The Bullet Trick (42 page)

He turned and smiled a happy full-on denture smile and some old men joined in.

But the only thing that I ever did wrong
Was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.

The result was surprisingly melodic, when you considered that it was 2.30 in the afternoon and everyone seemed to be pissed. The aged singer had eyes the colour of forget-menots. They were soft and wet and happy with drink and memories. He cast his gaze around the room.

One night this maid came to my bed
Where I lay fast asleep.
She laid her head upon my chest
And then she began to weep.

'You’re a dirty bugger, Peter,' shouted one of the drinkers. The old man smiled and tipped the heckler a wink, but he kept on singing.

She sighed, she cried, she damn near died.
She said, 'What shall I do?'
So I took her into bed and I covered up her head
Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.

Behind my eyes a man covered a woman’s ruined head with a clean white sheet. I put down my drink and went into the gents to splash water on my face. When I returned the song was over and someone had taken my place by the fag machine, but my drink was still there.

The barman squeezed by, collecting empty glasses. He handed the singer a half pint and a nip and said indulgently, 'There’ll be no cut-price pensioner half’n’halfs if you lot get me shut down. Yous know I’ve no got an entertainment licence.'

An old drinker leant over.

'It’s a dog licence he’s needing with a voice like that.'

There was a burst of laughter, then someone on the other side of the room raised their voice and shouted, 'Give us a song, Ann.' The rest of the regulars took up the cry till even the men who’d only come for a St Patrick’s Day bevvy joined in. The young barmaid shook her head shyly, but the drinkers kept up the demand, some of them banging the table with their pint glasses, chorusing Ann, Ann, Ann until the manager hurried back behind the counter and led the girl out in front. There was a call for hush followed by a shushing that threatened to descend into disruption, then the girl raised her face to the ceiling, closed her eyes and started to sing. Everyone else fell silent.

My young love said to me, 'My mother won’t mind
And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind'
And she stepped away from me and this she did say:
'It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.'

Her voice was high and clear and pure. It should have made me think of green rolling hills and the white froth of a waterfall glinting against the sun, but instead I saw Sylvie strapped to the target as I walked towards her, masked in my Young Bones Wilson costume. She seemed to press herself against the board. One of the sparkles in her hair caught the light and a bright prism glanced into my eyes, giving me a quick flash of the whole rainbow spectrum. It was an instant as fast as a bullet, then it was gone and there was just the frightened girl and the faceless audience watching from the dark.

As she stepped away from me and she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her move here and move there
And then she turned homeward with one star awake
Like the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

I took the bullet from my pocket, gripped it between my finger and thumb and held it high in the air. Dix came out of the blackness, the scarf still hiding his features. He had a second man with him. The man wore a smart black suit over a black shirt and a latex mask of a red fox. The fox’s wide smile was hungry, the eyes that glinted from its head an unnatural green that made me think of the damage a broken beer bottle can do.

The people were saying, no two e’er were wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,
And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

The fox stared at the bullet for an age, turning it over in his hand, holding it close to his eye examining it until I lost track of time. Then at last he took the pen from Dix’s hand and initialled the bullet along its edge, making sure he’d recognise it again. I handed Dix the revolver and he passed it to the fox, who examined it with the same intense thoroughness he’d used on the bullet. Then he gave the gun and bullet directly to me and stared through his green eyes as I placed the bullet into the revolver. That was the difficult moment, the point where I made the switch. And I managed it; I swapped the live bullet for its wax twin and loaded it into the chamber right before his suspicious eyes. He walked away and Sylvie and I were left facing each other in the bright white pool of light, surrounded on all sides by a blackness darker than deep space. I continued my mantra, concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, until her face lost its focus and became just a pale white thing, pressed behind glass, like a dead butterfly with a red marking at its centre.

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in.
So softly she came that her feet made no din
As she laid her hand on me and this she did say,
'It will not be long, love,' til our wedding day.'

The pub broke into a racket of applause, rattling beer glasses and whoops. The barmaid bowed prettily and ducked behind the counter before she could be pressed into an encore. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and took another sip of my whisky. Then something made me look through the crush of bodies to the far end of the room, to where Inspector James Montgomery stood, still and sober amongst the revelry, with his eyes fixed on me.

The ex-policeman gave me a vague smile, the kind you might give a man whose face you recognise but can’t quite place. I kept my own expression neutral and said, 'You’re early.'

'Yeah, well I thought I’d arrive in good time, do a bit of sightseeing. I’ve never been to Scotland before.' He grinned. 'No wonder all you Jocks head down south.' Montgomery shook his head. 'What a dump.'

'Not like the classy joint you had your retirement do in, eh?'

'I’m not talking about this place, shithole though it is. I thought I’d make the most of my time up here; take in some of the sights. No offence but it’s like going back fifty years.'

'No offence taken.'

