Crime

be used as a bunk for a kid or a small adult.

— Sweet, Lennox says, as he peeks in the toilet with its handbasin, jacks and full shower. — It’s bigger than my flat, eh, apartment, he corrects himself. — Do you live here full-time?

— Almost. Chet’s aura expands. — I have a small place in a development close by, but it’s a glorified storage place and mailbox. We’re gonna cast off in about half an hour or so, and I gotta refuel and check on some things at the office. As I said, the trip should take about an hour, an hour and a half if we stop for lunch. You sure you can spare the time?

— Aye, Lennox says, checking a digital clock built into the units. It’s still early, so he decides he’ll call Trudi and let her know that everything is okay, before another thought gatecrashes. — Is there an Internet facility out here?

— Best bet’s the cafe a few blocks back from the harbour road.

Lennox climbs out the boat and heads across the lot towards the car. Tianna comes running after him. — Where you goin, Ray?

— Just to find an Internet cafe. I’ll be back in half an hour; then we go sailing and get some lunch. You stay here.

— Okay, she says, skipping away for a couple of steps, before turning round. — You will come back though, huh, Ray?

— Aye! I’m just going to make a phone call and then get the Scottish Cup draw, ya donut!

— Aye! She taps her eye with her index finger. — You’re the goddamn donut! she shouts before bounding over to the boat.

— SFA! he laughs, watching her depart as he climbs back into the Volkswagen. He winces as the hot seat burns his bare arm. As he starts up the motor, maxing up the cold air, he can’t help but think of the contrast with the freezing surveillance van parked outside the cemetery in Edinburgh, only a couple of months ago.

Lennox finds the Net cafe easy enough and checks out Jambos’ Kickback. The discussion on one thread is ongoing, now eighteen pages long. It centres around whether it is desirable to have a man who has been convicted of unlawful sex with an underage girl as the coach of Heart of Midlothian FC.

The club’s board appointed a nonce as team boss. He had a great coaching pedigree, they said.

Lennox can’t decide. The cunt made a mistake. If she’s fifteen you’re a nonce. If she’s sixteen you’re a lucky bastard. But no, you can say that when you’re twenty but not when you’re forty. He knew the score. He was a predator. But the boy was split from his wife and family. He was lonely. He made a human mistake. Fuck sake fuck sake fuck sake—

He hits the next thread.

Did anyone feel, in all honesty, that there was a suspicion of offside at Skacel’s winner against Kilmarnock on Saturday?

Then he saw that Maroon Mayhem was online. The Craig Gordon thread; a reply to his last point.

Who do you think you are to criticise my opinion? You should watch what you say, my friend. You’re getting a bit personal. I’d watch that if I were you.

Who is this cunt?

Lennox signs in and batters the keys.

I’m not your friend. You are a ****ing muppet. Is that personal enough?

Then he switches over to the BBC Sports site. Hearts had drawn Aberdeen at home. Astonishingly, Celtic had lost to Clyde! Hibs had drawn Rangers at Ibrox, so their Scottish Cup nightmare would inevitably continue. It was shaping up nicely. He flicks back to Kickback.

This cretin had gotten back in touch.

You don’t know who you are messing with here. I know a lot of the people. Watch yourself. You can be easily found.

Lennox feels a rage burning inside him; this loser has been known to make threats on the web before.

I’ll save you the bother, and tell you exactly where I am. Miami. But I’ll be back in Edinburgh on the 21st of January. On the 22nd I’ll be at the Vodka Bar in Shandwick Place at 1 p.m. wearing a black leather jacket. I’ll even tell you my name: Raymond Lennox. My season ticket number is O52 in the Wheatfield. Please make yourself known to me so that I can rip your head off. I’ll be very surprised if you do. You and anybody else who gets their rocks off acting hard in this way are usually fourteen-year-old virgins or other antisocial retards who live at home with their mothers. But I’d be delighted if you were to prove me wrong. C’mon. Give me your name and where you want to meet up for a quiet little drink. Anywhere. Name it. I’ll be there.

It takes time to check, send and post his message. Then, as he clicks refresh the board administrator comes on.

Okay, you two, it’s time to call a halt to all this.

Lennox suddenly registers the clock in the corner of the screen. He is late. Panic rises in his chest. What if—

I shouldn’t have left her. Not till I was totally sure. But Chet’s… No, how plausible Confectioner had seemed too! They could be away now, her tied up downstairs, him taking the boat to a secret perverts’ lair. And she’d wanted to come with me and I’ve fucking well left her!

Ray Lennox slams a twenty-dollar bill on the counter in front of a perplexed sales clerk as he tears out the cafe.

15 Fishing for Friends

LENNOX SCORCHES THE tyres for the block’s drive, ripping into the marina and parking the Volkswagen as close as he can to the moored vessels. Jumping out, he sprints round the corner to the brokers’ shopfronts, his heart thrashing and the tint of metal in his mouth. Britney… Tianna… I’ve fucked it again… the fucking boat…

They all look the same, these iridescent symbols of wealth: that opaline glow against the black water of the harbour, the sleek sterility. Then his eyes register a familiar figure and a huge gasp explodes from him as he stops and bends, letting his hands rest on his knees. Chet.

It’s still there. The boat. Chet is leaving the harbour master’s office. Tianna is…

She is over on one of the gangways, watching a big pelican standing on a mooring post that protrudes from the water.

Chet sees the breathless Scot first. — Come on, Lennox, we’ve been waiting on you. Thought you’d run out on us!

Just as he savours the palpable relief on Tianna’s face, Lennox realises that he hasn’t called Trudi. The whole purpose of going was to call her, he ticks in self-flagellating remorse as his respiratory system regulates. I sometimes think you care more about Hearts than me, Ray. She knew not to say that again after the way he’d responded the last time: I care more about Hibs than you. It was a shabby old joke handed down through the generations, but the humour was lost on her. Perhaps Chet would have a phone on the boat or a cell he could borrow.

Climbing on to the craft, they cast off, Lennox this time assisting Chet, who informs him that the birds crushed on the road and which patrol overhead are black vultures. There is a funereal beauty to their languid circling and sudden, explosive swoops. Chet provides a band with crocodile clips on each end, for the purpose of attaching the Red Sox cap to the back collar of Lennox’s T-shirt. — Old sailor’s trick, he explains, — you lose a few of these at sea otherwise.

Lennox gratefully accepts the offering as they head on to the canal system, rather than traversing straight across the harbour to open sea. — It’s a short cut, Chet, at the helm, says. They coast past glass-fronted homes with big orange-treed gardens backing on to the labyrinth of waterways. The water is a muscular greeny blue. The shade-splotched route is lined with palms of various shapes and sizes; cabbage, royal and coconut. Huge pelicans sit in mangrove trees, easily supported, Chet informs him, due to their slight mass. Again, Lennox thinks of the