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- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
David's best mate died falling off a cliff – and he was the last to see him alive. Fifteen years later, he returns to Arbroath, where another death forces him to face the past. A darkly funny, gripping debut from one of Scotland's finest writers – newly reissued. 20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOPHER BROOKMYRE `Very funny, with a touching and believable romance thrown in´ Kate Saunders, The Times `[A] pacy debut thriller. . . Johnstone skilfully coaxes the reader into identifying with these difficult-to-love characters and maintains the tension and drama´ Metro `[Leads] to comparisons with the Scots writer Christopher Brookmyre … with a touch of romance [and] a gripping action sequence in the final chapters´ Scotsman ____ Your best mate just fell off a cliff in mysterious circumstances. You were the last person to see him alive. What do you do? If you're David Lindsay from Arbroath, you leg it – and don't go back. Not for fifteen years. Then Nicola Cruickshank – yes, that Nicola, the girl you always fancied but never had the guts to speak to – gets in touch. She wants you back for a school reunion. At the very place it happened. Of course you say yes. Not to lay ghosts to rest, but because you still fancy Nicola. The thing is, if you are David Lindsay, then returning to Arbroath isn't going to bring closure. Because when someone else tumbles off the cliffs – an act the locals now call tombstoning – David has a choice: run away again, or finally find out why people around him keep dying… ____ `Detailed and atmospheric descriptions … funny and sparky dialogue´ Sunday Herald `Excellently written, intriguing storyline, and different from anything else around. A very impressive debut´ Allan Guthrie `A brilliant new author … a rollicking tale of mystery set in Auld Reekie and the east coast town of Arbroath... ´ The List `A vibrant and engaging debut, by turns humorous, irreverent and poignant´ Bill Duncan `A seductive and thrilling evocation of what lurks beneath the surface of small-town Scotland – or, indeed, small-town anywhere´ Christopher Brookmyre Praise for Doug Johnstone `Tense, funny and deeply moving´ Mark Billingham `Nobody portrays modern Edinburgh better than Doug Johnstone … speaks volumes about the power of story´ Val McDermid `An engrossing and beautifully written tale that bears all the Doug Johnstone hallmarks in its warmth and darkly comic undertones´ Herald Scotland `Wonderful characters: flawed, funny and brave´ Sunday Times `Gripping and blackly humorous´ Observer `A must for those seeking strong, authentic, intelligent female protagonists´ Publishers Weekly `This enjoyable mystery is also a touching and often funny portrayal of grief ... more, please´ Guardian `Some of the most unique characters in crime fiction´ Daily Express `Underlines just how accomplished Johnstone has become´ Daily Mail `Keeps you hungry from page to page. A crime reader can't ask anything more´ Sun `A thrilling, atmospheric book … Move over Ian Rankin, Doug Johnstone is coming through!´ Kate Rhodes `Johnstone never fails to entertain whilst packing a serious emotional punch´ Gytha Lodge `One of the greats of Scottish crime fiction´ Luca Veste
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Seitenzahl: 418
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026
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TEAM ORENDAii
iii
TOMBSTONING
DOUG JOHNSTONE
INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOPHER BROOKMYRE
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1
INTRODUCTION
If you’re reading this, I reckon there’s a high probability that you’re doing so because you are familiar with Doug Johnstone’s highly addictive Skelfs novels, or perhaps his quite imperious Enceladons trilogy, and in your impatience for what he might offer next, you’ve seized upon this reissue of what he once did before.
With that in mind, you’re probably approaching this book with a mixture of curiosity and caution. Because novels can be like music in that sense: you discover a band who have been around for a long time, loving their highly accomplished mid- and late-career output, so you decide to check out their debut album, originally released on some sketchy minor label. And though it’s the same personnel, and though there are hints of what their sound will ultimately become, the album is, to put it technically, rough as fuck: some messy and brutal hardcore wall of noise that is a far cry from what you were hoping to find.
I’m happy to reassure you that this is not the case with Tombstoning. In here, you’re going to find all the elements you love about Doug’s later work:
A taut narrative that doesn’t waste a word or ever let the pace drop. Characters you can’t help but root for, even though they’re doing every self-destructive thing in their power to make you despair for them. A fascination with the philosophical and the scientific. An encroaching sense of growing dread, and then a Shakespearean escalation of violence in the final act.
It was all there in Tombstoning, just as it’s been there throughout Doug’s career.2
I read Tombstoning as an advance proof more than twenty years ago, and it grabbed me back then as tightly as A Dark Matter or The Space Between Us must have grabbed so many readers decades later. It’s a book about teenagers seeking a buzz by chucking themselves off a cliff, for Christ’s sake. That’s going to grab you.
People throw around the word ‘noir’ as a lazy, catch-all term referring to pretty much anything that could be described as crime fiction. Being Scottish, Doug and I both get tagged as ‘Tartan noir’, and though I will cop to the first part, I can’t lay claim to the second. My work is seldom noir. Doug Johnstone, by contrast, has always been the real deal in delivering what the term was originally coined to describe: crime fiction that is dark, pacy and lean; compassionate in documenting human flaws, unflinchingly nasty in depicting human malice, and executed with as much discipline as it has panache.
