Bad Samaritan

by Michael J Malone

  ‘It would also be good to have a word with Matt. Is he still here?’ asked Ray.

  The switch in topic, from one son to the other, threw Helen momentarily. She looked around herself. ‘He … he said he forgot he had a class today. Had to go back to uni. Forget his head that boy.’

  * * *

  Ray and Ale travelled the lift in silence. Walked past another group of smokers at the hospital entrance, each holding their own counsel. Ale noticed a young man hanging about at the foyer. There was something in the way that he looked at her. And something about his face, across the eyes, but before she could snag the thought Ray held open the door for her and they were out into the late autumn chill.

  In the car, Ray was the first to speak.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That boy is either innocent, or he’s an actor in a class of his own.’ Pause. ‘You?’

  ‘Mmmm. Not sure.’ Ray inserted the key and fired the engine. ‘The best lies are the ones that stick closest to the truth.’

  15

  It’s breakfast time. I’ve made Maggie an omelette and, bless her, she’s tucking in like it actually tastes nice. While she eats I look round the kitchen at some of the stuff she’s chosen to surround herself with. There’s a shelf of cookbooks that even from the state of the spine I can see have been well used. In among them there are books on poetry and mysticism. The clock on the wall wears the face of the moon and the aluminium fridge door is wearing pictured magnets of cats and dogs. And the odd feel-good slogan.

  ‘Feel the fear, eh?’ I say.

  ‘Mmmm, Mr McBain, you make a good omelette,’ Maggie says mid-chew.

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘No. Really. It’s very tasty.’

  ‘It’s perfect bachelor food, is what it is.’ I hear the coffee pot reaching the boil. ‘More coffee?’

  Smile. ‘Yes, please.’ Bigger smile. ‘I could get used to this.’

  ‘Ah. Therein lies the problem. After the third date and the clock strikes twelve, the pumpkin disappears and I revert to grunts and scratching my balls.’ And I wonder when Maggie is going to set the programme for the continuation of our relationship. Last time, she felt that I was still in love with someone else and didn’t want to be second choice.

  ‘That’s a change? In what way?’

  ‘Cheeky.’

  She reaches over and holds my hand. ‘It is what it is, Ray.’

  ‘I hate that expression.’

  ‘I’ll take what you’re prepared to give me.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Loving you is easy in some ways, Ray. In others,’ she offers a conciliatory smile, ‘…not so much. It’s less like you come with baggage, more like an airport luggage carousel.’

  ‘Well, thanks for that appraisal.’ I move my hand away from hers.

  ‘Don’t get defensive, Ray. It’s true and you know it.’ She takes my hand back. ‘What I’m trying to say…’ and it’s like she’s reading my mind ‘…let’s just enjoy the moment and let the future take care of itself.’

  I feel my chest heat and throat tighten with affection. I stand up and move closer. Pull her into an embrace. Feel my body respond. She laughs, pushes me away.

  ‘Don’t be getting any ideas, buddy.’ She grows sombre. ‘I was thinking about that young girl who was murdered. Aileen Banks.’ She reads my expression of surprise. ‘Your name was in the papers. And you were on the telly, Ray.’

  ‘Right.’ There’s no way I want to bring my work into this relationship and rather we didn’t talk about it all.

  ‘Life’s too short. I’ll take what you can give me, Ray, knowing you are a good and caring man. And if it doesn’t last, it doesn’t last. But I’ll enjoy it while I can.’

  ‘Jeezuz, that’s a fatalistic point of view.’ I put a hand on both of her shoulders, and the realisation comes as fresh as my words. Along with the realisation that the feeling had been there from the first time we met. ‘I’m in love with you, woman. Can’t you see that?’

  A small tear forms on a lower lash and hangs their like a crystal. ‘It’s just … I have a sense…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s nothing, Ray. It’s just a lack of sleep.’ She reaches out and strokes my cheek.

  ‘It’s something, Maggie. Enough to get you upset.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘C’mon. Spill.’

