Starburst (19 page)

T
he police panda car was sitting at traffic lights in Stockbridge when the report of suspicious behaviour came through on the radio from the control room. Being only four streets away from where the supposed incident was taking place, WPC Heather Lennox took the call while her male colleague switched on the blue light, gave out a short wail on the siren and swerved out of the queue, swinging the car left across the red light.

As they approached the street, the driver killed the blue light and drove slowly around the corner, hoping for an element of surprise in their arrival. He flicked the headlights onto full beam, illuminating the two youths who turned with expressions of panic on their faces, immediately stepping away from the car into which they were only a moment away from gaining entry. As the panda car accelerated towards them, the two boys took to their heels like a couple of frightened gazelles, and as the car drew level with them their desperation pushed them to perform a near impossible feat, scrambling up and over a seven-foot wall before disappearing from sight.

The driver unclipped his seat belt and threw open the car door, making ready to give chase, but was stopped by WPC Lennox.

“Dinnae bother, Jim. We’ll never catch ’em.” She turned around in her seat and stared out of the back window. “Did ye see onything a bit odd back there when we turned intae the street?”

The policeman shrugged.

“I’m sure there was some’dy standing in that end doorway watching everything that was going on wi’ something like a pair of binoculars.” She swung round and unslotted the radio handset. “Come on, I think it’s worth checking it. Better get the car turned so we don’t have to reverse out o’ here.”

The police driver spun the steering wheel back and forth until he had managed to turn in the tight space between the rows of parked cars. He drove to the end of the street and stopped at the junction with the road.

“Which way?” he asked.

WPC Lennox craned forward in her seat and glanced up and down the street. She could make out a number of pedestrians walking beneath the orange glow of the street lights, mostly all in couples. There seemed to be only one person walking alone.

“That could be him up there on the left. Wait for a couple of cars to come and slot in between them, then just drive past at normal speed so I can tak’ a look at him.”

Sixty yards away, Thomas Keene junior was still chuckling to himself. It had been the third time he had videoed those two boys from his housing estate attempting to nick a car, but that one really had to take the Oscar. He had had the zoom set right in to record every detail of the theft and consequently had seen the expressions of horror on the boys’ faces when they turned to look up the street. Sensing then that something was going on out of frame, T.K. had zoomed out, catching the police car approaching, and he had kept the camera switched on until the two lads had disappeared from sight over the wall. He could not have captured the scene better, so well in fact that he could not resist the temptation of reviewing the whole hilarious scene right then and there. Opening up the viewfinder, he rewound the tape and pressed “playback,” studying the screen as he walked, oblivious to the cars that passed him on the street.

“Well, speak o’ the devil,” WPC Lennox breathed quietly, as the car passed the slow-moving figure on the pavement.

“D’ye know him?” her colleague asked.

“That, Jim, is one Thomas Keene junior, a young man from Pilton Mains who has mair stolen cars to his name than the Queen of England has jewels.”

“Ye’d think he’d notice us, then. What was he doing?”

“I don’t know. He was holding something in his hand, but I couldn’t work out what it was.” She gestured with her hand. “Turn into the street on the left here and we’ll just wait to ask the lad a few questions, shall we?”

T.K. was so distracted by his latest masterpiece that he missed the step down onto the street at the end of the pavement and landed awkwardly on his foot. Wincing with pain, he closed the viewfinder on the camera and bent down to rub at his throbbing ankle. It was at that point he became aware of the two shadows that darkened the area around him.

“Evening, Keene,” the policewoman said in an airy manner. “Remember me, dae ye?”

Thomas slowly lifted his head and saw the two uniforms standing above him. Shit, he thought to himself, the bloody polis. His first fleeting thought was that at least he was innocent of all crime, but then his eyes glanced down at the stolen video camera that lay by his right foot. Hell, he couldn’t get caught with it. He’d stayed out of trouble for so long, he wasn’t going to get pulled in for something as petty as that.

“Could you stand up so that we can ask you a few questions, Keene?” the policewoman asked, taking a step towards him.

“Ma ankle’s sare.”

