Country of the Blind (2 page)

Aren't we?

One by one they struggled to make sense of it, in a repetitive litany of incredulity, confusion and white-faced horror solicited by the noticeably unsettled anchorman, who was plainly wishing it wasn't Peter Snow's night off. And as no-one could make sense of it, thoughts turned instead to retribution; the only way forward after such a senseless loss of precious human life was to. . . er. . . kill someone else.

Rentaquote time.

"This is an outrage of
unprecedented
proportion," blustered one ruddy-faced Tory backbencher - perhaps forgetting about an awful lot of dead Irish people, perhaps not - "and if there was ever a stronger argument for the return of the death penalty, then I can't think of it."

No, I'll bet you can't, Nicole had thought.

". . . lack of the death penalty as a punitive sanction in a case like this makes a mockery of British justice," said another apoplect, as one by one they hitched their agendas to the back of the bandwagon of indignation rolling out from Perthshire.

". . . well documented that Roland Voss was a strong advocate of the death penalty and it would certainly be his wish that these men were made to pay that price for what they have done tonight. . . "

". . . how long will we continue to listen to so-called liberal excuses over the death penalty as outrage follows outrage, atrocity follows atrocity, murder follows murder. . . "

And soundbite follows soundbite.

". . . of course with the autumn party conference coming up soon in Blackpool, the annual calls for the return of hanging are bound to be all the louder, 7

and all the more difficult to shout down."

Ah yes. There was the rub. Need
something
to resuscitate the party faithful at the last get-together before the election in the spring, if they can hang on that long.

By the time the first-edition front pages were flipped briefly before the camera at the end of the show, the mood of the lynch-mob had reached hysteria.

"HANG THESE BASTARDS NOW!" led Voss's own flagship tabloid, one frothing voice amidst a baying clamour.

"SCUM FOUR MUST DIE!" screamed the next.

"FOUR LIVES FOR FOUR LIVES," demanded yet another, with a strap elaborating: "VOSS MURDERS: Nation calls for return of hanging". It struck Nicole that The Nation must have called the paper directly, given the short time between the story breaking and its going to press, but who could say. The Nation had clearly made up its mind, and it would be a brave or foolish person who stood before it and argued the contrary.

"God help whatever poor bastard ends up defending that lot," she had muttered to herself as she switched the TV off, before taking her empty cornflakes bowl into the kitchen then going to bed.

Her radio alarm clock woke her up the next morning with the news that she was a poor bastard in need of divine intervention.

". . . holding the men overnight under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, with the approval and, indeed, we are told, concerned assistance of the Scottish Secretary, Alastair Dalgleish. Two of the men, Thomas McInnes and Robert Hannah, served seven-year sentences for their parts in what became known as the "Robbing Hood" break-ins, and police say they are investigating possible political motivations and exploring any links these men might have established with terror groups, particularly European left-wing factions, given Mr Voss's media interests on the continent."

Nicole sat bolt upright in bed, turning the volume louder and listening in frustration to more pompous conjecture as she waited for the names and their connections to be repeated, just to confirm she hadn't been confusing the remnants of her last dream with the words from the radio that had stirred her. She remained glazed-eyed and entranced for a few more fuzzy-headed seconds as her just-woken brain struggled to cope with the pace of her thoughts. She reached over and switched off the radio with a tut, its tinny burbling an irritating distraction as she attempted to process the information she had just received.

Last night, like everyone else in the world, she just couldn't believe it, but had been gradually forced to accept the truth of this incredible development as the stark fact was coloured in with details, quotes and human emotional response. Nonetheless, there had remained an unreality about it, in common 8

with all truly momentous events, perhaps because the "news industry" had for so long made its living from over-dramatising the banal. Disbelief was a reaction borne of so much wolf-crying, with the public so desensitised by the hyperbole with which the most tedious events were related (and the deceitful exaggeration with which the most harmless quote could be twisted or recontextualised to create "a sensation" where there was barely a story), that when something truly remarkable happened, you just couldn't deal with it. The media, having robbed every superlative of its meaning through misuse and over-use, did not have a vocabulary with which to convey such import. Once you've used up all your language of astonishment on Hugh Grant getting his cock sucked, how do you express the shock of thirty schoolchildren being gunned down in a gymhall, or of one of the world's most powerful businessmen being forced to watch his wife bleed to death before having his own carotid opened as his bodyguards lie slain in the hall outside?

