Shrike (Book 2): Rampant (14 page)

"I reckon we all did. You voted yes, didn't you?"

I nod, unsure why it matters. "You?" If she can ask, so can I.

"I voted no." She gives a wry smile, and for a moment we both look at each other. 

Then laughter bubbles up from my throat at the rampant absurdity. So much has happened in the past six months. So much to make me feel like scribbling an X on a ballot box did fuck all for my country and her people who are getting stabbed by the hour, it seems, by someone I had meant to put away in prison forever.

Shannon's face is the picture of bafflement, the flyaway red hairs framing her face like little exclamations. Then she joins me in rueful laughter and leaves her trolley, putting her arms around me in a tight embrace. "You're doing good," she whispers. "Regardless of what anyone says, you're doing the best you can."

I'm not sure what she means, but I thank her nonetheless.

Tuesday comes too quickly, and with it my second visit to Ross. 

Again I make the journey to Saughton, hoping that something will be different, that some sort of spider sense — shrike sense? — will allow me to hear truth in his words, separate it from fiction, and go forth with confidence.

If I thought Ross looked like hell the first time I saw him, it's nothing to how he looks today.

His dark curls are black with grease, making me wonder if they've allowed him to shower or if he's just totally given up. His fingernails are still grimy, but chewed down to the quick. I don't recall Ross ever biting his nails at all, but I suppose prison gives you time to do all sorts of experiments.

He sits down across from me without greeting, looking as if this is the last place in the world he'd rather be. Considering his other option is a cell, I'm almost impressed by his despondence. I should treat this seriously, but bloody hell, I don't know what to do. I want so much to believe that he couldn't have had any part in what happened in September. 

I look him over again, waiting for him to say something. It strikes me that his very visible depression could be an indicator of his innocence, or at least a byproduct thereof. A guilty person might take better care of himself, if said guilty person weren't prone to pesky things like conscience. But then, a guilty person with a conscience might look exactly like Ross.

"Hi Gwen," he says finally. 

We've only got thirty minutes, and we've spent the first seven in silence already. "Hiya."

It's quiet again except for the murmur of conversation around us. I notice then that everyone else in the room gives the two of us a wide berth. I suppose the prisoners at Saughton wouldn't be too keen on the person who allegedly tried to help blow them all up. Life in prison isn't exactly topping the charts of brilliant ways to exist, but I reckon to most it's better than the alternative smithereens.

"Oh, Ross," I say, at a loss for any other words. I don't know what else I can voice. Tell him to tell me he didn't do it? He already has. And asking someone to say something you can't fully believe is not something I want to do.

He starts talking, and I immediately miss the silence. "My mum came to visit me yesterday," he says.

Again there's a break because I can't ask how it went. I can see in every line of his body — the slouch of his shoulders, the way his spine seems to want to curl him up like a fern, the drooping of his eyes — it couldn't have gone well. Even if she came to shower him in support and homemade biscuits, it would only serve as a reminder that he's locked up away from love.

"She thinks I did it." 

His five little words stop my breath in my lungs and pressurise it. 

"Everyone thinks I did it, Gwen. All the prisoners, the guards." His hand goes to his left side, where his fingers brush against the fabric of his black shirt and then fall away. He winces. "You think I did it."

I close my eyes, concentrating only on exhaling the air in my lungs and drawing fresh breath to replace it. I count to three, which isn't enough. I count higher. Seven. Ten. Fifteen seconds I sit there with my eyes shut, feeling the blood rush behind my closed lids and forcing air to enter and exit my body.

"I don't know what I think, Ross. I just don't know."

"Do you think I could do it? Do you think I could kill all those people?" His voice crescendoes on the last four words, and the room around us goes silent. I can feel twenty pairs of eyes on me, burning into me, as if waiting for me, the friend of this alleged would-be mass murderer, to gainsay him. 

"Ross, I don't fucking know. I've seen people do some horrible things this year. Brutal things. Murderous things. De Fournay was a royal bitch, but there are plenty of royal bitches populating this earth, and most of them don't send thugs to kill fashion designers or help terrorists plant bombs in office buildings." It's then I see one of my biggest pains, something I carry with me but don't articulate. The sheer fact that I didn't know. That Annamaria de Fournay humiliated me every day for three years and I still never saw her as anything but a toxic boss. I couldn't see the murder of her husband on her hands, nor could I see the child she kept hidden from us and used to justify everything that came after. I couldn't see how taking the life of the man she loved turned her inside out and made her into a villain. I couldn't see any of that, even though she and it were right in front of me on the opposite side of a polished desk, attached to perfectly manicured fingernails.

I start speaking again, pitching my voice as low as I can so the prisoners and their visitors around me can't eavesdrop any more than they already are. "If you didn't do it, Ross, explain to me how your fingerprints got on that bomb. I found three people I care about strapped to it, only a football field's length from a million people. I disarmed it, and it kept ticking down to zero. I kissed Taog goodbye. I saw in Magda's face the recognition of her own death, and we held each other when that countdown stopped. Tell me how you didn't do this thing."

Any remaining colour has long-since drained from Ross's face, and he stares at me, stricken. "I never set foot in the lab, Gwen. I took you as far as that door in the basement, but that was it."

For a long moment, he's silent, and all I hear is the buzz of conversation around us, snippets of words that flutter away before my ears can process them.

"I was losing time for a while," he says. His fingers find his hair, digging into his curls as if he can dig the truth out of his own skull. "Thought it was stress. It only happened twice, maybe three times. Couldn't remember doing some things, found I'd done others twice. I couldn't remember where I'd been. But it stopped. It never happened again after de Fournay sacked you."

