The Dead Hour

by Denise Mina

  His smile was reptilian. “We’ll see. I’ll shell out for a bed and breakfast, and that’s only for three days—”

  “No, it has to be a hotel. Bed and breakfasts make you leave during the day and I need to sleep.”

  He didn’t like being interrupted. He raised his hand and licked the thumb again but stopped and smiled, dropping his hand without moving a sheet. “Three hundred words, and make it good. You’ll need a driver. Know anyone?”

  She remembered Sean. She didn’t know if he’d passed his test but the image of his face soothed her. “I do, but he hasn’t got his own car.”

  Ramage shrugged. “Get one out of the pool. Tell them to get a new radio and fit it.” He looked her up and down. “You’re young, Meehan. Was Farquarson the first editor you’ve worked under?”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “You probably miss him and think I’m a dick.”

  She wanted to nod but guessed that it wouldn’t be well received. “Dunno.”

  Ramage’s smile was almost genuine this time. He lifted a gold fountain pen and tapped the soft green leather blotter in front of him in a slow, rhythmic thud. They should have been up on editorial, in a noisy room surrounded by bustle where the dull thunk of a stupid ostentatious gold pen would be lost.

  He shifted in his seat. “As you go on in this business you’ll learn that loyalty to dead men is a waste of time. Grieve, get over it, and then move on to arse-licking the next man in charge. That’s the business we’re in.” He smiled faintly, as if his brutal creed was a source of pride. “You can come with me or you can give me that uppity cow crap and end up selling advertising space. Understand?”

  Paddy nodded and Ramage dismissed her with a flick of his hand.

  Paddy backed out of the room and shut the door quietly. The windows along the corridor let the weak light of the day into the corridor. She slowed to a stop, leaning on the windowsill and looking out over the roofs of the Scottish Daily News vans parked outside. In the future the printworks wouldn’t be under the paper. They’d move to the new site and the building would be nothing more than an office. They could be selling insurance.

  She looked out over the gray day and knew Billy’s family would be in the hospital, waiting for her to turn up and commiserate on behalf of the Daily News. She should go and phone Sean and tell him he had a good-paying job if he wanted it. She had three hundred words to write and just six hours before she was expected at the inquiry into the police call to Burnett’s house, but still she lingered in the lemon-scented corridor, looking out of the window at the windy street, feeling one era slip into the past and another begin.

  IV

  Bernie knew it was Kate at the door. The whisper of a knock at ten in the morning, the tentative pause between the raps—he didn’t know anyone else who would do that. He stood behind the door, sensing her on the other side, wanting to open it to her but never wanting to see her again.

  “Bernie?” Her voice was as familiar as his own and he could read volumes into the timbre. She was frightened and worried that he might be angry with her. She was ill too, didn’t sound strong. Her normal voice was breathy but there was no air behind the voice. “Bernie? Let me in?”

  He imagined what she’d say to him if he did open the door: there were bits of engines and old newspapers stacked all over the floor of the pokey wee hall. He had pale blue striped pajama trousers and an undershirt on, hardly appropriate for receiving such a grand guest. But Kate had deigned to come to his council house, she’d never been before, she might not be just as snooty as she usually was.

  “Darling? I’m cold.”

  Bernie didn’t even make a decision to open the door. The reflex to save Kate from any and all discomfort was so ingrained that he leaned forward and pulled the heavy toolbox away from the bottom of the door while he snapped the lock and pulled it open.

  He gasped when he saw her. As soon as the breath left him and his hand was across his mouth he knew he had broken her heart.

  “You’re so thin,” he said, lying to spare her.

  She knew why he had gasped. He could see by the way she hung her head and looked at his feet. Her hand rose to her face, covering her nose. It had collapsed. The tip drooped over her top lip like the nose of a witch in a children’s book.

  The last time they met, at the old man’s funeral, she’d looked just as stunning as ever. She’d had the sort of looks that caught the eye and kept it, that made a man feel that his hands were designed to fit around her perfect face, cinch her tiny waist. She knew what she looked like then, had the sense of absolute entitlement that truly beautiful girls have. And she knew what she looked like now.

