Our Little Secrets

by Peter Ritchie

  As he rang up the number he rolled his shoulders to ease off the tension in his muscles.

  ‘How the fuck’s it goin’, soldier?’ They were always the first words Mason used when he called the boy; it had been agreed between them the year before that this would prove there was no problem Mason’s end and someone didn’t have the terminal end of a gun at his head. They’d both served in an army intelligence unit that still looked like it might be dragged into the light over there. Despite the passing years, there were still calls and claims about government collusion with the paramilitaries, and the suspicions about their activities wouldn’t go away. They both knew that there might still be an early-morning knock at the door someday, so they were careful.

  ‘How’s it goin’ there, Frankie? How’s the Hibees doin’?’ The taxi driver was a football fanatic and there always had to be a starter about the game. Mason had lost interest in football years earlier but pretended he still cared.

  ‘Game’s shite now, pal; we might as well hand it to the Hoops at the beginnin’ of the season.’

  Mason felt that was enough about the state of the Scottish game and moved it on. He asked the taxi driver about the pub. He had the name but nothing else. For some reason, the pub name bothered him and rang a distant bell from the past. He hadn’t googled it because he knew that in Belfast there was always the possibility that there was a story not on open sources, and he wanted it straight from someone who knew the score.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, what you want there?’

  Mason forgot about his neck and shoulders. There was a story; it might be nothing to do with what Big Arthur wanted, but that wasn’t the point. The man was paying for his time whether he knew it or not. Mason always told his clients that there was a lot of research involved, that it was expensive, and nine times out of ten they were happy with that explanation. It amused him to think how many of them would be pissed off if they knew exactly how deeply he looked into their lives.

  ‘What about it?’ Mason picked up a pen with the end chewed to a pulp.

  ‘Bandit country. Hard-line Loyalist territory. You do not stop in there for a pint wearing a Celtic scarf.’ The taxi driver always had to bring the game into an answer.

  ‘How hard-line?’

  ‘Most of them are just plain fuckin’ gangsters now, or maybe they always were. You know the types: they fly the flag, wind the local youth up to throw shit at the uniforms and hate the green side as hard as ever. They’re identikit villains: shaved head, tattoos and steroids with their porridge. Anyone in particular?’

  ‘Not at the moment. Just came up on some billing. Might be nothing. I’ll come back to you if it shows up again. You okay to sniff around if necessary?’

  ‘Within reason. Those boys don’t fuck around, but if it’s just local info then no problem. Always happy to get a contribution to payin’ my sports channel, know what I mean? Let me know.’

  Mason leaned back in his chair and stared at the notes he’d made. He looked at the word Loyalist – he’d drawn a circle round it. There it was: the first little window into a part of Dominic Grainger’s life. Might be nothing, but he’d put a few quid on the contrary.

  He stretched his neck, tilted it backwards and heard something click. Why would a Grainger, who came from Irish Catholic stock, be dealing with Loyalists? Of course, in business or crime some people forgot where they came from. Not those Loyalists though. Mason knew enough about Northern Ireland to know that God and country mattered, regardless of what the peacemakers said or thought.

  It was all promising, and he stood to take another look at the photo of the woman who’d been with Dominic Grainger in the pub. He’d enlarged it, printed it off and it was hanging on the wall behind his seat. He picked up half a chocolate digestive that had been lying on the desk for a couple of days and chewed it absent-mindedly; the fact that it was horrendously soft and that crumbs were coating the front of his shirt didn’t even register. ‘Wonder who the fuck you are, darlin’?’ he murmured as he stared at the photo.

  The phone rang, startling him and he sat back down to answer it. It was the subcontractor.

  ‘He’s away from the office. The assistant left just after him. Want me to stay on him?’

  ‘Take him wherever he goes and stay with him. If you get him settled let me know an’ I’ll take over for a few hours an’ call it a night here. Want to finish the phone stuff then we’ll go on him full-time come Thursday. We might need to bring in another set of eyes for this one, or are you okay with this?’

  ‘Brand new, an’ no worries my end, pal. Get back to you in a bit when I see where he’s goin.’

  He called in again about an hour later.

  ‘Bookies for a couple of bets and then straight to the casino. Looks like our boy likes a flutter.’

  Mason grinned. It was midweek and two gambling points in one late afternoon meant something. That kind of habit might turn out to be a wee bonus. It was always a positive if they could identify a weakness. He couldn’t be sure, but it was looking very much like a good start. The signs were there, and he’d almost ignored a couple of subscribers in the list he’d looked at. They were other bookies.

  ‘Lookin’ good, Frankie boy,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Lookin’ good.’

  Mason felt the high of opening up a can of worms and seeing the little bastards trying to avoid the light.

  He decided that he’d give the beer a miss after all because he’d need a clear head over the next few days. There was serious work to be done. He googled the pub in Belfast to see what open sources said and there was a lot of reporting, but nothing more than the taxi driver had told him. Casual drinkers just didn’t go in there. It was a den in heavy-duty Prod territory so reporters or nosey bastards would find their teeth on the floor if they even looked in the window.

