Gutted (19 page)

I SETTLED IN
my chair and tipped the last of the goldie down my neck. As the whisky burn hit my stomach I sensed another strange glow, something I hadn’t felt since my last visit to the nick . . . it was the return of the feeling that I might crack this case. I could see Jonny Johnstone being cuffed and stuffed in the back of a van – quite an eye-opener that would be for him. But the shiny-arsed little ponce had it coming. I knew now this was more than just a matter of stiffing me to better ingratiate himself with Debs, or, for that matter, to boost his self-worth to make him feel better than his future wife’s ex-husband. Jonny was up to his neck in some serious trouble. I didn’t know where any of this was leading but I felt charged with fire to find out. Whoever Jonny was protecting knew exactly who had murdered Moosey, and why. I’d make it my life’s mission to discover who that person was, and just what the fuck they had over Jonny Johnstone.

As I stood up, the girl behind the bar screamed.

It was an ear-splitting scream, the kind of noise that cuts straight to some deep-rooted primeval instinct.

I ran to her. ‘Jesus, girl, what’s the matter?’

She was trembling, staring straight out the window at the front of the bar. ‘They just drove off . . .’

I lifted the bar top and walked round beside her. Some people had come from the kitchen now. ‘What is it?’ I said.

‘The car, the car . . .’ She pointed to the window.

As I looked out my own life seemed to flash before my eyes. Tupac was lying in a heap in the middle of the road. I left the girl shaking, ran out of the pub.

Two American tourists were standing by the side of the road. A tall man stood over Tupac, trying to loosen off his collar. By the time I reached the road the man had removed his jacket and placed it under Tupac’s head.

‘Tupac . . . Tupac, can you hear me?’ I put my hand on his face, he was cold. He didn’t seem to be breathing.

‘Someone should call an ambulance,’ said the tall man.

One of the Americans appeared at my back. It was the woman. ‘Oh my God . . . Oh my God!’ She kept repeating the words over and over.

‘Would you shut the fuck up, woman!’ I yelled. The other American came and led her away.

‘What happened?’ I said.

‘A car just knocked him into the air . . . It was parked over there.’ The tall guy pointed to the car park. ‘You should have seen the reek off the tyres – he must have been waiting for him . . . Knocked him right into the air he did.’

I looked at Tupac, he was turning blue. I tried to encourage him round by gently tapping at his cheeks, but he didn’t respond. There was blood seeping from his mouth and a pool behind his head.

‘Where’s the fucking ambulance?’ I yelled.

I stood up, I couldn’t bear to look at him any more. I walked to the edge of the road and back again. A crowd formed around the dirty, unwashed heap in the road that was Tupac. I approached the tall man, pulled him aside. ‘Did you see the car?’

‘Yes, yes, I saw it all . . .’

‘What kind of car was it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, a small one . . . white. Quite an age I think but well looked after.’

‘Was it a Corrado?’

‘I couldn’t say, yes, maybe . . . oh, I don’t know.’

I started to get frustrated with him. ‘What do you mean, you don’t fucking know? . . . You know what a Corrado looks like, surely.’

He backed away from me. He had a look in his eye that said he felt I was deranged. ‘I really couldn’t say.’

I caught his arm, pulled him back. ‘What about the driver?’

‘I didn’t see the driver.’ He was edging away again, stepping backwards.

‘Just tell me if it was a male or a female driver.’

‘I couldn’t say . . . I really couldn’t say.’

I was frantic now, burst it: ‘You really are a lot of fucking use, you lanky streak of piss.’

The man took one more look at me and just about sprinted off to the car park. I started to grab people at random. ‘Did you see the driver? . . . What about you? . . . Did anyone see the driver?’

The American woman called out, ‘It was a young man, a young man was driving the car. He had a hood on but I could see his face clearly . . . It was a young man driving the car and he drove over that poor guy with a grin on his face.’ She started to cry, was comforted by the guy with her. ‘I’ll never forget the way he looked for the rest of my life.’

I wanted to scream out. To punch someone, to kill.

The ambulance came belting down Corstorphine Road, blue lights blazing, siren blaring. I pushed through the crowd. Tupac’s face was almost black now. A middle-aged woman was holding his hand. I crouched down beside him, whispered, ‘Tupac, mate, here’s the cavalry . . . You’re going to make it. You’re going to make it.’

As I said the words the woman put down Tupac’s hand, placed it over his chest and stood up. ‘Son, he’s already gone.’

I stayed there on the ground.

‘Son,’ the woman said, ‘the old man’s gone . . .’ She rested her hand on my shoulder and spoke in the kindest of tones. ‘Come away, lad . . . There’s nothing you could have done.’

As I stood up two paramedics ran from the ambulance. One held a red medical case and the other a folded-up stretcher. I watched for a few moments as they worked around Tupac on the road. It didn’t take them long before they started to shake their heads.

I felt like sand had been poured in my limbs. I was rigid, unmoving.

A red blanket was placed over Tupac’s head. The paramedics placed him on the stretcher and lifted him up. He looked a surprisingly light load . . . not much to him under all those layers of clothes.

‘Stop,’ I said as the stretcher was carried away. I reached under and touched Tupac’s small hand. It was cold as stone. I’d only known him a few hours but that was long enough for him to have touched my soul.

My Adam’s apple rose and fell involuntarily. Everything had happened so fast, I just couldn’t take it in. ‘Tupac, I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I SPENT FOUR
days near-comatose with drink.

Whisky was bought by the crate.

But nothing dimmed the memory of Tupac’s death. I just couldn’t shake the sight of him lying there in the road, a heap of nothing more than dirty old clothes and shattered bones in a pool of blood.

