Ian Rankin - Fleshmarket Close

She found the Jardines’ house easily enough, but there was no one home. No signs of life in neighbouring windows. A few parked cars, a child’s trike missing one of its back wheels. Plenty of satellite dishes attached to the harled walls. She saw homemade signs in some of the living-room windows: YES TO WHITEMIRE. Whitemire, she knew, was an old prison a couple of miles outside Banehall. Two years ago, it had been turned into an immigration centre. By now it was probably Banehall’s biggest employer... and it was marked for further development. Back on Main Street, the village’s only pub boasted the name The Bane. Siobhan hadn’t passed any cafés, just a solitary chip shop. The weary traveller, hoping to use a knife and fork, would be forced to try the pub, though it gave no indication that food would be available. Siobhan parked kerbside and crossed the road to the Salon. Here, too, there was a pro-Whitemire sign in the window.

Two women sat drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. There were no customers, and neither of the staff looked thrilled at the potential arrival of one. Siobhan brought out her ID and introduced herself.

‘I recognise you,’ the younger of the two said. ‘You’re the cop from Tracy’s funeral. You had your arm around Ishbel at the church. I asked her mum afterwards.’

‘You’ve got a good memory, Susie,’ Siobhan replied. No one had bothered to get up, and there was nowhere left for Siobhan to sit but one of the styling chairs. She stayed standing.

‘Wouldn’t mind a coffee, if there’s one going,’ she said, trying to sound friendly.

The older woman was slow to rise. Siobhan noticed that her fingernails had been decorated with elaborate swirls of colour. ‘No milk left,’ the woman warned.

‘I’ll take it black.’

‘Sugar?’

‘No thanks.’

The woman shuffled over to an alcove at the back of the shop. ‘I’m Angie, by the way,’ she told Siobhan. ‘Owner and stylist to the stars.’

‘Is it about Ishbel?’ Susie asked.

Siobhan nodded, sitting down in the space that had been vacated on the cushioned bench. Susie immediately got up, as if in reaction to Siobhan’s proximity, and stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray, her last inhalation now issuing from her nostrils. She walked over to one of the other chairs and sat down in it, swinging it to and fro with her feet, checking her hair in the mirror. ‘She hasn’t been in touch,’ she stated.

‘And you’ve no idea where she could have gone?’

A shrug. ‘Her mum and dad are up to high doh, that’s all I know.’

‘What about this man you saw Ishbel with?’

Another shrug. She played with her fringe. ‘Short guy, stocky.’

‘Hair?’

‘Can’t remember.’

‘Maybe he was bald?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Leather jacket... sunglasses.’

‘Not from around here?’

A shake of the head. ‘Driving a flash car... something fast.’

‘A BMW? Mercedes?’

‘I’m no good with cars.’

‘Was it big, small... did it have a roof?’

‘Medium... with a roof, but it could’ve been a convertible.’

Angie was returning with a mug. She handed it over and sat down in Susie’s vacated space.

Siobhan nodded her thanks. ‘How old was he, Susie?’

‘Old... forties or fifties.’

Angie gave a snort. ‘Old to you, maybe.’ She was probably fifty herself, with hair that looked twenty years younger.

‘When you asked her about him, what did she say?’

‘Just told me to shut up.’

‘Any idea how she could have met him?’

‘No.’

‘What sort of places does she go?’

‘Into Livingston... maybe Edinburgh or Glasgow sometimes. Just pubs and clubs.’

‘Anybody apart from you she might go out with?’

Susie mentioned some names, which Siobhan jotted down.

‘Susie’s already talked to them,’ Angie warned. ‘They won’t be any help.’

‘Thanks, anyway.’ Siobhan made a show of looking around the salon. ‘Is it usually this quiet?’

‘We get a few customers first thing. Later in the week’s busier.’

‘But Ishbel not being here isn’t a problem?’

‘We’re managing.’

‘Makes me wonder...’

Angie narrowed her eyes. ‘What?’

‘Why you need two stylists.’

Angie glanced towards Susie. ‘What else could I do?’

Siobhan felt she understood. Angie had taken pity on Ishbel after the suicide. ‘Any reason you can think of why she’d leave home so suddenly?’

‘Maybe she got a better offer... Plenty of people ship out of the Bane and never look back.’

‘Her mystery man?’

It was Angie’s turn to shrug. ‘Good luck to her if that’s what she wants.’

Siobhan turned to Susie. ‘You told Ishbel’s mum and dad he looked like a pimp.’

‘Did I?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Well, maybe I did. The shades and the jacket... like something out of a film.’ Her eyes widened. ‘ Taxi Driver !’ she said. ‘The pimp in that... what’s his name? I saw that on the telly a couple of months back.’

‘And that’s who this man looked like?’

‘No... but he was wearing a hat. That’s why I couldn’t remember his hair!’

‘What sort of hat?’

Susie’s enthusiasm drained away. ‘Dunno... just a hat.’

‘Baseball cap? Beret?’

Susie shook her head. ‘It had a rim.’

Siobhan looked to Angie for help. ‘A fedora?’ Angie suggested. ‘A homburg?’

‘I don’t even know what those are,’ Susie said.

‘Something like a gangster in an old film would wear?’ Angie went on.

Susie was thoughtful. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded.

Siobhan jotted down her mobile phone number. ‘That’s great, Susie. And if anything else comes back to you, maybe you could give me a call?’

Susie nodded. She was out of reach, so Siobhan handed the note to Angie. ‘Same thing applies to you.’ Angie nodded and folded the note in two.

The door rattled open and a stooped, elderly woman came in.

‘Mrs Prentice,’ Angie called out in greeting.

‘Bit earlier than I told you, Angie dear. Can you fit me in?’

Angie was already on her feet. ‘For you, Mrs Prentice, I’m sure I can shuffle my diary.’ Susie relinquished the chair so that Mrs Prentice could sit in it, once she’d divested herself of her coat. Siobhan got up, too. ‘One last thing, Susie,’ she said.

‘What?’

Siobhan walked over to the alcove, Susie following her. Siobhan lowered her voice when she spoke. ‘The Jardines tell me Donald Cruikshank’s out of prison.’

Susie’s face hardened.

‘Have you seen him?’ Siobhan asked.

‘Once or twice... piece of scum that he is.’

‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘As if I would! Council gave him a place of his own — can you credit it? His mum and dad wouldn’t have anything to do with him.’

‘Did Ishbel mention him at all?’

‘Just that she felt the same as me. You think that’s what drove her out?’

‘Do you?’

‘ He’s the one we should be running out of town,’ Susie hissed.

Siobhan nodded her agreement. ‘Well,’ she said, slinging her bag on to her shoulder, ‘remember to give me a call if anything else comes to you.’

‘Sure,’ Susie said. She studied Siobhan’s hair. ‘Can’t do something with that for you, can I?’

Involuntarily, Siobhan’s right hand went to her head. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘I don’t know... It just... it makes you look older than you probably are.’

‘Maybe that’s the look I’m aiming for,’ Siobhan replied defensively, making her way to the door.

‘Wee perm and a touch-up?’ Angie was asking her client as Siobhan stepped outside. She stood for a moment, wondering what next. She’d meant to ask Susie about Ishbel’s ex-boyfriend, the one she was still friends with. But she didn’t want to go back in, and decided it could wait. There was a newsagent’s open. She thought about chocolate, but decided to look into the pub instead. It would give her something to tell Rebus; maybe even score her some points if it turned out to be one of the few bars in Scotland not to count him as a one-time customer.