The Last Darkness

by Campbell Armstrong

  Quick grimaced. His eyes watered. ‘Hey, Perlman, let go the haaaaand, eh?’

  Furfee emerged out of the shadows at the other end of the room.

  ‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ Scullion said. ‘What’s the story, Willie?’

  Perlman asked, ‘Skinned anybody lately?’

  ‘I was in jail,’ Furfee said and looked surly.

  ‘Let go my fucking hand,’ Quick said again.

  Perlman didn’t relent. He loved the idea that he still had this power in his fingers. It made him feel young and gallus. Superman, steel hands. His hair was dark and his stomach flat and his cape had no creases.

  Quick said, ‘Bloody police brutality.’

  ‘It’s a friendly handshake, Bobby,’ Perlman said.

  ‘My arse it is. You’re hurting me, Perlman. Awright, you’ve proved your point. You’re strong. I’m dead impressed.’

  ‘I should waste my time trying to impress you, Bobby? Are you still interfering with underage girls?’

  ‘Nobody’s ever proved that, Perlman.’

  ‘I can sniff the whiff of perversity on you, Bobby. I have half a mind to throw you out that window head-first. It would be my most worthy contribution to mankind. I’d get some kind of award for it. Mibbe my face on a coin, or a postage stamp.’ Perlman released him. He didn’t approve of Quick. He didn’t like that whole sorry lifestyle, international Web allegiances and graphic porno website galleries where wee girls posed lewd, and the sleaze of it all. The way he’d squeezed Quick’s hand was unprofessional, but he didn’t regret the lapse; he knew he’d crush the hand all over again without thinking. And worse. All he needed was an excuse.

  Quick said, ‘Bursting the door down. Fucking police, think they can do anything. We live in a fascist state, Perlman.’

  ‘What would you know about fascism, Bobby?’ Perlman gazed round the room. The only chair in the place was surrounded by dried bloodstains. He walked in a circle round them. They were brown, but didn’t look aged; they hadn’t had time to be absorbed by the wooden floorboards. ‘What happened here?’

  Quick said, ‘Shaving cut.’

  ‘Must’ve been one hell of a big jaw.’

  ‘What do the pair of you want anyway?’

  Sandy Scullion said, ‘Tell us about Terry.’

  ‘Terry who?’

  ‘Dogue,’ Scullion said.

  ‘You know a Terry Dogue, Furf?’ Quick asked.

  Furf said, ‘No.’

  ‘You’re pissing against the wrong lamp-post,’ Quick said to Scullion.

  Scullion said, ‘Dogue was found with his throat cut.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ Furfee said.

  Scullion said, ‘And you being handy with a razor, well, you’re on the list, Willie.’

  ‘He’s a changed man. I can vouch for Furf,’ Quick said.

  ‘Hitler once vouched for Stalin,’ Perlman said. ‘Let’s go the easy route. It’s less scenic, but it’s direct. Where were you last night?’

  Furfee looked at Quick for guidance. Perlman stepped promptly into Furf’s line of vision. ‘No cheating, Willie. No eye contact. Straight question. Last night. Where were you?’

  ‘Here. There.’

  ‘Can you show me here and there on a map, Willie?’ Perlman walked closer to Furfee.

  Quick said, ‘Tell him nothing, Furf. I’ll call my lawyer. Right now. Just tell this sarcastic old wanker fuck all.’

  Perlman said, ‘I object to that description of me, BJ. It’s been years since I wanked.’

  Scullion said, ‘Call your lawyer if you like, BJ. It doesn’t bother us. Look. Here’s a phone.’ He reached down and picked up an old black handset from the floor and passed it to Quick, who took it in a somewhat deflated manner.

  ‘It’s been cut off,’ Quick said. ‘I had a disagreement with those Telecom bastards.’

  ‘Maybe there’s another phone somewhere in the building,’ Scullion said.

  ‘This building? You’re joking,’ Quick said.

  ‘Then you’ll find one in a pub somewhere.’

  ‘Try the Saracen’s Head,’ Perlman suggested. ‘It’s along the street.’

  Quick tugged at his outcrop of hair. ‘I’ll do it later.’

  ‘Afraid to leave Willie on his tod?’ Perlman asked.

  ‘Willie can handle himself, Perlman.’

  Perlman looked into Furfee’s eyes. They were dull, bovine. He was reminded of the eyes of a waxwork figure. He’d always found the likenesses at Madame Tussaud’s sinister. As was Furfee. He wasn’t one of the frontrunners in the brainbox steeplechase, but somehow that made him even more creepy and dangerous.

