Designer Crime

by Allen Whitehead

'Need some shit. What you got?'

  'What you after?'

  'Coke?'

  'Nah, I'm out. I can let you have a bit of hash, skunk, legal highs or some smack, but I'm clean out of coke.'

  'How come?'

  'Oh, couple of days ago, this Romanian tart scored a load for herself and her mates.'

  'What? Dips – yer bastard! You'se dealing good shit to Gypo's? How's about us Scots!'

  Dipsy gave a high pitched laugh. ' I'm a business man, Tosh … Anyway, Maddie's sound. She's a tart wi' a heart.'

  'Aye, right, but yer've got to look after us. We's regulars.'

  There was a little more mild banter, then after a deal was struck for some cannabis and pills, Dipsy headed off to get the supplies.

  * * *

  Joe sat in the cafe, at the Botanic Gardens, and watched raindrops splashing down outside the windows. It had been raining all morning and some puddles had formed beneath the tables outside on the paved area. The deciduous trees beyond the lawns had all shed their leaves and, as he'd walked through the park, it seemed that he could smell the approach of winter. Madalina came in shaking an umbrella. She leaned it against a chair and a small pool of water began to form on the floor.

  Joe ordered coffee for her and cakes for them both. She smiled at him as he returned.

  'We got the cash from Smythe, Maddie,' he said. 'Fifty grand. We promised we'd give you and Ana half, but the boys and me have agreed to split it twenty six to you and twenty four to us, so you'll get thirteen grand each.'

  Her eyes sparkled. 'Oh, Joe, that's fantastic. Now we'll be able to pay off Mannion and McNeil and get them off our backs for ever.'

  'Tell me ... I'm curious. How did you both come to owe them so much money anyway?'

  She sighed. 'Back home, some people said they could get us into UK where there are loads of jobs. We say we're from Romania, but really we're Moldavian, an' we're not able to move to UK without a visa. Ana and me, we both had some money saved up. We had to pay at front – twenty five thousand Leu. It was same as about five thousand pounds. When we get to Scotland, though, Mannion in charge. He say that costs had gone up and it was another twelve and half thousand Leu. We say we hadn't got any more cash, so they take our passports and say they lend it us. There was nothing else we could do – so we had to agree. Thing is though ... the interest rate they charge us is twenty five per cent, every week.'

  'That's daylight robbery!' exclaimed Joe, horrified.

  'I know, but what else could we do? We aren't suppose to be here.'

  'Yeah, but ...'

  'I go out looking for jobs, but don't find anything. After five weeks I was owing them more than seven thousand quids. M&M take me to see Carlo one day, and he say he'd pay them some of my debt if I work in his casino. I was lucky really. Most of the girls – an' some boys – have to work on the streets. If they work a lot they earn up to eight hundred a week, an' that's a lot of cash but sometimes it only covers the interest charge.'

  'That's bloody awful. So how much are you owing M+M yourself now, Maddie?'

  'Last week, it was six thousand five hundred, an' at the end of this week, it'll be eight thousand, a hundred an' twenty five, but now I'll be able to give them the lot an' still have some left – Yay!' she said, punching the air.

  'What about Ana?'

  'She owes them a bit more. I think it'll be more than ten thousand but not so much as thirteen.'

  Joe lifted a carrier bag containing a cardboard box, from the floor, and pushed it across the table.

  Madalina smiled broadly and, reaching forward, squeezed his hand. 'Thanks, Joe, you're a good man – an' say thanks as well to Fraser an' Neil.'

  'I will. What'll you do now? Stay or go back home to Moldova?'

  'I don' know, yet. I'll see what Ana wants to do.'

  'Well, whatever you do decide, Maddie – good luck.'

  Madalina smiled again, her eyes sparkling, and Joe thought to himself that he'd never seen her look so happy – or lovely. 'Thanks again, Joe.'

  She carefully wrapped the box in the plastic carrier bag and put it under her arm. Picking up the umbrella, she gave him a wave and headed back out into the rain.

