Fenton's winter

SEVEN

When Fenton arrived home he found that a good night's sleep and a day on her own had done little to restore Jenny's spirits. Her smile of greeting lacked conviction and her lank hair and lack-lustre eyes spoke of the strain that she was under. He sensed that something else was wrong but did not enquire, feeling that she would tell him in her own time. Half way through their meal she said, "I phoned Grant today."

Fenton went cold; he put down his knife and fork and said, "Oh."

"He told me what happened."

"Jenny, I'm sorry. I should never have gone there."

Jenny was close to tears. She said softly, “It's all right. I know you were only trying to help. Grant knows that too, in fact, I think you managed to convince my own brother that I did not kill his son." There was bitterness in her voice before she covered her mouth with her handkerchief. Fenton got up and put his arms round her from behind. He put his cheek against her hair and rocked her gently from side to side.

When Jenny had calmed down Fenton told her of his virus idea. It was a candle in her darkness. "Do you really think so?" she asked with more animation in her voice than had been present for some time. Something persuaded her to have second thoughts. She added hesitantly, “You're not just saying that are you?"

Fenton was adamant that he was not and went on to give his reasons. Jenny found his enthusiasm infectious and, with very little prompting, was able to add substance to the foundations of his argument. Despite this, and although desperate to believe it, she still felt compelled to play Devil's advocate. "But there are no viruses that cause uncontrolled bleeding are there?" she asked.

Fenton countered the doubt by saying, "There was no Legionnaires' disease either until a whole bunch of Americans dropped dead of it. Then people all over the world started recognising similarities to cases that they had been seeing for years and dismissing as 'viral infections' or pyrexias of unknown origin."

Jenny accepted the argument and Fenton pressed home his case. "What we are seeing is very acute haemophilia. Before you say it, I know that haemophilia is a genetic disorder but I can see no reason why, given the right set of circumstances, a virus should not be able to simulate the condition if it attacks the right cells."

Jenny was sold on the idea. She asked Fenton what he planned to do.

"Get some material from one of the victims and find the virus," said Fenton.

"But how?"

"I've already got it." Fenton told Jenny his tale of derring-do and saw her mouth drop open. "But what if you had been caught?" she said.

"I wasn't and I've got the sample."

Fenton said what he planned to do next. He would send the sample off for analysis under cover of a fictitious patient's name. He would make a special request for animal inoculation and ask for blood samples from the test animals. When he had evidence of the infective agent he would present it to Tyson.

"How long?" asked Jenny.

"Five days."

With hope restored to her Jenny's morale began to improve. She began to think of her return to work, of hearing the apologies, the assurances that, 'not for one moment had anyone really believed…'

Fenton was pleased at the change in her, it was so good to see her smile again, but he also felt a burden grow on his shoulders. What if the tests should prove negative? How could he bring himself to tell her? He knew very well that the repair to Jenny's psyche was only in the nature of a temporary patch. If the patch were to fail the wound might well split open and that could be disastrous as he knew from experience. Life could so easily become a desert of depression, a limbo where time stood still. That must not happen to Jenny.

"More rain," growled Fenton as he got up on Friday morning. He shivered involuntarily as he sat on the end of the bed then rubbed his arms vigorously to combat the chill of the bedroom.

Jenny was not to be side-tracked with talk of the weather. She said, "You will get the report today."

"Should do," said Fenton in what he hoped was a matter of fact voice. In truth he had thought about little else all night. His stomach was tied in knots at the very thought of it. Unwilling to look at Jenny in case she read his mind, he went to the window and drew the curtains back. "I have had it with 'Bonnie Scotland'," he announced, spitting out the words as he looked at the rain lashed roofs. "You have got to be a bit soft in the head to live here. Why don't we get married, pack up and get the hell out?" He turned to look at Jenny.

"You will phone and tell me?" said Jenny, ignoring everything that he had said.

"I'll phone. But whatever it says, nothing changes. I love you and you love me and, sooner or later, this will all be sorted out. OK?" Fenton's voice hardened on the 'OK' as he saw Jenny's eyes begin to drift away.

"All right," she said softly.

