Dead Girl Walking

by Christopher Brookmyre

  ‘Jesus,’ said Heike, no trace of anger now, all passion spent.

  ‘We know she travelled to Hamburg. She was hoping to stow away, get across to the UK; get to Scotland, then find you somehow. That was as far as she got. Police in Hamburg have been interviewing freight terminal staff ever since this body showed up at our end and we discovered the container’s port of origin. They traced the guy who was handling the bookings for that particular shipping, and he admitted he had caught her sneaking into the terminal. Initially he said he had been moved by her story and therefore turned a blind eye, but under pressure he admitted she had sex with him in order to secure her passage.’

  ‘Fucking bastard,’ said a voice that I was surprised to discover was my own.

  ‘But having allowed her to sneak into a shipping container bound for Glasgow the next morning, he spotted one of those flyers Mairi showed us.They’d been distributed at ports, railway stations and bus terminals. He figured there might be a reward, so he phoned the number and told them where she could be found. Someone arrived within the hour, which shows the reach this operation has. He admitted he took a pay-off to say which container she was in, but swears that’s all he saw. He said a man showed up claiming to be a worried relative, and he assumed he would just be taking her away.’

  ‘How did they know she was a threat?’ Heike asked.

  McLeod looked regretful, almost apologetic. None of this was easy. None of this was good.

  ‘Lenka told them. When Anezka went missing, they threatened her, knowing the two of them were close.’

  ‘That’s how they work,’ muttered Heike.

  ‘She’s crushed,’ McLeod said. ‘That’s why she came forward. She blames herself for what happened to Anezka.’

  Heike gave a sharp sigh.

  ‘The wrong people always feel the guilt,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk about the right people. Tell me about Maxi.’

  McLeod made a face, wincing. It made me tense instantly. This wasn’t going to be good news.

  ‘You’d best prepare yourself,’ she told Heike. ‘You’re likely to find what I’m about to tell you upsetting.’

  Heike sat up a little straighter in her chair, her expression suddenly stony.

  ‘We’ve released him without charge.’

  Heike’s mouth fell open.

  ‘Jesus Christ, why?’ I asked for her.

  ‘For one thing, we had no evidence against him. Maxwell did admit that he was the one who tipped off the photographer in Berlin, but as collaborating with the Daily Mail is unfortunately not against the law, we had no reason to hold him.’

  I was more reeling with outrage on Heike’s behalf than she was herself. But she had been paying closer attention than me. She was calm, bracing herself for what was still to come.

  ‘That wasn’t the part that’s going to upset me, was it?’ she asked, her voice flat. ‘What else has come to light?’

  McLeod looked her in the eye.

  ‘Someone else has confessed.’

  McLeod said nothing more. I wondered why she was drawing it out, then I realised she was giving Heike time to get there by herself.

  Heike responded with a slow, solemn nod, then spoke a single word.

  ‘Angus.’

  ‘Our mutual friend Mr Parlabane has an associate with whom I believe you might be familiar: a Mr Cameron Scott.’

  ‘Spammy,’ Heike said quietly.

  ‘Mr Scott informed Parlabane a couple of days ago that he had heard a rumour Angus had been caught dealing on the side while on tour with Shadowhawk a few months ago. We suspected this might have put him in a vulnerable position with certain of his Bad Candy colleagues, so we leaned on him. We didn’t have to lean very hard. He was weeping out a torrent.’

  Heike looked away, like she needed a moment’s respite from facing anyone. When she turned back again, she seemed more sad than angry; disappointed rather than surprised.

  I recalled that night in Valencia, when Heike had gone off to bed early: Angus drunk and railing with bitter envy about Heike’s good fortune.

  ‘He was jealous and resentful,’ McLeod said. ‘He hid it well, but he told us he found it very hard having a close-up view of your success given that you had started off together.’

  I expected Heike to explain how her work ethic had a lot more to do with their different paths than luck, but she said nothing. She knew she didn’t need to justify herself to anyone over this.

