by Unknown
Amy seemed confused by the question. ‘Of course. Pizza’s great. And I’m not a munchkin.’
‘Course not,’ said Nicola, and looked across at David driving. She couldn’t read the look on his face as he manoeuvred through traffic, but he seemed a touch more relaxed than he’d been earlier on. He caught a glance at her between watching traffic.
‘Pizza would be great,’ he said with a smile.
The three of them sat numbly watching Sunday night television and eating pizza, Nicola and David with beers in their hands. Amy went to bed around nine, and they sat quietly for a while, not wanting to break the bond of silence. Midsomer Murders was on the television, and John Nettles puffed red-faced around a syrupy English village trying to sort out whodunit.
‘I can’t work any of it out,’ said David out of the blue. ‘You know? It just doesn’t make any sense. The more I think about it, the less I seem to know about what could’ve happened to Gary.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘I suppose it doesn’t help that we were all pretty steaming.’
‘That’s irrelevant and you know it. It might’ve explained something if Gary had to walk home along the cliffs or something, but Jesus H, he was on the other side of town, and heading the other way. Why would he double back and head to the cliffs?’
‘Maybe he was thinking of Colin, and wanted to go see the memorial stone.’
‘That doesn’t sound too likely.’
‘We were all steaming. You know what can happen in people’s heads at three in the morning after drinking all day. We’ve all suddenly come to and found ourselves somewhere surprising after a night on the lash. Haven’t we?’
Nicola wasn’t convinced, although she’d had several such experiences in her younger drinking years. But those were a long, long time ago, and seemed to have happened to a different person entirely, and she couldn’t see why someone in their thirties, blind drunk or not, would be wandering around a clifftop in the early hours of the morning, essentially an accident waiting to happen. Because that’s what it was, she told herself, an accident. The alternatives were too dreadful to contemplate. That either he had tried to kill himself or that someone was responsible for Gary’s fall, someone had pushed him over. The police officer had perked up when he’d heard Mike Clarkson’s name, but she didn’t think for one second he’d had anything to do with it. He was an arsehole and prone to casual violence, but he didn’t hold grudges. Mouthing off and fighting were just part of his average weekend, and she felt sure that he would’ve forgotten all about her, David and Gary as soon as they’d been thrown out of Bally’s. He wouldn’t care what happened after that, to do so would be beneath him. So for him to – what? – leave Bally’s, secretly follow them up the High Common, follow Gary further, confront him and – then what? Nicola couldn’t even conceive what could’ve happened to get the pair of them up to the cliffs, unless Gary was unconscious before he even got to the cliffs. But then that would involve someone driving him there, because you couldn’t carry a body that far across town without someone seeing.
Jesus Christ, listen to yourself, she thought. Thinking about how to move bodies around town, how to arrange a fall from the cliffs. This was stupid. It was just a fall, nothing more. And it was just a coincidence that it had been a similar fall to Colin’s. Coincidences happen all the time in life, she told herself, there shouldn’t be anything surprising in that. She tried to think how she could say this to David. He looked worried. For him the coincidence of it must be terrible. She had hardly known Colin, really, and she didn’t know Gary well either, but for David it must be shocking. She couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking. And that stuff about him being the common link between the two accidents – that was just stupid. The police wouldn’t be thinking along those lines, surely? Even your average small-town copper had more brains than to think David had anything to do with it. And besides, he’d been with her after they’d left Gary.
She wanted to reassure him, let him know that she knew it was just an accident, a stupid coincidence. She looked across at him now, staring at the television screen but clearly churning things over in his mind. She took a swig of beer and spoke.
‘Do you want to stay over?’
He didn’t say anything, but turned to look at her, and she saw a sadness and some confusion in his eyes. Such cute eyes.
‘Sex isn’t on the menu,’ she said. ‘Not tonight. But I could use the company, if you felt like staying.’
His eyes seemed to clear and he took a swig of beer.
‘I’d love to stay,’ he said, and gave her a kiss.
8
Drawn Back
David woke up in a bed he didn’t know, confused as hell for a moment as he lay blinking at the slats of light squeezing through the blinds at the window. He rolled over and there was Nicola, head propped on her elbow, looking at him.
