A can of Coke clattered to the bottom.
There you go. It knew well enough not to mess with him today
He reached in, removed the can and pulled the tab. He took a long swallow. Could be colder. He looked around him. The place was rumbling like a minor earthquake. Not that he'd experienced one first hand, but he imagined this wee bookie's sounded similar. Race commentary on the 12:20 at Folkestone blasted out of the loudspeakers. The mile and a half race was reaching the seven furlong stage. Getting interesting. More interesting, though, if you had money staked on the outcome.
Dotted around the room were about twenty men. More than half were standing by now. As he watched, another few got to their feet. Almost all those still sitting were old enough to be pensioners. The volume rose. Listening carefully, you could pick out individual layers. Roars of encouragement, shouts of annoyance, wails of anger. Each separate, distinct. Clenched fists waved, winning or losing. All eyes, apart from Joe's, fixed to the bank of overhead screens, faces intense with a passion rarely seen by wives or girlfriends. Looking at one bloke in particular, sporting a skinhead, tight white t-shirt (at this time of year), jeans and white socks, Joe thought: or boyfriends, if you wanted to be p.c. with the poofs. At which point Gemma's voice yelled in his ear: "They're not poofs, Dad. They're gays."
He put his hand on the drinks machine and hoped to Christ he wasn't going to burst into tears. It's the smoke, lads. Making my eyes water. He took another swig of Coke and set the can on top of the machine. He rested his forehead on his arm, apologizing to his daughter under his breath. She didn't answer.
She was somewhere in Orkney. He couldn't imagine her naked, cold, stiff, stuck out of sight in a big drawer. God, he wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to see her.
Over the din of the last furlong of the Folkestone race he became aware that his mobile was ringing. Reaching into his pocket, he made for the exit, the relative quiet of the street. "Hello."
"Finally turned your phone back on."
Relative was the right word. It was Adam. Traffic crawled along both sides of the road. A motorbike dodged between the cars. Hardly a deathly silence. He put his little finger in his left ear and said, "Listen, you bastard—"
"No, you listen. How could you do that, Joe?"
"Adam, I've been meaning—"
"Don't bother denying it. I have proof."
"You were supposed to look after her."
"You can talk! I know all about your little secret, you fucking animal."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Adam, and I don't care. Start running."
"Give me a reason why I shouldn't tell the police?"
About what? Joe was silent for a moment.
"You can't, huh? Didn't think so."
"You let Gemma die," Joe said. "You're going to pay for it."
"You arrogant cocksucker. You know fucking well that you're entirely to blame."
"Now you're taking the piss."
"Your fault, Joe. If Ruth wasn't so cut up already, I'd tell her what I know. Your fault."
Joe whispered, "Taking the piss." His shoulders were shaking. An explosion of rage shattered his self-control. He shouted into the phone, "Taking the piss." He yelled once again into the phone, pulled back his arm and threw the phone as hard as he could against the nearest wall. The casing broke, scattering plastic over the pavement. A couple of passers-by looked at him and he felt suddenly embarrassed. He bent down, picked up the bigger pieces and ambled to the bin twenty feet down the road. Casual as you like. As if phone hurling was a traditional Scottish sport. One at a time, he fed the bits of broken phone into the mouth of the bin, Adam's voice still echoing in his ear. Joe looked at his watch, wondering if he could get a flight to Orkney today. Then they'd see whose fault it was.
SEVEN
When Joe looked at his watch again it was seven minutes past seven and British Airways Flight 8899 had just landed at Kirkwall airport. After the plane came to a standstill Joe complained to the stewardess that the flight had arrived two minutes late. He didn't mind, of course. A two minute delay wasn't worth making a fuss about. His complaint was simply a matter of principle. He was still sore at the fact that his one-way ticket had cost him £188.70 (including airport tax, sir). Compounded by the detour via Inverness, it was no wonder the bloody plane was practically empty.
