by Chris Dolan
They could both hear police cars wailing, closing in from every direction. Coulter got on the radio. “Tell everyone to shut down their sirens!” Despite the irony of his own screeching, to get him through the next couple of blocks. He’d turn it off before it could be heard from the High Court building. Last thing they needed was to cause a panic. His instruction hadn’t been effective anyway, there seemed to be more, not fewer, sirens blaring, and all of them getting closer.
Maddy was standing at the door. Nairne at the far end of a series of urinals, his flies still undone and his face drained of blood. Between them, her back to the wash-hand basins, Morag Boyd held the Glock 19 shoulder high, only one hand gloved now, the barrel pointed at the judge’s chest.
She had positioned herself in the centre of the room so that she could turn her head to see the door but keep the gun trained on her prey. When Maddy had entered both had looked round at her.
“Maddy.” Was all that Nairne could say. The tremble in his voice saying more than words could have. He quickly turned back to look at Morag and the gun, his hands paralysed in the act of zipping himself up. Morag had looked at Maddy as though expecting her but not interested in her. Now she was speaking to Nairne, both hands holding the gun, dead still, like a trained assassin.
“I had an uncle once. A docker, till he got made redundant. Nothing, I mean nothing, he didn’t know about plants.” Nairne nodded, trying to keep up the pretence of a casual conversation, but clearly not understanding, or even possibly hearing, a word. “Linnaeus? Uncle Frank knew all about him. Darwin and the Beagle.”
He stared at her, bewildered, as though she were speaking some unknown language.
“Morag,” Maddy said quietly. Perhaps too quietly; the woman kept on talking to Nairne.
“He’d just have been another workie to you.” She flicked a look towards Maddy, including her in the statement. “You think we’re all nonentities. Naebodies. Stupid.”
Nairne unwound a little, beginning to understand where this was going. “I assure you madam—”
“No. You lot always do the talking. Lawyers and doctors and employers and planners. Not this time. Not here.” She slipped back the magazine on the gun. From outside, a police siren could be faintly heard.
“Please, don’t.” The judge had recovered enough composure to zip himself up – either to give himself the dignity to negotiate, or to die.
“You can’t even remember my name, can you? Just one of ‘them’. The ordinary, useless, joes you make your laws for, make your money from, and complain about.”
“Morag,” Maddy took a step nearer which didn’t disconcert her in the least. “Put the gun down. I’ll make sure he hears you out.”
“I don’t care, really, if he hears me out or not,” she replied keeping her eye on Nairne. “I’ll tell him over his dead body.” She changed her stance, putting one foot behind the other, readying herself for the impact of the shot.
“When does this stop, Morag?” She took another step. “Am I next?”
Morag glanced at her, her expression inscrutable. So, yes, Maddy thought, quite possibly.
There were several sirens now, all of them getting closer. “Why should you remember my name?” Morag said to the judge. “Or my son’s? We’re just ghosts to you. It’s Jason, by the way. Jason Ramsay Boyd. Eleven years old. A great wee footballer. Or was. Won more medals than you could count. Being scouted by the big teams. Until he took sick.”
Maddy understood now who had sent her, and Julian Miller, the medals. “Morag. It’s Jason you have to think of now.”
“But to you,” she kept her eyes fixed on Nairne, “he’s just another ned. You’re so sure we’re all incapable, dependant on you, that none of you could imagine it was me, the woman from the scheme, who planned and carried out all this. But you see, actually, I do know stuff.”
“Jason needs you, Morag.”
“Listen to her.” Nairne had finally found his voice, his confidence creeping back.
“We all do. If we look stupid it’s because we have to. It’s because you make us feel stupid.”
“He needs you now. Today, Morag. Please, put the gun down.”
“She’s right, Mrs Boyd. If I’ve done something to offend you, believe me, it was never my intention.”
“You know what? I’m not sure whether or not you were in on the deal with Hughes and Miller, or whether you’re just shite at your job. Either way, you ought to be punished. And nobody’s going to do that. Except me.”