  ‘You remembered yet, Willie?’

  ‘I was walking.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Had a beer somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Pub. I don’t remember the name.’

  ‘Where’s this pub?’

  ‘Bellahouston.’

  ‘Bellahouston, eh? Alone?’

  ‘Aye –’

  ‘Barman see you? Anybody that might remember you?’

  ‘No –’

  ‘Try. Remember the name of the pub. The street.’ Perlman moved very close to Furfee. ‘Tell me. You carrying a blade even as we have this little tête-à-tête?’

  Furfee said, ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t altogether believe you, Furf. I’d like to have a gander. Okay with you? Turn out your pockets for me.’

  Quick said, ‘Don’t let him search you, Furf. He doesn’t have the right.’

  ‘You’re annoying me, Quick,’ Perlman said. ‘I’m simply asking Furfee if he minds showing me what he has in his pockets. It’s up to him.’

  ‘I mind,’ Furfee said.

  ‘So you’re hiding something,’ Perlman said.

  Furfee shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re sure, Willie?’ Perlman asked.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Furfee said.

  ‘Okay.’ Perlman turned away: let Furfee stew in denial a moment, he thought. Change the angle. He walked back towards BJ Quick, who looked as tense as an eager dog restrained by a leash. ‘Bobby, are you categorically telling me you have no knowledge whatsoever of Terry Dogue? I want you to think before you answer.’

  The trick here, Lou Perlman thought, was to suggest that you knew the answer before you even asked the question; it was a matter of manner, of tone. Think before you answer was a handy little admonition that, delivered with just the right touch of assurance and authority, could place a spark of doubt in the other person’s mind. The cop knows something. He’s got a snapshot of me and Dogue walking along the Broomielaw.

  BJ Quick wasn’t buying. ‘I never heard of him. That’s the last time I’m telling you. We finished now?’

  ‘One last thing,’ and Perlman suddenly reached inside his coat and whipped out a copy of the still made from the security video and he flashed it under Quick’s face. ‘Tell me about this guy, BJ. Who he? What name?’

  ‘Never seen him in my life,’ Quick said.

  ‘You’re sure.’

  ‘Positive.’

  Irritated and impatient, Perlman said, ‘Terry Dogue was seen following him. This guy’s the one attacked Terry. Why would this character do that to Dogue?’

  ‘This is fascinating, Perlman. Yawn. Zzzzz. Snore.’

  Perlman turned, quickly shoved the print in front of Furfee’s face. ‘You seen this man, Furfee?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Look closer.’

  ‘Nope. Never seen him.’

  ‘Here. Look really fucking close, Willie.’ Perlman pushed the print right up against Furfee’s mouth. His impatience was changing to anger. It was a hot feeling, like standing in front of an open fire and unable to retreat from the flame because you were impeded in some way.

  Furfee stepped back. ‘Hey, hold on, wait –’

  Perlman shoved the paper forward again, as if he meant to stuff it between the big man’s lips. Paper couldn’t hurt; what he wanted was somet
hing hard and sharp to stick into Furfee’s big dumb criminal face; but it was more than that, more than Furfee, he wanted to take apart the mean stupidity of waste and violence he saw every day of his life, it was Moon Riley bursting Sadie’s face with his knuckles, and anaemic teenage girls on the game, screwing drunks at the back of closes and giving blow jobs in alleys, it was BJ Quick scanning porno websites for naked nine-year-olds, it was the epidemic of vandalism, and the mountains of trash, the broken streetlamps and the burnt-out phone booths and the boarded-up windows of abandoned houses, and it was Furfee skinning some bastard’s arm as you might the haunch of a dead stag, it was all this foul stuff that came rushing at him like black hearses in an insane hurry to disgorge their dead – and it crystallized in the sight of Willie Furfee’s big sullen mouth.

  ‘Here, eat this,’ and he forced the creased paper against Furfee’s teeth. He sensed the mouth behind, the black hollow, the throat; that was where he wanted to cram this print. Right down the Peeler’s gullet, and may he choke on it.

  Sandy Scullion said, ‘Hey Lou, calm it, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Don’t react, Willie,’ Quick said. ‘Don’t lift a finger. Take what he gives and do fuck all about it, understand me? It’s fucking provocation.’

