Murderers Anonymous (37 page)

Medlock was the one they all looked up to, and none of them begrudged him his rare gift.

In fact, this year Bobby Dear, who was not especially fond of the man, had searched long and hard through the bookshops and antique markets of the west of Scotland, and had uncovered a near-pristine copy of a 1901 edition of
The Sign of Four
. Not a first edition, but a good catch all the same. He knew Arnie would be chuffed, and despite himself intended to discreetly let slip that it was him who had bought it.

Sadly, what was left of
The Sign of Four
lay smouldering under a pile of ashes in the heart of the fire, which spat and crackled.

Arnie lifted his present to his ear and gave it a shake. Broke into a broad smile.

'Sounds like a book,' he said, and the others laughed.

He frowned along with the smile, however, because he had heard a slight movement with the shake and knew that this was no book. He opened it up. The others looked on, vaguely indifferent. Another Sherlock Holmes, and who cared? Most of them had been forced into dingy bookshops on behalf of Arnie Medlock at some time, and each of them breathed a sigh of relief when they didn't pick him in the yearly draw.

Arnie held up his gift. Face like thunder. The others suddenly showed a little more interest. Morty Goldman, who had been sitting stroking his knife, suddenly leaned forward, eyes lit up. Dillinger held a hand to her mouth.

There was a gasp or two. Frank and Bing broke out into
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
. The fire spat. The Christmas tree sparkled. And the rough nail on the end of the discoloured human finger which Medlock held in his right hand glinted dully in the light.

He looked quickly up at the others, and none of them showed anything other than shock or at least genuine interest. Here we go again, thought Barney. Once more unto the breach.

Medlock gritted his teeth and looked each one of the group in the eye.

'When I find out who did this,' he said, the voice that murdered at least a couple of farmers menacingly low, 'you're in big fucking trouble. Big trouble.'

And they all looked back at Medlock, then glanced around at one another. The Christmas feeling had gone.

Let nothing you dismay.

An hour later, and the mood was still low. Not all of them in the lounge; splinter groups having headed to the kitchen to plunder vast quantities of food, or having made for the snooker room to lose yet another game to Medlock.

Barney had waited for his chance; Dillinger, Winters and Webster had been in conversation, the Snatch Batch as Socrates had called them, discussing the distressing turn of events.

Dillinger wanted to call the police, but that was not an option open to them. None of the people present delighted in the involvement of the authorities in any aspect of their lives; and, what was more, at least three of them had never been convicted, or even suspected, of their crimes. The Feds would not be welcome snooping around and asking awkward questions. The severed finger would have to be ignored or, more likely, left to Arnie to sort out. Frontier justice.

And that was the point of the snooker table, as suspects were brought before him to be interviewed around the green baize.

Morty had been first, as he was everyone's favourite suspect, and he had submitted to the interrogation with a sly, ironic smile. Then Sammy Gilchrist and Socrates; currently Bobby Dear, placid and dour. Medlock was not looking for anyone to confess, he just asked innocent questions in an expert way; and using all his criminal psychopathic knowledge, he knew that he would be able to spot the one responsible when he saw them.

Webster and Winters had gone off to hit the bar, leaving Dillinger on her own. Staring into the depths of the fire, recently puffed up, the wood augmented, by Hertha Berlin; out of whose sight the finger would be kept.

Barney saw his chance; his prey was on her own. The mood may have gone, but still there were points to be scored, opportunities not to be missed. And so he pounced like a wildcat on the slow-moving mouse of Dillinger's distress.

He mooched over, the smooth-talking bastard in his element. Wondering how he could turn the finger thing to his advantage. Wondering how he could put all his experience of bodies and dismemberment to good use. Wondering what he could possibly say to sound mature and sensible, aloof yet concerned, nonchalant yet sensitive to the situation.

He sat down across from her and followed her gaze into the fire. At first she didn't appear to notice him. Quite distracted. Running through each of the group, trying to work out which one of them could have done the finger thing; as well as the small matter of whose finger it might have been. She drew the obvious conclusion that it had been removed from one of the past weeks' murder victims in Glasgow, and that this new serial killer who haunted the city was indeed one of their own.

'Bit of a bastard,' said the eloquent voice next to her.

It took a few seconds to filter through. Eventually she turned, saw Barney Thomson; the one of her group she knew the least, the one of her group of whom, if he was who he said, she should be most afraid. Except for Morty Goldman, of course. They made films about people like Morty Goldman.

'Sorry?' she said. Didn't smile at him. Thinking about the poem.
Feast my eyes on your delicious body.
She was sure it was Barney who'd written it. It had been embarrassing at the time, but what exactly had he meant by it? And now here he was, sitting next to her like an obedient puppy.

She couldn't see any danger in his face, she had to admit that. With all the others, particularly the real lunatics like Goldman and Winters, it was obvious and it was out there. In the eyes, the curl of the lips, the general demeanour. Not in Barney Thomson. He looked like a barber.

'Bit of a bastard,' he repeated, unable to think of anything else.

