And When I Die

by Russel D. McLean

  I think about the message I sent to Kat.

  Hope she’ll accept this feeble replacement for an apology.

  Because I know, after tonight, for her, even Oban won’t be far enough.

  KAT

  There are needles in my arm. People are talking. I hear voices. But they don’t make any sense. I’m lying on a hard surface. There’s a blanket covering me.

  Am I in bed? Why are there other people in the room?

  Someone leans over me. A man. His voice is low. I think it’s meant to be soothing. I struggle to hear him. Blink to bring his face into focus.

  ‘Kat? Do you know who I am?

  He looks familiar. But he’s half hidden in the shadows, and his voice is too distorted for me to recognise.

  The world is shaking. There’s a high-pitched noise in my head. No, not my head. Somewhere else. Outside.

  I blink. Think: this is an ambulance.

  Realise: I’m alive.

  I try to focus on the man’s features. They’re familiar. Definitely. I’ve seen them before. A long time ago.

  Where?

  My flat. My old place. The one that Uncle Derek owned.

  Yes, this man was in my front room. I wanted to throw him out, but I was too polite, and maybe even too afraid of what he had to say to me.

  The policeman. The detective.

  Crawford.

  ‘Do you remember me?’

  Aye, of course I do.

  Do I say that out loud?

  He’s softer than I remember. In attitude if not shape. There’s a little middle-age spread that I don’t remember, and the lines in his face seem more pronounced. But all that could be my imagination. We knew each other for little more than fifteen minutes back then. And I didn’t want to remember him at all when he left.

  He says, ‘Where’s John?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Comes out like I’m trying to slap him, we’re in a bar and I’m throwing my drink in his face.

  I always wanted to throw my drink in someone’s face. Never did. Little regrets like that. Maybe everyone has them.

  ‘I know he was there tonight. We didn’t see his body.’

  I laugh, taste something thick and warm in the back of my throat and swallow it back.

  He nods, trying to hide it, look sage, like Alec Guinness in the Star Wars films, but he’s rattled.

  ‘I see. You didn’t see anything?’

  ‘Was he one of yours?’

  ‘One of mine?’

  ‘Did you send him to infiltrate my uncle’s operations?’

  He doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Did you instruct him to use me to get close to my uncle?’

  Again, nothing. But there’s a twitch. I can see it. His right eye. And he won’t look directly at me, either.

  ‘Isn’t that,’ I say, ‘against the rules?’

  ‘The rules?’

  ‘He was undercover. I thought there were rules. You know, things that you can and can’t do.’

  ‘We keep rewriting the rules. I don’t think there are any. Not really.’ He looks a little sad, as though he wishes there really were clear lines to separate the good guys from the bad in such a situation.

  I cough. It hurts. My upper body spasms. I think I feel something inside me tear. Someone else leans over me now. Dressed in the green of a paramedic. ‘If you’re going to upset her…’

  ‘Not my intention.’

  We hit a corner. The weight shifts in the ambulance. It’s like hitting the apex on a rollercoaster. Except more scary than fun.

  The man in green pulls away. Crawford leans in.

  ‘No-one wanted to mislead you. John needed to get close because your cousins, your uncle, all those bastards. They trust you, and we needed them to trust him. You’re the one good person in their lives. It was a good tactic. Far as these things go. I signed off on it. But it was never supposed to go this far.’

  ‘What did you think he was going to do? Hang around forever?’

  ‘The operation was originally budgeted for six months.’

  I try not to laugh. It will only hurt.

  ‘Your uncle was a tough man to reach. Keeps himself insulated. Guess you know that, though.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t do all those things that you –’ He doesn’t have to interrupt me. I stop myself, realising how I sound. I can’t do it any more. Can’t keep lying to myself, never mind anyone else.

  ‘Where is John?’ He looks me in the eye now. Insistent. Like I’m not telling him something.

  ‘He hasn’t reported in? Come back to his masters?’

  ‘No. Where is he?’

