2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel

by Christopher Brookmyre

  They won’t be cadging the contents of this one, however. John-James pulls the lid off and reveals a browny-green, slimy mass that upon first glimpse resembles a freshly laid country pancake. Then part of it moves, and Scot notices that holes have been poked raggedly through the lid.

  “Whit the fuck’s that?” asks Franky Naylor.

  The JJs just stand there giggling, letting the box itself answer the question. Every head turns to look, some leaning forward where they sit, others standing or getting up and walking closer. Then something jumps, and so does everybody in the room.

  “It’s full ay frogs,” Jai Burns points out. “Yeh, and some folk would say that boy’s thick.”

  “Fuck’s sake, John-James,” Scot says, “your mammy’s good tae you. Nails here’s just got Spam rolls for his packed lunch.”

  Nails pure decks himself at this.

  “Now, now,” says Dom, putting on a stern voice. “If you’re going to be eating in class, I hope you’ve got enough for everyone.”

  “I think we do have enough for everyone,” laughs John-Jo, and it looks like he might be right. There must be eight or nine of the slimy wee bastards in that box, though it’s hard to tell because they’re crawling all over each other.

  “What the fuck did you bring them in here for?” asks Pete, as ever making it sound more of an accusation than an enquiry, like they know he’s fatally allergic to them or something.

  “We’re gaunny sell them,” says John-James. “Anybody that wants wan for a pet.”

  “Or anybody that’s forgot their pieces,” says Nails, struggling to say it through his laughter. He’s fair taken with the frog-eating theme, but that’s Nails for you—laugh at a door shutting.

  “How much?” asks Sammy Devlin.

  The JJs look at each other. It’s obvious they’ve not thought as far as this part.

  “Eh, ten bob each,” John-James suggests.

  “Fifty pee?” Sammy recoils. “Get tae fuck. Talkin aboot a fuckin frog here, no a greyhound.”

  “Ten, well,” barters John-Jo, the 80 per cent reduction failing to elicit so much as a batted eyelid from his business partner. Scot thinks it’s short odds he picked the new price simply because it was the next coin down.

  “Heh, there’s an idea,” says Richie.

  “What?”

  “Greyhounds. Let’s race them.”

  “Callus.”

  “Magic.”

  “Mental.”

  “We can bet as well,” says Richie.

  “Aye,” says Scot. “I’m puttin ten bob on the green wan.”

  “They’re all fuckin green, ya stupit cunt,” Jai informs him.

  Scot and Nails exchange a look and Nails starts decking himself again.

  “Dom, away and keep the edgy,” Jai orders.

  “Aw, fuck off, man, I want tae see this.”

  “Just dae it, right?” Jai insists.

  Dom knows not to push his luck, and heads around the partition that masks the changing room’s interior from the door.

  The JJs start lifting frogs and placing them in a line next to the door leading to the showers.

  “Shite, I think this wan’s deid,” John-Jo reports, cupping his palms together. He then turns and throws ‘it’ at Richie, but there turns out to be nothing in his hands.

  “Fuckin bastart, ye,” says Richie, laughing.

  There may not have been a dead frog, but the ones on the floor aren’t exactly bursting with life.

  “They’re no movin,” Jai points out.

  “That’s because naebody’s said ‘Marks, get set, go’ yet,” says Scot.

  “Naw, they’re waitin for the wee rabbit hingmy tae go by,” Richie suggests.

  “They’re sleepy,” John-James informs them knowledgeably. “It’s March, man. They’re just oot ay hibernation.”

  “Does that mean we can buy wan next year on HP over the winter and pay the balance when the bastart wakes up?” Sammy asks.

  Dom comes back from the door and sits at his place on the bench.

  “Thought you were keepin the edgy,” Jai says.

  “Noodsy’s daein it for 1S3. Says he’ll gie us a chap on the wall.”

  Scot wonders if it’s worth cautioning that whatever Noodsy is up to, he usually gets caught, but he can envisage being ordered on to edgy duty himself as a result, and so opts to keep it zipped.

