Gallery Whispers

28

'This can't be the man we're after,' the sergeant gasped. 'I mean, look at that place; it's a bloody rabbit warren. Gaynor Weston was a classy woman in her forties; she wouldn't have been interested in an unemployed twenty-seven year-old from a tip like this.'

'You never know, though,' mused Maggie Rose, with a light smile.

'Tell me, Stevie, are you familiar with the phrase: a wee bit of rough?

Or maybe this stinking pile will reveal a dazzling urbanite damned by cruel fate to live under what's left of its roof.'

If Edinburgh's housing was divided into descending categories from one to ten, the property before which the two detective stood would have rated a marginal thirteen. It stood as a monument to ill-conceived public housing, the last remaining eyesore, the last rotting tooth, in a street on which all the other filthy tenements had been razed to the ground. More than half of its windows were boarded up, yet ironically, half a dozen satellite dishes were fixed to its wall.

'Christ knows what's in there,' Stevie Steele muttered, 'but they must have pissed off the housing people up at the City Council, every last one of them. Are you sure you want to go in there, ma'am? I could call up a couple of uniforms to huckle our man down to St Leonards.'

'The first time I come across a building that I won't go into,' the chief inspector replied, evenly, 'then I'm done for in CID. Come on; he's in number 23F3, or so the woman at the DSS said.' She led the way up the weed-infested path and through the open entrance to the tenement.

'Who's the listed tenant?' asked Steele. 'It's not him, I take it.'

'No. According to the Council, the tenant is a Mrs Hannah Mason.'

Once upon a time there might have been a door at the entrance to the building, but if there had it was long gone and its frame had been torn out. Beyond was a long narrow corridor, which stank of urine; they followed it until they came to a flight of stairs.

It was late on a Tuesday afternoon, and all of the bulbs had been stolen from the stairway lights, and so they made their way up to the third floor landing in almost pitch darkness. As their eyes became accustomed to the gloom they saw six doors, off a long corridor. Two had planks nailed cross them, two had glazed panels, and the remaining two had boards where originally the glass had been.

'They're really helpful in this part of town, aren't they,' said Rose.

'Not a single number on any door. Not a single name.'

'No. They take them off to confuse the debt-collectors.'

Behind one of the glass panels, a light shone; the only sign of life along the silent corridor. Steele walked up to the door and pressed a buzzer set in its jamb. There was no sound; guessing that the batteries were dead, he pounded on it three times, with. the side of his closed fist.

Eventually, the sound of shuffling came from within the house, the dull green door swung open and a woman appeared, framed against the light. From within, a smell of almost indescribable staleness threatened to engulf them.

'Aye?' From the tired hostility other tone, Rose guessed that there had not been a welcome caller at her door for years. She was perhaps forty-five, but looked ten years older; in her youth she might have been pretty, but now her features were worn and weary. She was short and dumpy, with lifeless grey hair that was sadly in need of a wash, as was the loose purple nylon dress which hung around her.

'Police,' Steele announced, flashing his warrant card quickly. 'Is this number twenty-three?'

'Ah dinna fuckin' ken,' She snapped back at him, a scowl disfiguring her still further.

'You live here, don't you.'

'Aye, but Ah wouldna ken whit number it wis. Naebody ever writes taste me. Only the Social, and Ah tear them up.'

'We're looking for a Mr Deacey,' said Rose.

'Well, he's no here,' the little woman replied emphatically. 'There's jist me. Me and ma budgie. There's nae point in yis talking to it, though. Wee bastard nivir says a fuckin' word.' She would have slammed the door, but Steele put a hand against it.

'Okay,' he growled, roughly. 'Who else lives on this floor?'

She pointed along the hallway, to a door opposite hers, one with unpainted wood in place of its glass panel. 'There's a hoor along there; an' a bloke wi' her, Ah think. Yis could try there. She'll no' have gone taste work yet.'

