2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel

by Christopher Brookmyre

  It became a game the next Friday when Noodsy did it again, except this time he fucked off with Robbie’s jotter. Came back in and told him he’d planked it next to the nearside hockey goals, which meant Robbie had to climb out and get it back before the period was finished and his work was due in for marking. Now they have challenges: one of them planks something at afternoon interval and the others have a race to get outside and find it. Nobody’s been caught yet, but fuck knows how not. One time, Boyd went up the back and shut the window because of the draught, with General George still stuck outside. Fair play to GG, though, he just walked back in through the school and right in the door of the class.

  Boyd says: “Where have you been?”

  GG goes: “I was taking that book back to Miss Coleman, like you tellt me,” all put out at the accusation and leaving Boyd standing there looking confused. Aye, he might be in the remedial group, GG, but the cunt’s not stupid.

  With the rain on, they’ll be left with their other favourite pastime, which is stealing school gear. There’s not actually much that’s worth stealing, not that that’s ever stopped anybody, but the kind of pointlessness of it did lead to a new game. Now the idea is to see who can plank the biggest and most stupid thing in somebody else’s bag, with extra credit if they leave the place without noticing. Sometimes they notice and go home with it anyway, for a laugh. Science is the best for this game, because it’s the class with the most gear, though Robbie wishes they’d got into it back in home Eeks. Secretarial Studies has potential, but the teacher, Miss Hannon, is a bit too sharp-eyed. Shame, really. It’s an ambition among them all to get a typewriter out of there, or at least to get one inside some other cunt’s bag, just to see the look on his face when he goes to lift it.

  Boyd hasn’t been to the pub. It’s the week afore payday, so that’ll be why. Surprisingly, the lesson really flies in. Boyd being more on the ball than usual, he gets round to setting up some experiments for a change, instead of setting them an exercise and snuggling down for a kip. Still, at times like this folk’s guards are down, so you have to take advantage. The opportunity arises when it comes time to start dismantling the equipment. Everybody’s busy with something or other, plus there’s nothing suspicious about being on the other side of the room from your own seat. Folk always sling their jackets and bags in a big pile on the worktops running down either side of the class, and these days if you’re seen hovering about them, folk know to check their gear before heading for home. A lot of the stuff has been shifted along to make room for equipment or for folk getting into overhead cupboards, so nobody cottons on when Robbie starts lifting the odd coat or bag. He then makes a point of helping Scan Cassidy put away some beakers, then goes back to his seat. The last few minutes take pure ages because he can’t wait for Boyd to give them the nod. He usually lets them get ready to go home a few minutes before the bell, specially on a Friday, but he’s still blethering about the experiment as the clock approaches four. Must be only a minute-to when he finally says, “Pack up.” Everybody jumps for their gear, but Robbie says to Noodsy to stay put a wee minute and watch big Kenny Langton over the other side.

  Scan Cassidy nearly ruins it because he picks up his jacket first and finds he needs to unhook a toggle from the shaft, but fortunately his coat was at the top. Kenny lifts up his bag with both handles, finds it snagged, and gives it a real tug. Four coats and two bags rise up into the air like they’ve come to life, causing some of the lassies to let out a screech. They’re all threaded through a four-foot metal clamp-stand, the base of which has been planked inside Kenny’s bag. The bag’s zipped up just shy of all the way so the shaft pokes out, but he wouldn’t have noticed because the first coat was covering the gap.

  Kenny’s pure pishing himself. Boyd kind of rolls his eyes, but reckons no harm done. He sees this carry-on nearly every week, and there’s no way that lazy cunt’s making a fuss about something when the Friday bell’s about to let him head for the boozer. Kenny’s asking around to see who did it. Robbie says nothing, but Noodsy points to him, which Robbie is happy about because in the end he wants the credit.

  They’re all still laughing about it—and all still trying to disentangle their gear from the clamp-stand—when the bell rings. Robbie reluctantly has to take his eyes off the scene over the other side as he turns round to get his own bag and jacket. He’s so distracted by what’s going on across the way that he forgets to check nothing’s been planked inside, but as soon as he lifts it, he can tell there’s too much weight. Tube that he is, he was so busy setting up Kenny that he forgot to be keeping an eye on his own stuff.