  “Gie them a wee dunt,” Richie suggests, but doesn’t look too keen to touch any of them himself.

  The JJs crouch down and have a poke at various of the frogs. Most barely respond, but one suddenly leaps about a third of the length of the changing room, prompting laughter and cheers. This success encourages the JJs to keep poking until they get a couple more to take the high road away from their irritating attentions. Scot often has the same inclination, usually by about half-three in the afternoon.

  This belated burst of progress concentrates interest upon the contenders. Scot wasn’t serious about betting on the outcome, but folk are starting to support individual frogs, cheering whenever their chosen amphibian takes another leap in the right direction.

  “I think that wan there’s gaunny come steamin through late,” says Jai, pointing to one of the stubbornly inert creatures at the shower-door end of the room. “He’s just pacin himsel.”

  This is unusually witty for Jai, whose rare stabs at humour usually centre on threats or descriptions of violence.

  “Is it true you can blow them up if you stick a straw up their arses?” Sammy asks during a lull in the action.

  This makes Scot sincerely hope Sammy hits the tuck shop hard enough at morning interval to leave him with less than ten pence to spare.

  “Aye,” John-Jo says. “We heard Tommy Higgins did that once.”

  “That’s right,” John-James confirms. “Then he threw a penknife at it and it burst. Fuckin sin, so it was.”

  “He’s a pure bastart,” his cousin rounds off.

  “Ha-llo,” Dom cheers, as one of the miniature athletes makes a particularly impressive jump. It’s more sideways than forwards, landing just underneath the bench next to Pete, but it’s only a foot from the partition, which has been denoted as the finish line.

  Seeing his own choice overtaken, Richie overcomes his squeamishness and kneels down to give it a tentative prod. It hops not once, but twice in a row (“Gaun yersel, wee man, you’re away noo”) to reclaim pole position.

  “Right, no more touching,” Dom insists. “Let’s see which frog crosses the finish line itself.”

  Everybody gathers round, forming a semicircle behind the two leading contestants, calling encouragement. Everybody, that is, except Jai, who’s still standing over the frog he’s tipping to ‘break late’.

  “Gaun, wee man.”

  “You’ve got him noo.”

  “Don’t bottle it.”

  “Come on, you cannae lose tae that wee green poof.”

  “Hurry up, Freddo, or Tommy Higgins is gaunny get ye.”

  Somebody starts singing the music from Chariots of Fire.

  “Gaun, Kermit. It’s yours. That bastart’s legs have gone.”

  Something whizzes overhead. Then there is a slapping sound against the outer wall.

  “Zat the edgy?” somebody asks, but it’s not.

  Scot looks around in time to see the frog just as it falls, leaving a grey-green splatter against the brickwork. They all turn to look at Jai, who has thrown it, as hard as he could by the look of the results.

  “See,” he says. “Tellt yous it would break later.”

  “You’re a sick cunt,” Richie says, shaking his head. He’s not laughing.

  “And you owe us two bob,” adds John-James.

  “Fuck off,” Jai tells him.

  “I’m serious,” says John-James. “Same as the shops: you break it, you pay for it.”

  Jai pushes him roughly against the benches and goes back to sit down next to his gear. Everybody knows this should be the end of it, but there’s still a silent
tension in the air in case John-James is angry (and suicidal) enough to take it further. The silence turns out to be jammy, because through it they hear a door squeak and Cook’s voice as he enters the dressing room next door.

  “Fuck, get the frogs,” says John-Jo in a panic. Everybody starts scrambling about the floor frantically, aware of the shite they’ll all be facing if Cook walks in and sees all these wee green fuckers skiting about the place. Even Jai gets involved, although his first priority is binning the evidence of his recent wee frogicide.

  “The fuck happened tae the edgy?” John-James asks Dom accusingly.

  “Fuck knows,” Dom says, but Scot is fairly certain the answer will involve the Noodsy Magic touch.

  Jai was right about one thing: it seems the previously inactive frogs were indeed pacing themselves, conserving their energy for hopping about like their lives depended on it just at the point when everybody needed them to sit at peace.

