Butcher (45 page)

He said, ‘When I was a kid, I used to eat the outside bits and leave the chocolate centre for last.'

‘Is there any other way?'

Barefoot girl dancin in the moonlight
. He listened to the music and imagined Betty in her hippy days, and thought of her dancing shoeless like the girl in the song. He touched the back of her hand and then, beset by nervousness, drew it away.

‘You're shy,' she said. ‘Aren't you, Lou?'

‘Uncertain more than shy. Maybe both in equal measures.'

She laughed. ‘Do people tell you you're funny?'

‘Complete stand-up,' he said.

‘Sometimes I hear you think before you speak … I hear you weigh things in your head, trying to balance your words.'

‘It's all show. Usually it's off the top of my head with no thought beforehand.'

‘I don't believe that.'

‘You don't think I'm madly impulsive?'

‘You have impulses, I don't know how madly.'

He reached across and placed the palm of his hand against the back of her neck. She sighed, tipped her head back, enjoying the connection.

‘Is this one of the mad ones?' he asked.

‘Oh, it could be, Lou, it could well be …'

He gently pushed aside a strand of hair and kissed her ear.

She leaned forward, set her cup down on the coffee-table. Then she turned to gaze at him. He saw it in her eyes – anticipation and hesitancy. And he thought: we're postponing an event that's waiting inevitably to take place. How does it happen, what whispered promptings of the heart tell you that one day, when enough time has passed to let cowls of grief and sorrow blow away, you're going to be lovers – even before you know it?

She wrapped her hands firmly round his. He understood. The dead still had claims on their behaviour. He kissed her again anyway and she yielded a moment and he realized how easy it would be to expel the dead, and how difficult.

His phone rang in his pocket and he was tempted to leave it, but Betty had drawn slightly back from him, apparently lost in misgivings of her own, and so he answered.

The Pickler said, ‘If you're still interested, Mr Perlman, I think I might have a wee lead on that heidless clown.'

The author thanks the following people:

Superintendent Iain Gordon, Strathclyde Police, for his endless patience with my questions

Alex Reilly, for the illuminating tour

Ed Breslin, for his encouragement

Netta White, and Hazel Frew, for their help with Glasgowspeak

Fraser Campbell, for his memories and
bon mots

Patrick Killian, master locksmith and Detective, for his skills

The Editor of
The Jaggy Thistle
, for fun

Marie-Caroline Aubert, for her kindness

Susie Dunlop, for taking a chance

Dave Read, for Manning the Web

Jarno Mattila, for the Korskenkorva

Wilma McFarlane, for research

Sam Sinclair, for the Dolmio

Erl and Ann, for accommodating me

Elsie B, specially, for the stones

About the Author

Campbell Armstrong (1944–2013) was an international bestselling author best known for his thriller series featuring British counterterrorism agent Frank Pagan, and his quartet of Glasgow Novels, featuring detective Lou Perlman. Two of these,
White Rage
and
Butcher
, were nominated for France's Prix du Polar. Armstrong's novels
Assassins & Victims
and
The Punctual Rape
won Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Awards.

Born in Glasgow and educated at the University of Sussex, Armstrong worked as a book editor in London and taught creative writing at universities in the United States.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2006 by Campbell Armstrong

Cover design by Angela Goddard

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0714-6

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

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