That C. Mackie’s building society was still trading seemed, under the circumstances, a minor miracle. Clarke sat in the manager’s office while he found the relevant paperwork. Mr Robertson was a small, rotund man with a large, polished head and beaming smile. The half-moon glasses gave him the appearance of a Dickensian clerk. Clarke tied not to imagine him in period clothes, but failed. He took her smile as one of approbation — either of his character in general or his efficiency — and sat back down at his modern desk in his modern office. The manila file was slim.
‘The C stands for Christopher,’ he remarked.
‘Mystery solved,’ Clarke said, opening her notebook. Mr Robertson beamed at her.
‘The account was opened in the March of 1980. The fifteenth, to be precise, a Saturday. I’m afraid I wasn’t the manager then.’
‘Who was?’
‘My predecessor, George Samuels. I wasn’t even at this branch, prior to my elevation.’
Clarke flipped through Christopher Mackie’s passbook. ‘The opening balance was £430,000?’
Robertson checked the figures. ‘That is correct. Thereafter, we have a history of occasional minor withdrawals and annual interest.’
‘You knew Mr Mackie?’
‘No, I don’t believe so. I took the liberty of asking the staff.’ He ran his fingers down the columns of figures. ‘You say he was a tramp?’
‘His clothing would suggest he was homeless.’
‘Well, I know house prices are extortionate, but all the same...’
‘With four hundred thousand to spare, he might have found himself something?’
‘With that sort of money, he might have found just about anything.’ He paused. ‘But then there is this address in the Grassmarket.’
‘I’ll be going there later, sir.’
Robertson nodded distractedly. ‘One of the staff, our Mrs Briggs. He seemed to deal with her when he made a withdrawal.’
‘I’d like to talk to her.’
He nodded again. ‘I presumed as much. She’s ready for you.’
Clarke looked at her pad. ‘Has his address changed at all, while he’s been a customer here?’
Robertson peered at the paperwork. ‘It would seem not,’ he said at last.
‘Didn’t it seem unusual to you, sir: that amount of money in the one account?’
‘We did write to Mr Mackie from time to time, asking if he’d like to discuss other options. Thing is, you can’t be too pushy.’
‘Or the customer might take umbrage?’
Mr Robertson nodded. ‘This is a wealthy place, you know. Mr Mackie wasn’t the only one with that kind of cash at his disposal.’
‘Thing is, sir, he didn’t dispose of it.’
‘Which brings me to another point...’
‘We haven’t found anything resembling a will, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘And no next of kin?’
‘Mr Robertson, I didn’t even have a first name till you gave me one.’ Clarke closed her notebook. ‘I’ll talk to Mrs Briggs now, if I may.’
Valerie Briggs was a middle-aged woman who’d recently had her hair restyled. Clarke guessed as much from the way Mrs Briggs kept touching a hand to her head, as if not quite believing the shape and texture.
‘The very first time he came in here, it was me he talked to.’ A cup of tea had been provided for Mrs Briggs. She looked at it uncertainly: tea in her boss’s office was, like her hairstyle, a new and challenging experience. ‘Said he wanted to open an account and who should he speak to. So I gave him the form and off he went. Came back with it filled in and asked if he could open the account with cash. I thought he’d made a mistake, put down too many noughts.’
‘He had the money with him?’
Mrs Briggs nodded, wide-eyed at the memory. ‘Showed me it, all in a smart-looking briefcase.’
‘A briefcase?’
‘Lovely and shiny it was.’
Siobhan scribbled a note to herself. ‘And what happened?’ she asked.
‘Well, I had to fetch the manager. I mean, that amount of cash...’ She shivered at the thought.
‘This was Mr Samuels?’
‘The manager, yes. Lovely man, old George.’
‘You keep in touch?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Well, George... Mr Samuels, that is, took Mr Mackie into the office. The old office.’ She nodded at where they were sitting. ‘It used to be over by the front door. Don’t know why they moved it. And when Mr Mackie came out, that was it, we had a new customer. And every time he came in, he’d wait until I could deal with him.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Such a shame to see him go like that.’
‘Go?’
‘You know, let himself go. I mean, the day he opened the account... well, he wasn’t dressed to the nines but he was presentable. Suit and what have you. Hair might have needed a wash and trim...’ She patted her own hair again. ‘. . but nicely spoken and everything.’
‘Then he started going downhill?’
‘Pretty much straight away. I mentioned it to Mr Samuels.’
‘What did he say?’
She smiled at the memory, recited the reply: ‘“Valerie, dear, there are probably more eccentric rich people out there than normal ones.” He had a point, I suppose. But he said something else I remember: “Money brings with it a responsibility some of us are unable to handle.”’
‘He could have a point.’
‘Maybe so, dear, but I told him I’d be willing to take my chances any time he felt like emptying the safe.’
They shared a laugh at this, before Clarke asked Mrs Briggs how she might find Mr Samuels.
‘That’s an easy one. He’s a demon for the bowls. It’s like a religion with him.’
‘In this weather?’
‘Do you give up churchgoing because it’s snowing outside?’
It was a good point, and one Clarke was willing to concede in exchange for an address.
She walked past the bowling green and pushed open the door to the social club. She hadn’t been to Blackhall before, and the maze of streets had defeated her, twice misleading her back on to the busy Queensferry Road. This was Bungalow Land, an area of the city that seemed to have stepped straight out of the 1930s. It seemed a world away from Broughton Street. Here, you appeared to have left the city. There was precious little commerce, precious few people about. The bowling green had a careworn look, its grass a dull emulsion. The clubhouse behind it was a single-storey affair of brown wooden slats, probably thirty years old and showing its age. She stepped inside to a furnace-blast from the ceiling-mounted heater. There was a bar ahead of her, where an elderly woman was humming some show tune as she dusted the bottles of spirits.
‘Bowls?’ Clarke called.
‘Through the doors, hen.’ Nodding in the general direction without losing her beat. Clarke pushed open the double doors and was in a long narrow room. A green baize mat, twelve feet wide and about fifty long, took up most of the available space. A few plastic chairs were scattered around the periphery, but there were no spectators, just the four players, who looked towards the interruption with all the ire they could muster until, noting her sex and youth, their faces melted and backs straightened.
‘One of yours, I’ll bet,’ one man said, nudging his neighbour.
‘Away to hell.’
‘Jimmy likes them with a bit more meat on their bones,’ the third player added.
‘And a few more miles on the clock, too,’ said player four. They were laughing now, laughing with the confidence of old men, immune from penalty.