by Claire Askew
‘Listen,’ Moira said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You know this man?’ The paramedic looked exhausted, but then, she thought, they always did.
‘No,’ Moira replied, unable to meet his eye. She made the mistake of looking into the ambulance instead, where the young man – now sheltered from the collective gaze of his workmates – had begun to hiss in pain, pulling quick, ragged breaths through his teeth.
‘She’s mistaken,’ Moira said. She looked hard at the girl – perhaps too hard, because she shrank away behind the open door of the ambulance, and out of sight.
‘I – I’m a nurse.’ Moira’s face burned. As if this information could do anything to explain the last thirty seconds.
The paramedic raised his eyes heavenwards. She wanted to apologise to him – she wanted to apologise over and over, to grovel – but she couldn’t form the words.
‘Sorry, love,’ he said, ‘but I think we’ve got this covered. I need you to stand clear right now.’
He swung himself up into the ambulance, and slammed the door. Moira leapt back as the siren started up again, clanging in her ears. The driver turned the vehicle neatly around and then it sped off, kicking up a brown haze of building-site dust.
Moira stood listening to the siren as it moved off through the city. To stave off the crushing embarrassment she felt, she tried to imagine the route it might be taking to get the boy to Little France. She listened as it looped round the far end of the Quartermile, and then onto the long drag of Lauriston Place, where it could pick up speed. But beyond that, she lost the thread of the journey, and could only listen as the wah-wah-wah got slowly quieter, swallowed by traffic noise.
Looking up, she saw that the trio of workmen had returned, and were doing the same as she was – standing still and quiet with their heads cocked, listening. She tried to imagine what she must look like to them, with her mousy wash-and-go hair and the same faded jeans she’d worn while she’d been pregnant with Ryan. They’ll just think I look like someone’s mum, she thought. Someone’s mum, someone’s wife: nothing to identify her but the wedding ring her dead husband had given her. Moira cursed herself for having said her son’s name at that crucial moment, for pulling the attention of the paramedic towards her, and away from the suffering boy. She imagined his mother, probably hard at work somewhere right now – tapping away at a laptop, or chairing a meeting. That woman had no idea, but she was about to get a terrible phone call. Then Moira remembered the boy from earlier – the little boy, who’d been pushed down onto those hard stone steps. She straightened, giving her head a shake to dislodge the last of her embarrassment. She turned to walk back the way she had come, now with a purpose for the rest of the day: whether he liked it or not, it was time. She’d left it too long, but no longer. She was going home to talk to her son.
13 May, 4.55 p.m.
When Helen Birch finally arrived at Gayfield Square, Banjo Robin was standing out front, as though waiting for her. She’d hoped the dappled shade thrown by the square’s trees might turn her into just another anonymous pedestrian, but as she approached she realised he’d clocked her. She pulled in a long breath and steeled herself for the verbal barrage, which she guessed would begin when she was about twenty paces away.
‘Don’t start, Robin,’ she said, as she reached his earshot. ‘I don’t work here any more, okay?’
She might as well not have bothered.
‘Ken what, hen? This time youse’ve really fucked me over. Like pure fucked me over.’
Banjo Robin was a local pain in the ass. He was somewhere in his early sixties, and ran with a crowd of similarly aged folk musicians who were what the official documentation would call vulnerably housed. They weren’t homeless as such – Robin had a girlfriend in every postcode district, and lived with whichever one he hadn’t yet punched that week – but they were of no fixed address. On the rare occasions when he was sober, Robin was startlingly adept at the banjo. Problem was, he liked to top up his busking money by slinging illicit substances. They were usually dubious in quality and minuscule in quantity, which was how he’d managed, thus far, to avoid the jail. But he was a regular visitor to the drunk tank. When a call went out about a sixty-something man urinating in the street, loitering suspiciously around parked cars or shouting obscenities at some woman’s lit window in the small hours, it was highly likely that the attending panda car would return from its drive-by with Banjo Robin in the back seat.
Unsurprisingly, he knew all the officers at the Gayfield Square and St Leonard’s stations by name.
