by Ru Pringle
Trembling, he does as ordered. There’s a tiny clatter as she drops the deformed bullet on the table in a dark little viscous slick.
They peer at it.
‘Point three-oh-three,’ she says. ‘Lucky your arm’s not broken.’
She bats his probing finger out of the way, and he feels the edges of the wound pressed together and the first stitch going through them. It’s not pleasant, but feels mild after the pliers. Then she’s finishing up, applying iodine, tea-tree oil and a dressing, and pressing a glass of wine into his hand.
‘Drink.’
He drains the glass. ‘Thanks.’ The wound is throbbing worse than before if anything, but it feels healthier somehow. Coira shuffles round the table towards the kitchen area.
‘You stay here and get pissed. I think we should save the rest of the gin for sterilising. I’ll make tea.’
McRae is rambling something wistful about entropy. Sizzling sounds and spicy and garlicky smells reach Alistair’s fogged senses from the cooking area. An uncertain amount of time later he finds she’s made what looks like a paella, and turned the slim pickings of his tinned collection into something smelling like curry.
He tucks in with his good arm and a fork.
‘Yum. Good effort.’ Her cooking has definitely improved.
‘One of the benefits of living by yourself.’ She doesn’t elaborate, and they eat in silence for a while. Robin Williamson’s October Song is now on the MP3 player. Alistair never liked The Incredible String Band much, and this is the cover by The Corries. It’s from way back in 1968, before computers even, but the lyrics and the sweetly melancholic harmonies of Ronnie Browne and Roy Williamson seem appropriate somehow.
I’ll sing you my October song
There is no song before it
The words and tune are not my own
My joy and sorrow bore it
Coira eats as though starving. It’s something he’d noticed at breakfast. It’s extraordinary: she used to peck at her food, like a particularly fastidious bird. When her plate’s scraped clean, she turns her attention to the wine. Sips some, then knocks it back. ‘You were right,’ she says.
He gives her a questioning look.
‘About the wine.’
He nods.
‘How you feeling?’
He senses this is a preamble to the elephant in the room, but says: ‘Pain’s definitely down since you took out the bullet. I should be fine. Barring infection.’
‘Have you antibiotics? I couldn’t find any.’
‘For the current strains?’ He shakes his head. ‘Lap of the gods now.’ He toys with dregs of paella. ‘You know, you were good today. You kept your head. And you pick up stuff very quickly.’
She laughs. It’s a deeper version of the throaty laugh he’d got to know so well. ‘Alistair, I think we both know who saved our lives this afternoon. Actually, that’s two days running now.’ He puts down his fork. Fiddles with his wine glass. ‘In fact,’ she continues, ‘you were amazing. I’ve practised on the range as part of police training. I shot a couple of people. Both gang-related. Took counselling afterwards – not sure if I needed it or not, it was just policy. But anyway, you …’
Here it comes.
‘You took out moving targets from a moving boat, beyond the effective range of an AK-47, using a military-spec assault rifle you’re obviously familiar with, with a hit rate, at least before you got shot, that I made out to be almost fifty percent. And that was before I knew you’d punctured the boats. No one I know in the police could have got near that.’
‘I was on form, I admit it.’
She snorts. ‘Are you SAS?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. I’m not SAS.’
‘I’m close though, aren’t I?’ She stares at him, and her eyes bulge. ‘Holy crap. You went and did it. Civil servant my arse. You went and joined MI5!’ She’s trying to hide it, but what crosses her face is definitely fear.
‘I am a civil servant,’ he protests. ‘Or was. Technically. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re expecting that means.’
‘Have you killed people?’
He hesitates. Nods.
‘For Westminster?’
Another nod. ‘Of course.’
‘Feel good, did it?’ This said with undisguised contempt. He feels a bolus of anger swell.
‘So, after twenty years, suddenly you think you know me?’ he snaps at her. ‘You know nothing at all. About me, or the world you live in. You’re still so … blinkered by this dogma of social or national inequity that you haven’t a clue what’s going on out there. Some of us are just doing our best to stop everything falling apart.’
