Field of Blood

I

Paddy sat on the bench in the newsroom, watching the editors filter back in slowly after the privilege of lunch, their tempers sweetened by a midday pint and a hot meal. The journalists, who had to make do with ten stolen minutes in the canteen or a sandwich at their desks, watched them insolently, feet up on desks, fags dangling from mouths, the antagonism between the two groups palpable. They hated each other because editors gave the orders and chewed up the journalists’ work, while the journalists produced and bitched about editors’ cuts, even when their copy had been improved a hundredfold, perhaps especially then.

A clump of editors were standing in the middle of the newsroom, sharing a final joke, when a flurry in the corridor caught everyone’s eye. William McGuigan, the paper’s chairman, as rarely seen in the newsroom as empathy or encouragement, made a dramatic double-doored entrance from the lifts. His large port-wine lips had deflated with age and lost their edges so that they reminded Paddy of an overripe fruit. He was flanked by five men, two in police uniform and three in plainclothes. One of them, a white-haired man in a pristine gabardine jacket, stood authoritatively out in front of the others, eyeing the room, suspicious of everyone.

The newsroom fell silent. The presence of so much authority made everyone feel as if they were about to be arrested and summarily put to the wall. Stuck behind the crowd, Dub climbed up on the bench and Paddy stepped up next to him.

As the focal point of a crowd at silent attention, McGuigan looked around, savoring the moment. “Gentlemen, these are police officers.” He flicked a hand at the uniformed officers and dropped his voice. “Something very sad has happened.” He paused dramatically.

The white-haired policeman stepped impatiently in front of him. “Listen to me,” he shouted, his delivery loud and functional, a lorry to McGuigan’s sports car. “A body was found in the Clyde this morning. Sadly, we have good reason to believe it is that of Heather Allen.”

Assuming a despairing suicide, a hundred guilty glances ricocheted around the room, many of them resting on Paddy, who was holding her breath. From the corner of her eye she saw Dub glare back at the accusers protectively.

“We believe that the young lady was murdered,” bellowed the officer, drawing all eyes back to him. “Her car was found outside Central station, and we are asking for your help. If anyone has any information they think is relevant, please come to us. Do not wait for us to come to you.”

Determined to carve a portion of the attention for himself, McGuigan stepped in front of the policeman. “I have assured the officers that you will cooperate, and let me say this: woe betide anyone who doesn’t.” Reading his audience’s faces, he realized that threats were not appropriate. He tried to soften them with a laugh, but it died on his lips.

Several people crossed their arms. Someone muttered, “Fucking arse.” The white-haired officer stepped in front of McGuigan again. They seemed to be very slowly working their way across the room.

“We have set up interview rooms downstairs. Rooms 211 and 212.” The officer glanced at McGuigan for confirmation. “We’ll be taking some of you down there for interview.” He took a tiny black notepad out of his pocket and opened it. “Can we have Patricia Meehan and Peter McIltchie first.”

Paddy stepped down from the bench, finding her knees wobbly with shock, and worked her way out to the front of the room, meeting Dr. Pete in front of the white-haired policeman. Around them the crowd of journalists and editors moved away, whispering about them and about Heather’s terrible end.

Two newsmen darted up for a few words with the police officer and caused McGuigan to raise his hands and address the room again. “Oh, yes, of course we will be reporting on this, but we’ll be doing it in cooperation with the police. We will, however, be withholding some information strategically, and all stories will go through the news editors to make sure that is done consistently.” He smiled, stretching his baggy purple lips to their maximum, pleased to have had the last word. Everyone was listening to him, but no one was letting it show.

Paddy and Dr. Pete waited while the white-haired officer gave urgent orders to one of his underlings about doors or watching doors or something. McGuigan, keen to get back on a cheery footing with the senior officer, said something to him about getting his own back over a game of golf. The man didn’t answer him.

Paddy couldn’t take it in: Heather was dead. Someone had killed her. Dr. Pete was sweating, his top lip and forehead damp, and he seemed to be tensing his shoulder in an odd way, as if he had fallen over on it. One of the younger policemen, a squat-faced man with a thick neck, nodded hello to him. Pete tipped his head back to acknowledge the greeting but flinched at the sudden movement, holding his shoulder, nodding briskly when the man asked him if he was all right. He looked guilty of something terrible, and Paddy knew why. She wanted to run down to McGrade in the Press Bar and get him a drink, but didn’t think the police would let her. He held his arm and shifted his weight, moving himself out of the group and nearer to Paddy.

