The Field of Blood (38 page)

The frost gave everything in the world a sharp edge, and the weak sun couldn’t burn the morning off the land. Even Paddy’s breath was a cloud of sharp crystals as she hurried carefully across slippery pavements to the station.

She found a seat on the train and sat down heavily, wincing at the tenderness of the flesh between her legs. It gave her more of a thrill than the sex itself had. She thought of herself sitting in Terry’s passenger seat, watching him walk back from Naismith’s van, of the cold, damp rock on the windy brae. Sean could go out with other girls now if he wanted. He could hold their hands and kiss them and promise them a cozy future. In time she would just be someone he used to know.

When she saw Terry Hewitt standing outside the door of the Daily News building with his hands in his pockets, one leg bent and resting on the wall behind him, she knew somehow that he was hoping he looked like James Dean. He looked like a plump guy leaning on a wall.

She was still a long way away and, abandoning his pose, he glanced down the road to look for her, knowing she would be coming from the train station. When he spotted her outline in the distance, a duffel coat and ankle boots, scurrying towards him, he did a double take and self-consciously resumed his stance. She was standing just feet away before he looked up again. He looked angry.

“You’re wanted in the Beast Master’s office. Right away.”

Paddy glanced at her watch. “But the editorial meeting’s about to start.”

“Right away.”

He turned away, ready to lead her upstairs, but she caught the tail of his leather.

“Shit, Terry, what happened?”

He didn’t stop or even look back. He flapped his hand for her to follow, leading the way through the black marble lobby. The echo of Terry’s metal-capped shoes ricocheted off the cold ceiling and walls. The Two Alisons simultaneously turned their heads and watched them cross the floor. Paddy knew it was serious. Not only had Terry been sent to intercept her and take her straight to Farquarson, he was escorting her through the formal entrance, the entrance for strangers who didn’t belong to the paper.

He jogged up the stairs in front of her, and Paddy hit his leg. “Stop,” she pleaded, but he didn’t. He marched on, and she had no option but to follow him. “Terry, please?” He sped up as if he were trying to get away from her.

She was losing her breath as they arrived on the newsroom floor. She was about to start a fresh plea, but he crossed the landing in two steps and threw open the doors to the newsroom. Not a single face looked at them, not one head rose nor idle eye fell upon them as Terry led her across the hundred-foot stretch of carpet to Farquarson’s office. Even Keck kept his eyes lowered as she passed the bench, pretending not to hear her mumble a needy little “hiya.” Only Dub looked at her, a little sadly, and she had the distinct feeling that he was saying good-bye.

The black venetian blinds were drawn, the door shut. Terry rapped twice, rattling the loose glass, and pushed open the door, stepping back to let her in ahead of him. Paddy crossed the threshold.

Farquarson was alone, bent over his desk, alternately moving two cutout lead paragraphs back and forth over a page proof. He sat back, glancing blankly at Hewitt, completely ignoring Paddy. She still had her coat on and was suddenly very warm.

“Boss?”

She dabbed her forehead with her sleeve. She felt every eye in the newsroom watching her back, seeing the sweat pop on her neck, noting how fat she was.

“Thomas Dempsie.” Farquarson left it hanging in the air as if it was an order.

She was almost afraid to move. “How do you mean?”

“You were right. There was a tie-in with Brian Wilcox after all.”

Paddy looked back at Terry, grinning behind her. A news editor sitting at a typewriter looked her straight in the eye. Keck was sitting on the bench, his back to them, listening, and she could tell by the angle of his head that he was depressed.

“So, here’s the plan,” continued Farquarson. “You’ll write up the Dempsie case as a history, straightforward, shouldn’t be too hard. If it isn’t complete shite we’ll use it as an insert next week.”

“Next week? Won’t we have to wait until the trial?”

Terry smiled triumphantly and kicked her gently on the ankle. “That’s the good news. There isn’t going to be a trial. Naismith confessed.”

“To what?”

“Everything. He confessed to murdering Thomas Dempsie, to taking Brian Wilcox and forcing the boys to kill him, to kidnapping Heather Allen and killing her— everything.”

She frowned. “Why would he confess to everything?”

