The amount of damage done by electrocution depends on the size of the current and the length of the time it is in contact with the body. Ohm’s law says that the voltage of the source is equal to the current passing through the circuit – in this case the body – and the resistance to the flow of current it offers . . .
Whatever way you look at it, a fat old man with a dodgy ticker makes for a lovely conductor. But only once.
You don’t get taught that kind of stuff when you help your brother out on rewiring jobs but you can pick up a hell of a lot from Google. Said it before, the Internet is a great thing.
Two hours and ten minutes I waited on that canal bank. Two hours and ten minutes until I saw a light go on in the bookies. It went on very briefly.
I wasn’t there when they found him of course but I could picture the scene. The staff would turn up in the morning and be surprised the place was still locked up. One of the wee wummin would produce her spare key. The door would be opened and they’d see there was no one in the shop. They’d go through the back where the stairs led to the small flat above. At the foot of the stairs they would find Billy, dead as the deadest doornail, at the foot of the light switch he’d tried to put on.
It would be obvious enough that he’d been electrocuted. Grey hair frazzled and on end, burns black on his hands, lips charred, eyes wide. Hardly a surprise either given the state of the place. One of the wee wummin would probably mutter that they’d warned him often enough that someone would get fried. Chances are it would have killed anyone but with the condition of Billy’s heart he’d not have stood a chance in hell.
They’d call an ambulance although they knew it would do no good. They’d call the police too. They’d all look at Billy and at the dodgy wiring in the bookies and it would be obvious to every one of them what had happened.
Obvious that is until they saw his right hand. Until they saw that he was missing a finger. A pinkie. Neatly chopped off. Severed.
CHAPTER 7
I bought every Scottish daily newspaper but found mention of it in only three of them. It didn’t please me.
The Herald. Saturday, 9 May 2009. Page 6. No byline.
Tragic accident
A Glasgow bookmaker has been found dead in his office in Maryhill. William Hutchison (58) was discovered by staff yesterday morning when they opened the premises in Maryhill Road. It is believed that Mr Hutchison was electrocuted as a result of faulty wiring. A post mortem has been ordered by the Procurator Fiscal’s office. Mr Hutchison is survived by a wife and two grown-up children.
The Daily Record. Saturday, 9 May 2009. Page 7.
By Collin Docherty.
A photograph of Billy taken when some footballer
put on a charity bet in his shop.
Bookie burned
The body of well-known Glasgow bookie Billy Hutchison was found in his Maryhill shop yesterday. Horrified staff came across the electrocuted and badly charred body of Mr Hutchison when they opened up the bookies at 10 a.m. One distraught cleaner had to be treated by ambulance staff after finding her boss.
Mr Hutchison was a well-known figure in Maryhill and had owned the bookmakers there for 22 years. He was well respected in the local community and held regular charity events that attracted the support of players from Celtic, Rangers and Partick Thistle in aid of Multiple Sclerosis. In 1998 he was named Maryhill Citizen of the Year for his fundraising efforts.
Police would not speculate on the cause of death but it is believed that faulty wiring in the premises contributed to a horrendous accident. A post mortem will be carried out. Yesterday, Mrs Agnes Hutchison was too distraught to speak about her husband’s death. A neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said, ‘This is terrible. Agnes will be devastated. Billy was such a nice guy and they were devoted to each other. It’s a tragedy.’
Around five o’clock, I bought the final edition of the Evening Times. It was slightly more promising.
The Evening Times. Saturday, 9 May 2009. Page 3.
By Martine Blake.
Police have refused to confirm or deny suggestions that the death yesterday morning of Maryhill bookmaker Billy Hutchison is being treated as suspicious. The body of Mr Hutchison was found in his Maryhill Road premises by staff and it was believed that he had been electrocuted. Staff who discovered Mr Hutchison confirmed that his body showed signs of extreme electric shock. It was thought that faulty wiring was to blame and staff confirmed that the shop’s wiring system was in dire need of an overhaul.
