Dead Girl Walking (11 page)

‘Aye, well, the stress comes as part of a tidy package,’ Angus replied, sounding less than sympathetic. ‘I wouldn’t mind that pressure if it came with the same salary and benefits. All that money she’s got, she can pay for some therapy once the tour’s over.’

‘Or she could lighten up a bit and stop finding pointless wee conflicts everywhere,’ said Rory.

‘Why didn’t Mairi do something about Maxi?’ I asked, wondering what the manager’s role had been in all this. ‘Or was she not managing you then?’

‘No, it was a guy called Jake Duggan,’ Rory said. ‘And the problem was he was a mate of Maxi’s: that’s how he ended up managing the band. Plus, he didn’t come on tour with us. Oh, and he was a useless arsehole. Shouldn’t discount that as a factor.’

‘But what about the tour manager? Was it Jan?’

Angus and Rory exchanged another of their uncomfortable looks.

‘Yeah, it was Jan,’ Angus said, getting up from the table. ‘But he didn’t really see band politics as his remit.’

There was more, I could tell, but I wouldn’t be getting it.

Angus yawned and stretched, then stuck a muffin in his jacket.

‘Sorry, chaps,’ he said. ‘I need to go and check out of the room I haven’t actually been into.’

I assumed Rory would be heading out too when he stood also, but he had the teacup in his hand. He went off to get even more espresso from the machine, asking if I wanted anything. There was still tea in my pot, so I shook my head. To be honest, I was struggling to speak as I was a bit anxious that he was planning to stay.

Looking around the empty room, it dawned on me that with Heike having just chewed his arse, he might be feeling short on allies, particularly on the female side. If that was the case, he’d better drop the leery innuendo and pretend he was back in front of his physics class.

‘You’re right,’ Rory said, sitting back down. ‘She
is
feeling the pressure. And Angus is too focused on the money to see what’s going on here. After “Do It to Julia” became such a hit, it would have been very easy for Heike to relaunch herself as a solo artist. The record company would have been far happier with a pretty young female to market rather than a pretty young female and a bunch of hairy-arsed musos. But she knew we had all played our part, and she’s not the kind of person who would ditch us when opportunity knocked. She’s been loyal to us, and I guess she’s entitled to ask plenty in return.’

‘Plus, if it goes wrong, she’s got the most to lose,’ I said.

‘See, that’s the crux,’ he stated. ‘We’ve
all
got a lot to lose. If this goes breests-up, I’ll be back teaching disinterested weans instead of touring the world and rubbing shoulders with rock stars. That’s why there’s got to be a line drawn between meeting reasonable standards of professionalism and pandering to somebody who’s losing her sense of perspective. The danger here is that if we go along with any demand Heike makes purely because we all want to stay on board the showbiz express, we could end up creating a monster.’

He had another sip of espresso. I hoped he had managed some sleep after his controversial tryst, as there was no way he’d be catching forty winks on the bus having necked that much caffeine.

‘Christ, listen to myself,’ he said. ‘Getting as bad as Heike for overdramatising. I’m just a wee bit raging about getting painted like I’m Jimmy Savile purely because I got lucky last night.’

As far as I was aware, Rory had got lucky quite a few nights on this tour, and I guessed luck had very little to do with it. He struck me as a smooth and accomplished operator: he had an eye for the kind of girl who might respond, and as the singer put it on a track Damien was playing on the bus the other day, he knew how to ask the question more than one way.

He was attractive: he looked younger than he was, friendly and uncomplicated. Whether the girl from last night was seventeen or eighteen, she probably thought he was closer to her age than was the case. I didn’t think he was deliberately misleading her to get what he was after. If a girl was interested, Rory shouldn’t have to show his ID any more than he should be asking to check hers.

‘It just tends to be younger girls that are interested in me,’ he explained. ‘I think older women must assume I’m younger than I really am, or think I’ll be immature. It was murder at work, because I was a teacher who looked barely older than some of the pupils, and a few of the lassies got really flirty with me.’

