by Tony Black
He turned on his heels, smirked. ‘I’ve never found the RUC to be in the slightest bit helpful in the past.’
‘That’s where you’ve been going wrong. You see I’m not RUC, anymore.’
Chapter 37
DI John Scott gave up the name of the Order’s contact in Ulster. I knew it wasn’t through any sense of decency, or misplaced altruism. Scott couldn’t care less about the death of Stevie Nichols, the lad was just a cog in an industrial-scale drugs operation, and he wanted the glory of shutting it down. The fact that the operation was on his home turf was just another incentive for him; calling a halt to the racket spelled greater gravitas among his peers.
Scott hadn’t had the proper incentive to find Stevie’s killer, until now. And there was always the chance that hauling in the murderer might hamper his wider ambitions – make the drug traffickers more cautious and ruin his chance of the glamour collar he craved.
As I pulled up outside my parents’ home I noticed the curtains twitching. I spotted Andy retreating from the window as I walked up the drive; he was standing in the hall as I walked in.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Well what?’
‘Are there any developments?’
I didn’t want to burden Andy with any more information than was necessary, the chances were it might spook him in his current frame of mind.
‘No, Andy … all quiet on the western front.’
He retreated to the kitchen, nervously clawing at his shirt cuffs. I watched him peer into the back garden, left to right, then he started to fill the kettle. He looked distracted, weighed with thoughts, as I headed for the front room and the telephone.
I had Old Tommy’s number in my wallet, next to my credit cards and an old picture of my sister’s kids. The sight of Claire’s nippers made my heart skip a beat as thoughts of the impending house sale rose up again.
Ringing.
He answered quickly. ‘Hello …’
‘Hello, Tommy.’
‘Doug, long time no hear. How the hell are you, my old son?’
I skipped the pleasantries, made my request sound as businesslike as I could. Tommy knew, if I was asking at all, that it was important.
‘I need to get background on a bloke called Keenan.’
The name didn’t ring any bells with the RUC detective. ‘Is he connected?’
‘He’s the first port of call for a very wayward branch of the Order we have over here.’
‘And by wayward you mean …?’
I gave Tommy the abridged version of Stevie Nichols’ death, of the wholesale flooding of the town with drugs.
‘Sounds charming.’
I agreed. ‘And folk still wonder why I’m keen to leave.’
‘Moving on again, are you?’
‘Making a fresh start, Tommy …’ Lyn appeared in the doorway as I spoke, she waved before registering I was on a call and heading out again.
‘Another fresh start, Doug?’
I smiled as Lyn left. ‘A proper one this time.’
‘Okay, mate … Look, I’ll see what I can dig up about this Keenan, was there anything in particular?’
I gave him the dates of Stevie Nichols’ murder and asked him to check them with Keenan’s movements. ‘I think it was a contract hit called in from this side, but likely taken care of from Keenan’s payroll.’
‘I’ll see what I can do, Doug.’
‘I’d appreciate it, as quick as you like too, they’re getting jumpy over here.’
‘You know I’ll do what I can.’
‘Look up the line too, Tommy. I need to know who has their hand up Keenan’s back.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘I know you will, mate.’
I hung up.
Andy and Lyn looked pensive as I entered the kitchen. ‘Everything okay, guys?’
They nodded briskly, like it was part of a shared arrangement. I thought to probe further but time was against me now.
‘Okay, glad to hear it. I have to make another trip to Prestwick, to see Bert.’
Andy put down his cup. ‘I’ll come with you.’
I flagged him down. ‘No, you stay here.’ I looked towards Lyn and he seemed to get the message.
‘I’ll be back later, I’ll be on the mobile if anyone needs me.’
Lyn got out of her seat and hugged me. ‘Take care,’ she said. It seemed like an overtly cautious comment; I wondered what she and Andy had been talking about in my absence.
I took the road through the town, snaking along the shore front on the beat-boy’s circuit and over the John Street roundabout to Prestwick Road.
