The Last Breath

by Denise Mina

  My wife made sandwiches.

  Still keeping his eyes on the road, Sean leaned over the back of the car seat and showed him a plastic box with bread and an apple in it. Callum lifted it and found a can of fizzy juice on the floor under his feet.

  He pulled the tab on the tin of juice and drank it in two gulps, to show that he was grateful, to fill his mouth, stop him shouting or saying anything that would make them turn round and drive him back.

  He opened the box, ate the sandwiches, sitting with the empties on his lap, not knowing what else they wanted him to do.

  Sean had brought a journalist with him. And who could blame him. Callum supposed there had to be something in it for Sean but he hadn’t expected this. Maybe he should have known, maybe it was obvious. It wasn’t enough just to be family: he’d had a family before and nothing was for nothing, not for him. For children in story books, maybe, but not for him, not for him.

  I want to live in a loving family unit

  He was shouting, bits of the dry sandwich scattering on his knees.

  The woman spun to look at Callum and found him crying, a trickle of red-juice saliva at the side of his mouth. Alarmed, she looked at Sean.

  MY DREAM IS TO WORK IN A FACTORY

  His loud voice rang around the hollow inside of the car.

  Sean didn’t look at him. He slowed the car, gently easing over to the side of the road and pulling on the handbrake.

  He was going to put Callum out, make him get out and leave him there for shouting in the car. And who could blame him.

  He’d freeze because of the wind and no walls, moving would be so hard he’d have to wait there until he died. His heart was hammering in his chest. He could feel his pulse on his cheeks, on his nose, in his eyes.

  The woman wasn’t looking at him any more. She had her hand over her mouth again, was turned away from him, looking out of the car at the side where he would be left.

  Sean undid his seat belt and turned, taking Callum’s hand in one of his and stroking it with the other. ‘Pal,’ he said as Callum gasped for breath, ‘we’re going home, where it’s warm. Together. Look at me.’

  Callum forced his eyes from the woman’s neck to Sean’s face. He was nodding slowly, like he wanted Callum to nod back. ‘OK? Are you going to be OK?’

  Callum nodded. Sean stroked his hand again. ‘It’s natural to feel this scared, OK? Perfectly normal.’ He let go of his hand and turned, pulled the belt back on and restarted the car, checked to look out of the side window for a car coming and then pulled back out into the road.

  They were going home. Where it was warm.

  A journalist. The woman’s dark hair pulled up on top of her head, exposing the soft skin on the back of her neck. The necks he saw as the protected prisoners were crocodiled to work or the canteen were always leathered or spotty. Gold chains dangled from her ears, swaying with the motion of the car, never touching her neck.

  Exhausted, Callum sat back on the seat, slowed his breathing and reminded himself of the one thing he knew for certain: everything smells the same when it’s burning.

  10

  Bunty and the Monkey

  I

  Sean stopped the car at Glasgow Cross under the railway bridge. ‘This do you?’ he whispered.

  Paddy looked back at Callum, sleeping in the back. He seemed to have grown during the drive, filling most of the back seat as his hands fell to the side and his knees relaxed and spread out. Although asleep he remained upright, ready for an attack, like a bear.

  Sean whispered again and nodded towards her door. ‘Can’t drop you any closer in case we’re seen.’

  Paddy looked from Callum to Sean. Not wanting to wake him, she made a horrified face at Sean. ‘How does he know about Pete?’

  ‘I must have mentioned it.’

  She hissed at him, ‘I don’t want him knowing about Pete. I don’t want him knowing anything about him, understand?’

  Sean said nothing but tipped his head at her, his eyes liquid disappointment.

  ‘Peter’s your son. He’s five.’

  They both turned sharply to look at the bear in the back. Callum hadn’t moved, hadn’t twitched or stretched or done any of the normal things people do when they wake up. He had opened his eyes so that the white showed all round the iris, and was staring at her like an accusing corpse.

  She nodded, breathless, wondering whether he had ever been asleep at all. ‘Yes.’

  He sat up, clenching and unclenching his hands. ‘Why don’t you want me to know about him?’

