No wonder Archie had told her to leave. She looked awful, and she was awful, and in a sudden moment of clarity she knew Vhari was dead because of what she had done. Unable to take it anymore, she looked away from the mirror and saw the car slice down the empty street, not seeing her tucked in neatly behind the van. A BMW, a big model, with two men inside.
TWELVE. LIKE SHIT TO A SHEET
I
Paddy sat in silence at the kitchen table with her oldest sister. Caroline was openly smoking a cigarette, watching through swollen black eyes as their brother Marty chased Baby Con around the tall grass in the back garden.
None of the Meehans knew anything about gardening, they were a bit afraid of the countryside and nature in general, and the garden was usually used for visitors for smoking in or for storing broken furniture or washing machines. Only the choking plants survived, eating up all the color. Their other brother, Gerard, had moved the washing poles nearer the house so that Trisha wouldn’t need to wade through the grass to hang up wet clothes.
No one smoked indoors at the Meehans’, yet Caroline sat smoking in full view of her mother who stood over the cooker, tending the broth she was making for the tea. Her eyes were puffed shut, bruised black, so swollen that the skin had split on her right cheekbone.
Paddy watched her mum at the cooker, stirring in a cheap gammon cut and potatoes for bulk and wondered how the hell they were going to manage now, with only her small wage to feed another two mouths, for the time being anyway, until Caroline went back to John and made her marriage work.
II
Nervous but curious to hear about the new editor, Paddy was two hours early for her night shift.
She found a letter in her pigeonhole by the door, a formal letter typed onto creamy gray paper with a watermark on it, informing her that the official police inquiry into the Drymen Road call was being convened to start its investigation on Friday and she was being summoned to give evidence next Tuesday at two thirty in the afternoon. After Tuesday everyone would know about the bribe. She refolded the letter, running her nails hard across the seam, trying to seal it shut as she looked around her.
The newsroom was bustling with fake activity: everyone was reading furiously with big frowns, or walking around, holding bits of paper, nodding during phone calls to friends or family. Farquarson’s office door was lying open and Paddy could see that the filing cabinets were empty, the walls cleared of pictures, the big long desk he had used for the editorial conferences had been moved out. She looked into the empty room, taking in the dents in the carpet where the massive table had stood for all the years she’d been there.
“Where’s it gone?” she said almost to herself.
A copyboy, skinny as a match, who watched her often and blushed when she looked back, stood up off the bench. “New ed’s called Ramage.”
Ramage had come in, introduced himself, and announced that there would be changes, big changes, the first raft of which had been announced that morning. Four new editors and a sub were being drafted in from other papers. Which meant four old editors were being demoted. One of them had accepted it and the other three were leaving. The new printing presses they had been promised were being canceled and they’d have to limp along with the equipment they had. The presses themselves weren’t as important as the promise of a future that they represented. The day shift had already dubbed the new boss Random Damage.
She spotted McVie across the room and nipped over to him.
“Have you ever heard of a thug called Lafferty?”
“No,” he said curtly. “Did you hear about this guy? He’s moved his office downstairs in editorial. He’s got three rooms to himself.”
“He’s not going to be in the newsroom?”
“He was up and gave us a talk earlier about how he’s here to make us profitable. He’s changing the tone of the paper and anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off. No one walked, though. He’s trying to outrage us into leaving so he doesn’t have to shell out the severance pay. They’ve canceled the orders for the new presses.” He dropped his voice. “He’s from the News of the World.”
Paddy dropped her mouth open. “Bloody hell.” It was a rag, a scandal sheet tabloid, as different from the Daily News’s dry, fact-laden style as shit to a sheet.
“He’s coming to see you lot later. You’ve all to be here at nine thirty. You’ll be all right though, you’re crime.”
She’d be all right if they didn’t hear about the fifty quid. Her long-despised calls car shift was suddenly one of the few secure places in the office. If a light-fingered policeman had walked with the note everyone would want to cover up the fact that it ever existed.
She went over to a news desk and picked up a phone, calling Partick Marine and asking for Colum McDaid.
“Hello, Constable McDaid, Paddy Meehan here. I met you the other day.”
“And I was delighted!” he interjected.
“Any word about the friend I left with you?”
“Ah.” She could hear McDaid smiling. “Yes, there is indeed. Our friend has come back from her short holiday in the fingerprint lab. She traveled by car, escorted by myself, and is now back at home enjoying the facilities.”
“What sort of facilities would that be?”
“A cozy safe, my company, her own plastic bag.”
“Lucky her.”
“Yes, she’s very snug and happy so you don’t need to worry about her at all. Now, you don’t need to phone after her all the time because she’s tucked up tight here and won’t be going out until a court case.”
“PC McDaid,” she said miserably, “thanks.”
She hung up and looked around the office. Her future was falling away from her, a cliff sliding into the sea. McDaid was a man of integrity. She was fucked.
III
A late train rumbled across the high Victorian arch, following the rail line along to the west. Behind Kate cars flashed past on the busy motorway. The road in front of her was quiet; the occasional passerby tended to come from the concrete block social club down the road, wild-kneed small men staggering home, passing her car, oblivious.
Kate had the fears badly now. Every person in the street or shadow that shimmered across the road was the first sign of an imminent attack, foreshadow of a gang, a team of Archies, men over whom she had no pull and no power.
Without her looks and the good regard of every man she met to play on, she was nothing but a sad cokehead, past her prime. For the first time in her life she would have to look after herself.
The social club was a gray concrete box with a red-and-white brewery sign hanging outside like a red cross. Three old men in baggy trousers and dirty suit jackets helped each other along the road and up to the red tenements.
Kate waited until the street was empty before opening the car door and stepping out, daintily fitting the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. The exposed metal heel of her shoe skidded on the wet cobbles and she almost lost her footing but grabbed the car door to steady herself, leaning all her weight on it. Two days ago she would have stopped and checked the door, make sure she hadn’t damaged it by grabbing it like that or pulling at it, but now she didn’t care what happened to the stupid car. It belonged to a different Kate. She leaned into the backseat, lifted out the blue-handled bolt cutters she had found in the boot, shut the door as quietly as she could, and stood to listen.