Filth (46 page)

– Shirley’s ill, I say. – My sister-in-law. She’s no well.

I’m crying for myself.

She looks at me and shakes her head. – You’re no fun any more Bruce.

– We hear voices Chrissie. Aw the time. Do you ever hear them? All our life we’ve heard them. The worms.

– What? What are you on about?

– We say this, they say that. We turn the records on loud. It’s like the messages in the records when they play them backwards. Like me and her. We’re together still, you ken that? It’s all of us . . . I, we, I hear myself singing in a low, tuneless voice, – Why not take all of me . . .

– I have to go, she says, pulling her clothes on. – Whatever it is that you’re on, you should lay off it.

We say nothing, we’re just willing her not to be there. Depart depart depart naebody asked you tae come

When she goes, we binge on the coke we got from Ray. After a few hits we wish the cow would come back cause I’d really show that cunt, but naw, my cock’s still as limp and sad as Ray Lennox’s that time with with Shirley.

Cause it was me and Shirley and I let her down and I can’t blame the others.

I go to phone, but decide against it. I try to light the fire, but my hands are trembling. A bit of Toal’s manuscript has been preserved, brittle and dry.

in BILL TEALE’s office.

[ANDERSON]

This psycho, you reckon he’ll strike again?

[TEALE]

What makes you so sure it’s a he?

[ANDERSON]

C’mon Bill. They usually are.

[TEALE]

I think that our mystery lady may have more to do with this than we imagine.

ANDERSON looks visibly flustered.

[ANDERSON]

What makes you say that?

[TEALE]

Basically, there’s two things. One, she’s vanished off the face of the planet which means someone’s covering up for her, someone perhaps, who knows a lot about this investigation, and secondly

What the fuck . . .

What the fuck does this cunt Toal know? I should have read that script. Fuckin Carole!

Daft fucking cow.

Fuck.

I should have read that script. Knowledge is power, or so they say. But fuck it. Keep your head down and your heart hard and you’ll be okay. Slow breathing.

Slow breathing.

Easily done.

Our hearts are hardened in this business. They have to be as hard as our sponsors’ heads and that’s what fucks us up. They can afford to be hard because they can abstract it all and they can do that because they are removed from it all.

We, on the other hand, must pay the physical and psychic price so that these pampered rich cunts can flounce around unperturbed.

Naw, there isnae such a thing as a free lunch.
We
always pey.

This morning they come in the thin and miserable shape of Drummond. I am out on patrol with her. Why? I don’t know why. I can’t think straight. She is going on about the case: victims, suspects, scenes of crimes, reports, forensic, analysis, politics and I want to scream: SHITE. I DON’T FUCKIN CARE ABOUT THIS. I’M FUCKIN WELL DYING HERE!

Cause I am.

I can’t breathe in this fuckin car. That fuckin coke flares up my sinuses, my bronchitis. I’m coughing and shaking and the smell of her perfume is unbearable. She must be on the rag dousing herself like that. A pathetic cover-up job. It’s stinking like a hoor’s cubicle in the red-light district on a Saturday night at the height of the tourist season back in the Dam, this fucking motor.

This isnae Hogmanay . . . this is fuckin Halloween . . .

Out with her of all people. Cruising them. Looking for Ocky. Her. Never fuckin polis.

But we are fuckin polis.

We are sick and shivering and frightened. Lennox tried to poison me with that coke. It was full of shit. He’s trying to kill us. We feel like shouting at Drummond: SEE IF WE DIE IT’S RAY LENNOX’S FAULT, RAY DRUG ADDICT LENNOX, THE SAME RAY LENNOX YOU THINK THE SUN SHINES OUT HIS ARSE BUT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’S LIKE. HE WILLNAE FUCK YE LIKE THE WEY YE WANT, WE’VE SEEN HIS FUCKIN COCK AND IF WE DIE IT’S LENNOX THAT’S THE MURDERER

I’m hyperventilating. We are hyperventilating. I’m I’m I’m smelling that muthafuckin bacon fry . . .

Somebody phone the police. Help. Please.

– Are you okay Bruce?

– Yes. Okay I certainly am.

– Look, you can say it’s none of my business . . .

– I’m fine . . . honest. I’ve just been having a bit of a bad time, we tell her, gaining control of our breathing as sweat pours from our brow. We roll down the window and a frozen blast of air comes in.

– If you want to talk about it . . . she lowers her voice, adopting the Miss-Hunter-in-good-cop-mode-stance. Miss Cunter. I’d fuck her eyes oot now if I had the chance. Probably an arid-fannied spinster whose vagina tastes of Arizona soil.

But who does she think she is, to think that I’d take her into my confidence? – Don’t put on your Personnel hat Amanda. This is real poliswork. You have to cope, to get on.

