2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel (21 page)

Karen is sent round to dish out plastic set squares to everybody, which is good news because Scot likes geometry, especially all the stuff about angles. It’s also good news that it’s Karen, because he knows she’ll make sure he gets a decent one and not one of the half-chewed efforts. It’s teetering on slagging territory on both sides for the boys and girls to be caught talking to each other, so nobody really does, but you still know which ones like you.

Karen has barely sat down again after doing her rounds when there is a knock at the door, and, without awaiting an answer, in walks Father Wolfe.

Shite
.

“Good morning, Mrs Harris, and good morning, children,” he says.

Harris’s permascowl gets wiped in an instant and her coupon plays host to this ridiculous, overdone grin, which she turns to the class by way of encouragement. “Good morning, Father Wolfe,” she says, gesturing with her arms to everybody to raise the volume on their half-hearted greeting. She then clasps her hands like a wee lassie and gazes adoringly as he walks across the room. She fucking worships him. Seriously—she’s so far up his arse she can probably, see O’Connor’s feet.

Scot sighs, knowing the ball’s burst. He’d be as well using the set square to flick snorters, because that’s the only use he’ll get out of it now.

Harris celebrates the visitation by striking up (like she needs an excuse)
Soul of My Saviour
, one of Wolfe’s particular favourites. Then she gives him the floor and has a seat behind her desk while the Northern Irish Holy Bigot slabbers his shite.

He must realise that their primary school days are in their twilight and so is offering nuggets of advice for the new journey ahead, all of them variations upon the common theme of staying clear of Protestants. Given that most of the weans will be going home tonight to a Protestant parent and then maybe nicking round to play with their Protestant pals, the gangly Irish fud is farting against thunder, but it’s never diminished his gusto. Either he’s daft enough to believe this isn’t so or he thinks it’s all he can do to give them fair warning, after which it’s up to them if they want to burn in hell for ever along with the teeming ranks of Proddiedom.

He’s taking the long-term view, as well. He’s done education and moves on to marriage guidance. “If it comes to the worst and you end up murrying a Pradistant, just remember at least that you must get murried in the arms of the Catholic Church.
Nat
a rugistry affice or,
even worse
, the Pradistant Church.”

Well, buggeration. Must tell Lindsay Wagner the game’s a bogey. It’s the piney-apple or nothing, doll.

And it gets worse, Lindsay, hen. Turns out we’re doomed anyway.

“But the sad thing you must bear in mind is that muxed murriages don’t work. They’re recipes for tension and unhap-piness, and as a result the couples always,
always
, end up suparated.”

Harris is shaking her head sadly at this, a look of pained regret on her vinegar-socking fizzog.

“Miss,” says a girl’s voice.

Scot looks over and sees that Karen has her hand up.

“Not just now, Karen,” says Harris quietly.

Wolfe is thus able to continue slabbering shite unabated. Karen, however, doesn’t put down her hand.

“That is unless the Pradistant converts to Catholicism, and it’s actually a fact that ninety per cent of Pradistant ministers ask for conversion on their deathbeds because, deep down, they know…”

“But, miss,” Karen repeats, sounding frustrated.

“Put your hand
down
, Karen.”

This sharpening in tone causes Wolfe to pause, concerned some of his priceless words may be obscured.

Karen jumps into the gap. “But miss, it’s not true,” she says.

“What’s not true?” Harris demands, sounding aghast that Karen has had the cheek just to pile in. It’s a classic Harris tactic, too: she’s not asking because she’s interested; she’s asking so Karen can dig herself in deeper.

“What he said, miss. Mixed marriages don’t always end up getting separated and they’re not a recipe for unhappiness. My mum’s a Prodisant and her and my dad are fine.”

“
Silence!
” Harris shouts. “How dare you be so insolent. Get out here. Get out here at once.”

“But I’m telling the truth, miss.”

“
At once
, ” Harris repeats. She noisily yanks open a drawer and pulls out her belt, clattering it angrily on to the desk. “You will
not
contradict Father Wolfe and you will
not
speak out of turn in his presence.”

Karen has got to her feet. Scot has a look at her face. Normally at this point, folk are either shiting it or at least deflated, robbed of whatever energy drove their offence. Karen looks utterly fucking raging.

