The Cutting Room (33 page)

I glanced up at her. `You okay?’

She nodded, trembling with the effort of keeping still.

The intruder ran the muzzle of his gun down the nape of

her neck.

`Keep calm, do what you’re told and your girlfriend’ll be

fine. We’re just here for the money.’

His companion pointed his gun at me with a steady hand. I

bundled notes into the bag, wondering if Derek was on his

way to AnneMarie’s or if he was still on the line listening.

`You’re getting the money, there’s no need to frighten her

more.’ I raised my voice hoping it would carry across the air waves.

`Aye, but it’s fun.’ The man laughed, then leant over Rose,

keeping the gun at her brow. `Don’t worry, doll, I wouldn’t hurt you. Not unless your old man does something stupid.’

The bag was full. I glanced quickly at the phone concealed

on the chair beside me. The light had vanished from the

display. The line was dead.

`Okay.’ I slid the bag towards them, the gunman pushed

Rose from him, then she and I were embracing.

`Right,’ he said, `that was easy, wasn’t it? Now, where’s

your storeroom?

The possession of the money seemed to make the men high.

I’d held Rose’s elbow tight, feeling that if anything went

wrong it would happen now. They’d laughed at the mountains

of junk piled in the storeroom, then padlocked us in.

The door to the saleroom slammed behind them and Rose

said, `I need the toilet.’

I was feeling around blindly in the junk, hoping I didn’t

start an avalanche, looking for something she could pee into, when we heard a commotion of male voices, slamming doors

and crackling radios. Derek had come through. I handed Rose

a brass planter, heard the rustle of her skirt, then, just before the hiss of her stream, `For God’s sake don’t shout for help until I’m finished.’

Shot? So quick, so clean an ending?

Oh that was right, lad, that was brave:

Yours was not an ill for mending,

‘Twas best to take it to the grave.

A. E. Housman,

`A Shropshire Lad’

SURROUNDED BY ALL THE vice of the city, cruelties under my

nose, and all I had thought about was the past. History tells us why things are the way they are. It shows the constancy of

human nature. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell us what to do

about it. I’d been a fool. I looked at my watch. The hand was leaving the half-hour. Time travelled on, putting us all in the past, but I still couldn’t reach back and put things right.

Anderson pushed through the policemen and took Rose in his

arms. He looked at me. `Why do I feel you’re to blame for this?’

The Final Cut 273

Rose put a trembling hand into his jacket, removed his

and do you a favour and end up in the thick of it. I’m no

cigarettes and helped herself to one. Anderson lit it for her exactly happy at being involved in all of this. In fact, when we and she took a compulsive draw.

get to this lassie’s house, whoever she is, you can drop me off.

`Leave him alone,’ she said. `It’s my fault. Rilke would

I suggest you go back, face the music with James Anderson,

never have thought of taking the money if it wasn’t for me.’

and then you and Rose develop a dose of amnesia.’

Anderson gave her a bemused stare.

`I thought you were a hard man.’

`I think they were working for McKindless.’ I pushed past

`Aye, well, you thought wrong.’

Anderson and Rose, heading for the door. `Somehow he’s

`Fine, do what you want.’

not dead. He put his money into antiques, easy to sell if he `Sweet Jesus!’ Les swore again as I sped through a gap in

needed a fast getaway. The sale money was to go into his

the traffic, outfacing a double-decker bus. `At least try and get sister’s account, but she died, so he resorted to desperate

us there in one piece.’ He leant forward and started to fiddle measures. I think I know where McKindless is.’

with the radio. `Let’s see if we can get the police channel on `You’ll stay put, Rilke. This is a crime scene and if you

this. For all we know, they’ve already got there and she’s

leave’

right as rain.’

The door slammed behind me, cutting off his words. I took

He eased the dial along the frequencies and the cab was

the stairs two at a time, conscious of the echo of other feet filled with the hiss and shriek of white noise, the beeps and following me. I met Leslie on the stairwell. He saw me

booms of secret signals, punctuated by shreds of voices, scraps running, heard the sound of my pursuer, turned and ran

of music. Then into the dissonance broke a regular pulse. A without stopping to ask why. I ground the van into gear,

rhythm that percolated everything around it. A beat that

kicked open the passenger door. Les launched himself in as I jarred the soles of your feet and spread through your body like pulled out into the road.

cancer.

`Suffering Christ!’ He lurched against the window. `Are

The big drum looked a part of the man’s body. A second

you going to tell me what’s going on?’

belly, raised high, like a proud pregnancy reaching the end of I sped towards Garnethill, using every shortcut and cut

its term. The man slammed the stretched skin, hammering

through I knew, jarring the van along potholed back lanes,

home blow after blow, swinging the sticks into the air, then jumping the lights at junctions, cutting in and out of traffic, returning to pound out a slow beat, a warning, notification of ignoring the irate horns of the other drivers. As I drove I told hate. Behind him, swaggering in time, followed the dignitaries Les the story of the last week.

of the lodge: small men all; bowler hats straight; fringed, He groaned. `I told you to leave they guys alone. Jesus,

orange and gold tabards draped over their black suits. A rank they are big fucking gangsters. I should know better than to of uniformed snare drummers followed, beating out a faster

involve myself in your business. I’d heard Trapp was skedad rhythm. Gonnae gitya, gonnae git ya, gonnae gitya. Beyond the tiling and I was coming warn you to keep your nose out. Try

drums the piping fifes brought in the melody.

It’s old but it is beautiful

Its colours they are fine,

It was worn at Derry, Aughrim,

Enniskillen and the Boyne,

My father wore it as a youth

In the bygone days of yore

And it’s on the twelfth I love to wear

The Sash My Father Wore.

