Whisky from Small Glasses Read online

  There was noise now. It was like listening to a voice from underwater – another memory from childhood – the swimming pool at school. The screams and shouts of her friends becoming quiet and distorted by the rush and gurgle of the water in her ears. Yes, that was what it was like now, though she was pretty certain she wasn’t under water. Something sparked in her mind. Water? Try as she might, the thought would not form.

  Then, something else. A change of sound and, out of the corner of her eye, movement: legs, booted feet. A dull prompting. Thoughts through cotton wool. The bed moving. A thud. More mumbles.

  She’d had a life-sized doll’s head when she was young. A blank canvas on which make-up could be applied, or the hair could be styled. Training, designed to turn fresh-faced little girls into painted, groomed women. That head was looking at her now, though the eyes stared and the tongue lolled from the mouth. She could feel something dripping on her legs. Red rivulets ran down towards her feet, like drops of rain on a window. The head swung from straggly hair held by a black-gloved hand.

  She could feel the blood on her legs. She could see the syringe sticking out of her arm, held there by the needle thrust deep into her flesh. She felt gloved hands under her armpits. The scene changed before her eyes, as she was half-dragged, half-lifted from the bed. She tried to focus on the mass of flesh, bone and blood on the bed, but she was pulled away too quickly. She felt her thigh catch on something sharp as she progressed across the floor.

  More pain. Her face connected with a hard surface. A dull crack filled her head, as waves of agony consumed her. More mumbling. Something sharp in her behind. A tightness in her chest: this was fear. She was frightened all of a sudden. Abruptly, a rush of noise made her flinch. The cotton wool-filled world had gone. The voice – that horrible voice – so clear now.

  She was in a kneeling position, pain from her knees as well as her face. Then a flash of pain she could see as well as feel. Red agony: then blackness.

  The bar was a one-room affair. Two old men sat at the long counter, drinking whisky from small glasses. The proprietor – she knew because he had told her – was a looming presence behind the bar, a portly man with a red face and a welcoming smile. She sat at a window seat, looking out over the loch and the road which led from the centre of the town to the Island Bar: ‘O’er there,’ as her taxi driver had put it. Three fishing boats bobbed in the harbour, while a long low vessel was being loaded with what looked like logs from an orange crane on the faraway pier, the colour of it almost matching the luminous orange of the top half of the lifeboat moored nearby.

  Mark had wanted to come too, but she wanted to speak to her husband by herself. She needed to tell him how miserable she was, how much she hated living where she did, how long her days were, how undervalued she felt, how frustrating she found sharing a marriage with a man devoted to a career that could see him drop everything at a moment’s notice to go and stare at another mutilated corpse, or try to drag the truth from a low-life scumbag who didn’t deserve to draw breath.

  She reflected on what loneliness had done to her. Like almost everyone she knew, she had entered married life a starry-eyed optimist: the cottage in the country; the long walks; making love on stormy nights beside a blazing fire. Being possessed by someone so completely that to identify where she ended and they began was an impossible, if hackneyed, spiritual quandary.

  The ‘cottage in the country’ was a dreary detached villa on an equally dreary private estate, in the ‘village of the damned’ where dozens of identikit women lived identical lives, dressing the same, speaking the same, driving the same cars, and possessing the same ambitions: a good school for Jake, or Jed, or Perdita, or whatever other ridiculous name was currently in vogue; two weeks on a beach in the summer; a weekend in Paris or Prague in the spring; and a skiing trip after Christmas. A new 4x4 every few years, and maybe even a move to a slightly bigger house, on a better estate, in a ‘nicer’ area where the ambitions were essentially the same though more elevated: a public school for the kids; a more exotic holiday destination; a Porsche Cayenne, rather than a Volkswagen Touareg.

  In short, people who would be born, grow up and die with nothing to show for any part of their lives, apart from a reasonably good credit rating and an inheritance for their offspring to fight over – offspring who would themselves embark upon an identikit middle-class existence, while believing themselves to be at the cutting edge of cultured society.