  “Well seein the bastarts are full ay fuckin beans noo,” Richie observes.

  Cook comes in just as John-James is fitting the lid back on his Tupperware.

  “Lunchtime already, is it?” he asks. “Well maybe I’ll just have a wee share of what’s in there myself.”

  “Wouldnae recommend it, sir,” Richie says. “Didnae look very appetising.”

  “What was it?”

  “Frog’s legs, sir.”

  “Aye, very good. Right, out you come.”

  Cook holds open the door and they start piling out, Jai unusually first, possibly motivated by getting away before Cook notices the stain on the wall. John-James checks Cook can’t see him behind the partition and quickly wheechs open the Tupperware again. Cook’s looking at Scot, so he has to get going and therefore doesn’t see what happens next, but Scot would put a tenner on it involving John-James stashing a frog somewhere among Jai’s belongings.

  §

  Boma knows fine who they are and why they’re here, but he makes them produce their badges at the front door, as a matter of habit or a point of principle, and very likely both.

  The 2005-vintage Boma is a more muscular beast than its eighties prototype, but there’s still no mistaking the model. He looks as cadaverous as ever, a hollow gauntness about his face, made all the more sinister by his honed bulk beneath, the better to manifest the cruelty behind his eyes. He’s lost much of his hair but the difference is minimal because the ingrained image she has of him is with a close-shaved bullet crop. It was around Primary Five, when he threw mud in her friend Helen’s face. Karen didn’t see the incident, but kept an eye open for the perpetrator thereafter. Safe to assume he’s done a lot worse since.

  They say they need to talk to him to try to work out what was behind his father’s death. They know he’s going to tell them nothing, but they have to go ahead with it anyway. It’s like a courtship dance. To the outsider, it might look daft and even pointless, but important—if tiny—details could still be communicated.

  Boma stands by the fireplace, arms folded, like he’s guarding the living room. His eyes look heavy. He’s knackered, burdened, and may even have shed a private tear. Right now, though, he’s all shaped up and strictly in character. They are enemies and they are in his father’s home. Every query is rebuffed, treated as a means of casting aspersions on the dear departed rather than an attempt to understand why he died.

  “My da was a victim, no a suspect,” he says several times. He is particularly indignant on this point when they ask if there is any reason he can think of why someone might have wanted his father dead. It’s like his defence of the man has to be all the more effusive now, because he wasn’t there to watch his back when it really mattered.

  Outrage on the issue of who chibbed his wee brother is conspicuously lacking, an observation that causes Karen to notice another omission. Old Johnny liked his family photos. There are several along the ostentatiously grand marble mantelpiece and perched on top of a widescreen TV vast enough to be one model down from a Jumbotron. Still more adorn prominent spots in a display cabinet, others atop floor-standing speakers and the window sills. Siobhan, the only daughter, makes the most appearances, closely followed by the late Mrs Turner. Boma and Joe are well represented too, in images spanning three decades; you could probably date each one fairly accurately by the style—or latterly sponsors—of the Celtic jerseys the boys are wearing in almost every pose. Robbie’s face does not appear once.

  Karen makes a show of looking at them all, turning to take in the whole room, and then lifting one from a side-table. It’s of Siobhan, a wedding photo.

  “Your sister must have been the apple of her daddy’s eye, eh? Beautiful girl.”

  “Whit aboot it?” Boma asks, rendering it close to one syllable.

  “She lives abroad now, doesn’t she?”

  “Aye. Canada. She’s flyin back, but. Gets in today, I think. Might be here already.”

  “Must have been rough for your dad. Daughter away, then Joe inside. No wonder he’s got so many photos. None of Robert, though. Why is that? Or did you take them down?”

  “If I say aye, does that mean I reckon he killed my da and I went and stabbed him for it?”

  “How could it?” Karen says. “You were away fishing somewhere. Where was it? Perthshire?”

  “Sutherland. But I know how you cunts think.”

  “Do you think he did it? He and your dad had their issues, didn’t they?”

