'John sent me.'
'No,' she said, 'he didn't,' and started to close the door. He pushed it back and forced her before him into the flat.
The sun had found its difficult angle between the cliffs of tenements and the room was flooded with light. It was clean and the carpet was a wound brightness of pink and green. There was an easy chair and a couch with a woman's magazine laid open on a cushion. On the wall opposite him a painting of a landscape altered as the sunlight fell across it warming its colours. Through an open door he glimpsed a bed neatly made with its cover smoothed over and hanging straight. It was tidier and more comfortable than where he lived.
It was nothing like the whores' rooms he remembered.
'John,' he said, 'likes his meat well wrapped. I can see that.' He pointed at the chair and the edge of the uncertainty that he had begun to feel left him when she sat down without arguing. She gave no indication of the resistance even timorous people offer as a token when they are in their own homes buttressed by a sense of possession.
'I haven't had any man up here,' she said suddenly. Muscles in her throat worked as if out of a dry mouth she was trying to swallow.
'One man. This one man I'm thinking of.'
If John Merchant refused to see him, then it seemed to Murray that he had to apply pressure here, to the hidden part of Merchant's life, where he wouldn't want to have the police run interference for him.
'I wouldn't hurt anybody,' she said. 'You won't prove I've hurt anybody.'
He saw that her upper lip was shining with sweat. The woman was terrified. Why was she so afraid? It was as if they were talking about two different things.
'What do you call yourself, Frances? Is it Mrs or Miss Fernie?'
The truth was that he wasn't even sure any more that he had the right woman, the one named for him by Billy Shanks.
'I'm not married,' she said. 'Why are you here? Are you not the police?'
'You're not very bright,' he said. 'You're not very bright at all, Frances.'
She wiped her hand across her lips. Crouched on the chair, she was wearing a black sweater and dark grey tight cord trousers. Her feet were bare apart from plain black slippers like ballet pumps. There was something of a dancer's slimness and tone to her body, its breasts small and high with the nipples standing out under the light sweater. Standing over her, he caught the salt smell of her fear.
'Not bright,' he said and walked through into the bedroom. Beside the neatly made bed, there was a wardrobe against the wall, two chairs, one cushioned and set before a dressing table which had a scatter of brushes, bottles, little boxes and a decorative fan in garish colours spread half open. He began to throw the clothes from the wardrobe on to the floor. At the sound she came to the door watching in silence without a protest.
'He's generous,' he said and waited for a moment as if it was a question she might answer. He began on the drawers of the dressing table, pouring out first from the small ones on either side of the mirror rings and a watch and a necklace of plump amber-coloured beads. From two larger drawers he tipped out scarves and tubes of pills and ointments, one of which fell clear of the mess and rolled to rest with “haemorrhoids” lettered in blue on the upper side. At the bottom there were two long drawers and from them he threw down jerseys and soft coils of underwear. Last of all, under everything else as if hidden, he came on a doll damaged by time and with most of its yellow hair missing. It fell on all that had gone before and watched him from its remaining eye. 'John doesn't like anything too flashy,' Murray said and stirred the tangle with a shoe smeared by the oily dust of his long walk. 'And he likes things kept tidy. I bet you even have to take a bath regularly.'
'I don't need anybody to make me take a bath,' she said.
'I wonder if he likes that voice of yours. What is it – east coast?' She had retreated into a watchful silence. 'There's no way John's going to take you out on his arm – not where he'd meet anybody that mattered. He's a bit of a gentleman, John, maybe a wee bit of a snob, eh?' His voice kept the same quiet insistent pitch as he moved closer to her, uncomfortably close. 'You're all right, but not anything special. Why you? Is it something he does to you? Eh? Or the other way round? Is that it? I think that's it.'
For a second, crowding her close, it was possible to believe she would spill them out, the indignities which would give him a hold on Merchant and let him protect his brother.
'I don't talk any worse than you.' That was unexpected, like a cat twisting under his hand. 'The Highland way you talk,' and at her own words she blinked and something changed in her eyes.
