Resolution (The CRIME series), page 22
Lennox feels Cathy’s firm tug on his elbow. — Just go, she urges.
He embarks on the trammelled walk outside; down a path lustred by a flaring moon and along the stale street onto the main road. Never once looking back. Instead of heading to Jackie’s, he flags down a passing cab. The driver cagily chats about last week’s Hibs and Hearts results, trying to ascertain his allegiance in order to talk himself into, rather than out of, a tip. Lennox grunts back in monosyllables, too distressed and distracted to partake in a game he normally enjoys. Climbs out in a Southside backstreet. Enters the Repair Shop, where he suspects Notman will be drinking. Stepping inside, Lennox almost hopes he’ll be wrong but he isn’t; his ex-colleague is the first person he registers, propping up the bar, reading the sports pages of the Evening News.
— Hey, Notty.
— Raymie … Notman’s eyes expand in panicked guilt.
— What’s the story? You’re no picking up. Something wrong? This is a rhetorical question: Notman looks awful. Worse than the last time and the last time was bad.
Lennox suspects that he is appearing much the same, but reckons his friend is too messed up to even notice. — Listen, Raymie, Ally Notman moans, bleary-eyed, — I feel like a cunt for saying this, but I cannae help ye, mate.
— Right … Lennox nods, keeping strong eye contact. Facial pores he’s never seen on Notman before excrete toxic sweat. The sweat of the guilty.
Notman shifts uncomfortably under his gaze, trying to straighten himself up against the bar. — It’s no like when you were there, his voice rises in biscuit-ersed appeal. — Drummond has us keying in our case numbers tae get intae the beasts’ register. It’s her wey ay monitoring our ooirs on each job. His old friend is practically beseeching. — It looks shan on my sheet if I’m daein a homer and tapping it into an existing case. Totally fucks my numbers and makes me look like a right useless cunt. Changed days, Raymie.
Lennox feels a crushing disappointment deep in his core. It sears like the pain in his groin. Yet all he can do is indulge in the mock-formal pantomime James Bond used as the default setting for so many white Western males to mask their emotions. — An efficient officer like you should have plenty spare capacity, Notman, the way you get through cases!
— I’m on a second written warning, Raymie. Notman, not playing the game, ruefully shakes his head. — It’s the Christopher Reeve. He raises the glass of lager, looking at it in accusation. — They’re talking aboot a transfer tae fuckin Traffic wi the uniformed spastics there! Only reason I’m still in Serious Crimes is the recruitment freeze and the shortage ay experienced detectives … the joab’s fucked, Raymie.
— Okay, Ally, I get the message, a downcast Lennox sighs. Briefly thinks about asking Drummond for a favour for old times’ sake, but she is already the most by-the-book person he’s ever known. Her promotion will only have intensified that. There’s simply nobody left there to help him.
— Sorry, Raymie. Notman’s wretched tones tell Lennox his old charge is in pieces. Just as he feels he’s looking at a younger self, the more chilling thought insinuates: or maybe a future or even a present one. Realises this conflict with Cardingworth is more likely his perdition rather than salvation. Catches his own slumped figure in the pub mirror, acknowledging the broken round-shouldered slope that has replaced the straight-backed confidence of old.
It’s breaking you up right now.
It’s not a case and you’re not a cop. What the fuck are you doing?
Silly Ray.
What?
On the TV up above the bar, an appointed government spin doctor arrogantly announces: — The truth is what we say the truth is.
What?
As his febrile mind toys with the concept that there are few ways things can get worse, so the reality of Dougie Gillman manifests. He enters the bar with a younger woman of unplaceable familiarity, who looks pale and drawn. They settle at a corner table. Lennox nods over. Gets a confounded look back, followed by a curt incline of that quadrilateral head. This time Gillman says nothing, preoccupied with his company.
— Why is he still here? Lennox asks Notman.
— He’s got a couple of weeks left on the job.
Lennox looks over at Gillman, more tightly wound than ever, sprinting towards seizure. The sinew in his neck bristles as he talks to this woman. But the bar mirror reflection, in the form of himself and Ally Notman, evidences a comparable mess.