  ‘Would you like another drink? We’re in a wee round up here having a wee soirée – I’m on the bell. You’re looking pretty lonely over there.’ The proprietor smiled effusively as one of the two men turned round from his perch on a bar stool, better to survey her.

  ‘Jeest you stay where ye are, lassie. It’s no’ a soirée he’s thinkin’ aboot wi’ you. Is that no’ right, Big George?’ The old man had the bronchial cackle of the confirmed smoker.

  It was clear, though, that Big George was not enamoured with his customer’s opinions. His face darkened and he glared at the old man. ‘Yesss’ – the word was an elongated preamble – ‘I thought when you lost your job and your wife left you, Dennis, you’d have learned to shut up. Obviously not. Don’t worry about him, darling. I like all my customers to be happy. C’mon up, we’ll make an evening of it.’

  At that, the old man tried to manoeuvre himself around to face her again, however, drink or old age got the better of him, and, after a cartoonish flailing of arms and a desperate grabbing of the bar, he fell backwards on his stool, his head narrowly missing the table where she was sitting.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling.’ Big George seemed unconcerned. ‘If I had a pound for every time I’ve seen him do that, I’d be able to close up for good, and not have to talk to a barful of drunks every day. Is that not right, Dennis?’ He moved as close to the bar as his girth would allow and peered down at his felled customer, who was, by this time, doing his best to get back to his feet amid a torrent of bad language and abortive attempts at balance. ‘Hurry up, it’s your round.’

  ‘Aye, but you said it wiz your round’, big man.’ Customer number two looked confused.

  ‘Yes, that’s before he fell over and I realised what a fuckin’ awful life I’ve got.’ Big George smiled at Liz and turned to the gantry, holding a small glass up to a large whisky bottle. ‘You’ll be for another dram, Dennis.’ That was in the form of a statement.

  Dennis, now back on his feet, muttered in the affirmative and fumbled in his pockets for money to buy the round.

  Liz wondered idly just how many rounds Big George actually bought his drink-addled customers. Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall, dark-haired, slightly overweight man wearing a suit, striding purposefully across the esplanade. Her husband, Jim Daley, was on his way. The flutter in her chest was involuntary.

  Daley entered the bar and stood for a moment, his eyes adjusting to the gloomy light. Turning to his left, he spotted Liz sitting at a table near the window. He held his hand to his mouth in a drinking gesture, to which she replied with a nod, pointing at her wine glass.

  ‘Pint of heavy and a dry white wine, please.’ Daley was aware that two elderly customers were appraising him from their perches at the bar.

  The bartender reached under the counter for a glass, then made his way to the appropriate beer tap. ‘Don’t tell me you’re the lucky man who has the pleasure of that young lady’s company?’

  The question was impertinent, but glancing at Liz he could see she was smiling, so he assumed she had been made welcome in this odd little bar. ‘Yes. I hope you’ve been keeping my better half entertained.’

  ‘Yes.’ The barman spoke as though Daley had just managed to get a particularly difficult question right. ‘Unfortunately, as you can see, I don’t get the chance to look at many pretty customers in this establishment.’ He looked wearily at the two old men at the bar. ‘More like the chamber of horrors in this place, with a bit of tapping thrown in, of course. Oh, and hugely stimulating conversation, as I�
��m sure you can imagine.’

  Daley paid for the drinks, telling the barman to put the change into the charity jar, which sat on the bar.

  ‘Thank you, sir, an absolute gent. I’m George, by the way.’ He extended a meaty paw over the bar for Daley to shake.

  ‘Jim, Jim Daley. I take it my wife has introduced herself?’ He looked back over at Liz.

  ‘Liz,’ she shouted with a smile.

  Daley took the drinks over to the table and sat down facing his wife. She was as stylish as usual, wearing a tight-fitting, short-sleeved blouse, and a pencil skirt made of faded denim that looked old but was probably brand new and had cost a fortune. The laces from a pair of Roman sandals snaked up her tanned calves.

