2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel

by Christopher Brookmyre

  “Which was what?”

  “There was no way of knowing how many copies existed, and Colin only needed to hang on to one.”

  “And what was the bigger picture?”

  “A very dirty one. Turner called me up last Sunday and said he had it all sorted. I asked when I’d be getting my DVDs, which was when he told me I wouldn’t, and why. But he said he could guarantee Colin would be keepin them to himself.”

  “How?”

  “He put a few things together. Reckoned Colin wouldnae have fitted all that kit just to snare me, and that he wouldnae be using it just for his own amusement. He got someone to do a bit of diggin on the internet and it turns oot Colin’s been floggin this footage to a porn outfit in America.”

  “Online feeds?” Tom asks. “Hell of a risk in the global village.”

  “No,” McGeechy says. “Voyeur DVDs, sold mail-order, and only shipping within the US, so there was little chance of some bloke in Paisley loggin on to a porn site and seein himself in action.”

  “AmberCorp,” says Karen.

  “What?”

  “He received payments in US dollars from a firm called AmberCorp.”

  “Well, I doubt Turner knew that part, but he knew enough to put Colin in jail and see him sued from arsehole to Elderslie. Turner was using this to get him to drop the rezoning application, and to agree to sell the hotel to him—at a pretty fuckin preferential rate, I’d guess. Plus, of course, to keep me onside, Turner said he’d let Colin know that if my DVD ever saw the light of day, then so would everybody else’s.”

  “So Turner had already informed Temple he knew all this?” Karen asks.

  “Aye. He said he had broken the bad news, and they were meeting in a couple of days so Colin could put pen to paper. Next I heard about either of them, they were both dead.”

  §

  The DJ’s just put on One Step Beyond, but Noodsy practically has to drag Turbo up to join in. Normally he’d be first out there and going pure mental, but he’s not himself the night. Or more like he is himself, as in himself from a few years back: the old Robbie. He keeps drifting off into a dwam, getting that cold look in his eyes, anger and hate, thon psycho way he used to be all the time. It was the glue that did it, Noodsy knows. Not the glue that put him in hospital, the glue that was put in his bag this afternoon, in front of everybody. That was fucking sick.

  Noodsy doesn’t know who done it—he was busy with a wee bit of business of his own during science today—but he knows it wasn’t something that was done for a laugh, which just went too far or got took the wrong way. It was meant to be vicious. Everybody knows Turbo could have died, and you don’t fucking joke about that. Not that way, anyroads. Noodsy can imagine somebody like Kenny Langton mentioning it in a funny way to make light of it and cheer Turbo up, but that’s not what this was about. This was done to make everybody but Turbo laugh, and it was done anonymously.

  Normally with pranks like that, half the laugh is in everybody knowing what’s coming, so most of the guys are in on it. Noodsy doesn’t believe that could have been the case today, because there’s no way Kenny would have let it happen if he knew. So some bastard did it purely for spite, but Noodsy can’t work out who. Turbo’s made no shortage of enemies in his time, Noodsy among them, but he’s never been quite the same since Tempo battered him, and that was nearly two years back. You’d think if somebody hated him that much, he’d have done something about it before now, and to his face. Noodsy supposes the person with the best idea who did it is Turbo, but he doesn’t want to ask. Like the glue-sniffing itself, it feels wrong to bring it up, like picking somebody else’s scab.

  Turbo perks up a bit once he starts cutting about the dance floor, which is just as well, as Noodsy reckons it’s important that they both get noticed. Turbo’s at his best when you keep him busy, keep him involved in stuff. It’s when he’s idle he’s most in danger of getting thon broody way, and that’s when the old Robbie threatens to make a reappearance. Noodsy puts the tip of his thumb in his mouth and mimes playing a sax, like he does when they’re listening to this song at his hoose. Turbo responds like he hoped, kidding on he’s playing a trumpet. Then they do that thing from the Madness videos where the boy with the sax ducks just as the one with the trumpet swings it round over his heid. Mr Kerr, the geography teacher, clocks them doing it and has a laugh.

