by Tony Black
The Storm Without
Tony Black
Copyright information
Published by Blasted Heath, 2012
copyright © 2012 Tony Black
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.
Tony Black has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by JT Lindroos
Photo by Jamie Wylie
Visit Tony Black at:
www.blastedheath.com
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-908688-23-1
Version 2-1-3
Coming soon by Tony Black
R.I.P ROBBIE SILVA
Jed Collins, fresh from jail, is struggling to go straight when he hooks up with wild child Gail. Before long Jed's back to blagging with Gail in tow. But Jed has a past, and Gail has a secret about her gangster father she wants to keep under wraps. In R.I.P ROBBIE SILVA, one week in the Scottish capital for Jed and Gail turns into a bloody rollercoaster ride that leads straight to Hell.
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Dedication
For Cheryl
"The storm without might rare and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle."
—Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns
Chapter 1
I knew the place — or should that be had known. Auld Ayr Toun had changed. But hadn't we all? I couldn't say I'd weathered any better — though I'd likely seen as many storms in the two turbulent decades since I'd left the town where I grew up, and perhaps knew better than anywhere else in the world.
I watched the wind batter the once-familiar coast, charge the brae as Ailsa Craig sat granite-firm, blanketed in the sea's blackness. I put up the car window and engaged the clutch. The engine purred, spluttered a little on the gear change. I still hadn't adjusted to the TT's biting point. The Audi, likely, had too much poke for me; I was more used to the hammered Mondeos we used in the force.
I shouldn't say 'we' — I wasn't part of the constabulary anymore. Had I moved on, or simply been moved out? I hadn't found an answer to that yet, but I knew Belfast and the RUC was behind me now.
I planted the foot, took a wind of road close in to the gable of a dry-stone dyke. My mind raced into reverse as the twisting coast and glimpses of white sands stretched out before me. I was heading home, to Ayr. To names and places I knew. To Wallace Tower. To Burns Statue Square. To Cromwell's Citadel. The town had a history, much farther reaching than my own, but there was some of it we shared. Those years of my boyhood, my schooling, and the few early years of adulthood when I decided there was more to see beyond the limitations and bournes I'd grown so used to.
So, I'd moved away. But had I moved on?
Someone once said, experience is the name a man gives to his mistakes. I knew I had more than my fair share of experience. And much of it had been mistakes. The wife. The drink. The job. Always the job.
I could still see the day I left home for the force's training at Tulliallan; I'd been cocky, full of the arrogance of youth. Ayr was too small for me; it was for people like my parents. The place had nothing to offer me, or so I thought, then.
I had rated my parents as idiots for spending their lives in the same, small place; but now I wondered if I wasn't the idiot. The question had haunted me lately, along with many others: I was questioning everything. Was it my time of life? I didn't know. That was the problem. I didn't know much; my life had become a blank page to me. I was going to have to go back to my roots to make any sense of the mess I'd made of everything since I lost the last thing I had: my profession.
'The Troubles are over, Doug,' the Chief Super had told me. 'At least, they are for you anyway.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
He'd smiled. A wry one. 'I don't think you need to ask.'
He was right. It had been an instinctual remark; months of living on my nerves, and Irish coffee, had dulled my senses and sharpened my tongue.
'Isn't there supposed to be a ceremonial handing over of a cardboard box … an invitation to clear my desk?'
He rose, turned his back on me as he stared out of the large window that overlooked the station car park and the back of the canteen where kitchen staff sat smoking and gossiping in the sharp Belfast air. 'You don't have a desk ... Not here, not anymore.'
I felt my blood surge, and a strong urge to rabbit-punch the back of his head. I wanted to smash his smarmy grin into the window, but I found a line of cool, looking back, from God knows where.
'Well, that doesn't bother me so much,' I said. 'You see, there are some of us that are a little too attached to our desks, but I'm not one of them, Chief.'
He turned, bit. 'Wisecracks to the end, Doug, eh?' His eyes flared. I'd got to him. He couldn't hide it. His type never could. 'Will you ever learn?'
I let a second or two of stilled silence stretch between us, then, 'Maybe … maybe.' I pressed out a grin. 'I'll have some time to catch the odd Open University slot now, so you never know.'
He shook his head, made his meaty neck quiver, then crossed the carpet towards his desk. The room around us felt electrified with tension. This was new territory for both of us, and neither of us wanted a return to the old. 'You can live well on an officer's pension, Doug. Just make sure you live quietly.'
'Or?'
He let his top lip curl down the side of his face, spoke softly. 'Or you won't live at all.' A full smile erupted. 'Jesus, Doug, you don't need me to tell you how this town works …'
Belfast wasn't home anymore.
But Ayr hadn't been my home for a long time either. It had been, once. I remembered: my school days reciting Robert Burns at Ayr Academy, my late teenage years partying at the Bobby Jones; but the race to adulthood and the desire to spread my wings had taken me far from those days.
As I neared the Auld Toun I felt a tightness in my chest. I had been back before, back to see my ailing mother; but they were short stops, passing through. Never more than a week. This was different. This was a sort of homecoming; the thought gored me.
