AHMM, Jul-Aug 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Romance,” she said, looking at the store-bought lasagna. “Scots style."

  * * * *

  I woke up early the next morning, about half six. It was a sudden awakening, like I'd had a bad dream, but as usual I couldn't remember any of it. I looked at Ros who slept peacefully beside me.

  I got up and had a shower, then made myself a cup of tea in the kitchen. I sat on the stool at the breakfast bar and tried to figure out what I'd been dreaming.

  I called Sandy at about half past seven. He was wide awake, and he knew what I was calling about even before I asked. He told me to meet him at the Howff. He fancied some fresh air.

  * * * *

  The Howff graveyard is a ten minute walk from my flat. It dates back to the fifteenth century, if my local history serves me well, and was built atop the ruins of a monastery. These days, it lies smack dab in the center of the city. When you're actually walking through the Howff, though, it's easy to forget that you're in the midst of a city. There's a restful silence that hangs in the air. I've noticed a lot of office workers tend to have a quiet sandwich among the dead at lunchtime. In the summer, it is almost beautiful.

  This particular Sunday morning, there was a gentle mist in the air. The gates were half shut, but you could still squeeze through. Sandy had beaten me there. He was sitting on a bench, looking at gravestones so old the names had been worn away.

  I sat beside him.

  "His name was John Woodrow,” Sandy said. “No living relatives. Only way we could determine his ID was that he kept his wallet on him. Nothing in it except an old Social Security card and a picture of a young woman we assume was his wife."

  "What do you know about her?"

  "We did a quick background check and found she died twelve years ago. Coughing John, as you called him, was sixty-six and a very unwell man. Last known address was a high-rise up by Charleston. He couldn't keep up the rent. Poor bastard."

  I nodded. Coughing John had always been Coughing John. To learn that he was John Woodrow somehow made him less landscape and more of a real person.

  "Who killed him?"

  "To hell if I know,” said Sandy. “Best guess is still bored kids. There's a lot of them hang around the underpass. They probably started beating him for kicks and things got a little out of control."

  "What are you going to do about it?"

  "What I can. Which is pretty much sod all, Sam. Homeless people die all the time in little spats like this. There isn't a whole lot I can do.” He looked apologetic, genuinely so. “What was he to you, anyway?"

  I took a moment to reply. “Part of the landscape."

  * * * *

  Business was slow. I wasn't really worried. I had enough money in the account to tide me over, and besides, I figured I needed a holiday. Babs, my secretary, had my pager at the office in case anything came through, but it was a quiet time for Bryson Investigations. Philandering husbands and runaway daughters, it seemed, were behaving themselves.

  I rationalized that working for Coughing John was an exercise, a professional stretch to keep me in shape during this quiet period. I wasn't being paid and no one had hired me. Still, I felt that justice—no matter how meager—had to be served somehow.

  I suppose part of me was affronted at what had happened to Coughing John. I would not have called him a friend, but now that he was John Woodrow, I needed closure on the situation, as Ros liked to say. He was undeserving of such an undignified death. Even just to find out something about what had happened to him on the Saturday evening would make everything seem just that little bit easier.

  * * * *

  On Monday I walked to the overpass at nine thirty P.M.

  The skate-kids were out in force. There were ten of them, seven boys and three girls. The girls weren't skating, but stood on the sidelines, dressed in black and watching with veiled interest as the guys tried to do stunts that were well beyond their capabilities. Every one of them wore Slipknot jumpers. Two of the guys had as much makeup on as the girls. Not a one of them was above eighteen. I guess they weren't that different from way I used to be. Punks, skate-kids, it's all the same in the end: the perpetuating faux-revolution every generation tries to achieve.

  I walked to a guy who'd just finished a trick. We were in the overpass itself, over the dual carriageway. The traffic below us was light. The harsh lights in the overpass made the kids’ skin seem pale, almost translucent.

  "Hey, man,” I said to the trickster. “Could I have a word with you?"

