Scrap Metal (29 page)

“I killed him. Please don’t tell Nichol.”

“You must have loved him very much—your own granddad, I mean.”

He looked at me blankly.

“Right. Here’s the deal, sunbeam. You stay here, and I’ll go fetch someone who can take away your fever. Then you’ll see you didn’t—”

He flipped away from me and struggled out of the bed. Before I could even reach a hand to him, he’d darted across the room. My door had its ancient, seldom-used key too—I heard with disbelief the click of the lock. “Oh, that’s good. Funny. Give me the key, Cam.”

“I can’t.”

He edged along the wall. I got up and began a move to intercept him, but gently. There was nowhere for him to go, and anyway, he looked ready to drop.

“Don’t be soft. Give me the key and come back to bed.”

Somehow I’d forgotten the window. The day had been so warm I hadn’t noticed the inch at the bottom of the sash. It was the work of an instant for Cam to grab it, push the frame high and fling the key out into the air in a gesture so passionate he nearly followed it. I grabbed him round the waist before he could.

“You fucking idiot!”

He collapsed into my arms. I considered asking him if he was bloody happy now, but the fresh tears flooding his face gave me my answer. I hauled him off the windowsill, dumped him back into bed and covered him up in the quilt and blankets once more—make him sorry he’d locked himself in with me—before going to assess the damage.

All right. No way was I going to kick this door down any time soon. My room was in the ancient part of the house, its timbers five inches thick, the lock the kind you’d fit if you had a dangerous nutcase to contain. I gave the handle a last diagnostic shake then turned away.

The window was twenty feet up. I could jump that, and as a last resort I would. A broken ankle was likely but wouldn’t stop me crawling to the phone. If I landed wrong and knocked myself out, that would leave Cam alone and sick upstairs, so a last resort it had to be.

I leaned out and examined the rotting trellis where my ma had grown the bright rugosa roses that thrived on our salt sea winds. I’d climbed that before—upwards, when late home from a clandestine meet with Archie, and at the age of seventeen. That wasn’t a great option, nearly ten years and three stone later. Bizarrely, I could see the damn key, gleaming in the last of the sunlight, right in the middle of the rooftop of Harry’s Toyota. I straightened up and turned back into the room. Nothing about this was funny, but I almost wanted to say to Cam,
Bet you couldn’t do that again…

He was sitting bolt upright, the duvet clutched in his fists. I didn’t know what hell he was staring into, but his pupils were massive, all his amethyst and blue sucked into the black. He said, very clearly, “His name was Stu Duggan. He owed Bren McGarva money. He lived in a flat up in the Easterhouse estate, and one night we went there, me and Bren and four other lads. He answered the door. I didn’t know he’d be so old.”

I sat down heavily on the bed. I unclenched one of his hands and got it into mine. I wasn’t sure what good that would do, but maybe it would hold him here with me in my world. In the world I’d reconstructed around him. “Cam, don’t.”

“I begged him to give McGarva something, anything at all. But he said he didn’t have it, and Bren said we were going to make an example of him, so anybody else who borrowed money off him around Easterhouse would know better than to fuck him around. He had white hair. He was a big strong old man but he fell down straightaway.” He paused, his throat convulsing. “We hit him, kicked him. He shouted and cried but we kept on, and then he was quiet. He had a dirty brown carpet. You could hardly see the blood on it. There wasn’t any money anywhere, so Bren grabbed his telly and his wristwatch.”

I stroked his fingers. There was still some warmth in mine, though it was fading. “Then what happened?”

“I ran. I ran and ran, and Bren sent his lads after me to shut me up. I got to Ardrossan and there was nowhere left to go, so I got on the ferry to Arran. And when I was there—when it was quiet, and I could breathe, and there were the mountains and the sea and everything—I couldn’t fucking stand it anymore, what I’d done. So I turned round to go back to the mainland and turn myself in. But it was late, and I got caught in a storm. I hid in a barn.”

I had to get help for him. I told myself that was why I was letting him go, releasing his cold fingers from mine. “You stupid bastard,” I said hollowly. “Why’d you throw the key out the window?”

“I met Nichol. There was another old man. I thought I could make it up, make it right.”

I swallowed what felt like a mouthful of gravel. “Listen, I…I’m gonna have to take a jump for it. You need a doctor.”