“Well,” said Farquarson, “they found evidence in his van linking him to Heather and blood that matches Brian Wilcox’s.”

Paddy looked around at Terry, still grinning by the door. “But why suddenly confess, and why admit to Thomas Dempsie all these years later? Especially when he had an alibi. He’d be clearing the name of the guy who stole his wife.”

Farquarson shrugged. “Maybe he felt bad?”

Terry nodded encouragingly. “He had Jesus stickers all over his van. Maybe he wanted to come clean.”

“The Jesus stickers should make him stop killing people, not come clean after he was caught.” She wanted to believe it, but she just didn’t. “He was going to kill me to protect himself the other day, but suddenly he feels the need to unburden himself?”

Farquarson had little time for rumination on the dark interior of men’s souls. “Balls to that. The charges against the boys have been reduced to conspiracy to commit murder. They’ll fare much better, so it’s good news.”

She nodded, trying to convince herself that he was right: it was good news.

“We’ve arranged it with the relatives when we can finally get access to them, after Naismith’s convicted.”

“How does he know the boys?”

“They didn’t say.” Farquarson looked at Terry. “I think they live in the same area as him.”

Terry nodded. “They used to hang around the van, the neighbors told the police. James O’Connor, that’s the other boy, both his parents are absent. He lives with his grandparents.”

“Absent?”

“Drunks.”

“Yeah, great,” said Farquarson, drawing them back to the moment. “So JT will interview the boys. Meehan, you can liaise with him, give him any tips about the background, that kind of thing.”

“I want Callum,” she said loudly. “I want the Ogilvy interview myself.”

Farquarson looked stunned. “No way. It’s too big.”

“If JT interviews him he’ll be brutal. He’ll make Callum look like an evil wee shite, and he isn’t. I can get to meet the boy before anyone else, and Terry’ll help me write it up.”

They argued back and forth for twenty minutes. Farquarson wouldn’t be able to edit the piece forever, she’d have to submit something worth publishing. The real problem was getting the interview while anyone still cared about it. Paddy lied and said she’d already arranged to get in and see him this week. If Sean went in a huff, she’d be stuffed.

Finally, Farquarson asked her to submit eight hundred words on Dempsie before Friday and give him the interview material as and when. “On a personal note,” he added, sitting back in his chair and scratching his balls happily, “let me say I hate precocious little bastards like you two and I hope you burn out in your twenties. Get out.”

When the door was shut behind them Terry punched her arm and told her well done in full view of everyone in the newsroom. Embarrassed but grateful, Paddy glanced around and a features sub caught her eye, a little accepting smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, as if he had never noticed her before but was now interested in things she might have to say. Kat Beesley raised a congratulatory eyebrow. Paddy looked for Dr. Pete, hoping he would have heard about her good work, but couldn’t see him.

She felt silly taking her seat on the bench again. Dub said he was pleased but moved away from her, catching any calls that came up and avoiding her eye. Keck smiled at her, but they could both feel that she didn’t belong there anymore. She traced the give of the wood with her thumbnail and found it hard to believe that all this good was coming to her after the many small betrayals she had committed in the past week.

Paddy could feel it: she was halfway off the bench already. Editors were looking straight at her when they asked for teas, journalists were talking to her, passing comments, acknowledging her existence. Keck was acting sucky. It felt like a repeat of the time in school when she gave a rousing talk about the Paddy Meehan case to her English class, implying that Meehan had been victimized because he was Catholic. The suggestion had had a particular attraction for the students at Trinity, and the talk had shifted her status from a fat nothing to a someone regarded as a profound thinker and defender of their future freedoms. As she matured she thought the reason they had set him up was because he was a committed socialist; later still she realized that they chose him because he had a record and no alibi. However false the premise for her social success at school, she had still enjoyed it, and she did so now. Neither thoughts of Heather Allen nor Sean’s new freedom could dampen the warming shiver of ambition. She could see herself walking past the bench at night, looking at the grooves from her nails, on her way to somewhere amazing. She saw herself in the morning, spotting them as she came into work from her own flat in the city, from a lover’s bed, from an important story.

