The Red Road

by Denise Mina

  Sitting next to the wall, blinking his vision clear, he put the tapes in, turned on the machine and gave the date, place and a list of those present. Then he started.

  ‘Michael Brown? Is that your name?’

  A whispered ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, Michael, as you heard me saying to the tape there, I’m Detective Sergeant George Gamerro. I’ll be leading this interview.’

  The boy didn’t look up. He was small for his age, thin shouldered, wearing a dirty yellow Nike T-shirt. His eyes were swollen.

  ‘Do you understand, Michael?’

  The boy gave a tiny nod to the table.

  ‘Do you know who this lady is behind to you?’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Yvonne’s a staff member at Cleveden House, where you live, isn’t she?’

  The boy nodded again.

  ‘Would you mind speaking, Michael, so we can get it on tape?’ George was being as gentle as he could but the boy didn’t speak. ‘OK. Now, Yvonne isn’t here to give you legal advice or anything like that. She’s just here to make sure you’re all right, isn’t that right, Yvonne?’

  Yvonne looked up at George and nodded, half smiling, almost as shy as the boy. She was just a kid herself, a slip of a thing, she wouldn’t be any trouble.

  George’s eyes fell on the boy’s T-shirt. Dirty yellow. Not muddy or anything, dusty with dirt though, as if he had rolled around on dry ground. George caught himself. There was something wrong about the T-shirt. His glance fell to the boy’s face.

  The boy was facing the table but he was staring up at Monkton, and for a moment George thought his eyes weren’t swollen from crying but from hating Monkton. He looked tiny, sitting with his hands on his lap, shoulders dropped, eyes straining through his eyebrows.

  Aware of the tape, George lifted a bit of paper so that the pause would sound as if he had been looking through notes. But he kept thinking about how the T-shirt was wrong. He knew why suddenly: there was no blood on it. But this kid was in care. If he had come from a chaotic house and changed out of a bloody T-shirt there might not be a clean one to put on, he might have grabbed a dirt-dusty top from a floor. George didn’t rate group homes as a way to bring kids up, whatever they came from, but homes did keep them clean. He had to give them that. They laundered their clothes and their bed linen, they cleaned the mud from their shoes and their knees. There wouldn’t be a dusty T-shirt lying around a group home.

  George put his hand on the table in front of the boy to get his attention. He dragged his fingers back, pulling the boy’s focus with him. The boy looked at him and George softened his face.

  ‘Michael, are you planning to speak to me?’

  He was being much softer than he normally would. He could feel Monkton bristle next to him, sucking his teeth, shift in his chair.

  The boy was looking properly at George now, reading him.

  ‘Is that your T-shirt?’

  Confused, the boy ran a finger on his chest. ‘Bought it.’

  ‘Which shop did you buy it in?’

  The boy lowered his brow, the look he had been giving Monkton on him now. He thought George was asking if he’d stolen it.

  ‘Because,’ said George, ‘my niece was looking for a yellow T-shirt with Nike on it.’

  The kid tutted at the weak ploy, making George feel foolish in front of Monkton.

  ‘OK,’ he said, his voice colder, ‘when did you put that T-shirt on?’

  The boy looked left, anticipating an angle, he looked right, looking for a reason not to answer. He couldn’t find one. ‘Yesterday. In the morning.’

  He’d put it on before the murder. George believed him. Monkton, however, gave a small sigh that would be inaudible on the tape. George was afraid he had missed something, that he was making a fool of himself. He decided to change the subject.

  ‘What happened last night?’

  But the boy didn’t answer, he just stared at Monkton.

  ‘This is your chance to tell us your version, Michael.’

  Nothing. Angry stares. Monkton was smirking at the table.

  ‘How do you think it’ll look when we go to court and you’ve refused to answer any questions? A jury will think only a guilty person would refuse to speak.’

  The boy was shifting in his seat, as if he was playing with something in his hands under the table.

  ‘Hands on the table,’ George ordered and the boy did it.

  George tried another tack. ‘Michael, just tell us. You’ve already told the officers who brought you in that you killed your brother.’

  He was fingering a cut, that’s what he had been doing under the table. They were small hands, slightly puffy. The puffiness drew George’s attention. He looked and suddenly saw swellings, scratches, welts. The injuries were not on the promontories of his knuckles, not where they would have made contact if the boy had hit someone. The cuts and bruises were in the soft valley of his knuckles, on the flat plains of the backs of his hands. Someone had hit him. His big brother had hit him and Michael fought back, and it got out of hand. George felt relief. Here was the reason, an excuse for compassion.

  ‘Hey, those bruises on your hands,’ he asked, fingering his own knuckles, ‘how did that happen?’

  But the boy didn’t speak. He didn’t blurt an excuse for killing his brother. He sat dumb, looked at Monkton’s hands, at breaks on the knuckles there. George looked as Monkton covered the bruised hand with the other one. His relief deflated: Monkton had battered the boy and now he was sitting through the interview to stop the child saying anything about it.

  George could do one of two things now: he could ask the question again and the boy might say that Monkton had hit him. The other course of action was to ask about something else. If he did ask about his hands then it would be on the tape. Even if George didn’t report it, the person transcribing the tape would have to.

