Denise Mina - The Dead Hour

He imagined what she’d say to him if he did open the door: there were bits of engines and old newspapers stacked all over the floor of the pokey wee hall. He had pale blue striped pajama trousers and an undershirt on, hardly appropriate for receiving such a grand guest. But Kate had deigned to come to his council house, she’d never been before, she might not be just as snooty as she usually was.

“Darling? I’m cold.”

Bernie didn’t even make a decision to open the door. The reflex to save Kate from any and all discomfort was so ingrained that he leaned forward and pulled the heavy toolbox away from the bottom of the door while he snapped the lock and pulled it open.

He gasped when he saw her. As soon as the breath left him and his hand was across his mouth he knew he had broken her heart.

“You’re so thin,” he said, lying to spare her.

She knew why he had gasped. He could see by the way she hung her head and looked at his feet. Her hand rose to her face, covering her nose. It had collapsed. The tip drooped over her top lip like the nose of a witch in a children’s book.

The last time they met, at the old man’s funeral, she’d looked just as stunning as ever. She’d had the sort of looks that caught the eye and kept it, that made a man feel that his hands were designed to fit around her perfect face, cinch her tiny waist. She knew what she looked like then, had the sense of absolute entitlement that truly beautiful girls have. And she knew what she looked like now.

“When did you last eat?”

She raised her eyes and looked so defenseless she could have been twelve again. “I’m cold, Bernie.”

She had barely spoken to him for years, had been the cause of Vhari’s murder, had stolen a car from him and planted a parcel in his garage that could have had him killed, but Bernie reached out and took her hand, pulled her into his modest flat, and shut the door to the world behind her.

The floor was incredibly dirty. Paddy had been asleep in Farquarson’s darkened office for three hours, lying on the dusty floor, starting awake every twenty minutes or so at noises from the newsroom.

She lay awake now, knowing she should get up and phone her mum again, just to check. Her hot eyes looked along the length of filthy carpet, past the indents from the conference table, to the door. Through the half-opened venetian blinds she could see shadows moving past and the still, squat figures of the copyboys perched on their bench, waiting to be called for a chore. She should get up and phone her mum, ask if she’d seen a red Ford outside. She should apologize to JT for not getting his Mandela clippings out for him. She’d been expecting him to burst into the office all morning to give her a bollocking for not having done it already.

A perfunctory rap on the door was followed by the door opening, and a shard of bright light made her eyes smart.

“Ramage has booked you a hotel room.”

She sat up, blinking and brushing fibers and dust from her cheek, resisting the urge to rub her eyes. It was one of the copyboys.

“Is JT about?”

“Naw.”

“Is he out on a job?”

“Naw.”

He retreated back to the bench, leaving the door swinging open.

Pleased about the hotel room, Paddy brushed her clothes clean and stepped out into the busy room. The morning conference had apparently taken place in Ramage’s suite downstairs: editors and significant journalists were pouring back in through the double doors, some scowling, some buzzed up, depending on who had been lauded and who lampooned for the morning edition. She peered at them until the last few trickled back in and settled at their desks. JT wasn’t among them.

She sidled up to Reg at the sports desk. “Where’s JT?”

Reg shook his head. “Got the bump.”

She opened her eyes properly. “But he’s just won a Reporter of the Year.”

“Aye.” Reg nodded miserably at his typewriter. “Wages were too high, though. I heard you’ve got a hotel room.”

“Aye.” She looked at her feet, wondering if she’d been wise to ask for anything but a chance to prove herself.

The furnishings were all perfunctory and worn, gleaned from cheap secondhand shops. The gray sofa and a wooden chair, the smoked-glass coffee table, all ugly things, and Bernie’s living room was full of bits of engines and oily rags and tools. Kate hated the room. She was glad she had never been here before and yet Bernie’s company was a comfort in itself. Just the sight of his square face and cheap barber flattop made her feel safe, as if it were another time, as if they were still children and were back before this all began, long before it went bad.

Kate sat her second cup on the coffee table. She didn’t drink tea, usually. She knew what it did to the color of people’s teeth and had convinced herself that she didn’t like it, like ice cream and chocolate. Now she drank it down to try to warm herself up, and then asked for more from the tarnished metal pot. Bernie brought out a packet of digestives and handed her a couple.

“Try to eat them. You’re so skinny, honestly, your legs look like strings with knots in.” He pointed to her knees under the laddered blue tights and silently hoped the dried brown stuff flecked all over the back of her calves was mud.

Kate smiled softly, eyes focused somewhere far off. She sucked an edge of the biscuit and pretended to eat, indulging him. She used to get that look in her eye when she wanted to leave home but couldn’t just say so. “Have you got my pillow?”

He wouldn’t have known what she was talking about if he hadn’t been waiting for her to ask for it. “Pillow?”

She smiled. “My ‘comfort pillow.’”

Bernie smiled back but stopped when he looked at her. “You’re killing yourself.”

She stared at him wearily. She wasn’t well enough to cope with a scene. Her head was bursting and she had shooting pains in her stomach. “You take everything too seriously, Bernie, you always have, ever since you were little.”

She was saying that to make him angry, to stop him admitting he cared. Being emotional was a crime to the Burnetts. But Bernie wasn’t a Burnett, he had chosen not to be, and he did care.

“Look at you,” he said, shouting suddenly. “Look at the state of you. What he’s made of you.”

She picked up the cup and sipped again. “Has he been to see you?”

“What the fuck do you think, Katie? Would my fucking skull still be intact if he’d been here? He battered Vhari to death.”

She looked down, holding her hands together to stop them trembling. “I want my pillow,” she said when her shallow reserve of remorse had run out.

“Katie, you’re going to die if you keep taking that stuff.”

He was right and she knew it. She had felt her heart weaken up at the cottage, the rhythm of it change at times, straining like the Mini’s engine to keep going.

“Bernie, I’m not an idiot. I’m going to get help, but this isn’t the time.”

Bernie rubbed his face roughly with a hand. “Katie? Look at me.” But she couldn’t so he raised his voice. “Look at me, Katie. Fucking look at me. You won’t live to get help. They’ll kill you for taking that bag of coke.”

Kate could hear singing in her left ear. It was the low murmur of the dead man. He was faint, barely perceptible, singing a hymn, she thought, some old Protestant dirge about sins and sinners.

“Katie. Can you hear me?”

She didn’t know if Bernie was talking to her or the dead man, so she waited.

“Katie?” Bernie, it was definitely Bernie, his mouth was moving. “Can you hear me?”