Hit and Run

by Doug Johnstone

  ‘You’re the first. How long have you been a reporter?’

  ‘Almost a month.’

  Adele laughed at that. ‘Wow, they sent the hardened pro to get the scoop, eh?’

  ‘No one sent me. What I said at the beginning was true, I came here to see you.’

  ‘And yet here you are getting your quotes. Do you feel like a big-boy crime reporter now?’

  ‘No.’ Billy handed back the pipe. ‘To tell you the truth, I feel out of my depth.’

  Adele took the pipe but didn’t put it to her lips. She stared in Billy’s eyes for a long time, Billy holding her gaze.

  She looked away. ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘Can I ask about your black eye?’

  She looked at the digital recorder. ‘That’s enough.’ She picked it up, trying to work out the buttons. ‘How do you switch this thing off?’

  He put his hand on hers as she held the machine. She took his hand and turned it over.

  ‘You’ve been bleeding.’

  He looked down. A smattering of red marks on his palm, a constellation of blood. He pulled his hand away.

  She handed him the recorder and he switched it off and put it in his bag. When he looked up, she was staring past him.

  ‘Shit.’ She threw the pipe and lighter into the skunk tin, then placed that in a handbag tucked under the sofa.

  Billy turned at the sound of the summerhouse door opening. It was a small boy in a Star Wars T-shirt, carrying a plastic lightsaber. He wrinkled his nose at Adele, didn’t even look at Billy.

  ‘Mummy, it stinks in here.’

  ‘Yes, it does, darling. Where’s Magda?’

  ‘We’re playing hide and seek. I’m hiding.’

  Billy got up, felt the full force of the skunk on his wobbly legs. ‘I’d better go.’

  The boy still hadn’t looked at Billy. He was making lightsaber noises and swinging it at a plant in the corner of the room.

  ‘Thanks for the quotes,’ Billy said.

  Adele looked at him as he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. She went into her handbag, pulled a card out and handed it to him. Her name and mobile number.

  ‘If you need anything else. Anything at all.’

  His cheeks felt hot and he suddenly needed fresh air. He opened the summerhouse door and gulped. Behind him he heard the boy.

  ‘Who was that man, Mummy?’

  ‘He’s no one, darling. Now come and give your mummy a cuddle.’

  10

  He had three missed calls from Zoe and a couple of texts from Charlie wondering where he was.

  Instead of heading back to Rankeillor Street, he turned right before Scottish Widows. A trickle of students were coming and going from Pollock Halls. They looked unconcerned about life, joking and laughing. He walked past them down Holyrood Park Road to the roundabout. He knew where he was going.

  The barbed-wire cuts stung his hands as he dialled Rose’s number.

  ‘Hold the front page,’ he said when she answered.

  ‘Ha, ha. What’s up? I’m in the middle of something here.’

  ‘I’ve interviewed the widow.’

  ‘Adele Whitehouse? You beautiful boy. How did you manage that?’

  ‘I climbed over their back wall. Met her in the summerhouse. She agreed to speak.’

  Rose gave a laugh. ‘Hot damn, we’ll make a crime reporter of you yet. How was she?’

  Billy thought a moment. ‘Grieving.’

  ‘She say anything interesting?’

  ‘The usual platitudes.’

  ‘How did she seem? Genuinely upset?’

  Billy thought about the skunk pipe, the flat voice, the flirting. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘Did you ask her about the eye?’

  ‘Says she walked into a door.’

  ‘A sense of humour in adversity, that’s good, we can use that. Wait a minute.’

  Her voice disappeared for a second. Billy heard a man’s voice he recognised in the background.

  ‘Rose, are you with the detective inspector?’

  ‘Never mind that, we’ve got another front page to write. I had a follow-up already done for tomorrow’s first edition, but there wasn’t much in it. The Mackies have alibis, there’s no news about Frank’s whereabouts on the night, blah blah. What you’ve got is better. I’ll call McNeil. Get down to the office and start knocking it into shape.’

  Billy was at the top of Queen’s Drive. The evening sun had set, but twilight still bathed the cliffs and the park, the gorse a subdued umber in the shade of the Crags.

