The Red Road

by Denise Mina

The hippy stood with his hands hanging by his sides now, unselfconscious, watching Robert impassively. ‘Make sure it goes in the bin,’ he said softly, looking at the vomit. ‘The rug’s worth thirty thousand pounds.’

  He turned and padded across the room to the doorway. Robert watched his sagging buttocks until they disappeared down the dim corridor, then swung back to face the bin and threw up again.

  A mug of coffee sat on the table in front of Robert, next to a deep Bristol Blue glass with water in it, and a strip of painkillers.

  He stared hard at them, trying to keep his line of vision on the table. When he had stopped being sick the first thing he did was stagger across the bedroom and pull his trousers on before following the sound of the radio into the kitchen. The hippy, however, was still completely bare. He was not in the least bit bothered by being naked in the cold blue light of a cold blue day but sashayed barefoot, stomach out, baggy-arsed, oblivious to being seen.

  ‘Underfloor heating,’ he said, as if in answer to a question.

  It took a moment for Robert to fit it into his head. Underfloor heating. He moved his toes. The slate was warm to touch. It was quite lovely.

  He took two pills out of the packet, put them in his mouth and tried to chase them with as little water as possible. They got stuck sideways, the water melting them, and they powdered on the back of his tongue. He managed to swallow some more water but the bitter paracetamol aftertaste hung in his mouth, making the saliva glands in his cheeks yawn.

  The hippy came to the table and sat down at right angles to him.

  ‘Do you remember last night?’ he said quietly.

  Robert didn’t. He remembered being in the front room, drunk and sobbing and the hippy being there but not looking at him. Darkness in the pink drawing room. The firelight and another drink being poured. Standing somewhere, somewhere with a low ceiling, by a door. Then he remembered waking up, levitated from the bed by a wave of nausea.

  Robert hadn’t eaten yesterday. He imagined himself sobbing, telling the hippy everything. Did he? The hippy couldn’t know. It was so convoluted, the story, Robert would have talked about the money and the photos of Rose and the SOCA report and that men were coming to kill him. The hippy would have been sickened if he’d told him. And he’d be frightened. He’d have mentioned the police by now.

  ‘You were a bit drunk.’

  ‘Was I?’ Robert felt sure there must have been hash cakes or pills or something, to make him black out that much. His throat was sore, maybe he had smoked something.

  ‘I need to go,’ said the hippy.

  Robert drank his coffee and the pills kicked in. More remembered snapshots came to him. Falling. A square table with a glass on it.

  They’d kill him when they found him here.

  The hippy was back at the door to the kitchen, dressed this time. He was wearing a tweed cape with a matching hat and a bizarre pheasant’s tail feather sticking backwards out of it. ‘What time do your friends arrive?’

  Robert didn’t know what to say. Five? Nine? Tomorrow? What had he said last night? And then finally, why lie? Was the man wearing women’s clothes?

  ‘They’re not coming. It’s just me.’

  Robert couldn’t look at the hippy, stared nervously at his coffee cup, his eyes falling on the blue glass and the hippy’s reflection. The face looked warped in the glass, as if he’d had a stroke. Embarrassed, Robert looked back up and said accusingly, ‘Are you wearing women’s clothes?’

  ‘Am I?’ The hippy flattened his hands to his stomach and looked down at himself. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Those are women’s clothes.’

  ‘OK.’ He stood straight. ‘Well-made, anyway.’

  After a while he heard a door close and moments afterwards felt the cold from outside curl around his toes and realised that the hippy had gone out of a front door. This subterranean flat had its own door.

  A growl outside, coming from the back of the house, and Robert looked up to see four fat wheels pass the window. The hem of a tweed cape and a pair of cowboy boots on a quad bike.

  Moving carefully, trying to keep his head level, Robert stood up slowly and looked around the room. A large cream-coloured Aga, old and chipped with three doors that hung as if they were exhausted. A large pot sitting on top with a wooden spoon through the handle. Next to it a bread board and fresh white bread sitting on its nose to keep the cut side fresh.

  His first instinct was to go over and smell the food but his stomach churned at the thought. He should get out of here.

