Duty Man (Best Defence series Book 2)

by William H. S. McIntyre

  I wanted some answers but the pistol lay on the bedroom floor between us, a piece of unfinished business. My assailant’s left arm tensed. His hand twitched.

  I feinted with the bedpost. ‘Try it and you’ll be eating your next meal through a straw.’

  The eyes staring up at me through the black ski mask showed mostly white. I shuffled forward and kicked the pistol under the bed, the bedpost still raised, ready to strike.

  The intruder took stock of the situation, then, cradling his injured arm, hobbled out of the door.

  CHAPTER 35

  I didn’t go to the police. What was the point? Undoubtedly, Jake would have a water-tight alibi and muscle like Deek Pudney and his young associate were ten a penny. Anyway, I couldn’t afford to clipe on anyone, not even a psycho like Jake Turpie. If I did, any credibility I’d gained with the criminal fraternity locally would go down the toilet. Jake had a lot of serious contacts who wouldn’t take it kindly if I involved the law over something which they, like Jake, would see as a matter of principle. After all I did owe him money and all’s fair in love and debt-collecting.

  So while I decided on the best way to deal with my landlord, I wasn’t going to stay at home and wait for another visit. I’d spend the night at my dad’s and formulate a plan of action. Naturally, the old man would want to know why I was turning up on his doorstep late at night with a black-eye, but excuses were my stock in trade. I’d come up with one on the drive over.

  My car was a middle-aged, red hatch-back that Jake Turpie had saved from the crusher and given to me a few months back after my own car had died and when we were on friendlier terms. The vehicle was registered to some old guy who’d been about to emigrate and was sold for scrap with six months still on the tax disk. I hadn’t cancelled the comprehensive insurance on my previous car, which covered me third-party for all other vehicles and having omitted to notify Swansea of the change in ownership, my driving licence remained unblemished and parking tickets weren’t a worry.

  Not sure what to do with it I took the pistol with me, shoving it in the glove-box out of the way. It was only a short drive to my dad’s place and as I pulled up outside I was relieved to see that the lights were off. I had a key and could kip down in the spare room without waking him. I went around the back of the house. It was dark. I walked carefully trying not to make a sound. The crunch of glass underfoot told me something was not right - that and the fact that a panel in the back door was smashed and the door itself wide open.

  I rushed in and switched on some lights. The place was trashed: every room a disaster scene, every item of furniture knocked over, every picture dislodged, every curtain torn down. Even Billy’s cage had been ransacked and the evicted bird perched atop the mantelpiece. I charged upstairs. It was very much the same, with carpets ripped up, drawers pulled out and their contents scattered, but no sign of my dad. This wasn’t happening. Jake Turpie could put the frighteners on me. To his own twisted way of thinking, I deserved it, but this was my dad. I ran downstairs. There was nothing for it but to call the police. I was hunting for the telephone when the back door slammed shut. I dived behind the couch and lay still.

  ‘What the hell?’

  The sound of that angry voice was music to my ears. I jumped up, causing my dad to take a backward step when he saw a figure leap from behind the couch.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I shouted at him.

  He looked bemused, not surprisingly since he’d come home to find his house destroyed and his son playing hide and seek in the debris. ‘Where have I been? What’s happened here?’

  ‘You’ve been broken into.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ He shook his head trying to make some sense of the situation. ‘What are you doing here? This place… your eye, your face... Robbie, what’s going on? Are you all right? Look at you.’

  ‘It’s nothing. I just slipped getting out of the bath.’

  He looked sceptical. ‘Has this got anything to do with that man, McPhee?’

  ‘I told you, I slipped.’

  He found the phone. The cable had been ripped from the wall and it took him a while to re-connect it. After he’d made the call I waited with him for the police to arrive, wondering all the while if I should fill him in on a few details, like, for instance, the real reason I looked as though I’d gone twelve rounds with a threshing machine and why his house had been tanned; except, why would Jake Turpie want to break into my dad’s house? For three months’ rent arrears he seemed to be going to an awful lot of trouble and it didn’t look like anything was missing.