However, it has since emerged that the officer originally in charge of the incident, Sergeant Alex McElhone, has been replaced by Detective Chief Inspector Lewis Robertson. DCI Robertson is a senior detective based at Stewart Street. Strathclyde Police today refused to comment on the involvement of a murder squad detective in what was seemingly a tragic accident, saying it was merely procedural and that they would not comment further on an ongoing investigation.
This has inevitably led to speculation that police now doubt whether Mr Hutchison’s death was the accident it initially appeared to be. No one at Hutchison’s bookmakers or at Mr Hutchison’s Whiteinch home was prepared to comment on a possible change of direction in the investigation into his death.
CHAPTER 8
I’d decided to make DS Rachel Narey my new best friend. Whether she liked it or not.
That was why Billy Hutchison’s finger did not go in an envelope addressed to the CID at Stewart Street as the first one had been. It was sent directly to her.
DS RACHEL NAREY
CID
50 STEWART STREET
GLASGOW
G4 0HY
Same kind of plain brown padded envelope, same printed label amended to suit, same process, same level of caution and self-protection. Different postbox. Different recipient. I just wished I could have seen her face as she opened the envelope and Hutchison’s pinkie slid onto her desk. A picture I’m sure.
She would have worn gloves of course. Assiduously careful not to contaminate the evidence. She would have known what was inside, they would all have known. There would have been a crowd of them around her desk. Waiting, wondering. As soon as they saw the envelope, the place would have been buzzing. They’d have come running, shouting people in from fag breaks, excusing them from interview rooms, all bursting to know for sure.
As soon as they saw the finger it would confirm what they had all thought from the minute they heard about Hutchison’s missing digit. Two words. Serial killer.
One word. Nutter.
Another word. Overtime.
The cops would have been loving it and hating it all at once. A psycho killer on their patch. Good and bad all in the one package.
A stubby, nicotine-stained finger lying there on an evidence bag on a standard-issue desk. Hard and white. Rigid edges of skin where the blades of the secateurs had ripped it away from the hand.
Sharp intakes of breath. Shouts. Swearing. Jokes. More swearing. Every pair of eyes in the place on that finger but the prize was Rachel’s.
She’d have been thinking the same as them. Why her? I hoped a little bit of her would have run scared at the knowledge that she had been picked out by a double murderer. I was certain that a bigger bit of her would have been pleased.
The other cops would have hated her for getting the finger. Some – the lazy, the old and the unambitious – would have been pleased it wasn’t them but hated her all the same. That’s the way people are.
The young ones, those with a hungry eye on quick promotion through the ranks, would have fucking despised her for getting it. They’d have killed to be the name on that label on that envelope with that finger. Why that fucking bitch? Her boss, Robertson, was probably more pissed off than most.
Too bad, it was hers. And it was hers because it was in my power to make it hers.
Billy was dispatched on the Thursday night, the finger posted the next day. Rachel Narey got it on the Saturday, no weekends off for her or me.
Early on Satur
day evening, perfectly timed to catch the Sunday papers and the evening news, Rachel did another news conference. This time DCI Robertson stood at her shoulder rather than the other way about, probably trying to appear supportive but only managing to look vexed. It was her show now and everyone knew it.
She wore a dark suit with a white blouse underneath. She looked a bit nervous at first but soon hit her stride. She said she would be making a short statement but would not be taking any questions.
‘Yesterday morning, the body of William Hutchison was found in the premises of his bookmakers on Maryhill Road. We have good reason to believe that there were suspicious circumstances relating to Mr Hutchison’s death but are not prepared to go into the details of those at present.
‘We would ask anyone who was in the vicinity of 670 Maryhill Road on the evening of March the 8th to contact us. All information will be treated in confidence.’ She was looking directly at the camera now. Into the camera. She was looking straight at me.
