Tony Black - Loss

Calls in the middle of the night rarely bring good news. There’s a drill folk go through before dialling a number at 1 a.m. — usually, if it can be avoided it will be. If it can’t, expect a jolt.

The first ring woke me but I let it get to double figures before I shifted arse, reached for the receiver. The glare of the digital clock stung, nearly burned the retinas out me.

‘Yeah, what?’ I blurted, my voice rougher than ever on the red Marlboros, poked me into manners, ‘I mean, hello.’

Formal tones. A youngish woman, but serious as the clap: ‘Is that Mr Dury?’

‘Yeah, it is.’

‘I’m calling from Lothian and Borders Police… Sorry to wake you so late, but I’m afraid it’s an important matter.’

The pay-off. Christ, I thought, here it comes; went with: ‘It is?’

A pause. Lip-biting perhaps. ‘Would you be able to come down to the station, Mr Dury?’

I sat up. A shiver passed through me as the duvet slipped — it was another cold night. I rubbed my eyes, lifted the alarm clock. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

No pause this time, a shuffle at the other end of the line, the scrape of a chair: ‘Gus, Gus, is that you?’

This voice I recognised — it was Fitz. We hadn’t spoken for near on a year. Even when we were speaking, he never used my Christian name. If Fitz the Crime was talking nicely to me, it must be bad.

‘Look, Gus, I was going to call myself, I just didn’t want to have ye slam the phone down at the sound of me.’

I was lost for words, couldn’t fit the puzzle together: any borderline friendship I’d once shared with him, I’d well and truly blasted, with both barrels. ‘You what?’

Fitz’s tone came low, calm, almost unrecognisable from his usual bluster. The Irish was still there, but this was like Wogan in his eighties heyday — tons of schmaltz: ‘Gus, I think you should come down the station… Can ye manage it?’

I heard Debs stir behind me: ‘What’s going on?’

I turned, flagged her down.

‘Gus, I’ll send a car, okay? You can be ready in ten or fifteen, yeah?’

Debs sat up, tugged at my arm.

I reined in the confusion of being woken from deep sleep, of having the filth call me in the wee hours, and of Fitz being nice about it. ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll get dressed.’

Debs stared at me intently as I placed the phone back on its cradle. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Go back to sleep.’

I felt an uneasy turn in the pit of my stomach. Was it fear? I didn’t think so, didn’t feel like fear, or even confusion. It was almost preternatural, a deep instinct of bad hurt to follow. Foreboding.

Debs got up, walked round to face me, a bed-head thing happening with her hair as she spoke again: ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

I shook myself. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

Looks askance, a neck-tilt filled with ‘do I button up the back?’ derision written all over her. ‘Oh, come on…’

I looked her squarely in the eye. ‘That was Fitz.’ The name was enough to wipe away any doubts that I was keeping something from her.

‘Fitz… What the hell did he want?’

I placed my hands on her shoulders; she felt cold. ‘Get back to sleep. I have to go out.’

‘No way, I’m coming too.’ She spun past me, went to open the wardrobe.

I got up and slammed my palm on the door, held it shut. ‘Go back to bed, Deborah… I mean it.’

She sensed the tone in my voice wasn’t there for show, folded her arms and cricked her jaw to one side. ‘I don’t like this, Gus… Police ringing in the night. It might be-’

‘Yeah, well, I’ll find out, won’t I?’

I got a finger pointed at me. ‘Gus…’

I said, ‘Look, as soon as I know, I’ll call… okay?’

She thinned her eyes, returned to bed. I took my 501s off the chair; the white T-shirt and the black trackie top on the floor would have to do too. I dressed quickly.

‘Do you want me to make you a coffee?’ said Debs.

‘No thanks, they’re sending a car.’

I pulled on my Docs and stepped out of the bedroom. The dog had been woken and was prowling about. He clocked me but seemed to doubt his eyes, gave a sniff at my leg.

‘Back to bed, boy.’

Eyes widened, an almost insulted expression, then a slow return to the living room.

My Crombie hung in the hall. I sparked up a tab on my way out the front door. Some jakey had taken a Pat Cash in the tenement’s stairs. The rank smell of pish made me hold my breath on the way down. Let me catch the bastard next time.

Outside I exhaled — my breath came white against the freezing air. It was sub-zero. The city was in the grip of the worst winter for twenty years. I certainly couldn’t remember a colder one, and I had a bit more than twenty years on the clock. I turned up my collar, chugged deep on the Marlboro. There seemed to be a hollowness in my chest — the apprehension? The unknown? I kissed the tip of my cigarette, cupped in my hand prison-yard style, hoping the burn in my lungs would dislodge the feeling. It didn’t.

I saw the white Audi, flashing blue lights in the grille, long before I heard it coming down Easter Road. I moved out to the kerb, dropped my tab in the gutter. It landed in a tinfoil container half full of boiled rice and frozen curry sauce. The car pulled up. A uniform got out, said, ‘I could do you for that.’

I stretched out my arms, wrists together. ‘Wanna cuff me?’

He said nothing, pushed past me and opened up the back door, pointed inside.

We drove up to the lights — they burned red. The driver halted short of the hill-crest, next to the Italian tailor. I sat reading the one-hour alterations promise, then the lights changed and we pulled onto London Road, some movement of the back tyres confirming the iciness of the road.

‘Which station are we going to?’ I said.

Uniform turned round, spat, ‘Fettes.’

It wasn’t the closest, but it somehow tied in with the scenarios I had playing in my head. I’d never been on the Chrimbo card list at Lothian and Borders plod. There were more than a few down there who’d like to see me banged up. Christ, they’d went for it enough times already: trying to hang a murder rap on me was their last effort. I’d narrowly wriggled out of that thanks to Debs’s evidence; I’d promised to chuck poking about into other people’s problems, just for her. I wondered if she’d still be there when I got home. If I got home.

‘Any idea what this is about?’ I said.

Uniform again: ‘Haven’t a scooby.’

I picked up the Maccy D’s coffee cups littering the floor at my feet, tried to play it chatty: ‘Busy night?’

‘Same old shite — cold keeps the jakeys quiet.’

‘Behaving themselves for a bed at the doss.’

‘Nah… drink themselves paralytic then cark it up some close.’ He spoke of people dying in the cold of the street like it was something to be thankful for. I shook my head; driver caught me in the rear-view. Like I cared. I slumped back and vowed no more chit-chat with the filth. It was too soul-destroying.

‘Oh, there was a wee incident out at the Meadows, though,’ said Uniform. He turned round to make sure I was listening, that he had my full attention. ‘Some bloke got plugged. They found him about ten bells, got to be a radge walking there at that time. Looks like he was mugged… Be some wee schemie with his first shooter — all got them now.’

The uniform guffawed, set his mate off; he slapped the dash then the pair of them high-fived. They laughed me up, but I wasn’t in on the joke. Hoped, by the kip of them, I never would be.

My heart thumped as we reached the station. I saw Fitz standing at the glass-fronted doors, his hands stuck deep in his coat pockets. He looked more like a university lecturer than a copper. It had been a while since I’d seen him and he’d collected some grey streaks at the sides of his hairline. More than a few pounds had been added to the waistline as well.