The template for Doug Johnstone’s style was laid down early on, like a rhythm track upon which everything else will be built. The guy’s a drummer: he’s always known how to keep the beat, and it’s one you’ll be familiar with.
Chris Brookmyre, Glasgow, July 2025
TOMBSTONING
5
For Andrew and Eleanor, Trish and Aidan
6‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’
William Faulkner
CONTENTS
1
THE ANTIQUARY
It all started with an email.
David stumbled into work just before ten, his short hair pointing several ways at once, his jeans a gritty grey-blue, with a whiff of last night’s booze about him. As he swiped his card by the front door two removal men emerged, shuffling their way out with a battered pool table. There goes the last of the games room, thought David. It figured.
Still Waters was a thrusting, vibrant web-design company. At least it had been, almost, when the company launched five years earlier. Now that the dotcom dream had well and truly dissolved they were laying people off, frantically exaggerating to clients in a desperate attempt to win contracts, and sheepishly flogging all the superfluous, gimmicky crap they’d initially bought to attract graduates. The PlayStation was long gone, as was the table football, and now the pool table was going the same way. David was surprised it had taken so long. After all, they’d already given nearly a dozen employees the bullet. Naturally, there were half a dozen directors still on the payroll, clocking up miles on the company Mercs and spending the afternoons at lunch or on one of Edinburgh’s more exclusive golf courses. But further down the food chain they were reduced to a handful of designers, programmers and developers, all so disenchanted with pay-cuts, increased hours and lack of recognition that there might’ve been a mutiny on the directors’ hands, if anyone could’ve been arsed.
David shrugged past the removal men into his cubbyhole corner 8of the office, keeping his head down to avoid being seen. Still Waters occupied the first two floors of a crumbly old stone building hidden down a cobbled alleyway off the main drag of Stockbridge. The walls were thick, the windows small and the ceilings low. Nestled between bohemian antique sellers and the poshest charity shops in the country, Still Waters was within a few yards of umpteen restaurants, cafés, delis, bistros and boozers, the last of which David and his disgruntled colleagues made good use of whenever they could sneak out.
David was probably still a bit pissed from last night. Nothing special, just a few pints after work followed by cracking open the bottle of Lagavulin when he got back to the flat. He would probably have to knock that whisky nightcap thing on the head, even if it was excellent fifteen-year-old stuff.
He fixed himself a coffee, fired up the PC and settled in for a day of surfing, with the occasional work-related moment thrown in to keep folk off his back. Christ only knew how long the company would stay afloat. David was surprised that he hadn’t been amongst those already booted out. He could do the work, it was a piece of piss to be honest, but he just so badly couldn’t be bothered exerting himself for a company that was about to go tits up anyway. Today’s hangover wasn’t exactly helping. At the moment he was supposed to be working on a site for some ridiculous motivational guru, Frank Lavine, whose command of office buzzwords, feelgood gobbledegook and doublespeak was something to behold. David was tempted to stick some made-up, meaningless platitudes in there, see if old Frank noticed the difference.
He started wading through his emails. Twenty-four in the inbox since he’d left at five last night, including all the usual spam and junk – cock enlargement, Viagra, Prozac, lap-dancing clubs, buy yourself a degree, online mortgages – did anyone ever fall for this shite?
Then he saw it, that name, sitting amongst all the drivel. Nicola Cruickshank. A coincidence? There must be loads of Nicola 9Cruickshanks in the world, it wouldn’t necessarily be from her. He clicked it open and as he read down he felt a tightening in his gut that couldn’t solely be put down to his hangover.
From: [email protected]
Subject: hullo you
Date: 8 August 2003 9:15:37 GMT
David,
Is this you? I’m pretty sure it is, because I saw your profile on the Still Waters website and it sounds like you. Anyway, hullo, how’s it going? Long time no see and all that crap. Oh yeah, this is Nicola, as in Cruickshank, dunno if you remember me from all those years ago at Keptie High? Can’t really believe that was 15 years ago, it seems like hardly any time. Then again it also seems like a lifetime ago, so who knows? I’m rambling.
How’s life? Hope you’re doing well, life’s been good and that you haven’t gotten fat and bald. Actually, scratch that, because if you are fat and bald then that last comment was insanely insensitive. I’m not helping by going on about it now, am I? I really don’t know when to shut up in emails. But anyway, I hope you’re well, irrespective of your current waistline and hair, or lack thereof.
And so to the point. I’ve been roped in by some of the illustrious ladies of our year at school to help organize a class reunion. I don’t really have much to do with it, to be honest, but one of them rang me up and asked if I wouldn’t mind trying to get in touch with a few people. When they mentioned your name I’ll admit that my interest was piqued. So what the hell have you been up to for the last 15 years? Are you married? 10Kids? Are you even still male? (These days, anything can happen, you know, I’m not casting aspersions on your manhood or anything – look, here I am talking drivel again.)
Anyway, the reunion is organized for next Saturday, that’s the 16th of August in – believe it or not – Bally’s. I know, it’ll be bloody terrible probably but, well, I’m going and it would be nice if you could make it. I believe Bally’s is now officially called the Waterfront or something, but everyone still calls it Bally’s.
