He finally caught the eye of the short balding barman and moments later he had a pint of lager and a tumbler of martini, the ice fighting a losing battle against the heat. Picking them up, he turned back towards the dance floor and straight into a bloke coming the other way. The guy’s elbow caught his pint glass and caused lager to splash onto the floor, making the carpet even stickier than before. They looked at each other for a few moments, a typical Glasgow stand-off with no one wanting to be first to apologise. The man, dressed in a nondescript brown suit with a red hankie peeping out of the breast pocket, was an inch or two shorter than Danny and a good few stone slighter, so you would think there would be no contest if it came to a shoving match. There was an edge to the smaller fellow’s dark eyes, though, something fierce in them under that fringe of mousy brown hair that put Danny on his guard. In this city you quickly learned the difference between height and size.
At once, they both muttered ‘Sorry’ and nodded an acceptance, each edging to the side to let the other through. Danny scooped a gulp of his lager, groaning slightly at the realisation that it had already gone warm, and took the drinks over to where Jenny was waiting. Halfway there, he spun on his heels and looked back at the bloke at the bar, seeing him turn at the same time, and they locked eyes before the barman brought a pint of heavy to the counter and called for the other guy’s attention.
‘Who was that?’ Jenny asked.
Danny shrugged. ‘Just some punter. He knocked my glass but it was my fault. No big deal.’
‘He better watch himself,’ she laughed. ‘He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. You being Red Silk and all.’
‘Ha ha. Very funny. Be bad news for you if I
was
Red Silk. You’d be on dangerous ground right now.’
She was close to him now. Very close. He could smell her skin and see the faint sheen on her forehead.
‘Maybe I like being on dangerous ground.’ She looked him straight in the eye, daring him to doubt what she meant. ‘Maybe playing dangerous games is what I do.’
This was the point and he knew it. The point where he had to back away. ‘Nothing wrong with a bit of danger,’ he heard himself saying.
‘Talk’s cheap,’ she teased. ‘I think you’re all talk, Danny Neilson.’
‘Try me.’ The words that came out of his mouth were not the same ones he was trying to convince himself of in his head.
She smiled broadly, white teeth shining in the neon gloom of Klass, her red hair glossy under the glitter ball. ‘Maybe I will. If you’re not chicken.’
He hesitated, fighting the last round with his conscience but aware that he was hurtling downhill with the brakes off. ‘Like I said, try me.’
Her nose was all but touching his, her breath hot on his cheek as she leaned in to whisper. ‘It’s very, very hot in here. Funny, but the coolest place in here is the ladies’ toilets. Not that I can speak for the gents’, obviously.’
Her lips scraped against his ear as she spoke, the feeling rocketing through his body, causing his pulse to quicken and his blood to pump furiously. ‘Is that right?’ was all he could manage to say.
‘It is right.’ Her lips were kissing the very tip of his ear, the merest touch at every syllable. The merest explosion as they did so. She pulled back enough that she could look him in the eyes, teasing, daring, challenging. He swallowed hard despite himself and she leaned in again. ‘The band will be on in a minute. Very popular the Sweet are. Everyone will be standing on that dance floor watching. Probably even the bouncers.’
With that she let the wetness of her lips catch against his ear slightly more firmly before pulling back, her eyebrows raised questioningly. ‘I’m going to the toilet. I’ll probably still be in there when the band comes on.’
She walked backwards for a few steps, her eyes never leaving his and the teasing smile never leaving her lips until she turned and disappeared into the crowd. He stood, his heart pounding, a slight tremble in his legs. The hill that he was racing down had just become even steeper. Behind him, he could vaguely hear the booming voice of the DJ cutting through the fade of the last song.
‘Awrite there, people. I’m Jumping Jimmy Steele and you are in Klass, the best and hottest disco this side of New York City. Are youse having fun?
I said are youse having fun?
That’s better. Okay, here’s the moment youse have all been waiting for. They’ve had three top-twenty singles and they’re at number four in the charts this very week with “Little Willy”. Their lead singer is Glasgow’s very own Brian Connolly and they are here to rock the house tonight. Let’s hear it for one of the best glam bands in the business. Give up a huge Klass welcome for . . . the Sweet!’
