Pad back into the warm flat. All the way down on the street the lights of No. 10 Luckenbooth Close glow warmly in the dark air. Rain begins to spit again on the street. Some of the building’s curtains are open. Some are closed. A few have gaps. A lot of the shutters are now nailed back or removed. In No. 5F5 Ovid scratches the bottom of his cage and whispers – walls. Walls. Walls. Walls. The only one who knows why he is doing this is Agnes but she can’t even blink properly any more. In the window she sits looking out at the city. Her husband combs her hair. In the window above Bill and John have their arms wrapped around each other. They too are staring out at the lights of Edinburgh and even the ones which sparkle away out there across the water – the long dark line underneath the Firth of Forth. They turn toward each other and kiss for the longest time – atoms and particles, words not better than feelings. In their kiss for just a minute there is no yesterday and no tomorrow – no fear, no pain. Cosmic rays shower secondary particles soundlessly all over the world.

Part III

1977

Flat 7F7

Queen Bee (21) the red room

COCO CAN’T be more than fifteen years old. She twirls around a pole on the small stage at the end of the bar. She is wearing stiletto sandals, with ribbon snaked around her ankle and tied in a bow at either side of her knee. Her skin is pale and unblemished. She turns back to smile at the small audience of men, undoes her bra, holds it out and lets it drop.

Her older sister has just finished dancing. Ellie has blonde hair and blue eyes too. She sashays toward the toilets, down a narrow hall where there is a small nook for lap dances. A man walks behind her and they disappear into the recess as the double front doors to the Red Room are pushed wide open.

The sisters’ mother looks up from behind the bar as four people walk in and stand in a row.

Drinks are poured in silence.

Four whiskies slide across the bar top.

No money changes hands.

The Original Founders are rarely seen.