SLOOT

by Ian MacPherson

  He sat at a nearby table and got stuck in. Declan turned to Hayden.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Come on, man,’ said Declan. ‘Shoot.’

  Hayden was totally nonplussed. It was almost as if Declan could read his mind. Bit like Steve in London. Barman, philosopher, friend. He was even polishing a glass. There was something strangely comforting about Declan’s manner. It invited confidence, as if he had all the time in the world. Hayden’s defences fell.

  ‘Well now,’ he said, seemingly locked into the inevitability of it all. ‘Where exactly to start?’ He lifted his glass, killed a few bubbles, replaced the glass. ‘My Uncle Eddie was murdered. I set about finding out who did it. Of all the people in all the world, the murderer, or perp, was the last person I suspected.’ He swirled the bubbles round in his glass. ‘But perhaps I should begin at the beginning.’

  Wolfe Swift, at his nearby table, overheard the opening gambit. There was something about the way Hayden said it. The truth of it, the passion, the poetry, the pain, that drew Swift in, his grey, lupine eyes trained on Hayden as he told his sorry tale. No detail spared. No minor character left out. No twist in the narrative omitted. And what a narrative! What a cast! At the centre, Eddie, this magnificent, towering, neglected artist, murdered in cold, if protracted, blood.

  Then the big twist.

  ‘All that time hunting the killer in good faith and then, right at the bitter end, the unsuspecting detective unmasks – wait for it! – himself.’

  An electrified pause. Declan shook his head in wonder. Hayden, drained by the intensity of the telling, felt a hand on his arm. Brannigan? Had the Detective Inspector finally worked it out? Had justice come to call?

  He turned to face the owner of the hand. Wolfe Swift sat beside him on a barstool, riveted, his drink and script abandoned on the table. ‘This is brilliant,’ he said. ‘Have you told anyone else?’

  Hayden was confused. He nodded at Declan. ‘I told him.’

  ‘Doesn’t count,’ said Wolfe, grinning at Declan. ‘He’s a barman. Silence of the confessional.’

  A group of young men crashed through the swing doors and headed for the bar, hooting.

  ‘Hey fella, where you from?’

  ‘Termonfeckin!’

  ‘Yow!’

  Wolfe Swift sighed audibly and fixed them with his piercing eyes. ‘Keep it down there, lads, okay? The adults are in.’

  Hayden was elated. Great put-down. He could work with this man. The kiddies dropped their voices.

  ‘Sorry, Wolfe.’

  ‘You’re the man, yeh?’

  ‘Thanks, lads. Cheers.’ Wolfe turned back to Hayden. ‘Now listen. Top movie. The private dick who doesn’t know he’s the perp. But with soul.’

  Hayden worked this through. Wolfe Swift was right. Two reasons.

  •The private dick who doesn’t know he’s the perp. Great twist.

  •Wolfe Swift was always right.

  Hayden lit up. The dark cloud of depression lifted. He realised, with an energising internal jolt, that he’d been sitting on his big idea all along. He’d cracked it by living it. Huzzah! ‘Actually,’ he lied, ‘I’m halfway through the novel.’

  Wolfe was energised too. He switched to work mode. ‘The novel is dead.27 Title?’

  Hayden thought quickly. ‘Bad Blood.’

  ‘Like it. Listen, my people, your people.’

  ‘Bit of a problem there,’ said Hayden. ‘I’ve been so busy on this, I don’t have people.’ He got a brief flash of Rich. ‘Well, I have people, but the wrong people.’

  Wolfe Swift patted his arm. ‘Trust me. When I’ve finished on the blower, you’ll have the right people. Plus, I can get you a pretty decent advance on the script. How’s that sound?’

  ‘Well,’ said Hayden, ‘you know what they say. Your right people, my right people.’

  ‘Good man. Thing is –’

  ‘Hayden.’

  ‘Wolfe. Shake.’ They shook. ‘Thing is, Hayden, I need this. And this needs me. Okay. Where can I reach you?’ Hayden gave him his number. Wolfe Swift sprang to his feet. ‘I’m on it.’

  Hayden sat for a long moment, working this through. Wolfe Swift was right. It was the perfect story for our venal times. Man kills his father. Punishment? Success. Maybe this was Eddie from beyond the grave. His way of saying, ‘You did what you had to do.’ Yes. That was it. Eddie had lived by a simple mantra and now he’d passed it on to Hayden. The true artist is ruthless. Eddie forgave him. Better still, he applauded him. ‘You killed your own father. Now that takes guts. Well done, son. I’m proud of you.’ Hayden was quietly euphoric. Paternal approval. It doesn’t get better than that. He drained his glass and stood up. He had work to do.

  He spotted Trace on his way out, sitting next to Bram in front of her still unsipped drink. He’d totally forgotten about her in the excitement of the moment, and maybe it was the whiff of impending success, or the lure of the attainable, or maybe it was because he’d overcome those demons, but it was Friday evening and his guard was down; an explosive mix, particularly in post-suicidal man. There was something about Trace as she sat there cradling her goblet. A touching vulnerability, allied to her obvious infatuation. It could have been an excess of bubbles, but Hayden felt gay and jocund in the old-fashioned sense of the words. He melted towards her. Maybe Trace, after all, was the woman for him.

  Trace and Bram were deep in conversation.

  Trace fingered her goblet nervously. ‘I wasn’t there for her.’

  Bram looked even more puzzled than usual. ‘Where? Oh. Right. There. Right. There.’

  He moved a hand across the table and slid her drink away. Their fingers touched. Magically.

  ‘The thing is, Trace,’ said Bram in that slightly put-on Dublinese that speaks to foreign women, hormonally, the world over. Something to do with sound waves, probably. ‘The thing is, Trace, you’ve got to surrender to a Higher Power.’

