10:25 am
Winter in Scotland was far too cold to walk around bare-chested. That’s why Pearce wore a t-shirt. His fists clenched, relaxed and clenched again. His forearm muscles writhed under his goosepimpled skin. He smacked his hands together.
Who wanted to live in a tower block? Last time he ventured into this area was over ten years ago. A housing scheme roughly six miles west of the city, Wester Hailes was the dumping ground for single mothers, the elderly, the unemployed, winos, whores, students, foreigners, crazies, ex-cons, junkies, and dyke social workers. The properties were damp. The heating didn’t work. There were problems with the plumbing. The lifts kept breaking down.
Ten years ago Wester Hailes was Edinburgh’s drug centre. Junkies congregated from all over the city to share needles in the dozens of abandoned flats.
As Pearce’s sister had said, ‘The views from the top are pretty cool. Get high to get high, you know. You got the Pentlands to the south. You ever seen snow-capped mountains through a heroin haze? And on the other side, sometimes I see the struts of the RailwayBridge wriggle just like my veins after I’ve jacked up.’
Last time he was here he arrived too late. Dislodged from his sister’s arm, a syringe nestled against the skirting board. She lay on her back, naked, her only view a web of cracks in the ceiling. She’d been dead for two days.
Maybe things had changed, like they said, although it needed more than a bit of re-cladding to convince him. At street level the multi-storey blocks shortened his horizon. He felt hemmed in, imprisoned. He rubbed his palms on his jeans.
An upturned shopping trolley propped open the door of the building he was looking for.
‘Hey!’
He craned his neck. On the top floor a teenage boy in a grey hooded top was leaning over the balcony, waving. He held something in his hand. Without warning, he let go. Pearce stepped to the side. The object struck the ground a couple of feet from where he’d been standing, bounced once and rolled to a stop. A syringe. Clear plastic split down the centre, plunger depressed, needle snapped off in the fall. He tossed the trolley out of the way and ducked through the doorway. So much for change.
Staircase to the left. Sprinting up the stairs. Out of breath.
‘Muriel!’ Lift straight ahead, door yawning at him. Chest tight, lungs burning, he stepped inside the lift and its scarred, steel-grey mouth swallowed him. The door shut with a clang that made sweat break out on his forehead. Stale air filled his nostrils. His hand shook as he pressed the button for the eighth floor.
He had arrived too late. Stop it. He had failed to protect her. Forget it. She’s dead. I wasn’t looking out for her. Stop it. Think about something else. Concentrate on the job. Do what you’re here to do. Concentrate on the old man.
The old man was called Willie Cant and Pearce’s mother had gone to school with him. They’d even kissed once, she told him. She asked him not to be too hard on the old guy. Pearce looked down at the steel toecaps of his light-brown boots. They could cause a bit of damage. He wouldn’t use his feet, then. The lift grumbled to a halt and the door struggled open.
Two teenage boys blocked Pearce’s path. Fifteen, sixteen years old. The one wearing the grey hooded top pointed a knife at him.
Pearce felt nothing at all. He said, ‘Move.’
The teenager’s hand was unsteady. He glanced at his pal, and grinned. His teeth were yellow.
Pearce took a step to the side and the youth mirrored his movement. ‘Out of my way,’ Pearce said.
‘Where’s the party? Are we invited?’
Pearce’s eyes probed the boy’s. Dull brown. No sparkle. Lots of movement. The silence lengthened. In a little while, the one without the knife spoke and the voice startled Pearce. It belonged to a girl.
‘Let’s piss off, Ross,’ she said. ‘This guy’s weird.’
Pearce’s eyes darted over the contours of her light brown jumper, then back to Ross. ‘Listen to your girlfriend,’ he said.
She had started to move. She was tugging Ross’s sleeve. Her hair was as short as Pearce’s.
Ross licked his bottom lip slowly, carefully, as if his tongue was an expensive lipstick. Somewhere below, a dog started to bark. Ross lowered his hand and his tongue shot back into his mouth. ‘Next time,’ he said, faking confidence, and wheeled around.
Pearce watched them disappear up the stone staircase. The girl shouted something he didn’t quite catch and forced laughter ricocheted off the walls. Cant’s handwritten name was taped on top of the garish pink paintwork of his front door. The letter a had been scored out and replaced with a u. Pearce felt the corners of his mouth twitch. He slipped a fingernail under a burst paint blister, which peeled off like boiled skin.
He slammed on the door with the heel of his hand. ‘Open up.’ He waited a minute, watching the second hand of his watch complete a full circle, before hammering on the door again. Then he waited another minute, precisely. ‘Last chance, Cant.’
From the other side of the door a quiet voice said, ‘What do you want?’
Okay, let’s see. I want to pay off the grand I owe Cooper. And I want Mum to get another job. It’s not safe working there these days. To Canthe said, ‘I think you know.’
The old man whined, ‘I don’t.’
‘Open up.’
After a moment, Cant whispered, ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Pearce said. ‘Now open the door.’
Silence.
‘Open it.’
The old man’s voice rang out: ‘Bugger off.’
