Hanlon was sitting at the wheel with the engine idling when Luke threw open the back door and put a sports bag down on the seat next to Wemyss. He jumped into the front passenger seat.
‘OK, I’m ready.’ She suppressed a smile. Luke looked at her with absolute confidence, as if she knew exactly what she was doing. Hanlon had decided that she couldn’t leave him behind at his flat. Millar might well come looking for him, maybe to find Aurora as she had. Only Millar wouldn’t be asking politely. She liked Luke. In some ways he reminded her of Wemyss – they were both quite sweet and they both needed looking after. And they both trusted her implicitly.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’ She drove for a while to put a few streets between them and Luke’s house and then pulled over to the side of the road. She got her phone out.
‘Hi, Julia? It’s me… yeah, look, something’s happened, I’m in trouble, could I stay at your place for a couple of nights? Thanks… Oh, Julia, I’m not alone. I’ve got someone with me… No… not exactly… I’m more of a babysitter really… Great. See you in about ten minutes.’
She put her phone away and Luke looked at her reproachfully.
‘Babysitter! Thanks very much.’ He sounded disappointed in her, as if she had let him down. Luke was used to success, it had come early in his life, but what had just happened had made him realise how powerless he was outside his own narrow sphere, the world of art and culture – where pain was a nasty review and violence was a cutting word.
‘I’m sorry,’ Hanlon said. ‘It was an unfortunate choice of expression…’
‘Never mind,’ said Luke, sadly. ‘It is kind of true. I felt so helpless back there. I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.’
‘Look, don’t be,’ Hanlon said. She turned the engine off. She could see how miserable Luke was. He was obviously traumatised by what had happened at his flat. All the worse that it had happened in his home. He had been helpless and terrified and now he felt guilty. ‘Look at me, Luke…’
He did so; he looked as if he was going to cry. Hanlon said, ‘Luke, those guys are hardened criminals. They’re used to violence, intimidation, all that kind of shit. For all I know, they’ve killed people.’
‘I know but—’ he objected.
‘You’re not a Hollywood action hero, you’re not the Rock or Tom Cruise, Luke, and this isn’t a film, this is real life. And if you were some violent nut job, like McDonald say, Aurora wouldn’t have been going out with you in the first place.’
He sighed. ‘I know, I just felt, well, inadequate.’
‘Well, don’t,’ Hanlon said firmly. She started the car and drove off. ‘Just thank God that we’re still alive. Their job is hurting people and they’ve got a certain amount of expertise in it, and you haven’t. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Face it, they’d be equally clueless if you gave them some oil paints and told them to do you a portrait.’
Luke fell silent. As she drove through the dark streets of Edinburgh she was aware of him looking at her. She was concerned that he was replaying the scene again in his mind’s eye – her driving her fists into Ray’s head, the defiance in her face as she stared down Dougie, the knife at Ray’s throat.
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ he said, sounding unconvinced, ‘but…’ She could almost hear the self-reproach, the self-contempt in his voice as he carried on.
’It’s just… what could I have done against them if you hadn’t been there?’ He fell silent, then, ‘Begged them not to hurt me? Offered to do a quick sketch if they’d leave? Cried?’
‘That’s enough, Luke,’ Hanlon said, firmly. ‘It’s my job to deal with people like them, it’s kind of what I’m paid for.’
He nodded, then asked, ’Where did you learn to fight like that?’
She smiled grimly. ‘Mainly in a boxing ring, there’s quite a skill to hitting people, Luke. You can be taught it.’
‘If I’d hit Ray, he would have laughed,’ Luke said.
‘Well, like I said, practice helps.’
‘Would you have shoved that knife up into his head?’ wondered Luke.
Hanlon considered the question. ‘Well… Luke, the thing is, like I said, I learnt to fight in a ring, but…’ Oh well, I may as well be honest, she thought. ‘I quite like hurting people, I like violence.’ Her voice was very soft as she glanced at him and their eyes met. ‘So, yes, yes I would.’
They pulled up outside a sizeable family house in a leafy, quiet road in Morningside. It was fairly central, affluent. They were in wealthy middle-class land, solicitors, accountants, directors of small firms – it was where the comfortably off and respectable lived.
They walked up a path to a large blue-painted front door and Hanlon rang the bell.
Julia answered. She stood, haloed in the light from the hall, wearing jeans and a T-shirt under an unbuttoned blue Paisley shirt. Her red-brown hair was tied back, her large eyes round with delight.