  ‘He thought this up a long time ago as a kind of revenge fantasy, but he never really envisaged carrying it out. That was until he got greedy with his side-action on tour and suddenly Bodo Hoefner was threatening some truly savage stuff pour encourager les autres. Angus panicked and told them he could help them scam you on the forthcoming tour. He was painfully aware of how much you had been making, so he knew it would be well worth their while.’

  ‘I did everything I could to help Angus,’ Heike said, tears in the corners of her eyes. ‘I brought him on board as guitar roadie. I was the one who got him the opening slot as well.’

  ‘He said in his statement that he thought you were only doing all that in order to underline how far you had come compared to him.’

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ she protested.

  ‘He knows. As soon as you went missing, the scales fell and he saw how things really were. Up until then he’d told himself it was just about money, and that you’d be making plenty more. But after Berlin he was terrified that something awful would happen and he’d always know it was his fault. That’s why he tipped off Parlabane that you might be with Flora. He was trying to derail it, hoping the whole scam would fall apart without the sabotage being traced back to him.’

  We sat quietly for a while, McLeod giving Heike time to take it all in.

  ‘What about Jan’s role in this?’ she eventually asked. ‘Have you interviewed him?’

  ‘According to Angus, Jan had nothing to do with it. He does what he’s told by Bodo, but he wasn’t in on the plan. He didn’t need to be, and the first rule of any conspiracy is that you don’t involve anyone unnecessarily.’

  ‘It was all Angus,’ Heike said with hollow resignation. ‘He had access to all our stuff every night.’

  McLeod confirmed this with a nod.

  ‘He copied the picture of your mother from your phone and gave it to Bodo to have Photoshopped. He also said that he only hacked Monica’s blog so that he and Bodo could monitor how the charade with Hannah was playing out. He says he didn’t know what else Bodo planned to do with it, and to be honest I believe him. He’s wretched with remorse, which is not a sight you see that often in Govan nick.’

  ‘Rooting through our stuff while we were on stage was the least of his sins,’ said Heike. ‘He ransacked my memories. He knew all those things about me because I’d shared them when we were growing up. He got himself in trouble and did something desperate to save his skin: I can forgive him for that. But what I don’t think I can ever forgive is that he knew how much I would want Hannah’s story to be true.’

  The air felt thick and muggy as we stepped back outside the police station, denying us the sensation of release you sometimes get when you escape from a place that’s made you feel claustrophobic. Heike looked wrung-out, like somebody had taken her and squeezed until all the colour and joy were drained from her whole person.

  ‘You look like you could use some serious coffee,’ I said, hoping she would agree rather than pour herself into a taxi and retreat into solitude.

  ‘How about a drink?’ she replied.

  I looked at my watch. It was only five to eleven.

  ‘Is it not a bit early?’ I suggested.

  ‘We’re in a fucking rock band, Monica. There’s no such thing as early.’

  Damage

  ‘Can I offer you a dram?’ Mairi asked, getting up from the table.

  They had finished the wine about ten minutes ago, and though he could see another bottle on the worktop he had been glad that she had thus far made no moves toward
s opening it. It was getting late and he had a big day tomorrow. Plus there were, of course, other reasons.

  Mairi was opening a cupboard, ducking so that the door didn’t hit her head because she had so little room to manoeuvre inside the tiny kitchen. Parlabane reckoned that with a stretch she could have reached it without getting up from the table.

  Fucking London. Maybe at some point it would send a hint to the government that people living in half-million-pound broom cupboards was a sign that they were concentrating too many resources in one place, but successive administrations had proven impervious to such signals.

  He had recently heard some chinless Tory fuckpuddle say that London was a world-class city being held back by the rest of the UK. Parlabane had reckoned that if he poured all his money and efforts into fitting out his toilet he could almost certainly have himself a truly world class shite-house. Obviously there would be little in the way of cash or other physical resources for the development and upkeep of the living room and the kitchen, etc … but if anybody asked, he could tell them he had a world-class bog and it was just a shame the rest of the house was holding it back.

