Ahead of the Game

by JD Kirk

  “So, what’s all this about, then?” Clyde barked.

  He’d been drinking. Not a lot, but enough. Logan could spot the signs a mile away.

  “Nothing!” Lana practically sang. Her face was a clown-mask, the smile contorting her features into something grotesque in its desperation to please. “Just… It’s nothing.”

  “I wasn’t asking you,” Clyde told her. “I was asking them.”

  “We’re just asking a few questions about an incident connected to the school,” Logan said, getting to his feet. He enjoyed watching Clyde’s head tilt back to follow his progress. Although, give the man his due, he didn’t appear to be remotely intimidated.

  “Christ. What’s she done now?” Clyde asked.

  “It’s nothing like that, Mr Lennon,” Logan said. “Maybe you and I can have a chat in the kitchen?”

  Panic flashed behind Lana’s eyes, but Logan made her a promise with a nod and a thin-lipped smile, then gestured for Clyde to lead the way, leaving Sinead and Lana alone in the front room.

  “I’m not sure if you remember me, Mrs Lennon,” the DC began. There was no need to go any further.

  “Of course I do, Sinead,” the teacher said, mustering an expression that looked fractionally less grief-stricken. “It’s lovely to see you. He won’t say anything, will he? To Clyde?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? How can you be sure?”

  “Because I know him,” Sinead said. “He might not look it, but he’s a big softy. He could see you’re scared. We both can. He won’t say anything that could make things… difficult for you.”

  Lana still seemed unconvinced, but her hand-wringing became a little less anxious. She nodded. “If… if you’re sure.”

  God, she was terrified. Not of Sinead or Logan, but of the man she’d married. As she realised this, half-forgotten memories pinged back to the surface of Sinead’s mind.

  Mrs Lennon with a black eye.

  Mrs Lennon with a swollen lip.

  Mrs Lennon holding her ribs, too sore to sit down for the whole lesson.

  She’d made her clumsiness a running joke with the class. Her trips and falls. Her knocks and scrapes.

  “Two left feet,” she’d say.

  “Never watching where I’m going,” she’d say.

  “I really should learn to pay more attention!” she’d say.

  And they’d smile. And they’d laugh. And they’d think no more about it.

  “If he’s hurting you, Mrs Lennon, we can help,” Sinead of the here and the now said, desperately trying to compensate for the failings of Sinead of the there and the then.

  How hadn’t she seen? Why hadn’t she said something? Told someone?

  “What? No. God, no. He just… He has…” Lana shook her head and clenched her fists down by her side, burying them in so tightly against her hips she was almost sitting on them. “Fergus. What… what happened? If you can say. Can you say? What happened?”

  Sinead was loathe to move on so quickly and leave the domestic abuse discussion behind, but Lana clearly had no interest in discussing it any further.

  “He was found yesterday by a tour group,” Sinead said. “We don’t know for sure yet exactly how he was killed.”

  “Oh!” Lana perked up at that. “So maybe he wasn’t killed, then? Maybe it was natural causes? Or… or an accident. Could it have been an accident?”

  Sinead explained that it was none of those things, then explained why they were able to be so certain.

  Lana cried some more at that. And who could possibly blame her?

  “Mrs Robertson said she thought you and Fergus were… close,” Sinead said, once Lana had composed herself again. It was a question very thinly disguised as a statement, and Lana’s response was instantaneous.

  “No! That’s not… I don’t know what she’s talking about! She shouldn’t say things like that if they’re not… If they aren’t…”

  From where Sinead was sitting, it looked as if her old teacher’s batteries just ran out at that point, or some key in her back stopped turning. She just sat there, frozen, half-sitting on her hands, her eyes misting over.

  “Mrs Lennon?” Sinead said. There was no immediate response from Lana, and Sinead was a half-second away from waving a hand in front of the woman’s face when she rebooted.

  “Yes,” she said, in a voice so faint that Sinead initially thought she might have imagined it.

