Naming the Bones (27 page)

‘I’m up north on an island that doesn’t have a pub.’

‘So you’re a long-distance heavy.’

‘I’m not a heavy at all. I’m a lecturer in English literature.’

‘Christ,’ the landlord laughed. ‘What are you going to do if I don’t cooperate? Make me spell a difficult word?’ He snorted. ‘This island, did you ken it was dry when you went there?’

‘No.’

‘Jesus.’ He laughed again. ‘Did you take anything with you?’

The other man’s delight at his predicament decided Murray against mentioning the shop’s shelves groaning with spirits.

‘A bottle of whisky I’m halfway through.’

There was palpable glee in the other man’s voice.

‘I’m guessing you’re rationing that.’

‘I’m down to around an X-ray of a dram every night.’

The landlord’s snort sounded down the line.

‘This book, is it going to show that old cunt in a good light?’

‘I wouldn’t think so.’

‘And will it have acknowledgements? You know, wee thank-yous to people that helped out in the making of it?’

‘More than likely.’

‘Right.’ The landlord cleared his throat, like a torch singer about to embark on a particularly gruelling number. ‘Have you got a pen and paper handy?’

‘Aye, hang on a minute.’ Murray wedged his mobile between his chin and his shoulder and fumbled in the pocket of his cagoule for a notepad and pen. He found them, put a foot up on a toppled remnant of one of the castle’s
stone walls and awkwardly rested the book on his knee. ‘Okay.’

‘Right. My name is John Rathbone. I’ll spell it for you, R-a-t-h-b-o-n-e. Got that?’

It was cold and the ballpoint refused to write. Murray scribbled on the damp surface of the paper, but only succeeded in scratching a hole through to the next page.

‘Yes.’

‘And here’s where you can send my copy when it comes out.’ Rathbone detailed an address on the south side of Edinburgh, taking care to spell any words he thought Murray might have trouble with. ‘On second thoughts, maybe you should send two. I’ll give one to my old dear, she’s always had a thing about me not staying on at school. It’d give her a kick to see my name in print.’

Murray repeated the address out loud and shoved the useless pen and paper into his pocket, resolving to look the man up and check his details if the book ever made it to publication.

‘I’ll send you three.’

‘Cheers, I’ll give one to my bird. No, I’ll save it in case I need to impress a new one.’

‘Aye, the ladies like a bit of culture.’

‘Talking from experience, are you?’

Murray gave what he hoped was a manly chuckle.

‘Some.’

‘The revenge of the swot?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Could be my old dear was right about staying on at school then.’

Murray could feel the conversation drifting away from him. He thought of his fading battery and said, ‘The main thing I wanted to ask was why did you burn Bobby’s books?’

The man’s sigh seemed at one with the wind whispering around the fallen fortifications.

‘So you heard about that, did you? I’m guessing you dropped by here before you set out for Temperance Island.’

‘I never reveal my sources.’

‘No need to. My sister’s girl Lauren gave me pure grief for it.’

‘It’s your flat. I’d imagine that, technically speaking, anything abandoned in it’s yours to dispose of as you see fit.’

‘I wish it was mine to dispose of. A wee place in the centre of Edinburgh? Must be worth a bomb. I would have had that old bum out of it in a shot. Nah, I just manage it for a bloke.’

‘So the books?’

‘Crippen was always going on about his book collection. When it turned out no one wanted his stuff, I promised them to Lauren. She’s a good kid, always got her head in a book. She’s saving up to go to uni, and I thought there might be something in there she could use. But they were filth, so I took them out into the back court and burnt them.’

‘Pornography?’

‘If they’d been porn, I would have kept them for myself, wouldn’t I? Nah, it was spooky stuff, books on spells and the like, horrible.’

‘He had a big collection of occult books?’

‘He had more than that. You should have seen the state of the place. Hang on a wee minute, will you?’

The man put the handset down. Far off Murray could hear him talking to someone. A dark cloud passed across the sky, throwing its shadow over the water. Murray drew his scarf closer, muffling his face against the cold. It was going to rain again. He thought of Hamlet, confronted with the ghost of his father on the castle ramparts at night, and a shiver stiffened the hairs on the back of his neck.

‘Well, that’s me popular with the bar staff, an entire delivery offloaded with no help from yours truly.’ Rathbone sounded pleased with himself. ‘What was I saying?’

