I set off for home. The snow had started to settle and the streets felt slippy underfoot. I toyed with the idea of a night bus, but I didn’t want to be around anyone else; I wondered how I would react to seeing Debs.
My brother had a family, a wife and daughter. Just how do you tell a teenage girl her father has been murdered? It would wreck her. They would both want for nothing: Michael had his own business, was set up as they say, but that was little consolation. I looked up the street. Flats above the shops were kitted out with Christmas trees and little fairy lights. A glowing sleigh, waving Santa inside, shone down from a window. I couldn’t look at it.
The snow grew heavier, great mounds of it gathering on the street. I started to shiver. Felt the quarter-bottle of Grouse in my pocket. It hung there like an invitation to an alternative Christmas. Go on, down it! Block out the whole lot, wake up some other time. Sometime when the hurt has passed.
I held the bottleneck tight, knew I had more reason than ever to stay sober.
Memories of my brother flashed into my mind, but I tried to drown them. There would be a time to remember him, but now wasn’t it. Now was the time to stay focused, to keep my thoughts straight. A roar was building in the pit of my gut that would see me through, but as I reached my own doorstep my heartbeat ramped.
I got inside the flat and kicked the snow off my Docs, brushing the sleeves of my jacket. My hands felt numb with cold as I fitted the key on its hook. The dog jumped up, clawed at me.
‘Get down, boy… come on, calm down.’
Debs spoke: ‘He’s been sitting at that door like Greyfriars Bobby since you left.’ She was in her dressing gown; I guessed she had been since I left.
‘You stayed up.’
She came towards me, leaned on the wall. ‘I didn’t know if I was going to have to come down and bail you out or what.’
‘No danger of that.’ I brushed past her, went to hang up my Crombie.
‘Gus… what’s up?’
‘Go back to bed… You’ll be wrecked in the morning.’
She followed me through to the living room. ‘I won’t get any sleep after that call. What’s going on?’
I moved to the kitchenette, opened the fridge, took out a can of Coke. ‘You better go and sit down.’
I kept my voice calm, laid it all out. Debs took the news as I expected; I put my arms round her as she started to sob. ‘Gus, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I was thinking the worst, but not this.’
I knew what she meant. She’d thought I was in trouble with the police again — we were still at a fragile stage in our reconciliation. I said, ‘It’s okay.’
‘I only saw Jayne and Alice last week… Gus, they’ll be in bits.’
‘I know.’
She pushed away. ‘Your mother, Gus… Oh my God, what about her?’
I felt a kick to my heart at the thought of more pain for my mother, after all she’d been through; it didn’t seem so long since my father’s death. I tried to calm Debs down, stroked her hair, made her take a seat; she only started to sob harder. I went into the bedroom to grab some tissues. She said, ‘I just can’t believe this. I mean, why? It just doesn’t make sense. What did the police say?’
I tutted. ‘Mugging… it’s the default solution. And utter shite.’
Debs scrunched up the tissue, I went to get her another. When I returned she looked puzzled. ‘What the hell was he doing in the Meadows at night?’
I stood up, turned away from her. I didn’t want Debs to see the anger I felt rising on my face.
‘Gus…’
‘There’s a lot of unanswered questions.’ I turned round, caught her look of utter stupefaction, her mouth twisted on the verge of tears once more. I knelt down before her, said, ‘Someone must’ve had a reason to put that bullet into Michael.’
I wanted her to throw her arms around me, show me support, but she didn’t. Debs jumped out of the chair and let out a wail: ‘No. No. That’s not what I want to hear. No, Gus…’ I watched her eyes light up, their whites huge above the redness caused by her tears. ‘You promised me there’d be no more of this.’
‘Debs…’
She was hysterical, ranting, screaming at me, ‘I’m not going to watch you get yourself killed too!’
‘Debs…’
‘No… you promised!’ She lowered her head and held her face in her hands.
I touched the back of her neck. She cut my hand away.
The intensity of Debs’s reaction wasn’t unexpected. I knew where she was coming from, sympathised even. The last thing I wanted was for this to come between us, but then I didn’t want any of this.
