‘Well,’ Mma Ontoaste said with a crowning smile. ‘We had better get to the pub, hadn’t we?’
‘It’s a bit early for me,’ mumbled Rhombus, glancing at his watch.
‘Yes,’ agreed Colander. ‘I like the drink excessively only when it is dark.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Mma Ontoaste snapped in a rare show of ill-temper. ‘It’s enough to drive a woman to drink. All right. I’ll go.’
She fastened the leather buttons of her tweed jacket over her substantial bust and looked at Tom.
‘You coming?’
Tom shrugged. He wondered if he could safely leave Rhombus and Colander alone together.
‘Actually, I fancy a drink after all,’ Rhombus said, slightly shrilly.
‘Me too,’ muttered Colander.
‘Right,’ smiled Ontoaste triumphantly. ‘Let’s go.’
They marched out of the Scotch Tartan and Cashmere Emporium and up the hill to Thistle Street. The Oxymoron, normally a hubbub of noise, broken glass and flying teeth, became stony quiet as they pushed open the doors and ordered their drinks. One of the barmen stopped spreading the sawdust they used to soak up the blood and stood up, rolling his eyes as if to wonder why he bothered.
‘Two pints of best with whisky chasers, please, Landlord and two lime and sodas.’
The silence lasted a beat before the spit and insults started to fly. Seconds later, the four detectives were backed into a corner swatting away bar stools and pint mugs with their heidgear. A line of angry Scotsmen was trying to get at them as a pack of dogs might attack a bear.
‘It’s funny how none of us carry guns, don’t you think?’ asked Colander, ducking quickly as an ashtray flew at his face.
‘And yet some of the best detectives do, don’t they?’
‘But, Rra, they only use them to get people to tell the truth towards the end of the case. I think it’s a bit of a cheap shot.’
‘We should get out of here,’ shrieked Rhombus. Glass shattered overheid. A rolling soundwave of unintelligible swearing broke over them.
‘Don’t you want to get the notebooks, Rra?’ asked Mma Ontoaste, right-handing one old codger who was trying to get a sneak up her kilt.
‘Maybe another time?’ whimpered Colander.
‘There is no other time,’ Tom shouted. ‘We’ve got to get to IKEA after this!’
‘But it’s late closing tonight. We can always go later.’
‘I can’t believe you two!’ said Mma Ontoaste. ‘And you call yourselves police officers?’
At that Colander grabbed a man in a wrestler’s hug and bit into his ear. Rhombus ripped the picture of the urinating dogs from the wall and smashed it over the heid of another assailant. Tom Hurst gave another a rabbit punch. Mma Ontaoste had removed her shoe and was brandishing it like a knobkerrie. The tide was definitely turning.
Spotting a gap, Mma Ontoaste dropped her shoe and surged forward, sweeping her assailants before her like a great black-and-tartan tidal wave. She pushed them to the double doors and shunted them out into the street. Five or six men dealt with in a second. She locked the door and returned to the bar, where Rhombus, Colander and Tim Hurst were righting chairs and dusting themselves down. The other regulars were gulping back the vanquished men’s pints.
‘Nice work,’ said the barman as he poured her a pint. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy a job, do you?’
Mma Ontoaste laughed. She would not mind settling down in Edinburgh, she decided. It had a nice familiar feel about it, and a job chucking out in the Oxymoron would keep her in enough money for the foaming mugs of 80/- that she could already see herself enjoying. She would have to think about it.
‘Actually, you know, hen,’ continued the barman. ‘I think I can dig out a carton of Umbongo? If you’d prefer? If you worked for me, we’d get it on draught, of course.’
‘Rra,’ she said, wiping the froth from her upper lip. ‘Umbongo comes from the Congo, as you must know, while I am from Botswana.’
‘Oh, aye, good point.’
‘Now my friend here believes he may have left some notebooks in here the other night. He says there were six of them, covered in blood.’
‘Blood, you say?’
‘Rhesus negative.’
‘Could these be them?’ he asked, digging behind the bar and finding the notebooks, crisp with dried blood.
‘Well, that was simple,’ said Tom.
‘What do you mean, simple?’ chorused the detectives. Mma Ontoaste looked especially pleased with herself at having solved the case.
‘You know we had a case like that in Ynstead once,’ Colander said. ‘A schoolchild left her herring on the bus. We tracked it down, though. Police procedure. Getting the men out there, knocking on doors, asking questions.’
Nobody said anything for a minute.
‘Right,’ said Tom eventually. ‘Shall we have a look at them? Find out who these corrupt officers are?’
They took a book each.
‘I’ve got someone called DI Stony Creek,’ Colander said. ‘Maybe another one of your amusing nicknames?’
‘Shit Creek would be an amusing name,’ Rhombus said. ‘But not Stony. Beside there’s no Creek in the Scotch police We only allow Mcs or, at a push, Macs.’
‘I’ve found a Marion McKenney?’
Rhombus shrugged. He had not heard of her, and he had been out with half the female police officers (and one male, but that was an undercover job) in the force.
‘Dilwyn Dumfries?’
‘Clifton Forge?’
‘Can we have another two pints please, Rra?’
None of the names meant anything to Rhombus.
‘A code, then,’ Tom sighed.
‘A what, Rra?’
‘Never mind. We will have to try to break the code. Find out what the names mean.’
He found that, when he spoke to Mma Ontoaste, he slightly raised his voice, as if she were simple or something. He got out his blackberry and began putting the names into Google. First he tried Dilwyn Dumfries. Nothing. He removed the inverted commas. Lots of information about antecedents with the surname, but nothing concrete, nothing immediately obvious. Then he tried Elkton Edinburg. It was an unusual name. Again, nothing certain.
‘Just hotel reservation sites for places in America.’
‘There’s a hotel called Elkton Edinburg over there?’
‘No. It’s two place names – in Virginia.’
He tried another and stared at the results.
‘Cliftonforge.org,’ he said.
‘Who is Clifton Forge?’
He clicked the link.
‘Another place. In Virginia again.’
Tom could feel the hair on his collar stand on end. This was the thing. Virginia. He tapped in another few names. All of them were towns in Virginia, USA. What Tom could not decide was whether this was a clue that would lead him to find out the names of the bad apples in the barrel that was the Edinburgh and Midlothian Police Force, or whether it was a clue that would lead him to find out who killed Claire Morgan.
The latter, he hoped.