‘Who was it?’ Tony asked, feeling his stomach flip as he spoke as he swallowed back the rising burn of whiskey once more.
Duggan’s eyes flushed and he sniffed once as he regarded something on the far wall. ‘Kelly,’ he said.
‘Kelly?’ Tony felt first a rush of relief, followed just as quickly by shame at the joy he was feeling at another man suffering for his crime. ‘Are you sure?’
‘That’s Mullan’s decision. We just do as we’re told. Let’s go. The car’s outside.’
Tony looked at Karen and, for just a second, could have sworn he saw a change in her expression, from terror not to a look of relief, but of regret.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The look of regret on Karen’s face was the first thing that alerted Tony to his mistake. He rewound the sentence in his head, trying to work out the flaw. The others stood in silence, each considering the implications of his words. He’d only managed to do so himself, when Duggan himself spoke.
‘How did you know his name?’
Tony feigned ignorance. ‘Who? What name?’
‘Hamilton,’ Duggan said. ‘No one told you his name. How did you know?’
‘I must have overheard one of you talking about it,’ Tony said.
Duggan shook his head. ‘We made a point of never naming him. You shouldn’t ever have known his name.’ He pulled the gun free from his bag again. ‘How did you know his name?’
‘What difference does it make?’ Tony asked, his mouth suddenly dry, his jaw tight.
‘You knew his name. I want to know how.’
Tony looked from one face to the other and they were all closed against him, with the exception of Karen.
‘I must have heard it somewhere?’
Duggan nodded, moved closer to him, the gun raised. ‘I know that. I want to know where.’
‘I don’t remember,’ Tony said.
Duggan progressed on him, the gun steady now. ‘Where?’
Tony took a step back, felt the roughness of a tree trunk against his rump. ‘I can’t… I don’t remember.’
‘You spent that week looking to get out of it,’ Duggan said. ‘You hated Martin. I remember. You set him up.’
Tony could not move. He felt a tightness in his chest, felt the raggedy hoof beat of his heart. Duggan’s gun was now less than a foot from him, the man’s face set, his eyes blazing, his mouth tight with fury.
Tony shook his head, glanced at Mullan, Barr, Karen. Duggan followed his gaze to her.
‘You both set him up!’ he snapped. He turned now, towards Karen, pointing the gun at her, but looking at Tony. ‘How do you know his name?’
Tony looked at Karen, her eyes wide, fearful. She had people to lose, people who would miss her.
‘How do you know his fucking name?’ Duggan shouted, the gun closer to Karen now, waving a little in his hand as he struggled to control his rage.
She looked back at him in terror. He thought again of how, when talking to Barr, he’d realized that, if he died, no one would miss him.
He thought now too of all that had happened since the death of Kelly. The passing of his son, his parents, Ann. His teaching career was over, his friendships, all with Ann’s friends not his own, lost with her passing. He thought of the emptiness of his house, everything in its place, neat, the way Ann would have wanted it. And he realized, with a pang, that the life he’d been living, not just since Ann, but even before, had not been the life he’d expected, the life he’d imagined as he’d lain in bed with Karen thirty years ago, her very breaths pacing the rhythm of his heart.
And that realization brought with it resolution. He was not afraid to die; he no longer had reason to live. The thing he’d been looking for, here in the woods, he realized, had not been forgiveness at all, but confession.
‘I knew his daughter,’ he said. ‘It was me who went to his house that night. I was the one who warned him. It was me.’
He felt strangely invigorated by the words, even as his guts tightened, his chest heaving. He glanced at Karen who groaned and wondered at her reaction.
Duggan stared at him, though remained in front of Karen, his gun still wavering before her.
‘You?’ Mullan asked.
‘I taught his daughter, Alice,’ Tony explained. ‘I saw her at his house the night I went to Hugh, but I didn’t recognize her until Open Day. He came to school to collect her that afternoon and I made the connection. I’d not planned it,’ he added, hastily, as if in mitigation for what he’d done.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Nothing important.’
