by Claire Askew
Can I do nothing? she wondered. Her throat was sore where the man had clasped it, and the back of her neck had a twinge, like slight whiplash, from where he’d yanked her backward. She fancied she could taste the sweet-sour tang of blood, though she wasn’t even sure she’d broken his skin. Can I really pretend none of that ever happened? It felt like the antithesis of everything she stood for. It might be the straw of pretending nothing happened that broke the camel’s back of her own guilty silence. Plus, she’d be letting him get away with it, and the very idea made her skin itch.
The drive home fell away. As she approached Portobello High Street, Birch realised she’d switched to autopilot, too troubled by the dilemma, by the puzzle of what the attack meant, by the fear of what might come in its wake. A shadow of panic passed over her: had she stopped for red lights? Too late now. Another couple of blocks and she’d be home.
Instead of parking in the same place as last night, in well-heeled Elcho Terrace, Birch drove on past the road-end, past her own usual parking space near the China Express, and turned right. In low gear she crawled up the hill to Coillesdene Crescent, where long-time Portobello residents lived in extended bungalows on huge, grassy plots. Every other house had a Neighbourhood Watch sticker. Birch reverse-parked under a streetlight, gathered her courage to her, and got out of the car.
Walking down the hill towards her house, she hauled in a few lungfuls of good, cold air. It was quieter here, out of the city centre’s scrum, and she could hear more clearly. There were no footsteps behind her, though that didn’t stop her glancing back. Through the gaps in the houses, she caught glimpses of her own terrace, perhaps her own roof. Some of the skylights were lit, and she found their glow comforting. She thought of Charlie, and where he might be. If he hadn’t found somewhere to stop then he was probably starving by now. Cold, hungry, alone. Your fault.
She made it to the main road, and the smell of the China Express mingled with the salt and seaweed stink of the beach. Mid-way out, the tide rocked and shushed itself. Birch scanned the parked cars as she crossed towards the prom. No dark-coloured Merc, no figures in the gloom. All quiet.
Her heart still pattered in her chest. She was getting sick of it, all this coil and nerve. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d relaxed – she couldn’t imagine ever relaxing again. As she slipped through the garden gate, her jaw seemed to set itself hard. The house was in darkness, and the front door appeared to be untouched.
Birch let herself in and, holding her breath, walked through the downstairs rooms on the balls of her feet. She didn’t turn the lights on, just felt her way through, letting her eyes adjust and the contours of the furniture prickle into focus. The kitchen was half lit by the streetlamp out back, and beyond the still-locked back door the garden was its usual self. She stood listening for movement upstairs, checking that the smell and stillness of her house had not been disturbed. She believed it had not. There was no sign of a break-in.
She felt loath to turn her back on the front door, and climbed the stairs with her head part-turned, as though some new assailant might burst in at any time. Her encounter in the close had shaken her more than she could admit, right then: she could feel herself willing all thought of it away, except for its silver lining: they haven’t found Charlie yet. Her bedroom was empty, and the spare room. She twitched the shower curtain aside in the bathroom: nothing. Her own face hung like a dim moon in the cabinet mirror, startling her. Again, she stood listening: nothing. Her house had never felt emptier. This was the part where, at work, she’d get on her police radio and say, Clear.
She realised she’d been doing a form of this listening for fourteen years, ever since Charlie had disappeared. Living in this house, she’d always hoped that one day the banging of the front gate wouldn’t just be the sea wind, for once, but Charlie, her baby brother, finally coming home. She’d told herself he was dead, but of course some tiny sliver of her had refused to believe it. Now the listening was acute: it felt like the concentration you summon when your body is in pain and you need to get through to the other side of that pain. Birch found herself wondering, in that moment, if all this was the reason she’d stayed single for so much of her adult life. It wasn’t just the long hours of the job, the independence, this house she loved and wasn’t sure she wanted to share. Maybe she’d been saving space for something, all this time. She’d been waiting for Charlie’s return.