“No. No doctors. No police.”

I could see now his terror of them. I could see why having Archie look twice at him had frightened him sick. I backed away towards the window, a story coming together in my head, a world falling apart. Stu Duggan’s squalid Easterhouse flat sprang up around me. I heard the thud of boots, heard his winded cries. I didn’t know very many old men, not well enough to flesh out a reconstruction, so inside my head it was Harry who doubled up on the brown carpet, begging his assailants—begging Cam—to stop.

It didn’t work. I could put Harry in the victim’s role, and I saw Bren McGarva and his three hired thugs, no problem at all. Cameron there with his boot in, though—no. It was like expecting a mountain wildcat to come down from its fastnesses and brawl and piss with alley cats. And yet, God help both of us, his words had rung with absolute truth. He’d told me he loved me with just that same feverish ardour, close and hot against my ear while he fucked me.

I bit back a moan. I had other things to do than drop to pieces here. As for the police—no, that wasn’t my job. Harry’s retributive sense of Highland justice might have spoken differently, but he was gone now, and I was on my own with the privilege of choice. Poor Duggan was long dead. I could deliver Cam to the law and not raise anyone back to life. No point. His secret was safe with me, if he could keep it himself. I’d have to tell the doctor he’d been raving. I pushed the window sash up a bit higher and began to climb out.

“Nichol?”

I froze. That was such a different voice—newly woken, sane. When I turned to glance back, he was looking at me, not through me. He was the man I knew. “Nic, what am I doing in your bed? Are you…? Why are you climbing out the window?”

I swung my legs back in. He was still flushed but lucidity had returned to his gaze. I sat on the windowsill. “What do you remember?”

“Was I supposed to…? Did I forget something? I was putting the next course on the drystone. I heard Harry’s tractor go by. It didn’t sound right so I looked up and…” He fell silent. He cupped his hands in his lap and stared down into them, as if he could see unfolding in their palms all the ensuing horrors. “He’s dead,” he whispered at last. “Harry’s dead.”

I went to him. He grabbed me as soon as I was within arm’s reach, and I didn’t resist him. His desolate sobbing should have been my own, and I tried to let it go through me, tried to be reached and to react. His fever pitched again, and I was ice, shielding him, impenetrable. The next time he pleaded with me not to tell Nichol, it didn’t feel odd. I didn’t know where the hell that naïve farm boy had taken himself off to, but he wasn’t here, holding the murderer he loved.

A couple of times when Cam seemed ready to tear apart with fevered shudders, when his breath rasped and became shallow, I made an effort to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me go, not without hurting him, and at last the long day ended, and a heavy soft rain began to come down with the night, its whispering song filling the room. My eyelids and limbs grew heavy. Cam’s fists twisted in my shirt then fell open, and he put his arms round my neck like a kid. “Oh, Nicky. Don’t leave me.”

The sound of a car engine jerked me out of the pit. I sat up, dazed. Beside me, Cam was sleeping with the abandon of utter exhaustion. His breathing was easy, his skin cool.

I stumbled to the window. By the time I got there, I’d remembered everything, or pretty much all of it—the last few details sailed in and hit me like stones as I leaned on the sill and looked out. Shona’s cobalt Subaru was pulling into the yard. It stopped, and she got out, looking fair and fresh as a harebell in the morning sun. She opened the back door, reached in and took out a huge armful of lilies, roses and chrysanthemums. She glanced about her, listening for signs of life.

I cleared my throat gently. “Hi, Shona.”

She jumped and looked up. “Oh, Nichol. You’re up there.” She frowned. “Sorry. Pointing out the bloody obvious… People never know what to say, do they?”

“No. It’s difficult.”

“I can’t believe it about Harry. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“I know.”

“Er…I brought you these. Did I wake you up?”

I had no idea what time it was. “No. No, it’s fine. What beautiful flowers, Shona.”

“Can I…? Can I come in?”

“Yes, sure.” I gave it thought. “Before you do—I know it sounds a wee bit odd, but there’s a key just on the roof of Harry’s Toyota there. Would you bring it in? The door’s open.”

“Yes, of course.” She didn’t look fazed. Maybe this was how she thought grieving men behaved. She’d put up with enough peculiarities in her own domestic life, perhaps, not to be concerned by mine.

