‘There’s no need,’ he snapped at her. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘I still think it’s best. I’ll ask one to call by and you can take it from there.’
‘Yes, yes, whatever. Let me show you to the door.’
Brendan McCullough squeezed his wife’s shoulder before rising from the seat and leading the two officers out of the living room, closing the door behind him.
‘You’re absolutely certain that it’s Oonagh?’ he asked them quietly.
‘Yes,’ Narey replied.
‘And you are sure that she was an addict and . . . a prostitute?’
‘Yes, Mr McCullough, we are.’
The man’s face darkened.
‘Whatever she had become, I need to know that you will still do your job. No one cares about those working girls, do they? The police always have more important things to do.’
‘I can assure you that we do care,’ Narey answered testily, her mind chiming with the force’s resources being eaten up by the sniper killings.
‘And you will catch the man who did this to my wee girl?’
‘Oh we will, Mr McCullough,’ Narey assured him with a lot more certainty than she knew she could promise. ‘We will.’
CHAPTER 29
Sunday 18 September
Winter woke up feeling sore. Sore head, sore body, sore Sunday morning. Both head and body had taken different kinds of pounding the day before and the price was now being paid. The shower helped one but only succeeded in stinging the other. A cup of coffee at least helped both a bit.
He struggled into some clothes but resisted the temptation to head for the newsagents. His bruises had won the fight against the hangover and woken him early enough that he had time to read over the previous day’s newspapers before going into Pitt Street. There was a morning meeting of the Nightjar team but he wasn’t needed for that and was to wait for a call to arms if their man struck again.
The killings of Adamson and Haddow were splashed over the front pages of the papers and most of them had large photographs of the pair. The Daily Star was the exception but even it squeezed the photo of some reality TV bimbo to the side in order to get in a head and shoulders of the dead accountant. For Winter, though, the real eye catcher was the Sun’s headline.
HE’S DONE IT AGAIN
Fuck. That left plenty of scope for interpretation. It was as if a striker had scored his twentieth goal of the season, not that there had been another double murder. The paper had a new logo for it too. A large D in a red circle made to look like a rifle sight. Winter could imagine Alex Shirley spitting blood, Addison too for that matter. He’d been in a black mood by the time they went their separate ways the night before, the whisky having him in a near rage about the sniper. The hero status that the papers were serving up would have had his hangover at bursting point.
The crackpots had come out of the cupboard, too. An inside page of the Record had the leader of the English Defence League jumping on the bandwagon. He was calling for an amnesty for the Dark Angel and even issued a ‘rallying call’ for someone in England to do the same job there. He wanted ‘an English knight to rid the streets of drug-dealing scum in the same way that the Scottish hero is doing’.
Right-wing American Republicans had picked up on the killings too. A Senator from Texas hailed it as a ‘prime example of people power in reclaiming their freedom from hoodlums’. He went on to make references to his ancestors and Braveheart that made Winter want to puke. The pompous prick had no idea who was doing this, far less that it should be lauded as a good thing. In the end, Winter picked up a copy of the Sun, the Record and the Herald and took all of them to work with him. The Herald had easily the best photographs from Glasgow Harbour. A staff snapper had made it to the scene while the bodies were still warm and although he’d been chased, he’d gone to the other side of the river and his long lens had done the trick. The main shot they’d used had McConachie standing over Haddow. Of course the pictures weren’t a patch on Winter’s own, given that he had the luxury of standing right over the victims. He printed off a glossy image of Gee Gee Adamson laid out in his heavy, black leather coat with his meaty chops and gobsmacked expression. The coat soaking up his spilled blood like a leathery sponge, making it heavier and heavier with every life drop that it tasted. Gee Gee the gambler and his final losing bet.
He pinned it to the wall alongside a bloody close-up of Haddow in his pinstripe and white. The terrified smart man who died without the brains he was born with. Already on the office wall were his favourite shots of Caldwell, Quinn, Strathie and Sturrock. His Dark Angel gallery.
He so wanted to put a photograph of Sammy Ross there too but couldn’t let himself do it. Some screwed-up version of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil was playing in his head and he had no idea what the rules were. All he knew was that Sammy’s picture couldn’t go up there, not yet. For now it stayed in a drawer along with his blown-up images of the marks on McCabe and Strathie.
Sammy was a dot, a bloodied dot along with McCabe and the McKendrick kid and they were joined to the other six killings somehow. Just how, he had no idea and maybe he didn’t really want to know. Record but don’t interfere, observe but don’t violate. It was getting harder every day to remember the mantra.
Saturday morning stretched into afternoon and no call came for him to join up with the team. Apart from a couple of calls from Addison, he had heard nothing from them all day. His mate was clearly on edge, a cat on a hot tin roof, bouncing from word to word and from subject to subject. One second it would be a mention of Malky Quinn, the next it would be how Celtic were going to do in the next match. He was telling Winter how a guy named Harvey Houston who worked for Ally Riddle had supposedly gone missing and then he just switched to what he’d like to do to the barmaid in the TSB. Not that night though because he was seeing someone else and was worried he’d not be able to get away from work on time, worried because she was a sure thing, or so he reckoned. Talking about women or Celtic, he was fine; it was the case that had him dangerously grouchy. He flew into a rage at any mention of the new hero that was cleaning up the streets and Winter knew he’d been slicing people in two with cutting remarks. Nobody except Winter talked to him or went near him unless they had to. On the Friday, he’d almost decked Colin Monteith when he suggested they just let the Dark Angel get on with it. Even the use of the nickname had Addison’s hackles rising.