When he’d left the night before, Birch hadn’t dared open the door and go after him. She’d been frozen, at first, by his decisive exit, and then couldn’t face running out through the garden and onto the prom to find that he really had gone, and he wasn’t coming back. If she stood and waited, then it could still happen. She was doing it again now: standing at the top of the stairs, listening. Willing her little brother to come back to her, so she could try again and, this time, get things right.
And then – oh God, Helen – there did come the sound of the garden gate, and the heavy tread of a man outside on the path. Without waiting for the knock, Birch pounded down the stairs to open the door, ready to fling her arms around her brother and thank him for seeing sense and—
‘Evening, lassie.’
Birch recoiled at the sight of Big Rab. She couldn’t help it.
‘You all right, darlin’?’
She tumbled backward into the hallway and sat down, hard, on the third step of the staircase. Big Rab manoeuvred himself into the small space and closed the door behind him.
‘All right, now, hen. All right now,’ he said. He crouched down on his haunches to put his head on the same level as hers. It looked difficult and undignified, for such a big man. Birch didn’t care.
‘Did I no’ tell ye,’ he said, ‘to call me? If something went wrang?’
Birch had screwed her eyes closed. Go away, she thought, go away. What if Charlie comes back and you’re here? Instead, she nodded.
‘We’re aw worried sick,’ he went on. ‘Your pal DC Kato’s been beside herself.’
Birch blinked. ‘Amy?’
‘Aye,’ Big Rab said. ‘She’s been ringing ye. No answer. Then she tells me and I try, and some bloke answers, not sounding too friendly.’
‘A bloke?’
Rab nodded. ‘De ye ken where your phone is, DI Birch?’
Birch realised she did not. She hadn’t known since – when? She couldn’t remember.
‘Shit,’ she said. You must have dropped it, she thought, when you flipped that guy. She couldn’t remember it happening, but she knew, as soon as it occurred to her, that it was true. Just her luck. One of Solomon’s goons has your phone now. That means that tomorrow morning, Solomon will have your phone.
‘Shit,’ she said again.
Big Rab straightened up. Birch heard his knees crack.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’m away tae put the kettle on. You’re going to come wi’ me, and tell me what aw this is about, okay?’
Birch felt numb. Her mind was racing in two directions now: Charlie was gone, he was in the wind, with the worst kind of people looking for him. But also, those same people now had her phone, and it was full of work stuff, personal stuff, confidential information. The phone was locked, but she imagined it wouldn’t take much for the likes of Solomon’s guys to get past that. McLeod would kill her. There could be another disciplinary.
‘Oh God,’ she said, following Big Rab through the living room. ‘Oh shit, Helen, you idiot.’
Rab calmed her down, sat her on the sofa, and shoved a cup of very milky tea into her hands. She shuffled, aware once again of the dent Charlie had left in her couch. Rab settled into the small chair where Birch usually sat. She tried to ignore the sound it made as he came to rest.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
Birch screwed her eyes closed, tight. Tell him what? Everything? Could she do that? If she told him about Charlie they could start a manhunt. They could find him and bring him in and he’d be safe, someone could maybe persuade him to testify . . . but no. She’d have to fes
s up to the fact he’d been here, and hiding. She’d have to fess up that she’d lied to Rab, jeopardised the investigation, lied upon lies, made mistakes upon mistakes. And Charlie might hate her for the rest of their lives, the thought of which she just could not bear. That was if they found him at all. If they found him first . . .
‘I was attacked,’ Birch heard herself say. ‘Walking back to my car, from . . . in the city centre.’
She opened her eyes again, in time to see Rab grimace at her.
‘I telt ye,’ he said, ‘to ring me, if—’
Birch spluttered. ‘On what?’ she said. ‘The guy took my phone.’
‘Where wis yer panic button?’
Birch waved a hand at the coffee table. The panic button sat in the middle of it.
Big Rab rolled his eyes, then looked around. ‘Landline?’
‘I don’t have one,’ Birch lied. There was an elderly phone with extra-large buttons plugged in upstairs in the bedroom. It had belonged to the old guy who’d lived in the house before. She never used it, no one ever called her, and it hadn’t occurred to her that she might use it to phone Rab. She prayed to God that no one decided to place a cold call right then.