“And would you mind very much coming upstairs and unlocking this bedroom door?”

She came to a halt. She’d already calmly collected the key. Now she looked at it, and back up at me, her lovely face a picture over her armful of flowers. “Good God, Nichol.”

“Whatever you’re thinking, you’re nowhere near the truth.”

“Right. Er, okay. I’ll be right up.”

Thirty seconds later, the key turned in the ancient lock. Shona didn’t say anything, and I for my own part couldn’t think of a way to open a conversation. We exchanged a silence, then I heard her padding discreetly off down the stairs. Cam was still out cold. I rested a palm on his brow and tucked back one limp, out-flung hand beneath the quilt.

Chapter Sixteen

Shona was in the kitchen, lifting china out of the
preas
. The kettle was boiling. She started guiltily when I came in, as if I’d caught her mid-burglary. “Now,” she said, “I’m not gonna go all Women’s Voluntary Service on you, but I know how it is when someone dies. I’ll make you and Cameron a cup of tea, and some breakfast if you like, and then I’ll fuck off and mind my own business.”

“No.”

She shot me an anxious look, and I clarified, aware I had barked at her. “You don’t have to fuck off anywhere. Tea would be nice. But…Cam’s not well. I’ll sort us out some breakfast when he’s feeling better.”

“Okay. Poor Cameron. I heard from Archie what happened. Did he take a
teasach
?”

“Yeah, a bad one. How does Archie know?”

“He came back early from that conference on the mainland. He said Sergeant Maguire filled him in. And—this is what I wanted to tell you, Nichol—the coroner’s decided there’s no need for an autopsy, not if a local police officer who knew you and Harry well would be willing to speak for you. Archie’s going to do that, of course. He can’t get out here till later today, but he asked me to tell you if I saw you first.”

“Okay.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “Thanks. That’s a relief, about Granda. But I’m not up for company today. If you see Archie again, could you—?”

“Oh, Nichol. Don’t shut him out. He’s devastated about Harry. He just wants to help you, be your friend.”

The flowers she had brought were much too beautiful to lie neglected. I took a vase from the
preas
and unwrapped them. The scent of the roses enveloped me, citrus and Turkish delight. I smiled, for a second forgetting everything else. “My ma would have liked these.”

“Yeah. She loved her flowers, didn’t she?” Shona filled the teapot and stared into it as if she wasn’t sure of the next stage in the process. “It was terrible, what happened to her and Alistair. I was so sorry. But I never told you. We never went near you, did we? When you came back to the island. Not me or Archie, or any of your friends.”

I’d never thought about it. I shrugged. “I didn’t exactly rush to your side when Jimmy keeled over.”

“Just as well. You might have caught me dancing on his grave or setting fire to his collection of dead moles. I’m serious, though. I don’t know—maybe we were too wrapped up in our own stuff, or too young and stupid to know what to do. We want to make it up to you now. Archie does.”

I had to keep him away. All my old ideas of right and wrong had gone out the window along with my bedroom-door key. I had only one instinct left. No matter how changed my inner landscape—and it felt as if a hurricane had been through there—no one was going to reach into my home and do any further harm to Cam.

I carried the vase to the sink and ran water into it from the ancient lead pump. “It’s not that I’m shutting him out, Sho. I’m grateful to him—to you, for coming out here. But I’ve got Jen Kenzie and her kid for the next couple of days, so the farm’ll be looked after, and—I just need time. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” She brought a tray over to me, balancing it carefully. She did have nice ways, I thought. If I could care for a woman—if I could care at all for anyone else on earth—it would be her, with her unfussy kindness and her wry, straightforward soul. She’d made the tea in mugs but put the milk and sugar in a pretty crackle-glazed jug and bowl I’d forgotten we possessed, and she’d set some biscuits on a plate, as if for an important visitor. “I’ll be off, then. I’m glad you’ve got Jen and that wee tinker Kenzie, though watch him—that nut didn’t fall far from the hazel. And if you run into problems organising anything—the funeral, getting probate sorted—give me a call. I’ve had some practice lately.”

Cam was on the landing, sitting slumped with his back to the wall. I set the tray down and went to him. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Had to go to the loo. My legs gave out halfway.”

He sounded more like his old self. I smiled and tried to sound like mine. “You’ve not been very well. Halfway there or back?”