Ripped

by Frederic Lindsay

'I forgot I was holding it,' she said.

  28 At Heathers'

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14TH

  'Deal?'

  'What else? When he has something to celebrate, Blair likes to have the world and his wife joining in.'

  'Wife? Did you bring your wife?'

  As the two men laughed, framed between them Murray glimpsed Irene on the other side of the room. As he moved, the group round the piano surged back surrounding him. Trying to push through, he found himself encircled in a cleared space, alone with a woman who was wobbling her buttocks as some kind of entertainment. Holding out her hands to him, she mewed an invitation. The spectators yelped applause. He tried to pass her and she hooked plump fingers into his sleeve. He was held. She parodied excitement. Time stretched. He saw their mouths yawn like muzzles and heard them yap.

  With a convulsive blow from the side of his hand, he broke her grip. Her powdered jowls shook as she panted into his face. A loop of saliva linked her parted jaws and, showing her teeth as if she might worry him like a rabid bitch, she smile-snarled, 'Shy? Are you shy?'

  The party was afloat.

  Against the sober man, latecomer, gate-crasher, the noise swelled. In the room next door there were more people, but Irene wasn't among them. Hurrying, he brushed by a table and set the ornamental spray of fine wires trembling in a shimmer of changing colours. From decanters and glasses light swung at his eyes. Pushing his way across the room, a pulse of pain began to tick inside his skull. The sharp prod on his shoulder came as a relief; but when he turned, disconcertingly fast, ready, it was only an overweight stranger, who stumbled back a step as if in fright. 'That was my friend.' Like a full sponge, the man leaked moisture. His cheeks glittered. 'The one you refused to dance with.'

  Murray stared at him in bewilderment then remembered the fat woman.

  'Are you listening?' the man asked, poised between aggression and flight. 'She doesn't need that stuff.'

  On impulse Murray said, 'I wouldn't piss on your friend,' and heard a snort of amusement. Glancing round, he discovered Eddy Stewart, red moon face split in a grin.

  'Take my advice. Don't argue,' Eddy said, grinning. 'This is an old mate of mine, and he's a bad bastard.'

  Glaring, the man looked from one to the other and began to retreat. Over his shoulder, tremulously malevolent, he piped, 'Why did you fucking come, if you don't want to have any fun?'

  'That's the story of your life, Murray,' Eddy said.

  'What are you doing here?'

  'Mr Heathers wants to see you.'

  'You have your hand on my arm.'

  The big man smiled and took his hand away.

  'Nobody asked you here,' he said. 'You came without being asked. But Mr Heathers is willing to have a word. So what's the problem?'

  As Murray went with him, he had the illusion that time had flowed backwards and they would go outside and Peerse would be waiting in the police car to ask him why he had been to see John Merchant and the call would come and they would go to where a body was lying with its head smashed in on the dirty cobbles of a lane off Deacon street. But John Merchant was dead and that seemed a lifetime ago. It got quieter as they went towards the back of the house. By an uncurtained window, two boys and a girl passed a cigarette and gazed out like philosophers at the blank darkness over the garden.

  Outside a door half-way along a passage on the first floor, a man watched their approach with the attentive lack of curiosity of a sentry on duty. He was big, over six feet, with the used features of those who live by trading in punishment. For a moment, Murray thought he recognised him as one of the men who had beaten him in the club the day Merchant died; but he couldn't be sure, and anyway it made no difference.

  By contrast, Murray had forgotten how small Heathers was.

  Red in the cheeks as if he had been treating himself as part of his celebration, the little man swayed heel-and-toe in front of a log fire.

  'You're a silly bloody man,' he said. 'I've been talking money the last four days like telephone numbers. I'm a one man fucking solution to the unemployment problem. I've got a crowd of hangers on waiting to suck my arse. And then I've got you. What the hell do you think you're playing at coming here?'

  The flush on his cheeks heightened dangerously, giving him the look of a man preparing to have his first stroke.

  'Can I talk to you alone?' Murray asked.

  The heavy squad had stayed outside, but Eddy Stewart had come in with him and stood to one side watching. There was a television set behind Heathers and he turned to the tray set on top of it and half-filled a whisky tumbler.

