Dying of the Light (6 page)

Of course, the solution to the problem was easy, as a woman Alice knew that. If you are unable to find the place that you are looking for then you simply ask anyone you meet, particularly those in nearby premises. It stood to reason. Nevertheless, the next morning she found herself wandering past the first row of shops she came to, convincing herself that her destination would be just around the corner. Then again, the nearby office block would, she thought, probably be empty, and the group of young men by the bus stop were too busy talking to each other for her to interrupt them.

Walking past an old biddy, standing motionless as she fished in the depths of her carrier bag, Alice began to ask her for directions, only to find that she spoke only Polish, was lost and appeared to be furious with the world and all its works. Desperate now to find the S.P.E.A.R. office, she peered through the first open door in a row of
industrial
units and saw a pair of overalled legs projecting from beneath a car.

‘Excuse me?’ she said, her voice lost against the
background
of music emanating from a radio resting on the oil-blackened concrete.

‘Excuse me!’ she repeated loudly, but there was still no answer.

‘EXCUSE ME!’ she shouted, finally attracting the man’s attention as he wheeled himself out from under
the chassis, switched off the radio and got up, wiping his hands on a soiled rag as he came towards her.

‘I just wondered…’ she paused momentarily, trying again to work out the best words for her enquiry, the least damning, which would get her the directions she wanted without having to mention the exact place she was
looking
for. But it was no use. She could not remember the name of the bloody street. The best she could recall was that it was off Restalrig Drive.

‘I’m looking for S.P.E.A.R.’s premises?’ she continued brightly.

‘Nae Spears round here, hen. There’s a shop, Sears, a bed shop at three doors along. Could that be it?’

‘Er… no. But thanks, anyway. I’m looking for the er… er… prostitutes’ office, their… er… resource centre?’

The man looked at her, brazenly scanning her figure, grinning broadly. ‘Like I said, dearie, there’s the bed shop. What other resource do yous need?’

In the face of defeat, she had to try again, although her cheeks were now burning and she had begun, foolishly she knew, to devise other questions, ones designed to find the sodding place without conclusions being drawn about her own profession. The next-door building turned out to be a dressmaker’s workshop, hand-made clothes displayed on a small crowd of dummies, each with an expensive price tag hanging below the hemline. With a sinking heart she approached a seamstress, head bent as she machined a seam, pins sticking menacingly from her wide mouth.

‘Sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for S.P.E.A.R.’s. premises?’

Please God, no further clarification needed.
Concentrating
on her sewing, and speechless due to her mouthful of pins, the woman jerked her head towards the door. On
screwing up her eyes, Alice made out the words on the sign opposite: ‘The Scottish Prostitutes Education and Advice Resource’.

The squad meeting had been fixed for ten p.m. At five past, Alice edged through the half open door into the murder suite on tiptoe, hoping to slip into a seat at the back without her lateness being noticed. However, to her surprise, she found the room empty, lights off and
computers
still dormant.

While she was still wondering if she had misheard the appointed time, Eric Manson came into the room, sausage roll in hand, and slumped heavily onto the only seat softened by a cushion. Like the rest of the squad, he looked pale-faced, had only slept for a few hours, and his chin was bleeding from a botched attempt to shave in the poorly lit men’s toilet.

Just as she was about to ask him if the meeting had been postponed, three detective constables, Littlewood, McDonald and Galloway, arrived together, their
conversation
tailing off into a self-conscious mumble as they filed in. DC Ruth Lindsay trailed behind them, yawning and unbuttoning her coat. The remaining vacant chair was beside Alice, and she took it for granted that it would soon be occupied by her friend, Alistair Watt, ideally bearing coffee for them both. Instead, Simon Oakley deposited his heavy frame in it, inclining his head slightly in her direction and smiling in recognition.

Elaine Bell, cheeks strangely flushed and dressed in last night’s crumpled clothes, attempted to brief them, racked intermittently by paroxysms of sneezing, her eyes streaming throughout. She fired occasional questions at
them with an air of exhausted irritability, becoming more tetchy with every answer.

Listening half-heartedly, Alice’s concentration slipped and she began to speculate, wondering idly whether her superior might be the source of all winter infections within the city, the Typhoid Mary of the common cold. She watched as paper hankie after paper hankie, used to dab the woman’s dripping nose, was screwed up and flung forcibly into a nearby wastepaper basket. Around it the floor was now littered with her misfires. If Avian flu were, finally, to breach the species barrier through the medium of a single infected human being, then Elaine Bell, surely, would be that one. A morsel of underdone Indonesian chicken entering her flu-ridden system and mankind’s nemesis was assured.

