Gods and Beasts, page 26
She sat at her desk in her quiet office and listened to the scurry outside, heard whispered conversations and exclamations as the word about Harris spread through the division.
27
Jill Bowman got Pete McIlroy to drop her in the town. He had wanted to pick her up at her house and drop her back but she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know where she lived, exactly. Jill didn’t like Pete. He’d tricked her into going into the office today: he said she should come and help Kenny, talk to Kenny. Then he wouldn’t even let her speak, just barked at Kenny that he was hurting Jill. It wasn’t for Pete to do that, stand up for her. She could stand up for herself.
So she got him to drop her at traffic lights in town so that their goodbye was quick. She didn’t want Pete near her house. Then she spent two hours wandering around the Christmas shops. She had used all the Christmas money from her dad already but she knew her aunties would give her cash as a present and lost herself in Zara, trying on things that might end up in the sale, sequined minidresses she could wear as a top over trousers, trying on boots. When her legs got tired and she ran out of patience with the crowds she caught the bus home, sitting at a window on the top deck, watching all the poor people outside plowing their way through the blinding rainstorm. She was lucky because the bus stopped just outside her house. She didn’t even have to cross the road.
She ran though, the fifty yards to the door, because the rain was coming down so heavy and it was so cold. Her fingers were numb as she worked the key into the lock.
A fug of cigarette smoke hit her nose as she opened the door. Her dad was in.
“Dad?”
“Aye. Here.” He was sitting in his “office,” a space under the stairs, surfing the internet for the real story behind major world events, none of them current. The assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, 9/11, AIDS, Nigerian oil workers, anything irrelevant to his own life commanded his obsessive attention. He distrusted everything but the internet.
She walked over to him. “What ye looking at?”
“Just some stuff about the riots. I’m going out for fags, want anything?”
Jill thought her way through the petrol station shelves. “Nah.” What she really wanted was a cup of tea and her jim-jams on and a watch at some shite on the telly.
“OK.” He stood up, his eyes still on the screen. “Don’t touch that because it takes me to a link I want.” He looked at her. “Where were you today?”
“Just in the town.”
“With Shelly?”
“Aye, with Shelly.”
“Righto.” He pulled on his coat and a heavy woolly hat. “Not be long.” He slammed the door behind him.
Jill took off her jacket and hung it on a hanger so it would dry in the right shape. She sat on the bottom step and pulled off her silver high heels. She’d worn them because she knew she was going to see Kenny but he hadn’t even looked at her, not properly. She remembered when he did look at her properly. She remembered when he couldn’t stop looking at her, touching her. She remembered the thrill of that first time, when he came to her room in Inverness and said he’d never met anyone like her and did she feel it too and she felt faint that he’d noticed her, him, Kenny Gallagher.
As they lay on the bed, him devouring her, kissing her, loving her without even taking his trousers off properly because he was in such a hurry, she felt so special, so extraordinary, because she’d seen pictures of his wife, she knew she was gorgeous and yet he was with Jill. She was even better than his wife.
She was thinking about Annie Gallagher when the doorbell rang, making her jump. Her dad would have his key. He wouldn’t ring, not unless he knew she was still just inside the door. Jill stood still, looking at the door, waiting for another clue. The bell rang again, followed immediately by an urgent rap on the door. Not her dad. A journalist. They had found her address. Or worse, it was Pete.
Cringing, she tiptoed over to the door and heard a sing-song voice, a man: “I know you’re in there!”
He said it as if it was a joke and he was a friend but she didn’t know the voice. Not Pete.
She looked out through the peephole. A young guy, quite handsome, she didn’t know him. He wore jeans and a green jacket, quite cool and had a bag, the strap slung across his chest, a brass buckle on it. It was raining but he didn’t look that wet. He’d been in a car. He looked back at her through the peephole and smiled softly. “Gonnae open the door? It’s battering down out here.”
“Are you a journalist?”
“No.”
