The House_Dark Urban Scottish Crime Story

by John Mayer

  Tonight while sweating hundreds drank, danced and downed their hot pies, six months to a year seemed like an eternity. They knew the war wasn’t over, but like soldiers who’d earned a long rest without the worry of battle the next day, they let themselves go; however hesitantly. But, in the backs of the minds of the few who’d seen Tucker’s pictures of that model, there remained the question which kept their blood cold: Why would a guy called Randal whom nobody had ever heard of, be behind all this? No. Tucker’s enquiries had drawn a blank. And this Randal guy made no sense. So it must be somebody else. Who hated McLane, Big Joe Mularkey and indeed all of them to the point where whoever he was, he was trying to obliterate the Calton. Who was this?

  ~~~o~~~

  Chapter 48

  Keeping to the motorway speed limit, as he drove east towards Edinburgh, in his mind’s eye Big Joe Mularkey could see her beautiful black face. Twirling and swirling to the dance music, he could almost reach out and touch that glistening skin, her long corn rows of hair and those incredible dark chocolate African eyes. During the whoops and skirls when the Calton Bar had been in full swing, he’d glanced more than once at Ababuo dancing so care-free and tried hard not to stare. But of course, Molly had noticed and when she asked him quite pointedly exactly why he was suddenly so interested in Ababuo McLane, he’d initially put her off with a wave of the back of his hand and a curt ‘Don’t be daft woman. I’m not.’

  But Molly Mularkey knew her husband a lot better than that. Now while driving he recalled her dragging him aside to get to the bottom of this suspicious fascination. He’d procrastinated for a few seconds before insisting they go out to the lane. There he tried to explain that he’d been very impressed with the way her counselling seemed to have helped her. Molly’s face registered utter incredulity as she blurted out: ‘Her counselling?’ ‘Yes’ he’d said. Of course she had all the love, affection and help under the sun at home from both Joanne and Brogan: but when she’d first come to them she was so traumatised and fragile. That doctor … Professor something … had done a great job. Four years later she was barely recognisable as the same girl. He just wanted to know the Professor’s name and was hesitating before asking Ababuo outright.

  ‘Ask her outright? No, you bloody won’t! Joe Mularkey, what the hell is on your mind?’

  Big Joe had pinched his nose and did that half turning his face this way and that, the way he’d done since he was at school. So Molly just stood there with her lips tightly pursed and her hands on her hips: waiting.

  At length, Joe had met her eyes and after checking over his shoulder, revealed: ‘Honest. I just want to know that doctor’s name. It’s somethin’ that’s been botherin’ me. Somethin’ important. I knew that if I asked Brogan he’d ask me a million questions and, right now, I don’t have any answers for him. Honest Molly, I really need that name. It’s got somethin’ to do wi’ the bad dreams I’ve been having.’

  No-one but Molly and his mother could detect it, but very occasionally one of Glasgow’s hardest men had a side to him that was all ‘wee boy lost and needing a cuddle’. And so he stood in the lane between Big Tommy Sorkin’s bakery and the Calton Bar, shifting from foot to foot as though he’d just kicked a football through a window and been caught in the act:

  Softly shaking her head, Molly Mularkey let out a sigh: ‘Well if that’s all you want to know, I can tell you that.’

  Astonished, Big Joe looked at her quizzically: ‘You? How the hell do you know the name of some Edinburgh professor?’

  Flinging her head back, Molly Mularkey felt like slapping him: ‘Men! For fuck sake! I don’t know. I really don’t. How the hell do you think I know? Joanne told me. Women talk about things that matter to them. Dear God! Men, I don’t know.’

  Exiting the motorway, Big Joe kept strictly to the route on the GPS screen. He didn’t know Edinburgh very well and that’s exactly how he wanted to keep things. As he parked and tapped CLOSE he couldn’t help noticing that Parliament House was less than half a mile away. But it was a Saturday morning and very unlikely that he’d see anyone he knew. As he made his way along the tree-lined street, gaggles of students hurried by talking in a language he didn’t recognise. It was helpful that every door bore a polished brass plate with the house number on it. Most also had the name and sometimes that of a Department too.

