The unburied dead

He points his finger at me. I hate it when he does that. 'Because they don't know fuck all, son,' he says.

He's right.

'So why so brutal to the face?' he says. It's like being at school.

'Personal grudge.' Think about those photographs. 'Deep personal grudge.'

He nods. 'Either against her, or someone who looks like her.' Fits the bill. 'I'll go for the latter. If he knew her we'll find out about it, but it doesn't feel right.'

'Could be some psycho who sort of knew her. Worshipped her from afar and all that shite. She didn't know anything about it, he makes his approach one night after the cinema, she rejects him, he slashes her to pieces.'

He shakes his head. 'Maybe, maybe. I don't know. I like the sound of it being some fuck-up with no previous relation to her at all. Completely arbitrary. If she hadn't been there last night, she would never have got it. She was in someone else's place.'

'So, what? We're looking for some guy who's been dumped by a bird with dark brown hair? That could be me.'

'Aye, well you've been dumped by just about every size, hair colour, personality type combination, so I'm not about to drag you in.'

'Thanks.'

'Don't mention it.' Another drink from the glass. Funny how he's managed to speed up now he's got someone to buy him a round. 'What we need is a description of the guy. She was walking along a main road, for God's sake, just come out of a busy cinema.'

'There were like ten people at it.'

Shrugs. 'Whatever. You'd think the woman in the ticket booth would be able to remember a few more faces.'

'You just can't rely on people.'

'Ain't that the truth,' says Taylor, then with another long pull at his glass he finishes off his pint. 'Buy you another, Hutton,' he adds, to general astonishment.

I nod, mouth partially open in surprise. Taylor never buys a round at home. Now; two nights in a row.

Taylor makes his way to the bar, I look around the pub. The usual crew. One or two others from the station, but never too many. Most of them prefer the Whale, and they're welcome to it.

The door to the pub opens, and with a portentous gust of cold wind, in walks Charlotte Miller. Raised eyebrows from the Feds, and then we all try to pretend we haven't noticed.

Try not to choke on my vodka when she walks over to our table and sits down. Smile at her, try not to look at, or even think about, her tits. Smell her perfume, breathe it in. Don't imagine her naked… She's wearing a fuck-off blue trouser suit and, as usual after fourteen hours in the office, looks as if she just got dressed five minutes ago.

'It's a cold night,' she says, rubbing her hands.

I nod. Look her in the eye. Seems there's a bit of a spark there, as there has been ever since the tits incident. (In my head it's known as the Tits Incident.)

'What happened with the assault? Brothers, was it?'

'Aye.' Talk normally. 'We've got one at the station, the other's in hospital.'

'Over a woman?'

'Aye.' She smiles at this and shakes her head.

'You men are all alike.' Wait for the literary quote, but Stevenson mustn't have written anything about men only thinking with their dicks.

Taylor returns with the drinks and nearly drops his pint. Makes a quick recovery. Give the guy his due. He's suspicious of her, but she doesn't turn him into a quivering blob of jelly, the way she does some of his contemporaries.

'Hello, Dan. Been here long?' she says. Bitch. Will know exactly how long he's been here. Now me, that would have had me in a tangle of deceit and idiocy, trying to explain why I'd spent so long in the pub. But so what if Bloonsbury had given us this big Jock Stein speech? It was the end of the day and if we had nothing else immediate and wanted to sit in the boozer, we could. But I would still be trying to justify myself. Taylor's too cool for that; or past caring.

'About five hours,' he says. 'Can I get you a drink?'

She nods. 'Whisky, neat, thanks.'

He turns back to the bar. She taps her fingers on the table. Long fingers, and I imagine them all over my body. Sometimes I bore even myself with the ridiculous one-tracked-ness of my brain when this woman is around.

'What are you doing for Christmas?' she says.

'Working.' Stick to one word answers.

She smiles, almost looks understanding. 'Someone's got to. Frank and I are going to Braemar.'

I nod, not surprised. Braemar. Brilliant. Eat some smoked salmon and fucking quails' eggs for me.

'When are you seeing the children?' she asks.

'Tomorrow evening.' She asks about the children every now and again. I think she learned to do it on a management weekend. One of these things where they pitch twenty people into a bog on Benbecula with a box of matches, a pot noodle and three sheets of toilet paper, and tell them to survive for a fortnight.

'Oh,' she says. Taylor is labouring behind a guy at the bar trying to decide between cheese and onion and chardonnay wine vinegar flavour. 'You won't be out late, though?'

Starting to sort of gawp at her. She must know the look. What's she getting at? I don't see this coming at all. She almost sounds nervous, except that it's not a word I could possibly associate with her. I shake my head and say, 'I doubt it.'

She taps her fingers.

'I was wondering if you'd like to come over later. To the house, I mean. Frank's going to Aberdeen on business for the night. Just like him, Christmas Eve, for God's sake, but you know what he's like. Meeting him in Braemar on Thursday morning.'

Various thoughts flash around my head. Vague things about Aberdeen and Frank. Push them to the side. She's inviting me to dinner, at her place, when her husband's going to be out of town. Fucking hell. It'll be just me and her. And her tits.

'Aye, I think I could manage that.'

She smiles. I could eat that smile. 'Great. I'll speak to you tomorrow.'

Taylor returns, glass in hand, lays it down in front of her. Wonder if he notices how pale I've become. Feel white, but I may not have descended that far.

She smiles at him, lifts the glass. 'Cheers,' she says, and before we can make a grab for our drinks she's downed it in one. Looks at the two of us. Having said what she came to say, and realising she isn't about to get any meaningful conversation, she stands up.

'Right,' she says, 'thanks for the drink, Dan. See you both tomorrow.'

We nod, she turns and walks out, leaving a trace of French perfume in the air. We watch her go, then the door is closed behind her and we turn to alcohol, our only friend.

'What the fuck was that all about?' says Taylor eventually.

I'm not sure, and shake my head.

'When a woman brings her breasts to the party,' I reply, quoting the legendary Stevenson, 'chaos, pestilence and Armageddon cannot be far behind.'

9

He remembers a frosty November morning. Breakfast in a cafe in the centre of town, and then a walk through Kelvingrove Park. The sky was clear, the air was cold and crisp. The morning that it started to go wrong.

They had spent the night together; made love in the evening, and then again in the morning, although only after she'd insisted on a trip to the bathroom for mouthwash. She had ordered pancakes, maple syrup and bacon for breakfast; he'd ordered the same. They both drank coffee.

They'd talked about her buying a new computer. He was trying to persuade her to buy a Mac, because he had a Mac and he would have been able to help her out with any problems. She'd said with a smile that it was almost as if he was being co-dependant sometimes. When she'd seen the look on his face she'd quickly added that she was kidding. Even though he'd known what it meant, he'd Googled co-dependant when he'd got home, to find out if there was anything else that she could have meant by it, some way in which she could have offended him that he hadn't already realised.