Annie took a deep breath before she went on, her voice quivering. “But I remember how much fun it was when she was there. She wasn’t like other big sisters; she was never mean and always had time for me. There’s a nine-year age gap between us, but she never treated me like a nuisance. She was kind to me, talked to me like I was a friend, not an annoying little sister.”
As Annie spoke about Lena, she began to glow. Paul remembered how Lena often had that effect on people.
“My dad remarried and my new mum was everything a mother is supposed to be. She made dinner every night, school lunches, always went to parents’ nights, made sure my uniform was clean. She raised me as if I was her own.” Annie paused briefly. “It’s funny how, when you look back on things as an adult, you see things differently. It’s hard sometimes to admit people you love have flaws.”
Paul tried to distract himself, looking round the room for something, anything, to draw his attention away, help him escape from it. There was something there, in the look. The faintest resemblance he’d not noticed before. It dizzied him, weakened him. They didn’t look alike, but in the facial expressions there was something.
“Gloria, my step-mum, she was never fond of Lena. I see that now. She would say things about her: that Lena was a bad influence on me, her behaviour around men was provocative, she didn’t like the tone of her conversation, that Lena forgot sometimes that I was only a child. Gloria is one of these people that doesn’t put value on material things. She thinks if you wear nice clothes and take an interest in your appearance it’s a sign of vanity and shallowness. She looked down on Lena because of her beauty. She used it as a sign of her bad character. When you’re young, you believe your parents, they have a big influence on you, so in some ways I probably believed her. I saw Lena even less.
“She stayed with us after the funeral, as you know. I remember you kept calling, but Gloria told you Lena didn’t want to see you. Truthfully, Lena wasn’t able to see anyone. She cried all day and wouldn’t get out of bed. She needed to be looked after, fed. She couldn’t talk to anyone. I understand now she was having some kind of breakdown, but people don’t talk about these things, especially not to a child. Gloria nursed her back to health. She loved a charity case; any excuse to feel superior. Lena gradually recovered.
“That’s when the problems started. She and Gloria began arguing. Gloria tried to remodel Lena’s whole life – change the way she dressed, the times she came in and went out, the people she mixed with. Gloria had a particular grievance against you. The way she spoke about you… In our house, you were a monster. I know Gloria meant well, but she drove Lena away. One day Lena just packed her bags and left. When I came back from school I found out she was gone. I was heartbroken. I think Gloria felt betrayed because I was so sad. It’s not easy raising a child that’s not your own and Gloria seemed to worry sometimes that the bond wasn’t there between us...” Annie trailed off. “I just want you to know how important it is to me that I help Lena now. I wasn’t old enough to then. I can’t abandon her now.”
The tears were flowing from Annie’s eyes. She took the photograph out of Paul’s wallet again and walked towards him, holding it close to his face.
“I need to know why she was taken away from me,” she sobbed. “Please. She was twenty years old. She was beautiful and smart and kind and funny. Those earrings. Our mum bought her those for her sixteenth birthday. They were expensive. She’d had to save. She was wearing Versace Blue Jeans perfume because that was her favourite. The rose-shaped ring on her finger she got from a Christmas cracker. She was full of life. Special. She was my sister.”
Paul looked at Annie with her grey face, her eyes puffy from tears, and realised she wasn’t acting. It was her pure, raw grief he was seeing. He looked at his own trembling hands, aching for Lena. For her touch on his skin. Annie’s words brought her back so clearly.
Slowly Annie fell back onto the couch, pressing her fingers to her cheeks to stem the tears.
And then she was there, sitting with Annie on the couch, her arms around her. Dressed like she was the last time he saw her. Black hair trussed up under a black fedora, wearing a beige trench coat and knee-high boots. She was singing sweetly in Annie’s ear and, through her tears, Annie was smiling.
He looked away. When he looked back she was gone, the image disappeared. Annie was sitting alone.
“Why? Why can’t you tell me?” Annie cried into her hands. “I just want you to tell me what you know. If you loved her, you’d tell me what you know.” She looked round slowly, her tear-stained eyes slits of pain. “You’ve been asking me to understand. That’s why you told me about Manny, because you’re laying the groundwork. You want me to listen without judging. You want me to know how hard it was for you. That what happened wasn’t your fault. I get that now. I’m willing to listen. Tell me about you and her. What happened after the funeral? That winter after she left our house?”
“I loved her,” he said quietly, more to himself than to Annie.
“I loved her too,” Annie said softly. “We both did. So tell me about her. Anything. Everything. I want to know.”
Paul wasn’t even sure he could trust his own voice when he began to speak. Not sure if once he started he’d ever be able to stop. Not sure how far he’d be able to go.
“After the funeral, I didn’t see Lena for some time,” Paul said, his face turning grey. He breathed a sigh of resignation as all the air seemed to rush out of him, his upper body slumped like an empty sack. “Not for over three months. I tried to get in touch with her, but your mum and dad made it very difficult. The next time I saw her, she was in trouble – as usual.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nine years ago
It was afternoon, but in the back room of Limbo it always felt like night-time. Stale sweat and old beer from the bar permeated the office, where Paul sat sifting through paperwork and listening to the gentle patter of the cleaner’s footsteps and the slop of her mop as she made her way through the empty club.