It would be great if you could come, but if you don’t fancy it I understand. Either way, it would be good to hear from you. Feel free to give me a phone anytime you like if, for example, you think you need a bit more persuading about this whole Arbroath thing. Or just for a chat. It would honestly be great to talk to you.
Right, I’ve taken up way more of your time than I meant to so I’ll leave it at that. Take care, and I hope you get in touch.
See ya,
Nicola xxx
mob: 07970 132 265
***********
Nicola Cruickshank
Historic Scotland – Safeguarding Scotland’s Built Heritage
***********
His head was spinning. Nicola Cruickshank. He hadn’t thought about her for years, but for what seemed like a lifetime he had fancied her at school, never getting up the bottle to go for it. He had always put it off and put it off, waiting for the right 11time, which inevitably never came. All through their drunken, hormone-addled sixth year they had flirted and danced around the issue, without ever getting anywhere. He waited and waited and waited for the right time and then … well, then there was the accident. And nothing was ever the same again.
He had never been back, not in fifteen years. That was helped in no small part by the fact that his parents had absconded to France, retiring to do up a barn in Limoges ten years before it was a trendy thing to do. Just as well, he would’ve struggled to go back to Arbroath, back to the place where his best friend had died. And now, here was a call from someone he was besotted with at the time, asking him to do just that. Jesus.
David drifted through the day. His hangover gradually receded, but the buzz of Nicola stayed at the forefront of his mind. He re-read the email umpteen times, even printing it off to take with him into the bogs where he read it twice before having a quick snooze, his cheek pressed against the cold ceramic of the cistern.
He noticed that her message had managed to tell him virtually nothing about herself. She still had the same surname, so did that mean she wasn’t married? He didn’t suppose it meant anything much these days. She worked for Historic Scotland, wasn’t that in Salisbury Place? Only about five minutes from his Rankeillor Street flat in the Southside of the city. How long had she been in the same city as him? She had gone to Glasgow Uni, he remembered that much, but then a degree only took four years, what the hell had she been doing for the other eleven?
He couldn’t stop thinking about her during the afternoon meeting, when they were informed that if productivity didn’t improve there would be more layoffs. He wasn’t being paranoid, there really were pointed looks in his direction at the mention of this, but the two pints at lunchtime helped him to ignore that.
By five o’clock he was thinking about Nicola more than ever. 12
*
Nicola had clicked ‘send’ then had a tiny panic attack. Why had she written to him first thing in the bloody morning, before coffee? Was she nuts? She re-read what she’d sent and cringed – it was even more rambling than her usual emails, and that was saying something. She didn’t have much demanding work today, just filing and processing, so she could’ve left it until she was a tad more coherent. Then again, she had been putting it off for ages, so at least now it was done.
David Lindsay. No one from Arbroath had heard anything from him for fifteen years, not since the accident and then the funeral afterwards. After she’d been called up about the reunion it had taken about half an hour of googling to find out that he designed web pages for a company in Stockbridge – quite a flashy and well-to-do one, judging by their website and list of clients. So he was still in Edinburgh after all this time, living in the same city as her for the last four years.
She didn’t have a problem with Arbroath, but she much preferred her life in Edinburgh, and her job at Historic Scotland was just about perfect, allowing her to get stuck in to history, architecture and archaeology without any of the pompous stuffiness of academia. The office was fine, if a little gossipy for her liking, and she worked on site a fair bit, which always made her feel like she was doing a proper job, not just penpushing.
As for her life outside work, that was dominated by Amy. She had been a grumpy little madam this morning when Nicola walked her to Sciennes Primary. Just like her mum, she was definitely not a morning person. Nicola pictured the two of them at the school gates, straggly haired, bleary eyed and buttoned up all wrong, two generations of the same family both struggling with the concept of an early rise. Sometimes it scared the shit out of her, how much Amy 13took after her, then at other times Amy seemed like an alien from another planet, with all these weird ideas of her own. Such is parenthood, Nicola thought with a sigh.
She tried to remember what David looked like. Tall, definitely – at least as tall as her, and pretty cute in a gangly, unformed kind of way. Plenty of buzz and chat and daft ideas, she remembered, mostly fuelled by booze, but he was still pretty good company to be with. She had fancied him, she supposed, although thinking about things in such terms now at the age of thirty-four seemed more than a little ridiculous. They had kissed, hadn’t they? A couple of times at parties or down at Bally’s or something, but she couldn’t really remember. She hadn’t taken it any further. They were all heading off to uni by the end of the summer anyway, that was the plan. She was going to Glasgow, he was off to Edinburgh, not exactly much of a distance away, but when you’d grown up in Arbroath such places seemed like a different universe. And besides, he hadn’t really said anything about fancying her. God, listen to yourself, she thought, talking about fancying each other, it’s as if all this reunion chat is making you regress into a former life.
She wondered what he would make of her email. What did she make of it herself? It didn’t matter anyway, it was out there, in the ether, winging its way to his inbox and that was that. She had issued the invitation to the reunion as instructed, so it was up to him now what he did about it.