  Back in the bedroom he followed the trail of his clothes, shirt by the wardrobe, vest nearer the bed. He found one sock on the blankets and took a guess, feeling under the sheets and finding the other one halfway down. A sudden flash of memory: the two of them in the bed, drunk, were they hugging? Robert sat up. Hugging? Naked hugging? Was he remembering that?

  No.

  He’d imagined that. There were no physical sensations attached to the image. It wasn’t a memory. Or was it? No. Or was it? It felt like the image of him sobbing in the front room but it wasn’t likely, was it? But his sock was in the bed. The hippy held his hips as he vomited. And the hippy wore women’s coats and hats with feathers in them. That wasn’t normal but it didn’t seem gay when he did it, more like a sartorial mishap.

  Cringing, Robert looked at the bed. No. God no, it hadn’t happened. Now he was worried that he’d even wondered about it. And then, as if recalling an onerous social obligation, it occurred to him that he was going to be murdered today, his life would end for ever, so there was no fucking point worrying about physical contact, hugging, inappropriate or otherwise.

  He found his shoes outside the door, one sitting properly, the other on its side. He had everything. Then he looked over at the bin sitting at the side of the dressing table.

  It was a beautiful object. The thin light of day filtered in through the low windows and hit the exposed orange copper, just chips here and there on the tar-like enamel. It had a rolled copper brim and was bashed on the side as if someone had kicked it. He walked over to it and looked in.

  The hippy had emptied the vomit out and washed it and dried it and put it back where it belonged.

  The clothes, the furniture, the house, everything the hippy had was second-hand, someone else’s stuff. He was wearing an Edwardian lady’s coat, cowboy boots and riding a bad ass, filthy quad bike. He was living in his ancestral castle, inhabiting his own history. Robert wished he could tell him about his father because the hippy, of all people, might understand the suffocating weight of his inheritance.

  Robert held his bundle of clothes and went out to the hall. A door sat open to a set of stone stairs leading up inside the castle. He stepped outside the little underground flat. Shutting the door, he heard the lock snap behind him. He immediately felt colder.

  He put his foot on the first step and found it there, waiting for him: the awareness of his own death.

  14

  The circular portico in front of the high court was busy with smokers. All of the cases started at ten prompt and everyone was anxious to get as much nicotine into their bloodstream as they could before they went in. Gowned QCs stood in small groups, smoking quietly next to the families of accused and the families of the wronged who all smoked with their eyes down, avoiding contact with one another. Whatever their differences, there was a consensus of shame in the smoking area.

  Wheatly dropped Morrow in the car park. She scanned for Atholl’s face as she walked from the car park. She expected to see him. She didn’t know if he smoked, she had supposed that he would. She was looking for him, reading the faces, when a small white rectangle passed the very outer scope of her vision. She stopped, turned and saw a white van pulling into the salt market traffic. Wheatly hadn’t mentioned the reg number. He was drawing out behind her and she flagged him down.

  ‘That reg,’ she said. ‘Did you get anything on it?’

  ‘No record. Just a guy called Stepper.’

  She looke
d to the corner but the van was gone. ‘Find out what you can about him for when I get back,’ she said and walked away.

  White vans were so common, it was easy to get paranoid. Still, her mind reeled through a pencilled list: Brown’s people, gun-toting school-age nutters. Danny’s people, smiley, photograph-of-mum liar sharks. Suspicious loan givers. Angry roof repairers short of work. It wasn’t a list of suspects, she realised, it was a list of worries.

  She passed the glass wall and glanced into the lobby. The two armed officers were there, as yet without their weapons but still intimidating in their full black kit and ten-mile stares. They wouldn’t bring their guns out until the lobby cleared when Brown would be whisked in around the corner.

  McCarthy was there already, sitting on a bench, facing the door, the MobileID bag between his feet. He must have been watching for her for a while and gave a delighted smile and a cheery wee wave to her. He flushed, embarrassed, and dropped his hand.

  Morrow went through the revolving doors and looked for him again, smiling at him and giving him the sort of wave she’d give the babies on a carousel. They grinned at each other.

