The No. 2 Global Detective (19 page)

He watched as Colander put his hand on Mma Ontoaste's broad knee. It was a proprietary gesture. Mma Ontoaste removed the hand. Well, well, thought Rhombus.

‘That's the castle up there,' he pointed, addressing Mma Ontoaste. ‘Maybe I'll take you later?'

Mma Ontoaste raised an eyebrow.

‘I should like that—' she started.

‘After we have been to IKEA,' snapped Colander, audibly and visibly hurt by Delicious's rejection.

Rhombus pounced.

‘So what sort of music do you like, Delicious?' he asked with a slight nod of the heid, as if he were moving to some groovy inner beat. She frowned at him and then looked away out of the window again. Colander gave Rhombus a wintry
⁹
smile.

Tom Hurst was quiet, seemingly lost in thought. He kept chewing his lower lip. Could he have made a mistake, he wondered. Could the clues that the murderer left, from that spear to the IKEA label and now this trip to Scotland, really have been to the three detectives that were in the car, rather than anything else? Was there a personal connection in the game, rather than a geographical one? The news that they had all been in the same year at Cuff was news to him. But surely the Dean should have known? He would have to make a few calls.

The driver negotiated all the mini roundabouts that blocked the way to the massive blue-painted warehouse of IKEA and dropped them as near to the entrance as he was able. The way seemed to be blocked by four or five enormous coaches.

‘Imagine organising a coach trip to IKEA,' muttered Tom.

All three detectives jumped out of the cab almost before it stopped moving, showing surprising turns of speed, leaving Tom to pay for the ride. Which in this case was only fair. Once again the detectives followed the yellow line through the sections all the way to the bedlinen department and once again they were unable to find what they were looking for. There seemed to be no mysa måne duvets to be found.

‘Perhaps we should have rung first?' murmured Tom. There was a hiss of indrawn breath. The three detectives were all shaking their heids in disapproval.

‘What do they teach kids these days?' Rhombus said

‘Tom,' began Colander. ‘The purpose of the telephone in our business is only to complicate matters, not help clear things up. It would only have been worth ringing ahead if you could have guaranteed that someone with a distinctive speech impediment would have answered the phone and then subsequently lied to you. Then you would have had a lead, and probably a false one—'

‘The best kind,' interjected Rhombus.

‘—But otherwise don't use the phone.'

Once again Mma Ontoaste had to ask someone and once again the men clustered around the assistant and bombarded her with extraneous detail. The last mysa måne had been sold that very morning.

‘Och,' said the girl, ‘I sold it myself. To an American.'

‘An American? What did he look like?' asked Rhombus.

‘A wee bit crazy to tell you the truth. He was wearing an old parka and he smelled of fish.'

‘Fish?'

As they tried to leave the store with Mma Ontoaste lingering in the Marketplace haggling for a cork noticeboard, a set of fifteen soup bowls and a carpet from somewhere near Turkey, Tom felt glum.

‘Cheer up Tom,' said Rhombus. ‘Let's get some clothes for you all and then we can all go and have a drink and a think. Does that sound good, eh big man?'

It was not clear if he was being ironic but as the taxi drew up at the Scotch Cashmere and Tartan Centre on Prince's Street, he was smiling broadly.

‘This is where most Scots buy their clothes,' Rhombus said, leading the way down the stairs. Once in the shop Mma Ontoaste and Colander were quickly surrounded by sales staff who took their measurements and returned with kilts in the correct tartan within the minute. Mma Ontoaste was quickly fitted up for a rather modest Harris tweed jacket, a white ruffled shirt, strong tartan waistcoat, kilt and a pair of thick green socks with a little piece of scarlet felt cut in the shape of a snake's tongue that stuck from the fold at the top. She refused the offer of a dirk, but took the sporran and a heavy pair of black brogues. Colander and Hurst emerged a second later, similarly dressed.

‘Oh Delicious,' Rhombus said, clearly and unnervingly aroused by the sight of her in tartan. ‘You look wonderful. But what a shame your kilt clashes with his self's there.'

He nodded to where Colander was looking thunderously at himself in a mirror, trying to make some sort of sense of the Glengarry hat that he had been given.

