Dead Lovely (12 page)

As a social worker, I had been on the other side many times. I’d argued against teenagers whose parents couldn’t control them and I’d reported on their progress in assessment centres or secure units. I’d written about mothers who were not trying hard enough to break their heroin habits and told fathers that they could not have any contact with their children because this time they had gone too far.

Now here I was, on the other side. The really awful side. The side where the poor people of
Glasgow
usually sit, with middle-class arseholes – like me – on the other side making decisions about their lives and their children’s based on the books they’d read, on the information they’d gathered, on the visits they’d made, and on their interpretations of the things you’d said to them.

‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,’ said Pearls haughtily.

I sighed, realising I was in deep shit. My fitness as a mother was being judged by this lot. And as they put their concerns to me, the ground I was standing on became increasingly flimsy by the second.

I’d left Robbie alone before and my repetition of the controlled crying argument in relation to that was not washing.

I’d taken stress leave, Pearls discovered after making a few calls, so my argument about being a capable social worker did not wash.

I smelt of drink and there were a dozen empty wine bottles in the kitchen. My argument about a forthcoming expedition to the recycling bin was not washing.

All but Pearls had working-class accents, so my argument about being from a ‘good family’ must have been a particularly irritating one.

I clearly had rather questionable acquaintances, Pearls implied, looking pointedly at Chas, and my argument about Chas being a good guy despite his criminal record and recent child neglect did not wash.

I had wild eyes, bruises, a gash on my head and my argument about just needing some sleep was not washing.

My parents were not answering any of their phones, and I had no other relatives in Glasgow, so
my argument about my family always being on call did not wash.

And the policewoman’s suggestion that I contact my friend Sarah from the previous incident and have her stay for the night did not wash either because I had ‘no idea where she is, honestly! No idea at all! We’ve been away camping but how should I know where she is now?’

‘But if we can contact her, would you be happy for Sarah to take him, until you feel better?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ I said.

I gave them several phone numbers and they made several calls, then I barricaded Robbie’s
bedroom
as Pale Gay and Pearls moved towards it.

Just for the night, they said, you need some rest, just till you calm down. There’s nothing to worry about.

I blocked them with my arms as they tried to enter.

We’ll try ringing your mum and Sarah, they said, we’ll keep trying, but he’ll be fine for the night, in a safe place.

I stood in front of the cot as they tried to get at him.

We’ll organise an emergency hearing tomorrow, they soothed, we’ll work something out then.

I clutched at Robbie as they prised him from me.

It’s just for the night, they said, just till you sober up and get some support.

I cried with mouth wide open as they walked through the hall.

We’ll keep ringing your friend, they said, and your mum.

As they walked over the flattened door I screamed, ‘He’s got an ear infection! You need his medicine! Keep his temperature down or he’ll be in terrible pain!’

Pearls took the Boots bag from me and walked down the steps with my beautiful baby boy in her arms.

I sat on the floor of my messy weirdo flat, smelling of alcohol and sweat, eyes red raw, hysteria oozing from me, and said to myself, ‘Of course they had to take him. They had no choice … I’d have done the same!’

I then looked up and saw Chas standing there sheepishly.

‘You have to go,’ I said.

He didn’t move.

‘Get out!’ I yelled. ‘GET OUT!’

My yell convinced him to withdraw. He walked from the hall, placed the broken door back up in its precarious position, and left me there with my ruined empty arsehole life.

It was probably several hours before I scraped myself from the floor of the hall and walked to the living
room. I looked blankly at the photos on my
mantelpiece
– Sarah and Kyle at the university chapel; my parents smiling as they hiked in the Pyrenees; Robbie in the cot at the Queen Mother’s Hospital. Things that had been certain in my life, things that were no longer.

What should I go crazy about first?

Killing Sarah?

Losing Robbie?

Chas?

Kyle? He was driving north with a saw and knives and several large refuse sacks in his boot. He would text me with
yes
to say that it was done rather than ever lay eyes on me again, so – for now – all I could do was wait for the beep-beep.

