Murderers Anonymous (35 page)

'Just stick it down by the bag,' said Mulholland.

He continued to look at her for a while, then turned and resumed his aimless flicking of the line across the water. Trying to remember what had transpired between them the previous night, but could remember nothing. Only knew that he'd awoken with them both slouched in the car, the dregs of several bottles of wine surrounding them.

Anything could have been said. Still remembers the decision to get married, however.

'Piss off!' she called out, though they were close enough and the water still enough for her not to have to shout. A brief contemplation of leaving him to it and taking the food back with her, but decided to be more pig-headed than that.

He turned again.

'What?' he said. 'What now?'

'Come and have something to eat, you ignorant sod. You must have been here ages. I didn't get this stuff together just for you to completely ignore me. I'm going to be your wife, remember, so put the bloody rod away and come and get something to eat.'

He turned away, gave one last pointless toss of the fly into the water, a toss treated with disdain by the river life beneath, and then he turned and waded back to the bank.

Proudfoot busied herself with unpacking her bag. In the trees the watcher was fascinated by the last line. Had stumbled across these two, quite by chance, but he knew well who Mulholland was. Supposed to be out hunting him, and here he was, inadequately hunting fish instead. And they were to be married. Slowly he began to creep through the damp leaves and twigs, so that he could listen. Never miss an opportunity, that was the killer's code.

'When did you wake up?' she said.

Mulholland started to struggle out of his waders.

'About seven, I think. Still dark, anyway.'

'And have you eaten since then?' asked Proudfoot.

Annoyed at him, but mostly for not looking after himself. Taking the whole marriage thing seriously. This was her man.

'Bought a stack-load of food from the petrol station down the road,' said Mulholland.

She removed the plastic lids from two cups of tea, and the steam rose into the cold December air.

'That's funny. The woman I spoke to in the shop remembers you buying a sandwich and a can of Coke, and nothing else.'

He laid out a jacket and sat down. Raised his eyebrows.

'Checking up on me?'

'I am a detective.'

'Right,' he said, and lifted one of the teas. Just a sip in case it was too hot, and then a longer gulp. Just right and it hit the spot. Melanie's tea had always tasted like socks.

'So you reckon we're still doing this marriage thing, then?' he said.

She bit into a closed-face, triangular-cut, white bread, disencrusted cheese and smoked ham sandwich, with cucumber, lettuce and tomato and a light spreading of mayonnaise.

'Why? You changing your mind?' she asked through the food.

He shrugged and took a bite out of an open-faced, square-cut, heavily crusted, wholemeal Belgian pâté sandwich, with a thin garnish of fresh cucumber. He waved it at her.

'Good sandwich, by the way. You choose 'em or were they all that were left?'

'My choice.'

'So we are compatible. Maybe I will marry you.'

'So what, have you changed your mind?'

He watched the river, cold and grey. How many days since they'd stood and watched the Clyde? Three maybe, that was all, and not much had happened in between, yet it felt so long. Time slowing down. That's what happened when you stepped into the mire.

'It just seems kind of stupid,' he said after a while. There was a sadness in his voice, and it was heartfelt.

She munched her way through the sandwich. Followed his gaze into the river. Thought exactly the same things that he did, except for one. So what if it was stupid?

'Everything's stupid,' she said. 'You standing in a river for God knows how long. That's pretty stupid. Life is stupid. You coming down here in the first place. Whatever. It's all stupid.'

He distractedly nodded. Feeling depressed again, good sandwich or not, and she joined him in melancholy.

'I must've said a couple things last night,' said Mulholland. 'Sorry if I offended you.'

Her turn to shrug.

'Doesn't matter if you did. Can't remember what you said anyway. Expect I was talking pish 'n' all.'

The river rolled on by. The sun momentarily made an appearance before once again being swallowed up by the layers of cloud. There was a noise in the trees just behind them. Mulholland barely noticed, Proudfoot turned slowly and saw nothing. Birds or rabbits.

'You want just to go back to Glasgow?' she said. 'I don't know how long this bloody group are going to be here. It's not as if I can barge in there and check out what they're doing.'

'When are you off duty?'

'Not till midnight.' She shrugged. 'Sod it, maybe I should just come off duty now. I've left my post, after all. I mean, she could nip out while I wasn't looking and go and kill somebody, and I wouldn't give a shit.'

Mulholland laughed softly. 'Fine words for a police officer.'

He turned and looked at her. Her face was colourless with the cold and he noticed for the first time how poorly she was dressed for the weather. Her lips were soft and pale, her hair touched her cheeks. And in this grey light, she was beautiful.

'Sorry, Erin,' he said, removing his jacket, 'I'm being a pig.'

She started to protest, but he held it towards her and she gratefully took it from him and slipped her arms inside. She could feel the warmth of his body, got the faint smell of him. And for all that she'd hated him for the last six months, you can only hate what you can love, and she had missed him.

'Stay with me,' he said, and she closed her eyes to the words. 'Phone them up tomorrow and tell them where they can stick their job.'