  “Sorry? Did you say…?”

  “We were close.” Lana was still keeping the volume down, but there was a strength to her voice now that hadn’t been there a moment before. Her gaze flitted to the door again, then up to the ceiling above them. “You won’t tell them, will you? My husband and son? They don’t need to know, do they?”

  “Honestly? That depends on what happens with the investigation,” Sinead admitted. “If it’s at all possible, then no, they won’t. Right now, it’s just you and me talking, Mrs Lennon.”

  “Call me Lana, for God’s sake. We’re not in school now, Sinead.”

  Sinead smiled. “Lana, then. Right now, it’s just you and me talking. That’s all. I want to figure out what happened to Fergus. I want to find who killed him. And I think you probably do, too.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Lana said. She inhaled slowly through her nose, closed her eyes, and then breathed out through her mouth until her lungs were almost empty. “Right then,” she said, opening her eyes again. They were focused now. She was ready. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Nice table,” Logan remarked, running the flat of his hand across the smooth grain of the wood.

  Clyde’s response came curtly. “You can buy it, if you want,” he said, and Logan wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

  “Wouldn’t really fit in my kitchen,” Logan said, oddly embarrassed to admit that he had a dining room these days, as if this revelation would open him up to a ribbing from this total stranger.

  “Well, if you know anyone, I’m doing them cheap. They’re solid, too. None of your shite,” Clyde said, and Logan recognised it as a sales pitch.

  “What, did you build it, or something?” he asked, taking a seat in one of the matching wooden chairs. The set was solid and rustic, and if Logan had been in the market for a dining room table and chairs, he’d have been tempted to take a punt.

  Clyde confirmed with a nod and a shrug, then looked to the door that led out into the hall and tilted his head, straining to make out the quiet murmuring from the living room.

  “You couldn’t stick that kettle on, could you, Mr Lennon?” Logan asked. “Been a long day.”

  Clyde didn’t hide his irritation as he filled the kettle from the tap, slammed it back onto its base, and slapped the button down. The fill-level window lit up, and an almost inaudible rumble indicated the water boiling process had begun.

  That should drown things out for a while.

  “You’ve got a workshop, then?” Logan asked.

  “What?”

  “For the woodwork. I assume you don’t build them here?”

  “Oh. Right. Yes.”

  “What other stuff do you make?”

  “Anything. Why?”

  Logan ran his hand across the table again, taking time to examine the edges. “It’s good work. What sort of tools are involved in making something like this?”

  “Look, just get to the fucking point, and tell me what all this is about,” Clyde barked. “You’re not here to talk about tables.”

  “No,” Logan admitted.

  “So, why are you here? What’s the silly bitch gone and done now? Speeding, was she? Hit another car and drive off, did she? Fucking hell. More stress. Just what I bloody need. I’m already shitting blood.”

  “Sorry?” asked Logan. He’d never heard that particular euphemism for being stressed before. “Is that a local phrase, or…?”

  “No. I’m shitting actual blood. Out of my arse. At work today. And now this!” He shook his head. “More fucking stress. You married?�
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  “Divorced,” Logan said.

  “Aye, well, you want my advice? Keep it that way,” Clyde said. “First time’s bad enough, second time’s worse. First one was a headache, but this one? Fuck me. Talk about stress! And me shitting blood, and all.”

  The kettle was coming to the boil. Logan waited for it to finish before continuing the conversation.

  “Thanks for the advice. And don’t worry, your wife hasn’t done anything wrong, Mr Lennon. Nothing to stress about,” he said. “We’re talking to all the teachers in the school about an incident that occurred involving another member of staff.”

  Clyde sneered. Either he thought Logan was lying, or he was furious his night had been interrupted over something so trivial.

  “I’d love that cup of tea now, if you don’t mind,” Logan told him.

