Long Time Dead

by Tony Black

  ‘Angus Dury.’ The old wifey called out my name, managed to make it sound like something she’d trodden in.

  I stood up, smiled at her, said, ‘That’s me.’

  The smile cut no ice. She peered down at me with a look that said, Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out. I took the bag of goodies, trudged out.

  In the car park the sun was shining down like it meant business. I could hardly recognise the place. The brightness bleached out the landscape; the buildings and spires shimmered into insignificance. I watched the blue cloudless sky for a few moments and felt transported. Had I really just come close to death? Had I really just left a hospital and been told I’d be lucky to see the year, maybe the month, out? Did I want that for myself? My mind didn’t seem my own, I felt controlled somehow by thoughts that weren’t mine. I wanted to get my shit together. I wanted to enjoy sunny days, the wonder of life. The joy of being alive. But was that really there for me? Had it ever been? Could it ever be?

  My phone beeped – was a text, from Amy: What did you mean - ‘way I’m put together’? You manage to make a knock-back sound like a come-on, Gus!! Are you trying to mess with my head??

  Christ.

  What had I said?

  What had I done?

  Had an idea what the answer to both those questions was: sent the girl mixed messages. She’d always carried a torch for me; I must have been an idiot to contact her in the first place. Dr Scott’s look flashed back to me, one that said, You’re not an idiot. Why are you acting like one?

  Maybe I knew exactly what I was playing at. I tucked the phone back in my pocket. This whole business with Amy needed more thought.

  A car pulled out in front of the hospital; a horn sounded.

  ‘By the holy, ye look rough as all guts, Dury.’ Fitz was on top form as ever.

  I approached the passenger’s door, got in. ‘You all right?’

  He eyed me curiously. It was a look I couldn’t remember seeing on his face before, a strange mix of compassion and shock. ‘Are ye feckin’ all right? Jaysus, Dury, I had no idea…’

  I played it cool: ‘What you on about?’

  Fitz looked away, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘Are ye sure it’s okay for you to be… y’know, gaddin’ out and about? Sure, ye look a bit worse for the old wear, son.’

  The concern cut me. Fitz was showing me up; I didn’t know whether to be unnerved or straight-out worried. Said, ‘Trust me, mate, I’m firing on most cylinders.’ I slapped the dash. ‘Just you pump the gas.’

  Fitz got the motor rolling. He drove slowly, like he was driving Miss Daisy, or heading a funeral cortège. ‘Have ye had a bite?’

  The thought of food made me want to chuck; the thought that even Fitz wanted to look after me made me despair. ‘I’m fine…’ Though there was another craving that needed satisfied. ‘Wouldn’t mind a drink, though.’

  Fitz pointed to the glovebox. ‘‘Tis a wee drop in there.’

  I opened it up: was a half-bottle of Talisker. I looked at it, thought about it, even felt my hand reach in, but I closed the drawer. ‘Gonna keep off the hard stuff… for now.’

  Fitz turned to me, looked stunned. ‘You’re off it?’

  My voice croaked. ‘I’m knocking the scoosh… but could murder a pint.’ They used to give stout out in hospitals, as a builder-upper… and the Queen Mum thrived on it for long enough; what harm could a few pints of black do me? That was my reasoning. Well, what I told myself was reasoning. I craved alcohol – I was an alcoholic – there was no way round it. The trip to the hospital was already beginning to fade.

  ‘Okay, so… I know a wee place out of town where we can talk.’

  ‘Well, we need to do that.’

  ‘Christ, Gus… don’t we ever.’

  ‘That sounds ominous.’

  Fitz steadied the wheel, stared at me. ‘Ominous as the devil.’

  Chapter 17

  THERE ARE FEW WONDERS IN the world to behold like an Irishman on a mission. Fitz flung his filth-issue Lexus round the hospital car park as though he was auditioning for Ashes to Ashes. Christ on a cross, they shouldn’t give high-performance motors to plod if that’s the way they treat them; was a crying shame. I cringed as he crunched down the gears. Burning rubber and attendant smoke plumes appeared on cue.

