A Taste for Malice (10 page)

‘She’s doing well, considering,’ I reply.

‘Oh …has her condition worsened?’ Her face is creased with concern.

‘How well do you know Mrs Browning?’ asks Alessandra.

‘As well as you can do when she has her hand in your mouth whenever you meet,’ Mrs Hogg answers with an apologetic smile. With anyone else that might have counted as an attempt at humour.

‘But well enough to recommend a child-minder,’ I say.

Mrs Hogg smiles in a vague manner. She can’t quite place the slight needle in my tone with the smile on my face. ‘Anything to help.’ She slides a plate full of biscuits over in my direction. ‘Not meaning to be cheeky, DI McBain, but you look like a man who enjoys a biscuit.’

I take one when I would rather tip the lot into her mouth.

‘How did you come to recommend Ms Hepburn,’ asks Alessandra.

‘Is there something wrong, dear?’ Mrs Hogg is wearing a look of mild alarm.

‘Just a routine enquiry, Mrs Hogg,’ answers Alessandra. ‘I believe that Ms Hepburn took up unofficial child-minding duties with Mrs Browning thanks to your recommendation?’

‘Yes. Both of them were able to help the other and I feel happy that I was able to act as a go-between. Lucy is such a lovely girl. Hard-working and keen to please. She worked all the hours in the hospital and then went over to help with the Browning kids.’

‘How did you meet Lucy?’ I ask.

‘It might have been at the church,’ she answers staring out the window.

‘What church would that be?’

‘Or was it the book reading group?’ She shrugs. ‘I belong to so many social groups it’s difficult to keep track.’

‘Any other possibilities, Mrs Hogg?’ I ask and I am unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice. She doesn’t react. That’s twice now that someone else might have been needled but she has reacted with all the vim and vigour of a paper plate held under the shower. A word pops into my mind that describes her perfectly. Vapid. She’s as insubstantial as a solitary raindrop. She made one splash with her Tommy and has then lived life avoiding any warmth in case she evaporates. Such was her grief that she decided not to allow anything else to affect her. The problem with that approach is that it means you lose out on the good stuff as well. You become like a visitor in your own life.

Instead of feeling sorry for her, I am finding that she irritates me. What does that say about me?

‘Time to get honest, Mrs Hogg,’ I shift forward on my seat. ‘As a result of your actions some children were hurt.’ She gasps. Alessandra stares at me.

‘Have you ever heard of Disclosure Scotland?’ I don’t wait for her to answer; I am getting so worked up. ‘It screens out the bad guys so our children are safe.’

‘Tommy and I never had kids,’ she stares over her shoulder at one of his photos. Then back at me. ‘Are you sure it’s Lucy you are looking for? She is such a lovely girl. Wouldn’t hurt a fly I’m sure.’ She takes a sip of her tea. ‘And children are so adaptable. They recover so quickly don’t they?’

Is this woman for real?

‘Mrs Hogg…’

‘Mrs Hogg,’ Alessandra interrupts with a long meaningful look in my direction. ‘This is an early stage in our investigation. Lucy Hepburn is one of the leads we are following. We need to know where to find her so we can eliminate her from our enquiries. Any information you can give us would be appreciated.’

Mrs Hogg sits her cup in its saucer, places her hands in her lap and offers a smile. The world is back on its axis. The moment of confrontation has passed.

‘I’m struggling to remember where I met Lucy. But she did help out at a church event. Lovely girl. Really can’t imagine her harming anyone. We got friendly as you do when you are in such a situation. Helping others. She mentioned that she was working long hours to earn some extra cash. I remembered being part of a brief conversation with Mrs Browning and her dental nurse about needing help with the children. So I offered to put her in touch with Mrs Browning.’

‘How did they get in touch? Do you have a phone number?’ I ask knowing that this would just be too easy.

‘You know …’ Mrs Hogg strains as she leans over the arm of her chair and pulls at her handbag. ‘I got a new phone.’ She rummages in her bag and pulls something out. Her phone has its own wee black velvet purse. I’m amazed she didn’t knit herself one. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she sings. ‘I just love it. Look. How lovely is this?’ She slips the phone from its case and displays it to us as if it were a late, great uncle’s war medal. ‘Anyway. I was worried that I would lose some numbers from the old one. It was so old; it was about the size of a brick.’ She laughs.