And beyond the flutes, the women, sanctioned followers of

the camp, strutting proudly in their Mother-of-the-Bride suits and fancy hats. A police cordon edged the parade, strolling in time with the beat, full part of the ritual.

The Orange Walk is part of West Coast of Scotland

folklore. Every spring in tiny towns on the edge of nothing, where the steel mill has closed and the mines have shut down, in large cities where factories lie derelict and shipyards despair of orders, men dress themselves in the raiment of the Orange Lodge and march in the name of King Billy. The parade and

the mob are an accumulation of the mad, bad, poor and

dispossessed. Tales of beatings by the walk are legendary. The worst trespass against them is to show disrespect by cutting their path. To `cross the walk’ is a very bad idea.

I abandoned the van in the middle of the road, flung myself

through the crowd and into the march. A bandsman’s baton

dealt a blow to my shoulders that almost felled me, but I

managed to stay upright, pinballing through the marchers and out into the crowd on the other side. A constable shouted at me to `Stop!’ I ignored him and began to run the steep

gradient towards Buccleuch Street.

There was someone pecking behind me, a chorus to my

own laboured breath, but whether it was Leslie or the

The Final Cut 275

policeman I wasn’t sure. A group of small children

followed my progress with complacent eyes as I skirted

half-dressed dolls, a pram, a tricycle, a bike. Three old

ladies on the steps of the Italian chapel shook their heads

and muttered to each other. An elderly Chinese man leant

against the posters advertising Bollywood videos that

plastered the window of his shop. He drew on a rollup

and trailed me with indifference. The queue outside the

art cinema trained their eyes as one, already an audience. I was almost there. I turned the corner and halted.

Two police cars were skewed across the road. For an

instant the dark street blended to crimson as if I were looking through a tinted lens. Flashing lights whirled: Blood, no

blood, blood, no blood, blood, no blood…

The slam of the close door echoed behind me. Hollow

snatches of whispers drifted down the stairwell …Scream … Screaming . . You hear it.? . A scream . . Fair chilled me, so it did . . Murder . :Someone said a murder . a scream . . chilled my bones . .

shivered ma timbers a dozen polis . shower of bastards . heard the sirens . . heard the scream . He said I’ll go and help, the lassie needs help and I said no you’ll no, you’re staying here . . A boyfriend . . A sex f end . . One o’ the family . . Foul play, right enough . Never heard a scream like it . . no since the war no since Faither left no since Saturday night .

frightened the cat . soured the milk turned the soup turned ma stomach … I started to run the long spiral of the staircase, knowing the race was lost, but unable to stop…. look at him . .skinny cunt . in a hurry . in a rush . . her husband . .too old . .her lover . too ugly . .the doctor . . too scruffy . a polis . .

too dodgy . . no dodgy enough … I could see myself, insignificant, a beetle crawling the curves of a conch …scabbed … raped . chibbed molested murdered kilt Godsaveus . Godhelpus . .God help her . .Help and Keep Her . Barking dogs

flung themselves against doors as I passed. I felt outside

myself. A puppet press-ganged into someone else’s hallucination.

The door to AnneMarie’s flat was ajar. I pushed it wide

and went through.

The body looked small in death. Head thrown back, pale face

raised to the sky, lips frozen in a last ghastly grin, as if caught in a final yearning for life. A red sea glazed the rough pile of the carpet, spreading into a river, a slick scarlet trail that edged into brown, where a desperate, failing effort had been made to crawl towards the door. The bloodied hands clutched

at the stomach, caught in the process of trying to force

something back in. There was a glimpse of entrail, a smell of corruption and decay.

`Who’d have thought the old man would have so much

blood in him,’ I whispered.

AnneMarie, a blanket draped round her shoulders, tracksuit

steeped in bloody splashes, heard my voice, broke away

from the policewoman she was talking to and trembled

towards me.

`Is it a sin to kill a dead man?’ she whispered.

I held her close. We watched together as a police photographer bent his knee, focused his lens, and placed the body in

the centre of the frame. There was a bright flash and Mr

McKindless, the man I knew as Grieve, was captured for ever.

Transcript

THE POLICEMAN WHO INTERVIEWED me was younger than

Anderson. He wore a well-cut suit and a superior manner

which would normally have made me obstructive. I told him

everything, from the discovery of the photographs to the

hold-up in the auction house. Of course, when I say everything, I don’t mean the entire narrative. I stressed Trapp’s

involvement, excluded Les, John’s under-the-counter trade,

Derek’s dubious entree into film making and the auction

sting. But I laid myself wide open, unfolded myself on the

cross and prepared to play the martyr. When he told me I was free to go I almost protested. I stayed in my seat ready to ask him, `Don’t you understand all of this is my fault??

‘Inspector Anderson would like a word before you

leave’ was all the young detective said as he showed

me the door.

`Have a seat.’ It was the same office where we had examined the netsuke while I dripped on the carpet. `Well, you were in the thick of it this time.’

`Yes.’

Anderson looked shattered. I guessed I looked no better.

`Did it never occur to you to have a word with me??

‘It occurred.’

`It might have saved us both a lot of bother.’

`I realise that.’

`You’ve succeeded in putting me in the bad books. I told

my contact in Vice that McKindless was dead, he took me at

my word and somehow it’s my fault he didn’t check the

facts.’

`Sorry.,

‘And then there’s this.’ He handed me the calculations

Rose had done for our sting. Master criminal that she was,

she’d committed our crime to paper. `When Rose mentioned

taking the money I thought I’d better have a root around the desk and see if there was any evidence. I’d destroy that if I were you.

`A moment of madness. It was my idea.’

He gave me a sceptical look. `I thought it might be. Give

you a hard time through there, did they??

‘I survived.’

`Aye. I didn’t see any mention of your old chum Les in