Jill dropped back onto her heels. “Who are you then?”
“God, honestly, I’m about as far from a journalist as you can get.”
He was good-looking, about her age and he wasn’t a journalist.
Jill brushed her hair off her face, pulled her top straight and her jeans up before she opened the front door, just a bit, and peeped out. “Who are you then?”
He looked her up and down, seemed to like what he saw because a broad, warm smile broke out over his face. He looked so handsome that it took her a moment to notice the other man swinging around from the right. He’d been standing flush to the outside wall and this was a different kind of man: scruffy, sunken cheeks and eyes, a snarling man. He stuck his foot in the space at the open door as if he was stamping on a spider.
Jill glanced back at the handsome man and his knee was raised to his chest, like a dance.
The foot flew forward, the sole of it kicked the flat of the door, smashing it open, throwing her back into the hallway, ripping her top at the shoulder. Blood on her shoulder, actually running down her arm, and she shouted, “For fuck’s sake!” at them and “You’ve cut my fucking arm!”
As if they couldn’t even hear her the men walked casually into the hall and Jill held her arm and realized that this was a different order of things. They didn’t care that they had cut her or ripped her top.
They looked around, the scruffy one bent backwards as he looked into all the rooms, making sure no one else was there.
“Get out,” she said weakly. “You can’t…”
The scruffy one, the nasty-looking one, looked at her then and licked the side of his mouth. Behind them a key scratched at the lock and Jill shouted for him. “Dad!” she screamed, “Help me!”
The handsome man turned swiftly, twisted the lock and yanked the door open revealing her father on the step, holding his little front door key like a tiny gun. “Who’s—”
“They’ve broke in,” Jill shouted. “Dad!’
Her dad looked to the men for an explanation but the scruffy one reached up, knocked her dad’s woolly hat off his head and grabbed a fist full of his hair, pulling down, making her dad double over as he was dragged into the hallway and the handsome one slammed the door shut.
The scruffy man swung her dad around in a circle, pulled and pulled, faster and faster, smiling, letting off a little squeal at one point, making her dad stumble over his own feet. Then the scruffy man’s face fell straight, as if he had lost interest in the game and he slammed her dad, crown first, into the wall by the living room. Her father slid down the wall.
The scruffy man leaned over him and shouted, “He’s,” spit flecked on her father’s face, “wanting to talk to his girlfriend. You gonnae fucking shut up?”
She watched as her father curled up tight, eyes clenched, knees contracting to his chest as the scruffy man shouted, “’Cause it’s none-of-your-fucking-business.”
“Dad,” shouted Jill, sobbing now. “That’s not my boyfriend.”
But she didn’t know if her father could hear her because he didn’t open his eyes.
“Well.” The scruffy man had dropped his voice. “Mibbi he will be in a minute.”
Her dad kept his eyes shut but tried to move then still clutching his head, pushing himself up the wall. They watched him for a minute, his long legs scrabbling against the carpet, like a foal trying to stand for the first time. Then the scruffy man raised his hand slow and slammed a fist down on his crown again. Jill’s dad dropped heavily onto his side. He didn’t move.
“Dad!”
The handsome one put his hand on Jill’s shoulder, spun her round to face the stairs and shoved her, making her walk up them, punching her on the back when she stumbled.
Jill turned on the half landing, saw her father’s feet twitching. She heard a cough, wet, a rattle.
He punched her to her bedroom door and she stood, trembling, the pink sign Jill’s Room blurred by tears. Jill knew that she should not go in there but a thump on her back made her lurch heavy, slump against the door and he opened it so that she fell into the dark, on to the floor.
Jill Bowman was a messy person. She didn’t open the curtains in her bedroom because the neighbors across the road could see in. It was always twilight in there.
He kicked her soles, getting her feet out of the way, as if she was a bag blocking an aisle, and shut the door behind them.
He flicked on the light. “Sit,” he said, looking at the messy bed.
