Trauma

One

Edinburgh, 14th February,1993

McKirrop could feel the hot soup inside his belly like an island of warmth in the hollowness that lived there. He lingered over the last mouthful of bread as long as he could before getting up slowly and stiffly to his feet. He buttoned up his coat laboriously and started towards the door. It was time to face the cold again. Rules were rules and the rule was that you moved on again as soon as you’d finished eating. The hall was too small for socialising and the queue got longer every week, not that the place itself was overly warm or inviting but at least it afforded some respite from the icy east wind that plagued this city. McKirrop grunted a word of thanks to the Salvation Army girl who stood by the door.

“Take care,” she said as he passed. “See you on Wednesday.”

McKirrop looked at her and then quickly back at the ground in front of him. “How come they all wear thick glasses,” he wondered.

The wind caught his left cheek as he stepped outside on to the wet pavement so he turned to the right. Having nowhere to go afforded him that option. He heard someone call out his name but ignored it until it was shouted again and he heard footsteps come up behind him. It was Flynn. He had seen him in the hall, some way back in the queue, but had pretended not to.

“Where the hell have you been?” asked Flynn. “Everybody’s been asking about you. Bella’s been pining for you.” Flynn punctuated his remark with a burst of bronchitic laughter. He was a full head shorter than McKirrop with an unkempt mane of long greying hair which gave him a wild gypsy look. Both men were bearded and well past being taken for anything other than the down-and-outs they were.

“I’ve been away,” grunted McKirrop.

“You come into money or something?” demanded Flynn.

“Sure. I just choose to dine with the Sally Ann out of personal preference,” replied McKirrop sourly.

Flynn exploded into laughter again. “You’re a card you are,” he said. “I like it when you speak like that.”

McKirrop didn’t reply. He just looked at Flynn distantly as if thinking of something else.

“So you’ll be back down the canal tonight.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re up to something,” accused Flynn, narrowing his eyes.

McKirrop smiled vaguely and shook his head. “Nothing like that,” he said.

“Well it’s your loss if you don’t,” said Flynn, pulling up his collar and shrugging his shoulders up round his ears. “Figgy and Clark have got a bit of geld together. They’re going to get in a few bottles and we’re going to celebrate Bella’s birthday.”

“Bella’s birthday?”

“It’s tomorrow. She’s been telling us for days.”

“How old?”

“Christ, I don’t know!” exclaimed Flynn. “Who cares?”

McKirrop smiled again and Flynn read something into it. “Except you maybe?” he probed.

“Why should I care?”

“Bella fancies you,” leered Flynn. “She’s always asking after you. Maybe it’s mutual? A romance in our midst.”

“Jesus,” muttered McKirrop. “I’d have to be desperate.”

“Well you know what they say,” whispered Flynn conspiratorially. “Any port in a storm!”

“Christ! It would have to be a hurricane for Bella,” exclaimed McKirrop, making Flynn burst into laughter again.

“So what do you say? Are you gonna come down or not?”

“Maybe,” replied McKirrop.

Flynn shrugged. “Please yourself. I don’t suppose you’ve got a swallow on you?”

McKirrop paused for a moment before bringing a half bottle of Bell’s whisky out of his coat pocket. It was two thirds full.

“Jesus! Good stuff!” exclaimed Flynn, grabbing at the bottle and removing the top with his palm wrapped round it rather than his fingers. He took a long gulp before McKirrop grabbed it back from him. “That’s enough,” he growled.

“Drinking Scotch is it?” muttered Flynn suspiciously. “No wonder you’re not bothering with the likes of us any more. Not good enough for you I’m thinking.”

“It’s nothing like that,” said McKirrop. “I did a bit of work for a woman up the Braids way; that’s all.”

“I don’t believe it,” leered Flynn. “You’re up to something.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you believe,” retorted McKirrop with an abrupt change of mood, “So piss off before I brain you!”

Flynn held up his hands in front of him in mock submission. “I’m going, I’m going,” he said. “Just don’t come crawling back when whatever it is falls through.”

“Piss off!” repeated McKirrop with a swipe of his hand.

Flynn dodged the blow and moved away, looking back over his shoulder as he shuffled off. “Tight bastard,” he mumbled before turning back and concentrating on where he was going.