My heid’s nippin tae fuck and I’m shivering. Polisworkpolisworkpolisworkpolisworkwhatwouldyoukenabootthathehhnnnnn

– It’s not my Personnel hat. I’m concerned about a colleague, that’s all.

– Is that all it is? I smile at her, trying to compose myself.

– Please, don’t flatter yourself. I think you’re a silly, pathetic man and I’ve no interest in you other than us having to work together.

I’ve heard that line before. Usually mouthed by a cow with a wide-on who wants it filled. – You fancy me. That’s all there is to it. I can tell.

– Bruce, you’re an ugly and silly old man. You’re very possibly an alcoholic and God knows what else. You’re the type of sad case who preys on vulnerable, weak and stupid women in order to boost his own shattered ego. You’re a mess. You’ve gone wrong somewhere pal, she taps her head dismissively.

I’m seething in my seat. I start to speak, but the cow raises her hand and cuts me off. – You were out of order that time with Karen. She was on a low and drunk and you took advantage.

– You’ve really got a problem, you ken that? That was none of your business. Consenting adults, I tell her.

– She wasn’t in any state to consent or not to consent, Drummond clucks. – You think if she had been sober she would have went with you?

Cheeky fuckin hoor . . .– Fine, well she shouldn’t have fucking well drank then should she? You gaunny stop people fae daeing that next? She wanted a drink, so she had one. After she had a drink, she wanted a shag so she had one. Don’t talk to me like I’m a fuckin rapist. Why all this interest in Karen? You fuckin jealous? Is that it?

– Oh God, she tuts, rolling her eyes, – I’m not a lesbian Bruce, before you start with any more of your silly predictable responses. I have a boyfriend. He’s far better looking, more intelligent, sensitive, stronger and younger than you. In the sexual marketplace you’re not even Poundstretcher or Ali’s Cave to his Jenners. You’re a sad creature. I certainly don’t fancy Karen in any way shape or form, but I fancy you even less. You repulse me. Can I make it any plainer?

This isnae . . . this isnae . . .– Well why aw the fuckin concern for me . . . I hear myself bleat. This cow . . .– I’m not like that . . . I’m not like that ah’m no ah’m no ah’m no ah’m no . . .

– Because you’re my colleague and you’re a human being. You have to get yourself straightened out, and then you might just become the kind of person you imagine yourself to be, although God knows what that is.

What the fuck is this . . .

– I’m . . . I’m not so good at my job now . . . not so good . . . I’ve been in it too long . . . in Australia I was the best . . . my family don’t talk to me . . . cause of the strike . . . they’re a mining family . . . Newtongrange . . . Monktonhall . . . they don’t talk to me. They don’t let us in the house. My father. It was my brother. It was the coal, the dirt, the filth. The darkness. I hate it all. They won’t let us in the hoose. Our ain fuckin hoose. We tried. We really fuckin well tried . . . ah wis only daein ma fuckin job . . . polis eh. It was only the strike.

She turns to me, her teeth grinding together like she’s been up all night on the charlie as well . . .– Accept it. Deal with it, she snaps. – You have a wife, a daughter . . . don’t you?

– That’s all gone . . . I’m shaking my head, – she told lies . . . stupid lies . . .

– Who did?

– Both of them . . . stupid lies, we laugh, – It’s all gone wrong. Same rules apply. We used to be good at the auld policework. I’ll bet they told you that. Eh?

– Yeah, they told me, she says disinterestedly.

Well how would she know cause she’s never fuckin polis but if she could help us, if she could just try to understand like Carole used to . . . if we could explain . . .– There’s something wrong with us now. Something bad. Something . . . inside.

– Have you been to a doctor?

– He can’t do anything for us. Nothing. That’s it over, I tell her. Now I realise that I can’t talk to her. Her! Her of all people. I was weak, weak to start. – Same rules. Look, stop here. I’m getting out and I’m staking out Setterington and Gorman.

– Bruce, I don’t think you’re fit to work at the moment . . . she says.

I turn in the seat and look at her in a grim, tearing focus. That nosey cunt. Get a fuckin life of your own instead of nosing into other people’s. – I’m heading up this investigation Drummond! Don’t you ever forget that! GET ON WITH YOUR FUCKIN JOB AND STOP PLAYING THE AMATEUR PSYCHOLOGIST! I roar with violence and she cowers under the impact of my words and my hot slavering breath, stopping the car abruptly, her face crimson and her eyes watering. I jump out. She starts off at pace. Once she’s out of sight I get a taxi home and go to my bed where I see more demons forming in the swirling patterns of my artex ceiling.

The bed we used to share.

Time we acted.

It’s Hogmanay, and I’m going out tonight. Going out with Carole.