The Quiet Side of Passion Read online

  He followed her reluctantly. “We could just ask the restaurant people,” he said. “We could just say, ‘Who were that couple?’ ”

  “Restaurants don’t give out that sort of information.”

  Jamie objected; sometimes Isabel gave rulings on matters on which she really should not pronounce. “How do you know?”

  “I just know. Come on.”

  When they reached the junction, they looked up and down the wider street; there were a few cars—nothing much at this hour—but no people in sight.

  “Strange,” said Isabel.

  “I told you: they must have taken a taxi.”

  Isabel insisted. “I don’t think they did.”

  “Well, they can’t have vanished into thin air.”

  Isabel hesitated. She decided that Patricia and her companion must have turned off this street onto one of the smaller streets that branched off on either side. But which way would they have gone—to the left, or to the right and over the bridge?

  She turned to face Jamie. “I’m going to go off to the left,” she said. “Can you go and take a look on the right? Over there—over the bridge.”

  Jamie bit his lip. “What’s the point?” His voice was filled with resignation. “If I find them, then what? Walk behind them? With a straight face?”

  Isabel remained calm. “Just see where they go,” she said. “Then we’ll meet back here.”

  She kept it at that, and set off along the road to her left. She did not turn round to see whether Jamie was heading off in the other direction, but he was. He looked over his shoulder once he reached the bridge, and saw that Isabel had reached a corner and was about to disappear. He felt a momentary doubt, asking himself whether he should be meekly accepting being sent off on what was surely going to be an utterly pointless mission or should be backtracking to join Isabel. Leith had a reputation for toughness—it was, after all, a port, and ports were not places you went wandering about late at night. He stopped and turned. The street behind him was once again deserted. There was no sign of Isabel.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SHE HESITATED. There was nobody about, and she was beginning to think that Jamie had been right in suggesting that Patricia and the freckled man had summoned a passing taxi. Unless they had been walking very fast, surely she would have seen them by now—assuming, of course, that they had come in this direction rather than make their way over the bridge.

  She looked down the small side road. It was very much a byway—one of those unexceptional residential streets that cover wide swathes of Edinburgh and Leith with rows of nineteenth-century tenements. The centre of the city might be composed of elegant Georgian squares and crescents, but this was where most people actually lived—in these solid, stone buildings, with their shared doorways leading to four, sometimes five, storeys of flats. Here and there, from the façades of these dour buildings, light escaped from curtained windows; or music; or the sound of television in its persistent babble. A woman came out, dressed in a housecoat, her hands full of household detritus. She glanced at Isabel, no more than a glance, and then made her way to the communal rubbish bins before going back inside, slamming the stair door behind her, as if to make a statement.

  The evening light had now almost faded away completely. The street was lit by streetlamps, but not very well, and there were pools of darkness along the pavement. Isabel began to walk down the street; she would go just as far as the next junction, she decided, and then, if she saw nothing, she would return. Her footsteps sounded on the stone, echoing against the walls of the tenements.

  The flats at ground level had no gardens, but faced directly onto the street. A passer-by, then, walked directly past the front windows, and, if there were no blinds or curtains, was able to see right into the living rooms. Isabel did this now, passing a window through which somebody’s well-lit sitting room was on display. It was not a large room—these flats were very modest—and it was sparsely furnished. There was an easy chair, a sofa and a table. There were several plates on the table and a jug of water. A television in a corner flickered its drama to a non-existent audience; nobody was there to watch. On the wall was a picture of a stag on a mountainside—a cliché of nineteenth-century Scottish art. Feeling guilty over the intrusion, she looked away and continued to walk.

  A man got out of a parked car. He looked in Isabel’s direction, and she stopped. He approached her.

  He spoke before he reached her: “Hello, dear.”

  She stood quite still. This could be a polite evening greeting, or it could be something else altogether. Her mouth and lips felt dry as she struggled to respond. Eventually she managed. “Nice evening.”

  She started to walk again. The man stepped in front of her. Now there was no doubt in her mind that this was serious. She looked over her shoulder; the street was still deserted, apart from herself and this man from the parked car.

  “You out for a walk?” the man said.

  She looked at him. He was in his forties somewhere; dressed in jeans and a zipped-up windcheater. His voice was local.

  “Going home,” she muttered. It was the first thing that came into her mind, but if he thought that she lived near here, she reasoned, then it might put him off. One of these doors could be hers; behind one of these windows might be her family, her people.

  The man was staring at her. “You sound very posh,” he said. “Not from round here, I think.” He leered at her. “Expensive, I’d say.”

  She moved to one side, hoping to dodge him, but he shifted, standing obstinately in her way. He reached out suddenly and gripped her arm. She felt the power of his grip through her clothing; there was shock in the unwanted contact, the assault.

  “Don’t be so stand-offish with me,” he growled. “You people think you can pick and choose, don’t you? You think you’re too good for the average punter.”

