1979

by Val McDermid

  She was distracted from her fretting by the copy taster, who dropped a sheet of news agency copy in front of her. ‘Can you check this out, see if there’s any arrests in Scotland?’ he asked.

  Allie scanned the page. Six men had been arrested in Lancashire and were being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The short piece said they’d travelled to the UK on a ferry. It didn’t specify where from, but it was a code well understood by reporters. Suspects from Ireland, probably Republicans but possibly Unionists.

  Allie put a call in to Strathclyde Police control room at Pitt Street in the city centre and asked for the Duty Officer. Five minutes later, she’d learned – not for publication – that the men were a cell of known foot soldiers in the IRA and that there was no indication that there were any others on their way to Scotland, either by sea or by road. She reported her findings to the copy taster, who promptly rammed the story on the spike, killing it. ‘No use to us,’ he muttered, turning back to his basket of incoming agency stories.

  Just after ten, the first edition arrived, one of the elderly ‘copy boys’ dropping a bundle on the newsdesk and detouring to hand one directly to Allie. ‘I see you got the splash,’ he said with a grin that revealed the perfect smile of false teeth. ‘Good for you, Allie.’

  ‘Thanks, Sammy. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’

  ‘That’s a handy knack. Stay lucky, doll,’ he added, moving on to his next drop.

  She was skimming through the paper when Todd and her shift partner, Big Kenny Stone, returned from the pub, both flushed from drink and cold. ‘It’s fucking freezing out there,’ Big Kenny complained. He shook his head to dislodge the melting snowflakes that had landed on his thick dark hair. ‘Better wrap up if you’re going to the pub.’

  ‘I’m heading down to the canteen,’ Allie said, grabbing her shoulder bag.

  ‘The canteen? You’ll not get anything down there this time of night. It’s just the vending machines.’

  ‘Danny Sullivan’s bringing me a curry.’

  ‘Ooh, get you.’ He began to sing the opening bars of ‘Love Is in the Air’. He even sketched a few dance steps, surprisingly agile for such a big man.

  Allie shook her head in dismissal, a scornful smile on her face. ‘You’re just jealous because you’re not getting a curry.’

  He held his hands up in submission. ‘And that’s all I’m jealous about. You’re welcome to a nice night in with Danny Boy.’

  She pulled a face at him and marched off across the room to the stairs. But as she trotted down two floors to the canteen, her mind circled back round to Big Kenny’s song. Did she fancy Danny Sullivan? He wasn’t bad looking, if you preferred the waif to the hunk. Definitely more David Bowie than Burt Reynolds. He was always clean and tidy, which was more than you could say for those of her colleagues who didn’t have put-upon wives or girlfriends to iron their shirts and take their suits to the dry cleaners. He didn’t join in the sexist banter of the newsroom, or wave the semi-naked pin-up Page Three girls under her nose like some of the men did, urging her to compare herself to them.

  If she had to go out with someone from work, Danny Sullivan was definitely the best option. And where else was she going to meet a man these days?

  Allie liked to think of herself as a feminist. Not a man-hater, obviously. But she’d decided she didn’t need to define herself in terms of a relationship. Still, there were times when she thought wistfully that it might be fun. And maybe Danny Sullivan was someone she could have fun with?

  8

  But romance didn’t seem to be on Danny’s agenda that night. Not if his choice of venue was anything to go by. The large canteen was divided in two. One half had wipe-clean vinyl seating dedicated to the men who wore overalls and left stains from ink and oil on the seats. The other half, where Danny was sitting, had chairs covered in tobacco-brown fabric, carpet on the floor rather than tiles. Both halves smelled of fried food and stale cigarette smoke. It was, Allie thought, marginally better than the pub, which added the rancid note of spilt beer to the mix.

  She spotted Danny at a table discreetly situated behind a wooden trellis with plastic ivy half-heartedly trained through its grid. Not exactly hidden, but clearly semaphoring the private nature of their conversation. His attention was on the plastic carrier bag in front of him. He was lifting out tinfoil cartons, too hot to handle comfortably, judging by the way he was juggling them on to the table. As if sensing her approach, he looked up and smiled. ‘Grab some cutlery,’ he greeted her.

