Strangely enough the sexual rationing wasn’t really an issue as he was banging one of his staff whenever he wanted and there were always plenty of holiday makers impressed enough by “the bar owner” tag to drop their knickers for an after - hours “wee drink”.
Joe Turner was an ordinary guy. Wife at home, bit on the side, pissed when he wants and not slow to keep the wife in line when necessary. Besides, things would work out, just as long as you didn’t talk about them. Kate had told him that she wanted to go and see her mother more often in Glasgow as ‘she was getting on.’ Joe understood, that’s what daughters do, especially when they want to discuss womanly things, who better than your mum? The only thing he didn’t like was that “that fanny” Pete Harris would be there and, although she was always open about meeting up with him when she visited Glasgow, he still didn’t like it. On the other hand, it did let him make his ‘own arrangements’ so he didn’t make much of a song and dance about it. He didn’t see why wives had to meet up with ex–boyfriends, especially ones who “wanted to talk.” He had asked her once if she was honestly saying that Perfect Peter wouldn’t have her knickers off in a minute if she let him. She agreed he would, ‘he was a guy wasn’t he’, but ‘he wasn’t like that’ and would never get the chance anyway. Joe had decided he was going to make Spag Bol when they both got back from their separate trips and go as high as eight, nine euros on a bottle of red. Everything would be fine. She’d forgive him. She might even be willing to have sex. Joe Turner was an ordinary guy.
***
Pete Harris loved Kate Turner. He’d loved her when they went dancing 30 odd years before. He was her first lover and she his first “true” love. There was an age difference but it didn’t seem to matter to them back then; but Pete Harris knew it began to matter to Kate. He still loved her when she moved to Spain saying it was only for ‘the season’, even though he knew she wouldn’t be back...not to him anyway. He still loved her when he married his first wife, Ann, and his second wife, Sally. He loved her when they met up on her occasional visits back to Glasgow to see her mum. He loved her last night even if she seemed to have changed from the Kate he knew.
The evening had gone well:
‘I only meet you for sedimental reasons, you know, Kate.’
‘You mean sentimental?’
‘No, I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel.’
They had always laughed together. He had hoped she would stay longer but she seemed distracted and keen to get away. He thought it was something he’d said, he was always telling her to leave that loser Joe, slipping in that he was thinking of leaving Sally. Hope over reality.
‘It’s not you Pete, honestly. You’re a dear friend. I ignore most of the things you say anyway!’ Kate laughed.
‘Well, there’s something about you that’s different. You’re kind of glowing. Shit, you’re not pregnant are you?’ although why that notion panicked him, he couldn’t say.
‘At 46! What you on Pete? Although I wouldn’t mind if I was, I’m in love.’
Pete’s mind raced between confusion, disappointment, resentment and anger.
‘Thought that would be the last thing you and Joe would want.’
‘It would be. It wouldn’t be Joe’s.’
Only anger remained in Pete Harris’ head.
‘You mean?’
‘Yeah, I’m seeing someone. It’s complicated but……’
Pete Harris erupted from his stool, his latte overturned, its contents slowly dripping from the edge of the table, the hotel restaurant’s collection of gourmet sauce sachets scattering over the wooden lounge bar floor.
‘Where are you going?’ Kate stuttered.
‘Away from you, you bitch!’
‘What? Why? Christ Pete, what is it?’
‘Why! You know I’ve always been in love with you. I tell you every time we meet. You always say, “Joe, the kids” and all the time you’ve been up for a shag with anybody. Why not me?’
Kate was flustered and confused. She hated confrontation but she was not prepared to take this unwarranted verbal assault.
‘Don’t dare speak to me like that, Pete. I’m not up for ‘a shag’, as you so charmingly put it, with anyone. I happen to be in love, just not with you. Pete, I was only a kid when we got together.’
Pete Harris was swaying where he stood, his anger refusing to subside.
‘I never stopped loving you. You know that. How could you hit me with this?’
Kate had collected up her bags and was trying to put on her jacket whilst preserving some sort of dignity in front of the smattering of other diners.
‘Pete, I’m sorry. I never thought you would react this way. I’d better go anyway.’
‘Yes, you’d better. And don’t keep in touch, you fucking cow.’
Kate shuffled out of the restaurant into the hotel grounds; by the river, her mind’s turn to race from disappointment to confusion to anger. She quickly realised she had taken a wrong turn; away from the front entrance. She had only wanted to extricate herself from the situation, get away from Pete, but now she realised she had a bit of a dilemma. How to get from a quiet riverside hotel in the Clyde Valley to Glasgow city centre, without transport, and no signal on her mobile phone.
Several minutes later Pete Harris left the bar. He looked around frantically, he saw Kate trying to source a source a signal on her mobile.
‘Get away from me, Pete.’
‘Kate, I’m sorry. You just took me aback, that’s all. Let me give you a lift.’
‘Not a chance, Pete. I’m phoning a taxi and I don’t ever want to see you again.’
Peter Harris looked at the ground ‘here, let me see if I can get a signal’. He moved towards her.
