We had sat in the town square and watched them playing cricket in blistering heat, sipping a beer and holding hands. We did the Zorba dance in the middle of a restaurant and I was terrible at it.
She laughed at the memory of my dancing and I saw something different in her. Something from a long time ago. The girl that I met in college and took to the Barrowlands to see Teenage Fanclub. The girl that was pregnant less than a year after we met. The best mum, a good-looking, funny, warm person. I’d almost forgotten her. It wasn’t just that I’d stopped looking for that girl, it was also that she’d gone away. She left on the same day Sarah did.
We eased onto the couch as we spoke but not parked on it like bookends as we usually were. Together. I’d moved nearer the middle and she took the hint and slipped in next to me. We must have looked like normal people.
She cuddled into me, a warmth that neither of us had felt for a long time. Mainly my fault. No, mainly Wallace Ogilvie’s fault. Hate flared in me again. Revenge served up but still I raged. She felt it, lifting her head off me to see what was up. I eased her back down, a squeeze of her shoulder to say it was OK.
Needed to keep a lid on it. Had to bury it back inside me. My screaming had to stop for now.
I squeezed her again, more to comfort me than her but she didn’t need to know that. Her soap opera was on the television and she was enjoying the fact I was actually watching it with her. That we were together.
I realized how long it had been since I even touched someone. Something about it didn’t feel right because my hands had been other places, done other things. My dirty hands were liars. Holding her as if they had done nothing wrong, as if they had the right to soothe and comfort.
I’d stopped touching her because I was dead inside. Continued not to do it because I was unworthy of it. Hands that could never be washed clean.
Stop thinking. Leave it.
Just hold her.
She was enjoying it, burying her head into my shoulder as if she had missed it. She seemed at some kind of peace. The voice jumped into my head telling me that she had peace because she was glad I had killed Wallace Ogilvie.
Let it go. Shut it out.
I stared beyond her head, above the TV, into the past and the dark. Pulled her closer and felt that she liked it.
We sat like that, her in my arms until she dropped off to a sleep fuelled by contentment as much as pills. When I knew she had drifted off, I kissed her forehead and ran my fingers through her hair, whispering apologies and explanations to her as she slept. Murmuring my regrets. And things I didn’t regret.
I told her I loved her.
I should really have carried her upstairs and put her to bed. Undressed her and tucked her in, left her safe there, snug in thoughts of Sarah. Instead I eased out from under her, careful not to wake her.
I liked seeing her there, something approaching happy. She cosied into the arm of the couch as if it was me, suddenly looking years younger. Not younger than she was but younger than she had become.
I stood at the open door and looked at her for a while, not thinking anything in particular, just looking. I released the door handle and stepped back into the room long enough to kiss her on the lips. She stirred briefly, somewhere deep inside her, a trace of a smile appearing on her face.
That was more reward than I was due.
It was time to go out. Time for that one final death.
CHAPTER 50
Cineworld in Renfrew Street is the tallest cinema in the world. In 2004 it was voted the least favourite building in Glasgow. Twenty-two escalators. Two hundred and three feet high. Sixty-one point nine metres down.
The view from the ledge at the top was quite spectacular if you took the time to look. Due east and yards below was the Royal Concert Hall, so close you could almost jump to it if you had a mind. A crazy mind.
North and east across the interchange was the Park Inn, red-bricked, modern and ugly.
Further east was the expanse of Buchanan bus station, people flooding in and out from across the city and across Scotland. Tiny scurrying, hurrying people.
Further north. Past the Herald where STV used to be, past the passport office and The Sunday Post. On and up where Tennent’s brewery sat up on the hill, firing out smoke and beer. And smells that could keep a jaikie drunk for a week.
Behind and to the west snaked Sauchiehall Street. Its end was below me now where it marched into the pedestrianized semicircle in front of the concert hall. The other end was a mile away. Halfway down was where Thomas Tierney cut across my path and became nothing more than a number.
South sailed the rivers of West Nile Street, Renfield Street, Buchanan Street and Hope Street, all flooding to the Clyde and carrying the flotsam and jetsam of humanity along with them. An irresistible force of nature in the raw.
South of the cinema was where the city centre proper began. A tight-packed grid, rigidly and regimentally laid out, barely a curve or a gap to break the lines. Businesses and retail, double yellow lines and one-way streets. A warren of trade and industry.
To my left Queen Street station was bellowing out its presence. Further south you could just make out the sounds of Central roaring its reply.
Glasgow was so small from up there. So insignificant. So many people. Thousands of ants rushing to and fro in search of their next disappointment.
Lift your head if you dared and you could see as far as the weather would allow. North to the Campsies, south to East Kilbride, west to the airport at Paisley, east to Coatbridge. Up above the roofs and houses, you could see heaven and you could see hell.
East past Celtic Park and beyond to the wilds of Shettleston and Baillieston where Tierney died in a pool of blood. You could see it all.
North and west to Maryhill where Raedale died in her own mess at her Tesco till and Billy Hutchison fried at the flick of a switch.
West and over the river to Inchinnan where Brian Sinclair, whose only crime was to have been married and happy, had choked on The Cutter’s story.
Due north to Port Dundas Business Park where Wallace Ogilvie froze to death at least seven years too late. Much further north still to Milngavie where Jonathan Carr was glued tight and breathed no more.
City of death. City of devils and angels. All laid out before me like a body on a mortuary slab, grey and grim.
You could see it all from the tallest cinema in the world.
It was very windy at the top, quite dangerous really. Looking round and down and beyond was enough to make your head spin. They should be more careful about that emergency exit door on the thirteenth floor that leads to the repair crew’s stairwell. Anyone could make their way up there. It would take a good few minutes before an alarm was heard and staff could get to the roof, even if they knew where to look and what to look for. There is no way they could be quick enough to stop what was going to happen.
One final death. It’s the way it had to be. Nothing random about it though. It was more of a crashing inevitability.
I think I knew that from the moment that Detective Sergeant Rachel Narey first held my gaze and looked inside me, it could have turned out no other way. Call it fatalism or fate. Free will and random acts all lead to the same inevitable end.
That end was nigh.
It was no big deal. Just confirmation of something.
I’d been dead for nearly seven years. My headstone should have read, ‘Died 5 August 2003. The same day as his much loved daughter Sarah. RIP.’
