by Claire Askew
I shuddered. ‘Her business?’
‘Yeah,’ Izz said. ‘I think that was what did it.’
For a minute, we were quiet. I could tell Izz wasn’t as chill about the situation as he was pretending to be.
‘So . . . where the fuck is everyone?’
His face clouded. ‘Solomon . . . he told the guys to all pick a girl.’
I felt a bit sick. I didn’t know why tonight was different, but it was. ‘Hanna,’ I said.
‘Yeah.’ Izz looked down at his shoes. ‘Sorry, man. She went in with one of the guys I don’t know.’
Okay, I thought. This is just a punt, like any other. He’s just a punter, like any other. I knew it wasn’t true, but I told it to myself anyway.
‘It’s fine,’ I said, though my voice betrayed that it wasn’t. ‘But where the fuck is Vyshnya?’
Izz shook his head. He was wearing an expression that might have been disgust. ‘There were four girls in,’ he said.
I looked at him blankly. I knew that. I’d been in last night, seen the rota.
‘So when they’d all picked . . .’ Izz waited.
‘What, Izz?’
‘Only Vyshnya was left.’
I looked at him. Then the penny dropped. ‘Solomon picked Vyshnya,’ I said. ‘He wanted to punish her.’
Izz nodded.
‘And they . . . ?’
‘Yeah.’
The sick feeling was growing. ‘But . . . Vyshnya doesn’t do that.’
Izz shrugged. ‘Looks like she does tonight.’
In the car park, Birch passed Anjan’s big saloon, its cream interior matte and butter-soft, vague under the mix of streetlight and early morning gloom. As she approached, the station looked like it always did: a lumpen cube of a thing, the lit windows on each floor striping it dark-light-dark. But as soon as the lobby doors swung shut behind her, she could feel the crackle of collective anxiety. Twenty-four hours left, and no leads.
Heads were down in the bullpen: Birch reached her office door without anyone so much as raising their eyes to look at her. She stood over the desk, shouldering off her coat, and flicked on the computer. In her inbox, fresh interview transcripts from Solomon’s Tuesday and Wednesday conversations with Big Rab and DI Crosbie. She sat down to skim through them, beginning to feel a caffeine itch. It turned out Solomon wasn’t a brick wall like he’d trained his associates to be: his replies to Crosbie and Rab were short, but practically jovial in places. He was whip-smart, arrogant and confident that he’d walk free: it was all there in his answers. They were empty statements, wide-eyed and calculating. Who me? I’m just a sweet old man, they seemed to say, like the wolf dressed up as Red Riding Hood’s granny. Anjan’s name appeared at the top of each transcript: he’d been in the room, but barely passed comment. He didn’t need to. It was clear to Birch, from even a cursory read, that Solomon was running the show.
‘Morning, hen.’
Rab had managed to materialise in the doorway without her noticing: clearly she’d been more engrossed in the transcripts than she’d thought, as stealth was not a skill Rab really possessed. She jumped.
‘Glad tae see you’re a wee bit better,’ he said.
Birch blinked. Oh yes. You were ‘sick’, Helen, remember. ‘Lots better,’ she said, ‘thanks.’ God, you’re a dreadful liar.
‘DC Kato said ye were hoping fer a chat,’ Rab said.
Birch raised an eyebrow. ‘Likewise,’ she said.
Rab looked down at his feet, then back at her. Amy had said she wasn’t in trouble, but . . . something was most definitely wrong. She felt her heart rate tick up. What did Rab know? She’d been wondering that for days now.
He rifled in his trouser pocket and held up a single key on one of the station lanyards. ‘Interview room seven’s free,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Might be best if we talk privately.’
Oh shit, Birch thought. I am in trouble. But in spite of herself she smiled, pushed back her chair, and stood. ‘Detour for coffee?’
Rab paused, then nodded. ‘Aye, why not.’
