Head Shot

24

The address which McGuire's DSS friend had volunteered proved to be a tenement flat in a cul-de-sac off Newhaven Road, not far from its junction with Bonnington Road. The detective drove past the narrow entrance door, parked as close to it as he could, and walked back. He glanced at his watch; it was ten minutes to six; even if George Rosewell was a betting man, the last race was long past the post.

There had been no cal from Mrs Dewberry, but his instincts had told him not to expect one. His unwanted father-in-law was stil an absentee from a job which he would find was no longer there if he ever thought to return to it.

He came to the dirty green door that closed off the tenement stairway.

It was one of the few left in the city in which an entry-phone system had not been installed. It was stiff, but he shoved it firmly, wrenching it back on its dry hinges, hearing the squeal of wood on the concrete floor. A smell of urine and cabbage rol ed out to greet him, reminding him of visits to prisons he had made in his younger days in the force.

'Nice, Daddy, nice,' he murmured.

Rosewell's address was F2, second floor; he trudged up the stone staircase, noting that each step was worn in the centre with over a hundred years of use.

There were three doors on each landing; left, right and centre. The one for which he was looking faced him as he reached the top of the stair. It was grey; the gloss of its paint was long gone, and it was scuffed and scratched; the name was there, though, on a cheap white plastic plate below the letterbox. A narrow opaque glass panel was set at eye level; no light shone through it.

He pressed the bell button, but heard no sound from inside. He did it once more, for luck; stil silence. Bunching his right fist, he thumped the door hard, making enough noise to waken a deaf night-shift worker.

'Come on, you bastard,' he muttered. 'Make it easy; be in.' He listened in vain for sounds of stirring, before pounding once more, and waiting again, listening to the silence.

'Where are you, you old flicker!' He glanced to his right and left. 'Aye well,' he muttered. 'Family business after al.' The door was locked by a single Yale. He took out a bunch of skeleton keys and tried them, one by one, looking for a match; he had third time luck. The latch clicked and the door swung open.

It occurred to him afterwards that he had never considered the possibility that Rosewell might be lying dead in his flat; nor had Mrs Dewberry. As a young constable he had opened a few houses after neighbours had reported a pile-up of newspapers in the letterbox, or a line of milk bottles at the front door. He remembered the smell; too right he remembered it.

But there was no trace of it in Rosewell's two-apartment; only staleness, only sourness, the scent of a man on his own, one with no great regard for his surroundings. 'George,' McGuhtirked, as he stepped inside. 'Surprise, surprise; it's your son-in-law, Come to batter the crap out of you. Where the fuck are you, you old bastard?'

There were only three doors off the hall, and all of them were open.

He glanced into them, one by one. The bathroom was to his left, toilet seat up, towel on the floor beneath the electrically heated rail. The bedroom was straight ahead, discarded underwear stil on the floor, duvet thrown back to reveal a sheet which had once been white, but which now was grey and heavily stained. The living area was on his right; he stepped inside.

At once, the heat, which he had felt in the hallway, became almost overpowering. He looked round the door and saw an electric fire, set in the wall, its three radiant bars shining. He found the switch and turned it off. The room was furnished sparsely; one old fabric-covered sofa facing a television set, a small sideboard, a kitchen table, and two dining chairs.

There was a sink under the one window, a cooker to the left and a small work surface and fridge on the other side.

A dirty plate and cutlery lay on the table. He looked at it; scraps of pastry from a round Scotch mutton pie, unmistakable, a few beans in their tomato sauce and a sad, solitary, greasy chip. 'You'l have had your tea, then, George,' he murmured. 'But when?'

The answer came to him from the newspaper, which lay beside the empty, tea-stained mug. It was open at the sports section; his eye was caught by an action shot of two footbal ers, green shirt and blue, squaring up to each other like street corner punks. Without picking it up he looked at the top of the page. 'The Sunday Mail,' he exclaimed. 'And you've been off your work since Monday.'

He scratched his head. It had been unusual y cold on the previous Sunday evening, he recal ed. 'You had your tea and you went out, didn't you?' he asked the empty room. 'And you left the fire on. Was that by accident, or was it on purpose, to warm your old Portuguese bones when you came in?

'Only you never did.

'Where are you, you old bastard? What are you up to? I guess I'd better ask around.'

He left the small flat, leaving the door closed but unlocked; and stepped over to the door on the right, through which light shone. The nameplate on the door read, 'Brennan'. He pressed the bell and as he did so, heard a child's yell from inside. 'Daddy!'

Somehow, he had been expecting a woman, but it was a girl who answered, fifteen, maybe sixteen, he guessed, not yet grown to ful height, still no more than five feet tall. She held the door on a chain, and looked at him through the gap, suspiciously. I would be too, dear, he thought. Good for you.

'Miss Brennan?' he asked, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

'Ms,' she answered, her expression unchanged; there was something in her voice that struck him as strange. She was barefoot, he noticed, with blond hair that might just have been for real, and a waif-like look about her that would have pul ed him in about two seconds flat.. . when he was sixteen years old. There was a toddler clinging to her leg, a boy.

'Sorry to bother you,' he went on. 'I'm George Rosewell's son-in-law, and I'm looking for him, only he's not in. I wondered if you had seen him lately.'

'You're a policeman,' she said.

'Maybe so,' he agreed, widening his grin, 'but I'm also George's son in-law.'

'I don't believe you.' Her accent was unusual for the outskirts of Leith; he wondered if she might be English. 'George told me he doesn't have any family.'

'Sure, and he told you his name was Rosewell, but that's not true either. Listen, my name's Mario, and there's the proof. Can I come in?'

