The Blood of Crows

by Caro Ramsay

  ‘I don’t want to tarnish your shining vision of an army of clear-eyed young vigilantes taking to the streets and cleaning up the Russians. How much is organized crime worth in Glasgow? About five million pounds, maybe a bit more,’ Anderson said. ‘It’s not altruism, it’s business.’

  ‘So, why did Rosie do it, then? Why did she start working with Morosov? She wasn’t exactly living in the lap of luxury.’

  ‘Batten hit the nail on the head with that one. She had severe psychological issues that the force never picked up. They should have offered her help, rather than trying to get rid of her. That just bred a deep resentment, and made her ripe for Morosov to corrupt. It wasn’t money. It was power. Power to live as she liked, in isolation – without people looking at her, making fun of her. If you have no power to stop eating, I think you might like to make up for it by the power you can exert over others. Just a small thing like the power of life and death.’ Anderson stopped and examined the back of his hand. ‘I confess, I felt it myself when I picked up that gun. It’s so easy, Costello. So easy.’

  Costello took his hand. ‘But you did the right thing. I would have blown his head off, like Libby did.’

  ‘And can I just point out that Libby is nowhere to be found. She disappeared into the forest, and so did Pinky. For all we know, she could be down a drain by now.’

  ‘Nae chance. She’ll find us when she wants to.’

  1.30 P.M.

  Costello eventually traced Mulholland to his flat at Port Dundas. It was a penthouse with lifts, underground parking, gym, swimming pool, the lot. Easy when you have a rich mum. But maybe she and Libby had a greater sense of loyalty, coming from the shittier side of the street.

  And Vik was going to get a lesson on that one.

  She knocked on the door loudly, even though he knew she was coming up – she’d said so on the entry phone. Even so, he kept her waiting. When he opened the door he was still doing up his tie, nuzzling the knot up to his neck, and the jacket of a good suit was lying across the back of a white leather chair.

  ‘You going somewhere?’ she asked, checking the huge TV for the DVD slot in the top.

  ‘Yes. It’s important. What do you want, Costello?’

  She picked up the remote, and slipped the DVD into the slot. Then she pulled the paper from her pocket. ‘Is it something to do with this?’ She was glad to see Mulholland look rather scared.

  ‘That’s private.’

  ‘It has to do with the case. What were you going to do, Vik? Go creeping to the new ACC with your evidence of Colin’s alleged compliance in non-disclosure? Are you selflessly campaigning for justice for the late Mr Fairbairn? Or are you just stamping on Colin’s career to get your stripes back?’

  ‘Nothing alleged about it. He misfiled an inconvenient piece of evidence.’

  Costello just glared at him and pressed the remote. The DVD clicked into its slot, and the screen came to life.

  ‘He’s not exempt from the law, you know.’ Vik smoothed his collar down. ‘Anyway, he’ll be going to Australia, so it’s no skin off his nose.’

  ‘And what if he stays?’ Costello asked. ‘His career is over, if you take this further.’

  ‘I’ve no choice.’ He went to pick up his jacket. ‘And I am going to be late.’

  ‘Your choice is to file your evidence where nobody will find it.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Of course you can. You owe him some loyalty, Vik. He had loyalty to McAlpine. And there were times when they were both loyal to you.’

  ‘He was guilty of non-disclosure. I have proof that he had sight of the statements from Wood and McAdam. He signed them, Costello. He’s in it up to his neck.’

  Costello pressed Play. The image of Rusalka’s small terrified face filled the screen, her eyes screwed up in agony. ‘He was in the bloody Clyde up to his neck, you arse, trying to save her!’

  ‘Turn that off!’ snapped Mulholland, grabbing for the remote.

  Instead, she turned up the volume. The screams filled the room, and they could hear the child snatching for breath.

  ‘Ten years old,’ Costello insisted remorselessly. ‘You’d have put that bastard back on the streets? You’d get Colin the sack for sticking him behind bars?’

  ‘It wasn’t his call!’

