by T F Muir
Gilchrist returned his pint to the table, slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket, which had the nearer of the two hardmen taking a step towards him. He removed his mobile and placed it on the table, face up, and gave the hardman an innocent smile.
Then he sat back.
The Lord is my shepherd . . .
Gilchrist almost smiled. Maybe he needed to pray – well, at least pray that he had not miscalculated. He bounced a look off the hardman on his left, and received a cold-eyed stare in return. Any thoughts of chickening out and leaving were wiped out there and then. Part of him wished he had never been so foolish, while another part assured him that he needed to do this to get to the truth. He had to know.
On a positive note, he did not have long to wait.
Forty seconds, in fact, forewarned by the door bodyguards stepping to the side as if to clear space for a bull to barge through. Behind the bar, the barman gave Gilchrist a parting scowl then slipped off to join his work associates for a smoke.
The sound of hard heels announced the man’s arrival.
All six foot six of him, with shoulders widened by the raglan style of his black woollen coat, stood silhouetted for a long moment in the doorway, as if to give Gilchrist time to shit himself.
It almost worked.
The Lord is my shepherd . . .
Gilchrist reached for his pint and took a sip, not surprised – rather, disappointed – to find his hand shaking. He had every reason to, of course. If a killer like Kumar flinched at the mention of the big man’s name, then Gilchrist should not be ashamed of his own rising fear.
The Lord is my shepherd . . .
As the man approached his table, both hardmen stepped back in criminal deference.
And Gilchrist came to see that Dainty had been correct in all he said.
Big Jock Shepherd really was the Lord.
CHAPTER 53
Shepherd pulled out the chair opposite Gilchrist, tugged his black coat around him, the woollen material swinging from the weight of something in the inside pocket – a gun? No doubt a man of Shepherd’s standing and reputation would come equipped to protect himself, whether or not he was protected by a team of heavies.
Even seated on one chair, it seemed as if Big Jock Shepherd filled enough space for two. He might be formidable in size, but Gilchrist knew from Dainty that Shepherd was also formidable in life, and at the grand old patriarchal age of eighty-four could still hold his own against a couple of men half his age.
Shepherd nodded to Gilchrist’s mobile. ‘You expecting a call, son?’ The accent was raw Glaswegian reared on sixty Capstan a day.
‘I didn’t want to miss her,’ Gilchrist said.
‘Switch the fucker off.’
Gilchrist picked up his mobile and powered it down.
Shepherd narrowed his eyes, turned his head to the side, and without shifting his gaze from Gilchrist shouted, ‘What’s keeping youse?’
The hardman on Gilchrist’s right nodded to the other who lifted the bar flap and stepped behind the counter.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Shepherd said. ‘A wee one for the road, perhaps?’
Gilchrist did not like the sound of for the road, Shepherd’s less than subtle suggestion that Gilchrist was about to take a trip? Or maybe he was telling him that he did not intend to stay long. Gilchrist settled on the latter. He was still a detective chief inspector with Fife Constabulary, after all, and no matter how big you were in the criminal underworld, longevity in that business was guaranteed to be shortened for a cop killer.
Still, a good kicking was not unheard of. A glance at the muscled bulk of the hardman glaring at him from his spot at the bar told Gilchrist that he had to dance with extreme care.
‘I’ll stick with this,’ he said. ‘I’m driving.’
Shepherd held up his hand, and a glass of whisky was placed in it. He took it, drew it under his nose like a wine connoisseur testing the bouquet, then killed it in one. He held up the empty glass. ‘Don’t gie me a fucking mouthwash this time. Gie me a measure.’
Gilchrist eyed his half-empty pint, conscious of Shepherd’s eyes on him. He wanted to take a sip but did not think he could do so without his hands shaking. He reached out, clasped the pint tumbler with both hands, then said, ‘You wanted to meet.’
Shepherd returned Gilchrist’s look with a stare as hard as stone, saying nothing until another tumbler, glowing to the brim with amber liquid, was handed to him. He scowled at it, held it up to the light, as if checking the glass was clean. ‘They don’t know the meaning of a measure these days.’ He tilted the glass, splashed whisky on to the floor, then held it up again. ‘You see this?’ he growled. ‘This is a fucking measure. Got it?’