There would be no secrets, but he didn't stop trying. 'How did you come to meet John Merchant in the first place? Did somebody pass you on to him?' A useful possibility occurred to him. 'Was it Blair Heathers – did he pass you on?' Something about her had left him in no doubt from the first glance that she was a professional.
Frances Fernie circled the tangle of her possessions fastidiously before settling on the edge of the bed. She nibbled at the corner of a thumbnail. 'I don't know anybody called Heathers,' she said without looking up. 'But you're right about somebody introducing me to John. You're right about that.'
'So?'
'You wouldn't know him,' she said. 'I met John through this friend of mine, Malcolm Wilson. But you wouldn't know him.' Despite the shock he took a habit of self-control for granted. Ideas spun through his mind too fast to be made use of or grasped. He thought his expression would give nothing away and then he realised that somehow he had brought his face close to hers. Her eyes widened impossibly and came near and then went from him, rushed out into some inconceivable distance. He was filled by a murderous rage. Carefully, one step at a time, he moved back from her.
'Why tell me then?'
Her lips were white and she shook her head but seemed unable to speak. There was no way of telling what it was she denied.
'You're a whore,' he said. 'For a whore you take too many chances.'
He stared in a kind of stupidity at the stuff he had thrown on the floor to remind her that a whore was different and that no matter how much money a whore gathered it could not buy her peace or any place to be secure.
In the lavatory, the lid had a fur cover, slick under his fingers as he lifted the seat and began to relieve himself. As if by accident, the thick yellow stream strayed on the edge of the bowl and he stared as it sprayed soiling the carpet and it seemed as if the hard jet falling out of him would never cease. Like a sleep-walker, he ran hot water into the basin and washed his hands. He soaped and rinsed them and did the same again and a third time. The towel from the rail was warm and he held it against his throat. Through the open door, he watched the woman gathering up the yellow haired doll with a twisting protective movement that kept her gaze fixed on him.
By the basin a round mirror was fixed. When he pulled the cord, a coil of fluorescent light came on around it. The mirror tilted at his touch and he saw reflected in the depths of his eyes two perfect circles of white.
11 Second Death
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8TH 1988
Not dreaming, but drifting against the morning light, Murray saw his brother's wife with a knife in her hand and she came near and then turned and went from him into the distance. It wasn't true that he was angry; and then, unbidden, his father appeared and poor Seidman killed in Memphis; muddled images of the dead.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a grey beetle nested in balls of fluff on the carpet. He waited for it to move, but it turned suddenly into an eraser that had been knocked off the desk and with that he knew he was in the front room and remembered why he was sleeping there.
'Can I come in, Murray?'
'What time is it? It's the middle of the night.'
'It's called working unsocial hours.'
'You get paid for them. I don't.'
As they went into the back room, Eddy Stewart staggered against the lintel. 'You're drunk.'
'Tired.' Uninvited, Stewart half fell into the rocker. It sq
uealed back under the impact. Murray lifted him by the arm – 'That's where I sit, remember?' – and dropped him into one of the upright seats at the table.
'You're not a kind man,' Stewart said thoughtfully. 'Always liked you, Murray. Always from the old days. I never cared what they said about you. But you're not a kind man. Couldn't say that. Not being honest, honestly.'
'How drunk are you, Eddy? I thought that was a sponge you kept in your throat.'
'Ach!' Stewart made a throaty exclamation of disgust and resting his head on his hand seemed to go to sleep. Murray knocked the elbow off the table.
'What the – ' Stewart spluttered as his head jerked up. He groaned and rubbed the sagging flesh on his face into deep folds. 'Can I stay here for the night?'
'Not a chance,' Murray said. 'This is private. People come here when they're invited. You're breaking a rule, Eddy.'
'I haven't had all that much drink. A share of a couple of bottles to help them celebrate.' Abruptly, he said, 'I can't face going home.'
'Find another blackbird and get her to sing for you.'