In recent months I had found a route back to normality, something Michael always managed to locate with little or no effort. I didn’t want to lose it, though I felt my new-found happiness starting to buckle now. Debs had got up early and locked herself in the bathroom. I heard her snivelling inside, but left her be. I wanted her to understand I couldn’t just let my brother’s murder go, but now wasn’t the time to tell her.
I tweaked the dog’s ear, then put on my Crombie. The car keys hung by the door. The rank smell in the stair had got worse — I held my breath again on the way down. Outside the street looked whitewashed by snow. It was too early for footprints, or to see the roads turned to slush. Everywhere lay silent and still beneath the pure-white blanket. I felt the cold seize me, go for my chest. I fastened my coat and raised the collar.
As I trudged down towards the car the grey sky suddenly turned to a black mass. A vast group of starlings swirled into view, cutting treacherous angles as they darted in first one, then another direction. I watched the darkness form and dissemble then re-form again. Nature amazed me; I felt sure I was of its lowest order.
The windscreen of Debs’s Punto was frozen over. I cleared it with the scraper, but then the engine refused to turn over. Automatic choke chugged a bit; when it bit, the tyres spun on the road. I dropped into second to give more traction to the hill start. Got a break at the lights and took a steady pace on the quiet roads all the way to the Grange.
My brother and his family stayed in Edinburgh’s millionaires’ row. A house round here was said to have set you back the best part of three mill until recently. After the banks crashed and demand plummeted, it wiped a third off the valuation. As I reached their home, I checked for any signs of movement. I rolled down the car window and sparked up a Marlboro. Got about two drags in when I saw a bloke appear from round the side of the house, dragging a wheelie bin behind him. He looked about six-two, early twenties, with a shaved head and broad shoulders. He clocked me sitting in the motor and frowned. I got out.
‘I can help you?’ He had an Eastern European accent. We had so many in the city now that it was hardly worth noting.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ I said.
‘What?’
I nodded to the house. ‘That’s my brother’s place… What are you doing there?’
He scrunched his brow at me and turned away. I followed him up the path, saw he had a bit of a limp. He turned back to look at me twice in quick succession before he speeded to a hop, got to the gate and slammed it behind him.
I tried the handle — it held fast. ‘Hey, open up.’ I banged on the gate, yelled at him, ‘Get back here.’
As I stared through the slats, Jayne appeared in her dressing gown. She hovered on the back step for a moment, then bawled: ‘Who’s there?’
I set her right: ‘Jayne… Jayne. It’s me — Gus.’
She dipped her head, ran down the path and opened the gate. ‘Gus, what are you doing here?’
Now I wondered if I should have left this to Fitz, fought the urge to hug her, smiled. ‘I think we should go inside.’
The kitchen was vast. A huge oak table in the corner overflowed with plates and cups. The stranger was emptying the dishwasher. I squinted, nodded in his direction.
Jayne said, ‘That’s Vilem… He’s our lodger.’
The bloke barely acknowledged me, save a slight once-over in my direction. His manner noised me up. ‘You’ve got a lodger… Since when?’
Jayne sat down at the table, took a cigarette from a pack of Consulate menthols, lit it. She hadn’t smoked for years, since Alice was born. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, these are straitened times, Gus.’
Sitting in this house, in this area, it was the last thing I expected to hear. Vilem clattered the dishwasher closed, flicked a switch and gave me one more long stare before limping out the door. I kept my tone low. ‘A lodger, Jayne. Are you in that much strife?’
She peered over a cloud of grey smoke, didn’t look like answering the question. ‘We’re just helping Vilem out — he works at the factory… Nice as it is to see you, Gus, I don’t think you’ve come over here to talk about the state of our finances.’
My mind hazed over. I knew why I was there, but had I dreamt it all? I felt my heart slump with the thought of Michael. I tried to lock down my emotions. I took out a chair, sat opposite Jayne. ‘Where’s Alice?’
‘Bed — a late night.’
‘Doesn’t she have school to go to?’
Jayne laughed; sharp radial lines creased the sides of her eyes. I hadn’t seen them before. Age was catching up with all of us. ‘School and Alice are not, shall we say, getting along right now.’ She went to the sink to flick off her ash, checked the cupboard, said, ‘Bugger it, he’s washed all the ashtrays.’
