1979

by Val McDermid

  ‘We’ve got family details, where they grew up and where they went to school. Oh, and an ex of Deke Malloch’s revealing that he spoke to her about how the Scots needed to rise up against their oppressors.’ She hunted through the papers and pulled one out. ‘Here we go: “I chucked him in the end because he bored me stupid with all his talk about how they’d set free the whole British Empire to be their own bosses, all except Scotland. Like we were prisoners that needed to break out the jail. He’s got a bee in his bonnet the size of the Loch Ness Monster.” Great quote.’

  ‘I’d have to agree with her. I’ve not spent much time with Malloch, but he is very fucking tedious. Have we got any other decent quotes?’

  ‘Some stuff from workmates, pals from the pub. All a bit innocuous taken by itself, but it’s fuel to the flames all the same.’

  Danny returned to the cooker and stirred the pot. The rich aroma that filled the kitchen forced Allie to concede it was worth looking forward to. ‘I managed to pin Angus down to the nuts and bolts of how we’re going to do this,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s eat first. When I dish this up, you’re not going to be able to concentrate on nuts and bolts.’

  It turned out he was right. Danny had learned his stovies from his mother, clearly one of those working-class women who could bring alchemy to bear on a trio of simple ingredients. Onions, potatoes and corned beef was an unpromising list but, in the right hands, it became far more than the sum of its parts. Danny ladled it out into a pair of wide-rimmed shallow soup plates with a small sigh. ‘My mother might have excommunicated me, but at least I’ve got her best recipes.’

  Neither had much to say apart from Allie’s appreciative mumbles and Danny’s occasional sigh of pleasure. He produced a couple of rolls to wipe their plates clean, and said, ‘To quote your namesake, “Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive, Bethankit hums.”’

  Allie groaned. ‘All my life I’ve had Burns quoted at me.’

  ‘Well, it is Burns Night tomorrow,’ he pointed out. ‘And we’ll not be at a Burns Supper.’

  ‘Danny, if I was to be at a Burns Supper tomorrow, the chances are my only participation would be to dress up as Poosie Nansie and carry the haggis in. It’s still an excuse for a boys’ night out more often than not. Frankly, I’d rather be chasing round the back streets of the East End in my wee car.’

  He pulled a face. ‘I take your point. So, nuts and bolts?’

  ‘Just a minute.’ She returned with her bag and rummaged around before producing a Kodak Instamatic camera and a pack of three Magicube flashes. ‘Nothing significant’s changed since we ran through the basic plan this morning. Except Angus thinks it would be a great idea for you to get some pix of the explosives.’

  ‘What? Has he lost his mind? I’ll never geet away with that, they’ll freak out.’

  ‘Not if you play it right. Go with what an important historic moment this is, how there should be a record of this. The first night of the revolution!’ He looked sceptical, so she pressed on. ‘You take a pic of the three of them with the explosives, then get one of them to take a pic of you with the other two. That way it looks like you’re as implicated as they are. It’s a clinching piece of evidence.’

  ‘I’m not happy about this.’ He scowled.

  ‘The IRA do it all the time, take pics of themselves with Armalites and all sorts.’

  ‘Yeah, with balaclavas covering their faces. Even their own mothers wouldn’t recognise them.’ He folded his arms across his chest, his expression defiant.

  ‘You can do it, Danny. They love you. You’ve made their dreams come true. You can persuade them. Imagine the impact of the three of them across the splash with the bomb-making gear.’

  He couldn’t help a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. ‘Maybe. I’ll talk to Angus tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. We’re presuming they’ll tell you where to go to pick up the explosives. Angus is adamant that you have to stay with the other three till the pick-up happens and make sure you’re with them when they decide where they’re going to store them till it’s time to act.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll make sure of that, don’t worry. I can always play the “I paid for them, I’ve got a right to know what’s going on with them” card. But I don’t think it’ll come to that. When you get right down to it, they’re soft as shite. I almost feel sorry for them.’ He turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘Stupid wee laddies.’