  Allie swerved towards the canteen counter and picked up spoons and forks then, as an afterthought, knives. Some people ate curry like it was meat and two veg, she’d learned since arriving in Glasgow. By the time she made it to the table, he was peeling off the cardboard lids and setting out the dishes beside two of the thick white plates the canteen food was served on.

  ‘Dinner is served.’ Danny flicked the lids off the dips for the pakora and pushed them towards her. The fragrant spices reminded her she hadn’t eaten since she’d left Fife hours before.

  ‘You spoil me.’ She reached for her starter.

  He shrugged. ‘No such thing as a free dinner. The price is listening to me trying to make sense of this investigation I’m getting bogged down with.’

  ‘If you deliver it as well as you did that baby this afternoon, you’ll have no worries.’

  ‘Honestly? I’d rather birth a wean on a train than try to get this straight.’

  Allie wolfed down her food as Danny laid out the story so far. He spoke between mouthfuls, leaving space for her to absorb what he was saying and to ask for the occasional clarification. As he wound to the end of what he knew, she shovelled in the last of her lamb with a wad of paratha and chewed pensively. ‘You know I know nothing about investigations?’ she said at last.

  ‘From what I’ve seen of you, you’ve got good instincts and you’ve been trained well. What do you think? Is this a story?’

  ‘You know damn fine it’s a story, Danny. You’re not there yet but you’re not far off. You said earlier you were going to nail it down on your next long weekend. What are you planning? Are you going to confront your brother and get him to spill the beans?’

  His eyes widened and he leaned back in his seat. ‘Are you kidding me? There’s no way Joseph will admit to anything. If I front him up, he’ll laugh in my face then get everybody involved to cover their tracks. No, I’ve got a different plan. That’s what I wanted to run past you.’

  ‘You said you’re working with McGovern. Why not run it past him?’

  Danny shook his head, doubt obvious on his face. ‘He’s not a hard news guy. He lives and dies by being on the inside with these guys. I don’t think he’ll betray me, but I don’t think he’ll stick his head above the parapet either. He’ll not want to do anything that might screw up his precious contacts book.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘I’m going to go to Southampton. I thought I’d play the same kind of game I did at Paragon – tell them I work for a top oilman in Aberdeen who’s looking to take advantage of the Paragon plan. Tell them I’ve spoken with Joseph but my boss wants me to check out the set-up for myself. Because that’s the kind of guy he is.’

  Allie considered. ‘It might work. Especially if you drop Joseph’s name into the mix. But aren’t you worried what will happen when the story comes out? Joseph’s been involved in an illegal scam. He can’t pretend he didn’t know what was going on. He’s going to be arrested, isn’t he? And what will that do to your family?’

  Danny’s look of dismay said it all. People’s capacity for denial never ceased to amaze Allie. It usually worked to her benefit, though; interviewees never thought they’d be the ones to come off worse in print. ‘I thought I could keep his name out of it,’ he said, a weak attempt to save himself.

  ‘How are you going to do that? As soon
as you mention his name to the ship brokers, you’re putting him squarely in the frame. You can’t produce a reliable contemporaneous note of the interview that leaves him out. This is going to end up in court, the brokers will say the reason they trusted you is that you gave the name of their contact at Paragon.’ Allie tried to keep kindness in her voice, but it was a struggle.

  ‘I know, but how else am I going to get them to trust me?’

  They stared glumly at each other over the congealing remnants of their supper. Then Allie said slowly, ‘Can’t you use the name of one of the clients? Ideally, one who’s already gone through their system. In a way, that would lend even more conviction to you being on the inside.’

  He frowned. ‘What if they phone up to confirm?’

  Allie shrugged. ‘Then you’re screwed. But you’d be even more screwed if they phoned Joseph to confirm.’

  He sighed. ‘Good point. So I could use the December guy, Graeme Brown, to establish my credibility.’

