by Irvine Welsh
Kibby gasped and raised his head, letting things come into slow focus through the rain. He saw the rig, and the huge silver petroleum tank it carried. He saw Skinner, urinating. Yes, the cab was empty, he noted as he shuffled over to inspect it. Looking inside, he saw that the door was open and the keys were in the ignition. And there was the lorry driver pissing against the wall, just a few yards downwind from Skinner.
It was a sign, it had to be, it was all it could be. And if Brian Kibby did not grasp this opportunity now, he just knew in his heart that the Fates would not give him another.
— Dae ah no ken you fae somewhaire? one of the drunk girls asked her, the one with the sweaty face, as Caroline stared at the phone. In mounting desperation she punched out a text message:
DAN, FOUND MY DADS DIARY.
HE IS YOUR FATHER TOO. U R
MY BIG BROTHER, SAME WITH
BRI. PLEASE DON’T HURT EACH
OTHER. C XXXXX
She sent it off as the other girl, the nervy one with the fringe who had lent her the phone said, — D’ye ken Fiona Caldwell?
— No . . . I need to send another text.
— Nup, gie’s ma phone, the girl demanded.
— Let her send the text, another girl, a bit more sober than the rest, said. — It’s Caroline, isn’t it? As Caroline nodded in recognition, she added, — Caroline Kibby, she was at Craigmount with me.
Caroline realised that she had known the girl, Moira Ormond, from school. She was a shy goth back then, but not now. Nodding with more gratitude than she remembered expressing to anyone, Caroline punched out another message on the phone, this time for her brother.
The hardest part was hoisting his cumbersome, perspiring body into the driver’s cab. Once again, the alcohol helped, dulling the terrible mortal pain of his flesh.
He quickly started up the lorry and drove it towards his blissfully unaware target, who was still relieving himself up against the wall.
Tommy Pugh heard the familiar sound of his engine starting up.
What the fuck . . .?
Tommy glanced round in terror as the lorry accelerated towards the wall, a few yards from him. He moved quickly in the other direction, as his stocky build found an athleticism that came from sheer desperation.
45
An email from America
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: Love and Things
Okay, Skinner
I’m so glad you’re coming back over. Why? Well, it’s cards on the table time. I’m nuts about you too. I miss you so much. I know this could all just be cyberromance stuff but I keep seeing your face, that ski-slope chin that juts out and looks a bit like a half-moon in profile, those big black brows like you should be in Oasis.
I don’t know where this is going to lead us, Danny my sweet love, but like you I know we’ll be mad if we don’t try it. And it just feels so right. I’m so happy and I can’t wait to see my darling boy again.
Love you so much,
Dorothy xxxxxxx
46
Flame-Grilled
CAROLINE FORCED HERSELF through the driving rain along the cobblestones of old Leith. Her footing almost went again, and she was now in real pain. There were very few people around, most had made their way home, some were still ensconced in the noisy bars and restaurants that lined the Shore at the Water of Leith.
Where will Brian and Danny be? Which one? The restaurant . . .
As she went to go into the bar attached to the place they’d been dining at, Caroline gasped as the explosion roared in her ears and the light from the fire bounced off the blue-black cobblestones around her. She hobbled towards the source of it, at the old dock gates.
Beverly Skinner turned up the thermostat in her front room. It seemed to have suddenly got so cold. She picked up Cous-Cous, feeling the animal’s warmth on her lap. She looked up at London Calling once more and recalled that cold winter Sunday night back in 1980.
First Keith Kibby and her going back to that party at the Canongate and them having befuddled, unprotected sex in the hall. Then he’d got really inebriated – blindly, obscenely drunk – and passed out. She didn’t want to go home to face Donnie so she wandered the dirty streets up the Royal Mile. The tourist area wasn’t as complete as it is now, and she passed a couple of rough-looking pubs, heard two young men threaten each other as a mob spilled from a tenement door out on to the street. Even when she heard the sound of glass breaking and screams, she didn’t look back. She passed the World’s End pub, which, a few years previously, had been the last place where two girls were seen before their bodies were found strangled on a nearby beach, in a double murder that was never solved.
