by Claire Askew
Anyway. My da.
I’d got comfy. I was doing my thing. I was working for Solomon, sure, but I wasn’t hurting anyone. Or at least, not anyone who didn’t deserve it. I’d got myself a flat, and I was seeing Hanna, one of the girls. I was earning a good bit of cash. Unlike Fenton and some of the others I didn’t really like the bevvy so much, and I’d sorted out my weed problem – ’cause of the raid issue, but also because it made me slow. I was living pretty clean and saving up. It was all good.
Except I couldn’t go home. I had Hanna, but I wasn’t like some of the guys, who saw their mammies and their aunties on the weekends, who had wee baby nieces and nephews, who helped their auld grannies with their shopping. It’s a stereotype that gangsters love their families, but I discovered it’s a true one. I was unusual, in that outside our weird fraternity I had no one.
I wanted to get back in touch with Nella more than I could say. I wanted Maw to know I was alive. But they’d made such a racket about me. The posters, the public appeals – it dragged on for years. I’d been in the papers too much when I’d disappeared, thanks to that bastard Lockley. He’d even speculated that I’d fallen in with organised crime. I dunno where he got that from – if someone who knew me talked to someone else who talked to someone else, and Lockley caught wind. Or perhaps he just guessed, and happened to get it right. But either way, I was a flight risk. And Nella had to go and become a bloody policewoman, didn’t she? After that there was no way I could get back in touch. If any of the boys knew I’d been in contact with a police officer? That would have been it, for her as well as me. She didn’t know it, but her new job made any contact between us even more impossible. I had to disappear, like Toad had – he was pretty much alone in the world, too. We’d developed a sort of honorary father–son relationship, and thinking about me and Toad made me realise . . . there was a family member I could maybe reach out to. One who’d never known me, so wouldn’t have twigged I was missing. One I wouldn’t mind coming face to face with, maybe settling some scores. Long story short, I got an itch to find my da.
I’d come to realise that Solomon knew hard cunts everywhere, and when you’re connected to hard cunts everywhere, you can find just about anyone. I talked to Fenton about it. He’s a mad, toothless bastard but he’s pretty sharp all the same. All the information I could give him was that my da’s name was Jimmy, short for Jameson, yeah, like the whisky. That, and he was basically the worst sort of man.
‘And your sister’s name’s Helen, right?’ he says.
And I say yeah. And off he goes.
I thought nothing might come of it, or that I might have to wait years. I often wondered if my da was dead. I sort of did and didn’t hope he was. Bastards like that have a habit of dying young – some altercation or another – but I knew there’d be no satisfaction in it, if I discovered he was gone.
Next thing Fenton’s knocking on the door of my flat and showing me a bad photocopy of my own birth certificate.
In news that would shock no one: my da was still an absolute bastard. He’d become something of a washed-up absolute bastard, but he was still kicking.
‘I ken where tae find him,’ Fenton said. ‘Have a wee think. But you jist say the word, and we’re there.’
Toad tried to talk me out of it. Poor old Toad. Turned out he’d grown up Russian Orthodox, and although I’ve never known him set foot in a church . . . well, what you grow up with is what you are.
‘Honour thy father,’ he said to me, ‘even if thy father is a murdering pig.’
‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘What about avenge thy mother?’
He didn’t get it. In Russia, criticising someone’s parents is a pretty insulting thing to do, and maybe especially their father. Toad reckoned I ought to extend this to myself, too.
‘He gave you life,’ he said.
I could see he was trying to help, but it just pissed me off. ‘My maw gave me life,’ I said. ‘He gave me nothing. Literally. And the only thing he ever gave my maw was grief.’
He left it at that, but I could see I’d upset him. For the next few days, while I thought about it like Fenton had said, I could see it was bothering Toad. I saw him a couple of times, and as we talked he’d be frowning at me, like he wanted to say something. I realise now that maybe he was worried: he was in charge of me, weirdly fatherly with it, and perhaps he thought me finding my da would ruin that relationship we’d built. But I’m speculating there. I guess he knew it was delicate, that the scales of my decision were teetering. He didn’t want to add the final straw.
Of course, it was like a scab. You can try your best, but in the end you’ve got to pick it. I’d always been mad at my da, ever since Nella had told me that story about Maw and the blood. I’d always daydreamed about what I’d say or do if I ever met him, how I’d get revenge on Maw’s behalf. Now I’d fucked up my life, and I couldn’t see or talk to my maw any more; but this one thing, I could still do. I was a hard bastard now, after all. Blockbuster Video Charlie couldn’t have squared up to his old man. Gangster Charlie could put the fear of God up him.
‘That’s ma boy,’ Fenton said, when I told him I wanted to do it. He’s got his own version of justice, Fenton, and this was exactly it.
‘So, you have decided, Schenok?’ Toad asked me. I knew that Fenton had already told him. ‘What is it that you are going to do?’
I thought about it for a moment before I answered him. I’d spent that last handful of days fantasising over a fair few scenarios. I remembered one of Maw’s expressions, one that I hadn’t heard her say in years.
‘I’m going to punch his ticket,’ I said.
