Wilderness (Arbogast trilogy) (7 page)

Arbogast was glad to be home, even if only for a few hours. He turned his attention to what constituted his drinks cabinet – a lone bottle of Glenmorangie left on the fireplace – and poured himself a generous measure into Caithness crystal. It was a thick, heavy glass and the last of six from a prior engagement, although there was no-one left to toast. He promised himself one complete, undisturbed hour of relaxation and made for his Project Genie III turntable, which was his pride and joy. His previous record player had shuffled off this mortal coil after a late night visit from Sandy who had been blind drunk when he arrived and who had immediately fallen asleep on the couch. Arbogast had woken the next morning to find Sandy standing in a trance emptying his bladder over his TV and stereo system. He was prone to sleepwalking but had been ejected from the flat, like a drunk at last orders. Everything had been destroyed, although the plus point meant that everything had to be replaced and upgraded. He dug out his old Otis Reading LPs and sank back into his well weathered leather armchair as the strains of ‘You left all the water running’ oozed out from the speakers and deep into his soul. Slowly but surely he slumped into a good place, feeling the knots wash away. It had been quite a first day but at least it was over. On cue the phone rang. He was in two minds about answering but he knew it might be important.

“Mr John J Arbogast?” the voice said at the other end.

“Speaking”

“Mr Arbogast its Janine from the Woodlands Rest Home – I think you should get here as soon as possible – your mother has taken a turn for the worse.”

The trip to the care home was only a three mile drive but tonight it felt longer. As he drove through the city the bright lights and late night activity shot past in a blur. John J Arbogast had been born on the 8
^th
of October 1973. His mother had left it late and was considered a very old mother at the time, giving birth at the grand old age of 41. He had no father that he knew of and no brothers or sisters to keep him company and so his formative years were spent primarily with his mum. ‘Me and my mum,’ he had always said when he was little. It had never seemed that he was missing out on anything as they did so much together and to be fair he had been quite spoilt. Or as spoilt as you could be when your mother spent half her time as a teacher and the other half making up for being away so much. But when she turned 70, things started to go wrong. At first he thought she’d turned to drink and it had been a great joke between them, her sitting with whisky in hand and him berating her for being such a lush. But a year later what he had thought were drinking binges turned out to be galloping Alzheimer’s. That had been the term they’d used – galloping. The word conjured the prospect of a race to the finish and it hadn’t been wide of the mark. Her mind at least was long gone and she’d been here in Woodlands for three-and-a-half years, in body if not in spirit. When he arrived he pressed the buzzer and was admitted by an anxious looking nurse, “Janine?”

“Yes I’m so glad you made it. She’s taken a turn for the worse.”

“She seemed OK when I last saw her,” Arbogast said, trying to remember when exactly that was. In the early days he had tried to visit every day. It had seemed so cruel to have her here with no-one to speak to and she was still fairly chatty at that point. But recently it had turned into once a month. Once he didn’t come for twelve weeks and this was something he would never try to justify. He just never spoke of it to anyone. Apart from him no-one even knew she was here. They would sit for hours just the two of them. Arbogast knew he was talking to himself, but he told her what he had been doing, while she sat staring off into space with her hands clasped together on her lap, looking as if she were watching an invisible fly hovering around in front of her somewhere. Sometimes there would be flashes of recognition. She would suddenly burst into a smile and say, ‘There’s my wee boy,’ or touch his cheek and tell him that she loved him. So shocking were these experiences that they more often than not reduced him to tears. He would hope against hope that it might mean she was getting better; that she might come back to him. But of course she never did and as the months went by she was gradually lost to him.

He usually saw her in what the nurses said was her ‘favourite’ seat by the window, surrounded by about twenty more of the lost generation. Today she was in bed, attached to a drip with life support machines doing what they did by her side. The red emergency cord seemed somewhat redundant given there was no one capable of pulling it.