  Mason shook his head and wondered if the Troubles were really over. He hadn’t been there since he’d left the army and still had nightmares about his time in Belfast. He knew the Loyalist paramilitaries up close and personal, had seen what they could do – and even for a man carrying the weight of many sins, they scared the shit out of him.

  ‘Fuckin’ Belfast,’ he muttered.

  He gave the picture of the woman one last look before he headed for the chippy.

  25

  Sean Grainger was pissed off, seriously pissed off. Things were going wrong and none of them, including his older brothers, were used to it. They were only realising it now, but the truth was they’d probably had it too easy. In sporting terms, they weren’t match fit. When they’d first started to make their mark in the city, Dominic had always picked the right plan and had perfect timing for every occasion. Looking back, even when they’d had to use violence, there hadn’t been too much in the way of opposition, and the bloodshed was usually short if not sweet. They’d worked on and occupied a fairly clear pitch apart from some other up-and-comers. The Fleming clan, who’d controlled most of the drugs trade, had been almost wiped out just as the Graingers were flexing their muscles. The men who’d killed the Flemings ended up in the ground themselves, so the east coast saw a whole new generation enter the criminal landscape.

  The Campbells from Leith were almost replicas of the Graingers and filled the void round the north side of the city. Some young gangsters might have seen this as a reason to start a pissing competition, but Dominic and Colin Campbell knew each other well enough, and above all else they were strategic thinkers; in other words, they were modern villains. Instead of a trial of strength, they decided to cooperate with each other when it suited. There was enough for everyone, although the old-timers might not have thought it was ‘the right way’, considering the avoidance of violent confrontation a weakness. This outlook, however, saved some broken skulls and unnecessary expense. There had been the odd tension between the organisations, but so far they’d worked it out. Half the time it would be a bam from each side running into each other, then there’d be the inevitable piss-take, one of the off-duty troops would g
et ‘the heid’ and all hell would break loose. All solvable.

  Sean had just left his older brother Paul and couldn’t get the logic of what he was about to do. They were losing gear to the law, and some unfortunate circumstances, like the adventures of Tonto and the mad fucking Pole, suggested their business was becoming something from a comedy script. They just couldn’t work out whether there was a leak or if it was just a run of bad luck. Sean usually followed whatever Paul decided. He’d never wanted a top slot; he knew his own limitations and following his elder brothers suited him just fine.

  The problem, or one of the problems that was taking on arms and legs, was that Paul was becoming obsessed by Dominic’s place at the head of the game. It had always made sense to Sean that Dominic was in overall charge when the big decisions needed to be made. Apart from the very odd occasion, Paul and Sean ran the illegal side and Dominic made a bundle on straight business. Sometimes they’d consult or use one side of the business to support the other, but that was kept to a minimum. Dominic always had the last say on the big decisions, and someone had to lead. That had worked well – only a class-act financial investigation would identify the money trails, and Dominic had taken responsibility for washing the profits.

  The links were there – it couldn’t be avoided – but they’d been as careful as it was possible to be. Paul acknowledged, at least to himself, that Dominic had always played a great game, made them a bundle and had ten times the nous he had for administration. Dominic certainly didn’t have his brother’s talent for violence, but he made sure the profits were laundered properly. They’d been building a decent early-retirement pension until the recession had changed the economic outlook for the family. That being said, his brothers were completely unaware of how much their fortunes had changed for the worse.

  Everything had been sweet till the losses started, and now they were down twenty kilos and a talented courier who might or might not be talking to the Gendarmes. A lot of money had been tied up in that lost gear, but there was more to it than that. It was the twenty-first century and a brand name was everything in the modern world. The Graingers had been triple A and now this. Class-act gangsters didn’t like doing business with teams who were attracting an awful lot of attention from the law and losing commodity on a weekly basis. That kind of shit could be highly contagious – suddenly old pals and long-term clients stopped answering the phone or asking for deals.

  Even if there wasn’t a rat, everyone who knew them would presume it was just that, or else there was a major-crime team all over their case and it was just a matter of time before the walls caved in. Big arrests created waves, and those former friends and clients wouldn’t want to be in the path of a fucking Scottish tsunami. There were no written contracts on the crime side, or binding regulations, so someone could just say ‘fuck the Graingers’ and that would be the end of the matter. Like every other business, there had to be a sensible cash flow or else the wheels could easily start grinding to a halt and reserves could be eaten up like chips off a roulette table.

  What the younger brothers didn’t know – and what kept Dominic awake at night – was that Dominic’s own cash flow problems had forced him to use the legal business for all the wrong reasons, which was the very thing they’d always tried to avoid. Mixing the two sides up could leave them badly exposed.

