by Tony Black
Somewhere along the way I let the job get under my skin, change me. There were blokes who saw it as no more than a job at the best of times but there were the ones – who I gravitated to – that understood why we were there. People were savages, no more, no less. If you gave them the chance they reverted to form and ran wild. They needed consequences to control their actions and that’s where we came in.
I liked to think of the force as the last civilising line we had but I know at times it had the potential to turn its strongest adherents into just what they despised the most. Take away the triumphs and the warm glow that duty delivered and every day was a test of how hard you held the reins of humanity. Someone once said, ‘The price of life is eternal vigilance’. That’s exactly how it felt on the force. For me, anyway.
Bert Nichols’ home was a neat sandstone bungalow on Caerlaverock Avenue. He opened the door as the chimes of the bell were still ringing. As he stood in the hallway he laced a navy tie through the white collars of his shirt.
‘Mr Michie … I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘Can I come in?’
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
We seemed to have the house to ourselves; it was excruciatingly prim and tidy, the place probably made dust too nervous to settle. I took a chintzy chair in the front room and waved away the offer of tea. As I sat facing the straight-backed Bert, I stared at the white patch of cloth resting on the chair behind him. I wondered if the patch of cloth had ever had contact with the back of a head? It seemed unlikely, the artefact was as starched as Papal vestments; the irony of the image in my head wasn’t lost to me when I realised who I was staring at.
‘Well, to what do I owe the pleasure?’ Bert was nonplussed to see me in his home at silly-o’clock in the morning.
I chose my reply carefully. ‘I followed your advice and spoke to DI John Scott.’
He arched an eyebrow but remained silent.
‘Yes, he led my investigation up some very interesting avenues.’
‘He did?’
‘I think you must have known he would, Bert … why else would you give me that tip at the Fourways, unless you wanted to put Davie Grant back in the frame for your son’s murder?’
I expected my remark to have the same effect as detonating a hand grenade in the room, but Bert kept his impassive stare. If he had a grudge against Grant, he hid it well.
‘That’s not why I made the suggestion.’
‘Then why?’
Bert removed the face of his watch from beneath his shirtsleeve. ‘What else has your investigation turned up so far, Mr Michie?’
It wasn’t a brusque dismissal of my question, I could tell he intended to be frank with me, perhaps once he was sure we were singing from the same hymn sheet.
‘Some very interesting facts about your son’s girlfriend … and the company she’s been keeping.’
Bert nibbled at his lower lip, rose from the chair. As he walked to the broad bay window he put his hands behind his back and laced fingers in a contorted knot.
‘We didn’t … approve of the girl.’
‘Jan Milne?’
The sound of her name sent Bert twisting back to face me. ‘That’s her, yes.’
‘And why would that be?’ I knew the answer to the question but I wanted to hear it from him.
Bert’s voice rose an octave. ‘Look, if you’ve checked her out, I think you’ll know why.’
‘She says you and your wife didn’t like her.’
‘She has some very louche ways … and associates.’
‘Did you feel she was leading Steven astray?’
He unclasped his hands. ‘I honestly don’t know who was leading who, Mr Michie.’ Bert returned to his seat but continued to stare towards the broad window at the front of the room. His demeanour seemed to have altered, it was almost imperceptible in someone so buttoned-up but there was now a calm, resigned look about him. It felt like the time to press him for an answer to my earlier question.
‘Bert, why did you ask me to seek out DI Scott?’
‘You don’t know … I mean, it’s not obvious to you?’
I shook my head.
Bert gazed at me with watery eyes, ‘Scott’s drugs squad, I mean, that’s his bread and butter, anyway. I thought you’d know that, given your line of work and the fact that this town’s half-full of drug addicts.’
The remark caught me off guard, sent my mind carving out new neural paths.
‘Are you saying your son was involved in drugs?’
‘No. I’m not saying that.’
‘Then what are you saying, Bert?’
He stood up and headed for the door, a new look of impatience building. ‘I need to get to work,’ he grabbed the handle and indicated the hallway carpet, ‘so if you don’t mind …’
Chapter 32
I wandered out of Bert Nichols’ house in a daze. There seemed to be so much going on beneath the surface that I couldn’t keep my feet on solid ground anymore. Nothing made sense, and I knew when that was the case it was because people were concealing the truth.
I’d reached the Red Lion in a daze, I was back on the main drag, before I dragged myself into the real world once again. I took a deep breath, found I was glancing backwards for no apparent reason, and then I caught sight of Bert’s car heading out of town.
He seemed stolid, a fine upright citizen, but I knew there was more to him than met the eye. I could almost excuse his dalliance with the Order as an anachronism of his generation, an old-school brainwashing that had once been rife in the west-coast of Scotland. Who knows how the Order first got their hooks into him? Grantie was a meat-head, a bigot and the crass kind of bully that predominated in Ayrshire. I could see the appeal for him, his type liked the trappings of seeming importance, the feeling of being big time, the crowd at their back.
I started to cross the road, walk against the traffic, until I reached the other side. I was merely a few hundred yards from Jan Milne’s flat – the one she had once shared with Steven Nichols. I told myself it was time I rattled her cage once again.
