Everything was dripping wet underneath the trees. Soon the sleeping bag was sodden. It grew heavy and Mungo was tired, so he laid it over a fallen tree and shivered in his shorts and cagoule. The way Gallowgate was creeping through the undergrowth unnerved him. It was like he didn’t want to wake the spirits that slept there. He tried not to picture St Christopher waking from his place below the birch tree, pointing a bony finger in his direction, the right side of his sallow skull caved in.
In the distance, on the far side of the river, a roe buck browsed a low clump of goosegrass. It stopped Mungo in his tracks. He held his breath as the deer raised its head and looked in their direction. Its eyes were as dark and wet as two peeled plums. The deer flicked its ears, scanning the forest for any unfamiliar sounds. On its head was a small set of underdeveloped antlers, and it made Mungo wonder where the deer’s mother was. Gallowgate crept nearly to the riverbank before the young buck startled and disappeared with a flick of its tail. As suddenly as it had appeared it was gone again. Gallowgate was beaming with delight. “Now, ye have to tell Maureen about that. Ah get a bonus point for that, don’t ah?”
The river was higher than it had been yesterday, and it looked more violent than Mungo had remembered it. Gallowgate was scanning the riverbank for a sign of his crony but Mungo’s eyes were fixed on the rushing water. He stood near the point where he had bludgeoned St Christopher, and imagined he saw a glint of silver sovereign lying on the riverbed.
“Over here,” said Gallowgate as he bent by the riverbank. He had the tweed bunnet in his hand. It had washed on to a boulder and the wet wool had stuck it there. It was a drab, dull grey and Mungo had missed it in his panic. Gallowgate was turning it in his hands, he held the sweated label out to Mungo. Christopher Milligan. The man was no saint. Mungo was sure he would remember that name forever.
“Fuuuuuuuuccck.” It leaked out of Gallowgate in a long groan. “We need to keep lookin’ for him. If the daft bastard’s fallen in, they’re gonnae think ah killed him. Ah’ll end up back in Barlinnie for sure.” For the first time that weekend there was a look of real fear in his eyes.
Gallowgate walked further downriver. Mungo could see the birch tree at the bend but there was no sign of the man’s body. He had hidden it well. He tried to reassure himself of what a quiet place this was. Of how the only footprints had been theirs and how the ram’s skull had lain undisturbed for years, decades perhaps. They would never find St Christopher. No one ever would. It was as good a grave as the man deserved.
Gallowgate wasn’t moving carefully anymore. He was wildly scanning the riverbank and slipping on mossy stones; frightened for what he might find, worried for what he might not be able to find. He stumbled downriver, moving closer to the loch. Mungo drew in his breath as Gallowgate rounded the next bend.
It must have taken only a few seconds, but it felt like several minutes. All Mungo could see was that Gallowgate’s back had straightened as he pulled himself up to his full height. Gallowgate’s right arm extended and he was pointing at something in the distance, not at the birch tree but at a shallow bay further downstream. The man said nothing. But as Mungo turned the corner, he knew what he would find.
The heavy flood must have dislodged St Christopher from the rooted cave. It had carried him downriver some and beached him on some sharp rocks. The body was lying face up and his eyes were wide open. The man’s head was trapped between some large boulders, his neck certainly broken. The lanky body was full of false life, bobbing in the current. Mungo’s heart stuttered. From where he stood it looked like the saint was floating peacefully on the surface, quietly contemplating the heavens.
TWENTY-THREE
The falling darkness ate the clouds out of the sky. As the lights came on in the slick streets the Protestant boys began to pour out of the tenement mouths and crow at one another like nocturnal scavengers. Mungo watched from the third-floor window as the older Billies congregated outside the Paki shop on the corner. They gathered in the light of its open doorway, fluttering like colour-blocked moths. From high above, Mungo could tell they were jumpy and unpredictable with adrenaline, looking forward to a fight, dreaming of their own glory, anything that would put a shine on their name. They hung on each other affectionately, wide manly hugs, bodies never touching but full of love and rage, eager to stab and maim the Royston Catholics.
Mungo pressed his face against the cold glass. He rolled his forehead back and forth. The room behind him was too hot and much too close. The electric fire was on high, filling the air with the stale smell of lager and sweat, and giving off a needling static that made his head sore. The condensation on the window felt good after a long day spent inside, hovering and worrying as Mo-Maw cracked can after can, running her tongue along her teeth, moaning about how Jocky had papped her again.
The day had started as innocently as a tea party. At first Mo-Maw had sat them both down and poured them tumblers of heavy ale. She pinned Mungo and Jodie against the settee with lurid stories of how Jocky had done her wrong: how he had promised her a week in Burntisland and then invited his weans to join （the nerve of this prick）， how he had kept a house full of drink and moaned if she enjoyed it just a wee bit （the parsimonious basturt）。 Mungo watched his sister become marble-faced as Mo-Maw droned on in self-pity. When the urge became too much, Jodie excused herself and quietly left without telling them where she was going. It was the tinder that lit the fire. Now Jodie would be sulking at the café or the library, and Mo-Maw wanted company – Tattie-bogle demanded an audience – somebody, anybody to listen to her tale of unrequited shoves.
Mungo pretended to draw as Mo-Maw chapped on different doors in the close, not ready to be alone, not ready to be without Jocky. Mrs Campbell turned her away gently. Kindly, timorous Mr Robertson didn’t even answer. But then Mr Donnelly opened his door and it was sickening to hear his mother cajole the widower for company. “God sakes, it’s Saturday night,” she said it over and over, “come on, come on, come on!” Mo-Maw escorted him downstairs and led him into their flat, coaxing, pulling on his sleeve as though he were a stray, or a beast to the blade. The man had hastily packed a plastic bag with all the leftover drink he had in the house and here she slipped it from his grip.
At first, thirsty Donnelly had shown a polite interest in Mungo, nodding and listening as Mo-Maw made him tell of the things he had learned at the doocot. On cue, the lean man had said how bright he was and how proud Mo-Maw must be – both of which were a fiction. Mo-Maw smiled wanly before her eyes glazed over and filled with a faraway look. It was the look that the melancholy singers got at Hogmanay; the old men who gathered in corners and burst into mournful song, ruining good spirits, making old women cry. “Ah’ve given the best of my years to raising those three. And what did ah get in return?”
Mungo babysat them as they got drunk. From how Donnelly gawped, his mother must have been the loveliest thing the lonely widower had seen in a long time. Donnelly had gotten dressed in shoes, blazer, and hat, simply to step over his own threshold. His manners were from another time and he seemed too ashamed to admit that he wanted to stay. So the man sat in his Harris blazer, baking in the heat but unable to take it off. He would shift, uncomfortable on the soft couch, and stick his fingers in the neck of his threadbare shirt.