Bert Nichols was returning from a walk with his dog – a yapping Westie with a red-tartan collar – when I pulled up outside his home. He put the key in the lock and let the dog go in first. He was wiping soap smears from the bonnet of his immaculate Cavalier when I approached.
‘Back again so soon?’ he said.
‘I hope it’s convenient, Bert.’
He was too well mannered to say, ‘It’ll just have to be,’ but his expression told a different story.
He led me through to the living room, I could hear the dog lapping at its water bowl in the back kitchen.
Bert removed his coat and sat down; he leaned forward with his elbows jutting astride his knees. I could tell from his deportment that he wasn’t going to take kindly to what I had to say.
‘Things have moved apace recently,’ I looked him square in the eye.
No reply.
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to hear some harsh truths, Mr Nichols.’
He remained impassive, seemed to sink deeper into himself. If there was a glimmer of hope in him then my words extinguished it right there.
‘Bert … I know your son was mixed up in this drugs business with Davie Grant … and much more besides.’
He seemed to have stopped breathing, then let out a sigh and reclined further into the seat. He made an apse of his fingers above his chest as be started to speak in low decorous tones. ‘I watched my son wander from the righteous path.’
It sounded like the admission a guilty man would make, not the words of a grief-stricken father.
‘I know all about the split in the Order, Bert. And I need to ask you, do you think Davie Grant made the call … to Keenan?’
The Irishman’s name had little effect on Bert; he was deep in himself now, lost to the rational world. I had expected a stronger reaction, ranting maybe, but his reply shocked me.
‘We’re finished as an Order, now.’
‘What?’ I was dumbfounded. I’d just about handed him his son’s killer and his first instinct was to bemoan the crumbling Order.
‘Did you hear what I said, Bert? I know Keenan must have sanctioned the hit on Stevie. And Grantie’s the only one who could have placed that order.’
Bert spoke softly. ‘We’re done for … all those years of work, wasted.’
‘Davie Grant must have instructed Keenan to kill your son, don’t you see that, Bert?’
‘Centuries of belief wiped out …’ He sat motionless, his pale grey eyes sunk deep in his head. I wanted to shake him by the shoulders, slap him. I needed to see that the momentous information I had delivered made some impact on him but he was near catatonic before me as he spoke, ‘All those men’s toil thrown on the fire.’
The sound of my ringing mobile split the air. Bert still didn’t move; I reached for the phone.
‘Mason … what is it?’
‘Doug, thank God you’re alive.’
‘What?’
He sounded breathless. ‘I just heard the callout and I thought the worst.’
‘What callout? What are you on about?’
‘The emergency call … Doug, look sorry, you obviously don’t know.’
‘Don’t know what?’
Mason swallowed a deep breath, ‘Doug, your mother’s house is on fire. There’s three units there now trying to put it out … I thought the worst, I thought
you were inside.’
My arm fell to my side, an enormous pressure descended on my shoulders like I was being pushed into the ground by the hand of God.
‘Lyn …’
Chapter 38
A cold wash of stolid Ayrshire sky swallowed the horizon and spat back a dark line of road. The fallow fields flew past the car in dull repetition, broken only when I passed a line of dawdling vehicles. My muscles felt slack, then tense. My fists, clamped hard to the wheel, began to squelch below the building sweat of my palms.
My mind slipped between the opposing poles of my conscience: one second begging Lyn to be alive, the next berating me for leaving her there. Andy featured lower in my thoughts, fluctuating somewhere between raw blame and downright stupidity.
I tried to weigh what might have happened, how? But my mind wanted to shuck off the burden. Nothing coherent welled in my thoughts, just glimpses of possibilities like the blurring fields and roads and cars I passed at speed. And then a black ribbon of smoke purled upwards in the distance.
As I pulled into the street the melee was everywhere. Emergency vehicles and paramedics stationed themselves like an army at war, poised and ready to meet their enemy. But the fire was gone, the house a mass of blackened walls and sunken windows that stared out like holes burned in old paper. I ran from the car towards the smouldering heap of rubble, my heart bursting in my chest.
