DARIAN AND Sholto sat in the office, putting reports together in lieu of anything more productive, Sholto trying to write out a suitably polite but firm reminder to PINE Insurance that they still hadn’t paid for the work done. People who had never hired them before were the most likely to think they had an excuse not to pay at all. Having refused his offer to chase the money to San José, Sholto was nervous the company were now planning to pretend the whole thing had never happened. He wouldn’t allow that because he knew they were under pressure from past scandals and would have to cough up for silence.
They were actually waiting for a phone call while this attempt at looking busy was going on. Not one they were looking forward to, but Sholto had his excuses ready for whichever Sutherland called up and shouted in his well-prepared ear.
He said, “It’ll be Harold Sutherland first because he’s the one that looks after the boy.”
Darian said, “The boy is twenty-five years old and he’s entitled to talk to whoever he wants. We were invited in.”
“Oh, aye, by the housekeeper, and don’t think for a second she won’t throw us under a fleet of busses if the pressure cranks up. She knew what she was doing, all that stuff about us working with the police, that was so she can pretend she thought we were the police, accuse us of misleading her, like she wasn’t sharp as a tack and with better English than the two of us.”
“It was you that said we were working in conjunction with them.”
“Darian, it’s very rude to throw a man’s words back in his face, especially when they were as carefully chosen as mine.”
“Once the uncle finds out we’ll have Phil Sutherland after us as well.”
“Your friend Vinny can hold him back if he wants us to keep on helping.”
Darian didn’t ask who would hold the lawyers back. They waited all day and the two occasions on which the phone rang it was a previous client asking for another receipt after losing the last one and someone assuring them that their computer needed to be fixed. Sholto claimed that he didn’t have a computer, that he’d never heard of such an invention, didn’t trust modern technology and did not, in fact, own a telephone, at which point he hung up.
The clock ticked round to eight minutes to five, which Sholto decided was exactly the right time to go home.
“I’ve had enough of doing very little. You get in touch with Vinny and update him, and if he doesn’t have anything else to offer then we pass what we know to DS MacNeith and let her take shelter from the hail of Sutherland lawyers if she goes after Simon.”
Sholto put the files into the cabinet and locked it before putting his laptop into his bag. Darian left his laptop in the office but all the files that mattered were stored only on the little memory stick he put in his pocket and took home with him. Sholto locked the office behind them and they made their way downstairs together, both with the mid-investigation blues. It happened a lot in difficult cases, the sort that more often than not went unsolved, the sense that they had reached a point where the roads all around them were blocked. There were people who seemed worthy of further inspection but there was nothing approaching the sort of proof that even the worst of Challaid’s collection of erratic judges would be convinced by. It was hard not to slip into a funk.
While Sholto turned right to walk down to Dlùth Street where he parked his car, Darian turned left and walked up to Glendan Station. He had two travel cards for the train line, one for work and one for personal use. He could claim the cost of traveling the city to the client when it was for work, but this was going home. He took the train through the tunnel and across to the next stop, Bank Station. From there it was a pleasant stroll to his flat.
Darian always enjoyed that walk, especially at this time of year, going up Fàrdach Road and then cutting round the back of the building, walking along the large square of grass that served the four L-shaped buildings around it. There were washing lines and when the sun made an appearance it would be filled with kids kicking balls around. They tried to play in the rain too until someone stopped them for ruining the grass, but this day was rare in its pleasantness. There were four boys booting each other more than the ball and using a stretch of wall without windows as the goal, the three outfield players pausing their mutual assault only to try and chip the keeper in a pale imitation of the goal Arthur Samba had scored for Challaid FC against Hearts in the league the previous Sunday. The largest of the boys kept claiming his chips were dropping in despite the fact that he was endangering first-floor windows and Stretch Armstrong couldn’t have caught them. None of the others argued with the bigger boy as Darian walked in through the back door.
The building was better than a man on Darian’s salary should have been able to afford. The three Ross siblings had gotten an even split of the proceeds from the sale of the family home after they were done living in it, their mother dead and father in prison. As Darian walked along the corridor the place smelled of the polish the janitor used on the floors. His feet tapped out an echo as he skipped up the stairs to the first floor, round the corner and then up to the second.
Someone was on the landing already. A man in his thirties with a slack gut even his nice coat couldn’t hide. He had dark hair, the puffy lips of a low-quality boxer and bags under his eyes. Darian’s first thought was that he was with Challaid Police. Then he realized the man’s suit was too good for that and his mind leapt from police to gangster, although he couldn’t work out what he might have done to upset that lot.
“Darian Ross?”
The man had the local accent of someone raised by a Caledonian parent, which told Darian exactly nothing.
“Might be.”
“Alan Dudley. I’m with Raven Investigators.”
Like a hitman’s bullet Raven staff always came in twos and were always unwelcome. The other one was presumably out front.
“What do you want?”
“I’m here with a job offer. You’re wasting your time at clown college, come work at a place where you’ll actually learn how to do the job.”
“I’m learning plenty.”
“Bad habits don’t count.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You only get one chance, Darian, and you’re pissing yours away working for a man that can’t protect you from all the wrong enemies you’re making.”
Darian frowned and said, “And what enemies would those be?”
“If you don’t know that much then you have got problems. This was your one chance, Darian. I’m about to walk right past you and leave you way behind. You can stop me by saying you’ll come work for us.”
Maybe it was all the very many times he had heard Sholto badmouth Raven, or the times he’d heard other more reliable witnesses disparage them just as loudly. Maybe it was because Dudley was a cretin who said work for instead of work with; even though it was factually correct it seemed like an attempt to make him feel junior. Whatever the reason, the thought of going to work at Raven ranked alongside lava-surfing on Darian’s list of things to do.
He said, “Off you go then.”
Dudley scoffed and stepped forward, shoving past Darian. Being young and full to the brim with vim, Darian shoved back. Dudley pushed hard, pressing him against the wall, getting right in his face and hissing through his small yellowed teeth, “I’m going to enjoy bringing you down, Ross, you and the old wanker on Cage Street. Thank fuck you turned us down.”
Darian, expression unchanged, said, “Spit on your lips after one little push? I wouldn’t work for you if you were holding my balls for ransom. You’re the clown, Dudley, right out of a Stephen King novel.”
Dudley scoffed again and went quickly down the stairs, his footsteps echoing behind him. He’d come with two destructive messages and had delivered them both. A job offer and then a threat. Darian went into the flat.