‘Bobby Robb had more than just a big collection of occult books.’

‘Who?’

‘Crippen, as you called him.’

‘Oh, aye. I had to redecorate before the boss saw the state of the place. You can imagine how delighted I was at that – took me a sander and three coats of varnish to cover up his handiwork.’

‘Why?’

‘I was meant to do an inspection every six months, make sure the place was ship-shape, but I’d kind of let it slide. It’s a good gig, looking after amateur landlords’ flats. As long as you’ve got a wee black book full of reliable tradesmen, it’s money for old rope most of the time. But word soon gets round if you slip up.’

‘No, I meant what did you have to cover up?’

‘I’m getting to that.’ Now that he had decided to tell his story, Rathbone’s voice was full of relish at the strangeness of it. ‘Crippen was lodged in a one-bedroom flat on the High Street, three floors up above the Starbucks. A lot of stairs for an old man, but he looked fit enough. I would have bet he had another ten years in him. Just goes to show.’ The landlord paused, giving them both time to take in the impossibility of ever knowing the future, then went on, ‘The place wasn’t that clean, but I didn’t expect it to be. Crippen never had much of an acquaintance with soap and water, so it didn’t take a genius to work out he didn’t own a pair of Marigolds. It wasn’t a problem, my sister’s generally happy to earn a few bob cleaning for me, as long as there’s nothing too nasty involved. I checked out the kitchen and the sitting room, everything was pretty much as it should be, except for dust and beer stains, but as I said, I expected as much. The shock came when I went into the bedroom. I’ve found all sorts in my time; bloodstains on top of the mattress, used condoms underneath, mice in the skirting, beetles under the wallpaper. I even had a pair of students who let their kitchen get so fucking beyond them they boarded it up and made it into a no-go zone – needless to say, they didn’t get their deposits back. I thought they were the worst I was ever likely to see, but they were just lazy cunts. Crippen’s bedroom . . . well, that was something else. Like a scene from a horror movie. To tell you the truth, there was a moment when I thought about calling the police, but I decided it’d be a waste of their time. I mean, if you could be arrested for crimes against decorating, that cunt Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen would be doing a twenty stretch, right?’

‘So what had he done?’

‘He’d covered the floor in writing.’

‘The entire floor?’

‘Not all of it, no. The bed was in the centre of the room and he’d made a kind of circle of words around it. When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be some major confession, where he’d hidden the bodies of hundreds of missing schoolgirls or something, but thank Christ it was just a load of crap.’

‘Can you remember any of it?’

‘I knew you were going to ask that, but no, I couldn’t really read it. He’d used some kind of indelible paint and written in this sort of old-fashioned curly script. There were numbers and symbols too, like a lot of algebra in a circle round the bed. Whatever it was it gave me the bloody heebies. I gave it a good hard scrub, tried turps, ammonia, everything I could think of, but it wasn’t for budging. In the end I had to hire a sander and take the surface off, then go down to B&Q, for deck varnish and seal it. I had to do the whole bloody floor or else the join would have shown. It was a fucking hellish job, dust everywhere.’

‘I don’t suppose you took a photo of it on your camera-phone or anything, just to show to your mates?’

‘Why would I want to show them sick stuff like that? I wanted it gone before Baine came round and took the job of managing the flat off me.’

Murray started at the familiar name.

‘Who?’

‘Baine, the guy who owns the place. He’s a university bloke like yourself. Oh, Christ.’ John Rathbone’s voice filled with sudden realisation. ‘Don’t say you know him.’

‘No, I don’t think so. What does he look like?’

‘I never met him. I just speak to him on the phone and send any paperwork to his uni office over in Glasgow. He talks like he’s got a boiled sweet in his mouth, but then a lot of them do.’

‘No.’ Murray hoped the lie didn’t sound in his voice. ‘I don’t know him.’

‘Thank fuck. Not that I’m saying you would have grassed me up.’

‘But it would have been a waste of your decorating skills if I had.’

Rathbone gave a bitter laugh.

‘That’s the funny thing. He phoned up, thanked me for my help over the years, and asked if I could show the estate agents round. End of story. Told me to take him off my books, he was putting the place on the market. I would have been as well not bothering. I’ll tell you something for nothing, though.’

‘What?’

