Father Confessor (J McNee series)

by Russel D. McLean

  We embraced violently as he rushed me out into the corridor.

  I tried to push him away.

  My feet went off the ground.

  I cracked back against a wall, my spine twisting.

  Muscles spasmed.

  I beat down on the back of his head. Fists bouncing off the flesh of his neck.

  Heavy fists pounded my sides. Aiming for the kidneys.

  For whatever they could slam.

  The world broke into areas of dark and light.

  Shapes lost cohesion.

  There was a rush of sound, like a violent sea trapped in a shell, echoed in my skull.

  I was aware of other people around us. Some of them were yelling. I couldn’t make out the words.

  The pounding stopped. It was sudden and unexpected.

  I tried to remain on my feet. Wound up slipping down the wall, my legs folding, concertina style.

  I took deep breaths.

  Sooty was crouched next to me. Holding up fingers.

  “How many?”

  I turned my head away.

  He said. “Maybe its best if you go outside for a smoke, huh?”

  I said, “We should grab a pint sometime. For old time’s sakes.”

  He said nothing. Just stood up.

  I saw Susan standing a few feet away. Her eyes met mine and I tried to figure her expression, but she turned away too fast, her arms folded.

  Hurt worse than ten-pound punches to the kidneys.

  ###

  The thing with giving up smoking is that sometimes without it, you’re left at a dead end. It’s a great time killer.

  Cigarettes: the procrastinator’s pal.

  I read somewhere that when the smoking ban hit, people started striking up relationships because of shared ground outside where cold weather and sharing of lighters led to romance.

  Smirting, they tried to call it.

  Buzzwords. The bane of the modern world.

  But whatever labels you wanted to use, the smoking ban brought people together. Smoking can be good for relationships.

  More than that, it’s a damn a good exit strategy. Need an excuse for a sharp escape? Smoking works. “Just stepping outside.” Words more magic than “abracadabra”. Didn’t really matter how long you were gone, either.

  So, aye, there was part of me wished I still sucked on the cancer sticks. Even if I knew the risks.

  Because, simply walking out of that ward, with no other excuse, I felt like I was giving up. Admitting defeat. I had no excuse, no reason to present as a mask. I was merely slinking away after having my arse handed to me.

  In the elevator, I leaned back against the rear wall and let loose a long sigh. Exhaling hard. My head smacked back against the metal box.

  I welcomed the shock.

  On the ground floor, as I passed the woman on reception, she looked up with a challenge in her face as though daring me to ask her something.

  I didn’t.

  Just walked down the long entrance hall and out to where the taxi-ranks and buses bustled during the daylight hours. At this time of the morning, however, the space seemed eerily empty. Automated tapes announced the rules of smoking on hospital grounds and asked me to dispose of my ash carefully. If I was in a biblical frame of mind I could have believed the commandment that seemed to come from nowhere was the voice of God.

  Even if I smoked, I probably wouldn’t have listened.

  I walked round the edge of the hospital, following the concrete path laid for pedestrians. At this time of night, as you disappeared out of sight of the main roads, walking maybe ten feet parallel, there was an odd feeling of isolation.

  I felt a light sweat prickle down my back, following the path of my spine. My fingers started to spasm. There was an odd sensation at the back of my neck; an itch I could never scratch. Like being stuck in a dream where you were waiting for something bad to happen. That sense of the terrifying and the inevitable.

  The night air was cool, a slight breeze sharply brushing against my exposed skin. I put my hands into my coat pocket. Kept walking.

  Thinking about what had happened. The attitude I’d faced in the hospital. Could I blame them? One of their own had been brutally beaten, and they didn’t have a clue who was to blame.

  I could relate.

  To the lashing out as much as anything.

  Remembering how it felt just to turn and throw out a fist. All my anger and hatred directed in one motion, one moment. Like I was throwing it away. The resistance as I smashed my knuckles into Lindsay’s face. The way the bone cracked. The warm gush of blood over my fingers.

  For just a moment, I had felt at peace in a way I hadn’t done for weeks. And there was quiet. Peace. But it was quickly lost. Becoming something I could never quite regain. Just a vague notion. A sensation that passed me by.

  I had, for the longest time, tried to find that calm again again. Thinking if I could find someone to blame for all the evils in the world, if I could have revenge on them – a justified and perfect kind of revenge – then maybe that feeling would stay with me forever.

  They talk about five stages of grief:

  Denial

  Anger

  Bargaining

  Depression

  Acceptance.

  I got stuck somewhere around number two. For the longest time. I don’t remember stage three. Or four. Maybe I just went straight to five.

  But I’m still not sure I’d say I ever accepted anything.

  Except maybe the notion that there was nothing I could do to change the world.

  Maybe five really led to four. If you thought about it too long. Wallowed in your own world.

  Stage two was where I had felt most alive. Anger giving me purpose.

  Sounds perverse, perhaps, but in those days I had felt a clear, singular purpose. An absolute sense of right and wrong. Self-destructive in its way, but it had washed away all the doubt and uncertainty, left me feeling focussed and unafraid.

  Less given to thought. More to action.