  He looked at me with deadeyed suspicion.

  "I'm just asking around,” I said. “Need to know if you knew a homeless guy who hung around here most nights."

  "Whit is it to you?"

  "He died on Saturday."

  A girl, her dyed-black hair done in pigtails, said, “The auld git wi’ the cough?"

  "Aye,” I said. “That's the one."

  Another girl, who had a stud through her lower lip, said, “Bloody shame."

  "Aye,” the first girl said. I noticed that the first girl looked particularly nervous for some reason. She knew more than she was saying.

  The guy I'd initially approached—the trickster—said, “What has that got tae do wi’ us?"

  "You guys are around here a lot,” I said. “I thought you might have seen something."

  A second guy, taller than the first, came over and made an impressive stop on his board. He kicked it up under his arm. “Who are you?” Probably he thought he smelled bacon. Anyone asking as many questions as me was probably a copper.

  All of them had clustered in a threatening little circle around me. I wasn't really nervous, but I still stood straight and made sure they knew I wasn't going to be dicked around.

  "Samuel Bryson,” I said. I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out a card. I flashed it around. The girl with the stud in her lip took it from me.

  "Cool,” she said, and showed it to her friend.

  The friend said, “He's a private investigator.” I wasn't sure if she was just trying to hide the awe in her voice or if I was really boring her as much as it sounded.

  "There's no such thing,” said one of the boys. “It's all just a load of crap in the movies."

  "I'm serious,” I said. “Do any of you know anything?"

  No one said a word. They were too quiet, in fact. The rabble that had been in full force just a moment ago was suddenly gone, snuffed out of existence like a flame on a dying candle.

  "If you think of anything,” I said, “call the number on the card.” I figured on the odds being at least one of them would bite.

  I broke through the circle and walked down the steps onto Union Street. I thought, as I passed the karaoke bar, that maybe my little fishing expedition had been in vain. Maybe none of them would call.

  I was halfway up the street, passing a club called The Rendezvous, when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see the girl with the ring through her lip.

  She said, “Can I talk to you?"

  * * * *

  We moved onto the Nethergate and sat outside the city center cathedral on a park bench. We were still in sight of the main street, able to see each other by streetlight.

  She said her name was Anna, but refused to give me a second name. I didn't care. I just wanted to hear what she had to say.

  "I don't know whit I'm doing,” she said. “But you look like you're serious."

  "I am,” I said.

  "I wasn't there on Saturday. But Marty was. There was three of them just pissin’ about, ken? Daein tricks and all that. Usual rubbish."

  I nodded. I took out a pack of cigarettes. She looked at them with wide eyes. I lit one for myself.

  "I hope you've got enough for everyone,” she said. She tried to smile. “Ma teacher used to say that, like, when we had sweets and stuff in class."

  "It's a disgusting habit,” I said.

  "What's that say about you?"

  I looked at her jumper, recognizing the name of the band emblazoned across the
front as one of the nü metal bands I saw sometimes on MTV. I didn't think much of them, but I knew it was probably the same way my dad felt when I listened to heavy metal and punk back in the day. Like I said, the kids’ revolution has never really changed. Each generation just paints it that subtle extra shade of black.

  Anna resigned herself to the fact I wasn't going to give her any ciggies, and took a deep breath. “The tramp used tae shout at us, ken, when we were doing tricks. Most of the time we just told him tae get lost. But, I think it was the Sunday before the Monday, like, he went psycho, totally chicken Oriental, like."

  I had to smile at that. “Chicken Oriental” was a phrase my mother used to employ when my dad was acting up.

  Anna kept going, caught now on the momentum of her confession. “He started shouting at us as we went past. I'm the only one who doesn't do the boards, like. I can't stay on the thing for more than two minutes. But he was nae just shouting about the boards; he was telling us that we were the ruination of this country and all that crap. We just ignored him, like, and went on up the overpass. He came running after us, and he caught Marty by the hood, pulling him off his board."

