2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel

by Christopher Brookmyre

  “Don’t worry aboot it. Wasnae as bad a place for a pint as I remember.”

  “Aye, it’s no bad at all. Did you talk to Jojo, then?”

  “Briefly,” he says, his guilt at lying massively outweighed by the greater need to keep the truth to himself.

  “Briefly?” Scot asks, surprised.

  For a paranoid moment, Martin wonders whether he might somehow know something. It’s a small town, and Jojo is to discretion what…Well, he can think of no equivalent. She’s an absolute. “We were never exactly best buddies,” he offers.

  “Yeah, I know, but I thought you might have pumped her for information. She doesnae miss much in this toon.”

  In his head Martin hears himself saying: “Well, I did pump her, just not for information.” He hears Scotty laugh, too, but in his head is where it stays. There’s no end of reasons why he can’t joke about it, not least the freshness in his mind of the disturbing alacrity with which they went about their act of making hate.

  “So what’s the Hampden with gettin me to meet you here?” Martin asks. “First the Railway and now the Bleachfield. Is it a concerted campaign to bring me back down to earth and deflate my metropolitan ego?”

  “Naw, and I’m sorry again aboot the prick remark.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I was bein a prick, lam a prick. But what’s the script?”

  “Well, it looks like I’m gaunny be stuck here all day, an we’ve got Helen’s sister and her man comin over for dinner, so…”

  “So it’s the only chance we’re going to get to talk. Helen’s sister: Nicola, wasn’t it?”

  “Well remembered.”

  “If I cannae remember background details about the lassie I had a crush on, what can I remember?”

  “Let’s not go there,” Scot says, a twinkle in his eye. Scot never went chasing the lassies, same as he never went chasing the future. Like everything else, he knew it would all happen when the time was right. “What’s for ye will no go by ye,” as Martin’s granny used to say. And what was for Scot turned out to be Helen Dunn. Still, at least it gave a degree of balance to Martin and Scot’s relationship: there had to be one thing about him he hated, the jammy swine.

  “I could have waited till tomorrow,” Martin says. “I’m not shooting back. Told the office I’d need a week. I havenae taken any time off in six or seven months, so…”

  “I wanted to talk to you aboot this before I inevitably end up talkin to the polis.”

  “The polis? About what?”

  “The hotel. It belonged to Colin.”

  Martin feels as daft as the time he realised, after several years of using the end of a kitchen knife, that there was a jaggy bit inside the lid of a tube of tomato puree specifically for piercing the metal cover. “Of course. It was his dad’s.”

  “His dad died six years ago. Cancer. Left the hotel to Colin. He was ill a long time, so the place was already on the slide before Coco got hold of it.”

  “Wasnae the classiest place to begin with,” Martin observes. “A dump, in fact. Somebody must have thought that low-rise, cornflake-packet-on-its-side aesthetic looked good once, I suppose. When was it built? Mid-seventies?”

  “Sixty-nine.”

  “So why’s it coming down? Falling apart? Asbestos?”

  “I wouldnae be standin here if it was asbestos, no. Coco was sellin it. Sellin the land, rather. There’s a consortium who want to build a retail development on the site. Sirius, they’re called. That’s who’s contracted the firm I work for.”

  “A supermarket?”

  “No, not big enough. You’d need a site this size just for the parking. We’re lookin at eight mid-size retail units. What the Yanks call a strip-mall.”

  “And your firm are building it.”

  “Well, yes and no. We’re still at the planning stage. The deal hadnae been finalised before Colin…”

  Martin nods. Neither of them wants to say it aloud if they can help it. “But if the deal wasn’t finalised, what are the wrecking crew doing here?”

  “Jumping the gun, that’s what.”

  “Surely Colin would have had to…”

  “Yeah. They’re jumping the gun on his command,” Scot confirms. “He ordered the site be cleared, which is kinda confusing for me, because it’s normally the purchaser who has to worry aboot that.”

  “Was he trying to sweeten the deal? Speed things up?”

  Scot gives him an ‘are-you-daft?’ look. “It’s not the purchasers he’d have to sweeten. They want the site, and the price had been agreed.”

