Ripped (85 page)

'No
connection
with
John
Merchant?'
Murray
wondered
.

Stewart
stared.
'Why
should
there
be?
Just
a
wee
clerk.
He
wasn't
anybody.
They
wouldn't
have
known
who
he
was
yet
if
the
daughter
hadn't
reported
him
missing.
She'd
come
all
the
way
over
from
America
because
she'd
written
to
him
and
hadn't
got
an
answer.'
He
burped
again.
'She
was
in
a
hell
of
a
state
apparently.
She
seems
to
have
been
fond
of
him.'

He
came
out
of
a
side
door
into
what
must
have
been
a children's
playground
once,
and
walked
along
by
the
line
of
trash
silted
against
the
wall.
Until
he
got
a
view
from
the
corner,
he
was
puzzled
by
a
thin,
plaintive
persistence
of
women's
voices.

There
were
six
of
them,
gathered
in
a
line
on
the
edge
of
the
pavement.
One
was
fat
and
four
were
thin;
and
five
were
young,
in
their
early
twenties
perhaps,
though
Murray
found
school
kids
fooled
him
now.
The
last
one
had
hair
almost
entirely
grey
with
only
traces
of
its
original
red.
She
had
a
lot
of
hair
and
when
it
was
all
red
men
must
have
turned
to
look
after
her
in
the
street.

As
he
crossed
the
playground
,
the
women
started
to
clap
their hands
keeping
time
to
his
steps.
It
was
a
kids'
trick,
but
an
effective
one.
On
the
far
side
of
the
road,
the
usual
idle
group
of the
curious
were
watching.
Making
a
fool
of
him
seemed
to
be
the
game
in
favour
that
day.

When
he
came
through
the
gate
and
stopped,
the
clapping tailed
away.
Close
up,
the
younger
ones
didn't
look
all
that
young.
The
one
facing
him
had
a
T-shirt
with
the
legend:
My
Name's
Rita
not
Jill.
She
had
dyed
blonde,
very
soft
hair
that
fluffed
up
like
a
halo
round
her
head.
There
were
placards
too;
homelettered;
the
older
woman
held
the
biggest: Women's
Collective
Protest
–
and
a
lot
of
words
underneath
too
crowded
to
read
easily.

They
stared
at
him
uncertainly.
None
of
the
men
going
in
and
out
would
have
stopped.
It
was
natural,
though,
as
Eddy
Stewart
had
pointed
out,
for
him
to
be
mistaken
for
a
policeman.
He
looked
the
part.

'Does
it
matter
more
because
it's
men
who
are
being
killed?'
the
older
woman
cried
at
him.
Her
face
was
very
passionate
and
earnest
with
sincerity.
'Would
you
care
if
it
was
one
of
these
girls
instead
of
some
man?'

The
smart
thing
would
have
been
to
move
away
then.

'If
anyone's
degraded,
it's
not
the
women,
it's
the
men,'
she
cried.

'You're
talking
rubbish,'
he
argued.
With
McKellar,
he
had
been
smart
and
kept
quiet.
'It
doesn't
matter
whether
it's
men
or
women.
It
makes
no
difference.'

In
their
excitement
–
and
it
must
have
been
boring
standing there
for
so
long
without
a
response
–
they
crowded
him,
although
the
older
woman
shrilled,
'Don't
block
the
pavement.
We're
not
blocking
the
pavement.
Don't
cause
an
obstruction,
girls.'

The
blonde
Rita
shouted,
'A
woman's
got
a
right
to
self
-
defence.'

From
the
babble,
another
one
screeched,
'You're
a
fucking
liar.
All
of
you
fucking
liars.
Who
says
a
woman
did
it?
You're
protecting
some
fucking
man!'
She
looked
the
youngest
of
them,
a
raw-boned
girl
with
a
big
nose
the
cold
wind
had
reddened.

Self
defence. Liar.

'You
want
to
make
up
your
minds,'
Murray
said
helplessly.
They
all
wanted
to
make
a
point,
and
made
them
together.

Three
times
in
the
uproar
he
heard
the
word
'degraded'.

Degraded
... degraded...

And
then
he
too
was
shouting
and
the
bull
roar
of
him
knocked
their
mouths
shut.
'Cut
. Don't
you
understand
he
was
cut
?
And –'

But
to
his
horror
he
might
have
wept.

Cut
–
a
farmer's
word.
The
old
derelict
found
in
the
backland
had
been
cut,
jibbed
like
a
horse;
worse,
not
gelded,
but
amputated.
The
bloody
remnant
poured
into
McKellar's
tray,
a
toy
for
Forensic.

In
the
silence
a
voice
said,
'You
don't
understand
the
courage of
prostitutes.
The
risks
they
run
every
day.'