The Dead Hour

I

Paddy sat in silence at the kitchen table with her oldest sister. Caroline was openly smoking a cigarette, watching through swollen black eyes as their brother Marty chased Baby Con around the tall grass in the back garden.

None of the Meehans knew anything about gardening, they were a bit afraid of the countryside and nature in general, and the garden was usually used for visitors for smoking in or for storing broken furniture or washing machines. Only the choking plants survived, eating up all the color. Their other brother, Gerard, had moved the washing poles nearer the house so that Trisha wouldn’t need to wade through the grass to hang up wet clothes.

No one smoked indoors at the Meehans’, yet Caroline sat smoking in full view of her mother who stood over the cooker, tending the broth she was making for the tea. Her eyes were puffed shut, bruised black, so swollen that the skin had split on her right cheekbone.

Paddy watched her mum at the cooker, stirring in a cheap gammon cut and potatoes for bulk and wondered how the hell they were going to manage now, with only her small wage to feed another two mouths, for the time being anyway, until Caroline went back to John and made her marriage work.

II

Nervous but curious to hear about the new editor, Paddy was two hours early for her night shift.

She found a letter in her pigeonhole by the door, a formal letter typed onto creamy gray paper with a watermark on it, informing her that the official police inquiry into the Drymen Road call was being convened to start its investigation on Friday and she was being summoned to give evidence next Tuesday at two thirty in the afternoon. After Tuesday everyone would know about the bribe. She refolded the letter, running her nails hard across the seam, trying to seal it shut as she looked around her.

The newsroom was bustling with fake activity: everyone was reading furiously with big frowns, or walking around, holding bits of paper, nodding during phone calls to friends or family. Farquarson’s office door was lying open and Paddy could see that the filing cabinets were empty, the walls cleared of pictures, the big long desk he had used for the editorial conferences had been moved out. She looked into the empty room, taking in the dents in the carpet where the massive table had stood for all the years she’d been there.

“Where’s it gone?” she said almost to herself.

A copyboy, skinny as a match, who watched her often and blushed when she looked back, stood up off the bench. “New ed’s called Ramage.”

Ramage had come in, introduced himself, and announced that there would be changes, big changes, the first raft of which had been announced that morning. Four new editors and a sub were being drafted in from other papers. Which meant four old editors were being demoted. One of them had accepted it and the other three were leaving. The new printing presses they had been promised were being canceled and they’d have to limp along with the equipment they had. The presses themselves weren’t as important as the promise of a future that they represented. The day shift had already dubbed the new boss Random Damage.

She spotted McVie across the room and nipped over to him.

“Have you ever heard of a thug called Lafferty?”

“No,” he said curtly. “Did you hear about this guy? He’s moved his office downstairs in editorial. He’s got three rooms to himself.”

“He’s not going to be in the newsroom?”

“He was up and gave us a talk earlier about how he’s here to make us profitable. He’s changing the tone of the paper and anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off. No one walked, though. He’s trying to outrage us into leaving so he doesn’t have to shell out the severance pay. They’ve canceled the orders for the new presses.” He dropped his voice. “He’s from the News of the World.”

Paddy dropped her mouth open. “Bloody hell.” It was a rag, a scandal sheet tabloid, as different from the Daily News’s dry, fact-laden style as shit to a sheet.

“He’s coming to see you lot later. You’ve all to be here at nine thirty. You’ll be all right though, you’re crime.”

She’d be all right if they didn’t hear about the fifty quid. Her long-despised calls car shift was suddenly one of the few secure places in the office. If a light-fingered policeman had walked with the note everyone would want to cover up the fact that it ever existed.

She went over to a news desk and picked up a phone, calling Partick Marine and asking for Colum McDaid.

“Hello, Constable McDaid, Paddy Meehan here. I met you the other day.”

“And I was delighted!” he interjected.

“Any word about the friend I left with you?”

“Ah.” She could hear McDaid smiling. “Yes, there is indeed. Our friend has come back from her short holiday in the fingerprint lab. She traveled by car, escorted by myself, and is now back at home enjoying the facilities.”

“What sort of facilities would that be?”

“A cozy safe, my company, her own plastic bag.”

