Potter's Field

by Dolan, Chris;

  He seemed more Irish of a sudden. Not Packy’s Irish; not Donegal. The accent a little flatter, sounding more Northern Irish. Maddy wished it had been the younger one. Mike was a cocky little nonce but at least he didn’t have Grim Reaper eyebrows and a voice like the harbinger of doom. When Connolly knelt at her grandfather’s bedside he brought death nearer.

  “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…. I thought Vittore would prefer the old Latin.”

  Maddy didn’t think he would. But then again, what did she know? Did Nonno want this man here at all?

  “Nearer his own language. If I knew Italian I would do it in that.”

  Maddy thought of making a run for it. But it was too late. She bowed her head obediently.

  John MacDougall slapped Inspector Coulter’s then Sergeant Russell’s backs heartily when he bumped into them in the corridor. Coulter and Russell had been in since before seven, Coulter not having got away last night until after ten. MacDougall was just arriving, no doubt after a good long sleep, and for an inconsequential meeting with the Chief over coffee and scones. “Well done, chaps.” The olde English phrase in a Gaelic accent sounded weird.

  “Thanks,” said Russell.

  Coulter didn’t join in with the smiles. “We’ve hardly got a conviction yet, sir, and there are still a few elements we—”

  MacDougall, with all the self-righteousness of a politically-appointed quango convener, was hearing none of it. He told them they were excellent officers, shining examples of guardians of the law. “Keeping men like McCartney off the streets.”

  “Lennon, sir.”

  “Lennon, of course!” He strode off up the corridor.

  He was fatuous and condescending, yes, but Coulter could see why he had risen in the world. The man had a certain presence, a brightness of eye that was either smart and scornful or smart and wise. Maybe a mixture of the two. His success with difficult schools was universally accepted, yet he retained a bonhomie that was difficult to resist. No, it was the way politicos like MacDougall and the rest could enter Division A buildings unannounced and unaccompanied that got to Coulter. Even visiting officers from other forces – Casci from New York – had to wear a badge. The police were too deep in the pockets of quangos and consultants these days, at the mercy of policy whims and spin.

  Russell opened the door on a kind of woman neither of them had expected. They had come to anticipate the marks of poverty and despair. Extremes of thinness and obesity. Lank hair and pasty skin. Belinda Laird shone with health. Her hair was shoulder-length, light hazel, an attractive curl through it. Her complexion advert-soft; her smile, as the officers entered, serene. She was dressed simply but cleanly in a shapeless tunic – which was fine, given her figure.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Pacchini, for coming all the way down here.”

  “Thank you. It’s nice to be home again, for a short while at least.” She gave a little laugh and neither Russell nor Coulter could stop themselves smiling back. “They say that Dundee is like Glasgow with the good bits taken out.”

  “What good bits?” Coulter wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not.

  “Oh you know, the buzz, the energy.”

  Coulter pulled back a chair for them all to sit down. Russell lost his smile first. “Some people might be more worried about the situation.”

  “I don’t do worry, officer. How bad can it be? If it was really serious you’d have told me by now.”

  “Mrs Pacchini—”

  “I haven’t been Mrs. Pacchini for a long time. Even then, to be honest, only on paper.”

  “Miss Laird then.”

  “That’ll do.”

  “Is there another option?” Russell sneered. Belinda thought about his question for a moment, then let it go. “What’s this about? Paul?” Russell opened his mouth to speak, but Belinda answered the question before it was voiced. “He’s my only next-of-kin. I’m his. And as I haven’t done anything wrong…” She smiled. “What’s he done?”

  “When was the last time you were in touch with Paul?”

  It was Coulter’s turn to cut in. This was all going too quickly. “Hold on. I need to clarify. Sorry. Paul went back to live with you after your husband, George, died?”

  “Not really. I went down there for a while, he came up here…”

  “And then what?”

  “He decided to go back and go on living with Veronica and Des.”

  “Veronica and Des?”

  “Veronica’s a cousin of Giorgio’s. When things were bad with his dad, Paul had lived with Veronica and Des who stay down that way. That was one of the reasons I let Giorgio take Paulo down there. I knew he’d be safe with Veronica and Des.”