“Just get to yer feet, sonny,” the policeman said sternly, backing up his colleague’s request.

T.K. put his hand on the camera and manoeuvred his feet into a position that was as near as possible to that of a hundred-metre sprinter about to push off from his blocks. The policeman sensed the lad’s intentions and reached down to grab his shoulder, but his hand closed on thin air. Thomas Keene junior had taken off like a scalded cat.

“Bring the car. I’ll get him,” the policeman called out to his colleague as he ran off in pursuit of T.K. After fifty metres he wondered if he hadn’t been a bit premature in the surety of his statement because the gap between him and the wee bastard was increasing with every second.

T.K. shot a quick glance behind him. He was certainly putting welcome distance between himself and his pursuer, but the policeman was still in full view, which meant T.K. wasn’t yet in a position to jettison the camera unseen. He had to get out of sight.

T.K.’s knowledge of every short cut to the north side of the New Town was infinite, and so he knew from the moment he turned into the small mews street that he had made a fundamentally suicidal mistake. The cobbled lane, which was lined with small, pleasantly symmetrical stone houses with brightly painted garage doors, came to an abrupt end at an eighteen-foot high wall that was topped, for some ridiculous reason, with a spiral of razor wire. Left with no other alternative, T.K. kept running until he came to the wall. He turned, at bay against it, thankful that the street was only lit at its entrance. He looked frantically around. To one side were a couple of potted bay trees at either side of the front door of the last house. No time to start digging, he thought to himself. On the other side was a cluster of pristine rubber dustbins tucked away into the corner of the wall where the house owners would deem them least unsightly. He dragged one of them out, pulled off the top and pushed the camera down deep amongst the plastic bags. Then a spur-of-the-moment decision made him retrieve it. Losing the stolen apparatus was unfortunately a necessity, but he was damned if he was going to lose his precious videotape. He ejected the cassette and once more rammed the camera back into its hiding place, and then, squatting down behind the dustbin, he slid the cassette down the side of his battered trainer shoe. He leaned back against the wall, drew up his knees and took in a deep, calming lungful of air. It was all he had time for. He watched the beam from the powerful torch light up the profile of the dustbin, hitting him full in the face ten seconds later. He held up a hand to protect his eyes, hearing the policeman’s rasping breath.

“All right, lad, are ye going to come quiet now or am ah going tae have tae use a bit o’ persuasion?”

Gavin Mackintosh rose to his feet along with the rest of the audience in the Usher Hall to give tumultuous applause to the performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major. With outstretched hand, the conductor directed the acclaim toward the young soloist, then swiveled on his plinth and gave her a short Germanic bow. Angélique Pascal, dressed in a black strapless cocktail dress that hugged her small figure, reciprocated by blowing him a kiss before continuing on in similar style to the packed auditorium encircling the stage.

Gavin continued to clap until his was the last to echo feebly around the vast domed concert hall, his eyes fixed on the departing orchestra. Jenny, his wife, already with her coat on and her handbag shouldered, touched his arm to draw his attention to those others in their row who were waiting to get past him. Gavin held a hand up in apology, slipped the evening’s programme into the inside pocket of his jacket and followed his wife up the steep staircase to the exit.

Outside, a cool wind blew up Lothian Road, swerving with force around the curved walls of the Usher Hall. Fastening the centre button of his suit jacket, Gavin took hold of Jenny’s arm and manoeuvred a path for them through the crowds, at the same time taking his mobile phone from his breast pocket and switching it back to “general” ring. It was as well he had remembered to turn it on to “silent” before the concert because he had felt it reverberate against his chest halfway through and it had taken a steely glare and a brisk shake of the head from his wife to curtail his immediate reaction to answer it. Pressing the playback number, he listened to the message as he walked.

“Damnation,” he muttered, slipping the mobile back into his pocket and guiding Jenny over to the side of the pavement.

“Don’t say you have a call-out,” she said in a voice which expressed both disappointment and long-sufferance.