Right now, he was babbling. Birch drew level with him and held up one hand, palm flat, as though trying to stop traffic.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me, I don’t work here any more. If you want to talk to someone, you can come inside.’
He made a huffing sound.
‘Been inside,’ he said. ‘Cunts willnae dae anything.’
He began patting himself down, and with shaking hands fished a tobacco pouch and rolling papers from somewhere about his person.
‘Am I right in thinking,’ Birch said, as he began pinching little hairs of tobacco into a meagre cigarette, ‘that my colleagues in there have asked you to leave?’
‘Naw.’ Robin put out a thin, grey tongue to damp down the cigarette’s long edge. ‘Well, aye, but that’s no fucking fair, I mean, is it? I mean is that even fucking . . . professional?’
Birch couldn’t help it: she rolled her eyes.
‘Okay. Well, if they’ve refused to help you in there, and they’ve asked you to leave, then there’s really nothing I can do. You should go home now, Robin.’
‘See that’s the hale fucking problem,’ Robin replied. He paused, and tried in vain to light his cigarette: the lighter sparked and sparked and sparked. ‘I dinnae have a hame. Bee fucking threw me out, for nae fucking reason, and then called you lot on me.’
Birch shook her head. She’d met Bee, the Tollcross girlfriend, a couple of times years back, attending Robin’s domestic disputes. She’d seemed a nice, gentle sort of woman. She had a pretty north-west-coast accent, hennaed hair and several cats. Why she put up with this bozo time and again was anyone’s guess.
‘I’m going in now,’ Birch said. ‘I’d advise you not to follow me.’
The lighter finally caught. He grunted at her as she moved past him.
‘Good luck, Robin,’ she said. Funny, she thought. I might even miss him.
The lobby was dim, though strip-lit. The station was a low, modern-ish building that had been wedged in between rows of tall, old tenements. Those big trees out in the square didn’t help. The only natural light that got in was thrown in odd oblongs over the floor, reflecting off the hi-vis police vehicles parked up outside.
‘Arright, chuck.’
Birch turned.
‘Hello, Sergeant,’ she said.
Al Lonsdale had known Birch longer than anyone else here. He was one of the custody sergeants, and right now he was standing to the extreme left of the lobby’s glass doors and peering out through them – sideways, like a kid playing hide-and-seek.
‘Keeping an eye on Banjo?’ Birch asked.
Al nodded.
‘Just want to make sure he goes his merry way, the slack bugger.’
Birch smiled. Al was from Wakefield, but decades of living away from that city had failed to knock the edges off his accent.
‘We checked him in to his usual suite last night,’ Al went on. ‘Just your regular Banjo shenanigans – he’d had a skinful, of course. We ought to set him up with a loyalty card, he’s here that much.’
Al shuffled away from the door, and as he passed Birch, he looked into her face, twisting his head like an inquisitive bird.
‘You all right, love? You look a bit . . . off.’
Birch smiled and opened her mouth to speak, but Al rarely required a response.
‘Of course,’ he was saying, ‘I should be moderating my tone around you now, shouldn’t I? Now you’ve got y
our pips, and all that. I should be calling you Marm.’
Birch laughed. On Al’s tongue the word had no r in it – he sounded a little like a sheep, bleating.
‘Maa-m?’ she mimicked. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
Al grinned widely.
‘All right, Detective Inspector Fancyknickers,’ he said. ‘No need to take the piss.’
He made to slip behind the lobby’s desk, but Birch caught him by the arm.
‘I’ll miss you,’ she said. ‘I’m going to miss this old place a lot.’
They stood looking at one another for a second, Birch still holding on to his forearm. Then Al reached down and pulled her into a bear hug. She sniffed.
‘Arright, arright,’ he said, his voice muffled against her hair, ‘no need to get all soft about it.’
Over his shoulder, Birch noticed the pile of boxes she’d asked to be brought down for her.
‘That’s enough now,’ Al said, opening his arms. ‘Any longer and I could have you for sexual harassment. And me old enough to be your dad.’
Birch’s face hurt from smiling while trying not to cry.
‘That’s not super politically correct of you, Al,’ she said.