  Allie grinned. ‘Don’t be feeling too sorry for them. So, once you’ve got the stuff stashed and you go your separate ways, you come back to the office and we get cracking on writing the story.’

  Anxious again, Danny said, ‘What if they want to celebrate? Get a carry-out and get pished?’

  It was something that unaccountably hadn’t come up in the discussions in the office. Allie puzzled for a moment then her face cleared. ‘It’s going to be getting on for midnight. There’s no place open to get a carry-out at that time of night. You’ll have to fall back on whatever’s in the house already.’

  Danny relaxed. ‘And knowing this lot, that’ll not be more than a couple of cans, if we’re lucky. So I get back to the office, we write up the story, but not for Friday’s paper, right? Because there’s no way we can get it into the early editions?’

  ‘Right. We write, the lawyers go through every dot and comma. That’s when it gets tricky.’

  ‘Because of the Contempt of Court Act,’ Danny said, rolling his eyes. ‘We can’t publish anything that might prejudice a fair trial. It’s always the issue for investigative journalism in Scotland. Another good reason for moving to Fleet Street.’

  Allie shrugged. ‘Thankfully, I’m not paid to work out how to get round the legal pitfalls. But Angus is and he reckons he can do a deal. He’ll sit down with the Chief Constable and the Fiscal and tell them what we have. He’ll argue that without our investigation, they wouldn’t know a crime had even taken place, and our intervention has prevented even worse crimes. He’ll tell them approximately where the arrests need to be made but he won’t give them the exact addresses till the presses are rolling. That way, they can make the arrests before your three pals and the IRA cell know what’s happening, but we get our story out there without the bastards’ lawyers claiming they can’t get a fair trial.’

  ‘Skating on thin ice.’

  ‘We knew that from the start, Danny. But Angus loves this story. He can already see the press awards lining up on his window ledge. He says even if we do get charged with contempt of court, the paper will pay the fine. It’s worth it for the circulation, for the reputation as a campaigning newspaper.’

  Danny got up and fetched a bottle of Famous Grouse and two tumblers from a cupboard. He set them down on the table and poured two large measures, pushing one glass towards Allie. ‘You know who Gordon Airs is?’

  ‘I’ve seen his byline. He’s the chief reporter on the Daily Record, right?’

  ‘Right. A few years ago, he covered a story a bit like this. He had a meeting at gunpoint with a bunch of nutters calling themselves the Army of the Provisional Government of Scotland. They couldn’t organise an explosion in a fireworks factory and they ended up in court. Gordon was called to give evidence against them and he refused to identify them as the sources of his stories.’

  ‘That’s what we’re supposed to do, isn’t it? Protect our sources? But we’re not protecting our sources, we’re hanging them out to dry.’

  Danny looked faintly exasperated. ‘That’s not the point I’m getting at. The issue’s contempt. The judge decided Gordon was in contempt of court. He got fined £500. But that’s not all. He was sent to jail. Do you think Angus will go to jail for us, Allie?’

  Allie picked up her glass and took a sip. She didn’t really like whisky but she knew enough to understand liking wasn’t always relevant. ‘I don’t need Angus to go to jail for me.’ As the words came out of her mouth, Alli
e was surprised to realise that she meant them. ‘People remember Gordon Airs ending up in jail for having integrity. I’d take that. I want people to remember my name, Danny. For the right reasons, and for a long time.’

  40

  All over Scotland – all over the world, Allie knew – people were celebrating her namesake. From Moscow to Minneapolis, gallons of whisky were being drunk, tons of haggis were being eaten and vast volumes of verse were being recited. When she’d been a teenager, force-fed the poetry of Robert Burns in her English class, she’d fantasised that she was descended from the national bard and that ancestry would give her a head start when it came to being a journalist. She’d been wrong on both counts, in spite of there being hundreds of direct descendants of the poet.

  Now all she hoped was that this would be a different sort of Burns Night. That its events would make hers a name recognised and respected among her fellow hacks. It depended on so many others playing their parts, but at its heart, it was still her story. Carlyle had assured her that this time, hers would be the first name on the byline. She hoped he’d keep his word.