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘Good. I’ll meet you there in an hour.’

  ‘That give you enough time to finish off our friendly bobby?’

  ‘Enough cheek out of you, Kiddo.’ Rose was laughing as she hung up.

  His phone rang. Zoe. He diverted the call and put his mobile away.

  He began walking down Queen’s Drive. The trees where it happened were a hundred yards away. Cars chugged up and down the slope. Billy scanned them, looking for a red Micra. He hadn’t seen another one since yesterday. He felt dizzy as he tried to focus on the cars blurring past. He looked ahead. He was seventy yards away. His legs were struggling, like wading across the ocean floor. The thud of his heart seemed irregular, speeding up then slowing down. The left side of his face was fizzing with subdued pain. It felt like the skull under his skin was itchy, an itch he couldn’t scratch. Fifty yards. There was a flash of red in the corner of his eye. He thought about his collapse in the toilets at work. Smelt the air. Gorse and petrol fumes. Tarmac beginning to cool in the evening breeze. Thirty yards. A red car streaked past. Not a Micra, not even close. Twenty. He stared at the road, saw a small dark stain. Fifteen. Could be blood, engine oil, dogshit, roadkill, anything. Ten yards. His legs were making him speed up. The stain had dried into the rough surface of the road. He held his breath, his pulse beating against his temples, his throat constricted, his heart thundering now, his face and hands stinging in time, blood bursting to escape his body.

  He kept walking. He was past. Heading downhill, speeding up, his body relaxing, his fingers loosening their grip on the strap of his bag. His face still tingling, his mind stepping back from the edge.

  He walked and didn’t look back.

  *

  ‘I hereby officially change your nickname from Kiddo to Scoop.’

  Rose had just finished reading a printout of his story, going through it with a pen, marking up occasional changes.

  ‘Congratulations, one month in and you’ve got a front page. Took me two years.’

  She threw the printout on to his desk.

  ‘Make those changes and we’ll run it past McNeil. He’s going to love it.’

  Billy looked at Rose’s corrections. He’d written it straight – grieving widow, suspicious death, crime lord and all that. He’d cut Adele’s quotes to make her look more sympathetic, more caring. Used the detail of the son for the human angle. Rose had tweaked it to suggest more, highlighted the black eye, tabloided it up a little, but not too much.

  As he made the changes, his phone rang and he got two more texts. He didn’t pick up the phone, concentrating on the story. He finished up, emailed the copy to Rose and McNeil then picked up his bag and walked to Rose’s desk.

  ‘Think I’ll call it a night, if that’s OK?’

  ‘Of course, you’ve done more than enough. Good work today. You have a wee jar with your mates and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow for the police press conference. Should be good, they’ll have the forensic report by then.’

  ‘Really?’ Billy felt light-headed. ‘You got the inside track from the detective inspector?’

  Rose gave him a coy look. ‘No, forensics are working on it through the night, it’s a high-profile case. We’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with.’

  Billy rubbed at the bump on his head. It seemed harder than before, as if his brains were calcifying.

  Rose looked concer
ned. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Have you had that checked out?’

  ‘My brother says it’s just a bump.’

  Rose nodded. ‘How did you do it, anyway?’

  Billy shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  *

  He pushed open the door of the Holyrood and went in. Smell of expensive foreign lagers and home-made burgers. He looked around. The last text from Charlie said he was here. The three of them used to live in this place as students, when it was run-down and full of bikers and crusties. It had closed for a bit and been refurbished, but they hadn’t ripped the heart out of the place. It was halfway between classy bar and scruffy dive.

  He spotted Charlie at a table with Zoe. Charlie had a trumpet-horn weissbier glass in his hand, Zoe fingering an enormous glass of red wine. They were alternately staring at each other then looking down, talking quietly, their faces lit by a candle on the table, their hands almost touching. They looked like a couple out on a romantic date. Billy stood and stared at them, some old-school indie washing quietly around the place.

