THE SAM BRYSON COLLECTION

by McLean, Russel D; Chercover, Sean

  He chuckled. “It wis gettin’ a bitty dangerous, likes,” he said. “So I dinnae dae aw that so much any more.”

  I nodded. “DI Duncan’s got a current address and number,” I said. “So maybe you and him are, like, pals now after all the experiences you shared together.”

  “Get tae hell,” he hissed. “Dinnae think I’m no wise tae why yer here, likes!”

  “You saw something,” I said. “Or so you say.”

  “I’m a reliable witness,” he said.

  “Aye,” I said. “A professional!”

  “That’s right,” said Beaney. “I know what I saw and anyone who’s anyone knows that I dinnae make that kind ae nonsense up!”

  “Not if the money’s right,” I said. “What the hell do you think you are? You’re lowlife scum, the kind of bastard who’d sell his mother out if someone paid enough.”

  Beaney hesitated. There was no time to piss around. I grabbed him by the collar of his orange and black DUFC top, pulled him off the barstool. He screamed. I used the momentum, walked him back to the far wall and slammed him against it. His head rocked, his crown smashing against the wood panelling. He cried out and I wrapped a hand round his skinny little neck. He started to crawl up the wall, like he was Spiderman, trying to escape my grip.

  “What the hell is going on?” yelled Big Ian, striding across the pub floor. He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, gripped hard. We knew each other; he wouldn’t hurt me unless I gave him good reason. I let go my grip on Beaney’s neck and stepped away, my head bowed to acknowledge I had broken the unspoken rules of the Crow and Claw.

  “We’ll be havin’ none ae that in this place!” said Big Ian. He looked right at me. “You should know better, son.”

  I nodded, but kept my eyes locked on Beaney. Trying to stand his ground, but wanting just to run and hide in a corner. Afraid because he knew I wouldn’t give in until I got the truth from him. But it wasn’t just fear of what I would do. Whoever had persuaded him to step forward and lie about what he saw had Beaney petrified, scared of his own shadow.

  “So are you lads gonnae keep it down or dae I have tae ask ye tae leave?”

  I looked at Ian, shrugged. “I guess I’ll be going,” I said. “Sorry about that. Things got a little emotional, aye?” Acting the unapologetic hard man for Beaney’s sake.

  “Aye,” said Big Ian. He looked at me oddly, as though trying to figure out why I’d break the code of behaviour set down in the hearts and minds of regular drinkers at the Crow and Claw. Maybe I didn’t pop in as often as I used to since I got digs closer to the centre of town, but I knew his pub and his rules. I hoped he’d understand that I had my reasons for breaking them.

  Out the front of the Crow and Claw, I sparked up. Taxis rushed past, not bothering to slow down. A few lads in burberry caps came past, gave me a look as though to ask just what I was doing in their part of town. Beaney didn’t come out. I wasn’t expecting him to.

  I finished the cigarette, stamped it on the pavement before heading up the alley that ran between the Crow and Claw and a wee chip shop next door.

  The alley came out on waste ground. The kind of place where bored kids gathered after hours to fight, smoke and drink illicit tins. I’d second guessed Beaney. He’d think I was waiting for him out front. He came out the back door, found me there, waiting.

  He tried to run back inside, but I caught him, threw him to the ground where even his skinny frame forced a cloud of dust into the air. He lay on his back and looked up at me, his eyes challenging me, still unable to believe I’d really go through with this. I had some reputation for being able to hold my own. But in general I was known to use violence only sparingly.

  “Do you want to tell me, Beaney?” I said. “Because we both know you’re a pretty good talker, good at telling tales.”

  He shot me the finger, but only for a second, wrapping it back up in a fist again like he hoped I hadn’t seen it.

  I kicked my foot between his legs. Stopped myself right before impact and then gently pressed down with the toe of my boot. He looked at my foot and then up at my face. I smiled, pressed down a little harder. His face twisted with discomfort.

  “I don’t imagine you’d want kids, Beaney,” I said. “I hope to God you haven’t got any already, poor sods they’d be.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “All I want is a name. I just need to know whoever it was put you up to being the star witness in this travesty.”

  “I cannae tell ye that!” said Beaney, breathlessly. I increased the pressure quickly, released it again. He squealed. “Seriously, man! He’ll dae me if I say anything!”

  “It’ll be nothing compared to what’ll happen if you keep quiet.”

  “Aw, Jaysis, man!” Caught between that rock and hard place, Beaney had the look of a rabbit in headlights. Finally, his cowardly instincts gave out and he opted to save himself here and now. “Was a DCI, awright? One ae your lot!”

  “Not my lot any more,” I reminded him. “And save me the shite.”