  Perlman stepped away from Furfee, suddenly aware of Furfee’s shoelace-thin tie and the three-quarter-length coat and the black velvet collar. Something stirred in the hinterland of memory. Black velvet. He was breathing a little too hard for his own peace of mind. Keep the temper. Never lose the rag. It’s bad for the whole nervous system. He tried to relax and to clamber out of the crazy mood that had overcome him a moment before, and he looked at Furfee in a manner that might almost have been one of patience, but not quite.

  ‘Nice coat, Willie.’

  ‘It’s original,’ Furfee said. ‘Made in 1957.’

  ‘And you’re proud of it.’ Perlman fingered the velvet collar. ‘Fine stitching. Let me take a shot in the dark here, Willie. Were you at the Royal Infirmary last night?’

  ‘What’re you on about?’ Furfee said.

  ‘You were at the Royal last night and you took Terry Dogue out of there. Am I right?’

  ‘No bloody way.’

  Perlman said, ‘It’s easy to prove or disprove. I’ve got an eyewitness, Furfee. Let her take a good look at you and we can clear this up in a twinkling.’

  BJ Quick said, ‘He’s bullshitting, Furf. It’s a scam.’

  Perlman looked at Scullion. ‘Can we take Willie to the Royal, Inspector, and let our eyewitness look him over?’

  ‘Great idea.’

  Perlman asked, ‘You don’t object, Willie?’

  Furfee said, ‘Telling you. I was nowhere near the Royal –’

  ‘Then you don’t mind a quick ride over there, do you?’

  ‘Aye, well, as it happens –’

  ‘Willie. You can do it the nice civilized way. Or we can send for a van and some uniforms and they’ll cuff you and we’ll all go to hospital together. What do you say?’

  Furfee looked stricken.

  BJ Quick shouted, ‘You’re under no obligation, Furf. None at all. These cretins don’t have a legal leg to stand on.’

  Furfee, an animal backed into a corner, stood as if petrified. It was clear to Perlman that the big man didn’t know what to do; he was so accustomed to obeying the commands of BJ Quick he might have been the rockmeister’s wooden-headed lap-dummy. His brain was probably scrambled by sheer indecision. He was listening for messages, and hearing only static.

  ‘Sandy, have you got your phone?’

  Scullion took his mobile phone from his pocket. ‘I’ll buzz Pitt Street. We can have an army here in less than ten minutes.’

  Furfee had the razor in his hand and the blade open before Perlman even registered movement. He held the blade thrust outward. He lowered his shoulders and spread his legs. He went into pre-launch mode, tensed, muscles rigid, a big demon about to attack.

  Quick said, ‘You fucking tit. Put the razor away.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Perlman said. ‘Just close the blade and put it back in your pocket, Willie.’

  ‘The razor stays,’ Furfee said.

  Perlman stared at the blade. I keep truly dodgy company, he thought. Some hours ago he’d been looking at a lead pipe wielded by Moon Riley. And now this fine old-style open razor in the Peeler’s hand. Sometimes you get days when all you run into are life-forms from the deepest dregs of the deepest stagnant pond, a place where pop-eyed tadpoles live among quivering black fronds and other unclassified species.

  ‘Downright stupid, Willie,’ he said.

  ‘I’m out of here,’ Furfee said. ‘Anybody tries to stop me,’ and he made a gesture with the blade. Bright steel shimmered. ‘You. Put the phone down.’

  Scullion set the phone on the floor. Perlman said, ‘Leave here, Willie, and it might as well be a signed confession.’

  ‘I’m confessing nothing.’

  ‘Fucking bampot,’ Quick said. ‘Put the blade away, you big thick bastard.’

  Perlman took a couple of steps forward, placing himself between Willie Furfee and the door. ‘You skedaddle, Willie, and you’re sending us a message, and that message says you don’t want to run the risk of being ID’d at the Royal, because you don’t want me to know you took Dogue out of there last night. And why don’t you want me to know that, Willie? The only answer I can come up with is that you killed Terry. I’m prepared to bet that blade in your hand matches Dogue’s wound exactly. I bet the blade fits right into the slit in Terry’s gullet.’

  Quick made a moaning sound of disbelief and said, ‘Aw, Jesus, Willie.’

  Perlman realized that Quick had made the assumption that the blade used to kill Dogue had been dumped. Why not? It was an obvious conclusion to draw. You kill a man, you clean the weapon and toss it. Bury it. Destroy it. Whatever. But Furfee hadn’t dumped it because presumably he had an attachment to his antique razor that went beyond Practical Murder and How to Get Away with It, an Introduction. Rid yourself of the weapon. Don’t forget that, students. Basic stuff. Maybe there was a mystical bond between the skinner and his tool, an attachment no average person could understand. Maybe Furfee slept with the damn razor under his pillow at night. It was a security blanket, a special toy, an object without which he felt a searing insecurity. Who knows? A psycho’s mind wasn’t an easy read.