Who would be a copper? Or even an ex-copper?
Ray Lennox leaves his former Serious Crimes charge to his dialogue with the half-full or -empty glass of beer. As he slowly stumbles off, he nods again at Dougie Gillman. But the veteran cop, deep in conversation, either doesn’t see him or pretends not to.
And as he walks down the haunted Royal Mile, a call comes in.
— This is no longer salvageable, Ray, as I think you’ve probably now realised. You’ve unleashed something that is not within my power to stop.
And Mathew Cardingworth hangs up before he can respond.
Lennox calls back immediately, but the phone is switched off. The fear crawls up his skin. Cardingworth’s voice: Lennox experiences it as that of another dead man.
When he gets back to Jackie’s, he heads in stealth mode towards his mother’s room. Through the open door, he sees Avril, in pink nightdress, sat on the bed. Eyes distracted and far away, she brushes her long silver hair in even strokes. She has something of his, and he wants it back. Lennox lifts his hand, goes to knuckle the door. Can’t do it. Can’t bring himself to ask, could not bear the terrible discussion that would arise.
Turns and heads for the spare room and bed.
35
Reminiscence and Recall 4
— Most of them really were the salt of the earth. But, of course, there was the odd bad apple. The sea always attracted people on the run: sometimes fae the law, or fae others, or more often than not, as the auld saying goes, fae themselves. And aye, one or two of them were evil bastards. The worst of them was Bim, as we called him.
He was a monster of a man, a huge felly, with hands like shovels. Big, slack, laughing mouth and eyes full of mirth that could just suddenly glaze over. You didn’t want to be around then. That’s when he would create havoc, but in such a cold, cruel way. Always plausible until that gaze switched. I swear he became something not of this world.
You didnae ask questions about what you aw got up tae when we were at sea. You did what you did and stuck together, pulling each other out of scrapes. The secrets rarely made the shore. Aye, it all stayed at sea.
Then everything changed that one morning …
We had docked in Porto and Eddie Reece had taken us tae some party. Hooked us up wi some lassies. That was Eddie. There was a lot of drinking and it aw got out ay hand, as it tended to do. But we were at sea, right? It was different at sea. Different rules. You did what you did.
(Hacking noises, heavy breathing.)
— You don’t need to do this to yourself.
— But I do! I do, I do! Because … because when I woke up, the lassie next to me in the bed … she was gone. Stone-cold dead! On everything I hold sacred, I don’t know how. We’d drunk a lot, done a load of dexies; like pills, Dexedrine. I think they call it speed now. I mind telling her tae take it easy, but she widnae stop. Just popped one after the other.
I rode her that night, but there was nothing weird went on. Nowt kinky. Anyway, in the morning this lassie was gone. Like cauld.
Deid.
I panicked, as you would. The way I saw it my life was over.
— I can switch off the tape. I should switch off the tape.
— Keep it the fuck on!
— Okay … but this is a crime that’s been committed, and I feel –
— KEEP IT THE FUCK OAN!
— Okay, okay … calm down. If you need to do this …
(Indecipherable sounds.)
— Basically, Bim, well, he took charge. He removed the lassie’s body. Came in with a big sack and put her in it. Slung her over his big back like a sack of coal. I couldn’t believe she, this woman whose name I shamefully never even knew … I never knew the lassie’s name!
(A choking sounds.)
— Stop … we have to stop …
— Then he got rid of her. Never said where.
— Enough –
— SHUT UP! I need tae say this … Later on Bim told me: ‘All you need to know is that it’s done, Jock. These things happen. It was an accident. One life wrecked: fucking your one up isn’t going to bring that little mite back. We look after each other.’
That was what he said.
He was right. Or so I thought. At sea you learn tae compartmentalise. It’s a different world.
So, I went back home.
— Jesus Christ …
It’s her voice. I switch off the tape. I put my hand out in front of me. It’s shaking. I don’t know if it’s the peeve or this shite. Or the sense that it’s all closing in on me. It’s all closing in on everybody.
