Absolution (16 page)

‘Oh, shit. Look, guys, could you leave it there? I’ll come back to it.’ She pulled the keys from her belt as
My Brother in Palestine
was carefully lowered to the ground, her assistant Fiona easing the painting on to the floor and then propping it against the wall. ‘Hello,’ Helena said, opening the double locks. ‘And to what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘Hello, dear wife.’ He kissed her on his way past, walking quickly towards her private office, stepping over wooden
crates and toolboxes. ‘It’s looking good. She keeping you busy?’ he asked Fiona, not stopping for an answer.

Fiona looked at Helena, who shrugged helplessly.

Alan McAlpine walked into his wife’s office, smiling, and held the door open for her. He slammed it behind her with a violence that rattled the glass.

She watched as he placed a letter on the desk, skimming it across to her. She recognized the health authority logo. ‘That is personal!’ she hissed. ‘Why did you open it?’

‘When were you going to tell me?’ he asked, keeping his temper in check, his voice steady and quiet. He moved towards her. She stepped back. ‘
Were
you going to tell me? Why did you keep this from me?’

‘I haven’t kept anything from you,’ she said, her voice challenging. ‘It’s just a letter telling me about an appointment I already have. See for yourself.’

‘About what?’

‘Nothing much, just a small lump, happens to women all the time and – ’

‘So why didn’t you say? What is it?’ His face paled.

‘Alan, I knew you would panic, and it
is
nothing.’ She reached out to him, but he pulled away, leaving her arm in mid-air stretched across her desk.

‘But why are you leaving it? Why not go now? If there’s a bloody waiting list, we’ll go private.’

‘Alan, stop it,’ she said very quietly. ‘I need a bit of breathing space.’ She opened the door and called out, ‘It’s half two – do you two want to go for lunch now? Back at three? We’ll finish it then.’ She shut the door. ‘I really don’t have time for this.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I don’t have the emotion for it just now. I’m busy.’

‘Busy?’ he hissed at her. ‘Hanging polka-dot nonsense on the wall for people to gawp at?’

‘A major event in a lifetime of promoting new artists is how I would put it. It’s my problem, and I will solve it my way.’ She leaned forward, putting her forefinger on the letter and pushing it back to him. ‘I have an exhibition to organize.
Now.
And it’s a bit difficult keeping this to the back of my mind when you fling it in my face. So please back off. I am trying to be calm about it, and I know you are worried, but people are constantly reminding me of things I would rather forget and…’

He sidestepped, keeping her against the door. Who? Who else knows?’

‘There’s nothing to know yet.’

‘Who?’

‘Denise.’

‘So how does she know?’ He leaned against the desk.

‘Girl chat,’ Helena sighed. ‘And then she told Terry. You should have seen them on Saturday night, looking at me as if I might break.’

‘At least they got the chance.’

‘It was your decision not to turn up, remember? If you had known, you would have been just as bad as them. You’re doing it now. The “Poor Helena” look. In fact I could exhibit myself here. And you can all look at the same time.’ She reached out again to touch his face. ‘Sorry, you OK?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well, I am not
going
to worry.’ She refolded the letter, lifting her bag, ready to go. ‘And I am not going to worry
you.
’

‘Until it’s too late?’ He caught her elbow, standing very close to her now, his voice almost whispering in her ear.

‘If they thought it was dangerous, they would have said at the time.’

‘You being honest with me?’

‘As honest as I am being with myself. And it doesn’t help when you sit on the stairs all night like a muppet. Your head is right up your arse at the moment, even more than usual. We’re both busy – and I need to have time to deal with it. End of story.’

‘Fine!’ he said, heading out the door. He slammed it so hard a miniature jumped from its hanging and crashed to the floor.

Helena swore loudly as her husband went on to slam the outer door behind him, killing the sudden noise of traffic on Bath Street.

Silence.

‘Bastard!’ she whispered. No point in talking aloud: there was nobody there to hear. She sat down. She should have sat down right at the start and told him calmly, drip-feeding it a bit at a time, but hindsight was a marvellous thing. Back then she’d thought it was all about nothing. Now it looked as though it was about a wee bit more than nothing.
My Brother in Palestine
was lying against the wall, looking at her; she decided to go to the shop for a sandwich and to get some fresh air.

