Dark Angels

by Grace Monroe

  ‘Long time no see, honey…’

  Pointing to the glass, his voice sounded disapproving–especially for a pub landlord: ‘Have you got some kind of problem with whisky now?’

  He pushed me away, his eyes taking in every detail of my appearance, fingering my Armani suit with the light touch of a connoisseur.

  ‘The clothes are fine, but give me the name of the bastard that did this to you.’

  His voice cracked as his hand gently pushed back my curls and stroked my bruised cheek. Sitting down on a bar stool, he put both arms around me and pulled me towards his chest again. I could hear his heart beat, strong, and steady. We stayed like that for some time, with him patting my back in consolation.

  In that moment, I could almost feel sorry for the shit, or shits, who had assaulted me.

  When stirred, Glasgow Joe is a hound from hell. But he was my hound from hell. I had come to the only person in the world who I knew could protect me against whoever had ordered the attack. Joe is my friend, but more importantly right now, he is an assassin.

  Six feet six in his stinking stockinged feet, he likes to wear a kilt during the Edinburgh Festival. None of the women who flock to him during those three weeks have any idea what they’re really getting as they fall for the vision of Viagra on legs walking down George Street.

  Joe and I had met on the first day at St Mary’s Sweet Star of the Sea Primary School. Newly arrived from Glasgow, his thick accent would ordinarily have made him an automatic punching bag, but even then his size kept the bullies at bay.

  Joe said I was “Clyde built”. The shipyards on the River Clyde made the finest ships in the world, but the only boat I resembled was a tug. No threat to anyone, I was hounded from the start.

  ‘Are you a green grape or orange juice?’ shouted the boys from the Protestant school.

  Was I a Catholic or a Protestant? I hesitated, finally recognising that my green blazer was a giveaway.

  ‘What’s it to you–you radge?’

  Joe walked up to the gang, his red hair glittering in the sun, and whispered it in the leader’s face before butting him on the forehead. Scattering, like coins thrown at a wedding, the boys disappeared in the direction of the Water of Leith.

  That incident took place twenty years before, not half a mile away from where we stood today. Both outsiders, we clung together from that moment on. I had as much faith in him now as I did then.

  ‘Tell me about it, darlin’.’

  He led me away from the bar, across the bare floorboards to a bench seat covered in ripped, red leatherette. I leaned on the Formica table nursing my drink. The Rag Doll in itself was not a big money spinner, but it was a convenient front for Glasgow Joe.

  At the age of nineteen, he had run away from police questioning. Joe always said he had two options: the French foreign legion (‘Rubbish for my lovely Celtic complexion, all that sun and sand’–He was the opposite of me. I don’t have the usual redhead’s complexion, my skin loves the sun and tans easily) or America (‘I always wanted to be a cowboy, doll’). An easy choice.

  Joe never did talk much about his time abroad. At one point, I had visited him in the States, but, even then, he managed to hide most of his life from me. It had brought consequences that neither of us wanted to address even to this day. All I knew was that, while there, he had honed the skills I was about to rely upon. Evidently whatever he had been up to was profitable–he had plenty of money in his pocket, and a declaration that he never wanted to see the back of Leith again.

  ‘The face bashin’–who did it?’

  Joe’s voice was insistent, as he repeated his earlier question.

  Telling him about the assault at Dunsappie Loch was difficult. Hurt flickered through his eyes because he hadn’t been called to the scene. He’d been there for schoolyard scrapes and broken hearts–where was he when I really needed what he was best at?

  ‘Where’s the bike?’ His second question seemed more practical, but he knew how much Awesome meant to me. As soon as I answered, he was on his mobile arranging for his mechanic to uplift her from the other garage and tend to her wounds.

  Those ministrations out of the way, he cut to the chase.

  ‘Why the fuck didn’t you call me sooner?’

  ‘That you all out of sympathy, Joe?’ I asked, knowing full well that he would have been at my bedside like a shot had I contacted him. ‘I’ve been out of it for days, not exactly in a state to give you a wee ring and a natter. Or maybe you expected Fishy to call you? Is that it? Have you forgotten that you won’t even let him in this bloody place without a search warrant?’

