Trauma

Two

McKirrop found an off-licence less than three hundred metres from the hospital. Sarah Lasseter’s tenner bought him two bottles of Bulgarian wine on special offer and a can of strong lager. The transaction was carried out without he or the shop assistant saying a word to each other. He was one of the clients the business liked to pretend it didn’t have.

McKirrop turned into the first alleyway after leaving the shop and opened the lager. He gulped it down greedily and threw the can behind him without looking. He belched loudly and reached into the plastic carrier-bag at his feet to bring out one of the wine bottles. A quick rummage in his coat pocket and he came up with a small penknife which he used to deal with the cork. Practice had made perfect. He knew exactly the right angle to employ and the exact degree of insertion. Opening the bottle presented no more of a problem to McKirrop using his little knife than it would have done to the wine waiter at the Café Royal with his customized corkscrew.

With half a bottle of wine inside him the edge had been taken off life and he felt ready for the road.

McKirrop saw Bella’s group from up on the bridge. Bella was sitting on the wall laying down the law about something. She usually was.

“Well if it isn’t our very own mega-star,” announced Flynn loudly when he saw McKirrop come down the steps leading to the towpath.

McKirrop ignored the comment and came over to sit down beside Bella on the low wall beside the water. He put the plastic carrier bag containing the wine between his feet and asked, “How have you been, Bella?”

“Careful Bella,” urged Flynn. “He’ll probably whisk you away in his Porsche and take advantage of you.”

“Shut your face, Flynn!” snapped Bella. The comment froze the grins that were appearing on the other faces. Turning back to McKirrop she said, “All right John boy. How about you?”

“Up and down.”

Bella was a large woman with hawk-like features and a florid complexion. She had some claim to be leader of the group by virtue of the fact that she had kept her strong personality despite her circumstances. For some unknown reason she seemed immune to the apathy which affected all the others. It was much easier to obey Bella than cross her. She liked McKirrop and didn’t hide the fact. McKirrop found it amusing and occasionally useful. Whenever he was around, her voice changed from its usual bark to a more gentle and refined tone. This secretly intrigued McKirrop. Did she imagine he didn’t hear her at other times? Her mannerisms changed too. She became almost coquettish, constantly putting her head to one side and flicking her hair back from her forehead, like a teenage girl talking to boys at the school gate.

“For the benefit of the others,” Bella said, “We all heard about these bastards at the cemetery and what they did. I hope they catch them and cut their balls off. A bairn! I ask you. A bairn!”

There were murmurs of outrage and McKirrop nodded.

“You were very brave trying to stop them,” crooned Bella.

Flynn snorted.

“Never mind him!” snapped Bella, reverting to her bark. “He’s just jealous. If it had been him he would have slid all the way out the cemetery on a trail of his own shite!”

McKirrop and the four others in the group smiled as Flynn scowled and Bella stared him out.

“Did they hurt you bad?” Bella asked McKirrop, her voice changing again to solicitous concern.

“They broke some ribs,” replied McKirrop, opening his shirt front to expose his bandages.

“Bastards,” murmured Bella. “Has no one got a drink for this man?” she asked loudly.

“It’s all right; I’ve got some here Bella,” said McKirrop. He brought out the Bulgarian wine and handed it to her. “Have a drink. Help yourself.”

Bella smiled and said, “You deserve better after what you’ve been through.” She turned round and barked, “Figgy! The gin!”

A small, emaciated figure, huddling inside a greasy anorak with matted nylon fur round its collar, came scurrying over. He must have been in his forties but still had the features of a little boy despite the jaundiced complexion. His ears stuck out from his head and he was wearing a grin which exposed bad teeth and reminded McKirrop of a chimpanzee, anxious to show the pack leader he was perfectly content to be submissive. He handed a Gordon’s gin bottle to McKirrop without changing the grin. “Go on,” said Bella. “It’s not often one of us becomes a hero.”

McKirrop needed no second bidding. He took a large gulp of the gin and revelled in the fire in his throat. “Christ! That’s better,” he exclaimed.

“Take another,” said Bella, who had opened the wine and was helping herself. McKirrop took one more gulp and handed the bottle back to Figgy who scurried off with it back to his place.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Bella. “You could sell your story to the newspapers. Lots of people are into devil worship these days. They’ll probably pay you a fortune.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’m surprised they’ve not been after you already,” said Bella.