  ‘And then when you write the story, you could just leave Joseph out altogether. You’ll have to name this Brown guy in your story anyway, and you’ll have to front him up before the story gets in the paper. You’ll never get it past the lawyers unless you give him a chance to put his side of the story.’

  Danny groaned. ‘Now that’s something I’m not looking forward to: the bloody lawyers picking over every sentence with a fine-tooth comb.’

  Allie felt for him. The previous year had seen a record-breaking libel case against another Scottish newspaper. At seventeen weeks, it had been the longest ever trial in the Court of Session, the damages demand of nearly half a million the largest ever in a Scottish court; judgement was due any day now, and nobody in the world of newspapers was optimistic about the outcome. And it had been an insurance company who had taken them on. The lawyers at the Clarion would be twitchy as hell over anything controversial that involved the insurance business. ‘So you need to nail it down at all four corners. You’ll have to confront Joseph’s boss at Paragon as well as the cheating bastards who have taken advantage of the scheme. And although they’ll act the innocents, you’ll have to push the boatyard for a quote too.’

  Danny nodded. ‘I know. But first I have to get Maclays to confirm how the scheme works.’

  ‘That’s where you’re going at the weekend?’

  ‘I managed to find out in a casual conversation with my mum that Joseph is going down south tomorrow. Just overnight, she said. He’ll be back late on Thursday. He didn’t say where he was going but he’s flying from Edinburgh Airport. I checked and there’s a direct flight to Southampton. My guess is he’ll be going down there with a bag of money. I’ll drive down on Thursday and go to Maclays on Friday.’

  ‘You’re taking a chance, walking in there on your own. A bunch of crooks with access to plenty of blunt instruments and a raft of boats that could sail you out into the middle of the English Channel and dump you overboard?’

  Caught in mid swallow, Danny sprayed beer over the tinfoil containers. ‘Jeez-o, Allie, you’ve been watching too many episodes of The Professionals. If it was a team of Glasgow gangsters, I’d be worried, but this is white-collar crime. If they’re going to fight us, they’ll do it with lawyers, not heavies.’

  Allie wasn’t sure she believed him. She recalled men she’d encountered at Cambridge who’d ended up in the City. They might not get their own knuckles bruised, but she was pretty sure some of them knew chaps who would handle that sort of thing for them. And that wasn’t the only risk Danny faced. ‘What about the weather? There’s more blizzards forecast for later in the week. Are you going to be able to get there if the roads are really bad? Will the airports be open for Joseph to get there?’

  Danny’s eyes betrayed him, showing the worry he was trying to hide. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said, uncharacteristically abrupt.

  ‘You could wait till next month. It’s not like anybody else is chasing the story.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t know that. It’s not like Joseph’s the only man in the world who knows what’s going on. Any one of the tax dodgers could mention the scheme to one of their pals who turns out to be on the side of the righteous.’

  She could see he was hungry for the story, hungry for what it would bring in its wake. Kudos, opportunity, reputation. She knew herself well enough to understand that she’d be the same. She didn’t have the heart to argue against him any further. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  Danny busied himself stacking the containers. He couldn’t meet her eye and Allie didn’t know why. He crushed the edges together and tipped the shiny sculpture back into the carrier bag. He gave her an unreadable look, up and under his eyebrows. ‘I left school before I even sat my Highers,’ he said, almost inaudibly. ‘I’m great at nosing out stories and getting folk to talk to me. But I’m no writer.’ He swallowed hard and raised his head. ‘If I’m really going to make an impact with this story, it needs to read like the real thing. Would you take a look at my copy when I’ve got it down? Maybe give it a bit of a polish?’

  Allie didn’t hesitate. Not simply because she owed him for handing her that night’s splash. But because her instincts were still always to hold out a hand. ‘I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, Danny. But you can count on me.’

  9

  The next couple of days offered few opportunities for Allie to think about Danny and his investigation. When the night shift finished at four in the morning, she was always desperate for bed, crashing out for even longer than she slept during regular hours.