‘But …’ She holds the phone in her left palm and lightly touches the screen with her right hand, ‘…my numbers were all here. Right. Lucy. Where are you? Here we go…’ she reads the number out. Alessandra writes it down.

‘Thank you,’ I offer.

We stand up to go and Mrs Hogg escorts us to the door. As I stand on her doorstep she asks me. ‘Disclosure Scotland?’

‘Yes?’ I say and notice that her cardigan is buttoned back up to the top.

‘Wouldn’t that be the parents’ job to check up on?’ She closes the door.

Another night. Another nightmare. This time I was in a corridor that never ended. Bare walls and linoleum. The echo of my footsteps. Nothing actually happened, but there was an overriding sense of menace. And the level of my fear increased the closer I got to the end of the corridor. Except suddenly the space in front of me would lengthen again.

I wake up just as tired as I was when I went to bed. At least I have the day off to recover. Over a coffee I make some decisions. Last time I had a series of nightmares I choose booze as my way out. When that didn’t work, I went for exercise and meditation. Time to get a grip. I’ll skip the booze and go for the healthy body and mind stuff.

And a generation of west of Scotland men spin in their pickled graves.

I chew on a banana while I look for my running shoes and shorts.

I pick up one shoe when my door buzzer rings. I pick up the intercom.

‘McBain, let me in,’ says Maggie.

When she gets in the door she gives me a hug. ‘You’re putting weight on.’ She looks at the single running shoe in my hand. ‘And you are doing… sorry, thinking about doing something about it.’

‘Nice to see you too, Maggie.’ I walk through to the kitchen and refill the kettle.

‘Aah, that would be great,’ Maggie leans against a kitchen unit. ‘I could kill for a coffee.’

‘So you were just passing and you thought you would pop in and call me a fat bastard,’ I say.

‘Something like that,’ Maggie grins. She looks good and she’s lost some weight. Her hair has been lightened and cut fashionably. She’s wearing cream linen trousers, a huge brown leather belt slung low on her hips and a lime green blouse is open enough to show a nice bit of cleavage. She challenges me with a look.

I look away from her breasts. ‘Sorry.’

We’ve never had sex and I wonder if we should get it out of the way. I did pick her up once when I was drunk. And we did end up in bed together, but nothing happened because of the state I was in. And the moment passed. Then Maggie did her I’m Intuitive and I Want to Help You thing. Then we became friends. My eyes stray back for another look.

‘For god’s sake,’ Maggie closes a button on her blouse. ‘If you can’t keep your eyes off the puppies I’m going to have to put them away.’

‘Again. Sorry.’

‘You need a woman, Ray?’

‘You applying for the role?’

‘Just a few months ago you were pure worried that I fancied you. Now you’re doing your dog in heat thing?’

‘Should we just fuck and get it over with?’

‘How could a girl refuse such a tempting invitation?’

She holds her hands over her heart. Then she gets serious. ‘Maybe I have to see what’s on offer first.’

‘What?’

She takes a step closer to me. ‘I read about this latest craze on the internet. Women with clothes on and the men are naked. Displaying the goods. And the women get to touch everything.’

I take a step back towards the door.

‘So maybe I need to see what Ray McBain has to offer.’

I take another step back.

‘Take your trousers off and whip it out big boy. And if I see what I like …’

‘Fuck off.’ I grin. ‘Nearly got me there.’

‘Aye. Now can we dispense with the will we or won’t we ever go to bed crap. ’Cos that ship has well and truly sailed.’

She reopens the button on her blouse. ‘You can look all you want, Ray. These babies are forever out of your reach.’

We are through in the living room sipping at our coffee in companionable silence. I’m smiling. Glad that we have dealt with this issue so we can concentrate on just being mates.

‘Why the cheesey?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Seen much of Theresa?’

My grin slips. ‘Na.’

‘You are such a bad liar, McBain.’

Right. I forgot Maggie sees everything. She can read me like a book.

‘Well, I did see her and …’

‘And …’

‘And …it was only for three seconds tops. But it was long enough to see that she was pregnant.’

Maggie takes another sip of her coffee and stares at me intently. I hate when she does that.

‘And you think it’s yours.’

‘Run the numbers, Mags. She wasn’t sleeping with him.’

