MY DREAM IS TO WORK IN A FACTORY.
His loud voice rang around the hollow inside of the car.
Sean didn’t look at him. He slowed the car, gently easing over to the side of the road and pulling on the handbrake.
He was going to put Callum out, make him get out and leave him there for shouting in the car. And who could blame him.
He’d freeze because of the wind and no walls, moving would be so hard he’d have to wait there until he died. His heart was hammering in his chest. He could feel his pulse on his cheeks, on his nose, in his eyes.
The woman wasn’t looking at him anymore. She had her hand over her mouth again, was turned away from him, looking out of the car at the side where he would be left.
Sean undid his seat belt and turned, taking Callum’s hand in one of his and stroking it with the other. “Pal,” he said as Callum gasped for breath, “we’re going home, where it’s warm. Together. Look at me.”
Callum forced his eyes from the woman’s neck to Sean’s face. He was nodding slowly, like he wanted Callum to nod back. “OK? Are you going to be OK?”
Callum nodded. Sean stroked his hand again. “It’s natural to feel this scared, OK? Perfectly normal.” He let go of his hand and turned, pulled the belt back on and restarted the car, checked to look out of the side window for a car coming and then pulled back out into the road.
They were going home. Where it was warm.
A journalist. The woman’s dark hair pulled up on top of her head, exposing the soft skin on the back of her neck. The necks he saw as the protected prisoners were crocodiled to work or the canteen were always leathered or spotty. Gold chains dangled from her ears, swaying with the motion of the car, never touching her neck.
Exhausted, Callum sat back on the seat, slowed his breathing, and reminded himself of the one thing he knew for certain: everything smells the same when it’s burning.
TEN. BUNTY AND THE MONKEY
I
Sean stopped the car at Glasgow Cross under the railway bridge. “This do you?” he whispered.
Paddy looked at Callum, sleeping in the back. He seemed to have grown during the drive, filling most of the backseat as his hands fell to the side and his knees relaxed and spread out. Although asleep, he remained upright, ready for an attack, like a bear.
Sean whispered again and nodded towards her door. “Can’t drop you any closer in case we’re seen.”
Paddy looked from Callum to Sean. Not wanting to wake him, she made a horrified face at Sean. “How does he know about Pete?”
“I must have mentioned it.”
She hissed at him, “I don’t want him knowing about Pete. I don’t want him knowing anything about him, understand?”
Sean said nothing but tipped his head at her, his eyes liquid disappointment.
“Peter’s your son. He’s five.”
They both turned sharply to look at the bear in the back. Callum hadn’t moved, hadn’t twitched or stretched or done any of the normal things people do when they wake up. He had opened his eyes so that the white showed all around the iris, and was staring at her like an accusing corpse.
She nodded, breathless, wondering whether he had ever been asleep at all. “Yes.”
He sat up, clenching and unclenching his hands. “Why don’t you want me to know about him?”
Sean was watching her. There was nothing he could do to save her from the situation but Paddy sensed that even if there was he probably wouldn’t anyway.
“I, um, my son…”
“Pete,” Callum reminded her.
“Yes, my son Pete has been ill…” She couldn’t think of a single plausible excuse. “He’s been ill…”
“So you don’t want me to know about him?”
He was sitting forward now, his face just inches from hers. His eyes were quite brown, chocolate, the lashes long and thick, but they were open a fraction too wide, a threat in them. “What do you think of me?”
She looked back at Sean but he was examining the crumbling rubber seal around his window, flicking it with a finger. “Dunno.”
“I’m not interested in your son.” Callum leaned forward. “Wonder what I think of you?”
As if sensing an impending explosion, Sean snapped, “Sit back.”
At once Callum threw himself back in his seat, sliding into the corner behind him.
Sean turned around to face Callum. “You’re only out four hours and already you’re threatening people.”
“I never.”
“You did so.” He looked at Paddy, angry at her too but trying not to let it show. “Apologize.”
Callum cowered, eyes flickering from one to the other as he kneaded his hands on his lap. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Sorry.”
“I’m overprotective of my son,” she said, quietly. “Callum, I don’t know you, I don’t know what you’re like but you just got out of prison for hurting a boy-what would I think?”
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.” She reached across to him, touching his knee with her fingertips.
Callum looked at Sean, found him looking away out of the window. He looked back at Paddy and moved his leg a fraction, towards her and away, towards her and away, so that her fingertips were brushing his knee. She whipped her hand back as he slid down the seat; if she hadn’t her hand would have been on his thigh. He was smiling.
Her mouth was open in shock but Sean was oblivious. Callum had checked that Sean wasn’t watching before he did it. He knew it was wrong.
“You creepy wee prick,” she shouted, throwing the door open and stepping out into the street.
“Oi, wait.” Sean leaned over to look at her. “What the hell happened there?”
“Ask your fucking cousin.”
She stormed off up the road, her feet warmed by the hot pavement, her face flushed with panic and disgust, desperate to get away, not quite believing that a nineteen-year-old murderer had just tried to get her to feel him up.
She turned to look back at the car and saw Sean pulling out slowly and joining the line of traffic heading down the Gallowgate to the river. God help Elaine, trying to sleep under the same roof as him. Paddy wouldn’t sit next to him on a bus.
II
She walked up through the busy Cross, ducking across the road at the lights, aware that her shoulders were aching from tension. She had to hand one thing to Callum: he was wise to refuse an interview. She hoped for his sake that when the first photo was taken of him, he wouldn’t know. She could only imagine how mad he’d look otherwise. It was worth it, taking the money from Burns. Humiliating, but worth it to move Pete away from Rutherglen, where Callum would be staying.
As she walked up the road she could see busy shadows at the window of the Press Bar and hear a rumble of noise coming from inside. The presses were still; a dry dust was rising from the car park opposite the News building.
Paddy took the stairs, feeling relieved to be back where the fights were familiar and playful, back among her pack. She thought more calmly about Callum. He was nineteen. How many women would he have met in his adult life? Two? Three? Still, the parole board shouldn’t have released him, even if they’d run out of legal justifications to keep him in.
Upstairs, a crowd, back from an early lunch and full of patter and drink, had gathered inside the newsroom doors. As she pushed through, they greeted her warmly; a sub-ed put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a couple of hearty squeezes.
News of Paddy coming in in the middle of the night to write the copy about Terry had got around and everyone was assuming she’d done it out of decency and fellow feeling. Even being greeted on the basis of a misunderstanding felt warm and welcome. She wanted to turn to someone and tell them that she’d just met the most famous criminal in Scotland, and he was a car crash waiting to happen. But she didn’t. She stood with them, smiling sadly as they talked about Terry, letting the sub-ed squeeze her shoulder again, drop his hand and try for the waist before she pulled away, saying she needed to get something out of her pigeonhole.