About an inch before it does so, Robbie steps past Colin and toe-ends it as hard as he can through the goals, then goes running off with his arms in the air making crowd noises, regarded as the just reward of all goalscorers. Colin can’t believe it. Even as the ball dropped close to Paul and Dominic, he had heard Martin receive unaccustomed praise for a ‘brilliant tackle, well in wee man’ upon the normally unstoppable Matt Cannon. Then Paul had pulled off a nice piece of skill and balance to set himself up for a shot from a distance only Matt or Stephen would normally attempt, and justified his audacity by unleashing a peach of an effort. This in turn had brought out a dive of unprecedented scope and bravery on the part of Colin, one they would all no doubt remark upon despite it proving insufficient to prevent Paul’s once-in-a-lifetime thunderbolt from finding its well-earned and rightful place in the back of the imaginary net.
And then that wee shite had just nicked in and ruined everything by thieving all the glory.
Robbie, however, is not the only one who’s running. Paul is now haring after him with an urgent sense of purpose that Colin suspects has little to do with wishing to congratulate him on a clinical piece of close-range finishing.
“That was ma goal ya fuckin prick,” Paul shouts at him, causing Robbie to stop and turn round.
“Naw it wasnae. Colin saved it.”
“It was still goin in.”
“Was it fuck,” Robbie insists, albeit half-heartedly. He turns as though to walk away rather than face down Paul’s argument, and he looks far from defiant.
“Aye. It. Fuckin. Was.”
Each of these last short bursts of speech is accompanied by Paul booting Robbie up the arse, the fourth kick seeming to lift Robbie clear off the ground, though this is as much a result of his attempted leap out of the way.
“It was Paul’s goal,” rules Matt Cannon, putting a hand on Paul’s shoulder, which seems to assure him of his status and restrain him from sending Robbie on another short-range flight. “Good goal, wee man,” he adds. “Cracker ay a shot.”
Paul smiles a wee bit but Colin can tell he’s still raging. Though he’s been awarded the goal, the moment is over. He can’t go doing the hands-up run now, and that’s the best part. However, Colin believes Paul, in his state of anger, is missing the bigger picture. In the last couple of minutes, something has happened that will have a far greater impact on his standing than merely scoring a stoater of a goal, and this is soon borne out as more and more boys rejoin the game from the dinner hall.
“What’s the score?” Colin hears Paddy Beattie ask Anthony Hughes, one of the Primary Sixes.
“I hink it’s nineteen-fifteen.”
“Eighteen-fifteen,” insist a few voices.
“But never mind that,” Anthony says. “Paul McKee battered Robbie.”
“Paul battered Robbie?” Paddy asks. Pleasure and disbelief are equally measured in his voice, but his volume is not. Robbie is not nearby, but close enough, it would appear, to have heard.
“Aye. Robbie mooched his goal and Paul took a pure eppy and battered him.”
“Naw he never,” Robbie insists, walking closer to state his case.
“What you talkin aboot?” Anthony laughs. “He booted your arse umpteen times and then Matt jumped in and saved you.”
“Saved Paul, mair like. He hardly touched us. I was ignorin him.”
“Ignorin him? Is that a new word for shitin yoursel?” Paddy asks.
“Fuck up,” Robbie says, the delivery notably lacking his usual viciousness.
“If he never battered you, why don’t you claim him, then?” Anthony enquires.
This makes Colin uncomfortable. He doesn’t like it when folk try to instigate fights between people, and he fears for Paul if this gets pushed through to a conclusion.
“Nae point,” replies Robbie. “He’ll shite it. He knows I’ll batter him, so he’ll no turn up.”
“Sounds like you’re the wan shitin it,” says Paddy.
“Fuck up,” says Robbie again, and walks away.
Colin fears for a moment that he is going to head straight for Paul to claim him after school or to settle the matter more immediately, but instead he just wanders away to stand on his own in his favoured mooching zone around the penalty spot. And that’s when Colin understands why Robbie won’t be claiming Paul now or later, and why he didn’t fight back when Paul booted him. He was scared. He was scared then and he’s scared now, despite what having been officially battered by Paul will do to their respective reputations.
