Cross Purpose

by Claire MacLeary

  ‘Fair point,’ she retorted. ‘But I do have other kids, you know.’

  ‘Like who?’

  Maggie retrieved her mug. ‘Kieran Chalmers, for one.’

  ‘Kieran? He’s a different story altogether. Lovely lad. Not his fault they had to move here.’

  ‘I know. Father died. Brain cancer. Killed him in weeks.’ She breathed a sigh. Another woman suddenly widowed. Except Rose Chalmers had to up sticks. Move from a Wimpey chalet to a Seaton high rise. So why was Maggie feeling sorry for herself?

  ‘How’s Kieran coming along?’

  She frowned. ‘I’m not sure. We seemed to be making progress, but then…’ She broke off. ‘He became a bit difficult.’

  ‘Difficult? How?’

  ‘Hard to put a finger on. Introverted. Evasive. And he was always such a well-mannered boy.’

  ‘It’ll maybe pass. Just so long as he doesn’t fall into bad company.’

  Somebody sniffed. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  ‘He’s had a bit of bother with bullying lately,’ another offered.

  ‘Blast,’ one of the older teachers. ‘Thought we’d knocked that on the head.’

  ‘Who is it this time?’

  A new voice. ‘That Wiseman lad.’

  ‘I think you’ll find Wiseman’s been warned off.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Yes. And no marks for guessing who.’

  ‘Meston again?’

  ‘On the money. Saw Willie cornering Wiseman when I was on playground duty the other day. Come to think of it, your wee friend Kieran was with him.’

  ‘Keiran?’ she jumped, slopping tea onto the table.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With Willie Meston?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Dammit. Something was up. Something serious. Maggie would have to move fast if she didn’t want to see a whole year of painstaking work go down the drain.

  Dug in

  ‘Must do your head in.’ Fatboy lounged on Kym’s settee.

  ‘What?’ She raised a tousled head.

  Fatboy eyed the row of kids on the rug. ‘Looking after this lot.’

  ‘I’m not bothered.’

  Kym really wasn’t bothered. She hadn’t been bothered about too much these past few days, not since she’d managed to cadge a few Vals off Fatboy. This week, she hadn’t needed to buy nearly so much booze down the shop to get high. The weans hadn’t given her so much grief either, hers or the others. She sighed. She’d been that stressed this past while, ever since the Health Centre had said there were strict new rules on prescribing Temazepam. She gnawed at her cuticles. Maybe this new fella could get her a regular supply.

  ‘See, you know what I think?’ Fatboy leaned in towards her. ‘You might not want to admit it, but I bet this lot would try the patience of a saint.’

  Kym pulled a face. ‘Some days.’

  ‘Told you.’

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, then, ‘What do you do to unwind?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘In the evenings,’ Fatboy persisted. ‘After you’ve got rid of them.’

  ‘Make my own kids their dinner. Put them to bed.’

  He frowned. ‘I’d forgotten some of them are yours. But don’t you ever get out? On the ran-dan,’ he leered. ‘You know – clubbing?’

  Kym scowled. ‘As if.’

  ‘Not even the pub?’

  She snorted. ‘What d’you think I’d use for cash?’

  ‘Oh, come on, you must be earning a fair bit off this lot.’

  ‘Not as much as you’d think.’

  Fatboy smirked. ‘My heart bleeds.’

  She drew herself up. ‘I’m giving it to you straight.’

  Kym wished Fatboy had never mentioned the pub. She was gasping for a drink. Any kind of drink. Fuck! These Valium tablets mustn’t be the same strength as the last lot she’d had. Or maybe she was just getting used to them. She closed her eyes. Tried to visualise the shelves behind the corner shop counter. Zero in on the spirits. The last time she’d been in the shop, she’d got a warning. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get banned altogether. Not that she wouldn’t be in good company. Willie Meston had long been banned from the place, Ryan Brebner too. It was where both boys had served their apprenticeship in shoplifting. But Kym couldn’t afford to be banned. The licensed grocer was handy for her flat, the only place within spitting distance she could get a bevvy.