  What’s the point in lying? ‘He’s gone. Took off before you arrived.’

  ‘Took off?’

  What is he? A parrot or a detective?

  But Crawford’s starting to assemble the jigsaw. A lightbulb flutters behind those grey eyes.

  ‘Kat.’ Making sure he has my full attention. ‘Who killed your cousins?’

  Let him work for it. Old habits die hard. Can hear the old me: the police are the enemy. Don’t give them anything. But he’s working it out for himself. I can hear the gears turning. I’m telling him but I haven’t told him anything.

  ‘Who killed them?’

  He doesn’t give up.

  He’s not even waiting for an answer. Leaning forward, in my face. ‘Kat, you have to trust me. If I knew… He’s been on the edge for months, we knew that. It was getting to him. The double life. The lies. Maybe because of how he felt about you. And how you left him the way you did. We thought maybe he was taking drugs to stay on your cousin’s good side… Would explain a lot about how he started behaving… But I wonder maybe it was the fact he to lied to you, and that you saw through it.’

  John always told me he was clean, that he wouldn’t use. Didn’t mind if other people did, but you know, he had his own personal standards. I wonder when he started. Before or after I left? Of course, just being near Tony could give you contact high.

  ‘He’s been slipping, losing his grip. Finding it tough to remember the line between cop and cover.’

  Did I know anything about John? Or was everything I thought I knew a lie, part of the persona he created?

  I used to think I knew his soul. Now I have to wonder.

  ‘Kat, he went over the edge. Tonight he plummeted somewhere very dark indeed. Maybe a culmination of everything he’s been through. Maybe because he was trying to save you. Keeping quiet isn’t protecting him or anyone else. I can only imagine what you’ve been through this evening. I know that…’

  ‘Did they find her?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lesley.’

  He looks at me with his head cocked to one side. The name means nothing to him.

  ‘Lesley Scott.’ I rattle off her address. ‘Did they find her?’

  ‘I don’t…’

  ‘I watched her die. He… Ray…put a bullet in her head. She was trying to call the police. Only doing what she thought was the right thing.’ There’s a tightness in my chest. I start to breathe faster.

  That’s it. I’m gone. Going.

  Heart’s overheating. The world is shaking. That keening noise is too high, threatens to burst my eardrums. I shake and shiver and there are tears, and I know if I even try to talk I won’t make any sense at all.

  A beep-beep-beep noise cracks from somewhere, and the man in green pulls Crawford away from me. Good. I want him gone. Just need to be left alone.

  The world starts to crack around the edges.

  ‘Jesus! Hurry it up! Hurry the fuck up!’

  The world starts to go dark. Do ambulances have dimmer switches?

  ‘Hold on, Kat. Hold on. Don’t let it end like this.’ Someone’s holding my hand. I look up at them. Crawford’s face is creased with what looks like genuine concern. His grey eyes are watery.

  The world blacks out.

  I bring it back into focus.

  Crawford is gone.

  I see my mo
ther. She smiles.

  And I’m gone.

  Where Will You Run

  Two days after the funeral

  0930 - 1000

  JOHN

  The minutes are shorter. The seconds click by faster than I can notice.

  Drugs?

  Tony had a point. They take the edge off. When it counts. I’d been dancing. Teetering. Ready to fall. Drink wasn’t enough.

  Nothing was enough.

  Maybe the psycho had a point, after all. I’m glad he left his stash in the car. A snort, and I could almost believe he was beside me, egging me on, telling me he couldn’t trust a man who didn’t take a little hit every now and then.

  But he’s not beside me. He’s dead. I blew his fucking brains out.

  So I’m buzzing as the taxi pulls up outside the main concourse. On the right side, faceless, charmless airport hotels as exciting as plastic shells overlook the terminal building. Frankenstein’s monsters of construction, they loom, not quite alive.

  I pay the taxi, tell him he can keep the change, which is well over five quid above the odds. He objects, but I figure it’s fair enough, given the way the day has been going.

