Crime (34 page)

The copper’s life had been difficult for him. The antisocial loner tag he’d developed at school, then as a young carpenter, seemed intent on relentless pursuit. He was the first of the new breed, the educated cop who saw policework as a bundle of sciences – psychology, sociology, criminology, information technology, forensics and public relations – and incurred the wrath of the old school types, to whom it would always remain a street art. And then there was the isolating nature of police life. One of Ray Lennox’s most excruciating moments came as a rookie on duty at Haymarket Police Station. Les Brodie got pulled in with some other guys after a minor footballing affray. Their eyes met briefly, then the estranged friends both turned away in shame, but not before they’d been witness to the other’s humiliation. Lennox hid back in the office for the rest of shift, squirming with embarrassment, relieved that Brodie had been released when he came in to work the next day.

Now, by the side of the freeway that cuts through the moonlit swamp, Tianna is looking at him in an unsettling expression of coy indulgence. — I’ll bet you was sweet when you was younger.

— A lot of people would disagree with that, he says gruffly. — Anyway, we don’t know what you’ll be like when you’re older. Maybe you’ll go to college and get a good job and a career, he hopefully speculates, then looks pointedly at her and asks, — What makes you think nobody is going to marry you?

— Vince … then Clemson. Said that if I told anyone what I’d done … what happened, then I’d be ruined for being married.

—
You
did nothing. It was those bastards who did wrong, not you. He slaps the car bonnet, livid with rage. — You never forget that, he says, — never.

Tianna’s big eyes are contemplative in the silver light, but Lennox knows that his anger is scaring her as much as his words are
affirming
. Softening his tone, he adds, — When you do think about getting married, and you probably will, it’ll be to a nice guy who loves and respects you.

— Like you love and respect Trudi, right?

— Aye, he gasps.

— Does Trudi have a good job and a career?

— Aye, I suppose she does, I mean, yes, Lennox concedes, weak in the face of his own selfish arrogance. He belittled Trudi’s achievements. She’d done well at Scottish Power, got a couple of promotions, was regarded as successful. He’d got so up himself about his work, bleeding self-importance and radiating contempt for others. He feels regret’s tender ache and if she had been there he would have said sorry, and meant it from the bottom of his heart.

The conversations with Tianna, though minimal, are like bursts of intense fire from an AK47. They leave him full of holes: far more disconcerting than when he talks to victims of sexual abuse as a cop. Here there’s no role to play, no badge to hide behind. But as long as she’s with him she isn’t in the hands of monsters like Dearing, Johnnie and, for all he knows, Chet. He considers the Hank Aaron card.

— When your mum was sick and you went to stay with Starry, did she treat you okay? His head twists as a solitary car tears past on the freeway.

— I guess, says Tianna doubtfully. — But that Johnnie, her brother, he was always round. Always makin dirty talk. I hated it when he came round Momma’s or Starry’s.

— Johnnie is Starry’s brother?

— Uh-huh. I guess I felt for Starry, her boy bein shot dead outside that 7–Eleven n all. But I didn’t like Momma hanging out with her n Johnnie.

He’d detected no resemblance at all between Johnnie and Starry. — What about Lance?

— Lance is a policeman. You sorta think he gotta be a good person, right?

— Right, Lennox says weakly, looking up as the wind rustles in the trees.
Where the fuck is Ginger?

And the magazine is back there. It is waiting.
Perfect Bride
. His
calling
card: his excuse to go back into that vipers’ nest of nonces. He has all the reasons. It isn’t just about Tianna now. Let them try to stop him.
Let them try
.

— Do you love Trudi?

That simple question kicks the wind out of him. His head spins. — I know that I used to, he says after a bit, — but sometimes I wonder if our time might be up. It’s … well, we’ve got so much … history. Now, I don’t know if it’s love, or just a certain kind of life we’ve got used to. Sometimes I think …

— What?

— … that it might be time to walk away. It’s not easy.

Then a vision of Trudi fills his head. When they took him to her place after his breakdown in the pub. Again, when she saw the state of him in the tunnel after the funeral: the tears in her eyes.
Oh my baby, my Ray
, she’d cried. Lennox feels something climb inside of him. — I do love her, he says with a certainty coated in sadness, because what he is really choking on is his own sense of unworthiness, — I always will.