I was responsible for the death of an innocent man. A man who had been bruised and battered by this life, in more ways than even I could imagine, had met his end as a result of me. And how he had gone. God, he didn’t deserve that.

‘Please, God, say it was all a dream and take me instead,’ I had ranted.

Even now, semi-sober, I’d have swapped places with Tupac. Not to rid me of the guilt – I’d gladly keep that, I deserved it – but just to restore some sense of right to this fucked-up world that knows nothing but wrong.

I settled into my bunk on the boat. Usual had been left behind with me when I’d refused company and become too aggressive to deal with, even for Mac. The dog kept smacking a squeaky hotdog toy off my leg. It was endearing for the first couple of seconds, then it got annoying. He sat with the toy, eyes on me, salivating down either side of the hot dog then, in a fit of activity, pounced and slapped me with it, saliva spraying all ways.

‘Christ, dog, can’t you give me peace?’

Those eyes again.

Guilt.

‘Okay, okay . . . c’mere.’

I grabbed the toy, held it for a moment whilst Usual growled and clung on for dear life, I raised him off the ground but he still hung on by his chops to the toy.

‘You’re mad, animal . . . do you know that?’

Our playtime was interrupted by my mobi ringing.

‘Hello.’

‘Gus, is that you?’

I recognised the voice. ‘Mr Bacon.’

‘Hello, Gus.’

Rasher did not make social telephone calls to me. A good job, because I was in no mood for small chat.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

After feeding him the scoop of the year I had, admittedly, gone a bit quiet. ‘Look, I’m not really in a position to write up what I’ve got yet . . . Soon as I get some publishable conclusions, though, you’ll be the first to know.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, but we really need to talk, Gus.’

I was intrigued. ‘We do?’

‘Definitely.’

I played along. ‘All right, say when.’ Usual raised himself on his hinds, slapped the wet hotdog on my leg. It squeaked.

‘Well, what about later this evening? We have a function room booked for some training shite at the Salisbury – do you know it?’

The Salisbury used to be called the Meteor back in its spit-and-sawdust day. Hod’s firm had been called in to tart it up, help them cut a slice of the city’s booming conference trade. ‘Yeah, I know the place.’

‘Great, can you make it about eight for eight-thirty?’

‘No problem.’

I took Usual out for a walk around the docks. Caught sight of a few Ministry of Defence frigates but it was a sad scene all round.
A
far cry from the bustling days of old. Still, the dog seemed delighted. He wouldn’t be so delighted tomorrow, the time had come for him to go back to the vet and have those stitches removed.

Back on the boat, I cracked the seal on a bottle of Grouse. The low-flying birdie hit the spot.

I let the whisky dim my world view for a few hours until the clock on the wall told me it was time to go back out among the living. I perished the thought.

I put out some dinner for Usual, made him sit, then dashed for the door while he was preoccupied.

It was still light out but the warmth of the day had evaporated, replaced by a northern wind that set the hairs on the back of my hands twitching. The first cab I flagged wasn’t for stopping. The second was a bit keener.

At the Salisbury I clocked Rasher’s old Daimler out front. I had my suspicions about this meeting, but I figured more than anything there might be some kind of information that would be of use. I’d been licking my wounds for long enough. There’d been two murders already – was I going to just let the tally go up?

One of my suspicions was more of a fantasy, I admit it. The idea that Rasher was about to offer me my job back on the strength of one article was a fallacy, but I soaked it up anyway. What else did I have? The thought of being wanted was a feeling I hadn’t known for a while. One thing was for sure, I was gonna ride it to the end of the line.

At the front desk, I asked where the newspaper’s function suite was. The receptionist scanned me with contempt. Her make-up was trowelled on worse than Amy Winehouse’s; she annoyed me just as much too. She opened the big book in front of her and huffed, ‘There is no function.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You said
function
. . . from the newspaper.’

‘Aye, Mr Bacon’s the editor. I saw his car out front.’

Looks askance: ‘No. Nothing at all.’ Then the killer, eyes up and down, ‘And who might you be?’

I was on the verge of walking, but somewhere in my mind the delusion of myself and Debs, happily connected, settled, me working back at the paper and my shit together, flashed before my eyes. I said, ‘Dury . . . Gus Dury.’

A flicker behind those contemptuous beads. ‘Ah, I see. It’s you.’

‘I’m sorry?’

A smirk. ‘Through the restaurant, first door on the left.’

‘Thank you.’

There were some diners who looked up when I passed their tables, but mostly they kept to themselves. The older lot seemed to be the clientele the place was going for. Felt like wading through waves of grey.

At the door, I decided against knocking, walked in.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

First to spot me was my mother, looking more frail than I’d seen her in years. I almost had to do a double-take. She shuffled over and held me by my arm. ‘Hello, Angus.’

‘Mam, what the hell is this?’

Everyone was there: Hod, Mac, Debs, Rasher, my sister Catherine and my brother Michael; even some people I hadn’t seen for years, old friends of the family I could hardly put names to.

‘Mam, is everything okay? I was worried. I meant to visit you . . .’

She hushed me, motioned to a chair that had been laid out in the middle of the room, a row of others emanating back from it. I was told to sit in the hot seat. The others followed. To a one they looked stern.

I sat.

Felt my pulse quicken.

Rasher was the first to speak. Everyone sat watching, except for Mac, who told Rasher to stand.

‘Gus,’ Rasher said, ‘do you know why you’re here?’

I shook my head, said, ‘Well, unless Michael Aspel’s about to appear with a big red book, I have to confess, I’m scoobied.’

Rasher went on, ‘Gus, your friends and family have staged this little event as a wake-up call to try and—’

Mac interrupted, ‘Gus, this is an intervention!’

‘A what?’ Had I heard right?