The Red Road by Denise Mina Read Free Book Online Page B

OK?’
    ‘OK ...’
    ‘I’m not going to ask about your relationship with him. If anyone else asks, you only just met him that night.’
    Julius looked at her, waiting for the questions. None. He looked at her and saw suddenly how long her neck was and a rope of blood around it. He took out his cigarettes and lit one with his gnarled old hands and looked at the second half of the chocolate bar, nodding her to it.
    She picked it up and put the whole thing in her mouth, smiling through shit-smeared teeth. He smiled back and they sat across from each other, he smoking, she chewing hard on the rest of the chocolate. She was going to save him, make everything all right.
    ‘I’m going to make everything all right for you, Rose Wilson,’ he said finally. ‘I’m going to give you a second chance.’
    She threw her head back and looked down her nose at him, wary, angry. ‘What you asking back?’
    ‘I want us to be friends for a long time. I’ll visit you in prison, stay close, take an interest.’
    ‘Right, I’m not fucking you or anyone else, I’m done wi’ that.’
    ‘As a friend.’
    She swallowed her chocolate and considered his offer. ‘OK.’

 
     
     
     
    4
     
     
     
     
    Robert McMillan had hired a castle on the island of Mull because he didn’t want to die at home.
    Sitting alone in his car, heavy rain thrumming on the roof, he looked up, disappointed. Really, it was more of a Gothic mansion. It wasn’t big enough to count as a castle.
    His phone was in the passenger seat. He had turned it off as he left Glasgow. He couldn’t bring himself to listen to the messages from Uncle Dawood. Come home , that’s what the messages would say. Come home, we miss you, we’re worried, your mother is worried.
    Uncle Dawood had phoned six times before Robert left Glasgow. He didn’t know that Robert had looked in the back safe, didn’t know Robert understood what they’d been doing. When the police found Robert dead the messages would still be there. Robert wanted them to go and see Dawood after his body was found.
    The fact of his death ambushed him again, horrifying, absolute. Robert held tight to the steering wheel, fingers stiff, palms prickling with sparks of sweat.
    He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. The funeral had started, they’d be singing at the crematorium. Uncle Dawood would give the eulogy. Charity work. All those trips to Pakistan. Kind man. Sugared lies. Robert wondered if it started with Dawood, was it his idea, but it didn’t matter who it started with. It started. That was all.
    Valiant windscreen wipers were engaged in a futile war with fat raindrops. Wipe and ruin, wipe and ruin. Robert found himself charting the hopeless struggle for order instead of looking beyond it to the view. Narrow focus. He was angry with himself. If he had done this a long time ago, looked closer, paid attention to minutiae, he wouldn’t be here now. His father had only told him about the safe in his delirium, but there must have been other clues. He should have paid attention.
    He turned off the engine and sat for a moment, mouth slack, swollen eyes itching, feeling the heat of the engine seep away. The funeral service might be finished already, he wasn’t sure how long these things took.
    Afterwards they would mill outside and then go back to a hotel or something; his mother wouldn’t want people in her house. They’d drink and talk about what a great man he was, how funny, how charming, how community-minded. No mention of Robert or his absence. Margery would get drunk and the gathering of strangers would pretend it was because she had lost her husband. They’d all know, really, that she had an unhappy history with drink.
    Rose would be ushering the kids down the aisle, Francine walking behind, two steps behind. Sometimes, he felt as if Rose and Francine were the real couple, as if he was working to finance their life together.
    The car was getting cold. His buttocks were damp from sitting in