Fishnet (15 page)

‘So.'

We sip.

‘Sorry for pulling you out like that. I'll not keep you away from your family long. It's just. I've – we've, my parents and me – we've not heard anything about her in so long. Anything you can remember is a clue. Sorry. God. I feel like I've ruined your night now.'

‘Mate! Stop apologising, eh! It's no your fault. And, know what? Anything I can do. Anything I can tell you that would help you find her, eh. That's good stuff. Right?'

‘Right.'

There's a fine gold chain round his neck, tucked under his collar, behind the bow-tie. I like him for all of this, for not just renting a kilt. I like him, Ally McKay, for the baseball cap, and for his smile, and the ease he's trying to put me at. I like that he's called me
mate
.

‘So. Begin at the beginning, eh? I used to be a, like, a sound and lighting engineer. In clubs, around Edinburgh. I did it at college, but I'd already learned the basics when I was about sixteen; one of my mates was a good DJ, eh, and because the club owners wanted him in, they'd let me in as well, as long as I didny drink anything. Sorry, man, eh. This is probably too much information!'

‘No. No. You're setting the scene. It's good.'

‘Yeah? That's what I'm doing? Magic. Right.' He catches himself in the act of displaying an inappropriate amount of enthusiasm, given the subject matter, winds his face back down accordingly. I drink. I wish I'd ordered a double.

‘Anyway. Long story short – I'd been doing it for years by the time I met your sister, eh. You'd see the various nights get popular, like, the DJs picking up followings with the crowds and either getting so big they'd pure loop –' he's waving his glass in a circle to illustrate, splashes the table ‘– it out of the circuit, out of there, or they'd stick, sink. Same thing with the promoters – see, because it's Edinburgh, most of the boys – an I'm no being sexist here, eh, it wis always boys – running the clubs were rich and at the uni, or at least had been. Fresh up from private school, coked off their tits instead of going to class, eh, that sort of hing. And I'd be socialising with them, because, after you finish work, you want to go for a wee bevy or something, man. And there were always after parties – the dressing rooms of the bigger clubs, or somebody's flat. Some of these posh dudes had amazing flats, eh? So. You get to know all the folk; all the ones who are hanging out with the promoters who are, eh,
in
at that point. An it's all cyclical, eh. Some of them stayed, but so many of them were students – like these kids only thought it was worth
marketing their clubs to their own demographic, eh?'

He's too friendly for the bitterness of that laugh.

‘Anyway. They'd move on. They'd all move on, eventually. And that's what I thought it was with. With Rona, when she went.'

‘I think I'm going to need another drink for this bit. And so are you.'

When I come back, with doubles, he's looking seriously at me, like he's made use of his thinking time.

‘Are you sure you want to hear this, man? I mean, I'm probably not going to be able to give you any definite, eh. Leads.
Leads
. Get me, on a case.'

‘I want to hear this, Ally. Really. I just need to know something, anything concrete. Somebody else's idea of her. It's just been in my head too long.'

‘Okay. This isn't going to be easy, eh. Rona was, was just another lassie hanging around this one guy, Jez, his parties. Now, Jez had been a student, but that was maybe five or six years earlier, like, back when I was starting out. So he was probably about twenty-six, twenty-sev– fuck. That's younger than me, now. At the time he seemed, you know, the Man. The big man. He'd been running clubs in the city for years, had all these London connections, so he could always get the guys, you know, like the guys you'd hear about four months later they'd be remixing Kylie? You'd seen them at one of Jez's clubs first, eh.'

I'm trying to look like I understand.

‘No a big clubber?'

‘Not really, no. Not even, really, before Bethan. Just, like, the indie disco or something.'

‘Okay. I'm going to talk civilian speak for you. Stop me if I get too technical, eh. Rona. Rona had been working in a bar run by this pal of Jez's – Actually, mate, I should write these things down for you, eh.'

We have an eyeliner pencil and a table-top dispenser full of shiny napkins.

‘So, Rona was working in this bar called Dee-Lite on George Street, and I think it's now called The Grand or something, but it's under the same management. Somebody there would surely know who you were talking about. Anyway, as far as I could make out, eh, Jez had spotted her there and got her to do some modelling – not like that! Although I widnay put anything past that fucker. But she was – she's a gorgeous lassie, Rona, eh. I mean, you know that.'

