by Denise Mina
Callum forgot to ignore her. ‘Aye, Mr Naismith. With the earring.’
‘He doesn’t have an earring, does he?’
‘Aye.’
‘I’ve met him and I didn’t see an earring.’ Callum shrugged. ‘Maybe he hasn’t got one, then. He’s James’s pal.’
If the overhead light had not been on Paddy might have missed the sideways flicker in his eyes, sliding over to another thought somewhere out of sight.
‘He’ll rip my arsehole with his cock if I tell on him but he’s not a fucking poof, right?’
Both Sean and Paddy shuddered. Sean dragged his eyes across the page of the comic. Paddy saw her reflection in the window. She was disguising her disgust with a grotesquely cheerful smile but it didn’t reach her eyes. The tiny child in the window was watching her.
‘He’d wipe his cunt with you anyway,’ he whispered. She turned back and reached out to pat his knee under the blanket, but Callum whipped his leg away, repulsed. She let her hand land on the bed near him and patted that instead.
‘Thanks, son. It can’t be nice being asked about that.’ Callum casually turned a page on his comic and murmured,‘Stinky cunts.’
II
The way Sean stood in the lift made Paddy think of an old, sad man: he hung from his bones. She leaned against the opposite wall, wishing she hadn’t asked Callum about any of it. Naismith didn’t have an earring. A teddy boy would never have an ear pierced. If Callum was telling the truth she’d set Naismith up for something he didn’t do and Terry Hewitt’s career would be ruined. Frightened, she reached over to slip her hand into Sean’s but he shook her gently off.
Outside in the bitter evening air Sean took out his cigarettes and gave her one. They lit up in the shadow of the dead hospital. He dipped at the knee and took her hand again, squeezing kindly, but still unable to look at her.
Sean thanked her dutifully for making him go to see Callum. He was going back, he said, he was going back and, God help that boy, Sean knew he was innocent. The wee soul hadn’t done anything wrong.
‘But they found his fingerprints on the baby and everything.’
‘They could have been planted. I know he didn’t doit.’
‘How can you know?’
‘I know he didn’t do it. He just said,“I never did it.” I’m going to start a campaign for him.’
It was more of a loyalty test than a matter of abstract truth.
‘I don’t think he is innocent.’
‘Did you just meet the same child as me?’
‘Sean, there’s a difference between a hunch and a wish,’ she said sharply, preoccupied with her own catastrophe.
Sean kept hold of her hand but slackened his grip. Each alone, they walked down to Partick, keeping to the back roads and the dark places.
Down at the train station they showed their travel passes and took the escalator up to the high platform. The waiting room was full of commuters, and the air was uncomfortably moist and warm from their breath. It was dark outside on the platform. From the high vantage point they could see the big sky over the river and the silhouette of short-headed shipyard cranes, once busy but now still, dinosaur skeletons against the orange sky. She wanted to tell Sean what she’d done, confess the arrogance that had led her to set Naismith up, but the words caught in her throat, making her heart race.
The warm train arrived and they took seats near the front, sitting close together, silent and tired, their thighs pressing against each other. When Sean handed over the cigarette and his lean fingertips touched hers she wanted to grab him with the other hand and tell him: she had done an unforgivable thing to a man, she’d told an awful, world-ending lie. But Naismith had confessed to everything: he had tried to attack her and had followed her to her work. She began to wonder if he did reach for her after all, if they were Heather’s hairs she had seen on the brown towel.
She made him get off at Rutherglen and leave her on the train, but she stood up on the quiet carriageway and saw him to the door, as if it was her home. ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Gonnae?’
He leaned down for a hug, holding his pelvis a foot away from her and bending in, as if she would attack him if he touched her. He sighed a pleasured groan into her ear, for an embrace as warm as a poke with a sharp twig.
She stayed on her feet as the train moved and watched him walk down the cold platform, his hands in his jacket pockets, his head hanging heavy on his shoulders. As the moving train passed him Paddy felt he was sliding into her glorious yellow past; ahead was nothing but the lonely grey devastation she had created. But she still had a glimmer of hope. Maybe, somehow, she was still justified. Callum could be wrong.