At lunchtime, instead of skulking around the town she made straight for the canteen and found Terry Hewitt sitting at a busy table by the window. He waved her over.

“I saved you a place,” he said, excited to see her.

“How did you know I’d be going on lunch now?”

“Keck said you’d be going about one.”

Asking Keck when she was going on lunch seemed a bit clingy and subservient, but Paddy tried not to frown or say anything snide. It was the culture of the place to use any advantage to bully one another, but she’d promised herself she wouldn’t be like that.

“Can I get ye a tea?” she said.

Terry cocked his head, not understanding. “Aye. A tea’d be nice.”

She waited in the queue like everyone else, cooling her hot hands on the cold metal railing in front of the food display cabinets. A journalist she had brought tea a hundred times turned around when he saw her standing behind him.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Paddy nodded modestly.

“I always thought you were a daft bint.”

She knew he meant it as a compliment. She looked around to see who else was admiring her and found Dub standing behind her.

“Hiya,” she said. “I never saw you there.”

Dub lifted his chin as a greeting.

“What’s been happening with you today?” she added, hoping to prompt him into asking her back.

“Nothing,” said Dub, looking over her head to the lamb bridies drying out on a tray.

“Terry and me are at a table by the window— why don’t you sit with us?”

It was an invitation to the big table, and they both knew it.

“Nah, I’m all right. Got stuff to do in town.”

“Oh.” She was disappointed.

“Well done, anyway. I heard.”

“Cheers, Dub. I’m celebrating, that’s why I wanted you to sit with us.”

Dub shrugged, still reluctant.

She didn’t want him to stop being her friend just because she’d had a bit of luck. She pointed to the vat of hot custard. “I’m only having a pudding today.”

Dub mock-snarled at her. “What am I, your biographer? Shut up about yourself.”

They laughed together at his cheek, and Scary Mary hit her tray with the soup ladle because it was Paddy’s turn and she wasn’t paying attention. While she ordered two teas and a sponge in custard, Dub skipped ahead of her in the queue. She turned to speak to him again, but he was gone.

Terry was sitting against the window, on the inside of a long table, jealously guarding the seat opposite him. She gave him his tea and a warning look when she caught him glancing at her body.

“Sorry,” said Terry, the excitement catching in his throat. “So, what’s our plan now?”

“Well, we need to go back to Tracy Dempsie and get a photo of Naismith.”

“We could go after work today.”

“I can’t. I’ve promised to do something.”

He made big, sad eyes at her. “But we’ve got to plan the interview, work out a schedule of questions.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I promised to be somewhere. I’m on a late tomorrow, we could go in the morning.”

“Why can’t you do it today?”

“I just can’t.”

“It’s to do with that ned builder, isn’t it?”

She could see he regretted the comment as soon as it was out of his mouth.

“You don’t know Sean,” she snapped. “He’s not a ned. He’s a lovely person.”

Terry held up his hands in surrender. “Okay.”

“He’s a good man,” she repeated.

He nodded. “Right.”

But his eyes were smiling, and she knew she had betrayed Sean. It was as if the sex were a matter between him and Terry and she was just a little fat prop.

The newsmen at the table smiled fractiously as they left, sliding into the spare seats.

“By the way,” he said on their way downstairs, “did you hear about Pete?”

She hadn’t thought about Pete once since this morning’s excitement and felt a guilty pang as she realized she had him to thank for it all.

“What about him?”

“He’s in the Royal.” Terry frowned. “An ambulance was called to the Press Bar last night after hours.”

Paddy could feel the wind gathering on the platform, a small gust of excited air. The feeling increased as she climbed the stairs, and the other commuters pulled their coats around them, knowing it was coming. She turned the corner and struggled into the push. Five feet beyond the corner it was calm again, the wind gone as suddenly as an imagined symptom.

The underground exit was between two high tenements, in a dingy alleyway where shopkeepers dumped foul-smelling rubbish and men relieved themselves on the way home from the pub. At the end of the alley she could see Sean waiting for her in a shaft of light, looking very far away. A hopeful little smile tickled his lips when he saw her coming. He had defied his mum to contact Callum, and Paddy knew how hard it would have been for him to do that.