1979

by Val McDermid

  They were finishing off the last of the sweet and sour pork balls and the chicken fried rice when Danny’s phone rang. Their moment of escape was over. Danny hurried back to the living room and snatched up the handset. ‘Hello?’

  Allie, hot on his heels, put her head next to his. She heard the voice on the other end say, ‘Paul? Is that you?’ and felt the momentary hesitation as Danny slipped into character.

  ‘Ding-dong, my man. What’s going on?’

  ‘Can you phone me back on this number? From a phone box?’

  ‘There’s no need for that if you’re already in a phone box. I’m a nobody. I’m not on anybody’s list, my phone’s not tapped. Just tell me what’s happening.’ Allie encouraged him with a thumbs-up.

  ‘I suppose.’ A sigh. ‘Well, same as last time, I got a note through the door at teatime. So here I am in the phone box. I called at the set time and the guy said, same drill as last time, Thursday night. Only, make sure we’ve got the balance or there’ll be displeasure. That’s the word he used: “Displeasure”.’

  ‘Scary bastards.’

  ‘No kidding. So, are you still OK for the readies?’

  ‘Aye, it’s all arranged. So I’ll see you in the pub, same as before? Thursday night at nine?’

  ‘I’m going to tell Roddy and Deke to meet us there. Wave us off, like. And we’ll all hook up later back at Deke’s flat.’

  Danny and Allie exchanged a look. She shook her head, dubious. ‘Is that wise?’ Danny said. ‘I don’t mean meeting up later. I’m talking about the pub. They’ve told us to come by ourselves. If they’re watching us and they see us with somebody else, I wouldn’t put it past them to call the whole thing off. And give us a doing for good measure.’

  ‘You think?’ Bell sounded panicky.

  ‘These boys? Definitely in their box of tricks, I’d say. We need to do exactly what they tell us, Gary. They’re not messing, they’re for real. Compared to them, we’re amateur city.’

  It was, she thought, a sharp reminder to them both that the territory she’d led them into was dark and dangerous.

  Bell made an indeterminate noise. ‘Mibbes.’ A sigh. ‘Aye, you’re probably right. I was just looking for a wee bit of moral support.’

  The last thing they needed was for Danny to walk into the lion’s den with a shoogly sidekick. Allie stepped away and mouthed ‘dinner’ in a low voice. Danny nodded. ‘We could meet up for a curry ahead of the pub?’

  ‘No, Deke doesn’t like spicy food. We should meet up at the Spaghetti Factory, where this all started. And it’s handy for Deke and Roddy.’

  ‘OK. Spaghetti Factory at half past seven? Then you and me can get a cab down to the Calton.’

  ‘See you then, Paul.’ He inhaled sharply. ‘Fuck, we’re really doing this. Can you believe it?’

  Danny chuckled. ‘It needs to be done, Ding-dong. And we are the boys to do it. We can be heroes, and not just for one day.’

  Before Bell could speak, the pips went, indicating his money had run out. ‘See you Thurs—’ he managed before the line went dead.

  Danny laughed, the buzz of adrenaline lifting him. ‘It’s not exactly James Bond, is it? You never saw Sean Connery running out of change in a phone box.’

  The two of them slumped on to the nearest sofa, leaning against each other as the excitement leaked out. ‘I better phone Angus,’ Allie said after a few minutes. ‘He’s going to want a head start on this.’

  She struggled to her feet and fetched her bag, taking out the small cardboard booklet that contained the news team’s home phone numbers. She perched on the arm of the sofa and dialled Carlyle. ‘Hi boss, it’s Burns,’ she greeted him. She gave him a full run-down on Danny’s phone conversation with Bell. ‘So it looks like we’re on for Thursday night.’

  ‘This Thursday?’

  ‘Afraid so, yeah.’

  He swore fluently and extensively. ‘I wish we had more time to prep this.’ He blew out air through his lips like a horse. ‘My office. Nine tomorrow.’ As he replaced the phone, Allie distinctly heard, ‘Fuck’s sake . . . They’re gonnae get somebody killed.’

  36

  Allie was halfway into her coat when the phone rang again. ‘Angus,’ Danny groaned. ‘Probably wants us in at seven o’clock. Just hang on, see what he wants.’