I had seen this exact same thing happen when I was in fifth year, girls in my class toying with a young maths teacher. They started to sense the power they had, but didn’t yet understand it. They meant him no harm, but they didn’t give much thought to what they were putting him through.

‘That must have been tricky. One lapse in judgement and you’re on the front page of the
Daily Record
.’

‘Yep. And older women thinking I’m immature? I’ve been through trial by fire and come out the other side. Which is why it’s nice to be off the leash. Now, if some nubile seventeen-year-old wants to throw herself at me I have no reason not to oblige.’

So she
was
seventeen.

I wondered about him being already divorced, and if he had had trouble keeping it in his pants.

‘You were married, weren’t you?’

I knew he wouldn’t like me bringing this up, but he had been sounding a little too pleased with himself.

He nodded, eyeing me, wary that I had just declared I wasn’t going to be one of the lads over this.

‘Too young,’ he said. ‘A lucky escape for both of us.’

‘Did you cheat on her?’

He looked at me as though I had no right to ask, then seemed to realise that, like it or not, his sex life was already on the table.

‘It was more the wanting to that told me it wasn’t going to work. It was painful, but I’m glad I ended it before I really hurt her. I am still very fond of her, but…’

He sighed.

‘We were close growing up. Known each other since we were kids. Kind of childhood sweethearts. Then bang, one day you’re an adult and you realise your perspective has changed. The future doesn’t look the same as it did when you were seventeen and making plans: the horizon just became so much wider, you know? And they suddenly seemed such very small plans.’

I poured myself more tea. I didn’t want it, but I needed to busy myself with something while Rory was looking so intently at me, silently asking if I understood.

‘She wanted kids, suburbia, visits to Ikea on a Saturday afternoon. She would have been entirely content to live in this neat wee capsule and leave the world outside completely unexplored. Do you know what I mean?’

I knew fine what he meant.

I was disappointed but not surprised by Keith changing his mind about flying down for the Manchester show. I was starting to believe that he wanted to deny my being in the band was happening, so actually turning up to watch me play would have messed that up completely. Any time he called me before the tour kicked off, he kept referring to rehearsals as session work, like something casual and temporary.

‘
It’s your choice to go off with that band for weeks at a time
,’ he had said.

I wasn’t
with
that band. I was
in
that band. A band that were big news, but Keith seemed to be blanking them out.

He had happily come to plenty of my orchestral performances, usually in the comfortable company of proud relatives. Our families had been friends for generations.

Keith and I were close growing up. Known each other since we were kids.

Kind of childhood sweethearts.

Hiding in plain sight was the only camouflage Parlabane still had available to him.

One of the reasons the golden rule never to let yourself become the story was particularly applicable to investigative reporters was that it didn’t serve to be recognisable. For him, that ship had long since sailed, something he had tacitly acknowledged when he accepted the nomination to be rector of a university. He had already become the story several times before that, not least when he ended up in jail, so his days of playing the undercover reporter were done long before his picture was splashed across all those front pages gleefully reporting a rival title’s embarrassment.

He had grown more conscious of being recognised: signals that he’d have previously ignored as insignificant or coincidental could now reasonably be interpreted as evidence that someone was quietly taking an interest in him. Consequently, he had developed a sharper awareness of when he was being watched, and this had kicked in as he took the train back from meeting Spammy in Paisley.

He wasn’t just being watched, in fact. He was being followed.

He had noticed the guy in the nondescript grey suit as he stood on the platform at Gilmour Street. He hadn’t quite gone so far as to write ‘COP’ across his forehead with a Sharpie, but the signs were legible if you knew what to look for. The way the suit hung on him, for one thing: there were people who looked natural in a suit and people who looked conspicuously constrained by it, forced into the thing by diktat. Cops, in Parlabane’s experience, tended towards the latter: proper cops anyway. The ones who looked most comfortable in a suit were also likely to be most comfortable behind a desk.

Merely spotting a cop, of course, didn’t mean he was under surveillance. The clincher was spotting the inevitable second one, who emerged from behind a pillar as the train pulled in, stepping on to the carriage one in front.