I’m going to hear this through. I go to the kitchen and open that bottle of malt. Pour myself a glass. It looks great the way it twists into that Edinburgh crystal tumbler. I pick it up, enjoying the satisfying weight of it. I take a couple of sips and savour the burning trail it weaves through this tired body. Then I hit play. The voice of the ponce starts:
— I’m leaving the room, and the others are doing the same. You can talk into the tape if you like.
— I like: go!
I stop the tape to get a top-up. The old guy’s voice is loud, commanding. You hear the others get up and leave. I’m not sure if she stayed in the room, but she certainly heard the tape all the way through, before she gave it to me. And apparently it was with his blessing. Play.
— Avril. Our affair didn’t resume; it never stopped. Not really. I wanted to be with her. It was many years later that she fell pregnant, with Stuart. Jackie was still at secondary school, but she would be off to university soon, a very independent lassie. I wanted Avril to leave John, that grumbling eunuch of a man, and come with me and take Stuart. I wanted for us to have a family life. I was done with the sea, and people like Bim … oh God …
I … I … she would have done it, but it was Raymond.
It’s no exaggeration to say the kid haunted me. His eyes followed you everywhere. We went on holiday to Lloret de Mar once, me, a girlfriend called Jeanette, with Avril and John. They brought young Raymond along. He would be nine or ten. Avril was expecting Stuart. She hadn’t told John yet. He was actually quite jovial, but I think Jeanette knew something was up. It was a strained break.
Raymond …
… the way that kid looked at you, like he saw right through you. Piercing eyes, but old man’s eyes, adult eyes in a boy. Silent. Just looking. Like he knew everything about you. I suppose it was the guilt about the Portuguese woman, about John even … although I’d grown to hate him it was still there … I wanted to run away with Avril and our baby. But she wouldn’t hear of it, wouldn’t leave the boy in particular.
I was finished with the sea, but those associations werenae finished with me. It happens that way with relationships. You get to say when you’re done with them, but you rarely get tae state when they are finished wi you.
So Bim got in touch. I knew what his tastes were. We met at a pub in Edinburgh, the big one at the East End called the Café Royal. The sun spilled in through the large stained-glass windows. We stayed far away from the dock taverns of Leith where our faces were known. He was there with two friends. A guy, Mat, younger than Bim, who seemed out of his depth, and then another one, who was a sort of gangster type. He was an evil-looking bastard, sharp, piercing nasty eyes, sallow skin. I forget his name. Bim said they were looking for some action. As I said, I knew what his tastes were.
So, help me my God, I steered him towards those bairns. I served those young boys up tae these fucking monsters on a plate. Raymond and his wee pal: a kid who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I knew they rode their bicycles through that tunnel every Saturday morning. I thought Bim would just scare them, that there would be too many people around for him to hurt them. But I wanted the little bastard to suffer: wanted him to pay for me not being with Avril and Stuart …
… but he was just a wee laddie …
(Choking, sobbing noises.)