“I signed myself out of hospital,” said McKirrop thoughtfully.

“Then that’s why,” said Bella triumphantly. “They’re probably all looking for you right now.”

“You could be right,” agreed McKirrop, warming to the idea. “We could all be on the brandy before the end of the week.”

“That’s right, John boy,” said Bella. “You won’t forget your friends, will you?”

McKirrop saw the look in Bella’s eyes and knew that she was wondering about his absence in the last two weeks.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” muttered Flynn sourly.

“You shut up,” snapped Bella. Then, changing the subject, “Christ, I’m starving. Who’s got money?”

McKirrop brought out what little change he had from the tenner.

Bella looked over her shoulder and said, “Come on you bastards, what have you got?”

A silent procession brought offerings to Bella. She counted the total and announced, “Enough for a couple of fish suppers here. Figgy! You go down the chippy and get them. Clark, you go with him. Make sure he doesn’t piss off with the geld.”

Figgy and Clark went off to get the food, leaving the others to pass round the Bulgarian wine. The man sitting beside Flynn refused his turn with a jerky shake of the head when Flynn handed it to him. The others looked at him questioningly.

“He’s going to have one of his fits,” Bella warned.

At almost the same instant the man started to tremble all over. At first it was a moderate tremor but it rapidly increased in magnitude until all his limbs were jerking and, balance lost, he fell from the wall to the towpath. “Get something between his teeth!” said McKirrop, searching through his pockets for anything that might do. He couldn’t find anything. Bella looked about her without any real sense of urgency. “Leave him,” she said. “He’ll be fine. He always is.”

McKirrop tried to get a grip on the man to restrain him, but he was thrashing around so much that it was dangerous to get too near. As the fit started to subside he could see a trickle of blood flow down over the man’s chin. “He’s bitten through his tongue,” he said. No one replied.

“There, there love,” said Bella as the man came round. “You’ll be all right in a minute.” She spoke with so little concern that she might have read it from the back of a sauce bottle.

The man was helped up by two of the others and took his place on the wall again. He spat out blood intermittently.

“Where are those bastards with the grub?” complained Bella. “They’ve had time to go to bloody Glasgow for it.”

“Here they are now,” said McKirrop as he saw a figure appear at the top of the steps.

“That’s not Figgy,” said Bella as the figure started to descend slowly.

McKirrop could see that she was right. There wasn’t much light but the man coming down the steps was alone and he was too tall and erect to be either Figgy or Clark. The group fell to silence as the stranger approached.

“I wonder if you could help me,” said the cultured voice. “I’m looking for John McKirrop.”

McKirrop was about to say something when Bella dug him in the ribs. “Depends,” she said.

“On what?” asked the stranger evenly.

“On how much it’s worth to you,” said Bella.

The man reached into an inside pocket and brought out his wallet. He brought out a fiver and handed it to Bella saying, “I really would be most grateful.”

Bella snatched at the note and pushed it down between her breasts. She turned to McKirrop. “This is him here!” she announced with a triumphant cackle.

The stranger smiled weakly and looked at McKirrop. “You’re John McKirrop?”

McKirrop was suspicious. There was something about the stranger he didn’t like, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was simply the fact that the man was well dressed and sober. He had all the trappings of success about him — not that he seemed overbearing, or even patronising at the moment. But then, he wanted something. He was smiling and spoke politely but there was a look in his eyes that said he was playing a part.

“What if I am? Who wants to know?”

“My name is Rothwell. I’m a journalist.”

Bella broke out in a huge beam. “I told you, didn’t I?” she said to McKirrop and then to the others, “Didn’t I just tell him?”

There was a chorus of acquiescence.

“I wonder if I might have a private word with you?”

“Don’t see why not,” said McKirrop. We could go for a bit of a walk if you like.

“You’ll miss your tea,” protested Bella. “Here’s Figgy.”

McKirrop watched as Figgy and Clark arrived back with the hot food. They handed the newspaper wrapped parcel over to Bella to share out.

Rothwell watched for a moment before saying, “I have a suggestion to make. You haven’t really got enough there for all of you. Why don’t you let me buy you some more? You chaps could go for it while I talk to John?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Bella. “Maybe you could chuck in a few pickled onions?”

