LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to be of fabric, not a strap with a buckle but something stretchable. She pulled hard on one, feeling the bandages cut into the dressing on her arm. It lengthened a little. Why had she never tried to free herself before? It wasn’t so hard. But until now she hadn’t needed to. If she couldn’t hold her daughter, she had no need to do anything. It was always easier to do nothing.

      She lay there, moving her hand up and down, backwards and forwards, sensing tightness and restriction, slack and give, working her wrist until she could slip her hand free.

      Then she found that with her thumb and forefinger she could pull the soft bands on the other wrist to stretch, until she slipped her other hand out.

      A quiet exhilaration overtook her. No more of this helplessness. She knew, at last, where peace lay.

      The bitch! His vision was clouded with tears, but the burning in his eyes had nothing to do with the fumes from the traffic pulsating at the lights. He was running, down the hill at Highburgh Road on to Byres Road, past the Tennant’s pub, to the traffic lights. He ran quickly, pacing himself along the pavement. Bitch. She had known! She had known! And all the time he had been pouring his heart out to her she had been hiding behind that mask. Laughing at his every word. He punctuated each step with the words as he went. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Along Church Street, he weaved through the traffic; a yellow Fiat blasted its horn, missing him by inches. He backstepped on to the pavement, wishing the traffic away. Once he reached Dumbarton Road, he stopped to gather his breath, feeling alone in the city’s rush hour. The sandstone façade of the building opposite glowered down at him. She was in there, lying in her little cocoon, thinking she was safe, thinking she had fooled him. Impatiently shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he looked up at the hospital tower, stark white concrete against the old red of the college. The traffic jammed again, a juggernaut with W. H. Malcolm on the side stopped in front of him. He looked upward: John Anderson, the hospital’s founder, was there, immortalized in stone, in the middle of a group, bending over benevolently, holding the hand of the sick. A scene of compassion. The lorry released its air brakes with a hiss and pulled away, the vibration juddering up through his boots.

      The truck slowly moved from his view, revealing a woman standing on the other side of the road, looking up the street, wishing the lights would change. A wee girl, not more than four years old, looked back at him. She had a little pink dress on, pink ribbons, soft blonde hair that caught in the wind. McAlpine looked at her little chubby legs, her little pink shoes and little pink socks folded over at the ankle. Her fingers folded into the palm of her mother’s hand, not at all sure. She looked at him, a thin man on the other side of the road, in a big hurry as if he was late for something. She ducked behind her mother’s arm as he stared back at her, then she peeked out at him again with big blue eyes. A car passed between them and she was lost to him for a moment. Then she was back, and their eyes met. Another lorry thundered by. Her mother’s hand tightened on hers, ready to cross. The girl smiled at him, a wide innocent summertime smile, and gave an absent-minded wave of her free hand. As they walked towards him, the mother tightened her grip further. She was keeping her child from danger, just as Anna had done with hers.

      He couldn’t blame her for that.

      As soon as he entered the long corridor, McAlpine knew something was wrong. Two doctors in white coats stood at IC reception, on the point of arguing. There was a press of people outside her room. He saw the uniform, notebook out, writing something down, and felt his stomach tighten. He started to run, his eyes fixed on Anna’s door.

      An arm stretched out to stop him. ‘Al, it’s not –’

      ‘Fuck off,’ McAlpine told him quietly and punched him in the face.

      *

      The bed was empty.

      So she had been moved, and he was in the wrong room. All this fuss was about someone or something else.

      The red-headed nurse had the baby in her arms, the little head nestled into her neck. She avoided looking at him. Her eyes flicked warily to the bundle of bloodstained bedclothes piled up on the floor near the sink, ready for the laundry.

      Only . . .

      It was not bedclothes.

      It was her.

      She was a marionette with cut strings, folded and crumpled, her face nothing but a pink and purple mulch blackened at the edges, a Halloween mask melted by a slow flame. In one eye, a tiny slip of white was visible. The other eye was closed flat, no eyeball in the socket to give it definition, and her nose was a bifurcated hole. Her outstretched right hand, missing all but two fingers, seemed to point in benediction.

      He saw the slits in her wrists, gaping, still moist, and so recent they glistened in the sunlight, the blood fanning out on the floor and soaking into her white gown. He registered the broken mirror and the slices of glass.

      And a single wisp of blonde hair.

      Graham’s office was cold. Or maybe it was lack of sleep that was making him shiver. McAlpine, dressed in civvies, wrapped his fingers round his coffee.

      ‘So, Interpol happy now? Got all the answers, have they?’

      ‘Don’t take that tone with me. This is a tragedy all round. I’m sorry she’s dead.’

      She’s left me. ‘What’ll happen to the baby?’

      ‘Kommisaris Hauer had hopes that Mummy and Daddy might step up, but there’s no forgiveness. They don’t even want their daughter’s body back, and that speaks volumes.’

      ‘The baby?’ McAlpine asked.

      ‘Social services, who else? They’re going to call her after her mother, now we know who she is.’

      Graham turned back to his files. ‘Land another punch like that one you stuck on PC Capstick, and I’ll have you. This time, we’ll say it was a mistake.’ The DCI produced a ten-pound note out of his pocket. ‘Look, have a whip round for the wee one, if it makes you feel any better. And take two weeks’ compassionate leave. That’s an order.’

      The Western Necropolis sits high on a hill facing the soft verdant roll of the Campsies. It was a grey day and the double snub top of Dumgoyne blended into the dullness of the sky above and the higher peaks behind. He had no tears left, nothing. He had gone past sad, gone past grief, and was drifting in some no man’s land devoid of the pain of purgatory. He was empty. He stood back from the road as a cortège passed, turning away at the last minute to look back out to the hills. He had wanted to be alone with her and her little wooden cross.

      His mother had been buried at Skelmorlie. Robbie’s body was still waiting for a release date, but his dad was insisting he be buried with his mother, putting them together for eternity.

      And here was Anna, alone in foreign soil.

      Some way from Anna’s bare patch of fresh earth was another grave, carpeted with a sea of flowers. A crowd of people pressed round it, and the smell of the turned soil mingled with the scent of rosewater and Youth Dew. A tall man was officiously introducing people to each other, and a knot of women in hats seemed to be mobbing a young woman. Suddenly he caught a glimpse of flaming hair, and knew her.

      Helena Farrell detached herself from the crowd and came over. ‘I thought it was you. It’s kind of you to come,’ she said, and stopped on seeing that he was standing at a grave as recent as her mother’s. She stepped back, shocked by her dreadful mistake. ‘I’m so, so sorry . . . I didn’t realize...’

      ‘Your mother?’ he asked.

      She nodded. Her eyes strayed to the recent grave, marked only by a wooden cross, a laminated tag twitching in the wind.

      ‘A friend,’ he said, inviting no further comment.

      ‘I’m really sorry if I’ve intruded.’ She hesitated a moment. ‘Somebody close?’

      ‘No . . . maybe. Yes,’ he smiled. ‘Very.’

      ‘Interesting flowers to put on a grave.’

Скачать книгу