That was a hundred and twenty days ago.
And counting.
He could have gone to Glasgow, secured a loan from one of the heavyweights there, but that would have meant word getting around. It would involve loss of face. Any sign of weakness, there’d be vultures hovering . . . and worse.
He’d demolished those two cups of Italian coffee without tasting them, but knew from his heartbeat that they’d been extra-strength. Johnno and Glenn had accompanied him, all three of them squeezed into a booth by the window, while good-looking women took the other tables, not giving them the time of day. Stuck-up bitches. He knew the type: shopping at Harvey Nicks; cocktails at the Shining Star later on; and a lettuce leaf to sustain them between times. Their husbands and boyfriends would work in banking or as lawyers - bloodsuckers, in other words. Big houses in the Grange, skiing holidays, dinner parties. It was an Edinburgh he’d hardly been aware of while growing up. As a young man, his Saturdays had been about football (if Hearts were at home and a rumble with the away fans seemed probable), or the pub. Maybe chasing skirt along Rose Street or attempting chat-ups in the St James Centre. George Street, all boutiques and jewellery windows with no prices, had seemed alien to him - and still did. Which didn’t stop him coming here: why shouldn’t he? He had the same cash in his pockets as anyone else. He wore Nicole Fahri polo tops and DKNY coats. Shoes from Kurt Geiger, socks by Paul Smith . . . He was as good as any other bastard. Better than the bulk of them. He lived in the real world.
‘Warts and fucking all.’
‘What’s that, boss?’ Glenn asked, making Chib realise he’d spoken the words aloud. Chib ignored him and asked a passing waitress for the bill, then turned his attention back to his two foot-soldiers. Glenn had already been outside on a recce, reporting back that there was no one loitering in the vicinity.
‘What about office windows?’ Chib had asked.
‘I checked.’
‘In one of the shops maybe, pretending to browse?’
‘I already said.’ Glenn had bristled. ‘If there’s anyone out there, they’re better than good.’
‘They don’t have to be better than good,’ Chib had snapped back. ‘Just better than you.’ Then he’d gone back to gnawing his bottom lip, the way he sometimes did when he was thinking. Until, having paid the bill, he’d come to a decision.
‘Okay then . . . the two of you can eff off.’
‘Boss?’ Johnno this time, trying to work out if he’d heard right.
Chib didn’t say anything, but the way he saw it was, if it was the Angels or someone like them, they’d be more likely to make their move if he was alone. And if it was the cops . . . well, he wasn’t sure. But at least he’d know, one way or the other. It was a plan. It was something.
The look on Glenn’s face, however, told him this didn’t mean it was necessarily better than nothing . . .
Chib’s idea was to hit the shopping crowds on Princes Street. Cars weren’t allowed down there, so any tail would have to come after him on foot. He could then climb the steep flight of steps at the side of the Mound and head for the quieter streets of the Old Town, streets where anyone following on foot would be easy to spot.
It was a plan.
But not much better than nothing, as he soon learned. He’d told Glenn and Johnno to stay with the car, he would call them when he needed them. Then he’d headed down Frederick Street, crossing to the quieter side of Princes Street, the side with no shops. The Castle loomed above him. He could make out the tiny shapes of tourists as they leaned over the battlements. He hadn’t been inside the Castle for years; seemed to remember a school trip there, but he’d sneaked away after twenty minutes and headed into town. A couple of years back, he’d been cornered in a bar by someone he knew. The man had confided a carefully thought-out scheme to steal the Scottish Crown Jewels, but Chib had given him a slap across the jaw for his trouble.
‘Castle’s not just for tourists,’ he’d explained to the hapless drunk. ‘It’s a working bloody garrison. How you going to sneak the jewels past that lot, eh?’
He crossed the foot of the Mound at the traffic lights and walked towards the steps. Kept stopping, casting glances back - no sign of anyone. Bloody hell, though . . . Peering up the incline, he realised just how steep the steps actually were. He wasn’t used to walking. The shoppers and tourists on Princes Street hadn’t helped his blood pressure. He’d broken into a sweat just dodging the buses as he crossed the road. What was the point of banning cars when the place just became a racetrack for taxi-cabs and double-deckers? He knew he couldn’t face climbing those steps, so stood his ground for a moment instead, weighing up alternatives. He could take a detour into Princes Street Gardens - couldn’t stomach the thought of Princes Street itself again. There was a big Greek-style building in front of him; two of them, actually, one behind the other. Art galleries: he knew that much. One of them, they’d wrapped its pillars last year to make them look like soup cans. Something to do with an exhibition. Chib remembered the three guys in the bar. He’d gone over to their table knowing a fifteen-second glare would put the frighteners on them, and it had. That catalogue they’d been perusing - full of paintings. Now here he was outside the National Gallery of Scotland. Yeah, why not? Sort of like a sign from above. Plus, if anyone followed him inside, he’d know for sure. As he walked up to the door, it was held open for him by one of the staff. Chib hesitated, hand in pocket.
