by Alan Parks
‘And where is he now?’ asked Murray.
‘Flat in Whitevale Street in Dennistoun,’ said McCoy.
‘Bit of a comedown for a doctor, isn’t it?’ said Murray, picking up the last biscuit. ‘Go and pay this nutter a visit, see if he’s heard from Connolly.’
‘Will do,’ said McCoy. He stood up. ‘Come on, Casanova. You can drive.’
*
Three o’clock and it was already getting dark. The joys of Glasgow in the winter. McCoy yawned, watched an ambulance speed into the Royal, lights and siren going. He found his cigarettes in his pocket, pushed in the lighter on the dashboard. Waited for it to pop out.
‘What is a lobotomy?’ asked Wattie.
‘Eh?’ said McCoy.
Wattie looked sheepish. ‘I’m no sure what it is, exactly.’
McCoy lit his cigarette off the glowing element, put it back in the hole. ‘They cut the front part of your brain out.’
Wattie winced. ‘What does that do?’
‘Makes you calm. So calm you don’t know who you are or what the fuck is going on. Makes you a bit of a vegetable. Eh, right here.’
Wattie indicated, waited for a gap in the traffic on Duke Street, turned in. Eighteen Whitevale Street was opposite St Anne’s Church. Had to park further down the road, funeral cars just about filling the whole street. Wattie took the keys out the ignition, nodded at the crowd of people coming out the front door.
‘Must have been popular, whoever he was.’
‘Everybody’s popular when they’re dead,’ said McCoy. ‘Not around to annoy you any more.’
‘Fuck sake,’ said Wattie. ‘I’d forgotten what a cheery bastard you were.’
They made their way through the crowd of mourners and climbed up the stairs. Top bloody floor as usual. Was a neat close, tiles on the walls, smell of bleach coming off the wet steps. Wattie knocked on the door. No response, he knocked again.
‘He’s no in. And don’t mess up my bloody stairs. I’ve just done them.’
They turned. Door across the landing had opened and a middle-aged woman wearing a flowery pinny was standing there.
‘It’s Tuesday. Be on Saracen Street,’ she said.
‘He’ll be on Saracen Street?’ asked McCoy. ‘What? Does he work there?’
She shook her head, looked at them like they were daft. Started recounting by rote. ‘Monday Argyle Street, Tuesday Saracen Street, Wednesday Victoria Road, Thursday Sauchiehall Street, Friday Byres Road. Never changes.’
‘And what does he do on these streets?’ asked Wattie.
‘Walks up and down. You cannae miss him,’ she said and shut the door.
They looked at each other. Wattie shrugged. ‘Search me.’
Amazing how trusting people are. A simple knock on the door was all it took. And now I’m here. The thing in the bath is making a noise so I stamp on its face a few times. Blood bursts out from under the duct tape and pools round its head.
Last night I thought I saw the light go back into the bulb when I switched the light off. My abilities are increasing. I am maintaining equilibrium. Same amount out as went in. Nothing left behind. No dead food or dead water or dead air polluting my body. Headache gone. Knew it would when I came in that girl. Gave her two quid extra.
In my pockets I have two Mars Bars, two grams of speed, sixteen Mandies and a bottle of Irn-Bru. Enough to last a couple of days.
I flick through his wardrobe, same size as me. A couple of nice suits, shirts. I try on a pair of shoes. Brogues. Lobb’s. They fit me perfectly. Things are aligning. I smile.
In the kitchen I look at the half-eaten bowl of cornflakes, the folded paper, the cold coffee. Having his breakfast, looking forward to another day. Another day of clocking in and doing what you are told. Maybe he will thank me.
THIRTEEN
Turned out the woman with the pinny was right. Abrahams wasn’t difficult to spot. Not difficult at all. They’d parked by the library, just started walking up Saracen Street when Wattie stopped, pointed up ahead.
‘That’ll be him then,’ he said.
McCoy took a look, heart sank.
Dr Abrahams was a small neat man, car coat, flat cap, wee round specs, the kind of man you wouldn’t notice unless, like Abrahams, he was carrying a dirty big sign on the end of a stick. Hand-painted, very neat, looked like he’d used those wee enamel paints you get to paint Airfix models. Waterproof. Just as well, the rain had started up again.
