The Dirty Rouge (The Dirty Rouge Series Book 1)

by Geoff Small

  In the meantime, Craig Hunter was already being re-interrogated by DS Deegan and DC McKay in interview suite number two, where he was tearfully pleading his innocence again.

  “You’ve got to believe me! I didn’t do it!”

  As Curzon entered he leapt up from his chair and ran round the table, paper suit rustling, arms stretched imploringly towards the chief inspector.

  “Tell them! You know! I know you know that I didn’t do it! Please! Tell them!”

  Curzon stood in silence, staring deep into Hunter’s eyes, trying to work out if he were telling the truth, but you could never really be sure. He’d seen this type of histrionics countless times from murder suspects, often from the innocent, but occasionally from the guilty too, as the true horror of a possible life sentence set in. Sometimes though, they just couldn’t confront the magnitude of what they’d done and so succumbed to temporary denial, so deep that they genuinely believed themselves to be innocent, even though they weren’t.

  Curzon ushered Hunter back into his seat but remained standing himself.

  “So why did you do it? Why did you lie to me?”

  Hunter shook his head, trembling lips curled and contorted. “I’m sorry, but I was always going to be prime suspect and that video evidence from The Goose would’ve sunk me…is gonna sink me!...Oh God!”

  The suspect buried his ginger head in his hands, his whole body shaking violently now.

  Fortunately for Curzon, Hunter had never asked for any legal representation. If there had been an advocate present he would almost certainly have demanded the termination of this interview and requested a doctor, such was the magnitude of the breakdown the suspect was obviously undergoing. Curzon was more than aware of Hunter’s vulnerability, but was quite happy to exploit the situation and completely break the man if necessary.

  “I’m not on about The Goose. You didn’t lie to me about The Goose, you just never told me. You lied to me about Bobby screwing your imaginary girlfriend. Why?”

  “Because it was less incriminating.”

  “Less incriminating than what?”

  Hunter pointed at the tape machine and did the throat slitting gesture with his hand and whispered:

  “Turn the tape off and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Impressed at the way his suspect had suddenly recomposed himself, Curzon nodded respectfully and pressed the stop button on the machine.

  “And I want it to be just you and me,” Hunter insisted.

  Curzon nodded again, this time in a sarcastically deferential manner, while Deegan and McKay got up and left of their own accords, sparing themselves the indignity of having to be told at the behest of a petty criminal, possibly a murderer.

  “Ok then, from the beginning,” the D.C.I prompted Hunter impatiently, “and don’t omit a thing now, coz if you do I’ll find out and I’ll make sure you take the rap for this, whether you did it or not.”

  “Don’t worry, this time I’m gonna tell you everything, coz it’s really starting to freak me out.”

  Having taken a seat, Curzon reclined in his chair and spun a horizontal forefinger round like a fishing reel, gesturing that he wanted Hunter to speed things up.

  “I was having coke laid onto me, which I was then laying onto other people, one of whom was Bobby. But he was a useless dealer. What he didn’t put up his own nose he was giving away to all his women. He owed me two grand in the end, so I told him that was me and him finished as far as business went…One way or another I’d have to make sure my man got his money, but two grand’s not that hard to make up so long as you cut your powder accordingly.”

  “But you were pretty angry with him I’d imagine…Christ, I know I’d be.”

  “I was pissed off, yes, but that’s not the half of it.”

  “Go on?”

  “Every two weeks someone drops a kilo of coke at a secret place only me and Bobby knew about. Then I go and pick it up. Three weeks ago I turned up on drop day, only when I got there it had gone.”

  “So, naturally you assumed Bobby had taken it.”

  “Well, who else could have?”

  “You could have been followed the time before…somebody could have stumbled upon it by chance. The dropper might not even have dropped it there in the first place, kept the gear and left you to carry the can…it happens, believe me.”

