The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 8

Chris Takes the Bus Denise Mina

They stood outside the plate glass window at the bus station, because inside was so bright and cheerful, so full of happy milling people, that neither could bear it.

The cold was channelled here, into a snaking stream that lapped at their ankles, a bitter snapping cold that chilled them both. His eyes were fixed on the ground and she could feel him shrinking, sinking into the concrete.

“Jees-ho!” She shivered theatrically, trying to bring his attention back to her.

Chris looked at her and pulled the zip up at his neck, making a defiant face that said, see? I can look after myself, I know to do my coat up against the cold. They were huddled in their coats, shoulders up at their ears, each alone.

He tried to smile at her but she glanced down at the bag on the floor because his eyes were so hard to look into. The backlit adverts tinged the ground an icy pink and she saw that Chris had put the heel of his bag in a puddle.

“Bag’s getting soggy,” she smiled nervously, keeping her eyes averted.

He looked at it, dismayed at yet another fuck-up, and then shrugged, shaking his head a little, as if trying to shake off the concern she must be feeling. “Dry out on the bus.”

She nodded, “Yeah, it’ll get hot in there.”

“Phew,” he looked away down the concrete fairway. “Last time I only had a T-shirt and jeans on and I was sweating like a menopausal woman.”

His turn of phrase made her mouth twitch.

“When I got off I had salt rings under my arms.”

She tutted disbelievingly.

“True,” he insisted. “I stood still at King’s Cross and a couple of deer came up and licked me.”

She smirked away from him, felt her eyes brimming up at the same time and frowned to cover it up.

“One of them offered me a tenner for a gobble, actually.”

She was crying and laughing at the same time, spluttering ridiculously, the pink glow from the adverts glinting off her wet cheeks. His whole fucking venture depended on a lie and she wasn’t a good liar.

“So,” she wiped her face and turned back to him, “so when you get there you’re off to—”

“My Auntie Margie’s, yeah.” He had done her the courtesy of looking away, giving her the chance to get it together before he looked back. “Yeah, she’ll be waiting in for me, got my room ready.”

“D’you get on with her?”

Chris shrugged, “She’s my auntie...”

He tipped gently forward on his heels, leaning out into the brutal wind beyond the shelter. A coach pulled past the mouth of the bus station, slowly, dim yellow lights behind the shaded windows. They both saw the rabbit-ear side mirrors. It was a luxury coach, luxury in as much as coaches ever could be. Full of fat tourists coming to see the Castle and the Mile, the pantomime of the city. Not the London Bus, not Chris’s bus.

He stepped back and they watched the bus pass, heads swinging around in unison like a pair of kittens watching a ball swing in front of them.

“I’ll not get that one,” he said, joking that he had a choice. “I’ll just wait for the shit bus and get that one.”

“Yeah,” she said cheerfully, and looking up saw him flinch, arcing his head back as his neck stiffened. He was still bleeding, she knew, had asked her if it was showing through the seat of his jeans, made her look. It wasn’t showing. She’d given him a fanny pad to put down there and he joked about having a period. She didn’t know who’d raped him, but it was someone they both knew, or else he wouldn’t be leaving. He confided in her because she was mousey, would give him the money for the ticket without asking too much detail, wouldn’t make him go to the police.

It came suddenly, a hot molten gush of dread from the base of her gut, rolling up her chest until it bubbled and burst out of her mouth: “Don’t go.” Her voice was flat and loud, ridiculous, a voice from the middle of a heated argument.

Chris looked at her, eyebrows tented pitifully. “I have tae...”

She nodded, looked away.

“I have,” he whispered. “Have to. You’ll come and visit me.”

“Of course. Of course, and we’ll phone all the time.”

“Yeah, phone. We’ll phone.”

As a coach slowly eased its way around the sharp turn into the St Andrew Bus Station, the destination lit up brightly above the windscreen.

The passengers who had waited inside, in the warm, filtered out behind them, talking excitedly, swinging bags, forming a messy queue.

Conscious of the company, Chris shifted his weight, brushing her shoulder lightly, shifting away. She felt the loss quite suddenly, a wrench, another cherished friend swallowed by the promise of London, loading the coach boot with bags stuffed with the offal of their own history.