McCoy read the sign out: ‘Depression! Nymphomania! Drunkenness! Anxiety! Hysteria! Melancholia! Mania! All can be cured by LOBOTOMY. Ask me why the GOVERNMENT won’t allow it.’
‘Christ,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Why us?’
They stood and waited as he walked down the street towards them. People mostly ignored him, seen him before, too busy going in and out the shops or trying to pick out their own bus in the steady stream of them heading up to Lambhill and Springburn. Some school kids, brown paper bags of steaming chips in hands, laughed as they walked past. Boldest one shouted, ‘Loony!’ before they ran.
A woman in a man’s duffel coat with a hairnet and no teeth took one of his wee pamphlets, promised to read it. McCoy stepped out from the butcher shop awning they were sheltering under as Abrahams approached.
‘Dr Abrahams, can we buy you a cup of tea, have a chat?’
The wee man looked doubtful. ‘Are you followers of my crusade?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t seen you before.’
‘Not exactly,’ said McCoy. ‘But you can tell us all about it. C’mon, it’s pissing down.’
They walked back up Saracen Street towards Joe’s. Streetlights had come on, shop windows lit up in the gloom of a rainy winter afternoon. The bell above the door rang as they stepped into the cafe. It was a wee place, typical tally cafe. Window steamed up in the cold, smell of coffee, hot milk and salt and vinegar. List of ice cream prices on the wall amongst the cigarette adverts and the pictures of celebrities who had been in. A middling crop. Lulu, Bill Tennent, Mary Marquis, Moira Anderson and, for some reason, Alvin Stardust. Some kids hyped-up on Coca-Cola, ice cream and sweeties stood up to go and Wattie commandeered their table.
‘You order at the counter,’ said Abrahams, still looking suspicious.
McCoy walked up, man behind it had his wee notebook out already writing. ‘One hot orange and one hot peas for the Prof.’ He looked up. ‘What he always has. What you two boys want?’
‘Couple of teas,’ said McCoy.
The man nodded, pulled the page out of the wee notebook, handed it to a tired-looking woman with a failing beehive hairdo. Smiled. ‘Sit down, be right over.’
Abrahams carefully leant his sign against the plastic-covered bench seats, dug in his wee bag of pamphlets and handed them one each. Red capital letters on the front. As big as they could get and still fit on the page.
THE CONSPIRACY TO STOP THE PRACTICE OF LOBOTOMY AND ITS DETRIMENTAL EFFECT ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THIS COUNTRY BY DR GEORGE ABRAHAMS MRCPsych
McCoy looked at it, flicked through a few pages. More red capitals, diagrams of brains. More exclamation marks.
‘Print this up yourself, did ye?’ he asked.
Abrahams nodded. ‘I had to.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said McCoy. ‘There’s a mistake on it.’
Abrahams looked doubtful. ‘I don’t think so. I proofread it myself. If there was a mistake I’m sure I would have noticed it. Maybe there’s just some terms you are unfamiliar with?’ He picked up the pamphlet, started flicking through. Looked up at them. ‘Where is the mistake?’
McCoy took the pamphlet, closed it, tapped the front. ‘Right there on the front cover.’
Abrahams stared at the front cover. ‘I don’t see any mistake.’
‘No? It says you’re a doctor. Not any more you’re not.’
‘Peas, hot orange for the Prof. Teas for you, lads. Sugar and milk’s there on the table. You need anything else give me a shout.’ They sat in silence as the man put the stuff down on the tabl
e, faffed about with the teaspoons and the serviettes. Waited for him to leave.
‘What do you want?’ asked Abrahams flatly.
McCoy took out his police warrant card. Put it on the table. ‘No need for alarm, Mr Abrahams. Just a chat about your old pal, Kevin Connolly.’
‘Kevin Connolly?’ Abrahams looked blank. Or more accurately tried to look blank.
‘Can’t remember him? Funny that.’ McCoy pulled the plate of hot peas towards himself. ‘Sooner you remember who he is, sooner you can eat your peas and we’ll be on our way.’
Abrahams looked defeated. ‘He was my cellmate. After my trouble. In Barlinnie.’
‘Your trouble?’ said McCoy, smiling. ‘That’s a nice way of putting it. Not sure that’s how the lassie’s parents saw it but hey ho.’
