Slip of the Knife

by Denise Mina

  Like bubbles rising from a mile under water, the words found her lips: “I love you.”

  Dub slowed down to thirty again and looked sternly out at the road. “I don’t think this is the time or the place . . .”

  She smiled at his discomfort. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “We talked about this before.”

  “Yeah, your fat arse, Dub McKenzie.”

  He turned his head but was afraid to take his eyes off the road. “Meehan, it was you who said we shouldn’t try to pin it down, not me.”

  “Shut up and drive. You wanker.” She grinned out of the side window. “And I do love you. I don’t even love you as a friend, I’m in love with ye. I think everything you do is brilliant. So ye can shove that up your arse. Fucking Proddy twat.”

  When she glanced back he was smiling at the road, sucking his cheeks to stop his face splitting in half.

  “Happy now?” she said seriously. “You’ve trapped me with your wiles and sexual trickery.”

  Chewing his lip, he slapped her leg with the back of his hand.

  Paddy threw her hands up in mock exasperation. “And now the violence.”

  IV

  Their headlights left the road and sliced, waist high, through the dark around the cottage. They could see that Callum had been busy.

  The sturdy grass pressing up against the façade had been flattened, roughly cut away under the windows and the door. An orange-rusted rotary-action lawn mower stood indignantly upright in front of the house.

  Dub parked and Paddy got out, looking around for Callum. She felt Dub behind her and his fingertips found hers, squeezed them, and then retreated. “He’s round the back,” he said and walked off.

  Paddy took a step and the tip of the kitchen scissors needled her thigh. They weren’t very sharp.

  She felt a front of cool air sliding up the hill from the sea, heard the bushes whisper beyond the orchard wall and the old house groan at the weight of its history. The crack across the front looked deeper in the dark. She followed Dub’s shadow.

  The lawn mower’s last act had been to chew the grass off around the side of the house. Callum had cleared a path along the side wall, down to moss-covered paving slabs underneath. The thick, spongy surface was waterlogged and her trainers squelched as she stepped across them.

  They found Callum sitting on the ground by the kitchen door, his back to the wall, looking out and enjoying the night view of the hills. He was eating dry white bread, squashing slices into hard dough and biting chunks off. “It’s so quiet here, I heard you two a mile away.”

  “You’ve been busy enough,” said Dub.

  Callum smiled and stood up. “I’m going to live in the country one day. Come on in.”

  Though the light was failing outside, they could see that he had cleared the whole kitchen floor, found some cleanish water in the water tank on the far side of the house and used a bucket with a hole in it to drag it into the house. He’d managed to wipe the thick layer of dust off the worktop and the range, but he didn’t have a mop so the floor looked not so much cleaner as dirty in a different way.

  Dub was at a loss. “Lovely.”

  Glassy-eyed with pride, Callum grinned and swept an arm around the filthy kitchen. “But this didn’t take half as long as the other job did.”

  He planted his hands on his hips and waited for them to ask. Paddy didn’t have time for this. She needed to get him the fuck out before McBree turned up.

  Dub obliged. “What other job?”

  Gleefully, Callum made them stand by the back wall, clearing a space on the floor. “Ye can sit down if you like.”

  “Callum, I need you to go with Dub. You can stay at his mum and dad’s tonight. I have to meet someone here.”

  “Two minutes.”

  He disappeared into the front room. Dub looked at Paddy and smiled the warmest smile she had ever seen. She took his hand, dropping it abruptly when Callum reappeared holding cardboard flattened like a pizza box, carrying it carefully in front of him, holding the lid down.

  Callum looked coyly at Dub. “I did this for you. So you can sleep.” He lifted the lid.

  Paddy was expecting a drawing, pressed flowers, something creative and asinine. But Callum hadn’t made a drawing.

  Dub slid along the wall, rolling his shoulder to the doorway, half muttering “fuck” before staggering outside. They could hear him vomiting.

  Paddy sat down.