  I took a bit of a coughing fit on the way, felt my bones tremble. I wasn’t up for this lark; should still be kipped up in the crisp white linen, turning the Sad Sam eyes on the nurses and kicking back. What was I at? This was lunacy. I was off the scale. But sure… when was I never?

  Fitz revved the engine. I watched him spin the steering wheel.

  I gripped the door handle. ‘Think this is fucking Le Mans?’

  He smiled, liked that. Took it as a compliment, clearly. ‘In my day I was told I had a look of the Steve McQueen about me, y’know.’

  I put the eye on him, ‘You’d be fucking lucky to be taken for a drag queen these days.’

  He found the high gears, shot along the road. Felt the back of my skull pinned to the headrest. Was in no mood for this patter, said, ‘Ho, cool the beans, eh.’

  ‘What you on about?’

  ‘The driving… calm it!’

  He looked at me as if I’d suggested a fruity threesome. ‘Cop on man, sure, I’m a top driver.’

  This was the same argument I got regularly from Hod… and Mac. Was there a bloke on the road didn’t think he was the equal of Jenson Button? I despaired, gave up. My energy wasn’t worth wasting on this lark. I settled back in the seat; as we took a corner to the main road, the bag full of Harry Hills I’d drawn from the pharmacy made a noise like a kid’s rattle.

  ‘The fuck’s that? You got a snake in there?’

  I laughed that up. ‘One of the deadliest!’

  ‘Ha… go way outta that! Sound like yer carrying a dose of chemicals there, laddo.’

  I filled him in on the doc’s orders. Left out some of the juicier details but could tell by the way his eyebrows dropped, the slowing of his breath, that he got the picture. There had been times in the past, long before I really knew him, that Fitz had had his own battles to fight. Some drinkers, and I’ve observed this from them, simply give up. They get tired of the rigmarole… the late starts, the brain fag, the wreckage it wreaks on your life. They crash their jet and walk away. I wasn’t so lucky. Fitz was a breed apart, though. Rarely have I seen a man called that worst of misnomers -’functioning alcoholic’ – able to drop one of those tags without becoming the other: you’re either an alcoholic, or you’re functioning. Never both. Well, that was my experience, and most others’, but Fitz had managed to cut his consumption and clean up his act. It was a dangerous path, but he kept to it. I watched him with something close to awe. What’s the word? Oh aye: envy.

  ‘I’ve got a few pills to get me through.’

  Fitz turned his eyes from the road. ‘Oh, Jaysus… what have they got you on – not feckin’ Antabuse… ‘

  ‘No… not that.’ Knew I’d gone beyond the Antabuse stage – the stuff that makes you barf yer guts up at the merest whiff of an alcoholic unit. You wear too strong an aftershave, it can have the same effect. I’d read George Best had been on them; didn’t do it for him. Drinkers get used to skipping the dose, going on a skite. Some just drink anyway. I remembered an episode of Minder, Arthur Daley had been hypnotised to stay off the cigars. Every time he had one he smelled burning rubber. Problem was, by the end of the show he’d grown to quite like the smell of burning rubber. There’s very little will come between a man and his addiction; you can’t save a man from himself.

  ‘Glad to hear it… sounds serious, though.’

  I didn’t bite; knew Fitz had no more of an interest in hearing about my problems than I had in hearing about his. There are some things you keep to yourself; if you don’t, that’s weakness, and I didn’t do weakness.

  ‘Look, can we get off this subject? It makes me want a fucking drink.’

  Fitz’s cheeks tigh
tened, a slight smile crept onto his thin lips. ‘Ah, now…’

  ‘Ah, now fuck all… Are you my mother? Get us to a pub, eh.’

  ‘Okay, so… Sure, there’s no man knows what he needs better than the man himself!’

  Fitz gunned it, took to the fast lane with the needle twitching. The engine purred like contentment. There was nothing to give away the extra effort save a slight lift in the bonnet. Thought: Can a car show off?