“Lucky her.”

“Yes, she’s very snug and happy so you don’t need to worry about her at all. Now, you don’t need to phone after her all the time because she’s tucked up tight here and won’t be going out until a court case.”

“PC McDaid,” she said miserably, “thanks.”

She hung up and looked around the office. Her future was falling away from her, a cliff sliding into the sea. McDaid was a man of integrity. She was fucked.

III

A late train rumbled across the high Victorian arch, following the rail line along to the west. Behind Kate cars flashed past on the busy motorway. The road in front of her was quiet; the occasional passerby tended to come from the concrete block social club down the road, wild-kneed small men staggering home, passing her car, oblivious.

Kate had the fears badly now. Every person in the street or shadow that shimmered across the road was the first sign of an imminent attack, foreshadow of a gang, a team of Archies, men over whom she had no pull and no power.

Without her looks and the good regard of every man she met to play on, she was nothing but a sad cokehead, past her prime. For the first time in her life she would have to look after herself.

The social club was a gray concrete box with a red-and-white brewery sign hanging outside like a red cross. Three old men in baggy trousers and dirty suit jackets helped each other along the road and up to the red tenements.

Kate waited until the street was empty before opening the car door and stepping out, daintily fitting the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. The exposed metal heel of her shoe skidded on the wet cobbles and she almost lost her footing but grabbed the car door to steady herself, leaning all her weight on it. Two days ago she would have stopped and checked the door, make sure she hadn’t damaged it by grabbing it like that or pulling at it, but now she didn’t care what happened to the stupid car. It belonged to a different Kate. She leaned into the backseat, lifted out the blue-handled bolt cutters she had found in the boot, shut the door as quietly as she could, and stood to listen.

Beyond the darkness of the railway arch was a waste ground. Jagged muddy hills were punctuated with tufts of grass and beyond that a red tenement, dark windows and a bright light at the close opening.

Somewhere in the far distance a dog yelped in pain and stopped abruptly. Fired by the sound she slipped her shoes off and left them by the car, walking to the end of the arch, keeping close to the wall. The frost on the cobbles numbed her soles but she hardly felt it. She’d tried to have another wee sniff after Archie. God, she needed it, but it stung too much to sniff so she resorted to rubbing it on her gums. It wasn’t as pleasant but it worked: it woke her up a bit and took the edge off.

Bernie’s garage had a sign above it. It was cheaply done and badly hung. No logo, no design consultant or marketing manager, just BERNIE’S MOTORS in black paint, handwritten. It was so simple and plain and like Bernie that she smiled as she walked along the shadows toward it. She’d love to see Bernie now, to sit in the garden in Mount Florida and drink Pimm’s or something delicious, Bucks Fizz, something summery. Normally a thought like that would lift her spirits. Normally she would taste the drink, her skin would warm with the sun and she would feel Bernie nearby, but it wasn’t working tonight. She knew what was real tonight. She felt the weight of the bolt cutters hanging at her side, her bare feet and numb toes on the time-smoothed stones, the cold spittle of rain on her ruined face.

Bernie’s arch had been bricked up with gray breeze blocks and petrified gray mortar oozed like ice cream between wafers. In the center of the high bricked arch were two red metal doors padlocked together with a chain so that they swung a few inches either way but wouldn’t open. She lifted the bolt cutters and fitted them around a hoop of the chain, spinning the screw tightly into place and squeezing the hands together. The metal held out for a moment and then snapped open.

Grinning, Kate pulled the big doors from the handles, opening them just enough to step inside, and pulled them shut behind her.

The darkness was absolute. She had never visited but if she had been blindfolded and shoved in here she would have known Bernie’s scent, the smell of motor oil and builder’s tea. A little frightened of the oily black dark, she felt inside her bag for her lighter and broke into a sweat of sheer relief when she found it.

The ceiling above her was cavernous, a red-and-yellow brick patchwork with shadows flickering over it. A train passed overhead and the arch shuddered like the belly of a brooding animal. Kate hurried over to the wall and flicked the light on.

