to those notions. Leopards, spots; mud, sticking; smoke, fire; those are the maxims we heed.
In his teenage years, when too many of his friends had become Christians for the same reason that other friends started smoking — peer pressure — he had been hauled along by some recent converts to a wee meeting. Teenage Christianity seemed to be about little else than hauling yourself from one wee meeting to another, presumably so you wouldn’t have any idle time for sinful things, like smoking. There had been a talk — he’d learned there always was a talk, and a lot of singing, and not much else — on the Will of God. The speaker had impressed Andy Gillespie, for he was that rarity in Christian meeting society: a man of genuine spiritual insight. Most people think of God’s will as a mountain, the speaker said; a big sharp ridge, like the side of the Matterhorn, and if you wander you will fall off and be lost, and it’s a constant struggle to stay on that sharp ridge against the gales and buffetings of the world. But God’s will is not like that at all. God’s will is a valley with many ways through it, and if you wander too wide the steepness of the way will take you back on to easier paths.
The valley and the mountain. Yeah. Andy Gillespie’s trying to live his life like a valley, following the flow down to the sea. Too many others are pushing up the side of the mountain, clinging to the sheer rocks, waiting for the slip and the big fall when the rope won’t hold them.
They think I did it. They think I blew their heads apart like a dropped egg, Muskravhat and Seyoura and Senkajou and little Seyamang and Vrenanka. They think I did that thing with the knife on their bodies. That bitch in the beige coat who didn’t say one word to me as she drove me up here; that thin bastard with the look that says I know who you are, I know what you are, that wee girl with the gym gear under her coat; that big DCI bastard who looks like a Russian president with a vodka problem; even Littlejohn, they’re waiting for that one little slip, and they’ll cut the rope.
They send the bitch in the beige coat for him.
‘Whenever you’re ready, Mr Gillespie.’
Someone has opened the big meat larders and slid them out; he’s glad of that, he doesn’t want to have to hear five sets of chromium runners squeak and clack to a halt.
‘All right?’ the pathologist woman asks. Gillespie nods. She pulls back the first sheet. Gillespie closes his eyes. It’s too close; there’s nowhere he can look away from what has been done. The dead Shian is thrusting its wounds in his face, like Jesus on a crucifix: look at me, look at what they’ve done to me.
‘Can you identify it?’ the woman asks.
The DCI and his DS and Little Miss Reebok Shorts and Littlejohn are smiling to themselves. Gillespie fixes Littlejohn’s eye. He bends to the corpse’s hand, licks the palm.
‘Senkajou Harridi.’
You’re not looking so fucking pleased with yourselves now, are you?
The Work-out Queen’s expression says she might suddenly boke.
He goes to the second trolley, licks the second corpse’s palm.
‘Seyoura Harridi.’
He doesn’t need to identify the third, but he does it anyway.
‘Muskravhat Harridi.’
To the end, then. He goes to the first of the smaller mounds of white sheeting, pulls a spider-thin arm free, presses tongue to palm.
‘Vrenanka Harridi.’
And the last.
‘Seyamang Harridi.’
Little Miss Cycle Shorts is losing her weightwatcher’s dinner in the wash-hand basin by the door.
‘Take him down to the Pass,’ the big boozy DCI says, shaking with fury and outrage. ‘There’s things we want to know from you, chummy.’
There’s a leaking sprinkler in the corridor outside Interview Room number two. Andy Gillespie can clearly hear it through the heavy wooden door. If it doesn’t keep the sound of a drip out, what hope when they start in with the riot batons? ‘Romper Room’, they used to call it. That was the
In his teenage years, when too many of his friends had become Christians for the same reason that other friends started smoking — peer pressure — he had been hauled along by some recent converts to a wee meeting. Teenage Christianity seemed to be about little else than hauling yourself from one wee meeting to another, presumably so you wouldn’t have any idle time for sinful things, like smoking. There had been a talk — he’d learned there always was a talk, and a lot of singing, and not much else — on the Will of God. The speaker had impressed Andy Gillespie, for he was that rarity in Christian meeting society: a man of genuine spiritual insight. Most people think of God’s will as a mountain, the speaker said; a big sharp ridge, like the side of the Matterhorn, and if you wander you will fall off and be lost, and it’s a constant struggle to stay on that sharp ridge against the gales and buffetings of the world. But God’s will is not like that at all. God’s will is a valley with many ways through it, and if you wander too wide the steepness of the way will take you back on to easier paths.
The valley and the mountain. Yeah. Andy Gillespie’s trying to live his life like a valley, following the flow down to the sea. Too many others are pushing up the side of the mountain, clinging to the sheer rocks, waiting for the slip and the big fall when the rope won’t hold them.
They think I did it. They think I blew their heads apart like a dropped egg, Muskravhat and Seyoura and Senkajou and little Seyamang and Vrenanka. They think I did that thing with the knife on their bodies. That bitch in the beige coat who didn’t say one word to me as she drove me up here; that thin bastard with the look that says I know who you are, I know what you are, that wee girl with the gym gear under her coat; that big DCI bastard who looks like a Russian president with a vodka problem; even Littlejohn, they’re waiting for that one little slip, and they’ll cut the rope.
They send the bitch in the beige coat for him.
‘Whenever you’re ready, Mr Gillespie.’
Someone has opened the big meat larders and slid them out; he’s glad of that, he doesn’t want to have to hear five sets of chromium runners squeak and clack to a halt.
‘All right?’ the pathologist woman asks. Gillespie nods. She pulls back the first sheet. Gillespie closes his eyes. It’s too close; there’s nowhere he can look away from what has been done. The dead Shian is thrusting its wounds in his face, like Jesus on a crucifix: look at me, look at what they’ve done to me.
‘Can you identify it?’ the woman asks.
The DCI and his DS and Little Miss Reebok Shorts and Littlejohn are smiling to themselves. Gillespie fixes Littlejohn’s eye. He bends to the corpse’s hand, licks the palm.
‘Senkajou Harridi.’
You’re not looking so fucking pleased with yourselves now, are you?
The Work-out Queen’s expression says she might suddenly boke.
He goes to the second trolley, licks the second corpse’s palm.
‘Seyoura Harridi.’
He doesn’t need to identify the third, but he does it anyway.
‘Muskravhat Harridi.’
To the end, then. He goes to the first of the smaller mounds of white sheeting, pulls a spider-thin arm free, presses tongue to palm.
‘Vrenanka Harridi.’
And the last.
‘Seyamang Harridi.’
Little Miss Cycle Shorts is losing her weightwatcher’s dinner in the wash-hand basin by the door.
‘Take him down to the Pass,’ the big boozy DCI says, shaking with fury and outrage. ‘There’s things we want to know from you, chummy.’
There’s a leaking sprinkler in the corridor outside Interview Room number two. Andy Gillespie can clearly hear it through the heavy wooden door. If it doesn’t keep the sound of a drip out, what hope when they start in with the riot batons? ‘Romper Room’, they used to call it. That was the
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