The Exiled Read Free Page B

thought he had indeed made his move too soon, but the barman brought Frank a double, Alan paid for it, and another beer for himself—and Frank leaned over to speak so that only Alan could hear.
    “I saw the blood,” Frank started, then immediately stopped to take a gulp of the Scotch. Alan knew better than to interrupt with another question just then, and Frank obliged by continuing. “In the shadows it looked black, like the feathers. Everywhere they were, all over the landing. The bird’s body was there on the steps too—what was left of it. It looked like somebody had stuck a firework up its arse and set it off. But that’s not the worst of it.”
    Frank paused, downed his whisky, and looked expectantly at Alan. This was yet another ritual the journalist knew only too well. He motioned the barman over.
    “Another for Frank, here,” he said, and made sure that Frank saw that there were plenty of notes in his wallet as he paid.
    “I shouldn’t be talking like this,” Frank said. “I don’t know you from Adam.”
    Alan leaned forward.
    “I’m with the papers,” he said. “There’s two hundred in it for you. And your name never needs to get mentioned. I just need to know what you saw.”
    He’d gauged the man right. Frank’s eyes never left the wallet.
    “Money first.”
    Alan slipped a wad of notes from the wallet and passed them over, taking care that no one else in the bar noticed. Frank made them disappear just as quickly, then downed the whisky fast, as if afraid it might be taken from him. Only then did he speak again.
    “There were handprints—red hands—all over the place. Too wee to be anything but a kid’s.”
    “And?” Alan asked. “That’s not much of a story for two hundred notes, is it?”
    “There’s not much more to tell,” Frank said. “The mess of feathers was a swan, I think—too big to be a crow anyway—and it was torn to buggery with bits of it lying everywhere.”
    “And the wee lassie?”
    Frank went pale.
    “I never saw any lass,” he said, and turned away, as if to say that the interview was now over.
    “Two hundred gets me more than that, surely?” Alan said quietly. “There’s something else, isn’t there? A dead swan isn’t enough to make you turn to drink like this.”
    Frank called the barman over and ordered two doubles. He paid with one of the notes he got from Alan, and passed one of the glasses over to the journalist.
    “Just one thing then,” he said. “Have a drink with me first, then I’ll tell you. You’re not going to believe me anyway.”
    Alan sipped at the whisky—he couldn’t afford to start in on the hard stuff this early in the day—and waited. The booze was finally starting to take its hold on his companion—Frank’s eyes had lost some of their focus and his speech slurred.
    “It was when I got to the top of the stairs—that’s when I heard her.”
    “The wee lassie?”
    “I’m not sure. It was a wee lassie. I heard her, clear as day, but there was nobody there. I looked and I looked but there was nobody there.”
    The door to the bar opened and Alan knew his interview was over. John and his sergeant stood in the doorway.
    “What did you hear?” Alan asked as the detectives walked over towards them.
    “She kept saying the same thing, over and over,” Frank replied before diving back into his whisky. “Help. I’m lost, Mammy.”

 
     
     
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    Grainger figured that Alan had got more of the story than they would. It hadn’t been a big surprise to see his young brother chasing the story—but it wasn’t something he needed to be happy about. But Alan was his own man—he’d made that plain on their last few meetings. The brothers moved in different social circles in any case. They hadn’t spoken for several months, and even then it had only been to pass the time of day. Grainger knew more about his D.S. than he did about his brother these days, and that was the way Alan seemed to want