Nicola was looking forward to the reunion, just out of amiable curiosity more than anything else. She was back in Arbroath quite a lot, letting Amy spend time with Granny and Grandpa and all that, but she rarely went out when she was back, and she hadn’t seen most of the folk from their class in years. She heard plenty of gossip from her folks; in a town that small it was inevitable that everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. She wasn’t sentimental; would never have logged on to Friends Reunited expecting an unchanged 14world. But now there was this reunion, she was genuinely interested in how everyone’s lives had turned out. Hers had been gently adventurous, and she had Amy to show for it, so there must be dozens of other mini-adventures out there waiting to be discovered. David had blue eyes, she suddenly remembered, really cute blue eyes. She shook her head a little to clear the thought, and got up to make that coffee.
*
David turned into St Stephen Street in the muggy afternoon heat and descended into the subterranean gloom of the Antiquary. Spook and Alice from work were already in, and Spook was at the bar so he put in his order and headed towards Alice amid the burnished oak scruffiness of the pub. Alice was an irrepressibly chirpy English web designer, ten years younger than David, who managed to be relentlessly upbeat despite the perilous state the company was in. The fact that she did so without getting on anyone’s nerves was something of a miracle. Spook, on the other hand, was a dishevelled slacker goon who was obviously completely uninterested in his job, an attitude David had some sympathy with.
He couldn’t shake the image of Nicola from his mind. He’d already googled her, but rooting around the Historic Scotland website hadn’t come up with anything. He pictured her standing outside Boots, next to the steeple in the centre of Arbroath, that last New Year there. She was wrapped up in a massive red duffel coat and woolly hat and they had their Hogmanay kiss, which kind of extended itself into a snog. He didn’t know how long they snogged for (in fact, he couldn’t recall much more about that evening) but he did remember that they were interrupted by someone getting thrown through Boots’ window by opportunist looters, and they all 15had to scarper quick. He and Nicola had been drunk. At least, he had been drunk, and assumed she was too. Anyway, that was the closest he’d got to her. He had completely forgotten about it until this morning. Parts of his brain not used in fifteen years were getting powered up and made to process information. How could one little email manage that?
Spook and Alice got talking about work, but David wasn’t listening. They were joined by a couple more of the company’s bottom feeders, keen as ever to slag off the directors and the owner, safe in the knowledge that at least the next forty-eight hours were work-free and theirs to fuck up whichever way they chose.
David still wasn’t listening. He was thinking of the time he and Nicola had sat beside a fire on Elliot Beach, huddled together on a blanket against the North Sea chill. Several others were sitting around drinking and a few couples had sneaked off to the sand dunes for more privacy. Two brave idiots were skinny-dipping. They hadn’t even kissed then, David just enjoying the proximity to her, feeling her long, fair hair against his cheek, looking at that beautiful, slightly crooked nose of hers that she wiggled when she was amused like that woman out of Bewitched, and gazing at the long bony elegance of her neck.
But one memory leads to another and another, and once he was on Elliot Beach he was straight away thinking of Colin, how the two of them used to walk Colin’s Irish setters in the afternoons along there, fooling the dogs into the water after imaginary sticks and arguing about the problems with Arbroath FC; excited about how Colin was going to make a difference when he joined the club.
And once Colin was in his mind, it was a small step to the funeral a few weeks later, up at the Western Cemetery. Standing there, utterly numb, in a borrowed suit several sizes too big, his school shoes and his dad’s black tie, wondering how the fuck such things could be allowed to happen.
16This is why he hadn’t thought about the past, why he hadn’t been back to Arbroath, this knot in his stomach even now, fifteen years later, thinking about the wasted life, the wasted opportunities, the stupid, pointless waste of it all. He hadn’t consciously thought about Colin for years before today, but now the memories filled his mind. The oddly curly black hair that framed a face which seemed to make every girl (and every girl’s mum) in town swoon, with a disarming little smile and a glint in his dark eyes that said he knew he was good-looking but wasn’t going to abuse that fact. The way he was also the strongest and fastest person David had known, yet you only saw that on the football pitch. He was also bloody smart academically and could’ve gone to uni, but kept quiet about it. The way he was so effortlessly good-natured was something that used to simultaneously produce awe and irritation in David. How could someone be so nice all the time? But he was, he was nice all the time, but never sickeningly so. And he’d been dead now for fifteen years.
There was a calendar behind the bar, flaunting a bland picture of Highland beauty. David realized with a start that it was the eighth of August, which meant it was fifteen years and two days since what would’ve been Colin’s eighteenth birthday. That meant fifteen years and three days since his funeral. For the first few years the anniversary had produced a sense of foreboding in him, an uneasy tension, but somehow, somewhere along the line, he had forgotten about it. This year it had zipped by through the week and he’d been utterly oblivious.
And now there was this invitation from Nicola. He had the printout of the email in his back pocket, pretending to himself that he’d accidentally left it there when he came out the bog earlier in the day, but he knew he wanted that contact with her, that reminder of her, close to him this weekend. His mind was now racing with memories of Arbroath and school, the pubs and parties, fights and 17snogs that made up the final few months of life there. He sensed a rush of energy, and it felt like the inside of his skin was itchy. His teeth seemed to throb and his throat was dry. How could the dim and distant past affect him like this?
