The Bad Fire

by Campbell Armstrong

  ‘No big deal.’ But it was, and Eddie felt a surge of irritation at the way Haggs belittled Jackie.

  Haggs asked, ‘You talked to the police about the murder?’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve talked.’

  ‘Is Glasgow’s finest close to finding the killer?’

  ‘They believe Bones did it,’ Eddie answered.

  ‘Bones?’

  ‘Bones’s gun was the murder weapon.’

  Haggs asked, ‘That wee man went around armed? Have they brought him in for questioning?’

  ‘They can’t find him.’

  ‘Then he fucked off. Probably scared shitless. I can’t believe he killed Jackie.’

  ‘So who did?’

  Haggs shrugged. ‘I’m baffled.’

  ‘Then we’re all baffled – apart from the cops,’ Eddie said.

  ‘The cops won’t change their minds. They’re inflexible. And it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion.’

  ‘Am I hearing contempt for the Strathclyde Police?’

  ‘You don’t need to be a mind-reader. They’re a right evil bunch of wankers.’

  ‘I heard something about a trial you were involved in …’

  ‘That was a bloody attempt to railroad me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘How many reasons do you want? They’re jealous of my lifestyle. They don’t like some of my business partners. They don’t like to see somebody from my background get ahead. You read the sign on the gate when you came in? You see the word Drumpellier there?’

  Eddie said, ‘I saw it.’

  ‘I was born in Drumpellier Street, in a district of this fair city called Blackhill. You’re born and brought up in Blackhill, Eddie, you’re not supposed to get out. It was crime and drugs and gangs, some of the hardest fuckers in Glasgow. The police didn’t like to visit Blackhill, and they didn’t like people spilling out of Blackhill into other places, especially people like me drifting into respectable areas like this … Are you getting the picture?’

  ‘You’ve risen above your station.’

  ‘And I stepped on a few toes climbing. And some people don’t forget that. And some of these people have friends in the police …’

  ‘So you have Drumpellier out there to remind you where you came from,’ Eddie said.

  ‘More than that. It’s me giving them the finger, Eddie. It’s me saying, fuck the lot of you, I walk where I bloody well please.’ Haggs tossed his scotch back and drew a hand across his mouth. ‘So the trumped-up trial, Eddie, was a scheme planned by morons who wanted to show me that even if I’d come up in the world, I could go down again as fast as that,’ and he snapped his fingers. ‘The police case against me was a load of ballocks. I walked out of that courtroom free as a bird.’

  Eddie stood under the angels and the blue sky and the cloud clusters. Haggs carried deep black grudges against the social order. Did he have grudges against Jackie too?

  ‘Who told you about that trial anyway?’ Haggs asked.

  Eddie plucked an easy lie out of nowhere and tossed it like a paper dart. ‘Guy called Caskie. A cop.’

  Haggs said, ‘Caskie … Is he the one friendly with your family?’

  ‘The same,’ Eddie said.

  ‘And how did my name happen to come up in conversation?’

  ‘Because I told him you intended to buy the warehouse.’ Eddie smiled.

  ‘Now you can tell him you were wrong.’

  ‘Consider it done,’ Eddie said. ‘Thanks for your time.’

  Haggs walked with Eddie towards the door. On the right was a small wood-panelled room filled with glass display cases.

  Eddie glanced at them. ‘Quite a collection,’ he said.

  Haggs asked, ‘You interested in guns? I’ve been collecting them for years.’ He strode towards the display cases. There were almost fifty blackpowder pistols here, most of them genuine antiques, each gleaming and imbedded in dark brown wood. Haggs took a keychain from his pocket and unlocked one of the cases and removed a long handgun with a walnut stock and held it out for Eddie’s examination.

  ‘Kentucky Flintlock,’ he said. He handed the gun to Eddie, who was surprised by its weight, and then he carefully removed another weapon from the case. This one had a fancy curved handle and a barrel more than a foot long. ‘This beauty is a Le Page Percussion Duelling Pistol. Lovely feel to it. I’ve also got a very fine original Colt 1860 Revolver and a mint-con Remington Percussion dating from 1858.’ He gestured towards the display proudly. ‘Been a hobby a long time. I always take my hobbies very seriously, Eddie.’