  She was behind a very old man in the security queue. He gave off the smell of coal tar soap. She could see the back of his neck, the slash tracks of a thousand skyward glances. He had a polythene bag with him. Dexie the security guard rooted through it with a pen, increasingly puzzled.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, what are these?’ Dexie was an American ex-serviceman whose wife was from Hamilton. He had American teeth, looked jarringly healthy in the company of Glaswegians, a full head taller and broad on the chest. Because of his accent and confident demeanour Morrow always felt as if she was an unwitting player in an oddly boring TV show when he was there.

  The old man was explaining the notion of novenas to Dexie.

  ‘Prayer cards?’ said Dexie, not much better off than before he asked.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said the soapy gentleman, about to launch into a further theological exploration of the issue.

  ‘Are you selling them?’ asked Dexie. Morrow knew Dexie. He was smart and he didn’t need to know this, it wasn’t a gun, it wasn’t a bomb, but he had the sort of distance a tourist has, knew he’d get the antsy queue in on time and was interested.

  ‘Certainly not selling them—’

  Dexie interrupted, ‘Don’t give them out or leave them lying around, sir.’ He put the man’s bag of prayers through to the other side of the metal detection arch and waved him along.

  ‘How are you today, ma’am?’

  ‘Very well, Dexie, how are you?’

  ‘Busy.’

  Morrow shrugged her coat off, laid it in the plastic tray, emptied her pockets into another tray with her phones and pocket change. Dexie pushed them along the rollers into the X-ray machine. She opened her handbag for him to look in and he took it from her, waved her through the arch and handed her bag back to her.

  He told her she should have a nice day, and she ordered him to do the same.

  ‘Actually, Dexie,’ she hung back, keeping him from the next security risk, ‘is Anton Atholl in yet?’

  ‘Well, ma’am ...’ She should go to reception but Dexie looked over there and saw the size of the queue. ‘Um.’ He looked back at her. ‘Yeah. I don’t know where he is though. I believe he’s in court four today.’

  ‘I know he is. He’s cross-examining me. Thanks, Dexie, I’ll find him.’

  McCarthy stood waiting for her on the other side. ‘Brought it.’ He held up the large square bag.

  ‘Great.’ She looked up and saw Anton Atholl coming down the stairs with another lawyer, both wigged and gowned, talking seriously.

  She told McCarthy to wait and walked over to meet Atholl at the bottom of the stairs, remembering the beguiling lightness of yesterday’s interaction, wary of his charm. She needn’t have bothered. He was very hung-over, she could tell by the angle of his neck. He was trying not to move his head.

  Morrow had had just two glasses of wine last night and she didn’t feel one hundred per cent. She’d even left most of the second glass in case the boys were up all night, which they weren’t. She’d had a hangover once. It was a long time ago, before she joined the police, a simple miscalculation of lagers over an evening. She’d felt sick and headachy for an entire day. But as Atholl looked up at her she knew her sore head many years ago bore no relation to what he was feeling now.

  ‘Good send-off?’

  He tried to smile and then thought better of it. ‘Mr McMillan would have enjoyed it, I think.’

  ‘Hope they didn’t keep you up too late?’

  ‘No, no, no. Some of us went on to a private club.’ He smiled at the man next to him, as though it had been his idea, but the other lawyer looked back at him vacantly. ‘Stayed there until the wee small hours. Great night. Go down in history. “Good night, sweet prince” and all that.’

  He was over-embellishing. Morrow thought maybe it was a bit of a grim night after all. He looked a bit sad. ‘And what can I aid you with today?’

  His studied pomposity was a defence, she thought, a way of fending people off. ‘I need to ask you something.’

  Atholl nodded goodbye to the other lawyer and led Morrow to a bench under the high window. He sat next to her, just a little too close, his thigh almost touching hers. He smelled a little stale. Morrow moved away.

  ‘We need to MobileID your client. We found his prints at a scene of a crime that happened a few days ago.’

  Atholl frowned. ‘He was in prison.’

  ‘That’s why we need to MobileID him.’

