Helen has actually confided recently that she fancies Scot; that she’s always liked him, in fact, even though she was often a wee bit intimidated by his mischievousness and that perceptively wicked tongue of his. Karen’s always liked him, too, and for precisely the reasons Helen found intimidating. She’s always liked his pal Martin as well, but neither of them ever seemed suitable as boyfriend material. They’re the kind of guy she wishes she could have been better friends with, but that’s about it. Both too short to be anything more, for one thing, and just too damn boyish. They look the part tonight, though. Those bootlace ties are a cute touch; just enough of a hint of dissent without it being any kind of attention-seeking protest. She can tell Martin is delighted to be dressed just that bit more individually. She of all people can identify with the buzz of walking into company like this and making a statement about yourself. However, the statement Martin seems keenest to make these days is ‘Cheerio’. The tie seems more a Scot thing, she estimates. He’s the cheeky one. It’s not intended as a protest, just a wee bit of good-humoured devilment.
Karen’s had a good time. It’s been great to see everybody away from the snake-pit that school always turns into. There’s a lot of goodwill in the air tonight, and not a little regret. Plenty of people here won’t be seeing so much of each other in future, and it’s taken an occasion like this to make them realise that might be a bad thing. The only sour note she’s aware of—apart from poor Eleanor having to leave—is that Martin walked off the dance floor to the bar rather than dance with Jojo when they ended up together. He didn’t do it demonstratively, but he still did it. Jojo would never admit it in a million years, but Karen could tell she was hurt. Some might say she had it coming, but for Christ’s sake, not tonight. This was a night for putting all that shite behind you. Martin was leaving anyway, why burn bridges? She thought he was more magnanimous; thought he had more class. Thought he was a nicer guy.
Karen won’t be leaving this year; she’s in no hurry. She doesn’t have a scooby what she wants to do, and the best way to defer a decision on that is to go to college. A sixth year and a couple more Highers won’t hurt, especially as she’s none too confident about that second maths paper she sat. She hasn’t really known what she wanted to do for years; and being the Bionic Woman probably doesn’t count. She once thought she wanted to be an art teacher, but the truth was she just wanted to be her art teacher, or even just dress like her. She also thought about becoming a polis, as it’s one of the few jobs where being a comparatively tall female is seen as an advantage. She blew it off, though, on the grounds that nobody ever tells her anything. Jojo Milligan: that’s who should become a cop.
The thought makes Karen look around for her, but there’s no sign. She saw Jojo leave the function suite with Colin Temple, with whom she’d been dancing for most of the night. Karen’s kind of surprised he would be out of the room for longer than it took to have a pee, as he seemed intent upon milking every moment. Colin’s been acting like the whole event is his party, the hotel the site of his own personal triumph. She wonders what spell Jojo has cast to be honoured with so much personal attention.
§
“That was the night I…you know, lost my…” Jojo swallows again and nods in lieu of saying it.
Martin nods, too, so that she can continue.
“To Colin…with Colin, in fact. I’m pretty sure it was his first time as well. Anyway, part of his seduction that night was to act all sensitive and concerned, askin aboot Eleanor. I didnae really tell him what I knew…Some of the things he said…it was like he knew already. Okay, maybe I joined a few dots, but he had most of the picture drawn. I don’t know how, but the main thing is he did know, and he’s known for twenty years. So when Johnny Turner started comin over heavy about the hotel, Colin also must have realised what happened to Charlie Fenwick.”
“Scot said Johnny might even have worked as a labourer when they were building the place.”
“That would be aboot right, aye.”
“And Colin reckoned that once the hotel was demolished and the body found, Johnny Turner would be removed from the equation.”
“Aye,” Jojo agrees. “Forcibly, by the polis. But I guess he didnae work it oot quite soon enough, otherwise he wouldnae have bothered leanin on Pete McGeechy.”
“Or, knowing Colin, it was belt-and-braces. He needed Pete to guarantee the planning permission, especially after Johnny Turner nobbled the committee. Johnny being lifted for murder wouldn’t necessarily undo the damage he’d already done to the planning application. So he blackmailed Pete, but then it backfired and presented Turner with a winning hand, which he chose to play just days before Colin knew the demolition would take him out of the game…”
§
Colin hears the car before he sees it. That’s always how it is out here: so quiet, just the chirping of the birds and the rustle of wind in the branches. Sometimes you can even hear the waves lapping on the fishing loch. The sound of an engine and the crunch of tyres on dust and bark is like a roar by comparison, even two or three hundred yards away through the trees. He doesn’t need to see the car anyway to know who it is. Nobody happens along here in passing. The single-track road leads only in and out. It’s a dead end.
He lifts his new, second mobile and makes the call for which it was anonymously purchased. It’s a simple act, and yet so difficult. He knows it will make the rest easier, though, or at least reduce the dilemma of choice. Making this call will set everything in motion; will make it harder to shite out of it and decide he’ll just take his losses on the chin instead when it comes to the real moment.
“I need you to meet me here at the lodges as soon as possible,” he says. “It’s really important. And I need you to come alone, because it’s sensitive. It’s about your dad.”
