And When I Die Read online

  Not for the reasons you might think. The beating is urgent. Insistent. Hateful. I want to run to him and scream and punch and kick and spit. But all I can do is stand still.

  No choice in the matter. If I even try, I’ll collapse. Already, my legs are disconnected from the rest of my body. I want to float away from all of this. All that’s keeping me here is the cold stone of the Scobie mausoleum and the damp creeping under my clothes, sparking sensations in my skin. Tiny shocks that keep me conscious.

  Tony and John get close, but not too close.

  Everyone keeping their distance. Tony showing that his hands are empty. John hanging back, still acting like he doesn’t really know what’s going on.

  Just some guy, you know? Aye, right. What does he imagine will happen when I discover the truth?

  A few years back, the papers exposed a cop after years of working undercover with environmental activists. Published story after story about how everyone who knew him was betrayed when his superiors finally pulled him from the operation. How could they not feel betrayed? They’d allowed him into their circle. Let him form relationships. Not just friendships or casual acquaintances: he’d allowed people to fall in love with him.

  How had they felt? His lovers? How badly were they betrayed?

  Maybe I was beginning to understand. Maybe that’s what’s keeping me on my feet. Same way that Ray kept standing because he felt his principles had been betrayed by his brother and his father, I was standing because of my hate for John.

  There’s part of me that’s surprised to see John here. When I heard Ray tell Tony the truth, I figured he would turn up in some back alley with a bullet through the back of his skull. But he’s here. Maybe twelve feet away from me. Why is he still alive? What lies did he tell to get himself off the hook?

  I always said I was a pacifist, that violence was the last resort. Defended the fact that the UK abolished the death penalty, said that it was harder to forgive than it was to swear vengeance.

  And yet I want to scream out how it’s not fair that John’s skull is intact, that no-one put a bullet in him.

  It’s a small part of me, but one I can’t deny. Not any longer. It’s in me, the violence. This evening has taught me that. Everything I’ve seen, I should be on the ground. Weeping. Sick to my stomach just thinking about my best friend with her face blown in.

  But I’m not sick. Sad. But not sick. Sad because it was a waste. Sad because she was a good person.

  But not sick about what happened to her. Not disgusted or terrified or appalled.

  Tony speaks first: ‘The fuck are you? Lazarus?’

  Ray doesn’t answer. Simply says, ‘I didn’t betray you.’

  ‘I know.’

  Ray shifts his weight. Facing them down. Looking at him, I can’t stop thinking of gun fighters in the Western movies that my uncle loved so much. We used to spend Easter weekends with him watching Technicolor and Cinemascope gunfights taking place on back-lot deserts.

  Is that what Ray sees in his mind, now? Is this High Noon at the OK Corral? Tie a bloodied ribbon round the dead oak tree?

  ‘You’re a stupid fuck, Ray!’ Tony, kicking it up a gear. Frustrated because his brother doesn’t get what’s going on. ‘You’re my brother, but you’re a stupid fuck. I was the one skimmed the cash, set up the hit to look like it was you. I’m the one went over to Buchan. The one with the bloody brains!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? You were the one protecting dad. The one everyone was afraid of. The old bastard was just a figurehead. Nothing. A shuffling corpse. A relic. Without you, he was nothing. Everyone knew it. But he had you, his big bad bastard monster. The one who could kill people without batting an eyelid.’

  Ray doesn’t say anything. Shifts his weight a little, like his legs are getting tired. Almost imperceptible, but if you’re looking close you’ll see it.

  I wonder how long he has.

  What Lesley threatened: internal bleeding. Organs filling up with blood. Everything inside messed up. Eventually, he’s just going to collapse. Stop working.

  For years, he’s been his father’s toy soldier. Wind him up, let him go. The man without pain. Without fear. Without anything.