  Sean was watching her. There was nothing he could do to save her from the situation but Paddy sensed that even if there was he probably wouldn’t anyway.

  ‘I, um, my son …’

  ‘Pete,’ Callum reminded her.

  ‘Yes, my son Pete has been ill …’ She couldn’t think of a single plausible excuse. ‘He’s been ill …’

  ‘So you don’t want me to know about him?’

  He was sitting forward now, his face just inches from hers. His eyes were quite brown, chocolate, the lashes long and thick, but they were open a fraction too wide, a threat in them. ‘What do you think of me?’

  She looked back at Sean but he was examining the crumbling rubber seal around his window, flicking it with a finger. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your son.’ Callum leaned forward. ‘Wonder what I think of you?’

  As if sensing an impending explosion, Sean snapped, ‘Sit back.’

  At once Callum threw himself back in his seat, sliding into the corner behind him.

  Sean turned round to face Callum. ‘You’re only out four hours and already you’re threatening people.’

  ‘I never.’

  ‘You did so.’ He looked at Paddy, angry at her too but trying not to let it show. ‘Apologize.’

  Callum cowered, eyes flickering from one to the other as he kneaded his hands on his lap. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’m overprotective of my son,’ she said, quietly. ‘Callum, I don’t know you, I don’t know what you’re like but you just got out of prison for hurting a boy – what would I think?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She reached across to him, touching his knee with her fingertips.

  Callum looked at Sean, found him looking away out of the window. He looked back at Paddy and moved his leg a fraction, towards her and away, towards her and away, so that her fingertips were brushing his knee. She whipped her hand back as he slid down the seat; if she hadn’t her hand would have been on his thigh. He was smiling.

  Her mouth was open in shock but Sean was oblivious. Callum had checked that Sean wasn’t watching before he did it. He knew it was wrong.

  ‘You creepy wee prick,’ she shouted, throwing the door open and stepping out into the street.

  ‘Oi, wait.’ Sean leaned over to look at her. ‘What the hell happened there?’

  ‘Ask your fucking cousin.’

  She stormed off up the road, her feet warmed by the hot pavement, her face flushed with panic and disgust, desperate to get away, not quite believing that a nineteen-year-old murderer had just tried to get her to feel him up.

  She turned to look back at the car and saw Sean pulling out slowly and joining the line of traffic heading down the Gallowgate to the river. God help Elaine, trying to sleep under the same roof as him. Paddy wouldn’t sit next to him on a bus.

  II

  She walked up through the busy Cross, ducking across the road at the lights, aware that her shoulders were aching from tension. She had to hand one thing to Callum: he was wise to refuse an interview. She hoped for his sake that when the first photo was taken of him, he wouldn’t know. She could only imagine how mad he’d look otherwise. It was worth it, taking the money from Burns. Humiliating, but worth it to move Pete away from Rutherglen, where Callum would be staying.

  As she walked up the road she could see busy shadows at the window of the Press Bar and hear a rumble of noise c
oming from inside. The presses were still, a dry dust rising from the car park opposite the News building.

  Paddy took the stairs, feeling relieved to be back where the fights were familiar and playful, back among her pack. She thought more calmly about Callum. He was nineteen. How many women would he have met in his adult life? Two? Three? Still, the parole board shouldn’t have released him, even if they’d run out of legal justifications to keep him in.

  Upstairs, a crowd, back from an early lunch and full of patter and drink, had gathered inside the newsroom doors. As she pushed through, they greeted her warmly; a sub-ed put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a couple of hearty squeezes.

  News of Paddy coming in in the middle of the night to write the copy about Terry had got around and everyone was assuming she’d done it out of decency and fellow feeling. Even being greeted on the basis of a misunderstanding felt warm and welcome. She wanted to turn to someone and tell them that she’d just met the most famous criminal in Scotland, and he was a car crash waiting to happen. But she didn’t. She stood with them, smiling sadly as they talked about Terry, letting the sub-ed squeeze her shoulder again, drop his hand and try for the waist before she pulled away, saying she needed to get something out of her pigeonhole.