It started to rain again as McKirrop made his way through the dark streets with his hands sunk deep in his coat pockets. It was a double-breasted military great coat, a gift from some charity although he couldn’t remember which. Not that it mattered. God how he hated their smiles, not that that mattered either. What mattered was finding shelter for the night and getting a few drinks inside him. If his fall from grace had taught him anything it was that ‘now’ mattered, not the past, not the future but ‘now’. Every animal in nature seemed to know that except man. Human beings spent their lives wallowing in the past or planning for the future.

McKirrop glanced furtively behind him and saw that he was still alone. Flynn hadn’t followed him. With another glance in both directions he turned in through the iron gates of the cemetery and felt safe. He paused for a moment, feeling comfortably isolated before starting to make his way up to the far end. The cemetery was a large rambling place which had been allowed to become overgrown because of private ownership who saw it as a real estate investment for the future. Many of the paths had succumbed to the ambitions of creeping shrubs and moss and were almost impassable but McKirrop knew his way around well enough. Using outstretched arms he parted the undergrowth where necessary and ducked under low branches until he had arrived at his new ‘home’ as it had been for the past two weeks, a gravedigger’s hut that was no longer in use.

Although parts of the cemetery itself were still used, contract workmen from outside were now brought in to dig and fill graves when required. Rationalisation of labour, if he remembered the term correctly. There was no longer a need to store tools and equipment on the premises. An ill wind for the Council Works Department had brought McKirrop a home.

It was quiet here and the hut was reasonably wind and watertight. His new-found ‘touch’ up in the Braids district had given him the opportunity to provide a few creature comforts. Cleaning out her garage, unused since her husband’s death, had enabled him to acquire during the process a torch, some candles and a butane stove which came as a kit in a tin box complete with spares. She had paid him handsomely into the bargain and there was a promise of regular odd jobs to come. There were also some nice tools in that garage that might need ‘re-locating’ at some time but, for the moment, he would continue to play his role as the honest artisan who had fallen on hard times and allow her to play Mother Theresa or the Good Samaritan or whoever else she saw herself as being. Symbiosis! That was the word he had been trying to remember. He and the woman would continue in symbiosis. That was as far into the future as McKirrop cared to look.

McKirrop twisted the rusty padlock on the door and pulled it off. The tongue was broken but it looked as if it was functional so it had deterrent value and he was careful to replace it when he went out in the morning. He went inside and pulled the door behind him, anxious to be in out of the wind. The inside was cold and damp and smelt of earth and rough sacking but the air was still and that was a blessing in itself. He rummaged under the sacking in the corner and brought out the torch which he switched on while he erected the stove in the middle of the floor and brought it into life. The blue flame and the comforting hiss from the burner made him release a sigh of satisfaction. He glanced up at the single window to check that the sacking screen he had tacked over it was still in place. It was highly unlikely that anyone would come anywhere near here at night, or even in the day time for that matter, but there was no point in taking any chances he didn’t have to.

The hut, small and square, heated up quite quickly. There was no ventilation but that didn’t matter. He liked the smell of the gas. It was suggestive of warmth and, if it helped him sleep, so much the better. The Gas Board were hardly likely to come round and condemn it. McKirrop smiled at the thought and brought out his bottle to take a long drink from it. A drink by the fire in his own home, another thought to make him smile. Home used to be a four bedroom villa not more than ten miles from this place with a Saab at the door and malt whisky in the drinks cabinet but that was a hundred years ago and didn’t bear dwelling on. That was ‘then’ and this was ‘now’ and that’s what mattered. He had warmth, a roof over his head and a bottle in his hand. Everything was just fine. These bastards down by the canal could get maudlin if they liked with their bullshit about past glories but he was doing just fine.

McKirrop was stirred into a groggy state of consciousness about three in the morning, not that he knew the time, just that he had been sound asleep. His arm caught the empty bottle as he struggled to prop himself up and he knocked it across the floor. There were noises coming from outside in the cemetery. The thought that it might be the police cut through the haze inside his head and forced him into alertness. They might be having one of their bloody round-ups. De-lousing, a shower using carbolic soap and back out on the street again. ‘Returned to the community’. He sat still and listened like an animal in the night. He could hear clumsy movement in the nearby bushes and loud whispering. Periodically the noise level would rise and someone would urge silence.

McKirrop got to his knees and pulled back a corner of the sacking on the window a little. He couldn’t see anything in the blackness but heard a voice somewhere say, “Get on with it then.” A few seconds later he caught a glimpse of a torch beam through the trees. It was about twenty-five metres away in the part of the cemetery that was still in use.

