Cold Heart

by Sean-Paul Thomas

  Chapter 7

  Estelle lit up a cigarette and waited in the shadows of another railway underpass in the heart of Govanhill. She casually watched the other side of the busy street which was drenched in crawling traffic. In particular she was keeping her eye on the second floor flat of an old rundown apartment block just above a row of shops and pubs. Amongst the dark shadows behind the curtained windows she could just about make out some movement every so often from within. Shadows amongst the dim light. Somebody was home.

  After twenty more minutes of watching and waiting Estelle took a seat upon a broken and dirty stone wall to the left of the underpass and began casually browsing through her phone. She checked some recent news articles before casually reading through pages of tabloid gossip and nonsense as she constantly kept one eye on her phone and one eye upon the main entrance to the old Victorian apartment building.

  After her third cigarette of the hour and no further movement from the place she was scoping out, Estelle decided that enough was enough. She was going to enter the apartment block and knock on David’s door. She was running out of time and patience and could only hang around the street corner for so long before someone grew suspicious and started asking questions about why she was there.

  Her newly lit cigarette was three quarters of the way through when David finally emerged from the main door of the building leading out onto the busy high street. He appeared to be on his way out somewhere with his wife and kids in tow. Estelle hoped that this wasn’t going to be the case. She needed to get him alone.

  Estelle retreated back into the shadows of the underpass to observe the situation further and plan her next move. The kids appeared next from the doorway in a double push chair as David held the big steel doors open wide in order for his wife to push the buggy out onto the street.

  The couple chatted briefly for a few moments outside the main doorway before kissing each other on the lips. Was this goodbye? To Estelle’s relief, David began walking one way while his wife and kids wandered off in the opposite direction. Estelle continued to wait and watch on the opposite side of the street underneath the dark underpass, still smoking what was left of her cigarette with her hoody up and still partially hiding her face from anyone’s view. Her view of David became blocked further by the never-ending rows of cars parked on the nearby pavements along with the nonstop stream of vehicles driving by.

  Estelle finally stepped out of the darkness and watched David disappear down the high street. Occasionally he took a glance over his shoulder just to make sure that no one was following or watching him, but never did he glance in the direction of Estelle and the underpass. Already his actions were making him look very suspicious and it made Estelle want to follow his movements for a little while longer before revealing herself to him in order to find out just exactly why he was acting so cautious leaving his own home. Something didn’t feel quite right.

  Estelle stubbed out her cigarette and followed, but always keeping to the opposite side of the street. Always keeping her distance. When David stopped at a crowded bus shelter and sat down inside, Estelle made her way across the busy main road and into the secluded shelter of another wide doorway directly beside the bus stop.

  She lit up another cigarette and continued to watch. Again, David glanced left then right, seemingly on the lookout for someone or something specific, yet he paid no attention to the hooded figure of Estelle standing in the nearby doorway directly behind him. Whoever he was keeping an eye out for, it obviously wasn’t a casually dressed woman.

  David spent the next five minutes surfing through his phone while occasionally glancing around the street. When his bus pulled up, he joined the queue to board, as did Estelle, right at the very back. On board the packed bus it was standing room only. David stood in the center of the bus right beside the middle exit doors. Estelle kept herself hidden from his sight, behind a couple of chatty passengers near the front, but always with one eye on David, ready to act on his departure with every new stop the bus pulled into.

  When the bus reached Springburn, a derelict suburb in the Northeast side of Glasgow City, an area even shittier and more rundown than both the Gorbals and Govanhill combined, David finally exited the bus, along with a little old lady carrying her shopping bags.

  Estelle waited until the old woman waddled off the bus, before stepping out and onto the street herself. She saw David walking away down the grim main street. Endless litter laid strewn and piled in all corners while every second shop and pub seemed to be boarded up and had been for years by the look of the rotten wood.

  Estelle hesitated, not wishing to appear too obvious and too eager to follow. It seemed like a quiet street leading up towards the small retail district of the neighborhood and she knew he’d be checking over his shoulder every few hundred yards.

  Seconds later, as predicted, David glanced back over at the bus stop and at the departing bus, still cautious and paranoid about being followed by someone. But all he could see was the little old lady still struggling down the opposite street with her shopping bags and a slim woman—possibly a young man—wearing tight black jeans and a dark blue hoody, lighting up a cigarette at the bus shelter.

  Estelle waited another few moments before crossing the road and continuing her casual pursuit of David towards what looked to be the last remaining pub on Springburn High Street.

  Still a good hundred yards away, Estelle watched as David made his way into a rundown working man’s pub at the corner of the High Street. Estelle decided not to pursue him inside immediately. Instead, she slipped into a nearby Greggs sandwich bar and ordered a straight black cup of coffee. She sat down at a window seat and casually sipped the black-lava liquid for the next ten minutes, patiently waiting and observing. When David didn’t emerge back out of the pub, she decided to drink up and follow him in.

  Estelle walked into the quiet, grubby old bar. It appeared just as rundown, gloomy, and bleak on the inside as it did on the out. It looked like it hadn’t seen a cleaner in a decade and the top of the high walls, once silk white many moons ago, were now stained with a disgusting mucky yellow with old cigarette smoke from well before the ban on smoking in public places.

