by Iain Banks
On the other hand there's a part of me that rejoices, that is glad he paid the way he did, that for once the world worked the way it's supposed to, punishing the wrongdoer… and that saddens and sickens me too, because I think that this must be the way Andy feels all the time.
It's strange to be in Strathspeld, to be in the house and not have seen Mr and Mrs Gould. Some of the cops have gone; there are only ten cars and vans on the gravel drive now. The chopper went to refuel, came back and buzzed around some more and then returned to Glasgow. Apparently they had road blocks and patrols on roads all over the area, and they searched the grounds of the house. Fat chance.
Back at the house, in the library, I tell a DI from Tayside all that happened that day, twenty years ago. McDunn sits in, too. It isn't as painful as I thought it would be. I tell it just as it happened, from where we ran up the hill almost straight into the man; I leave out what Andy and I were doing just before, and the man's line about dirty, perverted things. I can't tell that with McDunn sitting there; it would be like telling my father. Actually, I guess I wouldn't want to tell it to anybody, not so much because I'm ashamed (I tell myself) as because it's private; one last thing I can hide that's between me and Andy only, so letting me feel that there is one thing at least in which I've not betrayed him utterly.
Sergeant Flavell has been released from me to take notes; I'm attached to myself now, wrists cuffed together. The aged, respectable leather-bound tomes of the Gould family library look down upon the nasty tale I have to tell with musty distaste. Outside, it's dark.
"Think I'll be charged?" I ask the two DIs. I already know there's no time limit between committing a murder and being charged with it.
"Not for me to say, Mr Colley," the Tayside guy says, gathering up his notebook and tape recorder.
McDunn's mouth twists down at the edges; he sucks through his teeth, and for some reason I feel encouraged.
They've ordered food from the Strathspeld Arms; the same food the funeral guests would have eaten. A bunch of us eat in the dining room. I'm handcuffed to one of the London burlies now and we both have to eat with one hand. I'd kind of been hoping they'd take the cuffs off me altogether by now but I suppose they're thinking that the body in the shaft doesn't prove anything by itself, and that Andy could still be dead, or he could be alive and he — or somebody else — could have kidnapped Halziel and Lingary to provide cover for me.
McDunn comes in as I'm chasing bits of quiche around my plate with my fork.
He comes up to me, nods to the burly and unlocks the cuffs.
"Come here," he tells me, putting the handcuffs in his pocket. I wipe my lips and follow him to the door.
"What is it?" I ask him.
"It's for you," he says, striding across the hall towards the phone, where the handset's lying on the table and an officer is attaching a little device like a sucker to the phone; a wire leads from the sucker to a Pro Walkman. The officer starts the machine recording. McDunn glances back at me before stopping at the phone and nodding down at it. "It's Andy."
He hands me the phone.
CHAPTER 11 — SLAB
"Andy?"
"Hello, Cameron."
It is his voice, urbane and controlled; until this moment some tiny part of me still believed he was dead. I get the shivers, and the hair on the nape of my neck prickles. I lean back against the wall, looking at McDunn, who's standing with his arms crossed a metre away. The young officer who turned on the Walkman hands McDunn a pair of earphones plugged into the machine. McDunn listens in.
I clear my throat. "What's going on, Andy?"
"Sorry to drop you in it, old son," he says in a conversational sort of way, as though apologising for some thoughtless remark or landing me with a mismatched blind date.
"Yeah? Are you?"
McDunn makes a circular waving motion with one hand; keep going. Oh, Christ, here we go again. They want me to keep him talking so they can trace him. One more betrayal.
"Well, yes," Andy says, sounding as though he's a little surprised to find he actually is sorry, albeit only slightly. "I feel a bit bad about that, but at the same time I felt you deserved it. Not that I thought you'd go to prison for it; wouldn't inflict that on you, but… well, I wanted you to suffer for a while. I take it they found that card I left in the woods near Sir Rufus's place."
"Yes, they did. Thanks, Andy. Yeah; great. I thought we were friends?
"We were, Cameron," he says, reasonably. "But you did run away, twice."