  'You must think I'm stupid,' he said.

  From the depths of one of the three leather armchairs grouped round the fire, there came a snicker and Murray realised a man was slumped there. Although the sound had been turned off, the cassette film was still showing so that it was uncertain whether the man had been amused by Heathers or by some complication in the tangle of naked bodies on the screen.

  'Go back to sleep, Peter,' Heathers said. 'You're drunk'

  'Never, sir.' The man reared up and showed them a fine head with a large nose. 'Not the sex to get drunk. Testosterone has target organs other than the testes. One of them being the kidney where it induces the production of alcohol dehydrogenase. Now since that breaks down alcohol in the body and since women don't, not yet at least, not quite yet, thank God, have any balls to speak of – I can handle my drink like a gentleman and they can't.'

  He said all this quickly and fluently in a voice that was deep, unslurred and authoritative. Finished, he blinked once or twice and gave an enormous yawn. Clearly he was very drunk.

  'Aye, and I can say "the Leith bloody police dismisseth us",' Heathers said indulgently. 'Go back to sleep.' Drinking, he studied Murray over the tumbler's rim. 'You wouldn't be planning to do anything silly, would you? I had to pay for a new set of bridgework for Denny after you smashed his face.'

  'Denny?' Murray asked, genuinely puzzled. 'My chauffeur. I reckoned that left us square.'

  The pain at the base of Murray's skull flared and settled.

  'I just want to talk,' he said, 'but not with him here.' He nodded towards Eddy Stewart.

  'You can say anything in front of Eddy.' Heathers' tone was matter of fact.

  'Policemen are funny people,' Murray said. 'You can't trust them – not even to stay bent.'

  He heard Stewart curse softly, but kept his eyes on Heathers, who chewed his lip and asked, 'Just talk?'

  'About a visitor you're expecting. A lady you invited.'

  'Uh huh... Look, Eddy,' Heathers said abruptly after a pause, 'no use you staying here to be insulted, eh? Go and have some fun. Find yourself a woman.'

  Without turning his head, Murray heard the door open and close. He crossed the room and sat in one of the three chairs by the fire. It was very comfortable and the leather felt slightly warm under his hand. In the other chair, the man had slumped down with his eyes shut.

  'Can we get rid of that clown as well?'

  'He's no clown!' In something oddly like alarm, Heathers glanced down at the man in the chair, who licked his lips and sighed, settling down deeper still. 'Started from nothing like me – I've known him since we were kids. In the medical world, he's a big man. He saved my sister's life. He's somebody. You're the fucking clown.'

  That was possible; it wasn't a description Murray felt like arguing over.

  'What did you want to see Irene for?' he asked.

  Heathers drank and wiped his bottom lip with his finger. 'To tell her I was sorry about her husband.'

  'That was all?'

  'I might have mentioned Alex Shepherd to her.'

  The name meant nothing to Murray. 'Why would you do that?' 'You've no idea who he is, have you? He let slip to me the other day that your brother had done a favour or two for him in the way of business last year. Apparently your brother and his wife got away for a wee continental holiday last summer. Alex Shepherd was the one that paid for it.' Perhaps as a resu
lt of the warm fire and the whisky, Heathers had become flushed. 'I told him to watch his mouth, I mean keep it shut. It looks as if your brother's going to need his pension, and we wouldn't want him to lose it.'

  'She won't be interested. She's not the grateful type,' Murray said. 'She's coming to see you because she wants to find Kujavia. Get a message to him maybe.'

  'Why would she want to do that?'

  Ignoring the question, Murray said, 'When she asks you, I don't think you should tell her. Not how to find Kujavia. It's not something you would want to have on your conscience.'

  'People are always asking me for something.' He turned away to refill his glass. Murray heard the bottle knock on the rim of the tumbler. 'You do something for me, I do something for you. I can talk to anybody, rich or poor, crack a joke. Me, I like everybody to be happy. Christ, that's the way I am. I can't help my nature.'

  As Heathers gulped at his drink, Murray saw with an unpleasant premonition that the hand which held the tumbler was trembling.

