by Denise Mina
Paddy reached out to him, sliding her hand over his thigh. ‘I don’t want to wait,’ she blurted.
Sean looked at her and snorted a laugh, bending over his lap again.
‘I don’t want to wait, Sean.’
He was shocked. He sat up, staying on the other end of the bed, and looked at her. ‘Well, I do. I want it to be special when we get married. I want to know it’s the first time for both of us.’
Shame, as pernicious and sticky as napalm, rippled through her. She should want to wait. She shouldn’t want to touch him, shouldn’t want any of it because she was a girl. Her virginity would never be hers to give, only his to take.
Sensing her resentment, Sean reached across to her forearm, pulling her over the bed towards him. He held her tightly by her shoulders in a restraint position, pinning her arms to her sides. ‘You mean so much to me, Paddy. You mean the world to me. Do you know that?’ ‘I know.’
‘And you’re a little sex pot,’ he said, trying to be kind about the transgression. ‘What are you?’ ‘I’m a sex pot,’ she said miserably.
He heard the fury in her voice, saw her pinched face and he knew it wasn’t OK. Slipping his hand around the back of her neck, he pressed her face into his chest so he didn’t have to look at her any more.
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re a little sex pot.’
11
Two Lady Wrestlers
I
She was covered in a gentle sweat of sheer terror. They would never, ever forgive her. Sean, her dad, everyone– they’d never believe it wasn’t Paddy who sold the story.
She stared out of the train window at the dark morning, a copy of the Daily News limp in her lap, and looked at the paper again. TWO ARRESTED FOR BABY BRIAN. The headlines were huge, an old layout trick to cover up a lack of printable copy, but it was the insert at the bottom of the article that pained her. It was a first-person account of life in Child A’s family, about the shame and shock and grief of his extended Irish Catholic family who had abandoned the boy. The piece was overwritten, punched out in short, conversational sentences. To an unfamiliar reader the bad grammar would have seemed like a heavy-handed, hokey touch, but Paddy recognized them as habitual conversational mistakes of Heather’s, left in by the subs to make it sound like the authentic voice of a greenhorn Catholic, the sort that might have evil monsters for kin.
She read through the rest of the paper to keep her eyes busy. Caspar Weinberger, Reagan’s new Defence Secretary, was saying he would use a neutron bomb in Western Europe if necessary for American security. Paddy looked out of the window at the white world and wondered whether Caspar might do her a favour and press the button before home time.
II
Dub couldn’t believe it when Paddy offered to dish out the new edition to all the departments. No-one ever volunteered to do anything and handing out the papers was a boring, messy job that stained hands black and ruined clothes but Paddy couldn’t sit still any longer. She carried twice as many papers as usual, getting her heart rate up as she carried them up and down the stairs, trying to tire herself out.
She was tired but wired, still bristling with nervous energy, when she came back into the news room and saw Heather sitting on the edge of a desk, dressed smartly in a white blouse and red skirt.
Paddy stopped in the doorway, astonished at her gall. She had at least expected Heather to stay out of the office today. She watched her smile along with some news guys, coyly rolling an elastic band between two fingers, and realized that Heather had come in to the office to capitalize on her coup. She didn’t give a shit what Paddy thought of her. Aware that a small, square body was standing in the doorway, being jostled by people coming in and out, Heather looked up and blushed when she saw who it was, raising a hand in greeting until she saw Paddy’s face. She tried to smile, showing all her marvellous teeth, but Paddy didn’t flinch. Heather muttered an excuse and slid off the desk, standing up and walking towards the back stairs.
Paddy found her shrill voice filling the entire news room. ‘You.’ Heather froze. Paddy thumbed over her shoulder. ‘Out.’
Heather stood still for a moment. A hush fell over the mesmerized men. They looked from Heather to Paddy and back again. Someone tittered. Sensing that she had the support of the audience, Heather crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg.
‘Do you want to talk here?’ Paddy was shouting. ‘Will I tell them what you did?’
