The Blood is Still

by Douglas Skelton

  ‘So is violence always the answer?’

  He faced her again. ‘Sometimes violence is the only answer.’

  32

  The thing that had always annoyed Val Roach about Joe was that he never seemed to look any older. Sure, there were lines around the eyes that hadn’t been there when they’d met at university (she was studying sociology, he physics) – but even now, more than twenty years later, he still more or less looked the same. Even his hair hadn’t begun to turn grey. Unless of course he was into the Grecian 2000. He had taken to sporting some designer stubble, though, perhaps in a bid to disguise a sagging jawline. There was still something boyish about him, a quality that endeared him to a number of women, including a 25-year-old lab assistant with whom he was now shacked up. It was such a cliché – older man meets younger woman, their eyes meet over a flaming Bunsen burner, or whatever the hell physicists use in the lab. He finds that her youthful spirit reignites things he thought had either died or gone into hibernation in his forty-year-old body. Blah, blah, blah. Etc., etc., etc. But that’s the thing about clichés – they only become clichés by being commonplace.

  When he had told her about the affair – it had been going on for over a year by that time – Val had wanted him dead. After the divorce she had decided to pull a Jean-Luc Picard and made it so, even if only in her mind. He was, as the saying went, dead to her. She had never taken his name and that helped distance herself. She knew it was a coping mechanism, a means of moving on. She knew he wasn’t really in that great physics laboratory in the sky but it helped to think of him as gone and not rutting away in Lolita’s bed.

  And now, here he was. In Inverness. Standing on the doorstep of her Culloden semi-detached, giving her that boyish grin. When he had phoned that afternoon, he’d said he wanted to meet up. She wasn’t terribly keen but he was insistent, said there was something they needed to talk about and he didn’t want to do it on the phone. She could have said no way, she didn’t like communicating with the dead, but she’d held her tongue. She was at work anyway and there were things to be done, so she gave him her address and told him to be there by 6.30 p.m. That was fifteen minutes ago. He was always late. The Late Dr Maguire, they used to call him.

  There was that smile. She loved that smile. She hated that smile. ‘Sorry, got a wee bit lost.’

  ‘Really? It’s not that big a place.’

  Smile. Love. Hate. ‘Well, you know me . . .’

  Yes, she did. His complete inability to get anywhere without becoming totally confused by which direction he was travelling had been cute at one time. Now it was just irritating.

  She stepped back. ‘You’d better come in.’

  She had to admit she was curious as to what was so important that he needed to see her. She wondered if things had gone south between him and Lolita. She knew that wasn’t the child’s name, but it suited her to call her that. She wondered if he was there to tell her it had all been a big mistake and he wanted to come back, wanted things the way they used to be. She was already wondering what her reaction would be, should that be what was said.

  She didn’t wonder for long because he didn’t even sit down or take off his sheepskin coat. He stopped in the living room, had a quick look around, then turned to face her.

  ‘Deborah and I are going to get married.’

  He blurted it out, as if the words had been desperate for air.

  She was taken aback by the suddenness of it. ‘Congratulations,’ she said. It was the only thing she could think of at the time.

  He had the decency to look ashamed. Somewhat. ‘I thought . . . well, I wanted you to know.’

  ‘Kind of you,’ she said.

  ‘She, eh . . .’ He stopped, swallowed. ‘I mean, we, eh, are going to have a baby.’

  She felt like she had been slapped. She didn’t know why. They had both agreed that children were not on their agenda. Careers. Having the freedom to be happy together. That was what was important to them. Neither of them had ever felt the need to be parents and yet, here he was, over forty now and announcing he was about to become a father.

  ‘And you thought what?’ The words came out like a broken bottle. ‘To get my blessing? You want me to be godmother?’

  ‘No. I just didn’t want you to hear from anyone else, is all.’

  They still had mutual friends, acquaintances really. She had left all that behind when she moved away from Perth and their home and all that had occurred. Still, it was always possible someone would get in contact to let her know, or she would see a photograph on Facebook on the few occasions a year she logged on to see what people were eating and where.

