Blood Salt Water

by Denise Mina

  ‘Officers? From my point of view? I think to say, that I’m, frankly, quite hurt of the suggestion.’

  Morrow and McGrain stood and laughed a joyous gale at him. It wasn’t just the timeless joke of an inebriate in denial, it was funny because he was posh and sincere. It was sweet how sincere he was.

  ‘Let’s bring him in,’ she told McGrain. ‘Speak to him later.’

  ‘Never gets old, does it?’ chuckled McGrain.

  Mr Cole confided sadly to the carpet: ‘I’m very offended right now.’

  McGrain stepped forward, took a firm hold on Cole’s arm and turned him to the front door. ‘We’re going to take you to the station, Mr Cole, see if we can have a better chat there.’

  ‘No.’ Cole addressed McGrain’s grip on him. ‘That’s… but I’m upset of this laughing.’

  ‘Well, that’s a very great shame, sir.’

  Mr Cole stopped, his mood shifted and he smiled beatifically at them both. ‘D’you know what? Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Oh,’ McGrain grinned, ‘you’re very kind.’

  Cole asked, ‘Where we going?’

  ‘We, sir, are offski.’ McGrain opened the door. ‘To the station. Where you will be held, pending a five minute interval when you’re no longer off your tits.’

  They left and Morrow found herself on her own in the room. Cole wasn’t allowed to smoke in the grounds. He must have smoked the hash before he went out. She looked at the floor and realised that there was no hash lying around. There were no pipes or torn papers on the floor, no papers at all. No roaches in the ashtray.

  The detritus of his wasted day was lying around the room, but before he went out on the boat Mr Cole had the foresight to hide the evidence of a parole violation.

  Silly, sweet, harmless Mr Cole had known that the police were coming.

  21

  All of the tables in the Paddle Café were arranged into three stations: starters, desserts and two types of mains. Small plates of cold poached salmon were laid out on big catering trays and overlaid with tinfoil. Dessert was lemon tart, the mains a choice of chicken or quiche. All there was to do when they got there was add whichever fresh element the plates needed–warm toast, crème fraîche–and bang it out the door. For Boyd it was an unforeseen but tremendously pleasing aspect of charity catering: he didn’t feel obliged to give anyone a choice about anything. Eat it or leave it.

  He got Helen, the youngest waitress, to lift the tinfoil lids from the trays while he added a garnishing sprig of dill to the poached pink strip on each plate. Helen had failed her exams, he remembered that much about her. Missed out on uni this year, was attending a crammer to get her grades up. She laid the tinfoil back down like a stage assistant covering a watch, smiling as Boyd played the part of the magician:

  ‘Now you see it. Now you don’t.’

  Helen was quite attractive, slim and dark with big eyes, but she had a confident look about her. She looked as if she’d gossip if you asked her where to buy coke.

  He could see another girl in the kitchen, Katie, decanting tubs of crème fraîche into enormous earthenware jugs. Katie was mousy though. She wouldn’t know. He should just wait and see Tommy Farmer.

  Since it was a blowout night, Boyd allowed himself the luxury of a little sexual speculation about the two girls and fixed on Helen: Helen shy, Helen naked, Helen bending over a bed.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Miss Grierson slid into his line of vision, expressionless. She was talking about the catering job but the overlap of thoughts made him uneasy.

  ‘Right.’ Boyd raised his voice so everyone could hear him. ‘Susan will organise a trail of people to carry the starters to the hall. We’ll need tray carriers and a couple of escorts in case they lose their grip or the tinfoil comes off while they’re walking.’

  Miss Grierson gave a curt little nod and went into the kitchen. A moment later she was out again, had all the girls with her, even the lazy part-timer Simone, who would hide out by the bins when it got busy. They each took a tray from Miss Grierson and Helen. Grierson held the door open, Helen followed at the rear and they stepped out into the soft evening air with poached salmon for a hundred people. Boyd watched the single file pass the window in neat procession.

  She was good, Miss Grierson. Able. He felt quite calm about the challenge of the night. They only had to go two blocks, uphill, to the Victoria Halls. Boyd stepped out of the door, watching them go.