The crowd went mental, stamping, clapping and whooping as the band emerged behind the DJ and onto the stage. Every eye in the place was on them, every head turned in their direction. Except his. Heart thumping, he turned and apologetically pushed his way past people who were paying him no attention. After just a few yards, he was beyond the crowd and standing in the open, but he didn’t hesitate, his legs taking him forward to the dark recess that led to the toilets. The voice in his head that was telling him to turn around was being ignored.
There they were in front of him. Gents’ to the left and ladies’ to the right. He took a deep breath and went right. The door had another door a few feet behind it and he pushed through that, too, emerging into the light of the toilet. She was standing there, her back against a cubicle and an approving smile on her face. She beckoned with a curl of a single finger and he strode towards her, his will gone and a deeper, more basic force making all the decisions now. As he got within a couple of feet, she took a half-step forward and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, turning to lead him into the cubicle and shut the door behind him.
His mouth was on hers in seconds, hungrily exploring her, hands all over each other, grabbing, squeezing and stroking. He turned her – or she turned him, he wasn’t sure which – until her back was against the cubicle wall and one of her legs was wrapped round his waist. Her legs were soft and slick, hot to the touch under the hem of her miniskirt. Her mouth was hot and wet and eager, her tongue greedily wrestling with his. Her hands were through his hair and his through hers, pulling at each other.
Her hands pulled off his jacket, then grabbed at his shirt, feverishly undoing buttons, and he followed her lead by taking hold of her halter-neck top and pulling it over her head, exposing firm breasts underneath a flimsy white bra. He pulled her close, singed by the heat of her flesh against his, their bodies sticky, one against the other. As he reached under her red miniskirt, she began to fumble with his belt, seizing the leather and pulling it back until the clasp was free and she tackled the buttons of his trousers, her fingers tripping over each other in their desperation to free him. As she did so, he stroked her between her legs, feeling her warm and moist and waiting for him. She clutched the waistband of his trousers and underpants together, pulling them both down and releasing his hardness. She grasped it and he jumped at the heat of her hand on him, his own hand pulling her panties to the side. She looked him in the eye, her mouth open and panting hard, as she pulled him towards her, making it clear that she was in charge.
The voice in his head made one final, hopeless plea, but he was too far gone. He pushed his way inside her and the deal was sealed.
They moved together just as they had done on the dance floor, she setting the rhythm and he urgently following. The tempo was fast, pressing on and on, racing against the likelihood of getting caught. He thrust against her madly, their mouths eating each other, both her legs round his waist now, he deep and fast inside her, lost completely.
They danced on and on, pushing desperately against each other, the thumping base of the Sweet reverberating through the cubicle and setting a pulse for them to rock against. They were animals, no thought other than the mutual satisfaction of their lust.
When they came together, they forced back the screams they wanted to let loose, forcing the noise back through gritted teeth and swallowing it back down where it came from. Instead, they shook, breathing heavily, their mouths attacking each other and his hand caressing her cheek. She finally pushed him off, a lascivious smile spread wide across her pale features, perspiration dappling her brow.
She picked up her top and handed him his shirt as he pulled up his trousers from his ankles. He took it from her and slipped his arms through the sleeves, only then realising that his back was soaking with sweat, feeling the polyester of the shirt immediately drenched by the results of his labours.
They hadn’t spoken since she’d walked off the dance floor and still not a word passed between them as they pulled their clothes back into some kind of order. He knew that his silence was borne out of guilt, a spectre that appeared immediately after he’d emptied himself inside her, a hair shirt that he wore under the damp polyester one that clung to his back. She sensed it, he could see that, and she resented it.
They gathered themselves in the awkward hush of strangers and she opened the cubicle door, peering out to make sure there was no one there, then beckoning him to follow. She strode purposefully across the tiled toilet floor and through the double doors back into the disco itself. No one saw them leave the toilets and no one paid them any attention as they re-joined the crowd on the edge of the dance floor, all entranced by the Sweet as they finished their set. She looked at him, opened her mouth as if to say something, then stalled, instead leaning in and kissing him damply on the cheek. He went to kiss her back but she’d already gone, heading to where her friends were waiting.
