Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

Casey shrugs. ‘We turned over every rock and shook every tree.’

‘What did Ellis say?’

‘He told us he lost the ’van in a poker game. Gordon likes playing the cards and he likes the horses. Spread betting - the work of the devil. Word is that he skipped town owing a loan shark called Terry Spencer fifteen grand.

‘Terry is a reasonably easy-going lad, but he lost patience and sent one of his boys looking for Ellis to remind him of his fiscal responsibilities - know what Ah’m saying? Stan Keating took a flight down south to Bristol and visited Ellis; roughed him up a wee bit, poured acid on his motor, the normal stuff.

‘About a fortnight later Stan was back in Edinburgh, drinking at his regular boozer in Candlemaker Row, when a guy turned up looking for him - an Irishman with weird tattoos on his face. He asked after Stan, who was sitting not twelve feet away, but the barmaid was old school and didnae say a thing.

‘For the next hour the Irishman waited, drinking orange juice and doing a crossword puzzle, cool as you like. Stan was watching him and making phone calls, arranging reinforcements - two brothers, the Lewis twins, good wit’ iron bars.

‘Eventually, the Irishman gets sick of waiting. Stan follows him outside where the Lewis twins are waiting. “You looking for me?” he asks, taking off his gold watch and rolling up his sleeves. The Irishman nodded. “You got fifteen seconds tae state your business,” says Stan.

‘“You paid a visit to a school teacher.”

‘“What’s that got to do wi’ you?”

‘“You made a mistake.”

‘Stan gives a glance over his shoulder at the twins. Smiles. In that split second he discovered the truth about the Irishman. A silver knuckleduster spiked with half-inch nails crushed his windpipe. It was three against one. They didnae stand a chance. The Irishman drove the knuckleduster into one twin’s jaw and took out the other twin with a telescopic baton that broke both his arms.

‘The fight lasted less than thirty seconds. Stan and the twins were on their knees, foreheads bent to the ground, whimpering. Stan’s voice box couldnae be repaired.’

The skin on Ruiz’s face flexes against the bone. ‘How did Gordon Ellis get a friend like that?’

Frank Casey shrugs his shoulders. ‘Ah wouldnae want one.’

‘So what about Terry Spencer?’

‘He got his money eventually. Ellis’s new family probably stumped up the cash, but that’s just a theory.’

‘And Stan Keating?’

‘He drinks in the same pub, but he don’t say much any more. Ah guess you could call him a man of few words.’ Casey rises from the bench and extends his hand. ‘Ah know Ah shouldnae say this, but Ah’m glad Gordon Ellis isn’t mah problem any more. Ah hope you have more luck than we did.’

Resting the shotgun over his shoulder, he shuffles up the cinder path to the rest of his retirement.

It’s mid-afternoon. Bobby’s Bar has a dozen or so drinkers inside and the nicotine-addicted at an outside table. The retired, the unemployed and the unemployable - old men in quilted jackets with awful teeth. It’s like a horror film: Night of the Unsmiling Granddads .

A plaque on the wall tells the story of the place. John Gray, an Edinburgh policeman, died of tuberculosis in 1858 and was buried in the adjacent yard. His dog, a Skye terrier called Bobby, spent the next fourteen years guarding his master’s grave until the dog died in 1872. There’s a statue of Bobby on a plinth outside - another monument to our desire to erect monuments.

The barmaid tries not to react when I mention Stan Keating’s name, but a small twitch in the corner of her mouth tells me she’s lying. Ruiz is already ordering a pint so as not to waste the trip. He hands the barmaid a fiver and waits for his change. Bottles of spirits are like glass organ pipes above his head.

Collecting his pint, he joins me at a table and surveys the bar. A lurid computer game winks and squawks in the corner trying to woo punters into competing unsuccessfully.

‘You know the problem with banning smoking in pubs?’ he asks, sucking an inch off the top of his Guinness.

‘What’s that?’

‘The smell.’

‘Of smoke?’

‘Of farts.’

I wait for an explanation.

‘Take a whiff of this place. Disinfectant and farts. Lager farts and Guinness farts and cider farts. When people could smoke, you couldn’t smell their farts. Now you can.’

‘Farts?’

‘Yeah.’

He takes another huge swallow and wipes his mouth. Then he nods over my shoulder. Further along the bar, one drinker sits on a stool studying a racing guide. A cravat is wrapped around his neck, making him look like an ageing fifties film star.

I sit on the barstool next to him. ‘I’m looking for Stan Keating.’

He doesn’t answer. His jacket has holes in the elbows and his nose is a roadmap of broken capillaries. The racing guide is ringed with red pen marks.

‘I wanted to talk about Gordon Ellis,’ I say. ‘Maybe you know him as Gordon Freeman.’

The barmaid answers, ‘He can’t talk.’

I turn to her. ‘I just need to ask him a couple of questions.’

‘Good luck with that,’ she says, polishing a glass. ‘Mr Keating doesn’t like being disturbed.’

‘Maybe he should tell me that.’

Keating reaches for his pint glass and raises it to his lips. The cravat on his neck slips, revealing a scar that extends from his Adam’s apple down his throat until it disappears beneath the fabric.

‘He can’t talk,’ says the barmaid, ‘unless he’s got his machine.’

‘What machine?’ asks Ruiz, who has taken a stool on the opposite side.

She holds her hand to her neck and silently moves her lips.

Keating lowers the glass and continues reading the form guide.

‘You’re not deaf, though, are you, Stan?’ says Ruiz. ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’ He motions to the barmaid. ‘Same again.’

Keating takes his hand slowly from his pocket. I see the dull gleam of steel as he presses a pencil-shaped device to his neck.

‘Tell them to fuck off, Brenda.’

The words have a buzzing metallic quality, like listening to a Stephen Hawking interview without the pauses between the words.

Brenda wipes a rag along the bar. ‘You heard him, gentlemen.’

Keating lowers the device and goes back to his newspaper.

‘Maybe you don’t understand our motives,’ says Ruiz. ‘We’re investigating Gordon Ellis. We know about his first wife. We know about his gambling debts.’

Keating doesn’t respond. He folds the paper and looks at the clock behind the bar.

Ruiz tries another approach. ‘You got children, Stan? I got two. A boy and a girl. Twins. They’re grown up now, but I still worry about them. Joe here has two daughters. Still young. Gordon Ellis is a nonce. He preys on schoolgirls.’

Keating shifts slightly and reaches for a glass, finishing the dregs before placing it carefully down again.

He prods the amplifier into his neck again, aggressively this time. ‘Ah used to sing. Nothing professional, like, just around the piano in pubs and clubs. Ah’d warm up the crowd before the main act. Ah sung Dean Martin stuff and Bing Crosby. Do you remember Dean Martin?’

Ruiz nods.

‘That boy could croon, drunk or sober, but he preferred to be drunk.’

Keating pauses and takes a gurgling breath. His eyes meet mine in the mirror behind the bar. ‘Ah cannae sing nae more.’

‘Who did this to you?’

‘Go home. There’s nae point coming here.’

‘What are you afraid of?’

The statement hits a nerve and Keating’s nostrils quiver as he sucks in a breath. His ears are like cauliflowers pressed to his scalp.