The following day Hanlon was back in the Grassmarket, the castle looming over the open space, grey and monolithic in the cold drizzle. Luke couldn’t go home, not with Millar after them – it was far too dangerous. She’d driven him to go and look at some artists’ studios that were for rent in Leith. He’d taken one and then they’d returned to his place to collect paints, easels, brushes, as much stuff as they could fit in her car. At least he’d have somewhere to work while he hunted for a new place to live.
‘How long do you think this is going to take?’ he’d asked as they drove back to Leith. It was a question to which she didn’t really have an answer. As long as Millar is around, she thought. It wasn’t a conclusion she wanted to share with Luke.
‘Not long,’ Hanlon said. ‘It should be over soon.’ One way or another, she thought, but didn’t say.
‘Shouldn’t we go to the police?’ asked Luke, echoing Julia’s question from the night before.
‘They can’t protect us from Millar,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have to handle this ourselves.’
She parked outside the studio.
‘How are we going to do that?’ he asked.
‘I’ll think of something,’ she promised. Luke looked at her in a trusting way that she found both touching and slightly irritating. Once again it reminded her of Wemyss. They both had implicit faith in her, which was a burden she could well do without.
Now she was in the pub where she’d been four days previously. She drank a coffee and waited for Mhairi Ferguson.
At quarter past twelve she arrived. She was wearing a trouser suit and a slightly hard-faced expression. There were silver rings on all of her fingers and her thumbs too. The tattoos that were visible, at the top of her sternum where her blouse was unbuttoned, on her wrists, neck, left hand and a couple on her fingers, glowed in the sunlight – for once it wasn’t raining.
Hanlon got her a coffee and they sat looking at each other.
‘How are you?’ asked Hanlon.
‘Overworked,’ Mhairi said. ‘I’ve been debugging a program I’ve written. It’s taking forever.’
‘Oh,’ said Hanlon politely. She hadn’t got a clue what Mhairi was on about – computers were a mystery to her.
‘Luckily, I like puzzles… So, how can I help you?’ Mhairi asked. She waved a ringed hand questioningly. ‘Come on, it must be important to text me so early.’
Mhairi was certainly larger than life, Hanlon decided. Heads had turned in the pub when Mhairi strode in, and that was how she moved. A stride, not a walk. Her whole personality was a very ‘look at me’ performance, from her clothes, to her make-up, to her tattoos, to her gait. She was attractive in a slightly in-your-face way, Hanlon thought, and she certainly didn’t lack self-confidence. She also had a great figure and dressed accordingly. As half the pub had noticed, judging by the surreptitious looks from the customers. She smiled.
‘It is important. I wanted to ask you about tattoos.’
‘Did you?’ Mhairi grinned. ‘It is important, then – you came to the right place, hen.’
Hanlon took her phone out and showed Mhairi the screenshotted picture of Aurora’s arm.
‘Good taste,’ Mhairi said approvingly. ‘Very good taste, actually! What are we looking at?’
‘The arm belongs to the girl I’m looking for,’ Hanlon said. She indicated the tattoo that Aurora had had done recently. ‘This was done a few days ago. I wondered if you had any ideas where she might have had it done.’
They fell silent as she looked at the tattoo. The fish swimming up Aurora’s arm.
‘They’re Koi,’ Mhairi said. ‘They’re Japanese. You see how the tattoo looks almost like a water colour, how delicately it’s been done? It’s fucking superb.’
‘So are we looking for a Japanese tattoo artist?’ asked Hanlon.
Mhairi looked at her with scorn. ‘No, we are not looking for a Japanese tattoo artist at all. We’re looking for a Korean tattoo artist.’
‘Korean?’
Mhairi pushed her two-toned blue-black hair away from her head and tilted it to one side so Hanlon could see her ear; it was a surprisingly intimate gesture.