  ‘I mean it,’ Tony says. ‘I mean, how could you not realise? You were a mistake, Ray. Your mother, she died giving birth to you. Says something, doesn’t it, that my mother took you in and raised her as her own? But we were a generous fucking family. You were this sick kid. But we took care of you. Remember Doc Rennie? The old soak he was, used to take payment in booze from Dad to come treat you.’

  Ray says, ‘I remember.’

  ‘What else do you remember?’

  ‘Was special.’

  ‘Special?’

  ‘Dad told me. Special. Like no-one else. Could do…things. Others won’t. You…you’re sick. Violent.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You…like to hurt. I…don’t care.’

  Tony says, ‘Fuck you, then, you lump of bastard rock. And fuck memory lane. Didn’t come here to talk about old times.’

  Ray says, ‘Thought you’d…have killed him.’ Meaning John.

  Tony says, ‘Bullshit. He’s no cop. The shite he’s done, Ray. You know that he’s the one set the bomb? Got fucking high with me, ran up lines, said let’s kill the retard bastard.’

  Again, there’s that shifting weight. Am I the only one who notices? Can’t be discomfort. Something else. I’ve seen that movement before. Realise what’s going to happen.

  I should let Ray do it. That’s what I want, right? That’s why we’re here. I put myself at risk so Ray could have his revenge. So I could watch him kill his brother. So I could unleash his vengeance on the man who hurt me. Broke my heart.

  Just a little history repeating. All I have to do is stand back and watch.

  I know what’s coming. Can see the way his body tenses.

  I close my eyes. See Lesley’s face. The way her own eyes widen as she realises what’s happening, and then the way they go cold, suddenly, as she slips away from this world quickly and easily.

  No, I’ve accepted death. Accepted who and what I am. A Scobie. Steeped in violence and death.

  But is that really who I am? Who I want to be?

  I push off the cold stone, stumble run forward and jump at Ray, grabbing his arm like it’s a branch and I’m swinging myself up onto it. The unexpected weight throws him off and he stumbles.

  My side burns. The wound rips. I can feel it gaping, the blood pouring out. My blouse sticks against my skin.

  The gun goes off.

  The pain is like lightning that lances through me. My ears pop. I can’t hear anything. I close my eyes, hang onto Ray’s arm and realise that I’m screaming but the sound is little more than a distant buzz, a bee trapped in a jam jar.

  Ray shakes me off. I hit the ground hard, roll onto my back, and think that’s it, I’m dead. When Ray’s done with them he’ll kill me.

  If I’m not already gone.

  I can’t move. The pain is uncomfortably numb.

  Someone yells, ‘Fuck you, you prick!’ Sounds like they’re shouting from the wrong end of a megaphone.

  I force my head up, look past Ray, and see two figures coming from the other side of the hill. Their silhouettes are unmistakeable. Pete and Wayne. Two of the kindest guys my cousins ever knew. Their arms are raised. I know they’re holding guns.

  They take aim. Fire. Continuously.

  I should roll out of the line of fire, away from Ray, from the chaos. But I can’t move. My body refuses to obey. It’s too late.

  Ray stays standing. His body jerks with each shot. Blood soaks through his clothes. He stands there and takes it all.

  The gunfire stops. The silence seems louder than the noise.

  Ray turns his head to look at me, and his lips move. The movement is creaky, like a doll in a horror movie that’s coming to life.

  His clothes are blood stained rags.

  I taste something in the back of my t
hroat. Coppery. Thick. Unpleasant. A phantom taste.

  Ray steps forward. Falls to his knees. His body twists, goes back, slips to the side.

  The silence roars. I lay my head back on the grass. Look at the stars. Someone’s hands are on my shoulders. I turn my head and see John. Surprisingly, I’m not angry any more. Just empty.

  He mouths something. There is no sound. No sense of the world around making any noise. Nor even the rustle of my clothes or the gentle noise of crushed grass that you can hear in the dead silence of the evening.

  John lets go. Moves over to where the three other men are standing over the corpse of my cousin.

  He pulls a gun from his waistband. As though suddenly remembering it’s there.