  At number 25, trying to take the stone steps light on his feet, Big Joe stood out a mile as a man trying to show a confidence he didn’t feel. At the door he pulled on the bell ringer. The last one of these he’d seen up close was on Lord Aldounhill’s door, which of course he hadn’t needed to use. Shivering off the memory of watching that scumbag die and then witnessing what would become vital in Brogan’s defence at trial, Big Joe waited uneasily. The discreetly positioned video entry system slipped round a few degrees, followed by the sound of a very cultured female voice and a clunk as the door lock opened:

  ‘Please. Do come in, Mr Mularkey.’

  Big Joe just never imagined that the professor might be a woman, but of course, that made sense. Back then, Ababuo might've been intimidated by a man; however well qualified. Skipping down a wide carpeted staircase with only the fingers of one hand touching the bannister, to Big Joe, Professor Angela Byres looked more like a silver haired ballet teacher at home than a psychiatrist. Her handshake was firm and her relaxed confident smile announced that she was a woman in full control of her environment. Extending her arm to its fullest extent, she gestured that they go into a sunny bay windowed room overlooking an elegant Georgian square: ‘Just in here.’

  They hadn’t been seated more than a few seconds and weren’t past the weather on the drive over and the traffic in Edinburgh nowadays when a tall man in a wrinkled tweed suit brought in tea and fairy cakes on a tray. With only a slightly forced smile towards the big man in the well-cut suit and snow white shirt sitting in his morning room, the man simply waved affectionately at Professor Byres and tapped his wrist. Crossing her legs, Professor Byres plucked a piece of fluff from her expensive looking black slacks and let one of her loafers hang from her toes. Looking directly at her potential patient, she asked quietly:

  ‘On the phone you mentioned Ababuo McLane. I must say immediately that I cannot discuss another patient. Even when …’

  Big Joe put out the upturned palm of his hand: ‘Oh no! No, I realise that. The kid doesn’t know anything about this. I just heard from … somebody … that you were good at this. No. I’m here about somethin’ else. I hope you can help me.’

  Letting her chin slowly drop a couple of times, Professor Byres edged closer to the matter in hand. This was, after all, only a preliminary, exploratory consultation:

  ‘Good. You seem to imply that there’s something in particular that I can help you with, Mr Mularkey. Am I right?’

  In truth, Big Joe was beginning to feel like a fish out of water. His long ago home training reminded him that it wasn’t impossible for someone from some less friendly part of Glasgow to be earwigging into this classic Edinburgh morning room. Leaning over onto his knees and lightly wringing his hands, Big Joe looked Professor Byres in the eyes and came straight to the point:

  ‘Dead right, aye. Well. You’re a specialist in … well I read that one of the things you do is … what was it called? Hip Retro …?’

  ‘Hypno Regressive Therapy.’

  ‘Aye. That’s it. You see, I’ve been having this dream … well, it’s no’ actually a dream, you understand. It’s more of what you might call a recollection. But I have it when I’m sleepin’. What I need to know, is if that dream is me trying to tell myself that I know something but I don’t want to say it out loud when I’m awake. Does that make sense? It’s about somethin’ that happened a long time ago. Well over twenty years, now.’

  Professor Byres tilted her head. While not yet quite in full flow, Big Joe was nevertheless a man in an obvious hurry. Professor Byres put down her cup and saucer and leaned forward:

  ‘What you may not understand, is that this i
s not a garage where you simply show up, show someone your broken part and ask him to fix it. Psychiatry isn’t like that. You seem to be asking me a question which would more appropriately be asked at the end of a prolonged period of treatment. I’m not in a position to answer anything in terms of Yes or No today.’

  Dropping his head, Big Joe began to wonder at the wisdom of taking this step. No-one but himself, Molly, Professor Byres and the man who’d brought the tea knew he’d come here, so no harm could arise; well, not in the short term. Raising his head only half way, Big Joe tried again:

  ‘OK, I see. Well, that’s a pity, because I don’t have what you might call a ‘prolonged’ period to get to the bottom of my problem. Can we try this, another way?’

  ‘We can try, so long as you don’t ask me to answer anything definitively one way or the other.’

