Truth Lies Bleeding (13 page)

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Authors: Tony Black

BOOK: Truth Lies Bleeding
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‘Do they have a buffet on this train?’ she said. The words came out cleanly and crisply, as though she had been practising them over to herself for some time.
The question wasn’t expected. The minister flustered, ‘I-I don’t believe so.’ He looked over to his wife. She had opened her bag and removed a small handkerchief. ‘There might be a trolley, you know, with sandwiches and the like.’
Frieda patted at the corner of her nose with the handkerchief, then folded up the small white cotton square, returned it to her leather handbag. The clasp made a loud snap as it shut. ‘They’ll be expensive.’
Everything she said seemed unnatural to him. He hoped to God she wasn’t going to break; he couldn’t stand to see that. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
She returned her gaze to the window. The minister followed the line of her vision. There was rain falling on the green, open fields. In the middle distance, some sheep were huddling under a copse of trees; they looked wet and miserable. The thought wounded him. For days he had been filled with visions of Carly out in the wider world. The image of the animals – huddled against the harsh elements – seemed to signify his worst fears.
They had made mistakes with Carly, he was sure of it. They were only human, with feet of clay – how could they not? But he did not know what they could have done any differently. Carly had always been a headstrong girl, he thought, but she was stable. She worked hard at school and got good examination results. She was a prefect – they didn’t make just anyone a prefect – so the teachers had to see something in her.
The minister smoothed down the sides of his moustache. He repeated the action three, four times and then he felt conscious of his wife watching him. ‘What is it?’
‘You’re making a habit of that.’
He withdrew his hand, smiled. ‘I’m sorry . . . I wasn’t aware of it.’
She didn’t smile back. ‘Don’t be doing that when we get to the police station . . . They’ll think there’s something funny about you.’
For the second time, he was shocked. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Frieda pinched her mouth. She seemed to be wearing more lipstick than usual, or was it a different colour, perhaps? ‘You know what they say about the police – always suspicious.’
The minister shook his head. ‘We have a missing daughter, and they have found a child who . . .’ He stopped himself. He could feel his breath shortening. ‘I’m sorry.’ He leaned out, touched his wife’s hand. ‘I don’t mean to snap at you.’
She brought her other hand over his, patted it softly. ‘No need to apologise.’
They sat in silence for the remainder of the journey. When the train arrived at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, the reality of the situation suddenly gripped the minister. He took the small overnight bag that his wife had packed for them down from the overhead rack and placed the strap over his shoulder. Frieda put on her raincoat and fastened the buttons. He watched her tighten the belt and admired her cinched waist. His wife was a fine woman. She didn’t deserve this. As he took a slow breath he made a silent prayer that God would spare her any misery, that Carly would not be the girl, the poor unfortunate murdered child they had come to see. He knew at once, as he made his wish before God, that if she was not his child, if it was not Carly who had suffered that cruel end, then it must be another mother’s daughter. He was, in effect, wishing misery on someone else and this was surely no way for a minister of the church to think. But he thought it and prayed to God Carly was safe.
On the station concourse the number of bodies, rushing about, running for trains, made him feel uncomfortable. Pitlochry was a quiet town, peaceful. This was the big city. He did not want to be here. The reason for his visit made this obvious, but it was as if the entire population and every building conspired to make him feel unwelcome. Edinburgh had always left the minister cold, all large population centres had, but he knew he would never again be able to feel anything but unease here.
As they passed through the ticket barriers Frieda seemed to slow at his side. She placed an arm on his own. ‘What is it?’ he said, ‘Is everything okay?’
For a moment she seemed to look blankly at him, and then her arm slipped from his and she swooned forwards. The bag on his shoulder swung round, slipped to the ground as he lunged to catch his wife. She had fainted; without warning she had lost consciousness. The minister tried to hold her up, stop her from hitting her head on the cold tiles. She was surprisingly light in his arms, but as the heavy bag threatened to topple them over he realised he couldn’t hold her up.