  Immediately she clocked David in the far corner of the pub, sitting at a corner booth table and yakking away with two suited men. She guessed they were office workers or professionals from the city by their sharply fitted suits and ties. They looked more out of place in the old man’s bar than she did, a reasonably attractive single, lone female.

  Estelle didn’t give a shit that she looked out of place though. She wasn’t hiding from David but choosing her moment to reveal herself to her so-called old best friend from days gone by. She felt both curious to know what he was up to these days and what his recent suspicious behavior seemed to be about, while also curious about whether he’d recognize and remember her before she took the next step of revealing herself to him.

  Estelle ordered a half pint of Innes and Gunn and nursed it on the bar counter. She wasn’t much of a drinker. Hardly ever drank and hated the taste of alcohol. But it was prop that she badly needed to blend into a shit hole place like that. She even waved away the barman’s overly eager flirtatious advances to ask her about herself, who she was, where she was from. Without making eye contact, she finally uttered that she just wanted to enjoy a quiet drink and be left in peace. The barman left his advances at that and with his hands gently raised backed slowly away from Estelle’s end of the bar with his tail firmly planted between his legs.

  Estelle took her second sip from the bitter-sweet lager just as the older of the suited men suddenly stood up and walked over towards the men’s room, which was situated down a long, narrow corridor on the other side of the pub, close to the entrance, and conveniently out of sight from anyone working behind the bar. If David and his suited chums were up to anything shady then perhaps that is why they had chosen the scummy working-class man’s den in the middle of Springburn.

  Just as she suspected, Dav
id stood up next and made his way over towards the men’s room. Something was indeed going down, yet the barman hardly raised an eyebrow as he continued reading his old school tabloid newspaper on the other side of the bar. Estelle thought about following them inside the toilets but bided her time. She didn’t want to look too obvious. She needed to be patient and find the right moment to make her move. Suddenly the barman’s phone started to ring. He answered it on the third buzz while pulling out his own packet of cigarettes and proceeding to take the call and smokes outside.

  Estelle took another gentle sip from her beer and waited for the barman to disappear. Once he did, she got off her stool and headed casually into the men’s room toilets. Estelle quietly entered the dim and grim-looking bathroom. It was dark and only one of three celling lights worked. The stench of thick, stale piss wafted over her like a hot breeze of steam from a scalding shower, but she didn’t flinch once. She’d smelt a whole lot damn worse in far more uncomfortable surroundings. A whole lot worse. It didn’t have a patch on the stench from a one-week old, rotten dead body hidden inside a small tent in the middle of the Moroccan desert.

  In front of Estelle were three cubicles. Two were vacant while the end one, furthest away, was firmly locked. Estelle crouched down and took a quick peak underneath. She could see the two pairs of feet from the men inside, both facing each other. Followed by hushed voices, then sniffing and gasping. She felt fairly sure that a drug deal was going down. David the supplier. The office professional the buyer.

  Estelle stood up straight. She made her way towards the row of five urinals on her right and positioned herself into her best manly urinating stance, pretending to take a piss. From inside the cubicle she could hear the suited man making a loud sniff and snort before shuddering out with a pleasurable gasp.

  “It’s good shit, no?” she clearly heard David state, recognizing that Southside Glaswegian twang of his in a heartbeat.

  “Oh, aye. It’s good man. It’s well fucking good,” gasped the suited man.

  The end cubicle door suddenly opened and both men stepped out towards the mirrors and wash basins directly in front of them.

  “I want more of that shit, David. A lot fucking more. Same time tomorrow, aye?”

  “No problem, Chief. No problem at all.”

  The office-suit rubbed his face hard, slapped David on the shoulder, and cheerfully left the men’s room. He didn’t even glance twice at the dark, silent and still figure of Estelle standing over the urinal with her back turned to the rest of the dim bathroom.

  David leaned over the basin worktop. He counted his new pile of cash before shoving it deep into his inside jacket pocket. He turned the basin tap on, splashed his face with cold water before taking a long hard glance at himself in the mirror. He startled a little when he noticed for the first time the eerie dark figure of Estelle through the mirror. With her hoody still up, she appeared like the back of any slim guy taking a leak in a dark men’s room.

  David shook his head. He peeled his eyes away from the figure and splashed more water over his face, this time rubbing the cool wetness firmly into his eyes and taking a long moment to do it. When he opened his eyes again and stood up straight, readying himself to fix his hair in the mirror, the shady and hooded figure of Estelle was stood right up behind him. David gasped with fright. But before he could even gather his thoughts or say a word or blink with the shock, the much taller figure of Estelle pressed herself right up against him while shaving the razor-blade end of her flick knife firmly against his Adam’s apple.

  David looked afraid. He had no idea who the stranger was. Or even what this was about. His best guess in those tense few moments where he truly feared for his life was that he was about to be the victim of a random mugging from some junkie fuck bastard who had followed him into the toilets to see what the hell shady shit he was up to.

