Truth Lies Waiting (Davy Johnson Series Book 1) (10 page)

‘five
minutes’ time. Ye’ll still be in the vicinity even if you decide to make a run
for it. No offence intended, like.’ He laughs, looking at my leg. ‘You’ll be
picked up before the night is out,
Pal
, and this time the case will
fuckin’ stick.’

An
uneasy feeling starts to tingle in my head as I try to compute what he’s saying
out loud and what he’s implying.

‘Marcia
and Lorrella, they saw ye! They were with ye downstairs!’ Even as I say it I
realise I’m putting them in grave danger but it’s like my mouth is disconnected
from my brain. Instead of registering alarm MacIntyre throws back his head and
laughs, the kind of laugh I imagine him doing in his local, surrounded by
cronies.

‘Yeah,
about that.’ He sneers, and his words come at me like a body blow. The tingle
in my head moves down into my spine and I have to steady myself against the
wall as I try to work out what he means by it.

The
house is ominously silent.

Too
quiet for the murder that’s just taken place. Jude’s struggle and my yelling
should have brought the girls up here, shouting, screaming; between us we could
surely have overpowered him. Where their absence reassured me they were safe it
now fills me with dread and I wonder what the hell he’s done. My heart is
thumping so fast I fear it’s lost its rhythm, my body begins to shiver and the
bones in my legs feel as though they’ve turned to rubber. I start to back away,
feeling my way along the wall as I’m too scared to turn my back on him. This
fat bastard frightens me and I hate myself for that. That even now my fear of
him trumps my rage. I thought rage made you powerful, made you capable of
revenge but I can tell you that’s not true, that it’s another fucking cliché
trotted out by those who don’t know any better. Rage makes you impotent; light
headed, weak limbed. Your head is over-run by a kaleidoscope of images of the
things you’d
like
to do but even the thought of them exhausts you, and
unless you’re a psycho you’ll already be thinking of the consequences.

I
don’t want to go back to jail.

As
I leave Jude’s bedroom door I steal one final look at her. I know she is dead
but the idiot part of me hopes her face will look peaceful, that although her
passing was traumatic she is finally at rest. What I see is a dirty face
twisted in fear, eyes open wide, searching for a child she wasn’t allowed to
keep. I try to swallow but there’s a lump so big I fear it’s going to choke me.

MacIntyre
pulls out his phone and starts tapping on the screen, his interest in me
already extinguished. I go in search of the twins. My steps down the stairs are
wooden; I have become a series of moving parts but nothing more. My head is
empty save for that last image of Jude that seems to be tattooed on my eyelids.
I propel myself in the direction of the back of the house, to the two rooms
belonging to the girls. It’s like a macabre game of hide and seek: I know
they’re here somewhere, I’m just not sure whether they’re alive or dead. I pass
through the living room where I slept earlier this evening, pocketing the
Oramorph and Codeine from the table beside the chair. For now, the adrenaline
surging through me blocks out any feeling but I know I’ll need medication soon
enough. At the back of the living room a door leads to two rooms, one
accessible only by going through the other. When I first saw the layout of this
place I wondered what the girls’ punters would think of this lack of privacy
but the girls had laughed, amused by the notion that sex and privacy went hand
in hand somehow.

I
turn the handle, ignoring the thumping in my chest, after all the worst has
already happened. MacIntyre could be bluffing, letting me believe some harm had
befallen the girls to give him time to clear up in Jude’s room, remove any
traces of his presence. But it’s the lack of what he said that unnerves me, the
fact that he’s happy for me to make this discovery on my own. I try to think of
a reason why the twins wouldn’t come to our aid with all the noise we were
making upstairs and the only answer I come to is the one I fear the most.

The
first room is Marcia’s.

Small,
with just enough space for a double bed and a side table and a wardrobe. It was
prozzie tidy: Sex toys and lubricants littered the small table, a waste paper
basket overflowed with tissues and condom wrappers. I’d painted the walls for
them last year, a job lot magnolia which they’d customised with stencils, love
hearts in different sizes made it resemble a teenage girl’s room, or at least a
teenage girl who had lots of sex. Marcia’s bed is empty. This makes sense. Jude
said they were warming up a client for her, so they would have used Lorella’s
room, which was bigger. MacIntyre would do whatever he had to do in the
furthest away room so as not to pre-warn us of his plans. Jude and I hadn’t a
clue what was going on while we’d been talking upstairs. I feel sick at the
thought of what he’d been doing while the two of us were blissfully unaware. I
feel even sicker knowing it was me that had brought this to their door.

