The Night Hunter by Caro Ramsay Page A

disgusting baggy jogging bottoms, which are four inches too short so the world can see his white socks. The waist elastic is still fighting to contain the swollen belly that protrudes and flops as he waddles. He’s wearing a faded Fred Perry shirt and the bobbles on his burgundy fleece are visible from the opposite side of the road. The scent of old nicotine carried on the wind might just have been my imagination. He looks like a jakey just out the hostel and looking for a bin to rake through. As a disguise, it’s a good one.
    If it is a disguise.
    At the door of the café he drops his cigarette, stubbing it out under his toe before grinding it into the ground with a foot motion that reminds me of my dad doing the twist. He waves. He has known I was here all along.
    This is a lesson for me. Never underestimate him – he is a clever man. He just hides it well.
    I get out the Merc, lock it and wait a minute for the traffic to pass. The Henry the Eighth Tearoom used to be a small department store but now it is a Thornton’s and a bakery on the ground floor and the café on the first. There is a gallery of overpriced prints of little girls with unfeasibly large eyes looking at lambs under a sky the colour of an engorged spleen on the stairway. Little wonder there is such a high level of drug abuse in the area.
    The café smells of damp and chip fat, and the ancient Artex on the ceiling is stained with circles of water damage. Slip-on Shoes is sitting at the fake coal fire, which is on full blast despite the fact that it is the middle of summer. As I walk towards his table, I feel I am walking uphill. The building seems to be slowly sliding into the Firth of Clyde.
    ‘Take a pew,’ he says, without looking up from the menu.
    I slide into the seat opposite him.
    ‘The latte is good, ’cept it’ll be cold or in the saucer before you get it.’ He sucks air through his teeth; it sounds like someone clearing a blocked drain. ‘But you do get a nice wee biscuit.’ He flicks the menu with his thumb. ‘I’ll have a Coke, chips and cheese sauce.’
    ‘Classy.’
    A waitress with peroxide hair and five chins is hovering. Both her black jumper and matching skirt are in need of a good wash. Her face powder has sprinkled over the front of her jumper, making her bosom look like a dusty shelf.
    He orders.
    The waitress turns to me. ‘And what do you want, son?’
    I say nothing. Then ask for a black coffee, folding my menu over and giving it back to the stupid cow.
    ‘You’ll get that a lot, with a face like yours,’ he says as he watches her waddle away, her worn shoes scuffing the carpet as she goes, leaving a dual trail in the pile like a jet engine. I watch him watch her, his tongue playing around his lips. His face is red and swollen, with flecks of dry white skin around his nose and mouth. The whites of his eyes are red-veined and yellow-tinged. I could write him up for a case study at uni and list his disease processes alphabetically.
    His eyes are still on the waddling figure as he says, ‘So you phoned me because … let me guess, you saw me on the news?’
    I nod.
    ‘And you are wondering if it was pure chance that I was at that meeting?’
    I nod again.
    ‘Do you know how many meetings like that one I’ve sat through, listening to all the shite of the day? Listening for anybody with a story like Gillian’s?’
    ‘You were lucky you picked that meeting.’
    He winked. ‘Not called Billy the Fox for nothing. Your dad put it on Facebook.’
    I say, ‘He’s not my dad.’
    He drops his eyes from mine the way folk do when they touch a raw nerve. I pick up a small envelope of sugar from the bowl and squeeze all the contents up to one end. I have only one question for him. ‘Can you help me find Sophie?’
    ‘Can you help me find Gillian?’ He chews on his lip.
    I stare him out. He blinks first.
    ‘I was in charge of the Gillian Porter case and I failed to find her. She went missing in the first week of March