  She’d realised after her first rota on nights that the curtains in the bedroom of her rented flat were woeful when it came to keeping out the daylight. And broken sleep was worse than a broken heart to Allie. Rona Dunsyre, one of the embattled trio who ran the women’s pages, had overheard her complaint in the canteen queue and pointed her to a company who sold second-hand hotel furnishings. Allie had spent a morning in their warehouse, poking around among battered dining chairs and chipped bedheads before she’d unearthed a cache of dusty dark red velvet. She’d handed over a chunk of her second month’s wage for a pair of thick floor-length drapes that had originally come from a hotel ballroom, and never regretted a penny of it. When she’d saved up enough to buy a place of her own, accommodating the curtains that made her room a dark cocoon would be a deal-breaker.

  The day after her curry with Danny, she didn’t surface till mid-afternoon, then lay in the bath reading a novel she’d picked up in the second-hand bookshop in Otago Lane on a freezing afternoon in December. She’d only gone in to get out of the cold for half an hour, but as always, she’d come out with half a dozen books. This one, Laidlaw, was set in a working-class Glasgow she recognised immediately. It was described as a detective novel but it was unlike any she’d ever read. The protagonist, Jack Laidlaw, was the strangest fictional cop she’d encountered. He kept Camus alongside the whisky in his desk drawer and moved out of his family home into a hotel for the duration of a murder investigation. There was no mystery either. The killer was fingered from the very beginning. But she was intrigued by the quality of the prose, which was an uncommon feature in the detective stories she’d previously read. And when characters spoke, they spoke in the recognisable rhythms of the street. Allie knew she needed to learn more about her adopted city, so she kept topping up the hot water, reluctant to break the mood of the book by getting out of the bath.

  When she turned the final page, Allie was shocked to see it was already after six. She had less than an hour to get dressed, grab something to eat and get to work. She threw on her clothes and ran down the stairs and into the street, hailing a taxi on the busy main drag by the Botanic Gardens. She had just enough time to dive into the canteen and pick up a bacon roll before her shift began. Rona Dunsyre was on her way down as Allie ran upstairs. ‘Hang on a minute,’ Rona said. ‘Are you on the night shift?’

  ‘Yeah, and in two m
inutes I’ll be late.’

  ‘Do you fancy meeting up for lunch tomorrow? It’s about time we got to know each other better. Solidarity, and all that?’

  Allie didn’t hesitate. ‘Great idea. Where? And when?’

  ‘There’s a pure dead brilliant wee Italian restaurant on Great Western Road at Kelvinbridge. La Parmigiana. Do you know it?’

  Allie nodded. She’d passed it often and thought it looked worth trying, but so far she hadn’t had anyone to eat there with.

  ‘Can you make one o’clock?’

  ‘I think I can manage to be awake by then.’

  ‘I’ll sort it. See you then. Away and keep the miserable gits on the newsdesk happy.’

  Allie slipped her coat over her chair and settled into the desk where she had a single dedicated drawer. She had an ally – and maybe more – in Danny, and now she had the possibility of a friend in Rona. Although she managed her own company well enough, Allie was at heart a sociable creature. She missed the companionship she’d found on the training scheme in Newcastle even more than her student friends. Maybe now the tide was turning. The loneliness that had seeped into her since the move to Glasgow might finally be over.

  Studying Rona Dunsyre from afar, Allie had already decided that she liked her. She guessed Rona was in her late twenties or early thirties. She dressed with a swagger, the only person in the office who wore bright colours, splashes of contrast in scarves and handbags. Her hair was the flyaway blond of Debbie Harry, though she avoided the flamboyant make-up of the rock star. Rona opted instead for an almost naked look, apart from lush dark eyelashes and well-shaped brows that defied the local tendency to the thin line and improbable arch. But it wasn’t just her looks that intrigued Allie, it was her style. She was loud and opinionated, but her delivery always had a teasing edge of humour that allowed her to get away with it in the testosterone pit of the Clarion. Watching Rona, Allie had realised that humour was the key to survival for a woman in that office. Taking the piss out of herself as much as others was the weapon she had to cultivate. Giving up a couple of hours’ sleep to have lunch with Rona would be a sacrifice worth making.