Field of Blood

I

Paddy stood with the other passengers in a neat row, all watching down the road for the bus, their faces pinched against the biting, dusty wind. The bus stop was a shelterless pole on the edge of a Hiroshima desert landscape. The area around the hospital had been razed of its tenements and not yet redeveloped. Ghost blocks were linked by a network of pointless sidewalks and crazed roads leading nowhere. The air smelled dry and dead. Here and there developers had erected fences around their own precious plot, but the wind still had a good, clear run across the land. Tiny dunes of gray dust gathered at the curb.

Paddy promised herself a binge reward. After she had been to the police station and spoken to Patterson she would eat two Marathon bars one after the other. It didn’t matter how fat she got now, because Sean was lost and she would never face the harsh light of the newsroom again. She wasn’t going back. She bowed her head and felt the loss of her future as a drop of pressure. She’d have to work in a shop or something, wear a uniform and take shit from a manageress. She’d probably panic and marry someone unsuitable, just because they asked her, and end up living next to her ma, wondering what the hell happened for the rest of her life.

The passenger at the front of the queue stepped forward, a reflex response to the sight of the bus turning a faraway corner, and the others followed, reaching into pockets and bags for bus passes and loose change for the fare.

Two Marathons and a cheese-and-onion pastry from Greggs the baker’s. And a fudge doughnut. As the bus pulled up alongside, she was planning how she would get all the food up to her room and manage to be alone.

The conductor was all nose. He stood thoughtlessly scratching his balls through his pocket lining as Paddy stepped onto the open platform and asked, “D’ye go past Anderston?”

“Other way. You want the 164. They’re every twenty minutes.”

She stepped off backwards onto the pavement and backed away, digging her hands deep into her pockets, watching the tail of the bus pull away from the curb. She became aware that the sharpness of the wind had changed on the back of her neck.

“Right?” He swung around in front of her, his eyes a brilliant, burnished green. He was wearing a black woolly hat. The stud in his left earlobe glinted brightly against the gray landscape.

“You’re not Heather Allen.”

His pink tongue left a wet trail as it slid across his bottom lip. When Paddy looked into his eyes, her delusions about being able to defend herself evaporated. Cold fear seized her joints, making her stand stiff in front of him while her legs told her to run. She had been able to bully Heather and Terry, but she knew it would be pointless with Garry Naismith. He would go further faster, and it wasn’t because he had more to lose. He wanted to. He liked it.

“I need to see you.”

Her family thought she was at work. She wouldn’t be missed for hours, and the police had their man; they weren’t looking for anyone else. She ducked behind him in panic and saw the back of the bus retreat down the dusty road. His hand was on her elbow, a polite request for her time.

“You know my old man.”

“I need to go,” she said, but stayed where she was. “I need to get somewhere.”

It was a subtle shift of position: his hand dropped an inch, his thumb and forefinger coming together around the tendon on her elbow. Her stomach heaved at the pain, flooding her mouth with saliva, and she arched backwards, trying to release his grip. Garry Naismith loomed, smiling gently at her lips, leaning over as if he might kiss her.

“I see women like you all the time.” He squeezed again. “But ye won’t refuse me this time.”

His free hand rose at his side. Beyond the veil of pain radiating from her elbow, she was aware of his fingers curved comfortably around a dull, matte egg. She didn’t realize it was a rock until the cold stone weight of it hit the back of her head and the night came down.

She wasn’t dead. It was daylight, and she was bent over from the waist, moving forwards across a gray pavement, black woolly tights wrinkled around her ankles, unsteady feet tripping over each other. An arm was hooked under her armpit, supporting her weight, guiding her by the elbow. Her scalp was hot and damp, and she had to concentrate hard to work out that the itching on her hairline was caused by the woolly hat he had pulled onto her head.

Another pair of feet coming towards them. A lady’s shoes: brown, sensible, and a blue shopping bag. The woman spoke, and the supporting arm spoke back, making a joke of it. Paddy slumped forwards and was yanked upright. They moved on.