‘How much?’ he asked.
‘No charge, sir,’ the guard answered. He even gave a little bow.
Ransome watched as the door swung shut behind Chib Calloway.
‘Now I really have seen everything,’ he muttered to himself, reaching into his coat for his phone. Ransome was a detective inspector with Lothian and Borders Police. His colleague, Detective Sergeant Ben Brewster, was in an unmarked car, parked somewhere between the Mound and George Street. Brewster picked up straight away.
‘He’s gone into the National Gallery,’ Ransome explained.
‘Meeting someone?’ Brewster’s voice was tinny; it sounded like he was being beamed down from a space station somewhere.
‘Dunno, Ben. Looked to me like he was considering the Playfair Steps, but then thought better of it.’
‘Know which I’d choose.’ Brewster was chuckling.
‘Can’t say I was looking forward to hauling myself up them,’ Ransom agreed.
‘Reckon he’s spotted you?’
‘Not a chance. Where are you?’
‘Double-parked on Hanover Street and not making many friends. Are you going to follow him inside?’
‘I don’t know. More chance of him clocking me indoors than out.’
‘Well, he knows someone’s watching him - so why ditch the two stooges?’
‘That’s a good question, Ben.’ Ransome was checking his watch. Not that he needed to - a blast to his right was followed by a puff of smoke from the Castle’s ramparts: the one o’clock gun. He peered down into the Gardens. There was an exit from the gallery down there . . . no way he could cover both doors. ‘Stay put,’ he said into his phone. ‘I’m going to give it five or ten minutes.’
‘Your call,’ Brewster said.
‘My call,’ Ransome agreed. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and gripped the railings with both hands. It all looked so orderly down in the Gardens. A train was rumbling along the railway track, making for Waverley Station. Again, all very calm and orderly - Edinburgh was that kind of city. You could live your whole life and never get any inkling of what else was going on, even when it was living next door to you. He turned his attention towards the Castle. It appeared to him sometimes like a stern parent, frowning on any impropriety below. If you looked at a map of the city, you were struck by the contrast between the New Town to the north and the Old Town to the south. The first was planned and geometric and rational, the second higgledy-piggledy and seemingly chaotic, buildings erected wherever space permitted. Story was, back in the old days they kept adding floors
to the tenements until they started collapsing in on themselves. Ransome liked the feel of the Old Town even today, but he had always dreamed of living in one of the New Town’s elegant Georgian terraces. That was why he took a weekly lottery ticket - only chance he was ever going to get on a CID salary.
Chib Calloway, on the other hand, could easily afford the New Town life, but chose instead to live on a ticky-tack estate on the western outskirts of the city, only a couple of miles from where he’d grown up. There was, it seemed to Ransome, no accounting for taste.
The detective didn’t think Chib would linger in the gallery - to someone like him, surely art had to act like kryptonite. He would emerge either from the main door, or from the one in the Gardens. Ransome knew he had to make a decision. But then again . . . how much did it matter in the great scheme of things? The meetings Chib had arranged - the ones Ransome knew about - were no longer going to happen. No evidence would be gathered; several more hours of Ransome’s life wasted as a result. Ransome was in his early thirties, ambitious and alive to possibilities. Chib Calloway would be a trophy, no doubt about that. Not, perhaps, as much of a trophy as four or five years ago, but back then Ransome had been a lowly detective constable and unable to direct (or even suggest to his superiors) a long-term surveillance operation. Now, though, he had inside info, and that could mean the difference between failure and success. One of Ransome’s first CID cases had been a push against Calloway, but in court the gangster’s expensive lawyer had picked apart the evidence - to the cost of the youngest member of the team of investigators.
Detective Constable Ransome . . . you’re sure that’s your correct title? Only, I’ve known plain constables with more apparent ability. The advocate smug and ruddy-cheeked in his wig; and Chib Calloway braying in the dock, wagging a finger at Ransome as the young detective sloped from the witness box. Afterwards, his team leader had tried telling him it didn’t matter. But it had; it did; all the way down the passing years.
The time felt right to him . . . right here, right now. Everything he knew, everything he suspected, led to one imminent prospect: Chib Calloway’s life was about to implode.
It might well be messy, might happen without any interference from Ransome himself, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be there to enjoy it.
Nor did it mean he couldn’t take the credit . . .
Chib Calloway waited in the foyer for a couple of minutes, but the only other arrivals were a middle-aged couple with Australian accents and leathery skin. He pretended to be studying a floor plan of the building, then gave a twitch of the mouth, signalling to the guards that he was quite satisfied with arrangements. Taking a deep breath, he walked inside.
It was quiet in the gallery. Bloody big rooms, too, echoing with coughs and whispers. He saw the Aussies again, plus some overseas students who were being taken round by a guide. No way they were locals - too tanned, too fashion-conscious. They shuffled slowly, near-silently past the huge canvases, looking bored. Not too many guards in here. Chib craned his neck, seeking out the all-seeing CCTV cameras. They were just where he thought they’d be. No wires trailing from the paintings, though, meaning no alarms. Some of them looked fixed to the walls by screws, but by no means all of them. Even if they were, thirty seconds with a Stanley knife and you’d have what you came for . . . most of it, anyway. The canvas, if not the frame. Half a dozen pensioners in uniforms - no problem at all.