“Quicker, girl, or woe betide you. And take that insolent look off your face.” She turns to Wolfe, who is now looking like a spare tool. “I’m very sorry, Father Wolfe, very sorry indeed. And this girl will be apologising as soon as I’ve finished with her.”

There’s the usual silent buzz as Karen reaches the front and the class gets ready for the show. This time, though, it is punctured by another voice, this time a boy’s.

“Miss.”

Scot turns, and, to his astonishment, it’s Martin. He looks nervous as fuck, but he’s got his lips tight together like Scot has seen him when he’s going in for a tackle on the pitch.

“Not just now, Martin. Right, Karen, get your hands up and we’ll teach you—”

Martin gets to his feet, the sound of his chair scraping the tiles turning Harris’s disbelieving head.

“Miss, my dad’s not a Catholic either, and him and my mum aren’t unhappy.”

Wolfe suddenly looks like someone poured four-star petrol into his diesel brain. “Well, obviously there will be exceptions,” he splutters, “but as the expression says, it’s the exception that proves the rule.”

“That’s a misused expression, though, Father,” counters Martin. “In the olden days, they used the word ‘prove’ when they meant ‘test’.”

Scot has to put a hand over his mouth to stop himself laughing out loud. This is classic Martin, coming out with precisely the kind of know-it-all thing he gets shite for from the other kids, but right now he’s got Wolfe clamped and Harris nearly choking in outraged disbelief. She has to swallow before she can speak, and is about to erupt in summoning Martin to join Karen at the front. However, before she gets her words out, Helen Dunn has stood up, too.

“Miss, my mum is a non-Catholic as well,” she says, pronouncing every vowel and consonant with her usual precision.

Fuck it, Scot decides, and gets to his feet. Both of his parents are Catholics (or at least his dad used to be) but he wants to show Martin some solidarity; and besides, his dad would be furious if he passed up the chance to get it up ‘that jumped-up auld bigot Wolfe’.

“My dad’s not a Catholic, either,” he says.

After that, there’s a further sound of chairs being pushed back. Scot looks around and sees five others either on their feet or holding up their hands.

Harris is standing there looking horrified as the shite keeps piling higher. She’s surveying the weans ranked against her and Scot is confident he can pretty much read her thoughts. If she belts one, she has to belt them all, which is not something she’d normally shrink from, but this isn’t a bunch of the usual Braeview bampots caught running riot. Among this group are several good little boys and girls from the bought houses, whose maters and paters are going to be seriously dischuffed when they find out their wee darlings got skelped for the crime of pointing out the truth to a lying bastard.

So, in short, she’s fucked, and she knows it.

“Okay,” she says, putting on her harshest woe-betide-you voice. “Everybody, every one of you.
Sit. Down
.” And before anybody can consider maintaining their defiance, she turns her glare full beam on Karen and says, “On. You.
Go!
” like the lassie’s got no right to be standing there.

You have to hand it to Harris, it is a deft wee manoeuvre. She’s executed a complete climbdown but made out she’s still the one kicking their arses.

Scot notices that nobody is asked to apologise to Father Wolfe. He wants to suggest that Father Wolfe should apologise to
them
, but reckons it would be wise not to push his luck. Wolfe is still loitering wordless in front of the blackboard, his presence now a lingering embarrassment, like an eggy fart needing a door or window opened to let it out.

“Time for a hymn, I think,” Harris says, trying to fill the void.

Wolfe can’t wait for it to finish so he can escape, and Harris seems just as impatient to assist him, cutting the hymn short at an unprecedented single verse and chorus. She escorts him out of the room to have a private word in the corridor. The second the door shuts, everybody immediately starts talking about what just happened.

Scot looks across to Martin and they share a wee knowing grin. “Awright, Spartacus?” Scot says, hoping Martin’ll get it. It was on telly a wet Sunday afternoon only a couple of weeks back, after all.

“
I’m
Martacus,” Martin says.

Scot laughs. Maybe Martin will be all right at St Grace’s after all.

§

They’re passing through the reception lobby when Karen hears someone say, “Excuse me,” amid hurried footsteps behind her. She turns to see one of the ITU nurses holding two sheets of paper.

“You’re DS Gillespie?” she asks, addressing Tom.

“No, I am.”

“Sorry. Fax just came through for you.”