Interview room seven had aggressive fluorescent lighting, and no windows. Birch squinted as she walked through the door that Rab pushed open and held for her. She wondered how many times she’d been in this room, eyeing a perp – sometimes a solicitor, too – across the plain table. She and whichever officer was sitting in would always take the chairs with their backs to the wall. The table was not in the middle of the room: interviewees sat with a short stretch of empty space behind them, so they couldn’t lean back and get too comfortable. Because she’d walked in first, Birch took her usual seat. Big Rab eyed the perp’s side of the table and, after a pause, laid his coffee down there. Before he sat, he reached over and pulled out a plug from the wall.
‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said, trying to make light of the action. The plug powered the room’s recording equipment.
Birch tried to keep her expression even as Rab settled into his chair. The endless undertow of blame still swirled in her mind, but quieter now, muted by her curiosity over what he might say to her. This conversation wasn’t suitable for the refectory or even her office: he must have decided that up front. As he took a long drink, she realised she was holding her breath.
‘Well, lassie,’ Rab said at last. ‘I’m afraid I’ve no’ always been totally honest wi’ ye.’
Birch felt her eyes widen.
‘But it’s getting serious now,’ he went on. ‘Time’s short. You and me need to be on the same page.’
If only, she thought, but she stayed quiet.
‘So.’ Rab seemed to be struggling to get started. ‘Ye ken that oor informant for Citrine came out of Glasgow?’
Birch nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘And ye ken that oor informant for Citrine has been . . . misplaced.’
She tried not to shiver. ‘Yes.’
Rab looked at her so sharply then that she almost jumped.
‘So . . . dae ye ken who that informant is, DI Birch?’
Oh shit.
Birch had no idea what her face was doing. She hoped it didn’t look guilty, or scared, which was what she felt in that moment. She screwed up her nose, aiming for confusion.
‘Do I know . . . where the informant is?’ It was a dodge, and an obvious one. ‘No, I don’t.’ That, she thought, is the truth, at least.
‘No.’ Rab spoke patiently. ‘I said who. Dae ye know who it is?’
Birch’s hearing did something weird: for a moment, all she could hear was the blood of her own pulse, up to ninety, in her ears.
Oh God, she realised. I am about to lie. To a fellow officer. About a live case. A high-stakes case. She blinked. ‘No,’ she said, and felt her voice tremble. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
You do not have to say anything, she thought, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned—
‘I do,’ Rab said.
Birch looked at him. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. ‘That means it was you. The informant came to you.’
Rab nodded. ‘Aye.’ Then, after a pause. ‘We were talking fair regular for a few weeks, there.’
The Glasgow polis, that was all Charlie had said. Her mind was a storm of panic, of questions, an indistinguishable rolling tangle. She fought to get on top of it. ‘Then . . . that means it was also you’ – she formed the words slowly, so nothing unwanted would slip out with them – ‘who lost him in the first place.’
Rab looked down at the table. Amy was right. He did seem calm. But not confident. The room was full of a sort of dead calm, the calm of a man who’s realised he’s beaten.
‘It was,’ he said.
‘Do Crosbie and McLeod know that?’ The question just happened to fall from the tangle first.
For the first time since they’d sat down, Rab seemed a little shamefaced. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I told them my team were investigating – which they will, when aw this is done. An’ said that I wouldnae name the officer in question.
Not yet.’ He looked up at Birch again. ‘They think I’m protecting wan o’ my guys,’ he said. ‘They just dinnae ken it’s me.’
She tried to keep her expression steady.
‘I’ll come clean soon enough,’ he said. ‘Face up tae whatever I get. But this is my investigation. I’ve been efter that bastard Solomon my hale career. I set this up, an’ I brought it in. I willnae be shoved on the sidelines fer a single mistake.’
Birch found she was nodding. That, she understood. Hadn’t she, herself, felt a sting of resentment when she’d been sent to the Granton breakwater, away from the main thrust of the Operation Citrine raid? Hadn’t she lied to Amy – and to herself – about how she felt over Crosbie being given the case? What Rab was saying made sense to her: it would make sense to most police personnel, she guessed, especially those of Rab’s generation. You don’t get to DI level without a competitive streak. She’d been right: Solomon was an old score Rab had been waiting to settle. Of course he wasn’t going to sit this out.