Thankful that the intruders were apparently not the police and that they appeared to have no interest in him or his ‘property’, McKirrop relaxed and began to grow curious. He edged open the door a little in an attempt to hear more of what was going on.

He could hear the sound of a shovel being used and it excited him. He had long held the view that the best place for a murderer to dispose of a body would be a cemetery, particularly one like this which nobody cared about. If they — whoever they were — were burying someone it would be as well for him to know about it. There might be something in it for him; a possibility of blackmail perhaps? A reward for information? But maybe it wasn’t a body they were burying; maybe it was the proceeds from a robbery which he would dig up later and make off with. He could almost feel the sun on his back, hear the ice cubes clink in the glass. At the Copa, Copa Cabana... But first he had to find out.

McKirrop edged himself out of the door and crouched down close to the ground as he inched along towards where the sounds were coming from. There seemed to be four of them. He could now see that two were digging while two others held torches. “Get on with it!” snapped one of the torch holders when one of the diggers stopped working. “Maybe we shouldn’t...” began the one who had stopped digging but he was interrupted by the man with the torch who shone the beam directly on his face. “We all agreed and we’ve come this far. Get on with it!”

Both diggers continued and McKirrop could see now that they weren’t burying anything; they were digging something up, or more correctly, someone! They were digging directly in front of a recently erected tombstone!

“Bastards!” muttered McKirrop under his breath. Even to a man outside society in terms of almost everything else, the act of desecrating a grave seemed repulsive. True, the cemetery bore signs of various acts of vandalism, usually paint daubing and broken headstones but he had never known any of them go this far before. He watched, spellbound as the digging continued, the two torch beams lighting a horrific tableau. Suddenly he heard the sound of one of the spades hitting wood and the silence ended.

“We’re there,” announced one of the diggers.

“Pass it up,” said a torch holder squatting down on his haunches.

The two diggers disappeared from view as they both bent down to grip the coffin and lift it up. McKirrop held his breath as he waited for them to bring it up out of the grave. They did so with surprisingly little trouble and McKirrop could see why. It was a small, white coffin, a child’s coffin.

McKirrop felt the bile rise in his throat. This was too much. He shook his head in impotent horror as he watched three of the four get to work on the lid while the fourth held the torch beam on it. With a final splintering sound the lid came off the coffin.

McKirrop watched the proceedings until he could bear it no longer. “Bastards!” he yelled, getting to his feet. “Dirty rotten bastards! Leave the kid alone!” He crashed through the undergrowth towards the light, arms flailing and yelling at the top of his voice, which in reality was little more than a broken yodel.

There was momentary panic among the four before the torch beam was brought round to play on McKirrop and the holder called out to his fleeing companions, “It’s only an old wino!”

As McKirrop reached him, the man with the torch stepped aside smartly and hit McKirrop on the side of his face with the torch. McKirrop crashed to the ground straddling the open coffin. He struggled to get to his feet while the four men re-grouped around him. A kick in the side made him fall to the ground again.

“Look at the old fool,” sneered one of the men above him. “What a state.”

“Rotten bastards,” mumbled McKirrop but his head was aching and he couldn’t think straight.

“Give the interfering old fool a kicking and let’s get out of here,” said one of the men. “Some nosey parker out there might have heard something.”

Feet thudded into the prostrate body of McKirrop as he lay on the ground making him roll ineffectually from side to side in futile attempts to avoid the blows. A particularly vicious blow in the stomach made his wretch up the contents and he could taste whisky flavoured bile in his mouth.

“Wait!” commanded one of the men and the kicking stopped. The man knelt down and brought his face close to McKirrop’s ear. “If anyone should ask you who you saw here tonight. You saw nobody. Understood?”

McKirrop grunted.

“You can’t remember a thing, right?”

Another grunt.

“Or else...” Further kicks rained in on McKirrop’s helpless body and pain was replaced by unconsciousness.

McKirrop opened his eyes and screwed them up against the brightness of the light. He didn’t have to ask anyone where he was. He could smell that he was in a hospital; that unmistakable smell of disinfectant and anaesthetic. There were screens round his bed but he could hear bustle outside them. He ran his right hand over his chest and found that he was heavily bandaged. Moving his legs was painful and there seemed to be a large lump below his jaw on the left side. God! he could do with a drink.