  The pub was out of town, on the other side of Newtongrange, an old mining village that had been reclaimed by the tourist board for its history. I liked the place, lots of narrow streets, looked like a Hovis ad. There was a great park in the middle, full to bursting with school-holiday bairns and young mums with Maclaren buggies. I wondered if this was the patch of grass where the miners had once took the pit ponies to grab their five minutes of fresh air a day. How many of them had expired at the thought of going back into the black earth, a quarter-mile under our feet? How the place had changed; but isn’t that life? Isn’t it one continual change? The thought washed around in my mind. I’d been doing a lot of thinking recently; funny how a few knocks at death’s door will do that to you.

  The barmaid was friendly and, unusually, Scottish. I’d grown accustomed to having my order taken with a Polish or an Australian lilt these days.

  Fitz ordered: ‘Make mine a Jameson and for my laddo here…’ He turned to me.

  ‘What stout you got?’

  She pinched her lips. ‘Oh… Guinness. Might have a bottle of something else if I have a look about.’

  Went for the old favourite. ‘The black stuff’s fine, love.’

  Her face lit up as I called her love. Don’t know where that came from – wasn’t like me to be so familiar. There were changes afoot in this man and I didn’t understand a one of them.

  Fitz nodded at a secluded table in the corner. I followed behind him with my pint glass in hand.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘coming round to my way of thinking are you?’

  ‘Y’wha’?’

  I gulped my pint, felt my entire body twinge. ‘Ben Laird…’

  Fitz played coy, sipping his whiskey, ‘The actress’s boy.’

  I was in no mood to extract teeth, said, ‘If he was murdered, Fitz, I’ve started taking it up the Gary… and you and I both know that’s a fucking cover story on Calder’s suicide. I was there, I heard people in the hall… suicide note my balls, it was typed! Anyone could have written that.’

  Fitz put down his glass. ‘Okay, okay. I hear ye, calm it, eh.’ He looked about the room. He’d never looked comfortable in a pub since the smoking ban. Never looked comfortable in public, come to think about it; certainly not with me. ‘I think you could be right.’

  This was a bullseye. Normally drawing information from Fitz was like getting blood from a stone. I felt wary, he was filth after all, but I pressed him. ‘If you’re saying that, then you know something… or want something.’

  A nod. Fitz inflated his chest and exhaled slowly as he spoke: ‘My nephew, young Colin, he’s a good lad… cleaner than a cat’s arse, I assure you. He was at the scene on the night the Laird laddo died.’

  I corrected him: ‘The murder scene.’

  More nods. Fitz was playing into my hands, or feeding me a line; I didn’t care which if it got me what I wanted to know. ‘He’s sharp as a tack, our Colin, no shiny-arsed careerist either. He’s only after doing the best job he can… ’tis green as grass to be honest.’

  I could see he had something more to say. ‘Go on.’

  ‘He came to me… couple of days ago. Christ, he was near white as a sheet, didn’t know whether to sit or shit. He says there was some irregularities on the night they found the lad.’

  I knew it: fucking filth up to their nuts in it as usual. If Fitz was telling me this then it was bad. He was Irish – and if there’s one thing they don’t do it’s inform. More than that, though, he was filth – and they look after their own. Fitz was doubling up on the rule-breaking and it didn’t sit well with me, or him… that was clear enough.

  He went on, ‘Colin was first to the campus, secured the area and called in the squad. Only, somewhere along the line it got to be known to the ranks.’

  ‘The ranks?’

  ‘Top of the tree, Gus.’ Fitz fingered his collar. ‘‘Tis olde worlde, the Craft.’

  He was talking about the Masons. It was a fair stretch for me to get my head around the force’s top brass covering up a murder with the university’s big boys. For a kick-off, what was the motive? Save the bad publicity? Or perhaps there was more to this than met the eye. For sure they were all old school, all looking out for each other, but in such an obvious fashion? It was a leap I had some trouble buying into.

  ‘Wait a minute… are you saying what I think you are?’

  He breathed in, exhaled slowly. His face was redder than ever and seemed to sag in dreary fashion from brow to jowl. ‘Look, I’ve seen the word given in the past: go slow, go quiet, go fucking dumb!’

  ‘So, what? Who’s to protect?’