  'Just don't help her to find him. He's a madman. You know how he treats those women of his.' Murray ignored the head shake of denial. 'He killed one of them, right?'

  'I never heard he killed anybody,' Heathers protested. 'He's like everybody else, he just wants to make money. Why would he do something stupid like that?'

  For a moment, Murray was sure he could not be serious; but Heathers stared back at him with the innocence of an enormous greed.

  'You don't control him,' he said at last. 'He's an animal.' In desperation, he cast around for some way of persuading Heathers. 'One of his tricks is to dress up as a woman. John Merchant's mistress, Frances Fernie, she was afraid of Kujavia – never mind why. She wouldn't have opened the door of her flat at night to let a man in–' He hesitated. 'But she might have opened the door to a man dressed as a woman.'

  'How many murders is he supposed to have done according to you?' Heathers' attempt at laughter sounded bad and quickly he gave it up. 'Did he murder Merchant as well? Is he Jack the bloody Ripper or Jill or what?'

  The man in the chair had opened his eyes. Glancing at him,

  Murray found their gaze fixed on him, and his heart jumped as if he had been caught doing something wrong. The man was slumped deep in the chair; even the flesh of his face sagged, under the cheeks, in folds down to pouches drooping on either side of the mouth. In the middle of that general surrender, the eyes were clear and hard; blue-grey, the marksman's colour.

  'Jill rips Jack, Jack rips Jill,' the voice said unslurred. 'In Yorkshire, Sutcliffe was a cowardly boy – and even when he got a man's muscles, he couldn't deal with a woman without a hammer – he had to be sure. You can pay too high a price for love poetry. There's a little worm that lives in the sea and at dawn a week before the full moon in November it breaks in two. The front bit where the brains are stays where it is, but the bit at the back floats up. All of them do that – millions of them. The sea's like soup, and then whoosh! Outcome the sperm and the eggs – like milk all over the surface. Sex soup. But the brains aren't in the soup – they stay down among the coral where it's quiet and a worm can think. Not like us. We want to be kind to one another – but how can we be? Don't blame Jack – or Jill. Compared to the worms, we're not well arranged.'

  The deep voice unwound without hurrying, hypnotic in its certainty that it would not be interrupted; and then the eyes blinked, the mouth gaped in a yawn – and all the authority vanished.

  'Be quiet, Peter, you're drunk,' Heathers said mechanically.

  He had unnoticed taken a seat, and Murray was surprised by the change in him. He looked old and shrunken in upon himself.

  The deep voice muttered a reply as if to itself, '...not the only arrangement, didn't say it was... could do what the fire-worms do off Bermuda and burst – the two sexes come together and burst... shredded...'

  'You're too late,' Heathers said. 'You should have come earlier. She was here, I gave her a number to phone. Whatever happens, it's nothing to do with me. Get that straight. As far as I'm concerned, she wasn't here. I don't want to know.' He sucked at the last of the whisky and his upper lip creased in an anticipation of the deep cut lines of extreme age. 'I didn't mean to tell her. I didn't want – I wish I'd never met the bitch!'

  'Columbus saw them on the night he approached the New World,' the man in the chair said aloud. 'Sending out signals of light before they burst.' He began to giggle like a child, a noise so unexpected that Murray's skin crawled. 'Oh, the lights, Columbus said. Oh, the pretty lights. Look at the lights!'

  29 Various Wounds

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 15TH 1988

  When he slipped and fell, he saw between his out flung hands cigarette stubs, soft paper gobs gone into swirls like marine life and by them fat splashes of snot, white, with thicker centres – tiny eggs broken on the pavement. Irene hadn't gone home last night, or returned when he checked this morning. He had no idea where she was. Now he sprawled at the entrance to the close that led to Mary O'Bannion's flat; he had knocked and waited and knocked, no answer; coming out, he had been in too much of a hurry and fallen. Irene or Kujavia, he had to find one or other of them before they came together. If they hadn't already, but he couldn't afford to consider that. All he could do was keep looking.

  There wasn't much time.