  ‘Fine. You’ve told me.’ The jagged edges of her voice slashed defensive strokes in the air. ‘Is there anything else?’ She didn’t want to hear anything more. There couldn’t be anything more, could there? ‘You want me to sell the Perth house for your child’s university fund?’

  ‘No, the house is yours, you know that. There’s nothing more. I just wanted to see you to tell you. I thought, we thought, you deserved to hear it in person.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Deborah and me.’

  ‘Ah, Lolita.’

  He closed his eyes briefly, as if warding off pain. ‘Don’t call her that.’

  ‘Why? Does it hurt your feelings?’

  It was his turn to bring some steel to his voice. ‘It’s unfair. What happened wasn’t her fault . . .’

  ‘So you forced yourself on her? Should I be taking a statement?’

  ‘It just happened, that’s all, Val. We went through all this.’

  ‘Aye, shit happens, right?’

  ‘I never wanted to hurt you.’

  ‘And yet – here we are . . .’

  His eyes flashed. ‘Jesus, Val – isn’t it time you put the cheated wife to one side? It’s not as if you were always there for me.’

  Her laugh was short and bitter. ‘Here we go. I always put my career first . . .’

  ‘Well, you did. There were times when you were on some case or other I hardly saw you. And let’s be honest, you’re not the most emotionally available person in the world.’

  ‘Emotionally available?’ Her laugh this time was more mocking. ‘Have you been reading Cosmo again?’

  ‘Come on, Val, you know what I mean. When did we ever sit down as man and wife and talk about ourselves? About feelings? You know you didn’t like to talk about emotions.’

  ‘It was implicit in our being together. You could tell by the way I didn’t shag someone else.’

  That really got to him. ‘Well, maybe if we had talked a bit more, maybe if you had shown just a bit of human bloody emotion I wouldn’t have needed to!’

  ‘Okay, so it’s all my fault.’

  ‘It’s no one’s fault. It just happened, that’s all. I met someone. I’m happy with her.’

  ‘And you’re going to have a baby.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which you never wanted with me.’

  ‘Which neither of us wanted.’

  ‘But it’s different now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Their voices lost their respective edges. They stared at each other, a gap of three feet and a lifetime between them. There was nothing more to be said, they both knew that. They were both right and both wrong.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said, moving past her. She didn’t argue and she didn’t follow him into the hallway. He knew where the door was, he didn’t need an escort. Not even he could get lost in her home.

  Joe stopped in the hallway and turned back. ‘I did love you, you know. Back then. Still do, Val. But I moved on.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, her voice hardening again. ‘That makes everything all right, then.’

  He stared at her for a moment, obviously debating whether to say anything further. Then he sighed, opened the door and was gone. Val moved into the hall and turned the lock. She stood with her back against the door and memories flashed through her mind like lightning bolts. Meeting him
at the Student Union. Laughing. The first time they made love. More laughing. Camping at Loch Ness, the rain seeping through the canvas. Laughing again. Their wedding. Holidays. Watching a movie. Always laughing. Happy.

  But it hadn’t all been laughter. There had been arguments. There had been long periods of silence. They changed. They grew up. And, if she was honest with herself, she had played her part in that. The Job. Her career. The laughter ebbed, the fun times became little more than snapshots in an album. She had grown more attached to the work than her home, and he had – what? On some level she had known he was seeing someone else and his confession only confirmed it. She had ignored what her subconscious had been telling her because she believed he was too decent a man to do that.

  She had been wrong and she should have known better. If there was one thing she had learned as a police officer it was that people are capable of anything.

  33

  Rebecca and Chaz found the street easily. The Ferry wasn’t that big and they followed the locals until they came upon a larger group, some with anger tightening their features, others just there to see what was going on, a few for a laugh or because they sensed there was going to be trouble and they wanted a piece of it.

