by William Paul
Sin had been his excuse and his justification as he carried on his outward role of priest. He was a liar, a hypocrite, a deceiver, and a fraud. But these were human failings and one day, he felt sure, he would have the strength to overcome them and repent. It was a simple equation, making a mockery of the theological treatises he had been commended for in the seminary. It was too easy to claim that a spirit of evil had taken possession of him; to claim that it guided him and controlled him, forcing him to commit despicable acts; to claim that it, and not him, was responsible for the obscenity of his words and deeds; to claim that the real Donald Byrne could only cower inside the fragile shell of his physical body, a witness to all that happened in his name.
No, he was a sinner and the hardest part was the recognition that he gained an intense thrill from his depraved behaviour. The Church’s theory of possession would explain it as being like whisky poured down someone’s throat against their will. He became intoxicated by what happened and began to crave it more and more but it was hardly his fault. Byrne believed more in free will. He alone was responsible for his actions, not some invisible, inaudible, intangible demon. He alone had decided to participate in a sexual relationship in direct contravention to morality and his priestly vows. There was no excuse. And afterwards, in quiet moments, he prayed for her soul.
He ran away from Lillian, out on to the streets, hiding in the shadows of the track suit hood. He ran himself to a standstill after leaving the flat, forcing his aching legs to run up the steep grassy side of Calton Hill at least twenty times, until he collapsed from exhaustion. He had run until his lungs and throat glowed red hot like an overheated engine, until the sweat ran freely all over his body and the very marrow of his bones began to hurt.
It was a small penance he demanded of himself, and a useless one. The truth was he enjoyed having sex with Lillian and everything that implied. He rather enjoyed being a sinner. Sex and corruption excited him and he would enjoy being a rich man when his plans eventually came to fruition. He had a half-formed, half-believed fantasy of setting up a children’s orphanage somewhere in Eastern Europe. No one need know where the money came from. He would be regarded as a saint, a male Mother Theresa. He would strike a bargain, make his peace with God by helping starving children. He would be a shining example to others, so long as they did not know the truth.
Byrne stood up. His legs were weak, his knees stiff. A nagging pain swam round his head like a goldfish round a bowl. He began to jog down the slope towards a city swamped in darkness. Shreds of loathing and self-pity floated impotently in the whirlpool of emotions inside his mind. It was always like this after his weekly sex session. And he was already counting the days until the next.
7
The badly pot-holed farm track led up to an old farm steading that had been converted into a dwelling house. Gus Barrie, driving without lights, stopped the Transit van twenty yards from the wall and the indistinct shape of a parked car. The faces of the Jones brothers appeared beside his over the back of the seat, peering out through the windscreen. The moving sinews in Sandy’s profiled neck made the lion tattoo growl silently.
‘Is he there?’ he asked.
‘He’s there,’ Barrie replied.
‘How can you be sure?’
‘I’m sure. Watch this.’
Barrie took his mobile phone from the pocket of his sheepskin coat and held it against the steering wheel. It made soft beeping noises when he punched a number in. It rang for a long time before it was answered. In the house a light went on behind a window blind, spilling faintly round its edges. Billy Jones nodded enthusiastically. Sandy giggled.
‘Can I speak to Mr Craig, please,’ Barrie said.
‘Who is it?’
‘A friend of the family.’
There was a pause. Music played in the background. Barrie kept his eyes fixed on the thin-edged rectangle of light hanging in the dark mass of the house. The van rocked in a violent gust of wind.
‘Who is this?’ asked a different, more high-pitched voice.
‘It’s me, Georgie Boy,’ Barrie said quietly, unable to resist a self-indulgent smile of satisfaction.
‘Who? Gus? Is that you? What do you want?’
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s about my brother.’
Barrie’s smile vanished with the words. He held up a key with his free hand and Billy took it. The brothers clambered over the front seat and out of the van. Each carried a length of razor wire with leather handles attached at both ends. This was to be another trademark killing. They walked ahead, one in front of the other, quickly lost in the darkness.
