And When I Die Read online

  I have to wonder if they think I’m dead. By our last few meetings, they’d figured I was getting in too deep, that I was losing my grip. They’d asked me to pull the op and come home.

  ‘Just a few more days,’ I said, feeling I was getting close.

  And then I was pulled in to that meeting with Scobie Sr. The one where everything changed. Where I realised just how deep I really was.

  But sometimes you have to face up to your mistakes.

  I dial out.

  Crawford answers immediately. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I–’

  ‘You know that in this situation extraction is –’

  ‘I know the protocols. Burke drilled them into me. Thing is, I need to be allowed a degree of operational discretion. This particular scenario…’ I trail off. I haven’t thought this through.

  ‘Yes?’

  I take a deep breath. Look at the water marks on the outside of the glass. See the world distorted by rain. ‘I think I can salvage this. This was a mess. But I think Ray’s death…’ I swallow, then. The lies are beginning to trip too easily from my lips. ‘I have someone I can flip. I know it. Someone who can give us evidence.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Just trust me.’

  ‘We need to extract you. The old man’s just shown how far he’s willing to go. Ordering the death of his son? And what’s clear to me, you’re not on the inside. He didn’t tell you what he was planning.’

  I press myself against the glass. It cools against my forehead. I close my eyes. I can feel the rain thudding outside. ‘Maybe I had an idea,’ I say, ‘Maybe I just thought there was no way he could go through with it.’

  ‘You don’t have children.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you understand that, don’t you? That no parent in their right mind would hurt their own child?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s the difference between Derek Scobie and any normal person. For all his talk about family, all his grand proclamations, the only person he will ever care about is Derek Scobie. You heard him talking about anything close to what happened, you should have come to me.’

  ‘Look–’

  ‘Look, nothing! You need to come in.’

  ‘Just give me time.’

  ‘John…’

  ‘Give me time.’

  I hang up then. Take out the Sim. Put it back into the wallet. Swap back to the other number. Then head back down the corridor.

  I can make this right. All of it.

  There’s still a chance.

  * * *

  I pull up a seat at Ray’s bedside.

  His eyes open. He turns his head, slowly. Still no expression. Those eyes move, but I can’t tell what lies behind them. Give him a deck of cards, he could beat the house.

  I say, ‘The doctor thinks you can’t feel pain.’

  ‘I feel it.’

  ‘He says you don’t act like you do.’

  ‘Not the same…as everyone else. Sensations. Dull.’

  ‘It’s a medical condition.’

  ‘It’s a…sick joke.’

  ‘No wonder you escaped,’ I say.

  ‘I was…on fire.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They…. You…tried…to kill me.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Guess not.’

  ‘You’re…polis.’ He spits the word out. Disgusted. More than reflex. Genuine hatred.

  I don’t say anything. He knows what I’ve done, who I am when the badge is hidden.

  ‘He’s my… father... Won’t testify. Even though…’

  ‘He’s an old fucker who tried to kill you. Because of an imagined slight.’ I pause. ‘It was imagined, right? I don’t think you went rogue. I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with Buchan. I think someone set you up. Someone in the family. Someone who had the means and the opportunity.’

  ‘Even talk…like polis.’ He makes a sound like the final death rattle of a wounded animal. Maybe it’s a laugh. I’ve never heard him laugh before. ‘Give…the man…an award.’ He’s wheezing. Laughing or dying. Either one would do him; long as it pissed me off. It takes him a moment to settle again. ‘What happens…to me? If I keep quiet? About you.’

  I hold my hands wide apart, show him that I have nothing to hide. ‘I put in a good word about how co-operative you’ve been, anything could happen. The SCDEA want to talk to you. Fuck, everyone does. You co-operate, there every chance you could – ’

  ‘You’re good,’ Ray says. ‘Fucking…car salesman. I’m not buying.’

  ‘Just think about it, okay?’ I say. ‘You can’t go back. This way you get to take revenge on these pricks.’

  ‘Think…you liked it,’ Ray says. ‘The life. Think you forgot…who you were.’

  I had been ready to get up leave, but his words root me to the chair. All I can do is look at him, and cock my head to indicate I don’t understand what he’s saying.

  Except I do.

  ‘You’re not police,’ Ray says. ‘How you got in so deep. How much…do your bosses…know?’

  I stand up, make to leave. Say, ‘This is your chance to get revenge on whoever it was set you up. On the people who tried to kill you.’

  ‘I’ll have revenge,’ he says. ‘On my own…bloody…terms.’

  * * *

  Out in the corridor, I check my messages.

  Three from Anthony:

  Call me.

  Fukin serious.

  Call or you’re a ded man.

  I’m about to compose a reply when I hear someone running down the corridor. Their footsteps smack-smack-smack off the linoleum. Their breath echoes in sharp gasps.

  I spin on my heels, see the young doctor, the one barely out of nappies. ‘Detective!’

  ‘Slow down.’

  ‘Detective!’ He’s close enough that we could hug when he finally stops. His eyes are wide beneath the glasses. Sweating hard enough he could be a candidate for his own defibrillator.