  There was a slow-motion horror to her plight, but Isabel found that she was thinking clearly. She could scream; she could try to defend herself, kicking at whatever target presented itself; she could struggle to free herself and then run back towards the junction with the bigger road, along which cars would pass sooner or later. But then she thought that each of these entailed some risk; this man could easily overpower her, could clamp his hand across her mouth and silence her.

  She thought quickly of strategies: de-escalation would give her time—humour him; play along, and await your moment.

  She put on a coquettish voice. “No,” she said. “I don’t think that. And I’m no more expensive than the other girls.” She surprised herself; at first she had no idea where the voice came from, but then she realised: it was the voice of Celia Macdonald, with whom she had been at school. Celia had been famous for her ability to flirt; boys loved it because she was so overt and undemanding; girls laughed at her, imitating her—just as Isabel was now—but seething with jealousy underneath. Celia Macdonald, whom she had not seen for how many years, who married an airline pilot at the first possible opportunity and who went down to live in England, in a small suburban house near Heathrow Airport, now came to her rescue.

  He let go of her arm. “That’s more like it,” he said.

  “My place is back there,” she said. “Just around the corner. You can leave your car here—it’s not far.”

  He was looking at her keenly. “No funny business,” he said.

  She forced a giggle; Celia once again. “Funny business? Not me.”

  “Okay,” he said. “We can go there.”

  They started to walk. He was close to her, but did not touch her, and she wondered what his intentions were. Was he thinking of this as an abduction, or was it simply the way he handled transactions with the women who plied their trade in the darker corners of Leith? Isabel knew that this took place—everybody did, as there were regular articles about it in the Evening News—but thought it was confined to one or
two notorious spots; she had not seen the name of this street, but she did not think it was one of them.

  They passed a builder’s skip, half filled with old plumbing and discarded wooden planks from a nearby renovation; somebody had added an ancient pram, its wheels buckled and its hood torn, and a slew of tins and bottles. Her eye fell on a length of twisted lead piping, wrenched from ancient plumbing; she could grab that and use it as a weapon, but he was between her and the skip and it would not work. De-escalation, she reminded herself.

  “I’ve got some beer in the flat if you fancy it,” she said. The offer came from Celia Macdonald, who made the word beer sound suggestive, such was her skill.

  “Cannae drink,” said the man. “Under the doctor.”

  It was a curious, old-fashioned expression, one that was rarely heard these days. When you were being treated for something, you were “under the doctor.”

  She turned to him. “Under the doctor? You all right?”

  “My stomach,” he said.

  Celia Macdonald could be sympathetic. “That’s a pity.”

  “Aye, well, it means no drink for three months.”

  Isabel laughed. “Big party after that?”

  She could see that he was smiling. He was more relaxed now, and she saw her opportunity. He had stopped because the lace on one of his shoes had come undone, and he was bending down to tie it. She leaped forward, breaking into a run, throwing herself headlong down the street in the direction of the busier road. She screamed as she did so; a long, inarticulate siren of a scream.

  He was quickly back up on his feet. He lunged after her and caught her easily, before she had managed to cover more than a few yards. Isabel felt terror overwhelm her as his hands fell upon her, grasping her arms, pinning them back painfully. She screamed again, and kicked wildly at his shins. He let out a roar of rage.

  A door opened a short distance from where they were standing. It was the woman she had seen earlier—the woman in the housecoat. She took the scene in quickly, and came running towards them.

  The man relinquished his grip.

  “What’s going on?” shouted the woman. “You—you all right, hen?”

  The man took a step backwards.

  “No,” said Isabel. “This man...”

  She gestured towards the man.

  “A domestic disagreement,” said the man. He took another step back and then turned on his heel and made his way to his car.

  Isabel was trembling. The woman put her arm around her. “Do you want me to call the polis?” She used the local pronunciation of police. Poh-lis.

  Isabel shook her head. “No, but would you mind just walking me round the corner? My husband’s back there.”

  The woman was peering at her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Isabel wondered why she had turned down the suggestion that they call the police. She had spoken without thought, but now it occurred to her that the man was dangerous and she had a duty to call the police.

  “The police...,” she began. She felt confused. She had to tell the police about this, but she felt foolish. She should not have been there in the first place and she did not know what she would say to them. But that was not the point, she told herself; I am the victim here. I am the victim.

  “Yes?”

  The man’s car now drew out from the kerb and shot past them.

  “Too late,” said Isabel. “He’s away.” Again, she said this without thinking.

  “I’ll shut my door,” said the woman. “Then I’ll come with you.”

  They walked slowly. Isabel felt her heart pounding within her. It was hard to believe that this had happened, right out in the open; was this what it felt like to be assaulted?

  The woman said, “Sorry to ask, but what were you doing? Are you on the game?”

  Isabel gasped. “No. No. I was...I was looking for somebody who lives round here—I think. Somebody whose name I don’t know. A friend of a friend.”

  The woman looked interested. “Oh yes?”

  “A man who’s about forty, I should think—very freckled face. Freckles all over.”