‘About Mike?’ Georgie Craig was saying. ‘Mike’s a dead man. What is there to talk about?’
‘The cash. I think I know where it is.’
‘Fuck me. Not that old fantasy. It went up in smoke all those years ago, Gus. Face it. The cash is ash.’
‘Not any more, Georgie Boy. I have it. I’ll show it to you, if you like.’
The line hummed for several seconds. ‘Why?’ Craig asked abruptly.
‘I’ve got a proposition for you, Georgie. You won’t be able to refuse once you hear the deal.’
‘You and I don’t do business together, Gus. Not any more. We don’t like each other. Remember?’
Shadows moved across the outside of the rectangle of light. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
‘I’ve mellowed with age.’ Small droplets of moisture formed on the phone where Barrie’s breath was condensing against it. ‘And I’ve got this million and a half to find.’
‘I thought you said you had it.’
‘I will have. That’s the business. I don’t like you, Georgie Boy. I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. But I need you for this one.’
‘Why do you need me?’
‘I’ll explain. I need to meet you.’
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as you like. I tell you what. I’ll send my people round to arrange it.’
‘Why not arrange it now?’
‘Okay, Georgie Boy. Whatever you want. I’ll send them round now.’
‘What the fuck…’
Barrie pushed in the aerial against the palm of his hand. He put the phone away in his pocket without once taking his eyes off the flickering outline of the window. No silhouettes danced across the blind. There was no sound. Nothing to suggest the bloody mayhem that was happening inside, the blades slicing through soft flesh. The blood. The death. Barrie sat patiently waiting in the rocking van and used his imagination.
Five minutes later the Jones brothers appeared suddenly in front of the van, materialising out of the darkness.
‘That’s it done, boss,’ Billy said casually as they climbed noisily over the seat and into the back. ‘No problems.’
‘Georgie Boy wasn’t too happy about it,’ Sandy said, stifling a giggle. ‘He got quite angry. Lost his head even.’
8
The winter morning was cold but the air was clear and pleasant, icily pure on the insides of David Fyfe’s lungs. The coarse, dew-damp grass steamed on the hillside all around and sucked at his ankles as he waded through it along the narrow sheep track. A few faint pinpricks of stars were just visible on the pale underbelly of the darkly translucent sky still in the process of shifting from night into day.
Fyfe leaned on his waist-high walking stick and looked at his watch. His black labrador Jill sat at his side with her greying muzzle pushed under his hand. Number Five, the eighteen-month-old runt of Jill’s only litter, was investigating interesting smells round some bushes one hundred yards distant, constantly looking back to check the two of them were still there.
In the house at the foot of the hill his ex-wife Sally was waiting for him to drive her the twenty miles into Edinburgh to catch the train at Waverley. More than a year had passed since the cause of Sally’s illness. On occasions it seemed an eternity, at o
ther times a mere blink of the eye. The picture of her lying prone under the madman’s bleeding body was still fresh in Fyfe’s mind. Standing on the hillside he could still feel the pressure of the narrow strip of metal on the soles of his feet where he had balanced on top of the railings to aim the gun through the window. It was another world, another life, viewed through the bullet hole in the shattered glass. He had thought Sally was dead but she had come back to life and then, incredibly, back to live with him. It was what he had thought he always wanted. But he had always wanted other things too.
Fyfe turned and began to retrace his steps along the dark green pathway he had made through the grass. Jill jumped up and barked at the suddenness of the movement. Number Five came scampering across at once, running straight into Fyfe’s legs and almost knocking him over. He reached down and shook her roughly by the head while she playfully tried to bite his hands.
