Slip of the Knife

Pete withdrawals, a tightening in her stomach because she hadn’t spoken to him before he went to school, didn’t know what he’d eaten or if he’d slept at all. She’d call Burns after the ceremony and ask Sandra what he’d had. At least she knew how to make toast.

Glasgow Cathedral dated largely from the end of the thirteenth century. It was saved from destruction during the Reformation when a gang of the city’s tradesmen armed themselves and fought off a mob of treasure seekers in a pitched battle. The squat building was blackened during the Industrial Revolution and sat at the top of the High Street like a fat toad draped in a mourning mantilla.

McVie was greeting mourners like a maitre d’, working the crowd, certain that the Mail on Sunday would be mentioned in all the coverage. He spotted Paddy and Dub coming towards him, did a spot check of her clothes and saw she was dressed smartly.

“You’re up first then,” he said. “Set the right tone.”

“But I haven’t got anything prepared.”

He saw the panic in her eyes. “Just do it off-the-cuff. Since when could you not talk? Did you see Merki’s exclusive?”

“Where did he get that from?”

It was a rhetorical question but McVie looked irritated. “The fuck should I know?” He slipped away to talk to someone else.

A hand landed hard on her shoulder and she turned to see Billy, her first-ever driver, standing behind her, grinning. Billy had beefed up in the intervening years. He had left the News after a firebomb attack on her car, using the payout to buy a burger van so he could continue working nights. His hands were badly scarred, the skin smooth and watered; the little finger of one hand had been removed after a graft didn’t take. He’d had long hair then but it was shaved now, tight into the wood, like Terry’s when she first knew him. His wife, Agnes, was at his side, as warm as a tank. She looked away as they greeted each other with kisses and slaps to the arm.

“And is this your young man?” asked Billy of Dub.

“Oh no, this is Dub McKenzie. D’ye not remember Dub?”

Billy said he didn’t, so they told him about Dub’s time as a copyboy at the News, gave dates and outlined a couple of stories: Dub getting caught hiding in a cafe when he was supposed to be death-knocking a widow, Dub stapling prawns to the underside of an editor’s desk before he left. Billy still didn’t remember but pretended to and that did well enough.

Paddy and Dub moved away.

“Why are we a secret?” asked Paddy under her breath.

“I can’t remember,” said Dub, pretending he hadn’t seen Keck waving to him. “Let’s body-swerve that tit for a start. Will Callum be all right out there on his own, do you think?”

They had left him back at the cottage with three cans of juice and a loaf of bread, promising to come back later or send Sean. He was happy to stay there, said he had never been to the countryside and wanted to know what all the trees were.

“Not gossiping, dears? Naughty, naughty.” It was Farquarson, Paddy’s first-ever boss, the last editor any of them had known who stood up to the board for them. Paddy had hero-worshipped Farquarson, who’d taken an interest in her, given her writing assignments when she wasn’t due them. He had aged badly since she last saw him. He was wearing a trilby hat but she could still see that his hair had thinned. His ears were long, drooping, the skin loose where they were attached to his skull, and his face was livered and jowly.

He pointed at Paddy, couldn’t locate her name, and then it occurred to him. “Monihan!”

Paddy grinned at him. “Meehan, you mad old bastard.”

McVie was persuading everyone inside and nipped her elbow, muttering, “You’re next to me at the front.” Then he turned to greet Farquarson. “You look a hundred years old.”

McVie didn’t like Farquarson. He had languished on night shift under him and only got out of it by convincing a grieving mother to let him document her son’s death from a heroin overdose.

She was worried that McVie was picking on a faded old man but Farquarson answered, “And I hear you’re a nancy now.”

Insults met and meted, everyone settled into the company and headed towards the chapel doors.

A big chauffeur-driven car pulled up suddenly at the curb. They watched as the driver leaped out and ran around the car to open the door. Out stepped Random Damage, the short, overbearing editor who had turned the News from a dull-as-dust broadsheet into a tabloid success. He was dressed in a beautifully cut gray suit and was carrying a small black box. Paddy realized it was a portable telephone. Why Damage would need a telephone at a memorial service was obvious to anyone who knew him: he was obsessed with image and wanted the world to know he had a portable telephone. Second out of the car was his slim, six- foot-tall wife, who straightened her black velvet overcoat and stood, willowy, at his side. Paddy heard that he had left the press to run his wife’s chain of luxury hotels.

“Is that a walkie-talkie?” asked Farquarson.

Damage held it up. “Portable telephone.”

McVie looked sullen. “Not that portable, though, is it?”

“Can you only phone other portable telephones with it?” asked Paddy.

Damage laughed at her. “No. You can telephone any other phone. Soon they’ll have faxes on them as well. That’s the new thing.”

“And you’ll have to lug tons of paper around,” said McVie, jealous and not making a good job of hiding it.

Paddy reached out. “Can I have a go? I need to make a two-minute call.”

“Be my guest.”

“Fucking hurry up,” said McVie.

Paddy dialed Burns’s number.

“Hello?” Burns sounded a long way away. The line crackled and spat.

“Oh, hi, George.” She was shouting, her voice lost in the big open space, so she turned away from the crowd of people and shouted into the street. “Just wondered if Pete got away to school OK?”

Burns was quiet.

A fist tightened around Paddy’s heart. “What?”

“Paddy, Pete-”

“What? Is he ill? Is he there?”

“He’s here, he’s fine but the house is full of policemen. We got broken into last night. Sandra went to the loo at three in the morning and found a guy on the landing heading into Pete’s bedroom with a knife.”

“Fuck!”

“Wearing a balaclava. He cut Sandra’s tit open and ran away but he was definitely headed for Pete.”

“I’m coming now.”

“No, look, the house is full of CID and they’re taking us to the station so they can tape our interviews. Come later. Come and get us at Pitt Street.”

“How’s Pete?”

“I’ll put him on.” Burns opened a door and called Pete.

Her son’s tinny voice came on, distorted, sounding far away and electronic. “Mum? We got burgled! A man came in in the night and tried to steal Sandra’s jewelry.”

Paddy fought back choking tears, kicking at the ground, nodding. “Gosh. That’s mad. Are you OK?”

“It’s exciting. He broke a window and climbed in.”

“I need that back now.” Damage was standing next to her, holding his hand out to the phone, deliberately ignoring the tears in her eyes and her evident panic.

“Son, Dad’s going to take you to the police station, won’t that be something?”

“I can see where he used to work. He knows everybody.”

“Come on,” shouted McVie, waving her over.

Damage had circled her and was in her face. “The battery’ll run out. Give it to me.”

“I’ll come and see you this afternoon, darlin’, OK?”

“Mum, a man said he’s going to show me the cells.”

“Meehan, give it.” Damage lunged forward to grab the phone but she clung on.