  ‘He got in when it was your birthday party,’ he replied huffily.

  The whisky burned my gullet as I swallowed it too quickly; smoke irritated my eyes and I could feel them watering. I had put off showing him the photograph that had been burning a hole in my pocket since Kailash gave it to me in Cornton Vale. Strangely, I had to fight the urge to let Jack Deans see it first. To resist temptation on the way back from the prison, I pretended to sleep.

  ‘Ok, honey…what are you hiding?’

  I must have looked surprised at his perceptiveness.

  ‘Look, you know it’s my job to notice when people are concealing things. Drugs, guns, secrets–all the same to me.’

  ‘I’m acting for Kailash Coutts,’ I admitted.

  He raised his eyebrows, and rubbing his chin, let out a sigh.

  ‘Aye, the jungle drums have been beating on that one. My only question is–why?’

  ‘Well, she asked for me. But,’ I admitted hesitantly, ‘Roddie Buchanan–or his wife really–is insisting I “contain” this.’

  ‘Look, doll, MI5 couldn’t contain Kailash Coutts. If he’s so keen that your firm represent her, why doesn’t he do it himself?’

  ‘You know that he doesn’t do any criminal law…and they have a bit of history in case you’ve forgotten…and, as I told you, she asked for me.’

  ‘I know this might come out wrong, but why does she want you?’

  Annoyance flashed across my face, so he quickly added:

  ‘Given her history with Roddie? With the firm?’

  ‘I don’t know, Joe, I don’t know much just now. But…she gave me this.’

  Unfolding the photograph, I laid it out in front of him. Swearing loudly under his breath, he clasped my hand. He was obviously repulsed and unwilling to pick up the eight by ten black and white photograph.

  ‘Kailash said she received it by post…the week before Lord Arbuthnot’s death.’

  ‘Murder.’ He corrected me.

  ‘We’ve got a defence of accident.’

  ‘Look, Brodie, with that woman there is no royal “we”. Kailash Coutts looks after number one. You better do the same. Can you be sure she received this when she said she did?’

  ‘Well, she showed me the original recorded delivery slip…and it was dated.’

  ‘Jane!’ he shouted at the barmaid.

  ‘Get the bottle of Bruacladdich from the back, and bring two clean glasses. Proper clean ones from the back as well.’

  After sorting out our beverages, he turned to face me.

  ‘This sick shit always makes me need a drink…I cannae lie, Brodie, it’s serious. That lassie,’ he said, forcing himself to look at the picture again, ‘that’s real, Brodie, that’s real.’

  Glasgow Joe had garnered the strength to pick up the photograph. Ostensibly it portrayed me in what would pass for a school uniform. Sensible shoes, knee length socks, white short sleeve shirt and a black mini skirt. I was obviously dead, an elastic band of the type used by nurses to plump up veins before drawing blood was tied tightly round my elbow, an empty syringe lay discarded by my body. Some sicko had posed the body in a pseudo-‘Playboy’ pose, as if I were offering sex on a plate.

  ‘It’s not your body.’ Glasgow Joe spoke seriously. ‘Your thighs haven’t been that thin since you were ten.’

  I kicked him hard under the table, but he continued to hold my
hand. The fear we had both felt moments before had been broken, but I knew it would come back. Placing his thumb and his forefinger under my chin, Joe raised my head to make eye contact with me.

  ‘What’s Fishy saying to all this?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. Kailash only gave it to me this morning. I haven’t seen him since I got back from Cornton Vale.’

  Joe kissed me on the forehead.

  ‘I’m going to phone Fishy and fill him in on the details. Don’t move from that spot…you’re safe here.’

  I watched Glasgow Joe pull his mobile phone out of his sporran and walk outside. Before he left, he pulled a young man away from his game of pool to guard the door. I shifted uneasily under my babysitter’s unrelenting gaze. An unwritten law was if you worked for ‘Glasgow Joe’ you did exactly as you were told, and you did it well.