Heather shifted her weight nervously to the other leg. There were few crimes which could not be forgiven in the News. Stealing a colleague’s wallet from their jacket was bad, sleeping with their wife wasn’t good either, but using someone else’s story was unforgivable. Everyone appreciated the threat of losing a good story.
Heather uncrossed her arms, dropping them awkwardly to her sides where they twitched and hung still. She turned and walked reluctantly over to Paddy who held the door open, following her out onto the landing. Paddy pointed her across the lift lobby into the ladies’ loo. Back in the news room a huge falsetto whoop was followed by a gale of derisory laughter.
Heather began her defence before the toilet door had even banged shut. ‘I knew you weren’t going to use the story. You told me you couldn’t. I didn’t see any harm since you weren’t going to.’ She lit a cigarette and offered the packet to Paddy.
Paddy didn’t take one. She looked at the packet and felt her lip tremble. ‘My whole family’ll think I did it.’
It was the one soft moment when Heather could have sympathized and made it all right, but she was frightened and ashamed and missed her cue. ‘Look, things can’t just be nicey-nice all the time. I’m not in this business to get popular. I’m sorry, but that’s just the game we’re in.’ She crossed her arms over her chest again, not defensive but elegant this time, her cigarette hand resting on her upper arm. A clean thread of smoke rose high above the cubicle doors, making her taller.
There were so many reasons why what she had done was wrong that the words in Paddy’s mind became entangled. She opened her mouth to speak but stammered loudly and stopped, shocked at herself. Heather’s eyes widened triumphantly.
‘Never mind,’ she said, placing the cigarette between her lips.
Paddy slapped Heather so hard that the cigarette snapped in half, the amputated tip bouncing on the tiled floor and rolling to a stop. It carried on smoking. They stood for a moment staring at it, both shocked, a red blush flowering Heather’s cheek. Paddy was excited. She shouldn’t have done that. She was a bully. It was wrong.
She reached roughly around the back of Heather’s head, grabbing the thick blonde hair at the nape. Roots popped from Heather’s scalp as she tugged, dragging her forwards into a toilet cubicle, shoving her head into the bowl and yanking the handle. Paddy watched the water swirl around her head, catching her thick hair, sucking the tail of it down through the U-bend. Heather spluttered and tried to stand up, using all the strength in her back. She was very strong but Paddy used her weight, leaned against her neck and kept her down. The toilet water saturated Heather’s blouse: Paddy could see the adjusting clips on her bra strap. Farquarson might sack her for attacking another member of staff. It would placate Sean if she did get sacked. It might even convince her family that it wasn’t her who wrote the article. The recession couldn’t last too long; she’d get another job somewhere.
She lifted her hand away and stepped back, watching Heather bounce up from the bowl gasping, throwing her head back, her hair tracing a great wet circle through the air. She turned to Paddy, astonished, her mouth hanging open, panting for air. Paddy saw the fright in her eyes and couldn’t look at her any more. She turned and left the toilet. Out in the lobby Paddy’s hot face throbbed. She was ashamed and a little shocked by what she had done. It was ignoble and undignified and thuggish and she wouldn’t have thought herself capable. She loitered on the landing, listening to the rumble from the news room, di
sentangling long blonde hairs from the fingers of her right hand as she waited for her blushes to subside.
III
They were laughing at her. Paddy saw them sniggering and glancing over at her as they repeated the story, trailing their hands down from their heads to their shoulders to describe Heather’s wet hair. Some guys on the features desk called her over and asked her to go to the stationery cupboard and bring a couple of lady wrestlers.
Everyone who came back from the Press Bar at lunchtime seemed to know what had happened. Paddy guessed that instinctively they would be on her side because Heather was attractive and not having sex with all of them, but she didn’t care. All she could think about was how embarrassed her mum and dad would be. They’d try to believe her when she insisted the story wasn’t her fault but they’d be wrong. It was her fault. She knew that professional journalists made difficult choices, tricked information out of people and broke confidences for stories. She’d been prepared to steal the letter from Mr Taylor. A good journalist had to be prepared to take off-the-record asides and turn them into stories. She should have known. She was a naive idiot.
