The Field of Blood (27 page)

“If I was going to steal it from you I’d hardly be here, would I? I’m interested.”

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her chair, inviting her to sit with him. She dropped her resentment for a moment and imagined that maybe her crush could be reciprocated, just a little. But boys like Terry Hewitt liked girls from houses, girls with slim necks and thick hair who went to uni to study theater.

Her temper flared up again. “I heard you asking Dr. Pete who I was.”

He looked puzzled. “I don’t remember that.”

“In the Press Bar. I heard you ask who the fat lassie was.”

He blushed deep into his shirt collar. “Oh,” he said meekly. “I didn’t mean you.”

“Right? Was Hattie Jacques in the bar that day?”

He rolled his head away from her. “I just wanted to know who you were. I’m sorry.” He cringed. “It was the morning-shift boys, you know? I couldn’t very well—”

“It’s no excuse for being fucking rude.” She sounded more angry than she meant to.

He raised an imploring hand. “If you wanted to know who I was, what would you ask them? Who’s the handsome guy with the perfect figure?” He saw her waver. “If you give me ten minutes I can stretch to a Blue Riband.”

It was as cheap as chocolate biscuits came. She smiled and upped the ante. “Plus a mug of tea.”

He stroked his chin. “You’re a hard woman, but okay.”

Feigning reluctance, she let her duffel coat slip from her shoulders and took her seat again. Terry sat across from her, putting one palm flat on the tabletop as if he was going to reach forward and take her hand in his. The waitress took their order for two cups of tea, a bowl of soup, and a chocolate biscuit. Paddy thought he was having a three-course meal.

“I can’t wait long.”

“It’s just a bowl of soup.”

He was only having soup. She had never known anyone sit down to soup as a meal. Soup was a watery precursor to a meal, a poor man’s filler to stop the children eating all the potatoes. She looked at Terry with renewed admiration. He seemed impossibly sophisticated.

He did the reticent smile again, and she realized that he was working her. She wondered if other women had weaknesses for bonny men. They never seemed to talk about it.

“Did I hear that you were related to someone in the case?”

Now would be a good time to mention her fiancé, but she wasn’t sure if she still had one. “How would I know what you’ve heard? We’ve never spoken to each other before.”

“I know, and it’s a damn shame,” he said, and made her smile.

The waitress came straight back over with two mugs of tangy brown tea and his soup. Terry used his spoon, scooping the soup away from himself, impeccably mannered.

“I wanted to ask if we could work together on the article about the previous case.”

“It’s my idea, why would I want you to work on it with me?”

“Well, I thought about that: I could help you write it up. If you want to move up from the bench you’d want Farquarson to use a substantial chunk of your unaltered copy. Otherwise they’ll just think you’re a researcher. It’s harder than you think, and I’ve got experience of writing long articles.”

She knew he was exaggerating his experience a bit. She’d taken his copy to the print room once or twice and read it on the stairs. It was good, but it wasn’t that good. Still, he would be able to organize the ideas at least, show her how to get from one paragraph to another and keep herself out of it. It was a chance to get her name on something.

“I could be Samantha, your lovely assistant.” He patted his hair. “Add a bit of glamour to the act.”

Paddy smiled despite herself. Terry was arrogant. She saw him allying himself with certain people in the newsroom, the smart guys who picked the right stories and knew what was going on. He was blatantly ambitious, eager to make a space for himself in the world. If he kissed a girl he wouldn’t be prudish about it. He wouldn’t do self-effacing voluntary work with the poor or refuse to have sex until his wedding night. He was the anti-Sean.

“I know where one of the boys lives. I’ve been to his house.”

“So, he is a relative?”

Paddy didn’t want to mention Sean to him. She wanted to keep them separate. “A distant relative.”

“Is that why you’re interested in the case?”

“No, I’m interested because the police are making a lot of jumps. The boys disappeared for hours. Then they took the baby past Barnhill, which is where they live. It’s got acres of overgrown waste ground, but they took him miles away to Steps. Then, supposedly, they crossed over a live rail, did the deed, and got a train back into town, but they weren’t seen on the train or in the swing park or walking back to Barnhill. They could have been helicoptered in for all anyone knows.”

“They were seen, on the train. A witness came forward last Friday.”

