Lonie43

They were both glad to get back into the car and dry out. Lonie screwed his eyes up and tried to look through the greenhouses and to work out the possible path Father Campbell had taken. It was difficult to tell, not only because of the incessant rain, but also because although it was a real enough experience for him, didn’t mean it happened. Some people he knew were convinced they were better looking than Liz Taylor, played the guitar better than Jimmy Hendrix and, but for that gammy knee, would have been better football players than Jimmy Johnstone. Their brains had not been deep fried and left to sit on a fluffy pillow for a few minutes, like the priest's had, before commencing normal operations. Miracles were for the young. He slouched down into his seat and didn’t feel that was an option.

Audrey, with her usual caution, turned the Hillman Imp into the lane of traffic streaming along Great Western Road. There was a sour smell coming from Lonie, but that might just have been the effect of the heaters in the car. She was looking forward to getting home and having a hot bath. Then she remembered Lonie, fidgeting in the passenger seat next to her, didn’t have a bath and would probably smell the same tomorrow. Her nose crinkled in disgust at the thought. ‘Why is it so important to find the belt?’ The traffic was slowing at the traffic lights at Byres Road.

With the heat of the car Lonie’s eyes were closing. He jerked upright. ‘Well, it’s corroboration of what he said is true. He’s told me he was pretty wacko, and after seeing him in the hospital Ah’m pretty sure he is, but that doesn’t mean he was wacko enough to kill himself.’ He looked to see if Audrey was listening, but it was difficult to tell, her whole body was tensed as she waited for the lights to change. The car jerked forward and she relaxed a bit more. ‘The death instinct is meant to come at the end of our lives, unless, of course,’ added Lonie, ‘if you’re playing dominoes in The Quarter Gill on a Tuesday night. Old philosophers gather there to eke out their doom with a half of whisky. The problem is the life instinct is so strong. A double-blank finish and they’re running up to the bar like a lintie. I should know. My piles of sixpences have often paid for it.’

‘I don’t think he tried to kill himself.’ Audrey frowned and took her foot off the accelerator. The car slowed near a bus stop. A double-decker bus’s back end blocked off two lanes. ‘He’s not that kind of person.’ She sounded emphatic.

‘He might not be that kind of person now. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t then. When the push comes to the shove we all do things we think we’re incapable of.’ He looked across at her, but her mouth was set in a quivering jelly-mould of disbelief, ready to set into indignation. ‘Look at the gas chambers. Whole families were herded in together. Grandmothers, mothers and children. But when Zyclon B was dropped into the air vents, and it was deemed safe to go in, the Sondercommando always found the young and fittest mothers at the top of the pile of corpses. The youngest and oldest lay trampled, some of them kicked to death, at the bottom of the pile. That fight for the last gasp of air left no room for sentiment.’

‘That’s horrible.’ They drove in silence for a few minutes. ‘How do you know these things?’ Audrey squinted her eyes away from the road for a second and towards Lonie.

‘Ah think Ah read it somewhere.’ Lonie pulled at his mouth and chin to try and help him remember.

‘So it might not be true?’ There was a note of hope in Audrey’s voice.

Lonie waved his hand in dismissal. ‘Oh, it’s true alright. Of that Ah’ve no doubt.’ He stuck his hands into his coat pocket, yawned, and stretched his legs out as far as they would go. The office was nearby. He wanted to think about what he’d say to the fatman. He yawned again. ‘What were you and Lorna talkin’ about?’

‘Nothing.’ Audrey shook her head at that idea. ‘Men,’ she added, enigmatically. A parking spot appeared at her right hand side. The steering wheel was jerked kerbside and the car parked almost in a parallel line with it.

Lonie sat with his coat on, and his feet up on the desk, smoking a fag. Audrey couldn’t settle. She looked for things to do, typing, making cups of tea, knitting, all the little things men expected her to be good at; she’d no real preference, as long as it kept her hands busy. Lonie had asked to speak to the fatman and they were waiting for the go ahead.

‘What are we seeing Mr MacDonald about again?’ Audrey stood beside Lonie’s desk. His smoking was stinking up her clothes and unravelling her nerves.

‘Ah thought you knew.’

‘I only know what you tell me.’ Audrey felt like kicking his chair away. But her words were carefully chosen and frosty as thin ice. She said nothing more as Bresslen made his way through the chatter of typewriters and fug of fag smoke.

‘The fatman wants to see you.’ Bresslen spoke apologetically and addressed Lonie.

‘Us.’ Audrey stood up very straight. Her mouth a rictus of disapproval. ‘The fatman…’ She sighed, shut her eyes momentarily and started again. ‘Mr MacDonald wants to see us.’

Bresslen’s hand moved in slow motion as he took the cigarette out of his mouth to speak. ‘That’s what I said.’

‘No, you said, you!’

‘Sorry.’ Bresslen held his hand up in apology. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ He spoke to Lonie, but his eyes darted suddenly towards Audrey. He scratched at his neck. ‘I’ll leave you both to it. See you in about five minutes.’

‘What did you do that for?’ Lonie took his feet off the desk and looked up at Audrey.

‘Do what?’

