The Bad Fire

by Campbell Armstrong

  He watched Marvel yawn. It was an awesome sight; the mouth opened like a giant oyster about to yield a pearl. Gold fillings flashed in his mouth, which became one vast maw. ‘I need coffee,’ Marvel said. ‘Somebody be good enough to get the captain a shot of strong java, huh?’

  ‘There’s a joint round the corner,’ Figaro said. ‘I’ll go.’

  Figaro disappeared. Brown-nose Figaro. Marvel looked at Eddie Mallon.

  ‘Say, this ain’t your shift, is it, Mallon?’ Marvel said. ‘Come to that, it ain’t my shift either. So why have I dragged my sorry ass downtown at this time of day, you ask? Lemme tell you. Because I ain’t been home, Eddie. I been struggling with paperwork. I been wrestling figures. Budgets. City Hall needs numbers to crunch.’

  ‘Way over my head,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Way over mine too.’ The captain lit a small brown-papered cigarette and stared at the corpse. ‘My brain feels like a punchbag. I just stepped out for some air and take a look at this body we got here. What brings you out?’

  ‘I need to talk with you,’ Eddie said. ‘I want some leave.’

  ‘You got vacation time coming to you?’

  ‘This would be leave of absence. Family reasons.’

  ‘Somebody sick?’

  Mallon saw lights go on in the upper floors of the building. He imagined the dead man, John Boscoe Bentley, falling through space, through darkness: what did you think as you dropped? You knew you were going to hit ground hard, and you’d break, so what went through your mind in those few seconds? Nothing? Everything? Or was it all just one blind deep-red searing panic? And at the end – what? A fraction of acceptance? A microsecond of tranquillity? Maybe you just blacked out, or your heart exploded out of fright halfway down.

  ‘My father died.’ Eddie turned to look at Marvel.

  ‘Say. Sorry to hear that. Real sorry. How did it happen? Was he sick?’

  Eddie said, ‘He was shot.’

  ‘Shot. Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I don’t know the circumstances.’

  ‘Shot. Fuck. Fucking world we live in.’ Marvel sucked on his cigarette and stared into the lit end a second. ‘You got any heavy cases on your desk as of now?’

  Eddie said, ‘There’s the dead girl we found in the empty brownstone …’

  ‘That junkie kid nobody can ID?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Eddie said. He pondered the mystery of the missing teenage girl, a runaway from somewhere, and the fact her identity hadn’t yet been established. Somebody must be missing her, waiting up for her, insomniac parents in a small backwater township in a faraway state.

  ‘Tom Collins can deal with that,’ Marvel said.

  Tom Collins was Eddie’s partner, a dark-jawed second-generation Irishman.

  Eddie said, ‘Apart from the girl, it’s stuff that can wait.’

  ‘Stuff that can wait, huh? I never heard of stuff like that before,’ Marvel said, and smiled. ‘Must be new on the market. I gotta grab myself some of that good shit. You take the time you need, Eddie. You want any help, you know where to turn.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ Eddie said.

  Marvel dismissed the gratitude with a quick motion of his hand and was already moving away, drawn towards the door of the building by the sight of Figaro, who was clutching a cardboard cup of coffee.

  An ambulance appeared, lights whirling. Eddie Mallon watched the paramedics emerge. He saw them surround the body. And he felt weirdly lonely, out of touch with this world of his, as if he’d already left it, and was airborne, flying back to a place he barely remembered.

  Glasgow, a city seen through a rainy mist, a fuzzy sketch in damp charcoal.

  7

  In the doorway of his parents’ bedroom Mark Mallon asked, ‘How long will you be gone, Dad?’

  ‘A couple of days,’ Eddie said. He marvelled at how tall his son had become; magically, he’d stretched from five feet to just under six in the space of a year. He was almost as tall as Eddie himself. Facially, he resembled his mother; he had a delicacy about him that gave him an androgynous look. Girls loved it. They worshipped the way his long hair lay against his shoulders. They telephoned him constantly. High-pitched little voices filled with squeaky hope: Is Mark home?

  Claire was packing. She took special care with Eddie’s best suit, a navy blue number for the funeral. It wasn’t too late to change his mind, he thought. Cancel the airline ticket. But he’d already phoned Joyce and given her his arrival time, and she’d yelped with excitement at the idea of seeing him, and he felt good he’d been able to give her this much pleasure just by buying an airline ticket and rearranging his life for four days or so.