“Why do they want to talk to you?” she said quietly. “I know why me, but why you?”

“I’m an easy press.” He sounded breathless. “I know one of the officers. Drank with his father.”

“Plus you always know what’s going on.”

She sounded like an arse-lick because she was avoiding stating the obvious: that Pete was the bully in chief, the head of the pack that had hounded Heather from her job. The police would ask him if the newsroom boys had gone any further than chasing her out of the office, if they had followed her home and killed her.

“You.” The white-haired officer turned back and pointed at Paddy without any preliminaries. “You go with him. McIltchie, if you don’t mind, you’re with me. How are you?”

“Aye. Going on.” Pete dabbed at the sweat on his top lip.

Pete and Paddy stayed close to each other as they were escorted out to the lifts they were never allowed to use. She guessed he was about three whiskies short of normal.

“Not be long,” said Paddy as the doors slid open in front of them.

“Better not be. I’m melting.”

Inside the lift the mirrored walls exaggerated the officers into a small, unfriendly brigade. Paddy was a full head shorter than everyone else. She was lost in a forest of torsos. One floor down, the lift doors opened and they spilled out into editorial.

The corridor through editorial ran along the outside wall of the building. The harsh daylight flooding through the window did nothing to flatter Dr. Pete’s waxy complexion. Paddy glanced out into the street and noticed two cars outside, one parked at either end of the road, idling, neither of them taking advantage of the large, half-empty car park. They were police cars, watching the building to see who would try to leave now that the body had been found. The police were sure it was someone at the paper.

In the corridor the policemen at the front of the procession opened two doors next to each other and siphoned Paddy into one room, inviting Dr. Pete into the other.

II

The conference room held a large table with seating for fifteen. Paddy looked at her hands and realized she was trembling slightly. She was alone, frightened, and ten years younger than the two brawny men who were going to question her, outgunned anyway because they were asking the questions.

The squat-faced man who had tried to speak to Pete was in charge in their room. He picked out the places for them, pointing his companion into a seat, putting Paddy next to him, and taking the opposite side of the table for himself. She hadn’t noticed before they sat down because he was so tall, but the policeman to her left was blond and square-jawed, with electric-blue eyes. Pete’s friend was dark and fat and older. His face looked squashed, his nose flat, as if someone had sat on it while the clay was still wet.

The squat man looked her in the eye, establishing himself as the boss.

“I’m DS Patterson and this is DC McGovern.”

She smiled at both, but neither of them caught her eye. It wasn’t open hostility, but neither of them seemed particularly interested in making new friends. Patterson took out a notepad and flipped to the relevant page, asking her to confirm her name and position as a copyboy and to give her home address.

“You had a fight with Heather, didn’t you? What was that about?”

Paddy looked around the table for a moment, wondering whether she had any reason not to tell the truth about Callum. “My fiancé’s related to one of the boys in the Wilcox case.”

“The what?”

“The Baby Brian case.”

The policemen shot each other significant looks and glanced at their papers for a moment, changing expressions before looking up again. The squat one nodded at her to go on.

“When I found out, I confided in Heather, and she wrote the story up and syndicated it.”

“Syndicated?”

“She sold the story to an agency, and they sell it on to lots of other papers, papers whose markets don’t overlap.” They didn’t look any more enlightened. “The English papers. The story was everywhere. My family won’t believe I didn’t do it, and now they won’t talk to me. I don’t even know if I’m still engaged. I don’t know if my fiancé’ll have me back.”

“So you were angry with her?”

She considered lying but didn’t think she could carry it off. “I was.”

“So you hit her?”

“No, we had an argument in the toilet.” She closed an eye and shifted in her seat.

“You seem uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t hit her.”

“You did something.”

“I held her head down the toilet and flushed it.” It sounded so thuggish she tried to excuse herself. “I’m sorry I did it now.”

“It must take quite a temper to actually hold someone’s head down the toilet and flush it.”

The beautiful policeman caught her eye and smiled encouragingly. “Have you got a temper?” She realized suddenly that he’d been brought in to question the wee fat bird deliberately. Resentful, she crossed her legs and turned to Patterson.

“Are you working on the Baby Brian case?”

