Siobhan offered a smile. “That makes you mankind’s last great hope, Bobby. You should be flattered.”
“My shift ends at midnight!” he called after her as she made her way to her parents’ tent. There was no one home. She unzipped the opening and looked in. The table and stools had been folded away, sleeping bags rolled tight. She tore a sheet of paper from her notebook and left a message. No sign of life in the surrounding tents either. Siobhan began to wonder if her mum and dad had maybe gone out drinking with Santal.
Santaclass="underline" last seen at the demonstration in Buccleuch Place. Which meant she might be trouble…might get into trouble.
Listen to yourself, girl! Afraid your trendy leftist parents will be led astray!
She tutted to herself and decided to kill some time walking around the camp. It was little changed from the previous night: a strummed guitar, a cross-legged circle of singers, kids playing barefoot on the grass, cheap food doled out at the big tent. New arrivals, weary after the march, were being handed their wristbands and shown where to pitch camp. There was still some light left in the sky, making a startling silhouette of Arthur’s Seat. She thought maybe she would climb it tomorrow, take an hour to herself. The view from the top was a thrill. Always supposing she could afford an hour to herself. She knew she should call Rebus, let him know the score. He was probably still at home in front of the box. Time enough yet to give him the news.
“Saturday night, eh?” Bobby Greig said. He was standing just behind her, holding a flashlight and his two-way. “You should be out enjoying yourself.”
“Seems to be what my friends are up to.” She nodded in the direction of her parents’ tent.
“I’ll be having a drink myself when I finish,” he hinted.
“I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“Hope you’re on overtime.”
“Thanks for the offer, though…maybe another night.”
He gave a huge shrug. “I’m trying not to feel rejected here.” His radio burst into life with a jolt of static. He raised it to his mouth. “Say again, tower.”
“Here they come again,” came the distorted voice.
Siobhan looked toward the fence, couldn’t make anything out. She followed Bobby Greig toward the gate. Yes: a dozen of them, hooded tops drawn tight around their heads, eyes shaded by baseball caps. No sign of weapons, other than a quart of cheap booze being passed among them. Half a dozen guards had gathered inside the gate, waiting for Greig to give the word. The gang outside was gesturing: Come and have a go. Greig stared back, seeming bored with the performance.
“Should we call it in?” one of the other security men asked.
“No sign of missiles,” Greig replied. “Nothing we can’t handle.”
The gang had steadily been approaching the fence. Siobhan recognized the one in the middle as the leader from Friday night. The mechanic at Rebus’s recommended workshop had said it might end up costing six hundred to fix her car.
“Insurance might do some of it” had been his only crumb of comfort. In reply she’d asked him if he’d ever heard of Keogh’s Garage, but he’d shaken his head.
“Can you ask around?”
He’d said he would do that, then had asked for a deposit. A hundred gone from her bank account, just like that. Five hundred still to go, and here were the culprits, not twenty feet from her. She wished she had Santal’s camera…fire off a few shots and see if anyone at Craigmillar CID could put names to faces. Had to be security cameras around here somewhere…maybe she could…
Sure she could. But she knew she wouldn’t.
“Off you go now,” Bobby Greig was calling out in a firm voice.
“Niddrie’s ours,” the leader spat. “It’s youse should fuck off!”
“Point taken, but we can’t do that.”
“Makes you feel big, eh? Playing babysitter to a bunch of scum.”
“Happy-clappy hippie shit,” one of his followers concurred.
“Thanks for sharing” was all Bobby Greig said.
The leader barked out a laugh; one of the gang spat at the fence. Another joined him.
“We can take them, Bobby,” one of the security men said softly.
“No need to.”
“Fat bastard,” the gang’s leader goaded.
“Fat-ass bastard,” one of his lieutenants added.
“Alky.”
“Pop-eyed baldy ass-licking…”
Greig’s eyes were on Siobhan. He seemed to be making up his mind. She shook her head slowly. Don’t let them win.
“Thieving bastard.”
“Asshole.”
“Bloated schmuck.”
Bobby Greig turned his head toward the guard next to him, gave a brief nod. “Count of three,” he said in an undertone.
“Save your breath, Bobby.” The guard leaped for the gate, his comrades right behind him. The gang scattered but regrouped at the other side of the road.
“Come on then!”
“Any time you like!”
“You want us? Here we are!”
Siobhan knew what they wanted. They wanted the security men to chase them into the labyrinth of streets. Jungle warfare, where local knowledge could defeat firepower. Weapons-ready-made or improvised-could be waiting there. A larger army could be hidden behind hedges and down shadowy alleys. And meantime, the camp was left unguarded.
She didn’t hesitate; called it in on her cell. “Officer requiring assistance.” Brief details of where she was. Two, three minutes, they’d start arriving. Craigmillar cop-shop wasn’t farther away than that. The gang’s leader was bending over, making a show of offering his backside to Bobby Greig. One of Greig’s men accepted the insult on his behalf and ran at the leader, who did what Siobhan had feared: appeared to retreat farther down the walkway.
Into the heart of the housing project.
“Careful!” she warned, but no one was listening. Turning, she saw that some of the campers were watching the action. “Police will be here in a minute,” she assured them.
“Pigs,” one of the campers said in evident disgust.
Siobhan jogged out into the road. The gang really had scattered now; at least, that was what it looked like. She traced Bobby Greig’s route, down the path and into a cul-de-sac. Low-rise blocks all around, some of the last and worst of the old streets. The skeleton of a bike lay on the pavement. A supermarket cart’s carcass sat curbside. Shadows and scuffles and yells. The sound of breaking glass. If there was fighting, she couldn’t see it. Back gardens were the battleground. Stairwells, too. Faces at some of the windows, but they withdrew quickly, leaving only the cold blue glare of TV sets. Siobhan kept walking, checking to left and right. She was wondering how Greig would have acted had she not been there to witness the taunts. Bloody men and their bloody machismo…
End of the street: still nothing. She took a left, then a right. In one front garden, a car sat on bricks. A lamppost had had its cover removed, its wiring ripped out. The place was a bloody maze, and how come she couldn’t hear sirens? She couldn’t hear any yells now either, apart from an argument in one of the houses. A kid on a skateboard came toward her, maybe ten or eleven at most, staring hard at her until he was past. She reckoned she could take a left and be back at the main road. But she entered another cul-de-sac and cursed under her breath-not even a footpath to be seen. Knew the quickest route might be to skirt around the end terrace and climb the fence. Next block over and she’d be back where she started.
Maybe.
“In for a pound,” she said, heading down the cracked paving slabs. There wasn’t much of anything behind the row of houses: weeds and ankle-high grass and the twisted remains of a rotary clothesline. The fence was broken-backed, easy to cross into the next set of back gardens.
“That’s my flower bed,” a voice called in mock complaint. Siobhan looked around. Stared into the milky blue eyes of the gang’s leader.