‘Lyn …’
Suddenly, arms tight as barrel hoops latched around me.
‘No, Doug …’ It was Mason.
‘I need to go inside …’
‘It’s not safe, Doug.’
‘You don’t understand … Lyn was in there.’ A siren wailed behind us, I turned to see an ambulance departing at speed. ‘That’s her … she’s on her way to hospital.’
I fell limply, weak. Mason released me.
‘What?’
‘They got her out.’
‘Is she going to be okay?’
Mason’s head drooped. ‘I don’t know, Doug.’
My mind continued to buckle under the pressure. Thoughts and images weighed in on me. I couldn’t concentrate. ‘But, she has to be …’
Mason reached out a hand to steady me. ‘Doug, they’ll do all they can, I’m sure of it.’
A firework went off behind my eyes. ‘But, what about Andy? He was in there too.’
I saw Mason’s lips tighten into a thin line. ‘Look, Doug … Andy didn’t make it.’
The words seemed to hit me at high speed, like I’d been flung into a wall. I couldn’t recover my breath, I bent double and started to cough. Deep racking exhalations. I had smoke in my lungs now, I could feel water welling in my stinging eyes, too. Mason slapped my back, ‘Come on, mate, back to the car and sit down.’
We sat in Mason’s car, unmoving, silent for what seemed like an age but could only have been a few minutes.
‘What happened?’
Mason stared front as he spoke, ‘I don’t know … it went up very quickly.’
‘Accelerant … has to be.’
I caught him nodding to a uniform who was leaving the scene. ‘We won’t know till they investigate. Are you saying you have your suspicions?’
I felt my mettle returning. ‘Suspicions … Do I ever.’
Mason twisted in his seat, faced me. ‘You know what you’re saying, Doug?’
I knew damn well what I was saying.
‘Andy was battered, worked over good and proper by Davie Grant’s pugs a few days ago.’
‘So what?’
‘So, you think this is a coincidence, do you?’
Mason’s heavy brows creased. ‘I think it’s a big jump from slapping someone about to murder by fire-raising.’
My head was white-hot, thoughts flashing in and out. I knew I wasn’t making myself clear to him.
‘Look, you don’t get it. Things have moved on since we last spoke. I know Grantie’s been shifting serious amounts of chemicals – Stevie Nichols was in on it too – I know Bert Nichols was against it and it nearly split the Order apart … until a hit was called in on Stevie by a bloke called Keenan from Ulster. I know all this and you can check it out with your very own DI John Scott if you need to.’
Mason sat impassive, digesting the details I’d just served up for him. His thin lips widened momentarily and then the tip of his grey tongue flashed briefly as he tried to insinuate some moisture to allow him a reply. ‘DI Scott knows about this?’
I nodded. ‘You might say we’ve been helping each other out.’
‘So, what you’re telling me is that Grantie called in the hit on Stevie, and now he’s singled you out for the same?’
‘DI Scott had Grantie down as a suspect, Grantie hired me to try and clear his name … I think it might have been Andy’s idea, a way of wiping a debt, but now we’ll never know.’
Mason wound down his window and leaned an arm on the sill. He started to light a cigarette as he spoke. ‘The kicking Andy got …’
‘To call him off, or more accurately, to call me off.’
‘And it didn’t work, obviously.’
I took the cigarette from Mason, I felt deep guilt building in me. ‘I told Andy to tell him the case would be closed when I said it was.’
Mason knew better than to turn my words back on me. He reached for his seatbelt and strapped himself in.
‘Buckle up, Doug.’
‘Are you taking me to the hospital?’
‘Later, let the doctors do their work in peace … Think we’ll make a little visit to Mr Grant first.’
Chapter 39
As Mason turned the key in the ignition the stereo started to blare out some old-school U2. It sounded like ‘Pride (in the Name of Love)’ but for inexplicable reasons my mind latched onto ‘The Unforgettable Fire’. I reached out and flicked the off button.