  “Man, I’m serious. Name of Hawley, this prick. Your lot pulled me in on bullshit charges, saying I nicked these books from some shop in the Overgate. Which never happened, man. Cannae stand reading. Rather watch a good flick, ken?” He spoke fast. I had to concentrate to keep up. You can spend all your life in the city and still never get used to the patter of guys like Beaney. “So I’m sitting the room, aye, and the door opens and this DCI walks in and, man, I’m bricking it. Because what does he want with a prick like me? He sits down and he tells me that’s it, man. I’m going tae the jail. No excuses. No nothing. He’ll see tae it himself. He says with my record, I’m getting more than a slap on the wrist. I tell him I dinnae dae nothing. And he laughs.” Beaney kept talking. Telling me how the DCI said Beaney had one chance to get off these charges. Beaney co-operated to save his own skin.

  “Change your mind,” I said. “I’ll guarantee you stay out of jail. On those charges. Anything else, I can’t help.”

  “Except you’re no a copper any more. You’re naebody. What can you do for me?”

  “Look me in the eyes,” I said, and squeezed down again with my foot. “Tell me whose word you trust. Me or the bent DCI?”

  He looked confused for a second but the pain focussed him and he said, “If you’re messing me about…”

  I shook my head. No need to even laugh off his threat. He knew as well as I did how empty it was.

  Finally, Beaney said, “Jesus, man, awright, awright!”

  I released the pressure. He scrabbled away from me.

  “Don’t forget,” I told him. “I can find you, Beaney. And this is a serious business. If you’ve lied about anything, I’ll make this wee experience seem like a tickle from a feather duster.”

  “Aye,” he said. “Sure, chief, whatever you say!” He clambered to his feet and ran off. At the far end of the wasteground, he jumped a low wall and ran off round the side of a nearby High Rise.

  I adjusted my jacket, self consciously before walking back through the alley.

  ***

  1739 HRS

  Andy Dobbs looked like he’d been mauled by a mountain lion. His skin was battered, bruised and split. One eye was half shut. The exposed areas of his upper body were wrapped in bandages. He looked at me when I entered the room and said, “Dae I know you?”

  “I work with the police,” I said; a convenient half-truth,

  He tried to nod, but his movements were limited. “They gonnae throw him in prison, aye?” he said. “Like, ye cannae say coppers are above the law, man.”

  I smiled. “The investigation’s ongoing.”

  “Ongoing?” he said, his voice cracking with incredulity. “He attacked me, put me in the hospital, man!”

  I nodded, like I understood what he was saying. “I have to ask you a few more questions,” I said.

  He seemed to understand and relaxed a little. “Like what?”

  I cleared my throat, consulted my notebook. “Like why
you’d put with a beating like that in order to frame an innocent man.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “There’s a guy who’s paying you a fair amount to blame your present condition on DI Griggs,” I prompted him.

  “What the hell’s this about, man?” he said. “I dunno what ye’re…” I cut him off by delivering a swift punch to his upper body, catching him just below his broken ribs. Even through the painkillers, I knew he felt it.

  “I’m going to find him and I’m going to make sure he faces justice,” I said. “With or without your help, Mister Dobbs. I think you’d prefer it if I did it with.”

  “Who are you?” he said, his voice broken with the pain.

  I smiled, sat down again and said, “I’m the man you’re going to talk to.”

  ***

  1800 HRS

  DCI Hawley was an unknown quantity to me. But his was the name that Dobbs had given, confirming Beaney’s version of events.

  Hawley had only served with Tayside for a few years. As far as I was aware, he had no public trouble with Sandy. A fact that left me with more questions than answers. The big one being why Hawley would go to all this trouble in the first place.

  It was only twenty minutes after my encounter with Dobbs, but already I could feel my body beginning to shake. Ashamed at my use of physical force, as though I had somehow let myself down.

  Behaving like a vigilante, storming in without taking into consideration the consequences of my actions: the very thing that had led to my leaving the force, walking out before they could give me my marching orders.

  I thought I had left that part of myself behind. Since Ros came into my life, she had been instrumental in helping me deal with that side of my personality. Which mean I hadn’t only failed myself, but Ros as well.

  The realisation only made the sick feeling in my stomach seem heavier.

  But I was too far down the road to think about going into reverse. Sandy was my friend and for whatever reason, Hawley was determined to destroy the man’s career. I couldn’t sit back and let that happen. After all that Sandy had done for me down the years, sticking beside me when no one else would, I owed him all of this and so much more.

  It was just past six when I sat in the BMW in the Marketgait car-park outside FHQ with the engine idling and Leonard Cohen mumbling on the CD player. Susan came round the side of the building, slipped into the passenger seat. She handed me a folder.

  Inside, DCI Hawley’s professional career was laid out in stark, black type. I skimmed the details, looking for anything that could explain his behaviour.

  A name stood out.

  Emergency contact. Hawley’s brother in law. A local lad with every reason to hate DI Sandy Griggs.

  I shut the folder, looked at Susan and saw the question in her eyes.

