Blue Genes

Allen was moving tentatively towards the living room, the one open door off the hallway. I’d drawn the line at cleaning the whole house. ‘Come on through,’ I said, ushering him in and pointing him at the sofa Alexis had just vacated. He sat down, carefully hitching up his trousers at the knees. In the light, the charcoal grey suit looked more like Jasper Conran than Marks and Spencer; ripping off widows was clearly a profitable business.

‘Thanks for agreeing to see me, Mrs Barclay,’ Allen said, concern dripping from his warm voice. He was clean cut and clean shaven, with a disturbing resemblance to John Cusack at his most disarming. ‘Was your husband’s death very sudden?’ he asked, his eyebrows wrinkling in concern.

‘Car accident,’ I said, gulping back a sob. Hard work, acting. Almost convinces you Kevin Costner earns every dollar of the millions he gets for a movie.

‘Tragic,’ he intoned. ‘To lose him in his prime. Tragic.’ Much more of this and I wasn’t going to be acting. I was going to be weeping for real. And not from sorrow.

I made a point of looking at his business card again. ‘I don’t understand, Mr Allen. What is it you’re here about?’

‘My company is in the business of providing high quality memorials for loved ones who pass away. The quality element is especially important for someone like yourself, losing a loved one so young. You’ll want to be certain that whatever you choose to remember him by will more than stand the test of time.’ His solemn smile was close to passing the sincerity test. If I really was a grief-stricken widow, I’d have been half in love with him by now.

‘But the undertaker said he’d get that all sorted out for me,’ I said, going for the sensible-but-confused line.

‘Traditionally, we have relied on funeral directors to refer people on to us, but we’ve found that this doesn’t really lead to a satisfactory conclusion,’ Allen said confidentially. ‘When you’re making the arrangements for a funeral, there are so many different matters to consider. It’s hard under those circumstances to give a memorial the undivided attention it deserves.’

I nodded. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said wearily. ‘It all starts to blur into one after a while.’

‘And that’s exactly why we decided that a radical rethink was needed. A memorial is something that lasts, and it’s important for those of us left behind that it symbolizes the love and respect we have for the person we have lost. We at Greenhalgh and Edwards feel that the crucial issue here is that you make the decision about how to commemorate your dear husband in the peace of your own home, uncluttered by thoughts of the various elements that will make up the funeral.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘It sounds sensible, I suppose.’

‘We think so. Tell me, Mrs Barclay, have you opted for interment or cremation?’

‘Not cremation,’ I said very firmly. ‘A proper burial, that’s what Richard would have wanted.’ But only after he was actually dead, I added mentally.

He snapped open the locks on the slim black briefcase he’d placed next to him on the sofa. ‘An excellent choice, if I may say so, Mrs Barclay. It’s important to have a place where you can mourn properly, a focus for the communication I’m sure you’ll feel between yourself and Mr Barclay for a long time to come. Now, because we’re still in the trial period of this new way of communicating with our customers, we are able to offer our high quality memorials at a significant discount of twenty per cent less than the prices quoted on our behalf by funeral directors. So that means you get much better value for your money; a memorial that previously might have seemed out of your price range suddenly becomes affordable. Because, of course, we all want the very best for our loved ones,’ he added, his voice oozing sympathy.

I bit back the overwhelming desire to rip his testicles off and have them nickel-plated as a memorial to his crass opportunism and nodded weakly. ‘I suppose,’ I said.

‘I wonder if I might take this opportunity to show you our range?’ The briefcase was as open as the expression on his face. How could I refuse?

‘I don’t know…’

‘There’s absolutely no obligation, though obviously it would be in your best interests to go down the road that offers you the best value for money.’ He was on his feet and across the room to sit next to me in one fluid movement, a display file from his briefcase in his hand as if by magic. Sleight of hand like his, he could have been the new David Copperfield if he’d gone straight.

He flipped the book open in front of me. I stared at a modest granite slab, letters stuck on it like Letraset rather than incised in the stone. ‘This is the most basic model we offer,’ he said. ‘But even that is finest Scottish granite, quarried by traditional methods and hand-finished by our own craftsmen.’ He quoted a price that made my daily rate seem like buttons. He placed the file on my lap.

‘Is that with or without the discount?’ I asked.