She was in the canteen, queuing for teas and practising her apology to Sean, when Keck approached her looking serious and angry, vicariously annoyed on behalf of the management as he told her that he was to get the teas for the news boys because Farquarson wanted to see her.
‘He’s in his office,’ he said, sliding in front of her in the line, keeping his back to her as if she had already been sacked.
She walked downstairs slowly, loitering on the final landing to catch her breath. She was determined not to cry if he sacked her. The side lights were on in his office and the door was closed, an arrangement that usually denoted some kind of drama. She knocked on the door and he answered immediately. She slid in.
Papers littered the floor around the desk. Farquarson was trying to break into a catering box of macaroons he had stolen from the canteen, chiselling into the thick plastic around the box with a penknife. He lost his temper and pulled at the plastic, stretching it until it ripped suddenly and the bars spilled in a messy pile on the floor. He bent down, picked up three and started to unwrap one, nodding Paddy towards the pile. ‘Get stuck in.’
Paddy picked up a bar and thanked him. She opened the wrapper and took a bite, hoping that eating together might establish a bond between them. Macaroon bars were almost too sweet even for her. Made with potato saturated with icing sugar, they made her teeth ache and the skin on her gums wither. Farquarson slid into his seat.
‘Meehan,’ he said through a mouthful of sticky white paste. ‘A Mr Taylor phoned this morning to complain. He said he’d been harassed by two journalists from the Daily News.’ He paused to chew. ‘D’you know anything about the unions in this business? D’you know that The Scotsman have just had a week-long work-to-rule because a journalist winked at a print machine? Richards gave you permission to go out in the car, not to misrepresent yourself as a journalist at the Daily News or to steal letters from grieving members of the public. I’ve calmed Mr Taylor down and McVie’ll keep it quiet, but I don’t want you telling anyone you’re a journalist again. We could have a walk-out on our hands, understand?’ Paddy nodded.
‘You’ll have to get used to tiptoeing around the unions. It’s part of the job.’ He took another large bite. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what happened in the ladies?’
‘I had an argument with Heather.’
‘I thought she had an argument with the lavvy.’
It was a stupid joke. Paddy didn’t know if it was benign. She looked at her feet and kicked the table leg.
He cleared his throat again. ‘I don’t want to know why you did that—’
‘She’s a shit.’She sounded so vicious she surprised herself. Farquarson looked up, eyebrows raised. ‘Meehan, I’m not going to umpire.’
‘But she is a shit.’
‘Listen, she’s been convinced not to make a formal complaint and I’d drop it if I were you. She’s flavour of the month with editorial because she’s just brought us a very important story.’
‘It’s not her story,’ snapped Paddy. ‘It’s my story. Callum Ogilvy’s my fiancé’s cousin. I saw a picture of him and was upset and I confided in Heather. My family’ll disown me when they see today’s paper.’
Farquarson was very still. ‘The boy’s a relative of yours?’
‘I’d never have used that story.’ Suddenly angry, reckless of the sack and a life at the sink, she slapped the table, hurting her hand. ‘And what has being Irish Catholic got to do with anything? Why does it say that in the story? If they’d been a Jewish family, would you have put that in the second paragraph?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not right.’
‘I can’t do anything about it now,’ he said flatly,‘but I understand why you were so angry.’
They were quiet for a moment and tried not to look at each other. Farquarson took another bite of macaroon, snapping the bar between his teeth as gently as possible. He chewed quietly until Paddy broke the silence.
‘Did the baby die in an accident? Were the boys just playing with him?’
‘No, it was murder. They killed him.’
‘How do they know that for sure?’
‘Do you really want to know the details?’ She nodded. Reluctantly, Farquarson rolled his head back and then just told her. ‘They strangled him and smashed his head in with stones.’
‘Jesus.’