It was darker. She was sitting on something soft, slumped to the side at an angle that made her side and back hurt. The floor beneath her feet rumbled. She was in a taxi and he was at her side, still holding her elbow, his nimble fingers ready to pinch if she did anything. Imagining the future felt like wading through hot sand, but she tried: they were traveling, on their way to somewhere she would never leave. Her mind yearned to slip back into the warm water, but she fought hard to stay conscious. Slowly she dropped forwards, her chin gently pressed against her knee, and she saw on the floor the squashed end of a cigarette. Meehan never gave up. He spent seven years in solitary confinement, was despised and vilified, and still he never gave up. Using the muscles on her back, she pulled her head up a little.

“Heb,” she shouted, but her voice was weak and toneless.

His fingers twitched and a spasm of white-hot pain convulsed her body.

“Aye, pal,” he said loudly, talking to the driver. “Dead drunk, daft cow.”

“Heb.”

Garry Naismith laughed loud and long, covering the sound of her whimpering until she slid forwards and gave in.

The searing pain at the back of her head seemed to have lifted a little. She was looking down at a sidewalk from a great height, falling forwards face-first, and then a sudden stop into his strong and steady arms. Behind her the taxi door slammed hard, and she lifted her eyes to see an empty hanging plant basket by a familiar front door. She stood taller and saw a long, empty road, steep front gardens opposite, and a crumbling garden wall across the street with graffiti on it. FILTH OUT. They were at Naismith’s house in Barnhill, but the grocery van was gone from the pavement. The police must have it.

The police. The thought made her come alive, but the police weren’t here. The police had been here and weren’t coming back. They had their man and the case was closed.

He opened the gate and quickly pulled her across the paved-over ground. The red slabs had settled unevenly and there was a curb to be negotiated at every step. He lifted her by her armpits to the front door, pulling out his key as he approached and opening it in one swift movement. By the time she thought to call for help the door was shut behind her. Garry Naismith grabbed the crown of the hat and yanked it off. A warm dribble of blood tickled as it ran down the back of Paddy’s neck.

The hallway carpet was pink, the walls a cold gray, and Paddy knew it was the last time she would see it if she didn’t do something. She threw her head back.

“Callum Ogilvy!” she shouted, so loud it startled them both.

Garry stopped still.

“He’s my cousin,” she said, conflating their relationship. “You raped him and made him kill that boy.”

Naismith slapped her across the back of the head, sending an electric pain down her spine. She fell onto her side and he put his foot on the side of her face. When she spoke she found that her voice was a breathy whisper.

“You raped him, didn’t ye?”

“Those weans came to me.” She heard him thump his chest with his fist and was glad she couldn’t look up to see his face. “They came looking for me. They needed me. No one else gave a fuck about him, and let me tell you, that dirty wee bastard James needed no convincing. He wanted things I’d never thought of. Even brought his pal with him.”

She could imagine poor, fatherless Callum doing anything he could to impress Garry- Garry with a job, Garry with a cool earring, Garry with a clean house and a van full of sweets outside the door. It must have been a safe place to go, the Naismiths’, a relatively clean place. If she were Callum she’d have come here with his friend. Boys that age craved heroes.

“Wasn’t Callum’s idea to take the baby, though, was it? That was you. Was it Thomas’s anniversary that made you think of him?’ ”

He didn’t speak. She felt the weighty seconds drag by and imagined him raising his hand above her, raising a baseball bat, raising a knife. His foot came off her face, and she glanced up to see his tortured smile.

“Do you think of Thomas on his anniversary?”

“I think about Thomas all the time.”

“Why did you kill him?”

“Never said I did.”

“I’m not asking for a confession. I just want to know why.”

He shrugged. “It was an accident. When we were playing.”

“And Henry helped you cover up?”

“He wanted to be a good dad. A better dad. Better than Dempsie.”

“And he did that by throwing your wee brother’s body onto the railway line to be cut in half? He was willing to kill me to protect you, and now he’s confessed to everything? Why would he feel that guilty about you?”

“You”- he had his eyes shut, and his booming voice managed to drown her out-“don’t understand how it is between men. Women don’t understand. There’s no point in explaining.”

“He did it to you, and you did it to them? Is that how it is between men? Did you get them to kill Brian so they’d be like you? So you’d have something over them, the way Henry held Thomas’s death over you?”

He stood up suddenly, flaring backwards, and took her forearm with both his hands, dragging her backwards up the stairs, bumping her awkwardly like a big cardboard box. Paddy knew that upstairs was not going to be good for her. She scrabbled her feet, trying to grab hold of something, looking for a banister to jam her feet in, but it was a sheer wall.