  But it wasn’t the Clarion news editor. It was the last person Danny wanted to hear from. ‘Joseph,’ he said weakly when he heard his brother’s savage tone.

  ‘Aye, that’s right, little brother.’ He managed to make the word sound like an insult.

  Everything Danny could think of saying felt ridiculous. How are things? What have you been up to? Have the police charged you?

  ‘What? Nothing to say? No cheery greeting for your big brother?’

  No point in avoiding the subject. ‘Did you talk to the police?’

  ‘I did. I spent Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening talking to the police. Oh, and a bit of Monday morning too. That’s a long time to be shut in an interview room with shite coffee and somebody else’s BO. Thanks to you.’

  Danny’s shoulders slumped. ‘It wasn’t really thanks to me, though, was it? If you hadn’t got involved in your crooked scheme with your crooked boss, none of that would have happened.’

  ‘Really? But Danny, I’m innocent here. I got caught up in something I didn’t understand. I was just doing my job. Making a delivery for my boss. It wasn’t my place to question what he was doing.’ Joseph’s voice was silky but there was still a hard edge close to the surface.

  ‘The polis might have fallen for that, but you and me, we know different. I covered your back for Mum’s sake. But I know you knew exactly what was going on. I saw the money in your desk drawer. I saw—’

  ‘You were in my desk? In the office? How the hell did you manage that?’ There was genuine shock in his tone.

  ‘I borrowed your keys when you were at Mass. Not so smart after all, are you?’

  ‘And you call me the criminal? You broke into my office, to find evidence to send me to jail?’

  Now Danny’s blood was up. ‘I did the opposite of trying to send you to jail. It’s me you’ve got to thank for the fact that the polis even entertained the notion that you were a mug, doing what you were told. I kept your name out of the paper. I could have shamed you in front of everybody – the family, your pals, your neighbours, everybody at the church. But I never. That’s how you’re still walking around without any charges.’ He paused as an awful thought occurred to him. ‘They haven’t charged you, right?’

  ‘I was always better at telling stories than you. It worked for the polis, at least. Shame it didn’t do the same for Paragon.’ Now his voice was a snarl.

  ‘What do you mean? I know Gregor Menstrie’s out the door, but if you’re not facing any charges—’

  ‘You’ve destroyed my life, you little shit.’ Even from a few feet away, Allie could hear the venom. ‘Paragon don’t give a monkey’s fuck what you wrote in the paper. They fired me, little brother. They fucking fired me. They said that even if what I said was true – which they did not believe, not a word of it – even if that was true, nobody would ever trust Gregor Menstrie’s puppet. It was me or the clients, and that was no fucking contest. So thank you very much, you horrible little creep. I’ll never get a job like this again because you getting a story on the front page was worth fucking up your entire family.’ Joseph was making no attempt to disguise his fury.

  ‘No!’ Danny despised himself for the rage and despair he could hear in his own howl. ‘It was never about you, you selfish bastard. Oh, sorry, that’s the forbidden word when it comes to you, isn’t it? No, Joseph, it was never about you. It was about morality and honesty and working people like our parents who pay their taxes and believe that’s the price of belonging in the kind of country we live in. Not the greedy arseholes who think they’re entitled
to get one over on the rest of just because they’ve got money.’

  ‘Listen to yourself, Mr High-and-Mighty. You only cared about this story because you thought Mum and Dad would throw me out on my ear and make you the favourite son.’ His laugh was the mocking yowl of a hyena. ‘You couldn’t have got it more wrong. They’re furious with you. They believe I really am the innocent victim here and they hate you for what you’ve done to me. You’re the outcast, Danny. You’re the Judas Iscariot. So why don’t you take your thirty pieces of silver and do what Judas did. Find a tree and swing from it.’ The crash of the phone descending echoed in the white room forty miles away.

  Danny fell back on the sofa, pulses pounding in his ears. He dropped the phone and made no attempt to wipe away the tears trickling down his face. ‘I knew he hated me,’ he said, his voice a broken rasp. ‘I just didn’t know how much.’

  Allie crouched down at his side, gripping his hand. ‘You didn’t deserve that. He’s lashing out because he’s been caught out.’