She returned with a saucer in her hand. I looked at her with my mouth open, desperately trying to summon words, any words. How did I break this to her? She seemed to be on edge as it was. I felt my neck seize with tension. The Grouse bottle in my pocket pressed on my hip. ‘Jayne, I have some news for you and, well, I think you might want to wake Alice.’
‘What news?’
My mouth dried over. I touched the back of my teeth with my tongue — it made an embarrassing clacking noise. ‘I, eh…’
‘Well, come on then.’
I opened the top button on my Crombie, then the others. ‘God, it’s so hot in here.’
‘What is it you have to tell me, Gus?’
I felt my brow lifting, my jaw clench. I didn’t want to utter the words. But there was nothing I could do to lessen the blow: she had to know.
‘Last night I got a call from the police…’
‘Police.’
I nodded. ‘They took me down to the station. Michael had been in some kind of a confrontation.’
Jayne stalled with the cigarette midway to her mouth. ‘Confrontation? Oh, my God, he didn’t come home… I thought he’d stayed at the office.’
I started up again; my lips trembled over the words. ‘The police thought it might be better you hearing it from me. I’m sorry, Jayne, but… There was a gun fired and Michael was shot.’
She remained perfectly still. ‘Shot…’ She stood up — she actually smiled, like this was all a joke. ‘Where is he?’
I went round to her side of the table and put my hands on her shoulders. ‘Come on, Jayne… sit down.’ I placed her in the seat. Her face was immobile. ‘I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t have to tell you this but… he’s gone.’
All blood drained from her features. She jerked away from me. ‘Gone?’
‘Jayne, I’m sorry… Michael’s been murdered.’
Her eyes remained fixed on the middle distance, somewhere behind me, beyond the oak table. I tried to read her, then came a clatter of noise from behind us; her eyes sprang to life.
I turned to see Alice running out the back door.
‘Alice! Alice!’ wailed Jayne. She jumped up to see out the window, then squeezed her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God, she heard every word…’
I watched as Jayne took off after Alice. She didn’t get far, but wouldn’t have made any kind of escape anyway, thanks to the footprints she was leaving in the snow. Jayne chased her to the edge of the street, where they both fell to the ground. They wrestled for a brief moment before Alice grabbed out to her mother and they held each other. As they started to sob, I looked away.
When they returned to the house I saw their eyes damp with tears, the edges of their noses red with cold.
‘Alice, you okay?’ I said. It was a lame remark. She ignored me, held her mother.
I rubbed her back with my hand. ‘I’m sorry, Alice.’
She sobbed deeply, cries that came from a part of her that was too remote to reach with any words.
I looked out to the snow-covered street, tried to imagine myself somewhere far beyond the rooftops. Nothing felt real any more. Christ, what had happened here? How did everything go from being so normal to so fucked up?
Jayne stroked Alice’s hair. They were both bubbling with tears as they sat down on the sofa in the living room. In the open doorway, the lodger appeared. Something inside me wanted to give him a slap and say, ‘This is family business.’ But I let it slide, closed the door on him.
Jayne took a blanket from the shelf in the bay window, wrapped it around her daughter. She watched her shiver for a moment then started to stroke her hair again. She turned to me, put pleading eyes on me. I nodded, said, ‘She’ll be fine.’
Jayne said, ‘Come on, let’s get those Uggs off… Look, they’re soaked.’ She pulled at her boots and then the pair fell into each other again and hugged.
As the full realisation of the news I’d brought them hit in, I saw the misery they felt. I couldn’t watch. I eased out of the room, went through to the hall. I wandered over to a table by the window. A pile of letters beside the phone drew my eye. I picked them up, bills mostly. Gas, leccy, council tax. It took just a glance inside to see they were all printed in red. I looked up to the ceiling, sighed. Michael’s house was just as I remembered it: if he’d been feeling the pinch, it didn’t show. There was even a new plasma through in the living room. But then, maybe that was the problem: maintaining a lifestyle without the income to back it up.
As I put the letters back music started playing upstairs — bloody Lily Allen, same track that had been on heavy rotation all over. I followed the tune to what I presumed must be the new lodger’s room. I wondered about 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.’