  ‘This Kentucky is a very fine gun,’ Eddie said, admiring the craftsmanship.

  Haggs held out his hand and Eddie gave him back the flintlock and he returned it to the case, which he locked.

  ‘Beautiful things make me forget my origins,’ Haggs remarked. ‘I’ll walk you out.’

  Outside, both men gazed at the monkey puzzle tree. To Eddie it seemed as if the tree had been tortured by sea storms, a thing you might find growing in godforsaken sand dunes.

  He asked, ‘You know Caskie, I assume?’

  ‘You think I’d want a cop for an acquaintance?’ Haggs laid a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and massaged it a little too firmly. ‘I’d rather use shite for toothpaste.’

  Eddie smiled thinly. Sun reflected from the branches of the tree in a zigzagging pattern of light and a drab bird – probably a sparrow – popped out of the foliage and flew directly overhead.

  28

  The calamitous drumming in Caskie’s head just wouldn’t quit. Hot and flushed, he kept going over the same thing – his denial of ever having heard of Haggs. Reason, give me one good reason, he thought: I panicked. I slipped. I gave in to a kind of idiot seizure of guilt. Moron. It was downright stupid, a magician dropping his cards during a sleight of hand, and Mallon – certainly no dummy – had picked up on it. Caskie was convinced of that.

  What would it have cost me to say I knew Haggs by name? Nothing. He’d answered without thinking. Haggs? Never heard of him. Nothing to do with me. Not part of my world. He’d rushed into the denial too quickly.

  The burden you’ve been carrying. You’re on overload.

  He watched Joyce, who stood at the window and looked down into the street. She smoked a cigarette. ‘Where the hell did Eddie go? He just disappeared. He didn’t say he was leaving. It’s been more than an hour, hasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Caskie had lost track of time.

  From the hallway came the sound of a man drilling screws into sheets of plywood. Caskie had telephoned him and he’d come at once to put the plywood in the place where the glass had been, a temporary solution, security for Joyce. She’d wondered how Caskie could find somebody so quickly. One phone call and voilà. The carpenter appeared within ten minutes. Probably an old favour. Caskie had hundreds of strings he could pull in this city. He’d already arranged for a patrol car to remain in the vicinity in the event that Tommy G returned. She had the feeling a single car wouldn’t worry a man like Thomas G.

  ‘It’s the middle of the afternoon and I’m not dressed yet,’ she said.

  ‘School holidays,’ Caskie said.

  She looked at Caskie. He had a strange lifeless tone in his voice. ‘I’d better put some clothes on,’ she said.

  She stepped into her bedroom, closed the door. She pulled on a T-shirt with the logo McCools, the name of a bar she sometimes visited when she was in a jazz mood. Then blue jeans tight at her hips. She stood in front of the long mirror of the wardrobe, thinking she looked undernourished. She remembered how the intruder had dragged her to the floor, the way his hand had parted her robe. She’d have bad dreams about him. He’d crash her head uninvited.

  She sat in a green velvet chair, an item salvaged from Jackie’s yard. She saw her image again, this time in the oval mirror of the Victorian dressing table that had once belonged to Granny Mallon, funny how bits and pieces of furniture and small items of jewellery are handed down throug
h generations like genetic material passed from one person to another, and she thought of how often Granny Mallon must have gazed at herself in this very mirror, a young wife, barely more than a girl, brushing her hair stroke after stroke.

  She touched her lip where Tommy G had struck her. It didn’t hurt now. She’d pressed ice cubes to it for a while, and they’d helped. She heard a knock on the door. Caskie appeared. She looked at his reflection in the mirror.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute to myself, Chris.’

  ‘Checking,’ he said. ‘You want aspirin or anything else?’

  ‘No. But thanks for asking.’ She smiled at him in the mirror. He closed the door, retreated. She couldn’t read his expression. Concern, certainly. Always. She wasn’t sure what else. Something troubled him. Probably Tommy G. She heard the buzz of the carpenter’s drill and a big delivery truck pass in the street and how it made the glass vibrate in the window frames. Flora popped into her mind and she thought, I want my mother, I want to lay my head in her lap, all the things lost to us in the crap of the years, all mother-daughter moments ripped away from us. Thank you for that, Jackie. Thank you. I loved you anyway.

