A Song for the Dying

16

Ruth Laughlin’s living room didn’t look as if it saw much in the way of living. A three-bar electric fire pinged and glowed against one wall, making the air scratchy and dry. Hot enough to prick sweat across the back of my neck. A small portable TV sat on a battered nest of tables, the plug pulled from the wall, the screen thick with dust; a brown corduroy couch draped with tartan blankets; a couple of faded family photos in clipframes; a standard lamp with tassels on the shade. As if someone had transported an old lady’s house into a block of soulless flats.

She sat in the only armchair, knees together, arms limp in her lap. Her left wrist was cocooned in a bandage, stained grey with dirt. Creases lined Ruth’s broad forehead, her hair hanging down over her shoulders in a mousey-brown frizz. Deep-set purple folds lurked beneath her small eyes. Sunken cheeks. She didn’t look anything like the woman who’d taken care of me till the ambulance came.

Only thirty-three and she looked sixty — as if someone had reached deep inside her and hauled something out, leaving her empty and broken.

Alice shifted on the couch, rearranging her arms and legs until she mirrored Ruth. Smiled. ‘How are you feeling?’

Ruth didn’t move, her voice small and crackly. ‘They spit at me sometimes. When I go to the shops.’

‘Who do?’

‘The kids. They’re feral. They spit at people and they break into houses. Steal things. Smash everything up.’ Her eyes drifted down to the bandage on her wrist. ‘I had to stop volunteering at the vet’s.’

‘Did something happen?’

‘It… I thought it’d be nice to go back to it, you know, when I got out? But it’s…’ Her face pinched. ‘We had to put down six dogs in one day. I cried for a week.’ She reached up and wiped her eyes on the dirty bandage. ‘I’m stupid.’

‘You’re not stupid, Ruth.’ Alice let that hang in the air for a bit, then: ‘Did you see the fireworks last week? I went down to Montgomery Park and watched the council display on the other side of the river. It was beautiful, all reds and blues and greens, the cascade of gold down the cliff from the castle.’

Heavy metal sounded in the flat below, distorted by too much volume on cheap speakers, making the floor thrum.

Ruth kept her gaze fixed on the window. ‘They should’ve let me die.’

I cleared my throat. ‘I’m sorry.’

She blinked up at me.

‘You don’t remember me? Ash Henderson? I was chasing the Inside Man, in the train station? There’d been an accident?’

‘Oh.’ She looked out of the window again. ‘I’m tired.’

‘I’m sorry he got away. If he… If I’d been stronger, I could’ve got him.’

A long sigh rattled its way out of her. ‘You were bleeding.’

That didn’t mean it wasn’t my fault.

Alice leaned forward, placed a hand on her knee. ‘You were very brave, Ruth, you helped him.’

‘I was a nurse. We…’ A frown. ‘There was lots of us there, on the bikes, raising money for the people in that storm. We did it for Laura.’

Silence.

‘We’d like to ask a few questions about what happened to you, Ruth, is that OK? Do you think you can do that?’

She pulled up her jumper, then the grey vest underneath, exposing her bare stomach. A puckered line of scar tissue disappeared into the waistband of her jeans. Another ran left to right under the edge of her bra. ‘Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a mother. Two boys and a girl. And we’d go on holiday, and I’d help them with their homework, and we’d be the happiest family in the world… All I ever wanted.’ The jumper fell back into place. ‘It’s all ruined now. They should’ve let me die.’

‘You know, there’s always hope. Remember Laura Strachan?’ Alice dug into her leather satchel and came out with a copy of the Castle News and Post. Held it out. It was the one from last week: ‘“CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!” BABY JOY ON THE WAY FOR INSIDE MAN VICTIM’. She placed it on Ruth’s lap. ‘The doctors said she could never have children, and now look at her: nearly eight months pregnant.’

Ruth blinked at the paper for a couple of breaths. Then there was a soft thump — like a tiny punch — and a droplet spread out in a ragged circle of grey into the newsprint. Then another. She sniffed. Picked the paper up and pressed it against her chest as if she could absorb the words through her jumper and into her scarred skin.