He felt as if someone had switched a light on in the room ten minutes before and he’d only just become aware of it. He scanned the dance floor urgently, wondering what he’d missed and who’d missed him. His eyes almost immediately fell upon Alice McCutcheon, who was staring at him oddly, confusion and disapproval on her face. Had she seen the kiss on his cheek?
He was still looking at her looking at him when the scream broke the silence and he was aware of movement behind him near the front door. The bouncers were on the move, hustling quickly and barrelling people out of the way. He instinctively followed them, unceremoniously shoving his way through the crowd and dumping two customers on their backsides as he did so. He forced his way to the door at the top of the stairs, seeing Brian Webster standing there, the detective constable having managed to get there before them. Webster was looking at him ashen-faced, his mouth hanging open. Danny pushed by him and half ran, half stumbled down the stairs towards West Nile Street, his anxiety nearly sending him crashing but just managing to keep his footing. ‘Police!’ he roared, any sense of being undercover having gone. He crashed to a stop on the bottom landing and followed the crowd to the alley that ran behind the building where he saw two people, one of them one of the Klass bouncers, crouched over a body. As Danny approached, they leaned back to give him a view of the stricken form.
The girl’s neck was snapped to one side and her eyes stared at the wall, her neck violently red and her maxidress wrapped round her waist. The side of her skull bled slowly down her cheek and was matched by a dark patch on the wall.
Lying beside her, just inches from her head, was a red silk handkerchief.
Chapter 49
Saturday afternoon
It had been years since Danny remembered being as down as he was after the discovery of the third victim, the poor lassie’s body found battered against the monument in the Western Necropolis. Perhaps it hadn’t happened on his watch but it might as well have done. He was torn between anger and despair but knowing that he was as likely to fall victim to guilt as anything else. With all that in mind, there were probably better places for him to be on a damp Saturday lunchtime than walking through another graveyard, but that was where he found himself.
The text message from Chloe that morning was the only thing – apart from the arrest of the killer and Atto’s complete confession – that could have put a smile on Danny’s face. Once he had deciphered the text-speak, he was elated to see that she wanted to meet that day. He wasn’t so happy that she wanted to meet at Jean’s grave, but he was hardly in a position to say no. He texted back immediately and agreed to her suggestion of meeting at noon.
Sighthill Cemetery was a muddy green oasis that had survived the surrounding war of architectural death and regeneration. On its northern boundary the red sandstone tenements of Keppochill Road were fading to a washed-out pink and, to the east, Springburn Road had seen buildings come and go to make room for the expressway. The graveyard’s eastern edge, Fountainwell Road and its rundown offshoots, had seen many of its ugly high-rises fall, but there were plenty more still standing close by, staining the skyline in shades of grey and grime.
Danny didn’t visit his wife’s grave maybe as much as others thought he should but it was nothing to do with a lack of thought or love. He carried his memories and hurt with him wherever he went, much as if they, and she, were tattooed on his heart. Every time he went through the front door of the home that they’d shared for so many years, he still found himself saying hello out loud
. Hi, it’s me. I’m home.
The cemetery was just a different place to say hello. He didn’t think of Jean as being there, not the living, laughing, loving Jean he remembered. He wanted her place to be well tended and he liked to take down flowers when he visited. To show others, he supposed, that here was a woman who was still loved. The rest of the time, the love was just buried inside him.
Jean shared her headstone with her parents, Bill and Nancy Mitchell. Beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother. She’d died before Chloe was born, so grandmother had never been added to the list. How many roles was one person supposed to fill in one brief lifetime?
Danny crouched in front of the stone, his weight causing half an inch of water to ooze from the grass and make an island of his shoes. He looked at Jean’s name carved in granite and still found it odd, shocking even, to see it there. Being in denial, even after twenty-five years, was so much harder with a physical statement in front of you. It was probably the real reason he ventured so rarely to Sighthill. Without sight of that reminder, a part of him could always be convinced that she was in another room or visiting friends.