‘Okay. If this all goes right, you’ll stay? One day, Charlie, that’s all I ask.’
Her brother was back on the sofa, nestled into that same dent he’d made. Birch was interested to note that the spot he’d picked was the very place she also liked to sit: opposite her mother’s photograph, and now the card, with Rab’s spidery handwriting.
‘Today,’ he said. ‘Just today. I’m sorry – I can’t promise more than that.’
Birch shrugged. ‘I guess that’s as good as I’ll get,’ she said.
They sat and looked at the phone screen. They’d wrangled back and forth for an hour now, and it was nearly 6.30 a.m. Time for the next call: every hour, on the half-hour.
‘Just our fucking luck,’ Charlie said, looking down at the phone on the coffee table between them, ‘if this is the call they decide not to make. Or you pick up and it’s like, hello, we’re in the front garden.’
It was a joke, albeit a grim one: she could see it on his face. But in spite of herself she did glance up at the closed curtains, the slightest hint of grey light beginning to occur to the window beyond.
‘They’ll call,’ she said.
They looked at the phone screen. 06:29.
‘Three, two, one . . .’ Birch’s count was almost spot on. It rang.
Charlie looked at her, his face a strange blank.
‘Good morning, scumbag,’ Birch said. For a terrible second, she imagined it might be DCI McLeod on the other end of the line, calling her early. It’d be a rarity, but not a first.
But no: on the line, that familiar not-quite silence.
‘I’ve got an update for you,’ she said. ‘I got sick of you pissing about in my garden, and calling me all hours of the night. I don’t think I need to tell you, but I’m a policewoman, remember? I’ve filed a report with my colleagues.’
She looked at Charlie as she reamed off the next part. ‘I have no idea why you’re harassing me,’ she said, ‘but you’re now being monitored. I’ve been supplied with a panic button. So if I see that tacky blacked-out saloon within a mile of my house again, I’ll have the cavalry down on top of it and you won’t know what’s hit you. See also: wankers in Halloween masks climbing into my garden. I have permission to use the full force of the law, and trust me, scumbag, it would be my absolute pleasure to do so.’
The line really was silent now, as thou
gh the listener were holding his breath.
‘What’s more,’ she said, ‘if you think tracing a withheld number is beyond our capability, then you’re even more stupid than you seem. The more times you call, the more likely it is that we’ll find you. And with every call that is logged, the case for harassment and threatening behaviour grows. So this is my advice to you on this fine Wednesday morning: last warning. Fuck off.’
Birch flipped the phone from her ear to her palm, and swiped to hang up. The stream of invective had left her heart racing.
‘Wow,’ Charlie said. ‘Nella. I mean . . . respect.’
She looked down at the phone screen, which had auto-locked and so only reflected her own tired face back at her.
‘We’ll find out in an hour,’ she said, ‘if that’s worked. Now for the less fun part.’ She swiped the phone open again, and dialled.
It was early still. She got a telephonist whose voice she didn’t recognise.
‘Morning,’ Birch said, pushing her voice down low in her throat to try to sound rough. The sleep deprivation helped. ‘It’s DI Helen Birch here, can I leave a message for DCI McLeod, please?’
‘I can try his extension for you?’ The girl’s voice was hopeful and bouncy.
Birch almost laughed. You must be new, she thought. ‘No, no,’ Birch said, ‘I know he won’t be in yet. I just want to leave a message and then follow up later.’
‘I’ll put you through,’ the girl said again. ‘If he’s not there, you can leave a message on his voicemail.’
If he’s not there, Birch thought. She rolled her eyes at Charlie, who of course wasn’t in on the joke. The dawn raid two days ago was the first time she’d seen her boss outwith the hours of daylight in months.
McLeod’s voice came on the line and, in spite of herself, Birch sat up a little straighter: . . . after the tone. Alternatively you may contact . . . The message felt endless. Birch flapped her hand at Charlie, the universal sign for using forty words when four would do.
Finally, a beep.
‘Good morning, sir,’ Birch said, trying not to sound in any way perky. ‘It’s Helen Birch here. Just calling to say I’m feeling pretty dreadful, and won’t be in today. If you have any work you’d like me to do remotely, I’ll be checking my email as normal.’
She paused. What else?
‘I know we’re up against the clock with the Solomon case,’ she said, ‘but I figured I should take a day and try to fight this off, so I can get back on it sooner.’
Charlie was watching her, one eyebrow raised.
‘I’ll follow this up with an email shortly,’ she said. ‘And I’ll be by my phone.’
She dithered for a moment, unsure how to sign off. Charlie drew one finger across his throat, a gesture that made her shiver. She hung up without saying anything more.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Now you and I can talk.’
She’d sent Charlie off to take a shower, and then to get a couple of hours’ sleep.
‘I’m not sure,’ he’d said. ‘I want to be on the lookout.’
‘I’ll be on the lookout. If anything happens I’ll scream the place down. But it’ll be light soon, and the prom’s always busy. I reckon we’re fine for the rest of the day. Don’t be paranoid.’