  ‘Penny for them?’

  Kym’s eyes opened.

  ‘Penny for what?’ she muttered.

  ‘Aren’t you the crosspatch today?’ Fatboy responded cheerily.

  Her head reeled. In front of her, Fatboy’s face swam out of focus.

  He rooted around his trouser pocket. ‘Away and treat yourself.’ In the blurred face there was a sudden flash of teeth.

  Kym felt something being pressed into her palm.

  She opened her hand. Looked down at the note. Looked at the children. Looked back at Fatboy. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Away and get yourself something.’

  Kym salivated. ‘Out of here, is that what you’re saying?’ Feverishly, she tried to calculate what Fatboy’s note would buy her.

  He grinned. ‘Why not?’

  ‘But the kids…’

  ‘Don’t you worry about the kids.’

  Her face lit up. ‘Thanks a bunch.’ She peeled herself off the settee. ‘I’ll away and get my coat.’

  x

  ‘Fatboy,’ a pudgy girl with a pudding-bowl haircut piped up, ‘what are we going to do now?’

  He looked up. On the television screen, the CBeebies credits were rolling. ‘Dunno.’

  They’d been docile enough: four boys and two girls ranging in age from two to almost five years old. Fatboy glanced at his watch. It would be a while yet before he could expect to have sight of Willie Meston. ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘Play a game?’

  ‘What kind of game?’ he asked cautiously.

  Fatboy assumed Kym did some sort of activities with the kids – building bricks, finger painting, whatever it was you did with small children. First thing, probably. When the mothers dropped them off. Before Kym got herself tanked.

  ‘Hide and Seek,’ there was a yell from one of the boys.

  ‘Oh, alright, then,’ Fatboy hauled himself to his feet. He could remember that one. Somebody would go off and hide. The rest of them would go looking. He could stay put. Piece of cake.

  ‘Who’s going to hide?’ he demanded.

  ‘Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.’

  Six pairs of hands shot in the air.

  Six pairs of eyes watched him expectantly.

  ‘You can’t all be the one to hide.’ He did a quick head count. ‘Kyle, you go first.’ Ryan’s wee brother was almost four and a favourite of Fatboy’s, in part because Ryan’s connection to Willie had facilitated an entree to the flat, but also because he was an engaging kid: blond, blue-eyed and bright as a button.

  ‘Oh, but…’

  ‘Shut it,’ Fatboy’s temper flared. ‘Kyle’s going first. The rest of you will get a turn when I tell you.’

  Maggie Practises Surveillance

  Maggie took up position in a side street. She’d skipped out fifteen minutes before the bell. She was determined to get to the bottom of whatever was bothering Kieran Chalmers, had no intention of letting the classroom hours she’d put in with him go to waste. She might have drawn a blank for the moment with Jimmy Craigmyle, but she could use the intervening time to develop her skills as an investigator.

  The previous evening she’d mugged up on surveillance techniques. The research would stand her in good stead. If Willie Meston was up to something with her star pupil, Maggie would nip it in the bud.

 
She’d procured the addresses of all four boys, Kieran and Ryan with relative ease, for it was straightforward enough to conduct a fishing exercise whilst the lads were attending Learning Support. Lewis had taken a little more time, for the boy’s difficulties were such he became easily confused, and she had to winkle the information out of him. Willie Meston was a different matter – too streetwise by far to fall for a facile enquiry, so Maggie had resorted to the school office. Luckily, she was on good terms with the secretary, had managed to extract the information without invoking Data Protection.

  It was a clear day, a watery sun bouncing its rays off the checkered windowpanes of the high flats, a soft sea breeze cooling Maggie’s cheeks. On either side of her, the three-storey flats offered a blank facade. They were set back from the street behind low railings and dusty aprons of grass. She cursed the advent of security entry. Time was, you could stand in a lobby and nobody would think anything of it. Now, even if she were to find a main door wedged open or a security entry faulty, she’d most likely be challenged.

