As the cop left the room the lights went up.
My heart pounded. I wanted to yell that there had been a mistake; I was the one who had called the police. Only the few slurps of Bell’s I’d had kept me upright.
I looked down the row of people and, from nowhere, a voice boomed, ‘Eyes front.’
It felt like Big Brother was watching. Replayed Orwell’s quote: ‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever.’ From where I stood, that looked about right.
The mirrored window before us let on nothing. I knew, behind it, Johnstone was walking the floor. He’d be prodding his witness, directing whoever it was to point me out for something I hadn’t done. I knew it. I could sense it. My mind ran riot with what went on beyond that window.
‘Everyone turn to the right.’
I felt my knees weaken as I moved. The back of Rod Hull’s head looked to be crawling with something. Like maggots on a corpse. I had to turn away; my stomach flinched.
‘Keep still, arms to your side.’
I shut my eyes and tried to imagine myself elsewhere. Then the pictures came back. The corpse in the bushes, the blood. The photographs of the cadaver, lying on the mortuary slab. Was I seriously in the frame for this? Was I really here? It was a dream, surely.
‘Everyone turn to the left.’
I opened my eyes and stood in the lee of the Canadian trapper. His back was as broad as a shithouse door. I couldn’t believe it had come to this. Where the fuck did it all go wrong? I had a life once… career, job, no kids, but whose fault was that?
‘Everyone turn back to the front.’
I faced the window again. I didn’t try to imagine what was behind it now. It was what was in front of it that grabbed my attention. There I was. Me. Gus Dury. Rough as all guts. Face still bruised and battered. A hint of a shiner. And those bags under the eyes. God, Gus, where did it all go wrong? Where? Where did it all go so motherfuckingly wrong?
‘Could everyone exit by the door to the rear, please.’
I shook myself from my daze. ‘ Everyone?’
I schlepped out with the rest of them. At the door I looked for Johnstone, cuffs at the ready. He was nowhere to be seen. Then a kerfuffle up the corridor, a flash of Boss tailoring and some swing doors being pounded.
‘Mr Dury, could you come this way, please?’ said the desk sergeant.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Get you booked out.’
‘What? Come again?’
‘You’re free to go.’
‘So the line-up… all a fucking farce.’
The sergeant leaned into my collar, spoke softly: ‘Him — he was picked out.’ He pointed to Rod Hull.
I smiled, let out a sigh of relief, said, ‘He just doesn’t look right without that Emu under his arm, does he?’
‘You what?’
‘No matter.’
Chapter 15
It took for ever to check me out of the station. A mob of teenagers, wankered on cheap cider and alcopops, were being booked in. They were all trussed up with cable ties. The girls among them were crying their eyes out, black mascara running down their cheeks. The boys were silent enough, save for the times when they started hacking their guts up. It was a scene I knew was being repeated up and down the country on an almost nightly basis. It had been this way for as long as I’d known. Scots and drink… O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious.
Said, ‘It’ll be the good weather, brings out the party spirit.’
‘Bollocks,’ said the desk sergeant, ‘it’s like this the year through.’
I resisted another comment — like I could judge.
I was handed my belt and laces and two plastic bags, one containing my wallet and some loose change, the other with my mobile phone, tabs and matches.
‘That you?’ said the sergeant.
I nodded. ‘We’re good.’ It could have been two bags of air; I wouldn’t have complained if it meant getting free of the place.
‘I’m so dead,’ said one of the teenage girls. ‘My dad’s gonna kill me.’ She burst into tears, set off her friend. I couldn’t stand any more. Strangely, the scene made me even more desperate for a drink.
Outside the nick I breathed deep, though not so easy.
A kid on Heelys sped past me, nearly put me in the gutter — as if I needed help. There was a throbbing in my head, an ache in my chest. Both called for attention, the type that comes in quarter-bottles. I looked about, tried to catch my bearings, and then a horn sounded.
A Smart car across the street looked nearest; driver crouched up looked like an Easter Island statue behind the wheel. I didn’t recognise him. The horn blasted again and this time I caught where it came from: black E-class Merc parked further away. I recognised this face.
As I walked over, Fitz the Crime drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. More filth was the last thing I needed, but this one might be some use. The fact remained: he owed me. Big time. Fitz and I went way back. We’d both been known to help each other out from time to time. By the kip of him he’d done very well out of the last favour I put his way — blowing the lid on that Eastern European people-smuggling racket. Fitz had taken all the collars, whilst some of his colleagues had taken their jotters.
‘Could ye make any more of a feckin’ show of it, Dury?’ said Fitz as I reached the door of his new motor.
‘You what?’
‘Feck me, ’tis yerself in the frame for murder and you walk the road like a brass… Get in, would ye!’
I opened the door, tried to make myself invisible as I sat down. Fitz gunned the engine, burnt up the road.
We drove in silence for a few minutes then I asked, ‘Any smokes?’
Pack of Lambert amp; Butler tossed in my direction. Sparked up.
‘There’s a heart-warmer in the glovebox,’ said Fitz.
I dived in. It was Dalwhinnie; seriously expensive malt. ‘My, Fitz, you’re moving up in the world.’
He fingered his collar. ‘Well, the work’s its own reward.’
I gave a loud tut.
‘And that would be supposed to mean something, I suppose.’
I unscrewed the bottle, quaffed more than I should, felt a heavy burn, said, ‘Is anything?’
‘Oh, the feckin’ riddles already, is it? Always the riddles with ye, Dury.’
He asked for it, so I let him have it. Both barrels. ‘What is it now? Detective sergeant? Chief fucking super? You were padding Leith Walk in uniform before I handed you that… white arrest.’
A screech of tyres. The car halted and a hail of angry horns belted out behind us.
Fitz jumped from the car. I watched him walk over to the multi-storey. He flashed his badge at the attendant and up went the barrier. A row of traffic immediately cleared as he headed back.
‘ Noblesse oblige,’ I muttered.
‘What?’
‘Rank has its privileges, I see.’
He laid a glass eye on me as he put the Merc in gear again, screeched off. The multi-storey was dark; it took headlights to get around the bays. When he parked, Fitz killed the engine.
We were in almost total darkness, silence too. Was this the effect he was going for? He turned, uneasy, with his vast gut pressing on the wheel.
As Fitz spoke he spat through his tiny teeth: ‘Now I want feckin’ answers, Dury. No bullshit. No riddles. And