“Anything you want,” said Rothwell, taking out his wallet again. He handed over three fivers to Bella and turned his attention back to McKirrop. “Shall we...?”

McKirrop and Rothwell walked slowly along the towpath together, neither saying anything until they were well away from the group. Eventually Rothwell said, “I’ll come straight to the point, Mr McKirrop. My readers want to know everything about what you saw in the cemetery last night.”

McKirrop paused before replying. He seemed to like Rothwell less and less by the minute. The man had an air about him: head held high, hands resting easily in the pockets of his expensive overcoat. It wasn’t arrogance, just confidence, he supposed as if the man had never had a moment’s self doubt in his life. The shine on his shoes was periodically emphasised by the odd reflection from the lights up on the road.

For some reason McKirrop kept thinking that Rothwell didn’t look like how the press should look at all but then, as he had to admit, he had never ever met a newspaper reporter before. His expectation had been influenced by how journalists were portrayed on television. He had, however, come into personal contact with many policemen in his time and lawyers and solicitors. They were what Rothwell made him think of, a secure man who had the backing of the establishment, a professional man, the kind of man who normally had no trouble in having men like him moved on. “Oh yes?” he replied. “Why?”

“My readers are understandably alarmed at the prospect of grave robbers at work in the city. They want to know what’s behind it. All sorts of rumours about devil worship and the like are doing the rounds. They’ll be very interested in hearing exactly what you saw.”

“How interested?” asked McKirrop meaningfully.

“Shall we say two hundred pounds interested?”

“Let’s say three,” replied McKirrop.

“Very well, three. Now tell me what you saw.”

“First the money.”

“First the story,” replied Rothwell pleasantly and evenly, without breaking the slow, even gait he was proceeding with.

They had come about half a mile along the towpath and were now walking along a particularly dark stretch where the canal curved under a bridge.

“There were four of them,” began McKirrop. “They were wearing sheets over their heads so I didn’t get a good look at them. And their leader, he was wearing a ram’s head mask and...” McKirrop told Rothwell what he’d told the police. When he finished he was disappointed at Rothwell’s lack of reaction. Rothwell just kept walking, slowly, evenly, easily. Eventually, he said, “I got that much from my contacts in the police. I was hoping you could come up with something more.”

“I was scared out of my wits, I can tell you,” McKirrop added, hoping to elicit a more positive response.

“Must have been terrifying,” said Rothwell. “Utterly terrifying.” He turned to look at McKirrop as he repeated the comment.

“It certainly was,” replied McKirrop with a grin adopted to counteract Rothwell’s stare.

“Tell me about the child’s body.”

“It was awful, awful,” said McKirrop, shaking his head. “Poor little bastard. Makes you wonder what the world’s coming to when they can do something like—”

“Quite,” interrupted Rothwell. “Tell me what you saw.”

“The leader...”

“The man in the ram’s head mask?”

“That’s right. He brought out this long knife and he cut open the kid’s body.”

“How did he cut it?”

McKirrop shrugged and said, “He sort of held the knife in front of him with his arms outstretched... like this.” McKirrop demonstrated. “Then he raised it up slowly and plunged it straight down into the kid’s body.”

“Then what?”

“He sort of moved it around. I couldn’t see exactly from where I was hiding but I think...”

“You think what?”

“I think he cut the kid’s heart out.” McKirrop looked to Rothwell for a reaction but Rothwell remained as impassive as ever. In fact he showed so little emotion that it was beginning to annoy McKirrop.

“What makes you think that?”

“He held something up above his head as if he was offering it up to someone.”

“And then?”

“What do you mean and then?” snapped McKirrop. “Isn’t that enough for Christ’s sake?”

“They took the body away?” asked Rothwell, quietly ignoring McKirrop’s comment.

“That’s right. They had this big bag and they put the kid in it.”

Rothwell stared silently at McKirrop until McKirrop felt uncomfortable. McKirrop said, “You’re not writing anything down. I thought reporters made notes?”

“I have a very retentive memory, Mr McKirrop,” said Rothwell. “How did our friends leave the cemetery?”

“They had a van.”

“A van,” repeated Rothwell.