Fenton was sitting at his desk when Liz Scott brought in the package. The yellow envelope on the outside said that it was the microbiology report; the box would contain the blood samples. He sat and stared at it for several minutes, anxious to know but afraid of what he might find. He brought out a paper knife and turned it over in his hand before committing it to the flap of the envelope and slitting it slowly and perfectly open.

SPECIMEN REPORT: MARK BROWN

BACTERIAL SCREEN: NEGATIVE

VIRAL SCREEN: NEGATIVE

BLOOD SAMPLES ENCLOSED AS REQUESTED

The report threatened the same effect on Fenton as the yob's fist had when it had swung in to his stomach. The microbiology labs had found no evidence of any infecting agent. He felt completely drained.

After a few minutes of deep depression Fenton saw an argument. The report was not conclusive. If there was a new bacterium or virus in the specimen then it might well require special culture conditions, in fact, it almost certainly would otherwise it would have been isolated and described before. The real answer would lie in the blood samples of animals inoculated with serum from Timothy Watson. He opened the box and his agony was complete. Both samples had clotted perfectly. There had been nothing in Timothy Watson's blood to infect the animals. He had been wrong…again.

Fenton pondered the consequences. He had built up Jenny's hopes and now this. He could not have done a better job of pushing her towards a nervous breakdown if he had meant to. What a stupid…He crunched up the report in his fist and flung it across the room. Jenny would be waiting at home for his call, she would be pretending that she was reading or dusting or cleaning or listening to the radio but really she would just be waiting, waiting for the phone to ring.

Fenton dialled the number. It was answered at the first tone.

"Jenny? The report hasn't come yet. Maybe this afternoon."

Fenton felt worse than ever but he could not tell her, not like that, not over the phone. He needed time to think.

So there was no virus involved, no convenient infective agent to take the blame and clear up the mystery. So what did that leave? A poison? That seemed unlikely for too many people seemed to be immune, besides, you did not carry a poison on your person and pass it on inadvertently…

Fenton suddenly saw a crack in an otherwise smooth-walled enigma. Jenny must have passed on the agent to Jamie but if it wasn't a bacterium or virus she must have known about it! She must have given Jamie Buchan something that she believed to be completely harmless but it had not been. It had killed him.

Anger, superseding disappointment, erupted in Jenny. "No damn it! I did not give him anything. How many times do I have to say it! You are on the wrong track!"

Fenton felt the unspoken 'as usual' hang heavily in the air. He stopped badgering to create a silence in the room that threatened to be louder than the argument. Reining his voice, he said softly, "Jenny, you must see that it is the only logical explanation. You must have given the boy something, something you would not give a second thought to, something you have forgotten about, please…think?"

"No! No! No!" Jenny's eyes blazed as she refused to have any more to do with the notion. Fenton made to put his arm round her but she turned away and stared intently at the fire. Fenton got up and went to the kitchen to make some coffee. The kettle was empty so he had to re-fill it and wait until it boiled. He did not return to the living room in the interim, choosing instead to stare distantly out of the kitchen window at the blackness with his hands in his pockets. Jenny had never turned away from him before. He felt angry, sad, sorry, ineffectual, stupid and, after standing still in the kitchen for some time, cold. He poured the coffee and took it through.

Jenny did not look up when he put the mug down beside her; she continued to stare at the fire. He sat down on the other chair and looked steadily at her left profile until she did relent and turn towards him then he broke into a half apologetic, half self-conscious grin. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Oh Tom…"

They held each other tight while the tears, the whispered apologies, the cheek nuzzling tenderness, combined to soothe the wounds that they had inflicted on each other. A new silence ensued but this time it was a comfortable pool of serenity with both of them reluctant to speak lest they ripple the surface.

Fenton woke at three, his body damp with cold sweat. He sat bolt upright to free himself of the images of a nightmare, Neil Munro's face, a fountain of blood from Timothy Watson's mouth and, through a red mist, the spectre of Jamie Buchan's dead face. A forest of arms had reached out towards him in the dream, Mona Buchan's arm had pointed and accused, Timothy Watson had held out both arms in pitiful appeal and anonymous arms had reached out from a deep freeze to wave like pond weeds. Luke Skywalker had wielded a sword; this image remained with him as he reeled into consciousness. In the darkness of the room he saw again the boy at the harbour, the strangely familiar boy with his hands on the handlebars of the Honda. "Can I have a hurl Mister? Can I have a hurl please?"

