Alex Gray - Glasgow Kiss

Left alone once more, Kyle considered his brother’s words. Jamesey and Tam had been brought up to admire street fighters like old man Kerrigan. They’d carried blades since primary school and like their father they wouldn’t hesitate to use one if they had to. That’s what had landed Kerrigan and his hot temper in the jail and Tam, so like his father in every way, could easily end up there too. But Jamesey? Kyle shuddered to think of it. The middle boy ducked and dived; he’d always preferred talking his way out of trouble to raising his fists.

Why was it, then, that he wasn’t like the other men in his family? Kyle had never known that aptitude for violence, had never wanted to get into knives or stuff; boxing, now that was different. In the ring he was a calculating animal, padding around its cell, waiting for the moment to strike out at his opponent. It was a sport, not a way of knocking someone’s brains out, he thought disgustedly. He could no more batter the living daylights out of his father than fly in the air.

Then the irony of his situation suddenly struck home: Kyle Kerrigan might have the makings of a boxing champion but he’d never have swung a punch in anger. So how could they believe he was capable of Julie’s murder?

Aheron flapped noiselessly over the estuary, the morning light turning the underneath of its wings to gold. Because it was still so early, the clouds were tinged with pink, trailing grey shadows in their wake above an eggshell-blue sky. It was one of those mornings that gave false promises, the light shining on the river dazzled the eye; ‘too bright too early’ had been her mother’s favourite saying for such a start to the day. So they had come before breakfast, mindful of the forecast telling of rain coming in from the Atlantic; Ireland would see it first, that darkening of the skies, obscuring the horizon’s sand-coloured light and this expanse of blue arcing overhead.

They’d taken a taxi down to the river’s edge; her car had been a write-off after the accident and Solly didn’t drive. The taxi driver had stared at them curiously, thinking them mad no doubt as he’d left them there with a promise to return in an hour, the dark bearded man and the slight blonde wrapped up in a long beige cardigan. She smiled at the memory, snuggling against Solly as they sat looking over the Clyde. Just a few miles downstream, yet it was so different from the sluggish waters that coursed through the centre of the city. Rosie gave a huge sigh that prompted Solly to raise questioning eyebrows, but she merely shook her head and gave him a reassuring smile; the sigh had been one of pure pleasure at being able to breathe fresh air that was tinged with just a hint of autumn chill and to stare out across the sandbanks where hundreds of birds were foraging for food, beaks pecking in the slate-coloured mud. Occasionally an oystercatcher would flap noisily from one patch to another, disturbing that large group of birds with long red legs. What were they? she wondered, taking a mental note of their appearance. Lorimer would know, Rosie suddenly thought; he was such a keen birdwatcher. He saw other things with his sharp blue eyes too, she mused, things that many people would miss. The sigh she gave now was not one of contentment, but rather the longing to be well again, to be fit for work and part of an ongoing case where her expertise as a forensic pathologist gave her such satisfaction.

Perhaps he’d caught something in her mood for Solly’s arm came around her shoulders, hugging her closer, and she let her head sink gratefully onto his shoulder, glad to have his strength while still mourning her own weakness. It would take time, the surgeon had warned her. She’d been lucky, so many of her fellow medics had stated once they’d known the extent of her injuries and how close she’d come to the brink. Rosie shuddered and Solly rubbed her arm as though to warm her. It was something they didn’t talk about any more. What was the point? She had a future to think about and that was reason enough to feel positive, wasn’t it?

But the thought of Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer and the missing toddler had been planted into her mind now and Rosie’s eyes no longer saw the shifting clouds or the change in the hills as the shadows lengthened. Her work had taken her into many distressing situations before and she had enough imagination to see just what that young mother must be feeling: such pain, such terrible, unbelievable pain.

It was the sort of pain that nobody really understood. A pain so deep inside that it couldn’t be touched, let alone seen or felt. Last night he had woken to find moonlight streaming through the curtains, even though he’d closed them against the night; the brightness had seeped into the room, insidious like his pain, making him want to shed his skin as though he were a snake. It didn’t belong to him, this covering over his bones. It itched and irritated him beyond human endurance, making him feel a restlessness that had driven him from his bed to pace up and down the house, going from room to room in the half-dark, never able to hide from that all-seeing, unforgiving moon. Raging with thirst, he’d gulped water poured straight from the kettle then wiped his mouth, feeling his swollen lips and the dry patches where he had bitten them over and over in an effort to keep from screaming. A sudden chill had crept over his flesh and set him sneezing, the sound making him wake properly to realise that he was shivering uncontrollably. Wrapping his arms around his naked body, he’d shuffled hastily back to the warmth of his bed then, whimpering, curled onto his side, foetus-like, hiding from the all-seeing moon.

Now he lay sweating, remembering the horrors of the night. No one could ever feel what he could feel, see what he could see: his pain was his alone, no matter how much other people tried to tell him that they understood. Could they crawl inside his skin? Inside his head?

Only another bright angel could soothe away this sort of pain with an everlasting kiss.

It was hard to see the world outside going about its business: children chattering noisily as they were led to the bus stop, just as they’d done on the morning when Nancy had been snatched. That her own life had stopped didn’t seem to matter to anybody else; the world still turned on its axis, night becoming day and such sleep as she managed disturbed by nightmares of monsters doing dreadful things to her daughter. Kim’s eyes were dried and flaky with so much weeping, their lids red and sore where she’d rubbed them over and over. How could daylight appear and life still go on like this? She clasped her cold hands together as yet another child ran laughing past her window. With every passing day a sinking in her heart told her she would never see her Nancy again. Kim slumped into a chair, too weak to stand and watch the morning parade of kiddies going to school, their tiny hands held by watchful mothers. As the tears flowed down her cheeks, she didn’t even bother to wipe them away; they were part of her now, like this hollow, cancerous pain that grew inside her. She’d even given it a name. Despair.

Mum had tried to comfort her, but it was all just a torrent of words raging over her, making her think too much about what might have happened. It was the not knowing that killed her heart, and the realisation that she was a bad mother. That was what everyone would be saying, she thought, castigating herself for the hundredth time. If she hadn’t let Nancy go out the front. . Kim bent over, rocking back and forth as the keening cry of pain was torn from her lips.

Maggie Lorimer hummed along to the jingle on the radio, one eye on the traffic streaming along on either side of her. Just a wee bit further ahead and she’d signal, make for the inside lane and prepare to turn off the motorway. It was a routine she had honed to such perfection that she sometimes thought the car could drive itself to school without her help. It was one of these mornings that made you feel good to be alive, she thought, bright and blue with just a sweep of white cloud above the city skyline. Despite the awfulness of the previous days, she couldn’t help but respond to this feeling of newness and opportunity. Maybe the kids would feel it too, she told herself hopefully. She had a timetable full of interesting topics for them today, things to take their minds off the twin subjects of playground talk: Julie Donaldson and Eric Chalmers. Manson had been spot on when he’d told them to keep Kyle Kerrigan occupied in the wake of his father’s release from jail; who’d have thought that such instructions would soon be extended to the entire school? The head teacher was right, though; school work was the best possible panacea for the sort of anguish the kids were facing and Maggie Lorimer had prepared some of her favourite lessons. Old Possum’s ‘Growltiger’s Last Stand’ for her First Years, a strip cartoon exercise of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for S2, then that board game she’d invented on The Cone-Gatherers for her Intermediate Ones. Hands-on stuff, it would also keep them mentally challenged and away from any thoughts of what was happening in the world of crime and detection.