'You can get tired of putting it to whores.'
'So go home.'
'Fucking Moirhill! They're all peddling their meat up there or they're tealeafs or just thick and too bone bloody idle to live anywhere else. If you weren't just a toytown copper, you'd have stayed long enough to knock a few doors. You didn't stay long enough to learn, Murray. You don't know how many shits there are in the world.'
'Next time bring your violin. Come on. Out. I've work in the morning, and you're a big time detective with a boss. Peerse'll be looking for you.'
'Peerse can go and – ' Stewart made an explicit gesture of explanation, 'sideways. Another bloody teetotaller. I was helping the Northern team celebrate. They got a confession.'
A confession. Murray went still.
'For the guy that got offed in Deacon Street,' Stewart said. 'You were there. Turns out he was a queer. Met the wrong little friend. The kid's been done a couple of times before for queer-bashing. This time he went too far.' Rubbing a finger in one eye, he squinted at Murray sceptically. 'What's making you so happy?'
'It's the way you tell them, Eddy,' Murray said. 'Stuff you too.' Stewart yawned. 'I'm shattered.'
'You can put your head down here – but this is the last time.'
As Eddy Stewart gaped in mid yawn, the concession taking him by surprise, Murray despite himself felt his grin widening, a thing out of his control. No more worry; no more crazy suspicions.
They had a confession.
He rolled over and shut out the light with an arm. Outside a bus crashed gears as the signal on the corner went to green. He wondered if Stewart was still sleeping, and then must have dozed for when he opened his eyes the big detective was resting his behind on the edge of the desk. 'I can't find the coffee. And I can't face that perfumed piss you drink.'
Murray kicked his way out of the sleeping bag. 'You're not meant to. That's good tea. Too expensive to waste.' He gathered up the papers scattered on the desk and turned them face down.
Stewart looked on with amusement. 'Secrets, eh? If you'd had them locked away, you could have let me sleep in here and you could have had the bed. What's happened to the girl that used to work for you – the one with the big tits?'
'Marge.' Murray frowned. 'Her mother took her away.'
'I can't believe it,' Stewart said with relish, preparing himself to be persuaded. 'Not you, Murray. What'd you do to her?'
It was a sore point. 'The stupid woman thought the whole place was an office. When she found out I lived in the back room, she didn't think it was suitable.'
'Just as well, you can get into trouble with them at that age.
What age was she – fifteen?'
'Seventeen – don't be stupid. She'd sat her exams in typing and shorthand. Didn't pass right enough – but for what I can pay, I was lucky to get her.'
As they went through the lobby into the back room, Stewart said, 'Seventeen...' lingering on the word.
Murray put on the heater and brought out tea and coffee. 'She was just starting to cope. I can't be here all the time. How can I run a business without somebody here to answer the phone?'
'Seventeen,' Stewart said as if to himself. He sat at the table and waited until Murray passed him a cup of coffee. 'There's something about their tits at that age...'
'Last night you were sitting in that chair crying,' Murray said. When he felt his temper slip, he spoke more quietly. 'You didn't want to go home to Lynda. You've been married over twenty years but you'd have slept on the floor here rather than go back and face her.'
For a horrible moment, Stewart's tough morning face crumpled into the abject mask of the previous night. He bent his head and sipped the scalding coffee. When he looked up, he had managed a smile. 'Billy Graham has a hell of a lot to answer for. Do you remember when you rounded up all the whores in Bath Street and walked them down to the evangelist meeting on the corner? You made them take off their shoes and walk down. It was raining and they had to stand there in their bare feet and sing hymns.'
'Every time you're drunk... I'm starting to think that guy was you.'
They looked at one another in silence.
'I've felt like killing myself,' Stewart said. 'Doing it all the way. You're not the only one with a conscience, but this woman I'm going with isn't just another easy ride. She's special. I'm due a wee bit of happiness.'
'Happiness.' There wasn't any expression in the way Murray said the word. It might have come from a language he had not learned.