  Dominic had built up a creditable reputation on the transport and logistics side of the legal business, enabling them to compete with some of the big names and often coming off best. Because of his cash flow problems, he’d agreed to do a few favours for the wrong people, moving their commodities with no questions asked. He could charge top whack for these special consignments and it always went straight into his pocket. He hated mixing lawful and bent, but he was a pragmatist and only started the ‘specials’ to cover his cash shortfalls. His visits to the casinos were almost out of control, and he knew he was standing in a deep hole and digging like fuck. Every morning he swore there’d be no more casino or bookies, but by the time he left the office in the afternoon, he knew he would do it again. It was a slow-hanging noose that closed a fraction at a time, but the outcome would always be the same in the end. Although his brothers still didn’t know, it had to be only a matter of time, because nothing remained secret in their world. They would piss blood when they found out, and while he’d tried repeatedly to come up with a cover story for that inevitable confrontation, there was just nothing there to be found.

  26

  Sean Grainger gunned the engine and headed towards the motorway. He lit up another cigarette as he tried to work out if there was something he was missing. He was heading south to Leeds to pick up another load of H, but what was chewing his balls was that he was supposed to be management, not number one or two but next in line. That should have involved fringe benefits such as not taking unnecessary risks – that’s why they paid the numpties. Fair enough they were taking serious hits, but for some reason Paul had told him he was doing the run and that there was no discussion on other options. He’d given him some old shit that he was the only one he could trust, and they’d kept this one watertight so the chance of being grassed was unlikely. But it all felt like that old promise to get in touch after a one-night stand – only even less believable.

  ‘What the fuck are you up to, Paul?’ Sean said it out loud into the empty car because he was definitely missing the point. He was a tough bastard, the toughest of the brothers, but had only half the brainpower and never felt up to questioning them or arguing the toss because they were normally way ahead in their thinking. If there was one thing that got to Sean, though, it was being humiliated for being thick. If it was one of the boys he could just rap them across the pus, but with his brother he backed off and kept his thoughts to himself because he was normally wrong. He knew he wasn’t that bright, but he kept coming back to the conclusion that Paul had decided he must be the leak and that’s why he was being sent on a test run. It was the old witch-trial logic: if he wasn’t pulled by the law then he was a grass and if he was pulled he was innocent, but his arse would end up in HMP Saughton for his troubles.

  He thumped the dashboard with the edge of his closed fist. ‘Fuck it.’

  He could have just forced the issue with Paul, but that would have set his brother off on a tangent. If he argued, Paul would still think it stank of disloyalty, and in any case, he was going off his trolley and back on the coke. It was a fucking rat trap all ways.

  He checked his mirror every couple of minutes. The motorway was quiet by normal standards and there was nothing obvious on his tail. The Leeds team had said they would do the handover at a service station on the outskirts of the city. They knew the last courier had been arrested on the way back to Scotland and were having their own concerns about whether the Jocks were bringing the problem or it was somewhere near their own door. In a way, they were having their own version of the same crisis because two minor couriers who worked for them and a dealer had been taken out by the law. They were giving the Graingers the benefit of the doubt because their own cash flows were being hit and they needed to keep goodwill wherever it existed.

  As Sean Grainger crossed the border onto English soil, the Police Scotland surveillance team leader was as happy as a pig in shit because all was going to plan. Tonto wasn’t supposed to have known about the job, but Sean had bumped his gums to some of the team in the boozer. He was bumping his gums just too often about Paul because he needed someone to listen to him. His team had looked interested and nodded at the right time. Paul was a highly strung nutjob who was pissing everyone off, and Sean knew the boys would agree. He just didn’t have the grey matter to work out that if there was a leak, it might be one of those sympathetic nodding heads. Tonto had experienced a mild rush when Sean hadn’t turned up as usual for the morning meet and prayed that he was on his way south. Hadden would be pleased, and if she was pleased it was all gravy for him. A few of the boys had heard the same story as he had, so nothing could come directly back to him.


  A few miles south of the border, the NCA team took over the surveillance and kept well back from Grainger, who’d relaxed a bit, deciding there was definitely nothing to worry about behind him.

  As the car travelled south, taking all the correct directions for Leeds, the NCA team were high – it looked good for another meet with their own targets. If that was the case, they would be getting close to moving in and making the arrests. They had technical devices in play and knew that a large importation was on its way to the UK, and they wanted to tie the Leeds mob to it. It was a big one going to a team in Liverpool, and the Leeds mob were on for a third of the load – close to one hundred kilos. They would let this Jock pick up and run north of the border again, where he could be intercepted if all was going well.

  Sean Grainger made the call about an hour from the service station. The voice at the other end of the line told him it was all good and the handover was on when he arrived. He was told where to park and given a description of the car and driver who’d meet him. The NCA picked up every word from their technical interceptions and it was relayed to the surveillance teams, including the Police Scotland unit. Hadden got the message twenty minutes later, leaned back in her seat and smiled. She picked up the phone and called Dominic Grainger. He answered after a couple of rings.