The hardman behind the bar grimaced.
‘Got it?’ roared Shepherd.
‘Got it, Mr Shepherd, sir.’
Shepherd narrowed his eyes at Gilchrist, as if to say, You see what the fuck I have to put up with? then took a sip of his whisky. He coughed, ran a hand across his lips. ‘Nectar of the fucking gods, let me tell you.’
Gilchrist lifted his pint, took a sip of his own, relieved to see that his nerves were holding. Witnessing hardmen being downsized seemed to settle him. ‘I’d join you,’ he said, ‘but on top of driving, I’ve got to get back to the office.’
Shepherd nodded, as if at the wisdom of Gilchrist’s words, or in acknowledgement of his sharing a friendly drink. Ripples of emotion seemed to shift across the big man’s face, then he lifted his tumbler, took another sip, and scowled at Gilchrist.
‘Them behind us?’ he said, and gave a backward nod. ‘That’s the fucking future for you. Think they know it all. Think they know what it takes.’ He grimaced as if in pain. ‘But they know fuck all. They’re young, stupid, drunk as fuck when they see money. And every now and then, one of them floats to the top of the shite and thinks they can take you on.’ He tried another sip, but from the look on his face the nectar of the gods had turned sour. ‘But they fuck it up and it’s bad for business.’ He stared at Gilchrist. ‘You get my meaning?’
Gilchrist thought he did, and nodded. ‘Kumar?’
‘Aye,’ Shepherd grumbled. ‘Fucking Kumar.’
‘He’s one of yours?’
Shepherd narrowed his eyes. ‘Careful now, son. I wouldn’t want you getting any ideas that I’m involved with that wee bastard.’
Gilchrist thought silence his best option.
‘Kumar came up here from down south. Chased over the fucking border, more like.’ He sipped his whisky with a grimace that told Gilchrist being chased over the border was not considered good. ‘London, Manchester, Birmingham. He set himself up there. Next thing, he’s on our doorstep trying it on, thinking he’s gonnie start up on his fucking ownie-oh.’ Shepherd shook his head, wiped spittle from his lips. ‘I think fucking not.’
Gilchrist leaned forward, chose his words carefully. ‘He was being disrespectful of family boundaries?’
Shepherd gave Gilchrist a slit-eyed scowl for a long moment, which had Gilchrist thinking he had overstepped the mark. He heard the shifting of someone’s feet to his right. Then the hard look evaporated, and Shepherd finished his whisky with an angry grunt.
He held up the glass. ‘A correct fucking measure, this time.’ He pulled his hand over his lips, and said, ‘Disrespectful?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s putting it mildly, son.’ Then he leaned closer and, in a softer voice, said, ‘But you’re right about the family. That’s what’s fucking important.’ He sat back. ‘I know you keep in touch with that gobshite, Dainty. He’s so fucking wee it’d be an embarrassment to be seen kicking his cunt in. But he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Know what I’m saying, son? Knows when to hold and when to fold, as the saying goes.’ Shepherd nodded at his own sage words, then growled over his shoulder, ‘What’s keeping youse?’
‘Can’t find any more of the Macallan 10, Mr Shepherd.’
‘Go and tell that fucking numptie to get it then.’ He turned back t
o Gilchrist, and said, ‘See what I mean, son? No one cares a fuck any more. That’s what’s missing in the world these days. Discipline. And fucking respect.’
The words were pronounced with the gravity and finality of a black-capped judge pronouncing sentence, and Gilchrist watched the barman – no longer scowling – scurry to the bar with a full bottle of whisky, and hand it over. The Macallan 10, no doubt.
Shepherd seemed content to wait in silence until his glass was replenished. But his stone-hard eyes drilled into Gilchrist with a directness that he found unsettling. Gilchrist said, ‘So, you own this pub?’ more to break the stare than start a conversation.
‘You know I do, son. That’s why you’re here.’
Footsteps announced the arrival of another tumbler, which Shepherd took without thanks or acknowledgement. He held it up in front of Gilchrist. ‘That’s better,’ he said, and took a sip. Then he looked at him, and Gilchrist sensed that the moment of revelation, the reason he had been summoned, was now upon him.