  Caskie fingered the spines of books. A Scots Quair. Growing Up in the Gorbals. The USA Trilogy. Motes of dust drifted in sunlight. He walked the room restlessly. He brought his face close to one of the busts Joyce kept on shelves. This one, smooth-eyed, blind, a Roman copy, seemed to be peering into a world outside the range of everyday senses.

  ‘Counsel me, Senator,’ he whispered to the bust. ‘Look at the bloody awful state of things. Where do I go from here?’

  ‘Are you talking to a statue?’ Joyce asked.

  Caskie turned quickly. He hadn’t heard her enter, and he was a little embarrassed. ‘I was conferring,’ he said.

  ‘Talk to statues often?’

  ‘All the time,’ Caskie said. ‘They don’t judge, you see.’

  ‘You’re afraid of judgement?’ Joyce asked.

  ‘Now and then.’

  There was a noise in the hallway, and Eddie Mallon came into the room.

  He looked weary, Joyce thought. His eyes were lightless. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked.

  ‘Choosing a coffin,’ he said.

  ‘Oh shit, damn damn, I was supposed to help Senga do that and it went out of my mind. I feel awful.’

  ‘Under the circumstances,’ Caskie said, ‘you’re allowed a little amnesia.’

  Eddie flopped on the sofa and stretched his legs.

  Joyce said, ‘You’ve been gone a long time.’

  ‘When you’re buying a coffin you don’t simply leap into the first one you see,’ he said.

  ‘Comical,’ Joyce said.

  ‘I need some light relief,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Don’t we just? I think I’ll walk round to Senga’s. See how she’s doing.’

  Caskie looked at his watch. ‘It’s time I was going too.’

  Eddie glanced at Chris Caskie, whose face was lightly tanned. It made his small beard seem whiter.

  ‘Did you process Tommy G through your computer, Chris?’

  ‘It’s in,’ Caskie said. ‘Nothing’s come back to me yet. We’ll get something, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Eddie agreed.

  Joyce ruffled his hair. ‘Back soon.’

  Caskie said, ‘See you later, Eddie.’

  I know how to empty a room, Eddie thought. He heard the front door close. He thought of phoning Claire, but before he could lift the phone the motion of the day caught up with him – the taxi-rides that had zoomed him from one end of the city to the other – and he shut his eyes and dozed in a shallow way for twenty minutes, dreaming of Glasgow, a black-and-white Glasgow he’d never lived in, steamships on the Clyde, crinolined ladies stepping out of horse-drawn carriages, shoeless kids begging on street corners. The air stank of raw sewage and the dank river. Women in shawls sold fish from wheelbarrows, and men hauled on their shoulders sides of butchered animals.

  He woke dry-throated, walked into the kitchen, drank some water at the sink. He felt a deep frustration. He didn’t see how he could stay in Glasgow long enough to penetrate the reasons behind Jackie’s murder, or identify the killer, as if the slaying and the people involved belonged in a Glasgow so secret it was out of his reach – like the monochromatic city he’d seen in his dream. He was due to leave the day after the funeral. What could he achieve in so short a space of time? He couldn’t drag out his visit, he had work at home, the case of the dead junkie girl in the abandoned brownstone, her identity and cause of death, and God knows what else might have happened in the meantime, what files dropped on his desk, what mysteries he was paid to solve –

  Caskie and Haggs. Haggs the gun collector and Caskie the cop. What did they have going between them that required such facile fabrications? It was a fair assumption, he thought, that Haggs knew Caskie. He certainly knew of him. Say their paths had crossed. It was possible they’d met in orbit around Jackie. Assumptions, and Eddie wasn’t enamoured of them, but sometimes they were the little building blocks that led to truth. He dipped his head under the cold water tap and let the stream run for a minute. Then he turned off the tap and stepped back from the sink and enjoyed water running over his scalp and down his face and thought: Caskie, lying sonofabitch.

  You and Haggs are involved in something –

  It was always something, this mystic something, this object that couldn’t be defined. He dried his face and walked back to the living room and opened the phone directory.