  “When did you last eat?”

  She raised her eyes and looked so defenseless she could have been twelve again. “I’m cold, Bernie.”

  She had barely spoken to him for years, had been the cause of Vhari’s murder, had stolen a car from him and planted a parcel in his garage that could have had him killed, but Bernie reached out and took her hand, pulled her into his modest flat, and shut the door to the world behind her.

  V

  The floor was incredibly dirty. Paddy had been asleep in Farquarson’s darkened office for three hours, lying on the dusty floor, starting awake every twenty minutes or so at noises from the newsroom.

  She lay awake now, knowing she should get up and phone her mum again, just to check. Her hot eyes looked along the length of filthy carpet, past the indents from the conference table, to the door. Through the half-opened venetian blinds she could see shadows moving past and the still, squat figures of the copyboys perched on their bench, waiting to be called for a chore. She should get up and phone her mum, ask if she’d seen a red Ford outside. She should apologize to JT for not getting his Mandela clippings out for him. She’d been expecting him to burst into the office all morning to give her a bollocking for not having done it already.

  A perfunctory rap on the door was followed by the door opening, and a shard of bright light made her eyes smart.

  “Ramage has booked you a hotel room.”

  She sat up, blinking and brushing fibers and dust from her cheek, resisting the urge to rub her eyes. It was one of the copyboys.

  “Is JT about?”

  “Naw.”

  “Is he out on a job?”

  “Naw.”

  He retreated back to the bench, leaving the door swinging open.

  Pleased about the hotel room, Paddy brushed her clothes clean and stepped out into the busy room. The morning conference had apparently taken place in Ramage’s suite downstairs: editors and significant journalists were pouring back in through the double doors, some scowling, some buzzed up, depending on who had been lauded and who lampooned for the morning edition. She peered at them until the last few trickled back in and settled at their desks. JT wasn’t among them.

  She sidled up to Reg at the sports desk. “Where’s JT?”

  Reg shook his head. “Got the bump.”

  She opened her eyes properly. “But he’s just won a Reporter of the Year.”

  “Aye.” Reg nodded miserably at his typewriter. “Wages were too high, though. I heard you’ve got a hotel room.”

  “Aye.” She looked at her feet, wondering if she’d been wise to ask for anything but a chance to prove herself.

  TWENTY-THREE

  UGLY THINGS

  I

  The furnishings were all perfunctory and worn, gleaned from cheap secondhand shops. The gray sofa and a wooden chair, the smoked-glass coffee table, all ugly things, and Bernie’s living room was full of bits of engines and oily rags and tools. Kate hated the room. She was glad she had never been here before and yet Bernie’s company was a comfort in itself. Just the sight of his square face and cheap barber flattop made her feel safe, as if it were another time, as if they were still children and were back before this all began, long before it went bad.

  Kate sat her second cup on the coffee table. She didn’t drink tea, usually. She knew what it did
to the color of people’s teeth and had convinced herself that she didn’t like it, like ice cream and chocolate. Now she drank it down to try to warm herself up, and then asked for more from the tarnished metal pot. Bernie brought out a packet of digestives and handed her a couple.

  “Try to eat them. You’re so skinny, honestly, your legs look like strings with knots in.” He pointed to her knees under the laddered blue tights and silently hoped the dried brown stuff flecked all over the back of her calves was mud.

  Kate smiled softly, eyes focused somewhere far off. She sucked an edge of the biscuit and pretended to eat, indulging him. She used to get that look in her eye when she wanted to leave home but couldn’t just say so. “Have you got my pillow?”

  He wouldn’t have known what she was talking about if he hadn’t been waiting for her to ask for it. “Pillow?”

  She smiled. “My ‘comfort pillow.’”

  Bernie smiled back but stopped when he looked at her. “You’re killing yourself.”

  She stared at him wearily. She wasn’t well enough to cope with a scene. Her head was bursting and she had shooting pains in her stomach. “You take everything too seriously, Bernie, you always have, ever since you were little.”