“A black van, a black Transit van it was.”

Another silent stare.

“Do I get my money now?” asked McKirrop.

Rothwell brought out his wallet and counted out three hundred pounds in twenty pound notes.

“I don’t suppose you have anything smaller?” McKirrop asked.

“No.”

“Oh well then,” grinned McKirrop. “This will have to do.”

“And if anyone else asks what you saw at the cemetery...” began Rothwell.

“I know,” said McKirrop. “Mum’s the word.”

“On the contrary, you tell them exactly what you’ve told me. Understood?”

“You’re the boss,” said McKirrop shrugging his shoulders.

“I’m glad you understand that,” said Rothwell. “I’d hate for you to forget.”

McKirrop felt the skin on the back of his neck tighten at the implied threat. He did not like Rothwell at all. “I’d best be getting back,” he said.

“We’ll go back together,” said Rothwell pleasantly.

The group had almost finished their fish and chips by the time McKirrop and Rothwell got back. Bella said to McKirrop, “I’ve saved some for you. How about you Mr...”

Rothwell held up his hand politely and declined. He turned to McKirrop and said, “It’s been nice doing business with you Mr McKirrop.” The two shook hands and Rothwell turned to start up the steps to the road.

As he did so, McKirrop expertly flicked his toe at Rothwell’s heels and Rothwell stumbled and fell. Bella and the others expressed their concern loudly and McKirrop went to help him to his feet. “It’s about time the bloody council did something about these bloody steps,” he said as he dusted down Rothwell. “Are you all right, Mr Rothwell? Nothing broken I hope.”

“I’m fine thank you,” said Rothwell, more worried about his loss of dignity than any physical damage. “Good night.”

“Good night Mr Rothwell.”

As soon as Rothwell was out of earshot, the group gathered round McKirrop. Bella’s eyes shone like a child on Christmas morning. “Well?” she asked excitedly. “How much did you get?”

“A hundred quid,” lied McKirrop.

“A hundred? A poxy hundred?” exclaimed Bella. “You story was worth thousands.”

“People like him can treat people like us like shit,” said McKirrop. “And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

There were nods of agreement all round and a moment’s silent contemplation.

“At least I got a hundred,” said McKirrop brightening up. “What do you say we have a bit of a party? Get a few bottles of the good stuff, maybe some kebabs later?”

McKirrop was the hero of the hour. The others could not sing his praises enough, with the exception of Flynn who kept quiet.

“Who’s going to go for the stuff?” asked Bella.

“How about you Flynn?” asked McKirrop before anyone else had a chance to say anything.

“Suits me,” said Flynn sourly.

McKirrop handed over two twenty pound notes and Flynn snatched them from his grasp trying to avoid his eye. McKirrop just smiled as he watched Flynn slope off. He knew he was back with the group. Bella came over to join him on the wall as he knew she would. She also took his arm and slid her hand into his pocket as he knew she would — ostensibly to massage his thigh but he knew what she would be looking for. That was why he had made sure to put three twenty pound notes in that pocket — the change he should have left from one hundred pounds. The rest of the money was stuffed down the back of his underpants.

“What’s this?” exclaimed Bella, using her girlish voice as she brought out the notes, feigning surprise.

McKirrop took them from her lightly. “My hard earned cash,” he said.

Bella smiled and McKirrop grinned. He handed one of the notes to Bella and said, “Why don’t you look after this one. After all, we’re all part of the same family down here aren’t we?”

Bella took the note and slipped it teasingly down the front of her blouse. “Well,” she said. “If you want it back, you know where to look.”

McKirrop grinned and got to his feet. “I’m going to take a leak,” he announced and started to walk along the towpath. He had covered about fifty metres before he veered off into the shrubbery to his right. He cursed as he almost lost his footing in the drop and grabbed hold of some branches until he reached the bottom of the ditch. He had chosen this particular spot because there was some light here from a security lamp in the factory yard on the other side of the wall beyond the shrubbery. He wanted to see what he had managed to extract from Rothwell’s pocket while he had been pretending to help him to his feet after tripping him.