‘You'll just have to keep away from one another won't you?' Rhombus laughed. Colander tore his Glengarry off and threw it on the ground. Rhombus had bought himself a blue Tam with black and red dicing and an orange pom. He pulled it down over one eye and was giving Delicious a piratical look when something she said stopped him in mid stride.

‘What did you say?' he demanded.

She had been searching through the pockets of her new jacket. She looked puzzled.

‘I said this one is big enough for a notebook.'

Rhombus put his hand to his heid.

‘Notebook!' he said. ‘The notebooks!'

All three detectives and the shop assistants stared at him.

‘I had some notebooks. Five of them. Covered in blood. Christ! Each one is a list of the most corrupt policemen in the country.'

‘Where are these notebooks, Rra?'

‘Christ knows. I left them somewhere. They could be anywhere. Oh well, let's forget about it. They probably don't matter anyway.'

Colander stepped forward.

‘You cannot mean it. If there are corrupt officers in any police force we must root them out. Get them out so that they can become security guards and make their fortunes running drugs to innocent Swedish children in nightclubs.'

Delicious looked at Colander with that gleam in her eye again and Tom sensed there was more than a desire for justice in his speech. He was challenging Rhombus: whoever finds the notebooks wins the girl.

‘Where did you last see them?' asked Colander, beginning to see that he was at a serious disadvantage. Rhombus scratched his heid, beginning to see that he was at a serious advantage.

‘Can't remember,' he said.

‘Think,' Colander said.

‘You must try at least, Rra,' Ontoaste weighed in. ‘Where did you get these notebooks?'

‘Jenners. There was a deal on. Six for the price of two.'

They all agreed that this was good value.

‘But it does not get us much further forward,' Tom said. ‘When did you write the names in them?'

Rhombus explained how he came by the names.

‘Ingenious, Danny Boy,' Colander said through gritted teeth. ‘But then what did you do with them?'

‘I drove back into town and stopped at a pub – the Oxymoron on Thistle Street.'

‘And then?'

‘And then I can't remember a thing.'

It was true. He had no recollection of anything that had happened since. But since when? He could not even remember that.

^9.
Is that good or bad? Still too early to say, perhaps. I'll make this the last footnote. It doesn't really matter one way or the other.

‘Well,' Mma Ontoaste said with a crowning smile. ‘We had better get to the pub, hadn't we?'

‘It's a bit early for me,' mumbled Rhombus, glancing at his watch.

‘Yes,' agreed Colander. ‘I like the drink excessively only when it is dark.'

‘For fuck's sake,' Mma Ontoaste snapped in a rare show of ill-temper. ‘It's enough to drive a woman to drink. All right. I'll go.'

She fastened the leather buttons of her tweed jacket over her substantial bust and looked at Tom.

‘You coming?'

Tom shrugged. He wondered if he could safely leave Rhombus and Colander alone together.

‘Actually, I fancy a drink after all,' Rhombus said, slightly shrilly.

‘Me too,' muttered Colander.

‘Right,' smiled Ontoaste triumphantly. ‘Let's go.'

They marched out of the Scotch Tartan and Cashmere Emporium and up the hill to Thistle Street. The Oxymoron, normally a hubbub of noise, broken glass and flying teeth, became stony quiet as they pushed open the doors and ordered their drinks. One of the barmen stopped spreading the sawdust they used to soak up the blood and stood up, rolling his eyes as if to wonder why he bothered.

‘Two pints of best with whisky chasers, please, Landlord and two lime and sodas.'

The silence lasted a beat before the spit and insults started to fly. Seconds later, the four detectives were backed into a corner swatting away bar stools and pint mugs with their heidgear. A line of angry Scotsmen was trying to get at them as a pack of dogs might attack a bear.

‘It's funny how none of us carry guns, don't you think?' asked Colander, ducking quickly as an ashtray flew at his face.

‘And yet some of the best detectives do, don't they?'

‘But, Rra, they only use them to get people to tell the truth towards the end of the case. I think it's a bit of a cheap shot.'

‘We should get out of here,' shrieked Rhombus. Glass shattered overheid. A rolling soundwave of unintelligible swearing broke over them.

‘Don't you want to get the notebooks, Rra?' asked Mma Ontoaste, right-handing one old codger who was trying to get a sneak up her kilt.

‘Maybe another time?' whimpered Colander.