  Danny shook his head, his chest tight with a sorrow he’d never felt before. ‘No, it’s more than that. He feels betrayed. And he’s right. Part of me was jumping for joy because I finally got the chance to paint him in his true colours in my mother’s eyes. I’m ashamed of that.’ He drew in a long sharp breath. ‘And I’m going to pay for it.’

  ‘So it’s all the more important that you carry on doing work you can stand behind. Work like this story,’ Allie said.

  ‘This story? And what good is this story going to do? We’ve paved the way for a bunch of bampots to completely undermine the campaign for a Scottish parliament, never mind independence.’

  Allie stood up. He could see the frustration in her face. ‘They were well on the road to doing just that,’ she said. ‘We didn’t set the ball rolling. Gary Bell was already polishing up his IRA contact to show off to the boys. And Deke Malloch is desperate to prove there’s substance under his swagger. You’re not making these things happen. You didn’t force Joseph to break the law. You didn’t talk those bell-ends into buying explosives from the IRA. Danny, what we’re doing is stopping the bad things from happening.’

  ‘I understand that. It’s the collateral damage that keeps me awake at night.’ He rubbed the tears from his face in a brusque backward swipe. ‘Away home, Allie. I’ll be fine in the morning. I just need to sit here quietly and get drunk.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. We both need to be sharp in the morning. You won’t be doing either of us any favours if you turn up with a hangover.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ he asked wearily. He didn’t rate her chances of coming up with something that would take his mind off his woes.

  She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s too late to go to the pictures. What about a board game? Have you got Monopoly?’

  ‘I didn’t have you down as a capitalist running dog. I do have Travel Scrabble. I bought it to take on holiday last year but nobody wanted to play. They said I had too much of an advantage, what with me working with words.’

  Allie snorted. ‘Had they ever read the Clarion? Get the Scrabble out and put the kettle on, Danny. Best of three. Winner buys dinner.’

  He pulled a face. ‘Anywhere but the Spaghetti Factory.’

  37

  Allie’s tailor-mades weren’t ready yet, but she did have a couple of what Rona had called ‘statement items’ from their shopping trip. And since she wanted to impress, there was no better time to wheel them out. High-waisted trousers the flecked brown and gold of cigarette tobacco, and a russet tweed jacket over a simple cream cotton shirt, low-heeled brown ankle boots to complete the picture. She stared in the mirror and even without the haircut, she saw a stranger reflected back at her. But this stranger was a woman whose wardrobe looked like an active choice. A woman who meant business. It had taken Allie a while – and Rona’s understanding of fashion – to work out how to dress the part of someone who should be taken seriously, but today she felt as if she was getting there.

  She’d never needed that more. It wouldn’t have hurt to have pulled it out of the bag on the Paragon story, but she hadn’t been the lead on that so it mattered less. Today was different. It was her story, even if Danny was doing the undercover. Even more importantly, for the first time other journalists were assisting her, rather than the other way round. She needed gravitas today; she needed their respect.

  At a quarter to nine, the office still had the air of the morning after the night before. A sports reporter stood at his desk, mug in hand, flicking through the back pages of the morning’s papers. The features desk and the women’s page office were empty. A lone sub leaned back in his chair, feet on the wastepaper bin, cigarette between his lips, magazine in his lap. There were a few more bodies round the news and picture desks, Angus Carlyle among them. He looked up as she approached. His eyebrows rose. ‘Who knew you scrubbed up so well, Burns?’ He hauled himself to his feet. ‘My office.’ He led the way, pausing to shout, ‘Copy!’ over his shoulder.

  The copy boy arrived on their heels. Carlyle ordered a jug of milky coffee and half a dozen bacon rolls. ‘And don’t stint on the brown sauce,’ he added. ‘And when Danny Sullivan shows his face, send him in here.’ He waved Allie to a seat and picked up the memos she and Danny had slaved over the day before. ‘Good start,’ he said. ‘Danny Boy was right to bring you on board for the Paragon job, though. The boy can’t write.’ He shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger. ‘The women’s page used to have a fashion writer, Mary Begg. She could barely string a sentence together. But Andy Budge subs the women’s page, and he writes like a dream. So Mary’s cuttings file was impressive. So impressive she landed a job on the Daily Mail down in London.’ He chuckled. ‘They must have been fucking livid the first time her copy dropped. Anyway. Here’s the point of this tale. At Mary’s leaving do, Andy Budge turned up wearing a T-shirt that read, i was mary begg.’