  ‘Did somebody really shoot Gramps?’ Mark asked.

  ‘It seems that way.’

  ‘Boy,’ Mark said. ‘You know why?’

  ‘I don’t know anything yet,’ Eddie said. He flipped the pages of his passport, saw a picture of himself taken seven years earlier. Black hair, no grey. Face leaner. He thought he looked passably attractive in this picture, but gravity hadn’t given him jowls back then.

  ‘Was he, you know, like a crook?’ Mark asked.

  ‘A crook? What makes you ask that?’

  ‘Something Granma once said. He was in jail for a while.’

  ‘Sixty days. It was nothing, a mistake,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Why didn’t he ever come visit?’

  Eddie shrugged. ‘He never got around to it, that’s all. He was perfectly happy to stay home. He didn’t like travel.’

  ‘So why didn’t we visit him?’ Mark asked.

  Good question, and Eddie Mallon had no easy answer; only excuses. He’d graduated high school, gone to the Police Academy, got married, bought a house in Queens, settled down, raised a kid, took his vacations in places as far away from any city as he could get, isolated cabins in Idaho or Montana, National Parks in Tennessee or Kentucky. A life went rushing past and it preoccupied you, and suddenly you realized you were never going to read War and Peace or sit drinking blood-orange juice at a sidewalk cafe in Florence or sail the Greek islands for a month. And all you could say to your son when he asked why the family had never visited Glasgow was, ‘Somehow we just never found the time, Mark,’ which wasn’t a good explanation but close to the truth.

  Thirty years of life. A bubble in the wind, drifting.

  He touched his wife’s hand. ‘I wish you were coming with me.’

  Claire zipped his case, smiled at him. ‘It’s only a few days. Anyhow, somebody’s got to hold down the fort here.’

  ‘Hey, I could do that,’ Mark suggested. He was suddenly eager.

  ‘Why does that offer make alarm bells ring in my head?’ Claire asked.

  ‘You think I’d throw all-nighters, big parties, invite hundreds of kids,’ he said.

  ‘Did I say that?’ Claire asked.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Mark said. ‘But it’s what you think.’

  Eddie stuck his passport in a hip pocket of his black jeans. He put his airline ticket in the inside pocket of his pale grey linen jacket, patted the place as if to reassure himself of something.

  He looked at Claire. He was about to say it a second time: you could still come with me. Claire and Jackie Mallon had never met; the old man had always existed on the periphery of her life. Once or twice they’d talked on the phone and he’d made her laugh, but that was it. He was a dead stranger who’d spoken in a funny accent she sometimes didn’t understand.

  ‘If you’re ready, I’d better get you to JFK.’ She glanced at her watch, rattled car keys in her hand.

  He gazed round the room in the manner of a man taking his leave of a place he’ll never see again. Why did this departure from wife and son make him feel so goddam melancholy? He’d be back before they knew he’d even gone. They had lives of their own. Mark had friends, girls, serious hanging-out to do. Claire had a part-time job with Century 21 and every Wednesday and Friday she went to a health club where she rode an exercise bike and checked her pulse rate and blood press
ure, then drank lo-cal fruit smoothies with her pals in a health-food bar.

  ‘Ready,’ he said.

  8

  Sun burned fiercely on the mouth of the Clyde. A launch, a thirty-footer, was anchored about a quarter of a mile from shore. Christopher Caskie stood unsteadily on deck and watched small boats sail towards Ardrossan, Ayr, the Isle of Arran. Sails dazzled yellow and white in the hard light.

  Caskie was a card-carrying landlubber. The sea affected his stomach. The rise and fall of water was gentle but it made him queasy anyway, and he had to sit down. He closed his eyes, felt the sun on his eyelids. His short white beard was warm.

  He heard footsteps on the stair that led from the lower deck. The man who appeared was six feet six inches tall. He had a tubercular appearance, circles the colour of grape juice under his eyes. His pear-shaped face was too small for the rest of his body. He wore a black silk shirt and white slacks. He farted quietly, sighed with pleasure, then sat down beside Caskie.

  ‘There’s nothing in the world as satisfying as a good healthy expulsion of gas,’ the man said. His name was Roddy Haggs.