  The woman responded immediately. “Archie? Archie McGuigan?”

  “He has a very freckly face,” said Isabel. “You can’t miss him.”

  “No,” said the woman, “you couldn’t miss Archie. He lives just back there.” She pointed to the far end of the street.

  “That must be him,” said Isabel. “Do you know him?”

  “To say hello to,” said the woman. “People know one another down here—it’s that sort of place.” She paused and looked at Isabel enquiringly. “What do you want with Archie?”

  “I wanted to ask him about my friend. But not now. Some other time.”

  The woman seemed to lose interest. “I haven’t seen him for a little while. People come and go.”

  “They do.” Isabel was beginning to recover from the shock of her recent experience. Fright had been replaced with anger over what had happened to her, but now that anger was yielding to a feeling of quiet satisfaction. She had found out what she wanted to find out. Her impulse to follow the couple had paid off: she now knew the name of the man with freckles and also knew, roughly, where he lived.

  They rounded the corner, and she saw, only a short distance away, the approaching figure of Jamie. The woman noticed Isabel’s reaction. “Your man?”

  “Yes, my man.”

  Jamie was before them. He looked at the woman and then at Isabel, seeking explanation.

  Isabel touched the woman’s forearm. “This very kind person helped me.”

  Jamie turned to the woman and inclined his head.

  “Some low-life,” said the woman. “Some sleaze-bag.”

  Jamie turned back to Isabel. He looked alarmed.

  “There was a man,” said Isabel. “He tried to pick me up.”

  “We get them,” said the woman. “We tell the polis time and time again that they’re coming down here in their cars, prowling around. And what do the polis do? Nothing. Nothing. They say they have more important things to do, but I ask myself: What’s more important than protecting womenfolk and bairns?”

  Jamie said, “I agree.” He reached out to shake her hand. “Thank you for what you did.”

  “Well,” said the woman, fixing Isabel with a warning stare, “you take care now.” She paused. “Where do youse stay, by the way?” The local plural—youse—was comforting.

  “The South Side,” said Jamie.

  “Morningside?”

  Isabel said that Morningside was close enough.

  The woman chuckled. “You know what they say about Morningside? It’s no Leith, is it? Remember that, hen.”

  The friendly Scottish term of address hen set the seal on the encounter. This was one woman helping another; this was ordinary decency asserting itself. And this still happened—in spite of everything that made the world less personal, less caring, this was still happening. There were still people who looked after one another, called one another hen and walked you round the corner until you were safe once again.

  * * *

  —

  JAMIE WAS INSISTENT.

  “You have to,” he said. “We must go there right now.”

  “But what if they ask what I was doing...” She trailed off. There was a lot that she wanted to say, but she could not find the words.

  He took her hand, but with his other hand he had extracted his mobile phone from his pocket and was beginning to dial the taxi number. “I’m going to ask them to pick us up from outside the restaurant,” he said. “We’ll go straight to the police. There’s a station that covers Leith—the taxi driver will know.”

  She did not argue, and was silent in the taxi on the short journey. Inside the police station a policewoman appeared and led Isabel off to an int
erview room. Jamie was asked to wait behind.

  “Just tell me in your own words,” said the policewoman.

  Isabel said, “I was walking along the street.”

  The policewoman waited.

  “I don’t know the name of it,” said Isabel. “It was round the corner from the restaurant we were in, you see.”

  The policewoman was patient. She asked for the name of the restaurant and drew a small diagram for herself on a pad of paper in front of her. She named a street. “And that’s where you were assaulted?”

  “Yes. A man got out of his car and approached me. He thought that I was soliciting.”

  The policewoman made notes. “And this was not the case?”

  “No. It was not.”

  The policewoman looked apologetic. “Sorry—I had to ask that, you see.” She hesitated before continuing, “What were you doing there?”

  Isabel looked down at the table. “I was following somebody.”

  The policewoman stared at her. “You were following somebody?”

  “Yes. There was a couple in the restaurant. I knew her and she was with this man. I wanted to see where they went.”

  There was silence. Then the policewoman said, “Why?”

  “Because I thought she might be having an affair with him.” She told herself that this was true.

  The policewoman raised an eyebrow. “Private reasons, then?”

  “Yes, private reasons.”

  There was a further silence. Isabel wondered whether this was where the interview would end. And she would not blame the policewoman if she closed her notebook at this stage and concluded that this was a mental-health issue. But that did not happen; rather, the policewoman sighed and asked her to continue. So Isabel told her what had happened and mentioned that there was a witness, if they needed to find one. She could not remember the precise address of the woman in the housecoat, but it was, she thought, the fourth door along from the end of the street. They would find her easily enough if they wanted to.

  At the end of Isabel’s account, the policewoman sat back in her chair. “I’m very sorry you had this experience,” she said. “It happens, I’m sorry to say. There are some men who seem to specialise in intimidating women in these circumstances. You encountered one of these, I’m afraid.”