Kate neither saw nor felt the initial blow. All was darkness. Later, the freezing water of the river brought her back into the present as she slid down the embankment and the waters enveloped her torn dress; her violated body. She grasped at some exposed roots and pulled herself from the waters. She managed to get to her feet by balancing against a tree trunk. She saw movement through her pain and distress. Her reaction on seeing him approaching her was one of overwhelming relief, her shock and outrage momentarily dissipated by the knowledge she was alive. A little surprised, perhaps, but the last few moments had been so surreal her mind couldn’t seem to process any kind of rational thought. Why had this happened? How? What had come over Pete?
‘Thank......’
Strangely, the feeling she felt as the blade sliced into her body was one of contentment. She had never really feared death, just the pain of it, and there was no pain. Will the kids will be distraught when they hear? Mum will blame herself.
The second blow was harsher, sharper. She wondered if the dirges she was forced to listen to long ago in Sunday School might be true. She hoped so. She smiled: I’ll see dad again. Has he stopped? Am I alive? Is he moving me or am I moving myself? It’s such a lovely evening. Please, not the river, not the cold. My new red shoes.
Her former lover walks away and, as darkness envelopes Kate Turner forever, the heavens applaud.
***
It was a beautiful sunny Monday morning. Even the normally sullen Glasgow commuters seemed to have a spring in their step as they headed to their various places of employment.
An angry man was checking out of The Cathedral House Hotel. He had spent the whole of Sunday drifting between rage and agitation, resentment and confusion; he had read in the hotel’s In-House magazine that the city had built up an economy based on the provision of Call Centres for global organisations: Christ, ship building to bullshitting in a generation, and realised that that was exactly what Kate Turner was, a bullshiter.
The bar area in The Cathedral House Hotel doubled as the hotel’s reception area but the quirkiness of the arrangement seemed to add to the hotel’s appeal in his eyes, rather than take away from it.
‘Something’s come up and I have to book out early. Sorry,’ he said to the foreign receptionist.
>
‘This is a shem. We hope you enjoy-ed your stay,’ Ivana replied.
‘Everything’s been fine.’
‘And your lady friend, she is going from us, too?’
‘So it seems.’
The Polish receptionist, Ivana, was slightly confused by the exchange but put it down to losing something in the accent.
“Tunstall” had moved about a mile down river by then.
***
Azrael was glad and relieved when he finally got home. Home to his music. He knew he would have to prepare for getting back to work the next day but the lyrics, his inspiration, would help with that. He loved Linda Ronstadt. She didn’t necessarily write the songs she sang, something he preferred, but she sang them from the soul and, on balance, that was the most important thing. She had obviously repented. He had seen a musician being interviewed once, he couldn’t remember who; he only seemed to remember the women. The guy had said that his music was a way of turning “daydreams into sound”. He loved that, wished he had said it. He had never craved material things and he had sought forgiveness for what was, without doubt, a sin of indulgence when he spent so much on his Bang and Olufsen sound system; but he consoled himself by acknowledging that if you seek perfection then you have to have the equipment to achieve it. It had been a shame how things had worked out over the week-end but he was merely the instrument. She had had the opportunity for redemption; she chose her own path, her own fate. He believed in destiny and fate. Destiny leads you to the path, it’s up to you to walk down the road or not and destiny had led her to him. He was her fate. Freud wrote that although it was true that men could be envious it was mostly due to not being able to “achieve” in life whereas women’s envy came solely from sexual issues so the only way to give them the chance of redemption was to allow them the opportunity to forego the sexual act. If they spurned that opportunity, then so be it. Destiny. He lay down on the couch, his favourite place in his flat, and let the music and words sweep over him. Names, initials, messages swirling in his mind.
***
Healy didn’t really know why he automatically seemed to go into a gruff, aggressive mode with liberal doses of swearing, whenever he was dealing with junior colleagues. It wasn’t his true persona but one that just seemed to have formed of its own volition over the years.
‘What’s your name again, son?’ said Healy.
‘DC Paul Allan, sir,’ replied the rookie
‘Well, DC Paul Allan, why CID?’
‘I feel it’s the sharp end of policing, sir, and solving murders is why I joined the force.’
‘Is it? Is it really? Well, would you like to know how I see you fitting in to this squad?’
‘Yes, sir. Definitely.’
‘Right. Don’t get in the fucking way, say fuck all and get me cups of tea even when I don’t fucking ask for them. Got that?’
‘Yes, sir, but may I just ask..?’
‘No, you may not.’
Allan wasn’t too dispirited. He’d heard all about Healy from his uncle. In fact, he’d requested this move because he wanted to learn from the best and Healy was the best. He realised he might be a bit difficult at first; given the squad’s new hierarchy and that he probably suspected that Healy, like Dornan, thought he was “a plant” but he wasn’t and he’d prove his worth. Besides, he kind of thought his uncle was a bit of a prat.
‘Oh, and one last thing, you ever come flying into the squad room and shout “Sur, there’s been a murdur!” and I’ll punch your lights out.’ Paul Allan walked away smiling.