And then I remembered I had not recharged my phone. I plugged it in and waited for it to come to life, and when it did I saw that there was only one missed call, not from the police, not from Kyle, but from Mum and Dad.

I looked at the clock. It was six am. Kyle would be finished by now. He would have chopped Sarah’s body into pieces and put them in the innocent black bags.

Jesus, this had to stop. It had to stop. I phoned him but he didn’t answer. I tried and tried. ‘This mobile is switched off,’ a recorded voice kept droning. ‘Please leave a …’

I made a decision. With or without Kyle’s
approval, I would have a shower, get dressed, and ready myself for a confession at Drumgoyne Police Station. Robbie would be better off with my parents.

I took a last look around my living room.
Everywhere
in the room were hints of a happy life – the baby gym, ornaments from holidays in Spain and Italy, a photo of Mum and Dad getting married, the photo of my christening, Chas, Kyle and I at
university,
Sarah and I at her wedding, me and Robbie on the swing in Mum and Dad’s garden. As I looked around at these relics of happiness, I realised that I had been given the most perfect life that any person could have.

So as I sat there looking at the ornaments and thinking about my wonderful life, what I wanted to know was this: how had I managed to screw it up so badly?

Chas could have told Krissie the answer to her question. He knew.

He was sitting on the step outside the front door of Krissie’s tenement, waiting for her to calm down, revising his apology and his plan. He could not believe he’d caused so much harm in so little time, and he hated himself for it, because he of all people knew that what Krissie needed was nurturing, not hassle.

After Chas decided to quit medicine, his parents blew a gasket. His sister, by then an advocate in Edinburgh, came and tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. Could they not see that this was the right thing for him to do? He told them he wanted to see the world. He wanted to do something creative. Write or paint? He wasn’t sure yet. All he knew was that he didn’t want to be a doctor. He didn’t want to have loads of money. He didn’t want
to have a golf club membership or an investment property or a Mercedes. He needed to see things and feel things and be everything that he could possibly be, and then maybe come home – but not before he had really experienced himself.

Kyle was even worse than his family. ‘What a waste! What a quitter,’ he’d said.

But Krissie’s mum, Anna, had been just what the non-doctor ordered. She showed up with a bottle of wine and several packets of crisps and set up bar in the bay window.

‘You know, Chas, sometimes people are just plain scared of what other people’s reactions will be. If you do what everyone says you should do, you’ll wake up one day and you’ll be dead.’

They talked for hours that night. Kyle was on holidays at the time, and Krissie was going out with some thug from Aberdeen, so the place was all theirs. Anna told him how she’d done mad things before she settled down and she was so damn glad she had, because now she had nothing to regret and nothing to prove. She liked everything about her life and about herself except perhaps her leathery neck.

Chas talked to Anna about painting, how he felt happy when he had a brush in his hand. Since leaving medicine he’d been working three jobs to save for travelling, and had spent every spare minute painting in his room.

When the conversation moved to relationships,
Chas said, ‘You and Dave are so happy, so at ease. If you don’t mind me asking …’ Chas hesitated.

‘You’re going to ask me why Krissie isn’t that way.’

She was right, that was exactly what he was going to ask her. Krissie was full of life, brimming with it. When she walked into the room, she was luminous. She was lubrication for an awkward party, tonic for a depressed friend in need. But when it came to relationships, she was a disaster.

Anna looked at him very seriously. ‘You’re in love with her, aren’t you, Chas?’

After a pause Anna told Chas a story that would shape the next ten years of his life, and which had been shaping Krissie’s since she was six.

Chas was enraged by what Anna told him. Everything suddenly fell into place.

‘Don’t do anything stupid!’ Anna told him. ‘For Krissie’s sake.’

He promised her he wouldn’t, repeated after her that there would be nothing to gain from taking matters into his own hands.

‘She just needs time,’ Anna said. ‘Just give her some time.’

The next day, Chas left Glasgow for his second big trip. He worked in bars and sketched in the Himalayas and met the Dalai Lama and rode on a camel through Rajasthan and painted in Malaysia and Thailand, wrote in Vietnam and painted in Bali and then at Uluru.

