Louise Welsh - Naming the Bones

‘Were you serious about wanting to stay longer?’

‘Aye, deadly serious.’

‘I might have somewhere for you then, if you don’t mind roughing it.’

MURRAY SAT AT the island shop’s computer and logged into his email account. It wasn’t quite three o’clock yet, but it had started to rain again and the skies outside were already dark. It felt good to be in and warm while the island was washed by wind and rain once more. The lamps had been lit against the gloom and a Calor gas heater hissed in a corner by the counter. Somewhere a radio was tuned to drive time, and he could hear the presenter detailing news of roadworks in the centre of Inverness. The small store, which had been so busy on his last visit, was empty of other customers. The shop man had given him a mug of instant coffee and told him to shout through to the backroom if he needed anything else. Murray took a sip from the steaming cup, relishing the sense of aloneness and study that had been a comfort to him since he was a child.

The number of new messages made him feel helpless for a moment, but there was only one he was interested in reading. He scrolled through the previous day’s entries and found it, the sender’s address a combination of letters and numbers that looked random, the subject heading Tis Pity She’s a Whore , the attachment tantalisingly present.

He hadn’t believed Rachel’s story, but staring at the message with its strange title, remembering the strain in her voice, he wondered if he might be wise to delete it, as he’d promised. Rachel had never asked anything of him before, though God knows he’d wanted her to. He rested his hand on the computer mouse. It was in his nature to investigate, but some knowledge was tainting. Pandora’s box, Eve’s forbidden fruit, Bluebeard’s young wife with the key to her husband’s private room. Succumbing to temptation could signal disaster.

He trailed down his inbox, hovering on indecision, deleting junk and outdated messages from the department about meetings he was now exempt from. He scrolled down further, hoping for a message from Rab that might tell him why Professor James had it in for Fergus. There was nothing. But tucked in amongst the list of unsolicited offers and enquiries was a message from Lyn.

Murray leaned back in the chair and gazed at the ceiling of the shop. A couple of yellowing remnants of sticky tape swayed in the rising warmth from the heater. Left over from Christmas decorations, he supposed. He sighed, leaned forward and clicked open Lyn’s message.

Dear Murray

I’m a woman who keeps her promises. I asked around about your smiler, Bobby Robb, Crippen as you called him, Crowley as they called him here. It seems he was one of our regulars until three years or so back, though the word is he was still a slave to the bottle — it’s amazing the constitution you need to be a successful addict. I don’t have much for you beyond that except that he was ‘a scary shit’. Apparently he was into weirdigan stuff, spells, magic, and wasn’t above dropping a curse or two if it looked like someone might cross him. My source also said Bobby was a frightened man who slept with a ‘circle of protection’ round his bed — whatever that is. A word to the wise. Tempting as it might be for you to leap on this, you should remember that the streets are a hard place to survive. People develop different strategies for keeping themselves safe. If this was Bobby Robb’s, it seems like a pretty good one to me. A lot of our clients are daft enough to believe in different dimensions. I wish I could, I’d leave mine in a flash. I’m not sure how much you know about Jack’s activities. It’s easier for me to assume nothing. It would mean one less person took me for a fool. I can’t help wondering, though, that evening you asked me about Cressida Reeves. I thought you were interested in her for yourself, but maybe you knew? Either way, Cressida is off the market. Jack has moved out of our flat and in with her. I wish I could say goodbye to bad rubbish, but we’ve been together a long time. If you speak to him, please tell him I miss him. He won’t take my calls any more. I kept my promise to you, even though your brother broke all the ones he made to me.

Lyn x

The kiss at the end made Murray’s eyes tear. He blinked, then read the email again, cursing his brother even as he wrote the scant details Lyn had given him into his notebook.

Murray had no stomach for the rest of his messages, but somehow Lyn’s words had decided what he would do about the email Rachel had asked him to delete. If love was a game of cheating and deception, then it was better to know what you were up against. He found the anonymous email again and opened it.

Murray tensed, half-expecting the screen to descend into blackness or display some childish victory halloo before fading into computer codes and nothingness, but the body of the email was empty. He moved the cursor to the virtual paperclip, ready to click open the attachment, but then the photographs started to slowly unveil themselves without any help.

He remembered where he was and minimised the screen, glancing behind him to check whether anyone had seen his shame, but the shop was still empty, the proprietor still somewhere in the backroom. Murray half-turned his chair towards the door, the better to hear any new customers entering, and then looked at the image again.

It took him a moment to realise what he was seeing. Then he recognised the room, the familiar desk with its pile of unmarked essays, the uncomfortable chair he reserved for students, shoved to one side. It was the night she dumped him, the night he had rushed into the corridor, chasing after the intruder. He could see his own white arse caught mid-thrust on the screen, Rachel’s elegant legs inelegantly spread beneath him.

Murray glanced towards the counter, wondering how good a view someone standing behind it would have of the monitor, realising the computer had been cleverly positioned to allow minimum privacy. He rolled the cursor down the screen anyway, wondering how many snaps the prowler had managed to take. He would phone Rachel afterwards, reassure her that no one could know the woman was her, even if the photo were to be pasted billboard-high in George Square, or more likely distributed amongst a thousand pay-for-view websites.

Jesus, what a mess. But it was a mess they were in together.

He didn’t feature in the next image. Instead there was Rachel with a young man Murray thought he might recognise from postgraduate forums. He couldn’t be sure. The man’s face was turned away and he was naked, Rachel kneeling on the floor between his open legs, her features hidden in his groin. She was naked too, pale and beautiful. Murray felt a sharp surge of jealousy, remembering that they had never completely undressed for each other.

The four remaining images were more of the same, Rachel and sex the only constant. Rachel with a grey-haired man who had kept his watch on. The time was half past three, and she was astride him, her hands fondling her breasts.

Rachel bent over a chair in a hotel bedroom while a hirsute man with a slack belly and balding head held her rear and pointed his erect penis into her.

Rachel on her back, two men with her this time, and the faint blur of other undressed bodies in the background.

Rachel with her legs splayed, the head of some naked stranger pressed between them, her head thrown back, neck exposed so that Murray could see the hollow in her throat he had liked to kiss.

There was a sound behind him. He killed the image and spun round in his chair. Christie Graves was standing at the far end of the aisle, a newspaper and a loaf of bread in her basket. Their eyes met.

The pictures had been so big, so arresting, as loud in his head as the Jump Jet that had brought him to his knees. He couldn’t imagine how she could have missed them. Christie held his gaze for a moment, then looked away and went to the counter.