Garry yanked her up, almost pulling her arm out of its socket, bumping her heavily on her hip and buttocks. She couldn’t catch her breath enough to speak until they got to the top of the stairs.

“What about Heather Allen? She hadn’t done anything to you.”

“We made a mistake.” Garry let go of her and lifted a sunshine-yellow lamp off the hall table. He was sweating. “Got the right girl this time, though, eh?”

He brought the lamp down heavily onto her head, and she passed out.

II

The pain behind her eyes was excruciating. She peeled them open and found herself on the floor in the bedroom, sitting on a red acrylic carpet at the side of a double bed, jammed between the divan and a cold wall. Above her the curtains were drawn on a small window, but she could see thin daylight glowing behind the cheap red material. Her wrists were tied behind her back, a rough hemp rope cutting into the skin. Her feet were out in front of her on the floor, her ankles bound in an incomprehensible series of knots.

The door to the room was open slightly. He wasn’t afraid of anyone’s coming home. They were completely alone. A white plastic fitted wall unit covered the facing wall, and a large Bible sat open in the dressing table insert, gold edging to the pages. She saw a small crucifix on the wall above the bed and knew she was in Henry Naismith’s bedroom. There was no help to be had.

She bent forward, managing to get her hands between the base of the bed and the mattress, and pushed herself up to her feet. She looked up, staggering backwards and falling onto her bruised backside when she saw a blood-splattered woman across the room, peering tentatively from behind the wall unit. She sat straight up, pulling at the bedding, tucked her legs under her, and looked for the terrifying woman, trying to be ready for her. It was a mirror. A black lump of blood-matted hair was clumped above one of her ears. Scarlet lines ran horizontally across her cheek to her mouth where she had been lying on her side. Her face was swollen and bruised.

If Ludovic Kennedy were writing this story, she would just have to wait to be saved. Her tenacity and willingness to confess would be her salvation. But it wasn’t a story, and she realized suddenly, to her horror, that she was going to die and no one would do anything about it. They might not even find her body. There was no justice.

Outside the room soft steps crept across the landing. The only advantage she had over him was that he didn’t know she was conscious. She curled up on her side. He was going to kill her, and all she could think about was the front page of the Daily News carrying the story of her death. Just the facts and not the details. Not the detail that the room smelled of a man’s greasy hair; not that the carpet hadn’t been hoovered and she was looking at a layer of dust under the bed; not that the door was opening behind her and the feet were coming into the room.

He kicked her hard in the back. “Get up.”

She twitched at the blow but kept her eyes shut. He leaned down, crouching over her. She could smell soap on his skin. He felt her blood-encrusted hair, touched the cut on her scalp with a fingertip; she could hear the wet sound. He pressed to provoke a response, but Paddy kept her face slack. The skin was numb anyway.

“It’s about time,” he told her softly, “that you learned who’s in charge here.”

Fitting his hands under her arms, he lifted Paddy, yanking the dead weight of her half onto the mattress before walking around to the other side and pulling her on properly.

He was going to pull off all her clothes under the harsh light and look at her and touch her. He was going to kill her, and she hadn’t done anything yet, had never been out of Scotland or got thin or lived alone or made any kind of mark on the world. She couldn’t stop herself crying. Her face contorted and she sobbed aloud, keeping her eyes shut because she was too afraid to open them.

“That’s good,” he said, climbing onto the bed, tucking himself in behind her so he was lying along the length of her, not touching. “Keep it up, make it loud. I like it.”

He leaned his face over her from behind and, as he whispered, his soft lips brushed her earlobe, his hot breath tickled the tiny hairs in her ear canal, making her raise her shoulder defensively. He saw girls like her all the time. All the time. He knew she wanted it- is that what she was crying for? Because she wanted it so much. She had to take what she could get because she was fat.