34
Mr Naismith
I
It was ten o’clock in the morning and the frost still lingered in the shadow of the high-rise blocks. A sniping wind was gathering strength, sweeping down the sides of the buildings, flicking their hair and hems as they picked their way carefully down the long flight of steps, avoiding the icy edges. The scheme they were walking through was a low level offshoot of the Drygate high flats, built for pensioners and sickly people, no children allowed. The modest lawns between blocks were interspersed with giant yellow sandstone, left over from a monumental time.
‘That’s all that’s left of Duke Street Prison. See over there?’ Terry pointed to the bottom of a bit of yellow wall. ‘That’s where the condemned cell was. They used to hang them on that patch of grass.’
Paddy looked and nodded, pretending to listen. ‘You’re quiet today.’
She hummed an answer. She was afraid to speak. Panic was swelling the back of her throat, gagging her. If she spoke she might just denounce herself.
‘And you look knackered.’
‘Piss off.’
But she knew he was right. She’d hardly slept the night before. Wide-eyed, she’d lain in bed, tracing patterns in the ceiling artex, thinking about Callum and what he had said. She’d lain awake looking at it every way she could, wilfully misinterpreting what he had said and trying to make it sit comfortably. It was three thirty before she finally admitted to herself that Callum was telling her Naismith was innocent.
‘So,’ said Terry cheerfully,‘Tracy Dempsie: is there anything else you want to warn me about?’ ‘The carpet in the hall– it’s horrendous.’ He nodded seriously. ‘Thanks for that, I’d hate to be caught unawares.’
Paddy smiled at the unexpected return. Terry was always slightly sharper than she expected him to be. She glanced over and saw his little belly jiggling under his shirt as his foot hit the step. ‘I see ye,’ he muttered.
She looked up to find him watching the ground in front of him.
‘You see me what?’
‘You, giving me the glad eye.’
She smiled and found her eyes filling suddenly. It would be easier to bear if he wasn’t so sweet.
Blinking back a tide of guilt, Paddy led him across the crumbling floor of the car park and into the Drygate lobby. Both lifts were out of order: a small, handwritten notice in jagged capitals was pinned to the lift doors.
They trudged up the grim stairwell, kicking through glue tins and plastic bags on one landing and the loose pages of a pornographic magazine on another. Paddy let Terry lead so that he wouldn’t be staring at her fat behind.
Up on Tracy’s landing the suction weight of wind pulled the landing door so tightly closed that she had to use her weight to lever it open. The deafening wind flattened her hair and tugged at her heavy coat. Terry clutched the neck of his heavy leather jacket as they crept along the inside wall of the balcony. Paddy knocked heavily on Tracy Dempsie’s door.
She had raised her hand to knock again when Tracy opened it, wearing yesterday’s make-up in all the wrong places. She had taken an extra pill or two and her housecoat was buttoned one step out. She blinked slo
wly when she saw Paddy and raised her cigarette to her mouth. The hot ash tip flew into her hair, singeing a dark trestle. ‘You’re not Heather Allen.’ Paddy hoped Terry hadn’t heard.
‘I saw her picture in the paper. You’re not her. She’s dead.’ Terry looked curious. Paddy could feel his eyes on her face. ‘Tracy, I heard Henry Naismith was arrested.’ At the mention of her ex-man the fight went out of Tracy. Her head dropped forward on her neck and she turned and walked away down the hall. A swirling gust of wind jerked the door open, bouncing it off the wall. Paddy wiped her feet before stepping in. Shutting the door carefully behind him, dulling the noise, Terry looked from the busy carpet to Paddy and let off a silent scream.
Following the trail of smoke through the hall and into the living room, they found Tracy slumped on the settee staring blankly at her knees. The angry wind hissed outside the window.
‘Henry,’ she said quietly. ‘They said he confessed to killing Thomas as well. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have.’
Paddy sat down on the edge of the settee next to her, their knees almost touching. She desperately wanted to say something kind and helpful but there was nothing to say. As if she could see it in her eyes, Tracy reached out and took Paddy’s hand, holding it by the thumb, absentmindedly lifting and dropping it as she took a draw from her fag.
