February's Son

by Alan Parks

  And then Scobie opened his eyes.

  McCoy dropped his cup of Bovril into the river. Thomson started swearing and Wattie started running.

  Thomson found his radio, started barking into it, calling for an ambulance. Wattie ran along the bridge, vaulted the fence by the walkway and started climbing down to the riverbank, pushing his way through the rhododendron bushes and long grass, snow flying everywhere.

  ‘Where the fuck’s he going?’ asked Thomson as his radio started squawking.

  McCoy shook his head. ‘Christ only knows, maybe just trying to get a closer look.’ Then it hit him. ‘Oh fuck. He’s not going in, is he?’

  Wattie had reached the river’s edge now and was bent over, unlacing his shoes.

  Thomson looked horrified. ‘For fuck sake, the stupid arse’s gonnae drown himself.’

  They started running along the bridge, desperately trying not to slip, and down onto the bank. Thomson was ahead, pushing his way through the bushes. Snow going all over them. By the time they got down to the bank Wattie had stripped down to his trousers, vest and socks. Now he was this close, McCoy could see how fast the river was going, swollen with snowmelt, how dangerous it looked.

  Thomson grabbed Wattie’s arm. ‘No way! And that’s a bloody order. You’ll drown or you’ll freeze. We have to wait. It’s not safe.’

  McCoy was bent over, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. ‘C’mon, Wattie, don’t be stupid. It’s too bloody dangerous.’

  Wattie pulled the vest over his head and started undoing his belt. ‘He’s still alive. It’s worth trying. Can either of you two swim?’

  Thomson looked sheepish and shook his head.

  ‘I can,’ said McCoy. ‘But that’s not the point, the water’s too fast—’

  ‘I swam for the county. I’ve got a lifesaver’s badge. I did five miles in the fucking sea off Arran!’ He looked at Thomson and McCoy. ‘You can’t swim and you’re just back after being battered to fuck. It’s me or it’s nobody. What’s it going to be?’

  Thomson looked at McCoy. McCoy looked at Thomson. Neither of them knew what to say.

  Wattie looked back and forward at them. ‘For fuck sake! Come on! Make a bloody decision!’

  ‘You sure you can do it?’ asked Thomson.

  ‘I’m sure!’ said Wattie. And standing there he looked like he could. Big shoulder and arm muscles, broad chest.

  Thomson nodded his head. ‘Okay. Go.’

  Wattie pushed his trousers down, peeled his socks off and started wading into the icy water in his skivvies.

  ‘Don’t do anything fucking stupid,’ McCoy shouted.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, just get the ambulance,’ Wattie shouted back.

  McCoy took out his cigarettes, couldn’t find his matches. Thomson got out his lighter and held it to McCoy’s cigarette then his own. ‘I can’t fucking believe this.’ Thomson turned to McCoy. ‘What should I have told him?’

  ‘He wanted to go. He’s got the best chance of any of us. You did the right thing,’ McCoy said, not sure he believed it.

  Wattie was chest-deep now. On the opposite bank a fox was watching them, sniffing the air. Wattie took a deep breath and dived under the water, re-emerged a few yards upstream and started to do the crawl towards the island of rock and branches where Scobie was caught up.

  He was battling hard but he didn’t seem to be making much progress; every time he made some headway towards the island the current pushed him back. He stopped for a minute, treading water, looking round to get his bearings. Before he could start swimming forward again the current seemed to overcome him and his head went under, the water carrying him away from the island and down under the bridge they’d been standing on.

  ‘Fuck sake!’ Thomson was running back and forward on the bank, trying to spot him in the fast-moving water. ‘Can you see him? Christ! All this for Jake fucking Scobie!’

  McCoy scanned the water. No luck. All he could see was browny-grey water and the occasional branch caught in the current. The uniforms on the bridge started shouting. He looked up. They were hanging over the bridge, pointing down beneath them.

  Wattie was hanging on to the edge of the bridge. He looked frozen, his face and shoulders pale against the stone, lips blue.

  Thomson splashed into the river, shouting at the top of his voice, trying to make himself heard above the rushing river. ‘Stay there, Wattie! Don’t fucking move! We’ll come to you!’

