by Claire Askew
I did know I couldn’t go back, though, and I knew folk were looking for me. It started with Nella’s posters, popping up around Glasgow. It was making the lads twitchy, so I had to disappear. First thing I did was shave my head. You know how cold it is being suddenly bald in the middle of a Glaswegian winter? Yeah. Izz gave me these dark glasses and I wore them everywhere. Toad sorted me out with fake IDs, passport, the works. Nick Smith, he christened me: as plain a name as you can get. And of course I had to get built. There was a pull-up bar in the booth behind the hatch at the sauna and I was just at it, all the time. That, or press-ups on the floor. There wasn’t a lot else to do, and Vyshnya nagged me if I sat around too much.
I saw there was shit in the papers. The missing straight-A kid wasn’t all he seemed, he hung with a bad crowd, yadda yadda. That Lockley cunt dug up some dirt on me that Nella and Maw wouldn’t have known. I was big into weed, in the years BC: before criminality. I wasn’t dealing as such, but for a lot of people I was the guy in their I know a guy. I’d run up against the law a couple of times, spent the odd night in the drunk tank, got a caution for being disorderly outside a pub in Ibrox. I mean, Ibrox. Couldn’t quite believe that one. But anyway, I didn’t think any of it was major. The problem was Maw’s public appeal.
Maw was a single mother, right? Always had been: my entire life anyway. I didn’t know much about my da except his name was Jimmy and it was short for Jameson, like the whisky. That, and he beat Maw up. So bad she lost a baby, or at least so Nella said. A baby that would have come between Nella and me. Nella had this early, early memory of being like three years old, toddling out of her room late at night and seeing Maw in the bathroom floor on her knees. Towels covered in blood. The sound of my da smashing plates in the kitchen. And Maw had to get up off that floor, being in the state she was, and put Nella back into bed. I tried not to believe it because I didn’t want it to be true, and because it made me so angry that when I thought about it, my vision blacked out. It scared me. I’d never met the guy. So I tried to imagine he’d never existed, Nella and I were just some sort of divine conception, and our maw was a fucking superhero.
The point is she was on her own. We never had money. We never cared. But when I went to uni things got really hard for her. She’d sent Nella, and that was hard enough, but then she had to send me too, right after. I got a maintenance grant, but she still gave me money every month. I think she felt like she had to. Me and my woe is Charlie act . . . I thought I was rooked? Maw was stone-cold broke.
So after I went, and they were looking for me, she launched this appeal. Trying to raise some money. She wanted to hire a PI to try to find me, I guess, and I think it was probably just meant for family and friends to donate to. But that Lockley scumbag got a hold of it and then was like, This woman is asking for money to find her son who’s a low-life drug dealer, isn’t that unacceptable? And yeah, plenty of the tabloid-inhaling arseholes of this world found it most unacceptable indeed. And Maw was hauled over the coals, while every single less-than-angelic thing I’d ever done was paraded for all to read.
Fenton used to ask me if I’d like to murder Lockley. We used to talk about it, over a bevvy sometimes: how we’d do it. He’d be easy enough to find and back then no one would have missed him. He didn’t have his fan club then. Fenton was dead serious, but I never followed through. I got to be a lot of things, but I was never a murderer. As the years went by that became like the last ragged flag of decency I still had waving. I’d never killed anyone. And I swore to myself I absolutely never would.
They’d reconvened to the kitchen: it was 5.10 a.m., and Birch needed another coffee. It was safe to have lights on now – this was the hour she’d be up and about anyway, and the dog walkers and early morning delivery drivers had already emerged. She liked to think such people acted as preventative witnesses – guardians of the streets before the streets fully woke – though they didn’t know it. They were so often the alarm-sounders, too. It was always a jogger or a dog walker who witnessed the opportunistic dawn breakin; or stumbled across a body still warm, still just within the reach of rescue.
She made the coffee strong, and piled in the sugar. One of her eyes had begun to flicker at the edge, a nerve dancing under her eyelashes. Her brother had hoisted himself onto the worktop, and sat there with his legs spread, his elbows resting on his knees. His head lolled.
‘I’m sorry, Charlie,’ she said, breaking a silence that had settled on the room like snow. ‘I can’t help you unless I arrest you.’
He looked at her, and in the bright kitchen light she noticed the bags under his eyes for the first time.