Coira’s face creases. ‘Are you serious? I’m a fucking police officer! I’d wager it’s given me a pretty fucking objective idea of “what’s going on out there”. Perhaps the real difference here is that one of us hasn’t been brainwashed.’
For a moment Alistair can only splutter.
‘Fuck’s sake! Where do I even start?’ The way she’s glaring at him now suggests she wants to tear his throat out. ‘Can’t you see, Coira – these divisions and labels that are so important to you do not matter any more?’
‘What, unless they’re British ones?’
‘Oh Christ, Coira, none of that matters. People just want to survive! There were, what? – eighty five million people in England and Wales at Reunification? With Europe already a shitstorm, and thousands more arriving daily from places that make Britain seem like heaven.’ He shakes his head, like a wet dog. ‘Did you think that number was somehow likely to go down? What the fuck did you think was going to happen? Should they all have entered into some voluntary suicide pact?’
‘It didn’t give them any right …’
‘No!’ he yells. ‘It didn’t! But the obligation?’
He screws up his face.
‘You always saw things so personally, Coira. You don’t know what it was like down there. Just … imagine it for one moment. Your capital’s flooding, food reserves are gone. Pesticides barely work, and what land isn’t eroding, salting up or under water half the year is being pushed so hard that yields are in free fall. Your economy was service-based, so on top of all that now you’ve a job and skills crisis because no one remembers how to actually make anything – and with the old trade links largely gone, you couldn’t get the raw materials even if they did. Money’s a joke! People are looting and rioting the way they used to shop and visit the pub. I remember towns … where every lamp-post seemed to have a body hanging from it – with people too scared to speak in case they sounded foreign, and anyone vaguely Muslim-looking afraid to step outside without protection from a Caliphate-sponsored gang. Even without all this going on, the state could never have absorbed all the refugees arriving without tearing itself apart, or had a prayer of feeding them if it could. You’re facing anarchy! And help is not coming. From within the UK or anywhere else.’
He throws up a hand. ‘And meanwhile, across the border you’ve a country with one twelfth your population and a military everyone knows is a joke, thumbing its nose at the neighbour it recently told to screw itself. Sure, it has its problems, but as well as still exporting food, energy and oil, it’s facing a fraction of the migration pressures you’re trying to manage. It’s also an emerging threat, signing arms deals with the Swedes and Norwegians and flirting none-too-subtly with a developing bloc of similarly fortunate Scandinavian states.’
Alistair raises his palms.
‘So what are you supposed to do? If you’re Westminster, faced with the responsibility of finding some solution to all this. Seriously Coira – what? Watch everyone starve? And then … have millions flood into Scotland anyway, fleeing the inevitable civil war, probably shooting and looting as they go?’
He leans forward. Holds Coira’s glare. ‘Or, do you take the difficult but logical decision of repossessing territory that until recently was yours anyway, and integrate it – in a controlled
way – so starvation and total collapse are at least postponed?’
He leans back. Coira is very still.
‘Alistair.’ She licks her lips. ‘Invaders have used that line since the dawn of time. “It’s about resources”. That’s all you’ve said.’ From a low growl, her voice begins to rise. ‘Of course it fucking was – like every war and invasion in history. I can’t believe you’re even attempting to try and justify what those fuckers did. Especially using that fallacious old …’
‘Do I like what happened?’
Alistair slams his good hand on the table, making her jump.
‘Of course I don’t! There’s little about this fucked-up world that I like. For better or worse, though, it’s where we live. And that’s what we have to deal with! Not some … fairy story!’
He breathes out sharply. Rakes a hand through his hair.
‘If you’re some poor bastard living in Manchester, or – or Croydon, do you even care what country you live in?’ He shakes his head. ‘All you want is your next meal, and some hope of a way to pay for it. If you ditch the idea of some random line some idiot decided separated “this” group of people from “that” one, such distinctions look absurd. Then it’s obvious that people with nothing need to be sent where there is space. And food! Just as it was before independence threw this … totally arbitrary line up across the Scottish border. Again!’