‘Look at that,’ she said. Hanlon’s eyes widened. On the earlobe two flowers had been inked. They were red, with a yellow centre; they looked like the blooms on an ornamental quince. The colours were vivid. Then, running up the side of Mhairi’s ear was an incredibly delicate tracery of foliage. It was stunningly beautiful. Hanlon wanted to touch the design, to feel it with her fingertips; she knew it was stupid, it wouldn’t be raised, but she wanted to actually experience it in a tactile way.
‘I got this done in Seoul,’ Mhairi said. ‘It’s typical Korean work.’ She put her hair back. ‘You’re privileged. I only let women I like see my ear-work. It’s private.’ She smiled complicitly at Hanlon. ‘Anyway, Korean tattoo work, as you may have gathered by now, is characterised by its intricacy. It’s very distinct, usually very dainty, lots of designs from nature… It’s actually illegal to be a tattoo artist in Korea, you know.’
‘Really?’ Hanlon said.
‘Really,’ Mhairi said, ‘and it’s quite controversial. I’m assuming it’s like Japan where they think it’s like yakuza, like organised crime. Seemingly they won’t let you into a bathhouse if you’re tattooed. And I also heard that, in Korea, if you’ve got a big tattoo you can’t do your military service, and that’s a crime.’
Hanlon waited, a polite look on her face. She actually had zero interest in Korea or their customs, but she didn’t want to antagonise the girl opposite.
Mhairi drank some of her coffee. ‘Anyway, there just so happens to be a Korean artist who’s opened a pop-up parlour here in Edinburgh.’ She looked at Hanlon. ‘And that’s where your girl will have got her work done.’
‘Rorschach studios?’ Hanlon hazarded a guess.
Mhairi smiled. ‘If you have to ask, you’ll never know. It’s that kind of place.’
‘Where exactly?’ Hanlon asked.
Mhairi smiled and shook her head. ‘I’ll take you after work,’ she said. ‘It’s only for those in the know – I wasn’t joking. He hasn’t got a work permit. They won’t let you in if I’m not with you. They’d assume you were Border Force or HMRC or police or something, out to deport him.’
‘That’s really good of you,’ Hanlon said.
Mhairi stood up. ‘I’ll meet you here at six.’
She left the pub and Hanlon saw her cross the road back to her office. She didn’t wait for a break in the traffic, she just strode confidently out, halting the cars with the palm of her hand. Hanlon smiled and shook her head. She wondered what her evening with Mhairi would be like – well, it wouldn’t be conventional, that was for sure.
Hanlon called Reiss, the student counsellor, who said he had a drop-in clinic that afternoon and if she turned up he’d see her.
One of the things she was learning to appreciate about the centre of Edinburgh was just how walkable everything was. She had left Wemyss with Luke, who had agreed to take him out, and so she felt remarkably free with this unexpected dog care. From the pub to the student help centre only took her a ten-minute walk.
Reiss was having a quiet day. There was only one student waiting, some kid with a heroin problem, judging by the junkie-style head-nodding and three-quarters-closed hooded eyes.
Inside his cramped, untidy office, Reiss confirmed this.
‘Yeah, Olly out there, he says he hasn’t got a problem… says he’s clean. How often have I heard that?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Just look at him.’ He shook his head and mimicked someone out of their head on heroin. ‘Clean he most definitely is not. Anyway, how can I help?’
‘It’s Griffiths again,’ she said.
‘What about him?’
‘You said that he likes to attend twelve-step meetings. I thought it was only addicts who came?’
‘It depends on the meeting,’ Reiss explained. ‘Some are open to non-addicts so, for example, addicts can be brought, maybe dragged in, by family or friends. That’s why Griffiths often comes. Olly, for example, who’s out there, is one of his students. Griffiths brought him into the meetings and counselling.’
‘Doesn’t seem to be doing much good,’ she said cuttingly, and then immediately regretted it.