  Susan had said I was looking for suicide without admitting it.

  Others said similar things. Some had even tried to help me. But the clarity and the drive had been intoxicating. It was an addiction and I wanted another fix even if I knew on some level I could never find something so pure as that initial burst.

  As I walked through the hospital grounds, I felt something surge in my veins. A small kick that was intoxicating in its familiarity.

  I remembered how my life had been a search for causes, for events and people that would focus my anger. Was I experiencing something similar on Lindsay’s behalf?

  Feeling something like sympathy for a man I had professed to loathe?

  “Hey!”

  I turned around.

  Cold wind pushed against my face. Snow was starting to fall from the skies. Winter drifting in early.

  I had just crossed a footbridge that spanned the hospital drive, took me across onto a sloping path that led back to the city. On the other side, from where I had come, a figure stood on his own. He was dressed in a heavy jacket, a thick woollen hat protecting his head against the night air. His breath came out in a long stream. When I was a kid, during the winter months, we used to pretend we were adults smoking in the cool air, miming cigarettes and blowing out steam.

  The man was big, even beneath the black Puffa jacket that accentuated his shoulders. He stood with the legs-wide, head-forward stance of a bouncer anticipating aggro.

  He said, “You’re McNee.” A statement or a question? Did the distinction even matter to him?

  “And who’re you?”

  He took a few steps forward. “A man with some friendly advice.”

  The accent was local. Born and bred in the city. Maybe not the west end, though, where those with money and the middle classes tended to migrate. He sounded more Fintry, or maybe Kirktown. Whatever, a place where people took pride in their roots, and where they stayed through the bad times.

  His first f
ew steps had been slow and deliberate. Maybe to deceive me. Maybe to prolong the moment. But then he made the rush. Was on me fast.

  Several inches taller, he looked down on me with barely restrained disgust. Like I was a bug, and all he wanted to do was crush me with one heel of those old Docs that looked well-worn and broken in.

  Probably on someone’s skull.

  He said, “Your wee friend didn’t take the message.”

  “Wee friend?”

  “Get to fuck, pal. You know who I mean.”

  “The DI and I aren’t exactly friends.”

  “Aye? So that’s why you and him have been poking your noses where they don’t fucking belong. Know what happens to noses that get poked in the wrong places? They get broken.”

  Hardly poetry, but he got the point across. Can’t say as though I cared for what he had to say, though.

  The snow fell heavier. The snowflakes got caught in the light of street lamps and the bridge lights.

  The man’s face was shadowed strangely. Like those old movies where they wanted to make the bad guys look mysterious.

  Time seemed to slow for a moment. I took in the details, the jagged rock of his nose, the curve of his lip, the old scars not quite faded.

  I recognised him.

  He was wrapped up, sure, with the jacket zipped right to the top and that hat pulled down over his lumpy skull, but it clicked with me that I’d seen him before.

  This man wasn’t a simple thug.

  He was a bloody copper.

  FOURTEEN

  Three faces.

  That’s what Lindsay had shown me.

  Three faces. Three files. Three compromised cops.

  And now I was face to face with contestant number one.

  Cal Anderson.

  I said, “Not exactly a professional attitude, Officer Anderson.”

  He growled.

  I couldn’t be sure whether the noise was instinctual, or if he was going for effect. I figured the former. This man wasn’t given to theatrics. One look at him, you knew that he lived for the violence. But he took it straight up. It was about the visceral joy of the moment.

  In short, he wasn’t the type to indulge in foreplay.

  Thugs like Anderson have two choices in channelling their natural instincts. They can become crooks. Or they can become coppers. Sometimes the line between the two personality types is less distinct that the public would like to imagine.

  Anderson had wound up playing both sides against the middle. If I had to guess, I’d say more by chance than forethought. I didn’t think he’d give me an answer if I asked.

  He said, “Aye, good one. You know who I am. Think it’s going to make me go away? Tail between my bloody legs?”

  “Think no-one’s watching you? Think no-one knows what you really are?”

  “Fuck you, pal.”

  “You know the Complaints have a fat file on you?”

  “Fuck their file.” But he hesitated for a moment, like this was the first time the thought had occurred to him. He was trying to figure out whether or not the idea scared him.

  I pressed the idea deeper. “Whatever you’re involved in, it’s not too late to back out.”

  Aye, great idea. Like prodding a tiger in the eye with a sharp stick.

  Anderson grabbed my jacket collar.

  In the movies, I always laugh when someone gets hauled off their feet. It looks stupid. Utterly unreal. Yet Cal Anderson managed to yank me into the air. For a moment. Enough to twist his body and chuck me against the safety barriers.

  I could have toppled over. It was a miracle I managed to stay on the right side.

  He came towards me. A bull preparing to charge.

  No, not a bull. Some kind of cat with its prey. Bastard was toying with me.

  “Come on,” I said. “You’re going to be hauled up for assault and battery of a fellow officer. That’s bad enough, but –”

  “Fuck it,” he said. “Think anyone cares what happens to you?”

  He was a big man. But stupid. A good brawler. If he landed a punch, you were going to feel it. Probably not feel much else for a long time.