The turns had ceased for a while and Dean Martin was belting out ‘Little Old Wine Drinker Me’ from the jukebox. He wasn’t as popular as the barmaid, but he was going down OK and a few diehards were joining in the chorus. Montgomery laughed and put his arm around me like a man enjoying a good joke and I felt something small and blunt press into my spine.

'Cumbernauld was the worst though. The conditions people live in there, especially the old folk, appalling. Quite frankly some of them’d be better off dead.'

My resolution to stay cool disappeared in a quick flash of heat. I hissed, 'You fucking go near my mother and you’ll not live long enough to get what you’re after.'

Montgomery wiped away a speck of spittle that had landed on his face.

'Touched a nerve did I?' He pressed a little further into my back. 'Must’ve done to make you start threatening a man who’s holding a gun to you.' He grinned. 'You can’t win, son. Just hand over what’s mine and you never have to worry about me again.'

'I don’t have it on me.'

'Then let’s go and get it.' He smiled again. 'Shall I tell you a secret?'

'If you like.'

Montgomery put his face close to mine and whispered. 'Your mother isn’t all you have to worry about.' His smile was small and sweet as a cupid’s. 'I know all about your little German girlfriend.'

My voice was hoarse.

'How do you know?'

'Thirty-five years on the force has got to teach me something.'

My lips formed her name.

Sylvie.

'What do you know?'

Montgomery grinned.

'Oh, I know everything. What was her name again? Sylvie, that was it, wasn’t it? She was quite something in that hotel room, eh? Too good for you, that’s for sure.'

The sound of Sylvie’s name on the lips of a policeman hit me in a dizzying wave of dread and liberation. The bitter release of fear made flesh made me laugh. The worst had happened, but I wasn’t headed for a jail cell, not yet anyway. The balance of the deck had shifted. Up until now I’d wanted to free myself of guilt and Montgomery in one blow. But it seemed that he knew as much of my crime as I did of his. It was time for a reckoning and I was about to find out how far I was willing to go.

Most of the drinkers were too busy to notice Montgomery and me pressed together in the corner, but I’d spotted a squat man in a baseball cap staring at us. I threw him a look over the policeman’s shoulder and he leered towards us.

'You a pair of fucking poofs?'

'I’m not, mate,' I made my eyes wide and honest. 'But I think this English git is, he won’t leave me alone.'

The man raised his voice loud enough for the drinkers next to him to hear.

'That’s the trouble with fucking faggots, they want to shove it down everyone else’s throats.'

Montgomery twitched his wallet out of his pocket and flashed his ID, keeping a thumb pressed firmly over the part where it stated his name.

'I’m an inspector in the Metropolitan police force and this man is wanted on serious charges.'

'No problem, big man.' The punter took a step back. 'I was only asking.'

I said, 'Your instinct’s right enough though. He is a fucking poof, always up for Gay Pride duty, if you get my drift. Soon as we step outside he’ll be trying to stick it in my arse.'

Montgomery kicked his toecap into the back of my heel shooting a stab of pain through my tendon, making sure that any thoughts I’d had of flight were over.

The punter said, 'I’ve nothing against poofs myself, like. I mean some of them are a good laugh… Graham Norton… Kenneth Williams…'

He faltered and I added, 'Noël Coward.'

The punter looked confused.

'I’m just saying, live and let live eh?'

Montgomery pulled out a pair of handcuffs and clicked me to himself. Someone in the crowd said, 'Oooh, kinky.' But the rest of the bar was silent. A pathway to the door had magically opened in the jam around us.

'Right,' the policeman’s smile was grim. 'Let’s go for a little walk.'

Argyle Street was busy enough with swarms of Saturday shoppers for two men walking closely side by side to go unnoticed. My bruised tendon shortened my gait, but Montgomery paced himself to my limp and our progress became more of a stroll. A father and son heading home after a couple of pints.

Something caught my eye. A small square of cardboard tagged to a lamppost and painted with sunny clowns and smiling faces. Bright red letters announced the time and venue of Johnny’s benefit in a careful, childish hand. In the sign’s upper corner a moustachioed magician pulled a grinning rabbit from a top hat. I glanced at Montgomery, but his face was set straight, his eyes busy scanning the crowd. Homemade signs decorated with crayon, glitter and tinfoil shone from the rest of the lampposts leading to the Panopticon, my own version of the yellow brick road. There was nothing to do but hope that Montgomery wouldn’t notice.

Moving towards us with the slow, unstoppable assurance of a Sherman tank was an elderly lady being pushed along in a wheelchair by her ancient husband. The wheelchair was strung with bulging carrier bags. They’d been doing their weekly shop, though why they’d left it to the busiest day of the week was beyond me. Maybe they just liked crowds. Montgomery stepped to the left of their path and I started to go with him, it was only at the last minute that I steered in the opposite direction, putting the wheelchair between us.

'Christ Almighty, can yous no watch where you’re going?'