The Big Chill

by Doug Johnstone

  She shook her head. ‘Yes, don’t tell me.’

  ‘Late at night.’

  ‘After the clubs shut.’

  ‘It was one of the few places still open that had a licence.’

  Jenny smiled. ‘It was either this place or…’

  ‘Don’t say Negociants.’

  Jenny laughed and shook her head. ‘Negociants.’

  Liam sat back and stared at her. ‘Jesus.’

  Jenny looked in those green eyes. ‘Why didn’t I meet you twenty-five years ago?’

  ‘I was a baby,’ Liam said, giving her a look. ‘You would’ve been cradle-snatching.’

  ‘Nobody says cradle-snatching these days,’ Jenny said, sipping her coffee. ‘It’s just paedophilia.’

  ‘Then you would’ve been a paedophile.’

  Jenny laughed. ‘I love you, too.’

  ‘I do.’ Liam gave her a look that made her chest tight.

  ‘You do what?’

  He deadpanned her. ‘I love you.’

  They hadn’t said it to each other yet. Jenny swallowed hard. ‘Fuck.’

  Liam leaned back and snorted. ‘That wasn’t quite the response I was hoping for.’

  ‘Oh, babes,’ Jenny said, reaching for his hand. He wasn’t offended and she loved him all the more for that.

  ‘I just wanted you to know,’ Liam said. ‘No biggie.’

  ‘Fuck off, no biggie,’ Jenny said. ‘Of course it’s a biggie.’

  Jenny wanted to jump over the table and snog his face off, grab his arse, fuck him right here on the floor.

  ‘Forget it,’ Liam said. He was still smiling.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t,’ Jenny said.

  She saw something outside, two police cars speeding round the corner and jamming to a stop outside the court entrance. She waited. She’d been expecting a white van with GEOAmey on the side, had done her research about prison transport. But no van appeared. The police cars sat for a moment, engines toiling, then an officer jumped out of one and went to the other car, spoke to the driver. He was wearing a lot of chunky black gear, but Jenny couldn’t see if it included a gun. Only a few special cops had guns.

  The cop across the road stared up and down the street. He looked worried. No sign of a van. Jenny started to feel sick.

  ‘What?’ Liam said, sensing her panic.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Jenny said, picking up her bag.

  Liam followed her gaze. ‘You don’t know that.’

  But Jenny was already out the door, stumbling into a tall Scandinavian man in shorts. She pushed past, across to the cop standing by the car. He was talking into the radio at his lapel and Jenny heard static between voices, the void between what he said and the response. But she already knew what the response was, she’d known this all along, this was her destiny, to stand outside court and feel a panic attack restricting her breath and her blood flow and her voice.

  The cop was shorter than a cop should be.

  ‘Negative,’ he said. ‘No sign here.’

  Jenny sensed Liam behind her, but it was like he was a million miles away, she was alone in the universe. She looked at the cops in the car, worried faces, avoiding her gaze.

  Static on the radio.

  ‘What is it?’ Jenny said. ‘Where’s Craig?’

  The cop looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m his ex-wife. I’m the one he stabbed. I’m here to testify. Where is he?’

  The cop tried to usher her away. ‘You can’t be here.’

  ‘Tell me where he is,’ Jenny said.

  She felt Liam touch her arm and she shook him off.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said to the cop.

  He looked like he was having the shittiest day, Jenny could relate to that.

  Then the voice over the radio, anxious even through the static.

  ‘Fucking hell, we’ve lost the van.’

  33

  HANNAH

  The whisky burnt her throat, made her feel alive, stopped her from jumping out of the window. The ops room was busy and she wasn’t the only one drinking. Normally she wouldn’t touch this stuff, but with what just happened, she needed it. They didn’t know the details yet. Indy was at the table with her, along with Dorothy, the almost empty bottle of Highland Park between them. Einstein wagged his tail at Dorothy, not picking up on the vibe at all. Schrödinger kept his distance, over at a window seat, licking a paw and stretching. Mum and Liam were there too, staring out of the window, and Jenny looked like she was about to cry. She scanned the horizon as if the prison van might trundle across Bruntsfield Links any moment.

