Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (44 page)

‘If he was so intent on messin’ with my head, why didn’t he reveal himself back at the farmhouse? Wouldn’t that have been his big moment? I mean, if he was gaunny kill me anyway – which I think we’re both agreed on – why deny himself that quintessential wanker pleasure?’

‘Maybe he was savin’ it. I mean, he didnae know you were gaunny bugger off in the middle of the night, did he?’

They turned to look at each other.

‘Oh fuck,’ they said, in stereo.

‘He did know,’ Ray confirmed. ‘I was supposed to escape. Christ, why didn’t we see that? This guy’s a master of planning, covers all the bases, pulls off all these amazingly complex operations, but he locks me up in a wee daft pantry with conveniently loose floorboards, leadin’ to a direct route out of the house? And for fuck’s sake, the night before, there’s two gunmen come after me: they’re professional bloody killers but they cannae hit me from five yards? A newbie on AOL with a three‐
hundred ping wouldnae have missed from that range. It was a set‐
up. The gunmen didnae miss, because they werenae supposed to hit: they were sent to put the wind up me, so I’d tell the polis I was being’ chased by armed assassins.’

‘And the polis would then give greater credence to your story when you turned up a few days later, claiming to have been kidnapped.’

‘Exactly. That carry‐
on at the bridge was just to plant the seeds for what was comin’ next. Which was for them to abduct me purely so that I could escape and lead the cops to the farmhouse.’

‘Where they conveniently discover a load of photocopied blueprints and promptly go chargin’ off to Sunderland.’

‘Sunderland? The England friendly?’

‘Doesn’t matter now, does it? Because it’s not Sunderland: that’s the point. Christ on crutches.’

Angelique pulled the car over into a layby and drew to a halt. Ray knew he wasn’t going home any more, in her car or anyone else’s.

‘This was his plan all along, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘He needed a decoy. If he hadnae seen me at the airport and decided to indulge himself, he would have abducted some other sucker for the same role.’

‘He’d have been safer abducting somebody else. So he’s still a wanker.’

‘But a clever wanker. He’s sent all the polis to the Stadium of Light while he gets on with his felonious little plans elsewhere.’

‘And we’re back to square one,’ Angelique said gloomily.

‘Maybe not. How many collapsing road bridges do you get on the average weekend?’

‘Good point. Where did they say that was?’

Ray couldn’t remember, having been distracted at the time by Angelique’s snort. ‘It’ll be comin’ up again in the travel report,’ he said, turning up the volume control on the radio, where the sports bulletin had reached rugby and was therefore coming to an end. They waited with gritted teeth through the incongruously cheery weather forecast, then finally got what they needed, the bridge story being the lead travel item.

‘There is still access to Crianfada, but the road to Cromlarig is closed and, according to police, is likely to remain so for several days until a temporary structure can be put in place. The only route into Cromlarig at the moment is via Strathairlie, and the AA are warning that if you’re approaching from the South, that represents almost a three‐
hour diversion, so if you’re planning to attend today’s Highland Games, you’d better get your skates on. Meanwhile on the A9, a slow‐
moving extra‐
wide vehicle with police escort is causing tailbacks of up to …’

Crianfada. Cromlarig.

‘Have you got a road map?’ Ray asked.

‘Glove compartment. Where’s Cromlarig anyway?’

‘West Highlands. About three hours north of Glasgow, maybe a bit less west of here. But that’s when the bridge hasn’t collapsed, obviously.’

Ray popped open the fibreglass hatch and fished out a well‐
thumbed road atlas, flipping impatiently from the grid reference to the appropriate page. He placed it on the dashboard so that they could both have a look, but there really wasn’t much to see.

‘Maybe the bridge collapse is just a coincidence,’ Angelique said, having pored over the map for a while.

‘Christ, what is there for him in the Highlands? There’s hardly even any people there to kill.’

‘What’s nearby?’ Ray asked. ‘Any airforce or army bases that wouldn’t be on the map?’

‘The military bases are on the map – just none on these pages anywhere near Cromlarig. It’s tourist country. Lochs and mountains and tartan and shortbread.’

‘Isn’t there a nuclear submarine base up there somewhere?’

‘Nearest one is the Holy Loch, and that’s about fifty miles from Loch Fada, on a different road through the glens too,’

‘Could there be another one that the government have kept secret?’