— The worst one that Momma brought back was Vince, Tianna says, straining as she sucks in her breath, cause he told me that he loved me. It was all lies, but I believed it, and it ain’t right to say that to somebody when it ain’t true. She rolls her bottom lip south. — So if you love her, you got to treat her right.

— Yes, Lennox agrees, almost sick with melancholy, — I have to treat her right.

The dancing bushes with their shadows, and the strange sounds from the swamp, drifting in and out of earshot, gnaw at his nerves as they wait at the deserted stop. Before he realises it he’s thinking of his pills again: the capsules, so smooth, sliding down the throat of a man who hates to swallow anything. He recalls his mother shouting at him when he couldn’t eat his stew, the fat on the bits of meat reminding him of snot, the meat reminding him of meat. Keeping it in his mouth, excusing himself and going to the toilet to spit it out or retch it up. Jackie grassing him up, — It’s disgusting, she would say, genuinely revolted. The tired compassion in his father’s eyes, — Just eat
some
, son. You have to eat. Then his mother rounding on him, rendered witless by his behaviour, — It’s best stewing steak!

Even then he wondered how steak only good enough for stewing could be described as ‘best’.

Another infrequent car passes, and Lennox is at first elated, then paranoid.
It’s getting late. Where is Ginger? Perhaps he won’t show
. He should have explained, emphasised how crucial it was.
Dolores would have said no. She’d think it was a drunken rendezvous
.

Unless
…

Unless the paedophile cops network ran right across Florida and Ginger was in on it too. The way he’d looked at that young lassie in the strip club
.

Get a fucking grip
.

Lennox feels his breath catching. He’s snatching at gulps of air again. It’s heavy like it’s full of iron particles, pulverising his lungs. He wants to be away from Tianna. She can’t see him this way. He’s doing her more harm than good.

Then a vehicle slows down and pulls up. Lennox can’t make it out in the soupy darkness of the swamp. It looks like a 4x4. He feels every muscle in his body tense up as it stops a bit away from them. It doesn’t look like Ginger’s motor: it’s Dearing, he’s certain. — Get back in the car, he shouts at Tianna. She complies and he quickly follows. Those windows in the darkness and the shadows cast by the trees; he can see nothing.

Then there’s a rap on the windscreen. — Lennox! What the hell are ye playing at?!

Ginger’s big round face pulls into focus. Tianna gasps in shock, Lennox in relief, as he climbs out. — Ginger! Thank fuck … He wraps his arms around the barrel frame. Ginger is with Dolores. The dog, Braveheart, has jumped out the car behind them and is barking frantically. He is answered in kind by a long, throaty groan coming from behind the dark screen of mangroves.

— Ginger? Dolores asks, smiling in intrigue, before shouting after Braveheart, who is sniffing around the side of the gas station.

— How many fuckin times – Eddie Rogers snaps in annoyance, turning to the retreating Dolores, who is in pursuit of the dog. — Just a joke, hen, he says, then looks back at Lennox. — Sorry we’re late. We had to pick up –

Lennox looks over to see Trudi emerge from the back of the Dodge. She wears a long dark blue skirt and has her hair down.
Her
vague air of reproach vanishes as he staggers towards her. — Ray …

— I’m sorry, he groans, compelled to close the distance between them and take her in his arms, feeling his own body shake as her thin, sinewy, but python-strong limbs envelop him, her scent seeping through his shut eyelids into his brain. — I had to try and help. I had to get involved. I don’t know why, he says, and repeats, — I don’t know why.

Trudi’s soft voice in his ear, Lennox realising how much he loves her tones, her middle-class Edinburgh habit of enunciating every word. — It wasn’t your fault with Britney Hamil, Ray. It wasn’t your fault.

— Whose fault was it then? And he thinks of the time when he’d gotten suspended from school for flooding a corridor with a fire hose, his distraught mother saying in response to his lame protests, ‘Whose fault was it then if it wasn’t yours?’

— The beast who killed her, Trudi coos, like she is reading a child a bedtime story, — it was his fault.

Now remembering Britney’s mum, Angela Hamil, telling him, — It’s okay. You did your best …

Then Ray Lennox, in a terrible honesty, had admitted to that destroyed woman, — I didnae … I made a mistake. I didnae cause I made a wrong judgement about you. I thought … I could have done better! He had her for over three fucking days … I could have saved her.

