Dead Girl Walking (16 page)

‘In Berlin, before the Wall came down, there were these underground stations where the trains wouldn’t stop. Ghost stations, they called them. They were places where the lines ran through East Berlin: you could be there physically, you could pass through, but you couldn’t ever get off.’

She took another drink and refilled her glass.

This was as much as I had understood: that the song was about never quite being able to connect with someone, no matter how close you got. Then I suddenly saw what had been in front of me so long, having played this number alongside this woman every evening for a fortnight.

‘Your mother,’ I said. ‘She was from Berlin, wasn’t she?’ My words came out as a whisper, and sounded like a gasp.

‘I never really knew her,’ she said. ‘That’s what the song is about. She died when I was very young. I don’t even know
how
young. My dad got together with her when he was living in West Berlin in the eighties. She was an artist too, but she was also a heroin addict. He took me away from her not long after I was born, and I don’t think she put up a fight. He wouldn’t tell me much about her, and now he’s gone too.’

Heike was unable to speak then. She seemed determined not to cry, but it was touch and go.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘No, not at all.’

‘They say you don’t miss what you never had, but…’

I thought she was about to break down, but instead she smiled in a way that I couldn’t quite read.

‘You’re one of a tiny handful of people I’ve ever told this,’ she said, looking me in the eye, both fragile and accusing. Like that first night in Bristol, she had found herself exposed in front of me, with no choice but to trust me with what she had revealed. But she had trusted others, and been betrayed.

‘You told Maxi.’

Heike nodded, her expression cold, but her anger making her lip tremble.

‘He listed “Dark Station” to hurt me. It’s his revenge for me kicking him out of the band. This is something that’s mine, mine alone. It’s one of the few things in my life that makes me feel some connection to her, even though it’s about
not
being able to connect. So when somebody makes a claim that it’s half his, turns it into a commodity, turns it into a
battleground
…’

She was crying gently, as something in her seemed to give in. She looked helpless.

I moved off the seat and on to the edge of the bed. Heike leaned into me and let her head fall into my shoulder. I felt a wetness on my neck as her check brushed against it.

She wasn’t sobbing. Her head just moved up and down softly as she breathed, a perfect quiet falling upon the room, the outside world far, far away.

I knew Heike would make me pay for getting this close, but right then I didn’t care. I felt the most perfect sense of calm inside, of serenity.

Then she raised her head and we looked into each other’s eyes.

I don’t know if I kissed her or she kissed me. I just know that it happened. It was soft, it was tender, and then it was over.

Heike pulled away with a look of shock and doubt, trembling.

‘Oh, God, I am sorry. I am so sorry. Jesus, I wouldn’t have thought there was a way I could contrive to make myself feel worse tonight.’

‘Heike…’

‘I just got caught up in the emotion. I was so touched that you were here for me, and this is how I…’

‘Heike…’

‘Jesus, I’m effectively your employer. It’s like I’m your boss and I’m taking advantage of—’

‘Heike,’ I said again, this time taking her hand.

She was looking at me, still apologetic, even a bit scared.

‘Forget about it,’ I said. ‘It happened. It’s forgotten, okay?’

She bit her lip and wiped her eyes, recovering a little.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

I poured us both another shot, trying to hide the fact that my hands were shaking.

‘Hey,
Bridesmaids
is on the pay-per-view. Let’s get tipsy and watch it together,’ I suggested.

Because I didn’t want to leave.

‘Okay,’ she said, with a little smile. ‘As long as you’re all right.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You sure?’

‘I told you. It’s forgotten.’

But it wasn’t forgotten. It
couldn’t
be, because I didn’t want to forget it, any more than I had wanted it to stop.

Heike Gunn’s voice filled the inside of Parlabane’s hire car as he drove through the Trossachs and on towards Kennacraig. He had the volume high and his foot to the floor on a clear morning, enjoying being behind the wheel for the first time in more than a year. It was crisp and still, Loch Fyne creating a spectacular if unnerving illusion: its placid surface reflected the image of the mountains, making it appear as though there was a dizzying plunge beneath the level of the road.