I give a small, despairing laugh, glancing at McDunn again. "I came back the second time."
"Yes, Cameron," he says, and his voice is smooth. "That's why you're still alive."
"Oh, thanks very much."
"But anyway, Cameron, you're still part of it. You've still played your part in it. Like me; like all of us. We're all guilty, don't you think?"
"What is this?" I ask, frowning. "Original sin? You becoming a Catholic or something?"
"Oh, no, Cameron; I believe we're born free of sin and free of guilt. It's just that we all catch it, eventually. There are no clean rooms for morality, Cameron, no boys in bubbles kept in a guilt-free sterile zone. There are monasteries and nunneries, and people become recluses, but even that's just an elegant way of giving up. Washing one's hands didn't work two thousand years ago, and it doesn't work today. Involvement, Cameron, connection."
I shake my head, staring at the little window in the Walkman where the tape spindles are patiently revolving. The strange thing is, it is like talking to a dead man, because he sounds like the Andy I used to know. Andy the mover and shaper, the Andy from before Clare's death, before he gave it all up and became a recluse; it's that voice, calm and untroubled, that I'm hearing now, not that of the man I knew from that dark, decaying hotel, flat with resignation or audibly sneering with a kind of cynical despair.
McDunn's looking impatient. He's writing something on his notebook.
"Listen, Andy," I say, swallowing, mouth dry. "I told them about the guy in the woods; they've been down the air shaft. They found him."
"I know," he says. "I saw." He sounds almost regretful. I close my eyes. "They almost caught me, actually," he says conversationally. "That'll teach me to break my own rules and attend the funeral of one of my victims. But then it was supposed to be my own, after all. Anyway, you told them, did you? Kind of thought you might, one day. That a weight off your mind, is it, Cameron?"
I open my eyes as McDunn nudges me and shows me the two names he's written on his notebook.
"Yes," I tell Andy. "Yes, it is a weight off my mind. Listen, Andy, they want to know what's happened to Halziel and Lingary."
"Oh, yes." He sounds amused. "That's why I called."
McDunn and I exchange looks. "Look, Andy," I say. I laugh nervously. "I kind of think you've made your point, you know? You've scared a lot of people —»
"Cameron, I've murdered a lot of people."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, and a lot more are terrified to open their doors, but the point is you've done it, man; I mean you might as well let these guys go, you know? Just… just let them go, and, and, and you know; I'm sure if we can just talk about this, you know, talk about —»
"Talk about this?" Andy says, laughing. "Oh, stop gibbering, Cameron." He sounds so relaxed. I can't believe he's talking this long. He must know they can trace calls really quickly these days. "What next?" he asks, sounding amused. "Are you going to suggest I give myself up and I'll get a fair trial?" He laughs again.
"Andy, all I'm saying is let those guys go and just fucking stop all this."
"All right."
"I mean… what?"
"I said all right."
"You'll let them go?" I look at McDunn. He's raised his eyebrows. A uniformed cop comes in the front door and whispers something to McDunn, who takes one of the earphones out to listen. He looks annoyed.
"Yeah," Andy says. "They're a boring couple of farts and I guess they've suffered enough."
"And
y, are you being serious?"
"Of course!" he says. "You'll get them back unharmed. Can't vouch for their mental state, of course; with any luck the bastards'll have nightmares for the rest of their lives, but…"
McDunn looks pained. He makes the waving keep-going signal again.
"Listen, Andy; I mean, I guessed you were Mr Archer —»
"Yes, I used a voice synthesiser," Andy says patiently.
"But all that Ares stuff; was it all…?"
"A diversion, Cameron, that's all. Hey," he laughs, "maybe there was some heinous plot linking those five dead guys, but if so I've no idea what it was, and as far as I know there's no link between them and Smout and Azul. Pretty neat conspiracy theory, though, don't you think? I know you hacks just love that sort of thing."
"Oh, yeah, had me fooled." I smile weakly at McDunn, who motions me to keep talking.
"But how did you…?" I have to swallow again, fighting my nausea. I feel like I've got a coughing fit coming on, too. "How did you know those IRA code-words? I never told you."