As Paddy heard him say that, a hot flush ran up her spine. It was too much, to be called fat at her last moment on earth. She kept her eyes shut and swung her face around to meet his, opening her mouth as wide as she could, and bit down hard. She squealed a furious wet gurgle and locked her teeth on a loose piece of flesh. The metallic tang of blood flooded her mouth. She opened her eyes. She was biting his lower lip. Garry yelped and pulled away far enough for the side of his face to be in focus. One green eye was wide open, the white showing all around, like the eye of a frightened horse. He was hitting her again, and she knew from the wet heat on her face that she was bleeding, but she was too afraid to open her mouth and let go. She would have to eventually, but when she did he would kill her. Before then she would mark him, such a deep mark that they couldn’t fail to find him.

Garry’s hand came down again and again, thumping her on the side of the head, but she held on, shaking her head to deepen the cut, breathing out and spluttering his blood into his eye. She felt the tips of her front teeth touching through the last membrane of skin. The chunk of lip was coming away.

A deafening crack shook the far wall as the door exploded inwards, crashing off the wall and snapping one of the hinges. A thousand hands landed on her legs and arms, pulling her by the arm, the wrist, the rope binding her ankles. As they tore at her she felt the tips of her incisors touch and tear. Garry Naismith was kneeling on the bed, an arm around his neck and a policeman on either arm, a torrent of blood falling onto his father’s bed. His bottom lip was hanging off, baring his lower teeth.

The policemen helped her up and undid the ropes around her wrists and ankles, all of them shouting and calling to one another, a mess of nerve-jangling noise after the silence. Paddy vomited a stomachful of blood and saliva onto her boots.

When she stood back up she found Patterson watching her, his arms crossed, his face taut with disgust.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw herself in the dressing-table mirror, blood trailing across her face like the fingers of a hand, wet blood running from her mouth, her chin cupped in scarlet. For the rest of her life, every time she looked over her shoulder and accidentally saw her face in a mirror, that would be the image she was expecting to see.

“Mother of God,” she panted, watery blood flecking from her mouth. “Mother of fucking God.”

III

She was afraid to ask anything for fear that she’d give them more material against her than they already had. They sat her downstairs in the sparse living room. The pink carpet followed through from the hall, and the walls were still gray. A big stone-clad fire surround overstated the case for a small two-bar fire. It was a cold room. There was no settee, and the two armchairs were far apart, both facing the television. The ornaments on the fire surround were tokens of hominess: a mouse climbing out of a brandy glass, a small china house. Nailed to the wall was a series of school photos of Garry, as a child in a mustard sweater, in a uniform, with and without his front teeth.

A fat constable had to pull a chair all the way across the room to talk to her. Someone had phoned the News repeatedly, asking for her and reporting her missing, until Dub alerted the police. They retraced her steps to the Royal and found her yellow canvas bag on the pavement. She listened and nodded, wondering how they could possibly have known she’d been at the Royal. She’d stormed away from Terry and hadn’t told him where she was going. The constable told her that they now knew someone had falsely reported seeing Heather get into Naismith’s van, so they thought it was possible someone else was responsible for the murders. She hardly dared ask how they knew but slumped in the chair, touching the cuts on her head to cover her face.

A younger constable had been watching her from the door and stepped across, touching her gently on the shoulder.

“We should get you to the hospital, miss.”

“I’m fine, really.” She tried to look up, but her head ached too much.

“Let me wash some of the blood off and we can see what’s under there.”

Paddy kept her head down and followed him meekly down the busy hall and into the kitchen, where he boiled a kettle on the cooker for some warm water and, bending her over the sink, gently sponged the bloody clots from her hair. He had to wash slowly to get the most from the frugal amount of warm water, scooping it onto the back of her neck and softly shoving it over her scalp, avoiding contact with the open wound just behind her left ear. Her knees were a little wobbly with shock, so he rested his hand on her back to keep her standing steady. She thought it the most intimate moment she had ever experienced with a man.

“There now.” He patted her shoulder, signaling for her to stand, and handed her a towel to dab her hair with. “I’ve done a first-aid course and I know this much: we need to get you to hospital and get that checked out.”

“Okay,” she said, feeling that she wouldn’t mind being arrested if he was there. “Will ye let me go home afterwards?”

“No, the doctors’ll want to keep you in if you lost consciousness,” he said, misunderstanding the question. “Did you pass out?”

“No,” she lied. “Not for a minute.”

