He told me in detail about how the fight went down. The other guy swinging the first punch. Tony stepping aside, grabbing the guy’s arm, twisting it, pulling and smacking the guy’s face off the bathroom wall. Should have been enough to end any decent fight, but of course this was Anthony Scobie and he couldn’t just let it go. He followed through, fast, when the other guy went down. Smashed the poor idiot’s face against the sink, smacking bone against porcelain until the white stained through red. The other man’s body had finally gone limp. But even then it wasn’t enough for my dear, dear cousin.
When he told me what he had done, his eyes lit up like a child remembering their favourite birthday cake. Reliving the experience as he told me about. Didn’t matter to him whether I was paying attention or not, he just wanted to talk, tell someone about what he had done.
My cousin. The psychopath.
What I should have done was throw him out, or turn him into the cops. But I let him stay the night. He took the floor, of course, and I slept with the covers pulled tight around me, like a cocoon.
In the morning, when Mum found Tony in the kitchen running his clothes through the washing machine and wearing my old dressing gown, looking oh-so-manly, we told her that he’d turned up drunk and I’d let him sleep it off on the couch. He’d been sick on his clothes, which was why he has to use the washing machine.
Mum knew what was going on, of course. But we were all complicit in my cousin’s psychopathy. She’d never turn him in. Neither would I. And I think that was the day she realised what she’d done, drumming into me the codes that she wanted me to reject. It was too late for me, same as it had once been too late for her.
I was a Scobie.
There would never be any doubt.
Screwed up. Like all the rest of them.
* * *
I need to clear my head.
Stop thinking about the past. Get a better look at Ray’s injury. Do what he asks. Make sure he’s fit for purpose. If you do it, he’ll let you live. If you cross him, he’ll kill you.
Some choice.
By now, Anthony would be looking for Ray. Have people out on the streets. He knew the car we were driving. His ear would be pressed to the ground.
Uncle Derek had more than a handful of police in his pocket. Would they know what had happened by now? Would they be dancing on the old man’s grave? Looking for revenge?
I don’t know what to do.
So I tell Ray that I need to look at his wounds.
He says, ‘I know…I’m dying.’
‘Want to be dead before your brother?’
He shakes his head.
‘Then trust me.’
He doesn’t need to say what he’s thinking. I’ve already got the message.
I take a deep breath, try not to think about the past or even the events of earlier this evening. I try to focus on one thing: finding a way to help Ray, to stop the bleeding.
I exhale. Close my eyes for a moment. Open them again.
Start the engine.
JOHN
Pete and Wayne are gone. Hitting the streets. Beating the bushes. Doing what they need to do. Now it’s just me and Tony.
I tried to persuade him that I needed to be out there doing something too. But he tells me that I’m the only family he has left now.
He still thinks Kat is dead. Or good as.
Maybe he’s right. Makes it worse, him asking me to stay.
Besides, as he reminds me, I’m still just a citizen. I don’t know his world. Not really. Helping plant a bomb doesn’t make me capable of doing what men like Pete and Wayne do.
We’re in the front room. I’m watching him do lines, near constant. It’s a nervous tick. Like picking at fingernails or scratching balls. I say, ‘What do we do when he’s dead?’
Tony looks up, wipes the back of his hand across his nose. ‘Show people that there’s a new king in town. No-one messes with me.’
‘Aye?’
‘Aye, not even my brother. Don’t be naïve, John. Too late for the little boy lost crap. You know what’s at stake. You’re a killer now.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘A minute ago I was a citizen.’
‘You’re a killer by intent. You thought all we were going to do with that bomb was scare my brother?’
I don’t answer.
How did I get here? Who am I? Really, who am I? A cop or his cover? Or something else entirely?
I think about the man I saw in the mirror a few days ago, the one who berated me for everything that I’d done. I haven’t seen him since. Perhaps he realised the situation was hopeless. Perhaps he was the last vestiges of my conscience.