  I told her everything.

  ***

  1824 HRS

  In the course of his career, local councillor Alex Combe had never been far away from controversy. He had been implicated in a cash scandal during the nineties, accused of taking bribes from companies who were interested in the city’s rejuvenation and required an assured place in the new, millennial Dundee. The charges, of course, were never proven and although there was much whispering in the press and throughout the ranks of the police, he never even came close to being charged, never mind arrested.

  He was known to be a friend of local businessman and supposedly ex-criminal George Burns, an allegedly reformed hardman who quietly controlled much of Dundee’s criminal activity even if he had never been officially charged.

  But before all of that came to light, back when he just another faceless local councillor making promises of policy change in the hope that anyone would listen, Sandy had arrested Combe on charges of indecent exposure.

  Two twelve year old girls reported a man in his early thirties had approached them in Balgay Park early one evening and put his privates on parade for their exclusive benefit. When the girls challenged him, he ran away. Their mother had called the police and Sandy had been the officer who knocked on their door, asked the questions and promised to do everything in his power to apprehend the flasher.

  Two hours later, following a search of the park, he arrested a man in a dark, winter jacket who fitted the description given by the two girls. The man’s name was Alex Combe.

  The investigation should have been simple, except somewhere along the line, the chain of evidence against Combe got dropped amidst talk of outside influence and cash changing hands among the right people. Combe’s name, however, was dragged through the mud by the press and his promising career in local politics stalled, almost flatlining completely. But Combe fought his way back with a ruthlessness and determination that was to be either admired or feared.

  And now, over a decade later, the councillor’s brother in law was fabricating evidence against Sandy.

  It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots.

  It was close to half past six when I arrived at Combe’s house just off the main road in Invergowrie. I moved round the back of the building, watching the house carefully, keeping an eye out for any movement. Two lights on: one in the main hall and one round the back of the house. No other signs of life.

  The back garden was large and empty. The house could easily have been a family home, but Combe lived alone so the garden was devoid of the swings and toys that might have littered the place and was instead an empty expanse of neatly trimmed grass and token flowerbeds. I hopped the wall, walked to the back door and knocked loudly.

  Combe opened the door cautiously. I kicked it the rest of the way. He staggered back, holding both hands to his face. I knew the door hadn’t hit him. He was scared more than hurt.

  “What do you want?” Straightening, attempting to intimidate the intruder. With his slight frame and egg-shaped head, the attempted machismo failed miserably.

  “What do you think?”

  He shook his head. His eyes were wide and his face was flushed. His brow glistened with sweat.

  “You’ve been a holding one hell of a grudge,” I said. “That’s a long time to wait until you try and take your revenge on a man.”

  “I don’t know what…”

  “DI Sandy Griggs,” I said. “Back in the day of course, just a wee constable doing his duty. You should have gone to court, councillor. You should have been arrested. Chucked out of politics, local and national.”

  “A man can change.”

  “Aye, you changed. That’s why I’m here, to tell you how well you’ve done, what a good guy you are getting your brother in law to fit up an innocent man.”

  “That’s slander…”

  “Shut up,” I said, stepping forward. “I want you to call Hawley. Tell him his witnesses are going to change their tune. He’ll drop the charges against Sandy right now because if he doesn’t, it’s his name goes in the crapper.”

  “I had nothing to do with…”

  I stepped forward, punched him hard and low in the stomach. He dropped to his knees.

  “Call him,” I said. “Or both of you are screwed.”

  ***

  2156 HRS

  When I arrived back at the flat, Ros was in the front room watching North Tonight with unfocussed eyes and her arms wrapped tightly round her stomach. She looked up when I came in and said, “They dropped the charges against Sandy.”

  “They’d never have held.”

  “Even he doesn’t know why. He called here, you know, asking to have a word.”

  “I’ll buzz him tomorrow,” I said. Thinking about Hawley, how we could even begin confronting people about the DCI’s actions. Combe had been unwilling to talk about how he had persuaded his brother in law to fit up my friend. For now, the crisis had been averted. But life rarely ties itself up neatly and when Combe was finished being scared and talked to Hawley, God only knew the kind of trouble that me and Sandy would be facing. The threat of Dobbs and Beaney talking would only keep them quiet for so long.

  Ros stood
up. She came over and wrapped her arms around me, laying her head on my shoulder. I could smell her perfume. It made me think of everything that was beautiful in this world, those moments that make life worth living.

  After a few moments, she stepped back and said, “Where were you?”

  I thought about Dobbs and Beaney. Their eyes wide with fear at what they believed I would do to them. And Combe, on his knees, weeping like a baby.

  I thought about what I had done. What I had wanted to do.

  Ros said, “Sam?”

  For a moment, I felt tears in my eyes. I stepped forward and hugged Ros tight, holding onto her as if she were all in this world that mattered.