  Usually, if you’ve clocked it early, the thing to do is sneak it back out your bag and act like nothing happened, but it’s kind of accepted that if the bell’s gone, you’ve either got to leave with whatever it is or at least take it out in plain sight, so that whoever did it gets the laugh. There’s a good atmosphere about the place just now, Kenny still pure pishing himself, so Robbie reckons it’ll go down well if he paps his bag down on the desk and lets everybody see what’s been planked on him.

  “Fair dos,” he says, and unzips the holdall.

  There’s a big litre-tub of glue sitting right in the middle of it.

  For a wee second, Robbie feels like he’s the only cunt in the room: just him, the table, the bag, and this big fucking tub of glue. It’s probably because of the silence: there isn’t a sound, everybody shutting right up apart from one lassie still laughing at what went on before, and who hasn’t noticed the glue.

  Robbie feels like he needs to hold on to the desk or he might fly off it like a wean on a spiderweb roundabout. His throat is swelling, water welling up. He’s going to greet. He can’t greet. He wants to turn round and look to see which cunt did this, but let’s face it, he knows which cunt did this, and he can’t let anybody see his eyes. He’s not giving the cunt the pleasure. Doesn’t want anybody to talk to him just now, either. Anybody talks, especially if they try to say something sympathetic, he’s going to greet, and if he greets, man, if he greets…

  Everybody just starts filing out. Noodsy puts a hand on his shoulder. He goes to say something, “C’mon Turbo,” or whatever.

  Robbie bats his hand away without looking at him. “Don’t fuckin touch us,” he says, his voice like a whisper because he’s too choked to talk properly. “Don’t fuckin touch us.”

  Noodsy steps away. “I’ll wait ootside.”

  Robbie says nothing. He keeps his head down and picks up the glue in both hands, turning his back to carry it to the cabinet as they all leave. Boyd hasn’t said anything, give the bastard credit. It’s not because he doesn’t want a fuss at four on a Friday, either. He knows the score, knows the worst thing he could do is make something of this.

  The door closes after the last wean leaves, closing off the sound of everybody blethering. That’s the moment he can’t hold it in any more. Boyd’s still at his desk, but there’s quiet, stillness and Robbie’s back is to him, which is why it feels like he’s alone. He breaks down, greeting near silently, like coughs or big breaths.

  Men and Boys

  Martin makes it on to the carriage during the three-second window between the guard’s whistle and the doors sliding closed. There’s no ticket office any more, only what used to be the exterior exit stairway affording access to the platforms. Had the office still been open, he wouldn’t have made it, but it’s safe to assume that would be scant consolation to whatever poor fuckers lost their jobs when the station became unmanned.

  He’s already dialling Karen’s number as the train pulls away. The two-minute dash across the road and up the stairs provides a temporary distraction from what just transpired, the cold of the night and the wind in his face like a bucket of ice-water over his head to wake him up from the warm, smoky fug of the bar. It makes him feel like he’s well clear of the place, that he’s thoroughly left it—and Jojo—behind, but even as he reaches for the’ mobile, he can’t help feeling that he is merely vindicating everyt
hing she said. He’s got some information out of her, so now he can move on. Even if that wasn’t his sole intention, it’s what has happened, and though he’s got a promising lead out of it, he feels something uncomfortably close to guilt about passing it on to Karen.

  She answers after a single ring, causing him to trip up on his words.

  “Ha…hi. Hello. That was quick.”

  “My reflexes are amazing when I’m desperate for distraction. My eyes are bleeding from looking through these files. I’ve got all his accounts and business records in front of me, or at least what we believe to be all. Please talk to me. Preferably at length.”

  “Anything juicy come up yet?”

  “Hardly. His accounts are a shambles, but that’s not exactly a red flag when you’re talking about a failing business. The only question mark at the moment is a discrepancy over the use of the lodges.”

  “What, the fact that they were actually making money?”

