The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh Page A

I’m sorry I had to show them to you.’
    `Aye, I’m sorry you did as well.’
    `Can I buy you a drink?’
    `No. There’s one coming up soon I’ve had my eye on for a
    while. I’ll stick around and see how it turns out. What are you going to do with these??
    ‘I’m going to try and find out what happened.’
    `It was a long time ago.’
    `I know that, but I’m going to try anyway.’
    `Why do you want to know? Is she something to you??
    ‘I don’t really know,- Dougie. I’ve no idea who she was - just a lassie - but she was somebody and I can’t leave her there.’
    In my mind there was a slam of closing doors and the smell
    of spilt blood.
    `I wish you well, but Rilke??
    ‘Yes?’
    `Make it a while before I see you again.’
    I touched his arm, turned and left him there washing his
    hands. I wondered if his horse would ever come in and if it did what he would blow the money on.

5
    Leslie
     
    One foot in the grave, the other on a banana skin.
    James Pryde, Head of the Clan Macabre
     
    DO u G i E HAD SAID IT was all in the set-up. So now I needed to find someone who knew about these things. I headed back in
    the direction I had come, away from Woodlands and towards
    Park Road. A guy in a donkey jacket waylaid me and asked for money. He looked as if someone had polished him with old
    chip wrappers. Everything shone except his shoes and his
    attitude. I paid my Jakey tax, then slipped into a doorway,
    took out my mobile and dialled.
     
    `Leslie? Rilke.’
     
    `Rilke.’ The soft, harsh voice, a bass Marlene.
    `I wondered if you were in.’
     
    `And now you know. Can I get back to what I was doing or
    is there something on your mind?
     
    `I wondered if I could call round.’
    ‘Terribly formal this weather, aren’t we, Rilke? Why did
    you not just chap the door??
    ‘I’ve got something I want to ask you. Are you alone??
    ‘For the moment.’ Suspicion hung between us on the line. ‘Why?
    `There’s something I want to show you.’
     
    `Rilke, if I’d not given up double entendres as a camp cliche I’d be having a field day. Get yourself over here and tell me what it’s about.’
     
    He hung up before I could say goodbye.
    It took me fifteen minutes to get to Less. There was
    splintering round the lock where the door had been recently
    broken open and mended. I hit three short Morse dots on the
    button above a cryptic L, and on the buzzer’s cue pushed open the heavy close door and made my way to the top landing.
    The door to Les’s apartment was on the snib. I released the
    lock behind me and went through the darkened hallway to the
    living room.
    Heavy velvet drapes were drawn against the gloom of the
    day, creating a premature twilight. I hesitated in the doorway, letting my eyes adjust, taking it all in. A wave had hit the room, tilting it quick, one way then the other. Furniture had pitched forward, books somersaulting from shelves, a cabinet jettisoning drawers, drawers spewing their contents. Everything was just so much rubble, a jumble of CDs, papers,
    clothes, shoes, wigs, objects tumbled together with no respect for tribe or genus. Les himself was sitting on the edge of a displaced couch, dressed in a black pleated skirt and polo-neck jumper, dragging on a roll-up. He had made a start at tidying, righting chairs and the coffee table, but even those looked out of kilter. A painting hung awry above the fireplace, a
     
    wide-grinned Mexican illusion in an outsize gold plastic
    frame. Les’s comment on mortality. Look this way, a laughing skull in a tasselled sombrero, sucking on a cigar, turn your head a little, Les with sombrero and cigar. I leant over and straightened it. Les flesh - no flesh - then flesh again. Behind me the real Les laughed his bandito laugh, a high bray that
    ended in a phlegmy cough.
     
    `Cheers, Rilke, that’s a real improvement.’
     
    Les was never a pretty boy. In his best phase - say,
    seventeen to twenty - he had an elfish charm. He was the evil pixie, the