  There was some muttering, some thumping of mugs and cupboard doors, and some sloshing of hot water, then Logan’s tea was presented to him, teabag still bobbing around on the surface, a teaspoon sticking out of the murky liquid like the neck of the Loch Ness Monster.

  Clyde himself didn’t partake. Instead, he opened the fridge, removed one of several cans of Tennent’s Lager, and scoofed down a series of long, thirsty gulps.

  “Has your wife ever mentioned Fergus Forsyth, Mr Lennon?” Logan asked, plunging his teabag down to the bottom of the mug with his spoon.

  Clyde burped. “Fuck. You mean the PE teacher?”

  “She’s spoken about him, then?”

  “No.” Clyde pointed up to the ceiling. “But he goes on about him non-fucking stop.”

  Logan followed the other man’s finger. “Who?”

  “Bennet. My boy. Lazy little shit. Won’t do a bit of exercise, just sits on his arse playing stupid bloody games, but hero-worships that fucking PE teacher, all the same.” He took another gulp of lager, then adopted a high-pitched, whining voice. “‘Oh, Fergus is so funny! You should’ve heard what he said in class today!’” With his free hand, Clyde fired off a wanking gesture. “I mean, fuck off!”

  “Fergus?” Logan asked, the word jumping out at him. “He calls him by his first name?”

  “They all do! It’s his whole fucking ‘down with the kids’ bullshit,” Clyde said. “Wanker. Wants to be their mate, that’s his problem. You don’t earn a teenager’s respect by being their fucking mate!”

  “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” said Logan.

  “Exactly! Ex-fucking-actly!” Clyde said, pointing at Logan like they were comrades in arms. “Course, you can’t say that now, can you? Discipline’s a dirty word. Supposed to let them say what they want to you, and just grin and bloody bear it. Meant to let them come home late, go where they want, talk to fucking whoever. Madness. I had many’s a thick ear in my day.” He swallowed down another mouthful and burped loudly. “Never did me any harm.”

  “And what about your wife?” Logan asked.

  Clyde paused with his can almost at his lips. “What about her?”

  “She ever need slapped into line?”

  Logan was stirring his tea, slowly swirling the bag around in the mug. He had no intentions of drinking it. It was a prop, nothing more. The clink of the spoon on the inside of the cup sounded deafening in the silence of the kitchen.

  “Oh, I see what this is,” Clyde muttered. “Yeah. OK. I see. What’s she been saying? What am I meant to have done?”

  Logan finished stirring his tea, and set the hot spoon down on the table with a clunk. “I don’t know, Mr Lennon. You tell me,” he said. “What have you done?”

  Lachlan had made it clear that he wasn’t comfortable with this, but Bennet had virtually begged. He stood halfway down the stairs, breath held, weight balanced in such a way that he could beat as quiet and quick a retreat as possible.

  He’d been straining to hear the conversation going on in the living room when the big guy had taken Clyde through to the kitchen. It had happened so suddenly that Lachlan had no time to escape, and he could do nothing but stand there frozen like the prey of some apex predator, braced for the snapping of hungry jaws.

  They had passed the foot of the stairs without looking up, and Lachlan’s heart had started beating again at the sound of the kitchen door closing.

  It had been Bennet’s idea to listen in. He’d been too scared to do it himself, though. Too worried about getting caught. They’d been friends for a year or so now, and Lachlan had always been the older one. The bolder one. The bigger brother. He could say things to Clyde that Bennet wouldn’t dare. And now, it seemed, he was also in charge of the espionage department.

  “What are they saying?” Bennet whispered from the top of the stairs.

  “I have no idea,” Lachlan whispered back. “The kettle’s boiling in the kitchen, and your mum’s talking really quietly.”

  “Get a bit closer,” Bennet urged.

  “Fuck off! You get a bit closer!” Lachlan hissed back. “That’s the police. I’m not getting mixed up in… whatever this is.” He looked up the steps behind him. “What is it, anyway? Why are the police here?”

