GUILT TRIPPER (4 page)

CHAPTER: 6

 The next day, after
a busy afternoon of research for her course, Judith found Finley White’s
address on the Internet. In the process she happened across a local newspaper’s
website, its front page exclaiming:

JUDGE ORDERS RETRIAL
– ROCK STAR RELEASED

According to the
article, Bob Fitzgerald’s defence had demanded a retrial, not least because the
only evidence against him had been from his co-defendant Herman Knapp — a certified
madman. The newspaper also suggested that the retrial was just a formality,
because, in the absence of compelling new evidence, Bob would almost certainly
be acquitted. In the meantime he was free to go, unlike Herman, who remained
incarcerated under the Mental Health Act.

 That evening, Judith
drove across to Alexander Parade, a thoroughfare of fine sandstone tenements,
just east of the city centre. Here and there in the darkness, the white light
of a booze store or take away broke up the wall of corrugated shutters on the
ground floors, but apart from that it was a murky place. She turned into a side
street where a dozen teenagers were hanging about on the corner, wearing
tracksuits and baseball caps and throwing lighted fireworks at one another. As
she passed, one of them doubled up to stare inside the car, trying to ascertain
whether its cargo was friend or foe.

 The White brothers
lived in a quadrangle of three floored, brown brick apartments, huddled between
an enclave of industrial units and the M8 motorway, which emitted an incessant
hum. As Judith waited for a response from the intercom, she kept glancing
anxiously over each shoulder, fearing that the street corner gang may have
followed her. She pressed the buzzer five times without any response and was
just turning to go when the speaker crackled into life and a husky, unfamiliar
male voice asked her identity. Surprisingly, the communal door clicked open
without her having to explain anything more than her name, as if the person on
the other end were already aware of her existence.

 Judith was half-way
up the brightly lit stairs when a thin character in a white Lacoste shell suit
came to meet her, introducing himself as Finley White. About thirty-five years
old, he had medium length greasy hair, a gaunt face and naïve looking, watery
eyes. After taking her coat, he led her into the dank apartment, where she sat
on a cigarette burned, burgundy coloured couch, next to a copy of that night’s local
newspaper.

 “So you’re Judith,”
he said, as if having finally solved some lifelong puzzle.

 “Oh, your brother’s
mentioned me then?”

 “Oh yes — he’s
mentioned nothing else. When I took him in, he just kept muttering, like one of
those dying cowboys in the movies: ‘Must say sorry to Judith…Must say sorry to
Judith.’ Does that make any sense to you?”

 “No. He’s certainly
owes me no apologies that I know of.”

 “Well, he’s not
uttered a single word since…I think it’s his pride.”

 “Pride?”

 “Yes.” Fin sat down
next to Judith, his voice dropping to a gravely whisper. “I think he feels
ashamed that he kicked me out the house, especially now he’s relying on me to
look after him. It’s like he’s sent himself to Coventry. But it’s me who should
feel ashamed and I do. I did nothing to help my ma, just compounded her
problems with my antics. Looking after Danny now is my way of making amends. He
was there for her and now I’m here for him. Perhaps you might be able to
explain this to the bloody fool.”

 “Where is he?”

 “He’s in his bed as
always. I think it’s best if we wait for him to appear of his own accord, when
he comes out for the bathroom or something…to avoid any adverse pressure.”

 They talked for
several hours and Judith found Fin to be the complete opposite of his older
brother. Where Danny affected omniscience, incessantly lecturing, Fin seemed
more intent on listening and learning. In fact he was so attentive, she soon
found herself divulging quite intimate details about her life. He seemed
genuinely absorbed throughout, as if even the tiniest thing had the power to
astound him. Judith suspected it was this willingness to learn that had made
him vulnerable to drugs. She imagined Fin was someone who couldn’t pass
judgement on a subject until he’d investigated every detail and experienced it
himself, unlike Danny, who would self-righteously denounce anything that
contradicted his inherited ideology.

 When Judith
mentioned Bob and Herman’s court case, Fin took control of the conversation,
having been in Barlinnie Prison at the same time as the disgraced rock star. Apparently,
Bob had been like a fish out of water inside, practically grovelling for his
company. On spotting Danny’s younger brother in the prison canteen, he’d rushed
over, ecstatically relieved to see a familiar face at last, even if it did
belong to someone twenty leagues beneath his imagined echelon. This had been
particularly cringe inducing for Fin, because Bob had always treated him with
contempt in the past, snubbing his every salutation. On top of this, he
despised the guy for running off with his brother’s girlfriend and detested him
for the alleged assault on Carina Curran, whom he knew personally from the drugs
scene. But his upbringing had prevented him from shunning Bob, and he’d even
used what influence he had among other inmates to make sure no harm befell the
man.

 Fin told Judith that
he’d heard about his mother’s death and the apartment fire from gossip
circulating the Sheriff’s Court waiting room, before being sentenced for
shoplifting. He’d been insulated from the impact thanks to a king sized hit of
opiates, afforded by using all his remaining stash before getting sent down. This
had seen him through the blur of the hearing, the journey to Barlinnie and the
now all too familiar strip search when he arrived, though only delayed the inevitable
misery of withdrawal on a prison bunk. Anticipating this, a part of Fin hadn’t
minded if that little extra in the syringe had finished him off. But, during
withdrawal, his consciousness had refocused, as if he were walking out of a
mist and into the twilight. Then, the cold, sharp light of reality had caused
him to scream out, as if trying to expel his heart. The indecipherable shadow
that had accompanied him all the way from the Sheriff’s Court now revealed
itself: his mother was dead.