  There was no ice in the freezer, not even a bag of frozen peas. All I could find was a tin of beer in the fridge. I pressed it against my swollen cheekbone before downing the contents.

  After a while a couple of uniforms showed up and took statements from us. They were about to leave when another police car drew up. Detective Chief Inspector Petra Lockhart alighted and, as the car drove off again, she walked up the path and into the house. Her hair was damp, she wore a navy blue tracksuit over a white sports-top. A sweatshirt was slung over her arm. I suspected she’d come straight from the gym.

  ‘I heard it over the radio,’ she said. ‘Mr Munro, are you and your father all right? You’re injured—’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I assured her.

  ‘Look at the state of this place.’ She opened the hall door, peering into the livingroom and breathed a low whistle between her teeth.

  ‘Careful ma’am,’ said one of the uniforms. ‘Scene of Crime can’t make it ‘til the morning.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’ my dad wanted to know. ‘Stand here all night and not touch anything?’

  The cop took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, sir. We can’t get it done any sooner. I think it would be a good idea if you spent the night somewhere else.’ All eyes turned on me.

  That was all I needed. The old man at my place, quizzing me over my injuries and how it was I’d managed to smash up my bedroom by slipping in the bath. He might have been an ex-cop but he wasn’t completely stupid. I had another idea.

  ‘Probably some junkie high on smack,’ my dad told Lockhart as she escorted us on the short walk to Vince’s house. ‘Or one of Frankie McPhee’s mob.’

  I didn’t know why I felt it necessary to stick up for Frankie but I couldn’t help myself; too many years spent tendering pleas in mitigation.

  ‘Frankie doesn’t have a mob,’ I said. ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Who’s Frankie McPhee?’ Lockhart asked.

  My dad enlightened her. ‘A crook!’

  ‘A former client of mine,’ I clarified. ‘Now rehabilitated.’

  But the old man was having none of it. ‘He may have you fooled but not me. Frankie McPhee is a dangerous man. I don’t care if he thinks he is a one-man Salvation Army. Him and his home for vagrants—’

  ‘It’s a soup kitchen,’ I said.

  ‘More like a front for drugs or something.’

  Both Lockhart and I tried unsuccessfully to change the subject, but he kept up his rant until we arrived at Vince’s. The porch light came on and the wee, stout man in the thick glasses trundled slowly into view like one of his slow-rolling bowling balls.

  My dad turned to Lockhart. ‘Are you a whisky drinker, ma’am?’

  ‘Well…’

  My dad pounced at the first sign of weakness. ‘Come with me.’ He took her by the arm. ‘And you,’ he said to me. ‘Away and get your face seen to.’

  Lockhart looked back over her shoulder as my dad towed her along. ‘Are you not coming, Mr Munro?’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ my dad informed her in a loud voice for my benefit, and with that the two of them set off up the path to where Vince was waiting at his front door for them with a bottle of something peaty.

  Chapter 36

  I’d had enough of Jake Turpie. Up until that night I had been on the back foot. Jake was my office landlord and I’d known what kind of man he was when we’d agreed the lease. There had been no paperwork, no
thing signed, just a handshake and a promise of regular cash payments. I’d broken that agreement and he had a right to be a bit touchy about it. What he had no right to do was send a thug round to my house to stick a gun in my face – not for a measly six grand - and what he definitely should not have done is gone anywhere near my father. He needed sorting out. That was why I was on my way to Edinburgh and Frankie McPhee’s soup kitchen, which I expected to be in full swing around that time of night. Of course, Chic’s revelation that Frankie had killed Lord Hewitt was a concern, but surely that was just the ranting of a dying man. Anyway, Frankie owed me one. If I could persuade Frankie to have a serious word with Jake then that should give me enough time to get in some money and pay the rent. According to Frankie, he was a new man. I hoped he’d kept enough of the old man to give it to Jake Turpie tight.