  Result.

  The song ends and some other shite comes on, gets all the trendy crowd up. Noodsy feels butterflies in his belly. It’s an exciting night, one he’s been looking forward to. There’s a buzz about the place. Everybody checking out everybody else. A lot of the lassies are looking really nice, some you really wouldn’t be expecting to, either. Tico and Aldo and K-9 and that lot are kitted out flash, as you’d imagine. They’re dancing with lassies, lucky bastards, trying to make out they’re dead cool about it, but they’ll be having butterflies as well, hoping they can get off with somebody later.

  Big Temps was dancing with that lot earlier, but now he’s dancing with Eleanor. She’s a lot different these days. You’d hardly recognise her from what she used to be like, apart from the scowl. In fact, you’d hardly recognise her tonight from what she looked like in class earlier on. There’s some lassies at the disco you can tell only get done up with make-up and that for occasions like this, but others look so comfortable in their glad rags that you can hardly picture them back in their uniforms. Eleanor’s one of the latter. To say she’s cleaned up her act would be the understatement of the year. No more Smelly Elly, no more greasy hair and clothes that never saw the inside of a washing machine.

  This transformation has come about, according to Noodsy’s maw, ‘since she became auld enough to look after hersel—because her mammy never did’. Noodsy’s maw has told him a few things he wishes he’d known before, because now he feels a bit guilty about how everybody carried on. Eleanor’s maw’s an alky. Eleanor’s da just walked out on them when she was a baby. That’s how the Fenwicks were always skint. Mrs Eenwick’s ‘a deid loss, poor soul’, Noodsy’s maw says. “There’s been other men aboot the hoose, but maistly neerdowells.”

  Eleanor works weekends at the frozen-food place in Nether Carnock, stocking freezers and mopping floors. That’s where Noodsy and his maw saw her recently, and what prompted these wee, belated revelations. “Pulling hersel up by the bootstraps, that lassie,” said his maw.

  But not everybody is as charitable or admiring about her as Noodsy’s maw. Folk don’t like to let you live down your past too easily round here, and while Eleanor might look different, there’s plenty of folk still look at her like she’s shite off their shoe. Tempo isn’t up dancing with her because of any romantic shite. See, Eleanor hangs about with a lot of older guys and the rumour is she’s been shagged off some of them. That’s why Tempo’s turning on the charm—he’ll be hoping for a wee bit more than any of Jojo’s pals would let him away with.

  Noodsy knows he’s got no chance for a couple of years yet when it comes to that game, but he’s got his sights set on scoring tonight just the same.

  §

  “Quite the little chatterbox this time around, wasn’t he?” Tom observes dryly as they watch McGeechy make his way out to a waiting unmarked car.

  “Obviously a morning person,” Karen replies. “And a sharp one, too. He talked plenty, but on the whole he didn’t tell us anything he knew we couldn’t deduce now that we’re aware of the video and how Colin made it.”

  “You think he’s still holding back?”

  “I think he’s smart enough to realise there’s nothing to gain but suspicion by withholding information that the polis are going to find out anyway. He was knocked sideways by us turning up with the DVD, but he regrouped. Only really lost it around the subject of his wife.”

  “Understandably so.”

  “More understandably than you know, Tom.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He said it himself: guys like Turner always see a bigger picture. If Turner’s shakedo
wn of Temple had all worked out, McGeechy would still be in the same boat. Instead of Colin Temple dangling the DVD over him, it would be Johnny Turner. That’s an even worse prospect if you ask me, because unlike Temple, Turner would have nothing to fear by way of legal comeback if he deployed his ‘zero option’, because he didnae make the recording. Plus, as he also said, there’d never be any way of accounting for all the copies. Until now, all we’ve had are reasons why Turner and Temple might want rid of each other. Now we’ve got somebody whose problems would be solved if he could get rid of both. Somebody who knew they were meeting up and would therefore be conveniently in the same place at the same time.”

  “He didn’t know where or when they were meeting, though.”

  “No,” Karen corrects. “He never said he knew those things. Big difference.”