  His congregation walked, heads up, arms laden, towards the promise of a public obligation honourably fulfilled. Boyd felt the rightness of the thing, the timelessness of it. In this ordered place, this event must occur.

  Tommy was puttering about the living room, pocketing fags and bits of change into his dress jacket. Elaine hurried in with a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. She set them on a side table, put the telly on to Cowboy Builders and jumped into the recliner. Using the armrests to lift her weight off the chair, she pushed the footrest out and settled in for the night. Tommy watched as she pulled her lap blanket over her knees, checked her tea and biscuits were within reach, that she had the remote–a pilot conducting final safety checks. ‘You’ll be late if you don’t go now. And mind you tell them it was me sold the raffle tickets.’

  ‘I’ll tell them, I’ll tell them.’ He was too adamant. Elaine gave him a look.

  Tommy smiled. ‘OK, I will tell them.’

  ‘Aye,’ she went back to watching telly, ‘I’ll be checking on that, son.’

  Smirking because he’d been caught out, Tommy went out to the hall to see himself in the mirror. He kept his eyes to the details. Polo shirt collar straight. Hair flat. He avoided looking himself in the eye.

  He opened the front door. ‘Bye, Lainey.’ And he stepped out into the stone close.

  Lainey sing-songed ‘Bye-ya,’ after him and he shut the door.

  Damp cold clung to the walls. Tommy checked for passing neighbours, back and front. No one. He walked up to the close door and shut it loudly, making a soundscape for Lainey. He opened it again, silently, and slipped out to the street, jamming the door with a bit of brick. Then he tucked his hands into his pockets and head up, face forward, walked past the living room window, letting Lainey witness him go.

  Past the window, he ducked and doubled back to the close, staying under the sill. He toed the brick out of the way and snuck through the door to the back court.

  The grass was thin and the ground uneven but he stayed off the well-lit path to the bin sheds. The fence was made of chicken wire, peeled back into the muddy back lane. He sidled through, careful not to catch his good trousers on the ragged wires, and made his way down to the dark end of the road and the abandoned lock-ups.

  The second-to-last garage had a flip-up door, peeling red paint. No one used the lock-ups now, not since one of them fell in, but Tommy occasionally parked things in this garage. He knew they were safe. The door didn’t open beyond knee height. He bent down now and lifted the door, crouching to feel into the dark, fingers wiggling in until they found the soft plastic handle.

  He pulled the petrol can out and stood up, thinking his way through the job. He cautioned himself not to get any on his clothes. It smelled distinctive and he’d be flammable if he did. Also, fumes could stick on your clothes if you poured it in a confined space. So just use the spout, pour it through a window, leave the jacket nearby, roll the sleeves up. Stay out of the fumes. Keep the wind at your back. He was concerned that the fire would be spotted before it got going and look petty, not serious. It needed to be the right window to go well.

  He couldn’t turn up at the dinner with mud on his good shoes so, rather than heading down the dirt lane to the street, he slid back through the hole in the fence and cut across the back court again.

  In his head he was already at the Sailors’, with the wind at his back and his jacket rolled up, already striking the match, so he didn’t see Elaine until it was too late. She was at the kitchen sink, looking out of the window straight at him.

/>   Tommy stopped in the pool of light from their kitchen. For a startling moment their eyes met.

  Elaine caught herself before he did, looking down quickly into the sink. She was pretended that she hadn’t seen him but she’d looked straight at him, standing in the back court in his smart jacket, holding a red can of petrol. She blushed with the effort of evasion. Lies weren’t Lainey’s style.

  Lies were Tommy’s style, but not with his mum. Embarrassed, he kept his head down and walked out through the close to the street.

  The bright white overhead lights in the Victoria Halls had to be left on for safety reasons. It was a very old building and the softer side lights hadn’t been safety checked recently. It didn’t matter how nicely the tables were dressed or how the food looked in the back room, it didn’t matter how much dill or cress or how artfully arranged a drizzle of jus was, it looked like the canteen deck on a ferry.

