Shadows and Spirits

Chapter 7

Kelvinbridge was not far from Pitt Street, but the traffic system made getting over to Great Western Road a nightmare. McEwan quickly discovered that, as usual, he had forgotten which roads were closed off and had to backtrack to St George"s Cross and go up Maryhill Road, to turn down into the streets where he wanted to park. He had to negotiate a litter of bricks, empty oil-drums, cars abandoned in the middle of the road and a rude barricade being dismantled by a gang of kids who should all be in school.

Nearer Great Western Road conditions improved slightly. He didn"t have to hunt too long to find a space. After arming the car"s alarms, he soon found himself outside a white plastered building on a quiet terrace. A street or two away the River Kelvin flowed towards the Clyde. Its damp tangy scent was carried down to him on a warm breeze. The tall spire of Kelvinbridge Church cast a shadow down the middle of the road, almost pointing him to the right door.

He walked up to the black door. Two small, brass nameplates sat on either side of it, on the right James Nichol, on the left Catherine Harlow. He knocked on the front door and to McEwan"s surprise found it open. Anticipating the worst, he carefully opened the door. Behind it was a small vestibule from which led to two doors.

The left door was made of heavy, dark wood. He guessed that this was Kate"s flat. The door on the right, that appeared to be composed of curls of peeling white paint, clinging to a decaying pine frame, stood ajar.

He began to fear something terrible had already happened. He hesitated, torn between following up on Kate or investigating the open door. He peeked into the ground floor flat. McEwan could see a tasteless, paisley patterned carpet, hear the retort of TV gunfire and smell the heavy ooze of old chip fat. He couldn"t tell if anyone was home. He decided to ring the bell on Kate"s door. After a moment he tried again, still nothing. He tried the door, but it held fast.

He turned back to the open door. He detected the delicious, tantalising smell of cigarette smoke. Someone was here after all. “Hello?” McEwan called, knocking on the door and creating a small flurry of paint flakes.

“Aye, whit can I do for you?” said a gravel voice that had been distressed by a lifelong two-packs-a-day smoking habit.

As he opened the door, paint dandruff accumulated on his suit. “Hi, I"m Consultant Detective McEwan. The doors were open.” McEwan showed his badge as he entered the flat.

“U-ha. Jim Nichol. Take a seat.” The shrivelled and preserved occupant of a worn sofa chair appeared to be about eighty and was indicating the two-seater sofa next to him. “I like to leave them open, get some air into the house.” Nichol took a draw of his cigarette, nearly burning up half of it in one go.

Tufts of stuffing escaped through cuts in the fabric as McEwan sat down. The rest of the room continued the sense that it hadn"t been decorated since the 1970s. The coffee table was laminated chipboard, scarred and burnt where cigarettes had missed the overflowing ashtray or one of the empty Tennants lager cans that covered most of its surface.

“I"m looking for Catherine Harlow, I believe she lives upstairs, but she doesn"t appear to be home. Do you know where she works?” asked McEwan.

“She works for the paper. She"s no been home fer a few days though. I thought I heard a lot ae clatter the other night, last I heard ae her. I canna see her as the type to go nicking stuff, she pays her rent on time and sometimes gets me ma messages when I cannae make it to the shops. She"s a good girl with a good job, nae a troublemaker,” said Jim Nichol with a note of accusation.

“I wasn"t looking for her in connection to a theft,” McEwan said.

“Aye, I forgot, you boys dinnae bother to look into that kinda thing these days, unless some rich type pays you to look for their missing stuff,” Nichol said with venom. Perhaps he had some stuff still missing.

“Actually, I"m here to see that she"s okay, I"m working on a murder case and I"m following up on a lead that suggests she may be in danger.”

“I ken you now, seen you on the news. I thought they said this morning you"d found that bastard? You think Katie"s been murdered too? Have you caught this guy or not?” Nichol"s eyes narrowed and McEwan felt he was looking right through him.

“That"s what I"m trying to determine,” McEwan said. “If I can speak to Ms Harlow, or go up and check on her flat, I will hopefully be one step closer to being certain. Since you"re her landlord do you have a spare set of keys I could borrow?”

“Okay son, I"m sure she"s fine. There"s a set of keys on the mantelpiece.” Nichol indicated the tiled construction that surrounded a gas fire with his right hand, cigarette clenched between fingers, sending a plume of smoke into the air.

“Thank you,” said McEwan getting up and retrieving the keys. “I"ll bring them back soon.” Nichol glared at him and McEwan was glad to leave.

He unlocked the door and turned on the light, then climbed the narrow staircase to the upper flat. The stairwell was filled with framed photographs of various henges, circles and other groupings of standing stones. McEwan was able to make out some of the more famous ones, such as Stonehenge and Avebury. The short, squat tower guarded by magnificent stone lions seemed out of place. He recognised it as the Hamilton Mausoleum that once stood in the grounds of Hamilton Palace. The palace had been at the end of an avenue of trees leading down from the hunting lodge of Chatelherault. Apart from the section that had been newly planted, the avenue no longer existed, and on the site of the magnificent palace now stood a sprawling shopping centre.