  He stands behind Tony as though to get a better view. Shoots him in the back of the head.

  Pete and Wayne too.

  The sound roars back. The rush is too much. I let myself fall again.

  It’s all I can do.

  JOHN

  I don’t feel anything.

  Remorse. Pity. Anger. Fear. Satisfaction.

  Nothing.

  I’m empty. Detached.

  Who am I? I’m a killer.

  This is no moment of epiphany. This is where I’ve been heading to for a long time.

  I turn away from the pile of bodies, walk to Kat. She’s lying on the grass, eyes open, but she doesn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular.

  I kneel beside her, notice the dark stain around her stomach. I put my hands on her midriff, feel the thick, unmistakeable gloop of blood.

  All this, and she’s dying. Is this how it ends? No grand heroic rescue. No sweeping music. Just death.

  I thought Ray was the killer. But maybe death follows me around. Maybe I’m the reason all these people had to die.

  I say, ‘I love you.’

  She looks at me. Doesn’t say anything.

  ‘I…love you.’ Saying it again feels awkward, unnatural, forcing a point that’s already been dismissed.

  She swallows, forcing the action, as though something’s stuck in her throat. She turns her eyes away to look up at the skies, and laughs. It’s a short, sharp sound. Bitter, almost. There’s a little gurgle behind it, like she’s halfway through swallowing a glass of water.

  She says, ‘How can I believe that?’ Then: ‘Who are you?’

  Who am I? A cop? A killer? A liar? The devil himself? Or just a stupid man who made some bad decisions, got carried away in his own lies?

  ‘I…I know you won’t believe me…but…I would have told you. Everything.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She closes her eyes. My hands remain pressed against her belly. The blood leaking from her wound is thick, the flow slowing.

  Is she dying?

  I think about when we used to lie in bed together. All the times we did nothing but look at each other, not searching for anything in the other’s eyes, just losing ourselves.

  ‘You lied to me...’ I have to strain to hear her. ‘…who you were.’

  ‘Yes.’ I lied. About a lot of things.

  ‘You’re polis.’ Louder, this time. Spitting out the word.

  ‘Yes.’ But, now, never again. I’ve killed men this evening. Tony called me killer, thinking he was being funny. But there was nothing funny about it.

  She says, ‘Fuck you.’

  Might as well have slapped me.

  I get lightheaded. My breath catches sharp, a metal shard in my lungs. This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted to save her. I wanted to run away with her. Start again.

  I say, ‘Come with me.’ Still deluding myself.

  ‘I’d rather die.’

  She means it. This isn’t the blood loss, or stress or confusion. I wonder how long she’s been hanging on, whether the only thing keeping her upright was getting to say those words to me.

  I look up at the statue of an angel who perches the side of the Scobie tomb, an imposing figure with a hood covering its face and a sword in its hand. Its features have been stripped and smoothed by the elements. But it still looks at me with a strange sneer scarring its features.

  I want to weep.

  But I have to make a choice. Stay here too long, and it’s all over. There’s no beginning again, with or without Kat.

  I have to make a decision.

  I take one last look at Kat. Her eyes are closed. Her breathing’s shallow.

  I drop the gun.

  She’s not coming with me.

  If I stay with her, then my own life is over.

  She’ll be fine.

  She’ll be fine.

  I have only one choice left.

  I run.

  * * *

  My whole life running.

  From family. Life. Myself.

  That’s why I applied for the undercover assignment. Figured it would help sort me out, let me start again, resolve the mistakes I’d already made.

  During the early stages, Burke and Crawford asked about my family. Probed and prodded. Burke told me how I would never be any good for undercover because my family was too rich, too middle class, too normal.

  Precisely why I was perfect, you asked me. I hated my family. My life.

  That was why I became a cop. Because then my father wouldn’t speak to me. Or, at least, I wouldn’t have to speak to him.

  Passive aggressive. But still a kind of running.