  ‘There’s a problem with the patient.’

  Christ!

  I’m off and running before he can say anything else. Takes him a moment to work out what’s going on and start running –maybe lolloping’s a better word – to keep up with me. I say, ‘What happened?’

  ‘He’s gone.’ The words sputtering between wheezes

  I slam on the brakes. ‘What?’

  ‘There’s… I mean, one of my colleagues. The patient...the patient broke his neck.’

  ‘I thought he was at death’s door.’

  When I’d left him, he was talking, he wasn’t going anywhere. He might not have felt the pain, but that didn’t mean he could just keep going like nothing was wrong.

  ‘I don’t... I’ve never…’

  ‘He’s killed a doctor?’

  ‘And he’s gone.’

  It’s too late to do anything. I know that in my heart.

  It’s been well past too late for days now. Since the bomb. Since I finally let the cover take control.

  And now the situation’s in freefall. All anyone can do is hang on and pray for a soft landing.

  Two

  Home Is Where the Hatred Is

  Three days later

  The day of the funeral

  1223 - 1614

  KAT

  ‘We will now sing from the first hymn, selected by Ray’s family for...’

  I look up, remember where I am.

  Jesus looks down at me.

  Ray hated Church. Came only on sufferance, and even now he has to be carried in, brought down the aisle and placed before us. They asked me to carry a candle. I didn’t think I could handle it, just wanted to be in the crowd, pay my respects in private.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  Around me, people whisper in hushed tones, or sniff back tears.

  Ray is dead.

  Someone booby-trapped his car. Probably my uncle’s business rivals. Buchan, ma
ybe.

  Tony, hyped up when he came to see me, said they saved money on cremation, at least. I reminded him that their father was a Catholic, that cremation wasn’t the way forward.

  He’d said, ‘It’ll make the coffin lighter.’

  Not funny.

  Of course no-one’s saying a word about what really happened. Not to me, anyway. Because they all think that I don’t know what’s going on, that just because I stay out of the family business, I don’t understand it.

  I look around. There’s something about Catholic churches really gets to me. The idolatry of it all, the sheer majesty of worship. Even in a poky 1960s-built church like this one, just off Merry Lee Road in Newlands, dwarfed by the local Church of Scotland which looks more like it should be the Catholic church to the casual observer.

  When I was a girl, my mother took me to Paris to visit Notre Dame. The sheer size of the building had made me nauseous, utterly dwarfed by the idea that this really was God’s House. That had been what I expected all churches to feel like, and something about our local Paris lost its majesty from the outside afterwards.

  But inside our poky wee building, among the candles and reminders of the Son of God who died for our sins, I still get that feeling of panic and insignificance that hit me in the Parisian cathedral.

  The church is packed. Not just immediate family. Also those who respect (more likely fear) my uncle. And a few reporters trying unsuccessfully to slot in, get a good snap of the big, bad gangster funeral.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  * * *

  ‘450 a month. Utilities, council tax, all that’s your responsibility.’

  I was only half-listening to what he was telling me. The flat had four walls and a roof and it would do for a while. Until I got settled.

  ‘Do you have any questions?’

  I shook my head. Went to the window. The view out onto the water was dramatic in the rain.

  ‘The insulation is excellent.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  He came and stood beside me. ‘It’s very different from Glasgow up here. I mean, a lot quieter. A lot of the comforts of the city, well, they’re not quite so readily available.’

  Perfect. Exactly what I was looking for. After the last fight with John, I’d been wondering if it was a bad idea to act on my impulses. Handing in my notice at work, applying for a transfer, rushing up here like my life depended on it.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I’ll take it.’

  Looking out at the water. Thinking about what it would be like to dive in. Let the water close in over my head. Feel that sensation of floating, freedom, escape from everything.

  * * *

  We were able to learn from an early age how to spot reporters and undercover police at any Scobie gathering. Spot-the-hack became a great way of breaking the boredom that came with funerals and birthday parties.

  I see faces I recognise. Fat Dunc’s a few rows back, looking uncomfortable in a shirt that’s too small, threatening to choke the life out of him with the top button done up and that tie like a noose round his neck. There are food stains on his shirt. He’s not been the same since Mary-Ann left. I think he’s put on weight. Hard to tell, of course. He’s not called Fat Dunc because he looks good in skinny jeans. In his favour, he’s still not entirely grey, the only hint being a streak that runs subtly through his full beard on the right side of his face.

  Closer still – and when he sees me, he leers in that way he always has since the day I turned sixteen – is Neil. He insists I call him Uncle Neil, just adding to the creep factor. He wears a black suit that hangs off his frame. As kids, we called him Skeletor, but with old age advancing on him, Neil looks more like one of the undead than ever. The years of drug abuse didn’t help his complexion, and even if he’s clean now, I don’t think he’ll ever be able to get rid of the last vestiges of powder that’s been stuck in his bloodstream since the mid-’80s.