He finished the dregs of his pint and got another round in. These days he was very definitely on weaker cooking lager. For years he had pummelled his body with executive – Stella, Kronenbourg, Staropramen – but now his body was rebelling. His hangovers got worse and he seemed to get more drunk, despite drinking less.
He returned to the table. The rest of them were still sniping at Still Waters, picking over the debris of the latest botched job – a half-arsed site for a charity that was delivered over budget, past deadline and with only half the functionality they’d promised – and what it might mean for the future. All their coats were already on shaky pegs, and they were speculating who would be next out the door. This wasn’t exactly what David had pictured when he’d done his computer science degree all those years ago. Back then it was as if computers had barely even been invented, and if ever there had been an opportunity of getting in on the ground floor it was then. After his degree and a couple of years kicking around doing fuck all – working in pubs, mostly – he’d done a Mickey Mouse web-design post-grad at Napier, just when the internet was getting going. The millions were there for the making, as Amazon, eBay and Google had subsequently proven, but none of that success had come David’s way.
He was also on his own. His friends in Edinburgh were either people he’d known since university or random mates he’d picked up on the way. With precious few exceptions they were all either married, engaged or in long-term relationships. Several of them now had kids. He had been shocked the first time he’d had to hold a friend’s baby. They’d let him hold on to their child? What the hell were they thinking? But him, he had no one. Sure there had been women, although not nearly as many as maybe he would like to think 18when he totted it all up, but for whatever reason (and he couldn’t really think of any, now that he tried to) none of them had stuck around very long. And of course, he had never kept in touch with schoolmates. Christ, what was that Lemonheads’ song he listened to all the time back in his student days? Something about a ship without a rudder. That just about nailed his life at the moment.
He dipped in and out of the conversation around the table, gazing absent-mindedly at a dark and dusty portrait hanging over the empty fireplace in front of him. The guy in the painting looked like a right stuffed shirt, from maybe two hundred years ago, and his eyes gazed impassively back at David.
Just then Spook suggested they fire up into town, maybe the Basement, make a night of it. David couldn’t face it. He’d had a few pints and, sure, he wanted to get hammered, but not with these people and not in the Basement, which, anyway, he’d been going to for so long it made him feel like a fucking granddad. He scooped the last of his pint and, shaking his head at the protestations from the motley assortment around the table, got up from his stool, doing a John Wayne dismount, and headed for the door.
*
It was shockingly bright outside the Antiquary, and David squinted reflexively into the sun, raising his hand to shield his eyes. The mugginess of earlier had burnt off, and the Scottish summer sun was doing its best to burn pale northern skin into the evening. David was a bit unsteady, having had a few pints on an empty stomach. He decided he couldn’t be arsed with the bus home, and flagged a passing taxi.
‘Rankeillor Street, mate,’ he said as he keeled into the back, ignoring the signs to put his seatbelt on. It was only then he remembered with a groan that it was the first weekend of the festival, 19and the traffic across the centre of town would be a fucking nightmare. He was in for a long, bumpy and expensive ride.
So what about this class reunion? he thought. Of course, he wouldn’t go. He couldn’t, not after all these years. It sounded from Nicola’s email that all these people had kept in touch with each other over the last decade and a half – she’d said that the organizers phoned her up, hadn’t she? – how the hell was he supposed to fit into all that?
Who else would be there? He found himself struggling to match names and faces from his class. He wondered what it was like for those people who had never left Arbroath, wandering around town repeatedly encountering faces, places, street names, buildings, parks from the past – it must be like walking through a history book, or a graveyard where through some freakish twist you can see all the ghosts, the decomposing corpses risen again to wander forever, never finding peace.
Then again, he had his history in Edinburgh, he had lived here almost as long as he had in Arbroath. That sudden thought shocked him. He worked it out – in three more years he would’ve spent half his life in this city. But those were adult years, grown-up years, even if they hadn’t really felt like it. The Arbroath years, they were rammed full of all that formative childhood crap, the stuff that supposedly made you who you were, not that David subscribed to that point of view. You made up who you were in the present, moment to moment, and that could change any time you liked. When he moved to Edinburgh he’d changed from David to Dave, not such a big leap, dropping a syllable from your name, but it signified everything, a new start, a new person, a newborn life, with no history, no past, no baggage. A clean slate.
Who was he kidding? He had carried Colin’s death around with him for years. He had never talked about it. Ever. To anyone. Why not? Truth be told, what was the point? The past was a foreign country, or whatever that saying was. Damn right it was. He had 20basically started a whole new life in Edinburgh back in 1988, and had never looked back.
Until now.
He wondered again who would be there at the reunion that he might know. What about the other two from the ADS? The ADS – it seemed so puerile now. The Arbroath Drinking Society had been named as a piss-take of the Arbroath Soccer Society – the equally pretentious name that the footy casuals had given themselves. The casual violence surrounding football had seemed all-pervasive at the time, and their wee joke at the arseholes that perpetrated it was intended to make a point, something which was now lost.
