‘What stuff?’
‘A smock and a handbag of mine. And a curly dark wig I’ve got. And my sunglasses.’
‘He was wearing all that when he left?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you.’ He turned to rush away.
‘Charles?’ she whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think he really might have murdered me?’
‘Yes, Anna. I do.’
As he ran down the steps from Lady Stair’s Close towards Waverley Station, he knew it was a long chance, but he could not think of anywhere else to go. If Martin wanted to get out of Edinburgh, that was the quickest way. Charles had a feeling that there was a London train at two o’clock. In twenty minutes.
The cold sweaty feeling of his hangover mixed with the hot sweaty feeling of running. Ambling tourists turned bewildered faces towards the middle-aged man pelting down the road in the calm of a Sunday afternoon. James Milne was a long way behind him, doing the ungainly penguin run of a man with things in his pockets.
Charles sped down the taxi-ramp into Waverley Station and halted in the sudden cool shade, gasping to get his breath. Then he moved slowly towards Platform 1/19 where the London train would leave. It had not yet arrived.
He stalked along the railings that ran the length of the platform and peered through at the passengers, who stood waiting with their luggage. They all looked extremely ordinary. He walked on. The women were very womanly.
He stopped and looked at one back view again. The clothes were right. Red smock, blue jeans, curly hair, handbag dangling casually from one hand. It must be.
But he hesitated. There was something so feminine about the stance. And no trace of anxiety.
But it must be. Martin’s chameleon-like ability to take on another personality would enable him to stand differently, to think himself so much into the part that he was a woman. Any actor could do it to a degree and a psychopath could do it completely.
Charles moved with organised stealth. He bought a platform ticket and walked through the barrier. Then he advanced slowly towards the ‘woman’. People peered along the line and started to gather up their luggage. The train was coming. He quickened his pace.
He was standing just behind his quarry when the train slid protesting into the station. Even close to, the figure looked womanly. Charles waited a moment; he did not want to risk a suicide under the oncoming wheels. But as the passing windows slowed to a halt, he stepped forward. The curly head was close to his face. ‘Martin,’ he said firmly.
The violence of the blow on his chest took him by surprise. He had time to register the skill of the boy’s make-up as he fell over backwards.
The shove winded him and it was a moment before he could pick himself up again. By that time Martin had charged the barrier and was rushing through the dazed crowd in the main station. Charles set off in gasping pursuit.
The boy was at least two hundred yards ahead when Charles emerged into the sunlight, and running up the hill which the older man had just descended. Martin was young and fit and moving with the pace of desperation. Charles was hopelessly out of condition on the steep gradient and could feel the gap between them widening.
Then he had what seemed like a stroke of luck. Martin was keeping to the right of the road as if he intended to veer off down the Mound into Princes Street where he would soon be lost in the tourist crowds. But suddenly he stopped. Charles could see the reason. James Milne was standing in his path. Martin seemed frozen for a moment, then sprang sideways, crossed the road and ran on up the steps to the Lawnmarket, retracing Charles’ footsteps.
In fact, going straight back to Anna’s flat.
Realisation of the girl’s danger gave Charles a burst of adrenalin, and he surged forward. As he passed the Laird on the steps he heard the older man gasp something about getting the police.
Martin was spread-eagled against the door in Lawnmarket when Charles emerged from Lady Stair’s Close. The boy was hammering with his fists, but Anna had not opened the door yet. No doubt she was on her way down the five flights of steps. Charles screamed out Martin’s name, turning the heads of a party of Japanese in tam o’shanters.
The youth turned round as if he had been shot and froze again like a rabbit in a car’s headlights, unable to make up his mind. Charles moved purposefully forward. It had to be now; he had no energy left for a further chase.
He was almost close enough to touch Martin, he could see the confusion in the young eyes, when suddenly the youth did another sidestep and started running again. Charles lumbered off in pursuit, cursing. If Martin made it down to the Grassmarket, he could easily lose his exhausted hunter in the network of little streets of the Old Town.
But Martin did not do that. He did something much more worrying.
Instead of breaking for the freedom of the Grassmarket, he ran back across the road and up towards the Castle. In other words, he ran straight into a dead end. With a new cold feeling of fear, Charles hurried after him, up between the Tattoo stands on the Esplanade and into the Castle.
The fear proved justified. He found Martin standing on the ramparts at the first level, where great black guns point out over the New Town to the silver flash of the Firth of Forth. A gaping crowd of tourists watched the boy in silence as he pulled off the wig and smock and dropped them into the void.
Charles eased himself up on to the rampart and edged along it, trying not to see the tiny trees and beetle people in Princes Street Gardens below. ‘Martin.’
The look that was turned on him was strangely serene. So was the voice that echoed him. ‘Martin. Yes, Martin. Martin Warburton. That’s who I am.’ The youth wiped the lipstick from his mouth roughly with the back of his hand. ‘Martin Warburton I began and Martin Warburton I will end.’
‘Yes, but not yet. You’ve got a long time yet. A lot to enjoy. You need help, and there are people who will give you help.’
Martin’s eyes narrowed. ‘The police are after me.’
‘I know, but they only want to help you too.’ This was greeted by a snort of laughter. ‘They do. Really. We all want to help. Just talk. You can talk to me.’
Martin looked at him suspiciously. Charles felt conscious of the sun, the beautiful view of Edinburgh spread out below them. A peaceful Sunday afternoon in the middle of the Festival. And a young man with thoughts of suicide. ‘Don’t do it, Martin. All the pressures you feel, they’re not your fault. You can’t help it.’
‘Original Sin,’ said the boy, as if it were a great joke. ‘I am totally evil.’
‘No.’
For a moment there was hesitation in the eyes. Charles pressed his advantage. ‘Come down from there and talk. It’ll all seem better if you talk about it.’
‘Talk? What about the police?’ Martin was wavering.
‘Don’t worry about the police.’
Martin took a step towards him. Their eyes were interlocked. The boy’s were calm and dull; then suddenly they disengaged and looked at something over Charles’ shoulder. Charles turned to see that two policemen had joined the edge of the growing crowd.
When he looked back, he saw Martin Warburton launch himself forward like a swimmer at the start of a race.
But there was no water and it was a long way down.
And Brian Cassells got another good publicity story.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers!
And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about anglers!
And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had nothing worth dishing;
So you see, Mr Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about fishing.