  “Aye, that crossed my mind, until I was told that Bobby was out in town on student night throwing the stuff around like confetti…the queue for the restrooms started in the middle of the dance floor down at Ménage, so I heard.” Hunter sighed. “On Saturday morning I waited at the end of the street for him to come out from his parent’s house, then followed him into the construction site opposite, until he stopped at a dumper truck and removed the remainder of my gear from under the seat where he’d hidden it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I steamed into the fucker there and then… Bobby’s a lot harder than me but he was taken by surprise…he knew I had right on my side and that made the difference, I think. Fortunately I got hold of what was left, about half a kilo, but there was no way I could replace the other half out of my own pocket…we’re talking about twenty grand! So I went and explained to my man that half the gear had been stolen before I’d even got it…can’t believe I said half…I should have just said none of it was there in the first place…but I was in a bit of a panicky state…know what I mean? To make matters worse my man already knew that Bobby had been flashing the gear around, coz one of his other ‘dustmen’ had reported that they had competition.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He said that the money was my responsibility and that if I could get it to him on the usual payday it was none of his business. But if not then, I could pay him back in instalments from my earnings thereon…in other words I’d be dealing for him for nothing until it was recouped. At first I thought we’d got off lightly, until he said that he couldn’t afford to have people thinking that any of his dealers were soft, and that if I didn’t get the money to him at the usual time, then I’d personally have to slash Bobby across the face.”

  “Phew,” Curzon whistled.

  “I was caught between a rock and a hard place. The only thing I could do was tell Bobby to get out of Glasgow before the two weeks were up. I mean, I was gonna have to pay the cash back either way, so that seemed like the best solution for everyone. I even saw him off at Buchanan Street bus station. He was hugging me, telling me he was sorry, that he loved me and that he was going down to London to work and that he’d get the money back to me, blah, blah, blah.” Hunter threw his arms up into the air to express his exasperation. “Three weeks later and the prick’s back – only attending his bloody probation meeting…he just couldn’t keep away from that woman over there.” Sighing, he blew his cheeks out then took a deep breath before continuing. “Well, my man knows Bobby’s back in town straight away and he’s round my house in his motor with his crew, telling me to get my butt into the car. When we get up to the probation centre he hands me a craft knife and says: ‘Now do it, coz if you don’t do him, then I’m gonna have to do you.’ Thankfully, Bobby must have spotted us, coz he managed to get out the back through a window or something. But by Saturday evening he’d been spotted out on the razzle and my man was beeping outside the house again. Anyway, we drove round the city centre, from pub to pub, and I had to go into each one chaperoned by two of his gimps, so they could make sure I carried my ‘assignment’ through. I was telling anyone who knew Bobby that he was a dead man if I found him, not because I meant it, but because I was trying to please these heavies over my shoulder. Also, I thought, the more word got round, the less likely it was that we’d find him. Unfortunately though, after about an hour traipsing about, we discovered him in The Goose. The rest you’ve seen for yourself on the tape.”

  “I’ve heard about it…but you didn’t do it?”

  “I know, I punched him in the face instead and then deliberately dropped the knife in the scuffle
.”

  “I understand the bouncers intervened? What happened then?”

  “We scarpered back to where the car had been parked, but my man had already gone.”

  “No surprise there, Mr Black won’t want to be implicated in any way?”

  “Who?” Hunter made a pathetic display of mock ignorance.

  “Don’t panic. We already know who your ‘man’ is, and we won’t be mentioning you to him. We won’t even be questioning the guy, there’s no point.” Curzon was still reclining in his chair. “So what happened next?”

  Hunter shook his head before continuing.

  “Black’s men headed off their own way and I walked up through the town to clear my head, ended up on the Art School steps. That’s when I decided to give Bobby a call.”

  “Yes, that’s something that’s been bugging me. Bearing in mind that you’d just attacked him with a gang, while brandishing a craft knife, I’m intrigued to know how this conversation went. I mean, why on earth would he want to tell you where he was?”

