Mungo nodded, although he barely understood. “After that do you think it’ll be okay? He was just an old man who drowned, right? We could just leave him here. Why would they bother looking for us?”
“Naw.” Gallowgate stared at him for a long time and then he snorted at the boy’s naivety. He had forgotten he was talking to a child. “It doesnae work like that. As soon as they find out they’ve got a dead sex offender out in the middle of nowhere they’ll look into it.”
“How?” It made no sense to Mungo – surely a dead bogeyman would be a blessing.
“Because when one of us shows up dead they want to know who we were wi’ last. Or more importantly, who was unlucky enough to be wi’ us.” Gallowgate was becoming jumpy. “Ah don’t want to go back to the jail.”
Mungo collapsed back against one of the mossy boulders and closed his eyes. He felt empty, yet at the same time, he felt lousy with a knot of feelings he could not untangle. He had to get home. What would they say about him now? He was more of a hardman than Hamish could ever imagine. He wasn’t the shy little boy with the spazzy face. He wasn’t the poofy Fenian lover who was no good at fighting. They had broken into his body. He had killed a man. He had bludgeoned him and then he had drowned him. It was a funny feeling, to know that he was more of a man than Hamish would ever be, and also less, at the very same time. He had to go home. He could never go home again.
His mother had given him to a pair of child molesters with a bag of dog-eared comic books and a Ludo game, fun for the whole family, ages 6–14. She had thought that they would make a man of him; that they would show him things to put him right, things that a father should have taught him, things that she could have taught him if only she tried, things he would never even need to know if he lived his whole life in Glasgow, which he would, because that’s what everybody he knew did.
Mungo’s face was wet with tears again. Gallowgate came to him, he put his arms around his shoulders and kissed his hairline. “We can fix this. We can take his body out into the loch and sink it.”
The ravioli tins were bubbling and Mungo used this to scuttle away from Gallowgate’s embrace. He hunkered like a sulking primate. He sat the scalding tin on the ground and began to pick the pillows out one by one. The sauce burned his fingers but he would not stop.
The midday sun streaked across the Munros on the far side of the loch. The pockets of snow were moving. Mungo watched them walk across the sharp crest of a crag before he realized it was actually a herd of disorganized sheep looking for the sweet green grass that grew between the rocks. He found his disposable camera amongst the assorted junk in his cagoule pocket. He wound on the noisy film and tried to take a photograph of the wandering snow. Then he wound it on another frame and tried to take a photo of Gallowgate. The man hissed. He put his hands over his face. It didn’t matter – a small trickle of river water poured from the plastic case.
As they ate, Gallowgate seemed keen to know what Mungo would say, and what he would not say, when he returned to Glasgow. They spent a long time getting their story straight; Gallowgate feeding the boy a line, and Mungo feeling like there was a hook in his mouth. When Gallowgate spoke to him it was in the tone of voice that Mungo hadn’t heard since that evening in the tent. It was like they were best pals again, the two of them united against the world. “So, what will you tell yer family about this weekend?”
Mungo stopped chewing. “Just that I had a nice time. I liked the water. I saw some hills.”
“Naw, I mean, what will ye say about us? Auld Chrissy and that?”
“What is it you want me to say?”
“Mibbe just tell them we were dead sound. That we taught ye how to build a fire, how to fish. Tell them ah spent my entire two weeks’ giro getting us up here. Tell them that.” Gallowgate used his tongue to dig some gristle out from behind his bottom lip. “When they ask, where will you say ye slept?”
Mungo nodded to the two-man tent, or what was left of it.
“Naw. Better tae tell them we put ye in the one-man tent. Make sure and be clear that they understand ye had the whole thing tae yersel. Tell them that ye were scared or some shite, that the deer and the rain were creepy as fuck at night.” He hooted like a sad owl. “Tell them that ye braved it anyhows. Aye, tell them that ye had a whole tent tae yersel.”
“Okay.”
“So what will ye tell them?”
Mungo’s eye stuttered. He felt slightly mad. But Gallowgate would not go on until he responded. “I’ll say that I slept in this wee tent down by the water’s edge all by myself. I’ll say that it was cold at night. It was terrifying.” His voice was as flat as new tarmacadam.
Gallowgate dug some food out of his back molar and flicked it across the shingle. He didn’t like the flatness in Mungo’s voice. He was squinting at the boy as though he could not be sure if Mungo was being facetious or not. “Mind and tell them about the big roe buck you saw. They’ll picture that above everything else. And castles – mammies love castles.”
“Okay.”
“And how will ye explain them bruises?”
Mungo shrugged. “They won’t care.”
“Well if they do, tell them you tumbled down a hill. These hills get awfy slippy in the thaw. Ye can stave yer whole face in with one wrong step. Daft wee humpty dumpty.”
“Awright.”
They were quiet for a long while after that. It was pointless to bother chewing the mushy food, so Mungo just moved it back and forth in his mouth till it was a sludge he could swallow. Gallowgate was watching him the whole time. “Look, it’ll do ye no guid to feel sorry for yersel.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ah’m no daft. Ye might be tempted to tell tales when ye get up the road. Start spreading lies about me just so everybody feels sorry for ye.”
It took effort for Mungo to swallow the next mouthful.
“Pity only feels guid for a minute. It gets stale awfy quick and then it starts to fuckin’ stink. But I suppose if ye tell them your lies then ye can have a good greet and ye’ll get a couple of lovely hugs. Ye might even get a fish supper out of it.”
“Okay.”
Gallowgate hauched, his bottom lip gleamed with spit. “But know this – the people ye tell will never look at ye the same again. Yer mammy will feel heavy rotten. She’ll take a wee drink and tell somebody, just so as to feel better. That’s what wummin do; they cannae be trusted to haud their own watter. Then that person will tell somebody else and then they’ll tell somebody else, and afore ye know it, every bastard on the scheme will know how you let two strange men fuck ye in the woods.”
“But I didn’t.”
He looked like he felt sorry for the boy. “Naw. But is that what ye want people to think?”
Mungo shook his head. “No.”
“Cos they will.” Gallowgate jabbed his thumb in the direction of the dead saint. “‘Asides, if the Hamiltons want tae start somethin’ wi’ the polis, then we’ll aw need tae explain that.”
He was hungry but he could eat no more. After a while, Mungo stopped his quiet crying. He turned his face towards the loch and wiped his eyes discreetly. “What if St Christopher’s picture is in the evening paper?”