Robbie stands for a moment, his eyes drawn more to Colin and Martin than to where play is under way, and frequently beyond them to the steady stream of boys making their way to the pitch and playground from the dinner hall. Then he screws up his face in that pinched way of his and begins trotting across the pitch towards the new arrivals. Colin guesses he’s intending to start spreading his own version of events before they hear it from anyone else, but he can’t see the point. It will only make it worse when they hear the truth.
Careers
“There’s somebody would like a word, Mr Jackson,” says the polisman who is waiting in the corridor outside the interview room.
“Who would that be?”
“The Detective Super in charge of the investigation. Just follow me.” He leads Martin along the hall towards the security barrier and the reception lobby. “Just there,” he indicates, gesturing towards a tall woman in a dark suit, standing with her back to him as she chats to the desk sergeant. She clocks the other polisman’s approach and spins around on one sturdy heel.
It takes Martin a long second to realise that Noodsy mis-remembered nothing. “Detective Superintendent Gillespie,” he says, standing as straight and tall as he can. She still seems to tower over him. She’s probably got only two or three inches on him, but they made their mark indelibly when these things really mattered.
“Mr Martin Jackson. What a pleasure to see you again, and in such a beautiful suit. Must have cost more than my last car. Of course, they do say there are few more impressive sights than a Scotsman on the make, and you certainly look the part.”
“I always liked you in uniform. Shame you’re in plain clothes.”
“Step into my office, please. And don’t push your luck.”
She ushers him into a stuffy fire hazard of a room, strewn with folders, loose paper and polystyrene cups. He thinks of his own dual-aspect corner suite in Holborn and wonders why he’s the one feeling juvenile and a little intimidated. Karen pulls out a swivel chair for him then takes her own seat on the other side of a desk so marked with coffee rings it could have been the sketch pad of the guy who designed the Audi and Olympic logos.
“So, Detective Super,” he says. “I didn’t even know you were in the polis, let alone…Guess you must be the one with all the gen on what happened to everybody. Or the bampots, at least.”
“Not so much. I’ve not long transferred to this division. Haven’t been to Braeside before now. I’m catching up fast, though. Of course, if I wanted to know what happened to you, I’d just need to pick up a copy of Heat magazine.”
Martin sighs. He feels a blush coming on, which pisses him off, because he does not want to look remotely bashful about this. “One photograph, once,” he says. “One fucking photograph. And they didn’t even get my name right. I was Matthew Jackson, if I recall correctly. But everybody bloody saw it.”
“‘Showbiz lawyer Matthew Jackson’ was, I believe, the caption. And are you still seeing…?”
“I went out with the lassie for less time than it took to develop the snap. I’m sure if you read Heat more carefully, you’d know who she’s with now. What about you? Are you married?” He glances at her left hand; there’s no ring, but you never know, especially with women in male-dominated professions.
“Divorced. Nobody you knew. But don’t change the subject. What the hell is a showbiz lawyer doing here? Especially given Noodsy already has a brief.”
“He asked for me.”
“Oh, I know that. I don’t think anybody expected you to actually come, but I was intrigued. That’s the only reason the desk sergeant let you see him, by the way. I know why Noodsy asked—he’s desperate and he’s daft. What’s beating me is why you answered, and what you think you can do.”
“Have to admit that’s got me struggling a bit as well,” says Martin. “So far, the best argument to come up is that I still owe him for something he did in about Primary Five.”
“I still owe you for something you did in Primary Seven, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to cut you any slack if you become any kind of nuisance to this investigation.”
“At this stage, I don’t even know how to go about being a nuisance to your investigation. How’s Robbie, by the way?”
She grimaces. “Not good. He was in surgery for about seven hours; now in intensive care. Sounds like a frenzied attack: multiple stab wounds, and there would have been more but that the knife got stuck.”
“Have you got any suspects?”
“You mean apart from the obvious?”
“Who’s obv…You don’t mean Noodsy?”