  The tension in the room was painful. Indy smiled at Hannah, a look that said she knew everything was fucked but loved Hannah anyway. Hannah was getting used to that look. She wished she could see her girlfriend with just a simple smile, one that said the world was going to be OK.

  Thomas came in from the hall where he’d been on the phone to the station. He ran a hand through his hair. His body language was not promising.

  ‘They found the van,’ he said.

  ‘Thank fuck,’ Jenny said.

  Hannah sensed something was up.

  ‘Where?’ Dorothy said.

  Hannah shook her head and laughed. ‘He’s not in it, is he?’

  Thomas looked at her for a beat. ‘No. He seems to have escaped.’

  Einstein gave up on Dorothy and slumped to the floor at her feet.

  ‘How the fuck?’ Jenny said. She had her arms crossed, Liam hovering behind.

  ‘The van was found in an industrial estate off Sir Harry Lauder Road in Portobello.’

  Jenny stared like she might tear Thomas’s head off.

  ‘There’s a bus park there, railway sidings, factories and offices.’

  ‘Get to the point,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Jenny,’ Dorothy said, and it carried a weight that Hannah recognised. ‘Please. Thomas is trying to help.’

  ‘He’s police, isn’t he? The police have lost a murderer.’

  ‘In our defence,’ Thomas said, ‘prisoners are the responsibility of the prison service until they’re in court. In transit that’s down to GEOAmey.’

  ‘Who the hell are they?’

  ‘Contractors,’ Thomas said. ‘It’s all privatised now.’

  ‘Well that’s worked out great,’ Jenny said.

  ‘We’re lucky we found the van so quickly,’ Thomas said. ‘A guy from a nearby office got nosy, went out for a look. He heard banging from inside.’

  ‘Who was it?’ Hannah said. She took another hit of whisky, felt it going to her head already. She wasn’t used to the alcohol.

  ‘The driver and one of the guards,’ Thomas said. ‘Hands, feet and mouths taped.’

  ‘And no Craig,’ Jenny said.

  Thomas looked around the room. ‘The other guard is missing.’

  Dorothy shifted in her seat. ‘You think Craig did something to him?’

  Thomas looked uneasy. ‘Her. The guard is a woman.’

  Hannah felt her stomach tighten, knew what was coming.

  ‘Here we go,’ Jenny said.

  ‘The driver said that she helped Craig escape. She let him out of his handcuffs and he assaulted the other guard. She helped tape the guard up. Then the two of them assaulted the driver and took over the van.’

  Hannah thought she might puke.

  ‘We don’t know where they are,’ Thomas said.

  ‘But you can find the woman,’ Dorothy said. ‘She has an address, family.’

  Jenny rubbed at her arm, paced around the room. ‘Christ almighty. So this woman has given up her job, her life, for him? Is she young and pretty? Pointy tits?’

  Dorothy put a hand in the air. ‘Let’s stay focused.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Jenny said. ‘I actually cannot fucking believe this is happening.’

  Thomas nodded, stayed deferential. Hannah liked him, he wasn’t a typical cop, she saw why Dorothy was friends with him.
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  ‘We’re doing everything we can to find him,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Exactly what are you doing?’ Hannah said.

  She was surprised that she was so coherent. This was insane. She thought back to when he called her from prison. What had he said before she hung up? Maybe there was a sign. She felt the brush of Einstein’s tail against her leg and jumped. Maybe she wasn’t as together as she thought. She reached down and stroked behind his ear.

  Thomas looked around the room. ‘There are a large number of police units looking for him. We’re following up the guard’s family and friends. We have her address, car number plate.’

  Jenny looked at the clock on the wall. ‘But this all happened several hours ago? They could be in Ullapool by now or the Lake District. Or they could’ve got flights, does he have his passport?’

  ‘We’re checking with Fiona,’ Thomas said. ‘But we haven’t managed to get in touch with her yet.’

  ‘You don’t think something’s happened to her?’ Dorothy said.