Shortly after midnight, the disco was heaving like a huge animal that pulsed and grooved to the insistent rhythm. The noise was deafening. Dark, dirty walls glistened with dripping sweat, the air heavy and thick with dry-ice smoke, cloying at his lungs. The constant rhythmic thumping of the bass pounded his stomach. Sean McTiernan had often felt caged in prison, but this was worse.

He started to shake. Nerves, he muttered to himself to keep calm. This was it.

After three years, six months, two days.

He seemed just another punter in a nightclub, looking for a woman, any woman. But Sean was looking for one woman in particular. A redhead leered at him as she went past, paused and came back for another look. He squinted into the middle distance, looking past her, avoiding her eyes, losing her in the smoke. The music assaulted his ears and the redhead joined in the attack, squawking something at him and laughing. Her hair moved like a brick, he noticed. Anybody running their hands through that risked losing a finger. He smiled back at her and again fixed his eyes on the point over her shoulder: an old Chevy bumper was stuck on the wall, decorated by two pairs of knickers. He wanted a woman, but not this travesty.

The redhead’s friend bumped into her and the redhead dominoed into him, spilling her Bloody Mary down his shirt. Sean pulled away from them, steadying the redhead as she stumbled before releasing her and letting her fall to the
floor. And then he knew. He knew she was close. If he closed his eyes, he could see her, coming through the haze, smiling at him…

She might not be safe, but she was here.

His throat began to hurt. He needed a drink. He stepped over the redhead, making his way doggedly towards the bar, ploughing a course where there were only men. It was more difficult to elbow women aside; their flesh was softer, barer. He didn’t like to touch. They weren’t wearing much: skirts up to their arse and see-through tops with no bras. At the bar, trying to understand what you had to do to get a drink, the queue still bopping up and down to the music, he found it easier to move than to stand still. In the end, the transaction was done by sign language, the can being pointed at and paid for with Sean having no idea what he had bought or how much he had paid. It was Miller, and the lager was warm to his tongue. He felt himself being sucked back towards the crowd on the dance floor.

A skinhead in a Saltire T-shirt elbowed him and spilled the Miller down his shirt, spreading further the stain of the Bloody Mary. ‘Sorry, mate.’ Then he added, ‘Some result, big man, eh?’

Sean nodded. In Glasgow it was always
some result.
And always better to agree. The smell of skinhead aftershave could have disinfected a dog kennel, but somewhere in his senses Sean caught the smell of the sea and salt and the scent of a woman. Blonde.

His eyes scanned the dance floor, the crowd at the periphery, the dancers on the stairs, the people at the bar. He knew he was being watched.

Three years and six months and two days.

He made his way towards the dancing. The wooden floor was separated from the rest of the nightclub by a single
brass rail. He leaned against it, trying to appear nonchalant, his eyes scanning the dance floor, from left to right and then back again, through the mist of dry ice to the ghostlike figures gyrating and thrusting like demented marionettes.

A girl noticed him and started dancing, sideways on, her chin on her shoulder, moving her body with comic mistiming. She was a piece of Glaswegian glamour, red leather miniskirt and a black bra nearly covered by a black plastic waistcoat, peroxide blonde hair the colour of straw piled on top of her head. A wide mouth was painted scarlet to match the talon nails.

And green ankle boots.

Those ankle boots. It was only when she moved closer, smiling at him, stubby fingers opening and closing in greeting, that he realized it was bloody Arlene from the café.

Sean looked away, but the eye contact had lasted a little too long, and she misread the sign.

‘You said you’d be here.’

‘Did I?’

‘Nae, I wiz earwigging.’ She leaned over the rail and started to grind her legs against his, jutting her pelvis backwards and forwards like a cheap lap dancer revving up. Sean’s eyes shot past her to the dance floor, catching a glimpse of something that was gone. His heart stopped for a moment.

He stayed still, looking. Arlene caught the line of his vision.