  Maybe when he watches the telly later, he’ll have a wee story tell folks. ‘You’ll never guess who I had in the back of my cab…’

  All the calm from earlier has vanished. In its place there’s an effervescent sense of danger. Excitement. Where am I heading?

  I need to keep the plan straight in my head. The drugs take the edge off, but they don’t half screw with joined up thinking.

  Cyprus. Easy to hide. Tony had some contacts there. I know their names. Figure dropping his name will help. No-one’s going to know what I did. At least not for a while. Even when Crawford connects the dots, he’s going to want to keep things quiet. I’m his operation’s dirty wee stain. He’ll want to ignore me as long as he can, pretend I never even existed.

  I need to get my head together, get time to think.

  Best to do that in the sun, right?

  The girl at the desk looks at me with an odd expression when I ask for a ticket on the next flight out to Paphos. The look screams suspicion. Most tickets are booked on the internet these days, but then if they didn’t want business done like this, they’d have closed the desks. I’ve got enough left in my old account to cover the flights. Can sort the rest out once I get to Cyprus. Enough money in my checked luggage to keep me safe for a while. I can exchange some on the other side of the gates. Long as customs play dumb.

  Getting through security, my stomach shrinks and threatens to double me right over. Reminds me of when I was a boy, my appendix blowing up. That same early stinging sensation that grew more and painful, became this overwhelming agony flooring me more effectively than a right hook from Muhammed Ali in his prime.

  Right now it was simple discomfort. A stress reaction.

  Keep thinking: once you’re in the air, you’re fine.

  The lines are long. Security since 9/11 has become a pain in the arse, all these airlines terrified about terrorism. Truth is, someone determined enough, could probably get away with anything, no matter how many security measures were put in place. Most security is more about insurance than genuine protection of innocent lives.

  ‘Take off your belt.’

  I don’t even notice I’m next to the scanners. I stare blankly at the guy in the security uniform. He stares back, intense. That military style buzz doesn’t help with the intimidation. ‘Please, take off your belt. Your shoes are fine.’

  Of course they are, I’m wearing canvas trainers. My old clothes – the bloodstained ones – I left at the flat. What was the point in covering my tracks? All I have to hope is the fake passport I’m using is enough for me to breeze through the rest of the way.

  I take off my belt, put it in the tray. Move forward.

  So close.

  Through the machines. Out the other side. All I have to do.

  I grab a coffee at a café, which has bay windows looking out onto the tarmac. I watch the planes as they taxi to the runways.

  What they represent: freedom. Absolute freedom.

  Nothing more freeing than breaking from gravity. Even if it is inside a confined metal tube. There’s something about knowing the ground is so far beneath you that is both terrifying and wonderful.

  I have three hours to kill.

  Three fucking hours.

  To shite with the coffee. Where’s the bar?

  * * *

  Ray looks at me with empty eyes.

  Literally empty. Nothing in those sockets except blank space.

  He clambers to his feet. His joints crack. Blood soaks his clothes. His limbs move unnaturally, and I think of a spider with its long, multi-jointed limbs.

  He tries to speak, but for some reason can’t make a sound. Maybe something to do with all those worms in his mouth, wriggling, writhing, struggling to break free.

  Beside him, Tony is touching the hole in the back of his head, fingers probing gently as though afraid he’ll damage himself.

  ‘You’re a shitebag,’ Tony says. His voice is muffled, like he’s speaking through a mouthful of dirt.

  I don’t see anything. I just sit on the bench and look at the two of them.

  Brothers. Killers.

  ‘Don’t judge me,’ I say. ‘I did what I had to do.’

  ‘Did what you wanted,’ Tony says. ‘Big fuckin’ difference, pal.’

  Ray says, ‘It’s a sickness. The violence.’ His voice slams like heavy church doors. Worms fall from his lips. Same hollow feeling of quiet when he stops speaking.

  I stand up. When I look round, the bench is gone.

  Tony comes up to me. ‘You didn’t do anything you didn’t want to.’