“He’s already involved in two murders, one of them Robbie’s dad.”
“Aye, but come on, this is Noodsy we’re talking about. He’s admitting his part in trying to get rid of the bodies, but can you honestly see him killing anybody? Robbie, different story. He was always a psycho. Murderer would have been what his careers adviser recommended. But Noodsy?”
“It’s been twenty years, Martin. How well do you know Noodsy these days? And how well did any of us know each other even then? We’re not children any more. We’re none of us who we used to be.”
Martin can’t answer that one. He used to be the brainy kid, but right now he’s clueless. He used to be impeccably behaved, a walking bundle of conscientiousness and honourable intentions. Now he’s a shark in a suit. Or just a prick, to put it more succinctly.
“We’re going to have Noodsy’s clothes analysed to see who the bloodstains match. If it’s all three, it’ll make my job a lot simpler.”
“That’s what he wanted me for.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He was concerned that the police already had their minds made up and would reach whatever conclusions made their job simpler.”
“I’ll reach whatever conclusions the evidence compels, Martin,” she says, stung.
“I wasn’t casting any aspersions, just saying this is what he thinks I can do: find out what really happened before he got there.”
“That will be the focus of our investigations, I can assure him. It’s just the ‘before he got there’ part we’re not ready to accept on merely his word.”
“So you think he did it?”
“All three? I’ve already said, I—”
“Any of them. Alone, or with Robbie.”
“I don’t have enough evidence to think anything yet. What makes you so certain he wouldn’t, other than you thought he was an okay guy at school?”
Martin laughs, a little embarrassed, to concede the point. “I’ve got nothing but his word. Though Noodsy’s never lied to me.”
“The stakes are a bit higher just now.”
“I know. I’m flailing here, I admit it. But the look on his face when I showed up: it was more than just surprise to see me. It was like a glimmer of hope, like he was relieved there was someone here who would believe him.”
“Aye, but that probably says as much about what Noodsy thinks of you as about anything else.”
“You saying I’m a mug?”
She smiles. “I’m sure you’re nobody’s mug these days, Martin. You’re a lawyer, a media lawyer at that: you could no doubt outstrip us all in the cynicism stakes. But you weren’t always so streeetwise. Noodsy hadn’t seen me in for ever, either, but do you know what I saw in his face when I walked in to interview him?”
“What?”
“Despondency. Defeat. Now, I’ve known the guy as long as you, and I’d have expected his eyes to light up if he thought me being the cop meant there was a greater chance of him being believed. Instead, it looked like someone who’d known him so long being the cop meant precisely the opposite. Noodsy’s a career criminal, Martin, and quite the wee fly-man. You should see his sheet. He learnt the hard way how not to get the blame. He knows how to play his angles.”
“And you reckon I’m one of them.”
“I’m keeping an open mind. That’s my job. Your job is three-hundred-odd miles away. Don’t forget that.”
“It’s fairly prominent in my mind, I promise you. But I told him I’d try. I gave him my word.”
“And is that worth much these days?”
“It’s worth something today.”
She gets up to show him out, walks him to the front entrance.
“It was good to see you again,” he says, with as much sincerity as he can muster.
“You too, Martin. I just wish…”
“Yeah, I know.”
They shake hands and he walks down the short outside steps. He’s at the bottom when he hears her voice again.
“Martin?”
“Yeah?”
“That Primary Seven debt. You bring me anything you find out, and I’ll keep you in the loop my end.”
She looks roughly as sincere as he had hoped to appear a minute ago. He smiles and nods. “I only did it because I fancied you,” he says. “But I’ll take what’s on offer.”