As I stood outside the door to the communal staircase I heard the sound of heels clacking on stone steps. I dived to the side of the door, out of view of the window, and waited for someone to appear. A broad woman in her bad-fifties emerged, panting with exertion and almost bounding for the pavement. I slipped my arm in the rapidly closing gap and eased myself in the doorway.
At Jan Milne’s flat I put my ear to the door, there was a radio blaring out the WestSound jingle. I knocked and stepped back. For a moment the volume decreased, I knocked again.
As the front door started to open I made sure my foot was in position to hold it there.
‘Hello, Jan …’
‘You!’
I forced my way in. ‘No other …’
‘Hey, what are you doing?’
I walked into the living room and waited for her to follow. She appeared as if on cue.
‘Sorry about that, Jan, I’m not normally so heavy handed but I didn’t think you’d lay on the good biccies for me.’
‘I want you to leave.’
I shrugged off her suggestion, then lowered myself into the comfortable sofa. ‘It really is a very nice place you have here.’
She folded her arms in front of me and looked over the bridge of her nose. ‘What the hell do you want?’
‘I thought we could pick up from where we left off the last time … you remember, before your new boyfriend with the flashy motor cut in.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Oh, no?’ I crossed my legs, tried to look nonchalant. ‘I heard he was. I know he’s just your type anyway, flash with the cash and a man who’s connected to the big scores.’
She shook her head. ‘You’ve got me all wrong.’
‘Is that right? Well, maybe you should set the record straight … come and sit down, Jan.’
She turned towards the door we had just come through, looked pensively at the distance.
Did she consider bolting? If she did, she thought better of it, sat herself down in front of me and looked at her fingernails.
‘I don’t know what you want from me.’
I firmed my voice. ‘I’m investigating a murder, show some sense girl.’
She curled her red fingernails into her palms to make fists. ‘I can’t help you.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
She rolled her eyes, then scrunched them tight. Two China-blue lids clamped themselves over her gaze.
I spoke. ‘You said Steven’s parents were controlling … what did you mean by that?’
‘Strict, y’know, they were his parents and didn’t much like the company he kept.’
‘Including you?’
Her eyes came into view again. ‘Yes. Including me.’
‘Now why would that be, a lovely girl like you?’
‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. I don’t know what goes on in other peoples’ heads.’
I sat forward in the chair and fixed a serious stare on her. ‘Oh, I have Jan. I’ve asked a lot of people about you. Do you know what they say? They say you’re a very particular kind of girl. A stop-out. A bad-lad groupie …’
She didn’t deny it, just broke our gaze and looked over to the other side of the room.
‘Your new man’s a dealer, but I bet you know that.’
She never flinched, just kept her eyes front.
‘What was it that first attracted you to Stevie?’
She pinched her nose. ‘What?’
‘Steven Nichols … your late ex, remember him?’
Jan crouched over, dug her elbows on her thighs and buried her face in her hands. ‘Why are you doing this?’
I rose, bellowed at her: ‘Because a boy was murdered and you can point the finger.’
‘I can’t!’
‘Yes you can … now tell me why? Was it because Stevie was into drugs, too? Did he run up a debt with someone? Is that it?’
‘No …’ she screamed, tears coming full and fast now.
‘The flash lad with the car, did Stevie owe him? Is that what you’re doing with him now, working off Stevie’s debt on your back?’
She lunged for me with her nails out, ‘Shut your mouth, just shut it!’
I grabbed her arms, shook her. She screamed at me, more tears flowed. ‘I know all about Davie Grant and I know all about DI Scott – is that why you’re afraid to speak to me? Are you frightened I’ll find out about your involvement in this mess?’
‘No. Leave me …’
‘Jan, you need me, I’m your only friend in all of this. You know you’re messing with serious people. If they can do away with Stevie, what’s to stop them coming for you next?’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Grantie was Stevie’s friend … he was always saying what he was going to do for, Stevie. They had big plans together. Grantie wouldn’t hurt him.’ She went limp in my arms, started to cry harder, deep heavy sobs from the core of her.
I let her down on the couch, she curled up and looked like a small child. I felt a twinge of guilt for pushing her so far, I saw now that she didn’t have any more to give me. She believed she had given me nothing, that she’d protected her friends, her group, but what she’d actually done was firm a suspicion that had been building in my mind.
I closed the door gently on my way out.
Chapter 33
I collected the Audi from the back of Flannagan’s and headed home. At the King Street roundabout I watched two junkies in a kerfuffle, prodding each other and lunging to grab hair. It looked like a Saturday night drunks’ squabble slowed down to a third of the normal speed. No one at the cop shop over the road seemed even slightly interested in the goings; you start locking up junkies for street brawls, where does it stop? Even if you packed them in like sardines there weren’t enough cells in the place.
I ploughed on through the wreckage of the Sandgate, the scaffolding over those scabby buildings at the bridge fooling nobody. They were like the Forth Bridge – needed painting round the clock – a lick of emulsion once in a blue moon wasn’t going to cut it. I felt a turn in my gut at the thought of the now moribund town; I wanted out more than anything because I couldn’t stand back and watch the place decay like it was doing.