‘We always quote prices without discount, Mrs Barclay. So you’re looking at a price that is twenty per cent less than that. And if you want to go ahead and you’re prepared to pay a cash deposit plus cheque for the full amount tonight, I am authorized to offer you a further five per cent discount, making a total of one quarter less than the quoted price.’ His hand had moved to cover mine, gently patting it.

That was when the front door crashed open. ‘Careful with that bag, it’s got the hot and sour soup in it,’ I heard a familiar voice shout. I closed my eyes momentarily. Now I knew how Mary Magdalene felt on Easter Sunday.

‘Kate? You in here?’ Richard’s voice beat him into the room by a couple of seconds. He arrived in the doorway clutching a fragrant plastic carrier bag, a smoking spliff in his other hand. He looked around his living room incredulously. ‘What the hell’s going on? What have you done to the place?’

He stepped into the room, followed by a pair of burly neopunks, each with a familiar Chinese takeaway carrier bag. It was the only remotely normal thing about them. Each wore heavy black work boots laced halfway up their calves, ragged black leggings and heavy tartan knee-length kilts. Above the waist, they had black granddad shirts with strategic rips held together by kilt pins and Celtic brooches. Across their chests, each had a diagonal tartan sash of the kind worn on television on Hogmanay by the dancers on those terrible ethnic fantasias the Scottish TV companies broadcast to warm the cockles of their exiles’ hearts and make the rest of us throw up into our champagne. The one on Richard’s left had bright red hair left long and floppy on top. The sides of his head were stubbled. The other had a permed, rainbow striped Mohican. Each was big enough to merit his own postcode. They looked like Rob Roy dressed by Vivienne Westwood. Will Allen goggled at the three of them, aghast.

Richard dropped the bag of Chinese food and his jaw as the transformation to the room really sank in. ‘Jesus, Brannigan, I turn my back for five minutes and you trash the place. And who the hell are you?’ he demanded, glowering at Allen.

Allen reassembled his face into something approaching a smile. ‘I’m Will Allen. From Greenhalgh and Edwards, the monumental masons. About Mr Barclay’s memorial?’

Richard frowned. ‘Mr Barclay’s memorial? You mean, as in gravestone?’

Allen nodded. ‘That’s not the term we prefer to use, but yes, as in gravestone.’

‘Mr Richard Barclay, would that be?’

‘That’s right.’

Richard shook his head in disbelief. He stuck his hand into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a press card with his photograph on it. He thrust it towards Allen. ‘Do I look dead to you?’

Allen was on his feet, his folder pulled out of my grasp. He threw it into the briefcase, grabbed it and shouldered past Richard and the two Celtic warriors. ‘Ah shit,’ I swore, jumping to my feet and pushing through the doorway in Allen’s wake.

‘Come back here, Brannigan, you’ve got some explaining to do,’ I heard Richard yell as I reached the door. Allen was sprinting down the path towards the car-parking area. I didn’t have my car keys on me; the last thing I’d anticipated was a chase. But Allen was my only lead and he was getting away. I had to do something. I ran down the path after him, glad that the only respectable pair of black shoes in my wardrobe had been flat pumps. As he approached a silver Mazda saloon, the lights flashed and I heard the doors unlock. Allen jumped into the car. The engine started first time. Another one of the joys of modern technology that makes life simpler for the bad guys. He reversed in a scream of tyres and engine, threw the car into a three-point turn and swept out of the cul-de-sac where I live. Anyone seeing him burn rubber as he swung on to the main drag would only mark him down as one of the local car thieves being a little indiscreet.

Dispirited, I sighed and walked back to the house. I’d got the number of his car, but I had a funny feeling that wasn’t going to take me a whole lot further forward. These people were too professional for that. At least I had the whole thing on tape, I reminded myself. I stopped in my tracks. Oh no, I didn’t. In the confusion of Alexis’s visit and the fallout from her shock announcement, I’d forgotten to switch on the radio mikes I’d planted in Richard’s living room. The whole operation was a bust.

Not only that, but I was going to have to deal with an irate and very much alive Richard, who was by now standing on his doorstep, arms folded, face scowling. Swallowing a sigh, I walked towards him. If I’d been wearing heels, I’d have been dragging them. ‘I know you think being on the road with a neo-punk band is a fate worse than death, but it doesn’t actually call for a tombstone,’ Richard said sarcastically as I approached.