Jill scrambled up to her feet. She looked at her books, at her desk with her college work open on it, at her bag by the chair. She looked at the photos on her wall, her in Madrid with the school, her in fancy dress, her in Inverness, and she began to cry, hands limp at her sides. She had no idea what to do.
“Fucking…” Exasperated, he punched her on the side of the head, a sharp hard blow, and she twisted as she fell face first onto the bed, her own little bed, bouncing on her face, still crying, her mouth frozen open.
Twisting around to free her mouth she looked up at him. He was a different person from down here. He looked furious, disgusted and bared his teeth.
“Why do you make me do this to you?”
He waited for an answer. Jill didn’t know what he was talking about and she couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make it worse. She was crying, panting and he looked terrifying. She shut her eyes then, felt the bed bounce beneath her as he dropped a heavy knee next to her hip. She smelled crisps, cheese and onion crisps, on his breath. He leaned in and whined low, “You do it, when ye know what I’ll do?”
She was glad she couldn’t see him. He jabbed a punch into her back, on the kidney, and she arched reflexively but it wasn’t that sore. As if correcting his mistake he punched her in the same place with the knuckle of his middle finger sticking out and a web of pain made her back spasm into a sharp arc. Then he went for her stomach. Not a punch, worse than a punch: his hands grabbed the waistband of her jeans and he climbed off the bed, trying to yank them down, the other hand grabbing her knickers and pulling at them too. But Jill stayed on her side, scissoring her legs until she felt the weight of him shift back off the bed. He was over her, holding her jeans front and back and pulled them off until they were dangling from her ankles.
Then his mouth was by her ear, sour cheese, his hand was on her thigh and he slapped and punched her legs open and shoved his fingers into her.
“See: this is what happens to bitches that fucking clipe.” He shoved his hand hard into her again. “Say Kenny Gallagher never touched ye or I’ll come back and I’ll cut the cunt out of ye.”
Her eyes were open now. They were wide open, staring at the wall, taking in everything in her peripheral vision. He got off her, stood up, wiped his finger clean on the leg of her dangling jeans and adjusted the strap on his messenger bag.
“See, hen? This is what happens when ye play with big boys. Big boys play big-boy games. Not nice, is it?”
Jill kept staring at the wall, at the pink wall, as the bedroom door opened. A green smudge left the room.
She heard the sound of her dad groaning very far away. Then the front door opened. Then it shut. And then they were gone.
28
Hot rain, a damp wind blowing in off the Mediterranean and the effort of climbing the deceptively steep hills around Puerto Andratx made Morrow sweat deep into her coat. The holiday town seemed deserted in the pause between Christmas and New Year, or maybe the locals knew better than to try and walk around at lunchtime. McCarthy, walking next to her, seemed to find it exhilarating, smiling and panting as they took the steep road, reading the numbers on the walls shoring small houses up on the hillside for a peek at the sea.
They found themselves beyond the Lyons’ house number, doubled back, checked their notes before finding a small break that led to a tall narrow alleyway around the back of one of the bigger houses. The ground was worn bare through the dark green undergrowth, the chalky soil beneath damp and gray.
Morrow, uncertain, kept her wits about her, watching the end of the alley for clues, aware that McCarthy was behind her and had her back.
At the end, the space opened up to reveal a modest house, more of a shack than a home. It was squat and shuttered, painted faded-rose plaster with a sloping shingle roof and a plain chimney. To the side of the yard, against a wall, stood a big blue sign “Se Vende.”
Hot and angry, thinking about Harris, Morrow hurried along the uneven paving to the splintered green front door and knocked hard.
They could hear a radio inside, pop music, bouncing off the low stone rooms and a woman shouting in the high, dissonant voice mothers use to be heard over traffic.
Rita opened the door. “Oh, you didn’t walk, did you?”
McCarthy answered, “The taxi driver dropped us down the hill, he couldn’t find the address.”
But Rita wasn’t listening, she was reading Morrow’s face. “You better come in.”