  She was saying that to make him angry, to stop him admitting he cared. Being emotional was a crime to the Burnetts. But Bernie wasn’t a Burnett, he had chosen not to be, and he did care.

  “Look at you,” he said, shouting suddenly. “Look at the state of you. What he’s made of you.”

  She picked up the cup and sipped again. “Has he been to see you?”

  “What the fuck do you think, Katie? Would my fucking skull still be intact if he’d been here? He battered Vhari to death.”

  She looked down, holding her hands together to stop them trembling. “I want my pillow,” she said when her shallow reserve of remorse had run out.

  “Katie, you’re going to die if you keep taking that stuff.”

  He was right and she knew it. She had felt her heart weaken up at the cottage, the rhythm of it change at times, straining like the Mini’s engine to keep going.

  “Bernie, I’m not an idiot. I’m going to get help, but this isn’t the time.”

  Bernie rubbed his face roughly with a hand. “Katie? Look at me.” But she couldn’t so he raised his voice. “Look at me, Katie. Fucking look at me. You won’t live to get help. They’ll kill you for taking that bag of coke.”

  Kate could hear singing in her left ear. It was the low murmur of the dead man. He was faint, barely perceptible, singing a hymn, she thought, some old Protestant dirge about sins and sinners.

  “Katie. Can you hear me?”

  She didn’t know if Bernie was talking to her or the dead man, so she waited.

  “Katie?” Bernie, it was definitely Bernie, his mouth was moving. “Can you hear me?”

  “I can hear you, darling.”

  “They’ll kill you like they killed Vhari.”

  “No they won’t. I’ve got a plan.” She was beginning to shiver.

  Bernie leaned forward and cupped her chin roughly. “Listen to me.” He held her face and made her look at him. His eyes were wild with fright. “Listen.” Kate lifted her chin to get away but he held on, digging his fingers in. “Listen.” Seeing it was hopeless she sat still and looked at him. “Katie, you’re a feckless tit. Your plans are stupid. You couldn’t think your way out of a newsagents’. You’ve got to go to the police.”

  She laughed in his face, a genuine, sensible, spontaneous laugh and Bernie loosened his grip and smiled back. She was like herself again and Bernie felt a wash of relief, as if he was meeting an old friend in a hostile crowd.

  “But I am planning to go to the police,” she said.

  Bernie watched her, reading her face, and he believed her. “God, Kate, fucking hell, I’m so glad. If you lay low and go to the police and just don’t mention the coke, everything’ll be fine. Tell them you went missing and about Vhari and even if they press you, don’t mention drugs of any kind. Promise?”

  She pouted, and looked up at him. “Bernie, dearie, I need my pillow to lay low.”

  Bernie frowned, annoyed again that she had brought it up. “You’ve no idea how serious this is. Mark Thillingly killed himself the other night because of this.”

  “Fat Mark?”

  “He’s not fat, Kate. He’s dead.”

  “For God’s sake, I’m not responsible for every death in Scotland.” She wanted the pillow. She needed the pillow. The thought of living through the next ten minutes without knowing whether she could get it back scratched at her brain. “Can I have it back?”

  Bernie looked at her sadly, noting that she hadn’t asked about Mark or even why he killed himself. “Katie.”

  “Give it to me right now or I’ll cut myself.”

  “Tell me your plan.”

  The dead man giggled in her ear and she hesitated. “Knox. Knox.” She stared into the distance as she repeated the name like a prayer keeping her safe. “Knox’s the out. Paul would do anything to protect him. If I get Knox to talk to him he’ll definitely leave me alone.”

  Bernie leaned in and prompted her softly. “But who is Knox?”

  “Give me my pillow and I’ll tell you.” She smiled coquettishly, as she used to, but her flattened nose made the look grotesque.

  “You’re a fucking nutjob. And you look like a tramp.”

  “Piss off.”

  He stood up and began to tidy, picking up the biscuits plate, sweeping crumbs from the table onto it. Kate loathed him suddenly. She knew then that she would do anything, literally, the worst she could think of to hurt him and make him give it back. “I’ll phone my parents.”