  Sitting in the base of the box were nine dead mice, their slender bodies lined up neatly. The fleshy pink pads on their feet looked too tender to have carried them through rough wall cavities and fields. Paddy could see soft brown hair on their bellies, and, from the low-down swelling, that one of them was pregnant. Their front paws were curled tightly up at their chests. Above the neck their heads were bloody tattered smears.

  Callum looked sadly at the door. “I battered them with a brick. But it wasn’t for a laugh, I did it for him.” He dropped the lid and slumped to the floor.

  Paddy couldn’t look away from the box. She could still see their feet, the skin on their toes, translucent as an embryo’s. She hugged her knees to her chest.

  Callum slid along the floor to her side, his shoulder tight to hers. “Are you crying?” He looked at her closely. “You’re not crying about the mice.”

  It wasn’t a question so she didn’t answer him.

  She rubbed her face roughly. “Look, Callum, son, you need to go with Dub, go back to the city. It’s not safe here anymore.”

  “Are journalists coming? Aren’t you coming?”

  “I have to meet someone here.”

  “Who?”

  “A man.”

  “A journalist?”

  “No, a man. It’s not about you, it’s about another thing.”

  “What other thing?”

  “Nothing to do with you, just another thing.”

  They looked at each other and she saw a spark of recognition in his eyes. “It’s not safe here. Who’s it not safe for?”

  She shook her head, looking at her hands. “You need to go.”

  He nodded as if he understood perfectly and wrapped his arms around his knees, mirroring her pose. “Can I come back here after? I could be happy here. If I had a radio and food, I’d be happy here. I could look after it, sort a wee garden out for myself.”

  Her eyes welled again. “Sweetheart, you won’t want to come back here.”

  He stared at her rudely for a long time, watching her cry. Embarrassed, she fumbled her cigarettes out of her pocket. Callum took them gently from her hand, opened the packet, and handed her one. He lit a match for her, but her whole body was trembling and she couldn’t dock the tip to the flame. Callum held the end of her cigarette steady so that she could light it.

  He sat back, very calm, muttering so quietly she had to tease the words apart in her mind to make sense of them. “Gotaknife?”

  She shook her head. “Scissors.”

  “No gun?”

  “No.”

  “Plan?”

  She inhaled and took Callum’s big hand in hers. “Son, you’re young. Go home and have a life. It’s time for you to have a life. Live in the country. Meet a girl. You’re handsome, did you know that?”

  Callum blushed.

  “You’re a nice young man, well-meaning, good-looking. You’re an Ogilvy. Have a family, go to chapel, that’s what Ogilvys do. You like families?”

  He nodded eagerly.

  “That’s what Ogilvys do.”

  “You’re my family.”

  “I’m not your family, Callum. I’m close to your family but I’m not your family.”

  He sounded sulky when he answered, “Aye, ye are.”

  Dub leaned back in the door, pasty skinned and wet eyed, afraid to cross the threshold of the kitchen. “Callum,” he gestured outside, “’mon. Let’s go.”

  “I only did it for you,” Callum said to him.

  “I know, pal, that was nice of ye. I’m a bit soft. Come on. Pa
ddy needs to be alone here. Someone’s coming to meet her. He won’t come if we’re here. Pad, I’ll be back at ten in the morning to pick you up.”

  “Take care on the road,” she said, keeping it light.

  He left. They could see him through the side window as he stepped carefully across the moss on the paving stones by the house.

  Callum stood up suddenly, staring down at Paddy sitting balled up on the floor. His voice was shaking. “Ye call me son. Ye look after me. Ye are my family.”

  Paddy’d known Callum since he was eight years old, had been to his father’s funeral and fought for him before she ever liked him.

  “Son,” she said, her voice a growl, “you’re right. We are family.”

  V

  She went to wave them off. Dub backed nervously out of the driveway to the lip of the road, Callum guiding him through the grass with waves and warning slaps on the bonnet.

