Eye of the Raven (28 page)

‘
Know the feeling,’ said Susan. ‘You’ll get a break soon.’

Steven took his time driving back to Edinburgh. He was angry with himself for having overlooked the DNA problem and he was annoyed with Santini for screwing up the chances of a more successful raid on the saunas but the thing that was uppermost in his mind was the revelation that Tracy Manson was a heroin addict. Needle sharing by drug addicts was a classic way of spreading AIDS.

If Tracy Manson had shared needles in the past, she might well be HIV positive and if she was . . . he had had unprotected sex with her. Ironically he might already be under the same death threat as David Little.

He rubbed his forehead nervously. He would have a blood test done as soon as he could arrange it but even if it turned out to be negative he knew he would have to go on having tests for many months before he could be sure that he was in the clear. There would be no quick answer. In the circumstances it was impossible for him not to think of Little and his skeletal appearance, and then his thoughts turned to Paul Verdi. ‘Bastard!’ he murmured, ‘I owe you, mister!’

The prospect of at least six months with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head was not a happy one. The worry was going to be there day and night. It would affect his work; his relationships, his decision making and no matter what he did to avoid thinking about it, it would still be there. In his mind’s eye he heard the clunk of Little’s tooth falling into the metal bowl at least half a dozen times on the drive home.

He was turning over some salad with his fork for the umpteenth time in a motorway service station when he saw a way around the problem. He could confront Tracy Manson about her HIV status. He could simply ask her if she was HIV positive. If the council in Edinburgh operated a tolerant policy towards working girls, it was entirely possible that they might incorporate some element of regular testing. He could ask her when she’d last been tested – maybe even see the result for himself. She would have no reason to lie about something like that. He would seek McClintock’s help in getting in touch with her when he got back.

He knew that he should really make contact with John Macmillan to tell him about his meeting with Charlotte Little when he got back but he decided to delay that until McClintock had checked to see if the utilities disk still existed.

Steven had a drink in the hotel bar and was considering an early night when McClintock rang.

‘
Thought you’d like some good news for once. My sergeant’s just rang me. He’s got the disk.’

‘
The utilities disk? You’re kidding.’

‘
Samson Utilities, a software company that went out of business five years ago but the disk was still there along with Little’s old computer and software in a cupboard in the hospital. Apparently no one wanted to take the responsibility of throwing his stuff out so no one ever did.’

‘
God bless the NHS,’ said Steven. ‘I don’t suppose he’s had time to . . .’

‘
He has,’ interrupted McClintock. ‘You were right.’

Steven closed his eyes and gave silent thanks.

‘
Ryman loaded the disk and ran the set-up file. It ran normally and provided all the functions of the Samson utility programme but when it was removed it left something behind on the hard disk, the Tracy Manson pictures.’

‘
God, it’s so nice to be proved right once in a while,’ sighed Steven.

‘
That was a nice piece of police work. Well done.’

‘
Thanks,’ said Steven.

‘
Incidentally, DS Ryman thought that the great Santini should know about this as soon as possible.’

‘
So?’

‘
He loaded it on to Santini’s computer so that he’ll see it first thing. It’s been programmed to run when he turns it on in the morning.’

Steven smiled for the first time that day.

‘
Santini is having a meeting with the WRVS in his office first thing tomorrow morning to discuss canteen arrangements for visitors to Saughton Prison . . .’

‘
Well, that’ll be a nice change from his usual screen saver,’ said Steven, his grin broadening.

‘
I’ll keep you posted,’ said McClintock.

‘
Peter, I need to contact Tracy Manson,’ said Steven, deciding to come right out with it.

‘
Are you out of your tree?’ exclaimed McClintock. ‘The Procurator Fiscal hasn’t thrown out her complaint against you yet. If you go do something like that you’ll be playing right into Verdi’s hands.’

‘
I’ve got to know if she’s HIV positive,’ said Steven.

‘
Jesus,’ murmured McClintock. But the way he said it seemed to convey that he knew how Steven must be feeling and could sympathise. ‘You can get a blood test, mate without seeing Tracy Manson.’

‘
With blood tests you still can’t be sure one way or the other for many months,’ said Steven. ‘I don’t want it hanging over me if I can avoid it. She must know if she’s positive.’

‘
I guess you know about these things,’ McClintock conceded. ‘But confronting the Manson girl is a definite no-no right now.’

‘
I have to know,’ said Steven. ‘If you won’t give me an address for her I’ll have to try the sauna.’

‘
Christ, man, you’d be giving Verdi’s gorillas every excuse to rip your head off. We’ll be collecting you in a bucket! Look, sleep on it. As far as I know we’re still going ahead with the raid on the saunas tomorrow – for all the bloody good it’ll do now that Santini’s given them plenty of warning. If Tracy’s working at Cuddles we’ll bring her in for questioning along with everyone else. I’ll call you and fix it for you to have a word with her here while the circus is in progress. Okay?’

‘
Thanks Peter,’ said Steven.

‘
But wait for my call. Right?’

‘
Understood,’ agreed Steven.

McClintock’s call came much earlier that Steven had anticipated. It woke him up at seven thirty in the morning.

‘
Bad news,’ said McClintock. ‘Tracy Manson’s body was found on Cramond beach this morning. Her neck was broken.’

‘
Oh Christ,’ said Steven.

‘
Maybe she knew more about Verdi’s porn business than she let on yesterday and Verdi decided to make sure she’d stay quiet about it permanently.’

‘
Or maybe she tried to blackmail him,’ said Steven, thinking out loud.

‘
Maybe,’ agreed McClintock. ‘But only if she was a few chips short of a Happy Meal.’

‘
Has anyone looked over her place?’

‘
Not as far as I know.’