‘I’m a businessman, son. I run a family business. That’s what I do.’ He paused, as if waiting for Gilchrist’s nod of approval. But Gilchrist returned the stone look with one of his own. ‘And do you know what I’m good at?’ Shepherd said, pressing closer.
‘Tell me,’ Gilchrist said, just to keep up his side of the conversation.
‘I’m good at taking care of business. And I look after my own.’ He sat back. ‘You follow what I’m saying, son?’
Gilchrist thought he saw where Shepherd was going with this, although any form of confession would be beyond reality. He knew that, at least. Again, he chose his words with care. ‘You’re saying that if anyone interferes in your family business, you . . .’ He grimaced, trying to give the impression of finding some kind way to say it. ‘You sort them out.’
‘Aye, son. I do indeed.’ He grinned. ‘I sort them out.’
‘Is that what happened to Caryl Dillanos?’
Shepherd stilled. Every muscle and fibre and hair and tissue on his 84-year-old face and body froze, as if the name had triggered some button that stopped the universe. Then the scene rebooted, and the big man groaned and slid his hand inside his coat pocket for his gun.
And Gilchrist knew, this time he was surely going to die.
CHAPTER 54
But Shepherd did not pull out a gun.
Instead, he withdrew a brown envelope and slapped it on to the table.
Gilchrist stared at it, his heart pounding. He swallowed a lump in his throat, tried to look composed. But he was fooling no one, least of all himself.
Shepherd nodded for him to open the envelope.
Gilchrist reached out, picked it up. The flap was not sealed, and he peeled it back. He glanced at Shepherd, but for once the big man seemed unable to return his look. He pushed his hand inside, flicked through half a dozen or so ten by eight colour photographs.
He removed the first one.
A head shot of Caryl Dillanos.
She stared back at him, vacant, dead-eyed, her blonde hair no longer coiffed perfect, but spread across her bruised cheek like rat’s tails. Her skin shone with a mixture of blood and rainwater that glistened on her face like plastic.
He slid out another – a full-length of Dillanos on her back on rain-soaked grass, her short skirt high enough to show tanned thighs and the V of white knickers. He pulled out another, and another, all the while his mind racing, his blood turning colder by the second, until he flipped his way through all of them – nine in total – and realised that not one of them showed Jana Judkowski.
Did that mean Caryl Dillanos was a special person in Big Jock Shepherd’s life? Was she part of the business? Part of the family? All of a sudden the word godfather took on a different meaning. Did Shepherd somehow blame Gilchrist for her death? Was that what this was about, the meeting, the talk, the hardmen, a gentlemen’s discussion over a lunchtime drink to explain why he was about to be killed?
The manner of when and where raised other issues.
They would not kill him in the pub, certainly not one that was owned by Shepherd. That was too close to home. So not now, but later. The memory of Shepherd’s words – a wee one for the road – sent a sub-zero chill the length of Gilchrist’s spine.
It could, of course, mean something else entirely.
So Gilchrist clung to that straw, and eased into it with, ‘Caryl meant a lot to you.’
Shepherd glared at him, the stone look back full force. His lips tightened in a fearful grimace, as if he was about to tell Gilchrist when, where, and by how many of the thousand cuts he was going to kill him. But he reached for his drink, and Gilchrist came to understand that the man was in too much pain to speak – not physical pain, but pain of a kind that could hurt much more. And it slowly dawned on Gilchrist why he was here, what Jock Shepherd really wanted.
He wanted revenge. But not on him.
Shepherd wanted revenge on Kumar for killing Caryl Dillanos, the young woman in the big man’s life. But even so, as these thoughts fired though Gilchrist’s mind, he knew that he was missing something. Kumar was alive, and locked up in a cell in St Andrews, waiting to be interrogated by half the police forces in the UK. So how could he help Shepherd?
Gilchrist restacked the photographs in a pile, tapped the edges flush, then returned them to the envelope. ‘Tell me about Caryl,’ he said.