  She was very clear. An accuracy in every word. There was a tougher woman behind the smiling persona, Coulter thought. One that was used to arguments. “I know it’s… unusual. But I know also what’s best for my boy. “He’ll tell you, too. Paul understands perfectly.”

  At the moment of saying it, her face fell. Her eyes darkened, and she looked from Coulter to Russell and back again. “Oh, Jesus.”

  Coulter couldn’t help his morbid fascination of the moment of understanding, the terrible penny dropping. Belinda simply, almost sweetly, put her hand to her mouth, paled a little. “You can’t, can you? You can’t ask him.”

  She stood up. Then sat back down. They all do. Then they refuse offers of coffee, water, telephoning somebody. Belinda consented to the water. Like everyone else she seemed to go through an acted grief, a performance. They flit between the dark hole they’re tumbling into, and behaving according to the rules of a social situation.

  “What happened?” she finally whispered.

  Bit by bit, over an hour, bringing in Amy Dalgarno, they made Belinda Laird aware of the situation. Belinda had heard about Kelvingrove, but never for a minute…

  Through tears, between long silences, over another hour, they got her side of the story. She and Giorgio Pacchini got married because she was pregnant with Paul. Her parents were strict and religious, old school Kirk. Giorgio introduced her to cannabis. Never any hard stuff, but they smoked their socks off. He got her into music – he played with a few bands. And he got her into new ways of thinking.

  “Geo was both my Nemesis and my salvation.” It had the sound of an oft-quoted phrase. “If it hadn’t been for him, I’d never have wasted so much time, never have done in my head with pot. I’d’ve been a better mother. Then again, without him, I might never have started my journey at all.”

  “Journey to where?” Russell asked, but Belinda didn’t answer. She never realised, she said, until he died, that the cannibis was doing something to Geo’s head. She’d never have let him go off with Paul if she’d known.

  “Why did you let him take the boy at all?” Russell was incredulous.

  “It was best for all of us. I needed… some space. Head space, you know? Geo and Paul were great together. And they were going to live near Veronica and Des.”

  “What exactly is the family relationship with Veronica and Des?”

  “Veronica is Geo’s first cousin. Veronica Mancini. Now Kane.”

  “Where did you go, Belinda? After Geo and Paul went south?”

  “A little tour.” She was getting tired now. The tears had stopped flowing, and the voice flattened out. “Iona. Bit straight for me. Met someone there from Findhorn….”

  Then she fell into silence.

  They walked back towards the incident room. “That poor woman’s going to spend the night in a cheap hotel room before identifying her son’s body in the morning. You knew what you were going to tell her. She should have brought someone!” Coulter had never seen WPC Dalgarno’s fury before. A legitimate fury, but he had wanted Paul Pacchini’s mother fresh, unrehearsed. “Belinda strikes me as a woman with deep reserves of self-comfort,” Coulter defended himself.

  “Where’s Findhorn?” asked Russell.

  “Kind of hippy place. Up by Inverness I think.” Amy swallowed her anger and
returned to professional mode. “It’s huge now. An eco-friendly town. Everyone lives in harmony with their surroundings.”

  Russell burst out laughing. “All smoking dope and living in tree-houses and going ‘om’? That kind of crap?”

  “Actually, I think they’re strictly anti-drugs.” Amy was warming up again for a never-ending battle against Russell. Coulter was saved from playing peacemaker by two uniforms waiting at the door of the incident room to talk to him. They jostled with one another for his attention, like kids.

  “You first,” he said to the most desperate-looking of the two.

  “Sir. It’s about Ian Lennon.”

  Russell and Dalgarno were too lost in their mutual contempt and walked on into the room.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s broken bail. Gone AWOL.”

  “You’re joking. How hard have you tried to find him?”

  “Not at his residence, and he hasn’t turned up at either of the two gardens he was supposed to be doing today.”

  “Maybe he’s celebrating his release.”

  “We’re out searching right now. He’s not at the Cottars Arms.”

  “Lets not panic just yet, eh? Maybe he’s at the flicks.”