  He looked down at her, the color bleeding from his cheeks until his face was gray.

  “I’ll phone them and tell them your home address and where you work. They’ll come and see you.”

  The muscles on his face tightened. He looked a little sick, like he had when he was a boy and felt trapped, which was most of the time when he was at home. He looked at his watch. “Phone your parents if you like. I haven’t got a telephone and I’ll be out when you get back. If they see the mess you’ve made of yourself you’ll be in a sanatorium by teatime.”

  “I could call them tomorrow,” she said, twisting the knife. “They will come, you know.”

  Bernie let the crumbs slide off the plate into the carpet and dropped his hand to his side. “I don’t fucking care, Katie.” But he did care if they came. She could see he was trembling.

  “All you have to do is give me the pillow.”

  “I’ve thrown it away.”

  “You weaselly little prick.” She stood up and slapped him hard across the face, making him drop the plate. He slapped her back, and felt her flaccid nose brush his palm. She toppled over, landing on the settee, holding her nose. He had made her bleed.

  Kate sat up, holding her face, streams of scarlet bubbling through her fingers. She looked at him and carefully tipped to the side, letting her nose bleed itself out all over his settee. She took her hand away and smiled at her bloody palm. “If Paul finds me without the pillow he’ll kill me. My blood’s all over your sofa: the police’ll come here and find it and think you killed me. So now you’ve got to give it to me.”

  He hesitated; she could see it.

  “Bernie.” She sat up, holding a hand under her nose. “Bernie, I want my pillow so I can get it together and sort this out. Please? I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. If I don’t sort out my own mess we’ll both end up dead. You know that, don’t you?”

  Bernie looked at her on the sofa. “You’re going to take it all and kill yourself.”

  “Look at me, Bernie. I’ve got a plan. I’m as tough as nuts. If the world ended tomorrow I’d be the sole survivor. I’d be looting for handbags and jewelry. Tough as nuts.” She laughed at her own turn of phrase, holding a hand over her nose to catch the last dribble of blood.

  Bernie watched her, smiling sadly, lovin
g her and wishing everything was different, that they had stayed friends and looked after each other instead of bolting from home in opposite directions as soon as they could.

  As Kate laughed up at him she heard a breathy huff in her ear: the dead man was laughing as well, deep inside her inner ear.

  II

  Paddy was terrified to be back in the courtyard of the Royal Hospital. The car park was crammed with cars and a couple of vans; every space was taken apart from the space where Billy had been parked the night before. It was left empty, a black scorch left from the fire. She tried not to look at it but saw it in the corner of her eye, the soot on the buildings nearby. The car had been taken away but had left its mark on the bubbled tarmac and the great wetness on the building and ground where it had been drenched by the fire brigade.

  Paddy shuddered. She had a creepy sense that most of the soot on the building must have come from Billy’s body, from his skin as it burned. A throb started in her throat. She wanted to sit down on the step of the hospital and cover her face and cry. All she could see were his feet, twitching, his heels banging off the car park floor and the white coats gathered around him.

  She looked up at the building. A hundred heart-wrenching tragedies must happen in here every day of the week, twice at weekends, and the thought brought her comfort somehow, that she was just a part of a great wave of fright and sadness. Everyone else was being brave about it. She’d be letting the side down if she wasn’t too.

  The doorway was busy with staff and visitors coming in and out of the building. Deliveries were being brought in for the dispensing machines in the lobby, cans of juice and boxes of crisps. Paddy stopped in the busy crowd and looked up to the signs on the wall to find the right department. It was isolated at the very far corner of the immense building.

  As she walked along the corridors, following the signs, she passed the oncology ward and remembered when her friend Dr. Pete had been in here, when he looked at her with a steady fearless eye and told her he was dying. She missed him. She missed Terry Patterson. When she thought about it, she missed every fucking person she’d ever known and wished it was some time other than now. She wished she was on day shift. She wished her father had a job and her mother was over the menopause and last night hadn’t happened and she hadn’t shagged George fucking Burns. She wished Mary Ann wasn’t a religious maniac and Sean was still her boyfriend. She wished she was thin.