  ‘Harsh,’ Allie said. ‘But funny. Don’t worry, I’m not heading to the T-shirt printers any time soon.’

  As she spoke, there was a perfunctory tap at the door and Danny stuck his head round. ‘Sammy said I was to come through.’

  ‘Amazing. Both of you, early. Park yourself, Danny and we’ll see where we’re up to.’

  Alarmed at the seriousness of his expression, Allie lit up a cigarette as Carlyle continued. ‘I’ve got a small hand-picked team working up the backgrounders on your three musketeers. Allie, when we’re done here, I want you to track down this Maggie McNab and pretend to interview her about her group and their desire for an independent Scotland. Get her talking about the members, steer her to the three we’re interested in and screw as much out of her as you can. I’ve got Wee Gordon coming in at half past nine to reveal what his contacts have to say. And then the four of us are going to sit down with Tony from the picture desk to work out our strategy for tomorrow night. Think you can manage that?’

  ‘Allie’s going off to interview the McNab woman, I get that. But what am I going to be doing?’

  ‘You are going home to sit by your phone in case one of your co-conspirators needs to have his hand held. I don’t want you anywhere near the background digging, just in case. All you have to do between now and tomorrow night is to avoid arousing any suspicion.’

  A tap at the door and Sammy appeared with a laden tray. The aroma had the same effect as a mild electric shock. Everyone became more alert, more focused. ‘Just a minute, Sammy. Allie, get pouring the coffees,’ Carlyle said, taking a notebook-sized pad of forms from a drawer. He scribbled something on it, scrawled his sprawling signature across the bottom and handed it to the copy boy. ‘Take that up to accounts, wait for it, and bring it back down to me.’

  Sammy scuttled off and Allie served the coffees, her mouth clamped in a resentful line. ‘That’s the money summoned,’ Carlyle said. ‘First piece on the board.’ He grabbed two bacon rolls and a coffee and made for the door. �
�See you in the conference room at half past. I need to check that no mad bastard’s written anything stupid on the schedule.’

  ‘Well, he’s taking it seriously,’ Danny said. ‘Springing for bacon rolls and coffee.’

  ‘Not to mention eight hundred quid from accounts.’ She checked him out with a quick glance. She knew him well enough now to see that he was as terrified as she was at the scale of what they’d unleashed. At the very least, they could both end up without a job. But the worst could be very bad indeed.

  Of course Wee Gordon Beattie was late. He was the crime correspondent; in his eyes, that conferred a certain status that mere mortals had to be reminded of at every opportunity. Keeping everyone else waiting was only one of his strategies for making his point. Carlyle, familiar with his tricks, didn’t bother to turn up in the conference room till he’d actually seen the crime correspondent arrive with his Special Branch source in tow.

  So it was that only Allie and Danny were present when Beattie and his contact arrived. Allie had Danny in her eyeline; she was relieved to see he didn’t even flinch. Wee Gordon headed straight for the plate of chocolate biscuits. Almost as an afterthought, he said, ‘Tommy, these are a couple of our reporters. Danny Sullivan and Alison Burns. This is Thomas Torrance of the Special Branch. You’ll forget ever having met him, if you have any sense.’

  Torrance nodded acknowledgement to Allie, but paused at Danny, head cocked. ‘Have we met before?’

  Danny shook his head. ‘I think I would have remembered. I’m pretty good with faces.’

  Torrance shrugged. ‘My mistake, you must have a double.’

  Allie wasn’t convinced by his response to Danny’s denial. There was a watchful cast to his expression that she thought was more than simply a man accustomed to working on the shady side of the street. ‘They say we all have one of those,’ she said, aiming for inconsequential and scoring a bullseye.

  She was spared from any further diversionary tactics by the arrival of Carlyle and Tony Visocchi, the Clarion’s veteran picture editor. About once a month, Visocchi threatened to retire, which provoked a resigned flurry of flattery from the editor’s office. Feathers smoothed, Visocchi would magnanimously agree to stay, ‘just till you find someone who can manage the complexities of a major picture desk’. He was a tubby little man with a magnificent mane of silver hair, styled into a dramatic flourish. Allie reckoned he must use more hair product in a week than she’d got through in a lifetime.