He lay still, staring up at the ceiling and thinking through what had happened at the cemetery. Would he be able to go back there or would the authorities have cleared out the hut and replaced the padlock with one that worked? What rotten luck. It had all been going so well. Now he would have to move back down the canal with Bella and Flynn and the others. Flynn would make it difficult but he could deal with him if need be and Bella would welcome him back. The sooner he got out of this place the sooner he could organise himself and find a drink.

A nurse looked in on him and smiled as she saw that he was awake. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Just fine,” replied McKirrop, his voice a croak with not having spoken for so long.

The nurse held back the screen for a young woman wearing a white coat to enter. Her cuffs were rolled back and she carried a stethoscope round her neck.

“You took quite a beating,” said the new arrival as the nurse left and closed the screens again. “I’m Dr Lasseter.”

McKirrop looked at her and smiled weakly, partly because it was painful to move his mouth and partly because he was thinking how young she looked. Her eyes were bright and honest and her skin smooth and untouched by care. Her blouse was crisp and neat and her dark hair was swept back tidily and gathered at the back. What really struck McKirrop was the fact that she actually looked as if she cared and he found it disconcerting. It was the first time he had felt anything like vulnerable in a long time. So long he couldn’t remember the last time. He didn’t like the feeling; it reminded him of a different sort of life a long time ago, one he thought he had put behind him for good. He had believed himself to be immune from feelings like this.

The Salvation Army girls were honest and meant well of course, but in a different way. It was somehow impersonal with them, sort of, same planet, different world. Their only real point of contact was with a third, unseen party. They didn’t see you as a person in your own right, more as currency in some deal they had going. As for the middle-class do-gooders, they hardly saw you at all. You were just a number to be smiled at and patronised.

“I’ll be all right,” he grunted.

“My boss will be here to see you in a few minutes,” said the doctor.

“Your boss?”

“I’m a junior doctor. Dr Logan will make sure I haven’t missed anything.”

“No need. I’m fine,” said McKirrop, making an effort to prop himself up on one arm. “If you’ll just get me my clothes.”

“Not so fast,” said the doctor, pushing him gently back down again and adding, “A lot of people want to talk to you before you think of going anywhere.”

“What do you mean, a lot of people?”

“The police for a start and then the press. You are front page news.”

McKirrop was alarmed. He suddenly felt himself becoming hemmed in by a society he saw as the enemy. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

“I’ll show you,” said the doctor, as if she had just had an idea. She left his bedside for a few moments before returning with a newspaper. She held it up for McKirrop to see.

SATANIC HORROR IN CITY CEMETERY, said the headline.

McKirrop let his head fall back on the pillow as the young doctor read out the story. In his head he could feel the boots crashing into his body and hear the man’s warning. “You saw nothing, remember?”

“That poor man must be going through hell,” said the doctor.

“What man?” asked McKirrop.

“The child’s father.”

McKirrop screwed up his face. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Mr Main,” said the nurse. “A couple of months ago, he and his family were involved in a car crash. His wife was killed outright but their child was still alive when they brought him into hospital. He was put on a life support system but he had suffered irreversible brain damage. Last month the man had the heartbreak of allowing the machine to be switched off.”

“Poor bastard,” muttered McKirrop.

The doctor looked at him but didn’t pick him up on his language. McKirrop was obviously unaware of having said anything out of place. “And now this,” she continued. She laid the paper on the bed for McKirrop to read for himself. McKirrop felt his pulse quicken as he scanned through the tabloid text.

The paper went on to report details of the car crash which had led to the death of Main’s wife, Mary and their son, Simon. Inside, the paper featured an interview with a church authority on devil worship in which he deplored the spread of the practice and warned that it was much more widespread than people realised. An editorial headed, ‘Our Sick Society’ went on to labour the point and blamed materialistic values for falling standards of behaviour.

“Do you think you will be able to give the police any help?” asked the doctor gently when McKirrop had stopped reading.

McKirrop didn’t reply for a few moments then he said, “I didn’t see anything.”

“But surely you must...” began the doctor.

“I told you! I didn’t see anything,” growled McKirrop.

The house officer didn’t take offence at McKirrop’s sudden change of mood. She simply stood her ground and shrugged. She said, “Well if you didn’t, you didn’t. Now let’s get you ready to receive your visitors.”

McKirrop again felt slightly vulnerable as he felt her hands fuss around him. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he said. The words tasted like acid in his mouth. Apologies were like quadratic equations. It had been a long time since he’d dealt with either.