Abrahams looked exasperated. ‘If they only had the wisdom to see what benefits a lobotomy—’
McCoy held up his hand. ‘Can it. You can keep that shite for your pamphlets. So, Connolly and your good self. How did that go? Two of you stuck in that wee cell twenty-three hours a day?’
Abrahams took off his glasses, started polishing one of the lenses on his serviette. ‘It was difficult for me. Very difficult. Kevin Connolly was a psychopath.’ He put his glasses back on, blinked a few times. ‘I was a psychiatrist for almost twenty years, worked in institutions up and down the country, dealt with many men who had committed terrible, violent acts, and in those twenty years I can safely say he was the only real psychopath I ever met.’
He looked up at them, smiled weakly. ‘A perfect specimen in some ways.’
‘And you were locked in a cell with him,’ said McCoy.
Abrahams nodded, tried to swallow. Took a drink of his hot orange. ‘I wasn’t sure I was going to get out of there alive. Not sure I slept properly for the three months he was in there with me.’
‘Did he threaten you?’ asked Wattie.
Abrahams shook his head. ‘Quite the opposite. Was studiously polite. Read his books most of the day. Very fond of Sven Hassel. Gory books about the war, concentration camps, that sort of thing. True Detective magazines.’
‘How did you know he was a psychopath?’ asked McCoy.
Abrahams took a packet of ten Regal out his pocket, took a nipped one out and lit it up, hand shaking as he held the match to it. ‘I had never been to prison, I wasn’t sure of the etiquette. One night we were in our bunks, after lights out. Was a scorching night, nobody could sleep. We were talking about all sorts, seemed to be in a good mood. I asked him what he had done to be in there.’
Abrahams looked at them again. He looked scared somehow, like he was frightened to even talk about Connolly. ‘So he told me. In great and explicit detail. Then he told me all the other things he’d done that he hadn’t been caught for.’ He took another deep draw on the hot orange. ‘The worst thing was that I could hear him masturbating as he told me.’
‘Fuck,’ said Wattie.
Abrahams smiled. ‘Not quite what I was used to. After that I started to ask him questions from the Standard Test.’
‘Standard Test?’ asked McCoy.
He nodded. ‘There are various ones, all fairly similar. It’s just a standard set of wide-ranging statements, the patient answers yes or no to each question. It helps determine a diagnosis.’
‘What kind of statements?’ asked McCoy.
‘Let me think, I’m a little rusty these days.’ He paused for a minute, remembered. ‘Evil spirits possess me at times. I have nightmares every few nights. My sleep is fitful and disturbed.’ He smiled. ‘One you’ll like: I enjoy detective or mystery stories.’
‘How did he react to the test?’ asked McCoy.
‘I didn’t ask him the questions directly, was too frightened he would know what I was up to and react badly. A couple of questions a day, maybe, in passing conversation. Disguised.’
‘How? asked McCoy.
‘Well, I wouldn’t ask, “Are you easily awakened by noise?” I’d say, “Did you hear the noise last night? Think someone was banging the doors?” That sort of thing. Didn’t take too many questions to prove what I already knew.’ He shrugged. ‘That he was a psychopath.’
‘You ever seen him since?’ asked McCoy.
Abrahams shook his head. ‘Thankfully not.’
‘Any idea where he would be?’
He shook his head again. ‘No idea. If I were to guess I’d say back in prison. Or dead by his own hand.’
McCoy pushed the dish of peas back towards Abrahams and they stood up to go.
‘Any chance he contacts you, let us know.’
Abrahams nodded. Picked the two pamphlets up off the table, held them out. ‘You’ve forgotten your pamphlets. If you wish some more for your colleagues there’s an address on the back.’
FOURTEEN
The rain was still on when McCoy left the shop. To his amazement, Mary had actually called him. Maybe their night together hadn’t been that bad after all, or more likely he was kidding himself and she just wanted to trade. After all, it was one drunken night a few years ago, hardly the romance of the century. To be honest, it was hard to remember how their night had gone, the two of them were so drunk and stoned. Still. He checked his watch. Was running early so he stepped into the Red Lion in West Nile Street for one. Hair of yesterday’s dog.