  "Giving Marty a pretty good reason to be angry at him,” I said.

  "He was going tae kill the old man,” said Anna. “But Jimmy just said it wasn't worth it, and we just walked off, like. I don't want any hassle, I just want to hang, like, wi’ ma mates."

  "And you weren't there on Saturday?"

  "I didn't have tae be. Jimmy was there."

  "Jimmy's your boyfriend?"

  She didn't answer. She didn't exactly look coy, but she wasn't meeting my gaze either.

  "I'm curious, more than anything,” I said. “Just knowing the group dynamic here is going to help me a little bit to understand."

  "What is there to understand?"

  "A whole damn lot,” I said, sounding more angry with her than I meant to be. “A man is dead!"

  She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I was going out wi’ Jimmy for a wee while. He's a good mate."

  "That's all I wanted to know. So, he was there on the Saturday night?"

  "Aye."

  "And that's how you know what happened then?"

  She nodded again.

  "And this Jimmy's pretty reliable, you'd say?"

  "He's a good mate."

  "I asked if you could trust him, Anna."

  "Aye. You can trust him. I can trust him."

  "What did he say happened on Saturday night?"

  "They were just going tae head out tae the wasteland, ken, next tae the railway,” said Anna. “It's no great for skating, but you can hang there, smoke some dope, ken? Jimmy wanted to go another way, but Marty made sure they came down here."

  "Right past Coughing John."

  "Was that his name? The auld git?"

  "That was what I called him. He had a real name but that was a long time ago."

  She nodded and said, “Marty'd been drinking vodka, like, since mebbe twelve or something. He was drunk and he was stoned as well. He's no nice when he gets like that, ken? Anything can just set him off."

  "And it didn't help that, to his mind, Coughing John had assaulted him the night before."

  "He was a drunken old fart and we didn't ever pay him any attention. We never gave him any grief. Marty had a right tae be annoyed."

  The taxi rank in front of us was empty now. Across the road, at Castaways Bar, someone had set up karaoke, and a Robbie Williams number was being murdered by a Dundee accent.

  I took a deep drag on my cigarette. I pulled out the packet again, this time offering her one. She took it quickly, without bothering to thank me. She didn't wait for the offer of a light either, producing a cheap plastic one from her deep pockets and sparking up before I had a chance to change my mind.

  "What's Marty to you?” I asked her.

  "Get stuffed! I dinnae sleep wi’ every boy I know."

  "I never said that. I merely asked what he was to you."

  "A mate."

  "Good a mate as Jimmy?"

  "He's a laugh.” She looked at her feet and drew on her cigarette. I thought to myself how young she looked, suddenly. Little more than a girl, but believing she was a woman.

  "That's not an answer,” I told her.

  "Jimmy's a good mate. Marty's—"

  "One of those people you just seem to know from somewhere.” I finished her sentence for her. We both knew where it had been going, anyway.

  She nodded, inhaling the smoke from her cigarette, and knocking her head back to look up at the pale stars.

  "Do you want tae know something?” she said. “Marty's scary. I mean, a lot of people are scary, but Marty's twice as scary. You just don't know where you stand with him, ken? One minute he's a great laugh and the next minute, you just don't ken if he's going tae pan yer face."

  I made a grunt like I knew what she was talking about. Everyone knows someone like that. He's the psycho that just appears in your life one day, and once he's there it's damn difficult to shake him.

  Anna laughed when she talked about Marty's mood swings, but I knew they scared her. I could see it in her eyes; Marty terrified everyone and no one in her wee group was brave enough to admit it. “He's no a bad guy, like,” she said. “But anyway, that's what I'm saying is that sometimes he can snap."

  "He snapped at Coughing John,” I said. “Jimmy saw it and he told you and now you're scared if he could attack Coughing John like that, what's to stop him doing the same to his friends."

  She looked at me wide eyed, almost amazed by my powers of deduction. “Aye,” she said.