Lorella’s
room had been decorated identically to her sister’s but today that was where
the similarity ends. Where Marcia’s room had pale magnolia walls Lorella’s are
sprayed with scarlet, her side table and wardrobe are scarlet too. There’s a
bitter tang in the air. The room smells of death which settles on my skin like
a mist. I stand in the doorway trying not to breathe, waiting for the air from
both rooms to equalise. Both girls are laid out like book ends in the centre of
the bed, their necks cut from ear to ear. Every ounce of their blood that
hasn’t sprayed onto the walls has pooled onto the bed before dripping onto the
nylon carpet. Panic rises in me like bile. I’d call the police but MacIntyre is
one of them, how many more are there like him, all too keen to help a scrote
like me go down for this?

I
stumble out of Lorella’s room, making my way back towards the hallway in time
to see MacIntyre slip out through the back door carrying a black plastic bag.
He must have brought a change of clothes for the clothes he’s wearing are
spotless. My body starts to tremble at the thought of him planning this right
down to that level of detail. The sound of a siren getting louder jars me into
action.

I
have to get the hell out of here.

Our house is in
darkness. Mum, asleep on the sofa. The presenter from the BBC news channel
looks sombre as she shows footage of a war torn city. Mum claims she likes to
keep up with world issues, as though arming herself with other people’s
tragedies will save her from her own. I turn off the TV; cover her with the
blanket she keeps over the back of her chair. If only she fucking knew. I have
a sudden urge to wrap my arms around her, to ask her to hold me like she did
when I was little, but I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve anything ever
again.

My
body feels drained. The pain in my knee has returned good style, I’m sure it
would hurt less if I cut through it with a hack saw. I stumble into the kitchen
emptying my pockets of the codeine and Oramorph but I’m not going to take them,
instead I throw them into the bin. I deserve pain. I don’t care if it blights
me for the rest of my life; it’s a penance for what I have done. Or at least,
the start of it. The smell of vomit coming from my clothes is vile. I strip them
off, putting them straight into the washer, pushing several buttons until the
machine begins to click and hum. I take a shower, standing beneath the jet of
piping hot water for the longest of times, as though in some way it can cleanse
me, as though it’s that fucking simple. The water begins to cool, but I stay
there motionless, head bent, my forehead touching the cool tiled wall as the
water runs over me, washing away silent tears.

My
fault.

My
fault.

My
fault.

Whichever
way you look at it I led MacIntyre to Jude’s door.

I
dry myself, patting carefully around my bandages then put on a pair of cottons
and a tee-shirt, throwing more clothes into a rucksack.

‘Hey.’
Mum’s voice from behind me makes me jump. She’s standing in the doorway of my
bedroom, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. ‘I must’ve nodded off in the chair,’
she begins, combing her hair back from her face with her fingers. ‘I’ll not get
back off now,’ she mutters, ‘fancy a brew?’ she turns back into the hallway,
tightening her dressing gown around her.

‘Mum,’
I say quietly. When she doesn’t respond I say it louder: ‘Mum!’ She turns to
look at me, one eyebrow raised but she says nothing. Instead I feel her gaze
sweep over me, assessing my damp hair and the fact that I’m standing to
attention in the middle of my room rather than slouching on my bed. Her gaze
takes in the dressing on my knee that bulges out beneath my joggers and the bag
that I’ve packed lying by my feet…the cogs are moving in her head, I feel the
apprehension coming off her in waves. I walk towards her, already raising my
hands in mitigation.

‘What
the hell have ye done, Davy?’ She demands. Her words cut through me like a
laser, telling me how it is between us, that as far as I’m concerned
disappointment is her safest bet. Then something inside her seems to shift:

‘You
look like you’re in pain.’ Softer now, so much so I can’t bear it.

‘It’s
nothing.’ I say, deliberately misunderstanding her as I touch the bandage like
a sacred talisman. I take a good look at her. At her lined face and her
trusting eyes, at the love she’s trying to conceal because I’m frightening her.
A spasm of anxiety pulses through me as I know she’ll never look at me this way
again. She sees the tremor in my hand.

‘Davy,
what’s wrong, love?’ she asks, already dreading the answer.

‘Please
don’t hate me,’ I begin.