  Maggie goes to say something and from the shift in her expression, thinks better of it. Then she says, ‘You not sleeping well?’

  ‘You’re changing the subject.’

  ‘You were crying in your sleep.’ The expression of empathy on her face was enough to trigger a tightening in my throat. I coughed, hoping that would loosen the emotion. ‘Then I heard you get up in the middle of the night. You were in the living room for ages.’ There was a question in that comment that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

  ‘I’m fine.’ I brush it off. ‘But there’s something else on your mind. Something else you were going to say.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ she says and reaches over to grip my hand. ‘Not urgent.’

  ‘Maggie, please. What’s on your mind? I’m not going to stop nagging until you tell me.’

  Her expression softens. ‘It’s … just I have this sense that we don’t have long together. So,’ she turns up the wattage on her smile, ‘I want to enjoy you, us, while I can.’

  ‘Maggie…’ I say. My phone rings. ‘Hold that … no, change that thought.’ The number is withheld. Probably the office, I think and press accept.

  ‘DI McBain,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, boss.’ I recognise the voice of Daryl Drain. ‘That’s somebody at Barlinnie on the phone. Not sure why they’re phoning you, Ray.’

  I do.

  ‘Joseph McCall had you down on his notes in place of next of kin, seemingly.’

  ‘Aye?’ I don’t know why I’m asking, because I know.

  ‘He’s topped himself.’

  16

  There’s a song on the radio. Love is all around, apparently. And it’s Marti Pellow’s voice warbling along to the swell of the violins. I reach across and pick at the car’s controls. Change channels. I like cheese as much as the next man, but not today.

  I look out of the car window, across the rooftops before me and up to a granite-grey sky. A world of monochrome to suit my mood. Poor bastard. Joseph McCall, deceased. You go through all kinds of unmentionable stuff, take on the crimes of a serial murderer and then commit suicide with a short rope and a long drop. Then you have a funeral where your only mourners are a prison guard, a chaplain and a slightly podgy police detective.

  A feeling rolls towards me. Sours my mouth. Sits in my gut like a weight. Mood, thy name is guilt. I could have, should have, done more to help the boy. Insisted for longer and louder that he was not the Stigmata Killer. I should have pressed for an investigation into the crimes. Proved that McCall couldn’t have been the guilty one.

  Instead I hid. Took an easy life. Ignored the nightmares and the night sweats. Tried to push to the back of my mind that a man called Leonard had tried to kill me after murdering a number of people from my past.

  I hold my hands in fists. Look down at my knuckles, turn my hands over and check the scars that pucker the pale flesh of my wrists. Close my eyes to the fear that surges from my bowels to my heart and imagine it as the white heat of rage. I will not be bowed by that man. I will not.

  I need to make things right.

  McCall’s belongings are in a small box in the passenger seat beside me. As I was named as his next of kin – I shit you not – I was given his belongings, and what a pathetic assortment it is.

  I need to sort this. While poor Joe’s flesh is beginning the long slow act of decomposition, the Stigmata Killer is out there, doing whatever the fuck he is doing. And given his previous ac
tivities, I very much doubt he’s crocheting blankets for the poor.

  That can’t be right. And I’m to blame.

  One gold signet ring. One gold chain with crucifix. Six novels. A gun-metal cigarette lighter and two postcards.

  The sum of a life.

  Nope. Not having it. I’ve got to do something. Take responsibility at least.

  At last.

  I look out of the window and into the distance, seeing nothing of the Glasgow vista before me, feeling resolve work its way through layers in my mind. Gaining acceptance in all those places that shrank from action in the past.

  Or, as our American cousins might put it, growing a pair.

  I recognise one postcard. Joseph showed me it the last time I visited. The image on the front was a Highland scene. Could have been taken almost anywhere north of the Scottish central belt. The words on the back read “Gone hunting”.

  The other is a Glasgow scene. And my gut twists when I recognise it as being near the place I stayed when I was on the run from my colleagues as the main suspect in the Stigmata murder enquiry: St Andrews Square. What the hell is going on here?

