Country of the Blind

by Brookmyre, Christopher

  The first of the trouble, the first evidence of Paul becoming a bad boy, had been the fights. Finally snapping at one robber or burglar or prisoner jibe too many, and going in in a storm of fists, feet and forehead. Then the full-on delinquency had set in: the attitude. Dogging school, doing close to fuck-all when he did show up, failing exams, winding up the teachers, running with the gang. He thought he was doing it because he didn’t care about nothing no more, because nothing matters, man, what’s the point of anything in this world etcetera etcetera snore snore. But really he was doing it because of who it would hurt. Who it would punish.

  Christ, the psychoanalysts would have fucking loved it. He might as well have shagged his rna as well, taken it to its logical conclusion. Oedipus McInnes.

  He ran into Spammy again a few years later, one Friday night at Paisley Tech Union when he got signed in by a mate, Kev, who had subsequently run into the girl he was there to get pished to “get over”. Paul had seen this sort of thing before. He stood a few polite metres away from them at the bar when the relationship-dissection process began, biding his time as he expected it to get acceleratingly acrimonious before concluding – within five-to-seven minutes, on average – in shouted insults, highly judgmental analysis of sexual technique, and finally tears on the girl’s face and a red slap-mark on the guy’s. This one didn’t quite run to form. Within three minutes Kev and the girl he “never wanted to see again” were attempting to eat each other alive in front of Paul, before stumbling off to some chairs nearby, where their rediscovery-of-lost-love-please-forgive-me-you’re-the-only-one-I’ve-ever-wanted snog continued for the rest of the night.

  Paul had been left standing at the bar like a prick at a dyke wedding, holding his plastic pint-pot and feeling conspicuously abandoned. He wandered over to a nearby table where he could rest his drink and keep an eye on whether Kev and “that fuckin’ two-faced bitch, fuck knows what I ever saw in her” had come up for air at all.

  Spammy had plonked his pint down next to Paul’s and collapsed himself on to the bench opposite without a word. Ordinarily, this encounter would have been well off the end of the awkward scale, the pair barely having exchanged a dozen words in more than ten years, but it just didn’t happen like that. And within three pints it felt to Paul like each of them had actually just been waiting for the other to get back from the bog, even though ten years was a hell of a long time for a slash.

  Seven or eight months later, Spammy’s flatmate had got a life and moved out, and Paul was sucked in by the vacuum.

  Paradoxically, living with Spammy had actually given Paul a sense of dynamism about his life. He had considered himself a bit of a waster before this, moving from crap job to crap job with periodic bouts of dole-somnambulance to punctuate it. It was an existence that flitted between boredom, numbness and depression, with a constant sense of guilt and regret filling in the corners. And he thought that was how it was always going to be.

  Then he saw how Spammy lived, and realised that some people truly are born for sloth. Spammy was signally unbothered by thoughts of what he could or should be doing with his life (or his degree, or his knowledge). Spammy was perfectly happy to arse about the flat all day, smoking hash, regularly electrocuting himself as he carried out experimental surgery on various electronic appliances, occasionally going down the studio or fixing a telly for someone. Paul had previously thought all wasters were haunted by the same vague sense of time slipping away, by boredom, guilt, against a constant ambient hum of dissatisfaction.

  He knew then that he was in the wrong line, so to speak. Finger had to be removed from arse. Said arse had to be got into gear. But Christ, that didn’t mean he was going to polish up his shoes and set about climbing the Comet career ladder. His great regret – to the point of embarrassment – was chucking it away at school. And at the time he had been aware he was chucking it away; that was the point – he was chucking away his dad’s dreams, not his own. Missing out on the chance to study physics or whatever had not seemed a great loss, and it still didn’t. But at twenty-four, having spent a few years out in the so-called “real world” (you know, that place of rich and vivid experience that taught you a lot more about life than books or colleges ever could – i.e, Paisley) he figured taking time out to get inside far greater minds than his own was unlikely to leave him any further behind in life’s great race than he was right now.

