Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3)(32)
The train pulled into Edinburgh Waverley at a quarter past five, but breakfast was not served until six. Strike woke to the sound of a porter moving down the carriage, delivering trays. When Strike opened his door, balancing on one leg, the uniformed youth let out an uncontrolled yelp of dismay, his eyes on the prosthesis which lay on the floor behind Strike.
“Sorry, pal,” he said in a thick Glaswegian accent as he looked from the prosthesis to Strike’s leg, realizing that the passenger had not, after all, hacked off his own leg. “Whit a reddy!”
Amused, Strike took the tray and closed the door. After a wakeful night he wanted a cigarette much more than a reheated, rubbery croissant, so he set about reattaching the leg and getting dressed, gulping black coffee as he did so, and was among the first to step out into the chilly Scottish early morning.
The station’s situation gave the odd feeling of being at the bottom of an abyss. Through the concertinaed glass ceiling Strike could make out the shapes of dark Gothic buildings towering above him on higher ground. He found the place near the taxi rank where Hardacre had said he would pick him up, sat down on a cold metal bench and lit up, his backpack at his feet.
Hardacre did not appear for twenty minutes, and when he did so, Strike felt a profound sense of misgiving. He had been so grateful to escape the expense of hiring a car that he had felt it would be churlish to ask Hardacre what he drove.
A Mini. A f*cking Mini…
“Oggy!”
They performed the American half-hug, half-handshake that had permeated even the armed forces. Hardacre was barely five foot eight, an amiable-looking investigator with thinning, mouse-colored hair. Strike knew his nondescript appearance hid a sharp investigative brain. They had been together for the Brockbank arrest, and that alone had been enough to bond them, with the mess it had landed them in afterwards.
Only when he watched his old friend folding himself into the Mini did it seem to occur to Hardacre that he ought to have mentioned the make of car he drove.
“I forgot you’re such a big bastard,” he commented. “You gonna be all right to drive this?”
“Oh yeah,” said Strike, sliding the passenger seat as far back as it could go. “Grateful for the lend, Hardy.”
At least it was an automatic.
The little car wound its way out of the station and up the hill to the soot-black buildings that had peered down at Strike through the glass roof. The early morning was a cool gray.
“S’posed to be nice later,” muttered Hardacre as they drove up the steep, cobbled Royal Mile, past shops selling tartan and flags of the lion rampant, restaurants and cafés, boards advertising ghost tours and narrow alleyways affording fleeting glimpses of the city stretched out below to their right.
At the top of the hill the castle came into view: darkly forbidding against the sky, surrounded by high, curved stone walls. Hardacre took a right, away from the crested gates where tourists keen to beat the queues were already lurking. At a wooden booth he gave his name, flashed his pass and drove on, aiming for the entrance cut in the volcanic rock, which led to a floodlit tunnel lined with thick power cables. Leaving the tunnel, they found themselves high above the city, cannons ranged on the battlements beside them, giving on to a misty view of the spires and rooftops of the black and gold city stretching out to the Firth of Forth in the distance.
“Nice,” said Strike, moving to the cannons for a better look.
“Not bad,” agreed Hardacre, with a matter-of-fact glance down at the Scottish capital. “Over here, Oggy.”
They entered the castle through a wooden side door. Strike followed Hardacre along a chilly, narrow stone-flagged corridor and up a couple of flights of stairs that were not easy on the knee joint of Strike’s right leg. Prints of Victorian military men in dress uniforms hung at unequal intervals on the walls.
A door on the first landing led into a corridor lined with offices, carpeted in shabby dark pink, with hospital-green walls. Though Strike had never been there before, it felt instantly familiar in a way that the old squat in Fulbourne Street could not touch. This had been his life: he could have settled down at an unoccupied desk and been back at work within ten minutes.
The walls bore posters, one reminding investigators of the importance of and procedures relating to the Golden Hour—that short period of time after an offense when clues and information were most plentiful and easiest to gather—another showing photographs of Drugs of Abuse. There were whiteboards covered with updates and deadlines for various live cases—“awaiting phone & DNA analysis,” “SPA Form 3 required”—and metal file cases carrying mobile fingerprint kits. The door to the lab stood open. On a high metal table sat a pillow in a plastic evidence bag; it was covered in dark brown bloodstains. A cardboard box next to it contained bottles of spirits. Where there was bloodshed, there was always alcohol. An empty bottle of Bell’s stood in the corner, supporting a red military cap, the very item of clothing after which the corps was nicknamed.
A short-haired blonde in a pin-striped suit approached, going in the opposite direction:
“Strike.”
He did not recognize her immediately.
“Emma Daniels. Catterick, 2002,” she said with a grin. “You called our Staff Sergeant a negligent twat.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, while Hardacre sniggered. “He was. You’ve had your hair cut.”