  He still didn’t realize that Estelle was a woman. She’d disguised what little feminine mannerisms she had that well. The two stared at each other, long and hard, in the bathroom mirror. Sweat dripped down from David’s forehead. His heart began beating and pounding furiously. He was breathing again but deep, hard anxious breaths. Estelle remained still. Ice-cold calm and composed like some kind of ancient stone statue.

  Suddenly the slightest flicker of a grin spread across her face from behind her hood. David’s eyes widened. It was the last thing he’d expected from his attacker. He couldn’t tell in that moment whether it was a joking grin: I’m putting down the knife now—or a sinister one: I’m gonna slash your throat from end to end and fucking love it. He’d never been so confused yet fearful for his life before in a long, long time.

  “Hello, Short Arse.” Estelle finally spoke, grinning harder from behind the darkness of her hood. It wasn’t the tone of voice David had expected to pass through the lips of the hooded thug. Especially in the tone of a strong and confident woman.

  David took a second to think. Nobody had called him Short Arse for well over a decade. In fact, the only person to call him that name in a joking, half-arsed manner and not feel his wrath was dead and gone. Slowly but surely David began to recognize the woman behind the dark hood still standing behind him in the mirror, still holding a sharp blade to his throat. He couldn’t believe it. There was absolutely no way on this fucking earth it could be the same person. No chance. No way in hell. But it was. Jesus Fucking Christ, it was.

  David couldn’t even bring himself to say her name; the whole scene was that surreal to him.

  “Only one person ever had the balls to call me that.” David eventually whispered, fearing any sudden movement could see his vocal cords splashed and sprayed across the mirror in front of him.

  Estelle eased up on her grip of the knife. For the first time David smiled gently back at her.

  “Estelle fucking Cold Heart.”

  Estelle tucked her knife away into her hooded jacket pocket. No one had called her that either since her delinquent truant school days. A nickname that would come to stick with her after the death of her mother and stepfather and then all the way through juvie.

  “And only one person ever had the balls to call me that to my face.”

  Estelle took a step back. She pulled down her hoody so that David could see her hard, steely but familiar blue eyes and her scarred, lightly tanned face. He still couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “What the fuck? Everyone thought you fucking died—all these years… Even Gayle.” David shook his head again in utter disbelief. “We even went to your fucking funeral fifteen years ago, Estelle. What the fuck? Where have you been? What are you even doing here?”

  Even before David had uttered those last few words, he already knew the tragic answer to that question almost immediately.

  “What do you think I’m doing here?” Estelle coldly replied, staring David deep in the eyes without even blinking.

  ***

  Estelle and David sat at a quiet table in the outside beer garden of the shitty little Springburn pub. They sat opposite each other, both smoking their newly lit cigarettes while nursing their beers. A new full pint for David, already half drained. The same, hardly touched small half pint for Estelle.

  “Jesus Christ, Estelle. I can’t believe it’s fucking you. Where have you been all this time? They said you died in juvie. A big fight that got out of hand. Gayle and I went to your funeral. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I was offered an opportunity to start a new life and I took it.”

  “A new life without Gayle? She was devastated when you went to prison. We all were. And then to never hear from you again...”

  “I believed at the time I was doing her a favor.”

  David shook his head. He took another long sip from his beer.

  “And this opportunity that you left your life here in Glasgow for, faked your own fucking death for. How do you even do something like that? I take it you know some pretty powerful and fucked up people?”

  Estelle put her ha
nd gently down upon David’s. It was a comforting gesture, but David wasn’t entirely sure if it was going to lead to Estelle breaking one of his fingers or cutting something off. She then gazed right into his eyes again.

  “David, I’m not here for a catch up.”

  “You need to tell me something, Estelle?”

  “I need to tell you nothing. Now, what happened with Gayle?”

  David glanced down and away. He ran his fingers through his hair, looking agitated as hell. Estelle studied him hard. Trying to read him. Trying to figure out his ticks and mannerisms. Trying to read his truths and lies.

  “This is so much to take in. That you’re even still alive for fuck’s sake. All this time... You were my best friend, Estelle. My best fucking friend growing up.”

  “Tell me about Gayle, David?”

  David took a deep, hard breath. He ran his fingers through his hair again before letting out a frustrated sigh.

  “The police are saying she went in for a late-night swim in the Clyde, high as a fucking kite and drowned.”

  “I don’t believe that for one second.”

  “They said they have a witness who saw her just dive right on in...”

  “Gayle couldn’t even swim. Water terrified her.” Estelle snapped. “She would never willingly go into the water like that. Never.”

  “We all do stupid things when we’re high.”

  “Perhaps…”

  Estelle considered that for a second. It was true. But still, she knew her sister. She’d spent almost every day with her up until the age of eleven. High or not, she would not even jump voluntarily into a shallow bath without freaking the fuck out and screaming the house down.

  “… And the witness? Who were they?”

  “No idea. Ask the police?”

  Estelle remained deathly silent. Talking to the police was not an option for her. David took another sip from his pint before finally breaking the uncomfortable silence.