White Rage (27 page)

‘You think, what? Bobby was set up to be blown to pieces?' Scullion said. ‘He knew nothing about an explosive.'

‘It's one possibility. Or maybe he just happened to go into Cremoni's when a device, intended for McKinnon, went off. Wrong place, bad timing.'

‘That kid Tommy Flynn said Bobby knocked on the door and McKinnon let him in, right? So why was he going inside Cremoni's at a time when the restaurant was closed? Did he know McKinnon? Was he a friend? Was he delivering something?'

Perlman folded his arms and leaned against the wall and the panel at his back shifted slightly under his weight. The day coming to an end was beginning to vaporize. He felt fatigue move just behind his eyes. How long until he hit his bed? Even then, head on pillow, would he sleep, or would his mind, like a greyhound, chase the evasive electric hare hour after hour? He gazed at Bobby's mail again: a racist, but nothing here to connect him
obviously
with White Rage.

‘Why don't you switch the computer on?' he said.

‘I was about to.' Scullion pressed a key and there was a flurry of whirring and clicking. The screen burst into colour, exploding orbs, zigzagging lines, then the words
Property of Bobby D
.

‘Now what?' Perlman asked.

Scullion stared at the screen. He tapped the keyboard and a list appeared, white letters on a blue background. ‘Word processing. Calculator. Internet connection. Email. Pretty basic'

‘Can we check his mail?'

Scullion opened the file that contained Bobby Descartes' email program. Nothing. Outbox, inbox, trash – all empty.

Perlman asked, ‘Does this mean he never used email?'

‘It's more likely he deleted it.'

‘So we don't know who he communicated with?'

‘Presumably that's what he intended. Keep everything secret.'

‘Where does email go when you delete it?'

Scullion said, ‘I think it just gets zapped. Gone and goodbye. I did hear once that some smart characters had ways of retrieving pulverized mail.'

‘We can locate such a
vunderlech?
'

I'm sure we can.'

‘So we schlep the machine out of here.'

‘You think you can carry it?' Scullion said.

‘My age, I still get the donkey work.' Perlman stared at the tangle of wires. He didn't fancy touching any of them. Begin by unplugging, for safety's sake. He dropped to hands and knees and crawled under the table and carefully yanked plugs from the wall. He stood up, lifted the assorted pieces of the machine. Scullion helped, picked up the hefty monitor, clutched it to his chest. Perlman balanced keyboard, modem and disk-drive in a stack.

They hauled the stuff inside the living room.

Sandrine Descartes stared at them. ‘Take it. Take anything you like. You don't need my permission. Bobby's dead. I don't want this stuff. Wait. I have something else for you.' She got up from the sofa and went inside the kitchen and when she returned she was holding a wooden-handled hammer in her hand. Tears slid from her eyes and ran in random lines down her face and the corners of her mouth were flecked with saliva.

‘Bobby brought this home with him.'

Scullion stared at her over the top of the monitor. ‘Why do you want us to –'

Then he stopped, struck by an understanding of what she was holding. He glanced at Perlman, whose attention was focused on the metal head of the implement, which Sandrine Descartes brought very close to his face. He saw how the head was stained brown-red and covered with tiny dried specks of organic matter he couldn't identify. He placed the computer components on the floor and reached for the hammer, which Sandrine Descartes stuck into his open hand.

The shaft was a little gummy.

He knew at once how this hammer had been used. The recent history of this tool vibrated inside him. He wanted to drop the thing and scrub his hands clean in scalding water. But he held on to the hammer tightly, like a man frozen to a surface of ice.

30

She asked, ‘You don't like the hair, Pegg? At least I don't look anything like this,' and she pushed the early edition of the
Daily Record
across the formica table top.

Pegg glanced at the computer sketch of the dark-haired girl on the front page.
Do You Know This Woman?
‘How did they get this to look so bloody accurate anyway?'

‘I don't think it resembles me at all,' she said. It was different from the picture Perlman had shown her originally; that old fart, naturally, had had her features revised by somebody who knew his way around a photo-fit programme. ‘The nose is too long. The eyes are too far apart.'