‘It was work,’ I said wearily.

‘Am I supposed to be grateful for that? There’s a man in my living room—at least, I thought it was my living room, but looking at it, I’m not so sure any more. Maybe I walked into the wrong house by mistake? Anyway, there’s some smooth bastard in my living room, sitting on my settee discussing my gravestone with my so-called girlfriend—’

‘Partner,’ I interjected. ‘Twenty-nine, remember? Not a girl any more.’

He ignored me and steamrollered on. ‘Presumably because I’m supposedly dead. And I’m supposed to be calm and laid back about it because it was work?’ he yelled.

‘Are you going to let me in, or shall I sell tickets?’ I asked calmly, gesturing over my shoulder with my thumb at the rest of the close. I didn’t have to look to know that half a dozen windows would be occupied by now. TV drama’s been so dire lately that the locals have taken up competitive Neighbourhood Watching.

‘Let you in? Why? Are we expecting the undertaker next? Coffin due to be delivered, is it?’ Richard demanded, thrusting his head forward so we were practically nose to nose. I could smell the sweetness of the marijuana on his breath, see the specks of gold in his hazel eyes. Good technique for dealing with anger, focusing on small details of your environment.

I pushed him in the chest. Not hard, just enough to make him back off. ‘I’ll explain inside,’ I said, lips tight against my teeth.

‘Well, big fat hairy deal,’ Richard muttered, turning on his heel and pushing past the two neopunks who were leaning against the wall behind him, desperately trying to pretend they were far too cool to be interested in the war raging around them.

I followed him back into the living room and returned to my seat. Richard sat opposite me, the coffee table between us. He started emptying the contents of the three carrier bags on to the table. ‘You’ll find bowls and chopsticks in the kitchen,’ he said to his giant Gaelic gargoyles. ‘First on the right down the hall. That’s if she hasn’t emptied it as well.’ The redhead left in search of eating implements. ‘This had better be good, Brannigan,’ Richard added threateningly.

‘It smells good,’ I said brightly. ‘Yang Sing, is it?’

‘Never mind the bloody Chinese!’ I waited for the jolt while the world stopped turning. Never mind the bloody Chinese? From the man who thinks it’s not food if it doesn’t have soy sauce in it? ‘What was that creep doing here?’ Richard persisted.

‘Pitching me into a gravestone,’ I said as the redhead returned and dumped bowls, chopsticks and serving spoons in front of us. I grabbed a carton of hot and sour soup and a spoon.

‘I realized that. But why here? And why my gravestone?’ Richard almost howled.

The punk with the Mohican exchanged apprehensive looks with his mate. The redhead nodded. ‘Look,’ the Mohican said. ‘This mebbe isnae a good time for this, Richard, know what ah mean, but?’ The Glasgow accent was so strong you could have built a bridge with it and known it would outlast the civilization that spawned it. Once I’d deciphered his sentiment, I couldn’t help agreeing with him.

‘We could come back another time, by the way,’ the redhead chipped in, accent matching. Like aural bookends.

‘Never mind coming back, you’re here now,’ Richard said. ‘Get stuck in. She loves an audience, don’t you, Brannigan?’ He piled his bowl with fried noodles and beansprouts, added some chunks of aromatic stuffed duck and balanced a couple of prawn wontons on top, then leaned back in his seat to munch. ‘So why am I dead?’

He always does it to me. As soon as there’s the remotest chance of me getting my fair share of a Chinese takeaway, Richard asks the kind of questions that require long and complicated answers. He knows perfectly well that my mother has rendered me incapable of speaking with my mouth full. Some injunctions you can rebel against; others are in the grain. Between mouthfuls of hot and sour soup so powerful it steam-cleaned my sinuses, I filled him in on the scam.

Then, Richard being too busy with his chopsticks to comment, I went on the offensive. ‘And it would all have gone off perfectly if you hadn’t come blundering through the door and blowing my cover sky-high. Two days early, I might point out. You’re supposed to be in Milton Keynes with some band that sounds like it was chosen at random from the Neanderthal’s dictionary of grunts. What was it? Blurt? Grope? Fart?’

‘Prole,’ Richard mumbled through the Singapore vermicelli. He swallowed. ‘But we’re not talking about me coming back early to my own house. We’re talking about this mess,’ he said, waving his chopsticks in the air.

