Lost causes

TWELVE

Edinburgh, Friday 30 April 2010

At eleven p.m. a large Citroen Picasso drew into one of the car parking bays surrounding Charlotte Square. The driver, a middle-aged Asian man, got out and slid the passenger door back. ‘Ready?’ he asked the two younger men in the back.

‘Ready,’ they replied in quiet, tense voices.

‘Welcome to Edinburgh. This way.’

The older man led them across a busy street and paused at the west end of George Street, one of the broad thoroughfares in Edinburgh’s New Town that ran west-east, parallel to Princes Street. By day it showed a respectable Georgian facade to the world. On a Friday night it was a street full of light and noise. It was the time when the cafe bars and clubs, located on the ground and basement floors of buildings with banks and offices above them, came into their own. Business ruled the daytime, pleasure the evening. Their doors were so continually being opened and closed that the inside ambience spilled onto the street. On the street itself, laughter, yells and screams rent the night air as groups of people moved like multicellular organisms seeking ever-new sources of sustenance and entertainment.

‘Western society,’ said the older man. ‘Come see. Observe.’

The three men joined the throng on the streets, pausing only to allow drunks to stagger across their path or people walking backwards and sideways to do the same. One girl stumbled and fell as she exited a doorway. She rolled over onto her back, her legs spread, her underwear showing under the briefest of skirts as she laughed hysterically. Her two friends seemed too drunk to help her up but joined in the laughter. The three men skirted round the trio, only to come to a halt again when confronted with a group of youths arguing with a policeman.

‘Your last chance,’ the constable warned. ‘You either leave the street now or you’re bloody nicked.’

‘Fuck that, we’ve no’ done nothin’!’ argued one, struggling against his companions as they tried to pull him away.

‘You’ve annoyed me. Now, I’m going to count to three…’

The youths started to move off and the Asian men continued on their way. A hen party dressed as nurses came towards them, strung out across the pavement, singing loudly but out of tune. The imminent collision was averted by a group of businessmen emerging from one of the cafe bars. They wore suits and carried briefcases but were clearly drunk, having probably been in the bar since the end of the business day. They broke into raucous laughter at the sight of the ‘nurses’ and started making lewd comments.

It was more their accents than the comments that antagonised the girls. ‘In your dreams, tosser,’ said one.

‘I’ve seen better talent come out of a skip,’ added another.

The bride, wearing L plates on her front and back, brought her knee up sharply into the groin of one man silly enough to get too close.

‘Fucking cow,’ gasped the man, collapsing to the ground.

‘Whoops,’ said one of the bridesmaids, stepping on his fingers as she passed.

The Asians, who had moved off the pavement to stand between two parked cars, remained unnoticed observers in the night until, after another hundred metres or so, a drunken youth who had been urinating unsteadily in a doorway turned and saw them. ‘Looks like the Pakis have arrived,’ he announced to his waiting friends.

‘What do they fucking want?’ slurred one, who sported a trail of vomit down the front of his V-neck pullover. ‘Don’t bloody drink, do they?’

‘After our birds, I reckon. Can’t see what their bloody own look like under these bleedin’ blankets they put over their heads, can they?’

The Asian men did not respond but continued their walk.

‘That’s right, pal, get back to your corner shop.’

‘Poppadom, poppadom,’ chanted another.

The crowds began to thin and the noise faded as the men left the revellers behind. The older man stopped and turned. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘do you think that is the way Allah intended us to live?’

‘No,’ agreed the younger pair vehemently, one still shaking with suppressed anger at having to ignore the taunts of the youths they’d passed. ‘Disgusting,’ said the other, shaking his head, clearly affected by what he’d witnessed.

‘You have been chosen to sweep the filth away, my brothers, clean society of such depravity, bring truth and light to the darkness, spread morality and the rule of law — a law that cannot be flouted because it is his law. Allah is great.’

The younger men echoed his words before being led through quieter streets and alleyways back to the car. They drove to a small, detached bungalow in a quiet suburban street in Corstorphine, three miles west of the city centre, where they took care not to disturb the neighbours when closing the car doors.

In a room at the back of the house the older man sat down and indicated that the other two should do the same. ‘You are young. I took you there tonight to show you,’ he said. ‘Just in case you had any doubts. You were both born in this country but you did not fall prey to the evil you saw tonight. Your faith has kept you pure. Your brothers have always been with you. And now I must ask you. Are you ready to take your place in the fight?’