I dropped the revs on the Audi, eased past the first few houses that had stretched into what I still knew to be Doonfoot. I'd gone north from the airport to collect the car; it had been an impulse buy, a shiny, almost new sports coupe that promised to drive me far away from my troubled past.
I wanted a fresh start, but I was too old for that. I needed familiarity too; and my mother needed me. As I reached the tip of Alloway, the edge of Belleisle, I felt a strange constricting in my guts. Not quite panic, not unease exactly either, but an almost supernatural feeling that I was driving towards old demons, to past hurts, and to more grief. I'd no idea where this came from; there was no reason for it. But I couldn't deny it either. I was still a cop inside, and I lived on those instincts; my life had depended on them, more than once.
The tensed stock of energy in my arms made my wrists ache. I loosened my grip on the wheel, took the window down a few inches and manoeuvred my face towards the cool breeze. My eyes smarted as the air whipped through the narrow gap in piercing jets, but immediately focus returned, my jaw clamped tight in a vice of shock.
'Holy …'
I knew the face; it hadn't changed in nearly twenty years.
I let my foot rise from the accelerator, pressed in the brake. The TT slowed to a near stop as I edged closer to the bus shelter. She was weighed down. As I drew nearer, I saw her 'brows sat furrowed above tired eyes. So
mething played behind the eyes though, a sharp intelligence tempered with a cruel anxiety. I'd seen the look a million times before. It was the look worried mothers brought with them to the station after calls in the wee hours about wayward sons and damaged daughters.
I flicked on the blinkers as I brought the car to a stop. Some rain evacuated from a divot in the tarred road surface beneath the car. I sat staring for a second, toyed with my opener — somehow, it didn't seem right to shout through the window. I eased out the door and stepped onto the road. As I walked towards the bus shelter I watched the solitary figure standing there playing with the strap of her shoulder bag. For a moment, time seemed to alter slightly; the air became thick, muggy. She turned, her already large brown eyes widening as she took me in. A narrow aperture appeared in her lips in an attempt to speak, but no words came from her.
I crossed the few steps from road to kerb; my heartbeat ramped as I reached the woman. My steps felt heavy on the damp pavement; my knees loosened a little. A mash of old memories flooded in, some good, some bad. Past times, when we were both different people.
I watched her turn a stray tendril of dark hair behind her ear as she stared at me.
'Lyn …'
Chapter 2
The woman before me looked back, seemed to let a pause enter her thoughts, then turned away. I guess it was what you'd call a moment. The last time I had seen Lyn she was another world away. A lifetime ago. I'd met her at Ayr Academy, how or when I couldn't place. She was one of the myriad faces that sat in science class. A girl in a blazer. Long legs on the hockey pitch. A smoker from round the corner at Dansarena. I allowed myself an inward laugh; we were snoutcasts before the smoking ban even existed.
The wind bit, blew a gale down Racecourse Road. I pinched the lapels of my jacket together, felt a shudder pass through me from the wet ground below. My steps fell slowly, soft splashes underfoot. I had a strange feeling turning inside me, a self-consciousness; I was wary in the open. This was Ayr, my old home town: who else was going to appear? Did I want to be recognised? Did I want to reconnect? As I eyed Lyn, hunched on the ledge that passed for a seat in the bus shelter, I knew at least I wanted to reconnect with her. I say want, the feeling was more of a compulsion than anything else — I was drawn to her.
At every low point in my life, there was one common denominator. Beyond the despairs, the hurts, and the let-downs was the wisdom of our national poet, Burns.
Rabbie had been there when my marriage finally ended, reminding me of my stupidity with those lines from Tam O'Shanter implanted in my youth:
Ah, gentle dames it gars me greet, to think how mony counsels sweet. How mony lengthened, sage advices, the husband frae the wife despises
I remember returning to an empty, wifeless home. There was a car sitting outside. I tensed, the old alarm bells ringing. The Glock pistol I kept in the glove box came out; I dropped the revs and swept past the parked car with a damp finger on the trigger. My heart rate ramped, then dropped when I spotted Old Tommy sitting behind the wheel of the parked Cavalier.
'What are you doing here?' I said, braking hard.
He wound down the window, leaned out a little. 'I thought you could do with a friend.'
He'd never been more right. And Tommy was always right. Had always kept me right.
We trashed a bottle of Bushmills, and whatever else I had in the house. I don't know what we spoke about; football maybe, the price of bread. It didn't matter. Blokes don't do personal. We do distraction. So when Tommy hit me with a blast of wisdom on his way home it near winded me. He said, 'Doug, she was only passing through … '
'You what?'
'Angela …'
The way he said my ex-wife's name, the jolt it put in my heart, made me feel like I'd never heard the word before.
He went on, 'Some people, mate, they're only in your life for a limited time. They pass through, they teach you something, maybe you teach them something too. When the lessons are over, they leave.'
I looked at him, sad Irish eyes intoning me to pull myself out of the spiral I was tangled up in. 'And are you passing through, Tommy?'