  The young policeman looked at him, not sure what the “flicks” might be. Coulter turned to the second young man in uniform, looking sulky at not being chosen to speak first. “I like to save the good news to last, son. Go on.”

  “Martin Whyte’s also gone walkabout.”

  “We’ve no hold on Mr. Whyte, officer.”

  “He was scheduled to meet us – about his Lochgilvie connections – but didn’t turn up.”

  Russell came back out of the incident room. He’d obviously heard the same news. He had never actually voiced the opinion that Coulter had charged ahead too quickly with the Lennon theory, but Coulter knew. Knew, too, that Whyte and the Docherties were his sergeant’s prime suspects.

  “Mr. Docherty doesn’t know where he is,” the uniform continued. “Whyte goes off to meetings down south regularly apparently, but they’ve no contact address for him.”

  “When’s he due back?” Russell butted in.

  “According to Mr. Docherty he can go off for anything between three and ten days.”

  “And you’ve tried his mobile?”

  “Turned off.”

  “Then we’ll just wait until he returns,” Coulter smiled, opening the incident room door. Russell stayed outside with the Uniforms, making Coulter feel uneasy. The last thing he needed was a fifth columnist inside his own team going off on another track, talking behind his back to top brass and footsoldiers. Inside, he was met with better news.

  “Desmond and Veronica Kane,” said Amy, pleased with her efficiency. “Pennyvale. Village, east of Manchester.”

  “If they were that easy to find, how come a Paul Pacchini didn’t turn up on English school records?”

  Any shrugged. “The whole Laird-Pacchini-Kane thing blew the system?”

  Looking past her, he noticed that no one was at their desks, but huddled round a television screen. Coulter’s heart sank. Even worse than the media breaking some news they shouldn’t have is the media getting hold of information that he hadn’t.

  The school holidays had started; the drizzle had kicked in and looked set to stay until autumn term. Ibrahim “Brammer” Muhammed Khan and Caprice Fleming were walking down Alison Street on Glasgow’s south side on a Tuesday afternoon. They weren’t going anywhere in particular, just walking down a road which, an hour or so later they would normally have walked back up again. But, as they passed Soud’s Intercontinental Fruit and Vegetable Mart, three men came running out shouting and brandishing knives and a gun, making their way to a waiting car.

  Brammer Khan later told the police that he had always felt guilty about Soud’s because once, as a kid, he had tanned a bunch of bananas from the pavement display and the next day when he went in with his mother, old man Soud had patted his head and gave him a free plum. In Caprice’s case, experts said it was a case of fright or flight, or a combination of both. In her own words, she said she “‘always wondered what it’d be like to sink high heels into some bastard’s heid”.

  Brammer and Caprice were the nation’s saviours. After a spring with nothing but bad news about the younger generation – if they weren’t being killed they were out there doing the killing. Then along come a Scots Asian boy called Brammer of all things and a trainee WAG and foil three burly gangsters’ attempt at robbery and assault. It helped enormously that both turned out, in the public glare, to be natural entertainers.

  Brammer Khan had stuck his foot out and tripped the first of the men out the shop. The second man ran into the first and fell down too. It read like a scene from an Ealing comedy. The nation savoured every moment of the story. The third baddie was still inside wielding a baseball bat, about to give Mr. Soud a blow to the head, when he turned and saw the commotion. He made a run at Brammer but was stopped in his tracks by the screams of the first man.

  It must have been a frightening sight, Caprice’s stiletto pressing on your buddy’s jugular. He wielded his bat at Brammer and Caprice and ventured slowly out the shop. Meanwhile, the driver, who had been waiting for his accomplices to return with a bag full of money – the third that morning, a newsagent’s in Garthamlock and a hairdresser’s in Mount Vernon – got out the car to help. He got back in quickly when Caprice came after him with her shoes in her hand. She went back to pummelling the second man, and the driver drove off. Meanwhile Brammer held off the last of the posse by chucking unripe avocados and courgettes at his head. “Brammer the Kid” and “Calamity Caprice” the papers called them. “Kid Khan”. “Kitten heel Fleming”.

