Pray for the Dying

Fifty-Four

‘Are ye sure you’re all right, kid?’ Since his visit earlier in the evening he had called her three times and on each occasion he had put the same question. Lottie understood; she knew that he was hurting almost as much as she was, but was incapable of saying so.

‘I promise you, Dan, I’m okay. That’s to say I’m not a danger to myself, or to wee Jakey. Nobody’s going to break in here tomorrow and find me hanging from the banisters. Ask me how I feel instead and I’ll tell you that I’m hurt, embarrassed, disappointed and blazing mad, but I’ll get over all that. . apart, maybe, from the blazing mad bit. I’ve made a decision since you called me earlier. Jakey’s going to his granny’s tomorrow and I’m coming back to work.’

‘But Lottie,’ Provan began.

She cut him off. ‘Don’t say it, ’cos I know that I can have nothing to do with the Field investigation, but there’s other crime in Glasgow; there always is.’

‘The chief constable said ye should stay at home until everything’s sorted.’

‘As far as I’m concerned it is sorted. Scott’s been charged, right?’

‘Right.’

‘He’s no longer in custody, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And I’m not suspected of being involved in what he did, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘In that case, there is no reason for me to be stuck in the house twiddling my thumbs. The longer I do that the more it will look like I’m mixed up in my husband’s stupidity. So, Detective Sergeant, I will see you tomorrow. If the chief doesn’t like it, the only way he’ll get me out of there is by formally suspending me, and as you’ve just agreed, he doesn’t have any grounds to do that. I won’t come into the investigation room in Pitt Street. I’ll go to our own office in Anderston instead.’

‘Then ye’ll see me there. The chief’s told me to shut down the Pitt Street room. He says the investigation’s went as far as it can, and there’s no point in our bein’ there any longer.’

‘Why?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Have we run out of leads?’

‘Worse than that. Everywhere we’ve gone, some bugger’s been there before us. See ye the morra.’

As Lottie hung the wall phone back on its cradle in the hallway, her eye was caught by a movement. She looked at the front door and saw a figure; it was unrecognisable, its shape distorted by the obscure glass, but she knew who it was. She felt a strange fluttering in her stomach, and realised that she was a little afraid. She thought of calling Dan back. She thought of going back into the living room and listening to loud music through her headphones.

But she did neither of those things. Instead her anger overcame her nervousness, and she marched to the door and threw it open.

Her husband stood on the step, with a key in his hand, wavering towards the Yale lock that was no longer within reach. She snatched it from him.

‘Gimme,’ he protested.

‘No danger. You’ll not be needing it any longer.’ She grabbed him by one of the lapels of his sports jacket and pulled him indoors.

‘Aw thanks, love,’ he sighed, misunderstanding her.

‘Thanks for nothing,’ she replied. ‘You won’t be staying. You’re as drunk as a monkey and I’m not putting on a show for the neighbours, that’s all.’

‘Ach Lottie, gie’s a break. I’m goin’ tae the fucking jail, is that not enough for you?’

‘That’s the last thing I want, you pathetic twat,’ she hissed. ‘What do you think that’s going to do for your son at the school? Every kid in the place will be pointing fingers at him and calling him names. The only thing that’ll save him from being bullied is that all of them know me. As for your slapper, though, that McGlashan, they can stick her in Cornton Vale for as long as they like.’

‘Leave Christine out of this,’ Scott snarled, lurching towards her.

‘I’d leave her out of the human race,’ she retorted, her voice filled with scorn. ‘And you take one more step towards me,’ she added, ‘and it won’t be a police car that’ll come for you, it’ll be an ambulance. It was you that brought her into it. I hope you’re happy that you’ve ruined her life as well as your own. If I didn’t feel the contempt for her that any woman would feel, and that any good police officer would feel five times over, I could actually find it in my heart to be sorry for the poor cow. Do you have the faintest idea how cruel you’ve been in even asking her to do what she did, far less in talking her into it?

‘I know you and she were at it before we met, and I suspect that you always have been, behind my big stupid plodding back. That can only mean that the daft bitch actually feels something for you. And that you’ve let her down just as badly as you’ve betrayed and shamed Jakey and me.’

She took him by the arm, as if she was arresting him and began to push him towards the door. ‘Now go,’ she ordered, ‘and don’t you ever come back here.’

‘Lottie,’ he pleaded, ‘gie’s a break.’

‘Certainly. Which arm would you prefer?’

‘Ah’ve got nowhere else tae go!’

‘No? Why don’t you just go to her place?’

‘Aye, that’ll be right. Her husband’s lookin’ for me as it is.’

‘Her what? Well, I’ll tell you what, you go down to the riverside and find yourself a nice bench to sleep on, so that if he comes here, I can tell him where to find you.’ She opened the front door and thrust him outside. ‘As soon as I get inside,’ she warned him, ‘I’m going to phone the station. If you’re seen within a mile of this house for the rest of the night, you’ll be lifted. But I won’t tell them to arrest you. Oh no, I’ll have them drive you to Christine McGlashan’s house, drop you there and ring the doorbell. You think I wouldn’t do that, you snivelling bastard?’ she challenged.

He shook his head.

‘Aye, damn right I would. You know, Scott, what I feel right now, looking at you? I feel ashamed that I let you father my son. Well, I tell you this. There is no way that I will let you pass your weakness on to him. It might hurt him for a bit, but you’re never going to see him again.’

With that, Charlotte Mann slammed the door on her husband, walked quietly into her living room, slumped into an armchair, and wept as she had never wept before.