'What is?' she said. Furrowed brow as she examined him. Having started to convince herself that this man was the killer, now she could see the gormless look of him, with only the remotest hint of Sean Connery remaining.

'Eh,' said Barney, hesitating. 'The, eh, situation, you know. A bastard. The finger and all that.'

'I know,' she said. 'Any ideas?'

A wee tester to gauge the reaction.

'On what?' said Barney. Hoping she had gone off at a tangent, and was asking if he had any ideas who wrote The Poem. Or maybe, if he had any ideas as to how the two of them could spend the night together.

'How the finger got into Arnie's present,' said Dillinger.

'Oh, aye,' said Barney. The finger.

So there was a serial killer among them, he thought. Bugger it. There was always a serial killer; I'm in the mood for love.

'Someone's just having a wee joke,' he said. 'Pretty funny, really, when you think about it,' he added, smiling.

How could he get off the subject and on to more interesting matters such as sleeping arrangements and the hasty removal of women's underwear?

'You think it's funny?' she asked. Perhaps there was something of the serial killer about him after all. 'It was a real finger, Barney. Someone, somewhere, is missing it.'

'Aye, but they'll have another nine. I mean, how many d'you need?'

Smooth. Very smooth. She looked at him in a particular way.

'I'm glad you think this is amusing, Mr Thomson,' she said.

Mr Thomson! An arrow in Barney's heart, and he could feel the pain as sure as if the metal point had just plunged into his chest.

'No, no,' he said quickly. 'I didn't mean it like that, you know. Honest I didn't. I just meant...' God, I don't know. I just meant that I'm a total Muppet. I've forgotten how to relate to women, and I'm a bag of nerves. 'I don't know what I meant.'

He looked into the fire and she looked into his eyes. Could see the hopelessness there and could not associate the callousness of the words with the pusillanimity in the face. She didn't know what took hold of her, or what it was that so dissipated the suspicions of a minute earlier; but she gently touched his hand and squeezed his fingers.

'I understand,' she said.

Zing! Barney looked up at her. At last, suddenly, getting what he'd wanted, despite himself. Zing! I'm in the mood for love! And a million cheesy-listening songs broke out in Barney's head. I'm Errol Flynn, he thought. I'm Casanova. I'm Cyrano de Bergerac without the noggin. I'm John Malkovich in
Dangerous Liaisons
. I'm Joey in
Friends
. I'm alive! I'm Frankenstein's monster without the chip on his shoulder. I'm Peter Boyle. I'm Boris Karloff. I'm Robert de Niro.

Yet, despite the general goofiness of his thoughts, his face displayed nothing, as was ever his way. Still too early to get carried away. And the look he returned to her was as sad as the one she gave him; and he responded to her touch.

Something made Dillinger turn her head; and there in the doorway to the lounge, wiping his hands free of chalk on a dry rag, was Arnie Medlock. Eyes piercing, a look that could kill.

Her heart fluttered but she did not remove her hand from Barney's. Their eyes engaged for a while, then Medlock turned his back and was gone. Dillinger stared after him, briefly caught the eye of Socrates McCartney, who watched the action suspiciously from a corner afar, then looked back into the fire.

The flames hissed and crunched, and the fire slowly growled and emitted small noises as wood slipped and logs diminished.

Barney's eyes were lost within it, and he had not even noticed the attentions of Arnie Medlock. Dillinger stared into the fire and felt quite lost. And did not know that she would never see Arnie Medlock again.

It was raining hard. Hard like wet stone and hard like a slug from a .45. The river was rising faster than a lump on a bashed skull and it seemed like it'd been raining for a million years. And in some ways, for Jade Weapon, it had been.

There's only one thing to do when it's raining, and raining hard, that's what Jade Weapon had always thought. Get hold of a man, shag the life out of him, and leave him dead in the gutter, 'cause that's where all men belong. So she grabbed the Turkish agent, tore down his pants and rammed his throbbing wet love-stick into her sopping engorged sex-hole.

Proudfoot trampled through the wet undergrowth that ran beside the road, dripping branches brushing against her face, the rain teeming down through the trees on top of her. Imagining what Jade Weapon would do in these circumstances; and knowing full well that Jade would grab Mulholland, wildly thrash about in a sexual frenzy for ten or fifteen seconds, then strangle him with her thighs.

Mulholland marched ahead, head down, no particular destination in mind. They had just passed the petrol station and found it long since closed, as this year's serial killer had known they would. And they had trudged along the road ever since, now almost four miles from where they had been fishing; and where they had found Proudfoot's car refusing to start, her radio refusing to work. It hadn't seemed such a long walk for Mulholland in the bright morning, especially given the few miles he'd hitched on the back of a tractor. Had seemed nothing at all for Proudfoot in her car.

Not sure if anything lay along this road before the mansion where Proudfoot's prey was spending her weekend. Vague memories of a house and a church, but neither of them was sure. And so they plodded on, aimlessly through sodden grass, with no plan and without any idea or care for their direction. A fine metaphor for both their lives.