  She held up a bottle of Bowmore.

  ‘I think I’ve had enough of Islay,’ he said. ‘Plus you’ve an early start.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she decided, putting the bottle back. ‘Might be wisest if we both called it a night.’

  Mairi had said she would cook him dinner to say thanks for everything, but she had ended up running late and still had to pack for her flight, so she’d phoned out for pizza instead. He wasn’t complaining: it was good pizza, and she was doing him a favour anyway by having him here tonight when she was off on tour in the morning.

  He was crashing with her in Hoxton as he had to be in central London the next day. It was not so much a meeting as a secret rendezvous, necessitated by him fast and unavoidably approaching the jaggy end of the Westercruik Inquiry.

  His contact had called two days ago.

  ‘You know who this is?’

  His phone hadn’t registered the number and she didn’t identify herself, but he recognised the voice instantly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I need to see you. Same time, same place. Same day as our first meeting.’

  She knew someone might be listening, which was why she gave away nothing. They could follow him, and they very well might, but for all they knew they’d need to follow him for days. Was it worth those kinds of resources? He knew he wasn’t.

  Mairi stuck their plates in the dishwasher and led him into the shoebox of a living room, piled everywhere with CDs and band T-shirts. There was a two-seater couch, its edge so close to the telly on the wall opposite that the ‘remote’ control was a misnomer.

  ‘It’s snug, but I’m told it’s comfy,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get you some sheets.’

  She went off towards her bedroom, leaving him standing next to the turntable on which she was playing Damage by Jimmy Eat World. He picked up the album sleeve, not having had such an object in his hand for years, and glanced at the once-familiar sight of a twelve-inch vinyl disc spinning beneath the stylus arm. It took him back to his teenage bedroom, to Donald’s teenage bedroom: listening to songs, talking about gigs, and all the time distractingly aware of the trendy wee sister who was through the wall festooned on her side with Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears posters.

  He wondered if Mairi had looked out this record specifically or whether it was just what she’d felt like playing. Either way, it definitely wasn’t an overture towards romantic intentions. It was an entire album about the break-up of a relationship, one that had given him a sometimes melancholy and sometimes defiant solace throughout the final days with Sarah.

  It was on side two right then, probably the most poignant number: a song about a late-night drunk phone call suggesting they could still make it work, when deep down the caller knew they couldn’t. It was called ‘Please Say No’.

  Mairi returned with a set of cotton sheets pressed between her hands.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be needing a duvet,’ she said, in reference to the fact that it was about eighty degrees in there, even with all the windows open.

  Their hands touched as she passed him the bundle. She looked up from the sheets and into his eyes.

  ‘Mairi,’ Parlabane began, but she put a finger to his lips before he could go on.

  ‘I just need to ask: does it change anything that I’m no longer employing you, and you no longer have to feel responsible for me?’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s not about you at all. It never has been.’

  ‘I know. It’s about Sarah,’ Mairi stated, nodding in a way that suggested she had always known this and was pleased to see he was catching up. ‘If you kiss me now, if you admit you want somebody else, then you can’t keep telling yourself it’s not really over with her.’

  He gave a sad smile by way of confirmation that she was right.

  ‘You don’t want her back, Jack. Part of you thinks you do, but you don’t. Part of you believes that if you get her back it means you’re still the man you used to be before it all went wrong. It means you’re back. But the problem was that she never wanted that guy. I liked who you were when I was fifteen and I like who you are now.’

  She squeezed his hand and he felt himself melt.

  ‘Trust me on this,’ she whispered. ‘Parlabane’s back.’

  They were moments from a kiss, but some emergency reserve of willpower allowed him to seize control before he was dragged under.

