The McBains are notorious for fighting at a funeral. So much so that their father adopted a rural Chinese tradition: inviting strippers to attend. He claims it’s done over there to get more people to come along and bless the deceased. Over here, he thought it could encourage peaceful relations between mourners. The sisters from the Red Room have done six funerals this year. There has not been a fight at a single one. There are other unusual things that happen around their father. He swears he met the devil’s daughter in the White Hart twenty-six years ago. He claims she told him that she had lived with a Mr Udnam – a man who used to own half the city and kept the women in his life in check with a constant fear of their potential murder. The city has a big statue of Mr Udnam. It often wears a traffic cone on its head due to the pathetic inability of most students to commit any proper kind of crime. The story goes: the devil’s daughter told their father neither son would make it to thirty. He claimed she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen even in spirit – far more alive than most. He said that she wore a charcoal-coloured dress and a Luckenbooth brooch and she still drinks in the White Hart with her pretty horns on show – even to this day. To be fair, all the pub’s cleaners have quit over the decades. They just can’t find one who will stay. Nobody talks about it. But what isn’t haunted in this city? This city’s ghosts haunt babies from the womb. Real Edinburgh people are part otherworldly; it underlines their particular brand of crazy. Their father responded to the woman’s premonition. Trained the boys in boxing and weapons from the age of three. Once, an older laddie on their street battered Ali. Their da went mental. Smacked Ali. Put him out the house. Said he would not be allowed in again until he battered that twelve-year-old senseless. He locked the door. Left him on the street in the rain. Ali knocked and knocked. Eventually, he went and found the boy. Battered him until he couldn’t speak. Went back home again. He was seven years old.

Ali looks back at Bee and Rab and he does not smile.

The basement door is covered in graffiti.

YLT.

YCD.

JUNGLE.

YNT.

Chinese symbols are carved into it too and there are four long marks which look like a big cat has gouged the door.

– What are you doing for your birthday?

– We’ll go for a pint or two, Bee.

– It’s your thirtieth, you’ve got tae do something better than that!

– Are you ready? Ali, Davey?

– Aye, Rab.

Davey pulls out a wide sword. Ali clicks the lock off on a double-barrel rifle.

They walk up the stairs in silence.

They stop at the seventh floor.

All nod.