by philip boyle
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘When I was picked up. When I saw your men here, in this spot, they were waiting for a woman. She came out of that building over there.’ He looks over in the direction of the concrete bunker.
‘What about her?’
‘Who is she?’
‘I’ve no idea. I’d have to check at the station. Why do you keep asking about her?’
‘Because I know her. I met her before.’
‘Where?’
‘When I was in Stirling, where Detective Harding came to see me. I was in a pub one of the nights. I was sitting beside this woman. Linda Patterson. She told me she was a single mother, that she got out by herself one night a month. We had a couple of drinks, nothing more. Then a couple of nights later I saw her at a bus stop. With a suitcase. She told she was going to see her sister, I think. Not sure where.’
Andy was coming to the conclusion that this guy was making up stories as he went along, that he may well have believed them. Stories upon stories. Eddie came back to Andy.
‘And then I end up here, coming back here, to re-trace everything, just like you and me are today. I stayed a night in the hotel, having learned nothing more. I came out here and saw the car across the road. I knew they were cops. I was sure they were waiting for me. I had just seen the news on the TV. Had just seen my own photograph. Know how strange that is? I was sure they’d trace me here. Somebody in the hotel would surely have recognized me. Then I saw them and couldn’t understand why they didn’t come into the hotel and just take me in. Because they weren’t waiting for me at all. I could have walked away. I hadn’t done anything after all. I practically had to force them to believe who I was. And then I see her. Linda. And it can’t be, I’m thinking. It just fucking can’t be. Okay maybe she was lying to me in that pub in Stirling. She wasn’t who she pretended to be. That’s okay. She owed me nothing, least of all me. But to end up here, on this road, at this time, how can that be?’ He looked at Andy to explain it to him. Explain the rules of the game that was being played on him.
Another plastic chair and his stomach grumbled for lack of food. In the station corridor this time. No longer a suspect. Involved certainly but in what way nobody was quite certain, least of all Eddie himself. Andy promised to find out about Linda. He was free to go but he wanted to wait. He leaned over in the chair, stretching tired muscles. He heard drunken screams from a room nearby. Andy appeared in front of him. If ever a man needed sleep this was the man. If he lay down now he might never get up again. ‘Come with me,’ he said to Eddie and they went to a more pleasant room this time.
‘She’s just a tom, Eddie. Nothing more, nothing less. Linda is her name alright and her last known address is Stirling. There are two kids apparently, living with her mother. She goes by several names, changes it frequently by all accounts. I’m sure she’d call herself whatever you wanted. And for a not too small fee she’ll do whatever you want.’
‘And that’s who your men were waiting for?’
‘Her and several others. She’s nobody. Just a tiny pebble on the beach, washed up like so many others. That address is a frequent entry on the register of illegal substance retail outlets around the city.’
‘Did she mention me at all?’
‘I haven’t spoken to her.’
‘What will happen to her?’
‘She’s already been released. Nothing much to hold her for. We pick them and drop them just as quickly. Maybe in the hope that they’ll be scared enough to give it up and drop out of sight. Move away, make themselves someone else’s problem.’
Interrogation, interview, story ended. Free to go but told to provide an address and stay nearby, stay in contact.
‘Have you somewhere to go, Eddie?’
‘I have money. So I’ll find somewhere. Stephen Zinny? Anything?’
‘Ongoing investigation. Could take a while. If he is what you say he is it shouldn’t take long to find something on him.’ Andy stood and opened the door. Time to leave, Eddie.
He had seen it, touched it, felt it and now he had told it. There was a relief certainly. The load was lighter but the road ahead was still black. And he walked it alone.
CHAPTER 31
Edie is free Edie flinched from the sudden cold. She looked down to see that she was standing on the edge of the sea. She lifted her eyes to the misty skies and rolling green waters. Rough pebbles under her bare feet. There were others around, near her, in the water, strolling, running, laughing. Alive. She was outside of them, she couldn’t remember coming here. She didn’t know where here was.
There was a young boy looking up at her. The ice cream dripped from his cone onto the ground. He wore a frown that belonged on someone much older.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked.