  It was approaching midnight as I drove towards the city centre. My temper had cooled to a simmer and I started to think some more about my visit with Chic Kelly. If he was right about Frankie killing the judge and that the mysterious package contained the proof, then it stood to reason that Frankie would be extremely anxious to get his hands on it. For a moment it crossed my mind that the man in the ski-mask may not have been sent by Jake Turpie at all, and yet Chic had assured me Frankie McPhee didn’t even know the contents of the package still existed. Had Chic not told me that, I would have seriously considered another possible reason for the attack on me. For if Frankie thought I had the package it would be easy for him to send someone to collect. Even with Chic’s assurance, I couldn’t keep from wondering if there was any direct connection between the package, Frankie and Max’s murder. I was almost at the old church when I decided that for the time being I’d leave Frankie out of it and find another method of dealing with my landlord. Simply paying him the cash would have been one rather obvious answer. If I paid up, Jake would back off. There was nothing personal. It was purely business. Trouble was, I didn’t have enough cash at the moment. Maybe I could get a loan from somewhere.

  I eased my foot off the accelerator pedal and looked for a quiet spot to do a U-turn. I still didn’t fancy spending the night at home. I would find a cheap hotel and think about things in the morning when I had a clearer head.

  Bright lights in the rear view mirror. Police. I checked my speed: thirty five. Blue lights swirled. They had to be kidding. A siren squealed. They weren’t. I glanced in the mirror again and got a close-up of my face: hair everywhere, swollen cheek bone, black eye, fat lip and a scratch along the line of my jaw. I tried to remember - how much whisky had I drunk in the bath? And the tin of beer at my dad’s? I remembered the pistol in the glove-box. Why on earth had I brought that with me?

  I worked it out: speeding – possibly; drink-driving – probably; possession of a handgun – definitely. I had some explaining to do and although I was good – I wasn’t that good. There was nothing for it. A section 163 contravention: failing to stop when signalled to do so, wasn’t going to get me one more minute in jail. Not that attempting to outrun the police in an eight-year-old, one-litre hatchback was the best idea I’d ever had, but at that precise moment it was the only one that sprang immediately to mind.

  I clenched the wheel with both hands and put the pedal to the metal. Very little happened. I shook the steering wheel, willing the car to go faster. The speedometer’s little red arm swung in a lazy arc: forty, forty-five, fifty. The headlights in the mirror were still there and shining as brightly as ever. The blue lights swirled, the siren wailed.

  I screeched the car to a halt at a T-junction. The police car rolled up behind me and stopped, waiting for me to make my next move. Traffic cops loved a chase; otherwise what was the point of sitting all those advanced drivers’ tests and being given the keys to a souped-up Volvo V70?

  Which way? Left? Right? Surrender? In front of me stood a tenement building. A woman in a pink nightgown and slippers came out of a close taking a carrier bag full of rubbish to one of the green wheelie-bins that were lined up at the side of the pavement.

  I accelerated straight ahead, crossing the white lines in the middle of the road, bumping over the kerb, sending the woman diving for cover, her slippers taking flight in different directions; add dangerous driving to the list of offences. What was I doing? Too late to go back now. Bracing myself for the impact I ploughed the car into the close entrance. The seatbelt bit into my shoulder, jarring my chest. Tender ribs shrieked in agony.

  I took a deep breath and fought back the pain. In the rear view mirror I could see the police car following, pulling up at the kerbside. The cops were in no rush. I was going nowhere. My car was jammed, wedged between narrow walls. The doors wouldn’t open. I couldn’t get out but more importantly for me, no-one could get into the close.

  I unclipped myself, leaned back in the seat and kicked the windscreen. Nothing. I tried again. The rubber soles of my shoes merely skidded off the glass without making so much as a scratch. Shouts. Someone banged on the back of the car. I had to hurry. Eventually the cops would realise they couldn’t get in, go around the end of the building and outflank me.