Chib sat himself down on an upholstered bench in the middle of one of the rooms and felt his heart rate begin to slow. He pretended to be interested in the painting opposite, a landscape with mountains and temples and sunbeams. There were a few figures in the foreground, dressed in flowing white robes. He’d no idea what any of it was supposed to mean. One of the foreign students - a bronzed, Spanish-looking lad - blocked his view for a moment before moving to the side to check out the information panel on the wall, oblivious to Chib’s glare: Hey, pal, this is my painting, my city, my country . . .
Another man walked into the room: older than the student and better dressed. A black woollen overcoat fell to just above his feet. His shoes were black, glossy and unscuffed. He carried a folded newspaper and looked like he was just killing time, cheeks puffed out. Chib gave him the stare all the same, and decided he knew the face from somewhere. His stomach clenched - was this whoever’d been tailing him? Didn’t look like a villain, but then he didn’t look much like a cop either. Where had Chib seen him before? The visitor had given the painting the briefest of glances, and was heading away, brushing past the student. He was already out of the room by the time Chib placed him.
Chib got to his feet and made to follow.
4
Mike Mackenzie had recognised the gangster straight away, hoping it wasn’t too obvious when he exited the room pronto. This collection wasn’t really his thing anyway; he’d only come into town to do a bit of shopping: shirts to start with (not that he’d found any he liked). Then some eau de cologne and a slight detour into Thistle Street and Joseph Bonnar’s jewellery shop. Joe specialised in nice antique pieces, and Mike had gone there with Laura in mind. He’d been thinking of that opal around her neck, imagining her wearing something different, something unusual.
Something bought by him.
But though Joe was a master of his craft - Mike had a pocket watch back home to prove it - he hadn’t managed to work his charms this time. Mainly because it had suddenly dawned on Mike: what the hell am I doing? Would Laura thank him for the gesture? What exactly would she read into it? Did she even like amethysts and rubies and sapphires?
‘Call again, Mr Mackenzie,’ Bonnar had said, opening the door for him. ‘It’s been too long.’
So: no shirts and no jewellery. One o’clock had found him on Princes Street, not quite hungry enough for lunch and within a stone’s throw of the National Gallery. His mind felt clogged; hard to say why he’d been drawn to the place. There were some nice pieces - he’d be the first to acknowledge as much - but it was all a bit stuffy and reverential. ‘Art is good for you,’ the collection seemed to be saying. ‘Here, have some.’
The past few days, he’d been mulling over Professor Gissing’s argument about art as collateral. He wondered what percentage of the world’s art was actually kept in bank vaults and the like. Like unread books and unplayed music, did it matter that art went unseen? In a generation’s time, it would still be there, awaiting rediscovery. And was he himself any better? He’d visited regional galleries and viewed their collections, knowing he had better examples of some of the artists hanging on his walls at home. Wasn’t each home and living room a private gallery of sorts?
Help some of those poor imprisoned paintings to escape.
Not from public galleries, of course, but from wall safes and bank vaults and the unvisited rooms and corridors of all those corporate buyers. First Caledonian Bank, for example, had a portfolio running into the tens of millions - most of the usual suspects (they even boasted an early Bacon), plus the cream of new talent, snapped up at all those annual degree shows around the UK by the bank’s portfolio curator. Other companies in Edinburgh owned their own hauls and were sitting tight on them, the way a miser would sit on a mattress filled with cash.
Mike was wondering: maybe if he made a gesture. Opened a gallery and placed his own collection there . . . could he persuade others to join him? Talk to First Caly and all the other big players. Make a thing of it. Maybe that was why he’d felt drawn to the National Gallery - the perfect place to do a little more thinking on the subject. The last person he’d expected to see was Chib Calloway. And now, turning around, here was Calloway stalking towards him, smile fixed but eyes hard and unblinking.
‘You keeping tabs on me?’ the gangster growled.
‘Wouldn’t have taken you for a patron of the arts,’ was all Mike could think of by way of an answer.
‘Free country, isn’t it?’ Calloway bristled.
Mike flinched. ‘Sorry, that came out all wrong. My name’s Mike Mackenzie, by
the way.’ The two men shook hands.
‘Charlie Calloway.’
‘But most people call you Chib, right?’
‘You know who I am, then?’ Calloway considered for a moment and then nodded slowly. ‘I remember now - your pals couldn’t look at me, but you held eye contact throughout.’
‘And you pretended to shoot me as you drove away.’
Calloway offered a grudging smile. ‘Least it wasn’t the real thing, eh?’
‘So what brings you here today, Mr Calloway?’
‘I was just remembering that book of paintings, the one you lot were poring over in the bar. I take it you know about art, Mike?’
‘I’m learning.’