‘Paulie. Leave the lady alone. Paulie!’ The voice belonged to a shrieking violet who appeared beside the boy, a rough hand on his shoulders, pulling him away while she herself looked askance at Edie. ‘Come on, boy, away with ye.’
‘But what’s wrong with her?’ They were already moving away so whatever answer the mother gave was lost on Edie. She was curious to hear it. She wanted someone to tell her. On the haphazard strand without much sand, there was a curious path that rose up a steep climb to somewhere. She moved in the direction of the path and came across a large sports bag placed on a tartan blanket. Somehow she knew it was hers. Vague memories of it travelling with her. She sat down on the blanket, suddenly fatigued. She rubbed her arms and saw the tracks, the marks of Satan, blunt and burnt, blurring, destroying the veins. She looked inside the bag. Generic, vacant clothes of no particular hue. Hers, someone else’s before, someone else’s after she was gone. There was a bottle of water inside. She took it out and broke the seal with some effort. Drank half of it in one go. She was hungry but there was no food to be found. She felt drowsy, lay down on the blanket and closed her eyes. She was sure she hadn’t slept but when she sat up again the beach was almost empty and the wind bore cold against her weak skin. She took a sweater from the bag and was glad of the extra layer. She found her shoes inside, no socks though. The leather was tight and raw against her feet. She stood, put the blanket in the bag and looked up the path, wondered what lay beyond. Maybe the answers to all her questions. A golden city perhaps, people standing in open doorways with welcoming arms. Come inside, come inside, get warm, eat, then sleep, sleep as long as you like. As long as it takes.
She thought she wasn’t going to make it. Thought of dropping the bag but she felt she should keep it with her.
Through gorse, along the edge of narrow road with a fading white down the centre. No magical mystery city in view yet. Cars flashed past without a second thought. What would she say if they stopped, if she put out a hand? With no knowledge of where she was, how could she know where she wanted to go. And she was afraid of the inevitable questions.
She saw a road sign about fifty yards ahead. Reaching it she found it wasn’t a sign from God after all just a peeling white crooked sign that told her she was five miles from Galston. She could see it already in her mind, almost didn’t have to walk there. It would sit under constant blue skies, quaint elderly people would live in tiny fairy cottages with thatched roofs. They’d sit in tea shops and sip from china cups. But it wasn’t like that at all. The journey itself almost killed her. She panted under low grey clouds that spit warning shots of rain. A boxy sodden town, not a village at all. As if a city had excavated it’s most unwelcome section and transported it to the country so that it could rot on its own. Her head was spinning, her panic rising as she scanned the unwelcome landscape for somewhere, anywhere to sit down. She needed food, sugar mostly. She saw a newsagents and then she suddenly reached for her pockets, certain she had had no money. She put the bag on the ground and a part of her was not surprised to find a bundle of fifty-pound notes secreted in a small brown envelope.
The Pakistani behind the counter was trying to put the large note and the scrawny tilt of a girl togeth
er. He made a play of checking the legality of the note. All she was buying was some chocolate and a couple of bags of crisps. The exchange was ended and something kept their eyes locked. His face softened somewhat.
‘You okay?’ he asked kindly. Edie nodded. She was about to leave. She couldn’t help ripping off the chocolate wrapper and tasting a little.
‘Do you know—’ Her courage stopped her. Maybe it was the sound of her own voice.
‘What?’
‘Somewhere to stay?’ It was an effort to speak. I used to sing. An aberrant thought. ‘I have money. Somewhere decent.’
‘You need to clean yourself up a little. Have you been in an accident?’ She wanted to shriek with laughter. An accident? If only. A plethora of accidents. Tragedies, comedies, but most of all mystery. She just nodded and he gestured for her to follow him to the back of the shop. ‘There is a washroom. You can tidy yourself. Please. It’s fine.’ He smiled and it changed everything about him.