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  Mulholland didn’t get the chance to reply. Costello’s fist, fuelled by six months of being nice to people, rammed into his nose. The blood pulsed down to his chin and on to his nice silk tie.

  ‘I’ve had enough of you little public school shites to last me a lifetime,’ she snarled. As she opened the door she said, with sugared venom, ‘Watch the time. You don’t want to be late.’

  2.20 P.M.

  Costello walked across the car park, ignoring the impulse to skip. She was happy. She realized that punching Mulholland had made her feel alive again. She pulled the band from her head and ruffled her hair. Let them look at the scar if they wanted. She’d phone the hairdresser tomorrow and make an appointment to go blonde again. The pain in her face was gone, and she realized she wasn’t feeling for the mesh in her cheek the whole time. It was part of her history now.

  Earlier, O’Hare had phoned and asked her to pop into the mortuary at the hospital for a mug of tea.

  But once there, her good mood deserted her. She was looking down at a zipped body bag, tagged and still unidentified.

  ‘So, what happens to her, little Rusalka? It’s not right, her lying cold in a drawer. Will you be able to send her home, one day?’

  ‘We’ll look after her until we can, don’t worry. There’ll be further enquiries with the embassy, try to establish who the three dead girls are, where they are from.’

  ‘Will there be an official enquiry about Tommy Carruthers’ twenty grand? And where it came from?’

  ‘I doubt it. I don’t think Mary has any real idea – Tommy never told her, and Rene doesn’t know whether it’s Montrose or Monday. We’ll know more once we can decode all Rosie’s stuff – which is not only coded, but coded in Russian! She was a nasty piece of work, that woman, lying in her bed and sending out instructions to all and sundry to torture and kill. Clever, but very unpleasant.’

  ‘How did she and Wullie stay hidden for so long, in this day and age?’

  ‘Good geography. Hidden paths. God knows, our team got lost more than once. Only three and a half miles from the next house, but you could be wandering about for ever out there. Wullie and Rosie MacFadyean were well protected by the Vorony. The Russians considered them a golden couple. Her laying out strategies to get the drugs and the girls in, and the money laundered and out. Wullie her invisible scout. Anything to disrupt any chance of the O’Donnells and the McGregors getting together.’

  ‘The five cops, were they –’ Costello struggled for the right word ‘– bound together by what happened at Seana Bhraigh all those years ago? I still don’t get that.’

  ‘You don’t have that mindset, Costello. Or maybe you do. What if your encounter with Fairbairn had gone differently, if Colin had pulled that trigger? You would have stood by him, lied through your teeth that he’d fired in self-defence. Mulholland, on the other hand, would have dropped him right in it.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘Both Batten and I think it was Moffat who put an ice axe through Hunter’s head and tipped the body off the edge and down into the lochan. Moffat and MacFadyean could have largely engineered that situation. Purcie and Carruthers were fairly easily controlled. Hunter was probably too dominant a character, too career-orientated, to be seduced in the same way. He might have sealed his fate by asking too many awkward questions. Can’t imagine what they must have thought in the morning; no sign of Hunter, Purcie guilt-ridden and covered in blood, and Carruthers much the same. And both so grateful to Moffat for keeping it all quiet. Moffat was too full of himself to notice that it was MacFadyean, moving like a shadow, who was manipulating them all. It was all planned to get those three
good cops amenable to working outside the law. At least, that’s what Moffat must have thought he was doing. It certainly came to fruition when they needed a clear run to get the Marchetti boy out.’

  ‘Nearly twenty years later? There must have been more in the meantime.’

  ‘And do you not feel bound to those who were with you last night? What you witnessed created a bond.’

  ‘You might be right. But twenty years?’

  ‘And I have no doubt at all there will be much more to uncover. How many times do you think a wee favour was called in, a blind eye turned?’ O’Hare went quiet. ‘I wouldn’t call Colin Anderson a corruptible man, but even he stepped outside the law when he thought it was the right thing to do. It’s all a question of values.’

  4.00 P.M.

  Anderson pulled up outside his house, surprised to see a car parked across his driveway. He parked a little way down the street. As he got out of the car, a voice came from behind him.