  "What happened? What did Jimmy tell you, precisely?"

  "They went back on the Saturday like I said. The wee tramp was there, hacking and coughing away like usual. He started tae shout as they walked past, but I think Marty looked at him and he shut up. That should have been the end of it, but Marty had a wee knife with him."

  "What kind of knife?"

  "Wee flick knife."

  "Still pretty deadly,” I said. “And illegal."

  She looked at me like I was stupid. “That's why he has it. He's fond of saying that no facist dictatorship is going tae tell him what he can and can't do."

  I sighed. I'd heard that line before from a lot nastier than little Marty.

  "He just went for Coughing John?” I said. “And no one tried to stop him?"

  "What were they meant tae do?"

  "So now everyone's just keeping quiet? Why? Are you all that afraid of him?"

  "No,” she said. A tear welled in one eye. The cigarette dropped from her mouth and landed between her feet on the pavement.

  "Then why?"

  She wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, dragging some black eyeliner away from her eyes and across her skin. “He's a mate. You've got tae stick up for yer mates."

  I stood up.

  "What're you doing?"

  "I'm not calling the police,” I said. “For that, you'd better be bloody thankful."

  * * * *

  Marty was the first one to speak when I walked back to the overpass, Anna walking a few steps behind me looking sheepish and ashamed. I recognized him from her description. He was a small lad, but built like a brick wall; probably he owned his own weights. His hair streaked blond and blue.

  "What did you say to him?” Marty asked Anna, ignoring me.

  I stepped in anyway. “She told me about Saturday night,” I said.

  "She wasn't there."

  "No,” I said. “But Jimmy was."

  Marty turned to the other boy, staring at him with incredulity. “Arsehole,” he hissed, and Jimmy shrunk away. Marty turned his attention back to me and said, “So what are you going to do about it? Call the police?"

  "No,” I said. I walked right up to him, drew back my hand, bunched it into a fist, and punched him square in the center of his face. There was a crack and he drew away from me, his nose gushing blood.

  I could feel everyone draw breath. They
all stepped back, looking ready to bolt for it if they had to. I knew that it wasn't fear of me. It was fear at what Marty's reaction would be to my punching him in the face.

  I didn't care. I'd faced idiots like him in the past; young and old, they were all the same, little messed up arseholes who had an unresolved grudge against the whole human race.

  The hardness in his eyes masked something that looked like fear.

  "Gonnae mess you up,” he said. He reached inside the folds of his jacket and took out his wee flick knife. Probably he thought it was going to be as easy as taking down Coughing John, a pathetic, defenseless old man. Maybe I was an old man to someone of Marty's age, but I wasn't defenseless, and I knew how to fight. And Marty was nothing more than an amateur with an attitude problem.

  I kicked out with my left foot, catching his wrist with force enough to spasm his hand. His fingers opened and the knife fell to the ground, the clatter echoing off the clear plastic walls of the overpass. He spun away, losing his balance long enough for me to regain my own once more. I grabbed him in a headlock, using my own momentum to propel us against the wall. The crown of his head rammed against the plastic, a resounding shake echoing along the walls of the suspended corridor. I let go and he stumbled backwards. He toppled over, landing on his arse in an incredibly undignified manner. Under other circumstances, I'm sure some of the others would have laughed. As it was they just stood there.

  "No one cares,” I said to Marty, “that you killed a tramp, is that right?"

  "Aye,” he mumbled. He couldn't stand up again. You could see the confusion in his face; he was probably hearing bells.

  "You took a man's life, you little bastard!"

  "He wasn't dead when I left him."

  "As good as,” I said.

  "He attacked me!” His tone took me by surprise: he was whining like a five year old complaining that the game wasn't fair.

  I looked at Marty and I saw before me a young boy with blood on his hands, caught somewhere between the games of childhood and the uncomfortable morality of adulthood. Each time they said, “Bang-bang, you're dead,” the joke was less and less funny, as they began to realize that any one of them could die.