‘You want to be in a safe house,’ she said. ‘That’s where I want you to be, too. Where no one can touch you. So let me take you in. Operation Citrine needs you back. If you testify against Solomon, we can charge him. We can put him away. But I’ve got to tell you, without our informant, the case isn’t looking all that secure.’
Charlie’s head lolled again. She waited, but he didn’t say anything. Birch couldn’t stand the quiet.
‘No one’s talking,’ she said. ‘He’s trained them all too well. We can only hold him till Friday unless we find something to charge him with.’
Charlie yawned. ‘Didn’t you arrest him, like, right next to a boat full of bath salts?’
Birch closed her eyes in exasperation. It was like he was only hearing about every third word. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and I’m not in on his interviews, but he’ll be claiming he was just in the area. Just out looking at the sea view at 4 a.m., no idea what was in those boats coming in. Nothing to do with him, yadda yadda. Doesn’t matter if it’s obviously bullshit – we’ve only got two days left to prove him wrong, and the burden’s on us. We need more. We need our informant back.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘I already grassed,’ he said. ‘I already told your Glasgow pal everything I know about that job.’
Birch wanted to hit him. She knew he was tired, and frightened, and he didn’t understand police procedure. But his responses felt obtuse.
‘But you know more,’ she said. ‘About other things. You could testify on everything you’ve seen and’ – she paused, but then pressed ahead – ‘done, over the past fourteen years. You could give us all sorts of charges to pin on him. Don’t you see? You’re the only one who’ll talk.’
Charlie covered his eyes with his hands, another childlike gesture. She just wanted him on the same page.
‘Here’s how I see it,’ she said. ‘You let me arrest you, I put you in a safe house, and you testify. Solomon goes down and you’re safe. You’ll do some time, sure. But the other option is, you run. The case collapses. Solomon goes free. Then not only are you in danger, but he’s also free to terrorise whoever he fancies, whenever he fancies, business as usual. You running will have been for nothing, Charlie.’
Charlie dropped his hands, and looked at her with a sudden clarity. ‘I know you’re not Mother Teresa here,’ he said, his voice sharp-edged. ‘I get the two options, and they’re both pretty shitty for me. But not for you, right? If you arrest me, you’re all set up. Saved the day, didn’t you? But if I run, you’re fucked. If they find out I was here and you let me go, your career’s finished.’
Birch felt her face redden.
‘Isn’t it, Nella?’
She set her teeth. ‘Pretty much,’ she said. ‘Which is why I really ought to just arrest you, no more talk.’
Charlie snorted, and held out his wrists. It was a mime that said, cuff me, but there was something about it that looked pious, too, like Charlie was reaching out for the Communion wafer. Forgive me, sister, for I have sinned.
‘Why don’t you just do it, then?’ he snarled.
Birch dropped her gaze. The clock ticked. ‘Because you’re my fucking brother, okay?’ she said. ‘Because they’d take you away from me again.’
The kitchen filled with a silence in which Birch could feel Charlie’s combative mood fading, replaced once again with the thick mist of their
shared anguish: sleep deprivation. Confusion. Grief.
‘Where did you sleep last night?’ she asked, then corrected herself. ‘Monday night, I mean.’
He lifted his head again, and blinked. ‘Hmm?’
‘I asked . . . well, you said you got the train through from Glasgow on Monday, right? Early in the morning. So where did you sleep that night?’
Charlie blew on his coffee – though it must, she thought, be cool by now – then slurped a mouthful. Birch smiled: another old habit she’d forgotten about.
‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I just kind of . . . wandered around. I was trying to figure out what to do.’
She nodded. Then something occurred to her. ‘Charlie. You weren’t . . . here on Monday night, were you? I mean, at this house? Hanging around?’
Her brother frowned. ‘Hanging around?’
She gave her head a little shake. Okay – it wasn’t him then. Charlie wasn’t the skull-masked man. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I just . . . I saw someone in my garden on Monday night. Out the back. Climbing over the wall. I just suddenly thought it might have been you. But of course it wasn’t. Just ignore me.’ Her voice was stiff and shiny as foil.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Charlie said, sliding off the worktop and advancing towards her. ‘But . . . there was someone here?’
She looked down. ‘Maybe.’
