Truth Dare kill

FIVE

Marsh Street paraded its usual collection of street artists. A man in a doorway sleeping it off, his empty bottle by his side. A publican with his braces round his knees and a fag stuck to his lip opening up to let out the fetid air. A pair of spivs with darting eyes, oiling each other’s business with cash and information. And a couple of big women tottering along in party frocks and last night’s make-up, clinging to each other for dear life. If one fell, they’d both go, and would probably die there on their backs, limbs flailing uselessly like upturned turtles.

I looked for number 43. It was three stories high and had a block of six bells each with a name on it, except for the top one. There was just a blank where I guess Jasmine’s nom-de-guerre had been. I walked in and began to climb the stairs. I had no idea what I would do at the top. I had no idea what I was doing here in the first place. The stairs had a rough carpet for the first three flights and then bare boards the rest of the way. They creaked and groaned as I made my way.

It had been four days since they’d found her. Jasmine. Probably christened Jean.

Wee Jeanie. Jeanie with the light brown hair. Somebody’s daughter. The door was closed. I knocked and got no answer. I turned the handle and it opened. I stepped inside. There was a short hall. A bathroom to the left and ahead a bedsit area. They’d cleared everything, bedding, carpet – I could see the tidemark of dirt where it had lain – and all the drawers were hanging open, empty. A mattress stood against the wall. There were two huge brown stains on it, one where a head might lie and the other in the middle.

I’d seen a few murders in Glasgow. Though each was different in detail and context, I’d begun to find a dreadful familiarity. Same here. On the surface this was just a sad, empty room with dirty windows and red net curtains.

Jasmine/Jean had left no mark on the world except the headlines in the papers for a few days. But as I stood there, absorbing impressions, picturing where he stood and where she lay, my imagination detected a spoor, an afterimage hanging in the air. An aura of violence and death.

They share a cigarette while she tells him how much it costs. He puts the money on the dresser. He takes off his coat and then his jacket. It’s going to be warm work; warmer than she knows. She stubs her fag.

She sheds her floral dressing gown and her pants and bra. She lays herself back on the bed and offers herself. He unzips and tells her to turn over on to her stomach. She smiles and tells him he’s naughty. Maybe he smacks her bum a little, to see the flesh colour and tremble under his stinging hand. She is being paid to be used so there are no screams at first, just the thought that the client is being a bit rough, something he’d have to pay more for.

There’s a pause and she hears him move to his coat. She turns her head and sees the knife and knows this is way beyond naughtiness. He shoves her face into the mattress to stifle her screams. He squats on her back, feeling for the spot on her neck where the skull starts, and drives the weapon up and into her brain. He mounts her as her body spasms. He…

“And just what the hell are you doing here, McRae?”

I whirled round, feeling my guts flip. His bulk filled the door. I hadn’t heard his big feet.

“I’m waiting.”

Wilson was indeed waiting. I was in the flat of a murdered prostitute on New Year ’s Day, and here was an inspector of police asking me what I was doing here. It was a fair question. I didn’t have a fair answer. So I tried the truth.

“I was just curious, Inspector. I was out for a walk and found myself wondering what happened here. The old law enforcer in me, eh?” I tried to smile in camaraderie. He’d understand, policeman to policeman.

“I warned you. I fucking warned you not to get in my way. And here you are. In – my – fucking – way!” His moustache quivered with the violence of his last words.

“I’ll get out of your way. Right now, if you’ll excuse me?” I made to go round his bulk but he blocked out the entire doorway and much of the room. I could smell tobacco and stale drink on him, and old cloth. I didn’t expect the punch.

It caught me full in the mouth and I went backwards on to the floor. My hat rolled away from me and I tasted iron. I wondered if he’d ever had an exchange posting with Glasgow; this was their style. I clambered to my feet, my fists clenched ready to have a go at the evil bastard. He was smiling.

“Come on, Jock. Take a swing. And it’ll be the last thing you do before you hit the floor of my nick. Assaulting a police officer. Disturbing the scene of a murder. Obstructing justice. And anything else I can think of. Come on. Here it is.” He stuck his fat jaw out and pointed at it.