‘But how?’ She felt breathless from computing all that Rab had said. ‘How could you let him get away from you, when you knew how much was riding on all this?’
You could have held him, she was thinking. You could have made it so he couldn’t run away again.
Rab wasn’t looking at her.
‘He’s a smarter lad than I gave him credit for,’ he said. ‘Saw the writing on the wall. But I thought I could fix it. I thought I knew exactly where he’d go.’
To me, Birch realised. You thought he’d come to me. Everything made sense now: Rab’s interest in her, the questions he’d asked. The business card with his private mobile number, his instruction that she call him first, before anyone else.
‘Where?’ she asked. It didn’t sound remotely convincing to her, but she’d lied now, and she needed to keep up the fiction.
‘Your house, lassie,’ Rab said.
Birch stared at him, waiting for the revelation she knew was coming.
‘It’s yer brother, Helen.’ He was speaking quietly now. ‘The Citrine informant is yer own wee Charlie Birch.’
There it was. Someone else knew, and had said it to her, out loud. She tried to look shocked.
‘Charlie is missing,’ she said. That wasn’t a lie. ‘Charlie has been missing for fourteen years.’
Rab folded his arms, and leaned over the table. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘He once wis lost . . . then briefly, he decided tae be found.’
How would I react, she wondered, if I were hearing this for the first time?
‘You’re sure it was Charlie?’ She paused, then added, ‘Over the years, there have been some people trying to pretend to be him. They used to contact my mum.’
Rab’s expression didn’t change. ‘It wis him, lassie.’
Birch closed her eyes. She could feel her eyelids pulsing with the tension in her head. Her jaw was clenched. Could she tell him? Could she admit that her brother had been in her house only twelve hours ago? No, she thought. Of course I can’t. Rab’s revelation didn’t change anything, not really, especially now she’d decided to lie. It’s just you now, Helen, she thought. You made this bed, and now you’re going to have to lie in it.
It seemed to take for ever. Izz and I stopped talking: he went and sat on the couch, looking around him and, every so often, sighing. I got in behind the hatch where I always sat. I watched Izz from the corner of my eye, and tried not to think about what Solomon might be asking of Vyshnya. Tried not to think about Hanna. We’d drifted a little, lately, and I’d been toying with the idea of jacking it in. I knew it would make work awkward for a while, that was what had stopped me. But when she’d texted me I’m scared, I’d felt a protective anger so strong it had shocked me. I resolved to try harder for her, if I made it through the night.
Izz had been called away from something he cared about. He wasn’t sighing out of boredom alone.
‘Were you on a date, man?’ I asked.
He looked hard at me. ‘Oh, fuck off,’ he said, which meant yes.
I was buzzing with adrenalin, couldn’t sit still. I did fifty push-ups, then lay on my stomach with the smell of carpet tiles in my nose, arms singing from the effort. I rolled on my back and tried to count the filaments inside the ceiling light’s fluorescent tubes. It was so quiet I could hear my watch ticking, but I was trying not to listen too closely. The rooms were soundproofed, I knew that. But I still didn’t want to risk hearing anything.
The sound that alerted me to something happening – at last – was Izz clearing his throat, a heads-up noise that sent me scrambling to look through the hatch. One of the guys – Abdul, I knew him a little – had emerged from the corridor. I saw Izz get to his feet as Abdul approached, and the two men clapped one another on the back: that weird, aggressive man-hug thing.
‘You good?’ Izz asked him.
‘Yeah, cool, cool,’ Abdul said. He looked over and nodded at me. ‘All right?’
I skirted sheepishly out into the room. ‘Yeah,’ I said.
Abdul produced an overlarge vape, dragged on it, then sent a mushroom cloud of flavoured smoke up through the air. I watched Izz crinkle his nose.
‘The fuck,’ he said pointedly.
Abdul laughed. ‘Banoffee pie, man,’ he said, ‘fucking delicious.’
Izz took a long step backward. ‘Whatever. I guess if you want to smell like a teenage girl.’
‘So, um.’ I sounded like a fucking idiot, but my heart felt like a time bomb in my chest. ‘What’s the deal?’
