The Blood is Still

by Douglas Skelton

  Rebecca knew what Elspeth was doing. It was something she’d taught her early on. Get people talking about themselves, let them settle into an interview. Being questioned by a reporter is alien to most people and it is best to let them relax.

  Eventually, haltingly, Jane Roberts began to talk. There was no structure to it, no real order, and they let her words flow without interruption.

  They had met at a party when they were in their twenties, fell for each other almost immediately, married within the year. They weren’t blessed with children at first and had almost given up trying when the twins came along, girls, Chrissie and Carrie. That was ten years ago. They were happy together, most of the time. Brian was a good father, a good husband. Most of the time. He worked hard in Lothian and Borders, as it was then, got out of uniform and into CID, got his promotion. He was good at his job. But then he moved department . . .

  ‘Which department?’ Elspeth asked, and Rebecca was aware that hankie guy at the door had straightened slightly. She knew Elspeth would have spotted the change in his stature. Elspeth spotted everything. She had probably hoped she would get an answer before they realised. She was sympathetic, but she had a job to do.

  ‘That is not something we wish to talk about,’ Hayes said, her hand on Jane’s shoulder again. Elspeth and Rebecca exchanged looks. It was most certainly something they wished to talk about but knew they wouldn’t get anything, so Elspeth let it pass.

  ‘Okay, go on, Mrs Roberts. You’re doing fine.’

  He was away a lot with his new job, she said. It took its toll on family life. He phoned in when he could, of course, he always did that, but his children were growing up without him. Things became strained, words were said.

  ‘Eventually, I told him that, as he was away all the time, we might as well make it permanent,’ she said, and her hand fidgeted with the butterfly fastener again. ‘So we separated. I think maybe he was relieved. The job was always important to him. When he was in CID he had regular hours, more or less, unless there was a major inquiry or something. But this new job. Well, it changed him. When he wasn’t away, when he was at home, he just wasn’t the same Brian. He was always on edge, paranoid even. His temper was short, with me, with the girls. And he got bored very easily, as if just sitting at home with us, watching telly or whatever, just wasn’t enough for him.’

  Her fingers caressed the clasp. Roach said nothing. Her face was impassive but something in her eyes told Rebecca that the woman’s words resonated. Hayes shifted behind her, and she shot a look at the man at the door, who was clearly unhappy with the direction this was taking.

  ‘So we had a huge row, the first really big one we’d ever had, and I said I’d had enough. If the job was so important to him, more important than his family, then he should just do it full time. He promised he would change, that he would put in for a transfer back to CID, but he never did. At least, I don’t think he did. Finally, after a series of barneys, big ones again, I told him I wanted him away from us. I couldn’t take his moods any more. He never raised a hand to us in all that time but I felt that maybe he had it in him, you know? I mean, what with his father and all . . .’

  ‘His father?’ Elspeth leaned forward.

  ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ said the man at the door. Yorkshire accent, thick with mucus, but carrying an authoritative edge that was unmistakeable. He stepped forward. ‘I’m stopping this right now.’

  ‘And you are . . . ?’ Elspeth asked.

  ‘Someone who is calling a halt to this interview right now.’

  Elspeth looked at Hayes. ‘Can he?’

  ‘He can, and he is,’ said the man, before Hayes could answer.

  Jane Roberts, though, was made of sterner stuff than they all thought. ‘No,’ she said. It wasn’t loud but it was forceful enough to stop him in his tracks. He stared at the back of her head.

  ‘Mrs Roberts,’ he began.

  ‘No,’ she said again. ‘You people asked me to do this. I’m doing it.’ She twisted in the chair and gave him a look that told him she meant business. ‘I lost my Brian years ago. Someone killed him, but you took him away from me first. You did. You can shut this down now if you like, but I’ll contact these people later and I’ll tell them it all. Your choice.’

  The man’s jaws worked as he listened to her. ‘Mrs Roberts, what happened to Brian’s father has no bearing on this whatsoever.’