‘There is no other time,' Tom shouted. ‘We've got to get to IKEA after this!'

‘But it's late closing tonight. We can always go later.'

‘I can't believe you two!' said Mma Ontoaste. ‘And you call yourselves police officers?'

At that Colander grabbed a man in a wrestler's hug and bit into his ear. Rhombus ripped the picture of the urinating dogs from the wall and smashed it over the heid of another assailant. Tom Hurst gave another a rabbit punch. Mma Ontaoste had removed her shoe and was brandishing it like a
knobkerrie
. The tide was definitely turning.

Spotting a gap, Mma Ontoaste dropped her shoe and surged forward, sweeping her assailants before her like a great black-and-tartan tidal wave. She pushed them to the double doors and shunted them out into the street. Five or six men dealt with in a second. She locked the door and returned to the bar, where Rhombus, Colander and Tim Hurst were righting chairs and dusting themselves down. The other regulars were gulping back the vanquished men's pints.

‘Nice work,' said the barman as he poured her a pint. ‘Don't suppose you fancy a job, do you?'

Mma Ontoaste laughed. She would not mind settling down in Edinburgh, she decided. It had a nice familiar feel about it, and a job chucking out in the Oxymoron would keep her in enough money for the foaming mugs of 80/- that she could already see herself enjoying. She would have to think about it.

‘Actually, you know, hen,' continued the barman. ‘I think I can dig out a carton of Umbongo? If you'd prefer? If you worked for me, we'd get it on draught, of course.'

‘Rra,' she said, wiping the froth from her upper lip. ‘Umbongo comes from the Congo, as you must know, while I am from Botswana.'

‘Oh, aye, good point.'

‘Now my friend here believes he may have left some notebooks in here the other night. He says there were six of them, covered in blood.'

‘Blood, you say?'

‘Rhesus negative.'

‘Could these be them?' he asked, digging behind the bar and finding the notebooks, crisp with dried blood.

‘Well, that was simple,' said Tom.

‘What do you mean, simple?' chorused the detectives. Mma Ontoaste looked especially pleased with herself at having solved the case.

‘You know we had a case like that in Ynstead once,' Colander said. ‘A schoolchild left her herring on the bus. We tracked it down, though. Police procedure. Getting the men out there, knocking on doors, asking questions.'

Nobody said anything for a minute.

‘Right,' said Tom eventually. ‘Shall we have a look at them? Find out who these corrupt officers are?'

They took a book each.

‘I've got someone called DI Stony Creek,' Colander said. ‘Maybe another one of your amusing nicknames?'

‘Shit Creek would be an amusing name,' Rhombus said. ‘But not Stony. Beside there's no Creek in the Scotch police We only allow Mcs or, at a push, Macs.'

‘I've found a Marion McKenney?'

Rhombus shrugged. He had not heard of her, and he had been out with half the female police officers (and one male, but that was an undercover job) in the force.

‘Dilwyn Dumfries?'

‘Clifton Forge?'

‘Can we have another two pints please, Rra?'

None of the names meant anything to Rhombus.

‘A code, then,' Tom sighed.

‘A what, Rra?'

‘Never mind. We will have to try to break the code. Find out what the names mean.'

He found that, when he spoke to Mma Ontoaste, he slightly raised his voice, as if she were simple or something. He got out his blackberry and began putting the names into Google. First he tried Dilwyn Dumfries. Nothing. He removed the inverted commas. Lots of information about antecedents with the surname, but nothing concrete, nothing immediately obvious. Then he tried Elkton Edinburg. It was an unusual name. Again, nothing certain.

‘Just hotel reservation sites for places in America.'

‘There's a hotel called Elkton Edinburg over there?'

‘No. It's two place names – in Virginia.'

He tried another and stared at the results.

‘Cliftonforge.org,' he said.

‘Who is Clifton Forge?'

He clicked the link.

‘Another place. In Virginia again.'

Tom could feel the hair on his collar stand on end. This was the thing. Virginia. He tapped in another few names. All of them were towns in Virginia, USA. What Tom could not decide was whether this was a clue that would lead him to find out the names of the bad apples in the barrel that was the Edinburgh and Midlothian Police Force, or whether it was a clue that would lead him to find out who killed Claire Morgan.