'Maybe.' Dezzi's eyes widened a little.
'What is it?'
'I can prove I knew him.'
'How's that?'
'The present he gave me.'
'What present?'
'Only, I didn't have much use for it, so I... I gave it to someone.'
'Gave it to someone?'
'Well, sold it. A second-hand shop on Nicolson Street.'
'What was it?'
'A briefcase sort of thing. Didn't hold enough stuff, but it was made of leather.'
Mackie had carried his cash to the building society in a briefcase. 'So now it'll have been sold on to someone else?' Clarke guessed.
But Dezzi was shaking her head. 'The shopkeeper's still got it. I've seen him walking about with it. Leather it was. and the bastard only gave me five quid.'
It wasn't far from Hunter Square to Nicolson Street. The shop was an Aladdin's cave of tat, narrow aisles leading them past teetering pillars of used goods: books, cassettes, music centres, crockery. Vacuum cleaners had been draped with feather boas; picture cards and old comics lay underfoot. Electrical goods and board games and jigsaw puzzles; pots and pans, guitars, music-stands. The shopkeeper, an Asian, didn't seem to recognise Dezzi. Clarke showed her warrant card and asked to see the briefcase.
'Five measly quid he gave me,' Dezzi grumbled. 'Genuine leather.'
The man was reluctant, until Clarke mentioned that St Leonard's was just around the corner. He reached down and placed a scuffed black briefcase on the counter. Clarke asked him to open it. Inside: a newspaper, packed lunch and a thick roll of banknotes. Dezzi seemed to want a closer look, but he snapped shut the case.
'Satisfied?' he asked.
Clarke pointed to a corner of the case where the scuffing was worst.
'What happened?'
'The initials were not my initials. I attempted to erase them.'
Clarke looked more closely. She was wondering if Valerie Briggs could identify the case. 'Do you remember the initials?' she asked Dezzi.
Dezzi shook her head; she was looking, too.
The shop was badly lit. The faintest indents remained.
'ADC?' she guessed.
'I believe so,' the shopkeeper said. Then he wagged a finger at Dezzi. 'And I paid you a fair price.'
'You as good as robbed me, you sod.' She nudged Clarke. 'Stick the handcuffs on him, girl.'
ADC, Clarke was thinking, was Mackie really ADC?
Or would it prove another dead end?
Back at St Leonard's, she kicked herself for not checking Mackie's criminal record sooner. August 1997, Christopher Mackie and 'a Ms Desiderata' (she refused to give the police her full name) were apprehended while involved in a 'lewd exhibition' on the steps of a parish church in Bruntsfield.
August: Festival time. Clarke was surprised they hadn't been mistaken for an experimental theatre group.
The arresting officer was a uniform called Rod Harken, and he remembered the incident well.
'She got a fine,' he told Clarke by telephone from Torphichen police station. 'And a few days in clink for refusing to tell us her name.'
'What about her partner?'
'I think he got off with a caution.'
'Why?'
'Because the poor sod was nearly comatose.'
'I still don't get it.'
'Then I'll spell it out. She was straddling him, knickers off and skirt up, trying to haul his pants down. We had to wake him up to take him to the station.' Harken chuckled. 'Were they photographed?'
'You mean on the steps?' Harken was still chuckling. Clarke heaped more ice into her voice. 'No, I do not mean on the steps. I mean at Torphichen.'
'Oh aye, we took some snaps.'
'Would you still have them?'
'Depends.'
'Well, could you take a look.1 Clarke paused. 'Please.'
'Suppose so,' the uniform said grudgingly. 'Thank you.'
She put the phone down. An hour later, the photos arrived by patrol car. The ones of Mackie were better than the hostel pictures. She stared into his unfocused eyes. His hair was thick and dark, brushed back from the forehead. His face was either tanned or weather-beaten. He hadn't shaved for a day or two, but looked no worse than many a summertime backpacker. His eyes looked heavy, as though no amount of sleep could compensate for what they'd seen. Clarke had to smile at the photos of Dezzi: she was grinning like a Cheshire cat, not a care in her world.
Harken had put a note in the envelope: One other thing. We asked Mackie about the incident and he told us he wasn't a 'sexual beast' any more. Something got lost in the translation and we kept him locked up while we checked if he'd had previous as a sex offender. Turned out he hadn't.
Her phone rang again. It was the front desk. There was someone downstairs for her.
Her visitor was short and round with a red face. He wore a Prince of Wales check three-piece suit and was mopping his brow with a handkerchief the size of a small tablecloth. The top of his head was bald and shiny, but hair grew copiously to either side, combed back over his ears. He introduced himself as Gerald Sithing.
'I read about Chris Mackie in the newspaper this morning, gave me quite a turn.' His beady eyes were on her, voice high and quavering.
Clarke folded her arms. 'You knew him, sir?'
'Oh, yes. Known him for years.'
'Could you describe him for me?'
Sithing studied her, then clapped his hands. 'Oh, of course. You think I'm a crank.' His laughter was sibilant. 'Come here to claim his fortune.'
'Aren't you?'
He drew himself up, recited a good description of Mackie. Clarke unfolded her arms, scratched her nose. 'In here, please, Mr Sithing.'
There was an interview room just to the side of the front desk. She unlocked it and looked in. Sometimes it was used for storage, but today it was empty. Desk and two chairs. Nothing on the walls. No ashtray or waste bin.
Sithing sat down, looked around as though intrigued by his surroundings. Clarke had gone from scratching her nose to pinching it. She had a headache coming on, felt dead beat.
'How did you come to know Mr Mackie?'
'Complete accident really. Daily constitutional, back then I took it in the Meadows.'
'Back when?'
'Oh, seven, eight years ago. Bright summer's day, so I sat myself down on one of the benches. There was a man already seated there, scruffy... you know, gentleman of the road. We got talking. I think I broke the ice, said something about how lovely the day was.'
'And this was Mr Mackie?'
'That's right.'
'Where was he living at the time?'
Sithing laughed again. 'You're still testing me, aren't you?' He wagged a finger like a fat sausage. 'He
