Sugarcoated (10 page)

‘Him?’

‘Him?’

‘Them?’

‘Him?’

‘Them?’

‘Him?’

‘Them, Claudia?’

‘None of them?’

‘You’re sure? Tell me if you need to go back to see any again.’

I was sitting next to Marjory – just the two of us now. We were alone in a different room, brighter than the last, though even smaller. It was cluttered with chairs and desks and all the clumsy space-gobbling plastic and electronic spaghetti you need to run monster computers like the one I’d been at for at least half an hour. All that time I’d been shaking my
head at a monitor while Marjory showed me more photographs. File after file after file. A parade of ugly, ugly men this time, not a one I’d fancy meeting up a dark alley, or in a dream, or jumping me when I walk up my front path in the dark, let me tell you. They were either scowling out from an official police mugshot, snapped unawares by surveillance, or captured in blurry freezeframe from CCTV. None of them were saying ‘cheese’.

‘Any of these chaps jog your memory so far, Claudia? Remember, you give us an ID, we protect you as best we can.’

Aye right. Protect me like dead police informers on
24
? Think I button up the back?

‘Memory of
what
? I told you I was hiding. Behind Dad’s desk. I didn’t see –’ Automatically I started to protest, but had to stop.

Who was I kidding?

It was obvious I was lying, my whine unconvincing and shrill, my face twitchy from the effort of trying to force it into an expression of innocence it couldn’t wear. Not now. Not when I’d seen what those hammer
men I wasn’t telling the police about might have done to …

Those girls. Their faces. And that ex-cop. And the thought of that bloke’s bollocks stuffed in his
…

Marjory must have heard my sharp intake of breath because she clicked her monitor to a still of the real 1970s Starsky and Hutch. Pushed back her chair. Patted my hand.

‘Take a breather. One more beauty parade, then I’ll get you home. You’re doing great,’ she was smiling but when she looked beyond me to the mirror covering the upper part of the wall behind us, her smile drooped. She rolled her eyes.

‘Is that mirror a two-way? For watching witnesses?’
Checking out if they’re telling porkies or not?
I was gulping. Blushing. Mortified. Imagining some crack police psychologist with his clipboard doing his Robbie Coltrane and analysing my body language. Pointing his fountain pen at me through the two-way glass. Telling the DCI:

‘
She knows something, Boss. I’d lean harder. She’ll talk
…’

‘You watch too much TV, Claudia.’ Marjory,
chuckling at my anxiety, didn’t confirm or deny my suspicions about the mirror.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Just a few more upstanding citizens. Now if any of them are in the
slightest
way familiar …’

Click. Click. Click.

Aware of possible unseen eyes on me this time, I sat as still as I could, hands in my lap, back straight. I blinked only when a face changed on the screen. This was fine, in fact I was feeling quite smug. Smug enough to make one of my mental notes to myself:

Investigate Secret Service for possible career options. Or acting
. Because whenever Marjory clicked from one mugshot to the next I could see my own face briefly reflected on the surface of her monitor, and without tooting on my own trumpet I’d say outwardly I must have looked pretty damn composed.

A cool customer. Inscrutable … I almost congratulated myself.

Then Marjory went and spoiled the masquerade.

‘Last –’

Click.

‘– group –’

Click.

She sighed.

And I jerked back in my seat like someone out the computer had socked me a right hook.

What a muppet.

The Glaswegian versions of Starsky and Hutch were panting stale coffee breath down my neck before I’d managed to resume my own involuntary respiration pattern.

‘Right. You’ve seen this man before?’

‘And that one?’

‘Previous JPG, please Marj.’

‘And forward –’

‘– back.’

‘Have another good look, Claudia.’

‘You know how important it is that you help us in any way you can.’

‘These are evil people we’re trying to find.’

And that’s basically why I’m bloody well not wanting to tell you anything
. I was curling up into a tight foetal ball in my head while Marjory moused between the same
two images. Both were enhanced stills from a piece of video footage. This meant that in close-up, the two men leaving a car looked blurry and distorted enough to be drawn on soggy blotting paper rather than made of flesh and bone and hair. Like the badge on their Mercedes, only the men’s most distinguishing characteristics jumped out at me.

But it was these I’d recognised. Instantly.

The monobrow of the darker, thickset man. The monobrow beneath which his hard, black eyes had scanned Dad’s shop. The memory made me wince.

