Lonie 77

Lonie glanced over at the trains, and took in the sky and the stars, whilst having a fag. He banged his feet on the concrete slabs to keep them warm. He could look right along Lilac Avenue all the way to Dalmuir Park and forever, if need be, but there was no lights, no traffic on the road. The thing that bugged him was the noise the generator was making. It seemed a stupid idea. He figured half the people in The Holy City, if they had a mind to, would be able to hear it. But there seemed little point in moaning about it. The sound of the garage door being pushed had him reaching for the handle to pull it up and open, as it was easier from his side. The midwife came out and tilted the door back down so it was half closed. She rubbed her hands together to keep them warm and stood beside him. Both of them looked down at the football parks.

‘It’s second trimester.’ She looked up at his face as if gauging what he was thinking.

Lonie flicked his fag away. ‘Whit does that mean?’

‘It means more complications, more money.’ She shrugged. ‘Another sixty quid, or I walk.’

It was Lonie’s turn to shrug. ‘Whit does she say?’ He nudged his head in the direction of the inside of the garage.

‘She wants to go ahead.’

The wind whipped Lonie’s coat against his legs and he retreated further into the aperture of the garage opening. He took a deep breath. ‘Is she sure?’

‘Aye.’

‘Well, go ahead then.’ Lonie reached for the garage handle and began to pull it up.

The midwife remained standing, waiting. ‘What about my money?’

‘You’ll fuckin’ get it. I’ve no’ got it on me just know. Whit dae you think Ah’m a fuckin’ bank?’ Inside the room he could see Audrey sitting squashed into the corner as if she was trying to make herself invisible.

‘Alright!’ The midwife ducked her head down as she re-entered the garage. She began pushing the door shut. Lonie took up the slack and finished the job, leaving only a little gap from which light leaked out. She kicked the door shut, cutting him off with a closing retort. ‘I better get it. Or you’re dead.’

‘Try and relax, while I get set up.’ The other woman was back to being all business again. She strode across to the opposite corner from Audrey and began unpacking a bag filled with a mishmash of different sized vacuum flasks. She unscrewed one and Audrey heard the clink of steel on steel as she emptied some silver instrument that looked like an oversized pair of scissors onto a metallic kidney tray.

Audrey, crouched in the corner, felt her chance of relaxing was about the same as a two week holiday on a beach in Timbuktu. She just wanted everything to be finished with and back to normal so said nothing.

The other woman scowled over at her. ‘Aren’t you undressed yet?’

Audrey untied her shoelaces. ‘What do I need to take off?’

The other woman’s eyes followed her process. ‘Everything. Shoes. Tights. Pants, Blouse. No time for false modesty now. You can keep your bra on if you like.’

The other woman pulled on a pair of plastic gloves as she gauged Audrey’s process. She dragged a small wooden table with her instruments across the floor. ‘Feet up into the stirrups.’

Audrey was almost naked and bumped backwards against the upholster of the seat. She lifted her legs up and her bum slanted down as she tried to fish her feet into the makeshift netball net. The other woman kicked the blocks in closer until her feet caught and the net bore her weight.

‘Open your legs wider.’ The other woman ordered. She lifted the black metallic torch that she’d originally used to light their way inside the garage and crouched down between her legs. ‘I’m just going to have a quick look-see.’ She lifted a speculum.

Lonie stood outside listening to the gasps and squeals paced up and down like an expectant father. He no longer felt the wind blowing the rain ahead of it, or the rustle of the trees on the hill. His ears were only attuned to the beat of the generator and the spaced out silences that were coming from inside. They’d passed a pub on the way up the hill. It was a great temptation to nip down for a quick half.

The blow to the side of his head came too swift to feel more than the punch of it and the blow to the back of his legs had him tumbling and falling onto the cruel concrete. He heard men shouting and could see the crease and colour of their police uniforms, but even when he rolled into a ball and the kick and hits and blows brought blood and gore, his thought were not for himself, but for Audrey.

‘Run. Run. Run.’ His voice echoed round the buildings, lights went on in back bedrooms of the Holy City, curtains and windows were opened, but shut again, just as quickly, as flashing lights sped a blue blur down from Mountblow Road and the sound of sirens opened up the night.