  She observed him with her smoky-blue eyes. His dark hair was not as short as usual, while his top shirt button was undone, as was his habit. He looked tired, and she felt a sudden pang of sympathy – a desire to mother him. She leaned over and touched his hand, looking up at him under her arched eyebrows. ‘You look as though you’ve been up all night, darling.’ She stroked his hand absently.

  ‘I have, well, just about. I managed a couple of hours’ sleep last night. You, of course, look as stunning as ever.’ He didn’t know how she did it; even just stroking his hand made his pulse race. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late. Did you get my text? It’s been one hell of a day.’

  ‘Darling, you work too hard. I’ve been telling you that forever. The lodge is lovely, by the way. You must come up and have a gander.’

  He sat back in his seat, removing his hand from the table and from her caress.

  ‘Aw,’ she said, her bottom lip thrust out in an affected pout, ‘are you missing me?’

  ‘You might as well know I’m not all that chuffed you’re staying with Mark and not me. We might be away from home, but there’s plenty of the usual suspects here on this investigation, know what I mean?’ He looked straight at her, clearly irritated.

  ‘Oh, I might’ve known that would be a problem. I simply thought that you and the boys would be in the hotel in the town, and you wouldn’t want me there getting in the way. After all, you are working, and this is just a jolly for me.’

  Daley had now crossed his arms, and he took a few moments to answer her, during which time he looked out of the window at the loch and the hills behind. ‘You know I can’t stand Mark, Liz. You must’ve realised I wouldn’t be happy, you choosing to stay in the lap of luxury with him, while I’m kicking my heels in the local fleapit. Anyway, why can’t he bring his own wife? How does she feel about you pair jetting about all over the place? Not great, I’ll bet.’ He grabbed the pint glass angrily and quaffed a few mouthfuls.

  ‘Oh, we are in bad trim.’ Liz was now leaning back in her seat against the wood-panelled wall, her smile replaced with a been-here-before frown of bored resignation.

  ‘Liz, I can’t stand that cu—’ – he remembered where he was in time – ‘your brother-in-law, and he hates me, so why jolly all the way down here with him, when you know I’m up to my neck in a serious investigation? Sometimes I feel you’re just trying to rub my nose in it – after all that’s happened and everything.’ He looked pointedly at the floor, his head slightly shaking, as though he was reliving one of her infidelities in high definition.

  ‘Because the chance turned up. Because I needed a break. Because Mark’s a good laugh. For all sorts of reasons. You and I need to talk, really.’ She leaned over and grabbed his hand, this time holding it tightly.

  ‘If you’ve chosen right here, right now for my Dear John moment, don’t bother.’ His face was starting to burn. ‘I wondered why you were so anxious to talk to me. I mean, you usually can’t be bothered spending more than ten minutes in my presence, and that’s in our own house.’

  ‘Me? Me not bother about you?’ Her face was a picture of indignation. ‘I’m there for you all the time, but you’re too busy staring at corpses, or trying to bring about the downfall of some old lag, or whatever it is you call them.’

  He looked away again, this time at a painting on the wall: a clichéd Scottish landscape, complete with baying stag. ‘Let’s keep this civil.’ He had lowered his voice, a hunch telling him that the other occupants of the pub were all ears. ‘I might have time for dinner or something later, but this is neither the time nor the place for one of our arguments. This town is the mother of all gossip holes, and I’m trying to lead a murder investigation, so I’m quite high profile just now.’ He looked at her pleadingly, willing her to understand.

  ‘When are you not heading up some investigation?’ Liz had no intention of keeping her voice down. ‘I remember my poor mother warning me what it would be like being married to a policeman.’

  ‘Oh please, not your mother again.’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Why not? She was right: shit job, shit pay, shit life.’ Liz recrossed her legs, folded her arms, and looked resentfully out of the window.

  They didn’t speak for a few minutes, avoiding each other’s furtive glances and eavesdropping on a conversation at the bar about some local who had managed to get his manhood stuck in his zip and was only freed by an emergency flight to a Glasgow hospital – something George found hilarious.