‘By a fraction of an inch maybe.' Pegg frowned and turned his face to one side. He plucked at the rubber band of his eyepatch, as if it were too tight. A Chinese waiter hustled past carrying a tray stacked with sizzling pork.

‘You're not telling me everything, are you?' Pegg asked.

She folded the newspaper over, hiding the sketch of herself and the banner headline
Racist Killings Shock Glasgow
. What was she supposed to tell Pegg? That she'd run into Perlman by sheer chance? That she'd jeopardized herself by going back to the vicinity of the explosion? No. Pegg was already simmering. He'd never accepted her entirely into the cell that was the province of himself and Swank. Maybe he was sexist. Maybe possessive of his little kingdom.

‘Tell me why I'm getting the feeling you're not being straight?' he asked.

‘You're a suspicious bastard.'

‘I need to be.'

‘Come on, Pegg. People saw me in the Tinder-box. Which incidentally was where you wanted me to be, because Helen Mboto was going to be there, and you wanted a double chocolate scoop, didn't you? Okay. People described me to the cops. What difference does it make now? This black-haired little number in the newspaper has ceased to exist, Pegg. In her place, you see a neat blonde cutie in tight blue jeans and scarlet lipstick and a low-cut blouse – and these sparklers.' She spread her hand, flashed her big cheap rings.

Pegg pushed aside a half-eaten eggroll. His one eye blinked rapidly a few times. ‘Somebody will recognize the face in the newspaper. Somebody will come forward and say I remember her. You're arrogant if you don't believe that. Arrogance doesn't have any place in our movement.'

‘Arrogant, my arse. I'm good at what I do, that's all. And who's going to catch me anyway? I'm on the move, Pegg. I'm quicksilver.'

‘The blonde hair and those idiot jewels – you think you can hide behind all that?'

‘I know I can, cutie.'

‘You're …' Pegg didn't complete the sentence. He poked at the eggroll. ‘Why do I eat this crap? I hate Chinese. You're the one who wanted to meet here.'

‘It's open all hours and it's out of the way.'

‘MSG makes me sweat,' he said. ‘You look like a two-quid tart.'

She lit a cigarette and winked at him.

Pegg made a face. ‘I don't appreciate this.'

She thought: Humourless little git. Did he stay home and jerk off? She decided he was a virgin. She was tempted to rub him under the table, a tiny provocation, but that was a move too far. You didn't joke with Pegg. She looked past him at the post-midnight diners. Some used chopsticks drunkenly, and sniggered when rice dropped.

‘I got the
job
done,' she said.

‘We could have done without the theatrics.'

‘Look, I do what I'm supposed to. The point is, it gets accomplished. What time is it?'

‘One a.m.'

‘I have to make a phone call.'

‘To who? Your Mr Big?' Pegg sneered; he did it well.

‘He donates, Pegg. Hard
cash
.'

‘I don't like the arrangement.'

‘Because it's mine. Because you didn't initiate it.' She rose, adjusted the silver strap of her shoulder bag. She went down the hallway that led to the toilets, passing the open doorway of the kitchen. Thick smoke rose from hot woks. Chefs yammered in Chinese. She kept moving until she reached the telephone. She shoved a coin in the slot, punched in a number.

Oyster answered, second ring. ‘I like your punctuality.'

‘You can count on me.'

‘You're compelled. You're driven.'

‘Driven?' she asked. ‘I like to think I'm the one doing the driving.'

31

2.08 a.m: Perlman badly wanted to wrap the day and go home, but here he was in Scullion's office where a technical support operative called Alec Desert had Bobby Descartes' computer up and running. Desert was a miserable thin-necked little man who hated his job, his wife, his kids and his three-bedroom semi in Dumbreck. Roused from sleep and summoned to Pitt Street, he was more crabbity than usual; he had the brow-scrunched look of man who'd accidentally thrown away a winning lottery ticket and couldn't find it. He wore a cheap blue suit over his striped pyjamas, but he'd forgotten to put on outdoor shoes. Battered tartan slippers covered his feet.

He studied the screen. ‘I wish some of you Force guys would get really computer-literate. It's not rocketry, you know. It's not even Rubik's fucking cube. It's dead simple.'

Scullion said, ‘It's a knack, Alec. Some have it, some don't.'

‘Any schoolboy could do this half-asleep.'

