didn’t know your wife was the jealous type.’ Jack put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Roddy, these identity parades work less often than you’d think. I’ve been picked out myself once or twice.’

‘No problem,’ I said, trying to smile.

But I was worried, all the same.

I wanted to see if it was possible that Ray Boyd himself could have been Sophie Marshall’s attacker. I knew from Jack that Boyd had a temper, that he’d been in court for assault. It didn’t take me too long to find what I was looking for in the court records. But his previous arrests were for assaults on men, not women. They usually took place in the form of one-sided fights outside pubs. Boyd was a good fighter, by all accounts, in that he tended to lose his head and become a whirlwind, all arms and attitude, feet and ferocity. He didn’t care if you hit him back. He shrugged blows off and kept on pummelling. On the last occasion, it had taken several bystanders to drag him off his cowed opponent.

There was no mention of a girlfriend, and I didn’t want to ask Jack about her. I didn’t want him involved, not at this stage. But I had Boyd’s address, so I drove myself out there, thanking God I hadn’t yet got rid of my Ford Sierra and traded up to the Mercedes or BMW which I’d been promising myself. Where Ray Boyd lived, even a newish Sierra turned heads.

It was a mazy block of flats, eight storeys high and the colour of old dishwater. I parked my car in a bay and sat for a while, wondering what to do next. Fortunately, my wife is a birdwatcher. Her own car having been out of action last weekend, she’d borrowed mine so she and her fellow ‘twitchers’ could drive to some godforsaken spot to stare at a rare Siberian visitor. Her binoculars were still in the car. They were her second-best pair, compact in size and sheathed in green rubber. I scanned the tiers of the tower block. On the other side of the block, there were only anonymous windows, but I was parked in a kind of inner arena. This side, there were long walkways and front doors, liftshafts and stairwells. Boyd’s flat was 316, which I soon realised meant floor 3, flat 16.

Scanning what third-floor doors I could see, I eventually picked out flat 16. It looked no better or worse than its neighbours. I put the binoculars away and sat there, keeping an eye on it, pretending to read a newspaper. Even the paper, I realised, was wrong for this part of town. Not many broadsheets around here.

‘You make a lousy detective,’ I told myself.

A few children playing with a ball came to look at me. I don’t know who they thought I was but they were properly mistrustful of authority, and soon went away again. I could have been a policeman, a debt collector, or anyone. It struck me how ridiculous this was, me sitting here. But I wanted to get a look at Ray Boyd; to size him up, as it were.

When his flat door opened, Boyd came out accompanied by the witness. I wished I knew her name, but at least I knew where she stayed, Jack had told me. Boyd and his girlfriend were walking. I tried following them in the car but they were walking too slowly for this to be feasible, so I parked by the side of the road and followed on foot. After a quarter of a mile, I reckoned I knew where they were headed: the girlfriend’s flat on the Horseshoe Estate, where Sophie Marshall had lived. I’d seen enough; I headed back to my car. A policeman had already ticketed it.