The Bad Fire by Campbell Armstrong Page A

guys responsible. Chris always pretended he wasn’t taking the bait, but you could tell he was storing it away to check later.’
    I missed all this, Eddie thought. I missed Caskie’s role in Joyce’s life, the give-and-take between Jackie and the cop. He’d been robbed of something essential. Suddenly he wasn’t the brother, he was a stranger staring through a window into a room he didn’t know. His sister had made the transition from child to woman and whole areas of her life were blacked out to him. Her first lover, who was he? Her amphetamine infatuation, which she’d first mentioned five years ago, how had that come about? You could love her with all your heart, but you could never fill in the gaps.
    He said, ‘I want to know more about Jackie.’
    â€˜What exactly?’
    â€˜Anything.’
    â€˜Narrow it down, Eddie.’
    â€˜Start with his business. Tell me about that.’
    â€˜He mentioned retirement only a few weeks ago. He was saying how much he was looking forward to becoming one of the wrinkly leisure class. He was going to have a big sale of the inventory in the warehouse, then he planned to sell the building and the yard. I got the impression, right or wrong, that he may have had money worries.’
    â€˜If he sold his stock and his building, his cash concerns would have been over,’ Eddie said. ‘At least alleviated.’
    Joyce said, ‘Unless he had really big debts … but it doesn’t matter any more, does it?’
    â€˜No, I guess not.’
    â€˜It’s past, the business is history.’ She stared into her wine. She ran a finger round the rim of her glass. ‘You know, about a month ago he came here and his face was this boozy bright red colour, and he grabbed my hand and he said it had been a terrible mistake to hurt Flora, and it was something he’d regretted all his life. It was maudlin, but I believe he meant what he was saying. He hadn’t been able to persuade Flora to stay with him, so he’d reacted with what he called “shameful cruelty”. And then he just wept. I’d never seen him do that before. He buried his face in his hands and cried for a long time. It was the saddest thing.’
    Eddie was quiet for a moment. ‘Last time he phoned me, about six weeks ago, he said he wished he could go back and change the past. He’d been drinking then too.’
    Joyce said, ‘He couldn’t express his feelings without a lubricant. It’s all that macho Presbyterian stuff you get drummed into you when you’re growing up in Glasgow. A real man never weeps, he just gets on with things.’
    Eddie rose from the sofa and walked to the window and looked down into the street. The streetlamps were surrounded by so many small winged creatures the effect was of silvery liquid movement. His mind slipped back to the day of the departure from Glasgow, and he pictured Joyce as he’d stepped inside the taxi with his mother. He remembered Flora, weepy but trying to be all business, saying to the cabby, Take us to the airport fast, we’ve got a plane to catch , and the cabby, a man with a lazy eye that looked off into a wild blue yonder, coming back with something sarcastic like, Are ye sure ye don’t want a bloody police escort, missus?
    Eddie had turned his face as the cab pulled away and he’d seen Joyce watching from the shadow of the house in Onslow Drive, skipping rope held limp in one hand, her black hair curled and a big bright blue ribbon on the crown of her head. Her look had been one of puzzlement and pain.
    The image made him ache.
    Eddie said flatly, ‘He cut the family in two.’
    â€˜Like a madman with an axe,’ Joyce said.
    She walked to the window and stood behind her brother, and put her arms around him, clasping her hands against his chest. He covered one of her hands with his own and said nothing, just watched the streetlights. A car slid