They glanced at each other. “Our division is, yes.”

“Have you ever heard of a wee boy that died called Thomas Dempsie?”

Patterson barked an indignant laugh. It was an odd reaction. Even McGovern seemed surprised.

“Does no one think there are similarities between the two?”

“No,” said Patterson angrily. “If you knew anything about the cases, you’d know they were completely different.”

“But Barnhill-”

“Meehan.” He said it too loud, shouting over her. McGovern watched him, trying not to frown too openly. “We’re here to ask you about Heather Allen, not to speculate about ancient cases.”

“Thomas Dempsie was found in Barnhill. And it was his anniversary. Exact to the day.”

“How would you even know about that?” He looked at her carefully. “Who have you been talking to?’

“I was just asking if you’d thought about it.”

“Well, don’t.” He was getting very angry. “Don’t ask. Answer.”

Paddy suddenly remembered that the editorial toilets were two doors down the corridor, and she remembered Heather sitting on the sanitary bin. She wanted to cry.

“Are they really sure it was Heather?”

“They can’t say for sure. She was in a bad state. We can’t use dental records, but we’re quite sure it’s her. Whoever it is, it’s wearing her coat. Her parents are going to identify the body now.”

“Why can’t you use dental records?”

He said it with a certain relish. “Her skull was smashed in.”

It was the bareness of the statement that shocked Paddy, and suddenly she could see it, Heather’s body lying on the floor of the toilets in editorial, a halo of jammy mess, her blond hair spread out like the rays of the sun and a shuffled confusion of skin and bone in the middle.

McGovern handed her a paper hankie. She struggled to speak.

“Is there a chance it might not be her?”

“We think it is.” Patterson leaned in, watching her face. She couldn’t help but feel he was punishing her for asking him questions. “We need you to be as honest as possible. You may know something important. Being honest might help us catch whoever did this.”

Paddy blew her nose and nodded.

“Did Heather have a boyfriend?”

Paddy shook her head. “She doesn’t have one.”

“Are you sure? Couldn’t she have had a secret boyfriend that she didn’t tell you about?”

“I think she’d have told me. She got pretty jealous when I talked about my fiancé.”

She looked up at McGovern and he smiled inappropriately.

“So you think she’d have told you if she was having an affair with anyone working here?”

Paddy snorted. “No way. She wouldn’t go out with anyone here, she was too career conscious.”

“What difference would that make?”

“She’d have been labeled a tart. She just wouldn’t do it.”

“What if it gave her an advantage at work?”

Paddy wavered. “Well, she was very ambitious.”

“She was very good-looking,” said McGovern. “It can’t have been easy for you: two girls working in an office, one of them-” He caught Patterson’s eye and broke off.

“When one of them’s beautiful and I’m a right dog?”

“I didn’t say that.”

She could have slapped his perfect face into yesterday. “It’s what you meant.”

She talked fast and loud to hide her hurt pride. “To be honest, it’s easier working here if you’re not that good-looking. With Heather they were always making sexy jokes about her and then hating her for not fancying them back.”

“Did it bother her?”

“It must have. She wanted to be a journalist, not a bunny girl. But she played on it. She’d have used anything to get ahead. Even her looks.”

Paddy glanced at McGovern, leveling the accusation at him as well. He smiled enchantingly, oblivious to the implied insult. He really was gorgeous. It was a shame Heather wasn’t here, she thought before she caught herself. She was sure they’d have fancied each other.

“Were you jealous of Heather?” Patterson asked carefully.

She didn’t want to answer. It pained her to admit it and made her look small, but they had said it might help if she was honest. “Yes, I was.”

Had Patterson had any manners he would have left it there, but he didn’t. He kept asking for more details. What aspects of Heather’s life was she jealous of? How jealous? Did she hate her, would she say that? Well, if not hate, then dislike? Was that why she attacked her in the toilet? Paddy tried to answer as honestly as possible, every time. She didn’t know what was relevant but gradually came to realize that while the state of her friendship with Heather might be, asking her what she currently weighed wasn’t. She resisted, and he insisted. Just answer the questions, Miss Meehan, he said seriously, we’ll decide what’s relevant. McGovern wasn’t as fly. She saw him grinning a couple of times, leaning back in his chair so that she wouldn’t see. Patterson was humiliating her deliberately, punishing her for having the cheek to suggest she knew something about Brian Wilcox.

