38

Archie bypassed the car park, each car sitting in its place, orderly, logical, part of the seamless dance of the ants’ nest. He crossed at the lights on the main road, but didn’t take the turning to the research centre. It was too long and too busy. He was tired. He wanted to get back to the cottage, to sit on the hillside above the city and think it all over. He cut across the straggling scrub-land parallel to the city bypass and put his fingers in his ears to shut out the noise of the diggers scraping away the earth for new family homes. ‘Quality Living,’ proclaimed a sign, ‘for Happy Families.’ Ahead of him, the Pentlands stretched in a long line. Nine peaks, three like the pyramids from his honeymoon at Giza. He reached the cottage and lay down, a pharaoh waiting for the starlight to strike his face, waiting for the gods to find him and take him home, to lift him up to hang from Orion’s belt, or pass through its holes into an ether where it was light and everything made sense. He was cold. Through the doorway, he could see the day unfolding in a concertina of snapshots: the traffic building up on the bypass, old couples returning from a shopping trip to fill the day, the school run, the first of the workers to escape their call centres and battery-farm offices. The Forth was battleship-grey and hazy. The clouds flirted with the land and then soared above the sea, pink in the sinking sun. The icy blue of the far distance, which looked flat but was limitless, waved a finger at him in admonition: ‘Don’t stay out, brother, night is coming.’

He didn’t care. If he lay here long enough without water he could die. Dry out the pain that flowed, juicy with regret through his mind, and slip away. ‘No one ever left a life worth living?’ Had David Hume written that? Was his a life worth living? Petal seemed remote, a figure in a story he had stumbled into. The girl in the garden. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. ‘You have one voicemail message,’ it said, in a mechanised female voice, as he pressed it to his ear. It was Bitchin’ Betty; it was the unexpected item in bagging area; it was the cinema help-line that didn’t recognise human speech. ‘Press one to retrieve your message. You were called today at 16.45.’ The voice slowed over the numbers.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ said Brenda’s voice, angry, demanding, real. ‘I have a good mind not to …’ Her voice was cut off.

‘Contact operator services free on 212,’ said Bitchin’ Betty. The low battery symbol flashed.

He dropped the phone into the grass beside him. ‘I love you, Brenda,’ he said. ‘I fucking love you.’

‘Anyone I know?’ asked a voice.

Archie looked up, startled.

‘A friend for the road on the epic journey of a broken man? The hop-a-long kid? Dead man walking?’ Calum Ben was standing there, the man from the bar, the shadow by the bonfire. He was wearing an overcoat over a sharp-cut suit. A pair of binoculars hung round his neck. ‘I enjoyed our sleep-out, and our little shopping trip this morning,’ he said. ‘Most amusing.’

Archie tried to scramble to his feet but stumbled on a tuft of grass. He steadied himself against the wall.

‘It’s polite to knock when you enter someone’s house,’ he said.

‘Forgive me,’ said Calum. ‘Knock, knock.’ He smiled. ‘Not looking too hot,’ he added, ‘after your night in the ice-house. Very touching bromance with that old geezer. Looked like a very animated conversation. Shame you won’t be having another one.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ shouted Archie, but his voice was hoarse. ‘And what the fuck have you done with Petal?’

‘She’s at home, Archie. Where she always was.’

‘You’re a liar,’ he shouted, but his voice was no more than a croak.

‘Pardon,’ said Calum, putting a hand to his ear. ‘I can’t hear you.’

‘If you’ve hurt her, I’ll get you,’ said Archie. ‘I’ll make sure you pay.’

‘I don’t think you’ll find me, Archie,’ said Calum, and suddenly his voice was cut-glass southern English and then Scouse. ‘You can try. That would be fun.’ It was French, then American, and then Spanish, and, as he spoke, it kept changing. ‘You can search the world but you’ll never find me. I’m a peeled man,’ and his bald head gleamed. ‘An independent nation of one.’ Calum rubbed his hands over the stubble that was just beginning to break through the surface.

‘You bastard,’ roared Archie and launched himself at him, but Calum side-stepped and tripped him up. Archie put his hands out as he fell.

‘You’re not as quick as you used to be. Not quite the big man you were. Where’s your power now? You can’t even live with yourself, can you? Is that why you’re here in this ruin, all alone?’ His voice had slowed to the patronising pout of an adult talking to a child. ‘Eeyore in his thistle patch?’

Archie closed his fingers over a rock as he climbed to his feet. ‘Put it down, Archie,’ said Calum. There was a movement over his hand and something protruded from his coat sleeve before sliding out, a dark length of pipe. Calum braced its end against his chest. His finger on the curve of a trigger. Archie saw he had a pipe gun made from an old ball thrower for a dog and a length of steel tubing.

‘Good, eh?’ said Calum. ‘Up-cycling is so à la mode. Home-made and untraceable.’

‘You don’t scare me,’ said Archie.

‘Not as much as you scare you. I’m guessing again, of course. I’m guessing you scare yourself more.’

Archie’s face looked more murderous.

‘Look in the mirror, Archie. We’re the same – you and me. Animal men. We got here by different routes, that’s all; but the answer is really simple. Embrace it. I love that counsellor speak, don’t you?’ His voice was American now, a New York drawl. ‘Embrace your inner animal. Don’t fight it. It’s the new world that can’t accommodate it, not you. And if he gets an outing in a war, let out of his cage and used by the state as a trick circus animal in their game of Realpolitik, then why should you be surprised? Why should any of us be surprised if he doesn’t want to be locked up again? Let’s face it, it’s fun being out. He’s too big for his old world – his office, his living room, the evening bath, his children’s nursery, his bar stool.’

‘There’s more to me than that,’ said Archie. ‘There’s more to me than teeth and sinew and hate.’

‘I have to say, I’m not seeing it just now,’ laughed Calum, and his voice was holy, self-righteous. ‘I mean, have you seen your eyes recently, Archie? They’re not a pretty sight; not for the faint-hearted.’

‘You don’t know me,’ said Archie.

‘I don’t need to,’ said Calum. ‘I can read it all plain as day in your face. It’s there for everyone to see, but believe me, it’s not a story they want to read. There are some chapters of human history no one wants to read. They don’t want to be reminded of it by the illustration of your face. It’s not a pretty picture. You’re the page everyone wants to turn over.’

Archie slumped back against the wall. Calum stepped closer, his gun pointing straight at him. Archie knew he could bat it out of the way, get in under his guard, and live, but there was something hypnotic about the depth, the dark depth of Calum’s eyes. Death looked like a restful place, a soft, velvet vortex in which he could float. Death was a friend to the friendless, a final refuge. He could lodge with the innkeeper of silence. There were no noisy neighbours, no voices shouting in the night.

‘You can’t cheat Death, Archie. It’s coming. You can deal it, but can you take it?’

Archie closed his eyes, felt the small circle of the end of the gun rest on his forehead. He was peaceful. Here was the full stop, the solution to the puzzle – the end point and the beginning – peace.

‘Shoot,’ he said.

The pressure eased off his head. He opened his eyes. Calum was walking away. He paused in the doorway and turned back to face Archie. ‘Death is the soft option for you, Archie,’ he said. ‘You’ll have more fun here.’ He laughed. ‘You’ve got one huge fucking puzzle to solve. I’m leaving you in the labyrinth with your monster. He’s hungry, Archie.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ shouted Archie.

Calum turned. ‘I’m a game master,’ he said, ‘and the game’s over. Perhaps you could tell Petal I’ll dispose of her phone. Your number’s on it, in case you’re wondering. Good of you to call. You’re on her new tracker app. Top of the list. I call it locate a loser.’