So did the jutty angles of his fairer companion. The jumpy headcase with boxer’s footwork. Seeing him again made me catch my breath with a squeak. Hold it. And the hint of rings on every finger curving the pixels of the hands resting on the car doors …

That’s what made me scrape back my chair. Remembering. Those fingers. Twice I’d seen them. The first time they’d sliced through Hell Dog Hall’s hair. The second time, similar ringed fingers were attached to whoever drove …

… whoever drove
Stefan,
my sweet-talking guy,
into his garage.
Although Stefan’s driver can’t have had anything to do with this scowler on Marjory’s computer. Loads of blokes wear chavvy rings,
I was telling myself as I shrank from the stares of the cruel men I’d seen outside Dad’s shop.
Stefan’s driver’s rings just triggered a flashback of the hammer scene
…

‘So. Finally we’ve jogged that memory of yours, Claudia.’ Starsky-Stark gave my shoulder a grateful squeeze. But his voice was the gravest I’d heard it and when I opened my mouth to stutter the usual denial – ‘B-b-ut I didn’t say …’ – he’d his palm flatted a millimetre from my face.

‘As an old Kojak song goes: “If a face could paint a thousand words – ”’ His finger drew a circle in the air round my head and shoulders. ‘You clearly recognise these men.’

‘I … uh …’

‘A nod’ll do. Don’t bother with another lie. And by the way, I’m warning you formally: your wise monkey act comes under wasting police time. That’s chargeable.’

‘So you’ve seen these men before, Claudia?’ While
her DI struck the monitor with sharp, impatient raps of his pen, Marjory bumped my arm with her elbow. Ouch! For some reason her softly-softly tactics brought tears to my eyes.

‘We’re done here. Promise.’ Marjory was nodding at me as she spoke, half-smiling, like she was my friend, like we were in cahoots against the detectives. I felt my head nodding in symmetry with hers before I could bring down a shutter on her kindness. I was tired. My brain hurt.

‘That’s a yes. Take the lassie home.’ DCI Starsky-Stark spat a fleck of tobacco from the unlit cigarette in his mouth.

‘Just as we thought,’ he sighed. ‘This silent witness here saw Humpty and Dumpty all along. Bugger it.’ His head-jerk was sheer impatience as he held the door open for his DI to follow him from the room.

‘Now we need to find who’s yanking their chains –’

‘Chase down the organ grinder –’

I could hear the detectives muttering curses to each other as they swept from the room like they were too busy to waste another second in my company.

‘C’mon lady. You’ve done good. Let’s get outa here and get ourselves something to eat.’ When she clicked her tongue at me, chuckling at her crappy American accent, I suddenly realised how much kind and well-meaning Sargy-Margy was reminding me of another cop:
That pregnant one. Another Marge. From Georgina’s favourite film.
Fargo.
About a horrible murder
…

The coincidence made me gasp. Made me wish, more than anything, that
my
Marge and I could just be film characters too. Could leave the set. Walk away …

‘Cloddy, did you even
bother
yourself to look for my passport? I’ve turned the house upside down. Your mum swears it’s in her dressing-table drawer. But it’s not. I’ve wasted an afternoon queuing in the passport office for a temporary. Then I’d to get a new credit card sorted and I nearly didn’t. Been fighting with the bank. My VISA’s been skimmed or scammed or cloned, so they tell me. Couldn’t buy my flight with it. It’s maxed out –’

Apart from the fact he was yakking non-stop, I knew my dad was hyper as soon as he opened the front door. He was topless for starters, although he
was
wearing a towel round his waist and a pair of Mum’s reading glasses. Retro, rhinestone-studded batgirl ones complete with a sparkly spec-chain which was buried in the tangle of his furry chest rug.

Combined with the state of Dad’s hair, which was
completely standing on end and bushed out round his ears, the whole effect made him look like a camp hobbit with a taste for bling.

‘I’m off Down Under. In an hour.’

Oblivious to the burly policewoman who’d escorted me home, Dad was flapping an airline ticket so close to Sargy-Margy’s face that she had to reel back.

‘Neil’s had the baby but he’s awful weak,’ Dad kept on flapping. ‘Your mother wants me over in case things …’

Sicko that I am, you’ve no idea how close I was to cracking out one of my tasteless funnies:
No wonder Neil’s weak if he’s just performed the miracle of birth
I almost blurted, but I managed to bite my tongue. Glad I did, because I realised my dad had actually reached meltdown, and what he was saying was no joke.

‘Baby’s had an operation already. Wee scrap, your mother says. Fighting for his life. Called him Sean … Isn’t that just? … Oh I don’t know what to take with me. Your mother always packs my … and the whole day’s been utter hassle … I’ve had to arrange locums for the shop and now I can’t find …’

Suddenly, the adrenalin that was keeping my dad together seemed to evaporate. He literally slid down the hall wall till his bum met the carpet.

Burying his face in his knees, his fingers of one hand shredded his hair. The other gestured pathetically at his open suitcase. So far he’d packed two odd socks.