  ‘I have that trouble all the time,’ said someone and everybody laughed.

  She turned to the guy nearest her, a short bald veteran. ‘Who’s our Home Secretary?’

  ‘Billy, over there.’

  Billy Over-There had his coat on and was smoking a cigarette with such robotic precision he was almost certainly very, very drunk.

  ‘Billy, who can I talk to about the IRA?’

  Billy’s eyes weren’t focusing properly. He blinked at her several times before rolling his mouth around a name: ‘Brian Donaldson.’

  ‘Short, dirty blond hair, specs?’

  He shook his head. ‘Five eleven, brown crew cut, fat, no specs.’

  ‘Where could I get hold of him?’

  ‘Shammy’s.’

  She hesitated. ‘Are you drawling “Sammy’s” or saying “Shammy’s”?’

  Billy Over-There took an elaborate draw on his cigarette as he considered the question. A finger of ash tumbled down the front of his coat. ‘The shecond one.’

  Paddy left him to his smoke and returned to the group. ‘Is there a pub called Shammy’s?’

  A sports desk guy raised his arms triumphantly and shouted yes to jeers from everyone else. Shammy’s was short for the Shamrock, a Celtic pub over in the Gallowgate. Glasgow had three football teams: Catholic Celtic, Protestant Rangers and Partick Thistle, for supporters who eschewed sectarianism and liked their football tinged with disappointment and hardship.

  Paddy found the number in the phone book and asked the barman for Brian Donaldson. He asked who was calling, as if that was any kind of a security check, and Paddy wondered at the wisdom of it as she told him the truth. If journalists were being targeted maybe she should have used a pseudonym. But it was too late. Donaldson came to the phone.

  ‘Wha’?’ His voice was smoky and warm.

  ‘Ah, Mr Donaldson, I wonder if you can help me: a man came to see me at my home last night. He said he spoke for your organization and wanted to tell me that Terry Hewitt’s death was nothing to do with you—’

  ‘Neither it was.’

  ‘He was quite threatening. Can you tell me if it’s deliberate policy to target members of the press?’

  ‘It is not. I’m sorry if you were troubled. Who was it?’

  ‘He said his name was Michael Collins.’

  Donaldson laughed softly at the other end.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘daft, I know it’s not his name. He’s wee, fair hair, wore steel-rimmed glasses and a blue jersey.’

  ‘Right? OK, right.’ She could tell by his voice that he knew who she was talking about. ‘I’ll, ah, ask around and see what I can do. Sorry, Miss Meehan, if you got a fright or wha’.’

  He hung up.

  Paddy made her way over to the pigeonholes.

  The stack of wooden shelves was divided up into small squares, each with a name underneath. Those who had been at the paper since the sixties had their names picked out in italic calligraphy, while those who had joined in the seventies had a sticker with their name printed on it. Recent recruits had blue tickertape with their name punched out in white. Originally the most lowly members of staff were given the lowest shelves and moved up as they got promoted. As the staffing got more bloated, pigeonholes became scarce and everyone tended to hang on to the first one they were assigned. It was a mark of honour to be a senior member of staff with a pigeonhole near the ground.

  Paddy’s hadn’t been claimed while she was away and her shelf was one of the lowest. She crouched down on her hunkers, not a very dignified stance but better than bending over and baring her arse to the room. Inside she found some flyers for union meetings. A talk by the new chair of the NUJ, Richards, who had been at the News. A blank sponsored walk form. And a yellow note from one of the secretaries, a number, time of the call 9.15, McBride’s Solicitors and Notaries, ask for Mr Fitzpatrick re Terry Hewitt.

  ‘Miss Meehan?’

  She looked up to find Bunty’s sidekick standing formally in front of her. He had arrived at the News with Bunty, like a bonded servant. People called him ‘Bunty’s Monkey’ behind his back but never knew what to say to his face. He hadn’t introduced himself or clarified his position to anyone but he moved and talked like a henchman, always gliding sideways, easing people around his master, human lubricant, making things run smoothly.