I stood wiping the blood from my mouth, swaying with anger. He knew he had me. I picked up my hat and straightened my clothes.

“My mistake, Inspector.” I could already feel my lip thickening.

His smile dropped. “Your second. The first was setting up on my patch. Now beat it, Jock. Before I really lose my temper. It’s just as well I’m still full of new year spirit, or I might have taken you in as a suspect.”

I looked at him blankly. He continued. “I still don’t have a proper answer to what you’re doing here. That makes me wonder. And when I wonder, I start delving. Do you want me to do some delving on you, sonny Jim?”

It sounded rhetorical; my wants were irrelevant to Wilson. “Can I go now, Inspector?”

He stood aside slowly and I sidled past him, feeling his malodorous breath on me and waiting for a second blow. It didn’t come, and I escaped down the stairs and into the outside air, angry at Wilson and angrier at myself. What a shitty start to the new year. You lose the girl and get beat up by the police. What next?

Next, my head began to hurt, displaying all the early signs of one of my episodes. Wilson’s punch had set something off. It was getting dark by the time I got home, and my neck was rigid with the pain that flowed from behind my eyes, back along my skull and into the top of my spine. I’ve seen iron hoops with screws in them that the Inquisition used to encourage heretics. I wore mine inside my head and wondered what I’d done wrong and who was tightening the screw.

Light from my office pooled down the stairs as I slowly climbed, gripping the banister like a blind man. A visitor, or maybe my eyes; they’re usually the second sign. Everything goes bright and then pitch dark. I slowed and tried to walk quietly on my toes. Friend or foe, or maybe old Mrs White from downstairs.

She does my laundry but wouldn’t leave the light on. She hates extravagance.

I stood swaying at the doorway and saw there was no one in my office, but the door to my bedroom was open. There was no light on, but a fire threw guttering shadows against the wall. I slid softly over to the door and pushed it wide.

She was sitting on my bed. There were few alternatives; it was that or the sagging old armchair that the landlord should have burned to curb the fleas.

She’d made the fire. The room was warm and welcoming.

“Hello. You’re back, then?” I said stating the glaringly obvious, and feeling stupidly pleased to see her.

Val smiled. “Am I welcome?”

“Seems you’ve made yourself welcome.” I nodded at the fire. A couple of briquettes were half-eaten.

“Do you mind?” She frowned.

I shook my head, then clutched it as the pain ripped through the base of my skull. I took a deep breath. “Depends how long you stay and why you’re here.”

I wasn’t going to give in so easily to a woman’s warmth. There were things I hadn’t noticed last night: her hair wasn’t just black, it had chestnut depths; her eyelashes were the longest I’d seen; and though she was as skinny as a ferret, she had nice legs. I didn’t want her to vanish again.

“I’m here, now. Isn’t that enough?” She should have known it was enough. Women usually have a true sense of their worth to men. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Head. Got a bit of a headache.” I could hear the words slurring.

“Any aspirin?”

“They don’t work. Not on these.”

I struggled off my coat and tried to hang it up behind the door. It fell in a heap, like I would any second. My words sounded a long way off. “Want some tea?

Don’t have much food. Couple of sausages, maybe. Wasn’t expecting company.”

“Tea’s smashing. I don’t want to eat all your rations.”

I fumbled in the little shelf above my two ring stove and found the little package. “Three. One and a half links each. Let’s shove them on. There’s some bread. Brown sauce too.”

I smiled as encouragingly as my head would let me and she got up. I took my jacket and tie off and wrestled with the collar stud until I wrenched it off and dropped it on the chest of drawers. We found the dripping and dropped the bangers in the pan. The rich smell of hot fat quickly filled the little room.

There are few finer sounds than sausages sizzling. I lit two fags and gave her one.

“Ta. What happened?” She pointed at my lip.

“Ran into a fat policeman.”

I brewed the tea and filled two mugs. “Milk? Sugar?” I asked. She gave Churchill’s salute.

We sat there on the bed, supping like a couple of old marrieds, not speaking, just enjoying the sight of each other and the sounds from the frying pan.

