Stonemouth (2 page)

Outside of work, obviously. And one or two relationships.

I don’t get in. I close the door again and look round the side of the van to Powell’s frowning face. ‘I’ll walk,’ I tell him, and start towards the south end of the bridge, retracing my steps. This could be really stupid. My mouth has gone dry. I hope my steps look steady.

After a moment the van whines backwards, reversing to keep pace with me. Powell’s face wears an expression somewhere between a sneer and a grin as he looks at me, taking in my clothes. ‘Too manky in there for ye, aye?’ Powell always had one of those deep, carrying, slightly gravelly voices. It’s gritty rather than gravelly now; he must have stopped smoking.

‘I need the exercise,’ I tell him, and keep on walking. I’m not looking at him but I hear what might be a snort. He says something to the driver and the van stops. I leave it behind as I keep on walking.

After a few moments I hear doors slamming. Three slams. Shit, I have time to think.

Then, while I’m paranoid-fantasising about being picked up and thrown off the bridge by three guys, one of whom I somehow missed, the van’s engine roars and it comes tearing past me, transmission whining even louder. I wonder if – as I tumble towards the waves – I’ll have time to get the iPhone out, hit Facebook and change my status to ‘Dead’. The wee yellow van jerks to a stop and the passenger door is opened.

I
look inside. Powell is in the driver’s seat now, massive mitts gripping the steering wheel. He’s smiling thinly at me. The bridge employee who was driving is in the back, sitting on the floor surrounded by road cones and holding onto the back of the empty passenger seat. He doesn’t look over-pleased.

‘Happy now?’ Powell asks.

‘Cheers,’ I tell both of them, and get in. Below, just appearing from under the deck of the bridge, a small brown tug is heading upstream, its blunt bows punching through the grey waves of the firth.

‘No really supposed to do three-point turns, Mr Imrie,’ the bridge worker in the back says, as Powell shuffles the van back and forth to point back the way it came. ‘One-way, kinda thing.’

Imrie just ignores him, seemingly taking some pleasure in gunning the engine, whirling the wheel and taking both ends of the van alarmingly close to the railings on either side of the combined cycle and pedestrian path. It’s actually a five-point turn, but that’s not the sort of thing you’d choose to point out to somebody like Powell Imrie.

‘You well, Stu?’ he asks as we speed back down the path.

‘Yeah, fine,’ I say. ‘You?’

‘Um, there’s sort of a limit, Mr Imrie,’ the guy in the back says as we start to overtake traffic on the far side of the bridge.

‘Don’t worry,’ Powell says smoothly to the guy in the back, turning his head a little, still accelerating. He flashes a smile at me. ‘Dandy,’ he says. ‘Just dandy.’ He looks at my jeans and jacket again. ‘Doing all right, are we?’

‘Not broke,’ I agree.

Powell is also dressed in jeans, though his are the more conventional blue. Topped off with a white tee and a padded tartan lumber shirt, predominantly red, with expensive-looking earbuds dangling on short leads from a breast pocket. He looks tanned, and fit and solid as ever, his massive shoulder almost touching mine across the van’s cab. He was probably the strongest boy in the school when he was still in third year the first time. Star of the rugby team.

We’re
still gathering speed, the bars of the railings on my side blurring past less than half a metre away. Squinting through the mist, it looks like there’s a couple of people on bikes pedalling their way up the shallow slope of the bridge towards us, a hundred metres dead ahead.

‘Um,’ the guy behind us says, ‘think there’s folk on the cycle path, Mr Imrie.’

‘Haven’t got a siren on this thing, have you?’ Powell asks him.

‘Naw, Mr Imrie.’

‘Shame. Aw well.’

He starts to brake and we pass the cyclists at a sedate fifty or so, though – largely by flashing his headlights at them insistently – he still forces them to swerve over to the pedestrian side of the track. They stop, standing astride their bikes and staring at us as we race past. Imrie waves cheerily.

‘How’s Ellie?’

‘She’s fine. Take it you know about Callum.’

‘Yeah, of course. Not totally out of touch.’

Powell looks appropriately solemn for a moment, then grins. ‘Your mum and dad been keepin you up to date with all the local gossip, aye?’

‘Mostly.’