The constable stopped someone in the hall to tell them where they were going and asked the fat constable to come with him. He led her through the open front door into the street. Four police cars were lined up outside, one with its headlights still on, the flasher blinking lazily on the roof. The wind chilled her wet hair, contracting her scalp, making it sting, and almost bringing feeling back to the cut behind her ear. Paddy stood upright and breathed in the afternoon air. She could handle it. If they arrested her and ended her career at the News and Sean wouldn’t talk to her, she would manage.

She caught his eye and smiled before she realized it was him. She had been blinded by the flasher, but between red waves she saw Dr. Pete sitting in the back of the police car, looking calmly at her through the window. He was wearing a beige raincoat over his blue pajamas. She waved at him, and he raised his hand balletically, motioning her down the path towards him and miming the fact that he couldn’t get the door open from the inside or wind the window down. The first-aider opened the front door and let her speak to him across the back of the seat.

“I told them that I planted the hair in the van and made the false call.” Pete held on to the headrest with a hand that still had the tube taped to it. The same soft drawl in his voice was more pronounced than before. “The operator said I sounded like a woman when I phoned. Do I sound like a woman to you?”

They looked each other in the eye for a moment, until the policeman took her elbow. “We need to get you checked out,” he said.

“Pete, I’m awed by ye. I don’t know what to say.”

“Buy me a drink sometime.”

The policeman pulled her away. Paddy touched Pete’s yellowed fingertips. They were warm and as dry as dust.

IV

Paddy could feel the atmosphere as she approached on the street. It wasn’t a loudness so much as a manic trill carried on the cold air. Every one of the frosted windows in the Press Bar had a mess of bodies behind it.

Paddy touched the bandage with her fingertips, checking to see if the wound was as sensitive as she’d remembered. The doctor had given her a few stitches on her head, and the nurses had put a gauze over it, taping it onto her ear and hair like a jaunty hat. The young policeman had taken a statement while they waited and, after asking over his car radio, said she could go home if she went straight to Anderston police station in the morning. He offered to drop her home, but she refused. This was where she wanted to be.

She opened the door, sucking a cloud of warm, smoky smog out into the street. It was a bacchanalian scene. There were women in the bar tonight, quite a lot of women, and the mood of the crowd was wildly happy. The sports boys were singing a song so tuneless it might have been a series of different songs. Richards was at the bar, laughing loudly, his head tipped back like a supervillain, making the man next to him very angry indeed. Purple-topped Margaret Mary was standing side on to Farquarson, laughing and banging her tits off his arm. The news desk boys were conducting a relay whisky-drinking competition, and there, in the middle of them, was Dr. Pete, his eyes as bright as morning stars, his skin a deep and resonant yellow under the harsh lights.

She raised her hand to wave, but he didn’t see her. Instead of demanding his attention she went to the bar and bought him a double of the best malt McGrade stocked. She watched McGrade carry the drink over and put it down on the table in front of him, whispering what it was and who it was from. Pete didn’t look up to thank her but sipped the drink reverently instead of throwing it to the back of his throat, and smiled at it as he turned the glass with his thumb and forefinger.

She walked around the entire room looking for Terry and noticed that the men were ignoring her to a pronounced degree. It was a mark of respect. Terry wasn’t among the men playing the whisky-drinking game by the toilets, and he wasn’t propped up anywhere along the length of the bar. Dub was sitting on a bench behind the door with a crowd of printmen, arguing about German bands and whether “O Superman” qualified as music.

“Hiya.” She slid onto the seat next to him, and Dub grinned and moved up to make room for her.

“That,” he said, pointing at her bandage, “is a new look for you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d experiment with some brain-surgery themed outfits.”

“Suits ye. Makes you look like someone with interesting things to say.”

“ ‘Ouch’?”

“Yeah, and ‘argh.’ ”

Paddy gestured at the scene in front of them. “Is it me or is this madder than usual?”

“Settle back,” Dub answered, handing her someone else’s half-pint off the busy table, “and I’ll tell you a story.”

The way Dub told the story, the evening had started off with Dr. Pete arriving at the newsroom door, released on police bail and still wearing his hospital pajamas. He announced that he was fucked if he was going to take a minute more of this shite. He was leaving to write his book about MacLean; it would make anyone sick the way the fucking staff were treated in this place, and all because of McGuigan. A more reflective analyst would have noted that McGuigan was in no way responsible for Dr. Pete’s complaints, but the newsroom loved a ruckus. He swept down to editorial, and they followed behind him like a crowd of angry villagers. Even Farquarson went with them, half laughing while ordering them to return to their desks at once, protesting as effectively as a jolly octogenarian being tickled by his favorite grandchildren.