‘It’s cleaner and tidier than it’s ever been,’ I said firmly.

‘Bad news, but,’ the Mohican muttered. ‘Hey, missus, have you thought about getting your chakras balanced? Your energy flow’s well blocked in your third.’

‘Shut up, Lice. Not everybody’s into being enlightened and that,’ the redhead said, giving him a dig in the side that would have left most people with three cracked ribs. Lice only grunted.

‘You still haven’t said why you came home early,’ I pointed out.

‘It was two things really. Though looking at what I’ve come home to, I don’t know why I bothered about one of them,’ Richard said, as if that were some kind of explanation.

‘Do I have to guess? Animal, vegetable or mineral?’

‘I’d got all the material I needed for the pieces I’ve got lined up on Prole, and then I bumped into the lads here. Boys, meet Kate Brannigan, who, in spite of appearances to the contrary, is a private investigator. Kate, meet Dan Druff, front man with Glasgow’s top nouveau punk band, Dan Druff and the Scabby Heided Bairns.’ The redhead nodded gravely and sketched a salute with his chopsticks. ‘And Lice, the band’s drummer.’ Lice looked up from his bowl and nodded. I found a moment to wonder if their guitar players were called Al O’Pecia and Nits.

‘Delighted to make your acquaintance,’ I said. ‘Richard, pleased though I am to be sharing my evening with Dan and Lice, why exactly have you brought them home?’ My subtlety, good manners and discretion had passed their sell-by date. Besides, Dan and Lice didn’t look like the kind who’d notice anyone being offensive until the half-bricks started swinging.

‘My good deed for the year,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘They need a private eye, and I’ve never seen you turn down a case.’

‘A paying case,’ I muttered.

‘We’ll pay you,’ Dan said.

‘Something,’ Lice added ominously.

‘For your trouble,’ Dan added, even more ominously.

‘Why do you need a private eye?’ I asked. It wouldn’t be the first time Richard’s dropped me in it, and this time I was determined that if I agreed, it was going to be an informed decision.

‘Somebody’s trying to see us off,’ Dan said bluntly.

‘You mean…?’ I asked.

‘How plain do you need it?’ Lice demanded. ‘They’re trying to wipe us off the map. Finish us. Render us history. Consign us to our next karmic state.’

There didn’t seem to be two ways of taking Lice’s words. I was hooked, no question.

3

This was definitely a lot more interesting than rehashing the cockup of my gravestone inquiries. There would be plenty of time for me to beat myself up about that later. Dealing with the seriously menaced, even if they were barely comprehensible Glaswegian musicians, has always seemed a better way of passing the time than contemplating my failures. ‘You’ve had death threats?’ I asked.

Lice looked at Dan, shaking his head pityingly. Dan looked at Richard, his eyebrows steepling in a demand for help. ‘Not as such,’ Richard explained. ‘When Lice talks about being wiped out, he means metaphorically.’

‘That’s right,’ Lice confirmed. ‘Poetic licence and that.’ My interest was dropping faster than a gun barrel faced with Clint Eastwood.

‘Somebody’s out to get us professionally is what we’re trying to say,’ Dan butted in. ‘We’re getting stuffed tighter than a red pudding.’

‘What’s a red pudding?’ Richard demanded. I was glad about that; we private eyes never like to display our ignorance.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Lice groaned.

‘What do you expect from a country where the fish and chip shops only sell fish and chips?’ Dan said. ‘It’s like a sausage only it’s red and it’s got oatmeal in it and you deep-fry it, OK? In batter,’ he added for the benefit of us Sassenachs.

I wasn’t about to ask any more. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock of asking for a pizza in a Scottish chip shop. I’d watched in horrified amazement as the fryer expertly folded it in half and dumped it in the deep fat. No, I didn’t eat it. I fed it to the seagulls and watched them plummet into the waves afterwards, their ability to defeat gravity wiped out in one meal. ‘So this metaphorical, poetically licensed professional stitch-up consists of what, exactly?’

‘Essentially, the boys are being sabotaged,’ Richard said.

‘Every time we’re doing a gig around the town, some bastard covers all our posters up,’ Dan said. ‘Somebody’s been phoning the promoters and telling them not to sell any more tickets for our gigs because they’re already sold out. And then we get to a gig and there’s hardly any genuine fans there.’