  Right at the back, of course, is Jenny Hanson. Still big, but mostly in the ways that men like. Her clients adore her oversized bouncy breasts, barely contained by the little black dress she’s inappropriately squeezed herself into. Jenny went on the game when she turned eighteen, and while she’s only a year older than me, she looks like she’s been in the life for decades. For a few years, she was Tony’s bit of choice. Now he wouldn’t touch her with another man’s, and she’s running her own stable to make ends meet. Most of her girls are drug addicts. She still kicks up ninety per cent of profits to Tony. Hardly what you’d expect of the girl who kicked every arse she met while at school. But I’m beginning to wonder if Mum didn’t have a point when she said that, deep down, Jenny was scared.

  I never understood what she meant when she said that, not really. Figured mum was just saying any old rubbish to make me feel better. But the older you get, the more you realise that no-one is who you think they are, or who they want you to think they are.

  All these faces, they’re looking right at me. And they’re asking the same question: what are you doing here?

  It’s a good question. When I left, I did so with the dramatic force of the righteous. Telling myself I wasn’t like the rest of the family, that all of this wasn’t who I am. Tony, high as ever, had left messages on my mobile, telling me that if I ever betrayed the family, he’d kill me.

  I never wanted to betray anyone.

  Just wanted out.

  I almost managed to avoid the service. I could have climbed in the car and driven away, back up to Oban and the little flat I got that overlooked the harbour. Only a few months, and the quiet life is already more real to me than anything else I’ve ever known.

  I had almost believed I had that rarest of chances: a new start.

  The organ cranks into life. People stay seated, waiting for that invisible cue to stand. I smooth down my dress, look at my shoes. People shift around me. I stand. Throughout the hymn – solemn, slow – I occasionally open and close my mouth, wonder how everyone knows the words to this dirge. Sounds the same to me as almost every other hymn ever written.

  I keep looking around. Wondering where he is. If he’s even going to show his face. Did they tell him I’d be coming?

  Wouldn’t be a Scobie family gathering without some kind of drama, right?

  When the music finally finishes, it’s replaced by the sniffs of people who can’t control themselves. Reflexively I wipe at my eyes, realise that I’ve been crying as well.

  He was a psychopath, my cousin. Same as all of them, really. But in the end he was family. And you can run away all you like, but it’s always going to be family that brings you back. One way or another.

  JOHN

  I can’t go to the service.

  Not if she’s going to be there. I’m a bastard – both in and out of cover – but I’m not that much of a bastard. Besides, being in there, knowing that’s not his corpse in the coffin, that gives me more time to plan.

  Or panic.

  Because I’m past plans. Past ideas. I’m spinning my wheels until something happens. About as useless as asking God for help, in my experience. You get stuck in the mud, you only get out through your own efforts.

  So I do what any sensible west coaster does when life conspires against them: head for the pub.

  This place, it’s quiet and anonymous. The beer is standard: straight up choice of McEwans or Tennents, with anything else getting you branded a wee poofter, and likely a kicking outside to boot. But long as you drink your pint in peace, the locals do little more than give you the hairy eyeball.

  I drink in peace. Keep my phone on the table.

  Watching. Waiting.

  When it buzzes, the back of my neck prickles. Someone walking over my grave? Maybe. I check the message. Sure enough, it’s Tony.

  She’s here.

  Of course she is. I’m glad, too. Maybe I don’t feel it consciously, but there’s a smile on my face.

  ‘Message from your girl?’

  What did I say about drinking my
pint in peace?

  I look up. The man standing at the table sways and gives me a grin designed to show off black and yellow teeth. His hair is grey, and his face marked with right stubble that looks capable of blunting any razor brave enough to get close. He says again, as though I didn’t hear him the first time: ‘Message from your girl?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Your boy?’ This time, his voice takes on an edge.

  Give me strength.

  ‘Just piss off,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t look like a poof.’

  I resist the urge to respond.

  ‘Doesn’t mean anything.’

  From friend to foe in less than two seconds. This guy, I doubt it’s an unusual occurrence.

  ‘Got nothing to say?’

  ‘Not to you.’ He chews on that for a moment. But he still doesn’t leave.

  ‘I just want to have my drink in peace.’

  ‘Poof.’

  He leans on the table, now gets right in my face. Trying to use the word like a closed fist. ‘Poof.’

  It’s not the insinuation. Like I give a monkeys what he thinks of my sexuality. But something in me finally snaps. I reach up and wrap my hands round his head. The move feels almost casual, but it’s too quick for him to react. I tug him down, sharpish, bounce his face off the top of the table and let go.

  He slides off the table, onto the floor.

  I stand up.

  The fat man who’s been standing behind the bar all this time says, ‘Aw, come on, pal!’ but doesn’t do anything else. I look at him, and he holds up his hands in surrender. Working in this place, he knows there’s no point calling the police. This kind of thing, it’s predictable as the weather and every bit as dull. He just goes back to standing behind the bar, rearranging the glasses, keeping one eye on the telly. Like nothing happened.

  I look at the old guy on the floor. He’s moaning and rolling.

  I spit on him.

  Walk out.

  The air is sharp. The kind of slap in the face that sobers you up. Clarity overtakes me. I realises what I’ve done.