  A few conversations with some of Spammy’s old college mates soon told him he had already read more ancient history, drama and literature than most of the folk they had known to have graduated in the subjects, although one did warn him of the dangers of actually being interested in what you were studying.

  Paul enrolled for night classes to get his Highers, and resolved to cut down on the take-aways and six-packs as he saved his cash to support his future academic pursuits. The conditional offers had corne through a couple of weeks before the photographs.

  So. Paul and Spammy, sitting by the phone.

  Everyone kept wondering why Spammy had got involved, signed himself up for this mess. The truth was, Spammy had just been there. He had got sucked in at the start, before anyone knew what it was all about, and by the time they did know the story, he was already in too deep to back out.

  Christ, what else was he going to do? Say “wow, tough break, man. Hope it goes all right. I’ll see you when it’s all over, and if you don’t come through, I’ll visit you inside"? Not Spammy. And if it had been the other way round, Paul liked to think he’d have done the same thing.

  Spammy had come with him to Renfrew on the bus, bringing along an ancient camera that looked like it was only about three models on from the Box Brownie. He was going to keep an eye on the place from round the corner, snap the mystery man on his way in or out.

  Gourlay Street was on a light industrial estate, a cul-de-sac with two rows of “units”, basically garages with a paint job and a logo from some development agency. 12b was at the end, next to the rusted mesh fence which was being gradually worn down by the advance of grass, weeds, empty superlager cans and chip pokes on the other side. Across the street he could see 13b, its “To Let” sign mirroring its neighbour opposite, as did the graffiti, broken glass and kicked-in door. Paul wished he could write the ad copy: “Workspace Unit to let in busy industrial estate. 100 square feet. Fence-side location ensures regular nocturnal visitors. Petty vandalism and regular spray-tagging included in rent.”

  He pushed nervously at the door, which sat slightly ajar from its wood-splintered frame, his stomach feeling like the inside of a washing machine. Somewhere he felt the fear that he was about to be set upon, but he chased the thought, blocked it out before his imagination could embellish it. He didn’t have any idea what to expect. He didn’t even have much of an idea what to dread.

  He edged past some empty cardboard boxes and wooden palettes in the darkened passage, pushing through the tacky translucent-plastic strips that hung over the interior doorway, and found himself in a dank, musty, rubbish-strewn chamber, lit dimly by the sun through the small part of one grimy window that wasn’t boarded over.

  His dad was sitting on a wooden crate in the middle of the room.

  They looked at each other, and Paul saw his own reaction mirrored in his dad’s face. Not you, please not you. Shock, disbelief, and anguished resignation as the picture suddenly came into sickening focus. His dad put his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. Paul pulled another crate on to its side and took a seat opposite.

  “What’s goin’ on, Dad?”

  His dad looked up. He was tired and pale, older.

  “Aw, Jesus, Paul,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I got pictures, Dad. Pictures of you . . . in burglaries. And a phone call. Tellin’ me to come here . . .”

  Tam nodded. “I was told to wait here for . . . Ach, fuck’s sake.”

  “You saw these photos as well?” Paul pulled them out from his jacket.

  Tam’s eyes filled up. “Naw . . . it was . . .”
<
br />   “Me? Dealin’ drugs?”

  He shook his head. “The guy mentioned that. But . . . it was . . . your mother.” He swallowed, a couple of tears escaping as he fought to keep his voice steady. “In the bath . . . in the . . . bedroom, I don’t know how they . . .” Tam sobbed a few times, then sniffed loudly, wiping his eyes and nose with a hanky. “I burnt them oot the back in case she saw them. But they were tellin’ me they could get to her,” he said.

  Paul nodded.

  “They can get to any of us, son.”

  “So what’s it aboot?”

  Tam took a couple of deep breaths. “They want us to rob a place. The guy’s got . . . inside information, but he wants someone else to pull it aff. He’s gaunny give me the details as and when.”

  “But why you?”

  “Reckons I might have an aptitude. Said it’s the kinna place we used to do before.”