And Angela’s face was pinched and riddled with pain as she turned away from him. — No, she quietly insisted, — you did your best. Ah kent you really cared aboot Britney fae the start.

He can now hear a small, persistent voice. — What? Tianna says. — What wasn’t your fault?

Guilt leaks from him. He can’t look at the young American girl. If he does he knows he’ll see a Scottish one in her stead. He holds Trudi tighter. — He was scum, he hisses into her slim neck. — He didnae, couldnae, know any better. Tae expect him to be better is to expect him to be the human being he can never be. I was the one who should have known …

— No. You did your job, Ray. You tried to help, Trudi says.

Then she feels a tug on her arm. It’s Tianna. She looks tearfully at Trudi. — Ray helped me, she says softly. Trudi smiles, and puts her arm around the young girl. — He said you were beautiful, Tianna observes, causing Lennox’s face to pain further, as he can’t recall saying anything of the kind.

— Hi, er, Tianna, isn’t it? She looks at the sheep clinging to her back. — I really like your bag.

— Ray helped me, Tianna repeats, thin tears glistening in her eyes. — He helped
me
.

Lennox feels his throat constricting. Tianna’s face seems to radiate with all the world’s possibilities. She could grow into somebody strong, vivacious and beautiful, or shrink in on herself, pasty and haunted. And she has so little time to decode the cruel puzzle others have malignly made of her life. — It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay. This is Ginger and Dol—

— Eddie! Ginger spits, and he sees Dolores playing thoughtfully with the name.

— Sorry … Eddie, Lennox forces a weak, defeated grin. Bad habits, they are so very hard to stop, so very, very hard. — Tianna, these are good friends of mine, Eddie and Dolores Rogers. I want you to stay with them and Trudi. I’ll be back later.

— I wanna stay with you, she says, standing her ground.

Lennox’s palms out-turn in appeal, mimicking a hundred Scottish con men he’s put behind bars. — I’ll be back before you know it.

Doubt and distrust colour Tianna’s face: she could be his mother now. He’s relieved that Trudi’s here, and Dolores, who asks Tianna, — Do you like dolphins and marine life?

— I guess so, she says as Braveheart approaches, sniffing at her leg, tail wagging.

— Trudi and I were gonna take a trip to Ocean World tomorrow morning.

— And you can help me look at dresses, Trudi says, taking Tianna’s hand as they lead her to the 4x4. But the girl looks back to Lennox. — Lance is a cop. He’ll put you in jail! Be careful!

— Of course I will.

Trudi disengages and hastens back over to him. — It’s time to
let
go, Ray. To get the local police involved, she urges, as Braveheart follows his nose over to the verge by the waterway.

— I cannae, I need tae –

— You need to sort out your own life. Trying to sort out other people’s won’t save you, Ray.

— But I –

They are distracted by a growling noise. The dog has gone sniffing over into a clump of mangrove bushes by the fence. An exasperated Dolores gets out of the car and follows after him. — Look, buster, I’ve had it with you!

Then something happens so quickly, they almost believe it to be a hoax. The emerging alligator looks like a plastic toy as its snout protrudes from the bushes, but it lunges out at speed and its jaws, in one terrible snap, seize the dog. — BRAVEHEARRTTT! Dolores screams, and runs towards the fence and swamp, only to be restrained by Ginger. — Don’t, Dolly, for fuck sakes!

At first it seems as if the reptile is going to gorge the small mammal whole, then it bites down in bone-crushing repetition on the screeching dog. It semi-swallows, regurgitates and slaps the dog, now like a rag doll, against the ground twice, and then shoots over a large hurricane-flattened section of fence, the limp body in its jaws.

Lennox and Trudi head over in cagey pursuit. She halts at the edge of the swamp, Lennox takes a few steps into it, but stops as he can feel its leafy, boundless darkness multiplying around him. They draw back to where Dolores, straining against Ginger, screams in anguish. Lennox takes hold of her as Ginger runs to the back of his vehicle, telling Tianna not to move and swiftly returning with a flashlight, but both creatures have vanished into the night. Silence is restored to the swamp, though Lennox fancies he can hear a sweet, victorious groan coming from the glades. A shaken Dolores crumpled into the Dodge, where Trudi and Tianna try to comfort her.

— That’s that then, Ginger observes, nervously looking back towards the gap in the fence.