Sally had come through some pretty nasty bouts of depression. She would refuse to get out of bed, refuse to wash, refuse to dress, refuse to leave the house. At times she was suicidal. The worst thing for him was when she would cry for hours on end for no apparent reason. Great sobs would wrack her body, bubbles of misery rising from the very bottom of her soul, affecting him like hard punches to the guts. There was nothing he could do to comfort her. Nothing that did any good. He put his arms round her and squeezed her tight but could not share any of it. He could only watch and suffer vicariously. She had come through it herself and now she was about to leave on a journey south for a long-planned weekend at their daughter’s home. She wanted to travel alone, leaving Fyfe on his own, just like it used to be.
The dogs raced on ahead down the hillside and through the gap in the hedge into the back garden. A bat whirred close to Fyfe’s head and merged with the tangle of branches of the big sycamore tree by the kitchen door. He kicked off his walking boots and the waterproof leggings and went inside. The sound of the dogs’ claws pattering on the vinyl floor was like bony fingers tapping impatiently on a window pane. The table had been cleared of breakfast debris. In the hallway Sally’s suitcase was waiting behind the front door. The dogs were sitting beside it, flapping their tails, determined not to be left behind. Everything was ready for the departure.
Fyfe put on his normal shoes and his working jacket and raincoat. He loaded the cases into the boot and the dogs into the back seat. Watery sunshine was lightening the air. He went back into the house to get his briefcase. Sally was checking the locks on the windows in the living-room. Fyfe felt a slight tension creep into his bones. He had wanted her back, had always had the utmost confidence it would work out with them back together again. Now he had the vague, unformed impression that something was about to go very badly wrong. He couldn’t ignore it because he trusted his senses the way a bloodhound trusts its nose. He had been uneasy for the last few weeks, unable to shake a morbid feeling that circumstances outwith his control were once more conspiring to shape his future no matter what he did. The feeling had started when the tenants did a moonlight flit from the Edinburgh New Town flat Sally had bought for refuge when they first separated. He could not explain it to anyone, least of all to Sally. It was paranoia pure and simple, like the conspiratorial voices he heard whispering outside his office.
Then Hunky Dunky the Chief Constable had phoned out of the blue to say there was a little job that needed doing. Fyfe sensed something major was about to happen but he had no idea what it might be. All he could do was wait to see what happened and take it from there. The story of his life so far.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,’ Sally said, coming over and holding his chin as a mother would a sulking child.
Fyfe hadn’t realised he was staring into space. On the hillside with the dogs that morning he had looked up at the fast disappearing stars in the see-through sky and listened to the wind, hoping for some clue to what the future might hold. Nice view. No clue.
‘I’ll be fine too,’ he replied. ‘Even if you are abandoning me.’
They travelled up to Edinburgh in the kind of comfortable silence that can only be achieved by long-time lovers and friends. Every now and then Sally would remind him of what he had to do, what he should eat, not to use the dishwasher because the seal on the door was leaking. At Waverley Station he double-parked and carried her case on to the train. She settled down with a book and a pile of magazines and insisted he didn’t need to wait. Impatient passengers shoved past him in the aisle. He kissed her and left. She waved at him from the window. He walked back to the car.
‘We’re on our own now, girls,’ he said to the dogs. ‘Do you think we can survive?’
9
The governor of Saughton Prison had grey toothbrush hair, teeth like fence-posts, and an unhealthy, colourless complexion. He sat behind a huge dark wood desk, fingering the base of an Anglepoise lamp as he studied the contents of a green cardboard folder. The desk top was scrupulously tidy. There was a blotting pad and a disproportionately large intricate glass and silver inkwell, its appearance spoiled by the cheap pens and pencils poking out of it. Three lead soldiers marching in different directions were fused together as a paperweight on top of another green cardboard folder. On one edge stacks of sheets of paper were stored in two black plastic three-tier trays. On the other edge was a combined telephone and intercom deck. In the centre was a name plate like a bar of Toblerone chocolate bearing the name J. J. Black.