The image of the boy's face exploded into nothingness as Fenton realised something. It was not the boy himself who was familiar it was what he was wearing! He had been wearing coloured plastic bands round both wrists…hospital name tags!

Fenton shook Jenny hard in his excitement and coaxed her into wakefulness. She covered her eyes from the glare of the bedside lamp.

"Think Jenny think! Did you give any hospital name tags to Jamie Buchan?"

An overture of confused sleepy noises gave way to silence as Jenny considered the question. "Yes, yes I did." Her eyes cleared with the recollection. "I had a bunch in my uniform pocket. I gave them to Jamie to play with."

Fenton stared at her without saying anything.

"All right, so you were right, I did give him something, I gave him a few name tags but surely you are not going to suggest that he ate them and poisoned himself are you?"

Fenton conceded that he was not but he was not going to be ridiculed either. He took both Jenny's hands in his and said, "It's a start and what's more it's a connection, a connection between Jamie and the Princess Mary. What else did you give him?"

Fenton's surge of confidence overwhelmed any argument that Jenny might have considered. She thought deeply before answering. "No, I'm quite sure this time, nothing else."

"Good, make some coffee will you."

Jenny's eyebrows arched but Fenton was deep in thought and didn't notice. He sat on the edge of the bed staring into space, his right thumbnail tapping rapidly against gritted teeth. Jenny made coffee and brought it through. "Your coffee oh wise one."

Fenton ignored the sarcasm or, more correctly, it did not register. He took the cup and said, "Well if all you gave him was a plastic name tag…that's what must have killed him."

Jenny, with less reason than anyone to scoff at suggestions which diverted suspicions from herself, was forced to do so at this one and said so in no uncertain manner.

Fenton remained adamant. "If the name tags are the only connection between the hospital and Jamie then they are the reason. It's logical, however unlikely it may seem."

"How?" said Jenny accusingly.

"I've no idea," said Fenton.

Jenny shook her head. She said, "You said that you saw Jamie's friend wearing the arm bands. He was quite healthy wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"I don't know, but I repeat, if the arm bands were the only thing you gave to Jamie then they are responsible. Do you still say you gave him nothing else?"

"Nothing," said Jenny.

"I'm going to talk to Tyson in the morning but meanwhile…"

"Meanwhile what?"

"How long is it since we made love?"

"Quite a while," said Jenny.

"That situation is about to end."

"Do I have some say in the matter?"

"Not really," said Fenton.

"Shouldn't we discuss this first…" murmured Jenny, her body beginning to respond to his touch.

"No," whispered Fenton, "I've already decided."

Tyson listened patiently while Fenton told his tale and did not interrupt but Fenton could tell that he was failing to convince. Tyson's eloquent silence diluted his enthusiasm until the implausibility of what he was saying loomed up at him like guilt for some long past sin. Tyson cleared his throat and began to speak. Fenton could tell that he was editing what he had to say in the cause of politeness. "What you are really saying is that Saxon plastic kills people. Frankly, that is ridiculous."

The words, coming from Tyson, carried the weight of a punch. Fenton tried to defend himself. He began, "I know it sounds a bit…"

"Not a bit, a lot. It is just plain ridiculous. Saxon plastic has been through every test in the book and passed with flying colours. Do you know what tests any new health product must pass before it ever gets near a hospital?" Fenton did not but he could guess.

"Saxon plastic is safe. It is non toxic, non poisonous, non inflammable. It is safe when you heat it; it is safe when you freeze it and safe if you are stupid enough to want to eat it! Now I know that you have been under great strain but this kind of nonsense is dangerous. We have enough trouble in this hospital without a law suit from Saxon Medical. Understood?"

Fenton sat in his lab silently licking his wounds. Nothing Tyson had said had made him change his mind; he clung to his belief like a bull dog gripping a rag. The only thing now was he would have to prove it all on his own.