Parlabane pretended he didn’t notice, blithely staring out of the window and checking his phone during the short journey to Central. Partly for confirmation and partly for his own amusement, he strode out of the station via the Hope Street exit, the opposite direction from his intended next destination. This meant that when he saw them again at Queen Street Station, having looped around to get there, he had subtly let them know he was on to them.

This was no great triumph, any more than he could congratulate himself on having made them back in Paisley. These guys were here because of Westercruik, and he was only seeing them because they wanted him to. It was just a little reminder that the eyes of the law were still very much upon him, a bit of passive intimidation intended to make him contemplate the simple action that would make it all go away.

They followed him on to the next train too, though as he was going back to Edinburgh, they should probably have bought their tickets at an advance saver rate. Nonetheless, he still had a final twist for them, as he had one more meeting scheduled that day. He couldn’t exactly call it a ‘fuck you’; more a flicking the Vicky.

He got off at Haymarket rather than staying on to Waverley as they’d have perhaps expected, then walked the short distance to the Police Scotland offices at Torphichen Place. If nothing else, at least it would confuse the buggers.

He was there because he still had at least one friend on the force, though he wished he’d made a point of getting in touch sooner upon his return from London. It wouldn’t sound quite so sincere to say he’d missed her if the first time he showed up, it was cap-in-hand.

Jenny Dalziel came down to the lobby to greet him, and he was surprised when she pulled him into a hug, particularly in front of fellow officers. He was also surprised by the level of affection in it. It was as though he had forgotten there were still a few folk out there who liked him, but that was what mass vilification did to a person. It was a lot easier to be thick-skinned when you still had people whose judgement you respected applying balm to your wounds.

‘It’s great to see you, Jenny,’ he told her, worried for a moment that he was going to fill up.

She led him to her office. He had met her when she was a young suede-headed and sharp-tongued Detective Constable. Nobody called her Jenny any more. She was Jennifer in most of the circles she now moved in, and in this building she was generally addressed as ‘ma’am’.

‘Thanks for seeing me at such short notice,’ he said.

‘It’s not that short. Soon as I heard you were back in town I knew the clock was running on you turning up and asking me for a solid.’

Yeah, there it was.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch sooner. I’ve been back in town a few weeks, but I’ve been keeping my head down. I kind of assumed people wouldn’t be in a hurry to meet up with me and my big bag of awkward.’

Jenny slid into her seat behind an impressively large but intimidatingly cluttered desk, gesturing for him to pull up a chair opposite.

‘Given your position,’ he went on, ‘I didn’t think it would have done you many favours to be seen fraternising with me. That’s why I’m all the more grateful for you fitting me in.’

Jenny fixed him with a steely look.

‘Self-pity isn’t a good fit on you, Scoop. You were always sexier when you were being an arrogant wee prick.’

There was once a time when he’d have replied with a remark about her
never
finding him sexy because she only had eyes for his wife. There would be none of that today, for any number of reasons.

Jenny was as striking as ever, growing into her elevated new role as much as he felt he had shrunk from his old self.

‘You’re looking very well,’ he said.

‘Still would?’ she asked, her tone gently mocking.

He felt himself blush.

‘That’s what I thought. Nae luck. You’re still one Y chromosome over the limit.’

‘Not to mention that it would be cheating,’ he observed. ‘For one of us anyway.’

Jenny gave him a sad little laugh.

‘Yeah,’ she said softly. ‘What happened there?’

Jeez, women just came right out and asked this stuff, didn’t they?

‘Nothing I can summarise,’ he replied, and he’d given it some thought, aware people such as Jenny were likely to ask. ‘Even if I tried, it would be like a time-lapse photo sequence of a process that was so gradual and incremental that we didn’t realise it was happening until it was so far on as to be irreversible.’

‘I’m sorry, Jack. I know you’ve been through the wringer.’

‘How about you?’ he asked, keen to hear all was well and hoping to Christ she wasn’t about to tell him her relationship was falling apart as well. ‘Maggie still…?’