“Mr Arbogast?” the voice broke his train of thought, “Mr Arbogast, are you OK?” asked Janine the night nurse on the ward. “You’re mother is rejecting her medication and it’s affecting her breathing. It’s possible she may not last the night but we will try and stabilise her.”

“What for?” Arbogast said, “She’s a vegetable and she’ll never been anything else. My mother died years ago, it’s just that no-one’s told her. Please don’t give her any more medication – this is no way for her to be kept, paying your bills while barely being alive.”

He thought Janine might be shocked but all she did was dip her head slightly before looking up at him through slightly narrowed eyes. “Mr Arbogast we have a duty of care here and we will do everything in our power to keep your mother alive. It’s illegal just to ‘let her go’. You of all people should understand that. I called you as it’s possible we might fail. She might die tonight and if she does...well at least you can be with her. It’s morbid I know but I’ve seen people who didn’t come and regretted it, so you’ve done the right thing by coming tonight... in my opinion.”

Arbogast knew she was right. “Well if you don’t mind I’ll sit here and wait.” Janine nodded. Doctors came and went doing their tests and measuring their successes and failures. Arbogast was ready. He thought it would be a blessing for his mother if this was the end of the road. Not that he believed in life after death but it had been a solace his mother had always clung to and he would never forget her so she would have that fleeting immortality if nothing else. As he sat with her he tried to remember her as she was, and one image kept returning to him. They had gone on holiday to the island of Arran, off the west coast, where they rented a small flat. This was their annual treat. People might laugh at the notion now but it had been such an adventure to him as a young boy. He had felt like an explorer, the laird of the island. But it was their routine that he remembered most fondly. There was a spot by the coast where a fresh water stream met with the sea where they would drive the car to wash it. They took washing up liquid from the kitchen and dowsed the car with buckets of fresh mountain water. It seemed such an exotic thing to do at the time and they always enjoyed it. He would ‘race’ his mum in the car, leaving 15 minutes earlier than she to reach their destination and of course she always let him win. She had climbed onto the bike, which was far too small for her, and cycled round and round in circles, both of them laughing. She wore a yellow pastel quilted jacket and beige slacks. Round and round she went until eventually she got too dizzy and fell off. They had fallen about laughing; it had been the perfect day and possibly his lasting image of his mother in her prime. He smiled as he thought of it and then slowly was taken by sleep and the exhaustion of the last few days.

He had been dreaming about running over cobbles when he was awoken by a gentle rocking. It was Janine. She had been trying to wake him, but for how long? In his stupor he said, “I don’t think it’s time yet,” as his mind lingered on his childhood days.

“I think you might be right,” she said, “Take a look,” as Arbogast looked up his mother was sitting upright in her bed, being fed some sort of gruel by the nurse. “You see I think Ella Arbogast will be with us for a while yet.” John J was both relieved and disappointed. It was great to see his mum alive but this was her condition now. He asked if he might be able to feed her and the duty nurse agreed. “Not too much now and don’t force it please, she might choke.” He felt immensely sad as he carried out this task but at the same time he knew he had made a breakthrough of sorts. He still had memories to cherish and he could still be part of his mother’s life. After about an hour he left the care home and got back in his car.

Arbogast sat for another 20 minutes, shuddering at the prospect that what had happened to his mother could happen to him too. If it did there would be no-one to come and see him. He turned on his phone which rang immediately. It was DCI Rosalind Ying.

 “Where have you been?” The sound was so loud that Arbogast had to move the phone away from his ear, “Get yourself to the hospital – Mary Clark’s woken up.”

The call disconnected and Arbogast put the car in gear and left his mother behind him
.

8

February 16
^th
2010

Ever since Stevie Davidson had failed to return to the depot many of his colleagues had already convicted him of every conceivable crime. More than a few eyebrows had been raised when John Dale had decided to take him on – a man who had been sent to jail for trying to abduct a child from the side of the street. The boss had argued that he had been young and that everyone deserved a second chance. He was like that, a bit of a social champion – he liked to see himself as someone who was better than the rest. ‘But now look what’s happened,’ they said, ‘No Stevie, no coach, and no child.’