  “So why wasn’t it finalised?”

  “Well, in this game, it’s never as simple as the buyer and seller agreeing a price. There’s a complicating factor that’s as complicating as you can possibly get. In fact, complicating things is how it justifies its existence.”

  “The council,” Martin guesses.

  “Give that man a poke of sweeties, Granny. This is classified as a residential area. In order for Colin to sell the site to this consortium, the area would need to be officially rezoned for retail, or mixed-use at least.”

  “But there’s shops a hundred yards the other side of the railway bridge.”

  “Different story between what’s already standing and what you want to build. The hotel site, right now, could only be sold for housing; maybe bring in a quarter-mill if you’re lucky. To be honest, you’d dae better sellin it as a going concern to a hotel chain who might want to renovate it. But rezoned for retail, it suddenly becomes worth a lot more.”

  “How much more?”

  “The price agreed wasnae a kick in the arse shy of two million.”

  Martin whistles. “For this dump?”

  “But only if it gets rezoned,” Scot qualifies. “This consortium has developed umpteen of these places up and doon the country, and they’ve several sites under consideration at any given time. They contract the likes of my firm to plan and build them, and we proceed provisionally so that if they get the green light from the council, everything can go ahead as quickly as possible. But it’s up to the landowner to procure the rezoning or whatever other permissions are required.”

  “And if he doesn’t, the game’s a bogey?”

  “Withoot missin a beat, they’d write it off and move on to pursuin an alternative site.”

  “So did Colin not get the green light, or what?”

  “The final decision wasnae due until next month, when the planning committee were scheduled to meet. That’s what I mean by jumped the gun.”

  “Maybe he was pretty confident of getting the nod.”

  “Still nothing to be gained. Well, it would allow us to start work quicker if we got the go-ahead, but you’re only talkin aboot a couple of weeks. And if the application failed, he’s just demolished a standing asset. I mean, Colin never struck me as the most astute businessman, but he wasnae daft.”

  “Did you know him quite well, then?” Martin asks, realising he has thus far ignored what Colin’s death might mean to Scot.

  “Naw, no really. Just to say hello to, you know, if I saw him in the street or whatever. I don’t think we’d more than a ten-second conversation since school before this deal came up.”

  “And how did he seem? Was he doing okay, I mean?”

  “A bit anxious, as you’d expect, considerin he’d be set for life if this came off. But aside fae that, same old Coco, really. Full of himself—and there was more of himself to be full of, if you follow—and a bit sleazy with it, as ever. Out-of-order remarks aboot Helen, you know the script.”

  “Sure do,” Martin agrees. “I met him once on a train when I was a student. He was doin his usual, patronisin me and askin if I’d ever managed to get a girlfriend. Because it pissed me off, I was stupit enough to tell him I was seein this lassie…Aboot two minutes later he’s askin if I’d done X, Y and Z with her, really fuckin graphic, you know?”

  “Aye. He was a wank. I’m sorry the guy’s deid an all that, but he was still a wank. He was a bully, as well.
Not the way the bampots were bullies, but more subtly. He knew how to intimidate people.”

  “And would that include the planning committee, do you think?”

  Scot makes a pained expression. “Any planning application I’ve been remotely involved with, there’s rumours flying around regarding which way it’s gaunny go. The higher the stakes, the mair rumours you hear. Somebody always knows somebody who heard fae so-and-so who’s related tae thingamyjig. It’s all best ignored, but when you’re in our position, you cannae help bein interested in how the wind is blowin, especially if it might mean what you’re sweatin over isnae gaunny happen anyway.”

  “So what way was the wind blowing?”

  “Erratically. Back and forth and round in circles. I mean, that’s not unusual: you hear it’s goin one way fae one guy, then you talk to somebody else and they say the opposite. What was weird in this case was that there seemed to be a consensus, but the consensus kept changing. It was definitely gaunny happen. Then it definitely wasnae. Then it definitely was again. And what I heard was that there was pressure—serious pressure—comin from somewhere to block the rezoning.”