‘Interesting.’ While her eyes still burn, Coira has an eyebrow raised. ‘You mean, arbitrary lines like the one that arse-fucked us this afternoon?’
Alistair feels his cheeks flush. ‘I’ll admit that was …’ He’s searching for a word, but he can’t find it. ‘Anyway, it’s not just about the UK’s future. Scotland signed its own death warrant by voting for independence. We’d have kept at least the name if we went on like before, and avoided a lot of unpleasantness. The killer irony is that, because you lot voted the way you did, we no longer have even that!’
Coira’s face has been darkening. ‘You have to be fucking kidding!’ She’s gripping the table so hard he can hear its frame creak. ‘On so many levels. Why do you think we even got to keep the name, when as far as anyone else in the world was concerned, Scotland was just some … glorified fucking English county? It was a form of control, you moron! That’s what independence was about. So people choosing to live here could do so the way we fucking voted for – not how governments elected by some other country …’
‘Really? And how’s that working out?’
Coira narrows her eyes. Alistair’s worked with MI5 for fifteen years, sometimes undercover with violent psychopaths, yet he’s discovering that this expression of hers still has the ability to make his skin prickle.
‘We were protected before,’ he pushes on. ‘England was our shield. From all kinds of bad stuff. That’s what people like you could never see.’
‘I can’t believe this. You’re saying being England’s catamite protected us from England? Like a protection racket? What kind of fucked-up …?’
‘The army took Scotland without a shot being fired because everyone knew that resistance was pointless. Putting yourselves in that position …’
‘… Aye, because half our cabinet had their pockets lined to let them waltz in.’
‘Maybe your cabinet got smart.’
‘They were self-serving fucks. And we were already in the process …’
‘… Of joining Scandinavia?’ He actually laughs. ‘Well, you should have done it sooner. And you think the Scandis are morally any better than the English? Have you seen how quickly the Hanseatic League is arming itself right now? It’s like a new NATO, except not so welcoming. Nuovo Sicilia takes more migrants than the whole of Scandinavia, and the country’s a virtual desert south of Naples. You think this …’ he waves his arms ‘… is what “heavily patrolled” looks like?’ He snorts. ‘Try the Baltic, or the coast of Norway. Nothing there moves without the Swedish or Norwegian navies knowing. Ask yourself why that is.’
There’s what looks like sadness in Coira’s eyes now. It’s unexpected, and Alistair isn’t sure of its focus. ‘So, what you’re saying boils down to … is that it’s okay to act badly if someone else has something you need? Especially if others behave badly too? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘But there is no “good” or “bad” any more, Coira. If there ever was. Jesus!’ He lets out a controlling sigh, realising as he does that much of the frustration he’s feeling doesn’t actually lie with her.
‘What is there, then?’
‘Like I said. Just people doing the best they can.’
‘I see.’ She leans away from him. ‘Does your definition of “the best they can” include what looks very much like ethnic cleansing?’
That was from left-field. He blinks. ‘What do you mean? Have you evidence of this?’
She describes a mass execution she claims to have stumbled across on her journey west. He listens at first with disbelief, then unease. If she’s making it up, she’s a gifted liar.
‘Where was this?’
‘South of Oban.’
Bit vague … ‘You’re insinuating this was state sanctioned. You can’t possibly prove that, can you?’
‘I was a Detective Inspector before my last promotion, Alistair. I know a fucking cover-up when I see one. I also saw a navy warship blow a fully-loaded migrant boat clean in half. You think that was another one-off that I just happened to see?’
He pulls a face. ‘You’re saying it was unprovoked? I doubt that.’
‘Three boats were being chased down by this thing. One fired hand weapons.’
‘They’ll claim that was provocation.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, please. Of course they’ll claim it was provocation! You and I both know the rounds wouldn’t have scratched the fucking paintwork. And I’ll put money on the officers on that boat having orders to provoke a response so they could claim just cause. Is that your idea of “people doing the best they can”?’