  Out on the road, cars were speeding past at irregular intervals, more frequent on the opposite side of the road. Callum climbed into the passenger seat. Paddy could see Dub’s head flicking back and forth, worried about how to get across. Finally, Dub revved the engine, jolted forward, and hit the road going the wrong way. He sped off in the direction of Ayr. They’d have to turn at the roundabout.

  The noise of the road died as she walked around to the back of the house. A low sun was setting over the lush green hills, the horizon baby-girl pink. It would be a long night.

  She stood at the kitchen doorway, holding the frame to steady herself, and thought of her father. It was resisting death that made it painful. Con should have embraced it. She’d never thought about it before but his resistance was the ultimate act of defiance. She didn’t recognize it at the time, mistook it for fear because she’d never seen him resist anything before, but it took real guts to cling to life when the odds meant you’d die.

  It was too dark inside, so she lifted one of the spindly-legged kitchen chairs and took it out, setting it against the back wall, on the spot where they had found Callum. She arranged her funeral coat around herself to keep warm, took the useless scissors out of her pocket and set them on her lap.

  Then she lit another cigarette, leaned her head back against the crumbling wall, and waited for the sun to go down.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  DON’T GET OUT OF THE CAR

  I

  A car was approaching them from behind, coming out of the dark. Dub slowed to let it pass but it lingered behind them, wary of straying onto the midline of the road until they were out of the hills.

  Callum looked at Dub, hunched over the wheel. He didn’t look as friendly as he did when Paddy was with them. His jaw was tight and his eyes narrower. His breathing was fast.

  “This fucking road,” he mumbled, glancing nervously in the mirror.

  He seemed angry and Callum was afraid that Dub hated him because of the mice. He thought back to Paddy at the cottage, worried, crying and not saying why, wanting him to leave. She said it wasn’t safe.

  The car behind slid out to the side, peering around them, and slipped back, gathering speed, headlights growing in the mirror, shining a rectangle of blinding light into Dub’s eyes, before pulling out into the road and passing them in a flash.

  “STOP!” yelped Callum, making Dub’s hands jump so the car swerved towards the grass verge.

  “Fuck!” shouted Dub. “Don’t scream like that, this is hard enough.”

  Frightened at the level of anger in his voice, Callum moderated his voice: “Stop the car.”

  But Dub wasn’t listening. He wasn’t looking at him, he was watching the road, checking the mirror every few seconds, holding the wheel so tight his arms were pulling his body forward in a rigid curve. He slowed on the approach to the roundabout, the lights of the petrol station glistening in the dark.

  Callum tried to explain. “I need you to stop the car. I need to go back. She said it’s not safe.”

  Dub didn’t answer but pulled the car across the roundabout and veered left into the petrol station, blinking hard at the brightness and carrying on until they were around the side of the building, right around at the back, in the dark again. He slowed to a stop.

  Callum was sweating. “This isn’t right. She’s not safe.” The words rattled around the inside of the car. The silence afterwards was suffocating.

  Dub’s voice was barely a whisper. “She said she loved me. I don’t know how to handle myself. I’m not a violent man.”

  Callum wanted Dub to think well of him, not because he could give him a good report or parole, just he liked the gentle way he had about him and how scared he was of the mice. “But I am,” he said quietly. “I am violent. I know how to handle myself. She’s on her own up there and she’s my family and I’m going back.”

  Callum wouldn’t have thought someone as wet as Dub had it in him but his cheeks flushed a furious red and he leaned across the gear stick to press his face into Callum’s: “You fucking listen to me: you are a child.” He was pointing in Callum’s chest, poking his finger as if he wanted to stab him. “Sean Ogilvy didn’t take you to live with his family so you could get involved in rubbish like this, d’ye hear me? Paddy didn’t drive all the way up the fucking coast and take shit at her work so you could be a heavy for her. You are a child.”

  “But I know how to—”

  Dub leaned into his face, eyes bulging, as angry as Haversham. “If this guy does turn up and you batter lumps out of him, how fucking fast do you think they’ll whip you back into jail? You’ve been out for under a week, the world and his dog are looking for you, we’re all busting a gut to protect you. D’you think I’m going to let you wander up the hill to have a fight?”