‘But there’s always a busload of Nazis on super lager that tear the place to bits and close the gig down,’ Lice kicked in bitterly. ‘Now we’ve been barred from half the decent venues in the north and we’re getting tarred with the same brush as they fascist bastards that are wrecking our gigs. The punters are starting to mutter that if these guys follow us around from place to place, it must be because there’s something in our music that appeals to brainless racists.’

‘And actually, the boys’ lyrics are quite the opposite of that.’ Richard with the truly crucial information as usual. ‘Even the most PC of your friends would be hard pressed to take offence.’

‘The only PC friend I’ve got is the one next door with the Pentium processor,’ I snapped. To my surprise, Dan and Lice guffawed.

‘Nice one,’ Dan said. ‘Anyway, last night put the tin lid on it. We were doing this gig in Bedford, and while we were inside watching the usual wrecking crew smashing the place up, some total toerag torched our Transit.’

‘Have you talked to the police about this?’ I said. Silly me. The boys scowled and shook their heads. Richard cast his eyes heavenward and sighed deeply. I tried again. ‘This sounds like a campaign of systematic harassment to me. They’ve got the resources to pursue something like that properly. And they’re free,’ I added.

‘I thought you said she knew her arse from a hole in the ground?’ Lice demanded of Richard. ‘“Have you talked to the police about this,”’ he mimicked cruelly. The last time I felt that mimsy I was nine years old and forced to wear my cousin’s cast-off party frock in lemon nylon with blue roses, complete with crackling petticoat, to my best friend’s birthday party. ‘For fuck’s sake, look at us. If we walked into the local nick, they’d arrest us. If we told them we were being harassed, they’d piss themselves laughing. I don’t think that’s the answer, missus.’

Dan picked up the last salt and pepper rib and stood up. ‘Come on, Lice,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to embarrass the woman. Richard, I know you meant well, but hey, your missus obviously isnae up to it. You know what they’re like, women today. They cannae bring themselves to admit there are things that are way beyond them.’

That did it. Through clenched teeth, I said, ‘I am nobody’s missus and I am more than capable of sorting out any of the assorted scumbags that have doubtless got their own very good reasons for having it in for Dan Druff and the Scabby Heided Bairns. You want this sorting, I’ll sort it. No messing.’

When I saw the smile of complicity that flashed between Richard and Dan, I nearly decked the pair of them with the flying sweep kick I’d been perfecting down the Thai boxing gym. But there’s no point in petulance once you’ve been well and truly had over. ‘I think that little routine makes us quits,’ I told Richard. He grinned. ‘I’m going to need a lot more details.’

Dan sat down again. ‘It all started with the flyposting,’ he said, stretching his long legs out in front of him. I had the feeling it was going to be a long story.

It was just after midnight when Dan and Lice left Richard and me staring across the coffee table at each other. It had taken a while to get the whole story, what with Lice’s digressions into the relationship between rock music and politics, with particular reference to right-wing racists and the oppression of the Scots. The one clear thread in their story that seemed impossible to deny was that someone was definitely out to get them. Any single incident in the Scabby Heided Bairns’s catalogue of disaster could have been explained away, but not the accumulation of cockups that had characterized the last few weeks in the band’s career.

They’d moved down to Manchester, supposedly the alternative music capital of the UK, from their native Glasgow in a bid to climb on to the next rung of the ladder that would lead them to becoming the Bay City Rollers of the nineties. Now, the boys were days away from throwing in the towel and heading north again. Bewildered that they could have made so serious an enemy so quickly, they wanted me to find out who was behind the campaign. Then, I suspected, it would be a matter of summoning their friends and having the Tartan Army march on some poor unsuspecting Manchester villain. I wasn’t entirely sure whose side I was on here.

‘You are going to sort it out for them?’ Richard asked.

I shrugged. ‘If they’ve got the money, I’ve got the time.’

‘This isn’t just about money. You owe me, Brannigan, and these lads are kicking. They deserve a break.’

‘So give them a good write-up in all those magazines you contribute to,’ I told him.

‘They need more than that. They need word of mouth, a following. Without that, they’re not exactly an attractive proposition to a record company.’

‘It would take more fans than Elvis to make Dan Druff and his team attractive to me,’ I muttered. ‘And besides, I don’t owe you. It was you and your merry men who screwed up my job earlier tonight, if you remember.’