Shepherd stared at Gilchrist, his look as forlorn as that of a childless parent. Then he gazed around him, as if admiring the interior design, his face softening with the memory of something close to his heart. ‘This place was gonnie be hers,’ he said. ‘And everything else. She was gonnie take over the family business. All of it. When I go.’
Gilchrist thought back to his interview of Dillanos, the cocky manner, the lack of fear, the disrespect for the law, the absolute and utter disregard of the consequences. What had she to be frightened of when Big Jock Shepherd, Scotland’s crime patriarch, was looking out for her? It put a different perspective on the word trainee.
‘She was smart,’ Shepherd pressed on. ‘A woman of the world, so she was, son.’
Gilchrist nodded. Dubai, Qatar, Poland. She certainly was.
‘Said she was gonnie sort out that fucker Kumar for me. Set him up, then shut him down for good.’
Gilchrist’s ears perked. ‘How was she going to do that, exactly?’
‘Kumar was a fly wee cunt.’ Shepherd’s eyes narrowed at the thought. ‘He played his cards close to his chest, trusted no one. That’s how he survived for so long.’ Shepherd took another sip, then scowled at Gilchrist. ‘But he didnae treat women right, son. He treated them with disrespect.’
If Gilchrist had any thoughts that he might be winning the big man over, they were shot down there and then. Shepherd’s eyes flared, his lips quivered. As he lifted the glass to his lips his hand shook with the sheer force of a suppressed rage that Gilchrist could only imagine.
Then the moment passed.
‘Don’t get me wrong, son,’ Shepherd growled. ‘A woman needs to know her place. And a man needs to knock it into her once in a while.’ He shook his head, and his eyes glistened. ‘But no to be treated like some fucking animal. No that, son. No one deserves that.’
Gilchrist saw his opening, and took it. ‘But that’s all women were to Kumar,’ he said. ‘Nothing more than animals to be chained, fed, watered, and used when the mood took.’ He waited until Shepherd looked up from his whisky. ‘Which is not your style.’
Shepherd lowered his head and eyed Gilchrist, like a bull preparing to charge a red flag. ‘Watch that tongue of yours, son. I don’t do women slaves. End of. That’s my fucking style. Got it, son?’
Got it, Mr Shepherd, sir, flitted through Gilchrist’s mind. But he held up both hands in a gesture of apology, and said, ‘That’s what I meant.’
Shepherd stared Gilchrist out, then snapped his whisky over, and held up the glass. The hardman at the corner of the bar took it without a word, and silence reigned until the gl
ass was returned with a measure that received Shepherd’s nod of approval.
While Shepherd took another sip, Gilchrist decided to press on before the man was too drunk to speak. ‘So Caryl teamed up with a local estate agent,’ he said, choosing to keep Angus’s name out of it, just in case, ‘and started searching for properties suitable for Kumar to live in—’
‘Aye, and suitable to chain his women slaves to a wall.’
‘So, how would renting properties help shut Kumar down?’ Gilchrist asked. ‘You said he was chased north of the border to set up shop. But that interfered with your family business, and you would have none of it.’
Shepherd grinned at Gilchrist, like a man of the world to a boy child. ‘You’re no quite as smart as I was told you were, son,’ he growled, leaning closer. ‘And you’re no listening. I don’t do women slaves. Period. And I wouldnae stand for some wee bastard breezing into Scotland and thinking he can fucking take over my territory, no matter what fucking line he’s in. First women, then afore you know it, you’re out on your ear.’ He dabbed spittle from his lips. ‘But here’s how the take-down was gonnie work.’
Gilchrist found himself leaning closer, wished he could record what he was about to hear.
Shepherd lowered his voice. ‘Caryl got wind that a shipment was due in.’
‘Shipment?’
‘Women. Girls. In their teens. Forty of them. All gonnie be driven up in a convoy of lorries from England, like fucking cattle. Caryl offered to help by finding properties here. For a fee, of course. Nothing fancy. One here, one there, none that would draw attention to herself.’
Gilchrist watched Shepherd take another sip, surprised to see the big man appearing to liven rather than slide beneath the table like any normal person would.
‘And once the wee cunt was all set up and ready to go, we were gonnie fuck him, and shop him to the polis.’