‘Can somebody help me please?’
A man in a business suit brushed past. Two young women, chatting, turned away.
‘I’m sorry . . . Please could you . . . ?’
More walked on. He was losing his grasp. He could feel the grip he had on Frieda’s coat slipping. His knees started to wobble. ‘Please, somebody?’
From the other end of the station a young man sprinted towards them. He grabbed the minister’s wife and eased her onto the ground. He supported her head with his hand, then spoke: ‘Are you John Donald?’
The minister kneeled down beside the young man who was loosening off his wife’s coat. ‘Yes, I am.’
The young man extended a hand. ‘I’m Detective Constable Stephen McGuire . . .’ He touched Frieda’s brow with the back of his hand. She seemed to be stirring. ‘I think she’s going to be fine – just a wee turn.’
‘She’s never fainted before.’
The DC raised himself on his haunches, said, ‘I’d say she’s entitled in the circumstances.’
‘Indeed, yes.’
McGuire pointed to the car parking area. ‘I have a car waiting . . . But if you’d prefer to go to the hotel, get freshened up first . . .’
The minister looked at his wife. She held out a hand, tried to sit up. ‘Frieda . . . We’ll get you to the hotel, rest up for a bit.’
She pushed the DC away, flagged her husband aside. ‘No. No. We’ll get this over with. Right now.’
The minister took his wife’s hand as they settled into the back of the policeman’s car. Her fingers felt cold; her hand was trembling. He wished there was something he could say, do, but nothing presented itself. There had been hundreds, thousands of family tragedies to deal with over the years. He’d found the right words for all of them; they came naturally, with ease. None had ever been in this situation, though. This was new territory for him. He tried to tell himself that he was not alone, that God was with him – the thought did calm him, but there was still the nagging feeling he carried in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t shake. It was the
what if?
What if the girl was Carly? The minister found himself squeezing his wife’s hand tighter. She reciprocated, turned.
‘Were you praying?’ she said.
He smiled – not a wide smile, a thin crease. ‘No, not really.’
‘Will we pray together?’
He nodded, closed his eyes. They touched heads and prayed in silence. As he began to relay the familiar words to himself, and God, the minister felt his mind wandering. He couldn’t remember this ever having happened before. Even as a very young child he had always been able to concentrate. What was happening to him?
His wife was first to break off, remove her head. ‘There, that’s done.’
He opened his eyes. ‘Thank you.’
‘Do you feel better?’
‘Yes . . .’ It was a lie. ‘Much better.’
The journey through the city was slow – traffic clogged up the old streets and stopped the car every fifty to sixty yards. The minister didn’t remember it ever being this bad. There had been bottlenecks on his previous journeys but there seemed to be double the number of cars now. It was apocalyptic, he thought.
‘So many cars,’ he said.
The young policeman agreed, ‘It’s been like this since they decided to bring back the trams.’
He’d seen something about that on the television; trams seemed a step back to him. ‘Why are they bringing them back?’ he said.
‘Search me.’
The reply struck him as strange. After all, if a policeman in the city didn’t know why the entire place was being dug up, who did? ‘Maybe you should investigate it.’
The young man laughed. ‘And I wonder what we’d find! . . . The trouble with this city is the people at the top do what they like. The rest of us are treated like mushrooms: kept in the dark and covered in muck!’
The minister and his wife smiled. He was grateful for the release. ‘Yes, that sounds familiar.’ He looked out of the window. The lights had changed and a mass of people were bustling from one side of the road to the other. All so busy, he thought. All rushing, going somewhere. He envied them their uninterrupted routine. He pulled his gaze back, returned to the DC: ‘Not sure about this trams plan, y’know. They couldn’t have been so great if they got rid of them the last time round.’