  ‘Bunty would like to see you for a moment.’

  Bunty, the paper’s editor, had arrived from an Edinburgh daily a year ago. He had promised the Daily News owners an economic miracle but after all the redundancies and reshuffling the paper was still leaking profit. Bunty wasn’t a happy man.

  The walk across the floor of the newsroom felt very long. Paddy had time to panic about having been seen with Callum, about Sean losing his job and herself ending up with no job or home and Burns laughing at her as he drove away from her mother’s house with Pete on visitation days. She was very tired, she realized. The weekend had been less than restful.

  The glass cubicle Larry Grey-Lips inhabited at night had the lights on inside and the blinds drawn down. The Monkey waved her towards the door with the grace of a butler. She knocked on the glass and opened the door quickly, keeping the advantage.

  Bunty sat at a small corner of the big table, pencil in hand, shading in a big doodle. He was a small bald man and as such didn’t like to be seen doing small bald things. He stood up, cheeks flushed defensively, and covered the sheet with his hand. The Monkey slipped into the room behind Paddy and tiptoed up the table to his handler’s side.

  ‘Hello, Patricia.’ Bunty covered his annoyance with a flash of teeth. ‘Shut the door, would you?’

  She clicked it shut and took a seat in front of the desk. It was a surprisingly large room and housed the big table Bunty used for smaller meetings: the full news ed meetings were held downstairs. Despite the table being a good six feet long, the Monkey and Bunty were taking up barely three foot of one side and looked across at Paddy in unison, smiling, mock-friendly.

  Bunty made a pyramid of his fingers. He looked like a man with the shadow of professional death hanging over his shoulder, which he was. Sales of the Daily News were in a steady decline, and advertising was plummeting as more and more of the big spenders were going over to the Standard. The Daily News wasn’t making a loss but they weren’t turning a great profit either and the board of directors had been through four of the five stages of economic grief already: hope, disappointment, blame and fury. The next stage, Paddy knew, was goodbye Bunty.

  ‘You’ll be pleased to hear that Terry Hewitt’s obituary is going in tomorrow. It’s a full half-page.’

  As usual, Bunty had misheard all the office gossip and thought she was Terry’s girlfriend. Paddy thanked him anyway. ‘That’s g
ood of you. He started here, same time as me.’

  ‘So I read. Shocking business.’ Bunty looked over at the Monkey. ‘It could bring the Irish Troubles over here.’

  Everyone knew that twenty hours ago but Monkey took his henchman’s duties seriously and nodded as if he was just finding out.

  ‘So. Yes. Oui, as it were.’ Bunty chewed the inside of his mouth and scribbled hard on the sheet, a vicious doodle. ‘Alors. I heard a rumour about you.’

  ‘There are a lot of rumours about me. I started many of them myself.’

  He smiled courteously at her attempted joke. ‘I heard you were in Babbity’s last night with McVie and you haven’t handed in this week’s Misty. Anything I should know?’

  She tried to look non-committal.

  ‘We’d hate for there to be any misunderstanding.’ He looked to Monkey, who nodded and smiled, and Bunty turned back to her. ‘We value you tremendously.’ He strained over the word, closing his eyes. ‘Just tremendously.’ They looked at her expectantly.

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  ‘Are you happy here?’ Bunty waved across his desk, leaving his fingers wide as an opener for her to say something. Monkey copied his facial expression, as if he’d posed the question himself.

  ‘I asked you for more money two months ago and I’m still waiting for an answer.’

  Bunty leaned over the desk, narrowing his eyes at her. ‘Have you been offered more money elsewhere?’

  She stared back at him. She could lie. ‘I want more money and to investigate Terry’s death.’

  Bunty smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s a long time since you did a news story. We can’t assign stories to placate people. It might be too big.’

  ‘But I want it.’ Paddy thought she sounded like Pete.

  Bunty sighed at his doodle: a lot of regal looping lines angrily shaded in with pencil. A potentate foiled. ‘You know,’ he sighed, ‘McVie takes people on and buries them, d’you know that? Gets everyone on short-term contracts and dumps them.’