‘Probably best,’ said Mason. ‘Not the time or place for Bono.’
There was a wisecrack in waiting somewhere, but not in my mouth. I turned to the window, watched the last of the fire crew rolling in a length of heavy hose.
On the way out to Dalmellington I found myself descending into the deepest guilt trip. I couldn’t shake the image of the blackened house, the smouldering embers beneath the fallen roof. My parents’ home had been destroyed, the place where Claire and I grew up; all those memories we shared from there had been scattered to the winds now.
‘Oh, God … Claire.’
‘What’s up?’
I scrunched my eyes tight, but the image wouldn’t leave me. ‘The house, I was supposed to be selling it.’
‘I saw the sale board.’
‘Claire didn’t want me to, y’know, in the deflated market.’
Mason had the good sense to hold schtum. I spoke for us both. ‘She won’t have the choice now.’
As quickly as my fragile mind had alighted upon Claire and the lost house of our childhood, my thoughts changed to Andy and Lyn.
‘Did you see, Lyn? I mean, before they took her away.’
Mason nodded. ‘I did.’
‘And … how did she look?’
He turned to face me for a moment. ‘Not good. She was unconscious, they had an oxygen mask on her.’
‘But she was breathing, that’s something.’
Mason carved a thin smile on the side of his face. ‘Yes, that’s something.’
I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. I was tempted to talk about Andy, about our shared loss of a mutual friend, but I knew that was a burden I’d have to carry alone. My friend had been killed; it seemed an unreal thought. It was only a few hours ago that I had been speaking to him. When the reality of what had happened to Andy sunk in, I knew I’d be going down with it.
As we reached Dalmellington, Davie Grant’s house looked as imposing as it ever had. The one concession to the manicured garden and impressively monoblocked strip of drive was a silver-blue Cavalier, parked at an acute angle in the drive. As we pulled up I saw the driver’s door of the Cavalier stood wid
e open, the keys were in the ignition and the engine still running.
Mason broke the silence as we stepped out. ‘Strange … looks like it’s been abandoned.’ He reached into the dash and removed the keys. The engine shuddered noisily then abruptly fell into silence.
The car was immaculate; it suddenly dawned on me I’d seen it before. ‘I know this motor …’
‘You do?’
‘It’s Bert Nichols’.’
As we stood staring quizzically at each other a loud screech, like a frightened child, broke from the back of the house.
‘What was that?’
Mason shrugged, jogged to the front door. It was open, we rushed through, following the increasing wails. In the corridor, just shy of the kitchen, it became clear the screaming was coming from a woman.
Mason was first through the door. As the sight of three huddled bodies greeted us we stopped still. I watched Mason take a step back, he raised his palms and tried to look non-threatening. I knew it was already too late for that when I saw the knife Bert held at a terrified Cassie’s throat.
Grantie stood wide-shouldered and solid before us, he held a chubby finger out to Bert and warned him to drop the weapon. ‘You’ve lost it, Bert …’ he yelled.
Mason ran his fingers through his hair and then returned to the open-palmed posture. ‘Bert, what’s going on here?’
I watched Cassie’s terrified eyes widen, her short dressing gown rode up over her tanned thighs as she struggled in Bert’s grip. ‘Let me go … Please, let me go.’
I stepped forward. ‘Bert … this isn’t going to bring Stevie back.’
His eyes flared. ‘Rubbing my nose in it, wasn’t he?’ His voice was a hollow dislocated rumble. He sounded nothing like the buttoned-up Bert I knew.
‘What?’
‘Him! He brought my son into his unholy trade.’
Grantie withdrew his finger, made a fist of his hand. There were words on his tongue but he held them back, the exertion writ-large on his red face.
‘Bert … let the girl go,’ I said.
‘It was a step too far, a sin in the eyes of God.’
Grantie stepped forward, pointed to me. ‘I called him! I paid for his time to look at Steven’s death.’
