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Authors: Douglas Lindsay
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themselves.'
Weirdly, I don't dislike this bloke anything like as much as I thought I would. One might not associate a war room with the church – apart from, you know, all those wars that have been fought in the name of Christianity through the centuries – but it's hard to fault him. Most of human interaction is a game; he played it, and they didn't. No wonder they all hate him.
'I spoke to someone from the Old Kirk in the last couple of days who called you a cunt.'
I thought that might get the laugh barking out again, but he just continues to stare contemptuously out over the sea and the islands and the hills.
'You know,' he says eventually, 'Mrs Henderson might have been an appalling irritant to me, and to many of us, but if the Old Kirk had had her as part of their team from the start, things might have turned out differently. Instead, they chose to never use her particular talents. She was always the outsider, always the irritating old woman who wouldn't shut up, who wouldn't accept defeat. I admired her. I won't say I'm not glad she's dead, but I admired her all the same.'
'You think she killed herself?'
'Didn't she?' he says, looking round, surprise in his voice. 'You think she was murdered?'
'I didn't say that,' I lie. Shut up, you dick. Have never lost the tendency to say too much. Some women find it endearing.
He gauges me for a moment and then turns back to his precious view, which I'm starting to believe he thinks he owns.
'So you're not questioning me as part of a murder investigation, then?'
'No,' I say. 'We're just following up on Mrs Henderson, to establish her state of mind before she died.'
'She was ruddy miserable,' he says, 'but I doubt that's so different from how she spent her last eighty-odd years.'
'Why did she stop writing to you?' I ask. 'She was still bugging plenty of other people.'
He looks imperiously over his land and his sea.
'God knows, Sergeant,' he says. 'Maybe she was beginning to see sense.'
*
D riving home I have a brief interlude of road rage. In my head I don't consider it road rage though. It's just rage to me, regular rage, the same kind of thing resulting from impatience that I'm liable to feel in the supermarket or watching TV when there are too many adverts. Road rage has a specificity to it that I don't feel is appropriate.
Nothing more than the usual, stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle. A Peugeot 206 or something. I can see the sprouting of grey hair above the driver's seat headrest. An old woman driving, the kind who I would test every couple of years after the age of seventy, so we could get the licence off them and make the roads safer. Not that my ensuing actions are liable to make any road safer.
Try to control it for a while, then I start to go. Drive up really close behind her. She's doing thirty-four in a sixty zone. No long straights, too many cars coming from the other direction, no chance to overtake. My presence close to her rear end is enough to make her slow down even more. As her speed drops below thirty I have a brief contemplation of pulling her over, producing my ID and telling her I'm an unmarked traffic cop, and booking her for driving liable to cause an accident. The thought is brief indeed.
Instead I lean on the horn, then start jabbing it repeatedly. My head is exploding with instant, uncontrollable fury, the kind of fury that you can unleash from behind a wheel.
'Fucking move!' I'm screaming at her. 'Fuck! Fucking move, you old fucker!'
Punching the horn. Punching the horn so hard it hurts. Spittle flying onto the plastic of the centre of the steering wheel.
We approach a parking place. She slows down even more, then pulls in. I don't turn and stare at her, just gun the accelerator. Ultimately, of course, I'm not in a rush. I've no intention of thrashing the speed limit into non-existence. Within about a hundred yards, I hit a thirty zone, and I slow right down and am now driving more slowly than I was previously. The guy behind
Weirdly, I don't dislike this bloke anything like as much as I thought I would. One might not associate a war room with the church – apart from, you know, all those wars that have been fought in the name of Christianity through the centuries – but it's hard to fault him. Most of human interaction is a game; he played it, and they didn't. No wonder they all hate him.
'I spoke to someone from the Old Kirk in the last couple of days who called you a cunt.'
I thought that might get the laugh barking out again, but he just continues to stare contemptuously out over the sea and the islands and the hills.
'You know,' he says eventually, 'Mrs Henderson might have been an appalling irritant to me, and to many of us, but if the Old Kirk had had her as part of their team from the start, things might have turned out differently. Instead, they chose to never use her particular talents. She was always the outsider, always the irritating old woman who wouldn't shut up, who wouldn't accept defeat. I admired her. I won't say I'm not glad she's dead, but I admired her all the same.'
'You think she killed herself?'
'Didn't she?' he says, looking round, surprise in his voice. 'You think she was murdered?'
'I didn't say that,' I lie. Shut up, you dick. Have never lost the tendency to say too much. Some women find it endearing.
He gauges me for a moment and then turns back to his precious view, which I'm starting to believe he thinks he owns.
'So you're not questioning me as part of a murder investigation, then?'
'No,' I say. 'We're just following up on Mrs Henderson, to establish her state of mind before she died.'
'She was ruddy miserable,' he says, 'but I doubt that's so different from how she spent her last eighty-odd years.'
'Why did she stop writing to you?' I ask. 'She was still bugging plenty of other people.'
He looks imperiously over his land and his sea.
'God knows, Sergeant,' he says. 'Maybe she was beginning to see sense.'
*
D riving home I have a brief interlude of road rage. In my head I don't consider it road rage though. It's just rage to me, regular rage, the same kind of thing resulting from impatience that I'm liable to feel in the supermarket or watching TV when there are too many adverts. Road rage has a specificity to it that I don't feel is appropriate.
Nothing more than the usual, stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle. A Peugeot 206 or something. I can see the sprouting of grey hair above the driver's seat headrest. An old woman driving, the kind who I would test every couple of years after the age of seventy, so we could get the licence off them and make the roads safer. Not that my ensuing actions are liable to make any road safer.
Try to control it for a while, then I start to go. Drive up really close behind her. She's doing thirty-four in a sixty zone. No long straights, too many cars coming from the other direction, no chance to overtake. My presence close to her rear end is enough to make her slow down even more. As her speed drops below thirty I have a brief contemplation of pulling her over, producing my ID and telling her I'm an unmarked traffic cop, and booking her for driving liable to cause an accident. The thought is brief indeed.
Instead I lean on the horn, then start jabbing it repeatedly. My head is exploding with instant, uncontrollable fury, the kind of fury that you can unleash from behind a wheel.
'Fucking move!' I'm screaming at her. 'Fuck! Fucking move, you old fucker!'
Punching the horn. Punching the horn so hard it hurts. Spittle flying onto the plastic of the centre of the steering wheel.
We approach a parking place. She slows down even more, then pulls in. I don't turn and stare at her, just gun the accelerator. Ultimately, of course, I'm not in a rush. I've no intention of thrashing the speed limit into non-existence. Within about a hundred yards, I hit a thirty zone, and I slow right down and am now driving more slowly than I was previously. The guy behind
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