Irvine Welsh - Crime

Her face buckles further under his onslaught. — But I thought you were our friend…

— I’m her friend, not yours. You have to start earning friendships and respect. Lennox’s tone softens as self-reproach filters through him. — Get yourself together and you’ll come out of this as a heroine in Tianna’s eyes. Make her believe in you, Robyn.

She nods through her tears. And then he finds himself rambling; telling her that he’s just a Scottish cop who wanted to be with his fiancée in Miami Beach and recover from a bad time. And plan a wedding. Maybe do a bit of sunbathing, with some fishing and sailing thrown in. Then Robyn tells him her tale, and it humanises her, as all stories do, and he sees a person of great misfortune, victimised and pulled apart like carrion by hyenas. And he remembers the trinity of bullies that made him a cop.

You can get better. He’d been as wretched as Robyn when they pulled him off that bar-room floor in Edinburgh, slain by the pub comic’s sick joke. More so, when found lurking in the tunnel after his dad’s funeral, hand pulped, ranting like a madman, protesting he had cocaine under control, as a wrap burned his jeans’pocket and his nose’s cavities. Trudi, though, had taken charge; de facto moving him into Bruntsfield, going to his Leith flat to pick up his mail. She’d been in touch with Toal, agreeing sick leave, and signed him up with her doctor, not the police one, as he’d never bothered to register. He was prescribed the antidepressants. She’d already booked the Florida sun, now the holiday would have the added agenda of executing the matrimonial plans. But first there had been his father’s funeral.

The day before he’d gone round to his sister’s place: a dull, wet and cold afternoon with progress down the leafless, grey avenue a turgid war of attrition against a vicious wind. Jackie had stayed strong during the period leading up to the funeral. She took charge of the arrangements, handled everything in her usual practical manner, displaying scant emotion. That morning when he called round at her home she flabbergasted Lennox by grabbing hold of him in the hallway, the one with the bottle-green Axminster that always smelt slightly of damp, though it had been lifted, aired and cleaned several times. — Ray… my wee brother. You know I’ve always loved you, she’d said.

This came as a shock to him, even more when he smelt the gin on her breath. — I hadnae suspected a thing, he told her, and she thought he was joking.

— You should go and see Mum, Ray. She needs us all.

— Has Jock been round looking after her? he asked quietly.

— Thank goodness for Jock, he’s a star.

So she didn’t know. Lennox fought his rage down. — Aye.

— You should go and see her, she repeated, this time with the assertion of a barrister.

— Aye, ah’ll mibbe go n see her later oan, eh? he said in his cop voice, shot with the harsh vowels and scheme argot he habitually used around Jackie, to counterbalance her posh affectations. It killed the last of the intimacy between them. He then made his excuses and left, back to the order of Trudi’s.

Sometimes a benign despot is more suitable than self-determination, he considers, particularly if you’re a hopeless fuck-up. He looks at Robyn, sees her staring ahead, focused on something invisible. — It’ll be okay, he says to her, and he hopes that he’s right.

The reunion in Fort Lauderdale is emotional and tearful, as is the subsequent parting. Lennox informs Tianna that her mother is going to be helping the police put away bad guys like Vince, Clemson, Lance and Johnnie. Which is probably the biggest truth he’s gotten to tell her.

THE FULL-LENGTH BATHROOM mirrors collapse, for his own critical eyes, a thousand naked Ray Lennoxes into infinity; each one carrying the maternal stain of infidelity. Avril Lennox was the surprise package; he’d been watching his father to see how he’d turn out and the old girl had sneaked up on the blind side, the one with the clandestine life and the lusty secrets. From adolescence through your twenties it had been about making your mark as an individual, concealing your hereditary legacy in the process. Then, suddenly, you were on the stage like a stripper under harsh lights; peeling off everything to reveal your DNA.

He clicks off the bathroom spots, watches them bruise to dark, swings the door open with a flourish. The oomph is back; that sexual urge, no, that sexual imperative. Will I be able to do the right thing by Trudi? he wonders, emerging into the pulsing light of the hotel bedroom.

He pulls a cord, twisting the blind closed as she clicks on a bedside light, like a chessmaster expertly countering an opponent’s manoeuvre. She’s as naked as he is, meeting his approach with a defiant thrust at him, her sunbed tan a new outfit. Her body, in his trembling hands, is even tighter than he remembers. In the light from the indented lamps above the headboard he can see a rash of milk-white hairs, finer than silk, across her light brown arms, broken up by the odd little patch of peeling pink that dismays her. She seems so fresh that to squeeze her would leave marks; a gingerbread girl from the oven. A wave of tenderness rushes over him and he has an irresistible urge to stroke her face. Misinterpreting this gesture, Trudi pushes him gently back on to the bed, swivelling round, her sharp, pointed tongue licking down his freshly scrubbed chest, heading south. It lodges for a few tantalising seconds in his navel. A cursory flick or two and it continues as her lips open around his prick.

Lennox gasps, feeling himself stiffen, his cock swelling up in her mouth. He looks at her adjusting to the newer, more formidable status quo, a gratified surprise in her eyes that accompanies the meeting of an old friend. He tucks her hair behind her ears to enjoy the feast of her face.

Both are determined the erection will last, and she’s eagerly complicit when he groans, — I don’t want to get there yet, and he pulls out and mounts her as they make love in a controlled, precarious way, almost delighted that they can, respecting the wondrous building power of each moment with something close to forensic intensity.

They climax together, wildly; Lennox’s pulsing ejaculations so thick and heavy they almost hurt him. Trudi’s eyes roll to the back of her head and a banshee-like howl he feared he’d never hear again fills the room. Spent, they quickly dissolve into a deep post-coital slumber. He feels himself careering across an ocean until he can see Toal behind the lectern at the auction rooms. The still and silent mannequin stands in the coffin. They are bidding, the others; all in shadow, but they seem weaker. Because Les Brodie is by his side, and they’re not boys any more. The voice of a nonce behind him says, — Two million.

— Three million! Les screams.

— Four million, comes the cry, but there is now uncertainty in the voices of the men in the shadows. They seem to be coming from further away.

Lennox studies Brodie’s face. Gets the signal. — FIVE MILLION! they cry out in unison, in that noise Scots make, through their inventions and their drunken carousings, their gift to Planet Earth of its anthem, ‘Auld Lang Syne’: the sound heard around the world.

— Sssiiixx milliiooonn… the nonce voices fade.

— I didn’t get that bid. Could you repeat it? Toal asks. — No? The last bid was five million. Going… going… sold… to Ray Lennox!

The girl on the stage is now wearing a white bridal gown. She reaches up and removes her mask as Lennox flies to the surface from that mine of sleep, sweat and duvet. Opens his eyes. Trudi’s face next to his on the pillow. Eyes shut, crooked smile. He takes a grateful, exhilarating gulp of air. After savouring a few moments of intense pathos and adoration, he wakes her with a kiss.