  The music for the pole dancers had started, and the pub began to fill up for the late afternoon show. I was steadily drinking my way through the bottle of Bruacladdich on my own, tapping my right foot to the music. Jane the barmaid interrupted my drink-fuelled trance by bringing me a cheese and onion toastie. Obviously, wherever Joe was, he was still worrying about me drinking on an empty stomach. He needn’t be too concerned. I was living the high life here.

  SIXTEEN

  The door opened and the regulars fell silent. It was obviously an event of cataclysmic proportions–on cue, Fishy walked towards me, carrying a briefcase and looking neither right nor left. Things must be bad if Glasgow Joe was letting cops in his pub. As Fishy called my name, I numbly stood to attention, allowing him to hug me and kiss me on both cheeks. He didn’t let go. I stepped back, and he began to apologise.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Brodie…I had to go to work…I’d already missed two shifts and Malcolm assured me you were on the mend. Jack Deans offered to help…. I should never have gone.’

  His face was lined with fatigue as he spoke at the rate of gunfire to me. Closing his red weary eyes he exhaled slowly, and dropped his chin onto his chest.

  ‘Stop wittering on like an old woman, Plod. Still going to be fucking apologising when she’s dead, or will you be back doing your knitting by then?’

  Joe was always hard on Fishy, and Fishy believed it was because the Glasgow hard man was in love with me. Maybe one day I’d tell Fishy the true story behind that particular angle, but not now. In turn, I believed that Joe himself was jealous of Fishy who was most things he was not–but I was too fond of my kneecaps to ever mention that theory to my supposed admirer.

  ‘Brodie, show him the photograph.’

  Joe was in working mode. I did as I was told, going through the same procedure of unfolding the photograph and placing it before Fishy. He bent his head over the image.

  ‘Do you think it’s the same?’ asked Glasgow Joe, peering over Fishy’s shoulder as he examined it. Fishy rolled his head, from shoulder to shoulder, his stiff neck popping gently. He looked from the photograph to my face, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

  ‘Yes, it’s the same.’ His voice sounded cold and flat. Conversely, Glasgow Joe showed all his emotions.

  ‘Oh sweet Jesus…’

  He sat down heavily beside Fishy, and they looked at one another, blocking me out.

  ‘Will you two stop it? You’re frightening me.’

  My voice sounded like a squeal. Fishy got up off his seat, and came round to me, placing his arm on my shoulder. I was kind of praying it was just because he didn’t get on with Joe, but my sinking heart knew better.

  ‘Ach, Brodie–I’ve been too preoccupied for months to spend time with you. Ships in the night and all that. I’ve been on the graveyard shift most of the time. It’s been shit–and now this.’

  I understood. I’d been just as bad myself, and felt I hadn’t been supporting Fishy even though I knew he’d been having problems, knew of the sleepless nights.

  Over his shoulder, the first dancer sashayed onto the makeshift stage to the strains of Rod Stewart. The girl was too heavy to be wearing a sequinned G-string, and I could see her stretch marks from where I was sitting–nonetheless, her small group of admirers whooped enthusiastically.

  ‘Brodie, are you listening?’

  Glasgow Joe’s voice was sharp; I sat up.

  ‘Now see, that’s what your mother was always complaining about…you go off into your dippy, wee daydreams–and quite frankly you look thick.’

  Glasgow Joe was right, it did annoy my mother. On one occasion she paid for an artist to come to the house to draw me. I drifted off, a far away look in my eye, my jaw slack, and mouth open. Mary McLennan refused to pay: she wasn’t parting with her hard earned cash for any picture that made her daughter look ‘feil’. Reminding me of her, however, wasn’t going to get my attention back to the matter in hand.

  ‘Brodie, you listen to what Fishy has to say, or I’ll clear the pub–and that girl…’ he pointed to the gyrating woman on the stage, ‘won’t be able to feed her bairns. A scoosh of Big Macs twice a day every day adds up, you know.’

  Then he turned on Fishy.

  ‘And as for you…’ he pointed, ‘get on with things. Is that all your fancy school taught you? To be a gobshite and mess lassies about? Brodie needs looking after–get to it.’

  Duly chastened I sat straight and tried to sober up.

  ‘Six months ago this came through the post to me.’