‘
I’d like to,’ said Steven. ‘If she’s been keeping something on Verdi as insurance and didn’t get the chance to use it, it could be just the lever I need.’

‘
Maybe a couple of officers should go with you,’ said McClintock.

‘
I’d rather go it alone,’ said Steven.

‘
Fair enough,’ sighed McClintock. ‘Your idea.’ He gave Steven the address of Tracy Manson’s flat. ‘It’s about a mile from the city centre, at Tollcross: it’s the street runs up the side of the Kings Theatre if you know where that is?’

Steven said that he did.

‘
How are you going to get in?’

‘
I’d rather not tell a policeman that,’ said Steven.

‘
Shit, I didn’t ask,’ said McClintock.

‘
Peter?’ began Steven.

‘
I’ve asked forensics to test her blood,’ said McClintock, reading his mind.

The stairs leading up to Tracy Manson’s third floor tenement flat were spiral and dark because the bulb was out in the narrow ground floor hallway. Feeling his way to the wooden banister at the foot of the stairs made Steven even more aware of the smell of fried onions and cat pee. The stone treads beneath his feet felt worn and gritty as if they hadn’t been swept for some time as he climbed up to the third floor and found the door he was looking for: it was the second along the landing.

Unlike the other doors, which had formal name plates, Tracy Manson’s door had a piece of card Sellotaped to it with ‘Manson’ printed on it in blue marker pen. Steven guessed that she rented the place.

He looked at the locks: there were two, a Yale about a third of the way down and a mortise around the half way mark. The mortise would be a problem if Tracy had actually used it but many people didn’t. It was more convenient just to click the door shut behind them on the Yale. He put his right knee against the lower half of the door and pressed. He felt the door move ever so slightly inwards, indicating that the mortise hadn’t been used.

He took out his clasp knife and prized the door side panel open a little – just enough for him to slide a slim piece of plastic about the size and thickness of a bookmark through the gap until it reached the tongue of the Yale lock. Three or four attempts at pushing it further and the tongue slid back to release the door. He pressed the side panel back into place with the heels of his hands and stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him.

He stood for a moment in the darkness as a strong smell of perfume – Tracy Manson’s perfume – kindled memories of the dream that wasn’t, bringing with them a strange mix of pleasure and fear that made him swallow hard and click on the light to break the spell. He began a thorough search of the flat.

Despite the knowledge that Tracy was dead, he still felt uncomfortable at rifling through her belongings, particularly when he came across an old photograph of her as a young girl on holiday with her family, smiling and looking happy and when he discovered her collection of cuddly toys on the dressing table in her bedroom, he felt even worse.

In a drawer in the kitchen he found where she kept paperwork, electricity and phone bills, a building society passbook, a methadone script that she wouldn’t be using today and a letter from the council saying that communal roof repairs were required. There was also a note from one of the neighbours suggesting that the residents agree on a recently submitted estimate for regular cleaning of the stairs and hallway. Replies were to be submitted to Mrs Grieve (1F1) by Friday.

The small bedroom with its single wardrobe and dressing table yielded nothing but clothes and make-up despite Steven’s hopes being raised at the discovery of a small metal box on top of the wardrobe. When he opened it however, it only contained Christmas and birthday cards. None of them was recent. One read,
Sweet Sixteen
, and was inscribed, Love and kisses to our very own princess, Mum and Dad. Steven closed the box and reflected on the raw deal that some people ended up with in life. He noted that Tracy’s bed was a single one. The cover had Paddington Bear on it. She obviously hadn’t brought her clients here.

He returned to the kitchen and switched on the electric kettle. He didn’t think Tracy would grudge him a cup of tea. While he waited for it to boil, he stood on a chair to examine the tops of the kitchen cupboards but again without finding anything.

He was beginning to think that maybe Tracy hadn’t kept any ‘insurance’ here after all. It wasn’t the kind of property to boast a wall safe and he couldn’t really see her having lifted floorboards – although he did open the cupboard under the kitchen sink where floorboards were often loose but not in this case. He rinsed the grit off his hands under the tap and dropped a tea bag into a mug before adding some boiling water.

While it infused, he ran through a mental check of all the possible places, room by room, where Tracy might have hidden something. In the bathroom he remembered that he’d overlooked the bath panel so he went back and examined the screws securing the plastic panel to its frame. His interest was aroused when he saw that the heads were bright as if they’d recently come into contact with a screwdriver. He brought out his knife and undid them.

At first he thought there was nothing there when he reached in and swept his hand over the rough floorboards but when he stretched behind the bath, his fingers came up against something in the far left-hand corner, something that moved; a container. When he finally managed to extract it, he found that it was a large, tartan shortbread tin. It carried the maker’s name on it and the legend, ‘Frae Bonnie Scotland’ above the smiling face of a boy in a kilt.

Steven opened it and found three videos inside, along with a notebook and some loose sheets of paper with names and numbers on them. ‘Eureka,’ he murmured, taking the box and its contents through to a flat surface in the kitchen. He had just opened the notebook when he heard men’s voices outside on the landing and a key go into the lock on the front door.

Assuming that McClintock had been forced – probably by Santini – to send officers round, he prepared to greet them. The two thickest men who appeared in the kitchen doorway however, did not strike him as policemen. He didn’t know them but they knew him.

‘
Fuck me,’ said one.

‘
Well, well, well,’ muttered the other. ‘Seems like this bastard didn’t get enough last time . . . he’s come back for more.’

Steven’s felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as he realised that these two were Verdi’s men, the bouncers from the sauna. His second thought as he saw the shorter of the two bring out a flick knife was that he had left his own knife lying on the bathroom floor. It was only a Swiss army knife but it would have been better than nothing.