There were four of them in the ADS. Himself, Colin, Gary Spink and Neil Cargill. They were best of friends in fourth year at school, when they’d formed the drinking club, and it had lasted as a benevolent clique for two years. By the time they left school, though, the four of them were drifting apart, but they still clung to a last childish emblem of camaraderie, more out of convenience and an embarrassment about admitting that their lives were going in different directions. Colin was about to embark on a career as a professional footballer with Arbroath FC; David was off to uni; Neil, with nothing better on offer, had signed up for a life of military discipline in the Marines and was heading for basic training at the end of the summer; and Gary, well, Gary was stuck in Arbroath with the prospect of working for a bank, building society or worse.
Then Colin had died. After the funeral David had left town early, speeding over to France to help his folks renovate their barn. From there he had gone directly to Edinburgh, and had never since spoken to anyone from Arbroath.
Until now.
He just couldn’t go to the reunion, he thought as the taxi pulled into his street and he started rummaging for notes and cash. But then he thought of Nicola again. Jesus, Nicola Cruickshank, he said out 21loud, shaking his head. He paid the taxi driver and stumbled out the cab into his home.
*
David’s flat was a typical bachelor affair – two black leather sofas and a large flat-screen TV in the living room, generic film posters from his past (Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs) lining the hall, and a messy bedroom dominated by a massive king-size bed. Among the debris in the living room were CDs, DVDs, magazines, empty lager cans and a couple of large pizza boxes. David finished another lager and surfed channels, cursing with each flick the banal choice of Friday-night television.
He should’ve stayed out. What use was sitting here on the weekend, alone, doing fuck all? No use, that’s what. But then he thought of the rest of them in the Basement, and he felt a shiver of repulsion at that prospect too. He mentally surfed through his other friends in town, but couldn’t come up with anyone he wanted to talk to, let along meet up with. Where did that leave him? Back here on his own, that’s where.
He made for the drinks cabinet, a classy wooden globe, and poured himself a house measure of Lagavulin. As he sat back down, the sofa gave a sigh under his weight. He took the email printout from his pocket and read it again.
A school reunion was not an attractive prospect, that was for sure, but Nicola Cruickshank? That was a different story. He dug his mobile out his pocket and thought about phoning her for the next fifteen minutes, his body enduring little ripples of nervous excitement each time he went to dial, then stopped. Eventually he downed what was left in his glass, poured himself a bigger one, sat down with his mobile in his hand and dialled the number at the bottom of the printout. 22
*
Who the hell was that now?
Nicola had not long got Amy to bed after the usual lengthy struggle of wills between parent and child, and before that she’d had her mum on the phone for over half an hour. Bless her mum and everything, but she didn’t half go in for pointless gossip. She had just poured herself a second large glass of wine when the mobile went off. She fished it out of her bag and checked the screen. She didn’t recognize the number. Probably some arsehole trying to sell her something, she thought as she pressed ‘reply’.
‘Hello? Is that Nicola? Nicola Cruickshank?’
It didn’t sound like a call centre eejit.
‘That’s me.’
‘This is Dave, Dave Lindsay. Erm … from Arbroath, I suppose.’
Nicola laughed out loud and followed it with a little squeal, much to her own amused disgust.
‘David Lindsay. How the hell are you?’
‘I’m good, thanks, a wee bit tipsy, truth be told. How the hell are you back?’
‘Pretty good, pretty good.’ Nicola found herself laughing again. ‘Well, I suppose the appropriate cliché is long time no see, isn’t it? I’m guessing that you are the David Lindsay who works for Still Waters, then, and that you got my rambling email today?’
‘I am indeed the Dave Lindsay of Still Waters fame, although for how much longer, Christ only knows. And I did get your email, yes, although it wasn’t really rambling at all, it was … it was nice to hear from you after so long. Listen Nicola … I … I suppose I don’t really know why I phoned, except that you mentioned in your email that I was welcome to call any time, so, well, here I am phoning you. I hope it’s not a bad time or anything … is it?’
‘No, it’s fine, I’m glad you called. So, what do you think then?’
23There was a silence down the line, followed by what sounded to Nicola like glugging.
‘Think about what,’ said David cautiously.
‘The reunion.’
‘Oh yeah, the reunion. I don’t really think it’s my bag, if you know what I mean. I’ve never even been back there, not once in fifteen years, not since …’
‘Don’t be soft,’ said Nicola, deliberately filling the gap David had left at the end of his sentence. ‘It’s the same for everyone, David. I don’t suppose anyone’s seen anyone else for years, but that’s kind of the point, I guess. Everyone’s in the same boat. Come along, it’ll be a laugh. And even if it’s shit, it’ll be a shit laugh, if you know what I mean.’
‘All the same …’
There was that glugging noise again.
‘What are you drinking?’ said Nicola.
‘What?’
‘What are you drinking? I can hear you slugging away on something.’
‘Oh, whisky. Lagavulin.’
‘An Islay, very nice.’
‘You know about whisky?’
‘I know about a lot of things, none of it very useful. I’m on the Chenin Blanc myself. Are you at home?’
‘Yeah, and you?’
‘Afraid so. All on my lonesome. How sad is that, sitting at home drinking alone watching shite telly on a Friday night.’
‘Snap.’
