Murderers Anonymous (34 page)

'Speak for yourself, you little bastard,' said Fergus Flaherty, the Fernhill Flutist. 'There's nothing wrong with me.'

This last line was from a man who'd murdered the entire family next door, using nothing but the flute of the youngest son, a lad who'd spent several weeks practising non-stop for the Twelfth of July. A bloody rampage, and he had taken out the boy, his two brothers and the mother and father, all inside fifteen minutes. With a flute. It had been messy.

'I agree with Billy,' said a quiet voice, from a large, comfy chair pushed a little farther back than all the others.

The explosion on Billy Hamilton's lips was temporarily averted. The sneer of Sammy Gilchrist was calmed. The fizzing tension in the room was turned to curiosity. For Morty Goldman rarely spoke.

They all turned and looked at him. Morty Goldman. At official group meetings they had heard him talk just the once, when he'd brought his story into their lives. Here was your classic skin-slicing-off-and-wearing-it, keeping-women-locked-up-in-a-cellar for months, stalking, bug-eyed, serial-killing lunatic. And for all the hardness and strength around the room, each of them found Morty Goldman a little intimidating. Except for Barney, who found him spectacularly intimidating, having been told his story the previous night by Socrates McCartney.

'Why is that?' asked Dillinger, to break into the shocked silence.

Morty pointed a finger at Gilchrist, and even this seasoned killer felt a chill at the look. Goldman was your classic combination of Jack the Ripper, Darth Vader, Genghis Khan and Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men.

Mainly, thought Goldman, because I have to say something. Otherwise Ellie Winters will never notice me.

'Mr Gilchrist does indeed take an unwarranted moral high ground. This ethical masturbation of his really is rather tedious. His is a self-righteousness born of unnecessary benevolence to his own misdeeds of the past. We've all been victims of absurd law suits, but that's hardly justification for murder.'

'What about you?' exploded Gilchrist. 'You skin-slicing-off weirdo?'

Too late, he remembered to whom he was speaking. Morty Goldman paraded a tortuous smile, the likes of which most of the group had only ever witnessed once or twice. Showed no teeth.

'I'm not pretending that what I did has any ethical superiority. It was cruel, disgusting and really rather unpleasant. I ought to have gone to prison for my crimes, I know that.'

Ought to have gone to prison? thought Barney. Bloody hell. And he started to question his decision to cede to his penis and stay. When you decide to do something, you should just do it. Bugger the wait for public transport and the possibility of romance. Yet here he was, still prevaricating, a sucker for one nice word from Dillinger.

'That's why I'm here. But at least I'm not pretending to be something I'm not. At least I'm not claiming some sort of honourable code as justification for my murders. At least I don't,' continued Morty, and the voice had taken on a sudden immediacy, a sly quality tending to evil, and bones were chilled, 'pretend to be some sort of arse-wiping Jedi knight, fighting the forces of evil on behalf of humanity. You're just a stupid prick, Gilchrist. A fucking stupid little prick, and one day you might well get what's coming to you. One day soon.'

You could have heard a piece of tinsel drop.

The fire dully roared and sharply crackled in the hearth; the tree sparkled, green and gold in the corner; outside, a buzzard cried and a mouse scurried beneath some shrubbery; somewhere the handyman bit massively into a quadruple cheeseburger with relish, humming the opening lines to
I Got Stung
as he went.

'Why don't we just calm down?' said Arnie Medlock, the voice of reason. 'Maybe we should give this a miss and get the housekeeper in. Have some drinks and food and think about opening the presents. We're here to enjoy ourselves.'

Sammy Gilchrist and Billy Hamilton, the two principal protagonists, stared at the carpet and nodded. Didn't meet Medlock's eyes as he looked at them. Morty Goldman had a steady gaze, however. Steady. The desire to impress Ellie Winters had gone. He was aware of all the old feelings again. The bad feelings.

'Fucking Medlock,' he muttered.

Arnie Medlock was not a man to be intimidated. Even so, this was a card-carrying, skin-wearing psychopath, not a regular, run-of-the-mill hard man.

'Watch it, you,' he said.

Morty Goldman sneered.

'Fucking Medlock,' he said again. 'Think you're hard? I've eaten guys like you for my breakfast. And I mean eaten. You're nothing, Medlock. You're a pathetic, sexually inadequate fuckwit. No wonder gorgeous Katie here didn't sleep with you last night. No dick, no brain, no heart, no balls. You in a nutshell, fuckwit-face. You're nothing.'

Arnie Medlock stared across the rich tapestry of the carpet. His face twitched. A vein throbbed in his neck. He bit his bottom lip, hard enough that he could taste the blood. Looked round at Dillinger, seated between himself and Socrates McCartney on the large settee. She did her best to placate him with a smile, while they both wondered how Morty Goldman knew that they hadn't slept together.

With the timing of one of the better episodes of
Star Trek TNG
, the door opened. Hertha Berlin, brandishing tea and Christmas cake.

'I thought you might like some tea,' she said. 'And there's a cheeky wee half-bottle of Johnnie Walker in the pot to keep you going.'

They watched her as she entered, an intimidating array of eyes pinning her down. And in this heightened atmosphere of draining tension and tangible aggression, there was more than one person viewing Berlin as a potential victim. Hertha Berlin was not daunted, however. Seen worse than this lot, she reckoned, although that was only because she thought they were barbers.

