Authors: Christopher Brookmyre
Pandaemonium (29 page)
Closer.
Faster.
He follows her out into the corridor, where she turns left instead of right, away from reception.
‘The big sitting area’s that way,’ he says.
‘I’d prefer somewhere a bit more private.’
She leads him through a couple of turns and then stops at the top of a half-flight of stairs leading down to a grey door. She has a quick check left and right, then descends, opening it to reveal a supply room. He sees stationery, flipcharts and whiteboards, a projector for laptops. All that conference gear.
Caitlin looks back up the stairs at him.
‘Are you coming, Paul?’
‘Eh, aye,’ he says, uncertainly. It’s not a place you’d pick out for a cosy sit-down chat. He understands what all logical deduction is telling him is happening here, but is refusing to accept it: a little incredulous because it’s quiet wee Caitlin, and also determined not to do, say, assume or even
think
anything that might bollocks this up.
‘Rocks,’ he says, to disguise that he’s largely lost for words.
‘What?’ she asks.
‘Everybody calls me Rocks.’
‘Everybody calls me “that wee quiet lassie”. Close the door.’
He does. Then she kisses him.
almost
get away with the bloody Halloween outfit if it was purely a strategy to grab a half-decent-looking guy, and Cam just snuck into that category. But Adnan? They were still taking the piss out of him behind his back as recently as last week.
What a washout this is turning into. Somebody has to throw her a bone, surely.
Then she spies Liam and Rebecca leaving together, looking purposeful, and she wonders, she wonders.
He’d gone off alone last night as well, before lights-out, and of course it had been his furtive wee solo expedition that had held them up when they first got off the coach. Dazza got the impression he was planking something. Better not be hash, because he never let on to anybody that he was carrying.
He felt bad about having to come the hard man, trying to muscle Beansy and that lot out of their room (not so bad about those preening pricks Liam and Jason). It had been ages since they’d done anything like that, but Kirk was just edgy as fuck these days. You’d think he was the only one who lost somebody. They were
all
Dunnsy’s pals.
‘You mean Guthrie?’ asks Yvonne.
‘Naw, I mean that cunt Kirk. Come on,’ he says, and leads them on to the gravel path and into the starlight.
Kirk’s been acting weird for months, even before Dunnsy. There’s been this latent volatility about him. What makes it worse is that he’d calmed down towards the end of last year, in time to get the finger out and pass a shitload of exams nobody would have expected him to give a fuck about. There was some incident with Mr Kane that Kirk won’t talk about, but after that he seemed to screw the nut. He seemed to have changed. They all changed.
Rocks used to be more mental than any of them, but now all he wants to talk about is lassies, maybe realising his wild years have set him back in that particular game. Still pretty handy when it comes to it, but he lets folk take liberties now: seldom rises to the bait. It’s a relief. Dazza cannae be bothered with aggro any more. Lassies don’t like it - that’s one of the things Rocks has cottoned on to. He seems to regard Dazza as some kind of mentor figure when it comes to women.
Kirk, however, just isn’t interested in girls: never has been. Used to remind Daz of the joke about the definition of a Scottish poof: somebody more interested in women than in drinking and fighting. These days, though, he couldn’t say what Kirk
is
interested in. He’ll have a toke, but he’s not that bothered about drink. Maybe the odd can, but not into getting stocious. ‘I don’t like who I am when I’m pished,’ he once said, which suggests he’s worried about going postal, a very disturbing thought. The fighting is a comparatively rare occurrence these days, but at least in the past you could see it coming, you knew what it was about. Since the summer, he’s been totally unpredictable, which was bad enough, but since Dunnsy’s death, Kirk hasn’t hit anyone or even cracked up at anybody, which is the really worrying thing. There’s been no vent to whatever’s going on inside his head. Hardly saying a word to anybody. And increasingly fucking fixated by Matt Wilson, for no greater apparent reason than Barker isn’t around to take the blame.
Dazza notices Adnan dancing with Marianne. That’s when he remembers. The telescope.
‘
Check that. Opportunity knocks
.’
He’s always thought knives were shitebag weapons: a sneaky edge for vicious cunts who couldn’t really fight. He doesn’t need this to take on Matt Wilson, but they both know that. It’s not about victory and defeat, pride and humiliation: it’s about fear. That weirdo cunt has never shown him any.
To Kirk, there’s always been something intimate about violence: you and your opponent, locked together to the exclusion of everything around you in something more sincerely personal than sex. Which is why it’s at its best if you’re both into it: well matched in terms of physicality, anger, fear, desire. It means fuck-all to batter somebody who won’t fight back, which is why there’s never been any point in just going up and leathering Matt Wilson.
Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe
.
He remembers them discussing that line in Miss Ross’ English class, and like everyone else, he initially took it to be merely the usual platitude about not solving your problems through violence. However, he sees a deeper truth in it now than most people will ever understand. He could punch fuck out of Matt and he wouldn’t even be close to overcoming a tenth of his foe. Something in him - by far the greater part of him - would be undefeated. Matt knows Kirk could hammer him: it’s a given. Not even a starting point for the fucker. He is not afraid of him, not intimidated by him, not even remotely acknowledging of him. Which is why he wants to look deep into Matt Wilson’s eyes and see the impassive cunt feel something.
He is warm, delicate, gentle, and just a little too polite. She recalls Carl’s wandering hands, the ongoing struggle to keep his paws from her chest without breaking off and completely ruining the minor excitement of getting a snog. Tonight, she
wants
Paul to touch her chest, and not through two layers of cotton and Lycra. She’s waited a while, altered her position incrementally to try and bring his hand closer without being too overt, but he’s not taking the hint. So much for subtlety, she thinks, undoing a couple of buttons and leading his hand through the resultant gap.
He breaks off, looking uncertainly at her as if to say ‘You sure about this?’
She nods, giggling a little.
his
shirt buttons she undoes before kissing him again. She senses the tautness of muscle beneath his skin, runs her fingers over his nipple and down on to his stomach. She feels very pleasantly, very slightly out of control. It’s like she’s drunk, like she’s high, though she hasn’t touched a drop since a sole glass of champagne at her mum’s fortieth in June.