The officer nodded to the rear-view mirror. ‘Good point.’ He seemed to catch sight of something that forced the look on his face to change – the minister followed the line of his vision and knew it was his wife. She had grown pale and wan. ‘First trip to the city for a while?’ She turned to her husband, didn’t seem to have the vocabulary to answer.
‘No, no . . . I get down regularly. We have Assembly meetings here.’ He held firmly to his wife’s hand. ‘Frieda’s here less regularly, isn’t that right, my dear?’
She turned away. Her lip started to tremble. She ferreted for something in her sleeve, removed a handkerchief. She was too slow – the tears had begun before she could get the small white handkerchief to dab at them.
‘Come on now,’ said the minister. ‘We’ll be fine. Everything will be fine; put faith in God.’ He reached an arm around her, gripped. It didn’t seem to be enough. Her head lolled back and her mouth widened. He watched the gape open silently and expected to hear sobs, wails, but nothing came. The hurt was trapped inside her. He turned back to the DC – he was looking away, his expression said he felt to blame.
‘I’m sorry, officer,’ said the minister, ‘it’s all a bit fresh . . . the wound.’
The young man nodded. ‘I understand.’
The minister patted his wife’s back, smiled at her. ‘Come on, now . . . Let’s not get carried away. Sure, we don’t even know who the poor girl is – it mightn’t be Carly.’ He turned to the policeman. ‘Isn’t that so?’
The officer was engaging the gears, the traffic clearing. ‘That’s right. We have no positive identification yet.’
Chapter 17
THE MINISTER KNEW THE GIRL was some poor mother and father’s child but he hoped, more than ever now, it wasn’t theirs. Frieda couldn’t cope; she wasn’t a strong woman. The minister had seen weak people collapse under far lesser tragedies and he knew his wife wasn’t able to carry such a burden with her. They would all suffer, had suffered already, but if that child was Carly, he knew, then there would be more than one death in the family this day. His wife’s demise would be slower, over years maybe, but no less painful.
‘John . . . do you ever think about things?’
‘What do you mean?’ He wiped a tear from her cheek with his fingertip.
‘The way we treated Carly when we . . .’
He knew what she referred to, but they had never spoken about this. They had never questioned the way they had dealt with it. The minister had followed what was in his heart, a good Christian heart; he had never questioned his faith.
‘Frieda, please don’t punish yourself.’
She straightened before him, turned to face the window. She seemed to be about to speak, but held herself in check.
The minister began, ‘Frieda, we did all we could for her . . . We have nothing to reproach ourselves for. Don’t do this, Frieda, please.’
She kept her neck straight and firm and her eyes level with the crowds passing the car window. ‘But I do.’
The remainder of the journey passed in silence. As they reached the Old Town the occupants of the car were jolted on the cobbled streets. The minister knew they were nearing Holyrood Road, where the morgue was situated. On the Royal Mile he glanced at Knox’s home, and a pub called the World’s End. He knew the name but it took him some time to register why. When it returned to him, he recalled the pub featuring in a lengthy murder investigation that had been in the news for some years. The thought chilled him.
‘Not long now,’ said the policeman.
He was trying to be helpful, but the words only added to the minister’s tension. He gripped his wife’s hand again, patted her wrist. The car turned the corner at the box junction on St Mary’s Street; the road ahead was clear. It seemed like they had hardly travelled any distance at all when the vehicle pulled alongside the kerb. The policeman turned off the engine and swivelled on his seat to face them. ‘I’ll go inside, see if they’re ready. You can take a few moments, maybe stretch your legs.’
‘You’re very kind,’ said the minister.
The young man nodded to them, opened his door and headed for the pavement. He looked back when he reached the gate, then pressed the buzzer. He seemed to be very comfortable in his surroundings and the minister wondered about what he had to block out when he went home at night. No one should have to take home things like death and murder. Of course, in the midst of life, there was death. But there was also evil, and that was what occupied his thoughts as he got out of the car and walked round to open the door for his wife.

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