Deep and Crisp and Even

by Peter Turnbull

  'Do you think so? He hasn't got a beard. I just can't see him with a beard; beards don't go with arrogance—not often, anyway. You're right about him being young, slim as well, I'd say. He's a quick mover, he's got to be on the slim side. Carries himself with a sort of cocky swagger.'

  'And his eyes are too close together,' said Sussock.

  Donoghue laughed. 'Arrange a press conference, Ray, an hour's time, no need for me to be there, just a question of distributing copies of the tape to the radio and television stations and photocopies of the letter and envelope to the press. Someone may recognize the voice or the handwriting. Wonder why he didn't type it? Anyway, prepare a press release, inquiries continuing, concentrating on young adults, suspect believed to be a student, possibly staying in the West End. Mug something up, Ray.'

  Sussock mugged something up and nervously took the press conference. The reporters tried to force a question and answer session, but Sussock stuck to his guns. 'Just look on it as one big press release, boys,' he said. The conference was in time to make the later editions of the Evening Times, which led with the headline:

  Slow Tom—Glasgow Knifeman named.

  The restaurant was quiet; soft music in the background, only one other couple and they were at the far end of the room. The waiters leaned in a corner talking to each other, cloths draped over their shoulders. One waiter had huge hands and used them when talking, gesticulating wildly. The man dropped his credit card on top of a piece of paper which one of the waiters had laid discreetly at his side. The man felt very heavy and clumsy and awkward, but then he had expected the woman to say what she had said.

  'I'm sorry, Ray,' she said quietly, breaking the silence. 'I do love you, but you have to understand, I don't even think you are ready for divorce. You seem to think it's your fault that your wife's off her head and your son came back from London a screaming queen.'

  'Don't say that.'

  'I'm sorry, Ray, but that's reality. It can't possibly be your fault. Stop punishing yourself.' She reached across the table and took his hand.

  'I'll have to leave her, Elka,' he said, using his free hand to pour the remaining Chianti into her glass, 'But you're right, I can't make the break, I'd like her to do it.'

  'But she won't. You're exactly where she wants you, captive in marriage.' She raised her glass, 'Here's to your future health and happiness, Great Sussock.'

  'I just can't exist in her presence. I get a pain across the front of my head and I feel that everything I do is wrong. I feel big and old and gawky.'

  'But you're not big and old and gawky. I should know.'

  'If you'd marry me it would make the break easier.'

  'Only because you'd be moving from one comfy middle-aged existence to another. If you were determined to leave your wife you'd do it whether I was here or not. Does she know about us?'

  'No,' he shook his head. 'She hasn't been out of the house for years—she's like an animal pacing in a cage. The only thing she cares about is what happens under her roof.'

  'You see? I'm not influencing anything at home. It would be just the same if you spent the evenings alone drinking coffee in a late-night grill instead of taking me for a meal and to bed.'

  The other couple had stopped talking to each other and sat in silence. They were leaning back in their chairs and staring at the table top. It seemed a relationship in its death-throes.

  'I love you,' said Sussock, suddenly.

  'And I love you,' replied Elka Willems. 'But I won't marry you. I won't marry anybody. I've told you before and I don't want to tell you again. The people of my generation have a problem, I think; see, our parents, they fought a long and a hard war and after it there was a peace and a brave new world, free health care and education for all. My father was in the Dutch resistance and they put him in Treblinka. He survived and came to Scotland, he had suffered for this peace and wanted a part of it and so he had a family. But since then nothing's changed. I know what education system my children will have, I know what stages my marriage will go through, because I saw the marriage of Pieter and Flora Willems. There's nothing new I can give to my children, no new world, nothing—they're even going to eat the same sweets that I ate, Mars Bars and Bounty Bars. There's nothing original I can do by getting married. Ray, I'm twenty-nine, big two-nine, I hit the sound barrier later this year, but my horizons are still wide. If I get married they'll come rushing in and I'll know what's going to happen next because I've seen it, like I said. I'm being original and creative by being single.'

  'Marriage is creative, Elka.'