‘There is someone out there who knows what happened to Mr Hutchison and I am asking that person to go to his local police station. It is very important that you speak to officers now before things get worse.’
She must have been screaming inside. Desperate to tell everything. Two murders, one killer. Two severed fingers, one maniac.
‘You have information which may ease the suffering felt by Mr Hutchison’s widow, Agnes, and their family. I am asking you now to come forward with that information.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming along this evening. We will provide you with any further information when it becomes appropriate to do so. Thanks for your help on this matter.’
Immediately there was a clamour among the reporters who were standing off camera. One shout came through the hubbub. ‘DS Narey, is this a murder investigation?’
She levelled the questioner with a stare that put the brakes on every other reporter’s attempt to talk to her.
She held his gaze long enough that he must have been squirming. The contempt was dripping from her.
‘I said I wouldn’t take any questions.’
She clearly wouldn’t take any shit either.
* * *
A big, black dog appeared on our street. An overweight Labrador cross, with red eyes. Didn’t seem to belong to anyone. But it looked at me.
It didn’t bark or growl. Didn’t run towards me or turn away. Just looked. Looked at me as if it knew something.
I asked if anyone knew whose dog it was but no one did. No one even seemed to have seen it around.
Must have, I told them. Big, black thing. Red eyes. Heavy with a belly on it. Must have seen it.
No.
Sat on the corner outside the McKechnies’. Or opposite ours.
No.
Big, black dug. Surely?
No.
I remembered my granddad had a dog like it. Not as heavy maybe. Name of Mick. Looked just like this dog on our street, except not so heavy.
This dog that nobody knew who it belonged to. This dog that nobody else had seen. Four days in a row I saw this dog. This big, black Labrador cross.
Four days I saw it and then it disappeared. Strangest thing.
CHAPTER 9
Nobody talked much about Billy Hutchison from the back of my cab. Glasgow went on being Glasgow. City centre. West end. South side. Rat runs. Drunks. Businessmen. Drunk businessmen. Airport dashes. Rain shine and rain. East end. North side. Big tips, no tips.
Pollokshields. Carntyne. Barmulloch. Ibrox. Parkhead. Carling Academy. Queen Street Station. More drunks. Traffic jams.
So much city. Maybe it was no surprise that no one seemed to notice a single soul slipping from it. Single because no one connected Billy the bookie to Jonathan Carr. No one talked about the double killing that nobody knew about. No one talked about the double killer that walked unknown among them.
To the people in the back of my taxi I was just mate or driver. I was just a pair of eyes in the rear-view mirror.
To me, they were just yawning, jabbering, disconnected mouths. I listened for mention of Billy but there was none. But for a single day when Radio Clyde news carried a fifteen-second report as part of their twice-hourly news bulletin, there was nothing. Even that day it disappeared when some ned got himself stabbed in Possil and the sports news was extended because a Rangers defender had a knee injury.
Billy had come and gone in a flash and people either didn’t notice or didn’t give a fuck. That wasn’t what was bothering me though. I didn’t give a fuck about Billy either. I didn’t care that they weren’t talking about him but I did want them to talk about me. Or rather, about the man that dispatched Carr and Hutchison. The man that cut off the little fingers of their right hand and posted them to the police. I wanted them to talk about that man.
But Glasgow just went on being Glasgow.
Gallus. That was the word that summed up the city best. A Glasgow word. It meant bold and cool, it meant great, it meant cheeky and brash, it meant fearless and cocky. It meant self-confident and stylish. It meant all that and more. Hard to explain if you hadn’t used it since you were old enough to talk. Glasgow was certainly gallus though.
Time was I revelled in that gallusness. I was part of it. As gallus as the next guy. But that was before, before it was all taken away. Now I was on the outside looking in through a rear-view mirror as Glasgow spilled in and out of my taxi on their way to or from a drink or an airport.
Busy the night, driver?
Sometimes I just looked at them through that mirror. Held their gaze and let them try to guess. Do you know who I am, what happened to me, what I have done? Do you know what I am going to do? They never did. They never even came close.