  “Boom boom. No, it’s that a lot of the money looks like it’s from corporate hire. There’s a series of irregular payments in US dollars, account in the name of AmberCorp, but I cannae find any corresponding record of when these bookings took place. All the stays in the ledger have the rates and payments listed next to them, but AmberCorp never appears.”

  “Could be a third-party booking firm. AmberCorp would appear in the accounts, but individual guests’ surnames would appear in the records.”

  “I suppose. Maybe get someone to look into it, but we’re only talking aboot eight grand in total, so it’s not got me shouting ‘Eureka’.”

  “I thought cops always said ‘Bingo’ when they made the vital connection.”

  “We like to vary it from time to time.”

  “So those files, the books from Colin’s lodges, they list who stayed there and when?”

  “Yes. Why, what you got?”

  “Did Pete McGeechy ever stay there? Or anyone else on the planning committee? I heard that Colin used to let the lodges to friends at bargain rates, and sometimes gratis to others. The phrase used was ‘you scratch my back’.”

  “Let me find the folder. We spoke to McGeechy this afternoon, and Tom Fisher’s sniffing around him and the planning committee.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said nothing. He talked plenty, but he’s an experienced politico. Very good at answering your questions without telling you anything. There was also lots of legal posturing: ‘not at liberty to reveal’ this and ‘strictly confidential’ that. Very considered responses throughout. Very frustrating because it’s obvious he’s lying but you can’t get a credit card between the chinks, you know?”

  “Aye, but could you not goad him into losin the rag? Never used to take much.”

  “Like I said, he’s a smoother operator these days. Christ, where is that folder?” she moans, the strain in her voice causing him to picture her with the receiver rucked awkwardly under her chin as her hands search the paperwork. “It was right here a minute ago. Let me try this pile. Anyway, he was full of denials about pressure being brought to bear on the planning committee, or rather, he said pressure was always being brought to bear but that was what they were there to evaluate, blah, blah, blah. Cute, too. Didnae claim Johnny Turner had nothin to do with it or say he’d never heard of him or anythin that might come back to bite him on the arse. ‘Confidential submissions’, ‘can neither confirm nor deny the identities of’…You’re a lawyer, you know the script.”

  “Sure. So what was between the lines of the script?”

  “Well, obviously he was hiding something, but he didn’t seem especially nervous.”

  “He wouldn’t be if the two people who’d been squeezing him from opposite sides had just been eliminated.”

  “You think Colin was leaning on him? How so?”

  “You got the folder yet?”

  “Finally, yes. Let me see…Hang on, back over the page…Yes. McGeechy stayed at the lodges back in January. The rate is written down as complimentary. Oh no, wait a sec. January. That predates the submission of Colin’s rezoning application.”

  “It doesn’t predate the Sirius consortium’s approach for the hotel, though. Colin knew he would need him onside.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not exactly Jonathan Aitken at the Paris Ritz. Plus we’ll need to check whether McGeechy declared it anywhere. Even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t give Colin any means of pushing him. McGeechy would only be vulnerable to accusations of impropriety if he did what Colin wanted, so how does that give Colin any leverage?”

  “Maybe that’s not the kind of impropriety you should be looking for,” Martin suggests.

  “Why am I picturing you with your hand up right now?”

  “Please, miss, please, miss,” he says. It’s supposed to sound good-humoured, even flirty, but as he says it he can only think of Jojo. Binary. Jesus Christ.

  “You always loved being the one who knows the answer,” Karen says, accurately. “But don’t milk it, Martin, it’s getting late.”

  So he tells her, without fanfare and without naming his source.

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  “On a train. I’m a mobile-phone cliche.”

  “I mean where exactly?”

  “Just going past Nether Carnock.”

  “Get off at Paisley.”

  “That’s what all the Catholic girls say.”

  “Don’t go there, wee man.”

  §

  Party time. Pished the night, ooooooh yes. Going to get blootered. Going to get stocious. Going to get steamboats.