Fenton's lonely war was waged on a battlefield of paper as he read and re-read every scrap of information he could find on Saxon Medical and their new product. He examined all the graphs and tables from the original trials and re-plotted the data in what turned out to be a fruitless search for flaws. Quite simply, there were none, a fact that he had to come to terms with after a week of silently preoccupied evenings during which Jenny had plied him with coffee and kept, what politicians liked to call, a low profile. As he conceded defeat and put down his pen to rub his eyes on Friday evening he heard the sound outside of an ambulance siren floating above the wind and rain. It made him wonder if its occupant was bound for the Princess Mary. She was.

The week had been special for Rachel Morrison because it had been her eighth birthday on Wednesday, a day she had been looking forward to for weeks because of an anticipated bicycle. As her father had promised it had been waiting for her at the foot of her bed when she had woken on Wednesday morning, all red, white and shiny chrome. Her happiness had been complete, well almost complete for the weather had been so bad that she had been unable to take it outside to ride it, but it was there and she could touch it and that was the main thing.

After school several of her friends had come to the house for a special birthday tea and they had laughed and played and eaten ice cream and meringues till they were exhausted. Rachel ate so much that she got a pain in her stomach, at least that was what her mother had said, but the pain had become worse as the evening had progressed until, finally, her tears had convinced her mother and father that the doctor should be called.

By the time the doctor arrived the pain had moved down and to the right so that he had had no difficulty in diagnosing acute appendicitis and summoning an ambulance. There was nothing to worry about; appendicectomy was probably the simplest and most routine operation in the book. On the following day Rachel Morrison died in the Princess Mary following a massive haemorrhage.

The fact that Rachel Morrison and Jenny Buchan had never met and that Rachel had been admitted to the Princess Mary during Jenny's suspension ended that suspension and freed Jenny from suspicion. Although it had not been discussed, both Fenton and Jenny had been aware that the deaths had appeared to cease after Jenny's suspension. Now they spoke openly about it. Jenny was prepared to construe the pause as an unfortunate quirk of fate, just her luck, but Fenton read more into it.

It now seemed obvious to him that there would be a pause in the deaths for a pause would be bound to occur when all the susceptible people had died leaving a stable immune population. No one else would die until a susceptible person appeared on the scene again, a new member of staff perhaps or, much more likely in the case of a hospital, a new patient. He blamed himself for not having predicted this earlier.

Jenny put a stop to his self recrimination by pointing out that it would not have made the slightest difference, a fact he eventually had to agree with. But should he tell Tyson? Predictions made after the event, he decided, were about as useful as three pound notes. He would say nothing, besides, with Jenny in the clear he felt so much better, more able to concentrate, much sharper. He would find the link.

Jenny looked up from the newspaper she had been buried in and said, "Listen to this, someone…a James Lindsay, aged forty three, committed suicide after being dismissed from Saxon Medical for alleged theft. He threw himself under a train."

"Poor devil."

"Where is Saxon Medical?"

"On one of these industrial estates in Glasgow."

"That would fit, it's a Glasgow address." said Jenny.

Fenton took the paper and read the story for himself. He finished by saying, "He wasn't an executive with that address."

"You know it?"

"It's near where I was born."

"Is that the mist of nostalgia I see in your eyes?"

"No it isn't. They should have pulled that place down years ago."

"Then what were you thinking?" asked Jenny.

"I was thinking that I might go to see Mrs Lindsay."

Jenny was aghast. "Whatever for?" she gasped.

"Anything to do with Saxon Medical…I am interested."

Fenton went to Glasgow on the following Tuesday. The Honda ate up the forty odd miles or so between the Capital and Glasgow in as many minutes and Fenton weaved his way expertly through the derelict buildings and cratered sites that defaced the east side of the city until he found the street that he was looking for. He pulled the bike up on to its stand and walked towards the tenement block pulling his gloves off.