  * * *

  When the courier called into the intercom “Package for Mr Smythe”, he pressed the door release and rushed to put some shoes on. He stepped out of the main door of his apartment, and hurried to the lift to meet the man as soon as he arrived at the top floor. Without a word, Smythe scrawled his signature in the box on the electronic pad that the man held, snatched the small box from his hands, and walked quickly back inside the flat, slamming the door behind him. He tore at the packaging and soon had the box open. Inside were half a dozen A4 size photographs and a disk. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief, for the photos were clear and explicit, leaving nothing to the imagination. Just then, the telephone rang, but he decided to ignore it and went over to a laptop, lying in dormant mode on a glass topped coffee table.

  He slipped the disk into the side of the computer and pressed the “enter” key. The disk automatically loaded and a box on the screen opened – filled with the video of himself and Ana, that Fraser had filmed in Neil's flat. He watched it once, with a combination of fascinated disbelief and distaste, and then a second time, to see if he could recognize any of his captors. It had been carefully edited, however, to ensure that there were no recognizable images of any of the others who had also been present in the room. He heaved a big sigh of relief and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. Barbara had told him on the phone that she was coming to Edinburgh at the weekend, to find out how he had got himself into trouble with the police, and he'd been working on trying to concoct an elaborate lie.

  When he was satisfied that he could learn nothing of his abductors from the video, he decided that it would be best to destroy all of the evidence, so he took the disk and the photos out on the balcony and burned them on a stainless steel tray. He scraped the ashes into a refuse bin in the kitchen, made himself a cup of tea, and flopped back on a sofa in the Living Room.

  Around the same time that morning, identical packages were also being delivered to the London flat of Barbara Smythe and the Berkshire home of Peter Stafford.

  * * *

  Chapter 13 December

  Joe had just completed the specification notes, for the roofing of an extension to a Primary School in Tranent, when his phone rang. He reached out and picked up the handset.

  'Joe, Sam's on the line. She sounds a bit upset,' said Alison softly.

  ' Thanks Ali, put her through ... Hi, love. What's up?'

  'Joe, Maggie called me a few minutes ago. Jim's had a heart attack!'

  'Oh, Christ, no!'

  'She says he's pretty poorly.'

  'I'll speak to the guys here and then come straight home.'

  He saved his work on the computer, switched it off, and ran through to Paul's office.

  'Paul, I've just had a call from Sam. My grandfather's had a heart attack – he's getting on, seventy eight now, so it could be serious. I need to take a few days off to go north. Could you or one of the other guys cover for me? There isn't anything desperately urgent – only a Progress Meeting at the Medical Centre on Thursday.'

  Paul could see the anxiety in his eyes and put down the report that he'd been reading. He knew that Joe had been raised from very young by his grandparents. 'That's okay, Joe. When something like this happens, you've got to do what's necessary. I hope you find him making a recovery. Don't worry about your work here – take all the time you need. Anyway, things are going to start slowing down soon, with everyone getting into “party mode” for Christmas.'

  It took Joe only a couple of minutes to throw some items into his bag and, grabbing his jacket, he rushed from the building and jumped into his car. In less than twenty minutes, he was running up the steps to the flat where Sam was waiting for him. A couple of weeks earlier, she had started her maternity leave from the Leisure Centre where she worked as an instructor. She had alre
ady packed some clothes into his battered holdall and prepared some sandwiches and his favourite orange squash.

  'Where's your stuff?' he asked, giving her a kiss. 'Aren't you coming too?'

  'No … You know I love Jim to pieces, babe, but you'll get there quicker without me. You know I don't travel well at the best of times, but particularly now with wee Josie,' she said, patting her “bump”.

  'I know that, but ...'

  'I'm sure you're going to find him getting better – he's a tough old stick, in which case you'll be back by the weekend. But if, by any chance, things do turn out for the worst, though – stay there and support Maggie and I'll come up on the train and join you.'

  'Yeah, but ...'

  'You go, Joe ... besides, with the tournament coming up in January, the guys wouldn't want us to cancel the training on Thursday. I'll take the karate session along with Davie and put them through their paces.'

  'Yeah, I suppose you're right. He may be okay. I'll call tonight when I get there – on their land-line.'