  ‘Then it won’t matter if I tell them, will it?’

  He looked to Roach for support. She gave him a cool gaze and said, ‘I’d like to hear what Mrs Roberts has to say.’

  He looked around at the women facing him and realised he was outnumbered. He exhaled harshly, turned and left. Rebecca thought he would have slammed the door but the bracket device fitted to the top prevented such a dramatic gesture.

  Jane Roberts watched him go, then turned back to face Elspeth and Rebecca. She looked slightly deflated now, as if defying the man in the suit had taken every last bit of her strength. She was silent for a few moments before she spoke again.

  ‘Brian’s father was a police officer too. Well respected in Edinburgh.’

  She stopped speaking abruptly. Rebecca hoped she wasn’t having second thoughts now. She leaned forwards and spoke for the first time. ‘My father was a police officer. Glasgow.’ She hoped providing this common ground would help. Jane looked at her, nodded, gave her something like a sad, nervous, fleeting smile.

  ‘What happened to Brian’s father?’ Elspeth asked.

  Hand to the hair clip again. Touching. Stroking. Caressing. She studied the floor between them. There was a silence in the room that was thick enough to blot out any noise from outside. They waited.

  ‘He was murdered,’ the woman said, her voice so quiet and yet so loud. ‘When Brian was a teenager, around thirteen.’ Her eyes came up from staring at the carpet to hold Elspeth in a steady gaze. ‘By his sister . . .’

  51

  The child did not wake up that morning with the intent to kill. It would just happen.

  The man has not been to the child’s room for a month, which is not uncommon. One year he left the child alone for six entire months. That was the happiest spring and summer of the child’s life, with memories of long, warm days and blissful, pain-free nights. There was laughter then, throughout the house and in the garden. Laughter and perhaps even love. Even she, the woman, seemed more relaxed, content even. The boy was less introverted, less troubled, less detached.

  But the summer ended, as it always must. The air chilled. The blooms wilted and shrivelled and died. The nights grew darker and longer and colder. The yellow days turned to brown and then grey.

  But long before the first frost misted the milky glass of the bedroom window, the man returned. And with it the pain and the shame and the rage.

  The child had a birthday during that month reprieve and there were presents, of course. There were always presents — afterwards. But birthdays and Christmas were special. Perhaps outsiders looking in, not seeing the full picture, thought of the child as spoiled. Certainly, there were many toys and books and videos and clothes and cake. Everything a child could wish for. Except the feeling of security, of experiencing real love, the kind glimpsed during that summer. The presents were still piled in the corner of the room. One very special present propped up against the wall and towering over the others. The child had asked for it and had received it. The request had been innocent, for the child had no intention of using it in any way other than that for which it was designed.

  The child does not know what prompts the man to visit, cannot say whether it is events in his life that force him to somehow relieve the pressure in this little room. But the child hears his footsteps and cowers beneath the bedclothes, eyes on the door, hoping that those steps will not hesitate outside, will pass by. It has been a month. Please let it be longer.

  The steps climb the stairs.

  Please don’t linger . . .

  They stop outside the door.

  Pleas
e don’t open it . . .

  The door opens.

  Please don’t come in . . .

  The man comes in. Closes the door. Turns to the bed.

  Moves closer.

  Afterwards, the child lies and listens to his breathing. He is sleeping, which is unusual. It is more normal for him to get up and leave, his own shame forcing him out of this little room and away from his victim. And then, later, the present.

  But this time he stays, lies back and is soon asleep. His breathing is even, a slight roughness as he inhales, but the child knows he is deep into whatever dreams he has.

  The child does not intend to kill.

  Easing off the bed, the child creeps slowly towards the presents in the corner. A slight cough from behind causes alarm, but he has merely moved slightly. His breathing remains regular, his eyes closed, a slight flutter indicates a dream in progress.

  What does he dream of, the child wonders. Are they pleasant dreams? Or, like the child’s, are they filled with darkness and shadows and creatures that emerge from the gloom to touch and stroke and penetrate?