He showed her his warrant card; she surprised him by reading it

… unusual y in his experience, a quick flash of the plastic was enough.

The youngster nodded and loosened the chain. 'Yes, okay,' she said, sweeping the child up in her arms.

His eyes widened as he stepped inside; the hall was bright and fresh, its carpet plush and relatively new. The living area had been modernised completely. Essential y the apartment had the same layout as the one across the hal, but the two were worlds apart. This was a home, adequately furnished and equipped, comfortable, and well looked after; by comparison, the other was no more than a doss-house.

'What's your other name?' asked McGuire.

'Ivy,' said the girl.

He reached across and tickled the toddler under the chin, as he had done, once upon a time, with Lauren and Spencer, Mcl henney's two children. 'Who's the kid? Your wee brother?'

'My son, actually. His name's Rufus.'

He stared at her. 'How old are you?' he blurted out.

Without a word, she turned, and walked over to a tal unit set against the wal. She opened a drawer, took out a photographic drivBtocence, and handed it to him. 'It's al right,' she told him, in a patienttone. Yes.

Definitely English, he thought, as she spoke. 'I'm used to it. I'm twenty two, and every time I go out for a drink I have to carry that to prove it.

I'm walking justification for a national identity card.'

He looked at the plastic-coated licence. The photograph was unusual y good; it was her, and she was indeed twenty-two.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Rude of me.'

'No, really.' She smiled for the first time. 'I am used to it. It can come in handy at times.'

'What about Rufus's father? Is he…'

'He's gone. I'm a lone parent.' . 'Does he visit you often?'

'When he feels like it. But that's okay; we get along fine, although he's not real y interested in his son. He just goes through the motions of being a dad, that's al.'

'Does he support you?

'No. My parents do. I have a degree in film studies, and once Rufus starts school I'l begin my career, but until then, I'm okay.'

There was something about the girl-woman that fascinated him. 'What about this?' He glanced around him. 'It's very comfy and al that, but this building ain't the finest piece of architecture in Edinburgh.'

She laughed. 'Blame my father for that, or his stupid solicitor. The seller told them that there was an improvement grant in place, and that it was al going to be done up. Wrong.'

She sat Rufus on the floor, beside a large stuffed panda. 'So what were you saying about George? That isn't his real name?'

'No.' He took the school photograph from his pocket. 'That's him, yes?'

She looked at it, frowning. 'Yes, that's George… apart from the beard. He's got a beard now.'

'How well do you know him?'

'Just as a neighbour, that's al. He's the only one in here I do know. So what is his real name?'

'Go back twenty-three years and he was called Jorge Xavier Rose; he's a mix of Scots and Portuguese.'

'And what happened twenty-three years ago to make him change his name?'

'You don't want to know. Just you take my advice, Ms Brennan, if he shows up here again, don't ever let him into your house.'

'I won't, don't you worry. Do you think he's gone, then?'

McGuire shrugged. 'He hasn't been home since Sunday night, of that I'm sure; plus he hasn't been to work since then. Maybe he's had an accident. I'l need to check that out. Or maybe he's got second sight; maybe he felt my hot breath on his neck, and decided to leave town.'

'I don't think I'd like your hot breath on my neck,' Ivy said. She paused and looked up at him, narrowing her eyes. '… Or maybe I would.'

He felt heat on his own neck, and found himself hoping that it did not show on his face.

'Did you really mean that George is over sixty?' she asked him, stubbing out a fledgling fantasy.

'He's sixty-three.'

'Well that's something else he lied about. He told me he was fifty five.'

McGuire shook his head. 'I don't think there's any truth in his life.' He looked at her, then around the room. 'Are you on the phone?'

'I use a mobile. Let me guess. You want me to cal you if he shows up here again?'

'Got it in one. These are my numbers.' He gave her a card from the supply in his breast pocket.

She showed him to the door and out of her oasis, back into the smelly grey place outside. 'Nice to meet you,' she said. 'I will call you, I promise. Maybe I'll call you even if George doesn't show up.'

He heard the door close behind her as he stepped back across the landing and into Rosewell's flat. The living room had cooled a little while he had been gone, but it was stil uncomfortably warm. He wanted to get out, to leave the place behind him, but there was something he had to do first.

He took a pair of surgical gloves from his jacket pocket and slipped them on. Other than the newspaper, he had touched nothing since he had been in the flat, and he wanted to leave the scene untainted. The sideboard had three drawers. The first contained cutlery, and the second was empty, except for a few tea towels. He opened the bottom drawer, the third, and saw what he was after; piles of bank statements and credit-card slips, laid side by side. He took them out and laid them on the table, then leafed through them, careful y. There was nothing exceptional about either group. The bank account showed Rosewel 's salary paid in on the last day of each month, plus regular debits for council tax and other withdrawals by cheque or cash card. It was always in credit with a minimum balance of one thousand pounds.

The other stack of bills showed that the credit card was used infrequently, but that when it was, the balance was always settled in ful, before interest charges could accrue.

McGuire noted down the numbers of the bank account and the credit card, plus the address of his Clydesdale Bank branch, then picked up the piles, in the same order as before, to return them to the drawer.

He was about to put them in, when he saw what had been lying underneath, and froze in his tracks. It was a cutting from a newspaper

… the Scotsman, he guessed, by the typeface… beginning to yellow with age. It was a report on a high court trial, and it carried a photograph of one of the crown witnesses.

He had no need to read the caption, but he did: Seen leaving court after her evidence. Detective Chief Inspector Margaret Rose.