Sarah had liked Savage Earth Heart, probably more than he had. He could still remember her singing along to ‘Western Pagodas’ as they drove past distilleries on a weekend break to Speyside, though he had always been tempted to skip the next track, ‘It Meant Nothing’, as it unavoidably reminded both of them of the time she had a one-night stand with a colleague.

He missed her. Sometimes he would tell himself what he missed was the way it felt when they were together, that he only missed the woman she used to be. Maybe that was true, but it was hard not to think that they could both be those people again, that with a little luck and a bit less pressure they could get it right.

It felt good to be out here on the road, the scenery reminding him of pleasant things too long forgotten. When had he last been out here climbing? It had to be years. How did that happen? He used to love it, used to live for it, so much that when he was back from a trip he would see the city around him in three dimensions while everyone else lived in flatland. Time was, he couldn’t look at a building without seeing toeholds, mapping out how he would scale the thing.

It was something they couldn’t share, however. Sarah didn’t like heights, and she got increasingly worried about what might happen to him when he was indulging what she saw as a pointlessly risky pursuit. There was also, he knew, a concern in her mind that the more adept he remained at climbing, the more tempted he might be to break into some office in search of evidence to stand up a story. This concern was not entirely groundless, he had to admit, but it wasn’t a temptation he had actually succumbed to since the time it landed him in jail.

The music was beautifully clear, the hire car boasting a very beefy sound system. Mairi had given him an advance copy of the new album, which was her way of underlining what was at stake, as one listen told him that this was a band striding boldly up to the next level.

Smuggler’s Soul
was confident, mature and accomplished, if a little safe, suggesting the influence of big-label A&R. However, everything Parlabane knew about Heike Gunn gave the impression she was stubborn to the point of bloody-minded, so he didn’t imagine this move to a stadium-baiting epic sound had constituted a surrender on her part, or even a compromise. She was thinking big. The question was, had she become spooked by just how big this was looking to get? Maybe she had decided she needed a bit of alone time: breathing rather than bailing.

As he examined the lyrics for clues to her state of mind, he was certain that these songs were not the work of someone who was starting to crack under pressure. Savage Earth Heart’s third album wasn’t quite a manifesto for world-domination, but it was the bold and confident work of someone who was aware the world was watching, and was happy to showcase her talent. Perhaps for that reason it was a little less personal, volunteering fewer candid insights into Heike’s inner self and her vulnerabilities. It was outward-looking, optimistic and discernibly careerist.

Heike had unmistakably chosen the path to stardom, a path that would take her a very long way from Parlabane’s destination. As he drove the lonely miles towards the ferry port at Kennacraig, he wondered whether she’d had second thoughts about where it might ultimately lead, and whether she could ever truly come home again. Did she look into her immediate future and fear she had created a monster? And was she scared that the monster was her?

Parlabane had never been to Islay, and had therefore never taken a ferry from Kennacraig either. The longer he drove, the less likely it seemed that such a place would turn out to exist. He kept thinking he must have wrongly programmed the sat-nav, as surely there ought to be a settlement nearby if he was approaching a port; a fishing village at least.

As the hire car snaked through the glens, there was a point when the looming landscape ceased to seem a vertical playground waiting to be explored and began instead to underline how remote and isolated Parlabane was. It was a transformation largely effected by the lingering presence of a black Audi in his rear-view mirror. It had been behind him since Inveraray, too far back for him to get a look at the driver but close enough that he was always in its sight. Parlabane attempted to salve his paranoid instincts with the logic that it was hardly the same as constantly seeing the same car behind him in a built-up area. When there was only one road, it didn’t count as being followed: you were merely in front of another vehicle. However, those paranoid instincts had been on the money of late, and the prospect that this was another Met tail was at the optimistic end of his imaginings.

