Irvine Welsh - Crime

Starry, sequestered by the bloody towel, is murmuring what sounds like a prayer in Spanish.

Lennox talks over them: — She mistook me for him. Then, when the real deal came along, she realised she’d fucked up. After trying to throw us together, she then started to vie with you for my attention, remember?

— I can’t believe it. All of them… Vince, Jimmy, Johnnie, Lance… all in on it… Her eyes widen in stark horror. — Chet! Is Tianna with him !?

— No, she’s safe. Anyway, Chet was different. He was a lonely old guy who missed his wife. They befriended him in order to get use of the boat. They used him like they used you. Employed similar tactics. Became his buddies. Dearing was a cop; like a lot of people, Chet trusted cops, he says, and she’s so greedy for his words he feels like a parent bird feeding its fledgling. — They showed him some stag movies as buddies sometimes do. Lennox recoils at the thought: sometimes buddies do more . Then it was, ‘We like to film our own shows. Can we use your boat?’

For a while Robyn can’t speak. When she finally finds her voice she mutters, — My baby, my baby, my baby…

— She’s safe now. She’s a strong kid, he says briskly, — and she needs you, we need you to show some strength now. The cops’ll be here soon.

She nods in assent, but her face is crumbling as Lennox continues. — Chet liked to watch the home-made stag videos. When he saw you appear in one, he drew the line and left them to it. But then Johnnie and Lance started getting more outlandish. The women became younger. Sometimes they weren’t women. Chet was freaked out at those visitors to his boat, but by then it was plain blackmail. He’s a proud, straight old guy. He didn’t want the law or his respectable neighbours at Grove Marina thinking he moved in such circles. But they grew sloppy and careless, especially Johnnie. They started storing the videos on his boat.

Starry rattles the cuff against the pipes.

Lennox draws a deep breath. Clenches the fist that had pummelled itself into fragments. Never to be the same again. Shards floating around in cartilage and tendon. — Chet found their website. It wasn’t incriminating, but it posted their membership list and a meetings timetable. There’s eight of them, including Dearing, at the Embassy Hotel right now, or more likely by now on the run from the Miami–Dade PD. The subject of their conference was probably you and a few other single mothers in South Florida.

Robyn exhales in a long gasp, holding her shoulders and rocking. — Why did Chet…?

— He was planning to go to the police. He was working up the bottle, the courage, he elaborates in response to her confusion, — gathering the evidence: Dearing’s a cop, remember?

— So Chet’s still my friend…

— In a sense, Lennox concedes, and recounts an old phrase his father often used, — but you’re always better with a cunning enemy than a stupid friend, before permitting the cop in him to take over: — However, he was inadvertently assisting them and he’ll have to live with those consequences.

Robyn’s hands go back over her face. Then her voice wheezes through her fingers: — What have I done, Ray?

— You’ve been a victim of a particularly fucking evil scam, he says, as another holy recitation in Spanish comes out from under the stained towel.

— But why… why me ?

— You’ve a young daughter. Your lifestyle makes you vulnerable. Exposes her, and you.

— I ain’t a bad person, she pleads, — I jus—

Lennox waves her down. — I can’t criticise your lifestyle, because it’s pretty much the same as my own. The crucial difference is that I don’t have a kid to look after. Get it together, while there’s still something left.

— You… you’re FBI?

— No. I’m from Edinburgh, on holiday. Planning a wedding, like I told you.

Robyn’s baffled face again finds its focus by narrowing on Starry, now peering through her towel, like a burka. — You set the whole thing up. You! She looks at Lennox. — She hates me! Hates me cause I’ve got Tianna!

— My son was sixteen when he was shot dead, Starry groans.

— It was some gang thing! He deserved it! Angel was no good! Robyn screams, then tears across the room, her bunched fists flying at Starry. It’s only when she goes to pick up a large tiger-striped glass vase that Lennox feels moved to restrain her. — LEMME GO, I WANNA KILL THAT FUCKIN EVIL BITCH!

It’s not easy to hold on to her; fury has given Robyn a power supernatural to her slight frame. Eventually the fight leaves her and she dissolves in his arms, allowing herself to be led back across the room and on to the couch. — She’ll get it, no worries. He crouches down and takes her hand in his. Guilt pours from him. I let Britney down by misjudging Angela Hamil. Now I’ve let down Robyn by misjudging her – or judging her; it’s the same thing .

For some reason he recalls the time when, in twelve-year-old rage, he’d inexplicably barged into his sister Jackie’s bedroom, unintentionally interrupting her as she performed fellatio on a boyfriend. There had been a family row afterwards. Not about his intrusion or her indiscretion, but later when she’d found her old doll Marjorie in the attic, the one that was both their favourites. COCKSUCKING SLUT was scribbled on its plastic face in big biro letters.

He regards Robyn’s pitted countenance, desecrated by mascara and tears. — Now we should go and get Tianna before the police come by.

Robyn is about to nod in agreement when she sees the door swing open behind Lennox. — They’re right here already, a voice tells them.

Lennox turns to face Lance Dearing who dangles a spare key. — Lover’s trust, he smiles. The second thing that Lennox registers is that there is something different about Dearing: bifocal lenses slice his eyes into an impenetrable dark section and a cloudy lower part. The third thing is that Dearing is pointing a handgun at him.

— Who the fuck are you, Ray? And don’t gimme that wedding-planner shit. You sure got ol Tiger real good. Found him pretty bust up on that restroom floor: blood, shit and teeth everywhere. His head nods in wary admiration. — So who the fuck are you!

— Does it matter now? It’s over, Lance.

— For you and me both.

— Lance baby, lemme go, honey, let’s just take off, Starry begs.

For some reason Lennox looks Dearing up and down, suddenly contemptuous of his black, stonewashed denim shirt, tucked into off-white canvas trousers, with those showroom white sneakers. — You’re no gaunny shoot me. You’ve never shot anybody, he says calmly, thinking of Bill Riordan, the retired New York cop. But this was the South. Was Florida the real South? Was it a hunting state? Fishing, surely.

Dearing scowls and something dulls in his eyes, behind the lower halves of the bifocals. — And how in hell’s name would you know that?

In despair, Lennox realises that he has no way of knowing. He thinks about his father. About Britney. Wonders, in an instant, if he’ll see them over the other side: if death really is like that.

— Lance, Starry implores.

— MY LITTLE GIRL, YOU FUCKIN MONSTER! Robyn roars, rising.

Dearing points the gun at her. — Sit on your dumb ass, you crazy bitch, or I’ll make a fuckin orphan outta her!

Robyn shrivels up and falls back into the couch, her arms wrapped around herself, a trail of snot dripping from nose to chest.

— It’s over, Lennox repeats, looking to the disc sticking out of the DVD player under the TV set. — Johnnie’s in custody. Try calling him if you don’t believe me. Or rather you might try Chet. He’s turned himself in, and you too, obviously. I thought you’d have been busted at the hotel. Doesnae matter, the local cops will have circulated the list to the FBI. He points at the sheets of papers on the couch. Your name isn’t on it, but they’ve got a copy of you starring in your own show. Johnnie was careless. Carried those DVDs everywhere: a veritable Blockbuster on legs. It’s finished, Lance.