The tray was laid on the table, she clinked around with a few cups and saucers, then turned back to face them.

'Would there be anything else, now?'

'No, thank you, Miss Berlin,' said Dillinger. Still marginally in charge of the proceedings. 'That'll be all.'

'Right, then. Enjoy your tea.'

And off she went. Hertha Berlin. A woman of secrets. And there the tea sat. Still tension hung over them like a thick North Sea haar. Still no one wanted to be the first to talk, lest Morty Goldman threatened to turn them into soup. Still the fire crackled and the Christmas tree sparkled. Morty was enjoying his sudden emergence as the group lunatic and leant back in his comfy sofa, eyeing each of the others slowly and in turn.

'Aw, fuck this,' said Sammy Gilchrist, 'I'm going for a walk. Can't be bothered with all this shite.'

Up he rose, the tension shattered. Some were relieved.

'It's pouring, Sammy,' said Dillinger.

'Don't care,' he threw back over his shoulder.

To the door and out, and he immediately felt the weight lift from his shoulders when he stepped from the room, and worried not about the effects of leaving Annie Webster to the charms of Billy Hamilton for the next couple of hours.

Dillinger stood up. This was supposed to be an enjoyable weekend, and there was no point in sitting there in silence for the rest of the day.

'Come on, Annie,' she said, 'give us a hand, will you?'

And Annie Webster nodded and lifted herself out of an ancient comfy seat, then Fergus Flaherty said, 'Big Sammy's probably just away to pish up a tree,' because it was the closest thing to a joke he could think of, and it got a laugh, and the tension was gone; and Morty Goldman retreated to his shell. For now.

Drinks were served; someone switched on the CD player and
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
filled the room; the crowd ate cake and broke off into small groups to chat about Sammy Gilchrist and Morty Goldman and the weather. And no one noticed when ten minutes later Morty Goldman snuck out through the door, and was gone into the midst of the rain-strewn day.

Like some sort of Brad Pitt, Mulholland took to his fishing with a reverential relish. Treat the river with respect and it will respect you. The river is your friend. It may be your friend, but it's also your god. The river controls you and holds you in the palm of its hand. It can give, but it also takes away. Do not betray the river or you will die. All of that.

He was in the middle of it, waders clinging to his legs, water up to his thighs, the bottom of his jacket dipping into the cold. Not happy, but content in that freezing cold, miserable as shite, grumpy, hungover, depressed, angry, buggered kind of way peculiar to the Scots. A cold day at last, as winter reared its head. Rain had finally stopped. Casting his fly short distances, snagging it on the riverside grass every time he tried to extend the pitch. Had been at it for nearly six hours and had caught just the one fish; the younger brother of an extremely small fish that he'd failed to catch.

Mind still in gloop, he did his best to focus. Fishing gear in the back of his car. A walk for a mile or two, had found a petrol station, bought a sandwich. Got into conversation with the Sunday best wee woman in the shop. Had been directed to the closest river, and had ignored the instruction about there being no fishing for salmon allowed at this time of year, not that you could fish for salmon on a Sunday in any case, so, son, you'd better think twice or Big Alec will be after your testicles.

Could do with tea and food, but had now been standing in the water, using the same bedraggled fly, for nearly two hours. Focused had become mechanical and one-track.

And so he couldn't see the eyes in the undergrowth, the body cowering behind the trees. Watching the fishing line fizz and snap behind him, and wondering if the line would be strong enough to pull around Mulholland's neck, to tighten, and to strangle the life out of him.

He could tell Mulholland was distracted in what he did; wondering whether it would be possible to steal up on him, grab the line and do what must be done; or whether he should step free of his hiding place, make himself known and then take him. Or he could drown him, or hit him over the head with a rock, or throw a heavy stone at him from a distance; although he'd never had much of a throwing arm.

So many choices.

And as he stood and thought and peered through the remnants of winter leaves and the bare protection of trees, another option presented itself. For down from the road and along the bank came Erin Proudfoot, and the killer lowered himself farther into the undergrowth and imagined the sweet taste of a woman.

'Mulholland!'

She looked out across the water. All of ten yards. A still day, barely a zephyr bothered the last of the leaves and the bare branches. The water was slow and it bubbled and trundled on by. No background noise from any nearby road, no planes overhead. Still, calm, cool winter's day. Grey cloud. Peaceful.

A slight noise among fallen leaves, and Proudfoot turned. Stared into the shadows of the trees and saw nothing. Assumed a bird or a rabbit.

'Mulholland!' she said again. 'Brought you some tea.'

He turned, dragged from the mire. As his head swivelled, he looked right into the killer's eye, it briefly registered and then was gone by the time he saw Proudfoot.

The memory of it left him vaguely troubled, but what he'd seen was gone.

'What?' he said.

She held up a bag. Food, tea, everything you might want after having been fishing for hours.

'Thought you might want something to eat. Brought you some tea.'

He stared at her for a while, brain not yet out of first. The fly lay limply in the water. A couple of fish swam by underneath. 'What a joker,' one of them said, 'using a mayfly in December,' and by the time the other had thought of a reply, he'd forgotten what had been said in the first place.