guess, were green-tea drinkers.
‘Would you like the tour?’
I smiled, a wry one. ‘Eh, another time maybe… I’m, er, here on business.’
Rasher stopped still. ‘Sounds ominous.’
I knew my smile had slipped. ‘It is.’
He led the way through the newsroom. Not one reporter looked away from their screen. It was like a call centre, or worse, a battery farm. In my day reporters did their job on the streets. I wondered if this lot would last a day without Google.
Rasher closed the door to his office, pulled out a chair, waved sit.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘Coffee?’
My lip twitched — a betrayal, what poker players call a ‘tell’.
‘Ah, of course,’ said Rasher. He dipped into a drawer in his desk, produced a bottle of Talisker. ‘A drop of this, perhaps.’
He had my number.
‘So, you mentioned business…’
That I had for him. In spades.
‘The Corstorphine Hill murder… what have you got on it?’
Rasher leaned forward in his chair, looked uneasy. ‘You’re working that?’
‘Not really. I just got started.’
‘How come?’
‘That tip-off you got last night?’
‘Bizarro — guy on the scene.’
‘Yeah… that was me.’
He looked scoobied. ‘That was you? Who found the body?’
I spilled. Told him about stumbling over the corpse; think I stumbled over a few of my words in the telling. The memory was chilling.
Rasher beamed. ‘That’s a page-one exclusive.’
‘You what?’
‘I’ll give you a front-page byline for that… The story in your own words: “How I happened on the murder scene”. Fucking magic stuff.’ He was out of his chair, flashing headlines at me as he perched on the edge of his desk. ‘This is top flight, Gus. Jesus, thanks for bringing this in.’
The idea of resurrecting my writing career sent my mind racing. What would my ex-wife make of that? It would be an eye-opener for Debs all right.
I played Rasher, said, ‘I’m actually after information.’
‘Fire away, whatever I can do to help flesh out the article.’
The word ‘flesh’ sent a jolt through me.
‘I picked up the name of the victim. I take it plod hasn’t let you know yet.’
Rasher sat down, leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. ‘I spoke to the wee arsewipe this morning… Didn’t give me a thing, except that “waiting to notify next of kin” shite.’
‘Johnstone?’
‘That’s him. Right cheeky wee cunt — thinks he’s doing you a favour when he’s really just doing a job we pay him for.’
‘I met him last night. He doesn’t know I have the name.’
Rasher opened his palms. ‘Well, I’m all ears… and it stays here.’
He didn’t need to add that last bit — I knew Rasher wouldn’t run the name until plod had released it. I said, ‘Thomas Fulton.’
Rasher leaned back, tucked his hands behind his head, ‘The Moose.’
‘You know this guy?’
He was up again, pacing about the room. The static from the cheap carpet tiles set his sideburns twitching once more. ‘You don’t remember the skinny wee runt, Gus?’
‘I thought I’d heard the name.’
Rasher picked up the scoosh bottle, topped himself up then offered me a refill. I nodded.
‘Moosey was the one the police had down for the Crawford kid’s mauling.’
I came up blank. ‘The what?’
‘The kid that got attacked by a pit bull. They reckoned it was Moosey’s dog… Never managed to pin it on him, though.’
I twisted round to face him. He’d dropped his pitch, found a reverent tone, was enough to capture my interest. ‘Why not?’
Rasher sat back down. He exhaled slowly as he placed his glass down in front of him, ‘Moosey was one of Rab Hart’s crew.’
‘Shit.’ Much as I tried to keep my nose clean, stay away from the city’s knuckle-breakers and pugs, there was one name everybody knew. Of a bad lot, Rab Hart was the worst.
‘Aye, shit’s about the strength of it.’ Rasher took a deep swig on his whisky. ‘Things are very lively in that outfit right now.’
‘Lively?’
‘Well, I say lively — chaos would be more like it. You know Rab’s inside…’
I didn’t.
‘Facing a ten stretch for counterfeiting.’ He paused. ‘Ralph Lauren shirts. He was yanked with a warehouse full of them. There was a raid; some polis got battered.’
‘So who’s running Rab’s firm?’
‘He is, from Saughton Prison. Only, from what I hear there’s been some jostling to take over in his absence.’
‘Not folk I’d want to be jostling with — could get nasty.’
Rasher nodded. ‘Aye, oh aye, especially if Rab wins his appeal.. be a few heads cracked then.’
The words made me tense in my seat — did I want my head to be one of them?
‘When’s his appeal?’ I said.
Rasher put down his glass, rubbed hands together. ‘Any day now.’
Chapter 6
Spent a couple of hours on Rasher’s article. Can’t say it was my best work — was a bit ring-rusty. But still, it felt good to be back doing the do. I even allowed myself to entertain the idea that I might be resurrecting my career, and all that might entail. Had even fooled myself with a notion of justice — not for Moosey, who looked like the worst kind of criminal trash, but because I could see something wasn’t right here.
The way plod had behaved was off for sure. I was convinced Jonny Johnstone was all needle; those boys have my card marked, but I didn’t like the kip of him. I wanted to have all my ducks in a row if he decided to take an interest in me.
Rasher said he’d get one of his office juniors to pull some files off the system for me, old newspaper cuttings detailing the Crawford child’s killing, and some stuff on Edinburgh’s answer to Al Capone — Rab Hart. He saw a series of articles, with a big photo byline; I was a name again. Nearly.
I looked out of the cafe window: an endless trail of backpacks, all shapes and sizes, traipsing up and down the streets. They’d stop, stare up at buildings on the sniff for a plaque or anything that would give resonance to their visit. A close. A pend. A wynd. All endless opportunities for photographs. I swear, I’ve seen these people on their knees photographing the cobbles.
I was waiting for my mate Hod. Since his property business had taken off, he’d decided there was more to life than sitting behind a desk. He’d appointed managers, become an adrenaline junkie for a while. Now he was bored
