Dark Angels

Edinburgh

The cotton sheets feel smooth and crisp between her fingers as she grips the covers. The knuckles on her hands are white and bloodless, the contrast stark. As she weakly reaches for the mask, sweat slowly trickles down from the inside of her armpit. She gets what she wants but the heady smell of rubber almost overwhelms her before the gas and air mercifully take effect.

‘The quicker the hell, the quicker the peace.’

The voice of the woman rasps the tired adage.

The girl will have to look elsewhere for comfort. Here, she will find only contempt. She looks around, as she has done many times in the many hours since she was brought to this place. The panelled walls are adorned with ancient smoke-damaged oil paintings, of thin lipped ancestors: no succour will be found there either.

The girl throws her head back against the plump, pillows, her black curls sticking to her damp forehead. Another wave of pain overwhelms her, pushing her
further down into the abyss. She almost welcomes the pain: she has ignored the ache within her heart for so long that concrete physical agony serves to remind her that, despite everything, she is still alive.

The handcuff around her left wrist cuts deeply into her flesh. The skin is red and swollen from earlier attempts to escape. She no longer has the enthusiasm to plan her getaway. Reluctantly, she accepts she is securely chained to the antique brass bed frame. Her desire, her need to be free, has waned. She is sapped of strength, resigned to her fate.

Giving birth has that effect.

She gasps one word: ‘Water,’ adding ‘Please,’ as an afterthought.

‘Do you really believe that being polite is going to change my plans?’ The nurse expects an answer. None is forthcoming. There is a battle for life going on in the bed in front of her, and strength cannot be wasted on unnecessary words. ‘You must be even more stupid than I gave you credit for.’

The girl tries to wet her lips. Her pulse visibly pounds in her neck. Her mouth tastes like rusty iron filings. Her mind races from one thought to another–the taste of terror reminds her of the dilapidated railings near the school gate.

Frantically, her eyes search for water to cleanse her mouth. In every situation the girl looks for something to be grateful for, at this precise moment she is thankful that she cannot imagine what might happen next, appreciative that her mind has narrowed to the extent that all she can think of is water.

There is only so much she can do. This baby has plans of its own. It will be born with or without her cooperation. Without concern for its own fate once it enters this world.

The nurse will not give her the courtesy of silence. ‘Don’t lie there feeling sorry for yourself. Start pushing, and get this little bastard out.’

A soft, scraping sound fills the room as the nurse bustles importantly, her tights rubbing on her thighs and drowning out the sound of the clock. The girl still knows without the help of any clock–her time is running out.

She may not have water–but she needs fresh air.

‘Open the window.’

She despises the way her voice sounds. Reedy and helpless. This time the nurse obliges. The girl/child painfully screws her eyes shut, as the heavy red velvet curtains are drawn back, flooding the room with brilliant sunshine. Through the Georgian sash and case windows, she can see the garden trees in full leaf. From below, the sounds of elegant street life waft in the open window, and birdsong fills the air. Neighbours genteelly pass the time of day, agreeing that it is, indeed, another lovely morning.

The waves of pain are coming faster now, and it is harder for her to recover between contractions. A screech of wretchedness escapes her lips, and resounds around the room. Her cries for help and understanding remain unanswered.

‘You made your bed. Lie in it.’ The bed is wet, dishevelled and bloodstained. Nurse McIntyre knows that her
instructions are that the flat is not to be soiled, and yet the mess is everywhere. Someone else can take care of it–she’s a midwife, not a cleaner. She justifies her neglect and cruelty by reassuring herself that it won’t matter in the end. She is taking care of the baby, and that is all she has been paid for.

The smell of fear is pungent. It seems as if the odour is emanating from the very walls of the elegant room. The girl screams again. Nurse McIntyre watches dispassionately, as the girl throws her sick bowl across the room. Only when it ricochets off the Waterford crystal chandelier knocking a marble bust of Sir Walter Scott to the floor and smashing the nose off the statue in the process, does she feel a flicker of concern–for the broken things, not the broken girl.

Their eyes meet and the nurse recoils from the hatred she finds in the panicked velvet brown depths of her patient/prisoner. She recoils still further from the sight of the girl holding the nurse’s own scissors in her hand, scissors left carelessly on the nightstand beside a manacled child thought too pain-wracked to move.

Anger and venom flow through the girl’s veins giving her strength. She holds the gaze of her tormentor, silently daring her to come closer. As her head tries to grab onto some plan, some thought for escape, her body lets her down yet again.

She feels herself rip in two as the baby’s head appears.

The girl lies back on the pillows breathing softly, until she feels the urge to push again. Pushing, she feels her baby turn. Pushing, she feels her baby enter the world.