  He turned back to McCoy, his voice full of panic. ‘Can he hear me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  McCoy didn’t know whether he heard him or not, but the next thing he knew Wattie’d taken a deep breath and pushed himself off from the bridge, swimming back upriver towards Scobie. McCoy groaned and Thomson started swearing.

  Wattie stopped, treading water again, head swivelling from side to side, trying to gauge how far he was from Scobie. The current started pulling him back but he was swimming hard against it, slowly getting nearer and nearer to the island.

  McCoy was muttering under his breath, ‘Come on, Wattie, come on.’ Felt sick in his stomach, wished he hadn’t let him go in.

  A last push and Wattie managed to get level, grabbed onto one of the branches and pulled himself up next to Scobie’s broken body.

  The uniforms on the bridge started clapping and hollering. Thomson grabbed McCoy, hugged him and they started jumping up and down.

  ‘He did it! He fucking did it!’

  Wattie lay on the little island panting, exhausted. He leant over, stuck his hand into Scobie’s mouth and scooped out some dirt and leaves. Scobie started coughing, spluttered, vomited up a gush of river water.

  ‘He’s alive!’ Wattie shouted.

  ‘Stay there!’ shouted McCoy. ‘Stay there, Wattie! Don’t move! We’ll get a rope! We’ll get you out!’

  Wattie raised a tired hand in acknowledgement and then he did the one thing McCoy hoped he wouldn’t. He cupped Scobie under his chin, let go of the branch, and they both slipped back into the river.

  ‘No!’ shouted Thomson, voice echoing round the silent park. ‘I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him! Can he no fucking listen?’ He was stabbing at the buttons on his radio, trying to get reception. ‘I swear the minute he gets out the fucking water he’s dead.’

  Wattie was trying to swim back towards the bank, holding Scobie’s head on his chest, keeping it free of the water. Scobie’s head was lolling from side to side, eyes glassy, it didn’t look like he even knew what was going on.

  Wattie just looked exhausted, face contorted with the strain of trying to hold Scobie’s head above the water while fighting the current. He was shouting something but McCoy couldn’t make it out above the rush of the water.

  ‘What?’ shouted McCoy ‘What?’ He grabbed at Thomson. ‘What is it? What’s he saying?’

  Thomson turned to him, his face gone white. ‘He’s saying he can’t hold on any longer.’

  McCoy let out a moan. ‘For fuck sake! Can’t we do something?’

  Thomson stood there, suit soaking, looking at the water, useless radio in his hand. ‘I don’t know what to do, Harry,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know what to do. I let him go, I shouldn’t have fucking let him go.’

  McCoy ran into the water, cold hitting him, shouting at Wattie to hold on. Wattie was having difficulty keeping his head up; he dipped under the water once but he came back up.

  ‘Just hold on, Wattie!’ McCoy shouted. ‘Just hold on!’

  And then he went under again.

  McCoy scanned the river, tried to run towards the bridge and fell into the icy water. He got back up, spluttering, shock of the cold, looking for Wattie’s head to bob back up, for his big stupid face and dirty blond hair to appear out of the water, but it didn’t.

  He stopped running and just stood in the freezing water, concentrating hard on spotting him. He waited and waited, praying under his breath, but Wattie’s head didn’t reappear.

  A shout from
the bridge and McCoy looked up. Big Gordy was pointing down, over towards the far bank. McCoy caught sight of Wattie and Scobie spinning round in the current, half submerged in the muddy water. Scobie drifted free, Wattie’s grip must have gone.

  ‘Wattie! Wattie! Get out the water! Leave him!’ he shouted.

  He thought he saw Wattie nod, and then the water closed over his head.

  ‘Wattie!’ he screamed. ‘Wattie!’

  He could hear a distant siren, saw the fox turn and disappear into the bushes. Stood there and watched as the river swept the two bodies under the bridge, down the river and out of sight.

  The uniforms up on the bridge weren’t hollering or clapping any more, just staring at the river where Wattie had gone under. McCoy trudged out of the water, got up onto the bank. Thomson was sitting on an upturned tree trunk, head in hands.

  ‘I fucking told him. You heard me, Harry, I fucking told him not to go in.’

  McCoy sat down beside him, put his arm round his shoulders. Couldn’t believe what had just happened. Ten minutes earlier, the stupid bugger had been handing him a cup of Bovril and now he was gone. By rights McCoy should have been freezing, but he couldn’t feel anything. He patted Thomson’s back.