  The team had assembled in the office at six. All six of the reporters who’d been assembling the background information on Bell, Farquhar and Malloch had handed over their notes and Carlyle had passed a copy of each over to Allie. Given the tight deadline she’d be working to, she needed as much of a head start as she could get. She read through the material rapidly then caught Carlyle’s attention. ‘Can I do a separate background piece on each of them? A sort of mini-dossier? Will that scrape in under the contempt rules?’

  Carlyle drew in his breath. ‘Not my decision, Burns. That’s up to the Razor and his sleekit wee pals. But do it anyway and we’ll fight them for it. And by the way – the editor had a meeting with the chief constable and the fiscal. They’re not happy with our stated intentions, but they’re both realists. We just have to keep a tight lid on this till the presses start rolling tomorrow night. If anybody slips through the net, we’ll be the ones under the microscope. Maybe even under arrest,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ve told everybody the same thing. Anybody leaks and they will literally never work in this town again.’

  Allie found a quiet corner and started drawing together the threads of the trio’s lives. Meanwhile, by seven, two journalists were in place inside the Spaghetti Factory. The rest of the team were eating curry a few doors down, making the most of the time they had before they were due to be in position in the East End.

  Just after eight thirty, Allie pulled the last sheet out of the typewriter and stuffed it into a large brown envelope to join the rest of the background material. The notes she and Danny had made previously for Carlyle were already locked in her desk drawer, and she added the envelope to her haul. She shrugged on her coat, pulled a woollen tammy on her head and made for the car, her stomach eating itself with nerves. Annoyingly, Rod Stewart’s ‘Tonight’s the Night’ was an earworm in her head. By the time she left the car park and headed along the Clydeside, she was humming it under her breath. She hoped it was prophetic, that nobody was going to stop them now.

  Danny was every inch as anxious as Allie. The difference was that he couldn’t show it. There was an unspoken convention among the young men that nonchalance was a sign of manliness. He had a shrewd suspicion that Gary Bell was freaking out at least as much as Danny himself, but he chose to hide it behind a macho performance, reliving the high points of his days on the football field. As if that was an advance validation of his suitability for that evening’s activities. As if, Danny thought.

  Malloch was ebullient, bouncy as a Super Ball, his conversation pinballing from one subject to another, his throwaway lines never quite as funny as he thought. He smoked incessantly. Even when his food arrived, he simply set his cigarette in the ashtray while he shovelled a few forkfuls of pasta into his mouth and swallowed, then went back to it. As soon as he stubbed out one, he lit another. Danny was starting to feel faintly sick. He wasn’t sure if it was fear or second-hand smoke. He could at least do something about one of those. ‘Gonnae no’ do that?’ he complained to Malloch.

  ‘How?’

  ‘The fags. Gonnae no’, just while I’m at my dinner?’

  Malloch tightened his mouth, his face suddenly hostile. Then he thought better of it and crushed out the current cigarette. ‘Ya fanny. I thought you were harder than that,’ he said, pretending mockery to hide his anger.

  ‘I like to taste my food, not your cheap fags. I mean, Number Six?’ Danny laughed. ‘Could you not run to a bit of class like Dunhills?’

  ‘Aye, well, some of us dinnae have a stash of Premium Bonds to fall back on.’ Malloch couldn’t hide the sourness.

  Danny swallowed a mouthful of farfalle with salmon and cream sauce. ‘It doesn’t matter where it came from, it’s what you do with it that counts. And here’s the thing, Deke. I know that if it had been you and not me, you’d have spent it on Semtex, not fancy fags.’ He gave Malloch a friendly tap on the shoulder and watched him relax.

  The only one of them not betraying a sign of nerves was Roddy Farquhar, who’d barely said a word since they’d arrived. Now he cut in. ‘Remind me again. How’s it going to go?’

  Bell rolled his eyes. ‘Me and Paul have the meeting and hand over the cash. They tell us where to pick up the goods. We don’t know for sure what happens next but it’s my guess they’ll dump us some anonymous place like last time. And we’ll find a phone box and call you.’

