Read The Naming Of The Dead (2006) for Free Online Page A

were kids on the outside, making Nazi salutes. They wore regulation dark hooded tops and wanted the guards to send out “all the hippie scum.”
    “The revolution starts here!” one of them yelled. “Up against the wall, wankers!”
    “Pathetic,” Siobhan’s mother said.
    But now there were objects sailing through the darkening sky.
    “Get down,” Siobhan warned, all but pushing her mother into the tent, unsure what protection it would offer from the volley of rocks and bottles. Her father had taken a couple of steps toward the trouble, but she hauled him back, too. Santal was standing her ground, pointing her camera toward the melee.
    “You’re just a bunch of tourists!” one of the locals was yelling. “Piss off home on the rickshaws that brought you here!”
    Raucous laughter; jeers and gestures. If the campers wouldn’t come outside, they wanted the guards. But the guards weren’t that stupid. Instead, Siobhan’s friend was on his radio for reinforcements. Situation like this, it could die down in moments or flare into all-out war. The guard found her standing by his shoulder.
    “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure you’re insured...”
    It took her a second to get his meaning. “My car!” she shouted, heading for the gate. Had to elbow her way past two more guards. Ran out onto the road. Her hood was dented and scratched, back window fractured, NYT sprayed on one door.
    Niddrie Young Team.
    They stood there in a line, laughing at her. One of them held up his camera phone to get a picture.
    “Take all the photos you want,” she told him. “Makes you even easier to trace.”
    “Fuckin’ police!” another of them spat. He was in the center, a lieutenant behind either shoulder.
    The leader.
    “Police is right,” she said. “Ten minutes in Craigmillar cop-shop and I’ll know more about you than your own mother.” She was pointing for emphasis, but all he did was sneer. Only a third of his face was visible, but she would file it away. A car was drawing up, three men inside. Siobhan recognized the one in the back: local councilman.
    “Away you go!” he was yelling as he emerged, waving both arms as if putting sheep back in a pen. The gang’s leader pretended to tremble but could see that his fellow soldiers were wavering. Half a dozen of the security had come from behind the fence, the bearded guard at their head. Sirens in the distance, growing closer.
    “Go on, bugger off with you!” the councilman persisted.
    “Camp full of lezzies and fags,” the gang’s leader snarled in reply. “And who’s paying for it, eh?”
    “I very much doubt you are, son,” the councilman said. The other two men from the car were flanking him now. They were big men, probably hadn’t backed down from a fight in their lives. Just the sort of pollsters a Niddrie politician would need.
    The gang leader spat on the ground, then turned and walked off.
    “Thanks for that,” Siobhan said, holding out a hand for the councilman to shake.
    “Not a problem,” he replied, seeming to dismiss the whole incident, Siobhan included, from his mind. He was shaking the bearded guard’s hand now, the two obviously known to each other.
    “Quiet night otherwise?” the councilman asked. The guard chuckled a response.
    “Was there something we could do for you, Mr. Tench?”
    Councilman Tench looked around him. “Just thought I’d drop by, let all these lovely people know that my district stands firmly behind them in the fight to end poverty and injustice in the world.” He had an audience now, fifty or so campers standing just on the other side of the fence. “We know something about both in this part of Edinburgh,” he bellowed, “but that doesn’t mean we’ve no time for those worse off than us. Bighearted, I like to think we are.” He saw that Siobhan was examining the damage to her car. “Few wild ones in our midst, naturally, but then what community hasn’t?” Smiling, Tench opened his arms again,