  ‘C’mon, Thomson, there was nothing we could do. You tried your best. He was determined to go.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have let him, I shouldn’t have let him go. I shouldn’t . . .’

  Thomson wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his suit. They sat there for a couple of minutes, Thomson telling himself everything he’d done wrong, McCoy telling him he’d done all he could. The radio crackled into life. Murray was here.

  McCoy stood up and wandered over to the bank to see if he could see him up on the bridge. His foot hit against something: Wattie’s clothes. Even in the rush to get in the water, he’d left them in a neat pile on the bank. There was a watch sitting on the top. He leant over and picked it up. It was nothing special, a Timex with a worn leather strap. There was an engraving on the back: Congratulations on graduating from the Academy. Love Mum and Dad.

  McCoy put it in his pocket and picked up the bundle of clothes, turned back to Thomson. ‘C’mon, pal, we can’t do anything here.’

  They walked up the bank, back towards the path, the spinning blue light of the ambulance and the fact that Wattie was gone.

  Murray was standing on the bridge waiting for them. ‘Came over the radio. Boys on the next bridge say they saw two bodies float past.’

  McCoy looked at him. Somehow Murray saying it, knowing it, made it real.

  ‘Maybe he’s okay?’ McCoy said. ‘Just floating, too tired to swim.’

  ‘How long’s he been in the water?’ asked Murray.

  McCoy tried to think.

  ‘About fifteen minutes now,’ said Thomson. ‘Twenty maybe.’

  ‘That’s too long,’ said Murray. ‘The water’s just above freezing.’

  ‘Christ,’ said McCoy. ‘It’s Glasgow! We’re in Glasgow. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  Thomson had walked off to the side, was crying quietly.

  ‘Is that his clothes?’ asked Murray.

  McCoy nodded. ‘And his watch. His mum and dad gave it to him. Inscription on the back.’

  Murray took it off him, read the back. ‘What a stupid fucking waste of a life.’

  McCoy walked over to the side of the bridge, looked down at the water below. Was only starting to sink in now. Heard a radio calling in. Bodies had been spotted at the bridge by the art galleries. He looked over at Murray.

  Murray nodded at him. ‘Come on.’

  McCoy followed him over the bridge.

  SIXTEEN

  ‘Things people’ll do to get in the paper.’ McCoy held up a copy of the Evening Times he’d bought from the paperboy outside the hospital.

  HERO COP SAVES DROWNING MAN

  Wattie sat up in the bed and grinned. He’d been given a private room when they brought him into the Western. Him being a hero after all, he was getting the star treatment. He looked exhausted, still pale, but he was grinning, not that far from his usual self.

  ‘I look like a right arse in the picture,’ he said.

  McCoy turned the paper round. ‘Hate to break it to you but that’s what you always look like.’ He sat down on the chair by the bed.

  ‘I heard you waded in after me,’ said Wattie.

  ‘I waded in to get close enough to tell you to stop being an arse, and then I tripped. You owe me for a new suit. How d’you feel anyway?’

  ‘No too bad.’ He rubbed at a couple of stitches above his eyebrow. ‘Big Gordy did this when he pulled me into the boat, banged my bloody head off the side.’

  ‘Looks good, though,’ said McCoy.

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Aye, makes you look like a right hard bastard.’

  Wattie grinned. ‘That’s a result then. I got a jag in my arse for tetanus and had to drink some horrible thing because of the river water, but other than that I feel okay. Finally warming up. They want me to stay here until the morning, get some rest. As long as I feel okay in the morning they said they’d let me out.’

  McCoy poured himself a glass of Wattie’s Lucozade and lit a cigarette. ‘Murray’s put you in for a gallantry medal. Thomson recommended it.’

  Wattie grinned. ‘Did he? My mum and dad will be pleased.’

  McCoy shook his head. ‘Fuck your mum and dad. Tell one of the wee nurses in here. You’re a real-life hero, with that and the hard man stitches? Her knickers’ll be off in a flash.’

  The uniforms had picked up the two of them about a quarter of a mile down the river, just past the Kelvin Hall. They’d been swept into a wee pool by the Dunaskin Mill. Wattie was fine. Cold and exhausted, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

  ‘I thought you were bloody dead, you know. We all did,’ said McCoy.

