He smiled ruefully at his own perverse, unorthodox analysis, pulling the blanket tighter, his hip now beginning to ache on the unyielding bed. In this world, he mused, some were born good, drawn instinctively to the right path, naturally kind in thought and deed, not prone to judgement and compassionate in their conclusions. And then there were the others. The vast majority, people like him, born without that grace but trying to live as if they had been blessed with it; performing generous acts, not artlessly, but as a result of a calculation to ascertain what the ‘right’ thing to do was. The end result, of course, was the same in terms of the act performed, but one sprang from the heart and the other from the head.
Well, he comforted himself, he had done his best. Apart from the women, anyway. But who, dying of thirst, could think of anything other than water? Whereas with that thirst sated, there was nothing that he could not have accomplished. And as a result of his weakness June had suffered once before, but it would not happen again, he would not be responsible for her unhappiness this time, never mind the children’s or that husband of hers. Their son would have a father, even if it was not him. The other women had emerged relatively unscathed from their contact with him and she would too.
Anyhow, it must be faced, his days of being a priest were over whatever happened to him now, because he was no longer fit to be a servant or a leader. Even if they would let him, and they would not. He had been too frail a barque for the journey he had set himself, holed from the start. But any other life was unthinkable; he did not know himself without his dog collar.
Jim Rose, the senior turnkey, blew out the candles on his birthday cake with a single breath. A polythene cup, lager spilling from it, was passed to him, and a deep chorus of ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’ started up in the restroom, everyone joining in enthusiastically, fuelled by the many bevvies consumed earlier.
‘Any o’ yous fancy a piece of ma cake?’ Jim asked, stabbing the knife into the centre of the square, extracting it and then using it to point at each of the men around him.
‘Aye, I’ll take a wee slice.’ The voice came from an open doorway where a squat fellow leaned against one of the lintels, thick tyres of fat concertina-ed within his navy pullover, his trousers so tight they looked as if they might split if he flexed a knee.
‘Naw, Sean, no’ you. You’re oan a diet,’ Jim Rose said merrily, ‘an’ I promised Sheena I’d keep an eye oan you. What aboot anyone else though? It’s chocolate an’ -’ he took a large bite out of his own slice, ‘…absolutely lovely.’
Another man, clad in the regulation navy blue uniform, swaggered into the room and stood, beaming, with one of his hands behind his back in front of the observation screens. The monitors revealed two empty cells and one with a cleaner at work inside it, attempting to wipe graffiti off the ceiling with swipes from her mop, droplets of dirty water falling down onto her head.
‘Am I too late?’ the newcomer asked.
‘No, not at all, Norman,’ his host replied, picking up an empty mug and readying himself to pour the contents of a can into it.
‘Whoa, I’ll hae nane o’ that pish, Jim,’ Norman said, whipping his arm from behind his back to reveal a bottle of whisky in his hand. When the spirits were finished they returned to the Tennants until, after a further forty minutes, empty tins littered the floor, screwed up and contorted, and the crisp plates were bare. The birthday cake remained largely intact on its foil-covered base, a few half-eaten slices in the wastepaper basket and one deposited in a pot plant.
‘You checked the cells yet, Sean?’ Rose asked, sounding uninterested and looking at his colleague benignly.
‘No.’ A simple statement of fact.
‘How do you mean “No”?’
‘No, boss. I’ve no’ checked the cells.’
‘When did you last look in on the bugger then?’
‘Eh… forty, fifty minutes ago, mebbe.’
‘And he was fine?’
‘And he was fine.’
‘You needn’t hae any worries, boss,’ Norman said, grinning and tipping his mug to drain it of its dregs, ‘they’re nae allowed tae dae awa’ wi’ themselves anyway. It’s against their law.’
‘Their religion,’ Sean corrected.
‘Aye,’ Norman agreed, ‘their religious law, ken.’
‘Naw,’ Jim Rose said bombastically, ‘that’s the Catholics. Papes cannae top themselves. Everybody else can!’
‘Christ!’ Norman shouted, ‘he’s a priest, man. A Catholic priest. What’s your intelligence quotient, boss?’
‘Ma whit?’ Jim asked, laughing uproariously.
In his cell the priest was lying spreadeagled on the cement floor. He had used one of his knee-length socks as a ligature but he had miscalculated, losing consciousness before complete asphyxiation occurred, releasing his grip as he passed out.
When Norman peeked through the spy-hole he thought, at first, that an escape had succeeded, as the cell appeared completely empty. Hurriedly, and gabbling excitedly to himself, he fumbled with the key in the lock, twisting it first one way in his panic and then the other until it turned, and he was able to open the door, finding it unaccountably heavy. As the body slid over the glistening floor, he put his shoulder against the metal, forcing the door further open to reveal the prostrate figure within. The dark-red, plethoric colour of the man’s face, fluid dripping from the nostrils, frightened the warder and he knelt close to the head, hearing a strange rasping sound coming from the mouth. But the bastard was alive, thank the Lord, their jobs would be safe.
Malcolm Starkie lived in a soot-blackened, Georgian terraced house in Sandford Gardens, a couple of minutes’ walk from his dental surgery. In his sitting-room he sat bolt upright in his armchair, unsmiling, displeased that the police sergeant had tracked him down to his home, not restricted herself and her enquiries to his professional premises in Rosefield Place. On the arm of the chair rested a piece of unfinished embroidery, a needle dangling loosely from it, suspended by a thread of red wool. On top of the dusty cloth, also dust-speckled, lay a pair of gold-rimmed, ladies’ spectacles.
‘I would prefer, Sergeant, that from now on you restricted your visits to my workplace.’
‘They told me you were here, sir. I just need to follow up one thing.’ Alice hesitated, oppressed by the gloomy atmosphere in the room and the forbidding expression on the dentist’s face. ‘Can you tell me where you were on Friday night, the twentieth, from, say, seven p.m. onwards?’
‘This Friday?’
She nodded.
‘Yes. I was at the photographic club in Durham Terrace.’
‘On your own, or with others?’
‘It was, eh… a special night. Most of the members were there, they could… corroborate, if that’s the right word, what I’m telling you, if necessary.’
She had no doubt that he was speaking the truth, Bill Keane had mentioned the club in passing in his statement, specifically referring to the number of professionals among the membership.
‘By the way,’ the dentist added, intruding into her thoughts, ‘I think that I can prove that I wasn’t anywhere near the prostitutes or their stamping grounds on the ninth.’
‘Good,’ she said encouragingly.
‘I’d forgotten when I last saw you, in the surgery I mean. Tanya, my receptionist, insisted I go bowling with her. She told me,’ he looked sheepishly at Alice, ‘that I’ve to be “taken in hand, taken out of myself”. So, every so often, she makes me… well, takes me out, you could say. We’ve been to a film once, went to the ice rink in Princes Street Gardens too.’