Charlie had peered out through the living room curtains. Outside, dog walkers. Cyclists with their blinking headlamps losing ground against the dawn. The tide, a long way out again, and the sand a wet mirror reflecting a weak morning moon. Traffic on the road outside making surf-sounds all of its own.
‘Okay,’ he’d said. ‘I’m pretty beat.’
She’d shifted all the crap off her bed. A few work papers; a thick novel she regretted starting; a coffee cup with a spoon sugar-glued to the inside. It felt wrong to put Charlie in the spare room with its hard little single divan.
‘There might be toast crumbs,’ she’d said, shaking out the duvet. A dreadful flashback, then: Oh God. Anjan must have noticed the toast crumbs, too. She’d flushed. ‘Sorry.’
Charlie had just grinned, and ducked into the bathroom, a towel slung around his thick, implausible neck.
Downstairs, Birch pulled open the living room curtains, and cracked the blinds. The grey light was pinkish now, the sky streaked with red. Shepherd’s warning. Through a gap in her unkempt garden hedge she watched a happy Labrador zip off towards the low tideline after a flung stalk of kelp. She shuffled to the kitchen, gathering the empty coffee cups and whisky glasses from the table to dump into the sink. She zipped the blind up, half expecting to see a skull face on the other side of the glass: surprise. But the garden looked the way it always did: grass beginning to need a cut, the shed leaning slightly with the pull of the sea winds. She checked the back door, then meandered through the living room and into the hall to check the other. She felt like a big cat in a too-small enclosure, pacing. Waiting for some sort of attack that might never come.
For a couple of minutes, Birch stood on the hall’s four-foot square of carpet, listening to the sounds of her brother, just existing inside her house. She rubbed her eyes, terrified she might wake up and find it was all a long, elaborate dream. But no: Charlie was up there with the water blasting, assuming she couldn’t hear him singing to himself. She didn’t recognise the tune, and when she strained to try to hear the words she realised he was singing in Russian. The bits that he’d taught her years ago were half remembered, largely useless now. When she heard him stop the water, she slipped back through to the kitchen and stood under the window, watching the kettle fog the glass with an empty speech-bubble of steam.
She glanced at the clock: 7.20 a.m.
‘Well, Helen,’ she said, under the noise of the kettle and her brother knocking around upstairs. ‘This is it. You’re harbouring a known criminal. You are officially committing a crime.’
Four and a half hours Charlie had been in the house. During that time he’d confessed to a shopping-list of criminal actions, named associates she knew by reputation from other cases, confirmed he was on Solomon’s payroll, and disclosed his status as a compromised informant. She should have cuffed him a good two or three hours ago, gone and got the car and driven him to the nearest custody suite herself. She should have read him his Miranda rights and barricaded him in. She should have hit the panic button, called the cavalry and had him taken in on the grounds of breaking and entering, to have the rest extracted from him via interview. She’d have picked from these options with anyone else: any other perp in the world.
But this was Charlie.
‘I’m still going to do it,’ she said to herself quietly. ‘He thinks he’s going to walk out of that door later, but he isn’t. I am going to do it. I’m going to save this case.’
In the back of her mind she could feel some childlike version of herself curling up to cry at the very idea of watching Charlie walk out of her front door, almost as soon as he’d broken in.
It’s just a day, she thought. No one needs to know. I’ll do it. I just want a few more hours with him.
Upstairs, she heard the stripped pine bedframe creak as Charlie folded his heavy, tattooed bulk into it. She watched the digits on her phone screen tick over: 07:28; 07:29; 07:30. And she held her breath.
No call came.
My da drank in the Gunner off Pennywell Road: Fenton had it on good authority. This was years before they tore it down. He and I got on the train at Queen Street like we were headed on a day trip. To be honest that north Edinburgh part of town always did make me think of the sea: Maw taking us out to the beach at Silverknowes, buying us those syrupy ice pole things that turned your tongue bright blue. I’d become a Glaswegian, and three or so years was long enough that I felt nostalgic, heading back into Edinburgh on the train, past the airport tower and the big Jenners warehouse. I was struggling to stay focused and think about my da at all: I was wondering if I’d run into Nella, or anyone I knew. Not that it would matter, transformed as I was. It’s amazing what a tattoo on the throat will do to make people look anywh
ere but at you.
We got on the 37 bus towards Granton. The fares had gone up. I wanted to sit on the top deck, look out at Edinburgh, but didn’t dare ask Fenton. He stoated off to the back of the downstairs, perched himself on the long bench seat. A woman with a fancy handbag moved elsewhere when I joined him.
‘We arenae in Glasgow any more, Toto,’ he said to me.
It was all the same as I remembered, really. It was summer, and up on the castle esplanade they were building the big metal frames for the seating at the Military Tattoo. There were posters for the jazz festival: I thought about watching the Mardi Gras parade in the Grassmarket, fittingly stoned, and then later watching a beautiful ruby-skinned woman in a tight black dress sing under red Chinese lanterns in a big striped tent. When was that? Edinburgh, I thought to myself, I miss you, hen. I felt stupid of course, but the feeling was there like a warm sort of pain. Fenton was looking at his phone. I kept quiet and watched the city go past at intervals, between stops.