"Your computer, Cameron; your PC. You had them in a file on your hard disk. Made everything a lot easier when you got that modem. Don't think I ever told you I'd become a bit of a hacker in my spare time, did I?"
Christ.
"And that time I rang the hotel and you phoned back, when you must have been in Wales…?"
"Yes, Cameron," he says, sounding indulgently amused. "Answer-machine at the hotel, linked to a pager; called up the machine, heard your message, rang you back. Easy-peasy."
"And you were on the same plane as me to Jersey?"
"Four rows back; in a wig, glasses and "tache. Got a taxi while you were still looking for the hire-car desk. Anyway," he says, and I imagine I can hear him sighing and stretching, "must dash; this technical stuff's all very fascinating but I do have a faint suspicion they're getting you to keep me talking. I'm on a mobile, which is why they haven't traced it yet; this is a biggish cell I'm in. Hey, that's a coincidence, isn't it, Cameron? You in a cell last week, me in one now… Well, maybe not. Anyway, as I say, it's a biggish cell but if I keep talking I'm sure they can find me here too, eventually, so —»
"Andy —»
"No, Cameron, just listen; I'll return Halziel and Lingary tonight, in Edinburgh. There's a double call box in the Grassmarket outside The Last Drop pub; I want you to be in the coin-operated box at seven o'clock. You personally, nineteen hundred hours tonight, coin-op box outside The Last Drop public house, in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh. Bye now!"
The line goes dead. I look at McDunn, who nods. I put the phone down.
Edinburgh on a cold November evening; the Grassmarket, light-bright under a smir of rain below the castle, a rotund floodlit presence in the orange darkness above.
The Grassmarket is a kind of long square in the hollow southeast of the castle, surrounded by mostly old buildings; I can remember when it was a seedy, run-down old place full of winos but it's moved gradually up-market over the years and it's a fairly cool area to hang out now; chic eateries, good bars, fashion outlets and shops specialising in things like kites, or minerals and fossils, though there's a still a homeless hostel round the corner, so it hasn't been irredeemably gentrified.
The Last Drop is at the east end of the Grassmarket, near the split-level curve of Victoria Street, home of yet more specialist shops including one that mystifyingly seems to provide a living selling only brushes, brooms and very large balls of string.
The pub's name is less jolly and more witty than it sounds at first; the city gallows used to be right outside.
No obvious cop cars around. I'm sitting — handcuffed to Sergeant Flavell — in an unmarked Senator with McDunn and two plain-clothes guys from Lothian. There's another unmarked car at the far end of the Grassmarket, several others nearby, and a couple of vans full of uniform guys parked in side streets, plus various cruising patrol cars in the vicinity. They say they've checked the box itself and all likely vantage points, but I'm still worried that Andy's not finished with me yet, that he's lying through his teeth and if I step into that telephone box I'll get a rifle bullet through the head. A plain-clothes guy is in the box, pretending to use it, so it'll be free when Andy calls. It's already wired up so they can record everything. I look at the facade of The Last Drop. There's a new up-market Indian restaurant within sniffing distance, too, near where the old Traverse Theatre used to be.
A pint and a curry. Jesus. My mouth waters. We're spitting distance from the Cowgate and the Kasbar, too.
McDunn looks at his watch. "Seven o'clock," he says. "I wonder — " He breaks off as the cop in the phone box waves at us.
McDunn grunts. "Military precision," he says, then nods to Flavell; we get out of the car as the driver switches something on the radio, producing a ringing tone in time with the one I can hear coming from the box.
Flavell squeezes into the box with me while the other cop waits outside.
"Hello?" I say.
"Cameron?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"Change of plans. Be in the same place at three o'clock this morning; you'll get them back then." Click. The line goes look at Flavell.
"Three o'clock, did he say?" Flavell says, looking peeved.
"Think of the overtime," I tell him.
They take me to a cop shop in Chambers Street, about a minute's drive away. I get fed and watered and put into a cell that look and smells of disinfectant. The food they give me is crap; gristly stew, mushed potatoes and brussels sprouts.
But there is one wonderful thing.