  “Who from? Somebody on the council?”

  “Naebody knows. Or rather, naebody’s sayin. And naebody’s sayin on what grounds, either. You normally know what the stumblin block is gaunny be: environmental issues, residents’ objections, transport infrastructure ramifications. There’s been no opposition from the residents because they’d rather have a nice new set of shops on their doorstep than an eyesore of a hotel that pukes pished folk oot on tae their street every night. Environmental impact isnae really applicable in this case. It’s a brownfield site, or it will be once these boys are finished. Transport issues are negligible. It’s a shopping development aimed principally at passing trade on what’s already a trunk road. Much as these things are never plain sailing, I’d still have put my money on it gettin approval. But the word is that people on the committee were being leant on heavily from somewhere.”

  Scot glances at the building, towards which a Caterpillar machine is noisily trundling with destructive intent. He lets his thoughts just hang there, loose and unconcluded. There’s something more to be said, but he seems uncertain, reluctant to volunteer it. It’s almost as though he’s inviting Martin to make his own inferences, but Martin suspects he’s assuming too much knowledge.

  “Why would someone want to block the rezoning?” he asks. “Or am I missing something really obvious to you gnarled property-trade veteran types?”

  “The Bleachfield was losin money and fallin apart, classic cycle of decline; and Colin, by all accounts, was not the man to arrest that decline. If this proposal hadnae come along, he would have needed to sell the place pretty soon anyway. Maybe even been forced to, given the debts it was racking up. His only other assets were some lodges up by the fishing loch, which I think did turn a small profit, so he’s hardly gaunny sell a money-makin concern just to shore up one that’s bleedin him dry.”

  Martin’s starting to see it now. “So if someone else had their eye on the place, and the rezoning application got the knock-back, then they could pick it up for a bargain shortly thereafter when Colin’s got no choice but to flog it. But why would anybody want to buy this dump, and why would they want it so much that they were prepared to go to the bother of nobbling a planning committee?”

  Scorty just folds his arms and stares at him, eyebrows raised. It’s as though there are things he doesn’t want to be heard saying out loud, but amid this also, once again, is that ‘are-you-daft?’ look.

  But Martin now proves he is not. “Because anybody who can nobble a planning committee into blocking one application can nobble them into approving another. After which the site they got for a song will be worth a whole album.”

  “Aye.” Scotty nods. “Funny you never see that on thon Sarah Beeny programme. Still doesnae explain why Colin fast-tracked the Cat-tracks here, but it’s somethin to think aboot.”

  “This is why you relayed Noodsy’s request, isn’t it?” Martin decides to ask.

  “Naw, I did that because Noodsy asked me to, Martin. Simple as that. All the toing and froing on the committee…it’s not somethin you give a lot of thought to until two folk are lyin deid.”

  “Who was it you spoke to at the council?” Martin asks. “Who’s your sources?”

  “A few second or even third hand, and one very close to the action. He won’t talk to you, though. Especially not now.”

  “But who is it?”

  Scot gives him a sardonic look, like he’s saying, ‘brace yourself. ‘

  “You remember Pete McGeechy?”

  And thus Martin understands what the look was about. “Pete McGeechy? That guy who would start an argument with himself? He’s in local politics?”

  “In local politics? Guy like that was made for local politics.”

  “Actually, come to think of it, was his dad not involved in the council?”

  “Was, aye. Noo he’s a fuckin MSP. And meanwhile, back in toytown politics, Junior’s heading up the planning committee.”

  “Jeez. The mind boggles. The guy got an ‘F’ in his O-Grade tech drawing, if memory serves, and now he’s…”

  “I think it was a ‘D’, but I’d be splittin hairs. Bottom line is the usual monkey-plus-Labour-rosette equation.”

  “He was quite pally with Colin back at St Grace’s, was he no?”

  “Aye. They were still pally, far as I was aware, but that doesnae guarantee you anythin when politics is involved. Or property.”

  “So what did he actually say to you about this?”

  “It wasnae so much what he said to me as what he wasnae sayin, half the time. I could tell he was feelin the pressure, but there was no way he was for sayin where it was coming from.”