  I turn it over. Three words. The hand-writing on the address side is different from the three words on the message side.

  I compare the writing with that on the earlier card. The address and message match the address on the Glasgow card. So whoever wrote on the first one addressed the second one but left the message side blank.

  Before I’ve articulated the thought, I pick up one of the novels. It’s Craig Robertson, whoever the fuck he is. A book called Random. I open the cover. McCall has signed and dated it. And given it a rating. Five out of five. Looks like we are all critics nowadays.

  The writing matches the message on the card.

  I examine the postcard. It’s dated three days before McCall killed himself. I read his message from the grave and fight to still the chill that slowly rises the length of my spine.

  McBain, you’re next.

  17

  One of the benefits of not having killed for a while is that there’s less chance of being caught. But then you have to constantly fight down that beautiful hunger. The desire that demands expression in the shedding of another’s blood or in the delivery of pain.

  Oh, you can imagine the act. Spend seductive hours in speculation. Pick a position, send your limbs to sleep and your mind on a journey of tragic imaginings. Of course, if you have memories to call on, you can insert just the right detail into your mind’s weavings.

  Remember that last breath. The last agonised sigh. Or the moments at the beginning of the attack, when fear first surges in their gut, before the brain can articulate what is about to happen. A recognition of danger that is linked to the pre-socialised animal. Atavistic. Certain. Bowel-loosening.

  Hanging on the edge of the surviving twin’s grief worked.

  Then it didn’t.

  So he had to act. End him. End it. All of life before that moment was a sham. Scrubbing in the shallows. Waiting to die. Being nothing but breath and hunger. And that moment of release was all there was.

  All there needed to be.

  18

  ‘Where are you, Ray?’ asks Alessandra.

  ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘Jesus, man. What is up with you today?’

  ‘Sorry. What were you saying?’ I mentally give myself a shake. The resolution that formed in my mind has not worked its way into action yet. I know what I need to do, but I don’t know how to do it yet.

  Well, that’s not true. I do. I just have to gird myself to face the consequences.

  ‘I was saying that we should keep an eye on Simon Davis. Guilty or not, there’s a social networking lynch mob piling it on him, and we need to keep an eye on it,’ Ale says and pushes her laptop into my line of sight.

  ‘Don’t you mean, unsocial networking?’ I ask while making a face. I look at the screen. Read out loud. Trying to focus. ‘Never liked him. Always thought there was something dodgy about him. Got to watch out for the quiet ones.’

  Ale nods. ‘People are quick to judge, eh?’

  ‘Aye, who needs a judicial system. Let’s hand it all over to Facebook and Twitter.’

  Ale scrolls down the page. Reads. Says, ‘Look at these twats.’

  I read a conversation with three young guys trying to outdo the others with their solidarity with their sisters and their unbridled testosterone. ‘What would you do if it was your sister, man?’ ‘Yeah, wee prick needs to suffer.’ ‘Bring back the death penalty.’ ‘I’d swing for him.’ ‘Cops are crap, we should do him.’ ‘DM me. We need to sort this.’

  ‘DM?’ I ask.

  ‘Direct message.’

  ‘And we can’t read it when they go direct?’

  ‘Nope.’ Ale’s face is grave when she says this.

  ‘Something to worry about, do you think?’ I ask.

  She looks away from me and out of the office window. Glasgow is wearing a clear blue sky, and judging by Ale’s face she would rather be out under it than in this boxy office with me.

  She chews on the inside of her lip before answering. ‘Could be bravado. Could be playing to the gallery … See how many likes they have here? But if they’re taking it off the public viewing, it could mean they are serious.’

  I read the names. Ian Cook. Jack Foreman. John Snow. Study their images.

  ‘There was a Ian and a Jack who were seen going out with Aileen.’

  Ale nods and clicks on Ian Cook. Two posts down has him at The Horseshoe Bar.

  ‘This says he was there half an hour ago,’ says Ale.