Charlie jerked his head towards the curtained window. ‘Out there?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, still not looking at him. ‘I mean, I saw a guy climb over the wall. From outside, I mean, on the street. Down the Joppa end. I was far away. It might not have been this garden at all.’ Fuck, Helen – you’re a bad liar.
Charlie was right next to her now. ‘Nella,’ he said, almost in her ear, ‘you’d better tell me the whole thing because, I swear to God, you trying to make me think it was no big deal is spectacularly not working.’
Dammit. She’d forgotten that, in spite of his long absence, Charlie knew her. Maybe better than anyone, now Mum was gone.
She rattled off the story of the skull-faced man, the dark Mercedes. It helped that she’d done it once already, with Rab.
‘Fucksake,’ Charlie said. His tone had changed from exasperation at her sugar-coating to what sounded like genuine fear. ‘Fucksake, they know I’m here.’
Birch crinkled her forehead. ‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘That was before you got here. Monday night. While you were out walking around. If they were Solomon’s employees—’
Charlie waved a dismissive hand. ‘They were,’ he said.
‘Okay . . . if they were, then it just means two things. They’d figured out you were gone, and they know that I’m your sister.’
He was quiet. Birch counted a full sixty ticks of the clock.
‘I guess,’ he said, ‘they were casing the place. Realised I wasn’t here. Saw you arrive and came to look in the car, see if I was in it with you. They’ve seen that I wasn’t. That’s something.’
Birch nodded along as he spoke.
‘There’s been something else,’ she said, ‘phone calls. They started on Monday evening.’
She watched her brother’s face whiten. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘If they’ve got your number then they must have gone through my stuff.’
‘What?’
Charlie made a sheepish face. ‘Okay, look,’ he said. ‘I know I never got in touch, and I’m sorry; but that doesn’t mean I haven’t kept an eye on you, okay?’
She blinked. ‘Kept an eye . . . ?’
‘Yeah. I had my Weegie polis pal look you up. Got your work number off the staff intranet. I told him you were my sister. I already knew you were polis ’cause, you know, you’re all over Google. Especially lately, with the Three Rivers shit, and all that. So I had your work number in among my . . . my Nella stuff.’
Birch stared at him. ‘Nella stuff?’
He was blushing. He looked down at his feet. ‘I had a . . . wee notebook thing. If something was in the paper about you, I would cut it out and tape it in there. Like around that Three Rivers shooting, there were some bits. An article about how you’d been put in charge of the case and stuff. Some quotes you’d said at press conferences. Things like that. And you know, when Maw died there were some bits in the paper, some wee bits. I cut out the – what do you call it? – the death announcement you did. And there were a couple of little articles written by bastards who remembered that once upon a time Maw was a bit famous for having an arsehole son who went AWOL. Like Cash con appeal woman dies, son remains missing. That sort of bollocks. I hated it, but I cut it out and put it in there. Like a fucked-up family album, I guess.’
Birch pressed one hand over her eyes. ‘That explains that, then. How they got my number.’
Charlie was still looking at the floor. ‘Yeah.’
‘And it explains why they’d come here,’ she said. ‘I guess they figured this might be a place you’d run to.’
He looked up again, and yes: he was scared. She could see it now: terror sitting over his face like a caul.
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘If they know about you, and they’ve already been here . . . fuck. I thought I’d have more time than this.’
She could feel his agitation rising: it was a white-noise fizz in the room’s still air. He took a step forward, and she had the fleeting image of him sprinting from the front door, out into the morning’s darkness and away. He’d be gone again. This time for ever, maybe. She realised she couldn’t bear the thought, and stepped out into his path.
‘Charlie, wait. Let’s just be calm for a minute.’
He put his hands around her shoulders again: not to move her, she could tell, but to prepare to move her should he need to.
‘I might not have a minute,’ he said. ‘I wish you’d told me all that.’
Birch laughed, right in his face. ‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘Hey, brother I haven’t seen for fourteen entire years! There was a dodgy guy in my back garden the other day!’
He rolled his eyes.
‘Sorry, it wasn’t exactly my first priority,’ she added.
His fingers curled around her shoulders, and he tried nudging her, just slightly, to see if she’d yield.
‘Come on,’ he said, when she didn’t. ‘You want me to get kneecapped?’
