Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife

He dropped his hand and stepped back, giving her space. As she breathed in deeply a sharp pain shot across her gut, making her feel as if she might vomit.

Donaldson stood calmly by, hands in his pockets, letting her gather herself together for a moment before turning back to the door. “That was…” He looked perplexed. “Well, that was… what it was.”

The bins behind him were stuffed full, overflowing with ripped black bags and bottles, newspapers and smell. Paddy rubbed her stomach. “That wee shite in the tracksuit’s working for you?”

Donaldson dropped his head and pinched his nose, his shoulders jerking.

“I don’t see what’s so fucking funny.” She sounded angry when he had just saved her. She shouldn’t. He might step back in and send the big guy out again.

“Ah.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”

“Come on what ?”

“Come on, shake my hand. You’re a wild woman.”

“My house is smashed up, he pissed on my bed. My friend died and I’m trying to find out what happened to him. Is that what happens to people who ask questions? I thought you nut jobs were all about justice for the workingman and truth, for fucksake.”

He looked at her playfully. “Well, girlie, that’s a different story from the one you were telling me the other day. You sat across from me and said we were nothing but thugs who’d hijacked the history of the Fenian Brotherhood.”

“And that annoyed you enough to set that wee shit on me, did it?”

“That wee guy is a-what’s this you call them, neds?” He savored the unfamiliar word and fell serious. “He hangs around the bar, trying to be part of something he doesn’t understand. He hasn’t any conviction, knows nothing about history. He’s just angry. People tolerate him.”

“You know about history, do you?”

“I got a two one from Trinity.”

She looked up at him, not sure if he was telling the truth, but he seemed serious and rather impressed with himself, the way genuinely degree’d folk did. “Well, no one with a degree ever did a bad turn, did they?”

He flashed a dutiful smile. “The boy’s a sympathizer for a cause he doesn’t understand. Thinks making his first communion qualifies him as a Republican. He wasn’t following anyone’s orders; we wouldn’t send him for cigarettes. He was here that day you phoned. He must have asked the barman who called and gone looking for you. He’d be trying to impress the boys. He’s a hanger-on, nothing more.”

“The Celtic top was a clever disguise.”

Donaldson pinched his nose and laughed again, shaking his head to stop himself. “I’m very sorry. We’ll tell him to back off. I had no idea.”

She rubbed her stomach theatrically.

“Still got that photo, have you?”

She didn’t answer him.

He swiveled on his heels, looked around the dark yard, looking at head height, looking for people. “Ye want a safety tip? Get rid of the picture.”

“Yeah.” She was annoyed he hadn’t asked her about her stomach. “No one likes the McBree picture. I gathered that.”

He moved closer to her, sliding in, shoulder on. “Meehan, Paddy, if I can call you that.” He was standing so close to her and his voice was so low she thought for a moment he was going to try and kiss her. “That picture.” He shook his head and stopped, staring hard at the bins. He stepped away from her and raised a hand. “This is my office, ye know. This bar, this filthy yard. This is where I do all my business. I got quite a thrill when you came to see me the other day. I don’t know who told you I was the man to talk to, but they were wrong.” His face laughed but his eyes didn’t. “I used to be the man, but now…”

Donaldson was a bit pissed, she realized. It made him more animated than he had been the other day, loose, and it suited him.

“What are you doing in Scotland?”

“Oh, I’m out. They sent me away. I used to be the king of the Sweetie Bottle Bar. Drank with all of them, gave orders from there. If a woman was worried about her boy she’d come and see me, ask me…” He stopped, looked back at her, staring at her chest, taking that male, every-seven-seconds moment.

She circled her sore stomach with her hand, finding it helped. “Sweetie Bottle Bar?”

His face warmed in remembrance of a better time, when he mattered. “Ye know the Sweetie Bottle?”

“No, just… good name. I read about your son in the clippings. I’m sorry for your troubles.”

“Aye.” He didn’t react. He must have heard it a hundred times.

They stared at each other across the gloom of the evening, both fat and out of shape, both sick thinking about their sons.

“What should I do with the picture?”

He answered quickly. “Burn it.”

“Or one of you’ll kill me?”

He shook his head slowly. “Not us.”

“McBree came to my house. He threatened me. I was lucky. My son was out and someone else was there or I don’t know what he’d have done.”

“But we don’t kill journalists.”

“Ye bombed the Stock Exchange a month ago.”

“We gave fourteen different coded warnings half an hour before it went off.”

“Are you telling me McBree’s working alone?”

He shrugged.

“Why won’t the police touch him then?”

He looked surprised at that, gave her a warning look, and glanced back at the door to the bar. “Won’t they?”

“I got warned off by a DCS, no less.”

Donaldson looked at the door, at her, at the ground, fitting bits of something together in his head, something that made him angry and upset. Whatever it was, he shook his head, glanced at the bar door and back to her. His eyes were wet.

“They won’t listen to me.”

“Who?”

But he just shook his head again. His voice sounded strained when he spoke. “You know, Miss Meehan, if I was a journalist with a death wish I’d be asking who that other fella in the photograph was.” He nodded at the door. “McBree’ll know that you came here. He’ll see it as a provocation, wonder what you’re telling me. Someone could be on the phone to him right now. He hears everything.”

He turned away, took a deep breath, blinked his sadness away, and pushed the door open, walking back into the light and the noise. The door banged shut behind him.

She stood in the dark, rank yard, heard a bus rumble past beyond the wall, a dog bark a long way away, and thought about what he’d said for a moment. McBree was acting alone because he had something to hide and whatever his secret was, Kevin had captured it in the photograph. The fat man in the suit.

Her lung was still aching but she felt freshly fired up as she scouted the yard for a back way out, but the wall around the yard was solid and the gate was locked.

She had to knock on the fire exit and wait for the Mountain to come and let her back in. The tracksuit was gone and Donaldson was back at the bar, ignoring her as the Mountain escorted her to the main door, apologizing over and over, barely audible through the wall of catcalls and whistles from the other men.

Dub waited in the car, listening patiently to a comedy show on the radio, saying he didn’t mind.

Paddy checked her notes again, read the door numbers on the gates opposite, and turned back, certain that this was number eight. Dub always said that house envy was the one sure symptom of middle age. The sight of it made her mouth water.

It was everything she would have wanted Eriskay House to be: in the city, gloriously well kept and absolutely massive. A trellis arch from the street was hung with roses, the flowers faded and dropping onto the pavement, littering the path to the house.