‘Was it a boy or a girl?’ thought Jean Jessop, her mind was working overtime. Jean had worked with Dales for 22 years and had more experience of working in the business than the current owner. She had been taken on when there was just one bus and John’s dad Phil ran the show. Jean knew what had happened. She might not have any proof but she knew. They’d been trying to catch Stevie out for years but he’d been clever. He’d kept his cards close to his chest. But now, well now they had him and he’ll be going back to jail where he belongs. This time he’d gone too far.

The company was closed because of the weather. No-one could get into work and the roads were too blocked to cope with coach traffic so Jean had ended up with an unexpected couple of days off and too much time on her hands.
‘Why haven’t the papers named Stevie yet?’
she thought,
‘I mean he’s got previous and that kid will be in danger – possibly already be dead.’
Jean had already made her mind up that the world deserved to know exactly what they were dealing with.

Linda Davidson wasn’t sure what had happened. The police had been round to tell her that her son was missing and that a child may be with him. A woman had been left to die on his bus? Linda didn’t think it sounded right. Stevie had had his problems but that was all in the past. Even so the evidence wasn’t looking good. She had tried to phone his mobile but it went straight to answer phone. The police woman had been nice. She had said they couldn’t find him either but she was quite insistent they needed to find him soon – although there was no need to assume the worst. Then she’d gone and Linda was left, alone, in her lounge. 30 years ago the room would have passed for modern. The old brown mottled covers on the couch were tinged with damp and the furnishings were really now just functional rather than smart. This was the house of a 69 year old woman, living alone and with no need for the high life. Linda could feel that a deep depression was starting to take hold and she sat and wept at the unfortunate string of events which seemed to have dogged her son through the years. Linda stood by her fire place looking at aged and weathered pictures of her family that now seemed lost to her, when the silence exploded into a wall of sound. She was aware of a crash which sounded like glass. Cursing her haphazard cat she made her way into the hallway where she found a brick lying on the carpet. She stared at it not really knowing what to do. Turning to face the door another brick came smashing through the living room window, shards of glass tearing through her life and bringing Linda back to life, as fear gripped her to the spot.

News of a disturbance at Maplin Drive in Motherwell came not from the police but through the internet. Sandy Stirrit had been looking to find new lines on the deserted coach case when he turned his attention to his Twitter account. He had been sceptical about using social media as recently as six months ago but he could see the medium had obvious merits. He often gleaned leads from tweets and online discussions while he had been given more than one story through direct messages to his own account. People were now videoing incidents and posting them online immediately. Even though a lot of content tended towards the libellous you could still find interesting and immediate reaction to all manner of stories within seconds. Today he was surprised. Someone calling themselves @HotGossip had made a number of interesting entries under the trend topic #snowpaedo which, if there were anything to them, threatened to blow the case wide open. He had struggled to get any information from Arbogast but this might force his hand. A story is a story after all. @HotGossip had made a number of tweets over the last three hours including:

#snowpaedo bus driver is known sex offender Stevie Davidson from Dales Travel 

Justice 4 #snowpaedo Stevie Davidson police do nothing then we will demonstr8

#snowpaedo Stevie Davidson @ Motherwell Maplin Drive 2:30 4 justice DM me for details

Sandy was intrigued. He phoned Dales Travel and asked to speak to Stevie Davidson anonymously. He had spoken to the owner earlier who had nothing to say but it would be interesting to see the reaction. John Dale answered again and said Stevie Davidson was not working today and the depot was closed. He could pass on a message
. ‘Well Stevie seems to exist.’
Sandy phoned
Arbogast to sound him out.

“Alright JJ how’s the case going?”

“I can’t speak now Sandy.”

“You’ll want to know this. Does the name Stevie Davidson mean anything to you?” The brief silence meant that it did.