Absolution Read Free Page A

more holes than wool, one red hand held up to protect rheumy eyes from the sun, the other feeling the card carefully between his thumb and the palm of his hand.
    Would that be more polis?’ he asked.
    Two minutes of monosyllabic conversation revealed that Kinstray had little to add to his statement. His speech was so Glaswegian McAlpine found himself subconsciously translating everything the man said. It was a sin what happened to the lassie, he said. She was quiet; he’d heard she was a looker, but he wouldn’t know, would he? She paid her rent in advance.
    ‘How far in advance?’
    ‘Right up tae the end o’ July. Paid it aw up front, the minute she arrived. Wisnae too bothered when ah said she wouldnae get it back if she left early.’
    ‘And she’d been here for…’
    The bony shoulders shrugged. ‘Months.’
    McAlpine sighed. ‘How many months? Look, I’m not interested in how much she paid you, but I need to know when she came here.’
    ‘April, it was. Four months.’
    ‘You didn’t know she was pregnant?’
    ‘If I’d known that, she wouldnae’ve got her foot in the door. That’s just trouble. I foond oot later, though.’ He sniffed in disgust.
    ‘And you didn’t know her name?’
    ‘Don’t know she ever told me, son. Paid cash. No need for references, ah ask nae questions. It’s no’ against the law.’
    McAlpine thought it probably was against some law somewhere, but continued, ‘No visitors?’
    ‘How would ah know, son? She wis in the top room, she’d her own bell. Came and went as she pleased.’
    ‘But you did see – meet her, at some point?’ McAlpine probed gently. ‘You must have gained some sense of her, some impression? Tall? Thin? Fat? Clever? Thick?’
    Kinstray’s tongue probed at the side of his mouth, thinking. ‘Slim, young, she moved light on her feet, even heavy with the child. She wore a nice scent, like spring flowers. She was polite…’ He sighed slightly.
    ‘Local?’
    ‘Wouldnae’ve said so, son. She was polite but’ – he considered – ‘she wis carefully spoken, like, you know? Not stuck up but polite, like a lady. Well brought up now, that’s what ah would say.’ He nodded as if the answer was the best he could do and he was pleased with it.
    ‘How long have you been here, Mr Kinstray? In this house?’ McAlpine asked.
    ‘Thirty-two years, thereabouts.’
    ‘Could you place her accent?’
    Kinstray smiled, a sudden rush of humour lightened his face. ‘Wisnae English, she spoke it too well.’
    ‘I know what you mean. You don’t mind if I look around?’ McAlpine chose his words carefully – this wasn’t an official visit.
    ‘Dae what ye want. You boys took a load o’ stuff away. Told them, end o’ the month, any’hing in her room is in the bin, unless ye can get somebody tae claim it. Shame.’He tutted, arthritic fingers feeling for the door handle. ‘Shame.’
    The building was tall, narrow, stale and dark, and uneasily silent. As McAlpine reached the second-floor landing, someone came out of one of the rooms and locked the door behind them. McAlpine registered the prime example of Glaswegian manhood immediately: dirty-haired, undernourished, hardly out of his teens and scared of his own shadow.
    ‘Just a minute,’ McAlpine called, as the youngster made to scuttle past him to the stairs. ‘Number 12A, up on the fourth floor – did you know her?’
    McAlpine stood in his way, receiving a nervous flash of stained teeth.
    ‘Did you?’ he repeated.
    ‘No. No… I wouldn’t be knowing about that. She never spoke to me, but she would pass a smile on the stairs. That’s all.’
    McAlpine noticed the Highland lilt. Not a Glaswegian, then. ‘Pretty girl?’
    The ratlike teeth flashed again, the thin fingers grasped the leather book he was holding even more tightly. McAlpine saw a glimpse of compassion, a slightly pained expression, before the young man dropped his eyes to the book he was holding, his thumb riffling the gold-edged