  Caskie said, ‘I suppose that depends on your priorities.’

  ‘Ah. Are bodily functions off-putting to you? Note to self: do not discuss gases with Caskie.’ Haggs studied other boats in the vicinity with his binoculars. ‘Look at that. Look at that. Fuck me. I know what I’d like to do to her. Ooo.’

  The object of Haggs’s lust was a tanned blonde teenage girl in a neon lime bikini who dived from a small yacht about three hundred yards away. She vanished underwater, then surfaced laughing. She climbed back into the boat. She had a melodic laugh. Her water-flattened hair was pressed to her skull.

  ‘Very nice,’ Caskie said. He felt Haggs expected an appropriate response. They were members of the same club: men of the world. But different worlds.

  ‘Nice? Show some enthusiasm, Caskie. She’s completely shaggable. What they call a babe. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t fancy a poke at that crumpet.’

  A high-powered speedboat passed, sending waves towards the launch, which trembled a little. Caskie felt his stomach tighten.

  ‘Beer?’ Haggs asked.

  ‘I’ll pass.’

  Haggs popped a lager and slurped it. ‘I’m fascinated by the idea of squeezing out whatever deep secrets the former jockey knows about good old Jackie’s mysterious enterprise. I’ll pop him like a bloody flea. Talk to me about the daughter.’

  Caskie shrugged. ‘Divorced. Intelligent. She had a fondness for amphetamine a few years back but she kicked it. I seriously doubt she knows anything. She was close to her father. But I don’t imagine for a moment he discussed his business with her.’

  Haggs said, ‘Which leaves Senga.’

  ‘Senga’s a good-hearted sort, but probably hard as bloody nails if you step on her toes the wrong way. I don’t think she’s privy to anything either … I’ll tell you one thing, Haggs. Her heart may be good, but it’s broken right now.’

  Haggs was silent for a time, cracking his knuckles. Caskie wondered if the silence was some form of sympathy, then decided it was more likely that Roddy Haggs didn’t have a clue what to say about grief. He just wasn’t good with little sounds of commiseration, the so sorrys and the oh dears that were the basic currency of response to human tragedy.

  ‘I bet she kept her ears open,’ Haggs said eventually. ‘I bet she knew Jackie’s business.’

  ‘Even if she did, which I doubt, it doesn’t mean she’d be willing to repeat anything she heard,’ Caskie said. He stroked his white beard. He thought it made him look almost nautical, like an admiral. How ironic.

  ‘Sod it,’ Haggs said. ‘It doesn’t matter who tells us what. We’ll get it in the end anyway. There’s just too much buzz vibrating along the grapevine for this to be a bag of hot air. That old tosspot Mallon was up to something, and it was big, and I’m not being left out in the fucking cold. Nothing passes me by.’

  Loose talk in the criminal fraternity, Caskie thought; but enough to convince Haggs something profitable was in the wind. Caskie decided to risk standing up. He leaned carefully against the handrail and looked down into the water. Reflected light hit his sunglasses. His mouth filled with sticky saliva. He was going to throw up. His moment of courage passed and he made his way shakily back to his seat. I’ll never be a seagoing man. No life on the ocean wave for me.

  Haggs said, ‘Jackie Mallon left Glasgow last Wednesday from Central Station. You any idea where he went?’

  ‘It’s news to me,’ Caskie said.

  ‘My man saw him enter the station, then he was gone in a flash.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t go anywhere. Maybe he was playing games with your man.’

  ‘He was seen buying a ticket,’ Haggs said.

  ‘And then your man lost him? Downright careless.’

  ‘You know nothing about this jaunt?’

  ‘Nothing. Anything else on the agenda, Haggs?’

  Haggs gestured loosely. ‘We’re almost finished.’ He ticked off the names on his fingertips. ‘Matty Bones. Joyce. Senga Craig. I’ll deal with Matty when he’s had a few more hours to sweat. You can cope amiably with Joyce. And Senga – do you want me to leave her to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Caskie said.

  ‘You’re the expert on the Mallon family, after all. You’re the authority. You’re the historian.’

  ‘Up to a point,’ Caskie said.