Rachel was crabbit as fuck too, snapping at him left, right and centre. Too busy to talk, only time to bite his head off. He finally managed to persuade her to go for some Italian food at Gambrino on Great Western Road on Saturday night but it was a waste of time for both of them. He’d hardly got a word out of her and knew her mind was on both cases every minute they were there. He wouldn’t have minded so much if she had shared it with him but her guard was up, saying nothing. It was obvious she’d rather have been back in the operations room.
Her phone was out on the table and her eyes continually flicked to it as if willing it to ring, saying only that she was waiting for results to come through from some DNA test. Finally, she turned down the offer of dessert and got Winter to drop her off at home, sending him on his way to his own place. He made the mistake of making some comment about no sex and she nearly strangled him.
Saturday night became Sunday morning and Glasgow woke to no more news. It must have been a pisser for the Fox News team that had parachuted in from the US as well as the Japanese and German TV crews that were in town now. Six dead criminals might not have been a lot but sniper killings made headlines everywhere, especially when the person carrying them out was being held up as some kind of people’s champion. Fox had tried calling him the Dark Knight but DC Comics threatened to sue so they had to settle for the Dark Angel as well.
Winter didn’t hear much from either Rachel or Addison throughout Sunday, just the odd text and brief phone call. The little he was being told, it seemed Alex Shirley was running the Nightjar team ragged, having them pore over e
very bit of CCTV footage they could lay their hands on. They studied every camera anywhere near Central Station, Harthill, George Square and Glasgow Harbour. Every access road and possible escape route, every bit of motorway they could see. All the usual suspects and some unusual ones were run through face-recognition technology but it came back empty.
Forensics were working round the clock, analysing the little that they had. The room at Livingstone Tower had been brushed within an inch of its life but Winter hadn’t heard of anything turning up that was of any use. The bullets had all come from the same gun and manufacturers were being pressured to turn over lists of stockists and owners.
The mood among the few cops Winter spoke to, uniform and CID, was odd. They were all nervy, that much was obvious, but he couldn’t figure out just what they wanted to happen. In the end, he realized they just wanted something, anything, to happen. And if that meant another dealer, mule or boss had to get shot then that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
He’d heard they’d hauled in everyone they knew connected to the drugs trade and squeezed them for all they were worth. Half of them were scared shitless even before they were brought in and knew the shooter could do a lot worse to them than any cop could. In fact they knew they were safer in the cop shop than out of it. Even without what the Dark Angel was doing, they were getting tanked into each other. Their own attempts to find out who was doing the killings continued by way of drive-bys and beatings, everyone suspicious of everyone else. Another of the Gilmartin clan, cousin Billy, had ended up in hospital; an enforcer for Tookie Cochrane named Colin Sinclair was reckoned to be wearing a concrete overcoat somewhere; and the mother of a well-known dealer named Benjo Honeyman walked into Baird Street greeting that he had missed her birthday. The natives were both restless and revolting. One of Terry Gilmartin’s lieutenants, George Faichney, had done a bunk and Gilmartin was supposed to be desperate to find him.
After seven killings in four days, there hadn’t been anything for two days in a row and it seemed like a lifetime. It should have eased the tension but instead it racked it up a few notches till the city was a pressure cooker with the lid twitching like a rabbit’s nostrils. That’s why when the dealers and the doers-in were dragged into stations across Glasgow, they weren’t too fussed about being questioned. In fact, by the time they got hauled in, not only did they have nothing to tell, it was them demanding to know what the police were going to do about it all. The problem was that nobody had an answer for them.
Winter spent most of Sunday afternoon filing everything he had to file so he popped into the Nightjar operation room late on and was basically chased along. If you’re needed, we’ll call you, otherwise fuck off, camera boy. He got the message.
Winter could feel the sudden chill, the wind picking up and the grumble of approaching thunder. His sgriob was itching and he couldn’t ignore the voice that was whispering in the back of his head. It’s quiet, too quiet. The calm before the storm. Be calm before the storm.
He got a drunken phone call from Addison late on Sunday night after the DI had emerged empty-handed from Viper, more or less demanding to know why no one had been shot while he’d been inside trying to get his end away.
‘What is it with this fucker?’ he slurred at Winter. ‘Where’s he hiding himself? Eh? Where’s he hiding, wee man?’
‘I’ve no idea, Addy. You looked under the bed?’
‘Ah, a comedian, just what I need. And for your information, the night is still young and I’ll be looking in a bed before it’s finished. The mountie always gets his woman. Anyway, that’s not why I phoned. I know you’re up to something you little scrote. I know your game. You’re hiding something.’
What the fuck? Winter hesitated a fraction too long.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Addy. You’re pished. Away and get yourself home.’