He shrugged.
‘Well, you know – all this equalities legislation. It changes too often for us old-timers to keep up. Speaking of which, let me summon up some burly young man to help you with those boxes.’
Birch grinned.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘The car’s not far.’
Al got in behind the desk.
‘You take what you can get now, missy,’ he said. ‘It’ll not be like this working at headquarters, you know. There’s no one’ll give you the time of day over there.’
Birch shook her head.
‘Hey, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘For a start, they don’t call it headquarters any more – we’re all equals now, remember? And secondly, it’s fine. They’re fine. They’ve given me a very nice welcome so far.’
Al gave one, sharp nod.
‘Aye, well, see that it continues. I don’t want to have to come down there and have a word with that chief inspector of yours.’
For a moment, Birch allowed herself to imagine Al storming into DCI McLeod’s office, sworn to defend her honour. She was still smiling, but the smile was weak. Al was right. The new place did feel impersonal. Shit. Have I done the right thing?
But Al had the phone receiver lodged between ear and shoulder.
‘You just stand there and look decorative,’ he said to Birch. ‘I’ll have a dashing young constable down here in a jiffy. Least we can do on your final visit, eh?’
The boxes were filled with stuff that needed sorting out – had needed sorting out for years. She’d collected them last because she’d been putting it off. Now they were slung in the back of her car, the seats pulled down to accommodate them. The last tie she’d had to the station at Gayfield Square was loosed.
Al had got a janitor, in the end, to help her with the boxes. The poor guy had made the mistake of wandering into the lobby, and Al had exclaimed, ‘Just the man!’ He may have been right: the janitor had found an old moving trolley, which – though it gave him some difficulty outside on the cobbles – did make for a quick job.
‘You hear about that kid?’ the janitor had asked in the space between hefting one box into the car and lifting another. ‘The one who got impaled?’
Birch blinked.
‘Impaled?’
‘Aye. Got the radio on in my office and they said, wee gadge working on a building site up town falls ten feet off, I don’t know, something. Ends up with a starter bar running right through him.’
‘Ouch,’ Birch said, and then, after a pause, ‘What’s a starter bar when it’s at home?’
The janitor made a gesture in the air.
‘They stick up about so long, out of foundations on buildings. They’re sort of twisty. Like an old-fashioned butterscotch cane, ken? Maybe you’re too young to remember those.’
Birch was plenty old enough, but didn’t say so.
‘Oh okay, I know what a starter bar is. Poor kid.’
‘Aye.’ The janitor looked at her with what might have been suspicion. ‘Surprised you didn’t hear about it, on your police radio or whatever.’
‘Oh,’ Birch said. ‘I’ve not been very gettable today. But it’s likely someone from this place did attend.’ She nodded backwards towards the station. A thought struck her.
‘Is the boy dead?’ she asked.
The janitor hauled another box off the trolley, and planted it with a rattle in the back of the car.
‘Not yet,’ he said.
Now, as she drove home, Birch had no difficulty keeping her mind off the boxes – the impaled boy loomed large in her imagination.
Please don’t let that come across my desk, she thought – and the thought came back over and over, like a mantra. Sounds like a potential nightmare.
But she was also thinking about what the accident must have felt like for that boy. A quick Google on her phone before she’d started the engine had told her he was only twenty. My brother’s age, she thought, though it wasn’t true. In her mind, her brother Charlie was forever twenty. In fact, he’d have celebrated his thirty-fourth birthday that year, had he still been around. She imagined the building-site boy framed inside scaffolding, his back to the terrible drop, working away on something, thinking his own private, mundane thoughts. In her mind he was handsome, as all twenty-year-old boys are – in a gangly way that they themselves have never noticed. She imagined he had Charlie’s face. And then she imagined him falling. Flying backwards as though pushed, eyes wide, hands grabbing at nothing. How long does it take to fall ten feet? Probably half a second, if that, she decided. Barely long enough to register what’s happening to you. The sort of fall that a person could potentially walk away from with nothing more than an impressive bruise or two. But not this time. She remembered saying ‘ouch’ to the janitor. I can’t believe that was my reaction, she thought.
