‘And that’s supposed to be a recommendation?’ she’d replied. She liked the album well enough, but couldn’t concentrate on the lyrics. She was thinking of the skeletons in Fleshmarket Close. It annoyed her that she couldn’t work out an explanation for them; annoyed her, too, that she’d placed her own coat so carefully over a fake...
Banehall was halfway between Livingston and Whitburn, just to the north of the motorway. The slip-road was past the village, the signpost bearing the legend ‘Local Services’, with drawings representing a petrol pump and a knife and fork. Siobhan doubted many travellers would bother to make a diversion, having had view of Banehall from their carriageway. The place looked bleak: rows of houses dating back to the early 1900s, a boarded-up church, and a forlorn industrial estate, which showed no sign of having been a going concern at any point in its existence. The petrol station — now no longer in operation, weeds pushing up through the forecourt — was the first thing she passed after the ‘Welcome to Banehall’ sign. This sign had been defaced to read ‘We are the Bane’. Locals, not just teenagers, called the place ‘the Bane’ with no sense of irony. A sign further on had been altered from ‘Children — aware!’ to ‘Children — a war!’ She smiled at this, checking either side of the street for the hair salon. So few businesses were still active, this presented few problems. The shop was called just that — The Salon. Siobhan decided to drive past it, until she’d reached the far end of Main Street. Then she turned the car and retraced her route, this time turning into a side street which led to a housing scheme.
She found the Jardines’ house easily enough, but there was no one home. No signs of life in neighbouring windows. A few parked cars, a child’s trike missing one of its back wheels. Plenty of satellite dishes attached to the harled walls. She saw homemade signs in some of the living-room windows: YES TO WHITEMIRE. Whitemire, she knew, was an old prison a couple of miles outside Banehall. Two years ago, it had been turned into an immigration centre. By now it was probably Banehall’s biggest employer... and it was marked for further development. Back on Main Street, the village’s only pub boasted the name The Bane. Siobhan hadn’t passed any cafés, just a solitary chip shop. The weary traveller, hoping to use a knife and fork, would be forced to try the pub, though it gave no indication that food would be available. Siobhan parked kerbside and crossed the road to the Salon. Here, too, there was a pro-Whitemire sign in the window.
Two women sat drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. There were no customers, and neither of the staff looked thrilled at the potential arrival of one. Siobhan brought out her ID and introduced herself.
‘I recognise you,’ the younger of the two said. ‘You’re the cop from Tracy’s funeral. You had your arm around Ishbel at the church. I asked her mum afterwards.’
‘You’ve got a good memory, Susie,’ Siobhan replied. No one had bothered to get up, and there was nowhere left for Siobhan to sit but one of the styling chairs. She stayed standing.
‘Wouldn’t mind a coffee, if there’s one going,’ she said, trying to sound friendly.
The older woman was slow to rise. Siobhan noticed that her fingernails had been decorated with elaborate swirls of colour. ‘No milk left,’ the woman warned.
‘I’ll take it black.’
‘Sugar?’
‘No thanks.’
The woman shuffled over to an alcove at the back of the shop. ‘I’m Angie, by the way,’ she told Siobhan. ‘Owner and stylist to the stars.’
‘Is it about Ishbel?’ Susie asked.
Siobhan nodded, sitting down in the space that had been vacated on the cushioned bench. Susie immediately got up, as if in reaction to Siobhan’s proximity, and stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray, her last inhalation now issuing from her nostrils. She walked over to one of the other chairs and sat down in it, swinging it to and fro with her feet, checking her hair in the mirror. ‘She hasn’t been in touch,’ she stated.
‘And you’ve no idea where she could have gone?’
A shrug. ‘Her mum and dad are up to high doh, that’s all I know.’
‘What about this man you saw Ishbel with?’
Another shrug. She played with her fringe. ‘Short guy, stocky.’
‘Hair?’
‘Can’t remember.’
‘Maybe he was bald?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Clothes?’
‘Leather jacket... sunglasses.’
‘Not from around here?’
A shake of the head. ‘Driving a flash car... something fast.’
‘A BMW? Mercedes?’
‘I’m no good with cars.’
‘Was it big, small... did it have a roof?’
‘Medium... with a roof, but it could’ve been a convertible.’
Angie was returning with a mug. She handed it over and sat down in Susie’s vacated space.
Siobhan nodded her thanks. ‘How old was he, Susie?’
‘Old... forties or fifties.’
Angie gave a snort. ‘Old to you, maybe.’ She was probably fifty herself, with hair that looked twenty years younger.
‘When you asked her about him, what did she say?’
‘Just told me to shut up.’
‘Any idea how she could have met him?’
‘No.’
‘What sort of places does she go?’
‘Into Livingston... maybe Edinburgh or Glasgow sometimes. Just pubs and clubs.’
‘Anybody apart from you she might go out with?’
Susie mentioned some names, which Siobhan jotted down.
‘Susie’s already talked to them,’ Angie warned. ‘They won’t be any help.’
‘Thanks, anyway.’ Siobhan made a show of looking around the salon. ‘Is it usually this quiet?’
‘We get a few customers first thing. Later in the week’s busier.’
‘But Ishbel not being here isn’t a problem?’
‘We’re managing.’
‘Makes me wonder...’
Angie narrowed her eyes. ‘What?’
‘Why you need two stylists.’
Angie glanced towards Susie. ‘What else could I do?’
Siobhan felt she understood. Angie had taken pity on Ishbel after the suicide. ‘Any reason you can think of why she’d leave home so suddenly?’
‘Maybe she got a better offer... Plenty of people ship out of the Bane and never look back.’
‘Her mystery man?’
It was Angie’s turn to shrug. ‘Good luck to her if that’s what she wants.’
Siobhan turned to Susie. ‘You told Ishbel’s mum and dad he looked like a pimp.’
‘Did I?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Well, maybe I did. The shades and the jacket... like something out of a film.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Taxi Driver!’ she said. ‘The pimp in that... what’s his name? I saw that on the telly a couple of months back.’
‘And that’s who this man looked like?’
‘No... but he was wearing a hat. That’s why I couldn’t remember his hair!’
‘What sort of hat?’
Susie’s enthusiasm drained away. ‘Dunno... just a hat.’
‘Baseball cap? Beret?’
Susie shook her head. ‘It had a rim.’
Siobhan looked to Angie for help. ‘A fedora?’ Angie suggested. ‘A homburg?’
‘I don’t even know what those are,’ Susie said.
‘Something like a gangster in an old film would wear?’ Angie went on.
Susie was thoughtful. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded.
Siobhan jotted down her mobile phone number. ‘That’s great, Susie. And if anything else comes back to you, maybe you could give me a call?’