Pete burst into McGuigan’s office and shouted a lot of rubbish, pulling him around by a lapel at one point and telling him he had a mouth like an arse. He resigned and said he’d never be back.

Pete’s reckless excitement had spread and multiplied- emotional loaves and fishes- and the atmosphere in the Press Bar felt less like a damp Tuesday in February and more like a lonely sailor’s millennial Hogmanay shore leave.

Paddy laughed at the story, enjoying herself, occasionally touching her hand to her sore head to see if the feeling had come back to the skin. She lifted the drink to sip a couple of times but couldn’t get past the image of a sweaty man slavering over the lip of the glass.

The door opened next to them and Terry Hewitt stepped in, looking around the room. Paddy cringed and leaned over, tugging on the hem of his leather jacket to get his attention. He nodded when he saw it was her, acting as if they had arranged to meet there, and came to sit by her, forcing Dub to slide up the bench even further so that he was jammed uncomfortably into the corner. He stood up, offering to get a round in but failing to ask Terry what he wanted.

“Wild night,” said Terry softly.

“I’m so sorry.”

“’S okay. I’ve just finished a draft for tomorrow with Garry in.”

“No, I’m so sorry I convinced you it was Henry, I had no business-”

“You realized it was Garry when we were at Tracy’s, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You should have said something to me.”

She’d been ashamed of being wrong, but tried to dress it up. “I wanted to protect you,” she explained, her voice trailing off weakly at the obvious lie.

Terry nodded and muttered “Fair enough” under his breath, letting her off with it.

“Will I get credited for the story?”

Terry looked a little reproachful. “I gave you first credit in the morning edition.”

“I did nearly die for the story.” She sounded defensive.

“I know.”

“I am entitled.”

“I know.”

Across the room, Dub scowled over at them from the bar.

“Is Dub gay, do you think?”

Terry watched her face curiously.

“You know, I really don’t think he is.”

Paddy looked up at the bar. Dub frowned at Terry again and took an angry draw on a cigarette. Beyond him, Pete was standing behind a wall of whisky drinkers, swaying slightly, his eyes shut. Dub glared over at them again. Paddy gave him a cheery little wave. He tipped his chin at her and flared his nostrils. Next to her, Terry cleared his throat loudly. It was getting a bit intense. Perplexed at what was going on, Paddy suddenly craved the calm of home. She patted her knees decisively.

“Well, I’m going to say good night to Pete.”

“’Kay.” Terry pressed his knee against hers and whispered, “Will I see you in tomorrow, wee Paddy Meehan?”

Embarrassed at the intimacy, Paddy smiled into her half-pint. “Mibbe’s aye,” she said, “and mibbe’s naw.” She stood up and walked away, wearing a soft smile to match Terry’s.

Halfway through the fog of men she bumped into McVie. Even he, the most mean-spirited man at the News, was drinking and enjoying the carnival atmosphere. He cornered her by the fag machine and tried to think of advice to give her, having enjoyed his moment in the chair when they were out in the calls car. He had not one morsel left and was rather drunk, so he gave her some slurred secondhand wisdom, passing it off as his own. Don’t take shit from anyone. Don’t buy things on hire purchase. Never back a horse called Lucky. Don’t go on holiday to Blackpool, it’s fucking horrible there.

By the time she got away from McVie, Pete was slumped in the corner, his eyes shut and his face slack. She had to fight her way through the whisky drinkers to get to him.

“Careful!” shouted one as she pushed past him, tipping his drink and making him spill a little whisky on the floor. He saw her going for Pete. “Don’t try to wake him up. He’s been in hospital, he needs his sleep.”

Paddy sat down next to Pete and slipped her fingers around his wrist. His pulse was still.

“He’s not asleep,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” shouted one of the guys at the table. “He’s the king, man, he’s the fucking king. He’s had us in here since five o’clock.”

“He’s not asleep,” she whispered, taking Pete’s cold, lonely hand in hers and bringing it to her lips.