The black BMW pulls into view, coming around the side of the end lodge and rolling into the horseshoe with a stated lack of hurry. Colin sees him through the windscreen. He’s alone, thank fuck. It would still work if Boma was with him—arguably even better—but it would be twice as tricky.
Johnny Turner gets out of the car slowly, again underlining a lack of haste, like he’s out for a stroll in the woods. He’s got a briefcase with him. Cunt probably bought it for the occasion, acting the businessman. Can’t imagine him having much call for it the rest of the time, or the suit. He’s a fucking site labourer turned crook inside whatever he’s wearing. The threads just make him look like he’s due in court.
Colin is standing in the doorway of Lodge Two. Turner holds up the case and points enquiringly towards the shed.
“In your wee office?” he asks, smiling, like he’s a fucking rep here to do a sub on some linen supplies.
“Naw, just come on through here,” Colin tells him. He’s just locked the hut, having shut down the PC so it doesn’t record anything.
Turner follows him into the lodge, where Colin gestures towards the low coffee table and sofa in the sitting area.
“Let’s make this brief, I’ve things to get on with,” Turner says, the smug bastard acting like this is all routine, in order to more subtly rub it in. He places the briefcase down on the coffee table with near ceremonial delicacy, bending over to open the catches.
Colin has never been sure he’d be able to go through with this, hasn’t slept since he decided it was his only way out. The moment is almost upon him. This was when he feared, even expected, that he’d falter, but he feels different when he sees the paperwork being laid out in front of him, and with such self-satisfied relish.
Two million quid. That’s what he’d be signing away.
“Do you need a pen, son?” Turner asks, holding up a bookie’s biro, which, like the briefcase, he must also have chosen and brought specifically for the occasion.
“It’s all right, I’ve got my own,” Colin says, then pulls out the gun from inside his jacket and shoots Turner through the centre of his forehead.
§
“So the unidentified mobile that phoned
Robbie must have been Colin’s,” Martin suggests. “He needed somebody to blame for Turner’s death, somebody he could then also kill and make it look like suicide. Who better than Robbie, who is known to hate Johnny anyway?”
“Who better indeed?” muses Jojo, a concerned, concentrated look on her face as she speaks.
“A few days later, Charlie Fenwick’s body would be uncovered and the story would come out: Johnny murdered Charlie in 1969 after he had an affair with his wife. Colin can tell the polls he told Robbie about Johnny’s interest in stopping the demolition and Robbie drew his own conclusions. It would then look like Robbie killed Johnny in revenge for his real dad’s murder, but then couldn’t face what he’d done and killed himself.”
Jojo nods sincerely to convey that she’s buying his theory, but there’s still a furrow of doubt along her brow; caused, he knows, by the one remaining question neither of them can answer.
“So how come it’s Colin who ends up dead?”
The Black Hole
“He’s able to talk, but not for long,” Dr Lanimer says. “He’s agreed to speak to you, against my advice, I should state, so if I think he’s getting distressed, I’m warning you now, I’ll be asking—and expecting—you to leave.”
“That’s understood, Doctor,” Karen assures her. She can see Robbie through the window. He’s still wired up to various machines, but the ventilator is no longer one of them. He looks very pale and very small.
“I’ll take you through, then,” Dr Lanimer says.
“Thanks.”
Dr Lanimer leads them to Robbie’s station, stepping aside to let them through, but remaining at the foot of the bed. Robbie is lying flat on his back, but turns his head slightly to face Karen when she takes a seat next to him.
“Hello, Robert,” she says. “I’m—”
“Karen Gillespie,” he says, his voice a hoarse croak. “Jesus.”
“Well remembered.”
“Nothing wrang with this eye,” he says. “Or my memory.”
“Glad to hear it. Though it’s Detective Superintendent Gillespie now.”
“Congratulations.”
“How you doing?”
“Been better. Could be worse. How’s Noodsy? He awright, or did Boma get him as well?”
“Boma did this to you?”
“Aye. He heard me and Noodsy got lifted tryin tae steal that ololeum stuff. He knew his auld man was missin, so when he heard aboot the bodies, he went mental. Have you got him?”
“It’s in hand,” Karen says.
“Good. What aboot Noodsy?”
“He’s in custody. You want to tell us what happened?”
“What did he say happened?”
“Let’s hear your story first, and we’ll play spot-the-difference later.”
“Am I under arrest?” Robbie looks at Karen and then to Dr Lanimer.
Karen shakes her head. “All in good time. You’re not going anywhere, are you?”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“We’re just having a wee chat the now.”
“I think I should have a lawyer.”
“This isn’t a formal statement we’re taking. We just want to hear your version of what happened. Who killed your father, Robbie?”
“Johnny Turner.”
“Yes. Who killed him?”
“Naw, you’re no gettin it. Johnny Turner killed my father.”
Karen and Tom look at each other. “What?” they both ask.
Robbie nods, as much as the wires, tubes, bandages and his obvious discomfort will allow. “Johnny Turner killed my father,” he repeats calmly. “Colin Temple killed Johnny Turner.”