Maddy was managing to get closer to her because, she calculated, Morag wanted her to. Wanted this to stop. She’d done enough killing. They could hear the police cars arriving at the building. If she’d been going to shoot she’d have done it by now. For the moment, though, she kept the gun squarely pointed at Nairne’s heart.
“Do you believe in the afterlife, Nairne? What’s going to happen when this bullet hits you? Heaven? Or nothing. Hell maybe?”
“Mrs Boyd. Let us help you. You and your son.”
“He’s right, Morag..”
For the first time Morag turned her head to look directly at Maddy. “You think I do anything else?” she allowed Maddy to step right up next to her. “But, see, I’m a terrible mum.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh it is. I couldn’t protect him.” There were shouts somewhere outside the room, down in the entrance hall. “Didn’t have the power or the money. Couldn’t take him away from the poison, the damp. Couldn’t fight back.” She looked back at Nairne.
“I’m so sorry.” Nairne looked genuinely appalled. For the first time not merely consumed by simple fear. Footsteps were running around downstairs. Lots of shouting, but clear amongst them, Kenny’s voice: “Morag!”
Maddy put her hand on Morag’s holding the gun. The woman seemed not to react, allowing the touch. Except at that precise moment Maddy’s phone rang. Morag’s eyes flared, she stiffened, and her finger impulsively tightened on the trigger.
“No!” Maddy was struck momentarily with terror. “It’s just my Dad,”she heard herself say. Morag stared at her for what seemed an eternity, the phone still ringing. When it stopped she relaxed a little. She turned and looked at the Judge, who remained as still and blank as he possibly could. Maddy’s hand was still on Morag’s and she pressed gently down, till the gun was no longer pointing at him.
Nairne’s response surprised them both. A man whose life only a second ago hung in the balance recovered in a blink of the eye. He stepped away from the urinal, throwing his shoulders back, a full foot or more taller than both the women.
“Who the fuck do you think you are? Giving me a lecture? Daring to threaten me? Do you understand who I am?”
“Forbes,” Maddy said. Perhaps the man hadn’t quite recovered after all. His eyes were gleaming, pupils dilated, his hairline damp with sweat. But his voice was full of confidence and power.
“Believe me, you do indeed know nothing. Without people like me people like you would be lost. You’d kill yourselves and each other with your primitive passions, your imbecility. How could you take the law into your own hands?!” His voice was cracking with anger and disdain. “I am the fucking Law. You can’t see the bigger picture because you don’t even know there is a bigger picture.”
“What are you saying?” Maddy stared at him.
“If one or two of your savage little offspring die even earlier than expected, it’s of little consequence”
It wasn’t Kenny Boyd who burst through the toilet door first, but Louis Casci. They could hear Coulter and Kenny and other officers kick open all the doors along the corridor. Maddy prayed that Louis wouldn’t try and play the hero. Morag not only still had the gun in her hand, but was resisting Maddy’s pressure. If he tried now to intervene… Maddy was relieved when he showed no sign of moving, but stood rooted to the spot, his eyes flicking between her and Morag.
The door flew open again. This time Coulter, his hand gripping Kenny’s arm. Maddy’s heart missed a bea
t – this could change the dynamic drastically. She could feel the blood pulsing in Morag’s wrist.
Morag pushed back against Maddy’s grip again. “Kenny. You weren’t supposed to see this. I’m sorry, love.”
“Morag, Morag,” the man was drowning in sorrow and fear. “It would have been all right.”
Nairne stepped towards Louis and the inspector. “Arrest this bloody woman.”
“Nairne.” Maddy called him back. “What were you saying a moment ago? Jason’s cancer is part of ‘a bigger picture’?”
Nairne smiled mirthlessly at her. “Lord Nairne. You’re no’ as clever as ye like to think you are, Shannon.” With the police in the room his recovery seemed finally complete. “The Law demands interpretation. Beyond your pay scale, my dear. To keep things running smoothly.”