‘Hi, do come in…’ She leaned forward, showed Wemyss her hand, let him sniff her and scratched him behind the ears. Wemyss panted enthusiastically.
‘What a lovely dog.’
‘He is.’ Hanlon said proudly. Even if he’d nearly got her killed.
She ushered them through a spacious black-and-white-floor-tiled hall. An old-fashioned bike with a basket was propped against the wall. She led them into the lounge. The living room was large, well-proportioned with a high ceiling and old-fashioned moulded cornices. Hanlon noticed Luke studying the art on the wall with interest: some well-executed impressionist-style views of Edinburgh and some hills, maybe the Lammermuirs. There were some framed posters for various plays and events and a few photographs. It was low-key assured taste, original and eclectic.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Have you got a red wine?’ Luke asked. ‘A large one.’
‘Tea, please,’ said Hanlon.
‘Come and help me in the kitchen,’ Julia said to Hanlon. ‘You can choose your tea.’
They went through into Julia’s large kitchen/dining room. There was a huge scrubbed pine table and ten chairs around it; the room was heated by a large modern Aga cooker. It was a warm, friendly place; a casserole (in a Le Creuset, of course) ticked gently away on the corner of the flat-top stove. It was like stepping into an advert from a quality Sunday newspaper magazine, The Observer – she did work in a university, it would have to be The Observer – selling the good life. Hanlon watched Julia as she filled the kettle and switched it on. If it was a cliché it was a very comforting one.
‘What happened?’ Julia asked with concern.
Hanlon gave Julia a brief summary of what had happened at Luke’s. Julia opened a bottle of wine and poured a large glass and said, ‘I’ll just go and give it to… what was his name again?’
‘Luke, he’s Aurora’s ex.’
‘Very nice too,’ Julia said. She disappeared momentarily.
‘So someone’s after you?’ she said when she reappeared.
‘I certainly know that much,’ Hanlon said, with feeling.
‘Well, look, you can stay as long as you want, OK,’ Julia reassured her.
‘It’ll just be a few days,’ Hanlon said. ‘I think things with Aurora are coming to a head.’
‘Well,’ said Julia, ‘that’ll be just fine.’
She filled a pan with water and put it on the centre of the stove where the heat was fiercest. Hanlon watched with interest. She didn’t know how to cook well – she hardly knew how to cook at all; she was getting a bit fed up of her own monotonous meals. But could she be bothered to learn? No, was the answer to that. She suddenly thought of the rabbits in the fridge back in her cottage. How long would they keep? Were they going off? Well, that was how she was at keeping a house together: terrible.
‘What tea do you want?’ Julia asked.
‘Darjeeling, if you have it.’
‘Good choice, I think I’ll join you.’ Julia made the tea and put a bowl of water down for Wemyss, who lapped at it enthusiastically.
‘Is there a shop round here? I need to get him some food,’ Hanlon said.
‘Don’t worry.’ Julia smiled. ‘There’ll be boeuf bourguignon left. He’ll eat that, I’m sure.’
‘I’m sure he will, thanks.’
‘So what’s it all about?’ Julia asked. ‘All this drama?’
Hanlon sat down at the table. Her legs suddenly felt a bit shaky – shock, she guessed. ‘Money. I think behind all this there’s a gangster, Millar, who wants to sell drugs in the uni, and I think Aurora used to be one of his major dealers, probably running a network of sub-dealers.’
‘Really? Aurora?’ Julia looked highly unconvinced. ‘Surely not!’
‘I could be wrong – it’s a working hypothesis,’ Hanlon said, omitting the original source of the idea, Reiss. ‘And either because she’s stopped using, and so stopped working for him and has become a loose end, a loose end that needs tidying up, or maybe because Morag knew and put it into her novel, like she seems to have done everything else, and Millar’s afraid of it becoming public knowledge… for whatever reason, she’s fallen foul of Millar and so have I.’ Hanlon sipped her tea. ‘You’ve read Morag’s book – can you remember if there was anything about organised crime in it?’
‘Well, I sort of read it. I didn’t want to,’ Julia said with an apologetic look. ‘I just kind of flicked through it really.’
The water was boiling in the pan on the stove now, she added green beans to it.
‘Was there much about drugs?’ Hanlon asked.
Julia blew her cheeks out. ‘I don’t recall. Like I said, I didn’t want to read it. It was only because she pressured me into it… There could well have been. I got a mention, that much I know.’ She laughed. ‘I was like a frumpy, little oppressed mouse.’
‘You!’ Hanlon said, amused and outraged at the same time. This tall, elegant woman reduced to some ludicrous caricature.