Perhaps he’s just ashamed.
I had no choice. I did everything I could to try and make sure that the bomb never went off, I’m sure of it. But Tony was there the whole time. Encouraging me. Telling me how if I didn’t do it, I’d be as dead as Ray. ‘You wanted to be a gangster, get a piece of this life, you’ve got it, pal.’
When it was done, after we fled the scene, he took me to bar, bought me a drink. Place was a dive, iron bars on the windows, scuffed floor, lighting so low most of the drinkers had the skin tone of corpses. We sat at a corner table, and I could smell the vomit on trousers, and he said, ‘Today, my son, you are a man.’
That was when he spread out three lines, told me to go wild. I looked around, my heart doing the Riverdance. No-one even looked at us. No-one in the place gave a monkeys what a man like Anthony Scobie did, long as he left them alone. So I snorted back the drugs, convinced myself that this was all in the name of my cover.
Not allowing myself to believe I was beginning to like it.
‘I know what I did,’ I tell him, shaking off memories, trying not to think about the part I played in the attempt on Ray’s life. I look at the pictures over his fake fireplace, the family portraits that try to lie to the casual observer.
‘Then you know what you are.’
‘Sure.’
He takes a package out from his jacket pocket. Spreads out six lines, separates them with his credit card. Waves at me to come over, sit beside him. ‘Take the edge off.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I need the edge.’
He laughs, throws back his head. Brays it out like those kids in the Pinocchio film before they turn into donkeys. The phone rings.
‘Get that.’
I hesitate a moment too long.
‘Get it!’
I answer neutral. On the other end of the line, Fat Dunc says, ‘Put Anthony on.’
I hand over the phone, tell Tony who it is. He shakes his head.
I say to Fat Dunc, ‘He’s busy.’
‘Getting high? Always his answer. When there’s trouble.’
I look at Tony. Sitting back on the sofa now, arms wide across the back, legs splayed. Content, the high is kicking him hard. I walk away, turn my back on the psycho prick.
‘You’re okay?’ I ask down the line.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘What happened today?’
‘The police were here.’
‘Oh.’
‘I need to talk to him. Tell him to call me when his fucking brain’s working again.’
‘Sure.’
‘Not on this line.’ He rattles off a mobile number. I commit it to memory. Hang up. When I tell Tony, he says, ‘Old prick probably told the polis everything. Frail old fuck. Used to be he was somebody. Back in the day.’
‘I know.’ I read Dunc’s files. Committed them to memory. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, he’d been a real figure of fear. The kind of enforcer you’d have paid good money to keep on side. But for whatever reason, he’d been loyal to Derek Scobie for reasons that had nothing to do with cash. Did friendship really mean something to these people?
‘Now he’s just a scared old man. His time has been and gone, man.’
I remember how Dunc was at the funeral. Looking back, you had to wonder if he knew something was going down. Kat
had told me he’d been strongly hinting that she needed to leave just about five minutes before Ray showed up.
Tony said it himself, Ray had to have some help from the inside, someone who was protecting him, who had helped him to stay alive this long, got him the guns he needed, the car.
I don’t say anything to Tony. Figure I’m getting paranoid. Contact high, just being in the same room with someone as off their face as Tony.
Or else all those drugs I took in the name of my cover never really left the system.
I say, ‘Maybe you should call him. Maybe he knows something. Maybe he –’
‘Maybe he nothing!’ Tony’s on his feet. Kicks the glass coffee table over, strides to where I am and thrusts his face into mine. I blink as warm spit hits my face. His breath has a sour smell.
At the back of my brain, primeval instincts urge me to get away. But I remain where I am. Takes all my willpower too.
‘I think you’re forgetting who you are, pal. Telling me what to do, who to talk to. I’ll deal with this the way I see fit. I’m the king shit now. When I kill my brother, I’m going to mail his bastard head to the police, let them know what happens to anyone gets in my way. And his balls, I’m going to send them to that arsewipe, Buchan. So he knows that it’s his getting cut off next.’