“Thanks,” Karen says, taking hold of the printouts. She’s been waiting for them impatiently, which was why she rather cheekily passed on the ITU fax number.

“What is it?” Tom asks.

“Robbie’s mobile-phone records. Our best bet for sorting out a time frame. Alex, the pathologist, was a bit woolly over the time of death, given the state of the remains. Here we go: Robbie called this number—accompanying note says it’s Noodsy’s—at sixteen-forty-eight.”

“Noodsy’s house or Noodsy’s mobile?”

“House. It’s a landline prefix.”

“We’ve got witnesses and sales receipts putting them at B&Q at around six and then again at half-eight. So it sounds like Noodsy could be telling the truth: he gets a call to come and help clean up after the show, then they start their beginners chemistry lesson.”

“Except,” Karen says, pointing to another line on the printed page, “look at this. Robbie
received a
call from this mobile number at sixteen-twelve.”

“Whose is it?”

“That’s the thing: they don’t know. Look at the notes here. Says it’s a pay-as-you-go account, so it’s unidentified. They’ve cross-referenced it back at the station and it doesn’t match any of the known numbers used by Colin Temple or Johnny Turner.”

“I see your point. It’s half an hour before he calls Noodsy for help. That means he’s either standing over two bodies, and therefore a bit busy to take any calls; or he’s imminently about to be involved in a situation that ends with two people dead. Again, not a time you’d be answerin the phone. Cannae say for sure, right enough, because we don’t know how long the bodies were cold before he called Noodsy.”

“But what if he didn’t?”

Tom’s forehead attempts to implode as he wrestles with her apparent illogicality. “Didn’t what?”

“Call Noodsy. What if that number is Noodsy’s and
he
called
Robbie?
What if it’s all the other way around, and it’s Noodsy who was standing over two dead bodies? We only have his word at this stage and Robbie is conveniently out of the picture.”

“We didn’t find a mobile on Noodsy, or at his place,” Tom reminds her. “It would make sense to get rid of it, right enough.”

“Well, leaving aside whether Noodsy would have the sense to get rid of it, not to mention his success rate at getting rid of other things, it’s worth looking into.”

“Yeah, but why would Robbie phone his home number later?”

“Again, maybe he didn’t.”

More brow-compressions.

“There’s a lot going on in that lodge once the two of them are on site,” she explains. “Noodsy could easily have called his own house with Robbie’s mobile while Robbie was throwing up in the bathroom or whatever.”

“But if nobody was home, the call wouldn’t have registered. According to this, it lasted two minutes. Noodsy lives alone. He used to live with a woman, but that was—”

“So find out whether he’s got an answering machine, or BT 1571, because either of those would do it.”

Tom makes the necessary call while they walk to Karen’s car, a journey long enough for her to identify a flaw in her theory large enough for her to wonder whether his effort is worthwhile.

“McGowan’s over there the noo,” Tom reports. “Should be a couple of minutes.”

“Yeah,” she says non-committally.

“What?” Tom asks, picking up on the doubt.

“Hole in the argument. Why would
Robbie
help?”

“Dunno. You’ve heard the expression thick as thieves.”

“Aye, but I’ve seldom believed it. The two-short-planks kind of thick is more common in my experience than the bonds-of-fraternity variety. If it’s Noodsy who called in Robbie, he’s gaunny walk in there and find his dad lying dead on the floor. Okay, Noodsy can tell him Temple killed his dad and he killed Temple, but surely he wouldn’t call the guy’s own son to help dispose of his body. Nah. I’m havering with this one. Waste of time.”

“You’re only havering if you exclude the possibility that Robbie wouldn’t be entirely broken-hearted about his old man being bumped off.”

“I’m excluding no possibilities, least of all ones suggesting a motive.”

Tom’s mobile rings. “McGowan,” he relays. “Noodsy’s got 1571, but there’s no messages.”

Karen looks at the sheet: proof in black and white that the two-minute call
was
made. “So either Noodsy’s telling the truth and took the call himself—leaving us with the question of who called Robbie at sixteen-twelve—or he let his answering service record two minutes of silence and was then smart enough to delete it.”

“What’s your instinct telling you?”

“That we still know shag-all. We need to remedy that asap Starting with having the first clue what would put Johnny Turner and Colin Temple in a room together, let alone either of these clowns.”