Birch struggled free. ‘No, honey,’ she said. ‘I want you to take a breath, and let me talk for a second, okay? There might be more to this.’
He dropped his hands, swinging them down in exasperation so they slapped against his thighs. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Convince me. But do it quick.’
Birch pointed one finger at his face. ‘Stay there,’ she commanded, and skidded out of the kitchen and into the living room. She returned carrying her phone.
‘All the calls,’ she said. ‘They’re still going on. It’s on silent, but they’re still phoning. It’s hourly now, but other than that nothing’s changed. Don’t you think if they knew you were here they’d stop with this bullshit? Wouldn’t they just come?’
Charlie grimaced. He wasn’t convinced.
‘I spoke to them yesterday,’ she said. ‘Yesterday morning. I had no idea who was calling me, what it was about’ – she remembered the flowers, and decided not to mention them – ‘but it was really starting to piss me off. I got in a foul mood, and . . . well, the next time they called, I picked up.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘And said?’
‘The truth,’ Birch replied. ‘I told them I had no fucking idea why they were calling me, and said it was pathetic and pitiful.’
Charlie reeled away, back into his half of the kitchen. ‘Jesus, Nella! You really know how to endear yourself to people, don’t you?’
She snorted. ‘Well sorry. Funnily enough I didn’t realise that the arsehole who was phoning me was some bloodthirsty gangster who wanted to come and break the legs of the little brother I thought was already dead.’
The kitchen echoed. As silence returned, Birch watched Charlie’s face crumple. He began to l
augh: the kind of desperate, weird laughter that Birch herself had been overtaken by an hour or so before. This time, it was infectious: as Charlie’s laughter grew, it seemed to fuel her own. Charlie half collapsed against the worktop and then slid down the cupboard-front to the floor. She joined him there, the two of them side by side, backs against the hard MDF as the laughter began to ebb. She quietened before Charlie did, and it felt like surfacing out of deep water. Then they sat there, staring straight ahead at the cupboard doors in front. Charlie, seemingly without thinking, raised his arm and slung it around his sister’s shoulders. Birch flinched, but let it happen, then found she liked it there. Her brother’s arm: knotted with muscle, warm and alive. She leaned in and rested the top of her head against his chin.
‘You mustn’t go again,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t run. I couldn’t stand it. I’d want to die.’ She hadn’t realised it before she said it, but once she’d said it, she knew it was true. She would.
Charlie let out a long sigh. She felt it gather in him, his ribcage expanding, then contracting again.
‘It’s not safe,’ he said. ‘You’re saying you can’t protect me, so if I don’t run, I die.’
She flinched, and he felt it.
‘It sounds melodramatic,’ he said. ‘But I know these guys. You think this sort of stuff doesn’t happen in Scotland, but it does.’
Birch scoffed. ‘You remember what I do for a living?’ she said. ‘I know it does. I’ve seen Solomon’s file, I know the deep shit you’d be in if you ran and he came after you. But I can put you in a safe house. Like I said: you’d just have to be under arrest.’
When I look back, I realise how many bad things I’ve done. It’s a long list. At the top of it is my da.
It was three years in or so. I was still doing shifts at the sauna, but not as many. I was doing more translation work, but also a whole load of driving. Moving gear, moving the crew, taxiing the girls around. A bit of intimidation driving: sitting outside people’s houses, following them around the city, shit like that. It was stuff that didn’t feel criminal. I know that sounds ridiculous but that’s how it was. Vyshnya’s girls were happy enough, for the most part. Saunas are safe. If you’re in that line of work, a sauna’s where you want to be. In your own space, setting your own rules, among your pals, and protected by a witch like Vyshnya and a hard bastard like I’d become. Those girls had a problem? One of us would sort it out. They got into drugs? We’d help get them clean again. They had a bastard boyfriend who knocked them about? He’d soon fucking stop once I paid a visit. And the equivalent is working some kerb somewhere and fucksake, we all know how dangerous that is. Get in the wrong car and the next thing, you’re in a bin bag in bits. In a sauna, the most dangerous thing is getting caught in a raid from the polis. Getting arrested ’cause your last john left a half-smoked joint in your room or some other idiotic crap. Solomon had brought some of those girls to Scotland under false pretences – yet another reason to hate his stinking guts. But while they were with Vyshnya and me, they were safe. We made sure of it.