I know that.

‘So he's got her, like, in this tight t-shirt with the club name stretched out on her – aye. She was on the flyers, and the posters – she became, like, the face of Jez's clubs for a while, eh. Part from anything else, it's good for business to have lassies that good-looking at your club. So, of course, she started coming back to whoever's house afterwards, when we all did. And that's how we got talking.'

‘Was she doing drugs, Ally? I'm not going to, ah, judge you or anything. I'd just like to know.'

‘Coke. We were all doing a couple of lines of coke; all that lot did. Pills, sometimes too, but it was mostly coke. Thing is, I know that sounds serious if you're – if you're not that experienced with it.'

‘If you're a square like me.'

‘Come on, man. You're fine. What I mean is it sounds like a lot, but actually Rona was always pretty restrained with it. You never saw her off her face or making a fool ay herself or anything. You never got the impression she was desperate for it. I dinnay think it was an addiction or anything. No like some of the others. Yeah. Some of those lassies.'

He drinks deep this time.

‘Just to make it clear, man, this is a long time ago for me. Coke is a fucking horrible drug, and the folk on it are even worse. The old Jack Daniels here is as hard as it gets now, and even then, only on special occasions, eh.' He raises his glass, gloomy. ‘My wee cousin's wedding.'

‘Oh god. Sorry.'

‘Will you stop apologising!'

He's smiling though.

‘Anyway, so, me and Rona got friendly, at the parties and that. A lot of the time I couldny quite believe it, that a girl that pretty was actually hanging out with the sound engineer when there were full on DJs and that in the room, eh. She was like that, though. She was the sort of person who'd always take the time to make you feel special. Like she cared.'

I swallow the splutter rising up in me again. I smile. I nod.

‘She was maybe just that good with people, but I never felt she was snubbing me or anything, eh. Of course, a lot of the time at these parties we'd be the only ones there who hadn't gone to private school, likes, and that kindy bonds you a wee bit. We could have a private joke about some of the accents on the go in there or whatever – I mean, I always try never to stereotype anybody, eh, but a lot of the time it really was that sort of,
fwah fwah fwah fwah!
Ken?'

I'm wondering if I've ever actually met anybody from that sort of background, or if I'm thinking of comedy show caricatures.

‘So maybe that's why we kind of ended up – eh. In bed together, a couple of times. Sorry, Fiona man. Your wee sister. Eh. Anyway. It was lovely. We'd maybe go and get a breakfast the next morning together, that sortay thing. Read the papers together, always a wee kiss on the cheek before she left me.'

He's smiling away at something beautiful in the corner.

‘It was never anything serious, like. I mean, the lassie was out of my league for a start, and only eighteen. But we became friends, even out of the parties. I'd come and hang around her in the bar before my shift started, and maybe I was sort of there cos I was hoping for a bit more, but she never minded me trailing about after her. Lovesick fuckin poodle, man, but she'd always pour me a pint on the sly. I just wanted to see she was alright, eh. Then she started hanging about with this. This lassie, Camilla.'

With gin on the brain, it takes me a while to sort this out, so
he's started talking again.

‘Camilla is my daught– is Bethan's middle name. Says so on the birth certificate.'

His eyebrows shoot up under the cap.

‘Mate. Oh. Right.'

He drinks.

‘Listen. I maybe shouldny –'

‘You're going to need to tell me, Ally.'

‘Okay. But I'm buying this round, first. Naw, your money's no good here, man.'

Private

Sanctuary Base is the bottom floor of a huge red-brick warehouse towards the bottom of the grid. The warehouses on either side are already covered in scaffolding and RDJ Construction signs: scaffolding that I'd put the purchase order through for. It was beginning to get dark.

Suzanne had tucked her arm in mine as we walked down the street together, making conversation: the age of my daughter, the ages of hers, recommendations for music tutors if Beth ever wanted to learn an instrument. She'd shown me pictures of them, made me show her mine. When we arrive, though, she disengages, becomes taller and more businesslike as she pulls a computerised fob out of her bag, swipes it at a small black box by a nondescript side-door adjacent to the main entry with its friendly-fonted sign. There's a people carrier with the same logo done small, on its flank, parked in at the curb.