‘Morning, sunshine,’ she said with a smile.
‘Hi, you.’
His heart sang. He tried to think back to last night through the fog of his dreams. They hadn’t had sex, they’d just gone to bed after a few beers and held each other, something he’d found surprisingly reassuring. Other memories started trickling back into his mind: the sight of Gary’s ashen face in the hospital; the angry questions of Gary’s dad; the leering, seething face of Mike at the reunion; the arrogant calm in the eyes of the babyish police officer. They all stared back at him, confusing him and making his head hurt a little. He shook his head and blinked deliberately, then opened his eyes and looked at Nicola again. Her hair was mussed and tousled, falling over her shoulders, bare except for the straps of a black bra top. She was wearing a pair of stripy pyjama bottoms and her eyes were a little sleepy but still full of life. Her smile was beaming as she wiggled her nose and looked around her as if she were thinking, What next?
He was thinking the same thing himself. He wanted to have sex with her now, but what the hell was the form, when you were already in bed together, but you hadn’t done anything? He spotted a clock on the table beside the bed. That couldn’t be right.
‘Is that the time?’
‘Half-nine? Yeah, I think so.’
‘Shit, I’m already late for work. Why aren’t you up? What about Amy?’
‘Amy’s still on her summer holidays for two more days, and I’m off work looking after her.’
Christ. He toyed briefly with the idea of phoning in sick, but he’d done that once too often on a Monday with a hangover, and considering the state of the company he really couldn’t take the piss anymore. He would have to go in.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said with real regret, and to his relief she laughed.
‘Fine. Love ’em and leave ’em and all that. Except you didn’t, of course…’
‘Look, shit, sorry, I feel stupid rushing out the door, but I really have to get in to work. Thanks.’
‘What for?’
‘For everything. For the whole weekend. For asking me to stay last night. For snogging me. For bullying me into going to Arbroath in the first place.’
‘Do you really want to thank me for that? Considering?’
‘Well, OK, I’ll think about that one.’ He reached over and kissed her slowly on the lips and she kissed back, arching her neck a little in response. They stayed like that for a few seconds before he pulled away, rolling out of bed and pulling his jeans, T-shirt and trainers on.
‘I would say I’ll call you, but it’s such a cliché,’ he said.
‘Clichés are good. Cliché away.’
‘All right, in that case I’ll call you. And I really will call you.’
‘Yeah, right.’ She put on a fake huff, pouting her bottom lip out. It made David want to jump right back into bed. Instead he just smiled at her, ran his hand through his hair and headed out the door.
Two hours late for work, he staggered sweating and dishevelled into the office, skulked around the kettle making coffee, then parked himself at his desk.
‘What
the hell were you up to at the weekend?’
It was Spook, looking worse than David felt, poking his head out from behind his monitor.
‘How do you mean?’
Spook had a smile on his face, the kind of smile that David didn’t like the look of one bit.
‘Someone’s been phoning all morning, trying to get hold of you.’
‘Who?’
‘Now, let me get this right,’ said Spook, hamming it up as he searched for a note on his desk. ‘Ah, yes, a Derek Bell.’
David didn’t recognize the name.
‘Doesn’t ring a bell?’ said Spook. ‘Pardon the pun. Oh, hang on, you might know him as PC Bell, a constable with Tayside Police. He’s phoned a few times, and he left a number to call him back at Arbroath nick.’ Spook waved the note over at David, smiling from ear to ear. ‘Interesting school reunion, I take it?’
David didn’t answer. What the hell did the copper want? He probably just needed a statement about Saturday night, but then why phone three times? David needed to down his coffee before he found out, but just then his phone rang. He picked it up.
‘Mr Lindsay? This is PC Bell, we spoke at Ninewells Hospital yesterday.’
‘What can I do for you?’ David didn’t really want to be having this conversation.
‘I’m sorry to have to inform you, but Gary Spink died in the early hours of this morning.’
There was a silence, broken only by the buzz and crackle of the phone line. David was looking right at Spook, who was gently gooning at his desk, imitating a copper and grinning widely. David gave him the finger.