“Kenny,” Morag said sorrowfully, “it’s never going to be all right.” Then she pushed hard against Maddy’s grip, raised the gun, and shot Forbes Nairne through the head.
You will never know me, Jason.
Even if all this hadn’t happened. If I had been a normal mum in normal circumstances, you still wouldn’t have known me. I just hope and pray that you will get to know yourself better than any of us knew ourselves.
You will never read these words, yet here I am talking to you. That’s how little I understand anything, really.
Your Da’s a good man, son, and you, if you get better, I know will be a good boy. If you don’t get better, maybe there is something more than all this, and we will be together, in some way we can’t imagine.
But you will survive. It will be hard for you, when you hear what I have done. Please believe me – I thought it all through. I read, and thought, and thought again. Never let them tell you we cannot think for ourselves.
Jason, somebody, sometime, has to do something.
Mum.
Louis’ reactions were the fastest. Maddy’s hands had sprung away from Morag’s and the gun and the force of the shot had shoved her back, so she didn’t see the movement. Louis sprang from six yards back, at the door. “Maddy!”
He managed to get to Morag before she fired again. She pointed the gun for a split second at Maddy, but then turned it to her own head. Louis managed to barely touch it, just enough to flick it a little, so that the bullet grazed along the side of her head. There was a moment of complete stillness, before blood began to trickle from Morag’s head, and she fell to the floor, weeping, her head crowned in blood. Kenny at her side, a dolorous Glasgow pietà.
V
Morag Boyd had been rushed to hospital where her injury was confirmed to be relatively minor. Despite Russell’s protestations, Coulter had agreed that Kenny Boyd should be allowed to return to the hospital in time for Jason coming out of surgery.
The rest of the afternoon Maddy and Louis had spent making statements. Captain Casci of NYPD had to be fingerprinted, which he endured stoically. He was rather less stoic about being told he could not leave the United Kingdom until he received official permission. “Yeah. We’ll see about that.”
Before they left Police Scotland HQ in the early evening, the news came through that Jason had survived the operation, that the tumour in his head had been fully removed and that, once he had undergone radiotherapy and chemo, the doctors felt his chances were reasonable. Cathy Maguire had already drawn up papers with Mr and Mrs Boyd to act in loco parentis for Jason, should the need arrive. Kenny’s crime was serious – possession of unlawful weapons – but it was his first offence, so there was some hope, given the family situation, that the court might go easy on him. Then again, the entire family might be judged to be dysfunctional and a danger to an afflicted ten-year-old. The Boyds and Ms Maguire had challenging battles facing them.
Maddy had been told, too, that Clare Crichton had taken Marion Miller back to Killearn to collect some clothes, and then had driven her to her own house in Cleveden. They were last seen shopping for dinner together, for all the world like two close sisters.
As Louis drove her along Dumbarton Road, the bars filling up early, in celebration of an unexpected golden evening, jackets slung over shoulders, voices louder and jauntier than they’d been in months, Maddy said: “Straight on.”
“What? We not going back to your place?”
“One last favour?”
She saw Packie Shannon outside the main entrance to the airport pick up his bags sadly, certain now that she wouldn’t show. He looked old. She’d never considered him old before, or had contemplated him even ageing. “Dad!” He turned and the childish, gleeful grin took decades off him. A gust of wind blew his bright white rowdy hair about. (What’s that Moustaki song again? Cheveux au quatre vents…. l’air de revêr.) Her dad seemed to be perpetually caught in a blustery storm.
“You left it late,” he said without any hint of reproach. Almost pride – like father like daughter. “I’ve got approximately ninety seconds.”
“Sorry. Busy day.” Now there was an understatement. He dropped his bag and hugged her so comprehensively and tightly that she felt she was six again, utterly surrounded and defined by him. “You know you nearly got me killed?”
“Yeah?” He seemed rather pleased at the idea, “How’s that?”