  ‘It’s a sickness,’ Ray says again.

  ‘Shut up, you fuck,’ Tony says. ‘You piece of shit. You’re not my brother. You’re a monster.’

  Another voice: ‘My monster.’

  Their father stands between them. There’s a hole in the middle of his forehead. Blood trickles across his porcelain white skin. Ray doesn’t respond. He never does. Not really. Only time I saw him angry was in the hospital, when he felt someone had betrayed him.

  But he’s right. It’s a sickness, the violence. Transmittable. It gets inside you, makes you the kind of person you never wanted to be.

  ‘No-one made you do anything,’ Tony says.

  I want to argue with him, but then something inside me lurches sickeningly and I wonder if maybe he’s right.

  Ray says, ‘It’s a sickness. You’re born with it.’

  My stomach cramps. Like when I was a kid. I double over. Vomit blood. It splashes on the grass at my feet.

  The grass is brown. Too much sun, not enough rain.

  Tony says, ‘Better than fertiliser.’

  I’m on my knees. My stomach is agony. I press it in as though that will help the pain. Something pushes back.

  ‘You’re born with it,’ Ray says with that slamming, heavy voice that isn’t his.

  The something inside me erupts. Pulls its way out. Ripping through flesh. I hear a noise like paper being torn in two. I fall back onto the ground. Don’t look. Don’t want to see what this cancerous thing is that’s killing me.

  When I open my eyes, I’m blinded by the sun that shines in the impossibly blue and clear sky.

  The old man is standing over me.

  ‘You’re the son I never had,’ he says.

  I try to scream.

  * * *

  I’m falling.

  My eyes snap open. Hands grasp out for something to hold onto.

  But I’m not falling. I’m just asleep in the bar, my pint half-finished in front of me.

  I think I’m going to be sick, but I manage to steady myself. Standing up, I’m dizzy and think I might not even be able to walk.

  But I do it. Each step increases my confidence. Leaves the nightmare behind.

  Check out the departures board. Gate 3.

  I ma
ke the trip. Walking slowly. Just a nightmare. I’ll have more than a few of those over the next wee while, I’m sure.

  At the gate, I get my passport ready. They’re calling for boarding.

  I’m so close. Can see the plane out the window.

  My freedom.

  This is it.

  A hand clamps my shoulder. I twist. Breathe in.

  Crawford grins. ‘You’re coming in, son,’ he says. ‘It’s over.’

  The uniforms behind him raise their weapons enough that I notice. Armed police. Making the point absolutely clear.

  Crawford keeps his hands on my shoulder. ‘I’m here to help you, son.’

  I swallow.

  ‘She’s alive. You know that, right? She’s alive, son. Kat Scobie.’

  I smile. Then I pull my shoulder away from his grasp, and bring my knee up. Catch him in the groin, and he folds. I pull away.

  The officers raise their weapons. Like they’re going to fire in here.

  People scatter. No-one knows what they’re doing.

  Perfect.

  Am I still dreaming?

  I push past the girl in the cabin crew outfit, stumble down the umbilical corridor that leads to the plane. I’m not boarding, but I need out and this is my nearest available bastarding exit.

  At the far end, there’s a gap and a drop.

  Too far?

  I slip between the end of the umbilical and the plane.

  Someone’s shouting.

  I perform a hanging drop. Same way you’re taught to leave a burning building. Tuck and land, absorb the impact with bent knees. My body trembles with shock. My feet roar with pain. I fall onto my side. The tarmac is surprisingly cool.

  Someone’s shouting from above. I can’t make out the words. Don’t give a fuck.

  I get up, start running. Under the nose of the plane, across the tarmac. My ankles protest. Less a sprint and more a lurch.

  ‘Where are you going, John? Where are you going, John?’

  It becomes a mantra, a way of breathing, controlling speed, finding focus. Muttered between the ice cold stabs of air that attack my lungs.

  ‘Where are you going, John?’

  I just know that I need to keep running. I make the mistake of turning, see the airport police running from the terminal.