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The Cutting Room

BOOK: The Cutting Room
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THE CUTTING ROOM by louise welsh.

Back cover.

louise welsh has published many short stories and articles. The Cutting Room, her first novel, was a highly anticipated debut. It is already being translated into eight languages and has been optioned for film. Louise was chosen as one of

Britain’s Best First Novelists of 2002 by the Guardian newspaper. The Cutting Room won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Dagger for the best first crime novel (2002),

The Saltire First Book of the Year Award (2002) and BBC’s

Underground 2003 Writer’s Award. Louise has been granted

the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award. She lives in

Glasgow, is currently writing a second novel and working on a series of two programmes for BBC Radio 4 defining the

Gothic.

 

‘Throughout, Welsh’s prose manages to be both tight and

lyrical, suspenseful and poetic, compelling and occasionally oblique, as it twists to the sort of climax that Rilke would recognise; brief but fulfilling.’ The Times

 

‘Welsh succeeds in making Glasgow her own.’ Observer

 

‘Maiden aunts will be shocked at Louise Welsh’s fiction. Noir lovers will adore it.’ Scotsman

 

‘It’s dirty, it’s raw and it doesn’t insult one’s intelligence.

Totally recommended.’ The Crack

 

‘Welsh has created not just a gripping plot, a memorable

set of characters and a convincing and fast moving dialogue, but also the frightening world of a Glasgow that most

people never see, and she has imbued it with a moral force

that leaves you shaken until the final page has been turned.’ Good Book Guide

`What a great read - I was hooked from page one.’ Guardian

`Welsh’s prose can flit from clipped and short to elegant and graceful … as taut a thriller as you’ll get; full of unexpected alliances, double crosses and a brutal denouement worthy of

classic American hard-boiled fiction.’ Big Issue

 

`Strewn with literary references, peopled with a fascinating, macabre cast of characters and delightfully seedy, The Cutting Room is that rare beast - a thriller that makes you think.’ The Face `Adding to the power of this stylish thriller is Welsh’s gritty evocation of contemporary Glasgow in all its aspects, from

bars and porn shops to quiet suburbs and auctions. But most

impressive is the figure of Rilke himself, driven on by his

compulsively inquisitive nature and cool intelligence to decode every last mystery that the cutting room holds.’ Red `A captivating novel.’ Vogue `Louise Welsh is certainly talented and she handles her

material with aplomb . She is sharp, she is disciplined,

she has a quirky eye and she has a future as a writer.’ Daily Mail `Glasgow has its own personality, expertly evoked in scenes of Gothic suspense as Rilke moves through the city. The

characters are a spooky mixture of the charismatic and the

devious.’ Times Literary Supplement

 

`Welsh writes with such assurance it is hard to believe this is her first novel, and more difficult to believe she will not go on to be a major name in British fiction for many years to come.’ Crime Time

THE CUTTING ROOM

 

Louise Welsh

 

First published in Great Britain in 2002 by

Canongate Books Ltd,

14 High Street, Edinburgh EHl He
This edition published in 2003
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Copyright (D Louise Welsh, 2002

 

The moral rights of the author have been asserted The author wishes to thank the Scottish Arts Council for a writing bursary in September 2000,

which enabled her to spend time on this novel British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library ISBN 1 84195 404 7

 

Typeset by Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh

Printed and bound by Nerhaven Paperback A/S, Denmark www.canongate.net

 

To Ena and John.

 

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, ‘- that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

John Keats,

`Ode on a Grecian Urn’

NEVER EXPECT ANYTHING.

An old porter told -me that my very first day. We called

him Cat’s Piss. Mr McPhee to his face but always Cat’s Piss, or sometimes C. P. McPhee behind his back.

`Never expect anything, son. They’ll tell you they’ve got

the crown bloody jewels in their attic and all you’ll get’s guff.

But sometimes - not often mind, just now and again - you’ll

go to the pokiest wee hole, a council estate, high-rise even, and you’ll find a treasure. So keep an open mind, try and

filter out the nonsense merchants, sure, but never look at a map and think there’ll be nothing there for us, because you

 

can be surprised. I’ve been here thirty-five years and I’m still surprised at what we find and where we find it.’

`Yes, Mr McPhee,’ I’d said. Looking all the while at a pile

of furniture reaching almost to the ceiling and thinking, You stupid old git, thirty-five years in this place.

I’d not been thinking of McPhee as I drove to the call. I’m

twenty-five years at the auction house, forty-three years of age. They call me Rilke to my face, behind my back the

Cadaver, Corpse, Walking Dead. Aye, well, I may be gaunt

of face and long of limb but I don’t smell and I never expect anything.

I didn’t expect anything driving along the Crow Road

towards Hyndland. I hadn’t taken the message myself but the

call sheet said, McKindless, three storeys plus attic, deceased, valuation and clearance. I didn’t need to know anything else except the address and that was in my pocket.

 

I hate Hyndland. You’ll find its like in any large city. Green leafy suburbs, two cars, children at public school and boredom, boredom, boredom. Petty respectability up front,

intricate cruelties behind closed doors. Most of the town

houses have been turned into small apartments. The McKindless residence was the largest building in the street and the

only one still intact. I parked and sat for a while looking at it.