  Laying a green Moroccan leather photograph album on the table, Fishy pushed it towards the picture of me as a corpse. ‘It contains four separate sets of photographs.

  ‘The photographs relate to four different girls. They’ve all been photographed post mortem.’

  As Joe would put it, I must have looked pretty thick again.

  ‘Christ, Brodie…it’s the girls from “the bodies in the bag” murders.’

  ‘Are you telling her or am I?’ interrupted Fishy. ‘You might care to remember I’ve been working on this for six months…you’ve known for about ten minutes.’

  Things went ominously quiet while the two men considered what had just happened. Answering Joe back was pretty brave–coming from Fishy, it was even braver. Limbs could be lost any second.

  ‘Fair due.’

  That was what passed for an apology with Glasgow Joe.

  The bodies in the bag murders were infamous in Edinburgh. They spanned almost three decades, all four remained unsolved, and the cases were closed due to lack of evidence. The last body was found in 1990.

  Fishy and I studied the facts in our Forensic Medicine class with Patch Patterson. They were his greatest disappointment. All pathologists have cases that, for one reason or other, they cannot solve, and, in spite of Patch’s brilliance, he had a few of those. The bodies in the bag murders were taken by him as a special affront, perhaps because they involved children. The knowledge that he had never found out the identity of any of the girls seeped through as he taught us the few findings of the case.

  ‘Before you open the album, Brodie, I should warn you that the person who generated that picture of you is aware of this album.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Fishy, you sound like a fucking bank manager. Look, Brodie, whatever sicko bastard sent this photograph…’ Joe waved it in the air, ‘was the hand behind these ones.’

  ‘We assume so at this point. I don’t suppose we can really say with one hundred per cent certainty,’ cautioned Fishy.

  ‘Look, pal, my bones are telling me that the bodies in the bag killer is behind Brodie’s photo. I’ve had to rely on my instincts to survive for years–and they’ve never let me down.’

  ‘I just don’t think there’s any point in panicking her.’

  I grabbed the album and inserted my fingers at random, into the thick black sheets of the book. The page fell open and I was staring at an identikit photograph of the one Kailash had given me. The clothes, the paraphernalia, everything was the same, except the face. This girl was young and unblemished. Flicking through the pages, I could see that the other three sets of pic
tures were the same. The bodies had been posed, slightly differently for each shot, but each set contained three identical positions.

  ‘Maybe it’s just some smackhead behind this,’ suggested Glasgow Joe hopefully. He knew he could outwit any addict and keep me safe. A sadistic serial killer was quite another matter. Was I on some hit list? Had I been targeted? I’d like to believe Joe’s idea, even superficially, but it was so obviously not possible that I didn’t have the heart to lie to him or myself.

  ‘No. Opiates are great pacifiers. A sex fiend like this,’ I pointed again at the picture, ‘wouldn’t take anything that would blunt his libido.’

  ‘Fishy, I know that the photographs look the same, but Brodie is too old. Whoever did this–the guy is a paedophile. Brodie doesn’t fit his MO.’ Glasgow Joe motioned his head in the direction of the album.

  ‘What’s the score with these investigations?’ Without waiting for a reply he spoke again. ‘Why haven’t your crowd ever caught the bastard?’

  ‘Because this is what they had to go on.’

  Fishy, laid another set of photographs before us, all in the same format. I found myself wanting to gag as I looked at the bloodied dismembered body parts, sticking out at odd angles from the black plastic bin bags.

  I had seen these photographs before and, at that time, in my student days, I had been strangely unaffected by them. But that was long before I felt that the ‘girls’ and I had been brought together in some bizarre sisterhood.

  Fishy started speaking, louder this time to be heard above the music.

  ‘There weren’t enough body parts recovered to identify them. No heads and even the fingertips had been removed. We had bits of bodies in bags, and we had clear evidence of a series of murders, but we didn’t know who the victims were and we soon ran into a brick wall without that to go on.’

  The dancers had changed, a skinny little slip of a thing now strutted her stuff, unfazed by the fact most of the men she was thrilling were old enough to be her father. Her grandfather. She continued slithering up and down a pole as Fishy’s voice caught my attention.