  “True. So what’s the script with the wife?”

  “He lost it when he was talking about her, which was understandable, as you said. But once he calmed down, it struck me that he seemed more rattled than ever.”

  “Scared he’d given something away while his emotions had the better of him? But you cooled everything down at that point. Why didn’t you keep the pressure on?”

  “I did, in a way. I asked him his wife’s name. And I had to ask several times before he would give me it. Anna Logue.”

  “You know her? Knew her?”

  “Knew the name, knew the face. As McGeechy said, she was a couple of years below us, so I was only aware of her because she was the cousin of somebody in my class.”

  “Who?”

  “James Doon.”

  §

  “Time we went for a single fish,” Noodsy says.

  “I’ve just been two minutes ago,” says Turbo.

  “I know, ya daft bastart. I mean it’s time we went.”

  Another Madness single has just finished; Baggy Trousers this time. Noodsy made a pest of himself to the DJ until he caved in and played it just to get rid of him. Daft bugger would have no idea that getting a record played was just a fringe benefit. Making a pest of himself was the true point of the exercise. Same as doing that wee routine that made Mr Kerr laugh. It was about getting noticed, about giving the impression they were busy having the time of their lives.

  Noodsy has learnt a lot about impressions. He’s learnt the hard way about how the folk in charge only need a wee bit of information in order to make up their minds, and how no amount of contradictory evidence will then change them.

  “Aye, awright,” Turbo agrees, though he’s not exactly jumping at the prospect.

  He’s been a bit funny about the whole thing. Noodsy reckons it’s mainly to do with the mood he’s in after the glue carry-on, but there’s other stuff as well. He’s definitely not happy about Boma and Joe being involved, even less so that it was Noodsy’s idea to talk to them, but he didn’t see how else they could make it work. There are weird vibes in that house between those brothers, so there are. They give Turbo a right fucking hard time, but that’s why Noodsy thought he’d be happier for the chance to get on the right side of them.

  To be fair, he did spring this on Turbo kind of at the last minute, but Noodsy wasn’t sure himself whether he would go through with it. If Boma and Joe hadn’t been home when he went round to Turbo’s bit, Noodsy would have said nothing, probably. Just kept the idea for another time, or forgot about it altogether.

  It’s kind of weird, it being Noodsy who’s had to chivvy Turbo along, considering it was Turbo who got Noodsy started on knocking stuff. He remembers that first time at the Paki shop on a Saturday afternoon in Second Year. He was starving, they both were, neither of them due in for their tea for ages. He was always hungry these days. Must be because of growing. Turbo only had enough money for a packet of Polo Mints, while Noodsy never had a bean. Turbo said he’d buy the mints as a distraction while Noodsy knocked some chocolate. He said no at first. He was shiting it about getting caught, but more because of his maw finding out than about the shopkeeper or the polis. Maw was always going on about honesty, how low it was to steal stuff. And Noodsy agreed. But he was branded a thief on his first day at primary school, and he’s been picking up the blame for shite ever since. Nobody ever listened, they all made up their minds. Vee-lan. Bawd igg. James Doon! What are you doing rummaging about in there? So if he was taking the shite for it anyway, he might as well get a free fucking Ritter Sport for his troubles. Honesty had got him fuck-all.

  They leave the dinner hall and go up the stairs, then hang about in the corridor for a wee minute to make sure nobody’s coming, before going right outside. The school’s built on a slope, so it’s on three levels, but all the main entrances are in the middle tier, apart from fire exits. The staff aren’t daft enough to be wanting dozens of unsupervised weans stoating about the place on a Friday night, so they’ve locked the big barrier doors that cut across the main inside thoroughfare. This cuts off access to most of the classrooms, including the whole of the top floor. On the mid-level, the staircase down to the dining hall is open, obviously, plus there’s access to the First and Second Year bogs and cloakrooms. You can get to the Third-to-Sixth-Year bogs and social area through the fire doors, but the lights are off and there’s a paper sign taped to the wall saying: “Out of Bounds!”