Following Joe Hope’s advice, Pearce tried a different approach. ‘My mum remembers you,’ he said, pressing his ear to the door. ‘Hilda Pearce. When she knew you she was Hilda Larbert. You were at school together. Ring any bells?’
A slight pause. Then, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Open the door. We’ll talk.’
‘Tell me what you’re going to do.’
‘You’re making me angry. Open the door, Mr Cant.’ He waited. ‘You can do it.’
‘Tell him he can have his money tomorrow.’
‘I won’t discuss business through a closed door.’
‘Tomorrow. I promise.’
Pearce took a deep breath. Fuck Joe Hope’s advice. What did he know? He was nothing more than one of Cooper’s hired thugs. Pearce flicked a switch in his head and instantly words rattled out of his mouth like bullets out of a machine-gun. ‘If you don’t open the fucking door right fucking now you piece of shit there’s no way I’m going to be accountable for what happens to you, you with me on this, you understand or do I have to explain it all again?’ He waited a moment, took a step back, aimed to the right of the handle and kicked the door with his heel. His boot went straight through the wood and stuck there. He hopped a couple of times until he regained his balance. Splinters scuffed his boot as he dragged his foot back out.
He dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out a pair of surgical gloves. They fitted like an extra layer of skin. He wriggled his gloved hand through the hole and fumbled for the key. His fingers caressed the empty keyhole, slid up the door and turned the knob on the Yale. Locked. He flicked the snib downwards and tried again. The door opened, but only as far as the length of chain allowed. He leaned against the door, tearing the chain out of the wall.
Cant’s flat smelled of dried vomit. A puff of dust rose from the carpeted hallway as Pearce stepped into the old man’s home. Coffee-brown stains flecked the left-hand wall. The right was shelved. Two shelves. A dead plant on each.
The old man had fled.
But he had to be here somewhere. Pearce walked to the end of the hallway. The door facing him was shut. There was another door to his left, open a crack. He kicked it.
A single bed was jammed against the wall. He lifted the quilt and glanced underneath. Dozens of identical socks – grey with parallel strips of red diamonds – littered the floor. He lowered the quilt and reached the wardrobe in two small steps. Brass handles. Dark wood scarred in a dozen places. He opened both doors. Empty, except for a solitary coat hanger and more socks. The right hand door squeaked when he closed it.
His eyes swept the room one last time. Turning, he stepped into the hallway and grabbed the handle of the other door. It clicked and swung open with a groan.
Cant was pressed into the far corner of his living room, upper body gently rocking. He didn’t look up. Pearce traced the grain of an unvarnished floorboard with a critical eye. Living room segued into kitchen with only a tattered patch of linoleum indicating the change. He shook his head. Grime coated the kitchen surfaces. A tower of dirty dishes sat next to the sink and more dishes swam in a basin of filthy water. The open drawer by the sink was where, presumably, the old man had found the bread knife he was cradling against his chest.
Pearce would never live like this. He’d die first. He found himself wondering what his mum had seen in Cant. Well, who could tell with kids? Would she still have kissed him at school had she known he would end up in this pitiful state? Probably. Mum was all heart. Always had been. She understood why he’d had to kill Priestley.
‘Fifty quid.’ He fixed his eyes on the old man.
Cant’s lips were moving. He was mumbling. Praying, maybe. For all the good it would do.
‘Due yesterday,’ Pearce continued.
Cant stilled for a moment, then started rocking and mumbling again.
Pearce moved towards him.
‘No closer,’ Cant cried out. His bony fingers squeezed the handle of the knife, his knuckles pale, the skin stretched across the back of his hand. His shoulders heaved as he gulped air in desperate mouthfuls. ‘No closer, you bastard.’ He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. His eyes met Pearce’s briefly, then lowered to gaze at the floor.
‘The way I look at it,’ Pearce said, ‘I’m doing you a favour. You’ll be looked after in hospital. Free meals. No bills. And by the time you get out you’ll have saved enough to pay back Mr Cooper.’
‘Oh, no,’ the old man said, and started moaning. He fell to his knees. ‘Go away.’ He dropped the knife. ‘Please.’ Eyes shut, he rolled over onto his side and drew his knees to his chest.
Pearce picked up the knife. He carried it into the kitchen, returned it to the open drawer and slammed the drawer shut. He yawned and said, ‘Excuse me,’ into his cupped hand as he ambled back over to Cant. He prodded Cant’s scrawny arm with his toe.
The old man’s eyes snapped open. His arm recoiled and he tucked it between his legs. His dark eyelashes fluttered. A thick thread of drool joined the side of his mouth to the floor.
‘I’ll give you another twenty-four hours,’ Pearce said. ‘But fifty pounds won’t be enough.’ He rubbed a thick finger across his chin, enjoying the rasping sound it made. ‘You’ve defaulted on a payment. That’s a ten pound fixed penalty. My time’s another ten. Interest, that’s another ten. And another twenty, say, for not breaking anything. What’s that? A hundred?’
Cant looked up. He sniffed, propped himself on an elbow. ‘You’re a nice guy,’ he said.
Pearce nodded, eyeing Cant’s socks. Grey, with red diamonds.
View cart