  'I think that's starry-eyed naivety. And you of all people should know better.'

  'One bad marriage doesn't mean every marriage is not going to work.'

  'Maybe we'd better break it off. The message just isn't sinking in, is it? You're not the first man to show me the altar doused in moonbeams, and you probably won't be the last, but the answer's going to remain the same.'

  'I need you.'

  'Look, Ray.' She pulled her hand away from his and held both hands up before her face. 'Can you see, Ray? I don't even wear decorative rings—I love you, but I love my freedom more. You have to accept that; it's a real part of my existence. It's a love me, love my freedom situation that you're in.'

  'Point taken,' said Sussock, feeling stupid.

  'Don't bring the subject up again, Ray, don't even think about it or I'll make the decision for you.'

  'All right,' he nodded. 'Contract signed and sealed. Contract is that there is no contract.'

  'That's better,' she smiled warmly. 'Tell me, have you decided about extending your service?'

  'I've already applied,' Sussock returned her smile, 'But, like Fabian says, a lot will depend on current performance as well as record, so if I play a big part in netting the headbanger I'm in with a big chance.'

  'Good. I like men who are confident of themselves.' She reached out for his hand. 'I think you can make it—I've faith in you, old Sussock. Why don't you call a taxi and we'll go home and celebrate your new lease of life?'

  It was Thursday night in Glasgow. The snow lay in three-foot drifts, the roads were slush, people walked in groups. Two drunks, swaying and falling, staggered down Hanover Street, one tried to land a punch on the other but couldn't swing, the other held him up, they fell into a bus queue, people stepped back, the drunks went on, swearing. They were in their early thirties, wore open-necked shirts and denims as though it was the height of summer. Two constables saw them and called up the Land-Rover. The drunks were arrested.

  Two cars were driving through the city, one going east and the other going south, both motoring with a capital M, throwing up the spray like speedboats. They met at Renfield and Bath. Chests into steering columns, one passenger was wearing a seat belt and caught a whiplash on her neck; she wouldn't walk again. The other passenger wasn't wearing a belt and went through the windscreen. It could have been the road conditions; it may have been that both drivers were drunk. The police would piece the accident together, but only one driver would be liable to prosecution. The other was dead.

  A father went into the city mortuary on Brunswick Street, and stood while an attendant peeled back a white cloth; the man said 'yes' and began to weep. Under the sheet was his daughter, she had been found in the Forth and Clyde canal when the thaw melted the ice.

  A woman came into P Division station; she was wringing her hands and she said that her little boy hadn't come home. The desk constable took his pen and said, 'Name, please, Madam.'

  Men came out of the Curzon Cinema where they had been watching 'Naked Exorcism' and melted into the night. In Langside two people were loving. In Bearsden a company director threw his baby girl against a wall because her crying prevented him writing his report. In a bar in Queen's Park a man with a lot of empty glasses in front of him sat back and began to sing 'Flower of Scotland.' In another bar a group of men huddled and growled about what they'd do to the headbanger, this 'Slow Tom'—they'd tied him to a car and kick him to hell. H
e wouldn't make it to hospital.

  It was a Thursday night in Glasgow, and Malcolm Montgomerie sat in the Rubaiyat. He was making an attempt on his personal record; he was about to try to slice it in half. His personal record for the time it took to get from first meeting to action in the sheets stood at four hours, ten minutes, and he reckoned that with this lovely child in blue-jeans he could make it in two, two and a half at the outside.

  He'd hung around the university buildings and student cafes, he'd bought some second-hand law textbooks to enhance his image, and he had a specially obtained student identification card which was folding authentically in his hip pocket. The whole place was just alive with yellow-haired students carrying acoustic guitars. He called in at the university folk club, where only one performer had light-coloured hair. He sang without accompaniment, he had a girl-friend who lifted his beer to his lips and another friend who went with him to the toilet. All this because his hands were small and permanently clenched and stuck out from his shoulders. After he had sung he got a table-thumping, boot-stamping applause.