I had to hand it to Marjory. People always accuse cops of being a waste of time, don’t they? Never about when you need them. But I doubt Dad would’ve have packed much more than those sad socks, let alone made his flight if it hadn’t been for a certain police presence in our house that night. Think I’d have known where Dad hid his underpants? His blood pressure tablets? I was standing over him gawping and Marjory was already in Public Assistance Mode, crouched down next to him, plucking the plane ticket from his hand, checking the time of his flight.

‘Hello, Mr Quinn. Remember me? Marjory? From your shop the other day. Now don’t be alarmed about seeing Claudia with a police officer. She’s not done anything wrong. She’s been trying to help us identify
the men who were involved in the attack there. I need to talk to you about that but first we’ll get you sorted for your plane. You’ve less than an hour before check-in.’

Marjory spoke to my dad using one of the slightly patronising shouty voices the chirpy emergency services people on reality TV shows save for vagrants or old dears who’ve broken a hip. While she spoke she reassured him with big capable pats to his knee.

‘Come on now, sir.’

The capable pats became firmer until my dad lifted his head and frowned at Marjory like she was an annoying stranger.

‘Will Claudia be going with you? To Australia? Should she be packing?’ Marjory raised her voice to hold my dad’s attention. ‘Or is she staying here by herself?’

My dad shook his head.

‘Your mum doesn’t want you missing school,’ he answered me, not Marjory. ‘Says you’ll be fine on your own for a few days and there’s no point you moping about a hospital saying you’re bored and hungry and
annoying everybody with your humming. But if you pass your resits Mum says we’ll send you to Australia for Christmas to get to know your … That’s if the wee soul … Did I tell you how sick he is? Sean they’ve called him …’ My dad’s head, after a blurt of almost sensible talking, was threatening to bury itself in his knees again. Marjory grabbed his hand. Hauled him to his feet.

‘You need to focus now, Mr Quinn. Claudia’s going to help with your toilet stuff and I’ll find you some clothes.’

Taking Dad’s arm, Marjory clomped him upstairs. In the time it took me to collect Dad’s shaving kit and toothbrush from the bathroom, Marjory had sorted his suitcase.

‘Undies, shirts, shorts and trousers. See? And I’ve left that space for toiletries and gadgets. All right, Mr Quinn? I think you should put this top on for travelling. And I’d definitely wear underpants. Claudia can find you some. Here she is.’

Dad, towel all bagged round his lower half like a helpless toddler in a giant nappy, was sagged on Mum’s
dressing-table stool. When I held out a jumper for him to wear he made no effort to take it and dress himself.

I’d to pull it over his head, force his arms into the sleeves. While I was struggling with that, Marjory was in Dad’s wardrobe clanging coathangers together. One by one she pulled out all Dad’s jackets and held them against herself in front of Mum’s long mirror.

‘Why’s a policewoman going through my clothes?’ my dad asked when I lifted Mum’s batgirl glasses from his face and he was able to see in the distance again. He scrunched his face at the sight of Marjory smoothing his sports jacket over her bust, admiring herself from different angles. ‘Oh, take this Harris tweed, Mr Quinn. Wear it to the airport and you could get an upgrade.’

Marjory peeled Dad’s jacket from her police tunic and came round behind him, holding it out for Dad to slip on.

‘Now we’re all packed I’ll call the airline. Explain your circumstances. And don’t worry about Claudia while you’re out the country; we’ll keep an eye out for her – arm in here for me, sir,’ she coaxed Dad. He put
one arm in his sleeve. Then he stopped, letting his jacket slip to the floor.

‘Why are you in my bedroom?’

Dressed in sensible clothes, Dad was suddenly more collected. ‘Are you to do with losing my passport and the VISA? I didn’t contact you lot yet. Too busy.’ He turned from Marjory to Mum’s dressing table. Yanked Mum’s jewellery drawer out so roughly that half her earrings and bangles and bracelets bounced out the sides of it, rolling and tumbling to the carpet. ‘I told them at the bank and the passport office: how can a passport and a VISA be stolen from my house when there’s been no break-in –’

‘Sure about that, sir?’

‘I’d know if an intruder had been through my own drawers, wouldn’t you?’ Dad snapped at Marjory from inside the top I’d dressed him in. He was pulling it off. ‘Your mother’ll have shoved them in with all the clutter she takes abroad and never uses.’