We’re sitting in Powell’s black Range Rover Sport in the viewing area near the bridge control centre. My more modest hired Ford Ka is a couple of bays away. For some reason when we arranged our arguably melodramatic meeting in the middle of the bridge, I’d thought he would park at the north end and walk over while I did the same from the south, but he must have driven past me and parked here. Obviously hasn’t watched the same old Cold War movies I have. The Rangie’s engine purrs, barely audible, wafting a little warm air into the gently lit interior, all soft leather and hard wood. The wipers sweep smoothly every few seconds, giving us an intermittently good view of the twin streams of red and white lights flowing across the bridge.

‘So,
Stewie,’ Powell says, making a gesture a bit like he’s opening a book with his massive but manicured-looking hands. ‘What was it you wished to discuss?’

I hate the name Stewie even more than Stu. I hated it as a kid and these days all it makes me think of is
Family Guy
. I like
Family Guy
; I just don’t like being bracketed with a melon-headed, homicidal, über camp baby with inappropriate diction. And I only asked for a chat, just to make sure everything was cool, not to ‘discuss’ anything. But still. I look him in the eye. ‘Am I okay to come back, Pow?’

Powell smiles. He’s had his teeth fixed. Dazzling. Cee Lo Green has dimmer gnashers. I’d thought at this point he might look all innocent and uncomprehending, maybe even hurt, pretending there had never been any problem, but he doesn’t. Instead he looks thoughtful, nods.

‘Aye,’ he says, drawing the word out. ‘As well to check, I suppose, eh?’ He smiles tolerantly. ‘You were never one of the daft ones, were you, Stu?’

I raise my eyebrows at this. Better than saying, One of the
daft
ones? I’m one of the dead fucking
smart
ones, you overstuffed, upgraded bouncer. Though not so smart I didn’t do something that got me run out of town, admittedly, so maybe he does have a point after all. Plus, for somebody we all confidently predicted would reach his life-peak standing outside a club rejecting people wearing the wrong sort of trainers, or being Thug Number One on a prison wing, Powell’s done pretty well for himself. So who am I to talk?

Powell nods wisely. ‘Aye, best to check. Feelings were runnin high an all that, eh?’

I just crease my mouth and nod a little. Powell’s about to say something else when his phone sounds suddenly with a snatch of Tinchy featuring Tinie. It’s ‘Gangsta?’, which probably represents high wit to Powell. The Rangie’s Bluetoothed screen wakes up with a single name I can’t make out before Powell’s hand flicks out and he stabs a button on the steering wheel, rejecting the call.

He winks at me. ‘So, frightened about coming back, were you?’

I
squeeze out a tight little smile. ‘Concerned. Didn’t want to make anybody feel uncomfortable.’

‘Aye, well,’ he says, sporting a fuller grin than mine. ‘I’ve had a word with Mr M, just to check you’re
persona grata
, you know?’

Powell looks very pleased with himself for knowing this phrase. He’s a man it’s easy to dismiss intellectually, given his looks and size and just the way he carries and expresses himself sometimes, but he always could play a lot dumber than he is, and even when he was kept back that year at school he let it be known he had done this deliberately, for his own good reasons, the better to dominate all around him.

A few people scoffed a tad too publicly at that and paid for it. Only the first one had to cough up blood and a tooth; the others suddenly found it necessary to contribute a tenner or so to Powell’s never-to-be-used-for-its-stated-purpose college fund. That was the thing about Powell, even then: he didn’t mistake fear for respect, however grudging; he knew where to draw the line, and he certainly never enjoyed violence so much he’d prioritise it above a decent payday. He might have been educationally challenged, but he was always destined to do well with a certain sort of organisational hierarchy around him.

There’s movement outside his window. Black-and-white check pattern. Jeez, it’s the cops.

Powell swivels, grins, thumbs the window down. ‘Douglas, that you?’ he asks the uniform standing in the light rain outside.

‘Evening, Mr Imrie,’ the cop says. I think I recognise the face but I’m not sure.

Powell laughs. ‘What you doin this side of the firth, Dougie? This is fuckin bandit country for you guys, is it no?’

‘Aye,’ the officer says with a sheepish grin. He nods towards the bridge control buildings. ‘Over seein the bro-in-law; he’s a rigger.’

Powell looks down at him. ‘I’d invite you in,’ he says. ‘But you’re dripping.’

