Iain Banks - The Bridge

It is a dress; a black dress. He shakes it at me, wiping his nose on the handkerchief he took from me when I was first captured. Put it on, he says.

The pig is lying belly-down on his bed, snorting and squealing, its legs tied with rope to each of the bed's four posts. There is perfume in the air. Put this on , the Field Marshal tells me. I watch him put my handkerchief away. I put the dress on. The pig grunts.

The Field Marshal undresses; he throws his uniform into an old chest. He takes a large machine-gun from a book-covered table and shoves it into my hands. He holds up the long chain of cartridges as though it is a thick gold necklace to go with my long black dress. Look at these bullets (I look at the bullets); they are not blanks, see? See how much I trust you, Ore. Do just as I say, the Field Marshal tells me. His broad face is slicked in sweat; his breath is fetid.

I am to poke the machine-gun between the cheeks of his bum while he mounts the pig; this is what he wants. He is already excited, just at the thought. He covers one hand in gun oil and climbs onto the bed over the squealing pig, which he slaps between the legs with his oily hand. I stand at the foot of the bed, gun ready.

I detest this man. But neither of us is stupid. There were faint, regular score-marks round the shoulders of the brass cartridges; they have been held in the jaws of a wrench; opened and emptied of their powder. Probably the caps have been fired off too. There is a pillow by the pig's head. The Field Marshal lowers himself over the animal; they grunt together. One of his hands rests near the side of the pillow. There is another gun under there I think.

'Now,' he says, grunting. I grasp the gun barrel with both hands, lift it overhead and in the same movement bring it down like a sledgehammer on the Field Marshal's head. My hands, my arms and my ears tell me he is dead even before my eyes do. I have never felt or heard a skull smash before, but the signal came quite distinctly through the metal of the gun and the perfumed air of the room.

The Field Marshal's body still moves, but only because the pig is jerking about. I look under the pillow where human blood and pig spittle combine and find a long, very sharp knife there. I take it and open the chest the Field Marshal put his uniform in; I take the pearl-handle revolver and some ammunition, check the door is locked, then change back into my waiter's uniform. I take one of the Field Marshal's great coats as well, then head for the window.

The window's rusty frame squeaks, but not as loudly as the pig. I have both feet on the window-sill when I remember the handkerchief. I take that from the dead man's uniform, too.

The city is dark, and the confused, wandering men who inhabit it bolt for cover as I run softly through the ruins.

She came back. So did Mrs Cramond, looking smaller and older. He had expected Mrs Cramond to sell the house, but she didn't; instead Andrea moved in with her, selling the flat in Comely Bank which had been let out to students in the intervening years. Mother and daughter got on remarkably well. Certainly the house was big enough for them both. They sold off the large basement as a self-contained flat.

It was a good time, after she came back. He'd stopped worrying about his bald patch, work was going well - he was still thinking about joining the other two in a partnership - and his father seemed quite happy on the west coast, spending most of his time at a club for pensioners where he apparently attracted the attentions of several widows (it was only with the greatest reluctance he could be tempted to Edinburgh for even a weekend, and once there would sit looking at his watch and complaining that now he was missing his card game with the lads, and now his bingo, or the old-time dancing. He would look down his nose at the best food Edinburgh's top chefs could provide, and pine volubly for the mince and tatties the others would he having).

And Edinburgh might start to be a capital, albeit in a limited way, once again. Devolution was in the air.

He noticed a little excess weight; just a slight jiggling at waist and upper chest whenever he ran upstairs, but something that had to be dealt with; he started playing squash. He didn't like it though; he preferred to have his own territory in a game, he told people. Besides Andrea kept beating him. He took up badminton, and went swimming at the Commonwealth Pool two or three times a week. He refused to go jogging though; there were limits. He went to concerts. Andrea had returned from Paris with catholic tastes. She would drag him to the Usher Hall to listen to Bach and Mozart, play Jaque Brel records when he stayed at the house in Moray Place, buy him Bessie Smith albums as presents. He preferred the Motels and the Pretenders, Martha Davis singing Total Control and Chrissie Hynde saying 'fffUCKoff!' He thought the classical stuff was having no effect until one day he found himself trying to whistle the overture to The Marriage of Figaro . He developed a taste for complicated harpsichord pieces; they made good driving music, providing you played them loud enough. He heard Warren Zevon for the first time, and wished he'd heard the man's album when it first came out. And he found himself jumping and pogoing like a teenager to the Rezillos at parties.

'You what?' Andrea said.

'I'm going to get a hang-glider.'

'You'll break your neck.'

'The hell with it; it looks like fun.'

'What, being in an iron lung?'

He didn't buy a hang-glider; he decided they weren't safe enough yet. He went parachuting instead.

Andrea spent a couple of months refurbishing the house at Moray Place, overseeing decorators and carpenters and doing a lot of the painting herself. He enjoyed helping her, working late into the night in old clothes covered in paint, listening to her whistling in another room, or talking to her while they both painted. There was one night of panic when he felt a tiny lump in her breast, but it proved to be harmless. His eyes got tired sometimes at work, looking at plans and drawings, and he was putting off going to the optician because he suspected he'd be told he needed glasses.

Stewart had a brief affair with a student at the university which Shona found out about. She talked about leaving Stewart, virtually threw him out. Stewart came to stay at his place, worried, regretful. He went to see Shona, driving to Dunfermline to try to smooth things over, describe Stewart's distress and the way he himself had always admired them and even envied the air of calm, steady affection they gave off when together. It felt strange, sitting there trying to persuade Shona not to leave her husband because he'd slept with another woman, almost unreal, almost comical at times. It seemed ridiculous to him; Andrea was in Paris that weekend, doubtless shacked up with Gustave, and he'd be seeing a tall, blonde parachutist in Edinburgh that night. Was it the slip of paper that made the difference, the living together, the children, or just the belief in the vows, the institution, in a religion?

Probably no thanks to him, they patched it up. Shona would only mention it occasionally, when she was drunk, and with less and less bitterness over the years. Still, it proved to him how fragile even the most secure-seeming relationship would be, if you went against whatever rules you'd agreed.

Oh, what the hell? he thought, and went into partnership with the other two. They found offices in Pilrig, and he had to find an accountant. He joined the Labour party; he took part in letter-writing campaigns for Amnesty International. He sold the Saab and bought a year-old Gold GTi; he mortgaged the flat.

When he was cleaning out the Saab before taking it to the dealer he found the white silk scarf they had used that day at the tower. He hadn't wanted to leave it lying around for somebody to find, so he'd rinsed it in a burn when they got back down but then lost it; he thought it must have fallen out of the car.