There was garbage everywhere, fish and chip wrappers, potato crisp bags, rotting fruit and the inevitable red McEwan's Export beer can. He flicked it aside with his toe, thinking that one of these cans should be in any time capsule as a universal artefact of Scottish life. There seemed to be one lying on the foot of every river and on the top of every hill.

The entrance to the close was stained with dried vomit, the protest of a belly too full of beer being asked to accommodate take-away food. Fenton thought of his father and his nights 'on the bevy.' As always when he thought of his father, he experienced mixed feelings of guilt and regret for he had never really known him at all, had never understood what had gone on in his head.

To all intents Joe Fenton had appeared to have been a simple, rather uncommunicative man who had spent all his adult life labouring in the shipyards of the Clyde. He would work Monday to Friday, drink himself into oblivion on Saturday and lie in bed all day Sunday. His routine had never varied.

Although by no means untypical of the lifestyle of the area Tom Fenton had always believed that there had been more to his father's behaviour than the blinkered following of macho tradition. There had been something missing in his father's make up, something he had often tried to define in the past but always without success. He had never known his father to display any kind of enthusiasm for anything in all the years he could remember. It was as if he had lived his entire life on a pilot flame fuelled with enigmatic sadness.

Even when drunk Joe Fenton's thoughts, if any, had been concealed behind a moist eyed smile. The burning political issues of 'red Clydeside' had left him cold as had the titanic struggles between Rangers and Celtic football clubs. It was as if, at some early stage in his life, he had discovered some deep, dark secret, some awful truth, so terrible that it had straightened out the parallax of optimism and forced him to view his existence as one long inconsequential tunnel from birth to grave.

Tom Fenton had never discovered what his father's secret had been, whether he had found out the meaning of life or that there was no heaven or hell or whether there was just no point. The last possibility seemed the most likely. Joe Fenton had lived his entire life as if there had been no point, no point at all. He had died in the year that Fenton had graduated, never having said much more to him than an occasional, 'Aye son,' in passing, a 'guid fur you,' when he had done well or, 'We'll hae nae mair o' that,' when he had done wrong.

To Fenton's mother Rose, a simple, kind hearted woman, Joe had been a 'good man' but, within the parameters of marital behaviour in the area, this had simply meant that he had not physically abused her and had handed over his wage packet unopened on a Friday night. Conversation and companionship had been alien notions from another world.

For some reason, not totally clear to him even now, Fenton hoped that his father had been proud of him when he had graduated, perhaps because he feared in his heart of hearts that it had really not mattered a damn, it probably hadn't rated a mention in the pub. Maybe it had even been an embarrassment.

Fenton edged deeper into the mouth of the close to be assailed by the competing smells of fried onions and cats' urine. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw the iron gate that barred the way to the back passage and drying greens and was forced to smile at the nostalgia it evoked for it had been down one of these dark passages that he had received a great deal of his street education.

Levoy had been a popular game among teenagers in the area, a variation on hide and seek that had involved a great deal of hiding in dark closes with members of the opposite sex and not too much seeking. One girl, some two years older than himself, and whose name he now desperately tried to remember, had taken it upon herself to see that he had not wearied during the long dark vigils. He recalled with fondness his early sorties into Betty McAlpine's underwear, his discomfort at being unable to unhook her bra, his ecstasy as for the first time a female hand had unzipped his fly and ventured inside. He remembered his bewilderment at being stopped when he had moved his own hand under her skirt to explore a magical maze of underskirts and suspenders. "Sorry," she had said, "The flags are up." Failing to understand and construing this as obligatory feminine modesty, part of the etiquette of back-close loving, he had pressed on to find his hand taken in a vice like grip. "Are you bloody daft or somethin'?" the girl had hissed. The harsh admonishment had dampened his ardour to the point where his proud member had begun to wilt but then the girl, realising his complete ignorance of female menstrual matters, had launched into a kindly explanation as to why he could not go 'all the way.'

With both his confidence and his erection restored he had rewarded her by having an orgasm all over her dress.