"Did you ever tell anyone?" My breath seems to fill my lungs like a balloon about to pop.

Ross shakes his head, and the air squeezes out of me.

"That's no good enough, and you know it. They found your fingerprints, those unique little Ross-marks with oils made by your body and grooves that no one else could replicate. How did they get on that bomb?" My voice cracks because I'm still hoping he'll give me something, some sort of explanation that will absolve him. Hot tears burn at my eyes, and I blink them away. Ross was my mate — my only mate for a long while. He was the one I trusted to vent to about de Fournay and Angus, the one who gave me lunch without comment when my pay cheque ran out all too far away from the next payday. I stare at him, and I know what my eyes say.
Convince me, Ross. Prove you didn't do this. 

He looks at me and starts to cry, and I know he can't prove it. He can't answer my question.

Either he sincerely doesn't know how it happened — or he's guilty.

fourteen

Leaving Saughton, I realise that maybe I ought to have tried to be reassuring. If I were Ross, maybe I would have wanted someone — anyone — to tell me what I wanted to hear. Those simple words of "I believe you." Even if his innocence is proven, our friendship will never be the same. Even if he had an identical twin off somewhere, they wouldn't share the same fingerprints. 

I think my benefit of the doubt is irrevocably broken.

David is subdued again during our training session, and while both of us spend some time pummelling the bags, I get the sense that he needs the physical activity as much as I do. At least I can see the indentations my fists make here, see some sort of tangible result to my actions rather than the constant cloud of nebulous cause and effect in which I currently live. Am I helping anything? What do the people of Edinburgh expect from their superhero? It's not like my powers came with a magic wand to fix every wrong in the city. If that were the case, comic books would be a lot more boring.

Back at home, I climb through Taog's window after I shower and change into jeans and a pale blue singlet more suited for the summer solstice than a January evening. He's awake and more alert than he was when I left him. His laptop is balanced on his lap in bed, and he smiles when he sees me.

"Feeling better?" I ask him.

"If by better, you mean able to breathe, then yes, I am feeling better." 

I smile back at him and sit cross-legged to look at him. "No fever?"

"No fever." 

"Good."

"I think it's just a cold going around," he says. "Adair's got it, a few others at the office have it. Someone must have come by with the sniffles and sneezed on the water cooler."

"It's that time of the year, aye?" I agree. What I don't mention is that probably every member of Gu Bràth has been sleeping as much as Taog, and that collectively, their immune systems are probably about as functional as an umbrella in a hurricane.

I lean back against his headboard, allowing my shoulder to touch his. His browser is open to the Daily Mail, and I wrinkle my nose. "What are you reading that shite for?"

Then I see the headline.
Superhero or Superzero? Edinburgh's Caped Crusader Ought to Stick to Bomb Threats: Rash of Murders Continues Across Scotland.

"What the bloody hell is that?"

Taog makes a clumsy attempt to exit the browser, then winces. "Someone sent it to me. Tasha. She thought I should read it."

"I don't even have a sodding cape."

My voice sounds tinny and pitiful, and I hate that the stupid headline bothers me. Just what I need. The Daily Mail stalking my every move and trying to get a picture of me with my tutu tucked into my knickers so they can blow it up and plaster it to the side of Edinburgh castle.
Shrike Can't Dress Herself — Can She Really Protect You?

"I was going to say not to let it bother you, but that's not helpful, is it?"

"No. Not." I lean my head back with a bonk against the wood of the headboard, wishing there were something interesting on the ceiling so I'd have an excuse to stay this way for a wee while. "What do they expect me to do, be everywhere at once? Shrike: Scotland's Big Brother."

The thought gives me the shivers. 

"It's probably going to get worse."

While Taog's declaration is also not helpful, at least it's true. I peer at him out of the corner of my eye. "You're right, aren't you? I ought to go open a charity or kiss some babies or something. What do superheroes do for good PR?"

"Take out super villains."

"Thanks awfully."

Taog grins. "It'll be fine, Gwen." A fit of coughing dampens the certainty of his statement, and I get up to get him some water.

I watch while he drinks it. His eyes water from the coughing, and I put one hand on his shoulder. Taog clears his throat.

"What are you doing tonight?"

The headline bothers me still. I know I'm doing just about everything I can, aside from quitting my job and taking up stakeouts as a hobby, but it doesn't feel like enough. The feeling creeps through me that for the rest of my life, it will never seem like enough. Unless I publish a daily log of my activities, tabloids and rude news reporters will always take me to task for not doing more. Maybe I ought to start a Tumblr.

It doesn't take me much longer to decide what to do. I leave Taog to his cough medicine and news perusing and suit up.

I might not be able to find Rosamund Granger, but I might still be able to help someone. Some random someone who doesn't get caught up in the conspiracies of the world. Maybe I can stop a mugger tonight, give them a
tsk-tsk
and a
don't do it again, aye?
 

My hopes are dashed by the quietness of the streets. I'm not sure if it's my presence alone, but I feel like my little excursions out into the jungle of Edinburgh's labyrinthine streets and closes used to turn up more trouble. 

There's an idea. If I start a blog, the first thing on there will be a chart mapping the decline in Edinburgh's violent crime. 

That is, if you don't count the murders.

Maybe that's not the best idea after all.

The excitement I feel when I hear a yell just off Leith Walk makes me feel a pang of momentary shame. It's a rare clear night, and a few twinkling stars shine above the city, punctuating the sky like the shouts punctuate the street below me.