Despite my head, and for the first time in a long time, I felt a bit of hope gather. I even felt the black weight lift a little from behind my eyes and wondered if she was some magic talisman against the pain that would normally have begun to incapacitate me.

The bread was a bit stale so we put four slices under the grill. Made two rounds each out of the toast and sausages. Made a bit of a mess with the marge, and the sauce ran down our fingers. Didn’t mind licking it off. Not something I could have done with Kate Graveney. Those white gloves. Not sure I’d want to. The pain was steady now, but bearable. The food helped. Sometimes it does, sometimes it just makes me throw up.

I said between bites, “You should have stayed. This morning I mean.”

She cocked her head to one side, like a budgie. “I shouldn’t have stayed last night. Give you the wrong idea ‘bout me. I’m not that sort. I was cold and a bit fed up. And I’m not used to whisky. God, my head! As bad as yours now, I expect.”

I doubted that.

She looked down. “Look… I needed a pal. Can we be pals? Nothing else – for a bit anyhow. See how it goes? There was a bloke. Bit of a mess. You know.”

I needed a pal too. Needed more than that, but given what I had until yesterday, this was a step up. Was the other bloke still around somewhere? “Fine by me.” Was it? At least she hadn’t closed out other options.

She brightened. “I just want to come and go. As I fancy. Is that all right?”

Shades of Sandra again? Well, I’d learnt; I wasn’t going to get jealous this time. I’d take Val for what she was and what she offered. Friendship and sausages.

“Help yourself, Val.” Then something struck me. “Look, if we’re going to be pals, you’d better know a wee bit more about this.” I indicated the scar.

“Does it hurt?” She reached out. I let her. Her finger was like a mother’s touch.

“Not the scar. Underneath. I was in France. Got caught. They gave me a right belting. The doctors here found a bit of my skull was pushing against the brain.

I can’t remember much since May ’44, and I still have blackouts. I can feel one beginning now. Starts with a headache, then the vision goes… it’s a bit like a migraine, only worse. So don’t be scared if you pop in and find me, you know, lying down…”

She was nodding in sympathy. I could see the curve of her breast every time her arm moved. I felt something well up in me. Not sex. Deeper than that. I had to blink and rub my eyes. A woman’s finger had more power than Wilson’s fist.

“Next time, when I come again, you can tell me all about it. You’re tired. Have a sleep.”

I lay back as I was told. I was wrong about the pain; it wasn’t going away. I felt the now familiar slide begin. The pressure behind my eyes was building up like water trapped in a hose. I wanted to be sick but knew I wouldn’t. That would come when I woke. The panic rose in me as I began to lose all control. I couldn’t stop myself falling over the edge. Vertigo overwhelmed me.

I woke a long while later, alone on the bed, and cold, even though I was wrapped in the quilt. It was daylight. I was in my pyjamas. The fire was out and had been cleared up. New kindling and rolled up newspapers sat under fragments of half-burned briquettes, ready to be lit. Just the way I liked. My head felt like it had been ripped open above my temple. I made it to the sink before I threw up. I felt helpless, like a rag doll, hanging over the bowl.

Slowly I dragged myself back up out of the hole. I looked round. Two plates washed and neatly stacked on the draining board alongside two mugs. How had I got into my pyjamas? That must have been a treat for her. I had a pal. Which was all the relationship I could handle at the moment.

I walked over to the bed and sat down, before my legs gave way. I slumped over into my hands waiting for the kettle to boil. I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was light outside and the clock read 11.30. I assumed it was the morning of the second of January, but I’ve been known to miss a complete twenty-four hours.

On the bedside table was the notebook I kept during my episodes. Sometimes I write in it, trying to talk to my future self, my “normal” self, to give me some clues about what I’d been doing and saying and thinking during my fugue – as Doc Thompson would say. It was always a bad moment. I picked up the notebook – a school jotter – and found my pencil wedged at a point half way in. A new entry.

The kettle whistled and I levered myself up and over to make the tea. I didn’t want to look at what my alter ego had written.

I slunged some cold water on my face, dried it and took a sip of my tea. I felt life slowly creep into my bones. I settled back on my bed and opened the jotter.