Crime

THE LUNCHTIME TRAFFIC is light on the freeway, as Lennox sits next to Ginger, who has been uncharacteristically cowed and silent. This suits him; he feels good that somebody else is feeling bad. He’s exhausted, but he’d been glad to see the dawn fill the room, delivering him from his sweating torment. He shakily recalls one of last night’s tortuous dreams. He was on Ginger’s balcony. Inside the apartment, through the glass, the grinning Mr Confectioner with a frightened Britney, who then became a terrified Trudi. Lennox’s own mother Avril sat in a chair watching, like she was almost encouraging the Nonce. Lennox had pulled at the door but it wouldn’t slide open. He pounded the glass till both his hands bled. When he looked behind him there was no balustrade on the balcony. And the veranda area had shrunk to become a small ledge.

A horn blares, tearing him from his thoughts.

— Spastic! Ginger roars, as he zooms in front of a big truck that dazzles Lennox with a magnificent chromium blast of reflective sunlight. He turns to Trudi in the back. — Was I out of order last night?

— No, not at all, she says, a little too emphatically. — You were great hosts and it was a good night out, I’m just suffering a wee bit now, with the jet lag and everything.

At the hotel’s rear courtyard – a small jungle of cypress, oak, pine and the ubiquitous palm trees, designed to allow revellers to sneak in discreetly – they say their goodbyes. Lennox and Trudi look obviously wrecked as the concierge dispenses an obsequious and collusive this is South Beach grin.

— I have to lie down, Trudi moans, flipping the plastic key into the room’s lock, delighted when the green light appears first time.

She is bad with hangovers, Lennox considers, as he heads to the bathroom. The sleep he’d gotten at Ginger’s had been non-existent, and the antidepressants are now gone. He can’t tell her. Something is going to happen. He can feel it as he sits on the toilet. But not from his bowels. Nothing will happen in his bowels.

When he comes back into the room, Trudi is lying on the bed. Her arm is draped across her face, covering her eyes from the sun. She wears only a sky-blue thong. It contrasts nicely with her sunbed-tanned skin. Why had she not gone under the covers? The light ribs her body. He can see the hardness in it. Gym and diet. Now he feels something in his gut. Saliva ducts working in his mouth.

He gets on to the bed and grabs at her breast; an awkward and adolescent lunge that surprises him as much as it does her. Trudi pulls away, wincing. — My nipples are sore, she grumbles in protest. — It’s my period coming on.

Lennox feels his body relax in relief. Sex has been avoided again. He can’t believe it; he is actually happy. He is doing everything in his power to avoid shagging her. Usually it’s all he wants. How long has it been? A cold sweat breaks out on his forehead, across his back. He knows that if it doesn’t happen soon, they’ll be finished.

They get under the duvet. She turns away and Lennox wraps himself around her. Spoons her. She used to like that. Made her feel safe and loved, she said. Soon she’s writhing and sweating, pushing him away. — Don’t touch me, Ray. It’s too hot.

Now she’s feeling trapped by him. Confined. He rolls flat. She soon falls asleep. Lennox lies awake, shivering in a private hell. He remembers that boy in Jeanie Deans pub on the South Side of Edinburgh. Just another daft cunt telling sick jokes to his mates: still too young to have learned about hurt, loss and taste. A game of pool in the boozer. Forgot where he was.

A young boy named Martin McFarlane had recently died after a bone-marrow transplant. He was a brave, sweet-faced wee kid and his sad story had been widely reported in the local media. The community rallied round with fund-raising activities for life-saving operations at American and Dutch clinics. But they hadn’t worked; Martin had succumbed to his disease. The young guy in the pub loudly asked a mate, — What’s the difference between Martin McFarlane and Britney Hamil? When his friend shook his head, the boy emphatically contended, — Martin McFarlane died a virgin!

The extreme bad taste and the local, contemporary aspect caused most of his friends to gag or shudder. Lennox, who was sitting in the corner with some Serious Crimes boys based at the South Side station, stood up and walked across to the young man. The youth saw that he’d crossed the line and immediately stammered out an apology.