Both younger men agreed that they were, although they sounded nervous and a little uncertain.

‘It is a great honour to be chosen,’ they were reminded.

‘Only two of us are here in Edinburgh. There were eight when we started out,’ said one.

‘Evil is all over this land. Your brothers will act at the same time but not in the same place.’

‘What must we do?’

‘Read your Koran. Your training will begin the day after tomorrow.

Similar tours for another six young Asian men, illustrating the UK at play, were drawing to a close in Manchester, London and Liverpool.

On Saturday morning, Steven bade Tally a fond farewell as she left for work.

‘Are you going to stop over on your way back?’ she asked.

‘You bet. Why don’t we go out to dinner?’

‘A reason to live,’ she teased. ‘See you Sunday. Give my love to Jenny. Tell her I’ll see her soon.’

Steven tidied up and had a last cup of coffee before setting out for Scotland. He was about two hours into the journey when the phone rang, and he moved over to the inside lane, slowing down to hear the call through the car speakers on Bluetooth. It was Jean Roberts.

‘It’s Saturday, Jean,’ he joked. ‘Your day off.’

‘Yes, well, I found out last night that James Kincaid, the journalist you asked about, does have a relative. He has a married sister living in Newcastle. I thought, as you were up in Scotland this weekend, you might like to stop off there on the way back.’

‘Good thinking, Jean. I’m obliged,’ said Steven, already starting to do mental calculations about his return journey on Sunday if he were to include Newcastle in his itinerary. ‘I’m on the motorway right now. Could you email or text me the address and I’ll pick it up later?’

‘Consider it done.’

‘Daddy, you’ve got Tarty back,’ exclaimed Jenny when she saw that Steven was driving the Porsche again. The name was derived from the adjective her aunt Sue had used when she’d first seen the Boxster. ‘A bit tarty, isn’t it, Steven?’ For some reason the name had stuck. ‘I like Tarty,’ enthused Jenny. ‘I mean I liked Tin Drawers too’ — Sue’s name for the Honda, which she regarded as more staid — ‘but I think I like Tarty better.’

Neither Jenny nor her cousins Mary and Peter understood the connotations of the names, which made them all the more amusing for the grown-ups, whose only fear was that the children would come out with them in public. It hadn’t happened yet.

‘It’s ages since I saw you, Daddy.’ Jenny took Steven’s hand on the way into the house and announced, ‘He’s brought Tarty with him.’

‘So I see,’ said Sue, trying to keep a straight face as she came over to embrace Steven. ‘Richard’s in the study, catching up on paperwork. He’ll be down in a minute. The market’s been picking up a bit.’ Richard was a lawyer in Dumfries, specialising in property work.

‘And how has her behaviour been, Aunty Sue?’

‘Excellent.’

Jenny beamed.

‘And her school work?

‘Excellent too. Her teacher is very pleased, as to our amazement were Peter’s and Mary’s teachers too.’ Sue tousled Peter’s hair. ‘It was parents’ night last Tuesday.’

Steven swallowed and quickly smiled to conceal the momentary frisson of regret. ‘In that case, why don’t I take these three star pupils to the cinema in Dumfries this evening? We could catch the early performance and be home by… ten o’clock?’

The children’s eyes widened with excitement at the prospect of being up late, and enthusiastic appeals were made to Sue, who took her time coming to a decision.

‘After all, it isn’t a school night…’ prompted Steven.

‘Are you sure you’re not too tired after such a long drive?’

‘No, but now the bad news. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave early tomorrow morning, so we won’t be able to go to the swimming pool this time.’

It had become traditional that Steven took the children to Dumfries swimming pool when he came up for the weekend, and then treated them to a pizza and ice-cream lunch. ‘I could make it up to you tonight with popcorn and ice-cream…’

This attracted loud approval.

‘Oh well, I suppose,’ agreed Sue as Richard came into the room asking what all the noise had been about.

‘Good show,’ he said, smiling at Sue when she told him. ‘Let’s go down the pub. It’s been ages.’

Steven set off for Newcastle before eight on Sunday morning, hoping to have a word with Lisa Hardesty, James Kincaid’s sister. According to Jean’s notes, she was married to Kevin Hardesty, and had been expecting her first child at the time of her brother’s death. He was going to call on spec rather than phone ahead to arrange a convenient time. He often found that it worked better: it didn’t give people time to prepare what they were going to say or, perhaps more important, what they weren’t. He punched the Hardestys’ post code into Tarty’s satnav and let it take him there.