  “But she’s my family,” he said weakly.

  Dub sat back, eyes still wide. “You’re not her dad, you’re not her brother, so what are you?”

  Callum shrugged.

  Dub made a little circle with his finger. “In this family, in our family, you’re a child. And in this family, in our family, the big ones look after the wee ones.” He opened the car door and took a step out of the car. “If you get out of this car I will never speak to you again.”

  “You’ll need a weapon,” said Callum.

  Dub looked back at him. “I’m going to the petrol station. To get a knife.”

  He shut the door behind him and walked off around the corner to the shop.

  Alone in the car, Callum blinked burning eyes. He thought he was a nuisance to them, a problem. It hadn’t occurred to him until Dub said it: they were protecting him. He was their child. He hadn’t been a child since the dark night and the baby. They weren’t hiding him, they weren’t tolerating him. They were looking after him.

  When Dub came back around the side of the station Callum groaned. He was carrying a red plastic petrol can. He opened the driver’s door and looked in, and repeated his warning: “I will never speak to you again.”

  Callum shook his head. “Ye can’t use a can of petrol on him. It’s soft, ye can’t hit with it, and don’t try to set fire to him because you’ll get her too. You’ll set yourself on fire, probably.”

  Dub looked uncertain for a moment. “Well, what then?”

  “Get a brick. Hit him there . . .” Callum fingered the top of his head, where he knew the skull was weak.

  Dub looked at him, softer this time. “Promise me you won’t get out of the car, Callum.”

  “OK,” he whispered. “I’ll stay.”

  II

  The grass had been cut short all the way through the field. Long stripes ran up the hill and back again, marks of a mechanical mower, scything the grass to no more than an inch high.

  Dub had to keep to the ditch at the far side from the road to avoid being seen by passing cars. It should have been easy to follow: a trickle of water had carved a gentle cleft in the soft, rich land for him to run along, keeping low. But the farmer had used the burn as a line for fencing, four wires topped with razor tips, the stakes deep in the black soil, a
nd he had to go slowly or risk sliding down the side and cutting himself. He didn’t know how much time he had.

  The can in his right hand swung heavily, the petrol sloshing against the sides, following the rhythm of his walk.

  Water in the burn trickled melodically, high-pitched and playful, jarring with the dark night and the fat seagulls cawing overhead. His ankles were taking the strain of hurrying along an incline. He stumbled on loose ground once or twice, always stopping to check he hadn’t hurt himself, and then carrying on. He couldn’t see the house yet but knew it was there, at the top of the hill, beyond the clump of bushes and trees.

  Reaching the edge of the short grass, he came to a fence into another field and climbed carefully over. The ground was looser here, strong grass that was razor sharp at the tips. He ran in a crouch, skirting the summit, his hand sweating around the plastic handle of the petrol can, making it slippery. He arrived at a tumbledown wall, two feet high, made of old stones, the mortar weatherworn and crumbling. He raised his eyes.

  He had reached the old wall around the garden of the cottage.

  And there at the far end, the flare of a match, a warm orange target in the dark. She was there, sitting in a chair, in the dark, quite alone.

  He let his eyes adjust to the thin light. He could make out her face in the glow of the cigarette. She was smiling.

  He watched her as he squatted on his haunches and set the petrol can on the uneven ground. Listening, alert to any noise he might make, he unscrewed the plastic lid, working his fingers slowly until it was quite loose. He lifted it off and set it on the ground.

  And then he waited.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  INTO THE BAD FIRE

  I

  Paddy was on her third cigarette. It was quiet here and she didn’t like it. She could hear the grass waving in the wind, the scurrying of tiny feet back in the house, mice or rats, survivors of Callum’s killing spree. They seemed to have got into the roof and she was afraid they might drop down on her head, so she moved her chair out from the wall a bit.