  Montgomerie went upstairs to the television room; he was looking for someone from the West of Scotland, and saw only Commonwealth students reading the Economist. He was looking for males, and saw only university females in tight blue-jeans. Montgomerie was six-foot-plus, he had broad shoulders and a stomach he could lay a ruler across; he now had a trendy beard and loped along in casual, effortless strides. He had a coolness he turned on for the upper-set ladies, he had the man-of-the-world calm assuredness for the girls and he could roll his eyes for the older woman. In the television room he forgot the man with light-coloured hair and began to look at the tight jeans.

  He bought a coffee from the machine and carried it to where the girl was sitting at the end of a low table. She was wearing Doc Martens, Levis and a fisherman's smock. Montgomerie saw her eyes widen as he sat down, and he knew that he was on to a winner.

  Her name was Gillian Corr and she was reading biochemistry, though before Montgomerie's gambit she had been reading the Beano. He told her he had left the police force to take a postgraduate diploma in law. He hoped to teach in a university, he said. Gillian became very interested and put the comic aside. In the Rubaiyat he bought her drinks and allowed her to buy him a round. She told him about her parents, how they always fought, and he listened as though he was really terribly interested. Gillian invited him back for coffee and Montgomerie, glancing at his watch, said that that would be very nice, yes, perhaps a quick one. As they walked through the slush and the rain, he slipped his arm around her waist, spreading his fingers to make his palm feel larger. In bed she was all arms and legs, clutching him like her own, her very own bumper-sized teddy bear. Montgomerie slipped his watch from his wrist and put it on the floor, glancing at its face as he did so. Two hours thirty-six minutes. Not bad, Charlie Brown, not bad at all.

  Gillian gasped, sharply.

  See, I could learn her, or her, but they're with somebody. I haven't seen one alone the night. They walk in groups or with men. There was one standing alone but she was in the bright lights. Lissu says I have to learn an old one, not the Welfare bitch, he hasn't told me yet, but he will. That will be my reward. There's a lot of Filth on the streets the night, the way they look at you, just wanting you to give them a reason to turn their little blue light on. It's cold, the slush is beginning to freeze, it'll snow again the night. I'm going into the back streets before the Filth get suspicious. I did some reading last night. I read a lot.

  CHAPTER 5

  Elka Willems nudged Sussock. He stirred and in his sleep said something unintelligible. She nudged him again, driving her elbow into his ribs. He turned over and she kicked his shin with her heel, encouraging his waking process sufficiently to allow the sound of hammering to penetrate his sleep. He dreamed briefly of railway wagons moving across a bridge, with one of the wagons giving a little jump every time he heard hammering. He woke slowly and saw Elka sitting up in the bed, her fine breasts softly outlined in the street light which penetrated the room through a crack between the curtains.

  'Who the hell's that!' She swung her feet out of the bed and groped on the floor for her housecoat.

  'Oh, no,' said Sussock, and groaned.

  'Do you know who it is, Ray? Do you?' She turned to him and pushed a clenched fist into the mattress. 'Have you told anybody about us? I'm angry if you have! Have you?'

  'Fabian Donoghue knows,' he said. 'He got it out of me with a neat trick.'

  'God, Ray!'

  'I've asked him to keep it under his hat.'

  'I should think so, you ass. Well you'd better let the smooth bastard in—it's a toss-up whether he brings the door down before he has a seizure.'

  Sussock struggled out of bed and yelled 'All right!' and the hammering stopped.

  'Christ, Sussock, it's five in the bloody morning. What does he want?'

  'It'll be the headbanger, Slow Tom—he's struck again; Donoghue told me he'd do this, he said I ought to buy you a phone.'

  'I think that's a bloody good idea, Sussock.' She threw down her house coat and pulled the sheets over her, curling into a foetal position. 'And don't forget to turn the bloody light out.'

  'Piss off,' said Sussock under his breath. He pulled on his trousers and went to the door to let Donoghue in out of the cold.

  Donoghue stepped into the hallway and walked into the kitchen. Sussock went back into the bedroom and brought his clothes in a bundle and dumped them on the red Formica table top. Red is an odd colour at five in the morning. It hurt Sussock's eyes to look at the kitchen table.