  All the TV reports and newspaper articles finished up with some version of the same sentiment: sixteen-year-old kids were better at protecting the public than the police force. Or at least, some of them were.

  “Really, though,” Dan McKillop said, flicking through the papers, “‘Muhammed Can and Caprice Will.’ The headline writers have gone mad. ‘Story on pages 2,3,4,5,9,10,17,19,20 and 21!’ ”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” said Maddy.

  “Tell you what, though. People would have preferred it if he’d been white and she hadn’t been quite so common.”

  Maddy wasn’t so sure. A slightly camp heroic Pakistani kid who spoke broad Scots, and a pouting innocent in heels… they soothed a whole series of national anxieties. “Maybe they were heaven sent, Dan.”

  “Definitive proof, then, that God’s a gay regional soap producer.” McKillop flicked through the pages of a broadsheet. “Looky who’s managed to elbow his way into Brammer’s moment of glory.”

  Maddy took the paper off him. Czar MacDougall’s picture, and, elsewhere pictures and quotes from the First Minister, Chief Constable Crawford Robertson, even Maxwell Binnie. They all welcomed the Have-A-Go Heroes’ glory. The worthies’ various statements, cautioning against approaching armed robbers in general but praising the guts, foresight and decency of the wonderful teenagers of Shawlands, seemed to suggest that they too would have chucked courgettes and ground their golf studs in baddies’ eye sockets. MacDougall in particular, the lifelong educationalist, public servant in his third age of wisdom, made not only a meal but an entire theoretical proposition out of the case.

  “Children are born morally neutral,” Dan read out the quote in a deep Biblical voice, “though I believe there is a propensity towards goodness.” He held the paper high and walked gravely around Maddy’s little glass cubicle, refining his accent to his idea of a Free Presbyterian Islander. “Whether they turn out bad or good – by which I mean, sharing in and protecting the positive values of their communities – will depend on you and me. Parents, teachers, friends, team-mates, shopkeepers, everyone who impacts upon young lives…” Dan let the paper drop from his hands.

  If nothing else, Brammer and Caprice put a temporary halt to Press and Tory demands for the death penalty and ferocious
public order policies against youngsters. If Brammer and Caprice had been at home helping mummy, or doing their homework, or curfewed, they wouldn’t have been on the street to save Mr. Soud.

  You couldn’t actually see the raindrops outside the window; the air was just wringing like a damp tea towel. Maddy had a hell of a day before her – three bereaved mothers, Jacky Mullholland, Anne Kennedy and Belinda Laird. She hadn’t meant it to work out that way. It was Nonno who had caused the bottle-neck – most of yesterday spent at the hospital.

  “What’s the prognosis?” Dan stood at her cubicle door.

  “Some kind of coma. I don’t know. He’ll come out of it any moment now, apparently. Then they’ll know what damage has been done to the brain.”

  The doctors were preparing the family for the worst. A gaggle of Scots Italians had gathered around the hospital. Uncle Gerry, Mr. Arcari, Uncle Dante. A few Irish, too. Auntie May. Lizzie… They sat in the canteen, or stood at the front porch. There was even talk that her dad would come over from Italy. That’s all she needed – Packy stomping about in his size tens.

  The door behind her closed. She watched Dan returning to his desk, sitting down and lifting his phone. Izzie and Manda were chatting, laughing. In her little booth, Maddy felt cut off. A hard shard of loneliness somewhere inside numbed her. She could feel the black outline around her thicken, detach her from the rest of the world.

  Coulter was driving through warm, pale drizzle somewhere off the M6, speaking on the hands-free. “What’s the story at Whyte’s?”

  “Nothing.” Russell, he could tell, was pissed off at being left at base. “Left notes for everyone – milkman, post, cleaning lady – saying he’d be back soon. Found nothing in his house.”

  How come “dreich” is a Scots word when the north west of England is dreicher? Coulter had left the motorway twenty minutes ago; a piece of paper on the passenger seat was directing him through country roads to Pennyvale. “And Lennon?”

  “Papers aren’t through for forced access to his dwelling yet. Tomorrow? Blame the PFs.”