  Thomas couldn’t help a sigh. ‘Not that we know of.’

  ‘This is a total clusterfuck.’ Jenny pointed out of the window. ‘He’s out there running around, laughing at us, at the cops, the prison, the court, everyone. He’s out there fucking some young prison guard, free as a bird, and we’re in here scared he might come for us.’

  ‘That’s unlikely,’ Thomas said. ‘We’ll post an officer here if that’ll make you feel safer.’

  ‘Fuck safer,’ Jenny said.

  She looked out of the window and Hannah followed her gaze. Her dad was out there, no consequences, no remorse. All that diminished-responsibility shit was gone. He was his own pure self. She wondered about her genetic inheritance. She couldn’t stand the idea that she was anything like him, but she couldn’t deny they were made of the same stuff.

  She stared at the trees twitching in the wind and hoped he was on a flight to Bangkok or Nairobi or Lima, never coming back.

  ‘Shit,’ Dorothy said, looking at her watch and standing up. ‘We have a funeral to conduct.’

  34

  DOROTHY

  Dorothy was wrong about Annabel Veitch. When they’d picked up Walter’s body Dorothy had noted how flippant Annabel seemed about her husband’s death. But what right did Dorothy have to judge? She thought about her own reaction to losing Jim. Maybe constantly self-analysing did you no favours and stopped you moving on. When you’re seventy years old is there anywhere for you to move on to? She thought about asking Thomas out, holding his hand, touching his chest, feeling his warmth against her skin. She wasn’t dead yet.

  Annabel Veitch sat in the dark, wood-panelled space of Morningside Parish Church with a large congregation of mourners. Dorothy had to hand it to the Catholic Church, they knew about ceremony. She was a lifelong atheist but there was something about the swinging incense, the sprinkled holy water, the recitation and intonation and murmuration, the priest in his robes like a seventies prog-rock keyboard player.

  And they got a good turnout. Well over a hundred here, Walter’s coffin down the front, Annabel staring at it wondering where her life would go now. No one to talk to when she came in from the golf, no one to nag about eating too much sausage. No one to touch her hip in bed at night, just to let her know he was still there.

  Dorothy and Archie stood at the back, hands clasped in front of them, discreet. The priest gave communion to those who wanted, many of them touching Walter’s casket as they passed. The flesh and blood of Christ, what an idea. Let’s eat the saviour so he can be a part of us. Dorothy remembered standing over the cremated ashes of her husband after they’d burnt him on a pyre in the back garden, dipping her finger into the dust and sucking it, his atoms becoming a part of her. Not so different.

  The ceremony eventually finished, and Dorothy and Archie came forward and wheeled the gurney with Walter’s coffin down the aisle and out to the waiting hearse. They were heading to Mortonhall Crem, Dorothy’s least favourite funeral space in the city, a brutalist seventies concrete construction full of odd angles and corners. It felt like cremating someone on the set of a cheap sci-fi show.

  Dorothy and Archie got in the hearse and waited for the family to exit the church. It took a long time, they were doing the line-up, but Walter wasn’t going anywhere. Sitting in contemplation was one of the advantages of the funeral business, you got a chance to think about things.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Archie said.

  She looked at him. Thought about his dead mother lying in the fridge at the house. ‘Shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Just the whole business with Craig.’

  ‘It’s Jenny and Hannah I feel sorry for.’

  ‘But it affects you too. You always do that, look out for others before yourself.’

  Dorothy was surprised, Archie didn’t tend to talk so openly. ‘Do I?’

  ‘All the time.’ Said with a smile.

  Dorothy thought about that. ‘Speaking of which, how are you coping? With everything.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Fine, the word covered so many sins, a universal signal of not wanting to talk. Scottish men were always ‘fine’, even when they were suicidal, struggling to cope, losing their will or their minds.

  ‘You know I’m here for you,’ Dorothy said.

  Archie squirmed in his seat. That kind of open declaration was like poison to him. ‘I know.’

