Tombstoning

by Unknown

  He turned the corner and ran straight into a stocky kid in his late teens, carrying a rake and wearing overalls. A wheelbarrow full of cut grass sat on the verge behind him. The collision knocked the wind out of David for a moment, but not the guy he’d run into.

  ‘Whoah! What the fuck?’

  David stood bent over with his hands on his knees, glancing round the side of the kid to see if there was someone further in the distance. He puffed as his chest heaved. Gradually his breathing regulated a little.

  ‘Was there someone else round here?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone else. I thought I saw someone else come this way.’

  ‘No one’s been past me the last five minutes, mate,’ said the boy. ‘You all right? You look fucked. I would apologize, but you ran into me.’

  ‘Have you been here all the time?’

  ‘I just came from the same direction you did, mate. Round by that big tree there.’ The kid pointed to the monkey puzzle tree. He had seen this gardener, that was all, and the few pints in his system and his imagination had made it add up to much more. Fuck, what an idiot, he thought. He was letting this whole Neil thing mess with his head. He didn’t have any proof that Neil had anything to do with this, or even if Neil was still living in this area, or even still alive for fuck’s sake, so why the hell was he running around a cemetery like a demented idiot?

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said to the gardener. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘And trying to knock them over, aye?’ said the kid. ‘Running into folk is no way to behave in a graveyard, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right, of course.’ He was taking a telling-off from a teenager earning minimum wage. He deserved it.

  He sauntered back to the funeral, but as he rounded the tree the small crowd was already dispersing. He had loosened his tie after bumping into the gardener, and he had a large, sticky grass stain on his trousers. His brow was glistening with sweat and he realized he looked a bit of a state.

  Nicola clocked him and almost laughed. She didn’t know why he’d run off, but he looked so sheepish and gormless standing there in the shade of the tree that she couldn’t help smiling. He trudged over towards her but before she had a chance to speak she noticed his eyes moving away from hers to somewhere immediately behind her. She turned to see Gary’s sister standing there.

  ‘I’m Susan.’

  ‘Nicola. I’m so sorry about Gary.’

  ‘Thank you. It doesn’t seem real,’ Susan said, although the sound of her voice didn’t indicate that she was failing to comprehend the situation, thought Nicola. Perhaps she was being harsh again, but Susan seemed far too composed for someone who’d just lost a brother. David introduced himself to Susan. Nicola noticed that the sun had burned all the haze away from the day and it was another scorcher, at least by Scottish standards. This must be the best summer in years, she found herself thinking for no reason. She felt hot, and the faint smell of beer from David made her wish she had a pint of lager in her hand right now. She wondered briefly what she would’ve been doing today if this whole stupid school reunion had never happened, if she’d never met David, if Gary had never fallen, if things had gone on the way they had for the last few years. Susan and David were talking and she drifted back to the conversation.

  ‘Please come to the house for a drink,’ Susan was saying. ‘Mum and Dad have organized a wake, but I don’t think there will be another person there under fifty, and I don’t think I could stand it alone.’

  ‘Sure,’ said David, looking at Nicola for confirmation only after he’d agreed already. She didn’t mind; she could do with a nice cold beer. And what else would she be doing today otherwise? Her folks had Amy, so for the second weekend in a row she was free to do whatever she wanted. Hopefully, this weekend wouldn’t end up with someone dying, she thought to herself with a thin smile. As they left the cemetery, the sun beat on their backs relentlessly but Nicola still somehow felt a little cold.

  Gary’s parents’ house was a grey and joyless post-war, pebble-dashed semi in a street of identical houses. The walls were thin and the windows small. It was the kind of street that had suburbia written all over it, except Arbroath wasn’t big enough to have suburbs. David had been here plenty of times as a kid but it had never struck him as being this dowdy and depressing. David remembered Susan as being sweet and likeable at school, but the years had changed her. She talked non-stop about her jetsetting career with a self-confidence spilling over into arrogance. Clearly she considered small-town life far beneath her now. Then again, didn’t David think exactly the same thing? Susan didn’t even seem that bothered about her brother’s death, although David gave her the benefit of the doubt. She might be putting on a brave face, suffering from shock or maybe it just hadn’t sunk in yet.

  At the house Susan stuck to Nicola and David like glue. The conversation between the three of them avoided all mention of Gary. David wondered if she even knew that he and Nicola had been with Gary the night he’d died. Maybe she knew and she was deliberately avoiding the topic.

  They sat out in the small back garden. Nicola tickled Jody, the Spink family dog, while Susan talked about her job in Prague, shamelessly namedropping Hollywood actors she’d met filming on location there. David couldn’t care less, but he felt a little sorry for her, filling the air with chatter so that she didn’t have to think. It was as if by talking she’d be able to keep the death at bay, stop it from entering into the real world.

  He wanted to talk to Nicola privately. Over the next couple of hours they tried a few times to excuse themselves from the wake, but each time Susan wouldn’t hear of it. There were glowers from her father, no doubt wondering what his only remaining child was doing talking to the last two people to see his son alive, but Susan blanked him. So David and Nicola were persuaded to stay put, fresh drinks pressed into their hands as they sat watching the sun beginning its slow descent behind next door’s identical slate roof.