In every sketch or painting he did, she was there – behind a door, on a rock, swimming in the sea – always there, the woman he was giving time.

Then he came home. A painter. Unafraid of the world, knowing what he was and what he wanted to do, and wanting to share it all with the woman he adored.

Kyle left Glasgow around eleven pm. He had all the equipment he needed in his emergency medical bag, and drove flat out to Glencoe in under three hours. His plan was to steal one of the luggage trolleys from the hotel, wheel Sarah’s chopped body back to his car, and dump it in the quarry they’d walked past near Inverarnan.

When Kyle got to the hotel the door was open and no-one was in the foyer. He tiptoed in and glanced around, but the luggage trolleys were nowhere to be seen. He searched for one in the steel kitchen area, then ran up the stairs to the first floor, where he found one sitting beside the lift. After jerking it down the stairs and through the foyer, he started along the path.

The luggage trolley was a bad idea. Kyle had never walked a baby in a buggy or a disabled person in a
wheelchair along cobblestones. If he had, he’d have known that wheels and bumpy paths do not mix. The trolley jarred and twisted at every turn, and after fifty metres he ditched it. It might take two trips, but it was only 2.13 am so he had plenty of time. He left the trolley at the side of the mountain and walked on, his torch tickling the path with balls of weak light.

Kyle followed Krissie’s instructions, abandoning the track about halfway up, then scrambling to the top of the cliff, stopping when he could go no further.

He saw the ridge to the right and climbed down, just as Krissie had done, quickly spotting the first cave she described. Following her instructions, he strode another thirty metres and began to search for the crevice.

An hour later he was still frantically scrabbling about. It was 4.25 am, and he was running out of time. He would have to lug Sarah’s body in one trip.

A surge of fear sped through him when he heard a loud scratching noise. Must have been a bird, he reassured himself, looking around and seeing no-one else. The scratching continued and he couldn’t see a bird – or any animal – anywhere near him, so he
followed
the scratching noise along the ground until it got so loud he thought it must have been coming from under his feet. He knelt down and scraped some dirt away, but the noise stopped. He shook his
head. He was losing his mind. He sat up and rested his head against the cliff face, only to open his eyes again suddenly when the scratching resumed. He sat, eyes wide open, for a full three seconds, and then turned his head around slowly until his torch was pointing directly at the heather-covered,
rock-filled
crevice Krissie had described.

The scratching got louder as he stood up and pulled at the largest rock, which was lodged at the top of the opening. It fell with a thump to the ground.

Kyle stared into blackness for a moment; the sound was so loud now that it seemed to echo through the valley. His heartbeat was almost as loud as the scratching, and when the noise stopped, it felt like his heart did too. No breathing, no noise, nothing, only darkness and silence.

Just as Kyle was about to relax, a dark shape sprang at him from the crevice, catapulting his heart back into action.

‘Jesus!’ he yelled, then began to breathe more easily again as the rat scuttled off into the scrub. A fucking rat!

He turned around again and faced the black hole that was the rat’s home. The darkness of it was
terrifying
and he trembled as he and his torch moved closer to have a look inside. Slowly, a centimetre at a time, he moved forward … almost there now, almost …

The hand fell out and hit his face. A white, thin, bony hand.

Kyle let out a scream of absolute unadulterated terror as he flicked the dead hand off. But after throwing the arm back towards the crevice, he realised that this hand was not dead.

This hand was alive.

Kyle pulled the rest of the rocks from the crevice with almost superhuman strength. As the last rock fell to the ground, the stench of the enclosure hit him and he gagged. Covering his mouth and nose, he peered into the crevice. His wife opened her eyes and looked back. She was pale and bloody and
stinking.
Her body and one arm were wrapped in the purple tent. The other arm was loose, and looked strangely disconnected.

‘Sarah, it’s okay. I’ve come to get you. It’s all right,’ he said as he pulled her out of the crevice,
unravelling
her as quickly as he could, and gagging once again as the smell of her hit the air.

He checked her breathing and her pulse, then sat her up and held her and cried.

‘Oh, thank God, Sarah, you’re alive. Sarah, my Sarah. Thank God. My darling.’