  Atholl sat up, looked away from her. He thought about it for a minute and then gave an odd little laugh. ‘What sort of scene?’

  ‘A murder.’

  He harrumphed, thought again, and turned back to face her without moving his head on his neck. ‘Brown may not agree to it. You can only insist if he’s been charged with a fresh offence.’

  She was sure Atholl’s reluctance was feigned.

  ‘I think he will agree. I think he knows this is coming.’ She stood up with the window to her back so that the cruel morning light was on Atholl’s face, making him flinch. ‘I think you knew this was coming.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Atholl said it so simply she almost believed him. She was a little stumped.

  ‘OK, ask him if we can,’ she said. ‘See how surprised he is.’

  She was walking away to the witness room but found Atholl at her back. ‘DI Morrow,’ he said, flinching because he’d moved too quickly. ‘Michael Brown’s really ill.’

  She made a disbelieving face.

  ‘Crohn’s disease,’ he said quietly. ‘Pretty advanced. Do you know what Crohn’s is?’

  ‘It’s a gut thing?’

  ‘A terrible “gut thing”.’

  ‘Well, don’t ask me to be sympathetic to him just because he’s—’

  ‘I’m not asking for sympathy.’ Atholl’s accent had changed, he was whispering and sounded sincere. ‘Just saying: I don’t think he’s a scheming mastermind. He wasn’t getting any treatment when he was out. He’s got open sores all over his shins, he can hardly walk across the cell to use the toilet. D’you know what I’m saying? That’s not it, is what I’m saying ...’ Atholl shrugged. ‘Never mind. I’ll ask him.’

  Morrow watched him walk away, carefully keeping his head level. She could have countered with the Cyprus villa, but then they’d know Interpol was feeding them information about the Dutch lawyer’s banking transactions.

  The tannoy announced that the case was about to start.

  ‘You wait here until we get word,’ she told McCarthy. ‘Might be a while though.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said lightly, ‘I can wait.’

  As Morrow walked down the back corridor it occurred to her suddenly that they might be planning to sell the Cyprus villa to pay for his defence. She could be looking at it from completely the wrong angle. She flicked her warrant card at the guard on the door and went into the witness wa
iting room. She organised herself, turning her phones to silent, getting her notes out of her bag and ready in case she need to refer to them, folding her coat nicely on the chair. She could leave that there, she thought, hearing the call of the macer and the scrape of chairs as the court rose for the judge.

  She stood ready behind the door, an actor waiting for a cue. She thought about Atholl asking whether she knew what he was saying or not saying. She couldn’t even guess what that was about.

  The door opened and the macer invited her into the court. Morrow took the stairs down. She had worn the right shoes this time, flats with a soft sole. She didn’t attract much attention: the jury were familiar with her now, Brown knew how she was going to be and Atholl was busy with his papers. She took the chance to look around.

  Michael Brown was so white he looked almost silver. He had lost weight and was staring at the floor in front of him. Atholl was gathering his folder together.

  The macer, she noticed, was looking at Atholl, smiling a little, fond and sceptical. Then the macer turned her attention to Morrow, reminded her that she was still under oath and placed a note on the witness-dock shelf in front of her. It was a creamy bit of paper, folded, with FAO DI Morrow written on it in black ink pen. The writing was fat and gorgeous and she knew immediately it was Atholl’s.

  He gathered his folders, went to the stand, put them down and paled dramatically. He hesitated, opened the top file and suddenly the colour returned to his face as he rallied. ‘DI Morrow.’ He looked up and smiled, gorgeous. ‘How are we today?’

  He meant to wrong-foot her.

  ‘Fine.’ She smiled back. ‘How are you?’

  The jury tittered, the macer relaxed and the game began again.

  It took no more than thirty minutes for her to finish giving evidence. She was dismissed, took the stairs down and then up to the witness room, taking her bag with her this time. Dr Peter Heder, the fingerprint expert, was waiting in the witness room. Pete was a big, bearded man, a worrier, whose benefit was his expertise rather than calm presentation style. He hurried to his feet, cheek twitching.