‘I’m only just in, really,’ she went on. Her voice came out high and stringy, making the statement sound like a lie, though it wasn’t. ‘I took it slow driving home, ’cause I’m shaken up, you know?’
That you know sounded just like Charlie.
Rab looked at her from under half-closed eyelids. ‘All right,’ he said.
She could see that same inkling of suspicion in his face, but she knew he wasn’t going to say anything, or wouldn’t yet, till he’d got more to go on.
‘He attacked you how?’
Birch swallowed a sob. Keep it together, Helen. ‘I . . . went into town after work,’ she said. ‘I walked up Johnston Terrace but then . . . needed to get down a level. I went down a close. It wasn’t late. I thought I’d be fine. But he came up behind me, and . . . well, we tussled.’
Rab smiled then. ‘He came off worst?’
Birch nodded.
‘You’re no’ going to get us sued, are ye, lassie?’
He was laughing. That was good.
‘I’m more worried about the fact he’s got my phone. I hadn’t realised I’d lost it till now. I must have dropped it as . . . you know, in the struggle.’ Birch remembered the gun. ‘I did hear something fall on the ground.’ Well, she thought, that isn’t a lie either. ‘That’s my work phone,’ she went on. ‘It’s got all sorts on it.’
Rab shrugged. ‘It’s locked?’
‘Yeah, but . . .’
He shook his head. ‘If it’s some wee nyaff of a mugger,’ he said, ‘he’ll no’ bother unlocking it. More likely it’s away to Cash Converters already.’
Birch tried to keep her mouth in a line. It was difficult: it felt sore. Even if that were true, she thought, how would it help? It could end up in anyone’s hands . . .
She knew Rab knew that. He was getting at something.
‘Unless,’ he said, ‘he wis a bigger fish than that.’
He looked hard at her then. She hadn’t noticed before, but his eyes were almost grey. In his pink face, they were piercing, when trained right at you. She could see how he’d break a perp under interrogation.
‘I . . . have no idea who he was,’ Birch managed. ‘He was white, fifties, about five eleven, wearing a hoodie that might have been blue, or grey – I’m not sure, it was dark. West coast accent, Glaswegian I think. And he smelled . . . not too great.’
Rab smiled again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that narrows it down.’
Birch tried to laugh. Her throat was full of water.
‘Did he speak to ye?’
She swallowed, hard, like a cartoon gulp. She hoped he hadn’t heard it. ‘Nothing much,’ she said. ‘Told me not to fuck with him, called me a bitch. Etcetera.’
Rab raised an eyebrow. ‘Didnae make demands?’
Birch tried to look wry. ‘He didn’t really have time,’ she said, ‘before I . . . neutralised things.’
She expected Rab to laugh, but he didn’t. He did drop his gaze, though, and she felt herself slacken all over.
‘You’re going to tell me,’ Rab said, ‘what else he said to ye.’
It was a statement, not a question. Birch flinched.
‘All of it,’ Rab added.
Birch looked down into her tea cup, letting her thoughts race. Rab already knew about Charlie. He didn’t know she’d hidden him. Telling the truth now didn’t have to unravel the previous lie. She remembered her mother again: one lie builds a tower. May as well knock a little off the top.
‘He asked where Charlie was,’ she blurted. As she looked up at Rab, she saw the suspicion leave his face. He’d known that all along, he just wanted her to say it.
‘It’s aw connected, then,’ he said, after a pause. His voice was grave.
‘What?’ she said.
He looked at her again. ‘Now come oan, lassie. Yer skull-masked saloon-driving man? That flower delivery? This, now. My informant on Citrine is yer wee brother. I thought you were the only person who knew that, but now we know that they know it, tae. And they either know that you know – which would mean you or I is bent, and talking to them. Or – more likely, given that I believe we’re as pure as the driven – they’ve done the same as I did. They’ve assumed he’d run tae you.’
Birch nodded. She couldn’t think what else to do. But his pure as the driven remark had made her cringe.