By the end of the interview Paddy felt belittled and stupid, and suddenly knew things about herself that she wasn’t nearly ready to face. She was fiercely competitive and had always wanted to go to university herself. She had catalogued and coveted every one of Heather’s advantages, envied her clothes and figure, but believed that she was smarter- that’s where she was the winner. Paddy had always hoped she was gracious in her limitations and could enjoy other girls being thin and good-looking, but she discovered in front of two strange policemen that she wasn’t. She was a mean-spirited wee shite and she’d privately hoped some awful catastrophe would befall Heather.

Changing the subject, Patterson told her that Heather seemed to have taken her mother’s car in the middle of the night and parked outside Central station. Why would she go into town alone on a Friday night? Did she have any contacts she’d meet regularly? Could she have been investigating anything? Had Heather ever taken her to the Pancake Place at night? Paddy shook her head. Heather wouldn’t go to the Pancake Place at her own instigation. There were two all-night cafés in Glasgow: the Pancake Place was one, but the other one, Change at Jamaica, had a baby grand piano and a jazz set at weekends. It occurred to Paddy that if Heather had chosen a midnight venue, she would have gone there. She would have gone to the Pancake Place only if someone invited her there.

They finally let her go, holding open the door and telling her to come back and see them if she remembered anything or heard anything she thought was relevant. They still wouldn’t catch her eye. She sloped off, feeling exposed and foolish.

She took the back stairs but hesitated on the first step. She couldn’t face the newsroom yet. She headed downstairs to get a breath of air. One flight down she found Dr. Pete. He was damp and shivering with pain, clinging to the railing. He glanced at her feet.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he whispered.

“D’you want a hand to get down?”

He nodded, rolling his shoulder back stiffly. Paddy took his left elbow and led him down to the ground floor. He was shuffling like an old man, every muscle in his body taut and rigid. Every few steps a tiny inadvertent groan was carried on his breath. When they were facing the outside door he shook off her hand, took a deep breath, and straightened himself up, standing tall. He set his face to a blank sneer.

“Tell no one.”

As Paddy watched him push the bar on the door and walk out into the street, she knew that he would never have let her see him that vulnerable if he thought her significant in any way.

III

Two hours later half of the newsroom had been questioned. They all went to the door when their names were called, walking out cocky and coming back sheepish. The men had been told more details of Heather’s death than Paddy, and word burned its way around the newsroom: Heather’s head had been beaten in with a block of concrete or a metal thing, and she’d been dead when she was dumped in the river. No one, not even the morning boys, had managed to come up with a joke about it yet. A two-hour joke lag was as reverent as a full day’s silent mourning at the News. Half of them didn’t believe it was her. The other half thought a boyfriend had done it.

The newsroom was so disrupted by Heather’s death that Paddy still hadn’t managed to go for lunch and there was only an hour and a half left on her shift. Keck sat next to her on the bench, touching its surface near her leg by way of symbolic physical contact. “It’s been a shock. Why don’t you skip your break and just go home?”

“No, I want to stay on. Everyone’ll be working late tonight. I want to stay on.” She needed to stay on. She didn’t feel clean enough to go home.

Finally sent on her lunch break, Paddy left the building and found herself heading for the river. She hadn’t eaten anything, so she stopped in a newsagent’s and bought a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps for savory and a chocolate bar with nuts and raisins for sweet, together with a packet of ten Embassy Regal.

It was good hiding weather. A bitter, heavy drizzle fell from a gray sky, and she pulled up her duffel coat hood, wrapping the coarse material tight around her chest. She ate the crisps and chocolate as she walked, dodging the heavy-eyed lunch-hour drunks, marooned until the pubs opened again at five, who busied themselves by begging for loose change to piss away on drink. Paddy found a stretch of railing out of the way of pedestrians and turned her face to the water.

As she watched the rain needle the slow river, she smoked and had no trouble inhaling. She hadn’t known how much she’d resented Heather or how ugly she’d felt next to her. With all her defenses down, Paddy could see that she wasn’t a nice girl at all. Maybe Sean and her family were right: she was nasty and mean and fat and stupid. She was an arsehole.

She hung over the steel railings, smoking and watching the thick, gray water, self-pitying tears sliding down her face, and wished that Sean were there to hold her head against his chest and stop her seeing.