Fenton climbed the dark stone spiral stairs, stooping down as he came to each door to examine the name plates. He was half way along the landing of the second flat before he reached 'Lindsay'. He paused for a moment to listen to the sounds of the close, harsh laughter from female throats conditioned by cigarette smoke and endless bawling at errant children, that self same bawling as yet another woman screamed her frustration and inadequacy at her offspring. He pulled the door bell and found it unconnected to anything. He replaced the handle and knocked instead. The door opened a few inches to reveal the haggard eyes of a woman about five feet tall and those of a child some three feet below. "I've told you, “she began, "I'll pay you when I can; I just haven't got it right now."

Fenton assured her that he was not there to collect money. "Then what?" she asked.

"I would like to talk to you about your husband."

"What about him?" asked the woman suspiciously.

"Nothing bad I promise. I just want you to tell me about him. Can I come in?"

"You're another reporter," said the woman.

Fenton was about to deny it when he noticed that the woman seemed pleased at the prospect of his being a reporter so he smiled instead and she opened the door.

They sat down to talk in a small, sparsely furnished kitchen cum living room which impressed Fenton with its tidiness and neatness. It seemed almost an act of defiance against an ever encroaching desert of filth and squalor.

"My Jimmy never stole a thing in his life," insisted the woman, "Someone planted that drill in his locker."

"Why would they do that Mrs Lindsay?" probed Fenton gently.

"Because they wanted him out that's why," said the woman.

Fenton's throat tightened as he saw the possibility of a management intrigue against James Lindsay because he knew too much about something.

"Who are 'they'" he asked.

"The men he worked beside."

Fenton's heart fell. "Why did his work mates want him out Mrs Lindsay?"

"They were jealous because he was such a good worker. Jimmy said that when the company expanded to make the new plastic they would probably make him a foreman and we could move away from here." The woman looked around with disgust at her surroundings, her eyes settled on a damp patch on the wall paper. "We were going to buy a bungalow in Bearsden," she said mistily, "And Jimmy was going to buy a Sierra. He said that he would get me a Mini for the shopping and taking the weans to school…"

Fenton thought he recognised the story. Jimmy had been either a dreamer or a drunk. He continued to probe gently for the woman desperately wanted to believe that her husband had been innocent…but he had not, a fact that became more and more apparent with every answer. A familiar tale unfolded. Drink, gambling, money lenders charging enormous rates of interest, threats, fear, desperation and, in James Lindsay's case, suicide.

The woman started to sob quietly while the child who had never let go of her skirt for an instant since he had come in, continued to stare at him and pick his nose unconcernedly. Fenton supposed that he must have seen a lot of crying over the past week or so. He looked for some way of changing the subject and his eyes fell on a photograph of a man in uniform on the mantelpiece. "Was that your husband Mrs Lindsay?" he asked.

The woman nodded, then blowing her nose and tucking the handkerchief into her skirt, she added, "He was an Argyll. He looked so lovely in his uniform…"

Fenton sensed that the tears were about to start again and stood up. "He was a fine looking man," he said softly, "And a daddy you can be proud of," he added, bending down to press a five pound note into the child's hand.

Fenton restrained himself from taking an almighty kick at the beer can lying in the entrance to the close and compromised by flicking it aside once more with his toe. As he did so he suddenly became aware of two men who had been pressed up against the doorway. He spun round in surprise.

"Is this the wan Bella?" asked one of the men, half over his shoulder to the darkness of the close.

'Bella' emerged from the shadows, a shambling mass of flab in stained apron and carpet slippers. She scuffled towards Fenton and chewed gum while she examined him. "Aye," she announced, "That's the bastard."

The questioner, a full head shorter than Fenton but squat and powerful with a scarred face and a noseline that altered direction more than once, looked at Fenton with granite eyes. His companion, an emaciated figure suspended inside a dirty black suit several sizes too large stood one pace behind. His skin, a sickly yellow colour, looked as if it had been stretched over his cheek bones like the wing fabric of a model aircraft. He puffed nervously on a cigarette, holding it between the bunched finger-nails of his right hand while his eyes darted nervously from side to side.

"I hear you were botherin' Mary Lindsay, pal," said granite eyes with quiet menace. Fenton felt fear climb his spine like a glacier on the move. The memory of the last time filled his head making the thought of so much pain again just too awful to contemplate. "I've been to see Mrs Lindsay, yes," he said in carefully measured tones that had been filtered to remove any inflection that could possibly be construed as antagonistic.