Her heart sank a little. “Witnesses can be wrong.”

“This seems pretty solid. It’s an old woman. She’s not an attention seeker. The police must be pretty sure or they wouldn’t be telling anyone about her.”

“Aye, well.” Paddy sipped her tea. “Just because they’re sure …”

They watched the echoes of cars and buses blur past the steamed-up window. Paddy wanted to tell him about Abraham Ross, how the police made sure he picked Meehan out of a lineup. Mr. Ross was certain Meehan was the man. He fainted at the lineup he was so sure, but then he changed his mind before the trial. Witnesses could be swayed, they could change their minds. The woman might be an idiot.

“I’ve got a car,” Terry said suddenly, hesitating because it sounded as if he was boasting.

They looked at each other and laughed.

“Good for you,” said Paddy. “I can eat my own weight in boiled eggs.”

She had meant it half as a reference to her miracle diet, half as a hollow boast. Terry didn’t understand either but found it terribly funny, so funny he lost his tentative smile and opened wide, laughing loudly. For a first conversation with the object of a month-long crush, it was going incredibly well.

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t just boasting about the car. I meant, d’you want to come to Barnhill with me and have a look? I’m busy tomorrow, but we could go on Friday after work.”

She hesitated. Valentine’s Day fell on the Saturday, and she would want to stay in on Friday waiting for Sean’s reconciliatory call.

“I could do with the protection,” he continued. “It’s a bit rough up there, and I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

It was the first time Paddy had ever heard a Glaswegian man admit openly that he couldn’t beat anyone in a fight at any time.

“You’ll need protection. It’s a bit grim up there. Could you make it Saturday afternoon instead?”

“Excelente,” Terry said, toasting her with his mug. “If we work well together, maybe we could do a couple of paragraphs about the hunger strikers’ march as well.” The march was due to take place on Saturday, and everyone in Glasgow knew there was going to be trouble. If they had been talking to each other, Trisha would have forbidden her to go. “You could bring your Papish eyes and tell me what you see.”

“How do you know I’m a Pape?”

“Is Patricia Meehan your undercover name?”

“No, my undercover name’s Patricia Elizabeth Mary Magdalene Meehan.”

He grinned. “Mary Magdalene?”

“My confirmation name,” she explained. “You get to choose a saint you like or want to emulate.”

“You wanted to emulate a prostitute?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know what she did for a living. She was the only woman with a job.”

They smiled at each other.

“Saturday’s fine.”

“During the day,” she said, in case he thought she meant anything by it.

“Great,” he said.

She made up an elaborate lie: she would meet him, but she had urgent business in town on Saturday and could only meet him at the far end of King Street, at a bus stop that was far enough away from the paper to ensure they wouldn’t be seen together. Terry flashed his smile at the table as she made the arrangement, knowing why she was doing it. Even the suspicion of spending free time with a man from the paper would be tantamount to civil death.

Outside the café the harsh light was bright. The lunchtime buses rattled past, full of mums with young kids and students from the poly. Paddy looked up the quiet road and back at the café. It was in a siding to a main road, and it didn’t have a hanging sign. It was well hidden from passersby. She only knew about it because of the time Caroline was in Rotten Row having Baby Con.

“How did you find me up here?” she asked.

“You come here a lot, don’t you? I’ve seen you.”

The words hung between them, as shocking as an inadvertent kiss on the lips, and Terry seemed suddenly flustered.

He punched her arm. “See you later, then,” he said, and spun around, heading down the hill like an angry speed walker.

DR. PETE’S CONDITION

The sun forgot to rise on Thursday. Outside the newsroom windows the city was stuck in perpetual twilight, the sky darkened by a bank of thick black cloud. Every light in the newsroom blazed bright. It was two in the afternoon, but it felt like a busy midnight shift, as if some great catastrophe had occurred in the dead of night, causing them all to be called back in to draw up a fresh edition.

Paddy was looking for Dr. Pete to ask him about Thomas Dempsie. She had been all over the building, buzzing about on errands, excelling herself by doing three canteen runs in fifteen minutes. Keck had warned her to slow down. Pete was nowhere, and the pack of early-shift workers were lawless without him, laughing at underlings and drinking at their desks in full view of Father Richards and the editors. It was bad form for them to make their indolence so blatant: it would make it harder for Richards to take their side when the inevitable fresh dispute came up.

