Allie was halfway into her coat when the phone rang again. ‘Angus,’ Danny groaned. ‘Probably wants us in at seven o’clock. Just hang on, see what he wants.’
But it wasn’t the Clarion news editor. It was the last person Danny wanted to hear from. ‘Joseph,’ he said weakly when he heard his brother’s savage tone.
‘Aye, that’s right, little brother.’ He managed to make the word sound like an insult.
Everything Danny could think of saying felt ridiculous. How are things? What have you been up to? Have the police charged you?
‘What? Nothing to say? No cheery greeting for your big brother?’
No point in avoiding the subject. ‘Did you talk to the police?’
‘I did. I spent Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening talking to the police. Oh, and a bit of Monday morning too. That’s a long time to be shut in an interview room with shite coffee and somebody else’s BO. Thanks to you.’
Danny’s shoulders slumped. ‘It wasn’t really thanks to me, though, was it? If you hadn’t got involved in your crooked scheme with your crooked boss, none of that would have happened.’
‘Really? But Danny, I’m innocent here. I got caught up in something I didn’t understand. I was just doing my job. Making a delivery for my boss. It wasn’t my place to question what he was doing.’ Joseph’s voice was silky but there was still a hard edge close to the surface.
‘The polis might have fallen for that, but you and me, we know different. I covered your back for Mum’s sake. But I know you knew exactly what was going on. I saw the money in your desk drawer. I saw—’
‘You were in my desk? In the office? How the hell did you manage that?’ There was genuine shock in his tone.
‘I borrowed your keys when you were at Mass. Not so smart after all, are you?’
‘And you call me the criminal? You broke into my office, to find evidence to send me to jail?’
Now Danny’s blood was up. ‘I did the opposite of trying to send you to jail. It’s me you’ve got to thank for the fact that the polis even entertained the notion that you were a mug, doing what you were told. I kept your name out of the paper. I could have shamed you in front of everybody – the family, your pals, your neighbours, everybody at the church. But I never. That’s how you’re still walking around without any charges.’ He paused as an awful thought occurred to him. ‘They haven’t charged you, right?’
‘I was always better at telling stories than you. It worked for the polis, at least. Shame it didn’t do the same for Paragon.’ Now his voice was a snarl.
‘What do you mean? I know Gregor Menstrie’s out the door, but if you’re not facing any charges—’
‘You’ve destroyed my life, you little shit.’ Even from a few feet away, Allie could hear the venom. ‘Paragon don’t give a monkey’s fuck what you wrote in the paper. They fired me, little brother. They fucking fired me. They said that even if what I said was true – which they did not believe, not a word of it – even if that was true, nobody would ever trust Gregor Menstrie’s puppet. It was me or the clients, and that was no fucking contest. So thank you very much, you horrible little creep. I’ll never get a job like this again because you getting a story on the front page was worth fucking up your entire family.’ Joseph was making no attempt to disguise his fury.
‘No!’ Danny despised himself for the rage and despair he could hear in his own howl. ‘It was never about you, you selfish bastard. Oh, sorry, that’s the forbidden word when it comes to you, isn’t it? No, Joseph, it was never about you. It was about morality and honesty and working people like our parents who pay their taxes and believe that’s the price of belonging in the kind of country we live in. Not the greedy arseholes who think they’re entitled to get one over on the rest of just because they’ve got money.’
‘Listen to yourself, Mr High-and-Mighty. You only cared about this story because you thought Mum and Dad would throw me out on my ear and make you the favourite son.’ His laugh was the mocking yowl of a hyena. ‘You couldn’t have got it more wrong. They’re furious with you. They believe I really am the innocent victim here and they hate you for what you’ve done to me. You’re the outcast, Danny. You’re the Judas Iscariot. So why don’t you take your thirty pieces of silver and do what Judas did. Find a tree and swing from it.’ The crash of the phone descending echoed in the white room forty miles away.
Danny fell back on the sofa, pulses pounding in his ears. He dropped the phone and made no attempt to wipe away the tears trickling down his face. ‘I knew he hated me,’ he said, his voice a broken rasp. ‘I just didn’t know how much.’
Allie crouched down at his side, gripping his hand. ‘You didn’t deserve that. He’s lashing out because he’s been caught out.’
Danny shook his head, his chest tight with a sorrow he’d never felt before. ‘No, it’s more than that. He feels betrayed. And he’s right. Part of me was jumping for joy because I finally got the chance to paint him in his true colours in my mother’s eyes. I’m ashamed of that.’ He drew in a long sharp breath. ‘And I’m going to pay for it.’
‘So it’s all the more important that you carry on doing work you can stand behind. Work like this story,’ Allie said.
‘This story? And what good is this story going to do? We’ve paved the way for a bunch of bampots to completely undermine the campaign for a Scottish parliament, never mind independence.’
Allie stood up. He could see the frustration in her face. ‘They were well on the road to doing just that,’ she said. ‘We didn’t set the ball rolling. Gary Bell was already polishing up his IRA contact to show off to the boys. And Deke Malloch is desperate to prove there’s substance under his swagger. You’re not making these things happen. You didn’t force Joseph to break the law. You didn’t talk those bell-ends into buying explosives from the IRA. Danny, what we’re doing is stopping the bad things from happening.’
‘I understand that. It’s the collateral damage that keeps me awake at night.’ He rubbed the tears from his face in a brusque backward swipe. ‘Away home, Allie. I’ll be fine in the morning. I just need to sit here quietly and get drunk.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. We both need to be sharp in the morning. You won’t be doing either of us any favours if you turn up with a hangover.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ he asked wearily. He didn’t rate her chances of coming up with something that would take his mind off his woes.
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s too late to go to the pictures. What about a board game? Have you got Monopoly?’
‘I didn’t have you down as a capitalist running dog. I do have Travel Scrabble. I bought it to take on holiday last year but nobody wanted to play. They said I had too much of an advantage, what with me working with words.’
Allie snorted. ‘Had they ever read the Clarion? Get the Scrabble out and put the kettle on, Danny. Best of three. Winner buys dinner.’
He pulled a face. ‘Anywhere but the Spaghetti Factory.’