‘So, listen David Lindsay from Arbroath,’ said Nicola, ‘are you sure about the reunion? You can’t be persuaded to come along, keep me company amongst the scary freaks that all our ex-classmates will have turned into?’
24‘How do you know I’ve not turned into a scary freak?’
Nicola laughed, wiggled her nose a little and took a swig of wine.
‘That’s a very good question. I suppose I don’t. But then the same goes for me. Maybe we’re the scary freaks, and everyone else has turned out normal. Shall we go to the reunion and find out?’
‘I really don’t think so.’
‘Tell you what, why don’t we meet up, and I’ll have a go at talking you round in person?’
Nicola was surprised at the idea which leapt from her mouth before it had even properly formed in her brain. There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Did he want to meet up with her? Did she want to meet up with him?
‘Why not?’ she heard coming down the line at her. ‘Where and when did you have in mind?’
She had to think on her feet, she hadn’t expected this at all.
‘What are you up to tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘OK, I’ve got a few hours spare while Amy’s at a friend’s birthday party, so how about if you meet me outside the Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street at two o’clock. How does that sound?’
‘Cool.’ Then a pause. ‘Who’s Amy?’
‘Oh shit, didn’t I say already? Amy’s my daughter.’
‘You have a daughter?’
‘Very well deduced from my last statement. Yes, I have a daughter. A gorgeous little eight-year-old who is equal parts sweet angel and stroppy bitch. Do you have any kids?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I guess we can do all this chat tomorrow,’ said Nicola. ‘If you still want to meet.’
‘Sure, why wouldn’t I?’
‘Just checking. Right, two o’clock outside the museum. I’ll see you there?’
25‘OK. Have a nice evening, sitting in drinking on your own.’
‘Right back at you. See you tomorrow.’
‘Yeah. See you.’
Nicola pressed ‘end call’. What just happened? Had she just organized a bloody date? No, it was just two old school friends meeting for a chat. After fifteen years? OK, that seemed slightly odd, to just arrange to meet like that after so long, but where was the harm in it? She re-ran the conversation in her head, what she could remember of it. He didn’t have kids, but she didn’t know if he was married or not. Mind you, now she came to think about it, she hadn’t explained her situation (or lack of one) with Amy’s dad either. So they were quits on that score. What did it matter anyway, she wasn’t looking for anything out of this, just to meet up with someone she knew and quite liked at school to swap stories about how their lives had turned out.
He had seemed … well, she didn’t really know how he seemed on the phone. Cheery? A bit pissed? Maybe he was really drunk and he wouldn’t remember the conversation in the morning. She would go to the museum, see if he turned up. She loved that place anyway, ever since they’d tacked it on to the old Royal Museum a few years back. Of course you couldn’t keep the whole history of a country in one turreted building, but it was a good start, and she liked the peace, the airiness and the dignity of the ancient past that the place seemed to hold, despite being new.
Yes, she would go to the museum tomorrow, and see what happened. What the hell harm could it do?
2
A DECLARATION
Christ, I’m not as fit as I used to be, David thought as he puffed his way up Chambers Street. He was ten minutes late and he was working up a sweat in the close August heat. He had worn two layers, a T-shirt over a long-sleeved top, assuming it would be cold out, but the day had thrown him a curve ball and was almost relentlessly bright and sticky. The arse of his jeans was wet with sweat and his feet were hotting up in his Golas.
He looked ahead at the museum but couldn’t see anyone waiting. Shit, she’s already left, he thought; either that or she decided not to come at all. He couldn’t blame her, it had seemed surprising when she suggested it in the first place. Maybe she’d been drunk last night, and had forgotten the conversation. No, she had an eight-year-old daughter, she wouldn’t be sitting loaded in the house with her, would she? Why not, he supposed – there were no rules about that sort of thing, were there?
After he’d put the phone down he’d had another few whiskies, but the memory of the chat was still strong in his mind. Her voice sounded more grown-up than he remembered. She still did that thing where it sounded like she was about to laugh after every single sentence, but not in an annoying way, more like she just found any situation thoroughly entertaining.
He got to the museum’s entrance and there was definitely no one there. He was knackered. Is this what happens to your body in your thirties, he thought, you start getting worn out just from walking fast? He had to start getting fit again, soon. He’d said that to himself 27so many times over the last three years that he now just ignored himself, knowing it would never happen. He was standing with his hands on his knees, getting his breath back when he looked up. There she was.
His throat felt tight as he looked at her. Goddamn it, she looked fine. She was beautiful. Her hair was a little shorter, more stylish maybe, but still a bit all over the place. Her wide smile and dear, hazel eyes were as welcoming as he remembered and that nose, that kooky little nose just killed him. She was wearing a pair of sleek black trousers and a flimsy fawn blouse, and seemed taller somehow. He remembered her as being pretty but always slightly uncomfortable with that fact. She had definitely grown into her looks, she fitted her features better and seemed so at ease with herself, confident.
Her smile grew wider as she approached him, and he felt himself responding with an idiotic grin. He awkwardly stuck out a hand and she laughed, grabbed him and kissed him on both cheeks before standing back and giving him the once-over, her hands still on his shoulders.