After destroying his phone outside the bookies, Joe had gone home, made the call on his landline and arranged the flight. Ruth was out. No note, no message. No thought whatsoever for anybody else. As per bloody usual. He tried her mobile and got her voicemail. He left a message telling her he was flying to Orkney and didn't know when he'd be back and if she had a problem with that she could fuck herself. He spent an hour tidying up the mess she'd left in the kitchen, pausing over an empty vodka bottle sitting in the center of the table. Odd. She didn't drink. Making a point, was she? Well, Joseph, it isn't only you that can get drunk. Thing is, Joe wouldn't have started on a half empty bottle in the first place. Ruth would be suffering now. She wasn't a drinker. A couple of shots and she was anybody's. He snatched the bottle off the table, poured the dribble that was left down the sink and chucked the bottle.
He packed a bag in under five minutes. A book, underwear, shirts, pair of trousers, washbag. He wasn't going to stay long. He added another book. For the journey. Take his mind off other things. Maybe. No harm in being optimistic.
As he stepped off the plane at Kirkwall airport, having read only a single sentence, albeit a dozen times, he suffered a moment's hesitation. The wind whipped his face, clacked the lapels of his overcoat, flattened his trousers against his shins. He could turn round right this minute and go straight back home. Did he want to do this? Well, it hardly mattered. The plane probably wasn't going anywhere else tonight. Apart from which, wimping out would set him back another hundred and eighty quid. Forget it. Turn to the front and face the Orkney music.
With each step, gusts of wind lifted the bag — his only item of luggage, small enough to be allowed on board as hand luggage — away from his side.
Anyway, he reasoned, he had to see Adam. Had to make the man face up to his responsibilities. Joe owed it to his daughter.
This was a business trip. Joe had a job to do and he was going to fucking well do it.
Fighting a steady headwind, he staggered towards the terminal building. Once inside, he found an unexpected bounce in his step. There was no security and he had no luggage other than his bag, so he headed directly for the exit sign, stepped outside and found a taxi rank with a solitary waiting taxi.
The driver folded up his newspaper when he spotted Joe. Joe opened the back door, shoved in his bag and ducked inside after it.
The driver said something. Sounded like a question. He said it again. "Whahr tae?" He was small, bald, over fifty, and when he turned in his seat he reminded Joe of the stiff, mechanical motion of a clockwork toy. It took Joe a moment to penetrate the accent. Then he got it.
Joe asked, "You know Wrighters' Retreat?"
"Adam Wright's place? Oh, aye. Clever name, isn't it?"
"Just take me there."
The driver started the engine, licked his lips and drove for a while, saying nothing. A couple of minutes into the drive he cleared his throat and said, "Come up from Inverness?"
"Edinburgh."
The driver was silent again. He drove textbook style, both hands on the wheel. Joe unglued his gaze from the driver and stared out the window, eyes sweeping over the expanse of flat green fields leading to a ribbon of grey sea merging with a darkening sky. What little remained of the light at this time of the evening stained the walls of a few scattered cottages the same dull grey as the sea. After a while the driver spoke again. "Hope you don't mind me saying so," and continued without waiting for a reply, "but you don't look like a writer."
Joe said, "You just can't tell."
The driver nodded. A jerky, clockwork nod. "Girl died there the other day. At Adam's place. Terrible tragedy. Killed herself."
Joe didn't respond.
"Her folks must be hurting," the driver said. "What do you think leads a little girl to do that?"
"The little girl was called Gemma. She was nineteen."
The driver's eyes stared at Joe's reflection in the rearview mirror, no doubt wondering how his Edinburgh passenger knew the details of this local tragedy. He glanced at the road, shook his bald head and looked in the mirror again. "I knew you weren't a writer. You're her father, right?"
Joe said nothing.
The driver said, "Whole life ahead of her. Tragic. Anything I can do…" He shrugged.
"If you really want to help," Joe said, "you can shut the fuck up."
EIGHT
"Is there a sports shop in Kirkwall?" Joe asked the taxi driver.
"Thought you wanted me to shut up. In fact, if I remember correctly—"
Joe leaned forward, placed his hand on the driver's leg and squeezed.
The driver winced. "Aye, in the town."
Joe removed his hand and glanced at his watch. Too late. If only he'd been able to get an earlier flight. Late night shopping? In this dump? Unlikely. He asked anyway. "Closed, I suppose?"