  29

  The motorway roared half a block away. Petrol fumes hung brown in the still air like old muslin. Haggs, hands deep in pockets, gazed at the street through a high wire fence. This site, protected by the fence and an expensive electronic alarm system, was the location of a car-hire company called EasyGo, which Haggs owned. The lot was filled with Puntos and Ford Mondeos and VW Golfs. The Clyde was about five hundred yards to the south.

  Haggs stared into the street, which had a derelict look. Across the way was an abandoned warehouse with broken windows. A gang of teenagers smoked crack and eyeballed the EasyGo lot as if they were thinking wads of drug money might be stashed inside.

  Wasted fuckwits, Haggs thought. ‘He comes to see me,’ he said. ‘On my fucking doorstep, bold as brass.’

  Caskie, arms folded, leaned against the chassis of a Golf. ‘I can’t keep him chained, Haggs. He’s not an easy customer.’

  ‘Tells me he’s the executor of the will and do I want to buy Jackie’s warehouse.’

  ‘He’s not the executor of the will,’ Caskie said. ‘I happen to know Jackie’s lawyer is the executor.’

  ‘Okay, so he’s lying. Then he asks me who do I think murdered his father and do I know a policeman called Caskie who, it seems, told him about that trial of mine years ago. I don’t like this Yank cop turning up on my fucking doorstep.’

  ‘I didn’t tell him anything about you or your trial, Haggs.’

  ‘So he’s got a private agenda.’ Haggs glared at the crackheads passing a pipe around.

  ‘Private? His agenda’s as bright as a lighthouse,’ Caskie said. ‘He’s looking for the killer.’

  ‘And that brings him to my doorstep.’ Haggs cracked his knuckles a couple of times. ‘He doesn’t believe Bones did it.’

  Caskie had the urge to ask Where is Bones?, except he didn’t want the answer. Bones was to take the fall, and then he’d be smuggled out of Glasgow to safety. That was the understanding, the deal. But Caskie was having a hard time picturing Bones strolling down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus or drinking ice-cold beer at a sidewalk cafe on the Boul St Mich, and clocking the passing crumpet. He felt cold inside.

  Haggs said, ‘I don’t like the way Mallon stares at you when you’re talking to him, because I get the feeling he’s seeing right through your fucking head.’

  ‘He sticks,’ Caskie said.

  ‘I wish he’d fuck
off back to America. Is there a chance he knows anything about Jackie’s business?’

  ‘You think Jackie telephoned his son in Queens to tell him he had some furtive deal going on? Straws, Haggs. You’re clutching.’

  ‘I wonder.’ Haggs made a V-sign at the scruffs across the street but they were too buzzed to be bothered by him. They had their crack and that was the limits of their universe and some tall skinny fucker gesticulating was an alien drop-in from another galactic system. ‘Why’s he so desperate to connect you and me?’

  ‘Because he doesn’t trust his local sheriff,’ Caskie said. ‘He doesn’t believe anything you tell him unless he can verify it for himself.’

  ‘I’d hate it if he became too much of a nuisance, Caskie. I’d hate to …’ Haggs shrugged and looked serious.

  Caskie saw a plane far to the south, rising out of Glasgow Airport. He wondered about its destination. Far away. Far far away.

  Haggs said, ‘The business we were discussing yesterday. Where are we with that?’

  Caskie watched the plane vanish, a silver dot of light. ‘Senga first,’ he said. ‘She knows nothing about Jackie’s plans.’

  ‘You’re absolutely sure about that?’

  ‘One hundred per cent. And the same with Joyce.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is Jackie confided his plans in nobody.’

  ‘Nobody in the family anyway.’

  ‘You’re not just being gallant, are you, Caskie? The bold knight figure. The big man.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Caskie realized, not for the first time, how deep his hatred of Haggs had become; the emotion was hard and black like a stone dropped down a bottomless well. I’ll get you, Haggs.

  Haggs said, ‘I’ve relied on you to suss out what these two women know, but if I find out you’re lying and you’re protecting either of them, you can forget all about your police pension and any perks you might be expecting. What you’ll get instead, pal, is public humiliation so fucking shattering you’ll need to slip out of Glasgow in the back of a turnip lorry –’