9

In Vinegar Close, one of the ragged children, egged on by his companions, their feral white faces alive with unaccustomed glee, pissed copiously upon a red patch on the cobbles. He sent a proud jet of urine high up into the air to spatter down while the girls shrieked encouragement.

The boy, Billy Johnstone, shook his wee tassel in their direction to provoke more shrieks, then tucked it away inside his torn, dirty trousers. They gathered all together and looked down at the rust-red patch. It had not altered one jot. Soaked in deep.

Footsteps. A man ran into the close. His brow was sweaty, a big beefy man, purple-faced and pursy. He had a wild look, knuckle-handed, a clout from one of these big fists might break your jaw. But worth a try.

‘Hey, mister,’ called Billy. ‘D’ye want tae see where she was split? The auld whoory woman?’

The man stopped dead, his face looked like someone had just kicked him in the testicles.

‘It’ll cost ye,’ said the bold Billy. ‘She bled like a pig.’

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Not true. He’d only heard where it happened, not come to see. Only heard. But there was the name, high on the narrow wall. Frank could read, he was a good reader, his mammy had taught him, it put him a class above. He read it now. Vinegar Close.

‘She died where you look, Frank,’ said a voice. ‘Did your guilty conscience bring you down here?’

A shadow had appeared like a bird of ill omen in the entrance of the close. McLevy. The light streamed in behind his shrouded figure.

As Brennan desperately tried to wrench himself away, it was as if his feet were stuck in mud, like a dream where the odds are stacked against you; a feeling not helped when Mulholland stepped past his inspector and clipped Frank a judicious blow with his truncheon, just at the back-hinge of the knee.

The constable had varnished and decorated this instrument himself. It was made of hornbeam and delivered a blow like a hammer. The big man collapsed, howling in pain, to the ground. He sat there, blubbering like a baby, till they hauled him up and pinned him against the wall.

The various crumpled, poverty-stricken inhabitants of the close who had been sitting on the steps, stupefied in the pale sunshine, vanished in an instant. Only Billy and a couple of girls were left. The boy recognised Mulholland.

‘Are ye goin’ tae buy us any more buns, sir?’

The constable tossed over a small coin before the God-forsaken wee devil let the cat out the bag.

‘Now, get to hell out of it,’ he said sharply.

They did. So it was just the two policemen and Frank Brennan in the empty court.

‘You broke my poor leg,’ the big man whined.

McLevy smiled but the wolf’s eyes were without pity.

‘That’s only the beginning, Frank.’

The inspector puffed out his cheeks. He had not enjoyed the pursuit, anything above a brisk walking pace was, in his opinion, indecorous.

As Mulholland put the restrainers on and hauled the man off, McLevy added more salt to the wound.

‘Wait till we get you to the station. Wait till the door closes. Wait till we send out for the bucket and the mop.’

The three men disappeared through the opening of the close and then it was empty. Only the red patch remained, a last little patch of urine steaming faintly beside it in the wan sunlight.

The mist spiralled up then disappeared like a departing spirit.