Dad buttoned himself up all wrong into a denim shirt, snapping at me now. ‘I told Grace to look through her bags when I spoke to her earlier because I know
your mother and I’ll bet you, Cloddy –’ Dad vented his frustration by booting his sports jacket across the bedroom, ‘I’ll open her handbag in Melbourne and I’ll find the lot: VISA, passport, licence, kitchen sink …’

When Dad ran out of steam again and slumped, head in hands, on to his bed, he reminded me of the creepy kinetic automata that freaked my dreams for weeks after he took me to see them in some museum donkeys ago. One minute the puppets were manic, arms and legs flicking and kicking and jerking obscenely and dancing to crazy speeded-up music. Then suddenly they were inert, inanimate, faces frozen and blank. Staring into space, just like Dad. Till Sarge-Marge came to the rescue again.

‘Make a quick cuppa for your dad. Plenty sugar.’ She thumbed me from the room. ‘Then I’ll run you to the airport, sir. And give me details about the items you’re missing and I’ll look into it. You’ve lost passport, VISA and driving licence. Nothing else?’

All the way down to the kitchen I listened to Marjory booming at my dad.

‘And there’s been no forced entry, sir? No chance
you left a window open for a sneak thief?’

‘Window’s painted shut,’ Dad rumbled back.

‘No tradesman about the place you don’t know well? Strangers?’

‘Strangers? Don’t be ridiculous.’

I was at the bottom of the stairs when my dad spluttered his response this time.
Zzzzip
his suitcase dismissed the very idea.

‘Do you have strange men hanging about
your
bedroom?’ he asked Marjory but before she’d a chance to answer he went on, ‘Look, I’ve sorted out the passport for Australia, and I won’t be driving while I’m there and the bank won’t bill me for the VISA fraud –’

Dad’s suitcase was on the first leg of its journey to Australia. He was hauling it down our stairs. Mum would have
slaughtered
him if she’d caught him scuffing the woodwork like that, but I don’t think Dad noticed the scratches he was leaving. ‘D’you know in a day and a half someone was spending
thousands
on my card. Ten grand nearly. Hundreds in some clothes shop here in Glasgow.’

BUMP went the case.

‘Then even more on jewellery in London –’

BUMP

‘– and a night in some flash hotel –’

BUMP

‘– plus a load of flights to Heathrow from Estonia or somewhere like that that probably doesn’t have a runway.’

BUMP

Dad’s voice was growing louder. Not just because he was nearly at the bottom of the stairs. The info he was giving Marjory was cranking up his blood pressure.

‘D’ you know what? Before they cancelled my card some jumped-up call centre jobsworth asked me if I was sure I hadn’t booked all these flights myself and forgotten about them. Or given someone my details. Like I’d do something like that –’

‘Well, sir, that would just be procedure to rule you out for the fraud. Ten grand’s a big spending spree for a thief to get away with. You’ve been unlucky. Well VISA has now.’ Marjory and my dad were approaching the kitchen together. ‘When a customer burns plastic up to the limit like that they’re usually asked to give
passwords and dates of birth before all the sales go through. It’s strange so many big transactions were allowed without the card being blocked and VISA getting in touch with you. Because your spending pattern had changed. Anyway,’ Marjory was right outside the kitchen door, ‘at least you’ve cancelled the credit card now, sir.’

Despite the spatter of water gushing into the kettle I was filling, I heard every word Marjory said. And it drained the blood from my arms so instantly that I dropped the kettle into the sink. I had to lean my elbows on the edge of it to stop my knees buckling.

‘
At least you’ve cancelled the credit card now, sir.
’ Marjory’s words seemed to ricochet off all the kitchen surfaces.

Water sprayed
everywhere.
Over my jeans and my T-shirt, across the kitchen counters, into what was left of the packet of shortbread.

‘Flood,’ Marjory bellowed in my ear when she caught me at the sink; cold tap full blast, kettle overflowing underneath it. Me frozen. Gulping.
Dad shouldn’t have needed to cancel the card
.

‘Chop, chop, Sleeping Beauty.’

Shooing me aside, Marjory turned off taps and swabbed and sluiced the worktops down. Plugged in the kettle. I didn’t move out of her way, though. Couldn’t.

I was zombified.

Staring at the kitchen phone.

I was seeing the only recent stranger to our house speaking into it.

A stranger my dad knew nothing about.

And I was seeing this stranger while he drew a loveheart round my dad’s password: CLODDY.

Asked for our secret numbers.

Which I gave him.

Couldn’t hear what the stranger was saying because my head was still clanging with Marjory’s last comment to my dad.

Stefan told me everything was sorted.
He
cancelled the card, or so he said.

After
I found him:

A strange man in Mum and Dad’s bedroom.

But he wouldn’t have.

The inside of my mouth was a kettle boiled dry. I tried to gulp saliva into it.

He
couldn’t
have.

Not Stefan.

Not my sweet-talking guy.