‘Naw,
it’s all right.’ He stares in at me. His face scrunches up a little. ‘Stewart?’ he asks.

Werrock. Dougie Werrock. That’s his name. Year or two below us. I nod. ‘Hi, Dougie. Officer Werrock.’ I glance at Powell.

‘That your Ka over there, Stewart?’ Dougie asks.

‘Aye. Hired.’

‘Saw that. Left your sidelights on, sir,’ he says, with a professional expression.

‘Did I? Thanks. Thought I heard an extra beep or two. Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll be on my way shortly anyway, should think,’ I tell him, with another glance at Powell.

‘Right you are.’ Officer Werrock gives me a sort of half-nod. Powell merits a full nod and even a touch of hand to cap. ‘Nice to see you, Mr Imrie,’ Dougie says, then turns.

He’s a couple of steps away when Powell leans out and says, a little more quietly, ‘Aw, Dougie. Did we get that wee …?’

I can just about make out what Dougie says. ‘Eh? Oh. Aye. Aye, that’s all … That’s been … No, we’re fine there.’

‘Splendid. Hunky McDory. Right, Dougie. Mind how you go.’ Dougie walks off through the drizzle. Powell runs the window back up and sighs. ‘Cunt,’ he breathes, though he sounds almost affectionate.

I look at him.

‘Where were we?’ He sighs, pinches his nose. ‘Oh yes. Aye, you’re clear to land, Stewie-boy. No harm scheduled to befall. Not at our hands, anyway. You’re still not on Mr M’s Christmas list, and he’d appreciate a wee visit, maybe this evening, just so you can pay your respects, but no; you’re fine.’ He leans over and, with one enormous fist, punches me very gently on the thigh. It really is gentle, more of a push than a punch, but I can still feel the power behind it. ‘Appreciate you asking first, though,’ he tells me, winking. ‘Smart thing to do.’ He sits back, stretches a little as he looks through the just-cleared screen, as though some formality has been dealt with, before looking back at me. ‘You here long?’

‘Just
the weekend.’

‘For Joe’s funeral, aye?’

‘Aye, for the funeral,’ I tell him. ‘Joe asked for me to be there, be here, himself,’ I add, still feeling I need to justify myself, or at least my presence. As soon as I say it I wish I hadn’t; it sounds like I’m pleading. I bite my lip, stop doing that, then feel like I’m starting to blush.
Jeez
, I tell myself.
Make it all obvious, why don’t you?

Powell appears oblivious. ‘Uh-huh. You know the time’s changed?’

‘No.’

‘Still Monday, but it’s been brought forward to eleven.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘Aye. Mrs M didn’t want to change the time of her keep-fit class.’

I look at him. He keeps a neutral expression, then just shrugs. He clears his throat and says, ‘Staying at your folks’, aye?’

‘Yes, I am.’ I put my hand on the door handle, then hesitate. ‘Any special time Donnie wants me at the house?’

‘Naw.’ Powell looks at his watch, which is something wide and bling and might have cost more than the Range Rover. ‘Just head on up now if ye want. I’ll no be there; stuff to do, but I’ll phone ahead. See you around, eh?’

‘Aye, see you around.’ I open the door. A few drops of rain swirl in. It looks like the sky is brightening, though that might be just the contrast with the Rangie’s tinted windows. I get out and stand looking in at Powell. ‘Thanks, Pow,’ I tell him.

He looks pleased at this, so it was probably worth the small amount of self-esteem it cost me. He winks again. ‘Say hi to your mum and dad, eh?’ he says.

‘Will do.’

The door closes with a thud so solid I could believe there’s some armour in there. For all I know, there is. Powell’s Range Rover burbles off into the evening while I walk over to my hire car.

The still-on sidelights welcome me, reproachful.

Five minutes later I’m driving into Stonemouth.

The quickest road from the bridge to the Murston house doesn’t go through the centre of town. I almost take the slower route anyway, just to see what’s changed over the last five years, but the traffic’s heavy enough coming off the bridge and on all sides of the big roundabout beyond, so I take the Erscliff road and end up going past the old High School. It’s still there: three tall stone storeys and a Community College now; fewer outbuildings and huts than in our time, plus a bit sprucer, and grass where the tarmac playground used to be. We were there for only a year before we were moved to the achingly modern new school at Qualcults, on the other side of town.