  “You suspected threats, something heavy?”

  “Not necessarily. See, there’s intimidatory pressure and there’s brown envelope pressure, and the latter can make folk even more jumpy and paranoid than the first.”

  “You saying he’s bent?”

  “I’m sayin nothin. As the politicos put it, I’m not rulin anythin out and I’m not rulin anythin in. But in either case, there’s a massive disincentive to reveal the source. He wouldnae tell me aboot it, so he’s sure as fuck no gaunny tell you.”

  “True,” Martin concedes. “But we’re neither of us experts at asking the questions.”

  “And you know someone who is?”

  “We both do,” he says, and reaches for his mobile.

  Arts of Vigilance

  Sign of the times: Scot’s class, 1S4, are waiting outside registration, Mrs Gordon’s home Eeks room, and nobody wants to be at the front of the queue. In all other classes throughout the day, you just pile in and wait for the teacher, meaning registration is the only time there’s a line any more, but it’s such an unacceptable act of weanishness to be bothered about being first that even the lassie who has ended up there is a good three yards from the door itself. Fat Joanne is these days to be found as near to the back as she can manage, though if you observe her approach, she typically puts almost as much planning and tactical nous into securing a spot at the rear as she used to in hogging the vanguard.

  That’s not all that’s changed about her, right enough. She’s not quite as fat, having swapped a few circumferential inches for vertical ones. Plus, maybe she’s lost weight due to the fags, as Scot’s heard they can have that effect. She’s lost her love of telling tales, too, perhaps because doing so would entail actually addressing the teacher with some minor modicum of enthusiasm, and that would come at an extravagant cost to her new image as the Baroness of Bored. She stands around with a permanent petted lip, prime exponent of the Everything’s Shite philosophy which seems latterly to be taking the First Year lassies by yawn.

  Eleanor has had a stretch, too. There’s a joke to be made about bad smells and dirt being associated with growth, but nobody’s much inclined to mention these things since she got that bit
taller. She was always a bit of a torn-faced creature, but these days she seems simmeringly aggressive, to the extent that Scot once heard Richie Ryan say: “I’d rather fight her than fuck her, and I wouldnae want tae fight her.”

  Scot’s standing with Richie and the two JJs: John-Jo and John-James, who are cousins from Carnock, but might as well be twins, and Siamese ones at that. Nobody’s sure how much thought and consideration went into grouping the First Years when they put the three primaries together (or whether it was just names in a hat, as suggested by the bampot-cluster that is 1S5), but if this pair had been assigned to different classes it would have required surgery.

  Richie’s got a bit of bruising around his left eye, the cause of which is standing a few feet away in the shape of Pete McGeechy, himself sporting a bit of swelling around his bottom lip. Pete is keeping his distance, lots of eyes having tracked his approach given that Richie was already in the line when he arrived. They were all waiting to see what, if anything, would happen after what took place final period yesterday in the home Eeks practical area, not so far from where they’re standing now. Pete is a gangly and awkward bugger with all the physical grace of a new-born foal and roughly the same elegance about his social skills. He’s not a heidbanger, and he’s not (normally) violent, but he’s got the shortest fuse Scot has ever encountered, and a tendency to interpret the least contentious assertions as grounds for argument. He talks faster than an Irish racing commentator and says everything so pointedly that even when he’s agreeing with you, you feel like you’re on the back foot.

  It seemed inevitable that one day somebody would lamp him, given the sudden aggression he unleashes without much apparent regard for such possible consequences, but surprisingly, it was Pete who gubbed Richie first. Richie, for all his reputation as a fighter, is normally very slow to anger, which is probably why nobody seemed aware there was any trouble brewing before the pair of them suddenly started panelling each other in front of a double-oven.

  Neither was available for comment afterwards, fair to say, having been huckled off tout de suite to the deputy heidie’s office for two of the lash to add to their other injuries. This means that the only light shed upon what led to this dust-up in the dough-school came as Mrs Gordon hauled them apart and demanded just what the hell was going on.