knocking, then thought, Fuck that. I pushed open the door; Lily pitched up a notch or two on the speakers. I walked in and the lad immediately bridled, turned on me, palms out: ‘Hey, you cannot come in here.’
I laughed in his face. ‘Calm down, bonnie lad. Just a little room inspection, shall we say.’
‘No. I don’t think-’
I cut him off, put a finger up to my mouth, went, ‘Shhhh.’
He looked at me like I was some wido off the street. He was almost right. I paced around, picked up a book here, a CD there, opened a drawer.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he said.
‘I’ll ask the fucking questions.’
He looked at the door. Was he contemplating a bolt? A wee bleat to Jayne about me? Think again. I kicked it shut. ‘Now, you tell me… what are you doing here?’ I don’t know what I expected, I was merely testing him. I prodded him in the chest with my forefinger. ‘Well? Let’s have it.’
He retreated into the wall, said, ‘Leave me alone.’
I used the flat of my hand to press him up against the plaster, tried to keep the threat low, but make my point. ‘Come on, now it’s a simple question. How did you come to be kipping in my brother’s home?’
He snapped, ‘Keep your hands off me!’ He cuffed my arm away, puffed his chest. I smiled in his face. Had seen Clint do this in the Dirty Harry movies — someone wearing a grin before a pagger says I enjoy this shit, try me on for size.
He didn’t flinch: there was more to this guy than he let on.
I was ready to pound him into the bricks when, ‘Gus, Gus… Are you up there?’ It was Jayne.
Lodger man took a step to the side. He winced as he put weight on his bad leg, said, ‘Go please, you have no right to come into my room.’
‘Oh, no…’
His eyes blinked a spasm. ‘I can expect some privacy.’ He limped away from me, went to smooth over the duvet on the bed. He tugged out the edges, stood up and put his hands on his hips. Sweat glistened on his upper lip.
Jayne called again, ‘Gus?’
The lodger lifted a hand from his hip, indicated the door with his palm. I put one foot in front of the other, but kept a bead on him as I went. For a second I wondered if I had him all wrong, but I still had my suspicions. At the door I turned, said, ‘Pray I don’t take an interest in you.’
Jayne had climbed the stair, was waiting for me in the hall.
‘She’s quietened down.’
‘That’s good. Look, I know this must be a shock and you must have questions and…’
She looked back at the door I’d just walked through. ‘Were you talking to Vilem?’
I tried the name on. ‘Vilem…’ I looked back to the room — the door was closed now, ‘Yeah… Where was he last night?’
Jayne tugged nervously at her earlobe, playing with the little gold hoop in there. ‘He was here with us… He watched a movie downstairs with Alice.’
‘He was here all night?’
‘Yes, all night… Well, he was here when I was. I went out to my book group.’ Her eyes misted over as she remembered. She turned away from me and sucked in her lower lip. I could tell that she was replaying the last time she saw Michael.
‘I’m sorry… I don’t mean to…’
Jayne snapped, ‘Are you checking our alibis or something, Gus?’
‘I’m just… checking.’
I watched her closely for a change of tone, a tell; nothing came. ‘Vilem is a nice boy, he’s one of Michael’s new workers. He’s just here till he finds a flat. Michael was helping him out.’
I took her back a few steps. ‘New workers?’
‘After the lay-offs… Michael was…’ Her face drained of blood; she flattened her hair back with her hand. I watched her eyes follow the ghost of another memory.
I hadn’t heard about any lay-offs at my brother’s firm. He always prided himself on looking after folk, last of the great cradle-to-grave employers. I wanted to know more but couldn’t face the tears; knew this was the wrong time to press her. I said, ‘I’ll let you be, Jayne.’
She jerked back to me, rubbed at the outside of my arm, then hugged me. ‘Thanks for everything… I know you mean well. For Alice and me.’
I didn’t want to hear the words, they put ice in my belly — the thought of them on their own, without my brother, wounded me. I stood silently — nothing seemed the right thing to say, then some stored response began to play: ‘Jayne, if there’s anything you both need, or I can do…’
I didn’t have the words to make her feel any better. I was stood in my brother’s home, talking to his wife about his death when he had been with us less than twenty-four hours ago. It seemed like I’d started to inhabit someone else’s life.
‘Thank you,’ Jayne said. She looked wrecked, black circles forming beneath her eyes. ‘Oh God… Davie.’
Michael’s business partner Davie Prentice was a golf-club bore, what we refer to in Edinburgh as a cheese merchant. ‘I’ll go and see him: you need to know the lay of the land with the business.’
I walked to the stairs. I’d reached the bottom step before Jayne hollered to me, ‘Gus, please don’t give Davie a hard time.’
Her words sliced me like a rotor blade; was I carrying that much threat? I lied: ‘I’ll be on my best behaviour.’
Chapter 4
I felt punchy. Numb. I palmed off the job of telling Mam about Michael to my sister. Catherine would handle the task better, but it stung. I consoled myself that I wasn’t up to the job — it would have ended me and I needed to keep it together. Was struggling though, even drove home with Debs’s Katy Perry CD playing and didn’t bother to switch it off. The dog greeted me like a Ritalin-deprived six-year-old, jumping and clawing, diving all over the furniture to land a paw on me. He was a dog that I’d rescued, took the name ‘Usual’ from the regulars in a pub I ran for a while. Another failure of mine; something else to forget.
I shut Usual in the living room and hit the hay. I’d been up all night without any sleep. As my head hit the pillow the dog clawed at the door. I realised I didn’t actually want to be alone and got up to let him in. As I climbed back into bed Usual chanced his luck and jumped up. I allowed him to curl silently at my feet.
I felt tired. Damn-near exhausted. But sleep didn’t come. I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to block out the light streaming in through the curtains.
Wasn’t happening.
I knew whatever I did next, none of it would sit well with Debs. After our divorce we’d went our separate ways but we’d patched things up now; there was something that pulled us back together. A bond? Shared history? We’d been through so much misery that maybe we just knew where to stack the ballast to keep each other afloat. My jaw tensed at the prospect of her reaction to me raking into my brother’s death.
A child in the flat upstairs started laughing. Sounded like it was trapped in the floorboards. It was all I could take.
Grabbed my mobi, dialled: ‘Y’right?’
‘Gus, lad, how’s it hanging?’
I didn’t need to soft-soap Mac the Knife. ‘My brother’s dead.’
He rasped, ‘Michael… dead?’
‘Killed. Plugged.’
‘What the fuck?’ His voice dropped. ‘Where are you?’
‘Home. I need some gear. Can you get me some speed or something?’
A pause.