‘Ever think that she might have been using you?’

‘She’s not that kind of girl.’

‘Grow up, McBain. She’s with this guy for years. No babies. She lets you have your wicked way with her. Biff, baff, boff, she’s preggers …’

‘No way.’

‘She’s pregnant and it’s bye, bye Mr sperm donor.’

‘I’m telling you she’s not like that.’

‘I don’t doubt that on a conscious level she didn’t choose to act in such a way. However, the telling fact is that when faced with a pregnancy, you were not the one she turned to Ray.’

‘You have this annoying way of making me face facts, Maggie.’

‘You’re so welcome,’ she smiles sweetly.

I stare out of the window. I can see the tops of the trees clinging on to the last of their blossom.

‘And there’s more,’ she says.

‘What now?’

‘What’s really troubling you, Ray?’ She’s doing the staring thing again. It suddenly feels very warm in here. Must be the coffee.

‘I’ve got this case at work.’

‘Pants on fire.’

‘Christ, do I love it when you visit. My own private therapy hell.’

‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,’ she sounds hurt.

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’

I go back to examining the trees.

‘You haven’t been sleeping too well have you?’ she asks.

‘Maggie,’ two syllables uttered slowly and invested with maximum whine. ‘Gonnae leave me alone.’

‘Okay,’ she replies quietly.

‘Right. Okay. I’ve been having nightmares again.’

As I recovered from the knife wounds inflicted on me by the real Crucifix Killer, John Leonard, and tried to come to terms with the part he had played in my life, Maggie was the one person I could talk to. She is the only person on the planet who knows the whole story. She knows how I was haunted by dreams while people were being murdered and left with wounds that copied the Crucifixion. She knows that as a child I helped to kill a man I thought had abused me and others. She knows that we killed the wrong man.

The truth was hidden even from me until Leonard went on the rampage. My mind had sealed the memories in the darkest cleft of my mind. It took months of horrifying dreams and Leonard’s knife to force them out.

‘Why do you think you’re having nightmares again, Ray?’

‘Dunno.’

She stares at me. This time her eyes have a more gentle light to them. It’s empathy in its purest form. She understands as if she had experienced something similar.

‘What haven’t
you
told
me
, Maggie?’

She sits back in her seat and crosses her legs. ‘What would you like to know?’

‘Like how come you seem to understand so well?’

‘We’re all victims, Ray. Anyway, don’t try and turn this conversation on to me. This is about you. When do you ever get to talk about you?’

‘Mmmmm. One of these days it’s going to be all about you.’

‘I bloody hope so. And all I ask is that when that happens you listen.’

I can’t help but smile. I consider my reluctance to talk to the professional listener paid by my employers and how Maggie can make me feel comfortable enough and yet uncomfortable enough to want to talk.

‘I think it’s guilt, Maggie. Good old fashioned guilt. I killed a man when I was only a child.’ I let the words flow with the tears.

‘Oh, Ray.’ Maggie moves over to me and pulls my head on to her chest. She puts an arm over my shoulder. I lean into her and feel heavy with fatigue and emotion; heavy with the weight of actions I could never atone for, or take back. Maggie could have told me that I was only a child when it happened. She could have told me that it was the adults around me who let me down. That I was led by stronger minds while I was weak with fear and self-loathing. But she knows that I know all of that. She knows that knowing and acceptance of that knowledge are two different things.

‘I killed an innocent man, Maggie,’ I cry on to her linen blouse. ‘He was old. We murdered him while he slept.’

I recall the group of children round his bed. The feeble movements of his legs when the pillow was held over his face.

The flash of knife.

The blood.

The storm of feathers.

I allow myself to fall into the emotion and while one part of me heaved and sobbed and felt the crush of sorrow, the other noticed the damp of Maggie’s blouse cool on the side of my face.

The warmth of her arm on mine.

The scent of her perfume.

We keep up this position for a few more moments. Two humans in close physical contact. Two creatures of flesh and bone taking heat from the other in an ageless method of caring.

‘Maggie,’ I say.

‘What, wee pal?’

‘I’ve got a hard-on.’

‘Oh, see you, McBain.’ She pushes me away and laughs. ‘You are unbelievable.’

‘So tell me about my friends,’ Angela broke into Jim’s thoughts. He shifted his unfocused stare to her face.