The strip changed, as the tourist and tartan kitsch shops started to dominate. As she passed the new Scandinavian-style hotel, she could scarcely believe her eyes as she saw three of them getting out of a car. That was when she approached him, told him how much she’d enjoyed the gig and loved the band. He was a gentleman, and invited her back for a drink. They went back to his room and he treated her well, and became her third lover that evening. In the morning, when they parted and he got ready to go back on the road and she prepared to start her lunchtime shift in the restaurant, neither one of them regretted a thing.
Her son was born nine months later, on 20 October 1980. Of her three lovers, her heart said that the first was his father, her head the second. And sometimes, only sometimes, when she put on a particular record, her soul would hint that it just might be the third.
As he shook out his penis with one hand, Danny Skinner fished out the mobile with his other and clicked it on. It showed three missed calls. He was about to stick it back into his pocket when it made a sound heralding a text coming in. He didn’t recognise the number but called it up anyway, and read the message.
Then he heard a noise and turned round to see the manic face of Brian Kibby, up in the cab of a lorry, bearing down on him. Their eyes met and Brian Kibby saw something in Skinner, who just stood there and raised his mobile phone in the air, shrugged and laughed. Something in his glance and bearing instantly disarmed Kibby’s murderous emotion. He slammed on the brakes but it only caused the lorry to go into a skid.
The HGV crashed into Skinner at speed, crushing him against the old dockyard wall. The back end of the vehicle then swung on the oily surface, the huge petroleum tank thrashing against the wall and springing several leaks. Just before it exploded, rendering Skinner’s corpse almost unidentifiable, an ungainly man exited the cabin and moved off, before the flames could also engulf him.
Tommy Pugh, the only eyewitness present, said that he was a grossly fat man with dark circles under his eyes. He moved slowly, wheezing away from the blazing wreckage, where people who had come out from the bars to investigate the noise from the explosion saw him heading back in the direction of the Shore. It was thought that he went into one of the many waterfront bars.
When the police arrived and trawled the area, the only person drinking alone in the vicinity was a tall, thin man. He looked superfit; a good ten years younger than the person described leaving the scene, or, police forensic scientists would later estimate, the bloated body burned beyond recognition in the fire.
The lone man was very drunk, but with a glazed expression, continually staring at his mobile phone. His back was to a desperate, fretful girl who had heard the explosion and come into this bar like the others before it, searching for a man who was him but who looked nothing like him. But he was drinking heavily: oh yes, Brian Kibby was drinking like there was no tomorrow.
Afterword
It shouldn’t be required to state the obvious, but I’ve found that in this game it’s sometimes necessary. This book is fiction. For instance, the ‘Edinburgh Council’ in the manuscript doesn’t exist; like everything else here it’s a figment of my imagination. I have no reason to believe that the real Edinburgh Council has employment practices or personalities like the ones in this book.
Special thanks to Robin Robertson, Katherine Fry and Sue Amaradivakara at Random House.
In Michael Kerr, I lost a good pal when I started writing this book. Following its completion, another two great buddies, William Orman and James Crawford have died untimely deaths. Edinburgh is a sadder and less colourful place for many people. Rest in peace and play in fun, Mikey, Billy and Big Crawf.
Acknowledgements
‘We Used To Be Friends’. Words & Music by Grant Nicholas, Jon Lee, Taka Hirose & Courtney Taylor © Copyright 2003 Chrysalis Music Limited (80%)/Universal Music Publishing Limited (20%). Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
‘Something Beautiful’. Written and composed by Robbie Williams/ Guy Chambers. Published by BMG Music Publishing Ltd. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.
‘Ignition’. Written and composed by Robert Kelly. Published by R Kelly Publishing Inc/Zomba Music Publishers Ltd. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.
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Epub ISBN: 9781407018263
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Published by Vintage 2007
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Copyright © Irvine Welsh, 2006
Irvine Welsh has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Jonathan Cape
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ISBN 9780099483588