‘It was brutal: they stuck things up him. Sticks. Up his backside.’ Farquarson looked down at the sweet in his hand, suddenly disgusted, and laid it down on the table. ‘Could they have the wrong boys?’
‘No. Their shoes matched the marks on the ground where the body was found and they found his blood on their clothes.’
Paddy was shaking her head before he had even finished the sentence. ‘Well, blood could get on them any number of ways. It could have been put there. Someone could have put it on them.’
Farquarson wasn’t entertaining the possibility of a mistake. ‘He ran for it, the Ogilvy boy. When they went to his school, before they’d even mentioned the baby, he tried to run away.’
‘That doesn’t mean he’s guilty,’ she said, thinking of Paddy Meehan’s arrest and James Griffiths’ wild run. ‘He could have run for any number of reasons. He might just have been frightened.’
Farquarson sat back, suddenly tired of tolerating the bolshie copyboy. ‘Right.’He pointed to the pile of macaroon bars. ‘Take one for your journey and tell me this: are any of the early-shift boys in yet?’
‘A couple,’ said Paddy, wondering what possible use he could have for them. They never seemed to do any work. ‘Which ones were you after?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Farquarson. ‘They’re all interchangeable.’
12
No Good Reason to Run
1969
I
Paddy Meehan heard the mob from half a mile away, chanting in a low, slow bray, getting faster and faster until he began to sweat with panic, adding to the stench of piss and worry inside the police van. It was ten thirty on a weekday morning but three hundred people had found the time to gather outside the court to see the bastard charged with old Rachel Ross’s murder.
He kept thinking that the van was in the middle of them, that the noise was as loud as it could get, but then another second would pass, the van would move another few feet and the noise outside would get louder. When they finally rolled to a stop the noise was deafening. The two uniformed policemen glanced at each other nervously, one holding the door handle, the other holding Meehan’s arm. They turned to the plainclothes CID men sitting near the back of the van, looking to them for the signal to go.
‘Right, boys,’ one of them shouted at the uniforms. ‘You two stay in front, we’ll follow up and watch his back. On three. One, two
…’ The blanket went over Meehan’s head and in the darkness his face convulsed with terror. ‘Three.’
The rear doors to the van flew open and the two officers on either side pulled Meehan into the road. He could see the pavement below him, the glint from the coppers’ shiny shoes and the first step up to the court. Stumbling in darkness he heard men’s voices and women screaming, children shouting that he should hang, that he was a bastard, a murderer. The CID men grabbed the back of his jacket, reckless of skin, shoving and pushing, hurrying him up the stairs. The policemen were frightened. Tightening their lock on his elbows, they lifted him off his feet. In the sudden darkness beneath the grey blanket he heard the fast slap of feet running on road and encouraging cries from far away. The policemen jerked sideways as a brown shoe scraped his shin. The assailant was pulled off, and the policemen dragged Meehan up the final steps and bundled him through the doors.
Every time Meehan had ever been in court before he had waited patiently in the holding cells, but not this time. When they pulled the blanket off him he found himself in a witness room annexed to the court. He couldn’t let them see how shaken he was so Meehan grabbed the nearest CID man by the lapels and screamed out all the terror and panic. ‘Do your fucking job! Do your fucking job!’ They pulled him off, wrestling the grasp of his fingers from the fabric. He was wild-eyed and panting. ‘Find Griffiths. Check my fucking alibi. I gave you his address. What’s wrong with you?’
Meehan fell back into a chair and looked down. His trouser leg was soaked with blood from the brown shoe.
This was all wrong. He was a safecracker, a professional, for Godsake, a peterman. He learned his trade with Gentle Johnny Ramensky; he had references. He wouldn’t get involved in a tie-up. And anyway, he had a solid alibi. He was in Stranraer with James Griffiths on the night of Rachel Ross’s murder and they’d been seen. They had picked up two Kilmarnock girls and driven them home. All they had to do was talk to Griffiths or the girls and he would be free.