Field of Blood

A sports boy stood up and held his nose, a

“Smile. Act like you don’t care.”

“To hell with them,” said Paddy, too loud, alienating anyone who had taken her side. “I’m not in the least bit bothered what those stupid old bastards think.”

III

She usually left the building for her lunch, preferring to wander around the town rather than sit in the canteen, fending off suggestive conversations that were kindly meant but creeped her out. Today she was angry and fit for any one of them. She took her lunch alone, sitting at a small table tucked at the side of the busy canteen, sipping milky coffee and eating a squashed-fly slice in three inches of custard for a wee treat. She covered the tabletop with copies of the Daily News, the Record, and the Evening Times, reading and rereading the Baby Brian stories, carefully teasing out the facts from among the treacle.

The coverage was the same from paper to paper, with some phrases consistent from story to story, so she knew they had been lifted directly from the police’s press statement. The two arrested boys were playing truant from school that day and had walked to Townhead from their homes in Barnhill. Every single story mentioned the fact that the children were alone, that there were no adults with them at any point. They were so adamant about the detail that Paddy guessed that all the journalists must have pressed the question at the police briefing. The boys had taken Brian from his garden to Queen Street station, less than half a mile downhill into the town. They took the train to Steps, a country station eight minutes away. When they arrived at Steps they walked up the long ramp to the quiet country road, crossed it, led the child through a break in the fence, down to the tracks, and killed him there.

Paddy found it hard to understand why the boys had gone all the way to Steps. The whole of Barnhill was rich in abandoned yards and empty tracts of land that wee wild kids from the area played on and knew better than anyone else. She remembered looking out at the landscape through the beaded window of the bus, on the way back to the Southside with the Ogilvy mourners. They had passed St. Rollox, a dying train coach engineering works with i

Aware of a shadow at the side of the table, she looked up and found the chief reporter, JT, hovering near her. He smiled modestly, self-consciously, as if thinking of himself as seen by her and, oddly, supposing himself admired. He couldn’t have thought himself attractive: he had a round face that fell into his neck and a nose covered in prominent blackheads. Paddy was suddenly conscious of a thin rim of custard at one side of her mouth.

“Mind if I sit?”

She gathered up all the newspapers, arranging them into a tidy pile, and JT sat down, putting a mug of tea on the table together with a plate of chips zigzagged with ketchup, a bacon roll perched on top.

“Thanks so much.” He smiled again, taking off his suede jacket and throwing it onto the windowsill with what he imagined was panache. “How are you, Patricia? Are you all right?”

He couldn’t have heard anyone say her name. He must have seen it written down. She smiled but didn’t answer.

“When I first came here copyboys wouldn’t have been allowed to eat in the canteen with journalists.” A smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. “I was a copyboy once, at the Lanarkshire Gazette. Can ye believe that?”

He left a space for her to respond, so she did.

“Can I believe that a man as important as you was ever a copyboy, or that Lanarkshire had its own gazette?”

He ignored her, continuing with the conversation he wanted them to be having. “In those days a copyboy sitting in the canteen would have been as welcome as a fart in a space suit.” He smiled and looked away, leaving a pause for her laughter. She didn’t fill it. The crack was a Billy Co

It seemed it was Paddy’s turn to speak again. “’S that right?”

“Aye, aye, that’s right.” He looked suddenly sad. “Patricia, are you all right?”

She nodded.

He dropped the Co

She was sitting by herself because the other option was listening to ugly old men making snide jokes about her tits for forty minutes. “I got sent on first lunch.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Uh huh.”

JT dropped his voice to a whisper. “The past few days must have been awful for you.”

Paddy looked at him for a minute, letting her eyes have the run of his unctuous face. If George McVie had been sitting there doing the act he did on Mr. Taylor, she’d have opened up a little at least before remembering to be cautious. She had admired JT, but only by reputation and results. Close up he was a weasel. She suddenly understood why the other journalists hated him so blatantly.

He leaned over the table, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, well, you know…”

He looked at her empty cup. “D’you want another coffee? I’m going to have one. Have one, on me.” He stood up and turned back, waving over at Kathy serving behind the now quiet counter. He raised an imperious finger. “Two coffees over here.” He turned back to Paddy, smiling and muttering confidingly, “Let’s see if we get them.”

Behind him, Kathy whispered to her boss, Scary Mary, who looked angrily over at JT and shouted, “Self-service.” She held up a small card from next to the till and shook it at him. “Self-service!”

JT didn’t hear her. “So, Patricia-”

“Look, everyone calls me Paddy.”

“I see. Well, Paddy, I heard that you’re related to one of the boys who did this…” He tapped the word “evil” on the stack of papers and shook his head. “Dreadful, dreadful.”

Paddy hummed in agreement.

JT tipped his head to the side. “Are you close to him?”

“No,” she said, hoping he’d be disappointed. “He’s my fiancé’s wee cousin. I’ve only met him once, and that was at his father’s funeral.”

“I see, I see. Can you get me in to him?”

She was too shocked to be indignant. “No.”

“What’s your fiancé called?”

She had the presence of mind to lie. “Michael Co

He nodded. “What would make someone do that to a child?” He left the question hanging in the air.

“Well, the boys are only ten or eleven years old themselves.”

JT shook his head. “These were hardly children. Sure, we all did stupid things when we were kids, but did you ever lure a toddler away and kill him for fun?”

Paddy looked at him, dead-eyed. He had adopted without question the lazy, pat explanation.

“No,” said JT, oblivious to the waves of hate coming from his audience of one. “That’s right. Neither did I.”

“They’re children,” said Paddy.