Dying of the Light Read Free Page B

LEITH’.
    ‘Right enough’ he muttered.

    Together, the pair continued past the Links and headed towards Seafield Place, a few pedestrians eyeing them warily as they marched on, the placard held high, its message lit up by each passing car. Halfway down the street their prey came into view, a woman lurking in the deep shadows cast by the pedestrian bridge, facing seaward and watching the road as if expecting company. The sound of their footsteps on the pavement was drowned by the engine of a huge articulated lorry, its accelerator revving in readiness for the lights to change and filling the air with thick fumes. Keane’s tap on the woman’s shoulder had her whirlinground, the momentary panic on her face quickly replaced by an exasperated sneer.
    ‘Yous again,’ she hissed, her hostility undisguised.
    ‘Aye, lassie, us again,’ Keane replied calmly. ‘So, on your way, eh? Back to where you came from.’
    The girl, her face uncomfortably close to the men, unexpectedly flicked the peak of her baseball cap up and shouted in their faces, ‘Lena! You up at Boothacre?’
    In the distance, from the direction of the cottages, a faint female voice replied, ‘Aye. Is it they jokers again?’
    ‘Aha. I’m oaf the now. See you up at Elbe, eh?’
    ‘OK. Over ’n’ oot, Belle.’
    ‘Roger,’ Belle answered, before, laughing and looking scornfully at the two men, she taunted them. ‘Nae rogering for yous though, eh? No the nicht, anyway.’
    So saying, she sauntered, hips swaying provocatively, toward Salamander Street and the darkness. In response to a snatch of ‘Greensleeves’, Keane fumbled in his trouser pocket and pulled out his mobile, his wallet coming with it and falling onto the wet pavement. An urgent voice said, ‘Bill, get yourself over here and bring anyone you’ve got with you. It’s the van. They’re in Carron Place again, the cheeky bisoms!’
    Accidentally dropping the phone from his cold fingers , Keane swore in his frustration and David Chalmers immediately discarded his placard and bent down to pick up his friend’s possessions from the ground. Acknowledging his help with a curt nod, Bill finally replied, ‘I’ll see you there, Raymond. David’s going to check the cemetery first. One of them’s hanging about the place as usual.’

    Lena was neither difficult to find nor troublesome to dislodge. She had found only a token hiding place a few yards up Boothacre Lane. When she saw the man approaching her she did not look knowingly at him, an illicit bargain sealed, but instead raised both hands above her head theatrically to signal her surrender, and then sashayed past the Lodge House, heading back towards Mother Aitken’s pub. When, finally, she disappeared past the warehouse corner, David Chalmers began his walk westward towards Carron Place.
    By the junction with Claremont he noticed a woman, short-haired and in a calf length skirt, waiting between the tall gateposts of Villa Deodati. As he came closer, she stayed exactly where she was, the defiant hussy, until he was only a few yards distant.
    He was familiar with the girls’ new techniques – dressing down in an attempt to escape detection. Well, he thought, it won’t work with me. I’m not so easily fooled. Anyway, it’s the eyes that are the giveaway, the windows of the soul. That adamantine hardness, that inhuman look, cannot easily be disguised.
    While he was still openly looking her up and down, a car arrived which, unknown to him, had been shadowing him for the past few minutes. It stopped beside them and a uniformed officer in the car slowly rolled down his window.
    ‘On the prowl, eh, sir? That’s illegal now, the new Act… the Prostitutes Act. But maybe that’s not enough to put you off? One of the hardliners, I daresay. We’ll need to name and shame you, eh?’
    David Chalmers heard himself bluster, a string of high-pitched vowels emanating from his mouth, outrage robbing him of the power of coherent speech. Then