  But he was so big, he telegraphed every move. Couldn’t help it. It came to him naturally. This wasn’t like fighting Sooty, a man who used his brains as much his brawn when it came to a scrap. No, this eejit might as well have had big neon signs spelling out his next move. And besides, I was expecting this guy to make a move. With Sooty, part of me had been stupidly hoping he would be big enough to forgive and forget.

  Just call me a believer in the best of human nature.

  As Anderson made his move, I ducked and shifted to the right. Couldn’t have gone left if I wanted to. Not enough power in my right leg to do that. The cold was causing my joints to seize up, and old injuries still haunted me no matter how often the doctors tried to convince me they were psychosomatic in nature.

  A few months earlier, I’d attended an ABI retreat with an emphasis on personal protection. The convener had been a woman named Zoe. She had taught me several valuable lessons.

  One: the toughest person in the room is actually the slight, inoffensive blonde woman who doesn’t waste time boasting how tough she is and just shows you.

  And two: the best kind of self-defence is to get the hell out of there.

  Both lessons stayed with me.

  I couldn’t take this bastard down. No way.

  But I could outrun him.

  Anderson was built like a tank. Meaning he had the same weakness: power but no real manoeuvrability. That gave me the advantage.

  He’d waited until this moment to confront me because there was no-one else around. He didn’t want to make this public. Meaning my best hope was to head for other people.

  Back the way I came.

  I pushed off the safety barrier, bolted along the bridge.

  He followed me. I could sense him back there, no idea how close he was.

  I wanted to look back. Knew I’d only slow myself down.

  I played some rugby in High School – member of the team for all of five minutes – but still there was something in the game that connected with me more than football. I wasn’t the largest lad on the team, but give me the ball, I’d run like a bastard with it. The trick was not to watch who was behind you, but to keep barrelling through. Turn your head, you forced yourself to slow down. It was a matter of instinct as much as anything else. So what you did, you kept your eye on the line and you ran for it. To hell with whatever else was going on.

  My right leg was beginning to ache. Every time my foot hit the path, shockwaves rattled up, as though my limbs couldn’t cope with the stress.

  But I couldn’t slow down.

  It wasn’t –

  Maybe Cal Anderson used to play on his school team, too. Maybe I’d skipped the part of his file that said he played for the force. Whatever, he caught me in a perfect tackle, Head low, grip on the knees rather than the waist, the idea being you stop the other guy kicking back and landing his studs in your face.

  I barely felt the impact.

  But I went down. Hard.

  My hands came up. I twisted my face away from the impact.

  It wasn’t enough, of course.

  The rough pavement scraped at my open palms. I roared in agony. My face caught fire down the left hand side.

  Anderson rolled off me.

  I tried to get up. Only managed to roll over onto my back. My breath came in short bursts. My throat threatened to close up, lungs ready to burst.

  Cal clambered to his feet. No need to rush. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  One of those big boots swung at me.

  Disoriented, I lifted my head to avoid the impact, wound up head-butting his steel toecap.

  The world flashed into a blur of darkness.

  On the inside of my skull, a drummer started on one hell of a solo.

  More pain. Swift, sharp and calculated kicks. Anderson spreading the impact. Each one fresh and raw.

  And
erson’s file had talked about “excessive force”. I was getting a first-hand experience.

  Soon enough, the pain started to fade, the force and the violence fading into the background. I felt strangely calm, almost as though I was adrift in the ocean. The pain seemed distant and oddly unreal, happening to someone else.

  My eyes were closed.

  Blood soaked through between my eyelids.

  I just didn’t care.

  I just let it all drift away.

  At some point I guess I passed out. Until I felt a hand cup the back of my head, lifting me up.

  “Y’alright, pal?”

  I don’t know if I said anything.

  At that point, my body just gave out.

  My last thought was of Susan.

  FIFTEEN

  “I’m worried about Dad.”

  Susan was barely in the door. Her face was flushed, and her eyes looked watery. This was three months after Mary Furst. We weren’t exactly living together, but Susan was round most evenings. I don’t remember when she took a key; it had been a natural and unplanned occurrence, I guess.

  We went through to the living room. She sat on the sofa. I stayed standing. Moved in front of the window. The sun was high, streamed through the glass, warmed my back through my shirt.

  “You know anything else?” I asked. “About what happened.”

  Susan shook her head. She slipped off her shoes, and stretched. Tired. Frustrated. She said, “He won’t talk about it. Mum’s just saying the same thing over and over, that she can’t take it any more.”

  Three days now. Her mum was moved out, settled in to her new place. Her dad was keeping the old house, rattling around in there by himself. He didn’t say much when Susan went to visit. Given everything that had happened lately, that wasn’t a surprise.

  I just stayed back.

  Kept my nose clean.

  Figured all I could do was be there for Susan.

  It’s a funny thing. When parents split and the kids are young, you feel sorry for the kids because they have to be frightened and confused by the situation. But watching Susan, I realised it was just as tough when the kids were grown up, too.

  I went to the kitchen, took a white wine from the fridge.

  Susan came through and smiled. I poured her a glass. She grinned and raised it as though in a toast.