The driver didn't require any prompting this time. "You'll have to wait till the morning." Quickly, he added, "Is it golf you're interested in?" Maybe he imagined Joe had interpreted his answer as being a shade impertinent, as if he was telling Joe what was permitted, and wanted to clarify that he was really being helpful, not rude. Or maybe he just liked to hear the sound of his own voice. Or maybe he was just stupid. Or maybe he was really a clockwork device that, once wound up, couldn't stop.
When Joe didn't respond the driver spoke again. "Fishing?"
Joe waited a moment, then said, "Baseball."
"Oh," the driver said. "Unusual." He clammed up again. Probably didn't know what to say. Never met anyone Scottish claiming to have an interest in baseball. Reckoned his passenger was a major nutter. Or taking the piss. Dangerous, leg-squeezing, taking-the-piss nutter. Yeah, Joe thought, that's me.
Several minutes later, the driver said, "Never met anyone Scottish who played baseball."
"Never played the game," Joe said. "I just like the bats."
"Grand." The driver's Adam's apple bobbed up and down. "Nearly there." Evidently keen to change the subject. He rapped his fingers on the steering wheel. His left leg was trembling.
"Don't worry," Joe told him, leaning forward. The driver flinched. "I don't have an issue with you," Joe said. "At the moment." He leaned back, thinking, what a tosser. If he'd planned to snap the driver's neck he'd have done it by now. Joe rested his head against the window and reflected. To be honest, that was all shite about breaking the driver's neck. It was what he would like everybody to think he'd do. Truth was, although he'd come pretty close a few times, Joe had never killed anyone, and he was more than a bit nervous at the prospect of doing so.
He raised his head, sat up, put one hand on his bag and tugged the zip. He felt like he had as a teenager about to lose his virginity. He zipped up the bag again, clasped his hands together and tucked them between his knees. He'd put somebody in a coma once, but the bloke came out of it a couple of weeks later. One time he broke a punter's spine — the man didn't die but he doubtless wished he had. Another occasion, he'd fucked up a client's leg with some tools (this guy really had been an arsehole) and he'd have died if Joe hadn't called an ambulance before he left the guy's flat. What with the shock and blood loss it was touch and go, anyway, even with the paramedics' speedy arrival. But, no, Cooper employed somebody else to take over where Joe normally stopped. Employed, that is, on a contract basis. A man called Park. Joe imagined he wasn't your typical hired killer. Didn't call himself a killer, either. Thought it too undignified. Claimed that anybody could kill. Give a six-year-old girl a handgun with the safety off and she'd manage to point it in somebody's face and pull the trigger. Anybody could kill. QED, as far as Park was concerned. So he called himself an expurgator, which was different, apparently, although the subtle distinction was lost on Joe, even though he had gone to university.
The point was, Park could have called himself a fucking fairy and nobody would have dared bat an eyelid. Joe had met him on each of the occasions some thoughtless prick had annoyed Cooper sufficiently to justify the expense of having him killed. To date, that was three times. And three times Joe had broken out in one hell of a sweat. He hurt people and he could live with that. Killing people, he wasn't comfortable with, and he wasn't comfortable with anyone who was comfortable with it. Cooper said he should work on cultivating more of an inferiority complex. Like Park. Cooper said you could tell a mile off that Park's dick was hardly big enough to satisfy a midget. Maybe so. But whatever the size of his tadger, Park's utter disregard for human life was one of the few things that scared Joe.
No, Joe had never killed anyone.
Still, he thought, drawing his hands out from between his knees and flexing his fingers, there had to be a first time.
On the outskirts of Kirkwall, the car pulled into a driveway separating a handful of suburban villas and entered a large parking area. Two cars and a motorbike were parked in front of the entrance to an ugly, brilliantly white L-shaped building that squatted at the edge of an otherwise empty field. Along the length of the entire façade a single window peeped through the concrete. The building looked more like a warehouse than Joe's idea of a writers' retreat. But this was it. This was where Gemma had lived.
The driver asked for the fare.
This is where she had died.