‘I got the feeling he was relieved to get the place back. I think he’d rented it out to the old boy as a favour, a guy that’d done well helping out an old pal that was down on his uppers – kind of cool, when you think on it. Though why a professor would want to keep up with an old soak is beyond me. Maybe he had fond memories. Crippen told me that him and Baine went way back. I guess they were students together or something. He was an intelligent man, Crippen. Just pissed it up against the wall.’ The landlord sounded wistful. ‘It happens.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

MURRAY STOOD AT
the top of the castle, gazing out to sea. He remembered Alan Garrett’s note,
Interested in the beyond
. Had Lunan had any interest in the occult? Some of his poetry held an atmosphere of the Celtic otherworld, and Christie’s novels were generally shelved in the bookshops’ horror section; but these were fictions while it seemed Bobby’s library had masqueraded as fact. He would need to visit the Geordie’s landlord. Buy him a whisky and see if he could remember any of the books’ titles. People sometimes recalled more when they had a drink in their hand.

Murray glanced at his watch. He would have to start walking if he were to be sure of catching the ferry home. He hopped down from the crag, thinking now about Fergus’s uncharacteristic kindness towards Bobby. Strange that a man’s charity should make him suspicious.

He felt his phone vibrate back into life, and then heard its irritating jingle. Murray glanced at the display and cursed as his fingers, clumsy with the cold, struggled to hit the right button to accept the call.

‘Murray?’

His stomach swooped at the sound of his name on her lips, but even with that one word he knew something was wrong. Rachel’s voice had lost its cool tone, the barrier of mockery she’d managed to preserve between them, even when he was inside her.

He asked, ‘Are you okay?’ and heard the answering note of concern in his own voice.

‘Yes, fine. Listen, have you checked your email?’

‘Not recently, no. Should I?’

There was a pause on the line. One of the horses grazing in the shelter of the castle looked at him with mild, brown eyes. He wondered where Rachel was. In the home he had never visited, or in her office, safe from prying ears. He listened for her breath, but couldn’t hear it beneath the sound of the wind.

‘Rachel?’

‘Yes, I’m still here. This is . . .’ She paused again and this time he waited, following the curve of the horse’s sleek brown back with his eyes, amazed, as he always was when he saw them in the flesh, at how big the creature was.

Rachel came back on the line.

‘I wanted to ask if you could do me a favour.’

‘Anything.’

He was as obedient as Pete’s grinning dog, with none of its bite.

‘I think you might have received an email by mistake. You’ll be able to spot it, it’ll have been sent yesterday by someone you don’t know and will have a rather large document attached. Will you delete without opening, please?’

‘Is it a virus?’

‘Yes.’ Relief sounded in her voice. ‘A particularly ghastly one. It’s designed to leech onto every contact in your address book. Clever, but nasty. Apparently it wipes the hard drive of any computer it’s opened on. I’m frantically phoning everyone I can think of.’ Her laugh sounded strange. ‘It’s embarrassing, like chasing ex-partners to let them know you’ve got VD.’

‘Rachel, are you okay?’

‘Fine, just . . .’ Her voice faltered. ‘Just a little overworked.’

‘And your computer’s wrecked. Did you lose much?’

‘I’m pretty good at backing-up, it could be worse.’ Her voice wavered again. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve an army of people to phone. But please, Murray, delete that email. I wouldn’t want you to lose all your research.’

He said, ‘I miss you.’

‘Don’t, there’s no point.’

The line went dead.

Murray stood there, the phone warm in his hand, watching the tide’s unstoppable shift. He supposed the view should give him a sense of proportion, but all he could think of was Rachel and Fergus, Fergus and Rachel. The wind flapped at his waterproof. He turned even though he knew no one was there. But there was something beyond the rustling noise of his hood. He could hear it. A distant pinprick of sound that rushed to a roar. His chest tightened and the thought,
so this is how it goes
, burst into his head, along with a vision of his father’s face. The herd of horses turned together and raced down into the glen, the thud of their hooves absorbed by the almighty surge of sound. Murray felt himself drop to his knees, and then had an abrupt flash of comprehension as he saw the Harrier Jump Jet screaming through the valley. He could have shouted his lungs empty, and no one would have heard. But he simply whispered
fuck, fuck, fuck
under his breath, then got to his feet, wiping the mud from his knees, and started to make his way down.