  Maggie watched as the procession of mums and kids and buggies advanced up Seaton Road, pausing now and again to pick up a dropped toy, hitch up a schoolbag, light a fag. Kids on scooters were chided as they strayed off the pavement. There was the occasional cuff to the back of the head. She strained forward, trying to catch a glimpse of Kieran. Suddenly, there he was – a slight figure, the slick of dark hair flanked on either side by the shaved heads of Willie and Ryan, Lewis’s awkward figure bringing up the rear. Maggie switched to full alert. Followed them with her eyes as they came towards her. At the junction with School Road they stopped, stood for a moment in huddled conversation, then scattered in four different directions. Damn and blast! Why hadn’t she anticipated that? And she’d been hoping to nail at least two of them that afternoon. Be decisive, woman! She made a split-second decision. It would have to be Willie. She upped her pace and set off after him, shadowing the boy from a discreet distance on the opposite side of the road.

  ‘Got a light?’ A young lad blocked her path.

  Sod it! She stepped smartly aside, trying to keep Willie Meston in sight.

  The lad mirrored her action, cigarette waving in one hand.

  Maggie watched as Willie turned a corner and disappeared from view.

  Roughly, she pushed past. ‘Sorry,’ she called over her shoulder as she sprinted up School Road.

  Maggie crouched between two parked cars. Mindful of the information she’d gleaned – keep changing your appearance, for one – she tugged on a black woollen hat over her red curls.

  She was just in time to catch Willie Meston disappearing into one of the four-in-a-block flats. She breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Where Willie went, the rest would surely follow.

  She shifted position. She’d only been outside the Meston home for a few minutes, and already her thighs were aching and she had pins and needles in her calves. She raised her head and peered through the dusty glass of the car windows.

  ‘What are ye up tae?’ A wee wifie pushing a shopping trolley stopped in her tracks.

  ‘Oh…’ Maggie ad-libbed. ‘Managed to lock myself out of my car,’.

  The old woman tsk-tsked, but continued on her way.

  Now she’d been spotted, Maggie decided to change location. She cast around. Apart from the cars, there wasn’t a thing on the street except for a clutch of giant black wheelie bins. She made a dash for them and squeezed into the narrow space in between. For just a moment, she wondered what George would make of this. Then she turned to speculating on what Willie Meston was doing – getting changed? Having his tea?

  Maggie jumped when she heard the door to the close mouth click shut. She observed Willie wheel his bike down the path, mount, pedal off at a lick. Oh, to hell! When she’d planned that day’s operation, she hadn’t factored in bikes. She extracted herself from her hiding place and made a beeline for the school. She jogged down the road, her breath coming in shallow gasps, crossed the road and reached the safety of her car.

  Maggie drove up School Road, eyes swivelling left and right. There was no sign of Willie or his bike. She pulled over. Was trying to formulate a plan of action when Kieran shot out of a side road. Keeping the boy’s bicycle in sight, she hugged the kerb, letting the steady stream of traffic overtake her. She saw Kieran swing across the road and mount the pavement, watched him squeeze on his brakes and come to a halt outside the parade of shops on the corner of King Street. Maggie parked some way back. Her pulse quickened as Willie Meston emerged from the shadow of the local chippie. She craned her neck. Observed Kieran and Willie confer. It couldn’t have been five minutes before Ryan Brebner appeared from the opposite direction, his wee brother Kyle riding pillion. A few minutes after that, Lewis McHardy pedalled laboriously into view.

  The boys remounted their bicycles. At the traffic lights they crossed to the Spar shop then sprinted furiously up St Machar Drive. Maggie pulled out from the kerb. As she approached the junction, the lights changed from green to amber. She floored the accelerator. The car shot forward, narrowly missing a white van that was trying to make a right turn. The van’s driver hit his horn. She spied one of the boys turn back. Helplessly, she watched as they disappeared from view.

  Maggie sped up the hill and took a right into Dunbar Street. Nerve ends tingling, she nosed the car round the bend. On her left, one of Old Aberdeen’s many historic houses proclaimed Bishop’s Gate. Opposite, a pair of semi-detached bungalows presented a prim view. Of the boys there was no sign.