Joe handed over the money and stepped out of the car. The driver passed his change out the window and didn't hang around to wish him luck. Joe watched the taxi's taillights disappear, then turned and approached the doorway. Twenty feet high, oak, studded, the door was like the entrance to a fairytale castle. He glanced at the doorbell, but chose to ignore it. Beginning a couple of feet off the ground and extending about four feet upwards, a panel was cut into the oak. A brass handle beckoned at shoulder height. A smaller door. The entrance for mere mortals. He turned the handle and shoved. The little door jerked open. He crouched, lifted his foot over the lip and stepped inside.
He had the feeling he was expected. Nothing psychic. Just a simple deduction based on the fact that someone had just snapped off the lights. Joe dragged his other foot inside. The door banged shut, bounced open again and creaked slowly back towards him. He stood for a moment, listening keenly, while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Blood pounded in his ears. Adrenalin crackled in his veins. His heart thumped against his ribcage. He threw his bag into the darkness in front of him and heard a yell of surprise. Joe launched himself after the clatter of footsteps, tripped over his bag and went sprawling. He scraped his wrist on the floor. Great start.
The footsteps stopped. A voice said, "That you, Joe?"
Joe sat up and tried to examine his wrist in the sliver of fading daylight that crept through the still partly open door. He couldn't make out a bloody thing. Tenderly, he touched his chafed skin. Adam's voice had come from fifteen, maybe twenty feet away. "Got some advice for you," Joe yelled into the darkness. "Run. And keep running." He heard footsteps. Slow and heavy. Getting closer.
"Why did you do it?" Adam's voice sounded no more than ten feet away now.
Joe was giving the stupid fuck every opportunity. Twat wanted to get killed, then so be it. Another footstep. Another. Joe supported his right wrist with his left palm and wriggled the fingers of his sore hand. It felt slightly swollen, but it wasn't broken or sprained. He could still use it to rip Adam's head off. The arsehole was getting closer, his shoes clacking on the polished floor like hooves. Joe, wanting to keep him coming, said, "Do what? The fuck are you talking about?"
Adam's voice quivered. "Can't even bring myself to say it."
Joe couldn't stand much more of this shit. But he played along. Quietly, in the near darkness, Joe raised himself to his feet. "You want to tell me what I've done?" Keep the bastard talking
. Get him closer. "I'd really like to know."
Four resounding footsteps. Agitation apparent in the acoustics of Adam's forward momentum. "First Gemma," he said. "And then Ruth."
Joe swore. He couldn't help but be intrigued. Adam had his attention. "What are you talking about?"
A single footstep. Adam was a vague shape only a few feet away. If Joe reached out he could probably touch him. But he wanted him closer still. He wanted to see the whites of his victim's eyes. Which, of course, he couldn't in the dark. So he'd make do with smelling his breath. Then he'd make his move. "Humor me," Joe said. "Remind me what it was I did."
Unfortunately, Adam never had the chance. At that moment a blinding light burst through the door. Joe screwed his eyes shut. Shielding his face with his hands, he staggered backwards towards the wall. He heard footsteps rushing towards him. Still unable to see, he was attacked from both sides. Somebody yanked his left arm from in front of his face and twisted it behind his back. Somebody else did the same with his right. He yelled as the bastard's grip tightened on his friction burn. He kept his head lowered and twisted to the side, trying to keep his eyes away from the spotlight.
He heard more footsteps entering the building. Adam said, "I'm okay. Don't worry about me." Then, a mumbled response Joe couldn't quite hear since he was yelling again as handcuffs tightened around his wrists.
They turned off the spotlight. After a few seconds Joe opened his eyes. Somebody had flicked the hall light back on and, as his eyes adjusted slowly, Adam came into focus. He looked wide-eyed, angry. He kept wiping his chin with the back of his hand as if he had a serious drool problem. The fingers of his other hand were balled into a fist. A couple of uniformed policemen stood by his side. In front of them was the man in charge. Dark blue suit, tightly knotted dark brown tie. A glance from him and the two men either side of Joe loosened their grip on his arms. Their boss tugged at his jacket cuffs. "Joseph Hope?"
Kiss Her Goodbye Page 4