Slip of the Knife (28 page)

“I want to go back that way but they won’t . . .” He pulled the car forward to the edge of the tarmac. “Just . . . go, I suppose.”

It was terrifying: Merki shot forward just as a Range Rover belted around the corner at sixty. His Nissan had no power and he couldn’t speed up to get clear. The Range Rover was on top of them, brakes screeching, lights flashing in the rearview.

It was at that moment that Paddy realized in a wash of horror why Terry Hewitt didn’t live here: when he was seventeen years old his parents had died in a car crash and they had died on this road, somewhere, on a corner with dead flowers. He had told her about it when she was young, when she told him about Patrick Meehan and all her secret shame about the case. He heard her but she didn’t take in what he was saying: her family didn’t own a car and the crash seemed glamorous to her then, Jayne Mansfield-esque. She’d envied his freedom.

Merki raised his hand to the Range Rover and carried on, building his speed up to thirty-five. She’d dropped her cigarette on the floor but was too afraid to let go of the door handle and reach down to get it. They hit a straight stretch of road and the lumbering four-by-four pulled into a break in the oncoming traffic, honking furiously as it overtook them. Merki waved back. “Thank you,” he said. “Shit, we’re going the wrong way, though.”

“Don’t you dare turn around in this road.”

“I’ll just go on to the next roundabout then,” he said happily.

She picked up the cigarette from the dusty floor and took a long, welcome draw. The traffic was building up behind them again, cars passing them in a blur, only to slow abruptly at a roundabout up ahead. A petrol station on the far side of the roundabout was full of haulage trucks.

“This is a nightmare road,” she said.

Merki glanced at his watch.

“What’s with the watch, Merki?” He smiled so she gave his arm a light slap. “And what do you keep smiling about?”

“My cousin’s due a baby,” he shouted, annoyed for no real reason. He rubbed his arm where she’d touched him. “Heard you got a bollocking from Bunty this morning anyway.”

“Oh, aye, he set the police on me. Did ye hear that too?”

He smiled. “Did he get you arrested, did he? For visiting Callum Ogilvy, was it? He had me arrested the other day, drunk in charge of a stapler.”

They were journalists, they could lie to each other for hours at a time, but she really wanted to know. “Come on, why are we here? Why the watch?”

He checked it again and smiled out of the windscreen, slowing for the roundabout up ahead. “OK.” He sighed through his nostrils. “Ogilvy’s out.”

“Out of prison?”

“Aye. Released. Everyone and his auntie’s going to get sent to Driver Sean’s house to sit it out and I figured, you know, don’t be there. They’ll send someone else. If there’s a story you’re never going to get it sitting between the Standard and the Record, are ye? You were visiting him the other day, weren’t ye? That’s why Bunty was shouting at ye, eh? Eh?” He smiled, glancing at her, taking his eyes off the road.

“Pull into that petrol station. I need to make a call.”

“If you’re phoning the office don’t tell them I’m with ye, eh?”

“I’m not phoning the office,” she said, winding her window down and throwing the cigarette out, watching in the side mirror as it bounced behind them on the road and disappeared into the dark under the chassis of a coach.

Despite being next door to the toilets the phone box still smelled of fresh urine. She punch-dialed the Ogilvys’ number quickly, as if she could beat bacterial infection with speed.

They weren’t answering the phone and she wasn’t surprised. When the answer machine clicked on she spoke loudly, knowing kids would be screaming in the background. They were noisy at the best of times.

“Sean, it’s Paddy, pick up the phone, I need to talk—”

The phone clicked and Elaine sighed into the receiver, turning away to tell one of the kids to be quiet.

“Elaine, the papers know Callum’s out.”

Elaine sighed again, heavier this time, in a way that suggested she already knew that, thank you very much, and handed the receiver over to Sean.

“I guess you know then?”

“There’s a bank of them outside the door. They’ve been taking pictures of the kids and the windows and the street and everything.”

“Can he stay indoors for a while? I’ll bring ye in groceries if ye need them.”

“He’s not here, Paddy, he’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“No idea. The STV van was the first to pull up, he saw it and slipped out the door, went round the back and we’ve never seen him since. That was half an hour ago. Could you drive around and have a look for him? He can’t be far.”

