Free When The Devil Drives by Christopher Brookmyre Page A

rain all summer anyway.’
    ‘I agree. It’s not buying another computer game that’s the issue. The problem is, the game he wants is
Trail of the Sniper
. It’s got a fifteen certificate, but he says all his friends have got it.’
    That was when Drew made the face.
    Drew worked for a games development firm, so was several times bitten and consequently very shy of finding himself being held accountable for the evils and excesses of the entire industry, but this was only part of the reason for his wincing expression.
    ‘He’s starting Primary Five,’ she added. ‘He’s ten, and as far as I can ascertain this game revolves entirely around shooting people in the head with graphically realistic consequences.’
    Drew let out a very quiet sigh, one he was perhaps hoping she wouldn’t hear.
    ‘If it’s a fifteen, then he can’t have it,’ he said. ‘He’ll just have to accept that. His pals are probably lying anyway.’
    ‘So you’ll tell him?’ she asked. ‘It’s just, you let him have that wrestling game that’s a fifteen.’
    ‘Yeah, but on those WWE games the certificate is actually an upper limit on who should be playing it,’ he replied with a smile. Catherine wasn’t in the mood for joking.
    ‘I’m just saying, he’s got his heart set on this and I don’t want it to always be me that gets painted as the killjoy.’
    ‘That’s fair enough,’ he said. ‘It should come from me. He’ll not be happy, but the fact that I did let him play the wrestling game should mean he understands this isn’t capricious. I’ll explain to him that there’s content that’s inappropriate. It’s a fifteen and he’s ten.’
    And there it was, the moment Catherine had predicted. Drew was ostensibly agreeing with her, but in reality he was merely acquiescing. She could tell from his choice of words: he sounded like he was quoting rather than thinking out loud, and his rationale that ‘it’s a fifteen and he’s ten’ was in complete contrast to his previously stated opinions about each child’s comprehension and maturity being too complex and individual to categorise by age bands. He was agreeing with her to keep the peace, in the short term possibly because itmight improve his chances of the evening ending with a shag, and in the long term because … well, that was complex.
    For one thing, Drew was sensitive about ever being considered irresponsible as a father, primarily because he was a lot younger than her, but partly also because he worked in an industry largely built on exploiting the more emotionally retarded aspects of the male psyche.
    Catherine, in turn, was sensitive about being the one who always said no, who was risk-averse, disapproving, a killjoy.
    The bad cop.
    She didn’t like to admit it to herself, but sometimes Catherine suspected Drew was a little scared of her. It could allow her to get her own way, as in this case, but prevailing because her husband was too cowed to stand up to her was a long way from what she wanted.
    She knew she was on shaky ground complaining that Drew didn’t want to discuss how he really felt about something, as he had frequent cause to lament how there was so much that his wife wouldn’t reveal about herself. Partly it was derived from determination not to bring the job home; her resolve that her family should not live under a shadow of gloom cast by a wife and mother who often spent her working hours mired in the detritus of the worst things that human beings could do to one another. But Drew’s complaint was not born of ingratitude at being spared regular, vivid and graphic insights into her caseload. It was something more, something other, something she wouldn’t, couldn’t share.
    ‘There’s this dark place you go,’ he once put it. ‘You’re angry on the road to that place and you’re unreachable when you get there. But what’s hardest is you’re numb for days afterwards.’
    Drew refilled her wine glass and topped up his own. She could tell