I
open my eyes slowly and look around the small room. In the fading light I can
make out an unmade bed adjacent to the one I’m lying on and a crumpled pile of
dirty underwear on the floor. The bed I’m lying on has not been made, the
stained mattress is bare and a coverless duvet has been folded to make a
pillow. A yellow net hangs from curtain wire obscuring the view from either
inside and out. A thin film of yellow coating indicates the usual occupant of this
room likes to light up at night, the spoon on the bedside cabinet coated in a
tarry substance indicates their preferred smoke is Crack. I quietly open the
bedside cabinet: an assortment of tea-lights and biro casings confirm my
suspicion.

I
am struck momentarily by a wave of sadness that even this evidence doesn’t
narrow down where the hell I am – so many of my old friends are addicted to
something. It had been a way of earning easy money, I hadn’t given a thought
about the consequences: mates relegated to shit lives in even shittier homes,
any hope of a good future fading in line with their aversion to getting their
arses out of bed. I look down at the piss-stains on the mattress and push
myself into a sitting position, careful where I place my hands.

The
bedroom door opens and a skinny boy in a cheap tracksuit enters the room
carrying a mug of coffee and a slice of buttered toast, which he places proudly
on the bedside table.

‘Alright,
Davy.’ The boy says cheerfully, sitting cross-legged on the bed opposite. He
pulls out a pouch of tobacco and Rizzlas and starts to make a roll up. He
offers me his pouch but I shake my head, ‘Na.’

‘So
what’s going on?’

A
slideshow of images fast forward through my mind: Jude’s lifeless body after
MacIntyre had strangled her, the twins head to foot in each other’s blood. I’d
barely had time to tell Mum what had happened, to prepare her for the enormity
of it when more sirens wailed nearby and it would only have been a matter of
time before MacIntyre turned up officially at Jude’s place to ‘find’ the
so-called evidence that will put me in the frame. Of course it had been too
much for Mum to take in - it was too much for me and I had been there. Jude was
like a sister to Mum, their friendship spanned back to before I was born and
yet there I was explaining that I’d been present at her murder. I helped Mum
through to the kitchen where she collapsed onto a chair. She couldn’t take it
in at first, kept asking me the same questions over and over:

Why
had I been there?

Why
couldn’t I save them?

‘Mum,’
I’d pleaded, ‘you’re going to hear some things about me, some claims are going
to be made that aren’t true.’

‘They
never fucking are, Davy.’ She’d spat harshly, eyes glazed like she’d heard it
all before.

‘You’ve
got to trust me.’ I’d persisted.

Her
mouth twitched. ‘I do.’

‘Only
I’ve got to go away.’

I
ran then. Out of the house, away from her cries.

The
fastest way to make money when you have nothing is to sell your body or drugs.
I’d grown up with prozzies but selling sex holds no appeal, call me old
fashioned but I only want to sleep with someone I care about. Jude always used
to laugh at that:
Sleep disnae come into it, Davy,
she’d remind me often
enough.

So
it has to be drugs then. The network of suppliers across Edinburgh is so large
that on any given day you’re only five minutes from oblivion. I always swore
I’d never sell the stuff. It was bad enough being a lookout for the local
dealers when I was younger but there’s no room for my conscience now; I need
money fast to help me disappear before MacIntyre sets me up for murder. One
phone call later I arranged to meet a contact in the car park of Leith
Waterworld who handed over £200 worth of pick and mix on credit because I told
him Marcus knew I was good for it, concealed in a pizza delivery box in case we
were being watched.

I
needed a place to stay but hadn’t a clue who to approach. I figured it was best
to keep moving, criss-crossing back roads and alleys until I came to a halt,
breathless, outside a large Victorian building converted into a halfway house
several years before. The skinny boy - Malkie, I was sure I’d heard him called
that – had been heading up the front steps of the building after being locked
out the night before when he saw me leaning against the metal railings along
the edge of the pavement. Recognising me as a look out for one of his suppliers
back in the day I reckon he saw an opportunity open up before him, for without
asking questions he signalled for me to hide around the back of the building while
he signed in the residents’ book, stopping on the way to open the fire escape
door and smuggle me into his room a couple of doors down.

We’d
not spoken a word at first, which suited me fine – visitors weren’t welcome
over-night and even though the staff didn’t enter residents’ rooms they
listened outside doors from time to time, making sure that no unhealthy
attachments were being formed. I’d been here a couple of times before when I
worked for the local dealers; some of their best clients have stayed here at
one time or another so I was familiar with the rules. Things were changing
though, the clientele was widening. Due to Government cutbacks the house was
being used not just as a stepping-stone for ex-cons but also sex offenders
whilst they were waiting to be re-housed. Yet Malkie wasn’t an offender, he was
homeless. Kicked out of his home for being gay he was currently on the
emergency housing list, waiting to be allocated his first council flat.