  ‘Hello,’ it said, female, confident. ‘I just want to thank you in advance for not arresting me.’

  ‘Libby?’

  She wound down the rear window, smiling at him quizzically. ‘I’m thanking you in advance, for the future.’

  ‘That might be a bit hasty. I know ACC Howlett was happy to help you put a bullet through a paedophile’s brain, but you were still wrong to do it.’

  ‘You should look the other way, if you don’t like it.’

  ‘You know I can’t do that.’

  ‘But you already have. If you hadn’t, I’d be banged up in the Vale at Her Majesty’s pleasure by now on a whole load of charges.’

  ‘There’s still a line that should never be crossed,’ said Anderson, trying to maintain the high ground, and hearing the tone of voice he sometimes used to his daughter.

  A large man he didn’t know got out of the car and opened the door for him.

  ‘I’d like you to come for a short drive.’

  The presence of the large man, now standing behind him, left him no choice. He got in beside Libby, and the large man got into the driving seat.

  ‘You’re quite safe,’ she said. ‘You’ll only be twenty minutes late home.’

  The car pulled out and headed slowly down the street, out to the wide road leading to the docks.

  ‘If you’re going to ask me to join up, you’re barking up the wrong tree,’ Anderson said.

  She laughed, and for the first time he was aware that she had a real but steely charm, like a latter-day Cleopatra.

  ‘Don’t forget, I’ve got a gun with your prints on it – the gun that killed Skelpie Fairbairn. Anyway, you’re much more valuable being what you are – a good cop. So, I’m going to help you cross the T’s and dot the I’s in your report without too much digging. I know you’ll get hell from your bosses if you don’t. But you have better things to do with your time.’ She handed him an envelope. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not a bribe. It’s information that you would get no other way. It’s about those three dead girls, so you can send them home.’

  ‘How did you … ?’

  ‘Don’t ask. You’d only get nightmares. Let’s just say, when you find him he’ll have fewer than nine fingers.’

  ‘Libby, you are a scary young woman. You are Pauline McGregor’s daughter?’

  ‘Indeed. My mum and Mo O’Donnell tried to stop the turf wars years back. When she was stabbed, Costello was there. She called the paramedics and they kept Mum going until she got to hospital and they got me out. She was then allowed to die. That’s how the story was told to me. And I wanted Costello to be there, at the start of it all. It was good Howlett found her.’

  ‘So, you knew she was a cop all along?’

  ‘Of course I did.’ Libby turned to look out of the window. ‘Do you know that Robert the Bruce was born by caesarean after his mother was killed? She broke her neck falling off her horse. I like that story.’ She smiled. ‘He went on to great things. And so shall I.’

  Then Anderson asked, ‘And Richard Spence is Archie O’Donnell’s son?’

  ‘Yes. His dad chopped the head off the man who ordered the hit on my mother – he never got the hitman, though, contrary to popluar belief. It’s a bond of sorts. Not traditional – but it’s something, I suppose. Richie and I were at Glen Fruin Academy together since we were twelve years old. He had no father, and I had no parents at all. Like I say, it’s the sort of thing that creates a bond when you’re that age.’

  There was a pause while Libby took out a packet of cigarettes, lit one, opened the window and blew a plume of smoke away from Anderson.

  ‘Modern Romeo and Juliet, eh? We have the “civil blood”, only we’re not for dying young.’

  ‘But what the hell was Richie doing, getting that close to the Russians?’

  ‘Know your enemy, DCI Anderson, know your enemy.’

  ‘Richie nearly died. You do know that?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But he’ll mend. He will,’ she insisted, almost fiercely. ‘We worked out that the only way to destroy the Russians was from the inside. We had our own name for it – the end of days.’ She looked out of the window, her eyes scanning the river. ‘That was where you found the wee girl, wasn’t it, down there?’ For a moment her gaze was grave and sympathetic. Then she took up her narrative briskly. ‘So, one of us would have to work our way into the organization, like a Trojan horse. We realized it would involve sex, whether we liked it or not, and we probably wouldn’t. I was prepared to do it, to take the risk. But look at me – I’m just a fat girl with bad skin. I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes – not worth keeping alive. But Richie – well, you know how beautiful he was, before they …’

  Anderson was touched by the tenderness in her voice. ‘He’ll mend. You said it.’