Abdul looked at me. He was soft in the face, jolly even, and he was wide as he was tall. I knew Izz rated him. He seemed sound.
‘Okay, listen,’ Abdul said, lowering his voice. ‘Best thing you can do right now is downplay, right? Show deference. You were out for ten minutes getting . . . fuck, I dunno, condoms or something. You were doing your job and you left Vyshnya to it. She’ll back you up, man. Just kiss the old man’s arse, yeah?’
Izz was nodding.
‘Okay.’ I pushed out a long breath. ‘Hey, thanks.’
‘No worries,’ Abdul said. ‘Just don’t make him mad, okay? She ought to’ve known better.’
He meant Vyshnya.
Izz clicked the fingers of his right hand, once, low down by his hip. A signal. Solomon was on his way.
I couldn’t quite believe the look of him when he stoated out of that corridor and into the room. I could see how he’d look dwarfed next to Abdul, big guy as he was. But Izz is built like a fucking ballet dancer, and Solomon still looked wiry next to him. Thin and hard, like he was made out of rope. I’d been told his age before, but I realised I hadn’t expected him to be quite so bloody ancient.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said. Abdul shifted out of the way so the old man could fold himself down onto the sofa.
He looked like someone’s grandfather. White hair, aviator-style glasses with the brass wire frames. Sure, he was dressed natty: but like a pensioner going to a tea dance.
This? I remember thinking. This is the hard cunt we’re all fucking terrified of?
‘Boss,’ Abdul said, nodding at me, ‘this is Vyshnya’s muscle guy.’
I watched his eyes adjust: I was standing some distance away and I guess his vision wasn’t what it used to be. Then he zeroed in on me and I felt cold. His eyes were the palest blue I’d ever seen: eyes like a white cat.
‘They call you Schenok,’ he said.
I nodded, trying to stand up straight, like I was back in school and I’d been called into the headmaster’s office. ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘yeah.’
His lips were very thin. I watched something that could have been a smile play around them.
‘Our mutual friend Toad,’ he said, ‘is rather a fan of yours.’
I said nothing. I wanted to look at Izz, but I didn’t dare break Solomon’s gaze.
‘You’re his protégé, yes?’
He was well spoken, or . . . oddly spoken. He talked slow and sort of affected, trying to flatten out his Weegie r and u s
ounds. His you’re sounded almost like yore.
‘I suppose I am,’ I said, trying to sound calm.
‘Charlie Birch,’ he said.
My real name didn’t get used, not any more. Sometimes Schenok, or Fenton would call me pup, or the wean, which I hated but went along with. Most times I went by the name on my fake IDs: Nick Smith, Smith for short, like the guy from The Matrix. Sometimes I worried it was so plain I’d get rumbled, going through passport control or even just handing my driving licence over. My birth name was gone, out of necessity, out of safety. Hearing it from this man’s mouth felt like a threat.
‘The wanted man,’ Solomon said.
I tried to shrug it off. ‘Not these days.’ I even tried to muster a smile. ‘Case is stone cold.’
‘Ah.’ Solomon looked up at Abdul then, and I watched the big man avoid his gaze. ‘Cold. A dead man, then, perhaps?’
I shivered, and ground my back teeth together to stop it from showing. ‘Charlie Birch is,’ I said, ‘sure. Good riddance.’
All I could think about was Tsezar. Toad slamming the back door of Vic’s van on the silent dark in the wake of his gunshot.
‘But Charlie Birch,’ Solomon said, ‘has a sister.’
He crossed one knee over the other. I heard the fabric of his slate-grey trousers swick with static.
‘Yes.’ I had to say it. He knew anyway.
‘A policewoman.’ He was looking right at me. There was something about him that made me think of a lizard. He didn’t blink as often as he ought to.
‘I believe so,’ I said. I couldn’t stand myself then, honestly.
There was a silence. Though I couldn’t look at him directly, I could see in the murky corner of my vision that Izz was looking down at his shoes. He and I both jumped at a noise from the corridor: the other guys had begun to emerge. Doors opened and closed. I heard male laughter.