Karen almost trips over her words, so many questions threatening to spill out that she only just manages to prioritise the most important one. “And who killed Colin Temple?”
Colin doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there when he hears the second car pull up outside. He hasn’t moved since he pulled the trigger and Johnny fell, other than to lower his outstretched arm. Even that stayed in place for a long time, until sheer fatigue from the weight of the gun tugged it down. He hasn’t looked at anything else either, hasn’t taken his eyes from the mess on the floor: three spheres gaping unblinkingly back at him. Two of them are Johnny’s astonished open eyes. The third comprises two concentric circles, powder burn framing the entry wound like a ring around a planet.
His own planet, his own world, no longer exists. It was swallowed by the black hole in Johnny’s head, from which he knows it can never return.
He hears soft footsteps, the sound of a voice.
“Colin?”
Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, no. Please, no.
He can’t do this.
He must do this.
“In here,” he responds, though his own voice sounds miles away, sounds like someone else’s. It’s not his any more. He’s not him any more.
§
“He’s staunin there wi a gun,” Robbie says. “I never saw it was in his hand until I was practically in the door. That’s when I saw Johnny. I cannae mind what I says. My held was, ye know, just…naewhere. That’s when he tellt me Johnny killed my real da, an that’s how he’d disappeared in 1969. He was in some state, could hardly talk for greetin. Said Johnny was tryin tae stop him demolishin the hotel because that’s where the body was buried. So we’re baith just staunin there for…Christ, felt like ages…And eventually I says, ye know, “Fuck’s sake, whit ye gaunny dae noo?” That’s when he pointed the gun at me, tellt me tae get doon on ma knees. I worked oot the script pretty fuckin sharpish at that point, believe me.”
Robbie sighs, closes his eyes for a second, opens them again. “I’d like tae be able tae say I made a grab for the gun or whatever, but the truth is I was helpless. Couldnae move, couldnae think, couldnae even speak. I was doon on the floor, an he was right next tae me, the gun at my heid. I wanted tae look at him, but I couldnae even dae that. I just closed my eyes. We were like that for ages, or that’s what it felt like. Then all of a sudden he just says: “I’m sorry.””
§
Colin has the gun inches from the head of this trembling, terrified figure cowering on the floor. He’s done it once, he tells himself. He can do it again. He has to do it again. That was different, though. That was Johnny. That was the man who was going to take everything away from him. This is somebody he’s known since he was not even five years old; somebody he saw every day of his childhood.
Johnny has taken everything away from him anyway. There is no way back. There is no escaping this.
He can see the arrest, the cameras, the papers, the trial, the van, the cell.
There is no way back.
He puts the gun to his own head.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
We Can Be Brave Again
There’s half a dozen Dibbles round Boma’s house in case it has leaked that Robbie is awake and the bastard’s planning to make a run for it. From the sight of the car in the drive and the sound of a telly inside, Karen can safely conclude that this won’t be the case. She walks up to the front door and rings the bell.
“What are you grinning about?” Tom asks.
“It’s moments like this that keep me doing this job,” she replies.
Boma comes to the door in his stocking soles, Y-fronts and a Celtic top. “The fuck yous want noo?” he snarls.
“To arrest you,” Karen says. “For the attempted murder of Robert Turner. He’s feeling better, by the way.”
“Whit?” Boma splutters, his eyes flashing briefly with shock before he pulls it together and restores his game face. “This is harassment. I was in Sutherland. I tellt ye. I’ve got somebody up there can corroborate.”
“Can he corroborate this?” Tom asks, and holds up a sheaf of computer printouts. “These are still images from CCTV footage taken at Celtic Park on Wednesday night. That’s you there in your usual seat, in roughly the same spot you used to stand in the old Jungle, as I believe you put it.”
I
f it is at all possible, Boma looks even more pallid and cadaverous than usual as this sinks in.
“Hey, Brian,” Karen says. “Do you remember you chucked mud in my pal Helen’s face back at primary school?”
“Dae I fuck. Whit ye talkin aboot?”
Karen looks him in the eye and smiles broadly. “Because I do,” she says. “Okay boys, cuff this piece of shite.”
§
This time, Noodsy really does hug Martin. They’re on the steps of the police station, a taxi waiting to take Noodsy home. Noodsy is in tears, and just clings on to Martin for a while before he can compose himself enough to speak.
“Thanks man,” he says, sniffing. Martin almost expects to see him wipe his nose with his sleeve like he saw him do a thousand times at St Elizabeth’s. “You’re the fuckin’ man, Marty. I knew you’d come through for me. You were always the smartest guy I knew. I owe ye for ever, mate. I owe ye for ever.”
“It was a team effort, Noodsy,” Martin replies. “Karen played her part, remember, and I should inform you that you owe Scotty quite a few pints as well. But the real brains of the outfit was Jojo.”
Noodsy nods enthusiastically. “I owe yous all.”
“You don’t owe me anythin, except to keep your nose clean from here on in.”
“Aw, nae danger, seriously,” he insists. “This was a big fuckin wake-up call for me, man. Lot ay time tae dae some heavy thinkin these last few days. I’m playin it straight fae noo. I know a second chance when I’m lookin at it.”
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