Perlman said, ‘So you wanted to be something else when you grew up, eh? Welcome to the lodge.'

‘I wanted to play football. I had a trial for St Mirren. I wanted to turn pro. Instead I go around with my head stuck inside computers.' He smothered a yawn and rapped at the keyboard, fingers long and bony. ‘Okay. Lemme explain to youse thickos. You delete something on a computer, it doesn't mean it's disappeared for ever. It gets relegated to another sector of the hard disk, and it might stay there for a long time. You can't find the deleted message by typing in the file name because the computer won't recognize it. Following me this far? Now the email system here is standard. What I have to do is access the datafiles and see if I can open them without having to drag this piece of home-made shite to a lab. What we'll see, with any luck, is a bunch of deleted messages. Okay? So you want to know what he sent and what he received?'

‘Just don't get technical,' Perlman said.

‘Am I being technical so far? I'm talking like one of the fucking Flowerpot Men. I'll give you technical if –'

The phone rang. Scullion picked it up, then passed it to Perlman. Terry Bogan was on the line. ‘Score. The barman at the Corinthian says yes, definitely, no two ways. This is the girl.'

‘One hundred per cent?'

‘Absolutely. I hope it helps, Lou. Jesus I'm knackered.'

‘Thanks.' Perlman put the phone down.

‘Something to share?' Scullion asked.

‘Bogan got a yes from the Corinthian.'

‘Now you're sorry you didn't cuff your femme fatale, right?'

Perlman didn't answer. Sandy's question was more mild criticism than inquiry:
How did you let her elude you, Lou? Pops up right in front of your eyes, and you let her walk
. You don't usually get second shots at coincidental meetings, Perlman thought. One jolt from the blue, then gone and goodbye. You could wait a lifetime for the next occurrence.

Perlman watched the screen change. His attention drifted to a memory of the hammer, and the feel of wood against his skin, and the revulsion he'd experienced when Sandrine Descartes had placed it in his hand. The hammer had already gone to Sid Linklater for examination. Now he thought of the golf course, and Helen Mboto, and Linklater's assessment that the dead woman had been struck – what? Thirty times? More? Perlman hated having to recall the stats of death, how many hammer blows, gunshots, knife wounds. If Bobby Descartes' hammer had been the killing instrument, it tied him, beyond doubt, with White Rage. And the girl who'd called herself Celia – identified now as the wee
stoater
who'd been gyrating with Tilak Gupta the night of his death – had she lured Helen Mboto out of the Tinderbox? Maybe Helen had been conned to death by kindness. And maybe on a dark street close to the Tinderbox Bobby Descartes had been waiting with a hammer in his pocket.

Desert said, ‘Okay. You see what's coming up on the screen? These are deleted emails. Some complete, some truncated. There's a bunch of code splashed around – all these digits and slashes and weird symbols – but ignore that. I'll start scrolling slowly and you can tell me when you want me to stop.'

Perlman refocused, gazed at the monitor. Scullion huddled close, all attention.

‘Stop there,' Scullion said.

Sahara looked at the screen. ‘This is a message sent by somebody called Beezer to somebody by the name of Paprika. It says:
See you when I'm next in Edmburra
.'

Beezer and Paprika, Perlman thought. A name from an old comic and a Hungarian goulash condiment. Email offered a gateway to a world of unlikely conjunctions. ‘Who the hell is Beezer?' he asked.

Desert scanned the screen. ‘All the outgoing emails are from Beezer, so I assume he's the owner of this shambolic mutant of a computer.'

Perlman thought, Bobby Descartes: AKA Beezer. Why choose that as your nom d'email?

Scullion asked, ‘If we wanted to know the identity of this Paprika, how could we find out?'

‘It's difficult. Paprika has a Hotmail account. You sign up with Hotmail, you don't have to give an address or a phone number. You don't even need to give your real name. Hotmail doesn't care who you are. It's one of those email servers popular with backpackers who send and receive from Internet cafés all over the world. Paprika could be anyone, anywhere.'

‘And this one?' Scullion prodded the monitor with a fingertip.

‘The message from clydevalley dot net? Is that the one you're looking at?'

‘Right. From this … Magistr32. It just says Go.'