One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre Read Free Book Online Page B

the keys back to the hire desk when he clocked that there was already a CD in it, left there by whichever numpty had driven the car last. He ejected it and cast an eye over the track‐
listing. Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Michael Bolton, Simply Red, M People … ‘The Best Insipid Corporate Ballad Album in the World …
Ever
!’ Music for people who don’t really like music. He reassessed: maybe the last customer hadn’t forgotten it; maybe the hire company supplied it with this particular kind of car, having completed a demographic study of who generally tended to drive that model.
    He had pulled away and into traffic before it became apparent that the thing was on a randomiser setting, one of the electronics industry’s more sacrilegious innovations. He knew songwriters who spent countless hours arguing with their fellow musicians and the A&R men over their album’s running order, then tortured themselves once it was too late over whether they got it right – yet here was a machine that could do it for them, and better yet, make it different every time!
    It took a few seconds to suss that the loud, brassy noise he heard each time he leaned over and tried another of the CD player’s buttons was, in fact, other drivers parping their horns as he swerved into their paths along Love Street, and at that point he decided to give up and let Mixmaster MC Sony make the selections. Rejecting suicide only to kill yourself by accident a few days later was the kind of irony that was far funnier if it happened to someone else.
    It was only once he had passed the Theatre of Suffering on his right‐
hand side that he became aware of having driven off in entirely the wrong direction, ignoring the M8 entry ramp at the airport and habitually heading into Paisley. He reached Causeyside St before there was any opportunity to turn back, which was when he saw the road‐
sign for Auchenlea.
    Well, what the fuck, he thought. This was supposed to be about going back, wasn’t it? About remembering where he once was, who he once was. Something like that, anyway. Plus humility, penitence and self‐
flagellation. Plenty of self‐
flagellation. He indicated and pulled into the right‐
hand lane. The randomiser was unimpressed by his sentimental intentions, playing ‘Archives of Pain’ and the Manics’ admonishment that there was a bit more to redemption than merely regretting your own fuck‐
ups. Matt punched the thing with his left hand, walloping a cluster of buttons. The randomiser retaliated with ‘Die in the Summertime’.
    Fucking machine. He gave the thing another belt, which seemed to establish who was boss. It dropped the ’tude and played ‘Faster’, his one‐
time adopted personal anthem, which he realised he hadn’t heard for far too long. Listened to it, yes, but
heard
it – different story. Self‐
disgust. Self‐
obsession. Same difference. He knew that now. Worked it out in time to survive the former.
    Therapy for the latter was starting today.
    St Michael’s RC secondary sat on a promontory overlooking the town of Auchenlea. The choice of site was an indirect consequence of a past mistake in vocational guidance, leading someone who had a pathological hatred of children into town planning, rather than the more traditional field of teaching. Before construction began, it had been the kind of spot that you saw unwary and hypothermic ramblers being rescued from by helicopter on the news. Unsheltered by trees or any natural relief, wild winds pummelled it, blowing in from the north Atlantic and strafing the weans mercilessly with rain, hail and Ayrshire farm smells. It was also a popular spot for lightning strikes, even more so after the school installed a dozen ‘lightning conductors’ about the building. While failing to disprove the adage that lightning never strikes in the same place twice, these devices did demonstrate, however, that it never strikes a lightning conductor. Ever. Not when there’s a wide choice