"Oh hiv ye," said granite eyes moving towards him slowly, "Do you hear that Ally? He's been to see Mrs Lindsay, yes." He exaggerated a sing-song posh accent as he said it. The yellow skinned corpse withdrew his left hand quickly from the drapes of his jacket pocket and flicked his wrist to reveal an open razor.

"What in Christ's name is this all about?" asked Fenton, his mouth dry with fear.

Granite eyes smiled with no trace of humour. "When will you bastards ever learn?" he hissed through gritted teeth. "You canny get blood frae a stone. Mary Lindsay hisnae got any money pal, savvy? Nae money!" His finger stabbed at Fenton's chest as his voice rose. "So why dae youse bastards keep comin' round here? Are ye tryin' tae kill her like ye did Jimmy?"

Fenton could sense that granite eyes was working himself up into a frenzy and bringing the yellow skinned corpse with the razor with him. This was not going to be any kind of warning. He only had seconds left. The fat woman stood idly by, chewing her gum as if she were watching television. In a moment she would change channels.

"There's some mistake," said Fenton hoarsely.

"You made it pal," hissed granite eyes moving on to the balls of his feet.

Fenton bunched his stomach muscles and prepared himself for what he now saw as inevitable. Granite eyes was the big problem. The other one had the razor but granite eyes was the real hard man and it would take more than one blow to take him out. He dismissed the notion of kneeing him in the crotch, it was too obvious and granite eyes would expect it for amateurs always tried that. He would go for a punch to the throat. If it connected the man would go down. If he could then get in with a couple of kicks quickly he might stay down long enough for him to deal with yellow skin. Razor or no razor, with granite eyes out of the way, Fenton knew that he could take him, in fact, the man looked so ill that one blow might splinter his consumptive frame like a matchwood doll.

Fenton looked into his opponents eyes and was gratified to find a flicker of doubt there as if he had suddenly realised that Fenton might not be the complete amateur he had taken him for and, if that were the case…he was big. Fenton knew what granite eyes was thinking and took comfort from it. Correct, he thought, I've been away a long time but I know the game too. You don't realise it but I know you…I've known you all my life…"

"Stop it! Stop it!" cried a woman's voice from above but Fenton did not look up, neither did granite eyes. They held each other's gaze, afraid to give the other any advantage.

"Leave him alone Scobie! And you too Ally! He's not one of them, he's a reporter!"

Fenton gave thanks to any god that happened to be listening as he saw granite eyes turn and look up. He turned back again and said, "Is that right pal? A reporter eh?" He said it as if nothing at all had gone before and they had just been introduced. His smile revealed rows of rotten teeth. "Doin' a wee story on Jimmy are you? Exposing these money lendin' bastards? Good fur you."

"I'm doing my best," Fenton lied.

"Well, ma name's Scobie McGraw and this here's Ally Clegg — two gees by the way." The yellow corpse grinned. "If there's anythin' we can do tae help ye only hiv tae ask."

I don't believe this, thought Fenton. They want their names in the paper. He smiled wanly and said, "Thanks, I'll remember that."

"Right then," said granite eyes, "Is that your bike ower there?"

Fenton said that it was.

"Well ye better get oan it then!" Granite eyes broke into bronchitic laughter at his own joke and turned to yellow skin and the fat woman for support. Fenton smiled weakly and started to walk towards the Honda.

"Just a minute pal!"

The words hit the back of Fenton's neck like bullets; he turned slowly.

"Whit paper did ye say ye worked fur?"

"The Guardian," said Fenton, saying the first name that came into his head.

"Jesus," said granite eyes as if that were sufficient.

Fenton continued towards the bike feeling as if he was walking on thin ice with a thaw in the air. He heaved it off its stand and mounted it as casually as he could in the circumstances then pressed the starter as if it were the ejector button in a burning aircraft. The Honda growled into life and sounded like a Beethoven sonata. He was moving, motion beautiful motion, spinning wheels, faster, faster, away.