  ‘Mairi, this is not the time to start something. You’re off to America with the band tomorrow, and you’ll be gone for, what? A month? More? A lot can change in that time.’

  She sighed, conceding the point.

  ‘It was going to be less, but after everything that’s happened I thought I should keep a close eye.’

  ‘Tell you what. When you come back from the States, if you still feel the same way, then we’ll talk.’

  ‘Sounds annoyingly sensible. But I’ll settle for that over nothing. It’s a deal.’

  ‘Of course,’ he added, ‘this is assuming I’m not in jail…’

  Gods and Mortals

  We were sat on a low and comfy couch in a basement bar Heike liked, a place that was already serving at this hour because it also did coffee and food. So I could tell myself this was an early lunch, although I’d have to order something more solid than another bottle of Dead Pony Club.

  Heike had gone quiet, looking blankly past the table towards some unknown point: possibly ten feet in front, just as possibly ten days behind.

  ‘I can’t get her out of my mind,’ she said eventually. ‘Hannah, I mean, or Anezka rather: both versions are equally tragic. I relived Hannah’s death over and over for days, and what I’ve learned doesn’t change how I feel. She wasn’t who she pretended to be, but I liked her. Whoever she really was, it burns to know how she was chewed up and spat out by those people.’

  ‘Her and how many others?’ I said.

  ‘That’s why I don’t want her to be forgotten. I’m going to ask McLeod for her full name. She was the inspiration for “Gods and Mortals”, though I’m going to rework the lyrics. When we record it, I’d like to include a sleeve note dedicating the song to her memory. We can’t tell anybody why, other than that she was a victim of sex-trafficking, but if it’s on the next album then her name will be written somewhere it will be seen around the world. Better than some anonymous headstone – if she even gets one. I mean, if that’s okay with you,’ she added.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘But why are you asking me?’

  ‘Because it’s your song too. My lyrics, but the music was a collaborative process. You ought to be credited.’

  She was looking intently at me, slightly worried. It was almost like she was afraid I’d refuse.

  I thought carefully about what to say. Thanks seemed obvious, but maybe wrong, as the point wasn’t that she was giving me this, was it?

  ‘It’s
very much appreciated,’ I said.

  ‘It’s only fair. Especially as I’ve decided to credit Maxi too. Not fifty-fifty like his lawyer is demanding, but he never expected to get that.’

  ‘You’re giving him a share, even after … well, I know that turned out not to be him, but he was the one who tipped off…’

  ‘I spent a lot of time thinking about things while I was hiding out at Flora’s place. When I was forced to contemplate losing everything, it gave me a different perspective upon what I had and what really mattered. Maxi did play a big part in the songs he claims, even “Dark Station”. Partly for reasons of self-defence, I had kind of blinded myself to how things were between us in the past. I missed him while I was hiding up there: not the wanker he turned into, but the guy he was, and the guy he was deserves his cut.’

  She took a sip of beer and giggled, the first happy sound I’d heard from her since I couldn’t remember.

  ‘I missed everybody. Mostly I missed you, though,’ she said, giving an apologetic little smile: no angle, no agenda, no assumptions.

  ‘I missed you too,’ I replied. ‘It was horrible not knowing where you were. But it was more than that: I missed the person I am around you.’

  ‘I’m sorry about everything I put you through.’

  ‘Don’t be crazy,’ I protested. ‘What I went through?’

  But Heike put a hand on my arm and dropped her voice, stressing that she needed to be heard.

  ‘Yes, what you went through. I never meant to let myself get close to you, because right from the off I wanted it too much and you weren’t available. But we got forced together like we were driven by the swell. Christ, I don’t even know what I’m trying to say, apart from that I didn’t want you to get hurt. I want to explain, but this is so hard for me. Part of me hoped you would work it all out with Keith while I was gone. Then I could tell myself I’d done the right thing by pushing you away, but here you are and I still don’t know how you feel about me. About … us.’