  'You'd better,' she said, hugging him fiercely. 'You know I worry about you when you're driving a long way. Go now though, so you get across the bridge before rush-hour starts.'

  * * *

  Joe's mother had died when he was only six years old, and he had been raised from that day by her parents, Jim and Maggie Sutherland, on their croft in Caithness. He couldn't have wished for better foster parents, because although they had brought up three children themselves, all had grown into adults and had left home to make their way in the world – and all were girls, so Joe became the son they never had.

  As he drove north, he thought about his childhood.

  His mother, called Brenda after Brenda Lee, Jim's favourite singer, didn't like her name and had insisted on being called “Bren”. She was the youngest of the three girls and a “wild child”. Aged nineteen, she had hitch-hiked to Inverness, one weekend, and returned pregnant. Joe never knew anything about his father – there was a blank space on his birth certificate. His recollection of Bren was mainly a few snatches of memories, enhanced by the handful of black and white photos that Maggie had taken of her as she grew up. Bren had stayed on the croft after Joe's birth, taking a part-time job as a cleaner at the Primary School and helping Jim with the sheep.

  She was just twenty six – two years younger than me, thought Joe.

  The day she died she was trying to rescue a lamb that had been chased over the edge of the sea cliffs by a tourist's Dalmatian She fell over a hundred metres on to the rocks below. Her body was recovered by one of their neighbours, George Geddes, who went out in his lobster boat before the tide rose. It had been a perilous undertaking for him. The flow through the Pentland Firth has a treacherous reputation.

  * * *

  Once he had crossed the Firth of Forth, the weather deteriorated as a strong easterly breeze pushed in dark heavy clouds. The motorway was a fast drive north, however, until it became the A9, notorious for accidents. These were often caused by frustrated drivers, behind slow-moving vehicles, attempting to overtake on the long slow bends. Joe had travelled the road many times and settled down in the long convoys, until one of the infrequent sections of dual carriageway appeared. His car was a Dacia Duster, a small 4x4 that had got a reputation in Europe as a basic but inexpensive and rugged vehicle. He had bought it because of the long journeys to Caithness; not particularly fast or sprightly on corners, it was nevertheless reliable and able to cope with any road conditions.

  * * *

  Jim and Maggie had always seemed old to the young Joe, but they had been active and strong. In more recent times he'd noticed changes – Jim in particular was getting slower and more frail. His grandfather had left school at sixteen and joined a local building firm as a labourer and apprentice mason. When the Government announced that a new experimental nuclear power station was to be built on an old World War II airfield at Dounreay, there had been great excitement in Caithness, because of the construction work it would generate. Jim worked on the site for two years and became a skilled bricklayer.

  As an architectural student in later years, that fact amused Joe, because brick buildings are hardly to be found anywhere else in the north of Scotland. The architects of the Dounreay development were from the south of England, and designed all of the buildings in brickwork, assuming that bricks would be readily available. They were not, so to avoid the transportation of heavy loads, on winding single-track roads or by sea, a brick-making plant was set up, close to the site, to produce the yellow bricks that were extensively used on the site for the many buildings.

  * * *

  As the car travelled through the mountains, the rain became sleet and, near Dalwhinnie, snow began to lie on stretches of the road.

  Joe was recalling pleasant memories of his boyhood on the croft, helping Jim cart turnips and hay to feed the sheep in the long dark winter months. He especially looked forward to the arrival of lambs, even though the weather at that time of the year was often harsh, with gales driving horizontal sleet across the treeless fields. He had spent many hours with Maggie, in a shed, coaxing new-born lambs (usually the runt of triplets) to suck milk from a bottle. He had sometimes tried to feed four at a time, with them butting each other and his hands, as they fought to get to the teats. As well as tending his own small flock, Jim became a shepherd for a large farm and, during school holidays, the young boy often helped him with the work.