Parlabane had successfully hacked a laptop belonging to a senior figure at the MoD: that part was not so much in the public domain as in the ‘embarrassingly public’ domain. The Westercruik Inquiry was interested in ascertaining how he had acquired it, though that was small potatoes in the grander scheme. What was truly under investigation was corruption and collusion linking the MoD and the defence industry. They knew that the security failings required for it to have ultimately fallen into his hands would need to have been many and varied, and therefore if he gave up his source it may well be the first domino. Consequently, there had to be a lot of people getting nervous that Parlabane would crack: powerful, connected and ruthless people, all of whom would sleep better tonight if he happened to have a tragic accident out here in the middle of nowhere, with no witnesses.

The black Audi turned off at Tarbert, leaving him feeling less relieved than logic should have dictated. The car was gone, but the fears that it had unleashed were still loose in his head.

When he finally saw the sign for the turn-off, directing him down a narrow road with only the sight of water in the middle distance indicating a connection to maritime activities, he was half expecting to find a wizened old man with a wooden raft and a long pole. Instead he found a jetty and a building that advertised itself as the ferry terminal, but which more closely resembled a newsagent’s or a building-site office.

As he parked in the queue and glimpsed movement in his rear-view, he was startled to spot the black Audi rolling slowly into line behind him. At last he got a close look at the occupant. He was male, mid-to-late forties, squat and jowly, sporting close-cropped grey hair and wearing a suit. Could be a cop, could be something else.

If he
was
a cop, what did these Met dicks think Parlabane was going to do? Bury the secret of the stolen laptop beneath a bronze-age cairn in the Hebrides?

And yet if he wasn’t a cop …

Parlabane contrived to drop behind him once their cars were on board, waiting in his vehicle until he saw the guy exit the Audi. It was one of the advantages of having identified a tail that the bastard had to pretend to be oblivious of him, and this allowed Parlabane to surreptitiously snap his picture with his phone as the guy took a seat in the forward lounge. Another one to add to the polis gallery, and if he wasn’t polis then it was good to have a documented image of whoever had been sent after him.

He decided he should go right up and make conversation, just to see how the guy reacted. More importantly, it would make the prick understand that there was a whole host of witnesses who could testify to having seen them talk, which might put a spoke in any grim plans he had.

Parlabane was about to make his move when the guy got up and headed for the bar. He followed at a short distance, but it was long enough for someone else to get in the queue between them. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t stop him making conversation as the guy left with his drink; indeed the more forced it appeared, the better.

Then he heard him order.

‘I would like a black coffee, please.’

He spoke in a gravelly European accent, and unless UKIP’s worst nightmares had come true and even the security forces were now overrun with immigrants, then he wasn’t Parlabane’s problem.

‘First time to Islay?’ the purser asked him.

‘First visit,’ he replied with a friendly chuckle. ‘But not my first
taste
of it, yes?’

‘You like the malts, then?’

He gave an eager laugh.

‘I am on, how you say, a pilgrimage.’

Christ.

It was a timely reminder of how paranoia was a symptom of gross egotism and self-obsession. Yeah, like Parlabane was that important to the Westercruik Inquiry that they would send someone to follow him from Edinburgh to the Mull of Kintyre.

He drove off the boat at Port Askaig and headed south-east. He checked the time as he reached Bridgend, and felt amazed that he had been driving through Edinburgh only a few hours ago. It barely seemed like the same country, or indeed the same century. He drove past crisp white-painted houses, looking out to sea in little rows like they were huddled together for warmth. He saw tiny cemeteries, headstones counting in mere dozens rather than hundreds. Dry-stone dykes ran along single-track roads, often bereft of any markings. And every so often, he’d come over a hill or around a headland and see the black, triangular-topped towers of a distillery: western pagodas.

Parlabane thought of Heike’s father Ramsay Gunn, who had been witness to so many scenes of uprising, turmoil and change around the world that he was like the zeitgeist’s advance location scout, and yet had come back here, where it was easy to imagine time standing still. He must have felt that this was somewhere his daughter would be safe, a place of stability and certainties, but the one thing he hadn’t been able to give her was a mother.