  ‘And we’ll either come back to Deke’s to hook up with youse or we’ll meet where the pick-up point is. Whichever makes more sense. Where are we going to stash the gear?’ Danny asked, trying to make it sound like an afterthought.

  The others exchanged looks. ‘The fewer that know, the better.’ Farquhar studied his plate, scraping the last of the meat sauce on to his fork.

  His words made Danny’s guts churn. Surely they didn’t think they could cut him out at this stage. ‘I’m not planning on putting an advert in the paper,’ he said, nonchalance gone. ‘I’m into this for a grand, you don’t get to shut me out.’

  ‘Nobody’s shutting you out,’ Bell said. ‘Roddy, you’re well out of order. Paul’s one of us now. We need to put it in a place we can get access to twenty-four hours a day, some place nobody else can come on it by accident. When we talked about this before we met you, we decided the best place was the left luggage lockers at Central Station.’

  Danny nodded. ‘So who keeps the key?’

  ‘Ding-dong,’ Malloch said. ‘He’s the least likely to lose it.’ He grinned and Bell shrugged.

  ‘Sounds good.’ Danny pushed his plate away and checked his watch. Quarter to nine. The nearer the meeting came, the worse he felt. ‘We should make a move. We don’t want to leave it to the last minute.’ He stood up. ‘I need a quick pish.’ He hurried to the toilets, barely making it in time before he threw up. He stood over the toilet bowl panting, trying to flush away the evidence. He heard the door swing closed behind him.

  ‘Paul? You OK?’ Bell, full of concern. ‘You turned pure green back there.’

  ‘Dodgy fish,’ Danny gasped, wiping his mouth and flushing again. He opened the cubicle door and gave a weak smile.

  ‘It’d be weird if you weren’t a bag of nerves. These Paddies, they’re fucking terrifying. I didn’t sleep a wink last night, if that makes you feel any better.’ He turned to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. He turned back to Danny, drops of water landing on his jumper. ‘Let’s get it done, eh?’

  Danny nodded. ‘Aye. All for one and one for all, right?’

  Bell grinned. ‘You said it, pal.’ He offered his hand and Danny shook it. ‘Blood brothers, Paul. Blood brothers.’

  Allie drove through the city centre five miles an hour below the speed limit, stopping on amber at the traffic lights, indicating far ahead of the junctions. How embarrassing would it be to be late for the stake-out because she’d b
een stopped by the polis? But her drive was uneventful, and she took up her position up the hill from the pub with a clear view of the street. She slid down, grateful for the Morris Minor’s sit-up-and-beg seats that made it possible for her to hunker down out of sight.

  The minutes trickled by. She watched a taxi draw up at ten past nine; Danny and Bell emerged and ducked into the pub. The drizzle that had made the air thick and damp earlier in the evening had turned into proper rain, splashy drops spattering her windscreen and making it harder to see clearly. She couldn’t turn on her wipers; nothing would be more obvious than a parked car with a clear windscreen.

  One of the other tail cars drifted slowly into sight, taking up station further down the hill. Allie checked her watch again. Almost half past. In her wing mirror, she saw a man approaching. The hood of his dark snorkel parka hid his face but she knew who it was supposed to be, and the slightly rolling gait was what she’d expected to see. Frank Heggie, another member of the newsroom rota. He had trouble with his knees from playing too much football as a young man, he’d once told her.

  Before he drew level with her, a slab of light fell onto the pavement from the pub doorway. Danny led the way, with Bell at his heels. They paused momentarily, turning their coat collars up. Danny pulled a rolled-up baker boy cap out of his pocket and rammed it on his head as he turned downhill. Moments later, two figures emerged from the pub and fell into step behind Danny and Bell. One burly, one skinny as a whippet. Allie resisted the urge to follow them, holding her position until the dark red Cortina from the office fleet slipped past her. She hung back for what felt like forever, then released the handbrake.

  The Cortina turned left and Allie picked up speed on the empty street, braking sharply before the turn to let Todd jump in. He muttered a greeting that she ignored as she swung round the corner. She could just see the Cortina’s tail lights, then abruptly they disappeared as it turned right.