Instead they bleated about the weather. Moaned about rain as if it was important. A little rain never killed anybody.
Football, money, traffic, football, rain and football. What I had done hadn’t dented the consciousness of this place, hadn’t touched the sides. That would change, I knew that. I needed to be patient.
Sometimes though, when they moaned on and on about such trivial nonsense, about nothing at all, I wanted to slap them, to tell them what real troubles were. To let them know what real suffering was. Mostly though I just wanted them to shut the fuck up. I needed to let them drift in and out through the taxi, blissful in their stupidity and their ignorance. The eyes were supposed to be the window to the soul but they saw nothing in mine. They looked but they did not see. All the time I was thinking, planning, waiting, wondering. Inside it was all there but they just couldn’t see it.
The SECC. Central Station. Wee wifies with bags of messages. Hyndland. Pick-ups at the ranks. Flagged down in the street. Mount Florida. Early starts. Late finishes.
Garthamlock. Celtic Park. Kids to school. No smoking. No drinking. No eating. No throwing up. Cathcart. Johnstone.
I drove them. Drove by them. Drove through them. Picked them up and laid them down. I took their money. Gave them their change. I was right there and they did not see me. They did not know that I existed.
Suited me fine. For now.
I’d drop the flag and set the meter going, ferrying the sleepers and the talkers, the happy and the sad to wherever it was they wanted to go. Sometimes of course I’d get duffed for the hire and some chancer would do a runner into the night leaving me out of pocket.
I’d been sixth on the rank at Central on a slow Wednesday evening, one of those long waits that can happen when you time it wrong in between trains. Sitting watching the to and fro, flicking the wipers on and off to keep the windscreen clear, moving forward every few minutes till all at once a train has come in and there is a queue desperate to get moving.
When I got to the front, a hard-looking sort in a black leather jacket and a bag slung over his shoulder was the next in line. Wouldn’t have been my choice but it wasn’t mine to make. He got in the back, gave me an address in Barrhead then got on his mobile to tell someone that his train was in and that he was in a t
axi, would be there in twenty.
You get a feeling for people. Even when you couldn’t care less about 99 per cent of them, even when they only existed on the very edge of your world, sometimes they set off alarm bells. This guy stank of trouble.
I caught him in the rear-view. He had finished his call and was staring out of the window. Scar just in front of his ear that ran onto his jaw line. Eyes set hard. Permanent scowl on his lips. Don’t know if he sensed me looking but he turned and stared at the mirror. My eyes switched back to the road.
I turned the cab onto Waterloo Street and made for the motorway. Ten miles to deepest Barrhead, past the airport and off. Silence all the way. Quiet the night, driver. Through the lights on Main Street, first right at the roundabout then deep into the warren of crescents. He was on the phone again. Nearly there. One minute.
Next left and into a narrow street with three-storey flats either side. Snipers alley.
‘Stop there on the left,’ he said.
I stopped.
‘You’re no getting paid for this so fuck off.’
I held his eyes in the mirror but he stared me down, daring me to argue. He didn’t take his eyes from mine as he pointed up to the left. I followed his arm and saw two figures on the balcony, one holding what looked like a rifle.
The door was locked and would stay that way till I unlocked it. I could have driven off with him in the back seat but that didn’t seem a great idea. I didn’t know what was in that bag that had been over his shoulder. Anyway, he’d read my mind.
‘You’ll no reach the end of the street. Like I said you’re getting fuck all money. Now piss off.’
I released the lock, the red light disappeared and he opened the door. It slammed shut and I watched the back of the black leather jacket as its wearer slipped into the close without once looking back.
I was raging and out of pocket but something deep inside my dead soul found it funny. A runner had just taken me for a mug and I’d let him. The hard man had decided he’d get a free ride home and that I could do nothing about it. He thought I was nothing and maybe he was right. He thought I was no one. A nobody.
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