I
hadn’t realised how exhausted I was until I woke just now. The fact that I
could sleep at all shames me. I pick up the mug of coffee and nod
appreciatively at my host.

‘Who
you runnin’ from Davy?’ Malkie asks shyly. He looks up to me because I used to
run around in Marcus’s gang, saw us as members of a hand-picked family. That
unity earned us respect and I think Malkie hopes his small act of kindness will
lead to some of the glamour rubbing off on him.

I
shake my head. ‘You dinnae want to know.’ I say simply. I blow across the top
of my coffee and take a gulp, trying not to pull a face – it’s steeped in
sugar. I move my legs over the side of the bed and stand up tentatively as
though checking they still work. A bomb goes off in my knee making me wince but
pain is good, the ultimate payback, the gift that keeps on giving. I pull the
curtain back with the tip of my little finger and look outside. A shortcut by
the side of the building leads to Great Junction Street. There are several bus
stops along the way and Waverley station is a ten-minute bus ride away. The
small car park is empty, the residents not being the kind that have their own
transport.

A
police helicopter looms by overhead; the noise of its blades causes me to spill
some of my drink.

‘S’Ok,
Davy,’ Malkie reassures me. ‘There’s a gang going round stealing motor bikes,
been going on for the best part of a week now, ridin’ them up and down the
roads at the back near the school,’ he places his hand on my arm in a friendly
gesture, ‘it’s them the helicoptor’s after.’

I
didn’t realise I’d been holding my breath. ‘Any idea who it is?’

‘Nah,
but kids probably though, eh?’

‘Aye.’

A
bank of privets obscure the building from its neighbours; the gravel drive
gives way at the back of the house to a patch of freshly dug earth in what was
otherwise a neglected garden.

‘The
staff want us to start growing stuff,’ Malkie informs me, ‘ye have to put your
name down on a rota so everyone gets a turn.’

‘When’s
your turn?’ I ask, trying to summon as much interest as I can.

‘Tomorrow,’
Malkie says smiling, ‘I get to choose where some of the plants go – we don’t
have a gardener or anything, it’s up to me.’

I
wondered if this is the first decision Malkie has ever got to make, the way he
makes it sound like it’s a big deal. ‘That’s cool, man.’ I say evenly, turning
to smile at him.

‘How
long you been here?’ I ask.

‘Three
months.’

‘You
get on OK with them?’ I indicate my head towards the bedroom door, where the
other residents would be getting ready for the day ahead: a trip to Job Centre
Plus via the local playground. Malkie’s smile slips, one hand instinctively
moving to his mouth to mask the lie. ‘Och, they’re OK; take a wee bit o’
getting used to, that’s all.’

There’s
no way I’d be able to crash in his room without it coming back to haunt him.

‘I
need to get away, Malkie,’ I begin, ‘but I need to shift some gear to raise the
cash,’ I pull out the freezer bag full of tiny packets of powder and crystals
from the pizza carton, watching as his eyes pop out on stalks, ‘are you willing
to help me?’

We
agree to rendezvous back at the hostel later this afternoon, Malkie reckoning
he can offload his share to friends and other residents, while I try my luck on
the south side of the city. Borrowing one of Malkie’s sweatshirts I pull the
hood down low over my face, listening out carefully for the sound of sirens as
I walk down the gravel driveway, staying close to the bushes in case I need to
make another run for it.

It’s
four thirty in the afternoon. Half an hour later than our agreed meeting time
but Malkie isn’t waiting for me at the foot of the hostel’s steps as agreed. I
check my watch once more before deciding to front it out with whoever is on
duty, tell them I’m a relative, something, anything, to get me access inside.
The heavy wooden door is slightly ajar so I push it wide. The glass panelled
entry door is open too, one of its panels smashed as though someone has broken
in. My chest begins to thud loudly, making me wonder if it can be heard outside
my own body.

I
creep along the hallway, my senses on alert for someone lunging from a doorway
or creeping up behind me. The house is silent; the only noise to be heard is
the sound my breath makes as it comes in shallow bursts. Outside, a police
siren wails in the distance. I propel myself forward. I know better than to
call out Malkie’s name, instead I mount the stairs in silence, telling myself
there is nothing to be afraid of, since when did a junkie remember to keep to
an appointment? Malkie will be smoking or snorting his profits away with a group
of cronies right now, his concern for my welfare obliterated along with his
concept of time.