‘No,’ said Angelique, pointing to the page. ‘Not here anyway: Loch Fada’s landlocked.’

‘Good. It would be nice to rule out nuclear weapons, don’t you think?’

‘What about nuclear power?’

Ray looked again at the map. ‘No. The nearest nuclear station would be Dounreay. All there is here is … oh fuck.’

‘What?’

There it was all the time, staring out at him, waiting for him to notice, waiting for him to make the connection.

‘Dubh Ardrain,’ he said, pointing between the village of Crianfada and the town of Cromlarig. A yellow ‘T’ icon (tourist attraction) sat next to the snaking blue of Loch Fada along the stretch where the bridge had collapsed.

‘What’s that?’

‘One of the biggest power stations in the country.’

‘But not nuclear?’

‘No. Hydro‐
electric.’

‘Why would he be interested in that?’

‘Today, I don’t know, but he always was.’

‘Was?’

‘Since we went there as students, on a Geography field trip.’

‘I thought you did English.’

‘I did Geography too, just in first year. That’s where I met Simon. He was very taken with Dubh Ardrain, and believe me, it wasnae often Simon was impressed by anythin’ that didnae have an indie label or a bra around it. I remember him sayin’ he’d love to shoot a video there one day, inside the hollow mountain.’

‘But what could he do there now? Even if he blew the place up, the only people he’d kill would be the staff, and he prefers a bigger bodycount for his efforts. Shit, hang on – it’s a tourist attraction though, isn’t it?’

‘Not today. The road’s closed, remember? Tourists cannae get there, and neither can anybody else: such as the polis or any other emergency services, apart from those based in Cromlarig or further north in Strathairlie.’

‘Which probably amount to Hamish Macbeth, a district nurse and a bucket of water for the fire service. Better check it out.’

‘We better had.’

‘What’s with we? You’ve got a wife and baby to get back to, remember?’

‘Aye, and I’ve got a better chance of protectin’ them both if it’s me who’s comin’ after him.’

‘He’s had his fun with you, Ray. He’s got bigger fish to fry now.’

‘Has he? I can identify four of his men – that part they know for definite. Me escapin’ was part of the script, so are you tellin’ me they’re not plannin’ to tie up their loose ends later? As for Simon havin’ his fun, that’s not over either. He’s still got a score to settle.’

‘I thought he was the one who fucked you over.’

‘He did, but …’ Ray sighed. ‘Simon had – has – a rather Simoncentric view of the world, so he never saw it that way. Plus there’s … ach, it’s a long story.’

‘And we’ve got a long drive. Including that three‐
hour detour.’

‘There’s a watersports centre at Crianfada. We could make the last leg by boat instead.’

‘Good thinking. That’s three hours less, but it still can’t be that long a story. ’Fess up.’

Ray didn’t tell her everything, obviously. Just the more salient parts, many of which she already knew from the file and her conversation with the polisman who’d lifted them. It had been second term, final year, without doubt the most purgatorial in anyone’s university career: the finals are close enough for you to be constantly worried about them, but still too far off when you’re impatient for it all to be over. Second term is also post‐
Christmas, making it the most miserable, cold and dreich in any year, let alone your fourth. Consequently, there was even more recourse to the QM bar and the Grosvenor Cafe, and a greater likelihood of crossing paths with the Dark Man again.

In fact, this was fairly inevitable, given that they still shared quite a few friends. On top of that, Ray remained uncomfortable about the way things had ended, and felt there was something mutually cowardly about avoiding each other rather than sitting down to clear the air over a beer or at least a coffee. He didn’t actively seek Simon out, but did stop doing a one‐
eighty if he walked into the bar and saw him already seated.

What made this a little easier was that Ray was receiving corroborative reports from mutual friends that Simon had ‘calmed down a lot’, and that this dampening of his volatility was largely down to his current girlfriend. It was also, some surmised, possibly a consequence of having a relationship with a female that lasted beyond the following weekend and the next chance to pull someone new.

The inexorable reunion happened one Tuesday night in the QM bar, when Ray was already shoehorned in at the back against the windows overlooking the disco, and therefore had no means of escape when Simon and his remarkedly pacifying companion walked up to join their table. Cutting off even the rubber‐
ear or cursory nod options was the fact that the two girls sitting to Ray’s left were just heading off to catch a film at The Salon, so got up and offered their seats to the new arrivals.