‘You know what I’m talking about alright, wee man. That bang on the cheek you had on Friday night? Slipped in the bathroom, my arse. How do you explain the big bruise at the back of your head?’
‘Fuck off, Addy. I don’t need this.’
‘Can’t answer, huh? You’re up to something and first thing in the morning I’m gonnae find out what it is. I know you and it’s something to do with your photographs. You know something you’re not telling.’
‘You’re mental. Get yourself some chips or something.’
‘Good idea, wee man. I’m starving. Might nip over to the Philadelphia. Hey, you know Graeme Forrest, the inspector that works out of Anderston? Never showed up for his shift today and no sign of him anywhere. I reckon he’s done a bunk with that wee blonde WPC, whatsername, Sandra something? You know her?’
‘Nope. No idea who she is.’
‘Tidy wee bit of stuff, can’t say I blame him. Anyway, don’t change the subject, wee guy. I’m gonnae find out what you’re up to, whatever it is. And what about the shooter? What’s his game now? He’s been far too quiet for my liking.’
‘Maybe he takes the weekend off?’ Winter suggested.
‘Yeah, very fucking funny. Now fuck off. I’m starving.’
And with that Addison hung up and disappeared somewhere into the night leaving Winter wide awake and wondering what was to come.
CHAPTER 30
Monday 19 September
The Nightjar operation room lay dark and empty, the last person having called it a day just before midnight, six hours earlier. All that could be heard was the impatient hum of technology: fax machines, telephones and computers on stand-by, all left to guard the shop and await any news of the man who rendered the same office full of noisy, nervous energy during the day. If an empty room could ever be described as a coiled spring then this was it.
At 6.04 a.m. the quiet was disturbed by the angry ringing of a telephone in the middle of the office. It was the hotline set up for members of the public to call if they had any information on the sniper killings. On the eighth ring it stopped and the answering machine kicked in, a flashing red light the only indication that a message had been left. For a further hour, the red signal throbbed in the gloom of the locked-down office like a lighthouse sending out a danger signal that no one could see.
Nancy Anderson was first through the door at seven, the civilian admin assistant in before any of the CID. She had worked on farms all her days, first in Glasgow then in the Borders at Lauder, before her MS had forced her to finally take an office job. She could never get out of the habit of rising early though and was almost always first into work. Her husband Colin was forever telling her to take it easy but she knew he was already up too, doubtless ready to fuss over their grandchildren.
She threw on the lights and pulled her hand through her greying hair as she tutted at the mess the cops had left the place in the night before. There were coffee cups everywhere and newspapers lying on the floor. She guessed she would have to be the one to tidy the room up as per usual. So much for swapping the farm for an easier job, this one brought its own problems.
She picked up a tray and began piling paper cups inside each other, going from desk to desk and making a mental note of the worst offenders, fully intending to pull them up about it when they came in. It was only when she got to the desk in the middle of the room did the flashing light register. There were unlikely to be any officers in for another hour so she would have to deal with that as well. Oh, it could wait another few minutes, she had to open the blinds and let a bit of light into the room. That done, Nancy grabbed a notepad and turned almost reluctantly to the phone, trying to guess whether it would be a message from a nutter, a timewaster or both. She punched the message button and listened.
The first few seconds was nothing more than crackling on the line. Then a man’s voice spoke, slow, deliberate and heavily muffled.
‘More bodies.
‘End of Lawmoor Road.
‘Dixon Blazes Industrial Estate.
‘Courtesy of the Dark Angel.’
Nancy stood stock-still for seconds t
hat seemed like minutes. She looked down at her notepad and tried to make sense of what she had just heard and written down. She began to edge away from the phone but took a deep breath and returned to press the play button again with a shaky hand. The same muffled voice delivered the same measured words. With a final glance at her pad, she spun on her heels, nearly slipping to the floor as she ran across the room as fast as she could to her own desk where she knew her phone was programmed with the speed-dial numbers she needed. Seconds later, the tired and testy voice of Superintendent Alex Shirley came on the line.
‘Nancy? What the . . . this better be good!’
‘It isn’t, sir.’
Within minutes, unshaven cops dived into cars across the city. Addison had given Winter two minutes to be ready and said that if he wasn’t on the pavement when he turned up then he was going without him. Winter was ready and waiting before he arrived.
He jumped into the passenger seat, the Audi lurching away long before he’d closed the door. They’d burst through the red light at the slip road to the motorway by the time Winter managed to fasten his seat belt. By the look on Addison’s face and the drift of beer and whisky that was coming Winter’s way, the DI probably shouldn’t have been driving. Just as well there was no cop likely to be asking him to blow into a breathalyser.
He looked rough, eyes strained and red as if he’d knocked back his last half just five minutes before. There was a fierce anger around his eyes. Winter knew the look. Addison was trying and failing to hold it back, he wanted to burst, ready to boot someone’s head in. Instead he kicked his foot to the floor, battering the car towards Rutherglen.
He only spoke once all the way there. He didn’t take his eyes off the road, just spat the words at the windscreen.
‘I’m fed up with this cunt. I’m going to bring him to his fucking knees. He’s finished. Last job.’
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