  The big hall was vaulted, the high ceiling painted peach with a white trim. For reasons, possibly of Victorian authenticity, possibly an aesthetic oversight, the vibrant peach had been twinned with mint green and pink walls. Long burgundy curtains were draped on the stage and windows. Ropes of red balloons hung around the balcony. Tickets had sold very well and tables jostled around the perimeter of the dance floor.

  The top table sat up on the stage, a last-supperish affair of local nabobs and charity officials sitting in a row, chewing bread rolls as though they were setting an example for the lower orders on the floor.

  The charity had contributed two big posters to flank the top table. A big-eyed girl with a shaved head and a nasal feeding tube taped to her cheek smiled wanly, twice, and watched the assembly eat.

  Every demographic of the town was represented, the rich and old, the poor and almost young, all joined together to raise money for a worthy cause. Some of the women were more used to nightclubs than dinner dances and were fake-tanned orange and tottering about in platform high heels and minidresses. The sedate, older women of the town, more familiar with the conventions of the dinner dance, had their hair set and were dressed in long skirts and heels they could dance in. Men wore sports jackets and slacks, or else kilts, which were expensive and bought for significant weddings, and they were damn well going to get the wear out of them.

  The starters had gone down well, though most of the fresh dill returned on the plates. Boyd was watching through the side door for the last empties and bread baskets to come back. The staff gradually assembled in the side room, ready to begin serving the main meal.

  He turned to Miss Grierson. ‘How long since the top table’s starters came back?’

  She checked her clipboard and watch. ‘Eleven minutes.’

  He nodded, watching the last set of plates weaving their way back through the hall. Four minutes and they would be late. Looking over the bald and grey heads in the hall, Boyd knew that most of them had children and most of the children would get married. The Victoria Halls was a prime wedding venue. When the day was chosen and the dinner was being booked these people would think of him. This was his chance to glean a lot of custom. All he had to do was serve good-sized portions of decent food at reasonable intervals.

  Boyd ducked into the side room where the plates were laid out. From a bain-marie plugged into the wall he spooned mash and chicken onto five plates. One top-tabler had requested quiche. He sent the girls out.

  For the next twenty-five minutes he spooned and served, looking hard at each plate to check for imperfections, envisioning the fresh eyes of diners landing on the food for the first time. He lost himself in the meditative task, enjoying the rolling rhythm of spoon to spoon as he shaped the mash, drizzled gravy over chicken. His face was damp, whether with sweat or the condensation of the bain-marie he didn’t know, but he dabbed it with the tea towel at his apron and carried on. In the background he heard Miss Grierson call the tables.

  ‘Two quiche on sixteen.’

  ‘One chicken, no mash on eighteen.’

  Interchangeable girls in black aprons, gliding in and out of the room with arms empty, arms full, never stopping to drink or talk.

  Boyd had run out of plates to fill. He looked up.

  ‘Service done,’ said Miss Grierson.

  Boyd nodded to the hall. ‘Can you check?’

  She went off to look through the door leaving Boyd alone in the carpeted side room. He had eight chicken portions left over and a full twelve-portion organic quiche. He could sell it in the café tomorrow.

  Miss Grierson came back, smiling. ‘Service done.’

  ‘Going down well?’

  ‘Come and see.’

  Dabbing his damp face, he stepped out to look through the glass doors. A hundred heads were bent over plates, the room full of the discordant jangle of cutlery hitting crockery.

  The waitresses were all locals and had stayed in the hall, chatting to diners they knew. The top table were eating, talking, looking at their plates as if they might be saying something complimentary about the food. Everyone was happy and Boyd was pleased.

  He spotted Tommy Farmer, sitting at a table near the stage, smiling, leaning low over his plate to scoop mash into his mouth. His jacket was on the back of his chair and Boyd’s heart swelled, as if he’d spotted a girl he had a crush on.

  ‘That’s really gone well,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Miss Grierson.

  Could he just go over and talk to Tommy? A hand on the back of his chair, a whisper in his ear–All right, Tommy? Just wondered… But he was a bit sweaty and everyone was still sitting down, he’d be obvious. Wait until after the puddings.

  Boyd meant to air-pat Miss Grierson’s back in a congratulatory way, but his eyes were on Tommy and he didn’t notice when she stepped back into his cupped hand. Boyd’s palm landed on her waist, just too low. He was touching her buttocks.

