‘I’ve had a drink there.’
‘In that case you’ve maybe even seen him and not kent it.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Nothing. Ordered myself a Coke and stood drinking it at the bar, watching Bobby in the mirror. It was him, right enough. I’ve dropped by a couple of times since, to check he’s still around. He always is. Sat in the same seat, no newspaper, no book, no company, just a pint stuck in front of him ’
Something in the older man’s voice made Murray ask, ‘George, you’re not planning on doing anything, trying to get revenge for Archie?’
Meikle gave a bitter laugh.
‘No, son, I’ve got a lot going for me these days: a nice wife, a family that’s doing well. I just like to see him occasionally, sitting there all alone over his pint, like he does night after night, that creepy scar of his grinning away on one side, while his mouth droops on the other. That’s the best revenge I can think of.’
Chapter Fourteen
A MAN COWLED in a brown blanket sat at the top of the stairway, holding a Starbucks cup in his outstretched hand. Murray dropped some loose change in it, and then loped down into the darkness. Fleshmarket Close was caught between the tourist throng of the Old Town and the Tannoy announcements of Waverley Station, but down here in the piss-fragrant gloom it was as if all that commotion belonged to another city. The bar was set into the basement wall of the high tenements that shadowed the dark wynd. He stepped through its door and back forty years.
Maybe the tartan carpet and framed portraits of clan chiefs had been intended to attract the tourists. But it seemed the Americans and Scandinavians who busied the rest of the city preferred brighter watering holes because the grim faces in the pictures girned down on empty tables.
Murray stationed himself at the small bar. Up in the far corner a mute television played out highlights from the racing at Goodwood. He watched the horses thundering silently towards the finishing line in races already lost and won.
After a while a barmaid appeared from the backroom with a paperback in her hand. Murray ordered a pint of lager. The girl set her book on the counter, took a glass from beneath the bar and went wordlessly to the pumps.
A barefoot man was caught on the paperback’s cover, frozen in the act of climbing a steep street with a box on his back. His expression was resigned, as if he knew this was all life held for him and was reconciled to the endless trek. Large block letters, heavy as stone, declared The Myth of Sisyphus.
‘Great book. Enjoying it?’
The girl placed his pint in front of him.
‘I’m not sure what the point is.’
‘No, I know what you mean.’
Murray told her to take one for herself, like detectives did in the movies when they were trawling for information.
‘Thanks, I’ll have a half of lager when I knock off.’
She put a pound in the tips jar, took her book and disappeared again. It wasn’t how things were meant to go.
Somebody had left the previous day’s Evening News behind. Murray spread it across the counter and took a sip of his drink.
A man had pleaded guilty to stabbing his wife of thirty-five years, though all he could remember was his seventh pint. A teenager had hung himself in his bedroom after a flurry of threatening texts from classmates. A ten-year-old cancer sufferer, who the newspaper had been collecting money for, had died before she could go on her dream trip to Disneyland Paris. Murray looked at the photograph of a little girl in a floral baseball cap, her face split in a broad grin, and wondered why life was so shit.
He was almost halfway down his glass when an old man came in, leaning heavily on a walking stick.
‘Afternoon.’ He took his bunnet off, gave it a shake and bent it into the pocket of his overcoat. ‘She in the back?’
Murray folded the newspaper away.
‘Aye, I think I scared her off.’
‘Always got her nose in a book.’ The old man rapped on the counter with his stick. ‘I keep telling her this is a pub, not Boots Lending Library, but she doesn’t listen.’
The barmaid reappeared and he ordered a half and half. Murray wondered about offering to pay, but hesitated, worried the pensioner would be offended, and the moment passed. He needn’t have bothered. He hadn’t finished describing Bobby Robb’s scar before the old man interrupted him.
‘So that was his name, eh? Bobby Robb. We called him Crippen.’ He put a hand over his mouth. ‘You’re not a relative, are you, son?’
Murray hesitated.
‘His nephew.’
The pensioner held out his hand.
‘In that case I’m sorry for your loss. I’m Wee Johnny.’ They shook and the old one gave a smile that showed the full length of his dentures. ‘I hope you didn’t take offence at what I said there. We like a wee laugh and a joke in here. Don’t we, Lauren?’
The barmaid nodded. ‘Aye, Johnny, laugh a minute in here.’
She slipped back to her sanctuary, leaving them alone in the empty bar.
Murray knew the answer, but he asked, ‘Are you saying Bobby Robb’s dead?’
‘Christ, I’m no the one to break it to you, son, am I?’
The dentures disappeared behind a frown.
‘Don’t worry. We weren’t close.’
He felt bereaved. Another chance of reaching out to Archie gone.
‘That’s something, anyway.’ Johnny stared at him. ‘Aye, now that I get a better look, I can see the resemblance. You’ve not got the scar, but you’re like him round the eyes.’
‘People always say that.’
Murray took an inch off his pint. There was no longer any point in hanging around.
‘Three days earlier and you would have caught him.’ Wee Johnny nodded towards a corner table. ‘Could have sat there all night, except Lauren noticed he was still on his first pint when he should have been on his third and went to check on him. She’s a good lassie at heart. Some reader, though.’ He shouted through to the back room, ‘I bet you’d have liked to get your hands on some of Crippen’s books, eh, Lauren?’ No reply came, and it seemed the old man didn’t expect any because he continued, ‘He had a whale of stuff, your uncle. A whale of stuff — the books — gee whiz.’
He shook his head in wonder at the size of Bobby Robb’s library and sank the dregs of his half pint.
Murray put a hand in his pocket.
‘Could you manage another?’
‘That’s good of you. I’ll take a pint.’ Johnny knocked back his whisky. ‘And a wee malt of the month to chase it down, if it’s no trouble.’
He rapped the counter with his stick and Lauren emerged wearily into the bar. Murray gave their order then asked Johnny, ‘So how do you know about his book collection?’
It was Lauren who answered.
‘Mr Robb rented a flat from my Uncle Arthur that manages this place. He told us about it.’ She poured two pints of lager. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Thanks.’ Murray took his beer from her. ‘So have you any idea what happened to his books?’
Lauren avoided his eyes.
‘Uncle Arthur burned them. It took him all afternoon.’
‘Aye, well, he agrees with me.’ Wee Johnny beamed, enjoying the conversation. ‘There’s a time and a place for books.’
‘He’s a Nazi. One minute he’s saying I can go through them and have my pick, the next he’s splashing petrol all over the place. The neighbours weren’t too happy when they saw the state he’d made of the drying green.’ She reached up to the gantry and poured a measure of malt into a glass. ‘He got a red face when Mr Robb’s ex-wife turned up looking to collect his effects, though. I guess that’d be your aunty.’