  George was old enough to know what would happen to a cop who did that to another cop. He thought of Monkton’s relationship with powerful men, the small knowing smiles at the mention of the chief, the DCI, the handshakes in corridors.

  And George knew what would happen when Brown’s defence solicitor heard about it. They’d use it to invalidate the oral confession from the car and Michael Brown would get off the murder charge, get out and they’d pick him up in another year or so for another murder, a second life lost over a slap, maybe, nothing much, maybe.

  ‘When did you last see your brother, Michael?’

  The boy shrugged a shoulder, remembering. A flash of panic in his eyes and his courage left him. He covered his face with his battered hands and keened, the breath leaving his chest until there was none left in him. He would confess now, George felt sure, they just had to wait.

  But he didn’t. Michael Brown breathed in, sudden and loud, a drowning man coming to the surface, and as he did his hands began to slap at himself, scratching at his face, scratching welts on his cheeks and eyelids. Yvonne grabbed his elbows from behind him, pulling his arms back until he couldn’t move.

  His face was a mess of welts, his eyes wide and chest heaving hard, the breath rasping loud through his throat. George had never seen anything like that; it made him think of an animal panicked at slaughter. He wanted to get out of here.

  He hurriedly rolled through the appropriate wording, stopped the tape and waved Monkton out of the room. They didn’t speak until they were walking down the corridor and the door was shut.

  Monkton spoke first. ‘What was that all about?’ he smirked.

  George punched his shoulder, turning Monkton to face him and jabbing a finger at his nose.

  ‘Did you raise your hands o’er that boy?’

  Monkton tipped his head, disrespectful, half-mocking. ‘Come on ...’

  George was furious: ‘Did you hit the wean when you were bringing him in?’

  ‘As if I’d hit a wean,’ said Monkton, his flat tone telling George to let it go.

  But George had already let it go. He co
uld have asked about it on tape. He had already let it go. What he couldn’t let him away with was the lack of deference to a senior officer and Monkton knew it.

  Monkton sighed and explained: ‘It was a restraint, sir. He resisted arrest in the car. He went mental, just like he did then.’ He looked back down the corridor. ‘Grabbing at himself, at the headrest and that and we had to restrain him and his hands got bumped.’ He raised his hands in supplication. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘I wanted the back-seat confession to be good, for us to only need fingerprints for corroboration and be able to shut the case down. But I’m not getting that, am I, DC Monkton?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Monkton as George turned back to the stairs. ‘But there is a reason why you send us young guys out on a call like that.’

  George slowed his pace, just a step behind Monkton. The statement hurt his pride. It suggested that George was past his prime, which he was, he knew he was. But it did something else too. It alarmed him. And as he stopped to take the uncomfortable feelings apart – the hurt pride of an older man, usurped, the fear of what Monkton and other young officers understood by their physical prowess – it was then that he saw a scratch on Monkton’s neck. It was a deep cut, diagonal, running into his hairline. The hair around it was pinkish, where blood had been crudely washed off. It was proof that the boy had gone for him in the car. But what George saw was an injury from a hand around a neck, a cop kneeling on the chest of a small ill-fed boy in a yellow T-shirt and the boy’s hand coming up and scratching the back of the burly cop’s neck.

  Monkton turned back to him and smiled. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea, sir?’

  George shook his head. ‘Be back here in ten minutes.’

  Monkton jogged on down the stairs.

  George found Harry in the canteen, eating his pieces, and pulled him aside.

  ‘Sit here,’ he said, pointing him to a seat in the furthest corner of the canteen.

  Harry smiled as he took the seat and laid his Tupperware box in front of him. George sat opposite him, took the Tupperware box by the corner and pulled it away across the table.

  ‘Hey,’ Harry’s eyes followed it, ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Tell me, minute by minute, what happened when you went to Cleveden to pick up Michael Brown.’

  Harry looked wary. ‘Well,’ he reached for his top pocket, ‘I’ve got my notes—’

  ‘Fuck your notes,’ said George. They both knew the value of notes. Notes were justifications to strangers who had never been punched or bitten or spat at. They were letters for teachers, not a conversation within a family. ‘Tell me.’

  Harry and George had always liked each other. They both played bowls, supported the same small football team. If they’d lived near each other and had been closer in age they would have been friends. But they didn’t and they weren’t.

  Harry sat with his hands flat on the table, each a perfect mirror to the other, and looked George in the eye. ‘I’m telling you,’ he said, meaning ‘I’m not reporting this or giving evidence’. ‘Just you.’

  ‘OK,’ said George.

  ‘Monkton went mental. Stopped the car halfway here, dragged Brown out, screaming at him, “We could kill you and no one would know”, “Your brother was worthless scum”. World’s well rid, sort of thing.’ He stopped, looking down. George let him catch up with himself. ‘It’s the wee guy’s brother. Dead, know? The wee guy ...’ Harry got lost in the unhappy memory.

  ‘What started Monkton off?’

  Harry looked confused. ‘I dunno. Kid was crying, he’s only fourteen, at the end of the day. Monkton was driving, kept looking in the rear-view and just got more and more annoyed. Dunno.’