  Trace’s hand moved slowly over his. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Really?’

  Hayden had intended to ask Bram for a lift to the airport but decided to leave them to their love mist. He left the bar, as countless heroes of their own internal narrative have done before him, a man alone.

  * * *

  27 Now he tells me.

  36

  A man alone. But a happy man. He strolled up Vernon Avenue, planning his glorious future. He’d move, for starters. His current London address was fine as far as it went, but it wasn’t expensive enough for his new lifestyle. He, Hayden McGlynn, screenwriter, was on his way. He started plotting out the story in his head, adding a few details here and there. How the Pope Twins found redemption serving life for multiple homicide. How his double session with Marina hadn’t been strictly business.

  He whipped out his mobile. Punched in Rich’s number. Waited.

  RICH: Can’t get to the phone at the moment. It’s in my pocket but I’m all tied up. Leave a message if you think you’re important.

  Good. Hayden was going to enjoy this. The double-act answerphone message. Hayden. Hayden as Rich. He waited for the beep then spoke.

  ‘Just a quickie, Dickie. Can’t do the tour.’

  ‘Why’s that, Ay?’

  ‘Well, Dickie, it’s like this. Too fucking busy. Wolfe Swift, Rich. Heard of him? Irish “fillum” actor. Six Oscars. Wants to shoot my script.’

  ‘Sweet, Ay. Now here’s how we play it.’

  ‘We? Nah, Dickie. Here’s how I play it. First fillum, Bad Blood. Not about us, Dickie, so relax. For now. Follow up. Rich Mann, Dead Mann. He kills his agent. That’s you, Rich. No idea how to do it yet, but don’t worry, pal. Hate will find a way.’

  Hayden pressed End Call. He pictured Rich’s face when he listened to it. Now that was very cathartic. He put his mobile on silent and p
ositively skipped past Madden’s with its crime scene tape, up to the corner, and left onto Kincora Road. He sauntered the last few yards towards Eddie’s, singing internally at the top of his voice. He was toying with the idea of cashing in his double session with Marina when Rusty leapt joyfully into his arms. The three aunts spoke over his ecstatic bark.

  ‘Howaya, Hayding. Long time, no see.’

  ‘So how are tings in Londing?’

  ‘And what, if we may make so bold, brings you back?’

  Hayden peered over the cotoneaster. ‘Eddie’s funeral, ladies. Remember?’

  ‘Oh God, yes. The funerdle.’

  ‘What funerdle?’

  ‘The funerdle.’

  ‘Oh, that one. He left everyting to us, Hayding, by the way. In his will.’

  ‘Well, apart from Portrait of a Lovely Lady.’

  ‘He left that to Francis.’

  ‘But everyting else he left to us. To be passed on to his only begotting son, to wit Hayding, in the unlikely event, it says here, of us predeceasing same.’

  ‘He must’ve tought you’d die young, Hayding. You being a great artist and so fort.’

  ‘Who did, Dottie?’

  ‘Dodie. Eddie did.’

  ‘Oh, Eddie. Who’s Eddie?’

  ‘Eddie is.’

  They stared at Hayden, innocently but mischievously, over the cotoneaster.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse us, Hayding. We tink we’ve got dementia.’

  ‘Stand well clear. It could be contagious.’

  ‘Plus, we’re up to here on morphine.’

  Hayden walked briskly up Eddie’s driveway, followed by peals of affectionate, possibly drugged-up laughter which, mingled with the melodious trill of the blackbird on Eddie’s chimney and Rusty bounding up the drive after him, gave him a warm inner glow. A sense of peace. Of completion. Of all being right with the world.

  He went inside. Put the kettle on. Sat at Eddie’s desk, his desk, and planned out his routine. Writing in the mornings. Double session with Marina in the afternoons. He’d use the mother complex as an opening gambit and see where it led. Who knew, if the sessions went well, he might even get to smoke that cigar.

  He glanced out the window at the luxuriant foliage, which seemed to Hayden in his current state to be life-affirmingly, vibrantly alive. The sun shone across Eddie’s masterpiece, which now resembled nothing more or less than revered Irish screenwriter Hayden McGlynn.28

  He opened his notebook. Blank notebook, blank page. Took the top off his Rollerball Needlevision TX20. Rusty sat at his feet, gazing adoringly up as Hayden began to write.

  BAD BLOOD

  By

  Hayden McGlynn

  INT. STAGE. NIGHT.

  HAYDEN McGLYNN IS ONSTAGE.

  HAYDEN: (V/O) I couldn’t see the audience from the stage. This was good. I didn’t want to see the audience from the stage. I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, working on my novel. But there I was. Going through the motions. Again.

  The kettle boiled. Hayden wrote on. The kettle could wait.

  * * *

  28 Prof. Larry Stern, Disquisition, Chapter XXXIV – Comedy and Self-Delusion.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks29 to Kevin Duffy at Bluemoose for his first response to the book, for publishing it, and for asking Annie Warren to edit. Perfect choice. My thanks to Annie for accepting.

  Thanks to Todd McEwen and Alison Rae for valuable feedback at separate stages. Special thanks to Magi Gibson. Magi is a writer. I’m a writer. We live in a flat full of imaginary characters, and nothing I’ve written since meeting her has been done without her hugely positive influence. Editing, talking it through, in two cases publishing the finished product. Not to mention producing several Edinburgh one-man shows and overseeing my shift from standup to, well, this. If Magi has suffered for her own art she’s certainly suffered for mine. Details available on request.

  * * *

  29All thanks heartfelt; but it’s not the sort of word you can use more than once.