  ‘What you don’t know about the family isn’t worth knowing.’ Haggs stretched his long arms until his elbow joints cracked. He smiled. The expression made him appear ugly and unwanted, like the solitary bruised Cornice left in a greengrocer’s display after all the others have been sold. ‘It’s a bloody shame Jackie was such a stubborn fucker –’

  ‘I don’t think he’d have told you anything in a million years,’ Caskie said. ‘He was never easily intimidated. If he didn’t want to tell you something, that was the end of it. You could pull out his fingernails one by one, he still wouldn’t tell you if he didn’t want to.’

  Caskie remembered Jackie Mallon the last time he’d seen him – Jackie’s ruined looks, the glossy hair, the sunken cheeks that might have belonged to an old trumpeter. A chance encounter on Argyle Street on a busy Saturday afternoon last Christmas, the shops festooned with tinsel and light, an army of Santas everywhere, a kiddy choir singing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, and Jackie walking one way, Caskie the other, and they’d collided. They shook hands vigorously, men who tolerated, perhaps even liked each other, despite the fact they worked different sides of the street.

  What are you up to these days, you old rogue? Caskie asked.

  All I do with my time is play dominoes in the senior citizens’ centre. You didn’t hear this from me, but we actually play for money. It’s illegal, I know, I know. But where’s the harm in gambling for a few quid, eh? Such are the innocent pleasures of sorry old men. I was never a reprobate. Jackie had smiled then, the easy-going smile that made you feel he was sharing an enormous confidence.

  Caskie laughed. And I believe in Santa.

  Aye, everybody should believe in Santa. Where’s the spirit of Christmas if you don’t believe in the gaffer?

  They wished each other seasonal greetings. Jackie Mallon had patted Caskie’s arm and walked away, bent forward a little against the wind that came rushing up from the Clyde and shook the decorations in the streets. Caskie thought he had a quality few rogues possess; he could make you believe he was incapable of the lawlessness attributed to him. He had about him an unsettling air of innocence. Charm, Caskie thought. All charm.

  He blinked against savage sunlight. Unsteady as the launch shivered again, he wanted to tell Haggs – look, we didn’t need to meet on this boat, we could have talked over a glass of wine somewhere nice and private outside the city; but no, you have to drag me out to this bloody vessel because you know I don’t have the stomach for water. Haggs had a mean-bastard streak and enjoyed other people’s discomfort.

  ‘There�
��s a son,’ Caskie said.

  ‘He lives overseas. So I hear.’

  ‘In New York,’ Caskie said. ‘He may come back for the funeral. He’s a cop, incidentally.’

  Haggs did another stretching thing with his arms. He looked like a figure made out of pipe-cleaners twisted by a child. ‘So what? Is this a cause for concern or something? An American cop, is that supposed to worry me?’

  ‘I mention it in passing,’ Caskie said. He thought of Flora Mallon. Had the years been good to her? When he first met her he’d been more than a little smitten by her beauty; she had the kind of presence that would turn heads at parties, the rich black hair and the square jawline that suggested pride and self-assurance and an element of ferocity, the mouth that defied you to kiss it, the dark chocolate eyes that saw straight through you. He’d felt clumsy and inadequate in her presence, he remembered. But he’d been kind to her at a time when she needed somebody.

  How was she taking the news of Jackie’s murder? Had she ever stopped loving Mallon? Her notes never made any mention of him. The last time she’d written it was to say how very sad she was to hear of Caskie’s wife Meg dying. Meg had been sick for a very long time, clinging to an existence that seemed worthless to Caskie. Slow death had been a lonely experience for her. And for him too. That pathetic solitude. You sit in a room and hold the sick woman’s hand but you might be the only person on the planet. You want her to die. You pray for it.

  Then you wonder if you want her to die for all the wrong reasons.

  Haggs scrutinized Caskie for a moment. ‘You don’t like this, do you, Caskie? You and me involved in this. It makes you feel dirty. You think I’m a fucking lout, don’t you? Beneath your station in life. You’ve always looked down your fucking nose at me. For years you’ve made me feel like a turd.’

  ‘I’m cooperating with you,’ Caskie said. ‘Isn’t that all you’ve ever needed? Feelings don’t enter into it.’

  ‘I could buy and sell you and it wouldn’t make a fucking dent in my bank account,’ Haggs said. ‘In one month I probably go through more than your entire net worth. You know what this boat cost me? You any idea what I paid for my house in Rouken Glen? Did you know I have a villa in Lanzarote with a swimming pool?’