Alice put her hand back on Ruth’s knee. ‘You’ve not spoken to Laura since the attack, have you?’

She shook her head, cheeks glistening, a dribble of silver shining on her top lip.

‘Well, what would you think if I arranged for you to see her again? Would you like that? And, maybe, afterwards we could make you an appointment with the fertility clinic — see what they say?’

‘I can’t believe it…’ Ruth wiped a hand across her trembling lips.

Alice reached into her satchel again and produced a couple of tissues. Held them out. ‘Now, I’d like to talk about what happened eight years ago. Could we do that?’

She took the tissues in one hand, the other still hugging the paper, and bunched them against her eyes. Then nodded.

‘OK, so just you sit back in your seat and relax. And-’

‘What if I can’t remember?’

‘Well, I’ve got a technique that can help, if you’re OK with it? Is that OK?’

Another nod.

‘Great. So I need you to make yourself comfy and take a deep slow breath and take us back to that day.’ Alice’s voice dropped, just like it had in the secure ward that morning. ‘Picture the smells. The sounds. The noises as you wake up that morning.’ Lower and slower. ‘You’re lying in bed and you’re warm and comfortable, drowsy with sleep, your muscles all relaxed and warm and you’re so comfortable and warm and you’re safe and nothing can hurt you…’

… and then I’m standing in the corner of the room, crying while they wheel her out and down to the mortuary. She’s forty-nine but there’s nothing left but tumours and yellow skin stretched over jagged bones.

‘God’s sake, Ruth. Get it together, yeah? It happens.’ Andrea squats in front of the bedside cabinet and empties it into a cardboard box. Perfume, a fuzzy monkey, a toilet bag, supermarket moisturizer. The end of a life. ‘You going to help, or what?’

So I do. Not saying a word. Trying not to sniffle in case it sets her off again. And then we strip the sheets off the bed, remove the pillowcases, spray the plastic-shrouded mattress with disinfectant and wipe it clean.

She’s the fourth woman to die tonight. Two cancers, one septicaemia, and a pneumonia. All thin and rattling and alone.

The lift jerks and shudders, like it’s crying, all the way down to the locker room. Names and swearwords are scratched into the stainless-steel walls.

It’s the end of night shift, but I’m the only one here. Everyone else bunked off dead on time to stomp down to the Severed Leg in Logansferry for Janette’s leaving do. A dozen haggard, hollow-eyed women hammering cocktails at five in the morning.

But Janette’s never liked me, so here I am. Alone.

Up above — in the triangle between the main building, the admin block, and the old Victorian part where they keep the psychiatric patients — the sky’s thick and deep-deep purple, like when you trap your fingernail in a door.

The doctors’ car park is full of BMWs and Porsches, all covered with a crisp layer of white frost that sparkles in the glare of security lights, but the entrance to the underground bit they make us use is shrouded in darkness. Even with four nurses dead and two in intensive care, they still haven’t put up lights. Just a notice printed in thick red letters, ‘WARNING: LONE WOMEN SHOULD NOT ENTER PARKING AREA UNACCOMPANIED’.

Because that’s going to help.

Still, it’s not as if I have to worry about it — I don’t have the car with me today. Some bastard robbed it on Old Year’s Night and left it burning in a lay-by near Camburn Woods. Which makes getting to the twenty-four-hour Asda a pain, but there’s nothing in the fridge but Bacardi Breezers and olives. So I take a left, through the broken security gate, beneath the lifeless gaze of a security camera with the wires dangling from its blackened casing, and onto St Jasper’s Lane.

Half the streetlights are out. The cold air smells like pepper and lemons.

The pavement crunches beneath my feet. Little piles of grit make goose-pimple patterns on the slabs, dirtying the ice. I dig my hands into my pockets.

My breath mists out in front of me, pulled away on the wind like a ghost from my mouth.

Cross the road.

Should really go the long way round: past St Jasper’s, along to Cupar Road and down to the bus stop, but it’s much quicker to nip down Trembler’s Alley.