‘That wid explain,’ Rab was saying, ‘why some gobshite in a mask has been peering in yer windaes.’
She tried to cast her mind back to the skull-masked man, and Monday. It felt like an age ago.
‘I don’t know, Rab,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I’m just tired.’ She was telling the truth now. ‘In fact,’ she went on, ‘I’m exhausted. I just want to jack it all in.’ Is that true, Helen? she thought. Is that right?
‘This might be another disciplinary.’ She realised she was still speaking. ‘Because my phone is in the wrong hands. If there’s a leak of confidential information, I’m in big trouble. And yeah, you’re right. I think Solomon’s guys have got an interest in me and I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do. And we can’t do anything about Operation Citrine, and Solomon’s going to walk free tomorrow, my little brother is out there somewhere, in the midst of it all . . . I just want to ditch out, Rab. I could hand in my notice to McLeod tomorrow.’
Silence hung between them. Birch felt shocked at herself.
‘I dare say,’ she added, ‘he’d rather welcome it at this point.’
Rab frowned at her then. ‘Believe that,’ he said, ‘and ye ken less about that man than ye think.’
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but didn’t dare. The outburst seemed to have worked, though: the look of suspicion Rab had been wearing had fallen away.
‘You’ve had a shock, lassie,’ he said, gesturing to the tea. ‘Another one. It’s been a shite week for ye, no doubt about that.’
Birch took a sip of the hot liquid. It was loaded with sugar.
‘We’ll file a report on this,’ he went on, ‘this attack. But no’ tomorrow. Christ knows I cannae deal wi’ it tomorrow, seeing as I’ve to let a monster loose back intae the world. So just rest up. See what Monday brings.’
Birch was quiet. You don’t want to report it right away, she thought, because you’d have to reveal who your informant is. We’d both have to name him. Her eyes widened. ‘You still think we’re going to be able to charge him, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘You still think you might not have to own up to letting your informant run.’
Rab had stood, then, and straightened his limbs out in a series of clicks and groans. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that yer wee brother might still turn up at yer door, DI Birch. I ken it’s a small hope now, but miracles do happen.’
Birch swallowed again. Feeling she ought to, she also stood.
‘I’m glad you’re
okay, lassie,’ he said. ‘I’ll let DC Kato know.’
He set off through the living room, back to the hallway. At the door, he turned, and gestured backward to the panic button. ‘Put that by your bed, and get some sleep,’ he said. ‘I ken Solomon’s boys, an’ they won’t do anything major without his say-so. I reckon you’re all right tonight.’
Birch closed the door on Rab’s retreating back, then turned to face the dim emptiness of her little house once again.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ she said.
Time passed, and all it did was make me hate him more.
I still dreamed about her – about Vyshnya. All the time. Sometimes it was a sort of twisted replay, where I walked into a room and she was lying there, like a pile of rags, and it was up to me to try to save her. Other times it was worse: it was me hurting her, working my way down her body, systematically trying to snap every bone I could find. And other times I was in a dark place and she was this ghoulish thing chasing me: this broken howling woman who somehow managed to run, on all fours, on her shattered limbs. I woke up from these dreams drenched, shaking. I would turn over and go back to sleep just to dream them all over again. I’ve been having them years now. Any night I don’t dream is like heaven, a blessing.
For a while I drank. I thought it might help the dreams stop. It helped me fall asleep at night, sure, but the bad dreams still came and the alcohol just made me feel sicker, just made the room spin more. Fenton liked it when I was drinking: he was keen on a bevvy himself, and egged me on so he’d have a weeknight buddy to prop up the bar with. I liked it when he was there: we talked about stuff that wasn’t the sauna, and sometimes, after the right number of beers, I could pretend we were just two guys with lousy day jobs out on the town after a bit of a long one. But eventually Fenton would be gone, and I’d have to be alone in my flat.
So I switched tactics. I’d get up, swing by HQ, go to work, pocket my cash, and go home. Sleep, try not to dream, and repeat. I made excuses to Fenton and quick enough he got the message and stopped asking.