They knew that Ray Lennox had lost it when he didn’t attempt to strike or even verbally abuse the joker. When he tried to speak, he started to choke. — Ah did ma best… he pleaded to the terrified bar comedian, — ah did ma best for that wee lassie…

It was only when he felt the pull on his shoulder, heard the repetition of his name and focused on a crack in the hardwood and gauged its proximity, that Lennox realised he’d fallen to his knees. His friends picked him up off the pub floor. One took him to Trudi’s flat. She called the doctor and the police personnel department’s welfare people.

Now he’s lying in bed, at their boutique hotel in Miami Beach, thinking about Britney. Trying not to think of the moment when her virginity was taken from her. Compelled to do so, as if turning his back on the magnitude of her terror was in itself a form of disrespect and cowardice.

Maybe that was the lunacy… maybe that was the problem, getting too involved like that…

He trembles from his very core. It only stops when he attempts, instead, to think of her mother. He can see Angela Hamil, a cigarette in hand. The start of the investigation: her daughter missing. The urge to violently shake her and say: Britney’s gone. And you’re just sitting there smoking cigarettes. That’s right. You just sit there and smoke cigarettes and leave us to find your daughter.

The sweat seeps from him, soaking the bed. His heart punches a steady beat in his chest, like a boxer’s jab on a heavy gym bag. His throat is constricted with tension as he tries to fill his dry lungs with the sterile air of the room. His body is in revolt against him and he can hear Trudi snoring; loud, truculent snarls that could be coming from a drunken labourer. Dream demons are forming as his eyes shut, pulling his exhausted soul into their realm. He doesn’t want to go there but his fatigued mind is surrendering.

It’s mid-afternoon when they wake up. They’re both ravenous. Lennox feels like his brain is expanding and contracting in his skull, fraying its outer edges against rough, unyielding bone.

They get ready to head outside, into the heat. Lennox wears his Ramones End of the Century T-shirt. He’d chosen it in preference to a Hearts football top; the material’s too much for this heat. Cotton is a better bet. There was the maroon-and-white BELIEVE shirt. But he decides that he doesn’t want to explain anything to anybody, to talk to Scots abroad and lie about his job, like all cops have to around real people. He puts on another pair of light canvas trousers, dressy enough if they want to go and eat somewhere a bit upscale. The Red Sox cap is pulled back on to his head. Trudi wears a short, white pleated skirt. Her legs are long and brown. A pink vesty top. Her arms also tan, her hair tied back. Shades. Outside, his arm goes to her waist as they walk in silence. It’s the first time she’s worn this skirt without him getting an erection. Unforeseen fear grips him again.

They are hungry but can’t agree on what to eat. The hangovers and the strange location conspire against decision-making; neither self nor significant other is to be trusted with that choice. A wrong call would mean recrimination: brooding silence followed by a row. Both of them know it. But they need to eat. Their brains and guts fizz from last night’s tequila slammers.

They pass a Senior Frog’s Mexican Cantina. Lennox recalled that some of the boys had been to a Senior Frog’s on a polis beano in Cancun. There was a long-running canteen joke about it. He’d wanted to go with them, but it was when he and Trudi had just got back together, and things were in flux. They were always in flux. Besides, Gillman had gone on the Cancun trip, which effectively ruled it out for him. He shows her the restaurant. By now she just wants to sit down somewhere – anywhere – out of the heat. A pretty but severe-looking Latina girl escorts them to seats at wooden tables and issues them laminated menus. The place is half full, some groups and couples dining. At the bar a bunch of white guys wearing red-and-white-striped soccer shirts are drinking. Trudi has a free local newspaper, and mutters something about a show on at the Jackie Gleason theatre.

— Minnesota Fats, Lennox says, recalling Gleason’s turn in The Hustler.

The tables are big. Like the ones in the polis interview rooms. The distance between him and Trudi is about right. He needs a drink. He wants to question her. Instead he questions himself, again.

The rising. The breakfast. The walk. The turning. The snatching. The footage. The pictures.

Now he’s desperate for a drink. He needs one. The waitresses seem busy. — I