Usually, it all got more real in the light of day, as you woke up and found that you hadn't dreamt it, and (most importantly) as you realised that the world had failed to stop - and that apart from having to listen to tail-chasing discussions on the subject, it wasn't actually going to affect
your
life. But this morning, the confirmation that it was all still there ("Voss still dead shocker") had been accompanied by the realisation that it
was
going to affect Nicole's life. Thomas McInnes. This was a man she
knew
, that they were talking about, no longer some face in the paper or a name on the radio. A man who had sat down in front of her only a matter of days ago, a man whose voice, clothes, face she could remember. And by extrapolation he was one of the men all those MPs and journalists last night had said they wanted to see hang. One of the perpetrators of the most audacious crime of the decade. One of the men who had slaughtered four human beings in cold blood. Which was where it broke down.

And with his son involved, too - how could that possibly have come about?

What was this,
The Generation Game
does armed robbery? Brucie: "Let's see, they got the toaster, the teasmaid, the fondue set, the cuddly toy. . . okay, they lose marks for the four dead bodies, but other than that, didn't they do well?"

She could not believe it.

Blank, staringly, simply could not believe it.

A mocking voice told her she sounded like a serial killer's nextdoor neighbour. "Eeeh, you'd never have thought. He was so quiet, you hardly knew he was there. Very polite to speak to. . . "

So she searched for something solid, some rationale that could support her instinct in the face of all the evidence that was already in the public domain and all the evidence that was bound to emerge in the coming days and weeks. Exhibit A, your honour: one cup of tea. Milk and two sugars. 9

The defence rests.

God help us.

In mitigation, it
had
been a very good cup of tea. After the self-doubt maelstrom of the first two days, she had thought that if she could get through the first week of the job she might find her stride, start to galvanise herself, get into the role and gradually remember the plans she had and the ambitions that had driven her this far.

And she did, battling through with her eyes fixed on Friday evening like a shipwrecked sailor's on the shore ahead. She had been most grateful not to know anybody in the city, because if she had begun to unburden herself, she feared she would crumble completely. She had gone out for a drink after work with her bosses on the Monday and with Ian, her fellow subordinate, on the Wednesday, but in a way she had still been in character. None of them knew her from any other context, so she could hide behind her mask until she felt confident enough to take it off.

Unfortunately, it's the second week that gets you.

That's when you realise that last week wasn't hell because you were new and inexperienced, but simply because that's what it's like to work here. When you see an eternity of all the things you hated most on that first Monday morning, priolled out towards the horizon: the dingy Portakabinesque offices, like a candidate for demolition in a street otherwise embarrassed by its wealth of architectural splendour; the musty smell of suspiciously damp books; the rows of hideously Seventies grey-metal filing cabinets, like a set left over from a Monty Python sketch; the flickering strip-lighting and the glowering low cloud outside the draughty windows. That's when you realise that this is not a game, but what you do when you grow up.

Thomas McInnes had appeared in the afternoon of that awful second Monday, right after her meeting with Mrs McGrotty. Her first appointment of the day had been with a shrivelled-looking man called Mr Taylor, who explained at great length and with much historical detail - a great deal of which seemed somewhat tangential, which is saying something when you're working in a legal context - that he wished to sue the council because it had taken them three years to mend a broken gutter-pipe around the roof of his house.

"Why didn't you try and get it mended yourself?" she had asked, with unintended insensitivity.

"What the fuck you talkin' aboot, how didnae I get it fixed?" he exploded animatedly, deeply wounded by her apparent lack of compassion. "S'no up to me to get it fixed, is it? Up to the fuckin' cooncil to get it fixed. S'how we pay wur rent and wur poll tax, innit?"

10

"Look, just to help me get this straight," she said, trying to couch her words in as conciliatory a tone as possible. "Couldn't you have arranged for it to be repaired and then submitted the bill to the council?"