‘Mr Lindsay?’
‘I’m still here.’
‘Obviously what we’re investigating now is a death rather than a serious injury. We’ll definitely need you to make a proper, official statement, since you were the last person we know of to see Mr Spink alive. Yourself and Miss Cruickshank.’
‘That’s fine,’ said David, but his head was spinning. Gary was dead. He had only just met the guy again after fifteen years and now he was dead. Dying in the same way and the same place as Colin all those years ago. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
‘Mr Lindsay? We’ll need you to make a statement.’
‘Sure,’ said David, coming to. ‘Can we do it over the phone?’
‘I’m afraid not. We’d prefer it if you came into the station to make a statement in person.’
‘What, in Arbroath?’
‘That’s right.’
He didn’t have any intention of going back to Arbroath. He hadn’t had any intention of going back even before all this shit, and he certainly wasn’t going now. He told the copper as much.
‘I’m afraid I must insist,’ said Bell, rather smugly. The tone of his voice said, don’t fuck with us, we’re the police. There was another long moment’s silence, David didn’t know what to say.
‘If it helps,’ said the policeman in a more conciliatory tone, ‘Gary’s funeral is already set for Friday. At the Western. Perhaps you’ll be going?’
David had no such intention, he hadn’t had time to think about it, and here was a smug bastard kid copper telling him what to do. He felt dizzy.
‘Perhaps if you were up, you could pop in sometime and make a statement,’ said Bell. ‘I’m working over the weekend, so any time. Just ask for me at the front desk.’
And that was that; it was decided. David seemed to be losing all control over his movements these days, and he disliked the feeling of having all his actions dictated to him. So now what? He was going back to Arbroath to a funeral? To make a police statement about the death of another school friend? Jesus H.
He needed to talk this over. He made another coffee, sat back down and dialled Nicola’s mobile.
‘That was quick,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I know you said you’d call me, but that was only about two hours ago. I wasn’t expecting a call quite yet. You haven’t really perfected the “treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen” approach, have you? Can I expect flowers and champagne back at the house when I get home? Or tickets to Paris in the post?’
‘Gary’s dead,’ he said, regretting the way it came out, but unsure what else to say. Down the phone there was a screeching racket suddenly, making David jump.
‘Nicola? What the fuck was that?’
‘Monkeys. I’m in the monkey house. At the zoo, with Amy. Hang on a minute, I’ll go outside.’
David waited, his mind spinning as he listened to monkey noises receding down the phone.
‘Sorry,’ he heard Nicola saying. ‘I take it I heard correctly? Gary’s dead?’
‘Yeah.’
‘David, I’m really sorry. Christ, what a nightmare. What a fucking nightmare.’
‘I know, I know. I just had PC Plod on the phone telling me. He also took the opportunity of coercing me into going back to Arbroath to make an official statement this weekend. I think he’ll need something from you as well. Gary’s folks have already organized a funeral, for Friday.’
‘What about an autopsy?’
‘What?’
‘An autopsy. Don’t you watch CSI? Or are they called post-mortems in this country? Either way, presumably there is some doubt over Gary’s death or we wouldn’t be making statements, so surely they’ll do an autopsy.’
David hadn’t thought about it.
‘I suppose they will,’ he said.
Images from forensic television programmes flitted across his mind and he felt queasy. He couldn’t equate the glossiness of those American shows with the papery, grey mask of Gary’s face as he lay in his hospital bed yesterday, or the thought of his body being opened up. My God, was that only yesterday he’d seen him in hospital? Things were moving fast. They would be cutting him open this week, sewing him back up, then returning him to the earth before the weekend. Jesus.
‘I don’t know anything about that, all I know is that the funeral is on Friday, and we’re supposed to go back to Arbroath to make statements at the police station.’
‘We should probably go.’
‘To the station, the funeral or both?’
‘Both. There’s no point getting the police’s knickers in a twist over a wee statement about when we saw Gary last. And as for the funeral, we should probably go to pay our respects, don’t you think?’