  It is not a large room but it seems vast now that the child has to cross it unnoticed and without a sound. Step after step, short ones, lungs in stasis, easy movements, fearful of a creaking board, of a scuffing noise, of the child’s own breathing waking him, rousing him, warning him, until – finally – the short distance is covered and the presents are in reach. The one present on which the child’s eyes are fixed, the one requested in all innocence.

  For the child has never intended to kill. Even in the midst of the pain and the rage and the shame, it has never entered its mind.

  The baseball bat is heavy but it can be swung, that had been proven during a game in the garden. The child is growing big and strong, many people have said that. Big and strong. On the outside. They did not know that the child was still an infant inside. An infant scared of the dark and what might lie within it. And what comes through the door of that little room.

  Back across the room now, swifter than before, for what must be done must be done quickly. Beside the bed, bat raised, both hands.

  Hesitation.

  This is wrong.

  This is oh so very wrong.

  Lower the bat, put it away, lock it away, for this is wrong.

  But the child does not lower the bat. The child merely stares at the man sleeping, his eyes still twitching as he exists in two worlds, this one and the dream state of his mind. He is smiling. He is happy wherever he is.

  Happy.

  The child has only known happiness fleetingly. The child and happiness are merely casual acquaintances. A moment here, a summer there. And sooner than later, inevitably, it is back to this little room and the footsteps on the stair. And that, the child knows, has to end. The pain and the rage and the shame have to end.

  And yet, the hesitation remains. The bat still poised overhead, the need to bring it down still present, but the deliberation to do so is less pressing.

  This is wrong. You should not do this. You must not do this.

  And then his eyes flip open and he sees the child standing over him, the bat raised. And he knows the mistake he has made.

  He begins to move. He begins to cry – no, bellow – as he reaches for the child, for the bat . . .

  The child did not intend to kill that day.

  It just happened.

  52

  They were back in the kitchen, in the same positions as before, as if none of them had left but had been frozen there in some kind of family tableau. This was not a happy family picture, however. There was rage in this room and it flowed from Mo Burke. Her face was a reservoir of fury and for once it wasn’t soaking Nolan. She had a lit cigarette in one hand, while with the other she tapped the gold lighter Nolan’s father had given her for their tenth wedding anniversary on the Formica table, then twirled it between her fingers before tapping it again. From where he stood leaning against the sink, Nolan could see the name S.T. Dupont etched in script. Over two hundred quid, it had cost him, he once told Nolan, but it was worth maybe three times that. Fell off the back of a lorry and he was there to catch it.

  Scott sat opposite her, his head low, but in the way he spun the large star-shaped heavy glass ashtray with his finger in front of him displaying more attitude than she would have wanted to see. At least he wasn’t smiling.

  There had been shouting and a considerable amount of swearing. Mo seldom swore, she thought it showed a lack of education. But when she did curse, she showed considerable skill and inventiveness. There was a point when Nolan thought she was going to give his brother a hiding. It would have been long overdue, but Maw hadn’t raised a hand to either of them for years. The worst of the swearing and the threat of impending violence had subsided now, but the anger was still there. The only sound was the tap of the lighter on the tabletop, the only movement her fingers.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  Tap

  Twirl.

  ‘He was polis,’ she said, eventually. She’d said it a few times already, but it was obvious she was not going to tire of saying it anytime soon.

  Scott had heard it enough, though. ‘Aye, Maw, okay, you’ve made your point.’

  ‘A fuckin’ cop, Scott!’ Scott, not Scotty. She was really pissed at him. And with good reason.

  ‘I know, Maw, awright!’

  ‘Aye, you know now that it’s all over the bloody paper.’ She flicked the hand holding her cigarette at the screen in front of her, trailing ash across the keyboard. She swept the flakes away with her other hand, her mouth narrowing into an irritable line. ‘Gie us that ashtray.’