  The car crawled forward, passing a small road on the right. At the top of a slight hill, she spied a jumble of bikes on their sides, wheels slowly spinning. Swiftly, she put the car into reverse. She was about to turn the wheel when she noticed the ‘No Entry’ signs. Bugger! She pulled into the kerb and leapt out of the car, not even bothering to activate the central locking.

  Maggie crept stealthily up the Chanonry. Part-way, she stopped. She looked around. To her right, an ancient house sat blank-faced on the road. To her left, a high stone wall traced the contours of the incline. Her eyes darted from the bikes to the wall, to the house and back to the bikes. And then she saw it. The waste ground sloped from Seaton Park to the backs of the houses on Don Street. It was bounded by a pair of tall iron gates secured by a stout padlock and chain. They and the railings alongside must have been three metres high. Quite a challenge for those kids, for that piece of scrubland was the only place they could be. They’d have had to hoist the wee lad over, she reckoned. Maggie never ceased to wonder at the ingenuity of small boys.

  So that’s all they were up to? She smiled quietly to herself. Her eyes took in the knee-high rough grass, the dense canopy of trees. What could be more fun, she mused, than to seek adventure in such a place? More stimulating, surely, than the drab streets of Seaton or the wind-whipped forecourts of the high rises.

  Maggie was retreating down the hill when a voice cried out. It sounded like Lewis, though she couldn’t be sure. Anxious, she turned. There was silence then. For long moments she stood, ears pricked. Then, satisfied, she turned back and headed for her car.

  Keep Digging

  ‘Have you got anything for me?’ Brian had barely sat down when Maggie came out with it.

  ‘Jimmy Craigmyle? Not a lot,’ he shrugged an apology. ‘But first, let me get you some tea.’

  She made to rise. ‘My turn.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ He got to his feet, placed a hand on her shoulder.

  Maggie felt a frisson of excitement. She turned her head, regarded the strong fingers as they pressed her back into her seat. Ever the gentleman. She watched as he made his way to the counter. That was something she’d always admired about Brian. Not that George didn’t have good manners. It was just that he had a quieter way of showing his feelings.

  Her pelvic muscles clenched. She let out a deep exhalation. Already she was losing all sensation of him, the husba
nd who’d been her support and her consolation for all those years: the solid curve of his back, the way his fingers felt on her skin, that feeling when he…

  ‘How have you been?’ Brian set down a tray.

  ‘Oh,’ startled, she looked up. She was ashamed by her physical reaction. Wondered whether her body was telling her she reciprocated Brian’s feelings, or if her response was simply some primal need for human contact. Like when she’d clambered onto that gurney. Maggie shuddered as she recalled once more the sensation of George’s ice-cold body beneath her own. She’d wished herself dead that day. Like an Indian widow performing suttee, the thought occurred to her now. But she had to survive – for her children’s sake, if not her own. And not just survive, but be resolute and fearless if she were to bring her plan to fruition and achieve justice for George.

  Briskly, she brought her mind back to the present. ‘I’m back at work, running around like a mad thing.’

  ‘You’re looking good on it.’

  ‘Must be the kids. They always perk me up. But I didn’t ask you here to talk about me, Brian. It’s Jimmy Craigmyle who’s my number-one priority. Once I’ve spoken to him, I can…’

  ‘Let me stop you there.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t managed to run him down?’

  ‘No. I asked around the Force. Folk confirmed what I’d heard – Jimmy’s marriage broke up, right enough.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maggie couldn’t mask her disappointment. Running down Craigmyle was crucial to her action plan. ‘Has he moved away, then?’

  ‘No, still in Aberdeen, from what I can gather.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Bedsit down Crown Street, I believe.’

  ‘Great,’ she sat up. ‘Have you got an address?’

  ‘Fraid not.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll probably manage to find him.’

  ‘Somebody said they’d seen him down Windmill Brae. He’s maybe working at that club. Used to be called Venue. God knows what they’re calling it this week – changes its name that often.’