‘You can lead a horse to water, Hanlon…’ Reiss said coldly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She didn’t want to alienate Reiss. It wasn’t just because he was helping her; she genuinely liked him.
‘It was Griffiths who originally brought Aurora in,’ Reiss said. ‘I told you that the other day, so there are successes.’
She nodded, thoughtfully. Griffiths did seem a genuinely caring person, but it’s not hard to pretend to care. Not if you have an ulterior motive.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘thanks for your time.’
As she walked up to the university to meet Julia she wondered about Griffiths bringing Aurora into rehab. Could that have been mistaken as an affair, the two of them maybe being seen together out of university hours, or was it actually an affair? Someone strung out on drugs, hating themselves, hating their lives, easy prey for someone pretending to care for them. Morag had claimed he was a master manipulator – was she telling the truth? Was that Griffiths’ guilty secret, hunting down the weak and the vulnerable, pretending to help them and then insidiously working his way into their lives and bodies?
Hanlon bought Julia lunch at a vegetarian restaurant near the university.
‘My concession to health,’ said Julia. There was a self-service salad bar and she had loaded her plate with three different types of innovative food, as had Hanlon. It was such a pleasant change from her monotonous Argyll diet. The chilly voice of Dr Morgan, ‘And whose fault is that? That’s your own inability and disinclination to cook – not circumstances forcing themselves on you. Stop blaming others.’
Yes, I know, Hanlon told the voice of her conscience. I’ll be in touch. Soon.
‘So, how’s your morning been?’ Julia asked.
‘Quite good,’ Hanlon said, judiciously. ‘I think I might have a line on how to find Aurora. I should know more by this evening, but I won’t be home until late. Not until at least eleven.’
‘Are you tailing someone?’ asked Julia, her eyes wide with excitement.
‘Probably,’ Hanlon said.
‘Gosh, how exciting!’ She grimaced. ‘Your life is so much more interesting than mine.’
Hanlon looked sceptical; it had been somewhat over-interesting lately. If you called being beaten up and threatened with a gun interesting, then the past few days had indeed been fascinating.
‘I am going to spend the evening checking staff rostering levels and holiday bookings to make sure that we’re fully staffed. That’s not going to be much fun.’
Hanlon smiled. She thought back to her time in the police, how many hours she’d spent doing administrative chores or necessary paperwork. She’d been very bad at it. She looked at Julia; she just knew that she would be excellent at her job.
‘I had an anonymous tip-off that Griffiths was having an affair with Aurora – does that sound credible to you?’
Julia’s demeanour changed; she looked sad. ‘I really don’t know… I would like to say it was nonsense, but…’
‘But?’
Julia looked at her. ‘Aurora was/is, gorgeous. If she set out to seduce a man, well, I can’t see him putting up much resistance – the flesh is weak. Equally, Dr Griffiths is an attractive man.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t mean that he’s Brad Pitt, or whoever’s hot these days, but he’s highly intelligent, he does have a position of power – admittedly only in uni circles, but power in itself is an aphrodisiac – and Aurora does have a screw loose. So, fan of Griffiths as I am, all bets are off.’
Hanlon nodded. It was an interesting take on it. She’d automatically thought that if Griffiths were sleeping with Aurora, it’d be on him; Griffiths chasing the beautiful young student. Julia had reversed that, casting Aurora as the potential seducer. And Aurora was gorgeous – if she steamed towards you, all guns blazing, it would be very hard to put up much of a fight. Maybe a token, ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ as clothes and morals fell to the floor.
‘Do you know if any of Griffiths’ students are from Newcastle?’ She was thinking of the anonymous phone call she had received.
‘Yes, there’s Jenny, Jenny Evans, red-headed girl, why?’
‘Oh, just something someone said…’
They finished their salads.
‘I shouldn’t say this, but I’m thoroughly enjoying your investigation,’ Julia said, ‘and the free food.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Hanlon said, ‘I’m not paying. Aurora’s dad is.’
