The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy)

by Mackay, Malcolm

  This seems much more her place than his. They disappear inside. Calum stands outside and contemplates. A lot of people coming and going. They could be in there for hours. If he goes in, then he will certainly be picked up by the security cameras. He won’t take that risk. He could wait outside for hours, but he would have to stand. There’s nowhere to park his car nearby, and a man standing outside for hours on end will draw attention. No point in hanging around here. Best bet is to go back to their house.

  He sits in his car, parked neatly down the street on the opposite side from Winter’s house. It’s a nice street, comfortable. Surprising that Winter is earning quite enough with the little set-up he has to afford a nice house in a nice part of town. Maybe he isn’t. A lot of people in the business have a habit of living beyond their means. Calum isn’t one of them, quite the reverse. He would like to see inside the house. Not to judge Winter’s spending, but to see the layout. If you’re going to be in the house, then it’s good to know your way around. He wouldn’t even try to break in. Calum has broken into two or three houses in his life, but only when absolutely necessary. It’s not something he considers one of his skills. Never leave more evidence than you need to. Don’t take a risk that you can avoid, no matter the possible benefit. The house was the most likely place for the hit. He would learn his way around if he found himself inside. It wasn’t so big that it would confuse him.

  It’s nearly two o’clock when a taxi pulls up outside their house. A man Calum doesn’t recognize gets out of the back first. He seems young. Too young to be Winter anyway. Then the front passenger door opens. Winter this time. Two women get out of each side of the back. One is Cope, the other Calum doesn’t recognize. She seems to be the partner of the younger man. All four are drunk to the point of imbalance. Cope leans on Winter, who is trying (and failing) to look like he’s enjoying himself. The other three are laughing. Someone says something. Three drunken laughs, and a silent Winter. He’s fishing in his pocket for the front-door key. He fumbles it into the lock with great effort. It takes more than thirty seconds for him to get the door open, and the four disappear inside.

  Calum sits outside, and watches for another hour. The living-room window faces the road. The light goes on and stays on. Half an hour later an upstairs light goes on. The living-room light is still on. Will probably be on all night. Four drunks. Some go upstairs, some stay downstairs. The lights will be on all night. They’ll tell him nothing. After an hour of nothing he starts the car and drives home. He’s learned a lot about Winter over the course of the night. A midweek drinker, dragged to clubs where he doesn’t belong. Drinking more than he can handle. Picking up hangers-on. There are obstacles. There are also huge vulnerabilities.

  10

  Sitting at home, thinking. A well-earned and much-enjoyed night’s sleep, an hour at home before picking up the tail again. Think about what you saw. Consider every aspect of it. The first problem is obvious. Too many people. Last night was the victim plus three. Tonight could be the victim plus umpteen more. If they’re in the habit of having people back to the house, then the house becomes a much less enticing location for the hit. But where else? If it’s not the house, then it’s hard to know where else you can do it with any degree of control. Anywhere out in public and you’re not in control of the hit, not ever. You’re relying on too many intangibles. You’re relying on things leaving you alone.

  The house. It has to be. So easy if they go drinking again. If it was just the two of them, easy to control. They come home drunk and it’s easy. Drunk people are unpredictable, but they’re weak. Judgement impaired. Physical ability destroyed. Very drunk, and they might not know what’s happening to them before it’s too late. You learn very quickly what a friend alcohol can be. An enemy too. It’s responsible for so many good people falling apart. In this industry. In this city. Curse of the gunman, they say. Long periods of inactivity between jobs. What do you do? People get bored. They fall into drink. Not Calum. Not yet. Winter’s drinking to keep up with Cope. That’s the vulnerability. That’s when you get him.