Nurse McIntyre has not yet found the strength to approach the new mother but the scissors fall from her hand as she reaches down between her legs. She lifts her child to her face. They stare silently into one another’s eyes, recognising each other.

Locked in love, the girl does not hear the nurse approach.

She is unaware before the silent needle pierces her skin.

Her heart stops as she feels the jab, and she knows they are undone, she and her baby.

At 9.24a.m., the good citizens of Edinburgh see no more than a bustling, uniformed nurse leave an impeccable flat with a swaddled baby in her arms. Without a backward glance, Nurse McIntyre stuffs the keys to the handcuffs into her pocket.

In the room of hell that she has just departed, a small droplet of blood forms around the entry point of the syringe as the massive dose of heroin takes hold: it is the only sign of life on the unconscious thirteen-year-old girl who has just given birth.

The nurse’s stout, flat feet beat along the pavement of the New Town.

‘There’s no time to dwell on the dead,’ she mutters as the baby begins to whimper.

‘Not while the living are so impatient…’

Edinburgh, Monday 16 August 2004

The fact that it was raining outside came as no surprise for two reasons. Firstly, this was Edinburgh. Secondly, it was the arse end of ‘Fringe Sunday’, one of the highlights of the summer festival in which all weather forecasts could be shortened to one phrase: pissing down.

I had fallen asleep to the persistent downpour, to the sound of water drumming on the Georgian window-panes of my flat. I like the rain; it comforts me–which is handy given that I’ve chosen to live in Edinburgh. That comfort was short lived.

As night disappeared into the misty first hours of Monday morning, the dream came again. I saw an unformed face in the dying embers of my bedroom fire, a face I knew, but did not know.

I came back from sleep quickly and stared blindly into my darkened room. The dream was quickly slipping and I didn’t really know what had pulled me from
it until the telephone rang again. I groped until I found the receiver. I knew the form–no one ever called you in the middle of the night with good news. Callers only think your sleep can be disturbed by death, police at the door, or work. In my case, it was often all three. People often like to think that lawyers can’t sleep because they are so bothered by the ethical dilemmas of their work–the boring reality tends to be that the bloody phone won’t stop ringing no matter the time of day or night. ‘Brodie McLennan?’

‘Yes?’ I reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on as I answered the call. It was 1.00a.m. My heart was puncturing my ribs, a combination of late-night coffee, unbroken sleep for as long as I could remember, and the anticipation that comes from a straightforward phone call that rarely gives any indication of what the next case will involve.

‘Sergeant Munro here, St Leonard’s Police Station.’ Just when I thought my night couldn’t get any worse. Munro was a copper with an unnatural love of paperwork and a continuing, oft expressed, feeling that ‘wee girls’ shouldn’t be doing big men’s jobs. I was most definitely a wee girl in his eyes, and probably taking bread out of some poor bloke’s mouth by playing at lawyers while I waited for my natural calling of having babies and getting myself suitably chained to a nice shiny kitchen sink.

‘What can I do for you, Sergeant Munro?’

‘We have a woman in custody, Miss McLennan,’ he informed me as if I would be astounded. He also seemed to emphasise the ‘Miss’ part of his sentence a bit too
heavily. I was knackered and I was pissed off already–how should I react? ‘Gosh, really Sergeant Munro? Someone in custody, you say? At the police station? That sounds awfully exciting. Sorry though, I’m too upset about not being married to be able to do anything about it.’ Thankfully, Munro was in official mode, so there was no time for anything but the sound of his voice.

‘We’re about to charge her with murder, but she asked us to inform you. She was quite specific about that. Asked for you by name, Miss McLennan. You’d better come now because we want her processed quickly.’

Munro always wanted anything that involved processing done quickly. It was a moveable feast though, and it generally got ignored.

‘Did you hear me, Miss McLennan? It’s vital that your client get processed as quickly as possible.’ There was the slightest hint of hesitation in his voice. ‘We want her to appear later today. How soon can you get here?’

She was probably a screamer. They wanted her out quickly because the noise was interrupting their telly-watching down the station. Or she was that drunk that the stench of vomit was getting too much.

‘Yes, I heard you, Sergeant Munro. Quick, quick, chop, chop. You haven’t told me my client’s name yet though.’

I sat on the edge of my bed, pencil poised over a yellow legal pad. Did he hesitate, or did I imagine it?

‘Female, mixed race, forty-one years old.’

I scribbled the details as he went on.

‘A taxi driver had found the alleged suspect with the body of the deceased. The nameless male victim was pronounced dead on arrival at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Are you taking all of this down, Miss McLennan?’