'It's wee Sally that's killing me. Jenny's just a cow – she's past helping. That bastard she works for just laughed when I said I'd report him to the Law Society. What can I do? I can't fill in a fucking lawyer. It'll end up with another abortion. And Peter's going to hell – I wanted him to follow me, but, oh, no! All right, I said, what about the army then? But he says he doesn't want to get shot in Ireland – little shit! Sitting about the house... Let me catch you with drugs, I said to him, and I'll put you inside myself. Bugger them. It's not my fault – I've always been firm with them. It's Sally,' his voice glutted with tears, 'she's just a magic wee kid. She loves her daddy.'
'She's lucky there right enough.'
'How could I expect you to understand? You'd have to be a father to know how I feel.'
It was a relief when the extension bell announced that the phone was ringing in the front room. It was a long time, years, since Murray had seen Eddy's wife. If he hadn't quit the police and left the city so abruptly, he would have been the best man at her wedding. Leaning against the desk, looking down at the traffic, he listened to her voice.
'Stupid cunt!' Stewart exclaimed when he came back from speaking to her. His face was red with rage. 'Peerse phoned a couple of hours ago. He'll be wondering where the hell I am.'
'She did well finding you at all,' Murray reminded him. 'The last bloody place she tried.' He knotted his tie with trembling fingers. 'Peerse is such a bastard.'
Murray watched him with amusement. 'Everybody's entitled to a day off.'
'Maybe – but that stupid bitch told him I was in bed sleeping and she was just away to waken me. Two hours ago!'
It was a long time since Murray had laughed aloud. It was a good feeling, and unfortunate that Stewart should spoil it at once. Red-faced with the effort of bending to tie his laces, he muttered, 'Anyway I don't get it. What does Peerse want me over at Florence Street for? What's it to do with us even if they have found another body?'
Florence Street, where Billy Shanks' old school was ,the school they had been using as the incident room for the murder enquiry.
'You told me there had been a confession,' Murray said.
In the car, however, having accepted Murray's excuse that he had business in Moirhill and needed a lift, Stewart explained, 'The kid that confessed was just a head hanger. He runs with the Valley, and they'd picked him up for some stupid thing or other. You know the style – a wee bald head full o
f billiard chalk. He wants to be a hard man and when he heard them talking about a murder he thought it was Opportunity Knocks.' He snorted reluctantly with laughter. 'Apparently all he was worried about was getting word back to the Valley. "Big Dunc'll know? Tommy Merry'll know? They didn't think I'd any bottle. They'll not laugh at me now." I tell you, Murray, they should never have abolished hanging. It would do that wee cunt good to get hung – put the nonsense out of his head.'
Murray got out at the end of Florence Street and watched as the car picked up speed and then swung in through the school gate, taking the turn too fast so that the tyres squealed. After waiting for a moment, he went over to the other pavement and walked along until he was opposite the yard. People came out and in and some of them glanced his way. He was too obvious standing there; and so for a while he walked the length of the street back and then forward, but he didn't see anyone he knew and there was no sign of Eddy reappearing. When he looked at his watch, an hour had passed. He knew what he was doing was stupid. If he was challenged, he could give no reason for being there; he was not even sure he could explain it to himself.
In the end, he gave in and went back to his flat. He had time to make a cup of the sweet smelling Chinese tea and then the phone rang.
'I've been trying to get hold of you,' Eddy Stewart's voice complained.
'I'm just in.'
'It was John Merchant they found dead. Bollocks naked not far away from where the first one was found. And cut about the same way in the same place – only an awful lot worse. So the kid's out of the frame – not that he would ever have been in it if it hadn't been for that clown Standers. He was sure he had it wrapped up – all routine but brilliant with it.'
Stewart stopped talking and Murray listened to the silence sing in his ear, 'Murray?'
'John Merchant. I heard you.'
'There's something else, because it was Merchant, Peerse and me are on the team now. Blair Heathers is going to have to wait. The thing is, Murray, whatever you think about Peerse, he's a clever bugger.'
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