  “He knew why I did what I did and that I’d deliberately dropped the knife…I only punched him in the nose so as to avoid slashing him across the face.” Hunter opened his arms wide at either side in an appeal to Curzon’s reason. “But you’re quite right, he probably wasn’t taking any chances and that’s why he’d gone by the time I reached that party up the West End. For all he knew, Black’s crew were standing right behind me while I made the call.”

  Curzon smiled to himself at the way Hunter had dropped his guard and was now completely unaware that he was name-dropping lethal gangsters.

  “You do realize that the prosecution’s gonna eat you for breakfast if that’s your defence, don’t you?” the D.C.I cautioned.

  The more Hunter had got his story off his chest, the higher his spirits seemed to have climbed, but now, on hearing Curzon’s latest grim statement, he collapsed into a trough of despondency again.

  “Oh no, I knew you wouldn’t believe me….Oh god. I’m not gonna see the outside world again am I? I’ll be the talk of Castlemilk for a week and then nobody will even remember me.”

  These last two words – the same words Monika Fuchs had heard the deceased utter to someone beneath her bedroom window – reverberated in Curzon’s head like an echo of an echo of an echo. ‘Remember me. Remember me. Remember me. Remember me.’ With them words, a lot of vague fragments that had been swirling round in his mind for the past twenty-four hours suddenly coalesced. Until this moment they had been feelings that he’d been unable to articulate even into thoughts, but now they were as instantly intelligible as his own name printed on a piece of white paper. It was like one of those moments when you’ve been searching for your car key, only to discover that it’s already in your hand, and has been all the time.

  Without any explanation, Curzon suddenly leapt up from his chair and darted out of the interview room, much to the consternation of Hunter.

  Chapter 13

  Having driven at high speed, Curzon skidded up outside the players’ entrance at St. Clyde F.C, where he burst through the main double doors and marched through the reception area, before marauding round narrow corridors, popping his head into empty rooms with an irate secretary in his wake. After he’d held his ID badge backwards over his right shoulder she scampered back to her desk, leaving him, finally, to locate Frank Magivery – the first team coach – who was enjoying a sauna. On seeing the policeman, his previously contented, chiselled face contorted into a glower.

  “And there was me thinking it was the wee senorita that does our physio.” He sighed resignedly. “I’ll be with you in five.”

  Frank Magivery was a notoriously bad gambler. So bad in fact, that back in the Nineties he’d run up a debt of twenty grand to a local hood, who wanted him to start sabotaging the St. Clyde team for betting purposes, or else get thrown from the roof of the thirty floor, Red Road Apartments. Not only was Magivery a gambler, but a regular visitor to the city’s higher quality brothels, where he’d enjoyed some of the girls provided by Curzon’s friend, Nancy Nixon. After a demoralising loss at the roulette table, a few glasses of champagne, a bubble bath and a baby oil massage at the long, manicured fingers of a seasoned, professional sex worker, it’s easy for a man to drop his guard, and so it was with Magivery the night he told the Ukrainian lass he’d just screwed, all about his predicament with the Glasgow underworld. Of course, she relayed this information back to Nancy, who told Curzon the next time he’d popped in to do whatever it was he did round there. Basically, services on the house and an unexpurgated account of any incriminating pillow talk with other clients were the quid pro quo for him letting her operate on the blindside of the law. So, now Magivery had to deliberately coach his football team to lose every so often, while at the same time keeping Curzon informed of any dressing room gossip that the police might be interested in, which was more often and of a more serious nature than you might at first think.

  While the coach made himself decent, Curzon walked down the players’ tunnel and out onto the spongy pitch, his feet sinking an inch into the turf with every step, before he stopped halfway towards the centre circle and surveyed the empty stadium. Imagining all the thousands of bawling humans that had congregated here since 1875, his permanent sneer intensified. To a cynical loner like Curzon, anything played by teams and enjoyed by crowds was positively repulsive, the equivalent of silver stakes and garlic to a vampire. Truth is, he detested every football player and every fan equally and was adamant that all professional sport was a fix.