  He went to the bar and got two weissbiers and a red wine. He popped two Anadrex and a couple of Oramorphs out of their packets and swallowed them with the wheat beer. The barman stared at him. Billy stared back.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ the barman said, and went to serve another punter.

  Billy took the drinks over to the table.

  ‘Here you go.’

  Charlie and Zoe looked up.

  ‘Christ,’ Zoe said, reaching for him. ‘Sit down, we’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Billy stared at her. Gorgeous green eyes. He’d missed looking into those eyes. He thought of Adele’s eyes, tried to picture them through the skunk smoke.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I called you loads of times.’

  ‘I’ve been at work. Sorry.’

  ‘I thought you had the rest of the day off?’ Charlie said. ‘Last we spoke you were heading to bed.’

  ‘Needed some air. Ended up getting involved in something.’

  Zoe ushered Billy into the seat next to her. ‘Like what?’

  ‘I interviewed the widow.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Zoe said. ‘Can’t you just stay away from this?’

  ‘It’s the biggest story the paper’s had in years, and the Evening Standard has the exclusive. There’s no way I can avoid it.’

  ‘You didn’t have to interview the wife, though,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Widow,’ Billy said. ‘Not wife.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Her husband’s dead, remember? We killed him.’

  Zoe looked at him. ‘Calm down, honey.’ She had her hand on his wrist. He felt his skin itch under her grip and moved his arm to lift his pint, shaking her off.

  ‘I’ve got tomorrow’s front page,’ he said. ‘From talking to Adele.’

  ‘Adele?’ Zoe said.

  ‘Mrs Whitehouse. The widow.’

  Charlie frowned. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘The usual.’

  Zoe touched his hand again. ‘Listen, you need to leave this story alone.’

  ‘I can’t. I am the fucking story.’

  Charlie took a drink. ‘Can’t you have a word with Rose, cover something else?’

  ‘How would that look? As a trainee I just got a front page, an interview that no one else got, and I suddenly ask to cover some bullshit vandalism case in Craigmillar? I don’t think so.’

  ‘We’re just concerned about you,’ Zoe said.

  Billy took a big drink of beer. On the wall behind Charlie, amongst old brewery mirrors and landscape prints, was a framed green and blue map with MAKE YOUR OWN PATH stamped across it in thick red capitals. Billy choked as some beer went down the wrong way. Zoe rubbed his back. He put his beer down, still staring at the sign.

  ‘There’s a police press conference tomorrow morning at St Leonard’s. They’re expecting to have the forensic report.’

  ‘Christ almighty,’ Charlie said. ‘That doesn’t matter. They’re not going to come up with anything.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘How?’

  Charlie had no answer to that.

  11

  ‘Jesus, Scoop, you stink of bevvy.’ Rose led him into the media room of St Leonard’s police station. ‘And you look like shit. I said have a few jars, not the whole pub.’

  Billy let himself be guided. They skulked at the back by the coffee machine. They could’ve been in any anonymous beige conference room in the world, windows shut, light slipping between the blinds. It was already warm outside and starting to heat up in the room. The place was full of hacks and shutter-monkeys. Two camera crews with presenters had set up near the front. Rose’s story yesterday naming Frank Whitehouse had lit the fire under all their arses. The nationals and television were playing catch-up, and Billy’s front page, due in an hour, was another step ahead. A few reporters approached and congratulated Rose on her story, fishing for a slip of the tongue.

  ‘Just sit there and don’t say a word.’ Rose pushed Billy into a seat and sat next to him.

  ‘Did you not manage to get an advance report on the forensics from Loverboy?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Billy had meant it as a joke and was surprised by her tone.

  She glared at him.

  ‘Number one, Stuart Price is a good man. Honourable and decent. Number two, don’t go blabbing about where we get our information. The room is full of Scotland’s biggest dickhead journalists, for God’s sake. Remember that.’

  There was a bustle of activity down the front as DI Price came through the door, followed by a uniformed female officer. Behind her was Adele Whitehouse in a tight grey suit, large dark glasses. She looked composed, the glamorous widow, the full Jackie Kennedy.

  ‘The ice maiden cometh,’ Rose whispered. ‘Looks like she could bust a few balls. How the hell did you get her to speak to you?’