Traffic on Leith Walk was heavy. Birch trundled along past the Polish food markets and the phone-unlocking shops; past the artisan doughnut bakery and the Sikh women’s food co-op. At one particularly stubborn set of traffic lights, she sat admiring a rainbow of shimmering saris behind the plate-glass window of a small boutique. She tried to crowd the injured boy out of her imagination, and found herself thinking again about Charlie. He’d been gone for so long now. How does a person just go missing, she thought, without a trace, in this day and age? It was such a well-worn thought that it occurred to her without emotion attached – only nagging annoyance at the lack of an answer. She’d spent fourteen years keeping Charlie in the back of her mind, and she filed him away there now, his twenty-year-old face like an old photograph gone soft at the folds.
Were the roads always busy on a sunny day? It seemed illogical – surely people would be keener to walk when the weather was beautiful. Or maybe it just seemed busier when the weather was hot, because she was so keen to get home and take off her shoes. Salamander Street and Seafield Road were like car parks at this time of the day, no matter where you joined them. Birch rolled past the cemetery at walking pace, watching cyclists zip and weave through the standing traffic. The scent of hot grease from a McDonald’s Drive-Thru mingled with the sweet death-stink of the Seafield sewage treatment works, the hundreds of idling engines chucking their fumes out behind them. This is the Edinburgh the tourists don’t see, Birch thought, cursing the cocked-up traffic-light sequences no one had put right for years. But soon enough she was past them, and got up the speed to kick into fourth gear as the sea – blue as a travel agent’s catalogue – blurred between the buildings.
A secret she hadn’t told anyone: Birch had always wanted to live on the Portobello prom. Ever since she was a little girl, brought there with her little brother for donkey rides and ice cream, she’d longed to set up home in one of the little villas that faced out to sea. The dream had become a plan, and then – o
nly two months ago – the plan had become a reality. A mid-terrace villa had come up near the Joppa end of the beach, at a reasonable price because of its state of disrepair. Birch had moved in the day her promotion to DI was announced. Most things were still in boxes. Driving along Portobello High Street, she felt a thrill that hadn’t yet worn off: I’m going home.
She parallel parked on the side of the street. Her new house had a garage, down a narrow, cobbled lane at the back, but it was still full of the previous owner’s stuff. He’d died, the old man who’d lived here before, and while his kids had been willing to come up from London to empty the house, they’d balked at a tumbledown garage filled almost to the roof with tea chests. Birch had too, if she was honest – she still didn’t know what was in most of them. She decided there was enough room left in the garage for the boxes she’d just hauled from Gayfield Square – they could wait until some weekend when she’d time to sort the whole lot out. Yes, she thought, I’ll do that, knowing already that it wouldn’t happen.
She walked round the front of the China Express – a cheap hole-in-the-wall takeaway that occupied what had once been the cafe at the tail end of the prom – and along the seafront. To her right, the tide was out. Children, tiny as bugs from this distance, jumped and splashed in the waves. Bikes zoomed up and down the prom, and there were dogs everywhere: dogs proudly carrying driftwood in their mouths, dogs running away from the water to shake a fine, salty spray onto passers-by. To her left was the neat row of front gardens that the prom-dwellers kept. In some of them, her neighbours sat out on shady camping chairs, wind-up radios murmuring in the warm air. Birch called out her hellos, and waved. Her own garden was the only unkempt one in the row.
She reached it now. The wooden front gate needed painting, and up the side of the brick path two hollyhock bushes grew rampant, pushing their ten-foot blossom towers into the air. The garden had been cared for once: the plants here weren’t wind-sown weeds, just woody and overgrown versions of their former, well-kept selves. Birch was loath to clear them. The garden was ugly, but it was old, and she felt that was worthy of respect. It also smelled wonderful, thanks to a dusty, pale yellow rose whose creeping fingers had long since turned its supporting trellis to matchwood. Around the living-room window, honeysuckle was preparing to flower. The plant was so thick that if Birch had plunged her hand into it, her arm would be sunk elbow-deep in foliage before her fingers could touch the wall.
