Tony Black - Loss

He locked me down: ‘Dury, I want you to listen to me very carefully. There are things about this case you have no idea of, no idea!’

I went back at him, ‘That’s why I’ve come to you. Don’t brush me off, Fitz.’

He paused again. I heard him shuffle forward in his seat. ‘Look, we’ve busted the house in Leith… We’ve got Radek in the cells. There’s a warrant for murder out on him in the Czech Republic… He won’t be going anywhere.’

If he was telling me this, he knew Radek wasn’t our man as well as I did. Fitz wouldn’t be slow in slapping a murder charge down. ‘What about Davie Prentice?… What about the Undertaker?’

‘Dury, would ye ever feckin’ listen to me?… We are on top of it. Let us do our work.’

‘And let me do mine. I’ll call back soon, I want to know whose dabs are on that Webley, Fitz, and I’m not fucking around.’

I threw my phone at the couch. Cursed Fitz.

He was holding out on me and I knew it. I needed to get moving before he dragged someone in; if he got to them before I did, chances were I’d be watching my brother’s killer grinning at the cameras on the Six O’clock News, after receiving a slap on the wrist. I had proper justice in mind for the fucker.

I paced the flat, sparked up a Marlboro. The place seemed so empty again without Debs. Her words kept singing in my ears. I heard every one of them like they were being replayed to me on a tape recorder. I knew what she meant; I was out of control. Nothing could stop this rig smashing into the wall. I wouldn’t let up until I’d squeezed the life out of Michael’s killer.

I thought of my mother’s struggles to raise Michael, how she had taken the news of his savage beating by my father all those years ago. I thought of Catherine and of Jayne and of Alice. Little Alice, whom Debs and I had held in our arms the night she was born. My niece had been robbed of her father. Michael had tried so hard to be the kind of father we never had, and it had all been for nothing.

I couldn’t focus any more. My thoughts sprang one way then the other. I remembered what Debs had said about minding out for Alice and I booted up the computer. The internet connection was slow, almost dial-up speed; I cursed the service provider and slapped the monitor in frustration.

‘Fucking piece of shit!’

My Yahoo homepage was full of doom-laden news about business collapses, house prices nosediving, car lots full of unsold motors and the Prime Minister, as ever, proclaiming he was doing everything in his power to stabilise the fallout. I wanted to spit, but I clicked away from his smug coupon instead.

I had no idea of the web address so I Googled Alice Dury and Bebo together. The search threw up a page of responses, but Alice’s name and page sat top of the list.

I double-clicked.

The page took a while to load — seemed to be a lot of photographs — but then Alice’s photo appeared, a yellow smiley face and a few lines of biog beside it.

I grinned, said, ‘Hello, Alice… found you.’

The site had a stack of puerile comments from schoolfriends, all accompanied by thumbnail pictures of them taken on mobile phones. To a one they looked half-cut. Teenagers know how to party these days; in my time, I was always the most pished in the room.

I read and scrolled, and then I stopped.

I didn’t expect this.

A photograph of the Czech lodger that my brother had installed in his home had been put up. Vilem was standing in the garden, seemingly unaware his image had been captured. In the comment box beside the photo Alice had keyed: ‘Welcome to my Boy Zone!!.. More to follow!!’

I didn’t know how to interpret this — was it just a teenage girl being a silly wee lassie? She’d posted the picture a week before my brother’s death. A few of Alice’s friends had posted comments in their hybrid language of text-speak and slang, but Alice hadn’t updated the site again. It seemed pointless to leave a message for her there if she wasn’t using it right now.

I logged off the web.

Shut down.

I felt guilty for not giving Alice more attention. I knew she was taking the loss of her father hard. I should have intervened earlier, maybe come down on her harder about the drinking. Decided I would try her mobi again. I had the contacts book open, finger hovering on the call button when I heard a knock at the door.

I jumped up to the spyhole. The back of a head covered it. I opened up, immediately regretted the move.

A shoulder forced the door into my face. I went back, tumbled downwards and felt my palms get scorched on the carpet. Next thing I felt was a backhander knocking me into the wall.

‘All right, Gus boy.’ It was Dartboard; the pug with the parka stood behind him. ‘… You and me are going on a wee visit to a friend of ours.’

He grabbed my hair and hauled me up.

‘Get his coat, Sammy.’

The undertaker was dressed in a double-breasted grey suit. The last time I saw lapels that wide it was in an Edward G. Robinson movie. He had on a black shirt and it was open at the collar, an eyeful of bling played for attention beneath a heavy white chest rug. His eyes followed me as Dartboard prodded my back all the way across the bar floor. My head throbbed from the spank he’d given me in the flat, and I was sorely tempted to land a fly jab in his puss. Only thing that held me back was I knew this boy had some moves; maybe I was learning.

The Undertaker nodded to Dartboard and he pointed me to a velour-backed seat. ‘I’ll stand, thanks.’

I didn’t see the fist coming for my gut, but I felt it, compressed me like an accordion; I made as much noise too. Fell onto my knees, panting and wheezing. I looked up at Dartboard, tried to figure how he’d packed so much power into a blow that had come straight from his pocket.

‘You’re gonna…’ I coughed my guts onto the floor, tried again, ‘you’re gonna have to show me how to do that.’

He smiled, impressed with himself.

The Undertaker stood up. ‘Get the cunt in the chair.’ He looked even closer to death than the last time. Under the full glare of the lights his skin was almost transparent. He was like a waxwork of himself, before they’d applied the paint.

Dartboard dragged me into the chair, sat me down. I watched as he retreated to the other end of the room with the parka prick they called Sammy. Neither spoke, just stood with their hands at their sides, clenched fists.

The Undertaker walked the floor. His legs were so thin beneath his baggy trousers that his kneecaps poked out like shards with his every step. He was like a cadaverous Peter Crouch. There’s a phrase, all arms and legs.

‘What did I fucking ask you, laddie?’ he said. His tone had changed too: the sandpaper rasp was still there but now a belt-grinder was working it. He was keenly pissed at me, proper furious. ‘Eh, y’cunt… What did I ask ye?’

I held in my entrails. I felt that if I took my hand from my stomach it’d spill on the floor. ‘Do you mind standing still?’ I said. ‘It might come back to me then.’

He stopped dead. I saw the false teeth in his head as his mouth widened. The Undertaker looked as if he’d been poked in the arsehole with a sharp pencil.

Sammy seized the initiative and dived forward, clapped a mitt on my jaw. I fell off the chair. He had a way to go before he was in Dartboard’s league. I shook it out and clambered back onto the seat. ‘You’ve stopped pacing, good. The answer you’re after is… Davie Prentice. You gave me a message, and I passed it on. So why the fuck am I here?’

The pug with the skinhead got nodded away, the Undertaker approached me. As he leaned in I saw the grease on the back of his collar. His breath smelled as though a rat had been living in his mouth for a year and there was dandruff falling on me from his shoulders as he spoke. ‘Aye, that’s right, laddie, I gave you a wee fucking simple message to pass on to that fat cunt…’ He turned to Dartboard and Sammy. ‘Should’ve been simple, eh no?’