‘Maybe so,’ Hood informed her, ‘but if I’m not mistaken, we’ve just cornered the global market in electric typewriters.’
Siobhan Clarke had insisted on somewhere ‘a bit fancy’ for their drink, and when she told him about her day, Derek Linford thought he understood. Her last couple of working hours had been spent questioning dossers.
‘Not easy,’ he said. ‘You were all right, though?’ She looked at him. ‘I mean, they didn’t bite?’
‘No, they were just...’ She tipped her neck back, inspecting the spectacular ceiling of The Dome Bar and Grill as if expecting the rest of the sentence to be painted there. ‘I mean, they weren’t even smelly for the most part. But it was the past.’ Now she nodded to herself.
‘How do you mean?’ He was using his swizzle-stick to chase a sliver of lime around his glass.
‘I mean the stories, all the tragedies and tiny mishaps and wrong turns that had brought them there. Nobody’s born homeless, not that I know of.’
‘I know what you mean. They needn’t be homeless, the majority of them. The support system’s out there.’ She was looking at him, but he didn’t notice. ‘I never give them money, it’s a sort of principle with me. Some of them probably make more a week than we do. You can make two hundred a day, just begging on Princes Street.’ He shook his head slowly, saw the look on her face. ‘What?’
She studied her own drink, a large gin and tonic to his lime juice and soda. ‘Nothing.’
‘What did I say?’
‘Maybe it’s just...’
‘Been a rough day?’
She glowered. ‘I was going to say, maybe it’s just your attitude.’
They sat in silence for a while after that. Not that anyone in The Dome minded. It was the cocktail hour: George Street suits; black two-pieces with matching tights. Everyone focused on their own little group: office blather. Clarke took a long swallow. There was never enough gin; you could order a double and still not feel the kick. At home, she poured half and half, gin to tonic. Lots of ice, and a wedge of lemon rather than something that looked like it had been pared with a razor blade.
‘Your accent changes,’ Linford said at last. ‘Modulates to suit the occasion. It’s a clever trick.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, you’ve got an English accent, right? But in some company, at the station for example, you manage to bring in some Scots.’
It was true: she knew she did it. She’d been a bit of a mimic even at school and college, knowing she did it so she’d fit in with whoever she was talking to, whichever peer group. Used to be, she could hear herself switching, but not now. The question she’d asked herself was: why the need to change, just to fit in? Was she that desperate, that lonely as a girl?
Was she?
‘Where were you born?’
‘Liverpool,’ she said. ‘My parents were lecturers. The week after I was born, they moved to Edinburgh.’
‘Mid-seventies?’
‘Late sixties, and flattery will get you nowhere.’ But she managed a smile. ‘We only stayed a couple of years, then it was Nottingham. I got most of my schooling there, finished off in London.’
‘Is that where your parents live now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lecturers, eh? What do they make of you?’
It was a perceptive question, but she didn’t know him well enough to answer it. Just as she’d always let people assume that her New Town flat was a rental. When she’d eventually sold it and got her own mortgage on a place half the size, she’d put the money back into her parents’ bank account. She’d never explained to them why she’d done it. They’d only asked the once.
‘I came back here to go to college,’ she told Linford. ‘Fell in love with the city.’
‘And chose a career where you’d always see its mucky underwear?’
She chose to ignore this question, too.
‘So that makes you a settler... one of the New Scots. I think that’s what the Nationalists call them. You will be voting Scot Nat, I trust?’
‘Oh, are you SNP?’
‘No.’ He laughed. ‘I just wondered if you were.’
‘It’s a pretty underhand way of finding out.’
He shrugged, finished his drink. ‘Another?’
She was still studying him, feeling suddenly enervated. All the other drinkers, the nine-to-fives, were winding down, a few drinks before home. Why did people do that? They could get a drink at home, couldn’t they? Feet up in front of the telly. Instead of which, they stuck close to their office building and had a drink with their work-mates. Was it so hard to let go? Or was home something less than a refuge? You needed a drink before facing it, courage to confront the evening’s redundancy? Was that what she was doing here?
‘I think I’ll head off,’ she said suddenly. Her jacket was on the back of her chair. A while back, someone had been stabbed outside this place. She’d worked the case. Just another act of violence, another life wasted.
‘Got plans?’ He looked expectant, nervous, childlike in his ignorance and egotism. What could she tell him? Belle and Sebastian on the hi-fi; another gin and tonic; the last third of an Isla Dewar novel. Tough competition for any man.
‘What are you smiling at?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘Must be something.’
‘Women have to have some secrets, Derek.’ She had her jacket on now, was wrapping her scarf around her neck.
‘I thought a bite to eat,’ he blurted out. ‘You know, make an evening of it.’
She looked at him. ‘I don’t think so.’ Hoping her tone would alert him to the missing final word: ever.
And she walked.
He’d offered to see her home, but she’d declined. Offered to call her a cab, but she lived a stone’s throw away. It wasn’t even seven thirty, and he was all at once alone. The noise around him was suddenly deafening, skull-crushing. Voices, laughter, chiming glasses. She hadn’t asked about his day. Hadn’t said much at all, really, except when prompted. His drink looked fake yellow, the colour of children’s sweets. Sticky-tasting and souring his stomach, corroding his teeth. He walked to the bar, ordered a whisky. Didn’t put any water in it. Looking around, he saw that another couple had already taken his table. Well, that was fine. He didn’t stand out so much here at the bar. Could belong to one of the office parties either side of him. But he didn’t, and he knew he didn’t. He was an outsider in this place, same as in St Leonard’s. When you worked as hard as he did, that was what happened: you got the promotions, but lost the intimacy. People steered a course past you, either out of fear or jealousy. The ACC had pulled him aside at the end of the St Leonard’s tour.
‘You’re doing good work, Derek. Keep at it. Few years down the road, who knows? Maybe you’ll look back at this one as the inquiry that made your name.’ And the ACC had winked and patted his arm.
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
But then had come the postscript, the ACC readying to leave but half-turning towards him. ‘Family men, Derek, that’s what the public should see when they look at us. People they can respect, because we’re no different from them.’
Family men. He meant wife and kids. Linford had gone straight to his phone and called Siobhan’s mobile...
Balls to it. He left, nodded to the doorman even though he didn’t know him. Out into the horizontal wind, the night seizing him and taking a bite. His lungs complained when he breathed in. Left turn: he’d be home in ten minutes. Left turn, he’d be going home.
He turned right, heading for Queen Street, the top of Leith Walk. The Barony Bar on Broughton Street, he liked it there. Good beer, an old-fashioned place. You wouldn’t stand out in a place like that, drinking alone.