The strip light hung on two chains, swaying at the memory of the last train. She spotted a sink over in the corner, a plastic framed mirror above it, and hurried across. No plug. She let the tap run-even the water smelled of motor oil-and used a bit of orange towel to wash her face. She took a deep breath and looked in the mirror.

Her nose had flattened at the bridge. A glacial deposit of scarlet and white skin sat on her top lip, dried and hard. She prodded it with a fingertip. Solid. No wonder she couldn’t sniff or breathe out of her nose. She turned sideways and looked at her profile. Flat as a wall. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She’d get a nose job later, when things got ironed out. They could do amazing things now.

She dabbed at the mess with the wet towel and finally picked the huge scab off her lip, leaving the worst of it up her nose to save the raw skin from contact with the air. Finally clean, she gave her customary hopeful little smile but turned away in disgust.

It was a large room. The floor space was quite big. Parked neatly in a row were an old green Jaguar, an MG, and a rust-spotted green Mini Cooper. Cloths and dirty spanners and bits of metal were strewn across the floor. Bernie was a messy little bugger, always had been. Next to her, along the wall from the sink, sat a table encrusted with cup marks and splotches of white paint and receipt books, a pile of brown envelopes for sending out bills, and a filthy, filthy vacuum flask with a tartan pattern on the outside and a thick rim of dried brown tea on the inside. Under the table was a red metal cabinet.

Kate walked around to look at the cabinet from the front. It had long slim drawers for keeping tools and things in, and it was tucked neatly under the table. She walked around to the other side. The table and tool drawer were flanked by a filing cabinet, no taller than the table, blocking the view of the back of the tool cabinet from anyone not standing flush with the sink.

She switched the light off before she opened the doors again and scuttled carefully along to the wall to the car. She opened the boot and lifted the pillow out, carefully keeping the slit uppermost, carrying it like a sleeping child back to the garage and in through the doors.

She sat it on the floor, unpeeled the tape over the slit, and filled up two brown envelopes from the table, sealing them and sitting them upright on the tabletop so that the rim of little white dunes showed through the address window. She pushed as much air out of the pillow as she could, trying not to lose the fine dust, resealed the slit, and folded the empty corners down to make it as small and compact as she could. Then she leaned down by the side of the sink and fitted the pillow behind the tool box.

She stood up and looked at the space critically. Even from the side of the sink she couldn’t really see it. She stepped in front, walked around the side, tried it from the other side of the room. It was invisible.

She loved that little parcel. She could use it to bargain her way out of trouble but didn’t want to hand it over. It was valuable, sure, worth a lot, but he wouldn’t appreciate it the way she did. She needed another chip. And then it occurred to her-Knox. She knew about Knox and she could use this instead. She gasped at her cleverness. Knox would matter much more to him than the pillow. All she had to do was work out how to make the most of what she had.

Excited and buoyed by the thought that she wouldn’t need to hand the pillow back, feeling pretty smart for a party girl in need of a nose job, she scrambled around in the debris on the table and found the keys to the Mini Cooper. It started first time. Good old Bernie. She left the engine running and tiptoed back to the table, fitted the two brown envelopes inside a bigger one to allow for spills. She picked up a stubby pencil from the table and jotted on the top border of an old copy of the Scottish Daily News, “Sorry, Bernie.”

It was a bit feeble. Flaky. She wanted him to know she was different now and knew what she had done. She added, “So, so, sorry.” But it didn’t seem any more sincere. She tried again. “I love you.” She wondered why everything she wrote sounded like last words.

She turned off the lights and opened the doors. She took her bolt cutters and climbed into the Mini, fitting the precious envelope under the seat, and heaved the steering wheel around to drive out of the garage.

Outside she stopped, afraid to turn the engine off in case it didn’t start again, and shut the doors, refitting the padlock so that a casual observer would think it still sealed. She drove down to the BMW and got out and picked up her shoes. She opened the BMW driver’s door wide and put the keys in the ignition, turning on the lights before retreating to the Mini and shutting the door. The arch was in a quiet corner of the city but she knew someone would see it. It would take at most a few hours for someone to help themselves.

The Mini rumbled along the cobbles until she finally reached a proper road. Even then she could feel every lump and bump on the road surface. She headed west, taking the deserted road out to Loch Lomond and the cottage.