Harsh, chromatic light that gave no pity on her features whatsoever. She had become so internal that any conception of her physical self had almost disappeared. What she saw now frightened her beyond measure. He was in the doorway, feet from her and she realized how generous he had been to even allow her into the shop. No wonder no cars had stopped. She wouldn’t have for herself. The age of the woman in the mirror was indeterminate. A girl, a woman, anywhere between twenty and forty five, hair that had been cut, shaved and was struggling back to life. Black marks under her eyes like a child’s attempts at mascara. Indian marks from a long dead tribe. Skin and bone, sharp angular and a pallor so white she was almost translucent. She turned her head to him.
‘Can – can you give me a moment?’
‘Sure.’ He bowed out apologetically and closed the behind him. ‘Edie. That’s my name. I am – I am thirty-five. No, thirty-eight.’
Enough. She threw water on her face. It dripped onto the chipped floor. The earth turned in a wide circle. Faint, fainter. She looked to the door, she wanted to cry out, call out to him. But she didn’t know his name. What was the name of the town again? More water on her face. She found a towel that wasn’t that clean but dried her face and hands regardless. She couldn’t bear the sight of herself anymore. She pulled at the handle on the door and for a moment it wouldn’t open. Trapped, he’d locked her in and in that moment she recalled the train of rooms that they had kept her in, carried like freight from one to the other. Until what? She was what, free now? The door opened on the wave of that positive thought. He was there at the counter, counting the money in the cash register. She saw her bag on the floor, her purchases on the counter. She had to eat. She had to sleep.
He walked beside her like a nervous teenager on his first date. He remained near the edge of the path, hands deep in the pockets of his anorak, head bowed slightly against the untidy rain. She hesitated at the door of the café. Looked back down the dead street and thought of running, if only she could, if only she had the energy. He nodded in familiar terms with the waitress who came to meet them as they entered. Edie felt the cold shocked eyes of the young girl. They were shown to a table and as she sat down a wave of nausea almost crashed her down. He reached a hand across and supported her. This man whose name she didn’t even know kept her from falling… falling … falling.
Lentil soup spilled onto Linda’s already stained purple dress. She was a fairground mirror image of herself. Well, of the woman Eddie had known in Stirling. He was sure some of the other customers in the café were watching them. Watching her with him. Trying to find the middle ground, searching for the secret ingredient that put the two of them together.
She gave up with the soup. Looked down at her lap and laughed. Looked back up at Eddie’s distant bemusement.
‘What? I disappoint you, that it? Listen, I been disappointing myself for years. And what are you anyway? Why were you in there? Haven’t asked you, have I? Only I bet you know exactly why I was in there. I seen that disapproval on your face. Where the fuck do you get the nerve to judge me?’ Aware of her rising voice, she quieted.
Eddie picked at a blueberry muffin. He still had the foul taste of the station in his mouth. It had almost been inevitable that he should meet her. Exiting after his release he had felt the sour wind and screamed for the company of normal people, the sensual sound of spoons on saucers, the slide of butter across slices of freshly toasted bread. The almond aroma of coffee. There was such a place around the corner from the station. It still had that dead dark winter sense about it. People still half asleep and these people had nowhere to go in a hurry at this hour of the evening. Maybe they all came from the station, all stuffed with post-interrogation blues and so they came and never left. He tried to remember the name as he went in but it wouldn’t come. And it wasn’t the kind of place that had its name printed on the napkins. He had spied Linda in the corner, curled up on a chair that was too small and uncomfortable for the purpose. She almost bolted when she saw him. Her eyes blazed with lioness terror. So he had said nothing to her for a few minutes. Did everything slowly, quietly. Pulled back the chair, sat down, asked the waitress for a coffee, large, black.
‘Peel back the fancy wrapping and we’re all the same. Mother said that a thousand times to me, says it still. When I see her. Which will have to be soon I imagine.’ Her eyes betrayed an aching sadness at the thought of having to go home. ‘And you, my little Irish friend, what will you do?’ He noticed her mascara was starting to run, black tracks of tearful regret running down her pale skin.
‘Keep looking I suppose,’ Eddie said. She showed little sign that she had heard what he had said.
‘For her?’ Had he told her about Edie?
‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ Linda said, excusing herself from the table.
‘I have to go the bathroom,’ Edie said, struggling to get up. She felt a hand at her elbow. His name was Alid, she had found that out at least. The food had no taste. Everything was metallic. She realized it was something inside of her. The result of medicines, tests, all too numerous to mention, all one jumbled foggy memory. But a hint of a memory none the less. She made it to the toilets, managed to keep down most of what she’d eaten, felt the sting of salt in her mouth.
‘I used to sing, you know that?’ she told him as she sat back down again. ‘Wear beautiful gowns and blaze the room with the songs of Cole Porter and all the other greats. You don’t believe me, do you? I can see you don’t. And why would you? Look at me. My mother would be so proud. This is the way she saw me ending up. Said it almost proudly. I used to sing.’ The waitress brought the bill and once more they were like awkward would-be lovers in the hesitant stages. Out on the street he directed her to a guesthouse with clinical efficiency and she wanted to beg him to take her there.
‘I have a wife. Children. I am late already. Promise me you will go there.’
‘Where else would I go?’
Fast, guilty steps took him quickly out of sight. Edie saw three teenagers on low bikes across the street. They were moving in wide slow circles, all the time on their hands and looking for anything to amuse them. She intended to move away quickly if only her body would allow it.
Ten trudging minutes found her outside an out-of-season bed and breakfast that had ornamental fishes on the gate pillars. There was no sign of any light inside but as soon as she stepped inside the driveway the house sprang to life like a sentry dog. A figure appeared in the doorway, a woman, arms across the chest. Edie moved forward, a reluctant bold child. She almost expected her mother to step from the porch and ask her where she’s been all this time. Come inside, come inside, no tea for you, straight to bed. You’re goin’ straight to bed, my girl. Slap her across the back of the head. The woman on the step was none of those things. Her desperate need for company, for someone to talk to, far exceeded anything that Edie might have needed. There was an inevitable double-take as Edie stepped into the lights. The old woman was clearly taken aback but only for a second. Edie paid double what anyone else
might have but it was worth the trouble. Through a time-warp hallway to a front room that reeked of the Fifties. Porcelain dolls on every surface. No sign of a real one or any other living thing for that matter. The house was ferociously hot, the kettle started to sing and Edie fell to the carpet, too weak to take anymore on this strangest of all strange days.
Don’t stray too far from the path, Andy had warned him. Stay close. Eddie had already drifted too far from his chosen path. He heard the echo of it from the far side of the world. On Plane Street he took the letter from under his shirt and read it by the thin light of a high street lamp. He had finished it before Linda caught up with him and his face betrayed no outward emotion. Everything had been as expected, no surprise in what he had read. He had waited for more intense feeling and none had come. It would come later no doubt. It always did.
‘Just around the corner,’ Linda said, shuffling past him.
‘I know where it is.’ Headed for the bus station, running out of town,
doing the very thing he at least was warned not to do. She had some hold on him. A pity undeserving, she had clearly lied to him when they first met. Or he had seen what he had wanted to see. Was he hoping to keep her, save her? Love her? There was nothing of that in his mind although he had seen the possibility of sleeping with her. Sitting in the back of the police car, drawing in her fake exotic scent, her perfumed promises, the danger of her dishonesty. As they walked through the heavy glass doors of the station, he called Fairweather on his mobile. Telling him exactly where he was going. Where exactly was he going? There was little protest. The policeman had sounded resigned, breathing slow and irregular while a colleague talked in his ear. Eddie doubted if he had heard the call at all.
On the brushed torn patterned seats he noticed her increased agitation. She had disappeared to the toilets while he purchased two tickets to Edinburgh. On her return she was practically jumping up the steps of the bus. He had assumed she’d be heading back, to her kids, her mother but she had scanned the large departures board and seemed intent on choosing anywhere but Stirling. And as for Eddie, he was going, if not home, at least back, settle something about the house, talk to Tommy Pearson, find a job, something real, tangible. He had been thinking about getting back into training, finding a gym, doing a bit of running.