He smiled, leaned forward and planted the broad heel of his hand on my shoulder. 'Some of us stick around … you can't get rid of me so easy.'
I closed the door on him and went back to the bottle.
I knew I was drawing on all kinds of past memories now; it could have been my age. It could have been part of the healing process. A new mindset maybe, the onset of melancholia. There was very little I knew about myself now; maybe that's why I was reaching for the past, for familiarity.
In the final steps towards the bus shelter the rain kicked up, came down in heavy stair-rods that leapt a foot-and-a-half off the pavement. I jogged over the flags towards cover. Under the shelter the rain pounded a rough percussion on the roof. I watched the lonely figure before me; she fingered at the hem of her coat. I started to wipe my shoulders dry, moved forward. As I stood beside her, I was crouched over slightly, my head tipped to the side.
She turned, 'Oh …'
I stepped back. I'd startled her. 'Sorry …'
I took a step away; I was in her space, it seemed.
A headshake, 'It's okay.'
I raised a palm, directed it towards her. 'It's Lyn, isn't it?'
I knew she recognised me too, but for reasons of her own she was playing coy. Squinting her eyes and tightening her jaw. Pretending to search her memory banks for the label on my photograph. Closer now, I could pinpoint miniscule changes I'd missed from the car. Her hair was darker than I remembered, probably dyed. Laughter lines sat in faint rows at the corner of her eyes. She smiled less; she smiled a lot less.
'Doug … Doug Michie. God, it must be I don't know how many years.'
'Too many probably.'
Now a smile. 'Best not to count, you mean?'
'Too right!'
We chatted, found some common ground. Old ground. She seemed to be, if not chilling, relaxing slightly. I watched odd glimpses of the girl I'd known come and go. But the heavy air of despair that seemed to surround her clung, never left her. It was as if any burst of laughter, a brief smile even, had to be shut down quickly. She was never far from whatever it was that burdened her. She wore it like a pall.
'Look, I don't see much sign of a bus. Can I give you a run anywhere?' I said.
'Well, where are you going?'
I hadn't given that much thought. 'The town, I guess …'
'Are you staying?'
I shrugged. 'Yeah, for a time.'
'Well, where?'
I hadn't given that much thought either. 'We'll see.'
She thinned her eyes, turned her neat chin towards her shoulder and frowned over the bridge of her nose. 'Doug Michie … you haven't changed!'
'Let's get out the rain anyway, warmed up … how about I shout you a coffee?'
She looked unsure, gripped the strap of her bag and held her hand there. I was confident a rejection followed, but she surprised me: 'Okay. I know a place.'
Lyn sheltered under her bag as we ran through the rain towards the car. My breath was still heavy when we got inside; the windows steamed. I turned on the heater, cleared the windscreen and pulled out. I stared towards the rain-pelted old racecourse and had a smile to myself.
'I remember playing footy out there … in weather like that.'
Lyn leaned her head forward, eyed the grey sky. 'No-one playing today though.'
'They wouldn't let kids play in that these days … there'd be a court case.'
Lyn's face changed, grew darker than the sky above. I felt my throat constrict; an urge to correct myself appeared, but I didn't know what I had said to upset her. I tried to lock it down, stared front. I planted the foot to beat the lights. At Wellington Square the rain was bucketing down. I hit the roundabout, took the exit after the Sandgate, and followed the road round the bus station.
I wanted to speak now, say something, anything. But I couldn't find the words. I watched Lyn's pained
expression as she stared out the window and felt grateful for the noise of the heater — I wondered if it had stopped the atmosphere inside the car from freezing over completely.
'The coffee shop's round there, past the club.'
'In the wee arcade?'
'Aye, the Lorne Arcade.'
I nodded. The name of the place registered at once — I felt myself settling back into Auld Ayr, if not settling over what I'd said to upset Lyn.
'I'll park at the old Tesco.'
She smiled. 'The old Tesco? … Haven't heard it called that for donkey's.'
I was glad for the ice-breaker, smiled back. 'I could tell you a story about that joint — nearly cost me my place in the force.'
'Really?'
'Yeah, it was one of my schoolboy pranks. Shoplifting a pack of Tunnock's caramel wafers and a bottle of ginger!'
She ventured a little laugh. 'And you got caught, I take it?'
'Oh aye. Marched into the manager's office and made to stare at my shoes for half an hour while he threatened to call my parents.' I was grinning at the memory. 'Think it was then I decided I wasn't cut out for a life of crime.'
I collected my ticket for the car park, spotted a space and parked up. Lyn seemed to have returned to silence once more. I prattled on. 'Aye, I was lucky the manager didn't call in the police, might have put me off joining up. Contact with uniform is never a good thing for boys that age, unsettles them.'
Tears suddenly burst from Lyn. She lunged forward, dropping her head in her hands.
'Lyn …'
Her shoulders shook as she wailed in hurt.
'Lyn … what is it?' I felt lost, saddened for her. But confused. I knew she was weighed down, worried, though I'd no clue what about. She seemed broken.