  ‘I’ve been promoted by the way.’ His voice was almost a whisper.

  ‘What?’

  He had her full attention now, even though her face was still a mask of anger. ‘Promoted. I’m a chief inspector now. I only found out this morning.’

  She looked at him for what felt like a long time. She knew how much he wanted career advancement, and she felt guilty that it was because of her that he had appeared unlikely to get it. ‘That’s wonderful, darling.’ Her voice was even now, but she still looked troubled.

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased. It’s what you’ve always wanted. Remember Gabby at the tennis club, or Rachel at badminton? Well, now you can tell them your husband’s a chief inspector.’ He lifted his glass and glugged thirstily. ‘Do you want another?’ He took her nod as an affirmative and went up to the bar.

  Liz looked at her husband. Those were new trousers, but dreadful, the backside was hanging down towards the back of his knees. She wished he wouldn’t shop without her. Somehow though, it was hard to change his level of sartorial elegance; clothes that looked fine in the shop, or online, or on somebody else, immediately developed that lived-in look as soon as he put them on. But he did have something – Jim Daley, her husband. He exuded a raw sexiness that was beyond people like Mark, despite all his success, money and style. He was more, she supposed, like mankind was intended to be, as opposed to the well-groomed, fragrant, slightly effeminate creatures that now inhabited popular culture and the fantasies of women. She smiled at him as he sat down, watching as he put both drinks down then pushed her wine glass across the table. ‘I am pleased for you, really. I’m worried what it means for us though, you know? I hardly see you as it is. Will this promotion make things worse?’

  Daley looked distracted. ‘He’s one cheeky bastard.’ He lifted his eyes and inclined his head to indicate that he was referring to George behind the bar. ‘He’s asking if you and I can keep it down to a dull roar, says it’s affecting his sensitive customers.’

  She managed a gulp of her wine before bursting into laughter. ‘Darling, you’re a natural comedian, do you know that?’

  He began to smile too. Her laugh was so infectious; it was one of the first things he had noticed about her. Her eyes crinkled into mirth, transforming her cool languid gaze into a cheeky sexy grin. She had a dirty laugh too, at odds with her refined façade. As always, he felt the familiar tingle of desire when in her company. He laughed.

  Later, they stood outside the bar admiring the loch and the hills beyond, watching their myriad shades reflected in the gently rippling water. Liz breathed in the scented evening air. ‘It’s so mild. I was quite cold at home, but it’s as though summer’s come early here.’ She looked over at Daley.

  ‘It’s because of the Atlantic drift. It comes off the
Gulf Stream and warms up the coast. I don’t think you’ll see many palm trees growing naturally anywhere else in Scotland, eh?’ He pointed along the esplanade at three of the exotic trees, as their long green leaves ruffled in the gentle sea breeze.

  ‘Hark at the old sea dog.’ She took his arm. ‘Shall we meet up later for a meal? How about eight at this County Hotel?’

  ‘Better make it half eight. I’ll phone and book in case they shut up shop. I probably won’t make it until then. What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Oh, probably just go for a stroll. I can get a taxi back to the lodge any time I want. Mark’s opened an account with the taxi company . . . Sorry.’ She noted her husband’s face darkening considerably at the mention of her brother-in-law’s name.

  ‘Do you still love me, Liz?’ The question came from nowhere.

  She said nothing for a while, looking out over the harbour. ‘Of course I do. It’s just, well, it’s just that we can’t go on living this way. I never see you. I’m lonely, Jim, really bloody lonely.’

  He stroked her hair and leaned forward, finding her lips with his.

  ‘Wow, it must be the sea air,’ she panted as they quit their embrace. ‘I must come here more often.’

  Behind them, the door to the bar swung open. ‘Here’ – it was George – ‘you’ll be frightening custom away with all that. Folk’ll think we’re a knocking shop.’ He beamed at the Daleys. ‘Hope I’ll see you both again.’

  ‘After the effect your little town’s had on my husband, you’ll have to fight me off.’ Liz laughed.