  Wooh-wooh, all aboard. Can’t wait. Colin and Panda Beattie and Big Tico Hughes and Matt K-9 and Aldo Daws-Baws, and not forgetting the lassies, not forgetting, no indeed, lice’s got ID says he’s eighteen, but if he gets a knockback, there’s always K-9’s big brother Bongo who’s in Sixth Year. They’re all coming back to his place—Tempo’s Temple—after the disco. That’s where the real action’s going to be. The school disco’s going to be a fucking Smartie party, all the wee daft weans thinking they’re on a real night out. All the wee lassies that wouldn’t let you do anything and have got hardly any tits anyway eating crisps and drinking Irn-Bru out plastic cups in between dancing to Kim Wilde or some shite, same as they were in First Year. All the wee fannies like Scotty and Marty still going out in their trainers and clothes their mammies bought them, standing round the walls spending all night plucking up the bottle to ask for a dance and then going back with a beamer when they get the inevitable knockback. And all the daft wanks like Keany and Liam with no chance of a carry-out, trying to get pished by putting aspirins in Coke. It’s a fucking myth, but he’s seen them drink it and then try to convince themselves they’re getting a buzz from it. Wanks. Near as bad as that daft bastard Kevin Duffy. Duffle heard about banana joints, but nobody told him you need to get tons of the wee stringy bits and dry them out. According to Aldo, the stupid prick tried to light a whole fucking banana like it was a big cigar. Total tube.

  And then, of course, there’s Turbo, but the least said, eh? Fucking Turbo. Used to think he was a wee hard man, but now he’s a fucking joke. Too stupid to realise he’s having the pish ripped out him half the time. Just stands there and takes it because he thinks that means he’s in with the boys.

  Seriously, it’s amazing that all these people are in the same year. There were always folk taller than others, and in some cases nearly a year between folk in the same class because of the March cut-off date, but now, at the tail-end of Third Year, it’s like men and boys, young women and wee lassies. He used to hang about with Marty and Scotty at St Lizzie’s, but fuck’s sake, how could they hang about together now? He doesn’t mean to act the big man, and feels bad about slagging them, but they’re still just wee boys. Their idea of a carry-out is from the Golden Dragon, they know nothing about fashion and they don’t have a clue what music is in these days. They slag off Bowie, for Christ’s sake. Just shows they don’t have a scoobie, and not just about music, but about be
ing cool. If you don’t like Bowie, fair dos, but you should have the suss to keep quiet about it. Tempo’s cousin Charlotte is up at Strathclyde Uni. She said everybody’s into The Velvet Underground and gave him a tape of some albums. He found them a bit boring, to be honest, but it sounds good to be able to talk about this kind of stuff. That’s what the likes of Marty and Scotty don’t get; that’s how they’ll never be in with the boys. They lack maturity.

  Going to be time to get ready in a wee while. Seven o’clock the disco starts. What’s that like? Seven! Finishes at half-nine. For a Third and Fourth Year disco! Just shows you: it’s so the weans aren’t out too late past beddy-byes.

  He’ll have a shower in a wee bit. Got some nice wet-look gel for his hair when he was in the town last Saturday. Him and Tico went in on the train, then straight across to Union Street. Virgin and HMV are practically next door to each other. That’s real record shops, not like the wee pishy one on the Main Street. He got a Japan twelve-inch, I Second That Emotion. It was going cheap because it’s been out for ages. He wasn’t into them before, but K-9’s brother Bongo likes them and he’s in Sixth Year. K-9 said Bongo might come along tonight, later on, so he’ll make sure that song goes on the record player if he does.

  He’s still got his uniform on the now, but he’s already looked out what he’ll be wearing. He’s got his Bowie trousers, the ones with the double pleat on each thigh, and this peach penny-collar shirt like David Sylvian wears on that poster in Bongo’s bedroom. Got that in the town on Saturday as well, with his birthday money.

  Mum and Dad are away overnight to stay with Nan and Papa in Perth. They’re taking Great Uncle Jim and Auntie Vera with them as well. They’re over from Canada for a month, and they’ve been staying here the last five nights since they arrived at Prestwick. Now it’s somebody else’s turn to have them, thank fuck. Could hardly get in the bathroom for one or other of them this week, and when he did it was usually honking.