The McCann Case.

He remembered the first time he’d met Ryan. Full of talk about ‘systemic change’ and ‘empowerment’. All that shite about class warfare and the masses. It was the fire that burned out fastest in a place like this. It either guttered and died, leaving a cold, cynical husk—a  burnt-out case, as Graham Greene once termed it—or it turned into a different kind of flame.

His office was frosted glass and flaking magnolia coloured by fag smoke like a magic trick. Large enough to hold a desk, a phone at his elbow, a Guinness-is-good-for-you ashtray full of douts—no doubt lifted from the The Jolly Jack, a title which must have contravened some trade-description act for run-down boozers. Two orange propylene chairs and a metallic bucket his corduroyed right knee knocked against when he was writing reports with his favourite Biro. The involuntary racket always startled him, so he looked up. Through the partition, he could hear the slow muffled rhythm of the day beginning—the consoling percussive clack and ring of a typewriter, the low murmur of clients and the sudden, sharp bark of a laugh or an angry shout that died as quickly as it came. His fingers traced the worn edge of his desk, smooth wood, darkened from decades of anxious palms that traded blows for not much gain.

The steam from the cracked mug carried the ghosts of a thousand Typhoos blowing through it. A stale, metallic tang that clung to the back of his throat like cheap hooch. Archie McDougal took a nip of his tea. It was cold. Left too long. The milk on the turn. Floaters and a reminder it was his turn to buy the milk that week. It left a faint, sour slickness on his tongue. He registered it with a faint grimace that had him reaching for his fags. An open of Regent and box of Bluebell matches beside them.  Lighting up to lighten up. To cadge a minute.  A battle-scarred habit, hard fought and hard won, to ignore things until they hit you hard in the gut.

On the blotter in front of him lay a single manila folder. Ryan. Barry Ryan. Twenty-one years old. On his staff for eighteen months. Ambitious in a way that Archie found a bit daft, but wearying mostly.  A raw youthful energy that he remembered with a hint of nostalgia that rubbed against the grain of this place like sandpaper scooped out of a margarine tub.

Damp wool broiling under nylon jackets in the waiting room. The shuffle of feet always moving, sliding back and forward on scarred and bolted chairs with a life-times practice of going nowhere. The underlying, ever-present musk of disinfectant that couldn’t quite mask the stomach-churning feeling of poverty that crept in everywhere and into everything that was breathed in and out.

Archie’s gaze drifted from the file, then to the wee window above the metal guards protecting the smudged glass from passing bricks that clattered against the building, mostly at night, when the wee buggers should have been in their beds and not playing dares. The elder kids did much worse but wouldn’t talk. The Glasgow sky rationed daylight, a low, dirty ceiling of cloud coloured like a bruised heart. It pressed down on the city, muffling everyday sounds, trapping the smell of damp stone and diesel fumes in the grey grid of the Drum’s streets. He could almost taste it on the air coming through the single-pane window: the grit, the hopelessness, the endless, drizzling rain.

The door opened without a knock. Barry Ryan stood there, shrugging off his cheap donkey jacket. He was all sharp angles and restless energy. He smelled of the outdoors, of wet pavement and the faint, acrid tang of cheap cigarettes. He rubbed his hands together, the rasp of skin on skin loud in the small space.

‘Archie. Yeh wanted tae see me?’

‘Aye. Sit down, Barry.’

Archie didn’t look up. He focused on the file. He could feel the texture of the cheap cardboard, the slightly raised bump of the treasury tag holding the papers together. He remembered the feel of the report he’d had to write himself, the pressure of the black Biro in his hand as he documented the facts, the weight of the words  felt like stones in his mouth.

‘We’ve had a complaint,’ Archie spoke matter-of-factly. He finally lifted his head. His eyes were the colour of the sky outside.

Ryan’s face was a study in confusion. A small, confident smile played at the corner of his mouth. ‘A complaint? About whit? I’m always getting complaints. It’s part of our job. Mrs. Gallacher? I told her the council wouldn’t re-house her just because her son’s a wee lying shite.’

‘Not directly from a client.’ Archie’s voice was flat. He opened the file, but he didn’t need to read from it. He knew the words by rote. ‘From a colleague. Jenny Adams. We’ll need to do a full investigation and until we do—you’re suspended.’

The smirk on Ryan’s face vanished, replaced by a flicker of something else.  

‘Jenny? What’s that about? Whit does she know?’ He shook his head, trying to control his voice, give nothing away. ‘I’ll get the Union in. Six months on the sick. Who really gi’es a fuck? Certainly no me. Fucking free holiday. Yeh know it’s a waste o’ our time.’

‘It’s about a conversation in the staff room. Tuesday morning. You were mouthing off about the McCann case. The three children we had to place in emergency care last week.’

Archie leaned back in his chair. The backrest groaned in protest, a sound he’d heard in his sleep. He could feel the chill of the hard plastic through his tweed jacket. He waited, letting the silence do its work, a tactic as old and worn as his desk.

‘Aye, the McCanns. A total fuckup, if yeh’ll excuse the language.’ Ryan said, his confidence returning a little. ‘The mother’s a complete write-aff. Alky. Junkie. Whitever?  The house a total fucking midden. Even the rats complained about it.’ His jocular tone, trying to make his supervisor smile, didn’t move the corner of his lips or make him look up at him and meet his eyes.

He cleared his throat. ‘It was the right call to take them in.’

Archie dropped his voice. ‘And wee Siobhan?’  

Ryan had leaned forward to hear what he was saying, but he caught his breath and jerked backwards, unable to meet his supervisor’s gaze.

Archie reached for his mug of tea and took a sip. It was the taste of the job. ‘We talked to Siobhan too. So let’s no play funny-buggers. We’ll need to get the police involved.’

A strangulated cry. ‘It’s no like that.’

‘What’s it like then?’