 Following a
Methadone assisted withdrawal, Fin had sobbed on his bunk each night, not only
in grief, but in shame at the way he’d let his mother down. He’d been
determined to make amends and so, upon release, not only had he rescued Danny
from Katy’s parents couch, but embarked upon a combination therapy of
prescribed drugs to keep himself off the heroin. In the long term, he hoped to
become a voluntary counsellor, helping others to quit the habit as well.

 Fin was an advocate
of the state providing prescribed heroin for registered addicts. That was the
carrot. The stick was that they would have to take the drug under strict
supervision in controlled shooting galleries, removing the drug and syringes
off the streets, while reducing deaths from overdose. As he argued his case,
Judith closed her eyes for a moment and it sounded like Danny talking.

 “Why should I have
to pay taxes to pleasure drug addicts?” she protested.

 “If the British Government
were to deal directly with third-world producer countries, we’d be spending
billions less as a nation than we presently waste through stolen property,
police time, courts and prison cells. By cutting out the middle men, we could
obtain the opium for a fraction of its street value, so that just several pound
a day would sustain an addict, as opposed to the fifty or a hundred pounds a
day they must find at present, through shoplifting, purse snatching,
prostitution and of course, dealing. Money aside, it would also relieve our
justice system, health and social services to perform more efficiently, while
making the general population feel safer going about their business…not to
mention the good the money would do for societies like Afghanistan…I mean,
that’s what our army’s supposedly out there for, isn’t it?”

 “But how can you morally
justify feeding our citizens heroin?” Judith exclaimed.

 “The prescribing of
the drug must be seen as the beginning of a long term strategy. Once the
government has monopolized supply, the criminal networks will dissolve and,
with no alternative sources to undermine the project, the health service can
start gradually, but compassionately, weaning addicts off.”

 “But then the
addicts will just go looking for it on the street again. Once the criminals can
see there’s a market they’ll go back to their old ways.”

 “That’s why we have
to legalize and nationalise the distribution of all drugs, so that there’s no
established cannabis or ecstasy ring that can easily expand back into heroin. And
anyway, like I say, you wouldn’t start the weaning process until every last granule
of the stuff had been vacuumed up off the streets.”

 “But this ‘weaning
process’ contradicts everything you’ve said about saving money. It would become
an industry in itself and cost a fortune to administer. Wouldn’t it be simpler
to just write the current generation of addicts off as a lost cause and let
them live the rest of their lives in peace, enjoying the prescribed opium you
talked about? The minute the government withdraws supply you’re going to
recreate the very situation we have now. One way or another people are going to
find the stuff...you’d have to use really draconian measures to stop it taking
grip again and our prisons are already packed. I mean, where are you going to
accommodate a hundred and fifty thousand recusant junkies?”

 “We wouldn’t send
them to prison. I’m far too liberal a person for that.”

 “Go on?”

 “We’d exile them to
Afghanistan.”

 “What?”

 “That’s right. Anyone
found in possession of black market heroin, we’d take their passport away and
send them out there. If they want to take heroin all day, then who are we to
stop them? Likewise, who are they to stop the rest of us living in a civilized
society? So, we banish them to Afghanistan and send social security payments
each fortnight. That way they can buy as much cheap opium as they like and the
drugs never have to leave South-Asia. I’m sure the Afghans wouldn’t complain so
long as the money was arriving every two weeks. We could even exchange them for
clean living Afghans who want to live in a first world country…I’m serious
Judith. Communities like mine can’t expect any quality of life so long as that
shit’s on the streets.”

 While talking about
heroin, Fin’s eyes sparkled, so much that Judith wondered if the Afghanistan
exile idea wasn’t actually some paradise fantasy. Infuriatingly, just as he got
into his stride, someone hammered loudly on the apartment’s door. He went out
to answer it and Judith heard a familiarly pompous voice invade the hall and
grow louder as its owner approached the living room.

 “Ok pin-head, where’s
Che Guevara?”

 Bob Fitzgerald
appeared in the door frame, his swashbuckling stride broken by Judith’s
presence. He was still wearing a white suit and pink silk shirt, only his hair,
once so expensively styled, had become a matted, dull brown helmet. Their eyes
clashed and she tried to decipher any evil in them, before his gaze swerved and
he turned to go, colliding with a trailing Fin in the process. He pushed him
aside and carried on towards the bedrooms.

 “Where’s the
righteous one, ‘Fin’?”

 Fin chased after him
and Judith could hear doors opening and slamming shut.

 “How did you get in
the building?” the younger White brother demanded of the imposter.

 “Ah, you can get in
anywhere if you look the part…this one is it?”

 “No! You can’t go in
there!”

 Judith got up and
went over to the hallway where Fin and Bob were jostling for control of Danny’s
bedroom door handle. Just then, the door was pulled open from the inside and a
scrawny man, with wild curly hair and a bushy beard stood there, naked. Fin and
Judith looked away out of embarrassment, but Bob milked the scene with a sly,
lopsided grin on his face.

 “Where is she
Danny?”