“Last time you phoned. I was… Never mind. It’s a long story.”
“Tell me sometime. I just wanted to tell you before she did – I tried to see your mother.”
“What? You contacted her? How? She knows you’re here?” Always so many questions in her father’s wake.
“Dante gave me her number. Keep an eye on him by the way – he’s going through some kind of late-life crisis.” Geez, but the brass neck; the man had never scored high on self-awareness. “But she wouldn’t speak to me.”
“You expected her to?”
“I wanted to tell her – and you – something.”
Louis arrived, having parked the car. “Hi.”
What a moment to turn up. Tell her what? He was dying? He was getting married again – to a 25 year old? He was becoming a Bhuddist monk? Anything was possible.
Louis gave up waiting. “Louis Casci. Pleased to meet you?”
“Packie. How about ye?” the older man studied the younger one briefly but intensely then smiled broadly. And for the first time ever Maddy realised that, physically, the two men were of roughly the same build and height. Fuck.
“This your fella?”
“What? Tell us what, dad?”
Packie checked his watch and picked up his bag. “I’m coming back to Glasgow. Maybe in a couple of months.” He stepped towards the doors, which opened. “I want to start again. I want us to start again. Me, you, your mum.”
She opened her mouth but no words came out. There were no words in response to such a wild, absurd, misconceived, conceited, ridiculous statement. Packie Shannon threw the arm that held his bag round her shoulder and kissed her cheek. Still standing open-mouthed yet still not managing to breathe she watched her dad shake Louis’ hand like he was an old pal, and with a final wink to them both, disappear inside the airport.
“Dad! You’re a fucking idiot!” She couldn’t decide whether she wanted him to hear or not.
They reached Lorraine Gardens. “Lover boy will be gone by now, yes?” said Louis as they walked to the door.
“Bloody hope so.”
“I have to say,” Louis smiled, “he is younger and better looking than me.”
“Yep. He is.”
A moment of doubt, then Louis bust out into a raucous cheery guffaw. Just like he used to. And they began to feel like their old selves again.
The moment they were inside they were at it. Maddy knew it was partially the months of celibacy, but more it was the need to escape. From the murderous glare of a woman so exploited and misused by “professional” people like her; from the haphazard emotions and antics of her father; from every decision she had made on the last twenty-four hours. Twenty-four years. Perhaps Louis, too, was at some similarly tense juncture in his life for he tore at h
er as savagely as she assailed him. Or rather, his body.
It was all over with in minutes. They lay there panting, clothes torn and shed, like extras from Les Miserables, sweat pouring from them, and laughing like weans who’d got away with some transgression.
“So,” she said when she got her breath back, “you’ve come all the way from far Americay. Least I can do is buy you dinner.”
“You want to go out to dinner? Tonight? After … everything?”
“God yes. What else would we do? Sit at home and greet?”
“I thought that woman was going to kill you.”
“I think it might have been a toss-up in her head too.” Maddy got up and rummaged in the drawer of the coffee table, until she found the old ten-pack with two cigarettes left in it. “All’s well that ends well, eh?”
Louis shook his head. “You are a genuine nutjob, Shannon. You do know that?”
“Deed I do. Want one?”
“Nope. I’m a vaper now.”
“Oh fuck off.”
She phoned her mum, taking far too much immature delight in speaking while she was still semi-naked to Rosa di Rio. She didn’t have long to enjoy it – mamma, it transpired, was on her way out to meet some of her Western Baths friends. Maybe that’s why their daughter turned out to be a nutjob – her old dears were always on the move. Back in Girvan, working twenty-four seven in the chippie; these days in age-denial.
“You know that Dad was here?”
“Has he gone now?” Rosa didn’t seem the least perturbed. “He tried to speak to me on the phone. Well, you can imagine what I said to him, cara.” She sounded almost cheery about it. Surely – surely – her dad’s mad plan was as mad as it appeared to Maddy? She decided not to raise the issue right now. “Your father è un idiota, Maddalena.”