‘Yes,’ laughed Julia. ‘It made me furious at the time, me, an old, unattractive, prudish doormat.’ She spoke light-heartedly but Hanlon could sense a feeling of hurt behind it. Morag did have a knack of making enemies.
Once again it made her question the veracity of Morag’s statements. So many untruths – truth seemed to be whatever Morag wanted it to be.
Julia pointed to the pan where the beans were cooking. Julia said, ‘Go and get Luke in. These vegetables won’t take long. just another minute, the cabbage and the mash are in the oven keeping warm, I take it you haven’t eaten?’
Hanlon shook her head. ‘No, it’s very good of you to go to all this trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble. I batch cook and freeze for when a son turns up, so you’ve got boeuf bourguignon and spiced red cabbage, haricots verts – the only thing I did was make mash.’
‘It’s much appreciated.’
‘Sleeping arrangements,’ Julia said briskly. ‘I’ve got two spare rooms. You can have the nice one with the en-suite, Luke can have the one I use as a junk room.’
‘That’s great, he won’t mind.’
Julia smiled. ‘I didn’t think he would.’
After dinner Luke went upstairs for a shower and Julia poured herself a glass of wine and propped herself up on the sofa, looking at Hanlon.
Now Luke had gone the two women went back to discussing the case. It was almost like ‘not in front of the children’.
‘So, you think that Aurora was dealing,’ said Julia.
‘Not necessarily. As I said, it’s a hypothesis. I also think there is the possibility that either Wyre or Griffiths were involved too.’
Julia snorted disbelievingly. ‘And the evidence for this is, what? More testament from Morag?’
‘Not just that. Someone must have told Millar that I was looking into Aurora’s disappearance – he’d never have known otherwise. That’s when the trouble started, and Wyre has criminal connections. And I’m obviously getting somewhere. The first time that guy, Ray, was told to scare me off. The second time, to kill me. Then there’s Griffiths – you think he’s great, Peter Reiss wasn’t so sure.’
She had the feeling that Reiss had implied Griffiths rather got off on helping others, but maybe she had misjudged what he’d said.
‘Do you think Aurora’s OK? I mean, do you think she’s still alive?’ Julia asked.
‘I do – if nothing else, her body would probably have turned up. Millar and his men are violent but they’re not criminal masterminds. And they seem quite incompetent, thank God, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Neither would McDonald, come to that.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ Julia asked.
Hanlon yawned. ‘Sorry, it’s been a long day. I think I’ll go and see Reiss tomorrow, ask a few more questions about Griffiths, see what Reiss’s reservations were.’
‘And you’re not going to the police?’ asked Julia.
‘No, I’ll handle it myself.’ They’ll just tell me to go home, she thought angrily. Like Campbell, like Jamie McDonald. And nobody will be looking to find and help Aurora. Sod them.
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ Julia asked.
‘Maybe not, but it’s what I’m going to do,’ Hanlon said firmly.
Julia shrugged, and shook her head doubtfully.
Wemyss nudged Hanlon. ‘I’ll just walk Wemyss for a bit. I think he may need a toilet break.’
Julia let her out of the house and she walked Wemyss around the block, the safe, slightly smug streets of Morningside with their Audis and Yummy Mummy 4 x 4s, most of them with ‘Baby on Board’ stickers in the back. Her own car looked desperately out of place. Good, she thought, so was she. She undid the boot and took out a small sports bag in which she kept emergency travel supplies: a change of T-shirt and underwear, toothbrush and emergency pre-paid debit card.
Luke was finished upstairs. She found her room and showered and changed out of her clothes into a pair of shorts she had in her sports bag, the tee, and borrowed a dressing gown from Julia. She curled up with her dog on the sofa and the three of them talked some more.
It was a pleasantly relaxed evening. Julia had a wood-burning stove, which threw out quite a lot of heat and a pleasing glow. The lights were dim. Hanlon felt warm and safe for the first time in a while. It was cosy; she hadn’t lived anywhere that could have been remotely described as that for what seemed like forever. Her cottage was cold and draughty. Christmas had been amusingly bleak. She’d always hated Christmas.
She suddenly thought as she lay on Julia’s sofa, safe and warm, that this was the first time in months she had been able to relax with people that she liked. And in her ear, the spectral presence of Dr Morgan whispered, ‘And whose fault is that? Who refuses to let anyone near them? Who runs away whenever someone gets close to you?’