Tony’s eyes lock on mine. They’re empty. No humanity. Just a lust for violence. A contempt for everything he ever looks at. I’ve pushed this too far. He’s finally going to kill me. And maybe that’s for the best.
But what he does is turn away. Walk across the other side of the room. Keeping his back to me. Breathing slow and steady. His back rises and falls. He’s hunched over. Animal-like.
Someone knocks at the door.
Loud. Insistent. A special kind of knock. The kind of knock that gets attention. A copper’s knock. Kind of knock you learn day one out on the beat and keep the rest of your career.
I clear my throat. ‘I’ll get it,’ I say.
Tony doesn’t say anything.
I walk to the front door. Take two deep breaths before reaching out and opening the door.
‘Was wondering if I could speak to Anthony Scobie.’
I don’t say anything. Just stare at Crawford.
Wonder what the hell he’s doing here.
And whether Tony really will make good on his threat.
KAT
Last time I saw Lesley Scott, she was knocking back the wine and telling Anthony what he could do with his cheap pick-up lines and even cheaper aftershave.
I never had too many close friends. Things always went wrong when they met my family. But as Lesley said, with a shrug after a few too many drinks, ‘Love the person, not the family.’
First day we met at nursing school, she was the only one not to ask if I was related to ‘those’ Scobies.
She’s got herself a new flat near the Mitchell Library. Modern interior. Private parking beneath the building. Video secure entry. The full-on cosmopolitan life. I park on the street outside, call up, tell her I just wanted to come round, say hello.
‘Thought you’d left for the quiet life in the country?’
‘You got any wine in?’
She laughs. Gives me the code for the underground parking. In the passenger seat, Ray remains silent. Hasn’t asked what my plan is. Simply trusting me to do the right thing. I’ve kept my word, after all. Haven’t taken him to hospital or tried to alert the police.
We take the elevator up. The interior smells new, part of the rejuvenation of the area – stylish city-centre flats for modern living. Lesley called it bachelor central when she moved in, but she likes living on her own. The flat has some nice views, and the neighbours mostly keep to themselves.
She answers the door dressed in a loose grey top and dark jeans. No shoes, just bare feet. A new haircut. Shorter than I remember, more styled. I like it. Makes her look younger. Not that she’s that much older than me, maybe a few years, but you couldn’t guess.
She says, ‘You okay?’ Stops when she sees Ray standing behind me. There’s that moment where her eyes go wide, but other than that, her reaction is restrained. Given the way Ray looks, I have to admire that.
I noticed, when we left the elevator, he left a large smudge of blood where he’d been leaning against the wall.
I say, ‘Sorry, can we come in?’
She tries her best not to look concerned. Fails. Waves us inside. Tries to treat Ray like she would anyone else, not staring too long at Ray’s face. But she knows something’s wrong. The way she lets us in quick and hurried: an ant scrambling to get its work finished before the queen gets impatient.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, when she sits down on the armchair across from me and Ray. We perch on the couch. Ray’s hand is inside his jacket. Reaching for that handgun, ready to move if anything goes wrong.
He doesn’t want to be here. Trusted me enough to come, but doesn’t know what I’m doing.
Lesley says, ‘Who’s this guy?’
Ray answers. I don’t mind. I don’t know what to say. ‘Her cousin,’ he says. Lets his coat drop open just enough. Lesley’s face registers surprise, but she remains calm. Her eyebrows raise, but other than that and a small, startled flinch, there’s no reaction.
I wonder which she sees first: the blood? Or the gun?
‘Her cousin?’ she says. ‘I’ve met Kat’s cousin. Tony. He was a dick. You’re not Tony,’
‘You’re calm,’ Ray says to her. ‘Good. Very good. Want you to look at me.’
She is looking at him. At the gun. At the blood.