She was loitering on the back stairs, reading a page proof about a house fire at a party in Deptford, when she ran into Dub.

“If you’re still looking for Dr. Pete, I was down for Kevin Hatcher’s medicine. He’s sitting in the Press Bar alone. Called in sick, apparently.”

“Called in sick but he’s sitting in the bar?”

“Yup.”

“That’s a bit cheeky, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah.”

She found Keck hanging around the sports desk and asked if she could kick off early because she’d stayed late on Monday. He told her to go, pleased to get rid of her: she was working so hard she was showing himself and Dub in a bad light.

The Press Bar smelled like a hangover. The sound of McGrade cleaning up the glasses after lunch echoed mournfully around the empty room. Dr. Pete was sitting alone at the usual morning-boys table near the back with a crisp whisky and two half-pints of bitter lined up in front of him. A read newspaper sat on the seat next to him, thumbed into a messy pillow. On his table a paper mat tanned with beer had been torn into fibrous strips and rearranged into a rudimentary jigsaw. Paddy could tell by the depth of cigarette ends in his ashtray that he had been there for some time.

He saw Paddy coming towards the table and sat up, dropping his eyes to the jigsaw, expecting her to give him a message. You’re on a warning, maybe, or Never darken the newsroom door again.

Paddy stood at the side of the table, taking cover behind a chair. “Hello.”

Pete looked up and frowned, dropping his bushy eyebrows to shade his eyes. “What do you want?”

“Um, I wanted to ask you about something.”

“Spit it out and then piss off.”

It was not going to be a Love Is … moment, she just knew it. “I wanted to ask you about the Thomas Dempsie murder case. I read some clippings of the articles you wrote about it.”

Pete looked up at her, and something, possibly a warm thing, flashed at the back of his misery-scarred eyes. He turned the whisky glass in front of him with a slow hand and lifted it, throwing the whisky to the back of his throat and swallowing. He didn’t even give the customary little gasp afterwards; he might have been drinking tea. Running a gray tongue along the front of his teeth, he put down the glass.

“Sit, then.”

Paddy did as she was told but kept her chair away from the dirty table, pulling the edges of her duffel coat around her lap. Still spinning the empty glass, Pete smiled to himself, his eyes surprisingly warm.

“Hide your distaste, woman. You’ll have to sit at dirty tables with drunk old men if you want to work in papers.”

“I’m scared.”

Pete reeled his head in surprise. “Why?”

She wasn’t sure how to say it. “You’re a bit brutal sometimes.”

“Only with an audience.” He looked at her for a moment and went back to spinning his glass. “I’m a show-off. My audience is suspicious of kindness.”

“Yeah, that’s the trouble with working here. Everyone’s a cynic.”

His eyes softened. “We’re all heartbroken idealists. That’s what no one gets about journalists: only true romantics get jaded. What do you want to know about Dempsie?”

She bent over her knees towards him. “Do you remember the case?”

Pete nodded slowly.

“Baby Brian was taken on Thomas Dempsie’s anniversary. Whoever killed Thomas would be thinking about him then.” She let it linger for a moment.

“I know that,” said Pete quietly.

It wasn’t the reaction she was expecting. “The boys were about the same age. Plus Thomas was found in Barnhill, half a mile from where the arrested boys live.”

Pete sighed heavily and sat back in his chair. “Look,” he said seriously, “I’m not sitting here with you ten feet away and not even a drink in your hand. What will you have?”

“I don’t really drink.”

Pete looked skeptical. He raised a finger at McGrade, dropping the tip to point at Paddy. McGrade brought over a half-pint of sweet Heineken, a beer mat to sit it on, and a stale cloth to wipe the table with. She had to shift her chair around the table to get away from the smell, coincidentally moving closer to Pete. He nodded approvingly and gestured to her drink. She took a sip and found it tasted nicer than she expected, like ginger beer but more refreshing. Pete looked at how much she had taken and nodded approvingly when he saw it was a quarter gone.

Paddy leaned across the table. “Doesn’t that seem strange to you that there are so many similarities between Baby Brian and Dempsie?”