Cursed
Colin sees the ball disappear into a cluster of players near the centre of the park but has little chance of following the play at this point. Everybody is back from lunch, meaning both games are in full swing, most concerningly the Primary Seven match which is right now crowding out his penalty box. It’s hard enough to see up the pitch through the ruck of bodies, but his eye is drawn more to the Primary Sevens’ ball anyway, and the possibility that it could be driven very hard in his direction at any moment. His task, should that happen, will be the opposite of his bigger counterpart, in that Colin will be leaping to get out of the way of the ball while the Sevens’ keeper tries to block it, to say nothing of evading death by stampede should it end up loose in a crowded goalmouth. Martin has sensibly taken up position in front of the eighteen-yard box, with the unspoken understanding that he’ll give Colin a shout if play looks like heading their way. Simultaneous attacks on the same goal are Colin’s most dreaded scenario: not only can there be as many as three balls to keep track of, but diving even for the tamest of shots is fraught with the danger that you’ll launch yourself straight into a sturdy pair of legs that weren’t there a split second ago. His greatest fear is hurling himself into a full, mid-air dive while the Primary Seven keeper does the same thing from the opposite direction. It hasn’t ever happened, but he can vividly imagine the results, having seen the mess when Jamesy and an older boy, following the flights of different balls, ran into each other and clashed heads. That said, the number of such simultaneous attacks is surprisingly few. This is partly down to the size of the pitch and the time the ball therefore spends in the endless savannah grasslands of midfield, and partly down to the Primary Sevens’ tendency just to blooter the smaller boys’ ball out of the park any time it gets in their way.
Hearing no warning from Martin, Colin takes a prudent step back behind the goal line as the six-yard area suddenly floods with Primary Sevens. The ball gets hooked away by a defender before the keeper can make his way through the scrum to grab it, and falls for one of the few attackers with the presence of mind to take position a bit further back. He gives it a right welly, but catches it a wee bit too high up the leg, which dampens the impact and kills some of the pace. Despite this, it still runs nicely off his shin and along his foot in a ski-jump effect, giving it enough loft to clear all the bodies between him and the target. The ball hits the underside of the bar on its way in, which makes the goal look even better. The scorer runs off to celebrate as everyone acknowledges it to have been a cracker, though Colin knows it would ha
ve been judged as ‘well over’ had the game been up in the playground, where anything passing between the jackets at more than shoulder height is the subject of dispute.
The goalmouth clears as the attackers retreat and await the kick-out, the mass of players dispersing just in time for Colin to see his own game’s ball sent up the wing for Jamesy to chase. Jamesy is one of the best dribblers (or most ball-greedy bastards, depending on whether his efforts come to anything) and likes to take the ball out wide where there’s space to generate some momentum. He’s having a pretty good game today, and has been instrumental in a few goals as well as scoring two, but there’s no way he’s getting to this ball before Martin. Normally Colin would be calling to Martin to pass it back for him to pick up, but there are still a few Primary Seven stragglers who might get in the way or even take a gratuitous swipe at it.
“First-time it!” he shouts instead.
Martin judges the bounce and runs on to it, swinging his leg for the big punt up the park, or at least that’s where it would have gone if Martin didn’t have a foot like a ten-bob bit. He gets a meaty enough dig at it, so it’s not lacking in range, but it slices well wide to the right, off the pitch and clear of the high perimeter wall.
“Aw, shite,” is the most popular response, mainly after the checking of watches and realisation that the bell is going to sound well before the ball makes it back on to the pitch.
This probable timescale is bound to be prominent in Martin’s mind, too. Colin remembers how much he was crapping it when he managed to send a drop-kick over the outside wall, and that was without the added pressure of a ticking clock. You’re not allowed to go outside the school grounds during school hours, and you’re particularly warned off going over the wall because the adjoining enclosure is a derelict waste-ground. From what Colin saw of it when he was searching for the stray Mitre, there was nothing more dangerous about the place than some broken glass and jaggy nettles, but in the teachers’ eyes it was littered with unseen deathtraps and therefore utterly forbidden to enter. How else you were meant to get your ball back, they neglected to say (and there was certainly no recorded instance of one of them bothering their arses to go and retrieve the situation, especially as they had a flakey if you ever so much as chapped the staff-room door during a break), but their position on the matter was underlined by the threat of the belt if you got caught doing it. That was what Colin had been scared of when he had been forced to scale the wall, far more than any accident that might befall him in the act of climbing or in traversing the Cursed Earth beyond.
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