David knew she was right and he was glad that she was telling him what to do. He needed telling what to do, and he needed the company if he was going to head back up there.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said.
‘I suppose I am too.’
David heard a strange wailing noise in the background, then Nicola muttering ‘fuck’ under her breath.
‘Look, David, I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘I think Amy might have gotten herself into a bit of bother. With a monkey. I’ll phone you later on, OK?’
And with that she was gone, the dead tone of the phone ringing in David’s ears.
After Nicola had extricated Amy’s hair from a rather over-friendly Madagascan lemur, she only had a second to herself before her phone went again. It was that police officer confirming what David had told her, and gently pressuring her into heading back to Arbroath at the weekend. He seemed a little put out that she already knew about Gary’s death, but tried to hide it. As she hung up, Nicola thought that if he kept up his snidey manner he was sure to make inspector one day.
She sent a fully-recovered Amy off to find out when the penguin parade was on, and sat down opposite one of the many empty enclosures to think.
It was all getting a little weird. On the one hand, despite herself, Nicola was getting pretty excited about David. Friday and Saturday nights had proven there was definitely something there between them, and the fact that they’d pretty effortlessly picked up each other’s lives after a fifteen-year gap was surely an indication that they were in sync with each other somehow. They had – oh, she didn’t know how to put it without sounding cheesy – some kind of empathy with each other. Perhaps they didn’t
have the same attitude towards the past, but they seemed to have a similar view of the present. They had ended both nights buzzing from drink and content in each other’s company, and then they had done the same thing, only in more sober and sombre mood, last night too. If anything, the shock of Gary’s fall had somehow thrown them together even more. The two of them were now the last people to see him alive, they were a two-person club, and they would always have that inexplicable thread running between their lives.
But then, there was a dead body in the mix. Someone she had been laughing with only two days ago was now dead, and his parents must be distraught. She tried to imagine how she’d feel if anything happened to Amy, but couldn’t picture it. No, that wasn’t quite right, she could imagine it, she probably thought ten times every day about how desolate, how pointless her life would be without Amy. It was the same for all parents, she assumed, there was something in parenthood that transcended all that other shit about loving till death do you part. The only real love in the world was between parent and child.
She tried to imagine what her parents would be like if anything happened to her, and she couldn’t really picture that either. She was the eldest of five kids, so she’d always been like an extra parent to the rest, looking after her little brothers and sisters, helping out around the house, grown up before her time, really, which was why, she always suspected, she had taken to motherhood so easily.
She realized with surprise that she wasn’t really as shocked as she should be about Gary. He wasn’t her friend, she hadn’t known him, really, so his death hadn’t had that much impact on her. Secretly, she admitted to herself, she was a little bit excited about it. It was a terrible thing to admit, and she felt genuinely awful for Gary’s parents, but the mystery of his death also offered a horrible vicarious thrill, as if she’d been watching a film or reading a book. It was bizarre, how he’d ended up at the cliffs on that night. She’d been reading Nancy Drew books for Amy recently – when she herself was little she’d loved the ham-fisted adventures Nancy would blunder in on, always sorting things out by the end, with or without those two Hardy Boys twats who would sometimes turn up and ruin things. She felt guilty and vaguely absurd thinking these things, but also strangely keyed up. Kirsty had snidely said the other night that Nicola had led an adventurous life, trekking round the world and coming back with a baby, but the reality of her round-the-world jaunt had been mundane. You never learnt anything, racing through other people’s cultures and countries, sampling the pre-prepared tourist trinkets, or hanging out with the other globally migrant workers in the same way that Australians now seemed to congregate in Edinburgh as some kind of coming-of-age ritual. It wasn’t the grand adventure she’d hoped for, her trip, and the only good thing to have come out of it, really, was Amy, and while she didn’t regret a minute of her life with her daughter, changing nappies and cleaning up puke for years wasn’t exactly James fucking Bond. Now she worked a steady job, looked after her daughter, didn’t get out much and liked the odd large glass of wine – hardly the stuff of high-powered professionals, let alone something as glamorous as undercover agents or millionaire arms dealers. She loved her life, she did love it, every aspect of it, but it really wasn’t exciting.