WHILE SHOLTO was talking to DS MacNeith, Darian was picking up a fourteen-year-old Ford Focus from JJ’s yard and paying him for the info previously provided. They stood beside the car and Darian said, “I’ll need her for the night. Might be back tomorrow, or I might keep her longer.”
“That’s okay, Dar, there’s no queue waiting to use her.”
“Will she last a few days?”
JJ shrugged. “She’s soldiered on this long, so she’s either good for a few more months or ready to collapse in a heap underneath you. The fun is in the finding out.”
It was on the third turn of the key that it started and Darian heard JJ give a small cheer that contained a hint of surprise. He pulled out of the yard and headed for Bank and MacAlpin Road where he could watch Eideard’s Tower, ready to follow Will Dent into a dark Challaid night. Finding somewhere to park was as much fun as usual in the city. On the fourth time circling the block he saw someone pulling out and slipped into the vacant place by crossing a lane of traffic and nipping in front of someone coming the other way already indicating to enter the same gap.
After an hour his mobile rang, Sholto’s name on the screen. “Hello.”
“It’s me, Sholto.”
He always announced himself, seemingly unaware that his name flashed across the screen on other people’s phones just as theirs did on his. “Yeah, how did your squealing to MacNeith go?”
“I got three eye rolls and a curt thank you. If we were twelve I’m pretty sure she would have given me a wedgie.”
“Still time.”
“Well, I found out something that might be of interest to you. Are you still watching Dent?”
“I’m watching the tower, no sign of the driver yet.”
“You might be in for a long night. I just saw that Harold Sutherland has a big thing on tonight at Tall an Rìgh. He’s unveiling some grim-looking painting he paid the gross domestic product of Luxembourg for. That starts at half seven, so they won’t be finished until…Well, I have no idea how long it takes to unveil a painting, do you? Five seconds to lift the veil and then however long it takes rich people to get drunk and congratulate themselves. But if Dent’s working it you could be in for a late one.”
“If Phil’s right about his uncle always using the staff he likes then he will be.”
“Phil. That doesn’t sound right, it should be Philip. A kid that posh needs at least two syllables. Let me know how you get on.”
It was boring but that wasn’t a novel experience for Darian. He had long reconciled himself to the fact that doing a good job rarely meant racing through the city at high speed or chasing thugs down alleyways and over fences. It wasn’t until half past five that Dent finally left the tower and when he did it took Darian a few seconds to spot him. There was some distance between them—you don’t trail someone by standing close enough to see their nasal hair—but what threw him was that Dent had changed his clothes from the morning. At the interview he had been wearing a shirt and tie, ready to look formal when called upon by his boss. Now he was in a hoodie and jeans. This was not a man on his way to the glamourous unveiling of a piece of fine art. Dent went into the building across the street from the tower where the cars were kept and emerged driving a yellow hatchback, final proof he was no longer working.
The driver went east into Bakers Moor and Darian followed. The traffic was, needless to say, appalling, so it was easy enough to crawl along behind without standing out. Eventually Darian could drop back further because he knew Dent was going home, a flat on MacLean Street. By no means the great heights of luxury his boss occupied, but a sweet spot for a young man working as a driver. Phil had said his uncle paid good people well.
The block of flats he lived in had a small car park at the side which Dent drove into and Darian drove past. He couldn’t get too close here; had to make sure Dent didn’t spot him given it had been only hours since they’d met. He circled the block and came back, parking in the car park of the flats across the street where he had a good view of the entrance to Dent’s building.
Darian sat and listened to his stomach cry out for the meals that had skipped on by. More than two hours later a taxi pulled up outside Dent’s building and the man himself strolled out wearing a blue shirt and black trousers. He got into the back of the taxi and it pulled away. Darian tried to start the Focus and it wheezed back at him as if it had a fishbone stuck in its throat. The second attempt was no better but the third brought joy and he pulled quickly out onto the road and managed to catch up with the trademark red of the Challaid Cabs taxi. He trundled along behind it for a few minutes until it stopped outside Transistor nightclub on Martin Road. This area had once been the fast-beating heart of Challaid’s party district on the borderline between Bakers Moor and Bank, but as the partygoers had softened so the center of fun had gravitated over toward the more genteel Cnocaid. By this time Transistor was a still good club in a now mediocre area.
Darian made his way in and couldn’t spot Dent anywhere. The place was packed, a couple of hundred people, and Darian moved through the throng, down a couple of steps toward one of two bars. The place was lit in blue and green, the music slower and a lot better at this early stage. Darian could actually hear a woman singing rather beautifully on the track playing. He spotted Dent alone at the longer of the two bars, downing a shot of a clear liquid and demanding another from a big barman who served him before others ahead of him in the queue. That wasn’t because of status; it was because the barman was trained to spot trouble and Dent looked like trouble.
Darian went to the smaller bar against another wall and the barmaid nodded to him. She was a woman with a mass of unnaturally red hair and smart eyes who looked too young to be working there.
“Two orange juices.”
The barmaid looked left and right for a companion who wasn’t there and then went to get Darian’s drinks for him. He took a stool at the end of the bar that gave him a good view of the huge room and sat there sipping steadily, aware he was likely to stand out in a place where most people were trying to have fun.
Dent was perhaps the one other person in the place who wasn’t trying to tempt a smile onto his face. He was blowing off abundant steam, and after three drinks he went onto the dance floor and approached the first pretty girl he saw, a young blonde who was dancing with her arms around her boyfriend. Dent butted into the middle of them and started trying to dance with the girl. She shoved him away and her boyfriend shouted something while standing in front of Dent, a fist clenched. In Challaid it’s rare to spot a nuanced response to a simple problem; sledgehammers have been used to crack many a nut. The driver laughed at the couple he had upset but Darian couldn’t see any pleasure in the pain he’d caused them. He was laughing to save face and walked back to the bar for another drink. This, Darian realized as he started on his second glass, was Dent’s plan. Other people were looking to decimate their stress by dancing up close with another person but Dent would get his kicks from something harder.