‘Okay, okay! But Coira, can’t you see? If they hadn’t been there in the first place, there would never have been … I mean …’
He did have an end planned to this sentence, but the way it was coming out scared him, and he’s lost track of it somewhere. He becomes aware he’s staring at the table. Mouth slack, he sees Coira looking at him, her expression halfway between quizzical and alarmed.
‘Coira. I …’ His hands are clenched into fists. He’s stuttering. He can’t even identify the sounds coming out of his mouth. He’s only half responsible for his head pitching forward against the table. ‘Ah Jesus.’
‘Alistair? Alistair! You alright?’
No. ‘Nothing’s alright, dammit!’
He experiences a kind of spasm. After it’s over, he’s half-standing, watching his dirty plate spin to rest on a floor scattered with cutlery, crumbs of paella, and the broken remains of a wine glass. He stares at them.
‘Alistair, you don’t look right. You’re starting to freak me out.’
‘It’s all gone to shit, Coira – everything’s turned to complete and utter shit!’ He scrabbles free of the table, knocking over more crockery. Stands in the kitchen area. He’s panting. He can’t keep still. ‘I believed it. I did. Because, despite all the politics and the crap, I thought … But … I can’t see what it means any more, and I don’t know …! Ahhh, help me.’
Suddenly, more than anything, he wants – needs – to be alone. He’s trapped himself, he realises. Everything’s led to him being trapped here, on his own boat. He needs her to leave. But that’s impossible.
He doesn’t trust himself.
He finds himself looking down at the rifle again. He can’t even remember where he is. Some scruffy anchorage, further south. East coast of the island of Gigha? No idea, but he’s drunk a lot of whisky. He thinks he hoped it might fill the raw hole where important parts of him used to be, but it hasn’t. His head is spinning. It’s not just the whisky. He’s in the cockpit, l
ooking out to the lights of the mainland. Far away.
Damned assault rifle. He can feel its presence in the locker.
He was absolutely right, back at the marina. He should never have brought it.
He takes the gun out of the locker. Studies it absently. Sniffs it. It smells oddly reassuring. Oxidised metal and gun oil.
He sits on one of the benches, wedges the stock against the base of the opposite bench and slips the barrel into his mouth.
He expects to feel revulsion. He doesn’t. He bears down on the gun, tasting metal as he pushes it into his soft palate. He gags slightly as he stretches for the trigger.
He can reach it, just, but he’ll have to push down awkwardly with his finger. Suddenly the scenario is ridiculous. This is not the way he wants this. Alone, on a boat, inexpertly fumbling a steel clitoris while fellating a steel pipe. Like a teenage boy on some sordid sexual exploration …
‘I don’t understand,’ Coira is saying.
‘I killed someone.’
Her eyebrows shoot up. He jerks his gaze away. Through one of the condensation-beaded windows, he can just make out the moon rising above the island’s dark cliffs.
‘I killed … a man. In July. Except … No. Not a man. He was just a fucking kid! Seventeen, maybe eighteen. I think. He …’
‘You mean, on duty? Was this undercover?’
‘Fuck. Fuck, fuck. I’ve thought about this. I’ve thought it through. And, you see …’ He claws at his face. ‘How many people can someone kill, do you think? Before … Before …’
‘Alistair! Look at me. I need you to breathe, slowly. Tell me what it is you need to say.’
The sound his throat makes when he swallows seems grotesquely loud. ‘Isn’t too bad. To start with. You’re encouraged to … I don’t know, like you’re unblocking drains or something. Dissociate. That’s the word they use. They’ve got books.’
Coira’s looking startled. He rubs a hand over his mouth.
‘This kid. Meant to be part of some cell. New anarchist group, I think. Don’t even remember. And … he did have a gun. Pakistani knock-off of an American P48. So, anyway, I, I get the go-ahead. And I drop him. Double tap, chest and then head.’ He points. ‘Guessing you’ll know the drill.’