The phone interrupted him: an internal call from the new girl he’d hired to deal with the nuisance of lost wallets and jackets. “There’s a Detective Chief Inspector Carmichael here to see you, Paul.” The concern in her voice caused a flare of irritation in him.
He sighed. “Send him up. He knows the way.”
Paul kept working, to let Carmichael know he didn’t have time for this today. Since Paul’s promotion to manager at the club, Carmichael had started to appear more often. His growing interest was just one more worry for Paul to deal with.
Laboured footsteps echoed through the quiet club. Pantomiming his impatience, Paul only looked up when Carmichael stopped in front of him. He didn’t get up but cordially held out his hand.
“Carmichael.”
The sturdy inspector ignored his offer of a handshake and stood squarely at the desk. At one time Paul had thought him imposing, but with the passing years, each one bringing Carmichael a little closer to the final salary pension, his posture slackened, his white hair thinned, his muscles softened, his skin became chalkier. War wounds of weariness.
“Mr Dalziel.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure? Is there a reason you’re here? Or just general police harassment?”
“Same reason I’m always here. The bad guys.” Carmichael drifted around the office, lifting various objects and putting them down again.
Paul frowned. “Do you think there’s a bad guy hiding under that plant pot?”
“No. But I think there’s one hiding behind a jumped-up thug in a suit.”
Carmichael stopped lifting things and instead leaned back on the filing cabinet, making himself comfortable. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Paul put down his pen. He didn’t have time for this today. It had been a long week. Things with Dario were coming to a head and tensions were high. Paul was losing patience.
“I heard there was a
n incident here the other night. You got a bit lippy with some of my men.” Carmichael smiled smugly, knowing the annoyance he was causing.
“I’m trying to run a business here,” Paul said in frustration.
A nimbus of satisfaction beamed around Carmichael.
The incident he was talking about had started when Dario had burst into Paul’s office a few nights earlier. It was late, an hour or so from closing. Dario’s eyes were glassy and speckles of white powder stuck to the rim of his nostrils. Paul had been winding down for the night, cashing up the tills.
“One of the young team is ripping us off.” Dario stopped in front of Paul’s desk and hopped from foot to foot.
Paul groaned and kept his eyes on the calculator. Bucky and Dunsmore had also been let loose in the club that night and the combination of all three of them was a preordained headache for Paul. “What?”
“I was in the toilet,” Dario rattled on, “and a good mate of mine complained he’d just snorted lactose. His fucking guts were killing him. Another said he’d been sold aspirin. I’m telling you, those young guys are taking the piss out of us.”
Paul began the ritual of placating Dario. “Did you hear who it was that was selling?”
Even before Dario explained who it was, Paul was picturing the kid – barely eighteen, if he even was that yet, good-looking, a bit smarter than the rest. Cocky, too – reminded Paul of himself at that age.
“Small. Brown hair. Connor or something.”
Paul nodded. Of course it was.
“Thievin’ little cunt.” Dario was wound tight like a spring about to break loose.
Paul sighed. “OK, let me talk to him. I’ll deal with it. Just go… enjoy the rest of your night.”
“Bucky went through his pockets and pulled out a packet of aspirin.”
“Bucky? What do you mean? Where are they?”
Dario retreated a little. “Outside, in the back car park.”
Paul slowly counted to ten to calm himself. If Bucky and Dunsmore were already outside, raring to go, there was little Paul could do to stop them. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Fuck sake, Dario.”
He got up from his seat and started making his way down to the car park, Dario in pursuit. By the time he got there an ambulance had arrived. A police siren screamed in the background. Connor was being stretchered into the back, barely conscious, his face plastered with blood. Paul watched the doors being closed.
Dario shrugged his shoulders. “He needed to be taught a lesson.”
“Get in there and wipe the fucking CCTV,” Paul growled.
At least Dario had managed to do that.
The ambulance charged off and the police arrived. The night that followed was long and painful.
Paul found out later from one of the other youngsters that Dunsmore had grabbed the kid’s arm in both hands and snapped it. The kid fell to the ground screaming. Not satisfied, Bucky pulled out a knife and tore it across his face from temple to cheek. Then they took his stash and dealt it out among themselves before running off. A passerby called the police and ambulance.
After the lengthy interrogation with the police was over, Paul consoled himself with the thought that maybe he had been too soft. Maybe they had started to take the piss. He tolerated a little margin; he’d done the same when he was their age. But it would do no harm to make an example when one of them overstepped the mark. I’ve been kicked, he thought. We’ve all been kicked. It’s just that this time I’m doing the fuckin’ kickin’. And sometimes that was how it had to be.
But when the kid had shown up two days later, stitches stretching like a train track across the length of his once handsome face, wanting to know how much he owed for the missing stash, Paul couldn’t bring himself to look at him. He told him to write it off. Gave him a bonus for keeping his mouth shut with the police. But the damage was done. The kid looked at Paul in a way that chilled him. He was going to have to watch out for that one from now on. He’d turned bad overnight.