‘Up here,’ he says, ‘Look at my face.’ His voice calm. Like a therapist, or maybe a hypnotist. Despite the scratchiness, the way he talks in bursts, he manages to give the impression of a man in complete control. Derren Brown with a plastic face. ‘Telling you…the truth.’ He gives her a moment, and when she’s looking at him, he says, ‘Don’t want to hurt you. Won’t. Kat trusts you. She’s scared…too. And she’s fine. Done everything…I asked. And she’s fine.’
I nod, agreeing with him. The complicity makes my stomach do flip-flops. Is this who I am? When push comes to shove, am I the person who lets the situation wash over them?
The idea makes me sick. But I still don’t do anything.
‘Lesley. Kat says…you’re a nurse. Can help me. All I want. Help me…I’ll be gone. Out of your life. Never here. Wake up tomorrow…think I was a dream. But you have to do…what I say. Think you can?’
She nods.
I watch her, try to figure what she’s thinking. Hard to know, because her expression is absolutely blank. Like she’s not thinking about anything at all. So completely lost in his gaze that there is no other thought for her except what he’s saying, how he’s looking at her.
You might think it was love, that intensity. But it’s hypnotism. Ray’s like the snake from the Jungle Book.
Trust in me.
‘What I need… Patch me up. You work on…trauma wards. Don’t need to remove…the bullet. Not an idiot. Know…it’s a risk. Removing a bullet…without proper equipment. One wrong move and...That’s okay. That’s okay. Just need patched up. Think you can?’
Lesley finally speaks: ‘You need to go to the hospital.’
‘I know. I will. More important things.’
‘I don’t know...’
‘You’re not listening.’ He draws attention to the gun.
‘I’m listening,’ she says. Then she looks at me, and I can’t look back. I’m not a killer, not like my cousin, but I know that after tonight I’ve lost a friend.
Can you kill friendship?
No need for the Magic Eight Ball on that, when all signs point to yes. Lesley’s eyes drift to the gun. Ray’s holding it low and casual, like it doesn’t matter.
But it does. The gun is what’s keeping her quiet, making her listen. The gun, and the fact that Ray’s voice is low, steady, serious.
She believes everything’s he’s telling her. Same as me.
JOHN
Al Pacino could take lessons.
‘Anthony Scobie at home?’
I graciously play the part. ‘Aye, and who’re you?’
Still with that poker face, he says, ‘Police. I need to talk to him about his father’s murder earlier today.’
‘Don’t know if he’s in the mood for talking.’
‘I’m not going to bust him.’
‘You sure?’
He just grins and steps forward. Can’t read his expression. I step aside, let him through. He walks down the hall like this is his own home.
‘Tony, it’s DCI Crawford. Remember me?’
Tony comes down the stairs. Soon as I went to the door, he was bolting it to the upstairs bathroom, no doubt trying to hide the evidence. Not that he can do much about the bloodshot eyes or the grin that’s on his face like a crookedly hung picture. He looks at Crawford. ‘Course I do. You’re the one keeps harassing my dad.’ Glances at me. ‘Never getting you a job on the door, man.’
‘Not his fault,’ Crawford says. He looks at me. ‘You don’t look like the kind of company our boy here usually keeps.’
‘He’s my accountant,’ Tony says.
Fight or flight? My sphincter tightens.
Crawford looks back at me, façade of ignorance dropping for a moment. Just his expression, not his body. I hope. Because if Tony realises something’s wrong, we’re all fucked.
‘You have to be good with figures, working with this one,’ he says. ‘His family practically invented what they call creative accounting.’
‘How about a wee bit of respect?’
‘Because your dad’s dead?’
‘Think you can manage?’
‘Know something? I heard a strange rumour.’ Crawford moves to the sofa, sits down, giving the overturned coffee table a meaningful glance but saying nothing. ‘I heard your dad was killed by your brother.’
‘You’re a sick bastard, you know that? My brother’s dead. We…we buried him today.’
And When I Die Page 10