  Calum knows the location. He knows – if nothing dramatic happens that day to change his mind – when he’ll carry it out. One more day tailing. One day resting, keeping his distance. Then, following night, the hit. The location, the time. The picture of the event is forming in his mind. It looks convincing, pleasingly simple. But for that one problem. If there are other people in the house, then he has to consider taking someone with him. Doesn’t need to be another gunman; he’ll still do the job. They only hit Winter. Never hit a target you don’t need to hit. Ever. One murder gets the police interested, two gets them excited. Take an extra pair of hands to keep the witnesses out of the way. Has to be someone he trusts. There are a few of them. Only a few. First impressions: easy, apart from that one little problem.

  A second day tailing Winter. Much the same as the first. Nothing new to learn. Winter went and met one of the same junkies from the day before. He gave him something, more product to sell, probably. Then on to another meeting, this time with someone who looked a little more presentable. Probably a supplier. Small-time. They weren’t taking the precautions a big-time supplier would take. Calum doesn’t even know where Winter gets his supplies from. Not important, so long as it’s not someone who’ll miss him. Sometimes you get blowback you don’t expect. You kill someone who turns out to be more important than your employer realizes. They have connections to important people. The important person sees the attack on their man as an attack on them, and feels the need to retaliate. Doesn’t happen often. Most people know the connections in this business, but it does happen.

  That brings back the memory of the meeting with Jamieson. The suggestion that Winter might have connections with bigger players in the pipeline. Kill him before the connections are finalized, and they probably won’t consider him important enough for revenge. Kill him when the connections are established, and they might consider it an attack on them. Whoever they are. Who are they? Who would most likely tie themselves to someone like Winter? Someone who couldn’t make connections with a more established and successful dealer. Someone either new to the trade or new to the area. Whichever one, it’s a relief to believe that. New to the trade and you’ll get little support. New to the area and you’ll get none at all.

  Winter ate lunch away from home again. He could have gone home, he seemed to have all the time in the world, but he chose not to. Interesting. What does that say about his relationship with Cope? Too much of a good thing, perhaps. After eating at a cafe, it was on to a pub. Grotty place, real dive. Calum waiting outside. Winter wasn’t there to drink. He was there for a deal. Organizing something, cutting some sort of deal. Maybe with the landlord. Use the pub as a place to sell. Make sure he has exclusive use of the place. Maybe just making a deal with someone in the pub. He was in there for the best part of an hour. Hard talking. Trying to persuade someone that he was making a move up the way. That would be his biggest challenge – persuading people that he’s worth taking seriously.

  Calum reflects, as Winter comes out of the pub, looking stone-cold sober, that this is happening rather suddenly. Someone turns up and gets Winter to step on Jamieson’s toes. Persuades Winter that big things are coming and that he can be a part of it. Persuades Jamieson that big things are coming and that he has to stop it. Why target Jamieson? Not yet one of the top dogs, that’s why. Already important and making a lot of money, but not yet so big that he can’t be brought down. It’s someone credible. Someone credible enough to persuade Peter Jamieson that immediate action must be taken. It’s worth the drastic option.

  He’s run out of things to do with his day, so Winter goes home. He doesn’t look like a man excited by his new business opportunity. He looks as though it’s all weighing him down, like he isn’t convinced by any of it. Maybe he isn’t yet convinced of the potential rewards. Maybe he isn’t willing to believe that any of it is true, until nothing can possibly go wrong. With his many failures behind him, that see
ms more likely. Understandably cautious. He goes home and disappears inside. Calum settles down outside, hoping to see the couple leave the house in a couple of hours’ time. Please go out. Go get drunk. Make it a nightly occurrence. Be the kind of people who can only find fun in alcohol. That guarantees an easy hit.

  They don’t let him down. A taxi arrives at the house, later than the evening before. They come out of the house, both looking a little flustered. It looks like they’ve had a disagreement. It looks as though the night out is a last-minute arrangement. Calum suspects it was Cope’s idea. Winter looks miserable. Same routine as the night before. He locks the door, then hotfoots it down the path to open the taxi door for his woman. They both get in, the taxi drives away. Calum waits a few seconds, then follows at a distance. Same as the night before. Into the city centre. The taxi drops them outside a nightclub, a different one from the night before. Not impossible to park nearby, but Calum decides not to bother. He goes back to the house to wait for them.