'Thanks,' said the sergeant, allowing her to return to her squalor.

'Poor budgie,' muttered Maggie Rose as she strode across the corridor, to rap briskly on the wooden panel.

There was no answer. She knocked again, without success. Stevie Steele's patience reached breaking point. 'Excuse me, ma'am,' he said. Taking a heavy black leather glove from his overcoat pocket, he put it on his right hand, then punched the plywood panel. It split neatly down the middle, and the sundered pieces fell away into the flat.

'Police! Open up,' the sergeant shouted into the hall, in which the blue light of a television shone.

The woman who appeared in the doorway a few seconds later still had her looks, but the detectives knew that in not so many years she would be almost exactly like her neighbour across the way. There was a hardness in her eyes, a cold, resigned glare in which her future was written.

She fumbled with the catch of a short, red, imitation-leather skirt, her other hand smoothing her silver-blonde hair. She stood around five feet six, with the assistance of a pair of inordinately high heels.

'Who are you then?'

'CID, Mrs Mason,' Rose answered. 'We're involved in a murder investigation and we're looking for Malcolm Deacey.'

'Who?' Steele thought that her bewilderment was genuine, but the DCI refused to buy it.

'Let's find out who,' she said, stepping past the woman, rocking her back on her heels.

The sergeant followed her into the hall, and through a doorway at the end. Before them was a man, sitting in a low armchair, watching television. He looked up at them. He was black, with garish orange dreadlocks. 'Who you?' he asked, lazily, showing a studied insouciance which the detectives recognised from many interview rooms.

'Edinburgh CID,' Rose answered briskly. 'We want to ask you some questions about a woman, Mr Deacey; a dead woman.'

'Sho',' he grunted, pushing himself easily to his feet. 'Less go, den.'

Rose had begun to turn towards the door when he sprang at her.

Instinctively she threw up her right arm, in a gesture which was literally face-saving. Like Steele she wore an overcoat and a jacket beneath, but neither was protection against the open razor which Deacey swung at her, savagely. She cried out, more with fear than pain, as it sliced into her forearm.

The man turned towards Steele; to be met by a heavy gloved fist which caught him square in the middle of the forehead. His knees buckled, his eyes glazed and he went down, sprawling limply on the floor as if he was something that had been shaken from a sack. The sergeant stamped down hard on his right hand, trapping the razor. He took it from the helpless fingers, folded it and slipped it into his pocket. Then, calmly, he rolled the dazed Deacey onto his face, drove a knee hard into his back, and hand-cuffed him.

'You try to get up, pal,' he whispered, 'and I'll cut your nicking ears off.'

Pushing himself quickly to his feet, he turned to Rose. Blood was pouring from her arm, down her hand, and dripping onto the carpet.

'You,' he snarled at Hannah Mason, who stood in the doorway, stunned by the sudden explosion of violence, 'get me clean towels, tissues, anything you have.'

He helped the DCI out of her bloody overcoat and jacket, and looked at the cut. It was bone-deep; it ran along the full length of her fore-arm. For a few seconds he felt nauseated, but he fought off the temptation to throw up. Then the woman was back, with a decently white towel, and a box of Kleenex tissues. He padded the wound with the paper handkerchiefs then took the towel and clamped it on top.

'Press that hard, Maggie,' he said. Rose nodded, pale-faced, but cleareyed. She held the towel tight, watching him as he ripped the belt from his waistband and used it to fasten a tourniquet just above her elbow.

As he finished, Deacey began to stir on the floor. Steele put a foot on his neck as he took out his mobile phone and dialled the St Leonard's police office. Identifying himself to the telephonist, he barked out the address. 'I have an injured officer. Ambulance, pronto, and back-up to take a prisoner back to the nick.'

He glowered down at the man, who had given up all thoughts of struggling. 'You might think you're in trouble, mister,' he said, coldly and evenly. 'But believe me, you don't have the faintest idea of how deep in the shit you really are.'