When I was at school — can’t have been more than six or seven — they told us the Earl of Montrose trapped the town council there, caught in the narrow slit between the granite church wall and the apothecary’s. His men butchered them like hogs and painted the walls with their blood. Mounted their heads above St Jasper’s door for everyone to see … I had nightmares for months.

I… They haven’t… The council hasn’t gritted the alley. Maybe it’s too narrow for the machine, or maybe they just can’t be bothered? It’s icy, slippery. Mounds of crunchy snow you have to pick your way through and try not to fall flat on your arse.

And it’s dark. Just a couple of lights for the whole length, and they can barely work up a faint glow.

And… And I’m halfway down…

Please…

‘It’s OK, Ruth, you’re safe, remember? You’re in bed and you’re warm and you’re comfortable. So very comfortable and safe and warm and nothing can happen to you, because you’re safe.’

And there’s a noise. Behind me. Crunching. Like feet.

Oh God, someone’s following me. There’s someone there.

Faster. Get away.

Oh God, oh God…

‘Ruth, it’s OK. Take a deep breath. We’re here. Nothing can happen to you, you’re safe and-’

It’s Him! He’s right behind me and I try to run, but the ground’s like glass beneath my feet and I slip and stagger and try to stay up. Get away, run away! RUN AWAY!

‘OK, Ruth, I need you to come back to us. It’s OK, we’re here, you’re-’

And the pavement rushes up and cracks across my knees and my arm goes out, but I can’t stop myself and my head smashes into the ice and everything smells of old pennies and meat, and I’m crying and I can’t get up and he’s on top of me pressing me into the snow and there’s something over my mouth. Hot breath in my ear, sour like sick. Stubble rasps against my cheek. His hand grabs my belt, undoing it… Fingers jabbing into the zip of my jeans. Yanking them down. Grunting.

Please, don’t. No. Someone help me!

HELP ME!

‘Ash, slap her. Not too hard! Just a gentle-’

‘You hit her. I’m not-’

HELP ME!

Alice lurched out of her seat and whipped an open palm across Ruth’s cheek, hard enough to snap her head to the side. Hard enough to stop her screaming. Hard enough to leave a perfect five-fingered print on her tear-streaked face.

Then Alice was on her knees, pulling Ruth into a hug. ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Shhh… You’re OK. We’re here. Nobody’s going to hurt you.’

Ruth’s shoulders shook, vibrating in time with her howling sobs.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK…’

I stepped back, the tips of my ears burning. Looked away — out of the window and down at the street below. At Alice’s rattled Suzuki. At the three-legged dog tripoding its way down the pavement in front of a T-shirt-wearing skinhead. At a pair of vulture-sized seagulls tearing into a mound of black bin-bags. Up at the blood-streaked spire of the First National Celtic Church. Anywhere that wasn’t Ruth.

Anywhere that wasn’t pain and suffering and my bloody fault.

A harsh buzz trembled in my pocket, followed a moment later by a high-pitched ringing. I snatched out the phone that came in my investigation pack. Pressed the green button. Swallowed. ‘Henderson.’

Shifty’s voice rattled out of the earpiece. ‘Ash? You need to get your arse-’

‘Hold on.’ I put my hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’ Yes, it was cowardly, but at least I wouldn’t be just standing there, wallowing in Ruth Laughlin’s pain…

Yeah, because it was her fault I’d let the Inside Man get away. Her fault that he’d gone after her. Way to be a prick, Ash. Great work.

I slipped out into the hall.

Must’ve been one o’clock, because the church bells chimed out their warm-up peal, followed by a single massive note. Dark and hollow.

‘Ash? You there?’

‘Have you got that address for Laura Strachan yet?’

‘Doesn’t matter where you are, or what you’re doing — you want to get over to… Hold on…’ His voice became muffled. ‘Where are we?’ Then back to full strength again. ‘Wishart Avenue. It’s behind the-’

‘I know where it is. Why?’

‘The Inside Man strikes again.’