Matt Healy thought about Susan Dornan. She was one of the new breed, highly educated. He was never quite sure why these kind of people wanted to join the police, what their motivation was. He found it difficult to initiate small talk at the best of times, hence his outbursts, his fake persona, but there was something about Dornan. He would make a conscious effort to help her. ‘Her looks aren’t exactly a barrier either’ but, in truth, he didn’t think that being around death and mayhem was a proper place for woman. He glanced out of the window at a passing black van with gold lettering on the side:
“Co-Op Funeral Directors” followed by a 0800 phone number. The van stopped in a queue for the traffic lights on the corner. Healy spotted the smaller writing on the van’s door:
“Sponsors of Glasgow’s Phoenix Choir”, ‘Jesus, only in Glasgow,’ thought Healy ‘only in Glasgow.’
***
It was a balmy Tuesday evening on Rocca Grossa, the hill overlooking Lloret de Mar where most resident Brits had their homes. Joe Turner had woken from his “afternoon shift” with his usual hangover. He was confused at first. As the years passed, it was taking him longer and longer to pull himself together after his afternoon sessions. He knew Kate wasn’t around but he wasn’t entirely sure if it was that day or the next that she had been due back. He just knew he had needed to be back in Spain before her. He shuffled to the kitchen for a glass of water, tripping over a pile of unopened mail lying in the hall. He noticed from the stamps that there were a couple from the UK but knew they would be for Kate as no-one ever wrote to him. He decided to phone her mum.
‘Martha, it’s Joe, is Kate there?’
Kate Turner’s mother, Martha Reid, was the quintessential secondary school English teacher. Not quite Jean Brodie, Glasgow couldn’t accommodate that, but not far off. Unlike the fictional character, Martha considered her life to be content and fulfilled. It was true that Kate’s father had disappeared to Australia with a younger women many years previously, she had heard he had died a few years ago somewhere near Brisbane, but she had thrived in academia and had felt no need for a second go at the roulette wheel of marriage. She had taught in an all-girl school but time and location had dissolved all illusions of Marcia Blaine. Martha was retired now but kept active and walked every second day to her part – time job in a flower shop rather aptly named “Thanks a Bunch” in the area’s Byres Road. She didn’t need the money but the company was welcome and on a Friday evening she was allowed to take home a bunch of fresh flowers to adorn the teak coffee table that sat in her flat’s bay window.
‘Oh, hello Joe. No. Isn’t she home yet?’
So it was today.
‘No, I thought she maybe decided to stay on with you for a couple of days. Maybe she’s phoned. I’ve not been in the house much to be fair.’
‘Must be something like that. Maybe the flight’s been delayed. You know what they’re like.’
‘When did she leave your house?’
‘Well, as you know, she wasn’t actually staying with me. I saw her on Friday evening. A couple of hours on Saturday afternoon was the last time, but she was staying with her friend, Julie. More fun, I suppose.’
‘OK Martha that’s fine. I’ll get her to call you.’
‘Do that. Bye, Joe.’
Joe sat beside the phone for quite a while. He opened a bottle of Estrella to help him think. Kate had never mentioned that she wasn’t actually staying with her mother and, as far as he knew, Kate and Julie only spoke occasionally and he was certain that Kate hadn’t told him she was even meeting up with her, never mind staying with her.
Joe made a conscious decision not to panic. Nothing had changed, maybe it was even better.
***
A few moments after Joe Turner had, unknown to me, finished his conversation with his mother in law, he had picked up the phone again. My nightmare was about to begin. I had taken the day off. I wouldn’t say I loved my job as a lawyer as the nature of the beast was that you did, indeed, have to deal with the odd beast but, in general terms, I got satisfaction from it and it did afford me a good life style. Despite being away from the office, I was sitting in much coveted silence reading over some case notes. My phone rang.
‘Is that you, Ray?’
‘Yes. Who’s this?’
‘It’s me. Joe. You tosser.’
‘Joe! How are you? It’s a bad line.’
‘Well, OK I suppose, but I’m a bit worried to tell th
e truth, needed someone to talk to’, said Joe.
‘Right, what’s up? Business crap?’ Joe had occasionally phoned me in the past to bemoan the fact that British tourists had moved on, both geographically and in their tastes, and I was assuming this was another call along the same lines.
‘It is as it happens, but no, nothing like that. You know how things have been a bit strained between me and Kate recently?’
‘Well, you did say something about that, yea.’ In all honesty, I hadn’t remembered Joe telling me anything like that; but I did sometimes tend to switch off when Joe was in full rant mode, so I had more than likely missed him saying anything about him and Kate.
‘Right. Well she went over to Glasgow on Friday, supposedly to see her mum and she ain’t come back.’
‘What do you mean she hasn’t come back, have you spoken to her?’
‘No.’
‘When was she due back?’
‘Around 11.00 Spanish time this morning. She was booked on the early flight.’
I didn’t quite know how to react to what I was hearing. Joe seemed to want to talk but I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t telling me the whole story.
This isn’t like the Kate I know but at the same time I knew she could be a bit off the wall at times.
The Initial Blow Page 3