‘Mrs Scoular,’ I said. ‘Why were you so angry with me at the door?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘I’ve never met you before. I didn’t know of you until today.’
‘But you knew Dan all right.’
‘I never met your husband. I’ve got a vague idea I’ve heard Scott speaking about him.’
‘A vague idea? You bastard. You can sit there and talk about vague ideas.’
‘It’s all I can do, Mrs Scoular. I’ve got no choice.’
‘Scott told you the danger Dan was in. And what did you do about it? You’re even too late for the funeral.’
‘Scott knew about this before your husband died? How?’
‘How do you think? Dan told him. So that he could pass it on to you. His policeman brother. The great protector.’
No wonder she hated me. I had found out more about my brother than I wanted to. I couldn’t believe he would renegue on such a crucial commission. For Scott’s sake, I was hesitant to tell her the truth. But there were enough lies and silence already surrounding this matter and, anyway, filial love was not quite at the full just then.
‘Scott didn’t tell me,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘He didn’t tell me. I don’t know why he didn’t tell me. But he didn’t.’
‘Oh,’ she said, turning a vowel into a brief keening.
She didn’t apologise for maligning me in error. Why should she? That sound from her mouth came from far beyond the shores of etiquette. Where she was, I imagined, was in that place after a dying where you keep coming upon small, related fragments of the fact that give you yet another perspective on its enormity — the shoes that will never again be worn, the favourite cup, the letter addressed to the person whose eyes are closed forever. Scott was yet another one who had let her husband down. The terribleness of Dan Scoular’s death was renewed in that attendant detail. We teach ourselves the worst things by degrees. They are too big to be absorbed at once and so we memorise the pieces as we find them until we can bear to look at last and see our sadness whole. She had stumbled on another fragment in the meaning of her grief that she was trying to put together. She was sitting wondering where it fitted in.
I was lost inside my own wonder. Why does every answer ask another question? I now knew how you could die twice. By representing in my brother’s mind someone who had died before. I knew why Scott had been so angry with Fast Frankie White. I knew a lot more than I had known when I set out from Glasgow — which seemed more than three days ago. But everything I knew resolved itself now into a more puzzling question: why had Scott not told me what Dan Scoular had asked him to tell me?
That drunken moment in my flat came back to me. Scott had sat up on the floor in the early hours of the morning. There was something he had to tell me. It became ‘I am leaving Anna.’ But was that what it had truly been? I recalled the tension in his face before he spoke, the prelude to a most difficult thing to say. Perhaps he had failed to say it. The immediate relaxation on his face after he had threatened to leave Anna reminded me now of the expression people have when a joke successfully defuses extreme tension. He must have been leaving Anna a hundred times. It was a safe diversionary tactic that brought him back to where he had been for so long, allowing him to subside again into sleep. What was it he had almost confronted then? The need to tell me about Dan Scoular?
And if it were, why couldn’t he say it? That was a conundrum I couldn’t see past. There was no reason he couldn’t tell me, that I could think of. Except, it slowly came to me, one reason. The reason was guilt.
I have been long enough wandering through the shadows of other people’s lives — the violence, the betrayals and the hurt — to be aware of the power of guilt. It is often a malignant power, for it is those desirous of the good who feel it most and, when they do, it can intimidate them into conformity with natures smaller than their own. It can make them so ashamed of themselves that they condone the shameful acts of others. Self-contempt leaves you ill-equipped to challenge the immorality of anyone else.
Towards the end, Scott had been expert in self-contempt. Had guilt closed his mouth? But, in my imagination, I could not see any connection between what Scott might have done and the kind of threat Dan Scoular had faced.
‘Mrs Scoular,’ I said. ‘How did Scott know your husband?’
Renewed contemplation of her misery seemed to have gentled her rage against things for the moment. She shook her head.
‘They had met in Graithnock. Playing indoor football. Dan liked him so much. How could your brother let him down like that?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t believe it. You’re sure your husband told him? He didn’t just say that he would?’
‘He told him. I remember the night Dan said that he’d told him. I remember he said, “Should be some kinda deterrent.” You’ve been a name in this house for a while.’
‘I wish I’d known.’
‘I wish you’d known Dan,’ she said. ‘I mean, I don’t kid myself. We had our troubles. And maybe the marriage wouldn’t even have lasted. But nothing would’ve stopped me loving him. In whatever way it turned out it had to be. I couldn’t not, in a way. You don’t see two of him in your life. I disagreed with him a lot. But then I disagree with the rain. It doesn’t stop it raining. He was himself. He went wherever what he believed in took him. If it was over the edge of a cliff, that’s where it was. And it was over the edge of a cliff. Wasn’t it?’
‘I’d like to have met him.’
‘Yes, you would. After it, I resented him so much for it. I still do when I remember to. Leaving the boys and me like this. In some way, I’ll never forgive him. But then I knew I wasn’t marrying an insurance policy. I’ve sometimes thought, “What has he left the boys?” But money’s not the only inheritance. Maybe theirs is not a bad one.’
Talking a kind of epitaph had calmed her, like paying another visit to the grave. I saw briefly how she must have been and how no doubt she would be again when she had won her way out of her present pain. Her attractiveness was beyond cosmetics. It came from the natural grace of a strong presence. She looked at me steadily.
‘How do you know about this if your brother didn’t tell you?’
‘When Scott died,’ I said, ‘I wanted to find out why. I came down to Graithnock to ask around. I heard about what had happened to your husband.’
‘Who told you?’
It occurred to me that Frankie White didn’t want her to know he was in Thornbank. Frankie had enough problems of his own.
‘A couple of people in Graithnock knew about what had happened. They told me.’ I wanted to move her away from Frankie’s hide-out. ‘By the way, there was nothing suspicious about Scott’s death. It was definitely an accident.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe you think Dan’s was, too.’
‘You don’t, obviously.’
‘I don’t believe in the tooth fairy either. You know Matt Mason?’
‘Yes.’
‘He killed Dan. That’s what happened.’
‘Yes, it has to look that way. But to do that, they would have to plan it. How would they know so much about your husband’s movements?’
‘It could’ve been Frankie White. Do you know him?’
‘I know who you mean.’
‘I hate him. I always will. I could believe anything of him.’
‘But he’s been in London, hasn’t he?’
‘So what?’ She shook her head. ‘But I don’t really think it was him. There are some things even he’s not capable of. He’d be too busy saving his own skin. His poor mother. She’s dying, you know. Such a good woman. To have spawned that.’