  'So it's Slow Tom,' he said, leaning back against the wall, struggling with a sock.

  'It is, can't think of any other reason to disturb you and the delectable Elka.'

  'Ssh, she'll still be awake.'

  Donoghue whispered, 'Sorry,' and then said, 'Anyway, time enough for that later. Right now I need you.'

  'There's some compensation, I suppose.' He reached for his shirt. 'No time for a wash?'

  'Don't see why not, Ray, we're not going to stop anything tonight.'

  Sussock dropped his shirt and went into the bathroom. Donoghue stood at the door.

  'It's an old woman this time—well, sixty-odd, anyway,' said Donoghue, enjoying the steam which played about his face. He wished he'd allowed himself the luxury of a shave. 'He got into her house.'

  'Inside the house!' said Sussock through a layer of lather. 'She must have known him.'

  'That's what I think; this could be the break we need. Press on, Ray.'

  'All right, you said I could wash.'

  'It was definitely Slow Tom,' Donoghue went on. 'Once in the stomach and once in the neck. Neighbours came home from an all-night party and saw her lying in her hall with tacky black stuff on the floor polish. He left his calling card resting on her coat.'

  'Who was she?' Sussock towelled himself and went to get his shirt.

  'Lady called Margaret Stewart. Aged sixty-two. Retired nursing sister.'

  Outside the snow was driven on a biting east wind. It was a heavy fall, with an inch already covering the windscreen of Donoghue's Rover.

  'Careful how you go,' said Donoghue. 'There's three inches of frozen slush under this lot.'

  'And I thought the thaw had set in.' Frank Sussock stepped gingerly round the car and opened the passenger door.

  Donoghue drove carefully, rarely exceeding twenty-five miles an hour, and on sidelights because the headlights reflected back off the snow and blinded him. Half an hour after leaving Elka Willem's flat in Langside he pulled up at what he judged to be the kerb outside Margaret Stewart's stairway in Hillhead. A constable stood at the close mouth. His cape was white with snow. Donoghue and Sussock showed him their IDs and went up to the second landing. Another constable stood outside the heavy black door, which had 'Stewart' on the front and another sign, 'No Hawkers or Circulars' underneath. The wood on the door was stained and polished and had a pane of stained glass which showed a sailing shi
p in a stormy sea. The carpets in the flat had a detailed pattern and were threadbare in places, the furniture was dark and heavy, the light bulbs were small and gave reluctantly. There was a strange smell of carbolic, and each room bristled with order and hygiene. A man with spiky black hair and spectacles brushed the hall furniture for prints.

  Margaret Stewart's body had lain on the floor of her hall, on the polished floorboards where the frugal woman had not allowed herself a rug. A chalk outline showed where she had lain. She was found on her side with her legs folded and her arms outstretched. The outline was broken in two places where the drying blood would not allow the passage of chalk.

  The flashbulbs had illuminated the body in series of sharp intense bursts and the photographers had recorded the deceased from the front, the rear, the head and from the feet. There was also a distance shot which showed the position of Margaret Stewart's body in relation to the mahogany wardrobe and the rubber plant by the door. One of the cameras had been a Polaroid, and six photographs lay on the telephone table, left behind for the edification of the Investigating Officer.

  'You know what the people on the stair are going to say,' said Donoghue, sifting through the photographs. 'Half are going to say she was the nicest, kindest old lady you could wish to meet, and the other half are going to say she was a crabbit old bitch, and the truth is going to be somewhere in between.'

  'Any family?' asked Sussock as Donoghue handed him the photographs.

  'No. She was a Miss, and I've a feeling we'll find out that she was a very proper Miss.' He turned to the man who was brushing the furniture with a grey-white powder. 'Anything?'

  'Not a thing, sir,' said the man, standing up. He was slightly built and had worked as a laboratory assistant in a comprehensive school before he saw the post of Forensic Assistant with the Strathclyde Police advertised in the Regional Council Bulletin. 'Not a thing anywhere, sir, clean as a new pin.'