  Sitting right back into his cream deep cushioned chair, Big Joe paused for thought. Trying to imagine how Brogan might ask a question in court, he posited: ‘OK. Could it be the case that something I did a long time ago is coming back to haunt me because of something that’s happening to me … and many people around me … right now?’

  Raising half a smile and flicking her eye towards her own two books among many packed into shelves floor to ceiling along the whole of one wall, Professor Byres nodded:

  ‘Of course That’s just memory. We use our memories both when awake and while asleep. With lots of memory cases - not all, you understand - there’s usually something else. That piece has a name; the third factor. It’s some thing or someone which connects the events which happened decades apart. Can you connect these two events which have happened many years apart?’

  Big Joe shook his head: ‘Nope. Sorry. I’ve wracked my brains till I can’t think straight. I’m up in the middle of the night wi’ this. It’s nearly all I think about now. That’s why I got this idea that because you helped Ababuo with the horrible things that happened to her while she was a child in Africa, my case would be easy-peasy for you. You see, I first had these … what would you call them? … visions, I suppose. I first had them when I was under anaesthetic during the epidemic in the Calton … that’s in Glasgow. And I even know that the … erm … what would you call him? The person I see in this memory has been dead a few years and this problem … well, it’s more of a big situation. It’s quite new. Oh, when I say the guy’s dead, I don’t mean that I killed him. I just mean …’

  Cutting him off, Professor Byres got half way to standing up: ‘Look, I’m sorry Mr Mularkey, if your dream, as you call it, was first experienced under medical sedation, then what you most likely experienced was hallucination. I’ve read the paper published by the Chief Medical Officer, so I know what precautions were used during the epidemic: and those were very intoxicating substances.’

  Surprised to hear that this Edinburgh professor had read anything about the Calton, Big Joe was about to interrupt, when Professor Byres stopped him with the icy stare she reserved for those moments when her professionalism might come under scrutiny at a later date; perhaps in a courtroom. Raising her voice for the purposes of the tiny recorder on the bookcase to her left, her choice of language was text book perfect:

  ‘And Mr Mularkey, I should also warn you, that if in the course of a consultation, I hear of a crime committed by someone who isn’t a patient, then I’m legally obliged to report that crime to the police. Do you understand?’

  Putting up both hands, Big Joe wanted to press the point that if he’d let loose his dogs of war on this guy, she’d have heard the thunder clouds over here in Edinburgh. Instead, he was courtesy itself:

  ‘Of course. Yeah. Bro … I mean … a friend once told me about that. But if I told you the bare facts and mentioned no names, maybe you could just tell me if you think …?’

  With their fifteen minutes of exploration rapidly expiring, Professor Byres shook her head:

  ‘There’s that demand for a Yes or No coming back again. I’m sorry Mr Mularkey, as I said, I can’t do that. What I will tell you for free, is that it can be very dangerous to rush into the past and expect answers to current questions just to pop out like the solution to a child’s sums. If the person you mentioned is dead and in your opinion cannot be the cause of your current problem, then why are you going to all this trouble trying to link that person with the current events?’

  Slowly raising his hand, Big Joe Mularkey covered his mouth and stared in silence at Professor Byres. Holding out her hand to say goodbye, she saw in this man who’d been so excited on the phone in expectation of a black or white answer, what she often saw in her younger students: the dawn of light showing a way which had been there all the time but had simply been obscured by the hours of darkness:

  ‘Link! That’s it. There must be a link and I’m just not seeing it. Maybe a missing link. Wow, I don’t know if you meant to do that, professor, but you’ve just told me how to solve this problem. All I’ve got to do is find the missing link. Amazing! No wonder Ababuo is so happy nowadays.’

  Beaming into her face, Big Joe Mularkey gripped her hand just a little too tightly. Keeping her expression to that neutral smile she’d perfected over many years, Professor Byres perfectly concealed that she’d seen the mist begin to form in this patient’s eyes. Behind his craggy pock-marked face, his enormous build and his gruff Glaswegian demeanour, she detected the flicker of a small boy who’d just had the cuddle he needed.