  ‘But he’ll never be that beautiful again. Anyway, Richie started running errands, obeying orders, that sort of thing. Then Melinda Biggart moved in on him. The woman was grotesque, but it was a huge opportunity. Actually,’ Libby corrected herself, ‘he quite liked her. She was pissed off with her perv of a husband, and all alone in her grand house. You’ve seen that place, haven’t you?’

  Anderson nodded, and Libby took a deep draw on her cigarette.

  ‘Yeah, if it hadn’t been for the sex, Richie said, she could be good fun. Liked a laugh. But then Biggart made a move on him too. And that was no fun. But he did it, for weeks, until he found out that Biggart was making those films at the Apollo Building, that two wee girls had already died and that there was a third one and it was her turn. He couldn’t let that happen, so he torched Biggart’s place, and made damn sure Biggart got torched too. Grusov guessed it was Richie who’d done it, and they … they …’ She took a deep shuddering breath, fighting to keep her tears under control. ‘They tortured him. He never said a thing, though – otherwise I wouldn’t be alive to have this conversation.’

  ‘I know,’ Anderson said, and patted her hand before realizing what he’d done.

  She smiled at him, the steely glint gone for a moment. ‘He went through all that for me.’ Libby threw the end of her cigarette out of the window, and turned to look earnestly at Anderson. ‘But the wee girl died anyway. So, I’m more determined than ever, for Richie and for her, that it won’t happen again.’

  ‘How can you stop it?’ wondered Anderson.

  ‘We have stopped it. Didn’t you notice? Three generations of O’Donnells have put a stop to Morosov’s trafficking in underage girls, and to his little snuff movie sideline.’

  ‘Did you get Fairbairn out of jail just so you could kill him? Was the lawyer involved from the start?’

  ‘Of course.’ She said it dismissively, as though Anderson had asked a silly question. ‘Wee Archie sorted it from the inside, Auld Archie on the outside. We did it so you could kill him, if you chose to.’ She continued to look out of the window. ‘We are gradually cutting off the supply of red heroin, chasing the dealers out. Shoot a few more in the head, they soon learn it’s too dangerous to touch.’

 
‘The Balfron three?’

  Libby nodded. ‘Rosie MacFadyean isn’t the only one with a good strategic brain. Try five minutes with Auld Archie O’Donnell! If you ever want to hide, go and live in an old folks’ home – you become bloody invisible. Oh, don’t look at me like that. You guys couldn’t have done what we did. The police have to fight by the rules, which means they’ll never win the war. But we don’t. Violence needs to be fought with violence.’

  ‘What if another Morosov appears?’

  ‘We’ll deal with that as well. Think of us as a public service, we keep the city clean.’

  ‘Why not just go to university, Libby? You’re a clever girl. Why do this?’

  ‘What could university teach me? The only way to save this city is our way. It’s in my blood. It’s my birthright, and it needs to be done.’

  ‘Libby, you’ll be dead within a year, you know that.’

  ‘The only hope we have is no hope. It makes us invincible.’

  Anderson thought about that for a moment.

  ‘We’re both after justice, you and I,’ Libby went on. ‘We’d both like to keep the peace. The difference is that no one’s going to mess with me.’

  ‘Even so, I’d rather do it my way.’

  ‘Of course you would. You do your paperwork and get to the Rusalkas of the world too late to save them. We’ll get on with killing the bastards who do it.’

  Anderson almost laughed. ‘And you think you can hold both factions together? With their history?’

  ‘Just watch us. We tried it before and only failed because bent cops took the Marchetti kid. That was the start of the civil war, just the way they wanted it to happen. And that’s another case we’ve closed for you. Took us months of searching down holes and drains at the top end of the glen to find where he’d been all these years. Though we had help,’ she said enigmatically.