“I hear a lot worse,” said the doctor.

“What’s your name?”

“Sarah Lasseter, but what’s more important, what’s yours?”

McKirrop looked at her. “Is that really necessary?” he asked.

“ ’Fraid so,” said the doctor. “If you won’t tell us, you’ll have to tell the police. We didn’t find a wallet or credit cards on you...”

McKirrop saw the hint of a smile on her face and managed the semblance of a smile in reply. “McKirrop, John McKirrop. No relatives mind you!” he insisted. “Nobody.”

“As you wish.”

McKirrop was examined by the senior registrar of the Head Trauma Unit who didn’t take too much trouble to hide his distaste for the job and made washing his hands afterwards seem somewhat more than routine. “You’ve had simple concussion. You’ve got three cracked ribs and various bruises but otherwise you’re fine.”

“Does that mean I can go?”

“The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned but the police want to see you, not a novel experience I should imagine.”

The doctor moved off leaving McKirrop to glare after him. “Toffee nosed git,” he snarled as Sarah Lasseter returned.

“Dr Logan is a very good doctor,” said Sarah.

“Doesn’t stop him being a toffee nosed git does it?” retorted McKirrop, surprised at himself for entering into a dialogue.

“I suppose not,” agreed Sarah, surprising McKirrop.

“Are you ready to see the police?”

McKirrop nodded.

Sarah Lasseter took a few steps then turned round. She said to McKirrop, “You will try your best to help, won’t you?”

McKirrop nodded again.

Two policemen arrived to interview McKirrop, an inspector who looked more like a bank manager to McKirrop’s way of thinking — he was small and neat with a clipped moustache and a slight pot belly — and a sergeant who obviously had a streaming cold. The area of skin beneath his nostrils was red raw. Both were hostile from the outset and obviously saw the best approach as being to bully as much out of him as they could. When they failed to get anything using this tactic they became even more aggressive.

“So what the hell were you doing there in the first place anyway?” demanded the sergeant, removing the handkerchief from his face briefly.

“I told you! My room at Holyrood Palace was being decorated at the time so I chose to kip there.”

“Don’t push your luck, McKirrop,” threatened the inspector.

McKirrop didn’t feel threatened at all. He saw the police as his natural enemy. He had long since become immune to anything they could threaten him with. After all, when the worst they could do was lock him up in a warm, dry cell with three meals a day and a roof over his head, they didn’t have a lot going for them. He was much more at ease with police bullying than he was with Sarah Lasseter’s genuine concern.

“You must have seen something!” insisted the sergeant.

McKirrop shook his head. “Didn’t get a chance. They were on to me before I could open my mouth. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“You said ‘they’. How many were there?”

“Hard to say. More than one.”

“Young? Old?”

“It was dark. Couldn’t see.”

“Their voices?”

“They didn’t say anything. Just beat the shit out of me.”

“Maybe you were part of it? Is that it? Were you the look-out man? How much did they pay you to keep your mouth shut?” demanded the inspector, bringing his face down close to McKirrop.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like fuck you don’t. You’re covering up for them, aren’t you? What beats me is why? These bastards dig up the body of a kid. A kid, for God’s sake. And you say nothing! Doesn’t it mean anything to you? Can’t you imagine what agony that causes to the kid’s father?”

“I told you. I didn’t see anything.”

The two policemen looked at each other and shrugged. “Take a look at life again soon,” sneered the inspector. “I don’t know why I’ve stuck this job so long, God help me. I need some fresh air.”

McKirrop remained impassive.

“We could always play our trump card, boss,” said the sergeant.

“All right then, go on.”

The younger man, holding a handkerchief to his face with one hand, took out a half bottle of vodka from his pocket with the other and stood it on the bedside locker so that McKirrop could look at it. McKirrop reached for it but the sergeant stopped him. “First some information.”

McKirrop stared at the bottle. It was a cheap supermarket brand with a Russian-sounding name, but he wanted it. He wanted it badly. He ran his tongue nervously along his top lip and imagined the fire in his throat from the spirit. His mind was in torment. He wanted the liquor but he was afraid of the men. He wouldn’t get off with a kicking next time... On the other hand... Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if he... McKirrop laid his head back on the pillow and said with a sigh, “All right. I’ll tell you.”