‘He was a hard man, though, wasn’t he?’ Tracy sucked smoke through clenched teeth and tipped her head back. ‘Henry’s a good man. He was in the gangs when he was younger, aye, but the gangs just fight each other. And anyway, he’s a born-again Christian now, he’s not going to attack a wean.’
‘But he confessed, Tracy.’
‘So what?’ She looked up at them, pleading, as if they had any authority in the matter. ‘They could just be saying that.’
Paddy had almost forgotten Terry was standing behind her until he hovered into her line of vision. He cleared his throat carefully before he spoke.
‘Mrs Dempsie, why would he confess if he didn’t doit?’ Tracy shook her head at the carpet and looked bewildered. ‘They’d mibi make him?’ Her medically dulled eyes slowly traced the dervish pattern on the carpet as she thought back. She blinked slowly at the floor and then blinked again, her eyebrows forming a plaintive little triangle. ‘Henry won’t killed his self like Alfred did. He’s got religion.’
Paddy watched Tracy bring the cigarette to her mouth and knew in a sudden, chilling moment that she was staring at the carnage she had created. She was the policeman who had planted paper in James Griffiths’ pocket. She had never in her life wanted to go to confession, but she did now.
She squeezed Tracy’s hand hard. ‘I’m so sorry for all your troubles.’
Bewildered but touched, Tracy squeezed back, shaking Paddy’s hand awkwardly by the thumb. ‘Thanks.’
‘I mean it.’ She clasped Tracy’s hand tightly in both of hers as shame overwhelmed her. ‘I’m really so sorry. Honestly.’
Tracy Dempsie was on long-term medication and had treated herself to a little extra dose today, but even she was finding Paddy’s behaviour odd. She smiled uncomfortably and wriggled her hand free. Terry stepped forward.
‘Mrs Dempsie, I wonder if you would have a photograph of Henry? We don’t want to use the police photo, we want a nice one for the paper.’
It was a smart lie. The police hadn’t released a photo of Naismith and they weren’t likely to either, but Terry had guessed that Tracy didn’t know that and would want Henry to look his best in the paper. His professionalism was a reproach to Paddy, who sniffed and dabbed the damp tip of her nose with the back of her hand.
‘Aye.’ Tracy bumped her bum to the edge of the settee and stood up awkwardly, tottering a step to the side before shuffling out into the hall.
Terry waited until Tracy was out of earshot. ‘Fucking hell,’ he murmured. ‘What is going on with you?’
She tried to breathe in but her chin crumpled. Terry kicked the underside of her foot and growled at her. ‘Go to the toilet and sort yourself out.’ She stood up. ‘Don’t you be cheeky to me.’
‘Don’t act like a silly cow then.’
She kicked him hard on the ankle bone, leaving him panting and cursing her under his breath.
Out in the dark hallway she could hear Tracy raking noisily through papers behind one of the doors. The bathroom had a little ceramic sign on the door, a picture of a toilet with a wreath of roses around it. The room had been decorated in the same era as the hallway. Orange wallpaper was blistered at the edges, pleading to be pulled off. The suite was a clashing pink, the bath stained rusty brown where the cold tap had dripped and corroded the plug hole. An orange bar of soap was welded between the sink taps and the pale lemon carpet smelled of bleach.
Paddy locked the door and pulled down the toilet lid, sitting down and curling over her knees. She tried to think of something Terry had done wrong to mitigate her offence to him. She thought through her night in his bed, this morning, his behaviour at work, but couldn’t think of anything. She knew she had to phone the police and take the blame for the hair ball in the van. She could feel it as a vibration, but every fibre of her being baulked at the prospect of owning up. She’d lose everything, but it was right that she should: she’d killed Heather and framed Naismith. She made herself sit up straight. In the dock at the High Court Paddy Meehan had given a dignified speech after his conviction. He must have felt more beleaguered than she was now. She stood up and looked at herself in the cloudy mirror. ‘You have made a terrible mistake,’ she whispered quietly. ‘I am innocent of this crime and so is Jim Griffiths.’ She sniffed hard and straightened her duffel coat, ruffling her black hair to make it stand up again. She looked herself in the eye and saw nothing but guilt and fear and fat. ‘You have made a terrible mistake.’ She had integrity. She wouldn’t sacrifice a man’s life for her career. She might contemplate it, and she knew that was terrible, but she wouldn’t doit.