Adamson stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He was wearing casual clothes, trousers and a jacket with just a hint of flamboyance in the bright red handkerchief in the breast pocket. He did not look at the governor but past him, over his shoulder at the plastic moulded lion and unicorn on either side of the coat of arms on the wall. Through the window he could see into the exercise yard. Adamson frowned as he waited to be spoken to. He had been excused the normal dog-box method of release where they shut you in a tiny windowless cubicle just to remind you who was boss while they checked your details. A dozen times he had followed the routine in his training-for-freedom days. The dog boxes, so cramped there was not enough space to turn round, always smelled of shoe polish and sweat and worse. All night he had been imagining himself in and out of them, then filling his lungs as he walked out into the fresh air beyond the wire. When they turned him right instead of left and took him upstairs at the administration block he was instantly suspicious, worried that it was some kind of trick. But it wasn’t. He supposed it was some kind of honour. They couldn’t do anything to him now. He had paid his debt, served his time.
Adamson had never been in the governor’s office before. There seemed to be something strange about the window but he couldn’t think what. Outside a remote control camera mounted on a corner swung lazily to and fro surveying the emptiness. Of course, he suddenly realised with a tremor of a smile. No bars.
‘John Adamson,’ the governor said, nodding his head sagely as if he was coming out with some profound comment.
Adamson nodded back. ‘That’s right, Mr Black. Sir. John Adamson.’
The governor looked up, still nodding, sucking in his top lip. Adamson tried not to smile but felt his mouth twitching involuntarily. Black was relatively new, in charge at Saughton for less than a year. Adamson had never spoken to him and wasn’t particularly interested in speaking to him now. Self-confidence swelled inside Adamson but he didn’t want to take any chances till he was safely out through the gates. He could play the game to their rules for a few minutes more. His release was already two hours overdue. He wasn’t going to complain. He could wait.
‘Armed robbery,’ Black said. ‘A serious crime, armed robbery.’
‘It won’t be happening again, sir.’
‘No?’ Black raised his eyebrows and his whole face seemed to flatten out. ‘I certainly hope not. You’ve been turned down by the parole board a few times before now.’
‘It won’t happen again.’
His record showed that one million pounds plus had never been recovered after the robbery
. Five times the parole board had asked him if he knew where it was. Five times he replied that if it had not been burned to a crisp as he believed then it had gone to Spain and was probably long spent. Four times they took exception to his attitude and refused him parole. The fifth time he repeated the same story about being a youngster drawn into crime against his better judgement. He was more mature now, more responsible, more independent. He had learned his lesson but, no, he didn’t know where the money was. The four-person panel, two elderly men in smart suits and two younger women who smelled of static electricity and deodorant, looked at each other and wrote things down. They either believed him, or had finally given up trying to wear him down. The recommendation was for early release. He was on his way out.
‘You’re not a bad lad, Adamson. My officers speak well of you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You’ve performed well here. You’ve co-operated. You’ve made it easy on yourself.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘You’ve been a model prisoner.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Adamson decided to stop himself saying thank you in case it was taken for sarcasm. Black continued to talk, producing all the old clichés about crime not paying and honesty being the best policy in the end. A civilised society had to have rules otherwise it degenerated into anarchy. The rules had to be in place to allow society to survive. There was no tenable moral debate about it. There was good and there was bad and the good had the right to control the bad in the interests of the majority.
‘Rules are not made to be broken,’ Black said. ‘Don’t let anybody ever tell you that. Rules are made to be respected.’
Adamson almost said ‘Thank you, sir’ but stopped himself, destroying the partly formed words by clearing his throat. He raised his hand to his mouth and watched the governor’s eyes. They were so pale they blended with the whiteness of his skin. His lips were bloodless too. Even his suit was a dull grey, and his shirt, and his tie. Only his earlobes had any colour about them, a distinct pinkish tinge. The sky behind Black, a patch of it seen through the unbarred window, was a beautifully clear blue. I can wait, Adamson thought. I can wait.
