Denise Mina: The Dead Hour

“Would you say you were terrified?” she said, being unprofessional and putting words in his mouth.

He looked a little skeptical. “I suppose…”

“Have you ever seen anything like it before in your life?”

He looked even more unconvinced. “Well, I fought in the war, at Monte Cassino, and it wasn’t anything like as bad as that.”

Paddy sighed, exhausted. “Was it like something you might have seen in the war? Could you say that?”

“Aye.” He could go along with that. “Maybe. A bit like that.”

She wrote it down. “Alistair Sloane of Dennistoun said, ‘It was like something out of the Battle of Monte Cassino and I should know because I was there.’ Is that any good?”

He looked at her shorthand, excited that he might be in the paper. “Aye. Is that going in tomorrow?”

“It’s not up to me, really, but that’s how I’ll put it in.”

She left the old man, who was grinning gleefully, looking like a ghoul, and walked back toward the car, working hard at keeping her gaze away from the undercarriage of the bus. Even in the dark road she could see splatters of blood on the bus wheels, pooling on the road. Her half-informed eye kept trying to reconstruct a person out of the shapes she wasn’t looking at, a round object turned into a head. There was black stuff all over the road and she wasn’t certain that it was oil. She was glad Sean was waiting in the car. If she wasn’t being brave for him she might have followed one of the police officer’s examples and thrown up.

“I heard you were here.”

At the sound of Burns’s voice her already delicate stomach spiked acid. He let his pal walk on and sauntered over solo, standing between her and the bus. She had no option but to follow the line of his body from waist to face to avoid seeing an image that might haunt her.

“Burns.”

“Meehan?” He returned the bald greeting but looked disappointed.

“Sorry.” She tipped her head to the mess under the bus. “I’m trying not to look.”

Burns glanced back at it, unflinching. “Yeah, messy. We’ve been sent over to redirect the traffic. Exciting. I love nights. Standing in the bollock-freezing cold telling nosy bastards to go left. I got that address you were after.”

“Brilliant.” He recited it for her and she jotted it down. “Does Knox have a reputation? A flashy car or too much money?”

“Not so much that anyone’s talking about it, no.” Burns shifted nearer, looking down at her mouth as if he was going to kiss her. Paddy noticed that she was salivating. His breath hit her face in warm puffs. “You still at the hotel?”

“Did they arrest Lafferty for the firebomb yet?”

His gaze slid down her neck. “No. He’s gone abroad.”

“Abroad to where?”

“ Ireland, the wife says. No proof, just her say-so.”

She shut her notebook. “Looks like I’m still in the hotel, then.”

“That’s safest, yeah.” He looked over at the calls car. “Is that Billy’s replacement? You found him awful quick. Is he a boyfriend of yours?”

She stumbled over the answer, hoping he wouldn’t want an introduction. “No, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s my… well, it’s complicated.”

“Is it?”

She hesitated again. If she’d had her wits about her she could have made up a salving lie. “We’ve just… known each other a long time.”

Burns tipped his chin at her, looking down his nose and sucking air in between his teeth in a sour hiss. “I see. That’s nice and cozy. I’m doing an open spot at Blackfriar’s tomorrow night. Can you come?”

Dub generally booked an open-mike night once a month so it wasn’t the free-for-all. Burns must have arranged an open spot with Dub, which meant he had spoken to him, independent of her. He was muscling in on her meager social life.

“I’ll try.”

A spine-chilling creak of ripping metal filled the street as the fire brigade cleaved part of the bloody hood away from the bus’s axle. Paddy suddenly saw herself and Burns standing too close to each other, too keen to exclude others from their conversation. It was obvious there was something between them.

“I’d better go and call this in.” She backed off toward the car.

Burns watched her mouth as she moved away and she watched his. His pink tongue glistened behind the rim of his white teeth.

It was the middle of the night or so. Or day. Or night. Kate was lying down on something soft. A sofa. A sofa draped in a sheet. Her fingertips ran over the sheet and it felt marvelously comforting, familiar and kind and warm to the touch. Like skin. Soft like skin and smelling comforting, like the comfort pillow. Paul was talking to her, reminding her how much they liked each other, how it was important to be kind to each other and help each other. She felt wonderful.

Suddenly the cold realization made her eyes spring open. The comfort pillow was plastic. She was lying on a plastic sheet.

Paul was sitting on a chair next to her, his legs crossed, talking softly to her. He was dressed nicely, a tailored blue shirt and slate gray slacks with a pleated front. He liked to dress like a businessman. He could see that she was alarmed but said she didn’t need to be afraid. Everything was going to be fine. Not to worry.

He blinked slowly and Kate knew that he was lying. She knew what Paul Neilson was seeing. A woman with no nose, an underweight woman who hadn’t eaten more than a tin of ham and some biscuits in more than a month. He despised women who lost their looks. And she knew what Paul could do to people he despised.

They were in an unfamiliar living room with nasty decor. A varnished gas fire surround that ran the full length of the room had small promontories for ugly ornaments: china dogs, cut crystal, some Limoges figurines in swirling skirts. Hanging from the ceiling was a bulb in a small shade. It was shining right into her eyes.

Knox was standing behind Paul’s chair, watching her.

“Kate.” Paul leaned forward and used a finger to lever a trestle of blond hair from her forehead. “Katie, tell me where it is. The package.”

She didn’t think it would make any difference but she had a habit of deference. “In the Mini. Across the road. It’s… it’s almost empty.”

Paul looked beautiful. His dark hair was swept back off his face, his chin smooth and shadow free despite the late hour. He always looked expensive, groomed. His shirt was white linen, pressed by a professional, his cuffs starched and pinned with silver-and-tigereye studs. He didn’t have a tie on but the shirt was buttoned to the neck, the top button open to the hollow of his throat.

He crossed his arms and curled his lip at her. “Why did you come here, Katie?”

She started crying, pitiful whimpers bubbling up from her tummy. Uncomfortable at scenes, Paul looked away, drawing his fingernails down his neck, leaving welts that rose and reddened as she watched. He waited until she stopped making noise and spoke quietly again.

“I can’t have you threatening our friends, Katie, it’s rude.” His voice was calm but his eyes were livid. “Where’s the BMW? You’ve lost it, haven’t you?”

She was aware of a noise behind her head. It was Lafferty and he was watching Paul, waiting for a signal, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. She craned her neck to see his big body and his musclebound arms. The soft plastic crinkled sweetly by her ear. A hammer hung limp from his big hand. He was here to kill her. He wouldn’t be here otherwise.

Lafferty saw her looking at him and backed out of view. Kate struggled to sit up but Paul reached forward and pressed her throat firmly, putting pressure on her airway, pushing her back down onto the plastic-covered sofa.