He continued up to the flat itself, the stairs turning to the right. He passed an open bathroom door on the left. He guessed the right hand side was a living room, similar to the flat below and opened the door. He walked into a room in chaos. A long bookshelf, that had divided the room into a lounge and a study, had toppled over, spewing several books, manuscripts and papers across the floor. A computer sat on an old, heavy writing desk. Its side-drawers had been thrown onto the floor mingling with their discarded contents. He tried switching the PC on. After a few moments and some fine whirring a penguin logo appeared onscreen. The PC was using a variation of the Linux operating system. The command line prompt asked for a login. He abandoned it for the time being.

The bedroom was also in disarray. A wardrobe and chest of drawers had regurgitated their contents over the room. The kitchen had also been ransacked. The boxes and cartons in the hall cupboard had been pulled off shelves and emptied onto the floor. The bathroom appeared to be untouched, but it contained no obvious hiding places. Someone had either attempted to find something in a blind panic or had attacked the flat in a fury. It was hard to know whether to call in the guys in forensics or let them have a day off. McEwan decided to ask Jim Nichol a few more questions and headed to the stairs.

The mausoleum caught his eye on his descent. It puzzled him that such a different stone monument would be arranged amongst the others. He stopped and took the picture from the wall. He felt something on the back and turned it over to have a look. A small, unsealed, plain white envelope was taped across the back of the picture. He peeled it from the backing board and opened it. On the pristine sheet of paper inside two words were printed: sang-real and san-graal. Right now the words meant little. Maybe someone back at the Agency might have an insight. Someone like Malcolm, perhaps, with his ability to retrieve facts better than the database. There was a computer in the front room. He reckoned these were a username and password.

sang-realsan-graalHe waded through the debris of the living room and righted the swivel chair that would have sat in front of the desk. McEwan entered sang-real at the login request and hit return. Password. McEwan entered san-graal and hit return. The machine simply gave him another prompt: [sang-real@arcadia sang-real]$. He was so used to using a windows based machine that he wasn"t sure he had even logged on successfully. He wracked his brain trying to remember the commands he had used on the Sun workstations at university.

sang-realsan-graalEventually it came back to him. He opened a window system and discovered a single file – journal.txt. He opened it in what seemed to be a word processing program.

Sure enough it appeared to be a journal. McEwan skipped to the end, its most recent entry was two days ago:

Too late to go back, but sometimes I wonder how I got myself into this. Robert did warn me of the dangers. Kether"s teaching has helped me cope, helped me stay in control. I still lose it sometimes. Kether has also warned me about Robert. I no longer know what to believe. He does seem to be following me, though. I"m not sure why. Actually, I think I do. He thinks I can solve this, when he hasn"t been able to. He needs to keep track of me in case I get there first. I just hope I can lose him.

Too late to go back, but sometimes I wonder how I got myself into this. Robert did warn me of the dangers. Kether"s teaching has helped me cope, helped me stay in control. I still lose it sometimes. Kether has also warned me about Robert. I no longer know what to believe. He does seem to be following me, though. I"m not sure why. Actually, I think I do. He thinks I can solve this, when he hasn"t been able to. He needs to keep track of me in case I get there first. I just hope I can lose him.Reminded of the danger Kate was in McEwan decided to read the rest of the journal later. He took out the memory stick on his key ring and made a copy of the file. He switched off the machine and taking the passwords with him went downstairs to face Jim Nichol again, locking the door behind him.

“Hello?” McEwan said, as he entered the ground floor flat.

“Come in lad, just put the keys back where you found them,” said Nichol, who didn"t appear to have moved, save to light a fresh cigarette. The Western did not appear to have finished either.

“Can I ask you a couple of quick questions?” said McEwan, standing in front of the TV.

“Aye but I"m tryin to watch the film.”

“You said it"s been two days since you last thought Ms Harlow was home?”

“Yes.”

“You said there was a commotion. Any sounds of a fight? Was there anyone else in the flat?”

“There was a lot of noise. I couldnae be sure there wasn"t someone with her, but I usually know. I, er, hear them, on the stairs,” Nichol said somewhat slyly. “It sounded like she was rowing with someone, but I was sure I didn"t hear anyone go up with her.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?” McEwan said, not sure he would like to hear the answer, but he knew it was important to help find her.

“I"m not sure. There"s a guy who seems to come over occasionally. I"ve never actually seen him, though I"ve heard her call him Ro-bear.”

“Ro-bear?”

“Yeah, you know like Robert but without the t at the end. French or something like that.” From Nichol"s intonation, he seemed to regard the French with some distaste.

“Okay. Where did you say she worked again?”

“The daily paper. The Record, down on the quay.”

“Thanks for your help, Mr Nichol.”

“Aye. Well I know where you are if you"ve no caught the right guy and something happens to her.” Nichol stabbed the ashtray with the cigarette.

McEwan smiled and headed out the flat trying to understand how a shrivelled octogenarian could unnerve him so much.