By Belmont, at the tip of the level-crossing, I caught a WestSound news bulletin, nothing stood out except the news that some of the pubs were finding trading so tough they were going down to three-day weeks.
‘A recipe for disaster, that,’ I blasted the radio.
The hard-core would double their intake on the three days, make the weekend a long weekend – and it would be very long for the police troops in attendance. A stark image of the Auld Toun’s slow descent into purgatory burned itself on my mind. I’d seen what the atrophy had done to the likes of Andy, medicated on booze to make it bearable, and I didn’t relish the prospect for myself.
The sky was a low grey wash over the rooftops of Alloway as I pulled into the drive at my old family home. There was still some warmth in the air, a hint to the summer just passed, but we were now a long way from the familiar aromas of freshly-cut grass and barbecue steaks grilling. I felt a pressure of ebbing time set itself up in my chest.
Lyn was heading for the kitchen as I opened the front door and stepped inside.
‘Oh, hello …’
I nodded. ‘Hi.’
She stopped in her tracks, turned. ‘You look like it’s been a hard day at the office.’
A smirk. ‘You could say that.’
She seemed to intuit my mood matched my expression. ‘Grab a seat, I’ll get you a coffee.’
‘That would be fabulous, thank you.’
I slumped in the living room, the place seemed colder than I remembered it of late. Not much, merely a few degrees. But perceptible.
Lyn handed over the coffee mug. ‘Come on, then, out with it.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve a face like a stopped clock.’
‘Oh, that …’
‘Yes, that. Is it the case?’
I nodded. ‘It’s just playing on my mind, that’s all.’
Lyn sipped her coffee. ‘Well, a problem shared and all that.’
‘I don’t want to burden you. You’ve enough on your plate.’
She tilted her head towards her shoulder, ‘Burden me, please …’
I figured that giving voice to some of my concerns might actually help. Lyn had a sharp mind, if there were any connections I’d missed she’d point them out to me. There was also the fact that she was a woman and a mother – with an altogether different perspective on things.
I filled Lyn in on the latest developments in the investigation: on Davie Grant’s status as a suspect; on Bert’s uptight reaction this morning and on Jan Milne’s insistence that Grantie and Steven Nichols were nothing short of bestos.
Lyn held her cup like she was drawing warmth from it. As she spoke, her words were a curious drawl I hadn’t observed before. ‘There’s something very odd about the way Bert treated his son … I mean, when they get to a certain age you have to let them make their own mistakes or they won’t grow into adults.’
‘Jan said the Nichols kept Stevie on a short leash.’
‘Well that sounds like a classic recipe for rebellion, if you ask me.’
I had to agree, even though I had nothing to back up the assumption. ‘That could be why he was with Jan?’
‘Yeah, she sounds the ultimate bad girl to get their backs up.’ Her coffee was finished, she lowered the mug onto the carpet. ‘Do you think Stevie was involved with drugs?’
‘It’s the logical conclusion … Bert Nichols has inferred Grantie’s up to his neck in drugs and Stevie worked for him.’
‘That doesn’t mean much.’
‘Well, Jan said Stevie and Grantie were full of plans. Sounded like Grantie had a fast-track mapped out for the boy.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t fast enough.’
I caught onto he
r reasoning immediately. ‘You mean, Stevie got overly-ambitious and bit off more than he could chew.’
Lyn shrugged. ‘Maybe he wanted a bigger share of the action.’
If Steven Nichols was the type to fall in with the wrong crowd – be it because he wanted to sever the apron strings or not – he was certainly going to be the type to get big ideas about himself. I’d known more than a few dealers who ended up in the ground because of their hubris.
‘Yeah, it’s an option … but then so is the exact opposite.’
‘You mean Stevie pulled back from Grantie’s offer. But what if it was an offer he couldn’t refuse?’
I tipped my head back onto the sofa and sighed out. ‘This is my problem, it’s all speculation.’
Lyn rose, collected up the coffee cups. ‘Fancy another?’
I nodded. ‘Why not.’
Through long years of brain melting detective work I’d learned when to turn the whole puzzle over to my subconscious. Batting things about in the front of the mind for too long rarely delivers answers; rarely delivers anything other than a headache, to be truthful. I sank deeper into the sofa and resolved to put the case out of my thoughts for a little while.
Lyn returned with two refills. ‘Well, any further forward?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘There’s only one certainty at this point in time …’
‘What’s that?’
‘Whatever Steven Nichols’ involvement in the drugs trade, his father wouldn’t have liked it.’
‘I’d say Bert would be near Pentecostal in that regard.’
I raised my mug again, ‘You’re right … and I’d say that’d cause quite a rift in the Order.’
Chapter 34
It doesn’t matter how much time you spend in big cities, after a short while you become inured to their excesses. In Belfast I turned a wry eye to the legions of shoddy street performers that flocked in the summer months, chasing the tourist shilling. Edinburgh was the same, at festival time you didn’t want to be navigating the Royal Mile at any hour. But you cut the cities some slack for the fact that they were able to absorb the changes; cities were big enough to be mutable, places like the Auld Toun were not.