  Wearing a yellow club tracksuit, fifty-year-old Magivery, who was an athletic six foot-two with a good head of greying hair, came out onto the pitch to meet the detective.

  “What can we do for you then Paddy?”

  “It’s nothing and everything really, Frank. I was just wondering if you remembered a young guy called Bobby McQueen? He was one of your apprentices here if I’m not mistaken?”

  “Wasn’t he just…cracking wee centre forward. By rights he should be getting ready for pre-season with Rangers or Celtic, but instead he’s in the morgue.”

  “You’ve heard then?”

  “Aye.”

  “Could you give me an idea of what his time was like here…what exactly were the circumstances of his departure?”

  “He was a good kid, bit mouthy like, but aren’t they all these days.” Magivery shrugged his shoulders. “He was as much a definite for the big time as I’ve ever seen, then he got collared stealing stuff out of the first team dressing room while they were training. I did everything I could to keep him here but our new star signing at the time, our present manager Mr ‘Tommy Franklin’, insisted that it was either Bobby or him. The chairman was well and truly coiled up Franklin’s arse, so the young guy was finished. I couldn’t understand it, coz Franklin was on his last legs and costing us money, whereas Bobby was just starting out and would most probably have made us a few quid. Still, I suppose the chairman didn’t want to jeopardize his sea fishing jaunts on Franklin’s wee yacht.”

  “Franklin owns a boat?” Curzon exclaimed, almost with elation.

  “Oh aye, he’s got it moored on the ‘Yacht Haven’ down at Largs.”

  The detective started nodding his head approvingly, as if Magivery was confirming things that he already instinctively knew.

  “Is there anything about Franklin as a character that I should know about?”

  “Well, between ourselves, I can’t stand the prick…I nearly punched him for what he did to that laddie.”

  “So what happened exactly? Was it Franklin’s stuff Bobby got caught stealing?”

  “I don’t know. Franklin just reckoned he’d walked into the dressing room and caught the young guy going through players’ pockets. When the lad turned up for training next day he was refused admission onto the premises and told by security that he was banned by the club. He accosted me in the stadium's parking area later that day, in tears he was, swearing he didn’t have a clue what Franklin was goin
g on about. I felt sorry for him and was gonna have another go at getting him reinstated, but then the next day we got reports back that he was going round telling ridiculous tales about Tommy Franklin having made a sexual pass at him.” Magivery shrugged his shoulders again. “We couldn’t have him back after that.”

  Curzon extended his right arm directly in front of him and pointed his forefinger so that it was within an inch of Magivery’s nose.

  “You might be a bloody awful football trainer Magivery, but you’re a Champions League snitch.”

  And with that he marched off, leaving the bemused and insulted coach turning to watch him disappear down the whitewashed tunnel, no doubt wishing him a fatal injury.

  Chapter 14

  Curzon drove to the city centre and parked up in front of Fergus Baxter’s plush West George Street chambers. Before entering, he stopped on the steps to ring Deegan and McKay, telling them to get over there as fast as possible in a detainment vehicle and to wait outside. In the meantime, he was greeted by the lawyer’s sexy, bespectacled secretary, brown hair tied back in a bun, an ample bosom barely contained beneath a white silk blouse. As she led him to her master, high heels clicking, he admired the pert derriere, shrink-wrapped in a black, pinstriped pencil skirt and congratulated himself for having found that night’s jerking off material.

  Wearing his trademark green and brown tartan suit, the ginger goateed legal eagle stood up from behind his shiny oak desk to greet Curzon with a sickly smile, though spared him the hypocrisy of offering his hand to shake. Meanwhile, Tommy Franklin sat with his chair side on to the desk, powerless looking, like a naughty schoolboy in the head teacher’s office, a sight completely at odds with the bossy centre forward who’d graced Sportscene every Saturday night for fifteen years, barking at referees and punching his clenched fist at opposing supporters whenever he’d been victorious.