It was the last thing she wanted to do. “My car’s in the lot at work, Bunty’s looking for me, I’ve just been picked up by the police and—fuck—Hatcher’s dead . . .” But Sean Ogilvy had been a father to Pete when he was a baby. He and Elaine had babysat to let Paddy go to work sometimes, minded him when he was teething and let her sleep. The only valid excuse now would be if she herself was dead. Sean said nothing but she heard it all.

“OK. OK, OK.”

When she opened the car door Merki had turned on the radio and was happily singing along to “Daydream Believer.”

“Get me the fuck back to Glasgow, Merki.”

TWENTY-FOUR

A TETHERED BALLOON

I

Bright corridors smelling of disinfectant were lined with paintings and collages by various years, proof of work done and time filled. High-pitched singing came from the far end of the corridor but the children behind the door, in Pete’s class, were very quiet. Paddy and the deputy head looked in through the window on the door. Four rows of tiny desks were pointing forward to Miss MacDonald, who was reading them a story. Pete sat in the very front row and Paddy watched him for a moment. He kept turning to his neighbor, a small girl with a patch over one lens of her pink glasses, then glancing at the teacher, remembering he wasn’t to talk.

“Maybe we should get him out of there before he gets into trouble.” Miss McGlaughlin, the deputy head, a stately woman with gray hair held in a butterfly clip, smiled.

She knocked once and opened the door. When the children saw it was her they stood up.

“Thank you, children,” said Miss McGlaughlin. “Good afternoon.”

They chorused, “Good afternoon, Miss McGlaughlin,” at her and she spoke quietly to Miss MacDonald, telling her Paddy’s lie, that Pete’s granny was gravely ill and he was to leave with his mum right now. Miss MacDonald looked skeptical and whispered back, “Is that your mum or Mr. Burns’s mum?”

Paddy could have slapped her. “My mum.”

“I see.” Miss MacDonald turned to Miss McGlaughlin, who looked a little startled that she was quizzing a mother about a potential death in the family. “It’s just that Miss Meehan was telling me Pete’s dad might come to the school and try to take him out.” She looked back at Paddy, stopping short of calling her a liar. “Because if he does come now, what should I tell him?”

Miss McGlaughlin watched her for an answer.

Paddy motioned to Pete to come to her. He stood up and walked over, self-conscious, looking around the adults as if he’d done something wrong. “Pete’s daddy will bring him to school tomorrow, if it’s appropriate. Where’s your coat, son?”

“Am I going to see my dad?”

“Where’s your coat kept?”

He could tell that she was defying the teachers and his eye took on a gleeful glint. “Cloakroom.”

“’Mon.” She took his hand, remembered her manners and turned back to the teacher. “Thank you, Miss MacDonald.”

She was in the corridor before the teachers could stop her, Pete giggly by her side.

He shouted down the corridor to the open classroom door. “Bye ya!”

II

It was typical of his flamboyant style: the giant black Merc dwarfed the small, new-build house he lived in with Sandra, the second, but almost certainly not the last, Mrs. George H. Burns.

The new estate was set on what had been a school sports ground. Making clever use of the small space, wavy roads led off around corners into shallow cul-de-sacs, calming traffic at the same time as giving the impression of not being absolutely tiny. None of the yellow-brick houses were exactly alike, but the differences were minimal and cosmetic, a garage to the left instead of the right, a small window on the stairwell, a window on a roof, just enough to give the impression of individuality without the architect having to go to the trouble of thinking of anything original. The cookie-cutter blandness made Paddy crave a ghetto.

Pete was delighted to have been whipped out of school. He liked going well enough, but it was his nature to enjoy unexpected turns of events: surprise days out, holidays changed at the last minute, onerous trips canceled leaving empty hours to be filled with something else. He clutched his backpack and looked out of the taxi window as if he’d never been here before.

“I’m staying here? For how long?”

“I don’t know, son, but that’s only if it’s OK with your daddy and even then it’ll be a couple of days at most.”

“My Ghost Train video’s here. Dad lets me watch it all the time. Will I still be going to Granny Trisha’s on Saturday though? Will I still get to play with BC on Saturday?”

The taxi pulled up outside the house. “That’s a long way off.”

“But, on Saturday, will I see BC?” He was excited, a little smile playing on his lips and his eyes wide and shining. “Will I, but?”

“Aye, ye will.”