‘Pick a fight with him?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Look he’s on our side.’ Lonie stubbed out his fag in the ashtray. ‘If you want to pick a fight with anyone pick a fight with me. At least Ah’m used to it.’

‘I wasn’t picking a fight with him.’ Audrey wrung her hands in indecision. ‘I was merely pointing out that we work as a team and I’m part of that team.’

Lonie scratched at the back of his head. ‘Maybe you should tell the fatman what we know then?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ The thought made her heart race. ‘You’re just being childish.’

Lonie’s chair creaked as he pushed his body back into the mock leather. His elbow planted itself on the armrest and his thumb pointed turned towards the office. ‘You’ll just go in there and say nothing and everybody will look at your tits.’ He could see in the way she held herself that it had been the wrong thing to say. ‘Sorry,’ he cleared his throat, ‘breasts.’

Audrey turned away from him. She had to check with her hands, pat the side of her coat, to make sure she still had it on. Her bag was sitting in its usual place beside the desk. She picked it up and strode past him. ‘I’ll leave you boys to it.’ He scrambled out of his chair, but it was too late. She was going home and hoping nobody was looking at her, and hoping she wouldn’t cry.

Lonie gave up the chase. The fatman and Bresslen were watching him through the office window. He needed a drink, but straightened his face out and put a spring in his step as he cut towards the glass cubicle.

Inside, the fatman was fanning at his face with his hand and saying it was too hot. Bresslen was commiserating and wondering if the fatman was coming down with something. Lonie waited until they acknowledged he was in the office.

‘What’s big tits crying about?’ The fatman leaned across his desk, his dark eyes peering at Lonie.

‘Whit’s Audrey crying about?’ Lonie corrected him.

‘What Audrey with the big tits crying about?’ The fatman looked to Bresslen for the answer, but his face was as inscrutable as an underwater seal’s. ‘She can’t be fucking pregnant, can she?’ Bresslen laughed on cue.

Lonie scraped a plastic chair back and lit a fag. ‘Look, stop fuckin’ about. Ah’ve got a story. It might take a few days, but it’s a biggy.’

The temperature in the office seemed to drop a few degrees. Bresslen sat down beside the fatman. They both leaned forward as if they’d been formally interviewing him and it was Lonie’s turn to answer a particularly difficult question they’d thrown at him.

‘Father Cambell tried to kill himself about ten years ago.’ Lonie didn’t try and dress it up. He just laid it on the table for them to consider.

There was a lull. The phones in the office seemed to stop ringing. Bresslen gnawed at the corner of his thumb. The fatman’s dark eyes didn’t leave Lonie’s face, but his index finger tap, tap, tapped on the desk, before his face split into a grin.

‘We’ll fuckin’ crucify him. Jesus H Christ. We’ll crucify him.’ The fatman’s elbows dug into his desk to pull himself forward and he screwed up his eyes into little pinholes of light. ‘You better not be messin’ with me on this one. I hope Audrey, or somebody else was with you when he said it, or you’ve got it on tape.’

‘No.’ Lonie kept his cool.

The fatman slapped the table. ‘Fuck.’ He looked at Bresslen who was shaking his head in disappointment, so the fatman didn’t need to put in the effort. ‘We’re fucked then.’ The fatman squirmed. It had been close, the turbulence of one of the big stories had washed over him, but he was still floating, still surviving. ‘You know, of course, under Scottish law, we’d need corroboration or the plaintiff can just deny it.’ He shook his head. ‘We’d be liable.’

‘He wouldn’t deny it.’

Bresslen gave Lonie a pitying look. The fatman spoke for both of them. ‘He doesn’t need to. But you can bet your sorry ass the Catholic Church will do it for him. By the time they’re finished with us we’d be lucky to have enough money to print a retraction.’ The fatman’s jowls wobbled as he expressed his disappointment. ‘And don’t give me any of that shit about him not denying it. He won’t get the chance. The Cardinal will ship him out somewhere where the sun don’t shine, some monastery on the edge of a cliff that keeps goats for company. And he’ll get a sacred pledge from him not to speak to anybody. We’re fucked.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Lonie rubbed his scalp. ‘There might be some physical evidence. He said he tried to hang himself using a leather belt. From what I can gather the belt slipped off and he fell to the ground.’ They were both looking at him as if to say so what. ‘The belt might still be in the branches of the tree. All we’ve got to do is find the tree.’

The fatman looked at Bresslen. Bresslen looked at the fatman, unsure what to think, but had a stab at tentatively suggesting: ‘There’s quite a lot of trees in Scotland.’

‘Aye. But there isn’t that many trees in the Botanic Gardens. If it’s there Ah’m sure Ah can find it.’

‘Good man.’ The fatman gave him his endorsement. He looked up at the accumulated cigarette smoke drifting off and under the ceiling. ‘I believe The Army and Navy Stores sell old leather belts. He addressed no one in particular. ‘If one should find itself looped around the branches of a tree and a photograph was taken.’ He shrugged like an Italian that had run out of pasta. ‘Who am I to argue it wasn’t taken in good faith. Father Campbell would need to come out and say that it wasn’t that particular belt.’ He winked. ‘If you get my point.’