  Eventually, despite the free beer, David could no longer tolerate Susan’s painfully incessant chatter. He looked over at Nicola and the look on her face told him she felt exactly the same. He finished his beer and got up to go to the bathroom, making a gesture to Nicola with the angle of his head. Once inside, he hung about in the front hall, and sure enough, a few minutes later there was Nicola, actually tiptoeing along with a finger to her lips.

  ‘How did you get away?’ he whispered, a laugh in his voice. She waved him away, pointing at the door, and the two of them tumbled outside, giggling like a pair of five-year-olds, before breaking into a jog until they were round the corner and free.

  ‘I feel terrible, bolting like that,’ said Nicola.

  ‘Yeah, but I couldn’t stand any more of it.’

  ‘It must be awful for Susan, for all of them.’

  David thought about it for a moment. It had brought it home to him how monumental a thing it must be to have someone in your family die on you. Before they’d gone to the Spinks‘ house he’d been thinking selfishly about Gary’s death, about how it impacted on him alone.

  Nicola took his arm in hers and planted a deliberately wet kiss on the side of his face.

  ‘Right, enough of this misery,’ she said. ‘It’s a beautiful summer Friday evening and I’ve got a free pass from babysitting for the night. What the hell are we going to do now?’

  David looked her in the eyes and besides keeping on drinking, which was a given, he could only think of one thing he wanted to do with Nicola Cruickshank tonight.

  Nicola sat listening to David recounting everything Jack had told him. It was intriguing, she gave him that, but she wasn’t sure what it all meant. Was it really front-page news that someone trained to kill people with his bare hands had almost done exactly that? And did it have anything to do with Gary or Colin? She couldn’t see how, although she was prepared to admit that Neil’s violence (if any of this third-hand stuff was to be believed) was cause for at least a little bit of suspicio
n.

  She passed the red wine to David and watched as he swigged it out the bottle. To their right was an empty Gayfield, the corrugated iron roofs of the stands bouncing angled evening rays of sunlight back up into a darkening cherry-pink sky. To their left was the Signal Tower Museum, a cluster of pristine whitewashed regency buildings which now housed a twee exhibition about what life had been like in this place in the past. Nicola wondered if museums of the future would house remnants of today’s impossibly shallow lifestyle, and if there was anything about living in Arbroath today that made it distinct from living in any other small town in Scotland, or anywhere else for that matter. In front of them was the sea, an unusually calm expanse which seemed bluer than she’d seen it before and hazier off into the distance, as if it were trying to do an impression of the Mediterranean. One toe in the freezing waves at the shore would blow that impression out the water.

  David had stopped talking and seemed to be looking for some kind of response. He looked at her with eyes that matched the hazy blue of the sea she’d just been staring at, and a small, pursing smile on his lips. Right at that moment she really wanted to kiss him. She wondered how much of an influence she was having on him, if any, and in turn she wondered how much of an influence he was having on her. In the last fortnight she’d been drunk more often than in the previous six months. On balance, at this precise moment, she figured that was overall a good thing, but it couldn’t continue. She wasn’t going to be one of those mums that need a quick G&T for breakfast, then a sherry midmorning.

  He was still looking at her, so she took the wine bottle from him, leaned over and kissed him, deeply, forcefully moving her tongue around in his mouth and sensing his surprise. She broke off after a while and took a swig of wine, giving him a moment to recover.

  ‘So what are you going to do about Neil?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sure. What can I do?’

  ‘Mention it to the police tomorrow, that would be a start.’

  ‘But he was in the police.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You’d trust the police of this place to properly look into the fact that one of their ex-colleagues might have something to do with a couple of deaths, both of which look like accidents or suicide?’

  ‘You never know. He probably wasn’t in the police for long. To them, maybe he’s just another punter now.’

  ‘Anyway, we’ve probably got it all wrong. That story about Neil is just gossip, and it’s probably got absolutely nothing to do with anything.’

  David didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Nicola anyway. She thought about it for a moment longer. ‘What about your meeting at Condor?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Are you going to bring it up?’

  ‘I think I have to, don’t I? He won’t tell me anything, but I have to ask about it.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Depends on what happens at the police station and the Marine base.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Nicola, ‘I nearly forgot to ask – what was with your disappearing act at the funeral?’

  David explained sheepishly and Nicola laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. After a moment she looked at him, slouching like a teenager on the bench they were parked on. He was smiling widely at her.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’

  ‘I was just thinking, despite everything that’s going on, I’m having a great time being here with you.’

  ‘You smooth bastard,’ she said, laughing, and he joined in. ‘But I know what you mean. It’s strange, isn’t it? We’ve just been to a funeral, but I feel pretty good.’

  ‘That’s just the booze talking.’

  ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she said, taking another swig and passing the bottle back to him. ‘But the company helps plenty too.’