  “So why me?”

  “I didnae know it was gaunny be you until you walked in the noo. He said I’d to work wi’ somebody specific. I’m allowed whoever else I need, but I’ve also got to work wi’ this guy, and I’d to wait for him here.”

  “But I’ve never broken intae anywhere, except a few motors when I was aboot fifteen.”

  Tam nodded sagely. “I know, I know. But I knew why you as soon as I saw you.”

  “What d’ you mean?”

  “It’s so I’ll do it right. So I’ll try rna best to pull it aff successfully an’ no get caught. So I’ll no gie it some hauf-arsed attempt an’ then go blabbin’ to the polis when it fucks up. It’s a means of ensurin’ commitment. Whoever this bastart is, or whoever these bastarts are – an’ there cannae be just the wan o’ them – they’re afraid I might no gie a fuck if I end up in the jile again. But they know I’ll no want rna boy goin’ doon with me.”

  They edged forward on their stomachs, to the rock outcrop that jutted from the ridge “like Kirk Douglas’s chin”, Tam said, a landmark they had been heading towards for about an hour. They saw a small farmhouse below, next to a barn and the standard but nonetheless inexplicable mound of old tyres. A little cloud-cover had assembled as the afternoon wore on, but the light was crisp enough to afford them a long view of the valley. There were no other houses in sight, and the road that led snakingly to the farm from beyond the spur of another adjutting hill a few miles off looked too narrow to suggest that there were any settlements nearby, out of sight.

  They decided that nothing less than a village would do. They needed witnesses, plural, not some old farmer who could be paid off or lied to – or who knew what – if he saw them gunned down on their way towards him.

  “I know they had their arms in the air, sir, but it was a ploy. They would surely have killed you. That’s how they did it with that poor bus driver, didn’t you hear the news? Oh, you’re not convinced? Eat this.”

  They were shuffling back from the edge when Paul heard the low, distant sound and crawled forward once more.

  “Christ.”

  There were two helicopters swooping out from behind that spur, banking to turn and head up the valley towards them.

  “Helicopters.”

  “Anybody remember Whirlybirds?” Spammy asked vacantly, watching the McInneses scramble down from the rocks on their hands and knees.

  They ran back under the cover of the trees, it occurring fleetingly to Paul that such blind charging around might run them straight into a search party, and spent a frantic, breathless few moments looking for camouflage as the sound of the helicopters grew insistently louder with each second.

  “Two riders were approachayn’ ,” he heard Spammy sing to himself, as the big eejit calmly lay down under some bushes and pulled several discarded branches over himself as if they were a duvet. Paul curled himself up in the foetal position, huddled against the trunk of some conifer with low-hanging branches, on the opposite side to where the helicopters would arrive from. His dad did likewise a few yards away.

  Paul felt the thumping in his chest grow more and more violent, like his heart was angrily slamming itself against his ribcage, as the noise of the blades increased and the wind tossed the dust and dead needles briefly into the air six inches above the forest floor. He wanted to close his eyes tight, bite his bottom lip and clutch himself in paralysed terror, but he knew he had to look up, had to know if they had been seen. He saw the underbelly of one copter head away from them, passing above at speed. Too high and too fast. They were on their way somewhere rather than combing the area. He exhaled slowly and rolled over on to his back, his heart still headbutting his chest wall like it had a pogo-stick and a crash helmet.

  *

  There was a kind of freedom in it. An abandon.

  Once Paul had swallowed it down, once he had accepted that there was no choice, no alternatives, no options. A liberty. A freedom from responsibility.

  They weren’t burdened with the morality of it, the right and the wrong. That had been taken out of the equation. They didn’t have to think about whether they should be doing it, as they didn’t have the option not to; all they had to worry about was how they were going to do it.

  Getting in.

  Getting out.

  Getting away with it.

  Nothing else mattered. Nothing. The rest of their lives, the rest of their world, was on hold. All their thoughts, all their energies, all their concentration was focused on the job.