  “That’s what I want to find out,” Bennet said, but there was something off about the delivery. He knew more than he was letting on, Lachlan thought.

  “You don’t have any idea?” he asked. “You sure?”

  Bennet started to say, “No,” but his mouth clamped itself shut around the lie, turning it into a pained sort of, “Nnng,” instead. He nodded, just once, then looked down at his feet. The toes hung over the edge of the top step like he was getting ready to launch himself into the abyss.

  Or headfirst down the stairs, at least.

  Lachlan crept up a step. The voices downstairs became fainter.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

  Bennet’s lips were sealed shut, but his jaw was moving up, and down, and side to side. The movements became more and more agitated until it looked like he was fighting to contain an increasingly irate wasp.

  Lachlan took another step closer. Close enough to notice the shake of Bennet’s hands. Close enough to hear the crack in his voice.

  “It’s that… Remember that teacher I told you about?”

  “Who? The horrible old cow, or the nice one?”

  “The nice one. Fergus.” Bennet looked up, and his eyes were two dark hollows. “He’s dead,” he said. The words were whispered, yet they filled the stairway around them. “He’s been murdered.”

  Shona Maguire’s eyes were watching Predator, but her mind was otherwise occupied. Something about what Olivia had said—or maybe the way she said it—was bothering her.

  You can make people do pretty much anything. You just have to find the right motivation.

  She hadn’t sounded like the girl Shona had come to know over the past year and a bit. She’d been smiling when she’d said it, but there had been something cold there. Something almost threatening.

  “What about you?” asked Olivia, derailing Shona’s train of thought.

  Shona blinked. “What about me what?”

  “How was work? Anything exciting happening?”

  “You know I can’t really talk about that,” Shona said.

  “I heard there was a guy who had his head chopped off,” Olivia said. She shot Shona a sideways look, caught the look of surprise on her face, then went back to watching the screen. “It’s true, then.”

  “How did you…?” Shona began, before she shook off the surprise. “Again, I can’t really talk about it.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t care,” Olivia said.

  “Where did you hear?”

  “Around. Just, you know, sources.”

  “Sources?”

  Olivia nodded. “They told me. I hear a lot from them.”

  Shona studied the girl’s profile. It was giving nothing away.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “What sort of things do you hear about?”

  Olivia gave a one-shouldered shrug. “All sorts.”
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br />   “For example…” Shona said, teasing the information out of her.

  Olivia side-eyed her again for a moment, then went back to facing the screen. “Like the bodies found in that freezer last month,” she said. “In the old butcher’s shop on the estate. I heard about that. Dealers, weren’t they? I heard that serial killer guy did them in.”

  “That’s what you heard, is it?”

  Olivia nodded, just once. “Yep.”

  “Well, you might want to check your sources, then,” Shona said, turning her attention back to the film.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Shona smiled enigmatically. “Just… maybe don’t believe everything you hear.”

  Olivia’s eyebrows almost met in the middle. “What? But… that’s what happened. I know that’s what happened. I was… told. They told me.”

  Shona’s smile broadened further. “They told you wrong. I mean, you’re almost right. You’re close, but there’s one thing your sources messed up.”

  “They can’t. How? What is it?” Olivia demanded. She was sitting forward now, the film forgotten.

  Shona’s smile faded when she saw the worry lines scribbled all over the girl’s face. “It’s been in the paper, already, so I suppose I can tell you. There weren’t two bodies in the freezer,” she said. “There was one.”

  “One? What do you mean, ‘one’? How could there only be one?”

  “A Latvian guy. But you’re right, a dealer, they think,” Shona said. “Definitely just the one body, though.”

  And with that, the bottom fell out of Olivia Maximuke’s world.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Hamza tapped lightly but urgently on the peeling front door of the house, painfully aware that the slightest sound might summon the hellhound. He could still hear it barking and snarling somewhere around the side of the building, along with the sound of Tyler clapping, whistling, and shouting the occasional insult as he goaded the animal on.