  * * *

  Joe switched on the car's headlights as he descended into Inverness and crossed the bridge on to the Black Isle. During his lifetime, Inverness had developed from a large county town into one of the fastest growing cities in Scotland. Just over half way, he thought to himself as he pulled into a lay-by, to stretch his legs and eat the sandwiches that Sam had prepared. He smiled when he found a small note in the bottom of the plastic container. It said Slow down and drive safely for Josie and me!! xx

  North of Inverness, the A9 hugs the eastern coast and he began to make faster progress, as commuters reached their homes and the volume of traffic lessened.

  * * *

  The year that Joe was born, far away in the Soviet Union, a nuclear plant at Chernobyl suffered a catastrophic meltdown. The impact of the disaster resonated around the world, and some workers from Dounreay went to help their Russian counterparts. Almost overnight, confidence in the nuclear industry was shattered and plans for the development of a Fast Breeder reactor at Dounreay were abandoned. Caithness entered a period of decline that was to continue for more than ten years, for Dounreay was the county's major employer and many other businesses were also reliant on it.

  Joe, however, was blissfully unaware of this and he enjoyed his schooldays; first in the local primary school that had around thirty pupils in total; and later at Thurso High School. It was there that he first encountered Carl Sinclair – a teacher at the school – but also a man who practised karate and who began to teach others in evening classes. Carl was quick to recognize the potential in the athletic teenage Joe. He nurtured his enthusiasm and pushed him hard to develop his speed and skills.

  * * *

  As the car reached Helmsdale, the wind increased and snow began to drift on the road. Joe began to feel uneasy. There were still fifty miles to go if he chose to cross the bleak Causewaymire; seventy if he kept to the coast road through Wick and John O'Groats. As he climbed out of the village, leaving Sutherland behind and entering Caithness, Joe remembered a tale, told by his grandfather, of a time when a sudden blizzard left deep snow on the road, trapping many in their cars and several people had died in the freezing cold. A celebrated travelling salesman from Dingwall, however, had survived by putting on every item of clothing in his car, which included several pairs of ladies tights.

  Now, extensive road improvements had removed some of the most difficult winding stretches and, except for a tricky climb up Berridale Brae, his car kept rolling through the late evening. When he reached a road junction, tracks in the snow showed that at least three
cars had gone before him, heading towards Thurso over the Causewaymire, so Joe decided to follow them. The wind eased a bit and, away from the coast, the snowfall wasn't any heavier, so driving across the endless flat and windswept peat bog was less traumatic than it could have been. Nevertheless, he breathed a sigh of relief as he passed the Halkirk road junction and headed towards the lights of Thurso. He didn't enter the town but turned right on the final stretch, heading east. Over to his left, he could see the lights of tankers in the Pentland Firth and the flashes of lighthouses on the islands of Orkney.

  It was approaching eleven o'clock when he finally drew into Burness, and took the narrow road that led to the coastal crofts. He pulled up beside a huge peat stack and switched off the engine and the cars lights. Stepping out of the car, he stretched and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, breathing in the distinctive smell of peat smoke. The night sky was a mass of stars, twinkling bright in the absence of street lights, and clouds raced across a sliver of moon.

  Maggie had been listening for his car. 'Is that you, Choe?' she said opening the door.

  'Yeah. Hello, Mum – how is he?'

  He put his arms around his grandmother's narrow shoulders and squeezed her tightly.

  'He's doing all right. He's awake and knows you're coming, son. Chean was here this afternoon and Marie said that she'd come up at the weekend.'

  'It's good to see you.'

  'It's good 'til see you too, lad. Come away in – it's cold out here.'

  He picked up his bag and followed her into the small cottage. Inside it hadn't changed in all the years, except for a couple of occasions when he'd re-decorated the Living Room and Jim and Maggie's bedroom. He put down his holdall and went through to see Jim.

  'Hi, Dad. What have you been up to?'

  'Oh, hello, son. Och, it's chust a bit of pain I had in my chest. I'll be right as rain in a day or two. You didn't need 'til come up all that way, you know.'

  'I've come to make sure you don't do any heavy lifting for a day or two. I know what you're like, Dad.'

  'Well, it's good of you to come, lad. It's a long way, and the weather's not been great since the weekend. Dot 'll be pleased to see you as well. She hasn't had a good run out for a while, ' said Jim, referring to his old collie.