It had been his intention to go for Rothwell’s wallet — he had reckoned there was still a hundred or so left in it after he had paid out the three hundred — but that had proved too difficult. He had had to make do with whatever had been in Rothwell’s right hand overcoat pocket. It had felt like a card at the time and he had high hopes that it might be a Visa or Access card. As he examined it in the bushes he was disappointed. It was neither of these, nor was it a gold Amex card.

The little blue and white card was a University of Edinburgh library borrower’s card and the only thing interesting about it, thought McKirrop, was that it had not been issued to a man named Rothwell. This was a staff card and it entitled one, Doctor Ivan K. Sotillo to use the university’s medical school library. McKirrop considered for a moment then slipped the card back into his pocket. This needed some thought.

Father Ryan Lafferty noticed the man sitting in a pew near the back of the church. He had avoided his eye when he had purposely looked in his direction so he had decided to leave it at that for the moment. He knelt and crossed himself as he broke the plain of the altar and then continued his journey through the narrow twisting corridor, smelling of dust and incense, to the adjoining church hall to see what the state of affairs was with regard to the jumble collection for Saturday’s sale. Two ladies, one elderly the other middle aged were engaged in sorting material into piles. The middle-aged lady who was working on the clothes pile held up a moth-eaten jacket with frayed cuffs and said, “Some people, Father! They must think we’re a rubbish tip down here at St Xavier’s. She tossed the offending article to one side.”

“Maybe a bit thoughtless, Mrs Tanner,” said Lafferty. “But I’m sure they meant well.”

Lafferty’s charitable view about the coat was not typical. It had been forced on him in part by the guilt he was feeling at suspecting the motives of the man in the church. His first thought on seeing him had been that he might be after the contents of the offertory box or even the altar silver. For that reason he had been pleased to see that the stranger had been seated at the back, well away from the valuables. This unkind thought was now weighing heavily on his mind.

Lafferty was prone to self criticism, and he was going through a particularly virulent spell at the moment. Recently, his time for reflection — usually around ten in the evening when he would sit alone with a glass of whisky by the fire — had been filled with fears that his church no longer represented the community at all. It was more like a club and what was worse, a private club where the members were predominantly old and female. His discomfort at this thought was not so much due to the fact that it might be true but, rather, that he actually liked it this way. When he was searingly honest with himself, and he was in these late night sessions, he had no desire to change things, no wish to go out into the community: he felt no need to evangelise. He felt no need because he suspected that there was no point. The people in his parish didn’t give a shit about Jesus Christ or his teachings and nothing he could say or do was going to change that. To imagine differently required a strong belief in the basic goodness of ordinary people. And that was where he was terribly afraid he was lacking. He was thirty-eight years old, a Roman Catholic priest and he was a cynic. He didn’t want to be but he was. The word made him afraid when he thought about it. Cynicism was like a cancer eating away at his faith. If only he could believe that it was a cancer — an illness — and not, as he feared most, a vision of reality.

“So what would you like done with it, Father?” asked the woman who had picked the jacket up from the floor and was treating it with exaggerated respect after Lafferty’s rebuke.

“Throw it in the bucket, Mrs Tanner, I wouldn’t wash my car with it,” murmured Lafferty absently. He was thinking about the man next door.

“Very good, Father,” said the woman with a shrug. So what was all that nonsense about ‘meaning well’, she wondered? She made a face at her elderly colleague.

“Will you ladies be all right on your own for a little while?” asked Lafferty. “I have something to do in the church.”

“Of course, Father,” replied the older woman.

The man was still there. Lafferty stood in the shadows behind the altar for a few moments, partly obscured by a pillar, just watching. The man wasn’t praying and he wasn’t reading but there was something about the way he moved in his seat from time to time that gave Lafferty the impression that he was trying to run away from something while sitting still.

Lafferty coughed to warn the man of his presence and came out from behind the pillar. He pretended to do something at the corner of the transept before walking up the side aisle to approach the stranger. “I’m Father Lafferty,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met before?”

The stranger smiled a little distantly and said, “No, we haven’t, Father.”

Lafferty was looking at a man in his early thirties, well dressed although in casual fashion and with an educated tone of voice. He seemed deeply troubled. The lines round his eyes said that he hadn’t slept for some time and his fingers were constantly in motion, engaged in a nervous wrestling match.