‘Our names?’
‘No,’ Tony protested. ‘I told him nothing important. Just that his life was in danger and he needed to leave. I didn’t give him anyone else’s names, I swear.’
‘It wouldn’t have taken a genius to make the connection between you and us,’ Duggan said. ‘We drank together.’
‘It was thirty years ago,’ Tony said. ‘He didn’t care about you, or me. He just wanted to keep his kid alive. If you’d listened to me–’
‘Listened to you?’ he said. ‘A fucking coward and a tout?’
‘Better that than kill a kid,’ Tony snapped, confident now in the rightness of his choice. ‘That youngster had already lost her mother. She was struggling and her father was the only thing she had. She’d done nothing wrong. She didn’t deserve it. She had a hard enough time as it was, just surviving. So I’m not sorry I spoke to him. I’m sorry that Martin took my place. I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest thirty years ago, and sorry I didn’t spare his family their grief, too. If I’m a coward, it’s not because I wouldn’t kill a child, it’s because I didn’t admit what I did back then. But I wouldn’t change what I did with the cop or Alice. I was right to do it. So fuck you, Hughie. You want to shoot me, go ahead. I’m ready.’
Tony realized how quiet it had become. Even the birds above them seemed to have been silenced by his words, as if waiting to see how Duggan might respond. Tony looked to Karen, who sat on the bough of a fallen tree over to his right, her head in her hands. He wanted to apologize to her, for not telling her earlier, not telling her back then, but he didn’t know what to say. For a moment, he worried that she was upset with him. He’d expected her to understand and was perturbed that she seemed not to, now.
He only realized the truth when Duggan spoke.
‘You fucking bitch!’ he shouted, raising the gun at her.
‘Wait!’ Tony shouted, rushing at him. ‘It was me! Me!’
‘You never named Martin,’ Duggan snapped, looking at him, the gun still trained on Karen. ‘That’s not on you.’
She looked at Tony, tears already bright in her eyes.
‘It was her said she seen him,’ Duggan said. ‘It’s her fault!’
‘You?’ Tony asked.
Karen nodded, the tears slipping freely down her face now as Tony realized that, in confessing, he had not damned himself, but damned her; she who had lied thirty years earlier, to save him.
Chapter Forty-Nine
‘No one’s going to save you,’ Duggan said.
They’d reached the forest and stood in silence as Duggan opened the trunk of the car, in which Kelly lay, gagged and bound. His body was livid with bruises, visible because his T-shirt had become pulled up in his thrashing around the boot, as he attempted in vain to get free. ‘Shout all you want,’ Duggan said. ‘No one’s coming.’
Kelly attempted to kick out, perhaps hoping to knock some of them off balance. The kick glanced off Tony’s side, though with little effect. Despite this, Duggan leaned into the trunk and punched Kelly, several times, on the side of the head, stunning him into silence.
‘Grab the shovels,’ Duggan said to Tony. ‘He’ll not hurt you.’
Tony reached in past the prone body, his head spinning. He’d not thought that, in protecting himself and denying his own guilt, they would inevitably blame someone else. They would punish someone else. And more than that, he had not considered t
hat he would be party to meting out that punishment.
‘Grab the petrol can as well and hand it to her,’ Duggan instructed.
Tony did as he was told, lifting the can, the petrol sloshing about inside as he pulled it from behind Kelly’s head and handed it to Karen.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
She nodded, not taking her eyes off Kelly where he lay and Tony knew that, in her head, she was already imagining the only possible ending of this.
Once they were ready, Duggan hauled Kelly to his feet, dragging him out of the trunk. He fell awkwardly to the ground, lay curled there, his hands grasping at the decaying leaves which cushioned his body.
‘Get up,’ Duggan said.
Kelly lay, groaning behind the gag. Duggan lifted his foot and kicked him hard in the balls. Kelly arched his back, sounded like he was choking against the rag that had been wadded in his mouth and taped over. ‘Get up,’ Duggan repeated. ‘Or you’ll get another one.’