  In secondary school, there was this girl named Aileen. What I remember most about her was her hair. Long. Blonde. All the way down her back, the tips skating against her backside. She had the kind of smile that teenage boys lose all their sense over. And she loved me. In that full-on, teenage hormonal way. I knew it, felt the same way, much as I feared it.

  The plan became this: we’d go to the same university, keep together. Nothing was going to tear us apart. One day, maybe marriage and children. The whole expected dream.

  I got scared by that.

  Ran. Ending what we had after three years with a text message. That’s how you run like a professional shitebag.

  I ran from university too. Claiming it was for a higher purpose. That I realised I wanted to be a cop. Uni was not for me. I could better serve my life by joining up. All shite, of course. I just got scared I wasn’t smart enough. Or that I’d screw up at the last second.

  I spent my career in the force skipping through assignments, transferring every chance I got, looking for something and then getting scared I might find it.

  The question was, what was I running from?

  I don’t know. Whenever I get comfortable, whenever things seemed to be going well, this little voice in my head says run. Sit me down with a psychoanalyst, we might sort it out. But then I’d run before the therapy finished. Because I wouldn’t know what else to do.

  Burke and Crawford approached me. They knew my files, but saw something they thought they could use. They backed me into a corner, surrounded me, made me seriously consider what their operation had to offer. They thought they had me on the ropes. Thought they had me in the one place I couldn’t run.

  And, for a while, I agreed with them.

  Going undercover meant re-creating myself, abandoning everything I had and inhabiting a new life. It felt good. Felt right. I was a natural because I’d been doing that all of my life.

  If I kept running I didn’t have to think about letting anyone down or about dealing with the consequences of my actions. I was gone before anything mattered.

  And then I met Kat. I was supposed to fake falling for her. But what happened was something between us clicked, and all of a sudden, I didn’t want to run. But in staying still, I messed things up even more. Drove her away.

  It had been temporary, like all things. I should have seen it, should have known it couldn’t be any other way. And now, here I am, running again when all I wanted to do was stay where I was.

  * * *

  I’m on John Knox heading for Duke Street when the jam sandwich brigade squeal past.
They don’t even think twice about the ordinary little motor I’m driving. Chances are I’m just some drone hoping to get home and get a few hours’ sleep before getting up early and heading back to work. The hopeless, everyday grind that the police are supposed to protect and serve.

  Keep us in our place.

  Keep the ordinary Joes in line.

  I shake my head. Jesus, thinking like one of those mental cases you get yelling on Sauchie from on top their wee boxes about the exploitation of the working classes and the conspiracy of Government.

  I have to keep my head straight. Focus on my goal. And I try. God knows I try. But inside my head, it’s like I’m split in two. Dual identities finally coming apart. Fighting for dominance.

  The undercover cop. The would-be criminal. The killer.

  I can’t look in the rear view, not knowing who’ll look back at me.

  But the answer’s painfully obvious.

  I get back to Partick, park poorly. Tense feeling in my stomach. Like it’s collapsing in on itself. My brain insists I’m being watched.

  They’re here for you.

  They’re inside the flat.

  I don’t know if ‘they’ are the cops or the criminals. The main players are dead, doesn’t mean someone isn’t out for revenge.

  But there’s no-one there. No-one waiting for me. No handcuffs. No guns.

  Inside the front door, I pause, take out my phone and swap SIM cards for the last time. Send a message. One final declaration. Maybe an apology of sorts. I think of it like a case summary, a way of explaining what happened.

  I have to do something. They have to know I didn’t become one of the bad guys. That I was still thinking like police, no matter how bad my decisions wound up being.

  I think again. Put in my personal SIM. Is Kat’s number still the same? Is she even still alive? I send the message anyway. What does it matter?

  Then I take the phone and drop it down the toilet. It’s useless now. A burden.

  I head for the bedroom, the walk-in. False back I found when I moved in. I remove the panel, look at the bricks wrapped in plastic. Money I took in hand from Tony for certain services and never bothered declaring to Crawford. All lumped up, finally ready to be used.