  Miss Grierson looked at him, eyebrows high with surprise.

  Reeling away, Boyd scurried off to the back room. He was cringing, half laughing with embarrassment. He glanced back, hoping to find her embarrassed and laughing too.

  She wasn’t.

  Miss Grierson was looking at him, expressionless, but the steadiness of her stare said yes.

  Iain was at a corner table in the hall, in the shadow of the balcony, having been swept there on a wave as they were let into the room.

  He didn’t see anyone he knew very well while he was waiting, ticket in hand, at the doors. Murray was late, Wee Paul and the other guys were yet in the pub and Tommy didn’t seem to be there either. He wanted to talk to Tommy, preferably in front of Wee Paul, but he’d have to wait.

  He ended up sitting next to a couple he knew from years ago. They’d brought a gangly nephew with them. The boy stared at the table throughout and finished everyone else’s food.

  Iain sat quietly and let them talk among themselves. People came to the table and left, hands on Iain’s shoulders, hands gone. Iain ate, savouring the hot food, realising he hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours and that was partly why he felt so bad.

  The night fizzed around him; it peaked, it troughed. Then he spotted Tommy sitting across the room, near the stage, but they were eating their mains by then and Iain would have drawn every eye if he walked over to him.

  He thought he saw the back of Murray, heading out to the toilet, but wasn’t sure.

  He saw Granny Eunice and she gave him a wee wave. She had her leg up on a chair and gave him an exaggerated wince across the room, to show him it was still sore.

  Susan Grierson came in during the puddings, dressed formally in black clothes, holding a clipboard as if she was working with the caterers but not carrying plates. She walked over to speak to a waitress and passed quite close by but pointedly ignored him. He was pleased enough about that.

  A man from the charity came around as the puddings were being finished, thanking them for coming, mentioning the sick kiddies, talking about dying, and how that was a shame.

  Full of food, Iain felt very calm and tired. It had been a
busy few days. All he had left to do was chin Tommy about taking credit for the lassie and he could go home and sleep. That was all he wanted in the world right now. To sleep, face down, unmoving, and wake up tomorrow morning, aching and groggy. He sat back with his hand on his stomach, looking around the hall. Smokers were getting up and moving to the exit. Tommy was over by the doors, texting and laughing at a joke Hank Murphy was busy telling. Iain might as well go and speak to him now.

  Boyd had been cowering in the service room. Miss Grierson slid into the doorway and smiled softly. ‘OK, Boyd?’

  ‘Oh–yup.’ He picked up a spoon and wiped crème fraîche off it nervously.

  Miss Grierson stayed there, staring at him, until the girls started coming back in with the pudding plates.

  Boyd busied himself, helping Helen to stack up the final load of plates from the mains. A few pernickety diners had eaten around the chicken or the mash or the salad. Mostly the salad. It had flowers in it. Wrong crowd. Boyd kept his head down as all the plates came back. He and Helen and Kate took the final load of plates out of the side door and put them on a metal catering trolley that was already half full. Take it back to the café, he told them, leave it in the kitchen and get your coats and bags and go home. They could do the washing up in the morning. They were getting time and a half for the evening, he didn’t want the shift to go later than it needed to. He watched them trundle the heavy trolley off onto the street and went back to look into the hall again.

  Coffee-making had been delegated to the people who ran the hall but Boyd had sent the girls out with a small plate of chocolates for each table, a Compliments of the Paddle Café card set prominently in the middle. Miss Grierson took the last few out herself.

  Hungry for a sight of Tommy, Boyd dropped his tea towel and went to the hall doors, peering through the bevelled glass. The tables were breaking up. They’d have a smoking break before the charity auction and then the dancing would begin. He saw Miss Grierson in the hall, mingling, asking people if they enjoyed their meal and being reintroduced to a lot of the upper-middle-class diners who might remember her. She stood by comfortably, hands clutched in front of her, allowing herself to be explained. An occasional flash of sadness in her eyes, probably when her mother’s death came up. Then a gracious smile and a promise to meet up again soon, have a good night, enjoy the dancing. She slid between tables, her pleasant smile unwavering.