Kelly struggled to his feet, but had not the energy or strength to stand. He slumped sideways, falling against the car while Duggan gripped at him to keep him upright.
‘Give him a hand,’ Duggan ordered, and Tony moved forward, ripe with guilt, and, putting his arm around Kelly to support him, used the shovel in his other hand to offer extra balance.
‘Let’s go,’ Duggan said. ‘The place will be empty by this time of the day.’
He carried a torch in one hand, a shovel in the other. Before he moved from the car, he put down the torch a moment and lifted a package, wrapped in blue plastic, from the boot of the car, and wedged it in his pocket.
‘We head north,’ he said.
The woodland was eerily still, the cries of the roosting rooks the only noise. Off to the left, the setting sun had branded the horizon in reds and gold. Tony wanted to tell Kelly to look, hoped he might see this final scene of beauty, but the man next to him kept his head bowed, watching his feet, trying not to trip, without the free use of his hands to break his fall.
Then they heard, for the first time, the sound of the jets rising from the runway of Glasgow airport, roaring overhead above them, life going on as a life here drew inexorably to its end. Tony ducked absurdly at the sound, looking up to see the plane, but he saw only the canopy of clouds.
After a while, the path veered a little to the right. It was darker now, the gloom thickened sufficiently among the trees for Duggan to switch on his torch, the circle of light bouncing between the tree trunks ahead, their upper branches lost in the ever-decreasing gradations of light. Occasionally, the lamp beam would catch a creature’s eyes, shining blue-green, watching impassively their progress through the woods.
They moved in silence, save for the ragged breathing of Kelly and a low keening moan that he made every so often, a futile protest against his fate.
They crossed a small stream, only three or four feet across, using as a bridge the freshly fallen trunk of a tree, its body entwined with ivy. The watercourse lay at the bottom of an incline, which they had to jog down. Here, Kelly lost control and stumbled and fell into the water. Tony dropped his shovel and, falling to his knees, heaved him out of the water. Only when he had so done did he realize the absurdity of saving the man from drowning, like a doctor treating a condemned patient.
They walked a further twenty minutes or so, veering always to the right, making their way into the depths of the woodland. Their progress slowed as they went, the twilight darkening to night, the torch limiting the scope of their movement to all that was encompassed within the narrow beam.
Finally, they broke into a small clearing, an ancient oak at its entrance, a row of spruce at the other side, perhaps eight feet away.
‘This’ll do,’ Duggan said.
Kelly slumped on to the ground, his body wracked with fresh sobbing.
‘Should we give him a drink or something?’ Karen asked.
‘He doesn’t deserve it.’
Kelly started to shudder of a sudden, his body seized by spasms, as if the shock of all that had happened to him and all that would had finally registered with him. The noise he made now became more guttural, as someone struggling to catch their breath.
‘He can’t breathe,’ Karen said. ‘Let him breathe.’
She ran across to him, dropping the petrol can and pulled the tape from his mouth, removing the rag it had held in place to silence him. He sucked in air greedily, gulping it down.
‘Please, Karen,’ he said. ‘Please, let me go. It wasn’t me.’
‘I can’t… I don’t know…’ She looked to Duggan who shrugged.
‘He was better gagged,’ he said. ‘You,’ to Tony, ‘start digging.’
He and Tony set into a rhythmic motion as they dug, one offloading the soil while the other dug their shovel into the earth to lift a fresh load.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kelly whimpered.
‘Strip him,’ Duggan said to Karen. ‘Everything off. Then burn it.’
‘What?’
Karen stood, aghast.
‘Take off his clothes. Everything. Even his jacks, in case he’s got a wire or something on him.’
Karen looked to Tony who shrugged. She moved across and began to slowly unlace one of Kelly’s shoes but he kicked out at her, striking her on the side of the head and knocking her to the ground. Duggan was up out of the shallow hollow in the earth and on him, striking Kelly’s body with the shovel.