‘Well, I’ll still be up when you get back. This is better than Netflix.’
‘Oh, one last thing, Othello, the play by Shakespeare?’
‘What about it?’ Julia asked.
‘There’s a character, Iago, what’s he like?’
Julia thought. ‘Iago, well. He’s the baddie. He’s “honest Iago”, tells it like it is, except he doesn’t. He’s an arch-manipulator, and when he can’t get others to do his dirty work, he’s a killer. Kills his own wife, I seem to remember, to hush her up. Why?’
Hanlon laughed. ‘I’m not sure it’s important, but you never know.’ Morag’s description of Griffiths, but was that Morag the liar or Morag, accurate depicter of life? ‘Could you e-mail me a copy of Griffiths’ timetable?’
‘I can and I will, but I can tell you now, you’re wasting your time on him.’
Hanlon shrugged. We’ll see, her body language said.
Julia looked at her watch. ‘Oh my God… I’ll be late.’ She got up. ‘Look, I’ll see you tonight. I hope you find Aurora…’
She walked out of the restaurant and Hanlon went to pay the bill.
She returned to the house at Morningside, Wemyss greeted her enthusiastically and she took him out for a walk. She knew he’d already been out once, but the dog would miss her and, being honest, she missed his company. The moment she’d thought he had been shot had brought it home just how much the collie meant to her. She had known people close to her who had died and she had been much less upset, perfectly dry-eyed, their demise met with a shrug.
While they walked she thought some more about Griffiths. She could understand a student being attracted to him. He was a sympathetic guy and, as Julia had pointed out, in the hand of cards he held in the poker game of life, he had some winners. He was highly successful and respected, he had several books to his name of an academic nature, he was in demand on the inter-university lecture circuit. He did good works by stealth but was not too secretive that no one knew about them. He could easily become a father figure for girls who had issues with their real fathers. Much better than the real thing.
Morag’s view of Griffiths as an Iago figure, someone who got others to do his dirty work, was a compelling one. Hanlon also reviewed her own theory that Millar, the psychotic Glaswegian gangster, was seeking to carve out a new niche empire in Edinburgh supplying drugs to the student population, which, if you added up the various universities and colleges, could be a pool of nearly a hundred thousand potential users, maybe more. He would need a network to offload the merchandise and who better than a university lecturer to supervise what was going on? Intelligent, centrally situated and not paid very much, probably alarmingly easy to recruit. In her view, Griffiths was the ideal candidate.
When Aurora had gone straight, if she had been dealing to fund her habit, there was possibly a worry she might talk. There was also a very real worry that she had talked, talked to Morag, and that Griffiths had made a thinly disguised appearance in her novel – one that would be immediately obvious to anyone that knew him.
So, the girls had to go. Morag was dead, but Aurora, like Hanlon herself, had managed to slip through the net. So far.
So far. Millar’s men hadn’t managed to kill her the day before, but that was by the grace of God, and they were still out there, still looking.
If she could bring down Griffiths, she could bring down Millar, and that would bring the nightmare of being someone’s target, someone’s quarry, to an end, both for her and for Aurora. The fact they were both in hiding because of one man was intolerable. Millar might be evil incarnate, but he wasn’t superhuman and he wasn’t invulnerable.
Her plan for the rest of the day was to try to discover something about Jenny Evans, who she suspected was the girl who claimed Griffiths was having an affair with Aurora. Was it true? If so, what was the evidence? The girl had a three p.m. tutorial with Griffiths the following day; Hanlon would see if she could learn anything from her then.
The other thing to do was to try to see if she could learn anything from tomorrow’s NA meeting that she knew Griffiths was due to attend.
Her phone went; she looked at it. It was Murdo Campbell. He was due to meet colleagues for a meeting at half four – would she be free at three p.m.?
She thought that, aside from the welcome chance to talk some more about Millar, it would be good to see him.
Yes, she texted, where?