Julia was tidying the kitchen. Luke had a sketch pad that he was playing with and he showed her a couple of drawings he had done of Wemyss. Hanlon thought they were startlingly good; he had exactly captured Wemyss’s roguish charm and intelligence. She said nothing but raised an eyebrow enquiringly. Luke shrugged. ‘I draw what there is – it’s what I do. That’s the essence of your dog. I don’t use my imagination. I never need to. That’s him. I didn’t add anything.’
‘Can I see the ones you’ve done of Julia?’ she asked. He’d been looking at her and sketching.
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s not very good. It’s come out a bit weird.’ He laughed. ‘I’ve got a high strike rate – I’m pleased with the dog, but I’m only human, not everything’s a success.’
It got to ten o’clock. Wemyss was stretched out on a rug in front of the stove asleep and snoring gently.
‘I’m going to bed,’ Julia said. ‘I’ll be leaving about half seven tomorrow morning. Here’s a key.’ She handed Hanlon a fob with a Yale and a Chubb. ‘Just leave the alarm, don’t bother with it.’
‘When’s your lunch?’ Hanlon asked. ‘I’ll buy.’
Julia smiled. ‘Thanks, one o’clock tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see you then.’ She stood up, tall and elegant. ‘Goodnight.’ She left the room and closed the door softly behind her.
Hanlon checked her phone, nothing of interest, then, a sudden idea.
‘Was Morag a friend of yours on Facebook?’ she asked.
Luke nodded. ‘Why?’
‘Could you find her on your phone? I’d like to see her last posts.’
Luke nodded and came and sat beside Hanlon on the sofa. He was wearing a worn faded blue denim shirt that would have looked awful on an older man, but which somehow suited his youthful body. The proximity to an attractive man must have triggered something deep in her. She suddenly thought, and it was a thought that took her by surprise, I miss Murdo Campbell. She wished it were him sitting next to her.
She cleared her throat, collected her thoughts. ‘Let’s have a look.’
There was Morag, a selfie taken just before she died – Morag was a keen selfie taker, judging by her timeline. Surprise, surprise. This one was outside the Gallery of Modern Art. Its grassy lawns ran away into the distance. In the background there was the scaffolding framework with the huge neon sign that read, ‘THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE’.
Various posts from friends on her timeline; one of them, captioned ‘rorschachstudios’, posted by BJ, was of a tattooed arm, a girl’s arm. She heard Luke catch his breath.
‘Oh my God!’ he whispered.
‘What?’ said Hanlon.
‘That’s Aurora!’ said Luke excitedly.
‘What? Are you sure?’ She looked at the date, it was the day of Morag’s death. Thirteen likes, no comments. She looked questioningly at Luke.
‘That arm, that’s Aurora… Look at the tattoos. I know all of them… that rose, that geometric shape, that rabbit, but this – this is new.’
‘What, since her disappearance?’
Luke nodded excitedly. ‘Look, Hanlon, I know every inch of that girl’s body, and if anyone’s going to remember artwork I can assure you it’s me.’
He enlarged the image. They stared at the tattoo. It was four small fish, colourful, lithe; you could feel the movement in them as they almost swam up her arm.
‘God, it’s good,’ breathed Luke. ‘It’s like they’re alive.’
As is Aurora, alive, Hanlon thought, alive and very much functioning if she’s having artwork done – that’s not the action of a girl that’s given up on life. She had obviously never met Aurora, but she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her.
‘What is Rorschach Studios?’ she asked.
Luke had put his phone down and hunted on his iPad.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘At least, nothing tattoo-wise. It’s obviously some sort of fake name or avatar for someone or something.’
‘Where might she have had it done?’ she asked.
Luke shook his head. ‘Not necessarily where – she didn’t patronise a shop. The question is, who by? If you find the artist, you’ll probably find her. Or at least they might have some idea of where to find her. It’s quite a tight-knit community. They tend to know each other, the ones who are serious like she is, about ink art.’
Hanlon nodded. She stared at the flickering flame of the stove. She suddenly felt exhausted; the events of the day had hit her like a freight train.
She stood up. ‘I’m off to bed now. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asked. He was looking at her eagerly. She was reminded of her dog. My God, I’ve got two of them to look after now, she thought. Her earlier thoughts about Luke being as needy as the collie looked like they may be unfortunately accurate. He even had slightly soulful eyes that reminded her of Wemyss. And like Wemyss she felt protective of Luke; she wasn’t going to leave him to the mercies of Millar.
‘I’m going to find Aurora,’ she said. ‘Goodnight, Luke.’