They've given me back my lap-top. McDunn's idea. I try not to feel too pathetically grateful.
I check the files first; nothing missing. I give half a thought to going into Xerion to try the mushroom-cloud-riding trick Andy showed me, but it's only half a thought; instead I go straight into Despot.
I can't believe it's the same game. I feel my mouth open.
It's a wasteland. My kingdom is gone. The land is still there, some of the people are, and the capital city, designed in the shape giant crescents of buildings around two lakes, so that from the air it says «CC»… but something terrible seems to have happened. The city is crumbling, largely abandoned; aqueducts fallen, reservoirs cracked and dry, districts flooded, others burned down; the activity taking place within the city is about what you'd expect from town. The countryside has either become desert or marsh or returned to forest; huge areas are barren, and where there is any agriculture it's in the shape of tiny strip-fields around little villages deep in the woods or on the fringe of the waste. The ports are drowned or silted up, the roads and canals have fallen into disrepair or just disappeared altogether, the mines have caved in or been flooded, all the cities and towns have shrunk back, and all the temples — all my temples — are ruined, dark, abandoned. Bandits roam the land, foreign tribes raid the provinces, plagues are rife and the population is much smaller, less productive and individually shorter-lived.
The civilisation to the south that I had so many problems with seems to have retreated or relapsed as well, but that is the extent of the good news. The worst of it is there's no head man, no Despot, no me. I can look at all this but I can't do anything about it, not on this scale. To start playing again I'd have to trade this omniscient but omni-impotent view for that of… God knows, some tribal warrior, village elder, a mayor or a bandit chief.
I range over it all for a while, looking down, appalled. Somebody must have started it up just to look, then left it running while they checked out the other stuff, or maybe they tried to meddle, played with the game but couldn't control it… Unless this is what they wanted, what they designed; I guess a radical Green or Deep Ecologist would think it's a pretty cool result.
The battery alarm beeps. Might have known they wouldn't have charged the damn thing up properly.
I watch the unfolding of my once great realm until the machine senses too little power to work with, and closes itself down. The screen fades out on the overhead vi
ew of my capital; I watch my vainglorious "CC'-shaped city just dissolve quietly into darkness. They put the cell lights out a few minutes later.
I sleep on the narrow little metal cot with the lap-top cradled in my arms.
Three in the morning; dry, now, but cold. The police driver leaves the engine running and our exhaust smoke drifts into the air to one side on a chilly breeze. The Grassmarket is silent. The car isn't; the radio chirps now and again and I can't stop coughing.
The cop in the phone box waves, bang on three.
"Corner of West Port and Bread Street, soon," Andy says, then hangs up.
It's walking distance, but we take the car anyway, pulling up outside the Gas Rock Cafe bar. Nothing much here; office buildings, shops across the street. Another unmarked car is parked on Bread Street itself. The vans with the uniformed police are parked on Fountainbridge and the Grassmarket, and the various patrol vehicles are still cruising in the neighbourhood.
McDunn takes a walk around, then comes back to the car.
We have some coffee from a big thermos, sipping it black. It helps my cough a bit.
"Soon," McDunn says, contemplatively, looking into his plastic cup as if searching for coffee grounds to read.
"That's what he said," I tell him, clearing my throat.
"Hmm." McDunn leans forward to the two guys in the front. "Don't smoke, do you, lads?"
"No, sir."
"I'll go outside to be unhealthy, then."
"That's all right, sir."
"No; I want to stretch my legs anyway." He looks at me. "Colley; smoke?"
I cough again. "Can't make me any worse."
Handcuffed to the DI: I guess it's a kind of promotion. We light our fags and have a stroll, down past the pub, across the road to look in the window of a second-hand bookshop, then walk up past a video shop, a butcher's and a sandwich shop, all of them dark and quiet. A taxi rattles past, for-hire light on, heading into the Grassmarket. We stand leaning over the pedestrian barrier at the kerb. The tenement buildings behind look run-down and from here I can see the Victorian pile of the old Co-op building which closed just this year, and the "sixties-modern Goldberg's department store, shut down the year before.