“Haven’t you got better things to do than harass me about a bar brawl?” Paul stood up behind his desk. “Those guys weren’t even from my club. Just passing by. Like I said in my statement.”
Carmichael’s face became serious. “I heard the kid that got his face all cut up works for you.”
“Well, you heard wrong.”
Carmichael moved over to Paul’s desk and rested his knuckles on it, hard and calcified like a boxer’s. His gravelly voice grew sincere. “Son, you might think you’re smart, mucking us about, but you’re getting in deeper, aren’t you? Manny’s taken a real shine to you.”
Paul stiffened.
Straightening up to his full height, fully aware of his intimidating bulk, Carmichael went on. “One day very soon, it’s going to be too late for you. Because I’m going to have something on you. You’ve done time before, Paul. Are you ready to do it again, for him?”
Paul’s face went blank. He was tired and he’d heard it all before. It was always going to be the case that Paul stood on one side, Carmichael on the other.
Paul had come a long way from back-street muggings and peddling his wares on the rainy streets of Glasgow – sleeping on cardboard, hell-bent on self-destruction, not caring who he brought down, no way out of the hole he was in. It was Manny who’d given him a chance. Where they came from it was the smart ones that became junkies. Unemployable, unintelligible, undesirable – who wouldn’t want to numb themselves to that? People like Paul didn’t get breaks. No one else had ever done as much for him. There was a part of him that had been forged by Manny; that needed, worshipped and feared him in equal measure. Some days he wished for enough strength to stab him in the guts, crack him in the skull with a paperweight or kick him under a bus, but because of loyalty he never would. Carmichael could never understand that.
Paul owed his life to him.
“What do you know about a container? A special cargo being delivered to Ayr harbour this weekend.” Carmichael’s question caught him off guard.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Paul answered suspiciously.
Carmichael banged the desk in frustration. “I came here to warn you! It’s coming. This is your last chance.”
Paul exhaled and began to shuffle the papers on his desk. “Like I said, I’ve got work to do, Inspector. Please, if you don’t mind.”
Carmichael looked at him sideways and nodded his head. “I’m wasting my time.” He hovered over the desk while Paul looked stubbornly down at his work. “OK. I’ll leave you to it. See myself out.”
“Have a good afternoon cracking skulls or whatever it is you do for fun,” Paul hissed after him.
Carmichael spun round. Suddenly he was a police officer and nothing more. “Speak to me like that again and you’ll be spending the night in lock-up.” He marched out.
Paul tried not to think about what happened the last time someone let their guard down around Carmichael.
That night, Dario was celebrating his birthday at The Pink Pussy Cat. Paul’s attendance was expected. He was held up by some business at the club, so by the time he got there, in the early hours, the party had started without him.
Climbing the familiar stairs to the entrance, Paul swaggered across the terrace. He was met outside by a meaty bouncer who filled the doorway.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“You must be new here,” Paul said, trying to place the bouncer’s accent as he started to move past him into the club. “I’m Paul. A friend of Johnny’s. I work for the owner.”
The huge bulk in front of him didn’t budge and Paul was forced to take a step back. Without saying anything else, the bouncer pulled out his radio. “Johnny, there’s someone here called Paul, says he’s a friend of yours.”
His eyes measured Paul up and down with military precision. “I don’t know. He looks shifty.”
> South African, maybe? Paul would usually have made a scene but instinct told him to take another step back. The bouncer stood with the confidence of a professional soldier, not the usual specimen.
“So where you from, South Africa or something?”
“Ya. Rhodesia.”
The bouncer remained motionless, filling the doorframe, and for a second it was as if Paul could read his thoughts. If I have to, I will rip your throat out. If it comes down to it. I wouldn’t want to, but if you force me…
Paul started to shuffle, keen to get indoors. A few seconds of agonising silence followed before Johnny the manager appeared at the door.
“Paul!” He held out his arms in a welcoming gesture. “Let me take you straight through. The party’s already started.”
The bouncer stepped aside. “See you later, bru.”
Once inside, Johnny turned round. “We’ve been having a bit of trouble lately. He’s very thorough.”
Paul said nothing, just nodded as an icy shiver ran down his spine.
The club was smoky. The velvet-lined horseshoe-shaped booths were all full and the circular tables scattered around the room were packed with groups of rowdy men. Underwear-clad waitresses weaved back and forth from the bar with trays of drinks; others rested on customers’ knees or led them off for private dances. On stage a guy was on all fours, trousers down; a girl stood behind him with a riding crop dangerously poised while his friends cheered her on.
“Busy night tonight.”
Johnny nodded and grinned as he led Paul through to the private VIP room at the back. Before they disappeared behind the curtain, Paul caught a glimpse of the dancer as she emerged on stage. In an elegant arachnid contortion, she wrapped her arms and legs around the golden pole glistening in the centre. Her supple limbs extended and stretched in arousing poses. The murmur of excitement from the floor became muffled as the thick velvet curtains sealed behind him.
S K Paisley Page 20
