Field of Blood

A smattering of cars were arranged near the front of the car park, and the News delivery vans were parked along Albion Street, locked up and waiting for the next edition. Still concerned for her safety, Terry stopped at the door to the bar and let her climb out through the passenger door and run in while he went off and parked. She arrived breathless with nerves, an agitated face in a room of drink-softened men.

Richards was sitting alone at the bar, boring McGrade with second-hand jokes and commonplace observations. A team of three printers were sitting at a table together, relaxed, chatting just enough to keep the beer company. Dr. Pete was alone at a table near the back. In the three days since she had seen him his skin seemed to have aged a decade. He sucked in his cheeks as he drank, and the withered skin around his mouth puckered into radial lines. It was warm in the bar, but he had his overcoat pulled tight around him.

Paddy walked over. She had meant to work her way around to inquiring after his health, but it was so obviously wrong for the man to be sitting in a pub in his condition that she blurted it out.

“You look fucked.”

He smiled up at her and blinked slowly. “Fucked, is it?” he drawled, hands in pockets, pulling the tails of his coat around his thighs. “I’ll tell you fucked. Thomas Dempsie, murdered in 1973, found at Barnhill by the train station. Father Alfred Dempsie, found guilty, hanged himself, sad case, blah, blah, blah.” He smiled at her again and gave a jaunty little salute. “See, yeah? I remember you, remember what you were asking about. I remember it all.”

“Have you been here since Thursday?”

“Was it Thursday?” He seemed quite surprised and lit a fag to mark the moment.

“You’ll kill yourself in a month like this.”

“Balls to the lot of them,” he said quietly.

“Listen, was there ever mention of a grocery van being seen in the area when Thomas Dempsie went missing?”

Dr. Pete thought for a moment, blinking at his glass of beer before lifting it to his mouth and draining it. “Nut.”

“Are you sure?”

The door to the bar opened behind her and she felt a stiff breeze on her neck. The feet moved towards her and she knew it was Terry.

“Certain.”

“What about a guy called Henry Naismith, ever heard of him?”

Terry arrived at the edge of the table and Pete looked up at him.

“How are you, Pete, all right?”

Pete nodded, smiling vaguely at the wall.

“Can I get you a drink?”

Pete nodded again and Terry pointed questioningly at Paddy. She asked for lemonade and held her ground when they insisted she have something else. Her stomach couldn’t take it, she said; once a week was more than enough for her.

Terry moved off to the bar, and Pete smirked knowingly and chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. “You should watch out. A woman can’t afford to get a reputation in this business.”

“Am I not allowed friends my own age?”

“It shows. The way a man holds a woman’s eye like that- steadily, as if the whole world was just a secret between them.” It was the way he used to write- she could hear the unique tone- but instead of going on for ten paragraphs he stopped dead and looked at his glass.

Terry arrived back at the table with a packet of ten Embassy Regal and the drinks: a lemonade for Paddy, a half-pint for himself, and a half-and-half for Dr. Pete. He put down the cigarettes in front of Paddy. “That’s for last night,” he said, making her flinch in front of Pete. “What are ye talking about?”

“Whether there is a co

Dr. Pete’s eyes were wide and wet, three degrees removed from the table. He picked up his whisky glass and threw the contents into the back of his throat, his lip curling in either disgust or pain, Paddy couldn’t quite tell. Then he lifted the half-pint of beer to see if a sip of that would help. It didn’t.

“D’you know what I’d like now?” Pete looked at Paddy and only at her. “I’d like a plate of lamb.” He dropped his head and wept into his beer.

Terry had to tap him on the elbow and repeat his name a couple of times to get his attention, and asked him for the name of the police station that was dealing with Heather’s murder. Pete told them it was Anderston station, and be sure to ask for Davie Patterson- Pete knew his father. Paddy smiled a thank-you but had no intention of asking for the squat-faced policeman. He couldn’t possibly be the only man on the investigation team.

When she looked up she found Pete watching her again.

“Henry Naismith,” he said, “was Tracy Dempsie’s first husband.”

“Her husband? The one she left for Alfred Dempsie?”

He slumped and nodded sadly at his beer. “Aye.”

II

The lobby walls were paneled in a cheap, dark veneer, which clashed with yellowing turquoise linoleum on the floor. Anderston station had twice as many chairs as the police station she had been in with McVie, three rows of five screwed to the floor.

The desk sergeant’s post was on a rostrum so high that Paddy peered over the lip like a child in a chip shop. A tired young officer in full uniform was sitting in a creaking wooden chair that protested loudly when he moved more than half an inch in either direction. It was Sunday, he informed them, no one was in today. They could talk to someone if they were prepared to wait, but he didn’t know when anyone would be available. It might be better if they phoned tomorrow.

“We’ve got some pretty important information about Heather Allen’s murder. We think we should tell someone right away,” said Terry, raised with the expectation that important people would listen to him.

The desk sergeant looked suspicious. “Heather Allen, is it?”

It was clear to Paddy that he didn’t know who they were talking about.

“Yes, Heather Allen,” said Terry. “The girl who was found in the river last weekend with her head caved in. We know something about it and we need to tell someone.”

The sergeant nodded. His chair let out a furious creak as he pointed them towards the far wall. “Go and wait over there. Someone’ll be out in a minute.”

They walked across the floor to the first set of chairs and sat down in time to see the sergeant disappear through a doorway to his right.

Two minutes later he returned, his eyebrows drawn tight with surprise, and flicked his finger at them to come over. “They’re coming straight out,” he said.

They waited for ten minutes, smoking a cigarette between them. Terry was putting it out on the floor when a door opened behind the desk sergeant. Patterson and McGovern stumbled through it looking playful and mischievous, as though they had just been having a good laugh. All roads in the Heather Allen case seemed to go through Patterson. Paddy was dismayed, and he wasn’t pleased to see her either. He balked, put out a hand to stop McGovern going to the trouble of leaving the rostrum, and called over to her.

“Ah, yeah. What do you want?”

Paddy stood up. She didn’t want to go over to him, she wanted him to come to her.

“Pete McIltchie sent me,” she said, trying to make it clear that she didn’t want to see him either. “I need to tell someone something about Heather.”

He didn’t move towards her but stood up straight, picking at a mark on the desk in front of him.

“McIltchie?”

“He told me to come and see you.”

He nodded up at her. “Is it new information?”

“Yes.” And still he stayed ten yards away, making her talk to him over the heads of Terry and the desk sergeant. She decided just to shout: “I was picked up by someone in Townhead and I found one of Heather’s hairs on a towel. The guy tried to attack me.”

Patterson nodded at the desk and glanced back at McGovern. Paddy was sure that if they had been alone, if McGovern and the desk sergeant and Terry hadn’t been there, he would have told her to piss off.