‘Be a man,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll fucking shoot you in the stomach and leave you to bleed, otherwise.’
Karen sat up, her face smeared with tears.
‘He’ll not do it again,’ Duggan said, misunderstanding the cause of her crying. ‘He’ll behave himself.’
As Karen peeled off his shoes and socks, then started to work at his belt to remove his trousers, Tony tried not to look, focusing instead on the deepening grave. He knew he should confess, tell them what had happened. But he was afraid. He didn’t want to die, didn’t think it fair that he should end up in an unmarked grave for doing the right thing. As he reflected on it, he convinced himself that he was doing the right thing. He had saved a life, maybe two at least. Kelly had already claimed one, that he knew of, with Shauna Laird, never mind how many countless others who’d suffered taking the drugs he peddled. Kelly deserved this more than he did, Tony decided. And he almost convinced himself that that was true.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Kelly started again, his breath back after Duggan’s kick. ‘I swear on my mother’s life, it wasn’t me, Hugh.’
‘You were seen,’ Duggan hissed. ‘You were seen going into that cop’s house.’
‘That a lie,’ Kelly said. ‘Please, Hugh, you’ve got to believe me. That’s a lie. You know me. Who said they saw me?’
Duggan did not look up, digging into the ground, the air fresh and sharp with the dampness of the earth as they deepened the hole. ‘I trusted you,’ he spat angrily.
‘I didn’t do it, Hugh,’ Kelly said, looking around wildly for support, his gaze lighting on Tony. ‘Was it him? He hates me, you know that, Hugh. He blames me for that girl who OD’d. You know that, Hugh. You know. Please.’
‘It had nothing to do with him,’ Duggan said. ‘Don’t embarrass yourself any more, son. You know what you did.’
Kelly was crying again now. ‘Was it you?’ he asked, looking at Karen, who lowered her head, tugging at his trouser leg. He kicked out at her, lightly, to get her attention. ‘Was it you? Is this because of the party? It was a joke, all right? It was a joke.’
‘What was a joke?’ Tony said, standing, as Duggan stooped again to his task.
‘The pill. It was a joke. It was a fucking joke,’ Kelly said. ‘I just slipped her one thing, one thing. She’d not even remember. It was a joke. It was a JOKE!’
He began thrashing now. Duggan stepped up again, his hands already curling into fists and unleashed a barrage of punches on the prone figure. Kelly curled on himself, screaming at each strike. ‘I trusted you. Trusted you. I trusted you!’ he shouted, e
ach word punctuated with a blow.
Duggan leaned down, tearing at Kelly’s T-shirt, ripping it up the middle and tearing it from his body. He ripped down each short sleeve, in order to remove the garment without having to undo the binds that held his arms.
‘Get his trunks off him and gag him again. I don’t want to hear him, anymore.’
‘Please, Hugh,’ Kelly cried. ‘I’ll not shout. I’ll not shout.’
Duggan looked at Karen and nodded, then began digging again. Tony watched her removing Kelly’s underwear, keeping her head averted so she did not look at his nakedness.
‘He drugged you?’ Tony asked.
‘I said,’ Karen said, her tears streaming freely now. ‘I said that it wasn’t my fault.’
‘I’m sorry, Karen,’ Tony said.
Chapter Fifty
‘I’m sorry, Karen,’ Tony said. ‘I didn’t know.’
He stood next to her, his hand on her shoulder. She made no effort to remove his hand, nor did she acknowledge he was there. She stared straight ahead, her tears coursing freely.
‘She was watching!’ Duggan said. ‘She said she saw someone going in after dark. She told us it was Kelly. Was that a lie?’
Karen nodded.
‘Why?’
She looked up at him, angrily. ‘Why? Why do you think? He was a scumbag. He killed that wee lassie that used to come into Betty’s. He sold to kids. He drugged me. He was worse than the very people we were meant to be saving the country from and yet we were meant to work with him? Where’s the morality in that?’
The Last Crossing Page 23