  The big man kept moving. When he reached the door he’d flee, and an unseemly chase would follow, and he’d sneak into the grid of dark streets that branched off the Gallowgate. Perlman wondered if he had the courage to intervene. No weapon, no protection: what chance did he have against the Pollokshaws Peeler?

  ‘Get out my way, Perlman,’ Furfee said.

  ‘Think,’ Perlman said again.

  ‘Step to the side.’ Furfee waved the razor. It was as silver and fleet as a salmon leaping, and it came perilously close to Perlman’s face.

  ‘Next time it’s your nose,’ Furfee said.

  ‘I’m attached to this nose, Willie. Had it a while.’

  ‘You don’t want to lose it, do you?’ Furfee crouched as he made his way in the direction of the door. His reflexes were tuned to an invisible range in the upper register of instinct. A demented light had begun to burn in those hitherto dull eyes. The razor turns him on, Perlman thought. It’s the source of his power, his thrills. He rules the world through a six-inch strip of honed steel. And I am his unwilling subject.

  Furfee was a couple of feet from the exit now. Any second he’d be out the door and gone, lost in one of Glasgow’s less penetrable neighbourhoods, narrow streets and backcourts and dank dunnies under the tenements. Perlman thought: Move, do something. But the notion was suicidal. Move and you get spliced to ribbons, flesh hanging off bone, blood geysering out of veins. He made an empty gesture with his hands, a so-what I can’t stop you leaving, Furfee.

  Then suddenly Quick was roaring past him, Quick as quick as his name, head down and charging. Perlman’s first though
t was that the deposed Monarch of Glasgow Rock was rushing for the exit but, whether deliberately or by accident, he collided hard with Furfee and the force knocked the big man back against the wall. Furfee gasped, reflexively slashing air with razor in criss-crossing patterns, gouging the side of Quick’s neck with the blade.

  ‘Ahhhh, holy Mary mothera God.’ Quick held a hand to his neck and staggered away from Furfee, who turned to open the door, but Scullion was already at him, wondrously fast, swinging the chair in the air and bringing it down with marvellous ferocity against the side of the big man’s skull. Perlman heard wood splinter and saw pieces of the shattered chair fly in the air and he remembered that Sandy had played scrum-half in his school rugby team, that he’d been a reserve for a place in the Scottish Under-18 national squad.

  Sandy, a nice man, was also a tough one, tough enough to power in a couple of swift hefty kicks to the big man’s head, then follow up with a knee into Furfee’s adam’s apple. Furfee crumpled, the razor fell out of his fingers and Perlman put a foot on it, then bent down to pick it up. It was surprisingly light, the handle smooth to touch. On his knees, Furfee looked up at the blade and blinked in the puzzled manner of a horse led up into light after years of working down a mineshaft. I always wondered if there was a surface, a world outside.

  Scullion took the razor from Perlman, and held it against the back of Furfee’s head, almost daring the Peeler to move, then threw his mobile for Perlman to catch. ‘Call for assistance, Lou.’

  ‘Right away,’ Perlman said. He looked at Quick, who was lying under the window and bleeding freely from the neck.

  ‘Mothera God. The pain.’

  Perlman kneeled beside him. The wound was deep but it wasn’t going to kill Quick, if he got attention soon.

  ‘Thought you’d make a run for it, eh?’ Perlman asked.

  Quick stared at him. ‘Run? Is that what you think? Run, my arse. I was acting like a good citizen. Man’s a killer, for God’s sake. And what thanks do I get?’

  ‘Let me get this straight, Bobby. You intended to disarm Furfee?’

  ‘Aye, I did. Of course I did.’

  ‘You any idea how long it would take me to believe this pathetic story? Imagine the sun as a big black cinder and all the oceans dry. That’s how long. You were bolting. You were obviously for the offski, Bobby. My guess is you realized Furfee hadn’t tossed the razor and you didn’t want to be implicated in anything he’d done and so you had some kind of brainstorm. But you made a right ballocks of it and ran head-first into your headcase associate. And you’ve just come up with this yarn. I hold my sides in laughter. And they said Vaudeville was dead.’ Perlman began to punch in the number for Pitt Street.