  George tapped his arm with his forefinger. ‘What did Michael Brown do?’

  Harry couldn’t look at George. One shoulder rose slowly to his ear. ‘What could he do?’

  George didn’t know what to say. Harry was a good man, a good cop. George knew he would have pulled Monkton off the kid and got him back to the station. He knew he would have said a few words to the boy, that he was probably the person who called the staff member in and made sure they got the Yvonne lassie to come from the kids’ home and not just use the duty social worker.

  ‘Did he confess to the murder?’

  Harry dropped his eyes to the table. ‘I never heard it.’

  ‘Monkton’s saying you heard it.’

  Harry couldn’t meet his eye. ‘I know.’

  ‘So when did that first become the story?’

  Harry sighed. ‘When we went to book him. Monkton said it as if we’d both heard it and just looked at me for confirmation. Stared at me until I nodded.’

  ‘Aw, for fuck’s sake, Harry.’

  ‘I’m stupid ...’ Harry tried to explain. ‘I just, I kind of thought that ...’

  But George was aware of his own sins of omission, and it wasn’t the first time he’d brushed over irregularities to secure a clean case. He looked up and found Harry staring at the door.

  There, on the other side of the room, stood Monkton. He was watching them. He wasn’t angry, or sorry, but he had a look on his face that George had used many times when faced with an accused he found distasteful. It was disgust, or disdain. It was a look that meant the civilian in front of him hadn’t the sense to know the damage they had done to the people around them. Suddenly, George wondered if Monkton was a very senior officer sent in to their department to test him. He knew it was a stupid idea but Monkton had authority and George didn’t know where it came from.

  George had to remind himself that he outranked him. He stood up – he was a little afraid, he could admit to himself that he was – and walked over to him.

  ‘You.’ He poked Monkton in the chest as he walked past him. ‘You come with me right now.’

  They were in a tiny interview room at the back of the station. George had told Monkton to sit but he didn’t.

  ‘I’d rather stand.’

  ‘I’m not interested in what you’d rather, son. Sit-the-fuck-down.’

  Monkton sat down opposite him. The two men looked at each other.

  ‘You hit that kid.’

  Monkton smirked and sat back, rolling his eyes like an insolent teenager.

  George leaned over the table and shouted, ‘WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?’ He wanted to hit him but didn’t. Monkton leaned away in his chair but held his eye. He wasn’t scared.

  ‘What if the kid didn’t do it, did you even think of that?’

  Monkton shook his head. ‘He did it.’

  George shouted again, ‘We don’t know that yet.’

  Monkton said quietly, ‘Aye, we do, George. The prints match.’

  George didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean “match”?’

  ‘His prints, the boy’s prints, are all over the alley. The kid’s prints.’ He held up his hands, fingers splayed, showing George his palms. ‘They match the scene.’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘No,’ said Monkton carefully, ‘they do.’ And he raised his finger, pointing at the ceiling. ‘It’s a match.’

  Without speaking George stood up and walked out to the corridor. He shut the door carefully and walked down to the toilet, locking himself in a stall. He couldn’t even cry. He sat on the toilet pan, and blinked over and over at the back of the door. It was Sunday. Diana had died. No one was in. None of the admin staff were in. The boy’s prints wouldn’t get processed until Monday morning.

  But Monkton had pointed at the ceiling, meaning it was being decided further up, somewhere. If George decided to pursue it he’d be setting himself in opposition to very powerful people. He’d lose rank, lose his sergeant’s pension. George didn’t know who Monkton was or who he knew or why he was so confident.

  That’s when George decided to leave the service and take up his cousin’s offer on the paper shop.

  13

  Robert McMillan had only reached a lower level of consciousness when his stomach lurched violently. H
e sprang from the bed, looking for something to vomit into and found himself in a strange room. He looked left. He looked right, vaguely aware of a blond Persian carpet and giant double bed. A black tin waste bin appeared in front of his mouth and he emptied himself into it, following it to the ground as it was gently lowered in front of him.

  He was on all fours, naked, vomiting green bile out of an empty stomach, unable to stop convulsive retching but suddenly aware of his surroundings. The waste bin was copper, lacquered black but chipped in places so that the copper glinted through. It looked like a military item, like something from the Boer War. At the bottom were the contents of his stomach, a lake of algal water reflecting frothy saliva clouds.

  Death. He’d been trying to remember, keep it at the forefront of his mind, but it kept slipping away. Even now his attention was drawn by irrelevant details. The rug below was very fine, silk, pale peach with white and yellow flowers blooming on stems sewn from green and the faintest tint of blue.

  ‘That’s it.’

  The voice was coming from behind him, unfamiliar, soft. And then a hand on his back, low. Too low for his waist. The warmth of a flat palm on his haunches. Though he was still being sick, though his nose was dripping from the force of his vomiting and his eyes were running, he was suddenly horrified by the intimate touch. He shot upright on his knees, his head and eyes roaring hangover objections.

  He opened his eyes, blinking to clear the tears, and turned with great effort to look at the figure on his left.

  Bright orange pubic hair under a small overhang of belly skin. Troublingly large pink nipples.