  ‘Natural charisma.’

  Rose studied Billy as he stared at Adele. ‘You’re a cute son of a bitch, but don’t get cocky. One story doesn’t make you.’

  DI Price began proceedings in that dull formal monotone policemen always use at press conferences. Billy wondered if they learned it at media training.

  ‘I’d like to welcome you all to St Leonard’s today for this press conference concerning the body that was found at the bottom of Salisbury Crags yesterday morning. I’m sure you all know already, although the information has not been formally released until now, that the person in question was, in fact, local entrepreneur Mr Frank Whitehouse.’ Price looked to Adele next to him. ‘We have with us Mrs Whitehouse, who will say a few words at the end of today’s meeting, but she will not answer any questions. Please direct any questions to me.’

  Adele sat motionless and inscrutable as cameras flashed at her. Her hair was down, falling in red waves over her shoulders, brushed in such a way as to partially hide her right eye. Billy couldn’t see any bruising, maybe she’d done a make-up job on it. She was beautiful in her stillness, a vision of stoicism amongst the attention of the room.

  ‘As I said, Mr Whitehouse’s body was found at the bottom of Salisbury Crags, and initial police investigations were centred around the possibility that he had fallen or jumped from the Radical Road above.’ Price lifted a few sheets of paper in front of him. ‘But the results of a forensic examination of the body and the immediate crime scene would now seem to suggest that Mr Whitehouse was not killed in a fall of any kind. His injuries were inconsistent with such a death, rather the forensic team felt that those injuries were most likely caused by an automotive incident of some kind.’

  Automotive incident. Quaint phrase. Billy remembered the impact, the sound of Frank’s body rolling over the roof, his own head cracking against the glass. He reached for the bump on his t
emple and felt suddenly hot, couldn’t catch a breath in the stifling air of the room.

  ‘We are therefore now confirming that the case of Mr Whitehouse’s death is a murder investigation. Since Mr Whitehouse was not found on or next to a road, it is so far unclear as to whether he was involved in an incident some distance away and his body transported to the scene of his discovery, or whether indeed he was not killed outright by an accident and somehow walked away from it, only to collapse at the bottom of the Crags. We are therefore returning to the area around the foot of the Radical Road for further forensic examination of an extended crime scene, and you will be informed of the results of that process when we have them.’

  Price paused for breath. Adele lifted a hand to touch her glasses and a dozen camera flashes blitzed the room. Billy’s head and neck pounded, the pain in sharp jabs coursing down his back. He shifted in his seat and tried to swallow.

  ‘I’m sure there will be no shortage of speculation from you ladies and gentlemen of the press about the nature of Mr Whitehouse’s death, given his high profile and reputation. But let me remind you most strongly that this is now an active murder investigation, and excessive speculation in the press at this time may in fact prohibit a fair trial, if and when we reach that stage. Given Mr Whitehouse’s position in this city, we will be pursuing a number of lines of enquiry. Let me just now put out an appeal to the general public, though. We are keen to hear from anyone who might have seen Mr Whitehouse between the times of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Monday morning, whether it be in the vicinity of Salisbury Crags or elsewhere. The last confirmed positive sighting of the deceased was at Fingertips massage parlour in Jock’s Lodge, an establishment that was one of several Mr Whitehouse owned. That was at approximately 1.50 a.m. Fingertips is some twenty or thirty minutes’ walk from where Mr Whitehouse was found, the direct route between the two places passing through Holyrood Park, and we would ask if any revellers or late-night drivers saw the deceased or anything at all suspicious anywhere along that route, that they contact the police immediately.’

  Billy pictured the headlights of the taxi, fingers of light stretching towards them as they struggled with Frank’s body. He could hear the chug of its engine as it slowed to pass their parked Micra. He felt his palms and cheeks tingle, unearthly feelings like itchy pains, signals from his mind that his body couldn’t decode. His left leg was jittering. A muscle under his eye twitched. He closed his eyes, felt the heat of the room smother him. Eventually he opened his eyes. Price cleared his throat and looked a little uncomfortable.