  They’ve been playing these daft games for ages, about knocking stupid stuff from the classrooms. It’s pish-easy, but it’s useless as well, which got Noodsy to thinking there must be some more valuable gear worth libbing from the place. Then, as luck would have it, his RE class got taken to the lecture theatre to watch some minging film about abortion, and that’s when he realised: same as burglars when they tanned your house, the top merchandise to go after was the video. Or, in this case, two videos, and both VHS as well.

  Noodsy doesn’t have a video any more. They used to have a Betamax on rental, but it had to go back after his da got laid off again. He’d love to knock one from the school and bring it home, but you can’t see his maw and da believing him if he said he just found it, eh? Naw. Especially when it’s going to be all over the town that the school’s machines got tanned. Kind of hard to get home with one under your arm and not get noticed, too. All of which is why he needed to bring in Boma and Joe. Noodsy reckons he can get the machines out of the building, but he needs somebody to move them after that, move them in more ways than one.

  Noodsy leads the way round the back, along the outside wall, until they get to their science classroom, and a window that’s had more traffic through it recently than half the corridors. That’s what Noodsy was busy with this afternoon—while Turbo was farting about with a clamp-stand and some bawsack was planking glue in Turbo’s bag—undoing the window lock at the top, then wedging a wee bit of a broken ruler between the frame and the sill. The windows are meant to be locked when they’re closed, but the teachers and the janny are only liable to check if they notice one still open. That’s why Noodsy’s only opened it enough to get the ruler through and no more. It’s enough, though. The ruler’s still in place and the window’s not locked.

  They wait there a wee minute until they see the motor: Joe’s pal Benzy’s Allegro. It pulls up on the back road that goes past the school, just trees and fields along it, and no houses. The headlights flash, then go off altogether.

  Right.

  They’re both giggling a wee bit as they climb in. Turbo’s looking a lot more into it now, which is not surprising, because it’s some buzz. Better than anything he could’ve hoped for off the glue, that’s for sure. It’s like being nervous and really excited at the same time. His heart’s pounding, his stomach’s burling but he can’t keep the smile off his face. There’s a wee moment of concern as they approach the door, in case it’s been locked from the outside, but it opens no bother. Come to think of it, the only doors Noodsy’s ever seen the staff locking up with keys are the tuck shop and the school offices, in both cases because there’s money sometimes kept there.

  It’s right weird walking through the place with nobody a
bout and the lights off. The corridor’s practically pitch dark, with just a wee glimmer of the exterior lighting coming through glass panels in some of the classroom doors. They go upstairs to the top level, and it gets a bit brighter as they approach the gallery. This is the bit that looks down into the big social area. The overhead fluorescents are off down there, but there are two storeys of tall windows to let in the orange glow from the school yard and the car park. The lecture theatre’s at the end of this, after it becomes a closed corridor again. Noodsy and Turbo have been whispering to each other up to this point, but now they have to zip it altogether. They’re getting close to the corridors that are open downstairs, plus there’s only an unlocked fire door separating those from the social area.

  They walk on the soft soles of their trainers; it’s definitely not a night for Docs. They’re just about all the way across the gallery bit when somebody makes a moaning noise and Noodsy nearly jumps over the railing. He turns and looks at Turbo, and he can tell he shat it as well. Then they take a careful look over the side at what’s below.

  There’s two folk sitting in one of the big window-alcoves, their legs dangling over the brickwork, their top halves merged in the shadows. Noodsy holds his breath, feart any noise will make them look up, but after a second or so he realises he could be playing a mouth organ and they’d still not notice, as they’re too wrapped up in getting off with each other.

  It’s Temps and Eleanor. Aye, called that one right. They’re kissing away, and that dirty bastard Tempo’s feeling one of her tits.

  Noodsy turns to see Turbo’s expression, so’s they can have a quiet wee laugh, but he looks all serious. Could be jealous, Noodsy supposes. It’s a laugh to be watching, but he knows he’d prefer to be the one doing it. Not that either of them fancies Eleanor, but who wouldn’t want a feel of a nice pair of diddies?