  ‘Did you really?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Wattie sat himself up in the bed, grimacing a bit. ‘I just did what I was supposed to. Stopped swimming, conserved my energy, floated until I could see a bit of the bank I could get up on but Gordy got me first.’

  ‘Aye well, don’t ever go in a bloody river again. Hear me?’

  Wattie saluted. ‘How’s Scobie?’

  McCoy sighed. ‘Not good, not expected to come round. You did all you could do, more than anyone could expect.’

  Wattie looked crestfallen. ‘Wasn’t really worth it, though, was it?’

  ‘Don’t do yourself down. It was worth it, more than worth it. For all Connolly knows, he’s sitting up in bed telling us all about it.’ McCoy pointed at the paper. ‘Soon as he picks that up this afternoon he’s going to be shiteing himself, wondering what Scobie managed to tell us, waiting for the knock. We’re not going to let him think anything different. We’ll tell the press we interviewed him before he died.’

  ‘Think it’ll work?’ asked Wattie.

  ‘Hope so. If he gets worried he’s more likely to make a mistake, more likely to get caught. That’s our best hope.’

  ‘Why’d he put him in the water?’

  McCoy shrugged. ‘Who knows why that psycho does anything? Maybe it means something, maybe he just—’

  ‘Fuck me, McCoy. Are you following me around like a bad bloody smell?’

  McCoy turned. Mary from the Record was standing in the doorway with a brown paper bag of grapes in one hand, bottle of Irn-Bru in the other. She dumped both on the bed, held out her hand for Wattie to shake.

  ‘Mary Webster, chief features writer on the Daily Record.’ She looked him up and down. ‘You must be the hero.’

  Wattie shook her hand, looked somewhat bewildered.

  ‘Record sent me to do an interview for the front page tomorrow, all cleared with the top brass. They like the idea of a polis acting like a good guy for once.’ She sniffed. ‘Makes a change from a polis acting like an untrustworthy two-timing piece of shite who never phones back.’

  She sat on the bed, peered at Wattie again, turned to M
cCoy. ‘You didn’t tell me the new boy was a looker. Gonnae have to get the smudger up here to take a few snaps, scar looks good.’

  ‘Do I get a choice?’ asked Wattie.

  ‘Yes,’ said McCoy, just as Mary said, ‘No.’

  ‘You can say no, Wattie,’ said McCoy.

  ‘No, you bloody can’t,’ said Mary. ‘Not unless you want the Chief Superintendent and my editor up your arse, you can’t, so why don’t you sit there and have a wee think about the exciting story you’re going to tell me while this waste of space and I go and have a wee cigarette. You single, Wattie?’

  ‘Er, yes,’ said Wattie, blushing.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Mary. She let her hand accidentally fall onto his crotch, had a wee feel.

  Wattie froze.

  ‘Just like to check the goods before I commit myself.’ She smiled. ‘Feels fine to me, more than fine. I like a big man to roll me about a bit, no some worn-out sub-alkie with an attitude problem. Speaking of which, McCoy, shall we?’

  They left Wattie looking puzzled and vaguely scared, and stepped out into the corridor and lit up.

  ‘Play nice,’ said McCoy. ‘He’s a bit green.’

  ‘When I need your advice I’ll ask for it. He downstairs?’

  ‘Who?’ asked McCoy.

  She looked at him. ‘Give me a fucking break, McCoy. It’s Jake Scobie, isn’t it?’

  Didn’t seem much point lying, news would be out there soon if it wasn’t already. He nodded.

  ‘Same guy as Charlie Jackson?’ she asked.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Mary exhaled, shook her head. ‘Elaine’s a pain in the arse but you wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Your fiancé and your dad murdered in the same week. What the fuck did she do to Connolly?’

  ‘Nothing according to her. Pure as the driven snow.’

  Mary snorted. ‘About as pure as my Aunt Fanny.’

  ‘Do you have any proof, Miss Webster?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said, blowing a cloud of smoke in McCoy’s direction. ‘But she sure as hell wasn’t all dressed up last night just to have a drink with me in Rogano’s. Managed to fuck that up, didn’t you?’

  McCoy shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m just not her type.’