Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife

Merki raised his hand to the Range Rover and carried on, building his speed up to thirty-five. She’d dropped her cigarette on the floor but was too afraid to let go of the door handle and reach down to get it. They hit a straight stretch of road and the lumbering four-by-four pulled into a break in the oncoming traffic, honking furiously as it overtook them. Merki waved back. “Thank you,” he said. “Shit, we’re going the wrong way, though.”

“Don’t you dare turn around in this road.”

“I’ll just go on to the next roundabout then,” he said happily.

She picked up the cigarette from the dusty floor and took a long, welcome draw. The traffic was building up behind them again, cars passing them in a blur, only to slow abruptly at a roundabout up ahead. A petrol station on the far side of the roundabout was full of haulage trucks.

“This is a nightmare road,” she said.

Merki glanced at his watch.

“What’s with the watch, Merki?” He smiled so she gave his arm a light slap. “And what do you keep smiling about?”

“My cousin’s due a baby,” he shouted, annoyed for no real reason. He rubbed his arm where she’d touched him. “Heard you got a bollocking from Bunty this morning anyway.”

“Oh, aye, he set the police on me. Did ye hear that too?”

He smiled. “Did he get you arrested, did he? For visiting Callum Ogilvy, was it? He had me arrested the other day, drunk in charge of a stapler.”

They were journalists, they could lie to each other for hours at a time, but she really wanted to know. “Come on, why are we here? Why the watch?”

He checked it again and smiled out of the windscreen, slowing for the roundabout up ahead. “OK.” He sighed through his nostrils. “Ogilvy’s out.”

“Out of prison?”

“Aye. Released. Everyone and his auntie’s going to get sent to Driver Sean’s house to sit it out and I figured, you know, don’t be there. They’ll send someone else. If there’s a story you’re never going to get it sitting between the Standard and the Record, are ye? You were visiting him the other day, weren’t ye? That’s why Bunty was shouting at ye, eh? Eh?” He smiled, glancing at her, taking his eyes off the road.

“Pull into that petrol station. I need to make a call.”

“If you’re phoning the office don’t tell them I’m with ye, eh?”

“I’m not phoning the office,” she said, winding her window down and throwing the cigarette out, watching in the side mirror as it bounced behind them on the road and disappeared into the dark under the chassis of a coach.

Despite being next door to the toilets the phone box still smelled of fresh urine. She punch-dialed the Ogilvys’ number quickly, as if she could beat bacterial infection with speed.

They weren’t answering the phone and she wasn’t surprised. When the answer machine clicked on she spoke loudly, knowing kids would be screaming in the background. They were noisy at the best of times.

“Sean, it’s Paddy, pick up the phone, I need to talk-”

The phone clicked and Elaine sighed into the receiver, turning away to tell one of the kids to be quiet.

“Elaine, the papers know Callum’s out.”

Elaine sighed again, heavier this time, in a way that suggested she already knew that, thank you very much, and handed the receiver over to Sean.

“I guess you know then?”

“There’s a bank of them outside the door. They’ve been taking pictures of the kids and the windows and the street and everything.”

“Can he stay indoors for a while? I’ll bring ye in groceries if ye need them.”

“He’s not here, Paddy, he’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“No idea. The STV van was the first to pull up, he saw it and slipped out the door, went round the back and we’ve never seen him since. That was half an hour ago. Could you drive around and have a look for him? He can’t be far.”

It was the last thing she wanted to do. “My car’s in the lot at work, Bunty’s looking for me, I’ve just been picked up by the police and-fuck-Hatcher’s dead…” But Sean Ogilvy had been a father to Pete when he was a baby. He and Elaine had babysat to let Paddy go to work sometimes, minded him when he was teething and let her sleep. The only valid excuse now would be if she herself was dead. Sean said nothing but she heard it all.

“OK. OK, OK.”

When she opened the car door Merki had turned on the radio and was happily singing along to “Daydream Believer.”

“Get me the fuck back to Glasgow, Merki.”

Bright corridors smelling of disinfectant were lined with paintings and collages by various years, proof of work done and time filled. High-pitched singing came from the far end of the corridor but the children behind the door, in Pete’s class, were very quiet. Paddy and the deputy head looked in through the window on the door. Four rows of tiny desks were pointing forward to Miss MacDonald, who was reading them a story. Pete sat in the very front row and Paddy watched him for a moment. He kept turning to his neighbor, a small girl with a patch over one lens of her pink glasses, then glancing at the teacher, remembering he wasn’t to talk.

“Maybe we should get him out of there before he gets into trouble.” Miss McGlaughlin, the deputy head, a stately woman with gray hair held in a butterfly clip, smiled.

She knocked once and opened the door. When the children saw it was her they stood up.

“Thank you, children,” said Miss McGlaughlin. “Good afternoon.”

They chorused, “Good afternoon, Miss McGlaughlin,” at her and she spoke quietly to Miss MacDonald, telling her Paddy’s lie, that Pete’s granny was gravely ill and he was to leave with his mum right now. Miss MacDonald looked skeptical and whispered back, “Is that your mum or Mr. Burns’s mum?”

Paddy could have slapped her. “My mum.”

“I see.” Miss MacDonald turned to Miss McGlaughlin, who looked a little startled that she was quizzing a mother about a potential death in the family. “It’s just that Miss Meehan was telling me Pete’s dad might come to the school and try to take him out.” She looked back at Paddy, stopping short of calling her a liar. “Because if he does come now, what should I tell him?”

Miss McGlaughlin watched her for an answer.

Paddy motioned to Pete to come to her. He stood up and walked over, self-conscious, looking around the adults as if he’d done something wrong. “Pete’s daddy will bring him to school tomorrow, if it’s appropriate. Where’s your coat, son?”

“Am I going to see my dad?”

“Where’s your coat kept?”

He could tell that she was defying the teachers and his eye took on a gleeful glint. “Cloakroom.”

“’Mon.” She took his hand, remembered her manners and turned back to the teacher. “Thank you, Miss MacDonald.”

She was in the corridor before the teachers could stop her, Pete giggly by her side.

He shouted down the corridor to the open classroom door. “Bye ya!”

It was typical of his flamboyant style: the giant black Merc dwarfed the small, new-build house he lived in with Sandra, the second, but almost certainly not the last, Mrs. George H. Burns.

The new estate was set on what had been a school sports ground. Making clever use of the small space, wavy roads led off around corners into shallow cul-de-sacs, calming traffic at the same time as giving the impression of not being absolutely tiny. None of the yellow-brick houses were exactly alike, but the differences were minimal and cosmetic, a garage to the left instead of the right, a small window on the stairwell, a window on a roof, just enough to give the impression of individuality without the architect having to go to the trouble of thinking of anything original. The cookie-cutter blandness made Paddy crave a ghetto.