THERE’S NO parking on Cage Street, it’s pedestrianized after all, so Sholto always parked on the road at the bottom, Dlùth Street. From there it was a short walk for him and Darian to the office. They came round the corner at the bottom of Cage Street and Darian stopped. Sholto kept walking, oblivious, but Darian grabbed his sleeve.
He said, “You see that guy outside The Song? That’s MacDuff.”
Sholto very obviously stared at the young man who was taking the opportunity to have more of Mr. Yang’s spring rolls. He looked casual, like he wasn’t watching for anyone and wasn’t in a hurry.
Sholto said, “Maybe he’s just back for the food.”
“He came a long way out of his way to get it.”
They walked up the street to the building, nodding to MacDuff in passing. He looked a little sheepish, Darian thought. They went in and upstairs, Sholto putting the key in the door and finding it already unlocked. That spooked him, and he went paler. He pushed open the door and stepped in to find DI Folan Corey sitting patiently on the chair in front of Sholto’s desk, playing the role of the happy visitor. He’d probably been in that office a while and he’d have had a good look round before they turned up. Darian wanted to ask where he’d got a key but Sholto didn’t and it was his conversation.
He said, “Folan, good to see you, how are you, what can we do to help you, would you like a cup of tea?”
Corey ignored the barrage and looked past Sholto to Darian. He glared at him for a few seconds, and then turned back to his former colleague. Sholto had taken his usual seat behind his desk, facing Corey over a stack of folders. The DI ignored Darian completely now, focusing on the cage he knew he could rattle.
“I’m hoping you can help me out, Sholto.”
“I’ll try.”
“You see, I have a problem with people harassing me at my work. It started out when they targeted a vital contact of mine.”
“Oh, right.”
“And then they tried to get involved in a large murder inquiry, and are still hampering that inquiry despite the fact a man has been charged with the murder in question.”
“Gee whiz.”
“And now they’re getting involved in an assault inquiry handled by my station that has nothing to do with them.”
“Blimey pink.”
“I’m starting to think they’re trying to provoke me, maybe hoping I’ll do something that gets me into a lot of trouble.”
“Muirt mhòr.”
“Are you taking the piss out of me, Sholto?”
“What? No, Folan, no. You know me, I wouldn’t do that.”
Corey stared at him a while, watching the nerves twitch on the jowls of the former detective. He said, “You may not be doing it knowingly, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sit on your shoulders. You have to take responsibility for the things your staff do, Sholto. The buck stops right there.”
Sholto looked down at the spot on his desk Corey was pointing at, and then said, “Okay.”
Corey turned slightly in the chair to look at Darian, now sitting at his own desk. Corey said, “Oh yes, I can see a lot of your father in you. Perhaps not as much as is bubbling away in your crooked big brother, but still enough to be obvious. You know, I have a theory that ninety-nine percent of people under the age of twenty-five are insufferably boring. The thing about most smart young people is not how deluded they are, because most smart people get deluded by their cleverness, but how pretentious and worthy they think they have to be to prove it, always trying to be superior. They haven’t been beaten down enough by the world to respect its power. You may actually be a one-percenter.”
It was a sort of compliment, the kind you weren’t sure you had received, and Corey was skilled at giving.
Darian didn’t bother pointing out that they had been hired by Durell Kotkell, because Corey would have known that already. He also didn’t bother pointing out that he considered Cummins innocent, because Corey would know that, too. Instead he said nothing as Corey got up from the chair and strolled over to the door he’d already made his own uninvited way in through.
Corey looked at Sholto and said, “I’m sure a skilled investigator like you will find out who’s been harassing me and put a stop to it, won’t you, Sholto?”
“Yes, Folan.”
“It’s DI Corey.”
He left the office. Sholto stared back at the spot on the desk where the imaginary buck was still sitting. It was obvious he was furious with Corey, but the cop was gone and, even if he wasn’t, Sholto wasn’t going to aim his guns in that direction.
“You’re still working with Maeve Campbell? I told you not to, we’re finished with her. I posted her report and bill this morning, so that’s it, we’re officially done with her. Tell me you’re finished with her, Darian.”
Darian looked at Sholto and then looked away without saying anything.
Sholto threw up his hands and said, “Ach, I don’t know why I bother trying to teach you anything, all my years of experience and you won’t listen. You’re like a dog staring at a seagull on a chimney pot, convinced you can jump and catch it the second it takes off, and I can’t make you understand.”
There were a few hours of awkward silence in that office until the security officer at Glendan called and told Sholto they would pay for two more weeks of watching the Murdoch Shipping warehouses. The promise of more easy money cheered Sholto up no end, and two weeks sounded like long enough to spot something that could be dressed up in the clothes of criminality. He remained convinced that it was impossible for any of those old shipping companies to be entirely clean; if Murdoch were, then they’d be the first in a thousand years.
“You go and sit and watch those warehouses. Don’t get seduced by them if they show you a bit of leg, don’t get led astray by their whispers, and don’t go sticking your nose into Corey’s business because they tell you to. Just watch them. Can you do that?”
“I’m going.”
“Aye, good, and you can call up Maeve Campbell and tell her the party’s over as well.”
As Darian got up from his desk he said, “I’m going round to see her tonight. I’ll talk to her about it then.”
“Going round to…That’s the problem, once you see her you’re under her spell like that old witch with the snakes on her head. Just use the bloody phone so you don’t have to get beguiled by her, it’s what they were invented for. There’s no helping you, there really isn’t.”
Darian left the office and headed for his usual spot in The Knarr café, watching the warehouses. He was thinking about Maeve, about Corey, and about how Sholto’s attempts to educate Darian were really efforts at helping himself.