  Finbar Dalgliesh was there, of course. He was savvy enough not to associate himself too closely with the Burkes, but Rebecca knew there was no way on this earth that he was going to miss this opportunity. First, he could use it to embarrass not only Highland Council but also the Scottish government. Second, there might be votes in the fact that he was the only politician who deigned to come to the Ferry on this important night.

  Rebecca brought the car to a halt a good distance from the crowd. Dalgliesh was easy to spot, his cashmere trench coat keeping the probing breeze out, though it would prove ineffective should it rain again. He stood on the pavement beside the gate of the flats, which looked like terraced houses but were in fact upper and lower apartments. Both flats looked empty and the small garden that led to the wooden fence was slightly overgrown. They couldn’t hear what the Spioraid leader was saying, but Rebecca knew he was stirring up the crowd. If there was one thing Dalgliesh was good at, it was whipping up emotion. He could judge the mood of any gathering and tell people what they wanted to hear. Playing to confirmation bias was what he did. And some carefully placed followers would help. A murmur here, a word there, perhaps instigating applause or a cheer. It all helped.

  ‘What do you think?’ Chaz asked, as he hauled his camera bag over from the back seat and rummaged inside.

  ‘I think we sit here for a while, see what happens.’ She craned round to peer back the way they had come. ‘I think if they bring this guy in, they’ll come the way we did.’

  Chaz produced his camera from his bag. ‘You think they will bring him – even after the stories?’

  She settled back in her seat. ‘Buggered if I know. They would be showing incredible irresponsibility if they did. They know the Burkes and Dalgliesh know about this. They’ll know the Ferry will know about it. They should know that, if they do, it will just put a match to the blue touchpaper.’

  She watched as he lowered the side window and leaned out, the long telephoto lens of the camera snapping a few shots of the crowd. He pulled himself back in and studied the images on the small screen on the rear of the camera. She sensed his disappointment in the results.

  ‘You need to get closer?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Bit too dark for this long-range stuff. You think we should risk it?’

  She studied the crowd. She wanted to hear what Dalgliesh was saying but, as they had already learned, the press was not welcome in the Ferry. Too many court stories, not enough support. She glanced in the wing mirror, saw the police minibus pull up at the far end of the street, lights off. Their presence in the street was either a precaution or they had been told the situation was growing volatile. But she really wanted to hear Dalgliesh.

  Ah, to hell with it. ‘Who wants to live for ever?’ she said, opening the door.

  ‘Other Queen songs are available,’ said Chaz, as he swung open the passenger door.

  They began to walk side by side up the street, Chaz scanning the scene ahead, already looking for the best camera angles. ‘So, that was Nolan.’

  She knew something would be said. She was surprised it had taken him this long.

  ‘Yes, that was Nolan.’

  ‘Bit of a stud muffin.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘If you don’t want him, I might ditch Alan and try my luck.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re his type,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘What? He doesn’t like photographers?’

  They had reached the fringes of the crowd, which stretched across the road and up onto the opposite pavement, blocking any way forward. More people headed towards them from both directions. Dalgliesh’s voice reached them easily here.

  ‘. . . would show what they thought of you, the good people of Inchferry. If they carry on with their plan, they would show that they think very little of you and the safety of your children. And I say NO!’

  It was very much a copy of what he’d said outside the council office. It had worked then, it would work now. Rebecca looked around her, studied the faces of the people listening to him. He was tapping into rage that went beyond this particular issue. He was kindling years, maybe decades, of prejudice and social inequality. He was making the people of the Ferry believe that they were treated as second-class citizens, as mere fodder for a political elite who cared little for the ordinary Scot. His targets were always whoever was in authority, whether locally or nationally, and he then turned it into a them and us. But tonight he was playing a dangerous game. She could feel it around her, on the wind that plucked at clothes and toyed with hair. It wouldn’t take much to set this particular touchpaper aflame.