  Scott slid it to her side of the table and she tipped what was left of the ash into it, then she stubbed the cigarette out, grinding it into the cut glass with considerable force. When she was finished, she glared at her son again. ‘How much did he know about the business?’

  ‘No much.’

  ‘How much, Scott?’

  He shifted slightly in his chair. ‘He sold a bit of gear, is all. To the folk on that film set.’

  ‘Sold a bit of gear. Gear we supplied to him?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Mo leaned forward. ‘Gear you supplied to him?’

  Scott raised his head. ‘You think I’m a complete dildo, Maw?’

  ‘Naw, a dildo is useful. You didnae give him the gear to punt, did you?’

  ‘Naw! I’m no stupid.’

  Mo’s expression suggested the jury was still out on that.

  ‘He was supplied through one of the boys,’ Scott said. ‘I wasn’t part of it. I know the score, Maw.’

  She sat back again, apparently mollified, but Nolan wasn’t buying it.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  Maintaining degrees of separation was Tony Burke’s first rule. Never let the product get anywhere near you.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  ‘So, you met this Jake Goodman through Dalgliesh’s bunch of chancers, right?’

  ‘No, met him through this boy I know.’

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘Just a boy I know. He’s nobody, Maw. Anyway, he introduced us and as I got to know him turned out he was of the same opinion as me about stuff.’

  ‘Stuff? This Spioraid shite?’

  Scott bristled slightly at the description, but Nolan knew he would not rise to it, not with Maw. ‘Aye. We shared the same political views.’ He ignored Maw’s snort and carried on. ‘I took him along to a meeting. That was months ago. Maybe a year.’

  Nolan wanted to say that he had warned them both about being in any way connected with that crowd, but he held his tongue. He knew if he waded in there was every chance Maw’s ire would turn on him. He wasn’t particularly enjoying seeing his brother being lacerated by her tongue, but he did know it wasn’t before time. He thought about the blood on the shirt. He thought about Scott’s not-so-veiled threat earlier. He thought about them but remained silent.r />
  Mo fished a fresh cigarette from the packet lying open beside her, her eyes never leaving her son as she fired it up with the lighter, dragged in the smoke, then vented it from the corner of her mouth. Her fingers set the lighter back on its little dance once more.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  She shifted her attention to Nolan. ‘You got nothing to say?’

  ‘Nothing much I can say, Maw.’

  ‘No even I told you so?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘This Dalgliesh bastard and his group – what’s it called?’

  ‘Spioraid nan Gàidheal,’ said Nolan, and Scott gave him a glance that seemed to say he had no right talking about it. He was not a believer.

  ‘Aye,’ Mo said, sucking in more smoke.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  ‘You said we should keep well away from them,’ Mo said. So, she remembered, he thought. That’s something. ‘I should have listened to you.’

  He affected an air of nonchalance, as if it was all water under the bridge, but inside he felt elation.

  ‘So, what do you think about this cop then?’

  He had been giving it some thought while she had been ripping Scott a new one and believed he had reasoned it all out. ‘Obviously he was undercover.’

  ‘No any more,’ said Scott, that smile beginning to creep back, but it was chased away once more by a single look from Mo. Scott’s head sank again and she stared at his hair for a while.

  Tap.

  Twirl.

  Then she faced Nolan again, his cue to speak once more. ‘The fact that they’re not banging on our door right now could mean we weren’t his target. It has to have been Spioraid and Dalgliesh.’

  ‘They’re just a bunch of cranks,’ Mo said.

  ‘Maybe, but they’re affiliated with a group called New Dawn.’

  ‘That’s bollocks!’ Scott said.

  ‘And who the hell are they?’ Mo never watched the news, didn’t read newspapers, unless something was pointed out to her.

  ‘Terrorists, Maw,’ said Nolan. ‘Or would-be terrorists. They’ve sent fake packages to politicians, said there was anthrax in them. They’ve made a few threats, smashed some windows and the like, firebombed a mosque.’