  Scrabbling about in the dark, I found the glove compartment and wrenched it open. Inside there was a can of de-icer. At breaking windows it proved about as much use as my feet. The shouting and banging stopped. There was no time left. The pistol. I took it out of the glove-box. I didn’t dare shoot the windscreen. For one thing I had never fired a gun before, for another it would only escalate matters. Right now there were two traffic cops dealing with a dangerous driver. One gunshot and in five minutes the armed response team would be swarming all over the place, eager to shoot someone and answer questions later.

  I whacked the handle of the pistol against the windscreen and met with some success. Three or four blows and a spider-web fracture appeared. One more and the middle of the screen fell in. Small cubes of glass sprayed everywhere. I widened the hole with a few well-placed kicks, cleared what I could from the frame and clambered through, snatching the key from the ignition as I went.

  In a moment, I was sliding down the bonnet, ripping my clothes as I did. I ran down the close and burst through the door at the rear into a back green that was an obstacle course lit by pools of lights from upstairs windows. I hurdled a heap of kids’ toys, leapt over bikes, scooters, a plastic tractor complete with trailer, and side-stepped a partially demolished Wendy house. At the far side of the green all was dark. I could just make out the shape of a rolled-up carpet propped against the boundary wall and next to it the unkempt figure of a man lay slumped, his bed a mattress of flattened cardboard boxes surrounded by a massed ranks of empties.

  I ran past him, lobbed the car keys over my shoulder into his lap and while he was still trying to focus on them I was scrambling up the carpet, over the wall and away.

  Chapter 37

  Andy lived in Marchmont. A second floor property owned by the parents of one of his three flat-mates: a nice little investment situated in the centre of Edinburgh’s studentland just a stone’s throw from the Meadows. I knocked. No-one answered. I tried the door and it opened. The main room was in darkness. I switched on the light and took in a scene of devastation. Amidst the chaos, Andy was lying on the couch, fully clothed and unconscious. I was checking him for signs of life when he rolled onto his side and let rip a loud snort. I gave him a shake. He chomped a couple of times and squinted at me.

  ‘Robbie?’ He reached under a cushion and brought out his glasses. He put them on and looked at me again. ‘Your face...’

  ‘I’m all right. What happened here?’

  Andy looked about. ‘What happened where?’

  ‘This place, look at it.’

  More chomping. He rubbed his eyes. ‘A few of the boys were round for a game of COD. Haven’t quite made it to bed yet.’ Andy swung his legs around and sat up, kicking over a half full can of beer that was on the floor. Some of the contents spilled into a large glass ashtray setting adrift a flotilla of cigarette butts in a frothy sea of ash and eighty s
hilling. ‘Fancy a coffee?’

  I’d said yes before realising it. Andy tottered through to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

  A sleepy young man in a T-shirt and boxers walked into the room, tailed by a girl wearing an out-size football top. ‘Everything all right Andy?’ he mumbled.

  ‘It’s cool, Kev,’ Andy called back to him. ‘This is my boss. He’s here to see me about err... work.’

  ‘Sound.’ Kev yawned widely and left with the female footballer.

  I found the bathroom. There was plenty of deodorant spray around but not much in the way of soap. I cleaned myself up as best I could and went back through to the sitting room by which time the kettle had boiled.

  Andy came from the kitchen carrying a mug of coffee. He swept aside what remained of a pepperoni pizza and placed the mug on the arm of the couch.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I had a bit of an accident. I’m looking for somewhere to crash.’ Perhaps not the best choice of words in the circumstances.

  ‘No sweat, you can take my room.’

  ‘The couch will be fine.’

  Andy yawned and stretched. ‘Away to your bed,’ I said. ‘You look knackered.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘On you go. Catch some zeds.’ Did anyone still say that? Andy swayed his way across the room. ‘Oh, and I’ll be up and away early tomorrow - something important to do. Is it okay if I borrow your car?’

  Andy reached for his bedroom door, stopped, turned and removed his glasses. He chipped off a piece of dried tomato paste that was spot-welded onto one of the lenses. ‘What’s going on, Robbie?’ he asked once he’d replaced his specs.