  'Hairdressers,' the woman said, rolling down her tights as she sat on the edge of the bed. 'Or that's what they claimed they were. I hate fucking amateurs... Do you want the blouse off next or the skirt?'

  'Whichever you like.'

  'You don't care which?' She gave him an unexpectedly shrewd look. 'Take the top off, will I?' Without standing up, she began to unbutton the blouse. It was less like a strip-tease than the unthinking movements with which a mechanic unpacks a tool kit. 'So the two of them had a right big tip for themselves. Specially the younger one. Gave me this patter about when they went back with this bloke and here he tried to get funny. We smashed up his place, the younger one said. Bloody mad amateurs!' She took off her bra and glanced down without pleasure at the released flop of her breasts. 'I think she was a bit touched – the younger one.' She wriggled her bum and the skirt came from under her and slid to the floor. 'I know a head case when I see one... well, in this game,' she smiled placatingly, 'you have to, don't you? But I haven't seen them since. Not round here. Just that time and once before – back in the summer before it got cold.'

  Murray was not interested, although he understood why she was talkative. Even a whore could get nervous. He hardly listened, trying to judge when it would be right to ask his question.

  Unclothed, she stood up to let him look at her. She began to turn then changed her mind and sat down again on the bed. She leaned back resting her weight on her hands in an obsolete starlet pose, and asked, opening her legs, 'You sure you don't want anything else?'

  He shook his head.

  'You just want me to get dressed again...'

  She took up the bra and bent forward to let her breasts fall into the cups. As she reached behind to fasten it, he said, 'There is one thing you could do for me.'

  Caught like that, she hesitated with her hands reaching up her back.

  'Tell me what you want, and I'll tell you what it costs.'

  'The answer to a question.' He took out all the money he had left and fanned it towards her. 'I need to find Joe Kujavia. I'll pay for a whisper.'

  'Oh, no.' She began to dress, cramming the clothes on in her hurry. 'You've come to the wrong place. I don't know what you're on about.'

  'I'm not police,' he said, without moving nearer or raising his voice. 'You know what I am, just a John, another mug. Didn't I pay you already? I'm harmless. Only I need to find Joe – I can pay, here, as much as you –'

  'I want you out of here.'

  She padded on her bare feet across the dirty linoleum and opened the door that gave on to the corridor.

  'Come on,' she said. 'I can get somebody here if I shout.'

  'You've already taken my money. Suppose I
say you took it for telling me where Joe Kujavia is? You wouldn't be any worse off if you did tell me. Nobody would know.'

  'Please.' She had closed the door. ']ust go away. You can have your money back.'

  And she actually went over to the dresser and came with it held out.

  'You earned it, keep it. I haven't asked you for anything back. You've got it the wrong way round – I'm trying to chuck it away. That's how nice I am. You're frightened – but I was joking. I won't say anything – not if you can tell me where he is. Who's to know?'

  'Please,' she said again, and added with a desperate reasonableness, 'I want to get out to the shops before they shut.'

  All he could do was keep looking. He tried to find Irene.

  At Mother's, he let himself in with his key, but knew at once it was going to be no good. Even the air of the flat felt deserted. In the living room, he stared around trying to decide what was wrong; and then realised it was because the table was not set. Mother always had the table set for their Sunday lunches. He wandered through into the tiny kitchen. Searching for a glass, he knocked a jug off the shelf. The crash of its breaking startled him like guilt. - I think you do it deliberately to torment me! Mother would cry, rushing in out of his childhood, tall and young.

  When he was in the hall, he intended to go back out of the front door. He stood with the handle in his hand, head bent as if in thought. The handle warmed in his palm, and at last he crossed and pushed the bedroom door gently open.

  'There's nothing to steal.'

  The voice was Mother's.

  With a convulsive movement, he thrust the door wide. She was sitting up in bed. Under a disordered flying scantness of hair, her scalp shone white; the mouth without its teeth had sunk into a shrivelled hole; a claw hand gathered the gown across the wrinkled corded skin of her chest. He looked on her in horror.

  'I thought it was burglars,' she whispered.

  'I was sure no one was here. I –' Why had he come in here then? '– I'm sorry.'