Rita, Morrow and McCarthy sat on a stone bench under the lemon trees in the small garden, the scent of the lemon flowers sweet and pungent when the light breeze shook the tree. Rosie, looking happy and content, brought them out a big bottle of 7Up, three plastic beakers and a bag of salty crisps on a tray.
Morrow and McCarthy wore heavy, dark clothes, thick material, completely wrong for the climate. Rita wore sandals and a loose dress with a green print.
She apologized for leaving Scotland without informing the police. They had to get out, she said, it wasn’t safe.
“What makes you sure you’re any safer here?” asked Morrow, wondering at the tinge of spite in her own voice.
Rita waved a hand dismissively. “These are not international people,” she said. “They want us out of the way, so we’re out of the way. They could find us but why bother? It’s a different matter if we’re just down the hill.”
Morrow asked her what she really wanted to know: “How did you get the money to buy this place?”
“Martin Pavel gave it to us.”
“He just gave it to you?”
“He sent us ahead on a private plane. Rosie said we need to get out of here and within two hours we were in the air.”
“He sent you ‘ahead’?”
“He’s moved in over there.” She pointed vaguely up the hill.
“Martin Pavel’s here too?”
“Yes.” Rita blinked disapprovingly. “He’s not my sort of person at all but…”
“Oh, are Rosie and he…?”
“No.” Rita looked hard at Morrow and gave a hopeless little shrug. “Not even that. Who the hell knows? He’s doing our gardening.” She took a crisp and ate it indignantly. “He’s building a vegetable garden.”
“Are they just pals then?”
She shrugged and chewed. “Who the hell knows. I hate young people. They confuse me.”
Morrow looked up the hill. Villas jostled with each other for a view of the sea. None of them looked very fancy.
“Rita, you lied to me about Brendan’s job.”
“I did.” Rita lifted the bottle of 7Up and poured them each a glass. “We don’t trust the police. We’ve been to the police about all of this and nothing happened.”
“I understand that,” said Morrow.
Rita poured and looked up at her. “Are you going to explain to me how that happened?”
Morrow watched the bubbles pop on the surface. She didn’t know what to say. People I trusted were lying shits. “It’s part of an ongoing investigation—”
“Into what?”
She wanted Morrow to say “police corruption.”
“The operation of various gangs in Glasgow and the outlying areas…”
“Bribes,” said Rita, mocking.
Morrow looked at Rita’s smug face and recalled the sickening crunch in her elbow. “OK, Rita, we’re here two days before New Year to try and find out what actually happened to your husband.”
“In Mallorca with your work. How awful for you.”
“Well, it is awful for me. I had twin boys four months ago and I want to be at home. But I’m not home. I got up at three thirty this morning to come here because I don’t want it to happen to anyone else. Will you help me?”
Rita held Morrow’s eye as she lifted her lemonade to her mouth, her tongue darting out to meet the edge of the plastic cup and guide it in. She drank and put the cup down on the tray. “Well,” she said, enjoying the power differential between them, “You’ll have to tell me what you don’t know—”
“Greenock.”
Rita took her cigarette holder out of her pocket, broke it apart and put in a fresh plastic filter. Then she took out a cigarette and fitted it to the end and lit it. “Brendan was taken to Greenock.”
“The gunman came from Greenock.”
Rita nodded. “I heard that.”
“Tell me what happened in Greenock.”
Rita drew hard on her cigarette. “Bren went to work.” She got lost in the memory for a while, and brought herself back. “He went to work, arrived at the taxi rank, at the back. Two guys got in. Bren said to them, “No, sorry, you have to go to the front cab” but then he looked back and they had a big gun. They said we’re from the McGregors, drive us to Greenock. The boss wants to talk to you. So he drove them to Greenock. You’ve heard of the McGregors? They’re never out of the papers.”
“I’ve heard about them. Whereabouts in Greenock did they get Brendan to drive them to?”