"Assno the fuckin' point but, is it?" he yelped, a flurry of upper-limb gesticulation. "Issi principle of the thing. S'no up to me to go runnin' aboot after plumbers and then try chasin' the fuckin' cooncil for the cally. Be easier chasin'

fuckin' Red Rum and hopin' it shites gold."

"So you wish to complain to the council for their laxity in responding to your complaint, and their delay in carrying out the repair to your guttering?"

Nicole asked.

"Naw, ya stupit bitch," he said, eyes ablaze with incredulity at her persistent obtuseness. "I want to sue them for the
psychological damage
. I've been up to high doe ower this cairry-on, so I huv. Fuckin' post-dramatic stress hingmy. Three years of listenin' to the drips on the windae ledge - like Chinese water torture. And aw the cairry-on of phonin' them up and askin' when somethin's gaunny get done. My nerves are shot to fuck, so they are. I'm on tablets, you know."

By lunchtime she had dealt with half-a-dozen more such victims of a troubled world in need of Manson & Boyd's assistance in their heart-rending battles for justice, including one man wishing to contest his ex-wife's custody of his two children on the grounds that her new boyfriend was "a prodisant" and that their spiritual welfare was under serious threat; and a woman seeking compensation from the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive after twisting her ankle alighting from one of its orange double-deckers, who was able to furnish Nicole with figures for her settlements down the years from the city's other main operators as a guide to how much they should ask for. Inexperienced as she was, Nicole nonetheless feared none of them were terribly likely to qualify for legal aid in pursuing their cases. Ian had joked last week about the mythical "Manson & Boyd Justice Fund", which he suspected clients would readily believe existed, and which might assist in legal crusades when legal aid applications had been rejected. Just fill in the form: give your name, address and a brief summary of the case you are fighting. Then tick the appropriate box which best explains the moral rectitude of your cause:

(1)

It just isnae right.

2

(2)

It's against God's law.

2

(3)

They cannae do that, can they?

2

Over the course of the morning, she had been directly insulted eight times (five instances prefixed with the distastefully emotive epithet "English"), been referred to as "hen" (which she suspected was seldom applied in affection) 11

more times than she could remember, and been asked twice by male clients if she would make them a cup of tea "while they waited for the lawyer". This last had happened several times the week before, too.

"No, I'm rather busy right now. In fact, I'm so tied up, would you mind nipping out to the chemist and fetching me a packet of tampons," she had promised herself she would say next time, but of course didn't. And then Mrs McGrotty had come in.

She was an elephantine creature in a shapeless brown coat that looked like it had been fashioned from dog-pelts and then dragged behind a heavy goods vehicle for a couple of days, its sleeves over-reaching her arms so that it appeared that she had shopping bags instead of hands. The door had burst open before her as two accompanying children - one about seven, the other nearer four - formed a noisy vanguard-cum-herald, and the two young girls had continued to burble, argue and occasionally trade punches throughout the early exchanges of Nicole's conversation with their grandmother.

"They're no mine, like, they're oor Angela's, but she's fucked aff withoot tellin' us anythin' this mornin'. Fuckin' cheek of her, me comin' up here to try and sort this shite oot as well. Treat you like a fuckin' skivvy, so they dae. Think you're just here to look efter them and they don't need to tell you anyhin' if they don't waant to. It's nae wunner I'm up to sixty a day, between this and her Barry bein' back in the Bar-L. Mind you, polis stitched him up for that wan. He never hut that boay - well, no much, but wance your face is known they'll just pull you in for anyhin'. Six months just like that, bloody liberty - boay was oot of hoaspital in a fuckin' fortnight. Right enough I've said to her enough times she'd be better aff withoot him, but they never listen at that age, do they, specially not when they're aw misty-eyed like that. Ach, you should've seen him when the weans were born but, picture of young love, so it was. Puts it aw in a different light when you've got wee yins, just forget aboot everyhin' when you look at them playin' you come ower aw sentimental, so you DEMI! I'LL TAKE MA FUCKIN' HAUN AFF YOUR FACE IF YOU TOUCH