She drained her cup of tea to give an air of calm. 'You think? Are you sure you want to be with me?' she asked.

Trying to keep a level head. As ever, carried away on nothing but a little tenderness. If she were Jade Weapon, she would shag him breathless, karate-chop him to his neck, then toss him to the fishes.

Then his hand was extended to hers, the first genuine moment of tenderness between them, so that neither of them noticed the slight movement in the bushes behind, the small noise of someone scrambling over damp ground.

He leant forward and gently kissed her on the lips. A short touch, then pulled away, his hand still on hers, the other rested against her cheek. With the warmth of his jacket around her and of his hand on hers, her heart melted.

'You've got smoked-ham breath,' he said.

She pursed her lips then breathed out massively over him.

'You're right, you are a pig,' she said.

He laughed, she joined him, and at last there was some light in their lives.

And well away from the riverbank, out of earshot, the footsteps strode more confidently across wet ground. As off went the killer to sabotage Proudfoot's car, and the radio in the car, and thereby lead the happy couple along the road he wished them to walk. To lead them to play their part in the magnificent extravaganza which had quickly formed in his criminal head.

'And Cary Grant, he was a woman, yes siree,' said the handyman. As ever, Hertha Berlin was spellbound with his tales of Hollywood in the 60's. 'Steve McQueen, there was another one.'

Berlin poured him another cup of tea. Glad to be away from the strange crowd in the lounge. Raised tempers and voices. It was ever the way with the Christmas crowd, when expectations were up and more drink than normal was consumed. She preferred the midweek bookings, with companies sending their people on team-building events. Everyone was hacked off and grumpy and expecting to be miserable, and consequently much less bother.

'Did you know anyone else famous?' she asked.

'Sure, honey,' said the handyman, cramming his mouth full of pancake. 'I knew 'em all. Jimmy Stewart, Eastwood, Newman, Ann-Margret, Liz Taylor, the lot of 'em. Bobby Mitchum, he was a big friend of mine.'

Berlin shook her head and sipped quietly from her cup.

'It must seem terribly mundane being stuck here in the south of Scotland, after all that fuss,' she said.

The handyman looked at her and considered the statement, thinking it was worth a decent answer. It was something he'd given much thought to these past twenty-three years. Trading in the glamour, the women, the drugs, the parties, the booze, the handguns, the television sets and the celebrity pals for a quiet life, from which he knew he would never escape.

'Mundane's just what you want it to be, honey,' he said, and she nodded, even though she didn't know what he meant. Helpfully, and unsurprisingly, since he was a talker, he elaborated. 'Hell, everything's mundane if you do it often enough. You make movies all your life, it becomes mundane. You have twenty number one records; mundane. You snort enough cocaine offa the breasts of naked women' – Hertha Berlin blushed – 'that becomes mundane too. Sure, this might be mundane now, but it was fresh when we first started, and now it's good mundane. I like it. Keeps me young. I'm telling ya, honey, physical-wise, I'm a lot better off now than when I first got here. Ain't that the truth.'

Hertha Berlin finished her tea and topped up her cup. Poured some more for the handyman at the same time.

'Thing is,' he said, 'look at those folks upstairs. Maybe they've got money, maybe they ain't, but there ain't none of them happy. Not real, down-to-the-damned-socks happy. Just a-trundling through this and a-trundling through that. Most of them ain't going nowhere. You just need to stop every now and again and look at your life, know what I'm saying, honey? That's what I did in '77. Realised I was in a world of hurt, and I got on outta there. But these fellas, they don't know shit. There was an old fella in Greece by the name of Aristotle, and you know what he used to say, honey?'

Hertha Berlin lowered the cup and licked some tea from her lips; wondered if it still made her look as alluring at seventy-one as it had done fifty years previously.

'I sure don't,' she said, in a strange amalgam of accents.

'The unexamined life is not worth living. Yesiree. That's what that good fella said. And no doubt about it, he had a point.'

The handyman crammed another biscuit into his mouth and stood up. Washed it down with the last of his fourth cup of tea. Brushed the crumbs from his jeans and nodded.

'Gotta go clear that drain out back, honey. I'll be an hour or two, I expect, 'cause that little fella's gonna cause me a whole heapa trouble. I can feel it. You'll have my supper ready 'round about seven?'

Hertha Berlin nodded, standing herself and already beginning to clear away the dishes.

'Aye, aye,' she said. 'Chicken casserole the night.'

The handyman smacked his lips.

'Sounds delicious, honey,' he said. Grabbed his coat and his hat. 'See ya later, alligator.'

'Bye,' said Hertha Berlin.

Door open and then out he went into the cold. She stared after him for a while, wondering how it was that you could be seventy-one and have the same sort of mad infatuation that you got when you were fifteen. Weren't you supposed to grow out of that kind of thing?

The words to
Love Me Tender
quietly began to escape her lips, and Hertha Berlin went about the business of washing up and getting the dinner ready.