  Paul didn’t feel a victim, didn’t feel persecuted. He felt important, powerful, excited, ten feet tall. Those first days, walking through Paisley, he had looked at the passers-by, jealous of their freedom, that they were not struggling under this burden, resentful of their carefree fortune. The old you think you’ve got problems line of self-pity. Once he had accepted it, once the process had begun and the plans were underway, he looked down upon them as nobodies, scurrying about their mundane business, oblivious of the giants who walked among them. Relieved of his own conscience, he was able to – no, he had to – think of himself as some kind of international-class criminal, part of an elite team planning a daring and ingenious heist, a meticulous operation. Something out of Die Hard or The Usual Suspects.

  And it was a ride. He understood now why his dad had done it, so many times, back when he would otherwise have been just an unemployed car-worker. Going up to Craigurquhart on a reconnaissance mission, dressing up in chunky jumpers and ridiculous bobble-hats to look like ramblers as they staked the place out. Standing next to Spammy, his dad and Bob walking about twenty yards ahead, staring over the wall and through the fence at the white building, taking notes. An incredible feeling of power, of the things they were going to do and that no-one suspected.

  They all shared it. He saw that glint in his dad’s eye a few times, a determination, a self-confidence and a pride as they put their plans together. Bob too. Maybe especially Bob. Paul had marvelled at the ease with which his dad recruited Bob’s assistance, even though they were best friends, as it wasn’t quite like ringing up and asking if he fancied giving him a hand papering the living room. But Bob had been one of the Hoods (in fact, the only one around: Frank Docherty was dead and Dinger Bell was back inside, having failed to find a market for his less famous work skills), and who knew what bonds were forged and promises were made back then; Paul himself had never felt so close to anyone before as he did to his three partners-in-crime.

  Bob’s wife was dead now, and he had little to fill his day between shifts as a lollipop man, a job he had taken as a sad wee consolation to himself. He loved kids, and they loved him, but he’d missed the best part of his own grandweans’ childhoods while he was inside. He didn’t feel he had much to lose if he ended up back in the jail. When Tam called, he came running. And the years fell off him as the job approached.

  Paul saw his dad in a new light, him and his old pal the respected pros, assessing the situation, calling the shots, anticipating the pitfalls. He was strong, authoritative, knowledgeable, in his element. And there were the tales. A sign of initiation and accepta
nce, that he and Spammy were imparted the stories of the Hoods’ glory days. Or maybe a sign that his dad felt close enough to and respected enough by Paul to open up that part of himself like it was a trophy cabinet rather than a locked cupboard full of shame.

  Paul had chucked his job right away. He knew that either he would be unavailable for work after the Craigurquhart robbery or – just maybe – he’d have some cash in his hands. Aye, right. They talked about the money jokily, like a shared conspiracy of false faith. Pretending it was an incentive. “What’ll you do with your share?” they’d ask each other. It was being a spoilsport not to join in. But no-one believed they’d see any, even if they did pull off the job, despite the mystery man’s assurances that he’d make it well worth their while. It was hard to retain an optimistic hope for any reward when they didn’t know what they were stealing, just being told to blag whatever was in the safe, which the MM himself claimed not to be able to anticipate.

  There was no arrangement for a handover, the arrogant bastard nonchalantly saying that he had “faith” they wouldn’t try and make off with the loot on their own, and not just because he could fence it more lucratively than them. Photographic faith.

  Cunt.

  There was a stillness amidst the trees that Paul just knew he didn’t like. He was aware that the wind, gentle breeze that it had been, had dropped, and that the background noise of twittering birds and rustling branches had all but silenced. Like an air-conditioning system or a convection heater, a sound you only become aware of when it ceases. It was one of those moments when he felt like he was standing on the planet, not just on the ground. Accidents of nature on a rock spinning through the void. What he didn’t like was the feeling of the day winding down, clocking off. The relaxed quiet of late afternoon, the busy industry and activity of the day – from the creatures to the weather – having come and gone, looked at the time and thought, fuck it, we can pick this up again tomorrow.