Ugly Puggly 47

Things were going better than I hoped. I’d gone to the shop and got a Daily Record and rolls. The shopkeeper was waiting for me, edging forward to ask how many cans and bottles I needed. Instead, we hit the pregnant pause. I stuck two packets of superglue on the counter. Some part of me was proud walking out of his shop with a plastic bag that didn’t clink. But my mind was playing the same old tricks, telling me one measly can of lager wouldn’t do any harm. It would settle my stomach much better than fizzy Alka-Setlzer. I nearly turned back.

Ugly Puggly was frying sausages and onion, and the smell made me lick my lips.  I handed him the rolls to butter and looked at the sport headlines at the back of the paper. I always read it back to front. By the time I got to the scandal headlines, news was history. Dave, with his face in his phone, was more up to date than me, but he was sleeping his recent past off.

‘You forgotten somethin?’ Ugly Puggly asked.

I’d my usual seat against the wall and I let the paper fall onto the table. ‘Nah,’ I replied. Anger in my voice.

He’d the spatula in his hand. ‘The glue,’ he said.

I sighed. I thought he meant booze, but I tried not to show it. Shaking the plastic bag so the glue fell out. ‘I nearly forgot. I’d bought the rolls and paper—and then I just remembered at the last second the thing I was really goin for.’

‘I dae that tae,’ he said.

‘You don’t. Yev a photographic memory.’ I flicked over the Sport section. Rangers were selling Morelos.  

‘That’s true. I always remember how stupid you ur, but it always surprises me, anyway.’

‘Shut it.’ Morelos was worth £30 million, apparently, but no club was willing to pay more than £10 million. ‘We gonnae dae this job, the night?’

He shook the frying pan; sausages sizzled in their own fat. He speared one with a fork and ate a bit of it, making a phew sound, and fanning his face to show it was too hot, but a glimpse of childish glee smoothing his forehead. ‘Aye,’ was all he could manage, when he spoke.

‘If we get inside,’ I corrected myself. ‘When we get inside, you know how to work all the equipment?  

‘More or less,’ he admitted. ‘They’re just ovens. More or less the same kind you’d see in the Nazi death camps. A chimney and gas. Ignite the flame and when the temperature gets high enough, a body combusts and acts as fuel in its own fire. The Nazis figured it oot. The mair bodies, the less fuel yeh needed. They stacked them like logs.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘Yer no planning another Holocaust ur yeh?’

He turned the ring off, but left the sausages stewing in the heat. The onions soft, dark and crinkly. Just the way I liked them. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘They’ll be two or three bodies at the most. Usually, they’d dae them wan at a time. That’s the easy part. I guess that it’ll be no harder to operate than a fairground ride. Push a button and stand back. The hard part is raking out the bones and using the tumblers which grind down the awkward bit tae dust.’   

‘Fuck, dae we need tae dae that?’

‘Aye, of course.  That’s the whole idea. We put out body in wae another body and mix them the gether like sand in a sand pit.’ He buttered a few rolls. ‘That wae they’ll no be able to tell where on body begins and another end.’ Slapping two sausages on each roll, he used the spatula to drizzle it with onions. ‘Yer problem isnae so much practical issues, as ethical issues.’

He rattled down a plate in front of me, but continued speaking.

‘If as we expect, yer Council boys dae whit aw big institutions dae and mount a cover up, like hospitals that keep hands and feet and sometimes whole bodies of foetuses that never, quite, got back to the proper parents burying a child, then we should be aw right. We could maybe cremate aw the bodies the gether—including ours—and let God and the council staff sort it oot. But the families of the deceased will be pretty much fucked, poor bastards.’

I tucked into my roll. ‘It’ll be pick-n-mix wae the urns. But willnae be there a lots of smoke? And noise?’

He poured boiling water into the mugs. ‘Nae mair than normal. That’s why we’re superglueing the locks. Everythin will be in place. I’m no sure whit fuel they use, but my guess is gas, super-heated. Nae mess. Nae fuckin about.’  

I chewed slowly. ‘You make it sound like a walk in the park.’

He placed a mug close to my hand and sipped on his before answering. ‘You know whit they say, whit can go wrang will go wrang. I’d put the chances of gettin away wae it, nae mair than fifty-fifty. Some wee woman walkin her dog could spot us. And phone the police. Modern technology makes it easier to act. Some hidden alarm we don’t know about could go aff. There’s millions of variables and only a few we can nail doon. That’s why I want tae keep Dave oot of it.’

Tea burnt my mouth as I swallowed too quickly. ‘Yeh mean, no take im?’

‘Mair or less. He’s keen, but no the brightest. It’s jist a matter of timin. You drop him aff tae superglue the locks. Tell im tae walk doon the road.’

‘Oh, he’ll no like that,’ I said.

‘Tough,’ he replied. ‘I’ll get the body ready this end. But it’ll take the two of us tae wrap it in a tarpaulin and get it intae the van.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s gonnae be tricky. Then as he’s walkin doon the hill, we take the back route, up tae the crematorium.’ Sipping his tea, he picked his words carefully. ‘Then we present him with a fait accompli. We’ll have left a nice set of standard urns riddled behind.’  

I didn’t like the sound of it. ‘Why don’t we just leave the body where it is?’

‘That’s no longer an option.’

‘Why?’

‘You know why. Jeff’ll be back. And I doubt he’ll be alone.’

‘Fuck, I could go a beer.’ Even saying it made me need some booze. ‘What if Dave fucks up?’

‘Ugly Puggly smiled. ‘Well, that’s wan of the things we can be sure of. That’s why we’re no askin him to dae mair than look pretty… Member yer promise.’

‘Fuck off, wae yer promises.’