The smoky wee pub was mobbed, mostly men propping up the bar and a group of women from the wet fish shop across the road in one corner. Were always in here after work, all perms and clouds of Capstan. He stood at the bar and ordered a Tennent’s, took his damp coat off, shook it and put it up on the bar. Went to pay the barman and found the pamphlet in his pocket. Funny wee guy, that Abrahams. Had to have been something at one time, psychiatrist at Ninewells in Dundee; now he was reduced to wandering the streets with a sign telling the world lobotomies were a good thing.
His auntie had had one. Auntie Mary, his dad’s oldest sister. Been in and out of mental hospitals for years then she came home for the weekend with a big smile on her face. Didn’t have a fucking clue where she was or what was going on but didn’t seem to mind. Maybe Abrahams was right. Maybe someone like her was happier with the operation after all.
Maybe Joe Brady would have been better with one. Maybe then he wouldn’t have hung himself. Maybe he’d have been better off not able to remember anything. The priest at Hopehill Road was right, he knew exactly what Joe had told him in the confession box. He knew because he could still remember them all, each and every one. Uncle Kenny, Father Trent, Mr Just-Call-Me-Daddy, all those fuckers who used to turn up at the home. Smiling, giving you sweeties, asking if you wanted a ride in their big posh car. Made you wonder how many other kids had turned out like Joe, too damaged by what happened to go on any longer.
Boys like him and Stevie. Taken from ‘unsafe families’ they used to say. Placed into care for their own protection. Wasn’t even ironic, it was just horrible. And he couldn’t deny it, knew it wasn’t really going to change anything, but he was really going to enjoy kicking fuck out of dear old Uncle Kenny. Kicking the fat fucker until he was bleeding and crying and pleading for mercy. Just like he had been.
Smell of wet fish and cigarette smoke alerted him that one of the fish-shop women had nudged in beside him at the bar.
‘What’s up with you, son?’ She was peering at him through blue cat’s eye glasses. ‘Look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
He smiled at her. Told her he was fine, just thinking. She nodded, held up her glass. ‘Have a whisky. It’ll help. Good for the brain.’
He bought her one, bought himself one too. They clinked glasses and chucked them back. She said thanks, made her way back through the crowd towards their corner. Sweetheart Stout tin tray covered in port and sherry glasses held out in front of her, Capstan hanging out her mouth.
In a way she was right. He had seen a ghost. Just wasn’t quite sure who it was. He looked at himself in the mirror above the gantry. Him or Joe Brady or Uncle Kenny? Knew thinking about this stuff wasn�
��t going to do him any good so he finished his pint, put his coat on. Time to do his real job, try and find out what the fuck was going on with Elaine Scobie and Kevin Connolly.
McCoy nodded at the doorman in his peaked cap and uniform as he held the door of Rogano’s open for him. Tried not to feel the man was looking down on him. After all, he had a suit, a tie and an overcoat on, problem was they weren’t the right ones. Not expensive enough. Rogano’s was the kind of place Archie Lomax and his chums frequented. Lawyers and businessmen who had gone to the same schools and same universities, were members of the same golf clubs and lodges. Not people like him who had grown up in care and still bought their clothes in the Burton’s sale.
He left his coat in the cloakroom at the door, smoothed himself down and wandered into the front bar. Rogano’s had been built in the ’30s and hadn’t changed since. It was like stepping aboard an art deco ocean liner, all bird’s eye maple and flowing lines. He squeezed into the bar beside an advocate he recognised from the High Court and ordered a whisky and water. He really wanted a beer but he wasn’t sure if they sold it and he wasn’t going to ask. He’d just recovered from what the drink cost and put the glass to his lips, when he heard her.
‘Harry McCoy? What are you doing here?’
He turned to see Mary and Elaine sitting in a dimly lit booth, bottle of red wine on the table in front of them. Elaine was dressed to kill, black dress with low neckline, hair slicked back. Mary seemed to be wearing some sort of American baseball jacket and a cloth cap. He walked over.
‘Mary, Miss Scobie. Small world.’
‘Sure is,’ said Mary. ‘I didn’t know you two knew each other?’
‘We don’t,’ said Elaine. ‘He interviewed me this morning.’
McCoy waited for the invitation to sit down that didn’t come. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘I’ll be off, I just dropped in for a nightcap.’
‘That a habit of yours, Mr McCoy?’ said Elaine, taking a cigarette from Mary’s packet on the table and lighting up. ‘A nightcap at Rogano’s?’