Anya had kept quiet and a couple of paces behind us: I'd needed to turn my head to make sure she was still there. I needed her still to be there.

Inside, squeaky lino floors and the institutional smell of bleach. From along the corridor I can hear conversation and a fuzzily-tuned radio. Another swipe of Suzanne's fob brings us into a basic office, hung with peeling posters advertising sexual health. It felt rather like doctors' surgeries of my childhood. Not really what I'd expected. I should stop expecting, really.

‘So, this is us. Coffee?'

Suzanne breezes through the room, her chunkily-beaded necklace clacking as she moves. A thin, small woman in baggy clothes and a boy's haircut looks up from a phone conversation, smiled. Anya is right by me.

‘An– and, Sonja. Do you work here too?'

She definitely notices what I was about to say, but I had to keep it up, this ridiculous fiction that I didn't know her real name.

‘No. I have my own job. Suzanne is a friend, so I help her out
with the campaign. I have done a volunteer shift for her once. It is fucking hard. I could not do Suzanne's job in real life – she's a magnificent woman.'

She forces her accent over the big word, then abruptly turns away to a poster above the desk. Suzanne returns, places a mug of milky Nescafe in my hands, and steers me through to a space with rows of squat padded chairs and pinboards. A kettle and some cups on top of a small fridge, and a sign printed in bright sugar paper beside a table: UGLY MUG BOOK. Two girls stretched out on the chairs, foam spilling out from a sharp rip underneath one of them, what looks like a photo album across their laps.

‘We call this the rec room. Neutral space – there's a kettle and things for hot drinks. Sometimes that's as far as it goes – you see these lassies just slink in here keeping their heads down, shoogle some coffee into a mug, take a couple of slurps once the kettle's boiled and when you look up, they've vanished, aren't seen again. We try and get them to at least take a look at the Ugly Mugs book before they go, note the most recent descriptions, but we're not here to insist that anyone do anything, you know. Not like that lot. It's just a safe space. But the majority of them, we have good relationships with them now. As good as you can have. We take it in turns to drive around during the night, help them feel safe, and they'll pop into the van for a wee while if they've got anything to tell us. These rooms,' she indicates three doors off the main space, ‘these are for advocacy work. Legal advice. In case they need a voice, someone to shout for them. It starts in there.

‘The other aspect of our service is outreach. We try – it's tricky, but we try – to get in touch with the girls who work out of flats or for agencies. Check there's no coercion there, that everyone's okay. Actually getting through to them, though. Pff. I mean, in here, the girls are all out for themselves. But those anonymous names, advertising. Keeping a track on them, even actually making contact. That's the bit that hits it home, you
know, what it can be at this level –

‘Sorry. I should be talking in the past tense, now. We've not got the staff anymore. All our funding's been completely cut, and there's only so long you can power an organisation like this on the kindness of volunteers.'

She's brisk again, hand on a shoulder to take me to a side room, and I remember that this isn't just an excursion for either of us. The door shuts behind us and I'm not quite sitting as she explains that she wants the building plans. It's been an efficient solicitation, the music lessons, the coffee.

‘You must have information on the history of the warehouse. It's Victorian. Leftover scraps of the Empire.' She laughs and I don't feel I'm allowed to. ‘If there's not some history in here, worth saving, then I'm sure the Jackson Group will have passed through some sort of dodge to get their all-out permissions. There's something going on, and the records are the best place to look. We've got a week. Are you with us?'

Public

Camilla. Ally McKay is back from the bar, and he's telling me about Camilla.

‘Camilla was just, always, like, around. I mean, she was about eight times as posh as the next of them, must have known Jez or Jules or one of that lot from, I don't know, school or something. Rich people club. London. But she was, was something else. I mean, another gorgeous-looking lassie, probably only about the same age as me, as you, about twenty-two when this was going on, but, eh. Just dead behind the eyes, man. Ken those hyenas you see on nature programmes, eh? Like that.'