‘You haven’t changed a bit, is the correct cliché, I believe,’ she said, and her nose went for a wiggle. David felt the knot in his stomach disappearing and knew they were going to get along just fine.
‘That cliché applies much more to yourself, I suspect,’ David said, ‘except you actually look younger and better than you did fifteen years ago. Whereas I’m just the same, except with two stone of weight added on somewhere.’
‘Well, you were always too skinny at school,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it, David Lindsay from Arbroath, as I live and breathe. How about that?’
‘Actually, most folk call me Dave these days.’
‘I think I’ll stick with David. It’s more grown-up. And weren’t you David in school?’
‘Yeah, I changed it when I came to Edinburgh.’
28‘Ah, the old “drop a syllable” routine. Never succumbed to it myself. Day one of “throwing off the shackles of the past” and all that. I think I’ll stick with David, how would that be?’
‘That would be just fine.’
‘Good stuff. So what now, David? Fancy a trawl through thousands of years of Scottish history?’
‘Not really, to be honest. It seems like such a nice day maybe we could just find a beer garden or something …’
‘Nonsense. Apart from anything else, I’ll burn to a bloody crisp in this sun, my pasty face can’t handle it. And anyway, I love this building and all the old stuff they’ve got in there. You didn’t do history at school, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then I can be your informal guide through the corridors of time’ – she was putting on a booming voice-over voice – ‘through thousands of years of bloodthirsty mayhem and savage carnage.’ She returned to her normal voice with a laugh. ‘Eat yer heart out, Simon Schama. Come on, I won’t lecture you too much, and I promise to go for a pint later on. How’s that?’
David couldn’t give a damn about the last five thousand years of Scottish history, but he sure as hell wanted to spend the next few hours with Nicola Cruickshank. He motioned towards the museum’s squat, sandy turret of an entrance.
‘After you, madam. Is age before beauty the appropriate cliché?’
‘Watch it, I’m only a few months older than you,’ said Nicola, punching him on the arm and laughing to herself. David watched her go inside with wide eyes, a big smile and feeling for all the world like he was eighteen years old again.
*
29The air was cool inside and it was so dark compared to the glare of the street that it took David a couple of minutes to see things clearly. Gangs of rucksacked foreign schoolkids filled the airy space with shrill chatter, while tired-looking families trudged around the main concourse. Nicola was a few yards ahead of him already, heading past a crumbly sandstone cross into a section marked Kingdom of the Scots. She turned back, beamed that smile at him and waved her hand in encouragement.
David wasn’t hot on museums. He didn’t really see the point in all that ancient history, and the exhibits always seemed so dry, dusty and disconnected with anything remotely like a real life that someone might actually have lived. Maybe he just didn’t have the leap of imagination necessary to fully appreciate what all this old crap was meant to signify. But for the sake of hanging out with Nicola he could easily stomach a few lumps of old rock and metal, the odd statue or bit of broken pottery. He could see her at the first spotlit display. My God, she was beautiful. He walked into the first room keeping his eyes on her all the way.
Nicola was studiously examining a tiny metallic trinket box in the display cabinet, but she was thinking about David. She knew he was watching her. When you were a woman with years of experience of catching men’s eyes, you knew when someone was watching you, you could just sense it. She didn’t often appreciate it, but she liked the feeling today because she knew that he was comparing her school self with herself now, and she reckoned that modern Nicola won hands down. She couldn’t figure out why exactly, but she just felt like more of a human being than that awkward, gawky kid she had been all those years before.
She’d made a joke about it, but David really hadn’t changed. Well, OK, physically he had filled out a little, she could see that around his face, but that really was a good thing in her book; she’d always thought he had a kind of haunted look about him when he was 30younger, like there wasn’t quite enough flesh under the skin stretched tight across his cheeks. He had shorter hair and it was a mess, but it was a cool mess. He was dressing younger than his age, a T-shirt over a long-sleeved top, skater-boy jeans and trainers, but then there was nothing wrong with that as long as you didn’t look ridiculous. And David didn’t look ridiculous. Far from it. He looked pretty damn cute. She wasn’t getting carried away or anything. But he was cute.
‘The Monymusk reliquary,’ said David, reading the blurb. ‘Associated with St Columba and Robert the Bruce. It’s tiny. What does it do?’
‘You keep ancient relics in it.’
‘Relics?’
‘Bones. Of saints. This one was small so they could wear it round their necks. They paraded it in front of the troops at Bannockburn, so they say.’
‘Who says?’
‘Historians.’
‘Ah, them.’
‘It sounds like you don’t hold much truck with the word of historians. And before you say anything, bear in mind that I’ve got an honours degree in history and archaeology from Glasgow Uni.’
‘I was just about to say that historians are great, and always right.’
‘Nah, you’re right, they’re a bunch of speculative bastards. Especially all the high-profile television ones.’ She looked away from the strange shiny box in front of them and around the room. ‘Recognize anything in here?’
David looked around. In front of them was a small sign which said ‘Scotland Defined’. That seemed like quite a claim, he thought, but he let it pass. On either side the walls were covered in large quotations, done in fancy script, and he realized straight away that they were quotations from the Declaration of Arbroath. They had, of course, done it to fucking death at school, seeing as how it was the 31