His mouth sprang open in a grin and she threw her arms around him, kissing him all over his face until he got bored and pushed her away.

They paid the driver and got out of the taxi, walking the length of the short lawn, following the yellow slabs making up the path to the front door. Coming from an old West End flat to here made everything seem slightly too small: the doors narrow, the ceilings low, even the windows like miniature impressions of the real thing.

They rang the doorbell, and looked at the white plastic door. Pete traced his finger on the wood effect, finding the groove repeated note for note on the next panel.

“Is it from the same tree?”

“I think it’s plastic with a wood pattern on it.”

He squinted at it. “Plastic should look like plastic.”

“I think so too.”

Following a scuffle of feet in the hallway, Burns opened the door to them, dropped his shoulders, and then remembered himself. He gave Pete a big showbiz smile.

“Hiya, wee man,” he said as Pete clutched his leg, then lifted him up to give him a hug. “Why aren’t you in school?”

Pete hung on to his dad’s neck, squeezing tight before letting go and sliding to the ground. “Mum came and brung me out.”

“Brought you out,” corrected Paddy.

He ran off down the hall to what looked like the kitchen.

“Well.” Burns looked her up and down. “Now why would she do that?”

She looked like shit, she knew she did. Her black skirt was crumpled, her black silk shirt was missing a button at the bottom and she had big stupid orange trainers on. Burns had lost weight in the past few years; he was TV-thin now, so thin his head looked disproportionately big. Dub said he looked like a tethered balloon. Today Sandra had chosen a white T-shirt and white jeans for him, ironed so well they might have come straight from the packet. He had a tan too; they owned a sunbed. Paddy could imagine the house in the dwindling light of an evening, dark but for a tiny bedroom window glowing fluorescent blue.

In the kitchen Pete slid a video into a machine and she heard the opening strains of the Ghost Train theme.

Unexpectedly, Paddy covered her mouth with her hand, pressing the fingers hard into her cheeks, digging into the skin with her fingernails as tears welled up in her eyes. She turned away to the street to hide her face.

Burns watched her for a moment, hand idling on his hip. He leaned forward, took her wrist firmly, and pulled her into the house, out of sight of the neighbors.

The front room had two white leather settees and a glass coffee table in it. In the small picture window Sandra had arranged yellow tulips in an ugly crystal vase. Burns put Paddy on one settee and sat himself down in the neighbor, calmly watching her cry, reaching forward once to pet her knee.

She took the cigarettes out of her handbag and looked for permission. He nodded and she lit up, trembling, her lungs resistant to the deep breath.

“What’s happening?” asked Burns.

“Terry Hewitt was killed, you probably heard.”

“I did, aye.”

“I was named as next of kin. They made me ID the body on Saturday night.”

Burns thought back to Sunday. “You never said.”

She nodded out to Pete in the kitchen. “Well, anyway, I may be a bit freaked by that, and I know I’m overprotective, but Callum Ogilvy’s out of prison and he’s gone missing. I just don’t want Pete in the house or alone in school. It doesn’t feel safe.”

“What happened to Terry?”

“He was shot in the head.” She lifted her cigarette to her mouth but couldn’t face it and dropped her hand. “D’you remember Kevin Hatcher?”

“No.”

“A photographer. He was working with Terry on a book.” She shook her head, bewildered now she thought about it. “A bullshit book, a coffee-table thing. Nice pictures, nothing. Anyway, I was looking through his letter box—”

“How like you.”

She shut her burning eyes. “Please, George.”

“I’m teasing. Just trying to get a rise out of you.” He touched her knee again, telling her to go on.

“Kevin was lying on the ground. He’d had a stroke, swallowed a lot of cocaine, which he wouldn’t. Now he’s dead, there’s no trace of him arriving at any casualty department in the city, the police are warning me off and a bit of the book was missing.”

He stopped her. “You’re not making any sense.”

She tried to sort it out in her mind but gave up. “I used to be fearless about these things. ’Member Kate Burnett? ’Member Callum Ogilvy? Back then I was scared but not like this, not shaken and shitting it and crying all the fucking time.” She took a puff of the cigarette and looked at the floor. A white carpet. What sort of idiot would choose a white carpet in a house with a child? She looked around for an ashtray but there was nothing in the room but the empty coffee table. “Since Pete was born, it really matters if I die, you know?”