  Fitz picked up his glass, hit the goldie. ‘I don’t know the whole story… but I’m not shitting you here.’

  I watched him wipe a line of moisture from his top lip then look away. He was either putting on a very good performance or totally convinced of what he was telling me. One more thing didn’t make sense. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘You think I can go poking about in it? Jesus Christ, they’d throw me to the wolves. And then… then there’s young Colin.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s implicated.’

  I couldn’t see it, pushed: ‘All he’s done is speak to you. Hardly implication.’

  Fitz gasped, ran fingers through his grey hair. ‘Day after, he was in the office, due to put in his report… he got a visit from one of the Craft laddos. Handed him an envelope, said, “There’s the money I owe you”… walked off. There was enough in there for him to clear a deposit on his first flat in Gorgie.’

  That was implication. ‘The daft fucker.’

  Fitz shook his head. ‘What’s he supposed to do, Gus? Ye have no idea of the pressure… There are people in there you just don’t piss off. This stage of his career, he’d be finished before he got started. Hasn’t he a lass and a youngster to think of.’

  I looked away to the window. The sun was ducking behind a rain cloud. I watched a black cat leap onto the top of a wall. I said, ‘You need to tease some more information from Colin.’

  ‘Ah, now… I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Just see if he’s anything to add to his story.’

  ‘Gus… sure, he’s still very young.’

  I hit my pint, put the glass down hard on the table. ‘I’ll need you to do some more digging as well. Colin might know more than he’s let on; just check it out. It’s his arse on the line as well.’

  Fitz turned over a beer mat, his red-rimmed eyes moistening; I could see the concern in them. It unsettled me, made me question what the hell I was doing. Fitz nodded slowly. ‘All right… but don’t be surprised if it’s me you find swinging from a rope next.’

  Chapter 18

  I TRIED TO KEEP IN the ballpark of some regular hours at the uni, but even with my pretence to being part-time, I felt the cover story was slipping. Had never got the hang of this working-life lark – dunno why I expected it to be any different now. Some folk just aren’t cut out for the real world. Was I one of them? Oh, yeah. Me and reality don’t get on. Call me a cynic, but answer me this: what the fuck’s modern life got to recommend it?

  I put on my dustcoat, tidied up around the doocot. Put a few dirty coffee cups in the sink; tipped out some old newspapers – nothing in them I wanted to see anyway. Stalled for as long as possible before I had to tackle some real work. Well, as near to it as you got in this job. There wasn’t much to do on the rounds so I occupied myself with moving a set of ladders from one end of the campus to the other. I took off with them under my arm but wa
s stopped in my tracks by a face I’d been keeping an eye on. Ben Laird’s so-called best mate was in animated conversation with my janny colleague, Stevo. Look of it, Paul was warming up to full-on apoplexy.

  I put down the ladders and tried to get close enough to hear what was being said, but it was no good. They were too far out of range; if I moved any further in I’d blow my cover. By the body language, however, it was plain enough to see they weren’t discussing what to get each other for Christmas. Paul was poking Stevo in the chest with a book he held in his hand like a dagger. His face was redder than usual. Under the red hair it was quite a sight – looked like the home stand at Tannadice. Had I been any closer I might have intervened. This was a side to Paul I hadn’t seen, though I’d suspected it lurked in there. Some people you just get a feeling about.

  In a few moments, the tirade seemed to pass and the ginge returned to his normal pasty complexion; save a few thousand freckles. He moved away, still pointing the book at Stevo, but backing off. I watched Stevo stand thunderstruck. He looked deflated, as if he’d been punched in the guts, or maybe given a death sentence. It was the kind of look to make old women rub you on the back and offer to get you a cup of tea. I felt for the guy.

  By the time I was through moving the ladders, it was time for a smoke. I schlepped through the campus, putting friendly smiles out, but all were rebuffed. I’d been trying to hit some of the few student stragglers for info on Ben, but to a one they had held schtum. Felt my luck was up. And Calder’s hanging had all but put the kybosh on it. The place was now in a state of shock. As a new face it made my task even harder; no one was risking their neck to talk to me.