It was a cruel city, this.
And then it turned out, after he’d waited half an hour, that his appointment wasn’t at the dole office at all, but with the DSS, which was another half-hour’s walk. He almost gave up and headed home, but something stopped him. Home: was that what it was? How come these days it felt like a prison, a place where his gaoler wife could nag and grind him down?
So he made for the DSS office, and they told him he was an hour late, and he started explaining but nobody was listening.
‘Take a seat. I’ll see what we can do.’
So he sat down with the wheezing masses, next to an old guy with a blood-curdling cough who spat on the floor when he’d finished. Jerry moved seats. The sun had dried out his jacket, but his shirt beneath was still damp, and he was shivering. Maybe he was coming down with something. Three-quarters of an hour he sat there. Other people came and went. Twice he went up to the desk, where the same woman said they were trying to find him ‘a slot’. Her mouth looked like a slot, thin and disapproving. He sat back down.
Where else was there for him to go? He thought of working in an office like Nic’s, nice and warm and with coffee on tap, watching the short skirts swish past his desk, one of them leaning over the photocopier. Christ, wouldn’t that be heaven? Nic was probably heading off to lunch now, out to some swank place with crisp white tablecloths. Business lunches and business drinks and deals done with a handshake. Anybody could do a job like that. But then not everybody married the boss’s cousin.
Nic had phoned him last night, started given him a roasting for bottling out, running off into the night like that, but making a joke of it in the end. Jerry had caught an inkling of something: Nic was afraid of him. And then it had struck him why: Jerry could tell the cops, spill the beans. Nic had to keep him sweet, that was why he turned the episode into a joke, ended with the words, ‘I forgive you. After all, we go back a long way, eh? The two of us against the world.’
Except that right now, it felt like Jerry was all on his own against the world, stuck here in this smelly hole, no one to help him. He was thinking back: two of us against the world, when had that ever been true? When had they ever been equals, partners? What in God’s name did they see in one another? He thought maybe he had an answer for that now, too. It was a way of cheating time, because when they were together they were the same kids they’d always been. And so the things they did... they really were a game, albeit a deadly serious one.
Someone left their paper behind when they went in for their interview. Christ, and the guy had turned up twenty minutes after Jerry, yet here the bastard was, waltzing into a cubicle ahead of him! Jerry slid over, picked up the tabloid, but didn’t open it. There was that bile in his gut again, that fear of what stories he might find inside: rapes, assaults, not knowing if Nic was responsible. Who knew what Nic was doing behind his back, all the nights they didn’t meet? And all the other stories, too: newly-weds, happy marriages, stormy relationships, sex problems, babies being born to famous mums. Everything bounced back on his own life, and all it did was make him feel worse.
Jayne: clock’s ticking.
Nic: time you grew up.
The minute hand on the clock above the desk moved another notch. Clock-watching: wasn’t that something you did in offices, when you weren’t watching the skirts swish past? Who was to say Nic had it so good? He’d been working for Barry Hutton’s company these past eight years, hadn’t seen much in the way of promotion.
‘Sometimes,’ he’d complained to Jerry, ‘that family thing can backfire on you. Barry daren’t promote me or everyone’ll just say it’s for who I am, not what I do. Do you see?’
And then, when Cat had left him: ‘That bastard Hutton’s just looking to get rid of me. Now Cat’s done a runner, he sees me as an embarrassment. See what she’s done to me, Jerry? The cow’s as good as lost me my job. Her and her bastard cousin!’
Fuming, seething, raging.
And this from a guy who lived in a £200,000 house and had a job and car! Who was it really needed to grow up? Jerry wondered about this more and more.
‘He’ll ditch me, Jer, soon as he gets half a chance.’
‘Jayne says she’s going to ditch me, too.’
But Nic hadn’t wanted to hear about Jayne. His only comment: ‘They’re all as bad as each other, swear to God, pal.’
All as bad as each other.
He stomped back to the desk. What was he? A dummy or what? Wasn’t he married, settled? Didn’t he deserve a bit of respect?
Didn’t he deserve that at the very least, and maybe something more besides?
The woman was there. She’d fetched herself a mug of coffee. Jerry’s throat felt dry; couldn’t stop shivering.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘are you taking the piss or what?’
She had these glasses on, thick black frames. There were lipstick smears on the rim of the mug. Her hair looked dyed, and she was getting on for fat. Middle-aged, going to seed. But at the moment, she was in a position of power, and no way she was letting him interfere with that. She gave a cold smile, blinked so he saw her blue eyeshadow.
‘Mr Lister, if you’ll try to stay calm...’
Necklace hanging around her neck, all mixed in with the creases of loose skin. Big bust on her, too. Jesus, he’d never seen a chest like it.
‘Mr Lister.’ Trying to drag his attention back to her face. But he was transfixed, his hands gripping the edge of the desk. He saw her in the back of the van, saw himself giving her a good punch in that lipsticked mouth, ripping at the blouse, necklace sent flying.
‘Mr Lister!’
She was getting to her feet. He’d been leaning further and further across the desk. And now members of staff were closing in, alerted by her yell.
‘Jesus,’ he said. Couldn’t think of anything else to say; his whole body was shaking, head spinning. He tried to clear his head, wipe the blood from the pictures there. He was eye to eye with her for a second, and he felt she could see what he’d been thinking, every vivid frame of it.
‘Oh, Jesus.’
Two big blokes coming at him; that was all he needed, get arrested. He shoved his way out of there, back into the outside world where the sun was drying the streets and everything looked eerily normal.
‘What’s happening?’ he said. He found he was crying, couldn’t stop himself. Stumbled blearily along the street, holding the wall for support. He just kept walking, breaking into a sweat eventually. It took him the best part of three hours.
He’d walked clean across town.
Grey morning. Rebus waited for the rush hour to pass before setting out.
Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison lay just off the M8 motorway. If you knew what you were looking for, you could see it in the near distance as you drove between Edinburgh and Glasgow. It sat on the edge of the Riddrie housing scheme, unsignposted until you got really close. At visiting time, you could follow the cars and pedestrians. Tattooed men in their fifties, wiry and sunkencheeked, off to visit pals who’d got caught. Stressed mothers, kids in tow. Quiet relatives, not quite sure how things had come to this.
All of them bound for HMP Barlinnie.
The Victorian blocks sat behind high stone walls, but the reception area itself was modern. Workmen were busy on the finishing touches. A member of staff was checking visitors for drug contamination. You swiped the magic glove over them, and it came up positive if they’d recently been in contact with drugs. Positive meant no open visit: you could still go in, but only with a glass wall between you and the prisoner. Bags were being checked, and then placed inside lockers, to be retrieved on the way out. Rebus knew that the visiting area had been revamped, too, with smart new seating arrangements and even a play area for the kids.