36
Dream, but Not Let Dreams Be Your Master
… this burning of the feet business was highly distressing, Ray, no two ways about it … his fault of course … my grandmother was no angel, wont to put my little hands on the ring of the cooker, she was; but her lover, Mr Baxter, always occasions a slight chuckle to think of ’em at it, he was altogether more creative, I’d say, burning the soles of my feet … can’t begin to tell you the pain involved, Ray, not that I’m looking for sympathy, not really … very much inspired by the Romans, was Mr Baxter, they would press red-hot iron plates on their victims’ soles … then, of course, the Spanish Inquisition … very naughty they were … secured the bare-footed prisoner in stocks, basting the soles with either lard or oil, then it was barbecue time, nice and slowly over a burning coal brazier … not exactly endearing behaviour, but only if you’re on the receiving end of it, otherwise it would be a bloody good laugh and let’s not kid ourselves … but, well, a life lesson taught … tears shed till they stopped only to be replaced by blind rage … his big mistake of course … you have to finish ’em off or some of them, not all, but some, they come back … like you, Raymond …
… you see, Ray, you can’t hate those people who do those things to you, educators they are … you can hate yourself for not being strong enough to stand up to them … then make sure that you get stronger … then you can destroy them because you’ve replaced them with a better version of them, you see … their time is over … but you don’t hate them … your destruction of them is like a salute to them … showing them what they achieved …
… it’s different with you though, Ray … I had hopes for you … but you’ve taken the wrong path, the path of the weak and self-righteous … I’ll have to take care of you, sunshine, like I did Wai …
… you see, Wai was very smart, had an intuitive scent for weakness … had me working in the boiler house by the furnace, stoking it, just cause he saw my unease around fire … started to torture me that way … of course, he then slipped up, went round the back of the boiler to see me … I was distressed by the fire but not as much as I made out, or as much as he thought, with me writhing on that stone floor, crying like a baby as I crawled towards him, then suddenly sprang to my feet … ‘you’re bloody good,’ I told him as I grabbed his head and snapped his neck, though I confess I was disappointed he fell for that one … oldest trick in the book and whatnot …
… and hurled his crumbling sack of a body from me with an actual flourish, which, well, I appreciated, if nobody else did … slung him right in the bloody furnace, I did, but a guard saw him roasting away in there and they pulled his charred body out … oh, those spoilsports, those inscrutable little orientals …
… oh, they did go all funny in the investigation, Ray … ‘do you have any idea who could have done this?’ the usual bollocks, Ray, you’re a former investigator, you know how it goes … of course, I had the retort to hand: ‘it is my considered opinion that there is a strong criminal element within these four walls … with that in mind, could be anyone …’ well, what can you say? I glanced at the interpreter and wondered how he responded because the commissioner looked sternly at me and nodded slowly, like he bade me to continue, which I was happy to do … ‘family man, or so I hear’ I found myself moved to state, ‘a couple of little mites minus one daddy; no longer coming home to them, don’t get much more sad and tragic, I’m sure … if the mother’s a looker I daresay she’ll be in the arms of another before long … people are more adaptable than they think, there’s gonna be a little toing and froing, I suspect, but life goes on …’
… and it does, dunnit, Ray? … maybe not for everyone though, maybe not for you, but let’s face it, it’ll be a mercy killing … already a physical wreck with more damage to come … but while the ending will be merciful, I can’t make that promise about the process … you know how I roll, Ray, you’ve tried to blank me out of your frightened little boy’s head for ages now, haven’t you? … when I’ve been sort of hiding in plain sight for years …
… cause you see, Ray, we were meant to be together, right from the off … you were never supposed to leave that tunnel, that’s a wrong I have to RIGHT!
Day Fifteen
37
Nothing Inherently Good or Bad
… it is not happening …
Early Thursday morning Gatwick flight: Ray Lennox, crumpled into a small seat, perspires in the overcoat he’s too sore to attempt to remove. He sits bitch, obese priest on one side, stick-thin goth girl on the other. It’s as if the cleric is some kind of matchmaker, intent on pushing them together. This moves Lennox to raise an eyebrow in apology at the sable-apparelled woman. Papes, he finds himself vindictively thinking, before chuckling in bitter, self-harming shakes at the almost quaint lunacy of Scottish sectarianism; how it effortlessly supplants every other racism as that country’s go-to bigotry.
This chamber of plastic, Perspex and cloth he is sealed in, makes him feel more animal than ever. The canvas duffel at his feet under the seat in front smiles fuck you at his attempt to shift his ravaged lower limbs. In his trembling hands he fans out the crisp new twenties the cashpoint dispensed earlier. Purchases two small bottles of red wine, to top up the chalky painkillers that scour his gut.
The fat priest, chin now embedded in chest, snores next to him. It isn’t unpleasant; the sound of a soft Velcro strip tearing, perversely rhythmic with his own shallow breathing and the pulsing pain in his body. He succumbs to a welcome delirium, lying immobile the rest of the journey.