  34

  Nolan watched as Maw drained her drink and stubbed out her cigarette in a heaped ashtray on the mantle. It was time to move. He knew it was coming, yet he still dreaded it. He had never been convinced this public display of civic mindedness was wise, given how the family made its way in the world. He strongly felt it would eventually impact on their business and had counselled his mother not to take up the cudgel on behalf of the Ferry. It would have been best if she had allowed him to find someone to act as a front. Maw could still have run the show, but from a distance, just like they did at Barney’s. After all, there were many people who would feel as strongly about the issue while also happy to earn some brownie points with the Burke family. But no, she was insistent that she take the lead – backed to the hilt by Scott, naturally.

  ‘Where’s Scotty?’ Maw asked.

  Nolan hadn’t seen his brother since Rebecca had left. ‘Must’ve gone up to his room.’

  ‘Go get him. Tell him we’re leaving.’

  At the top of the stairs, Scott’s bedroom door lay open and Nolan heard a woman’s voice. He found his brother lying on his belly on his bed, his laptop open before him. He shut the lid down when he became aware of Nolan’s presence but Nolan thought he saw the BBC logo and glimpsed a man’s face in close-up. As usual, the room was like a jumble sale, with clothes strewn all over the place. The only item that was in any way ordered was the small bookcase under the window, three neat shelves of books, all paperbacks. They were mostly Scottish history – Scotty’s passion, apart from finding new ways to hurt people who pissed him off. Nolan had bought a few for him, birthdays and Christmas, back when they actually had something in common other than shared DNA. Even from the doorway Nolan could see the complete set of titles by John Prebble that he had found in the big used book store on Church Street one day, their orange spines faded over the years. Nolan wasn’t too bothered about reading books himself – he preferred newspapers – but he did like to wander among the stacks in that place.

  ‘Maw’s headed out,’ Nolan said, wondering why Scott was up here watching the news. ‘You coming?’

  Scott rolled over and swung his long le
gs off the bed. ‘Nah, got things to do.’

  ‘Maw won’t be pleased to hear that, Scotty.’

  ‘Aye, well – she’ll have to live with it.’

  If Nolan said he wasn’t going, Mo would throw a fit. She wouldn’t be happy Scott wasn’t there, but he’d get away with it. He always did.

  ‘What sort of things have you got to do?’ Nolan asked.

  Scott gave him that smile. ‘Things. Business.’

  Business. Nolan could have pressed the point, dug deeper, but the truth was he didn’t really care. For all his desire to see his family flourish, Nolan was conflicted. He had told Rebecca he wanted out and it was true. He had become tired of it all. Scott had seen to that. A power drill, for God’s sake. That was over the top and yet, for Scott, somehow expected. His younger brother had become very much a mystery to him in recent years. Nolan couldn’t read him, and this latest tendency to seek out violent confrontations was worrying. He was getting more out of hand, more difficult to control.

  Nolan had sufficient self-awareness to know that he was also capable of violence; he had used it, even revelled in it, when he was younger. But he had matured and now only saw it as a means to an end, or a defence mechanism. For Scotty, it was a leisure pursuit. This trouble with Wee Joe McClymont had all the hallmarks of a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Nolan had argued for a compromise, but Scotty had taken the opposite view, arguing that if they gave McClymont an inch, the creepy wee bastard would steal a mile. Maw had sided with Scotty, which was no surprise.

  Even Scott bringing in his pal Finbar Dalgliesh failed to dent that bond. Scott’s connection with that slimeball and Spioraid was a worry. They were a bunch of right-wing cranks, as far as Nolan was concerned, little more than racist thugs led by a man with no real principles other than self-interest. Okay, that didn’t make him any worse than most politicians – or crooks, come to that – but Dalgliesh was stirring something almost primal with his divisive rhetoric. Nolan didn’t think the man cared if the council placed Lancaster in the Ferry or not. It was just a way to undermine any kind of authority, to promote suspicion. Nolan knew it worried his mother too, but she let it slide, apart from a token warning to Scott to watch himself with those people. So Nolan was on his own. Their father, who might have argued for restraint, was out of the picture. His mother and brother were very much a unit, while he became more and more isolated.