“Something’s troubling you. Can I help?” asked Lafferty. This was a simple enough question but, for Lafferty in his crisis of confidence, it had a much greater significance. In truth, he wasn’t at all sure that he could really help anyone at all any more, or if he ever had for that matter. He married couples whom he would never see again, buried the dead who had been born Catholic and provided ‘club leadership’ in the automatic group activities of praying and singing hymns. All of these things, he reflected, could be done by a robot wearing the required vestments. He as a person didn’t matter at all.

The man shook his head almost apologetically. “I’m honestly not sure,” he said.

“Would you like to confess?” asked Lafferty.

“Actually... I’m not a Catholic, Father.”

“I see,” murmured Lafferty although he didn’t.

The stranger looked up and the priest saw the pain in his eyes. “I really don’t know what to do or where to go to make it better... I was passing and I saw your church, and on the spur of the moment I thought perhaps... perhaps I could find what I was looking for here. Does that make any sense?”

Lafferty sat down in the pew in front of the stranger and sat with his left knee up on the seat while he turned round to face him. “I think you should tell me what’s troubling you,” he said. “You may not be a Catholic but I’m a stranger and it often helps to talk to a stranger. I won’t judge you and I won’t discriminate against you when it comes to confidentiality because you’re not a Catholic. I won’t even ask your name if you don’t want to tell me.”

“It’s Main, Father, John Main.”

Lafferty held out his hand and Main grasped it briefly.

“We were driving through to see my wife, Mary’s parents. Simon was their first grandchild and they doted on him. It was raining... It was raining very heavily. I remember the wipers were having difficulty coping with the water so I slowed down a bit. Mary had just made a joke about a boat being more use in this country when it happened...”

Lafferty could see that Main was reliving the event. He didn’t say anything.

“I lost control of the car. I don’t know why; perhaps a tyre blew or something. In retrospect it seemed to happen in slow motion. It suddenly slewed to one side and then skidded round in a circle when I tried to brake. We would have been all right if it hadn’t been for the bridge across the carriageway, you know, one of these concrete flyover things. We just ploughed straight into it — or rather, the left side of our car, where Mary was sitting, ploughed straight into it. I was flung out on to the road but she was killed instantly.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Lafferty. “And your son?”

“Simon was badly injured but he was still alive when the firemen freed him from the wreckage. The hospital put him on a life-support machine but when they’d finished all the tests, they told me he had irreparable brain damage. They had to switch the machine off.”

Lafferty swallowed and felt inadequate.

“My son was buried five weeks ago. I never realised what true loneliness could feel like, but without Mary and Simon, there seems to be no point to anything any more. I can’t sleep, I can’t work, I can’t seem to think straight. And now this other thing.”

“Other thing?”

“My son’s grave was dug up and his body was taken.”

“It was your son!” exclaimed Lafferty. “I read about it in the papers. I’m sorry, I should have realised when you told me your name.”

“I can’t cope with it, Father. They say it was the work of occultists, devil worshippers, and I can’t come to terms with it. I’m not a stupid man but I feel as if my son has been kidnapped. I know he’s dead but it feels the same and not knowing what they’ve done to him is making it worse. I suppose a priest might be able to give me some idea.”

Lafferty felt as if the roof had fallen in on him. He tried to keep the shock off his face as he struggled for words.

“My experience of dealing with the forces of darkness,” he began, “has been mercifully limited. In fact,” he confessed, “it’s non-existent.”

Main nodded. He seemed to appreciate Lafferty’s honesty.

Lafferty continued, “This is not to deny their existence. Our universe is largely dependent on equal and opposite forces creating a balance. If we believe in the forces of light and goodness in the world then we have to acknowledge the opposites of darkness and evil.”

“I’m afraid, Father. I’m afraid for Simon’s soul,” said Main.

“These people took your son’s body, John, not his soul.”

Main looked at Lafferty direct in the eye. “I’ve tried telling myself that, but I’m not convinced. If that were so, why would they want his body in the first place?”

Lafferty felt his stomach tie in knots. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I can try to find out. We have an ecclesiastical library in the city and there’s a colleague I can speak to. What do you say we meet again in, say, two days time, and I can tell you what I’ve found out?”

“I’d be very grateful,” said Main.

“Perhaps you could give me an address or a telephone number where I can reach you if I find out anything sooner?”

Main gave Lafferty both.