  Dorothy looked in the rearview mirror. Mourners were still trickling out of the church, mostly elderly, the young don’t want to face mortality. They’re invincible, of course.

  She thought about Jimmy X. The girlfriend in a women’s refuge. They could’ve had a life together if things worked out differently. Just bad luck, maybe, or self-destruction, or society crushing the life out of them.

  She thought about Abi, back with her family, her biological dad dancing somewhere in the wind. She thought about Hannah’s dead professor, a wife and a lover left behind, and who knew what else. She thought about her daughter’s ex-husband, alive and free out there somewhere.

  She felt scunnered, a good Scots word, sickened.

  35

  JENNY

  A police car was parked outside Fiona’s place on Ann Street. That would make the neighbours talk. They probably already knew everything, Craig’s escape was headline news.

  The cop in the car eyeballed Jenny as she rang Fiona’s doorbell. A female officer opened the door, Fiona behind.

  ‘Let her in,’ Fiona said.

  The cop stood aside and Jenny followed Fiona to the living room. A little girl was watching cartoons on television, engrossed.

  ‘Sophia, this is Jenny,’ Fiona said.

  The girl glanced round. ‘Hi.’ Then back to cartoons.

  Jenny had never seen Craig’s other daughter face-to-face, but felt like she knew her. She’d seen pictures of the girl from birth onwards, stalking Craig and Fiona online after Craig left her. She was startled to see the girl now, an anxious knot in her throat as if Sophia embodied Craig’s betrayal, which was fucking ridiculous.

  Sophia was seven years old but looked older in her blue blazer and pleated skirt. She had a punnet of strawberries in front of her, discarded green stalks piled in the corner. She lifted a strawberry and took a bite, and Fiona nodded Jenny through to the kitchen.

  Jenny saw the half-empty glass of white wine on the kitchen island, then the boarded-up window out to the back garden.

  Fiona saw Jenny’s gaze and shook her head. ‘He broke in while I was at work. Clothes, money, electronics he could sell. He knew the alarm didn’t work, knew when we’d be out. Bastard.’

  ‘Passport?’ Jenny said, staring at the broken glass swept into a corner.

  Fiona nodded. ‘He’s probably on the other side of the world by now.’

  She took a large drink then went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of pinot grigio. ‘Want some?’

  Jenny swallowed and nodded.

  Fiona poured a glass and handed it over. She stood in a tran
ce, staring through at Sophia watching TV.

  Jenny drank. ‘He is such a cunt.’

  Fiona nodded. ‘Total cunt.’

  Jenny exhaled. ‘Last time I was here, all we did was talk about him. Maybe we’ll spend our lives talking about him.’

  ‘He’s the one thing we have in common,’ Fiona said, a laugh under her breath.

  Jenny waved at the window. ‘Do you really think he’s going to disappear from our lives? That seems too easy for him.’

  Fiona glugged wine. ‘What about the prison guard? The cop here won’t tell me anything.’

  ‘She’s married,’ Jenny said. ‘Her and her car are missing. The police are watching her flat and her parents’ house. But I don’t suppose she’ll show up, not until Craig’s done with her.’

  ‘You think she’s in danger?’

  Jenny lifted a hand to heaven. ‘No more than the rest of us.’

  Fiona slumped onto a stool and clunked her wine glass on the marble surface. She placed her face in her hands and sobbed, gulping noises and tears on her fingers, her shoulders shaking.

  Sophia turned at the noise and stared at her mum, then looked at Jenny as if she was to blame. She slowly got up and came through.

  ‘What did you say to her?’ she said to Jenny.

  ‘Nothing.’

  The sound of Sophia’s voice made Fiona jump and she wiped at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry. Come here.’

  The girl had a smudge of strawberry juice on her chin, and Jenny had a flash of all the blood in Dorothy’s kitchen when Craig stabbed her.

  Sophia gave her mum a hug then untangled herself.

  ‘We had burglars,’ she said, pointing at the broken window. ‘They took my iPad.’ Her delivery was deadpan. ‘So I have to just watch television until the insurance get me a new one. Mum says it’ll be a better one than before.’