“I’m afraid so. One of John Anderson’s Legal Aid cases. The lad’s been taken into Gayfield Square Police Station.” He held up a hand to hail one of the few taxis on Lothian Road with their “For Hire” lights still on. “It shouldn’t be too complicated, but I’ll have to stop in at the office to see if I can unearth some files on the boy. You take this taxi home and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” As the black cab pulled up alongside them, Gavin opened the door and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. “At least this year we managed to
get
to see the concert.”

Jenny smiled knowingly at him. “Just as well, too. I think you might have been in a bit of a grump if you’d missed out on both Madamoiselle Pascal’s musical
and
physical attributes this evening.”

Gavin laughed. “My dear, it is nothing more than a boyish infatuation.” He closed the door, and with a quick wave of farewell as the taxi pulled away from the pavement, he headed off down towards Princes Street, glancing behind him from time to time in the hope of spying another vacant taxi.

Thomas Keene junior sat slumped on the hard wooden chair in the windowless interview room, chewing hard on a fingernail that was already bitten down to the quick. God, how he hated the stink of these places. They were always the same, the sour aroma of disinfectant doing little to cover the ingrown stench of fear. It always made his stomach knot up in agitation, and this time his unease was exacerbated by the fact that he was beginning to break out in a cold and clammy sweat, being a good hour overdue with the methadone.

He glanced at the pair of battered trainers that sat incriminatingly on the table. “Ah, fa
fuck’s
sake!” he yelled out, thumping his elbows on the desk and slapping repeatedly at his face. Why in the name of hell had he kept the tape? He should have known they would give him a thorough search. Now, if he ever got out of this bloody mess, his life wouldn’t be worth shit. There was enough evidence on that tape to put at least nine lads in front of the juvenile court, and it wouldn’t take long before everyone on the Pilton Mains estate knew exactly who was responsible for supplying the evidence. He leaned back in the chair, clasping his hands behind his head. He’d asked to see his solicitor the moment that damned policewoman had held up the videocassette between finger and thumb, eyeing it as if she was bloody Sherlock Holmes. “What do we have here, then, Keene?” she had asked. “A miniature timing device that’ll blow yer hand aff in twa seconds,” he had wanted to answer, but then felt it wouldn’t have helped his case any. Where the hell had that damned Mr. Anderson got to? The polis must have put the call through a good hour and a half ago.

The door of the interview room opened and WPC Lennox entered, barely able to cover the smirk on her face. “Your solicitor is here, Keene.”

A large man in a dark blue pinstriped suit walked in and thumped a buff-coloured file down on the table. T.K. stared at him in alarm.

“Where’s Mr. Anderson?” he asked, a note of panic in his voice.

“On holiday, I’m afraid, Thomas. I’m Mr. Mackintosh. You’re going to have to make do with me.”

T.K. let out a groan of hopelessness on hearing the gruff tones of his new solicitor. This is it, he thought. There’s no way ye’re goin’ tae escape dae’n time now.

Gavin turned to the policewoman. “Constable Lennox, would you be good enough to allow me two minutes with my client?”

The policewoman flicked her head uncertainly. “We should really just get on wi’ it, Mr. Mackintosh, but I’ll give ye a couple of minutes, as long as ye don’t hold back on anything during the interview.”

Gavin nodded. “You have my assurance.”

As the door closed, Gavin pulled out one of the chairs opposite T.K. and sat down. He took a pair of half-moon reading glasses from his pocket, put them on, and then, flicking the bands off the file, he spent a moment in silence scanning through the reports on the first few pages. Pushing the file to one side, he leaned forward on the desk and eyed the young man over his spectacles. “Well, it doesn’t look too good, does it, Thomas?”

“Ah didnae dae onything,” T.K. mumbled disgruntedly.

Gavin found it difficult to suppress a laugh. “I wouldn’t know about that. On that videotape, you seem to have supplied the police with enough evidence to cut car crime in Edinburgh by half overnight.”

“Ah,
shite,
” T.K. spat out, throwing back his head and closing his eyes tightly.

“What happened to the camera, Thomas?” Gavin asked.

“Ah dropped it in the chase.”