  ‘Why do they make it so easy for us?’ I ask while grabbing my car keys. ‘You coming?’

  * * *

  The Horseshoe Bar is an institution in Glasgow. Largely unchanged since Victorian times, it’s reasonably priced despite being in the city centre. And the first floor is the place to go if you’ve a hankering to sing your lungs out to the karaoke machine. Apparently. You wouldn’t catch me up there without a knife at my throat and a bomb on the doorway of everyone I love.

  Thankfully, the lads we’re after are on the ground floor, lining up alongside the, wait for it, horseshoe-shaped bar. They’re both tall, skinny and tanned, with trim beards and what I’m guessing will be trendy hairstyles. They both look like their photos on Facebook. I’m beginning to love that site.

  ‘Ian Cook? Jack Foreman?’ I say as I reach them.

  They both turn. Look us up and down, surprise evident in their expressions. ‘Aye. Who’s asking?’ Ian says.

  I do the introductions.

  ‘How can we help you guys?’ asks Jack, leaning against the bar, completely at home in his surroundings and with who he is. I find myself wishing I was that confident when I was his age. His mate tries to affect the same indifference but lets himself down with a quick chew on the inside of his right cheek and a scratch at his perfect head of hair before he meets both of us with a strained smile.

  ‘We’re just looking for some background info on Aileen Banks.’ I say.

  ‘Aye, that was a total shame, like,’ Jack says with what feels like genuine concern and a twist of pain. ‘She was a lovely lassie.’

  ‘Aye,’ says Ian. ‘You guys any closer to finding out what happened?’ He looks at both of us with an eager expression. Eager to help. Makes me wonder what his motivation might be. Real or fake concern? Or does he have something he wants to make sure stays hidden?

  ‘We understand you guys both had a wee thing for her,’ says Ale.

  ‘Just a wee snog up the student union,’ answers Jack. ‘She had too much class to be interested in the likes of me.’

  ‘Must have been a disappointment to you, Jack,’ I say. ‘A man of your reputation and all you manage to get is a snog.’

  ‘Don’t know what you are on about, mate,’ says Jack. ‘And
why are you bothering me when you should be interviewing that ex-boyfriend of hers?’

  Touchy. I clearly hit a nerve.

  I ignore him and face Ian. ‘What about you son? You get any more than a wee kiss from the lassie?’ I hear the irritation in my tone and realise that I see their version of cool kids, read into it a sense of entitlement and want to slap them down on behalf of every geeky child on the planet.

  I catch a look from Ale. She recognises my tone and wants to talk me down off the ledge of my indignation. I force a wink in reply.

  ‘No,’ says Ian. ‘As the man says, she was way too nice to be interested in us.’

  ‘I do hear you guys have a bit of a reputation with the ladies,’ says Ale with the suggestion of a smile. ‘Towie comes to Glasgow, kinda thing.’

  Both lads smile, their egos suitably buffed up from Ale’s comments. It doesn’t harm that she’s very pleasing on the eye.

  While I wonder what the hell Towie is, Ale asks, ‘What can you tell us about Aileen?’

  ‘Didn’t really know her that well, to be honest,’ says Jack.

  ‘Yeah, we used to see her about the union and the pubs and stuff,’ says Ian. ‘She was kinda hot,’ he admits and then fights a blush as he realises this might be disrespectful of the dead. ‘You know what I mean.’ He picks up his drink and tries to hide his social gaffe behind it.

  Ale catches my attention. Nods to the side. I follow her movement and see a young couple at a table. As I look over the female looks up, meets my eye and then goes back to studying her phone. Or whatever she was doing.

  I look back at Ale with a silent question, then I realise that both lads are watching us, wondering what the hell we are doing. Hiding my irritation at Ale, I get back to the case in hand.

  ‘Do you remember much about the night she died?’ I ask, now officially off my high horse and still feeling the heat from Ian’s face. They really are just kids, and the ability to blush, to my world weary eyes, suggests honesty and sensitivity. Not qualities I crash into much in my day-to-day.