‘Yer up for it? Again?’ Her tongue ran across her upper teeth, then she raised her glass to her lips and swayed drunkenly, spilling most of it down the Grand Canyon of her cleavage. ‘Again,’ she repeated, pulling his ear close to her mouth, her grasp firm on his shirt. She blew a bubble
with her gum, the sickly sweet smell of it exploding in his face.

‘Fuck off, and fuck off now.’ He ducked under the rail.

He stood still for a moment, raising his eyes through the mist of dry ice, and she was there, slowly revealed to him. Short black hair, a dark dress that skimmed the top of slender bare white thighs. Dark mirrored glasses covered her eyes, her pouting lips curved to smile. Seductively she raised a forefinger to touch the bridge of the glasses and pulled them down the length of her nose, revealing large grey eyes. She winked and pushed the glasses back up, her eyes hidden, her face lost in the smoke.

When it passed, she had gone.

This one was his.

Outside in the street, the wind caught the breath from Sean’s lungs and the rain stung his eyes, but Glasgow had never smelled or looked so good. She stopped at the corner of Torness Street, looking back to make sure he was following, pulling her cloak up over her head before slipping, ethereal and ghostly, into the stormy night.

Byres Road was busy, singletons hurrying past to get out of the weather, smokers sheltering under the canopies, couples hand in hand, absorbed in each other, on their way home from the Chip and the Cul de Sac. Most of the pubs had closed their doors, though a few people were still hanging around the alleyways, too drunk to notice how wet they were getting. A football supporter in Celtic hoops was standing in the middle of the pavement, arms out, the wind filling his jacket, laughing, letting the gusts spin him among the traffic. Sean McTiernan walked past slowly, watching the small figure swathed in black standing at the corner, one foot in the road, one foot on the pavement. She swayed
slightly in the wind, moving to one side as a taxi passed, then out into the road again, so she could be seen. Then she was gone.

Sean went after her, resisting the urge to break into a run, keeping his head down, protecting his eyes from the rain. He careered into somebody, saying sorry and continuing on, his stride never breaking. He sidestepped round a couple, too busy sheltering their faces from the rain to watch where they were going. He jogged a few yards to make up the lost distance, his eyes on her all the time. He was high on emotion. Three years, six months and two days. Now that she was there for the taking, he could hardly stand it. There was only one constant thing in his life. Her love.

He lost her for a moment, then caught sight of her again. Hide and seek. In sight, then gone.

He stopped at the supermarket window, looked up and down the street. A blonde came by, staggering slightly, and as she walked past an illuminated window he recognized the green ankle boots.

Oh, no, not now. She was trash. How could she even walk on the same pavement, stand under the same rain, as perfection? He turned to face the glass, letting her pass behind him. But she didn’t notice him; she just kept going, raising her hand in greeting to some other poor sucker she had lined up. He kept his head down, not seeing her, not seeing anything but the little figure costumed in black that danced ahead of him. Where was she going?

His bedsit was near here, but she was too clever for that; she wouldn’t go there. He walked to the edge of the pavement, looking: nothing to the left, nothing to the right. She hadn’t crossed the road. His eyes darted up the side road opposite. Nothing. He felt a familiar tickle in the hairs
on the back of his neck, that familiar sense
of her.
He turned slowly round.

Three years, six months, two days.

Behind him was an alley, a dead end, the goods entrance to the supermarket, finishing in a yard with a high mesh fence, a skip abandoned at the far end. He squinted his eyes against the rain.

Whistler’s Lane. He had killed Malkie Steele there.

Of all the places, why this one?

To say thank you.

Whistler’s Lane was empty. Then a glimpse of flesh in the darkness, here, then gone, seen, then unseen. She had dipped into a door recess. Sean could not help but feel like John Wayne as he walked down the lane. He had the measure of her game now; she wanted him, and she was not going to wait until it was safe.

She had come to get him.

Just as she said she would.

The lane was cobbled at the end, the walls covered with graffiti. King Billy and the Pope were due for a rematch. Good for them, thought Sean, so are Sean and Truli.

She was leaning dramatically against the door at the back of the recess, not smiling but looking at him almost warily, her black cloak furled round her slender arms, one leg up, bare foot against the wall, silk slippers kicked on to the concrete. Her face was turned into the wind, her skin wet, the light glistening off perfect cheekbones.