Manuel chokes, coughing blood, wheezing. The circle tightens around the beating. William Watt is out of the circle. He looks up and sees himself in a mirror over Dickov’s desk. A shadow is over his face, it hoods his eyes. He looks dead. He can hear the smack of knuckle on bone, the huff of breath from Manuel, feet shuffling on carpet.
Watt looks like death. If he was dead he would be with Marion, who knew him as no one else ever will. He didn’t know what sort of man Dickov would send. He didn’t know Vivienne was there, she’d said she was going to Deanna’s house. He didn’t know Margaret was there. He isn’t responsible for what happened. He just got in with a bad, bad crowd.
Scout stops suddenly, and says, ‘Oh no!’
He yanks his shoe off. He caught the heel on the side of Dickov’s desk and pulled it loose. He examines it, mutters, ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He has ripped the leather. He’s annoyed about it. He likes these shoes.
Manuel holds his hot face, swallows blood and looks at the broken heel. It is only ripped along the seam, he says, any cobbler could fix that, easy.
‘Really?’ asks Scout.
‘Aye,’ says Manuel. ‘They can stitch along there. Any good cobbler.’
Shifty leans in to look at the damage. ‘’S cobbler. Good’un. Skinny wee joint by Central.’
‘Next to the sweeties place?’ asks Scout.
‘Nah,’ says Shifty, ‘down by the low-levels.’
The beating has reached its natural end. They look to Dickov for direction and he nods. ‘So, that’s enough. No more of this.’ Dickov gives Manuel a linen handkerchief to wipe the blood from his chin. He pats his arm. ‘This is how it has to be.’
Manuel nods.
Scout pats Manuel on the back. ‘No harm done.’ They all look at the damage Scout has done to Manuel’s face. Manuel couldn’t hit back so it feels kind of wrong, as if Scout was taking his black eyes out on Manuel. Scout wants to apologise, redress the balance of power between them, but Manuel is already down. An expression of sympathy would compound his disadvantage, so Scout leans in and whispers, ‘Couldn’t see your way to lend us five bob, could ye, pal?’
Manuel laughs, spluttering blood onto Dickov’s lovely rug. Scout laughs with him. Even Dandy chuckles a bit.
‘Right, that’s enough.’ Dickov claps his hands together and raises a gentlemanly hand towards the door.
Grinning, Scout reaches for the handle. His knuckles are bloody and ripped and swollen but Scout doesn’t seem to have noticed.
Watt and Manuel head out and Dandy follows them. Scout calls ‘Cheerio’ and Manuel grins back through his rapidly swelling lips.
Dandy leads them to the stairs. They stand in the cold and quiet. No one knows what to say. ‘I left my car at the Cot,’ says Watt to no one in particular. Dandy looks down the stairs, feels the cold morning coming and this whole glorious period of his life coming to an end. He had money and power and celebrity but it is over. Dandy knows who is responsible. He goes for Manuel again, grabbing him by the hair, dragging him to the top step. He throws Peter down sideways.
The sound of a bag of meat being rolled down stone steps echoes through the stairwell. The falling stops. Manuel doesn’t groan but Watt knows he isn’t dead because he hears him panting. Then he hears him trying to get up, sliding down the wall, groaning. He’s not dead.
Watt is frozen. He thinks Dandy will come back and get him if he moves. Dandy’s shoulders are slumped. He seems very sad. Then, with the smallest gesture imaginable, Dandy nods Watt out.
William Watt scurries past him, keeping to the far side of the stairs. He jogs down the landing, takes Manuel by the elbow, lifts him to his feet and gets him out onto the street.
Manuel is winded and cannot speak. He tries to pull away but Watt holds his elbow tight with one hand and hails a taxi with the other.
‘Mm fine,’ growls Manuel, his teeth clenched, blood bubbling on his lips. His knee buckles but Watt holds him up.
A taxi draws up and Watt opens the door without letting go of Manuel.
‘I’m taking you home, Peter. It’s the least I can do.’
15
Monday 19 May 1958
THE MEDICAL EXAMINER, PROFESSOR Allison, is in his mid-seventies. He is bald and thin. He doesn’t like the feel of dentures, not even for moments as formal as a High Court appearance. His mouth is clapped in. He looks like a cheerful crescent moon.
Despite his Gothic appearance and the horrific nature of his testimony, he has a twinkle in his eye and a cheery demeanour because he is talking about his work. The courtroom is spellbound, everyone cranes to listen. He smiles a gummy smile up at the balcony of women, wishing that his students would listen as carefully.
Manuel gave detailed confessions to all eight murders but he has pled not guilty in court. This is why the forensic details of each and every death have to be presented to the jury.
M.G. Gillies asks him to tell them about Isabelle Cooke first. Professor Allison tells the court that she was strangled. When her body was finally found her muffler was still tied around her mouth, which would have contributed to her asphyxiation in no small measure, but the real cause of her death was her brassiere. Her brassiere had been ripped off. He proves this by showing the broken clasp and the way the metal hook has been yanked straight. The brassiere was then wrapped firmly around her neck, crossed at the back and pulled tightly thus: he jerks his hands away from each other. It would be a threatening sight but Professor Allison is very old and frail and it doesn’t look scary, just informative.
‘Had Isabelle sustained any other injuries?’
‘She had been beaten on the back and the neck. She had lost both shoes and cut her foot during the episode of running. And she had extensive bruising on her crutch.’
M.G. Gillies hesitates. Professor Allison has said ‘crutch’ instead of ‘crotch’. Gillies doesn’t want to linger on the poor child’s crotch but he worries that it is unclear. He stares at Allison, hoping the professor will correct himself but he doesn’t. Gillies doesn’t know what to do so he just moves on.
‘Were there signs of intercourse on Isabelle’s body?’
‘No. But she had been handled very roughly and her under-garments had been ripped off. Also, when she was buried, she was naked and posed so that she was exposed on the bosom and the “crutch” area.’