Alice’s rumination was interrupted when the Chief Inspector’s attention suddenly shifted onto her.

‘Alice… Alice! if you could just wake up, please? How did you fare at S.P.E.A.R. this morning?’

‘Fine,’ the sergeant answered, surprising herself by the crispness of her response. ‘Ellen Barbour, the manager of the Resource Centre, was able to identify the woman in our photograph. She’s an Isobel – known as Belle – Wilson, and I’ve got an address for her…’ She
fumbled
in her pocket and extracted a torn piece of paper, ‘…at Fishwives Causeway. it’s just off Portobello High Street. Ellen, er… Ms Barbour, says that Wilson’s a drug user, and has been for years despite whatever help they’ve been able to provide. The old chap in the S.P.E.A.R
mugshot
, he’s called Eddie Christie, but they’ve no address for him. Ms Barbour reckons the best way of tracing him now would be through another prostitute, Lena Stirling. She often worked in a pair with Isobel. And guess who
reported Christie to the project, and got his face on the leaflet? Isobel Wilson. A couple of weeks ago he knocked her about in the General George car park when she,
allegedly
, gave him lip.’

Having methodically allocated the day’s tasks, Elaine Bell wiggled her toes back into her scuffed shoes and, moving stiffly, rose to her feet, signalling the end of the meeting. And then, finally, noticing the newcomer to St Leonard Street, she introduced him to the squad while she was leaving the room, his presence only noted as an obvious afterthought.

‘Oh, and the stranger in our midst, people, is DS Simon Oakley and he’ll be with us for the duration of the investigation. Unfortunately, Alistair Watt seems to have contracted some kind of dizzy-making virus.
Labyrinthitis
… vestibulitis… some kind of itis or other. Anyway, he’s off for the foreseeable future, at home, vomiting
whenever
he stands up. So let’s all hope it’s not catching.’

The old woman stroked the Siamese cat’s smooth, dark ears, watching entranced as it closed its blue eyes in ecstasy, webbed toes flexing in and out with pleasure, kneading the eiderdown like dough. Under the bed
covers
she tried to curl her body around it, resting her head beside its rounded skull, and the passage of time, briefly, stood still with her absorption in a perfect moment. The buzzing of a bluebottle, a few inches above them, started the clock once more. The excited cat sprang up, a long white streak leaping into the air, and landed silently on the quilt with the fly in its mouth, soon crunching it noisily
in its delicate jaws. Brushing a single wing off the blanket, Mrs Wilson glanced at her watch. Eleven already. She would need to get up now if she was to make the doctor’s surgery by twelve.

Groaning inwardly, she pushed off the bed-clothes and began the long journey to the edge of the bed, grasping the side of an armchair to pull her unwieldy body the last few inches. With a loud bang her swollen feet landed on the bare floor boards. No bloody tea this morning, she thought to herself, wondering whether they had run out of teabags or whether, maybe, the milk was sour. Or, and most likely of all, Isobel had overslept as usual.

Having become breathless trying unsuccessfully to turn on a bath tap, she admitted defeat and gave her face a cursory wipe with an evil-smelling flannel before
beginning
the troublesome process of getting dressed. Buttons no longer fitted buttonholes; hooks, eyes and even zip fasteners seemed to have become smaller, impossible to grip, fiddly and frustrating. A final yank and her skirt was on, hem crooked but sitting below the line of her
knee-length
socks. Only the battle with her shoes remained, and she jammed the left one on, whimpering as her big toe hit the leather shoe-end unexpectedly. The right foot was a good size larger than the left, and she looked down at the misshapen flesh, noting the generous curve of a bunion and the clawed, gnarled toes. Hard to believe she had once favoured peep-toes in all weathers, scarlet nail varnish drawing attention to her best features. Time left nothing unchanged, and none of its changes were for the better.

Porridge today, she thought, a hot breakfast to keep out the cold, and fit for a king if topped with a little
pinhead
oatmeal. And then she remembered the milk crisis,
and began to conjure up, instead, a picture of a slice of hot buttered toast awash with raspberry jam. Of course, the pips might get stuck in her dental plate, but by the time she reached the bread-bin she could feel her mouth watering.

When the doorbell rang she shouted, ‘Isobel! Get the door fer us, hen. I’m no’ dressed yet.’ Then she waited, expecting to hear the familiar, angry thuds as her daughter trudged across the floor. But when the ringing
continued
, and no-one stirred, she dropped the bread into the toaster, shuffled across the hall and undid the bolt,
peeping
timidly at her visitors.