  She nudged him, he nudged her back and they started kissing again. They kissed for a long time, getting deeper and deeper into it, until David had one hand under Nicola’s blouse, gently stroking her breasts, the other down the back of her trousers, feeling her arse, while she rubbed the crotch of his suit with her hand. She climbed over to sit astride him on the bench, thrusting herself up against him, kissing him deeper and deeper, as he moved both hands round to cradle her bum and push her down against him.

  ‘I really want to fuck you,’ he whispered in between kissing her neck and her ear.

  ‘That’s lucky, cause I really want to fuck you too,’ she said.

  ‘What are we going to do about it?’ he said, and she could hear his voice getting a little frantic, a good kind of frantic, she thought. She could feel his cock bursting to get out of his trousers.

  ‘Why don’t we fuck?’ she said.

  ‘I mean, where?’

  ‘What’s wrong with here?’

  He pulled back slightly to look at her face, and she saw in his eyes that he knew she wasn’t joking. She looked around quickly, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

  ‘Why not?’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t got a condom.’

  ‘I have.’

  She took his hand, led him from the bench to the grass a few yards away and they lay down.

  ‘Let’s see what you’ve got, then,’ she said and he laughed, undoing his trousers and pulling them down so that his cock sprung out suddenly. She faked a start. ‘Christ, nearly had my eye out there,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Are you going to sit there laughing at my cock all day?’ he said, laughing but beginning to look nervously around him. ‘Or were you planning to do something with it?’ She took a condom from her bag, ripped it open and slowly rolled it down his cock. He arched his back a little and closed his eyes. She slipped her trousers and pants off, climbed on top of him and felt him slide easily and deeply into her. They stayed motionless for a few moments, looking into each other’s eyes, then she started to move up and down on him, slowly at first, then into a steady rhythm. After only a few minutes she could feel him tensing his body, getting ready to come, so she ground down harder and faster and then, as she felt his body spasm beneath her, she surprised herself by coming as well, waves of it sweeping over her so that her legs went weak and she had to move her hands from his chest to the grass either side of him to support her weight. She instantly started laughing, a slow, quiet laugh in time with her breathing.

  ‘What the fuck are you laughing at?’ he said between heavy breaths from beneath her.

  ‘I’m fucking happy, you idiot,’ she said, and collapsed on top of him.

  11

  Cruising

  Arbroath police station was a boxy new building that sat, exposed and ugly, next to a roundabout in the centre of town, towered over by a spindly radio receiver mast. It was Saturday lunchtime and the streets contained a steady trickle of shoppers plus the occasional tourist trying to find the abbey up the hill. The sun poked through high, flossy summer clouds, but there wasn’t a breath of wind and plenty of bare Scottish flesh was on show amongst the locals traipsing up and down the street. Nicola and David crossed the road, headed in the front door and were met by the typical gloom that dowdy buildings contain on hot summer days. A miserable-looking spotty copper behind the front desk took their details and got on the phone as they sat looking at a corkboard covered with cheesy, slogan-heavy anti-crime posters. David examined the plastic plants next to him absent-mindedly. He was thinking about last night, and trying unsuccessfully to keep a large smile from spreading across his face. She had seduced him (well, that’s how he liked to see it) at Inchcape Park, after which they had pulled on their clothes, laughing to each other, and gone for a long walk around the western part of town, avoiding the pubs and clubs, drunken brawls, puking teens and all the rest. Instead they headed to the West Links arm in arm, the sea panting quietly nearby, the pair of them joking and laughing and kissing as if they were teenagers, just discovering what all this love and sex stuff was all about. On the way back they’d fucked again, this time standing up against a
wall at the back of the West Common, then again back at Fairport House after tiptoeing in the front door and up the stairs. Three times in one night, thought David with a grin. It had been a long time since he’d had sex three times in one night, but that seemed to be the effect Nicola was having on him. He wondered what she made of the whole thing. She hadn’t seemed awkward or regretful or anything like that when they’d met up today. They’d spent the short walk to the station laughing and joking again, referring coyly and flirtatiously to last night and being naturally relaxed in each other’s company. It was only when they caught sight of the station and remembered what they were here for that the laughing and joking stopped. Now, waiting in the pallid light of the station’s reception, he longed to leave, to drag Nicola with him out into the sunshine and the fresh air. Just then PC Bell appeared and took him through to an adjacent room with a high window throwing the dusty promise of a sunny day across one wall.

  It was straightforward enough, and within five minutes Bell had his statement in the can. The policeman was being surprisingly polite, thought David, considering what a snide arsehole he’d been on the phone earlier in the week. That is, until David brought up Neil. At the mention of the name Bell immediately narrowed his eyes to look at David more closely.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Neil Cargill,’ said David. ‘I was wondering if you’d heard of him.’

  ‘It’s a common enough name around this town, there’s bound to be a few of them kicking around.’

  ‘This one is my age, and I think he was in the police at one point.’

  ‘I think I know who you mean. Why do you mention him?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I was wondering what you knew about him.’