  ~~~o~~~

  Chapter 49

  Flashing and glinting in wee windows opened after good nights out, all up and down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, the late morning sun was trying to warm the higher tenement buildings on the north side of the cobbled street. The overnight puddles of rain were evaporating, if slowly, and up on George the Fourth Bridge, buses were beginning to disgorge shoppers and tourists alike. Holding the front door to Parliament House open for a gaggle of Japanese tourists, McLane was trying to bow back to every single one who insisted on bowing deeply before entering. As they ‘Ooh’d and Aahh’d’ at the splendour of Parliament Hall, McLane allowed himself a little chuckle at how deceived they would be about the Scottish system of justice by spending only half an hour of a busy sightseeing morning in Parliament House.

  At last, with his heavy Gladstone bag tightly gripped, McLane crossed Parliament Square and strode down ‘The Mile’. At number 142, he spun round into the narrow pend leading to the award winning Faculty of Advocates’ Consultation Suites. Taking the stone steps, he was pleased to see in Reception the glow of a well stoked fire burning in the wide grate.

  Down here, McLane preferred to relax the Parliament House rules about servitors’ names and had taken the trouble to ask a few to enlighten him. Some had feigned shock and politely refused, while others had half bowed as they whispered their family name. Of course, McLane only used those names when there was no-one else in earshot. At the Reception desk, McLane dumped down his bag and smiled warmly at one of his favourites:

  ‘Good morning, Mr Lewis. How are you, this morning?’

  Lifting his clipboard, Mr Lewis, who’d been a Parliament House servitor for nearly thirty years and who had some expectations of replacing old Jimmy Robertson as Queen’s Macer, politely returned the greeting with a ‘Fine, sir. Thank you for asking.’. He was jotting Baron McLane of Calton QC and the suite number into his log when McLane looked quizzical:

  ‘Erm, Mr Lewis, that’s an upstairs suite. I ordered the small one down here. I won’t need anything larger.’

  Mr Lewis looked a trifle uncomfortable as he sat up and fully drew breath through his nose:

  ‘Err, Mr Pembroke QC telephoned a short time ago, sir. Requesting which suite was booked for this Joint Consultation. When I told him, sir, he … erm, rather ordered me to change it to upstairs. I’m sorry sir, but I didn’t really have a choice.’

  Opening both hands and dropping his eyelids, McLane suspected he knew what was coming:

  ‘That’s quite alright, Mr Lewis. I’ll just go up. Thank you.’

&nbs
p; Joint Cons were traditionally held one-on-one between Advocates; sometimes in Parliament House and sometimes even over lunch somewhere with a good wine list and a discreet head waiter. But if a lot of papers or large plans had to be strewn all over the place, then 142 was the best bet. His written request for this JC had been returned with a curt ‘142. 11am Sat 14th inst.’ and wasn’t even in Pembroke’s writing.

  At the door, McLane paused to allow raucous laughter coming from inside to fade. He thought he’d heard maybe five or six voices, both male and female and was beginning to question if he had the right room when he heard his name, or more accurately, his title being mocked. ‘Ba-rr-on’ of Calton - ha ha ha! They couldn’t do better than that? Someone must’ve put the boot in at the Palace. Well, let’s hope so. Ha ha ha!’

  His snapping down of the door handle acted like a switch instantly cutting off all laughter. At one end of the long polished table supported by a stainless steel frame, Pembroke and his crew of five supporters were huddled as though fearful of catching something from the sole occupant of the other end.

  After losing a crucial Motion in court, to refuse a JC in an attempt to settle the case would inevitably see those refusing standing in front of The Dean of Faculty being quizzed as to why they were in breach of Faculty of Advocates’ protocol. Pembroke of course knew that very well, so at the last possible minute, he’d swung the situation to the opposite pole. Six of them would show up against McLane; they’d put so many points to him to which he couldn’t possibly agree, so the JC would last only as long as McLane could stand the humiliation. Then it would be off to lunch, sans McLane, somewhere with a good wine list and a discreet head waiter.