With the benefit of hindsight, and particularly given his current informed perspective, Ray could feel justified in saying that Simon was one of the few people on the planet capable of making magnanimity seem ostentatious. Everyone at that low and rickety table knew what had gone down between them, doubtless the new girlfriend included, so instead of a tentative hello, Simon leaned over and offered a warm handshake, before introducing him to ‘Felicia’ as though he was a brother. Simon even did him the courtesy of calling him Ray and not Larry. In retrospect Ray could see him as Ralph Fiennes in Bchindler’s List, staring at himself in the mirror and trying on ‘I forgive you’ for size. At the time, though, the effect was just another instance of Simon’s charms working their magic. Ray felt forgiven, though it didn’t occur to him to evaluate who, if anyone, had actually sinned. And yet again, he felt ten feet tall to be back in Simon’s court.

The king’s new consort sat between them, and it was easy to see why she hadn’t been dispatched as swiftly as her many predecessors. For one thing, she had a smile on her face and she wasn’t dressed for a funeral, unlike the succession of self‐
loathing gnarly Gothettes that had dallied briefly on Simon’s arm. Her personality was different too, in as much as she had one. Ray, still in chronic virginal frustration, had oftened wondered of Simon’s previous conquests whether their abject dullness made them easier to bed; it certainly made them easier to dump. Rina, as everyone else called her (Felicia being her given Simon name, which she was naive enough to interpret as innocent affection) sparkled with conversation, humour and energy, and was refreshingly non‐
deferential towards her esteemed host. Ray had been used to Simon’s always being the last word on most matters, especially music, but Rina could be wittily withering not only of his opinions, but of the subject’s dubious importance in the first place. That was why he couldn’t help but smile in recognition when Angelique took the same derisory line.

Looking at the two of them that night, Ray concluded that the comparative longevity of their relationship (six weeks and counting) was due to Simon having finally met his match and liked it. However, within weeks, arguably days, Ray would learn that he was wrong on both counts. She was more than a match, and Simon didn’t fucking like it.

Simon and Ray’s relationship, on the other hand, was perhaps the best it had ever been. There was a great feeling of maturity about being able to put their differences, grudges and, let’s be honest, embarrassments behind them; together with a sense that they would be better friends for all of it. They blethered endlessly, the way they used to, making each other laugh, exchanging thoughts and ideas. The only jarring note was that the subjects of The Bacchae and The Arguments were conspicuously diverted around like road accidents. Ray was the only one who skirted close to the issue, but the signs he got in return let him know that Simon wasn’t ready to laugh about it yet.

Ray got to know Rina very well too, at first through sharing Simon’s company, but increasingly through sharing Simon’s absence. He might have ‘calmed down a lot’, but he hadn’t changed: Simon was consistently late for meeting both of them, except for when he never turned up at all. It was a downside of Simon’s otherwise charming capacity to find certain people (temporarily) fascinating that he was very easily diverted, and it wasn’t unusual to coincidentally run into him hours later in the company of a different crowd. If you asked why he didn’t show up to meet you, he would tell you it was because he had met them instead, an answer which he expected the listener to find as satisfying as it was logical.

Even when he did show up, he would often spend the first drink with Rina and then gravitate off to a conversation in a different part of the room/
bar/
party, leaving her in the company of his unappointed deputy. This wasn’t something Ray was inclined to complain about, because he couldn’t imagine any other circumstances under which he and Rina would be spending much time together, and his only concern was that she was unlikely to see it as a fair exchange. If Ray had found it exciting but occasionally vertiginous to be in Simon’s exalted company, then being around Rina felt like swinging on a chairaplane round the top of the CN Tower.

She was a year younger than him, but she was the type of girl who made Ray feel as though he was a teenager in the company of a sophisticated adult. Admittedly, most people could make Ray feel that way, probably as a result of his birthday falling in February and him consequently being the youngest kid in the class from Primary school upwards. However, Rina never gave the reciprocal impression that she was thinking of taking him to McDonald’s later if he was a good boy. They got very pally, particularly as Ray became more comfortable being her friend and less inclined merely to play the humble fool for her amusement.