Flushing the toilet for effect, she drew a deep breath, unlocked the door and stepped across the hall to the living room.
Terry had taken her place on the settee next to Tracy and was smiling down at an open photo album. It was bound in red plastic with gold trim around the edges. She had stored it under something heavy and some of the cellophane sheets had been flattened the wrong way and were hanging out.
Tracy had a new fag lit and was pointing at a picture. ‘Me on holiday. Isle of Wight. Good legs, eh?’
‘Yeah,’ Terry said, looking up at Paddy as she came in and giving her a conciliatory smile. ‘Look,’ he said,‘Tracy in a swimming costume.’
Paddy walked over to Tracy’s arm of the settee and looked over her shoulder. The Tracy in the picture was younger and quite pretty, posing carefully on a bank-holiday-busy beach, one foot propped in front of the other like a fifties model. Paddy nodded. ‘Great.’
On the opposite page Henry Naismith was dressed in drainpipe trousers and a powder-blue drape coat. Hanging on his arm was young Tracy in bobby socks and a pink shift dress, her hair in a high ponytail, her eyes accidentally closed at the moment the shutter blinked.
Terry caught Paddy’s eye but she broke off quickly. He touched the face of the photograph.
‘Did Henry ever hit the kids when you were together?’
‘Me and Henry only had Garry. Alfred was Thomas’s daddy.’
Terry carried on as if he’d known that all along. ‘And did Henry hit Garry?’
‘No. He mostly ignored us until I went with Alfred and then he went mental, kicking in doors and that, going to Alfred’s work and waiting for him.’ She seemed flattered at the memory. Her mouth twitched in an uncertain smile. ‘Alfred just left the factory the back way. Course, just after Thomas died Henry got religion. He was so sad about Thomas you’d have thought it was his own wean that died. He tried to make up for how he’d been, tried to be a good dad to Garry. Devoted all his time to him.’
She turned the album page to a photo of herself in a maxi coat and knee-high boots with a baby perched on her hip. The child stared at the camera with an odd intensity.
‘What a beautiful baby,’ said Terry. ‘He’s lovely looking. Is he yours?’
‘That’s my Garry.’ Tracy covered the child’s face with her fingertips. ‘My wee boy.’
‘Have ye got any more of him?’
Tracy did have other photos of Garry. She flicked through his first Christmas, a neighbour’s wedding scramble, a granny’s birthday, and the boy grew up in front of Paddy’s eyes. She had assumed that Naismith’s and Tracy’s child was still young, that he had been only a few years older than Thomas Dempsie when he died. In fact he would have been about twelve when Thomas died. Old enough to take the child himself. Tracy turned a page and suddenly Garry was grown up, standing by his dad’s grocery van in summer, sunlight glinting off a gold stud in his ear. Paddy recognized him perfectly. He was the handsome boy she had met in Townhead the night before Heather was murdered, the boy who called himself Kevin McConnell.
Paddy couldn’t hear the wind or what Terry was saying about the pictures. All she could hear was her own heartbeat, and all she could feel was the cold sweat on her spine. The shady sexual threat in Callum Ogilvy’s words came back to her as imminent and personal. The night they met, Garry must have followed her from Tracy’s to Townhead. He must have heard from Tracy that a journalist called Heather Allen had been in the house and traced her footsteps, waiting patiently before approaching so that she wouldn’t connect him with his mother. Garry wasn’t just vicious, he was careful. He might be in this flat right now. She mapped the fastest route to the front door. If he came at her she could hit him, use something to hit him. She could defend herself.
‘Does Garry ever live here?’ she asked quickly.
‘Naw.’ Tracy scratched her thigh through her housecoat. ‘He stays up in Barnhill with his dad. They’re as close as brothers, those two. Do everything together. Garry does whatever his dad says. This picture’–she pulled back the crackling cellophane cover and peeled the Teddy boy photograph off the glue striations–‘this is the nicest one.’