The sergeant brought out his notebook and parked himself on a chair at McKirrop’s elbow. The inspector chose to stand at the end of the bed. McKirrop reached for the bottle but was again prevented from doing so again. “Talk first. Party afterwards.”

“There were four of them but I couldn’t see their faces because they had hoods on.”

“Hoods?”

“White sheets, like the Ku-Klux-Klan, with two slits for their eyes and one for their mouths. Except for their leader, that is.”

“What was he wearing?”

“He had on a sort of animal mask, like a sheep or a ram, with horns on it and he was carrying some kind of stick.”

“What kind of stick?”

“Like bishops have.”

“A crook?”

“A crozier,” said McKirrop.

The policeman’s mouth twitched as he looked for signs of mockery on McKirrop’s face. McKirrop remained impassive. Only his eyes betrayed signs of dumb insolence.

“Get on with it.”

“Two of them dug up the kid while the others watched. They stood round the grave and chanted.”

“What did they chant?”

McKirrop shrugged and said, “Don’t know, I’m not a Catholic.”

“You mean it was Latin?”

“Could have been.”

“Ye gods,” sighed the sergeant.

“Then what?” demanded the inspector.

“They opened the coffin and took out the kid’s body.”

“Go on.”

“They laid it out on the lid of the coffin and the leader said some words over it then... he brought out this long knife and...”

“And what?”

“I couldn’t stand it any more,” said McKirrop. “I tried my best to stop them but there were too many and they gave me a right doing.” He paused to finger his ribs tenderly before continuing, “Their leader said that if I told a soul they would come back and cut my heart out.”

“You did the right thing, telling us,” said the inspector quietly. “Did you get all that?” he asked his sergeant.

His colleague nodded, getting to his feet and snapping shut his notebook.

McKirrop reached out for the bottle but the sergeant beat him to it.

“We had a deal!” McKirrop protested.

“Everyone knows it’s against hospital regulations to consume alcohol on the premises.” He put the bottle back into his pocket.

“You rotten bastards. I told you everything! I’ve put my life at risk!”

The sergeant shrugged.

“Bunch of bastards,” mumbled McKirrop.

The sergeant looked questioningly at the inspector who nodded in reply. He removed the bottle from his pocket and poured some liquor out into the glass by McKirrop’s bedside. McKirrop gulped it down greedily and the policemen turned to leave. As they reached the door the inspector turned round and said, “About that hut, McKirrop — we’ve had the authorities put a new padlock on...”

Sarah Lasseter came in a few minutes later. She seemed pleased. “I hear that you gave the police a great deal of help,” she said. “I’m glad. The sooner they catch these people the better.”

McKirrop looked at her briefly before diverting his eyes. “Can I go now?” he asked.

“If you insist. I don’t think we can stop you.”

“Let’s be honest. No one would want to stop me. If I was the Queen Mother, they’d be tying me down to the bed with gold chains but John McKirrop? Get that old bastard out of here. He makes the place look untidy. Right?”

“Something like that,” agreed Sarah. She met McKirrop’s gaze without flinching. It was he who broke off eye contact, feeling suddenly uneasy again. Sarah left and came back with his bundle of clothes and a piece of paper. “You’ll have to sign this,” she said.

“What is it?”

“It’s a form to say that you are signing yourself out. It absolves us from blame if anything should happen to you because of your injuries.”

McKirrop signed the paper quickly and handed it back. “Te absolvo, te absolvo,” he said with a sigh.

“Thank you, Father,” Sarah smiled.

“You’re a Catholic?”

“Yes, but I overheard you tell the police that you weren’t?”

McKirrop shrugged but did not say anything.

“I’ll come back when you’re dressed.”

McKirrop was ready for the road again. He’d just fastened up the top button on his coat when Sarah Lasseter came back. She said, “I know it’s not very much but I hope it will buy you something to eat later on.”

She held out her hand. There was a ten pound note in it. McKirrop looked at her as if this was the last thing in the world he expected because it was. “That’s very good of you,” he said, annoyed at the embarrassment he felt. He took the money and pushed it in to his pocket.

“Good luck,” said Sarah, stepping back to allow him to pass.

McKirrop grunted and then paused uncertainly.

“Forget something?” asked Sarah.

McKirrop hesitated and then said, “About what you said...”

“Yes?”

“About the kid’s father feeling bad...”

“What about it?”

“Nothing,” said McKirrop as an internal wrestling match came to an end. The values of an old life had almost triumphed over the present, but not quite. He turned and left.