Lonie fought on like a man who felt no pain. He threw off a cop sitting on his legs and pulled away from another trying to cuff his arms behind his back. His nose was smashed open with a baton like an egg and he breathed blood. A wave of bodies came from the front, from behind and from the side. ‘Run. Run.’ He shouted through teeth that buckled, bled and were swallowed whole. The Black Maria screeched to a halt and brought reinforcements. Even then he head-butted, kicked and bit so that his body had to be taken one bit at time, secured piece by piece, torso and head, struggling limb by struggling limb. His hands were handcuffed behind his back and his ankles handcuffed with two sets of cuffs one joined to the other.

The cops stood in a half circle, wiping off sweat, some with bruised faces and torn uniforms, breathing heavily. One of the cops touched a finger to the temple on his head and whistled twirling it round and round to show they were dealing with a psycho and raised his eyebrows.

The heel of Chief Inspector Bisset’s black boot stood on his cheek, pinning him to the ground, his dress uniform immaculate as if he were standing in for a photo-shoot after having brought down a big game animal. ‘Right lads,’ he addressed the Seargent and the cops facing him, ‘we’ve got other fish to fry. Let’s get him up and drag him over there into that garage. I’ll need to have a word with this man in private.’ He took his foot away and Lonie tried to sit up.

Two of the bigger cops, both over six-foot-five, pulled and hauled him by the chains on his ankles and legs over to the garage, his head bumping along the paving stones. A woman policeman had already secured the entrance to the garage so that nobody could get out or in. She twisted and pulled the metal door open as they approached. They flung Lonie inside. ‘I’ll take it from here lads.’ Chief Inspector Bisset dismissed them with a smile.

Lonie looked up from the floor through his one good eye –his other had swollen like a gold ball and he couldn’t see through it. Audrey whimpered, half sitting and half lying in the corner, with her legs spreadeagled. She looked as if she’d been cut in half.

The other woman came and stood beside his head and Chief Inspector Bisset’s shiny black shoes. She spoke to the policeman as if he wasn’t there. ‘I didn’t have to do much. She’s a natural bleeder. Coagulopathy. Ironic innit. You go to all this work and she’d probably have snuffed it anyway.’

‘How long?’ Chief Inspector Bisset looked over at Audrey.

‘Give her about ten minutes, just to be on the safe side.’ The other woman shook her head. ‘She’ll not last longer than that. Then you can phone an ambulance, or an undertaker, won’t make a blind bit of difference.’

‘Can’t you do something about that moaning?’ Chief Inspector Bisset’s foot moved away from Lonie towards Audrey. ‘It’s getting on my nerves.’

Lonie caught the sliding shuffle of the other woman's shoes. Then she was hurrying past the policeman with an old blue rag that smelled of petrol and had probably been used to clean machines. She grabbed Audrey’s hair at the back by the pink ribbon and stuffed the rag in her mouth.

Lonie groaned and tried to snake crawl forward to help her. He realised if he could have taken back the last two hours he wouldn’t have been here and neither would Audrey. Chief Inspector Bisset got his shoes dirty kicking him full in the face. As he lay on his back, temporarily stunned, the other woman’s face loomed over him.

‘Not so cocky now are we?’ She smiled down at him.

Lonie grogged all the blood and phlegm that was in his mouth on her face. Chief Inspector Bisset’s next kick caught him on the side of the head and turned him in a half circle towards Audrey. The other woman started kicking and kicking him, but it didn’t hurt. The only thing that mattered in his life was gone. Her legs grew tired. She stood to the side of him, so that he couldn’t spit.

‘You know what?’ She gloated. ‘You’ll get five years for an illegal abortion. And twenty for the murder of your girlfriend.’

‘Then there’s that other one he did.’ Chief Inspector Bisset chipped in. ‘Same modus operandi. Young girl. She’ll be found shortly buried in those woods up there, wrapped in black bags. Pregnant. Botched abortion. Maybe she was your girlfriend too? Maybe you just did it for the money? Another Protestant girl. Maybe it’s a religious thing? A cult perhaps? I can see the headline in the Glasownian: ‘Ripper.’

Chief Inspector Bisset patted the other woman on the shoulder. ‘You better nip away Beth. I’ve still got work to do here. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure nobody’s seen you.’