  “I don’t know what happened. And I never touched any photies.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Tom picks up a shot of Boma and his dad in Celtic tops and sombreros, arms around each other’s shoulders.

  “This Seville?”

  “Aye,” he says, looking for the first time slightly vulnerable. Well played, DI Fisher. “Put it doon. That’s precious noo.”

  “Aye, must be,” says Tom, placing it down gently. “Quite a memory. A European final. Eighty thousand folk. Wonder where that eighty thousand were when Macari was in charge. Lot of folk awfy busy on Saturdays back then.”

  “I’ve always went, thick or thin,” he insists, taking the bait. “My season ticket is for roughly the same spot where I used tae stand in the auld Jungle. If it’s glory-hunters ye want to talk aboot, go tae Ibrox an ask where aw thae cunts came fae after Souness arrived.”

  Tom puts up his hands. “Wasnae havin a go, pal. I’m a Tim myself.”

  Karen’s mobile rings. She reflexively reaches for the ‘Busy’ button, but pauses momentarily as she notes the caller. It’s Martin Jackson. Maybe the Perry Mason wannabe is calling to bust the case wide open. Mustn’t mock too much, right enough. The way it’s going so far, anything he’s come up with will be an advance on what she has.

  Tom continues chatting about football for a few minutes, but Karen knows he’s already got what he wants. It’s now an exercise in covering his tracks. Boma isn’t being seduced by the fellow-Tim line, however. As has been the case all along, he’s letting the polls do all the talking, and answering with the utmost bristling, begrudged brevity. Model crook; his father would have been proud.

  Her mobile vibrates again, this time receiving a text message. Like the call, it’s from Martin, and the bugger has come up with something. Isn’t that just like the class smart-arse? She scans the lines a couple of times to be sure she’s grasped what he’s getting at, training and self-discipline working hard to suppress a smile, then turns to Boma.

  “Just before we go, Brian, can I just ask you…when was it your dad decided to sideline into property development?”

  “Property development? I don’t have a scooby whit you’re talkin aboot,” he says. But before he says it, there is the merest pause, the briefest flash of anxiety, and it’s enough to confirm a direct hit. She won’t get anything more out of him, she knows, but this will most certainly do to be getting on with.

  Exodus

  All of First and Second Year are down in the dining hall for Mass because it’s a Holiday of Obligation. Karen wishes that meant it rea
lly was a holiday, because at least you’d get a day off school in compensation for having to sit through another service. She thinks it would be fairer if, to balance things out, there were also holidays from obligation, so that for every weekday you had to go to Mass, you got a chapel-free Sunday in exchange.

  Karen’s resentment is compounded by two factors, the first of which is that she’s missing double art for this. Talk about unfair. Carol and Michelle in 1S2 are missing single maths and single RE, the jammy cows. Single RE is when any kind of school Mass ought to be scheduled, Karen decides. It’s time already allocated to the subject, and it being a single period would keep the service down to a maximum of thirty-five minutes. Right now she’s looking at an hour and ten, which means loads of miserable hymns and a long sermon from Father Flynn, during which he’s bound to tell them all for the hundredth time about the oppressed people in Poland. Karen’s been watching John Craven’s Newsround since as long as she can remember, and, between that and the annual Blue Peter appeals, has been made aware of dire circumstances in Bangladesh, Biafra and Cambodia. She doesn’t recall any of the priests ever mentioning these, nor even Poland until they got a Pope from Krakow. Since then, it appears to have become the clergy’s number-one international priority.

  The second factor is that she has been picked to give a reading. It is her ‘reward’ for being one of the few in her English class who can read aloud a passage from a book without sounding like a malfunctioning Dalek. Mr Flaherty announced yesterday that it would be her ‘honour’ to do the first reading, and she’s been dreading it ever since, as well as cursing the fact that Flaherty, her English teacher, is also the head of RE. Her honour. Aye, right. More like her downfall. What better way to get yourself pegged as one of the goody-goody sooks—and even worse, a holy-holy goody-goody sook—than standing up at the makeshift altar and reading from the Bible in front of two whole year groups. Might as well turn up tomorrow in a habit and wimple.