It dominated the road, a dark, sober facade intersected by

three rows of darkened windows. No clue of what lay inside

except you could bet it would be expensive. Tiny casement

windows peeped from the slanted roof of the attic. More like five storeys in all including the basement. If we were lucky and the executor took our quote, this call might supply a

whole sale. I was getting ahead of myself, there was nothing to say there was anything of use at all in the place - but the odds were for it. I turned the van into the driveway, noting the

 

remnants of a garden. Last year’s crocuses pushing through

the long grass - whoever had lived here was well enough last spring to organise their garden, this spring it was them that was planted.

Never expect anything.

Cat’s Piss should have added, `But be prepared: anything

may happen.’

I slicked back my hair and wondered if I should take Joanin-the-office’s advice and have it cut short. I had a feeling

that perhaps ashort-bask-and-sides could be the prelude to

romance for Joan - well, if Joan had been Joe I might have

thought about it but the way things were I might as well

keep my locks. Sure they were grey but they went with the

look.

I took off my shades - it’s only polite to make eye contact

on the first meeting - rang the doorbell twice and waited. I was about to ring a third time when I heard footsteps. I had expected someone in their forties - wealth of this kind usually finds a fair few relations willing to help with the burden of tying up the estate - but when the door was opened it was by a woman who wouldn’t be seeing eighty again. She was

dressed like the respectable women from my childhood.

Single string of pearls, heather twin-set, long tweed skirt, thick woollen tights and brogues. Her hair, though sparse,

was set in stiff egg-white curls. Age had withered her. There was the beginning of a bend to her spine. She leant the whole of her weight, a good seven stone, against a plain wooden

walking stick.

There was a crooked man and he had a crooked house. `Mr Rilke, Bowery Auctions.’

I handed her my card and let her look me up and down. I

could almost hear her assessment: hair bad, tie, shirt, suit

good, cowboy boots bad. Well, she had a point, but they

were genuine snakeskin.

`Madeleine McKindless. Come in.’

Her voice was young, with the authority of a schoolteacher.

The

stained glass of the front door cast a red glow across

the hallway, a staircase with an ornately carved mahogany

banister was to our left, the parquet floor laid with thinning Turkish rugs; this family had been rich for a long time. A

heavy mahogany table stood to the right of the door. It was

bare, none of the usual family photographs, and I guessed

she’d been doing some clearing out already.

I knew in an instant there was no way we were going to get the job. It was just too big to trust to a local auction house. She was a fly old bird getting us in to do a valuation then playing us off against the big boys.

`Let’s go into the kitchen. It’s the only place I feel halfway comfortable in this mausoleum.’

She led me through the hallway and I followed her, slowly,

down a set of stone steps worn thinner in the middle, by

generations of McKindlesses no doubt. She favoured her left leg.

I wondered if she was due a hip replacement and why she was

making things hard for herself. Why take these stairs, with a whole house to choose from? The kitchen was on two levels,

scullery on the lower level where I could make out an open door leading to the garden. A flask of coffee, some mugs and a plate of biscuits were already laid out on the huge kitchen table.

`My brother’s home help laid out a refreshment for us. I

suffer from arthritis and angina, among other things. I like to save my strength for non-domestic tasks.’

`Very sensible.’

A smell of burning drifted in from the garden. I walked to

 

the door and looked out onto a well tended lawn at the end of which burnt a bonfire. A gnomic gardener jabbed at the

flames with a long rake. He caught my stare and raised his free hand in a half-defensive wave, like a man staving off a blow.

He lowered his cap over his eyes and fed papers from a black refuse sack into the flames. Madeleine McKindless’s voice

brought me back to the table.

 

`You come well recommended, Mr Rilke.’

 

`That’s good to know - we’ve been doing business in

Glasgow for over a hundred years.’

 

Her eyes glanced me up and down like the quick click of a

camera shutter. A brief smile. `I can believe it. My brother Roddy died three weeks ago, neither of us married, so I am

left alone with rather a large task on my hands. You’ll be

wondering why I’ve called you in - you’re a respectable firm but you’re a small firm and it might have made more sense for me to go with one of the London houses.’

`It’s an obvious question.’

`I want it done quick.’

`I want it done quick.’

 

Blue eyes that used to be bluer looking straight at me.

I should have stopped right there and asked her why,

but I was already making calculations in my head, adding

up time, manpower and money, wheeling straight into

business as she knew I would.

 

`I’ll need to take a look around before I can give you a

preliminary estimate of how long it’ll take. I’ll provide you with a rough valuation by the end of the week.’

`I want the house cleared by next Wednesday. That should

give you ample time to pack and warehouse it. I want it

empty. If you can’t do it in a week tell me now - I’ve chosen

you, Mr Rilke, but there are others that could do the job as well.’

And I believed her. I stood my ground halfheartedly,

telling her she’d not get top price, that there was only so

much possible in a week, but we both knew it was a useless

dance.

`I’m too old to discuss things, Mr Rilke. Either you can do

it or you can’t. I know it’s a big job. I’m asking a lot, so there will be a commission paid directly to you on top of the auction house fee as a token of my appreciation - if you manage to get the work done on time.’

 

She had me.

`I’ll telephone the office and have them send over some

people to start valuation and packaging this afternoon. You

realise we’re going to have to work through the night for

probably most of the week??

‘Do whatever you have to. I’ll allow you unlimited

access.

BOOK: The Cutting Room
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