  He’s hoping they’ll be alone. He taps the top of the steering wheel, thinking. What sort of party did they have at the house the night before with the young couple they brought back. Sexual? Easy to control the situation if they all have their pants down. They were all so drunk the night before it’s hard to imagine such a sexual adventure being anything other than a chaotic mess. Possible, though. People try all sorts of stupid things when they’re drunk. Drugs? Not likely. Maybe Cope, maybe the young couple, but there’s no word of Winter using his own product. He wouldn’t have survived so long if he did. Most dealers that have a brain don’t touch what they sell. If you fall into the trap you lay for others, then you’re going to fail. Alcohol is quite enough anyway.

  The taxi pulls up outside the house. Calum glances at the clock on the dashboard: twenty past midnight. Earlier than the night before. The taxi doors open, both Winter and Cope get out. Nobody else. The doors close, the taxi drives away. The couple make their way up the garden path towards the door. She has her coat off. She looks attractive; it’s easy to see why her claws always catch someone. There’s no laughter this night. Alone, they don’t make each other laugh; it takes others to introduce that into their relationship. They’re drunk, but not to the extent of the night before. A shorter night, less drinking. Winter’s able to get the key out of his pocket easily enough, get it into the lock at the first thrust. They disappear into the house. The downstairs lights are on for about ten minutes. Then an upstairs light. One of them has gone up, the other is still downstairs. The downstairs light goes off ten minutes later, then the upstairs light goes off as well. This is a quiet night for them. Calum goes home.

  11

  George Daly waits for the man to get back up. Rob something, that’s the other man’s name. Robert. He can’t remember the surname. Doesn’t matter.

  ‘You think it’s okay just to take money and not pay it back, Robert, is that it?’ George asks him. Keep voice calm, slow movements.

  When he had started doing this sort of work for Peter Jamieson he had tended to do what all newcomers do. You get excited. You let the adrenalin control you. Sometimes you go too far, or say too much. Often you give the impression of being a maniac. George isn’t that. He doesn’t enjoy the work he does, but it pays the bills and he knows he’s good at it. Smart enough to be good at the muscle work. Smart enough to know he doesn’t want to go any further than this. He doesn’t want to do the work Calum does for a living. He doesn’t want that responsibility.

  George is twenty-eight, maybe looks a little younger. Curly black hair, which always makes him look rather boyish. He does muscle work. Intimidation work, you might call it. Extortion, perhaps. Beatings. Threats. Whatever you want to call it. He’s under six foot, he’s not especially muscular. Wiry, but obviously tough. There are some who do muscle work that are large people, but very few are gym monkeys. The kind of men who spend an inordinate amount of time in the gym, building up their muscles, tend not to be the kind of men trusted with these jobs. These jobs can require subtlety, sometimes brains. You must know how far to go, and never cross the line. Meatheads need not apply. They tend to end up being doormen instead.

  This Rob fellow, struggling to get to his knees, his hand slipping on the linoleum of his bare kitchen, has borrowed money. Not from a bank. From a lender of less official stature. From a lender who works for Jamieson. Interest rates in the region of five thousand per cent. Not the worst in the city. Such an easy trap. People need money. You lend, no questions asked. They don’t understand the rates. They don’t understand the consequences. Perhaps you borrow a hundred pounds to provide an enjoyable Christmas for your children, who see little joy through the year. You borrow a hundred; you may end up paying back a few thousand. Of course, most can’t, so other methods are used. They end up dealing to pay off the debt. If you’re a young woman, there are other ways to pay.

  Rob has failed to pay for several months. Five hundred borrowed to pay another debt. He now owes six thousand, and has no ability to pay back. He has nothing else to offer.

  ‘Get up, Robert.’

  George is waiting for him to rise. He’s punched him only twice, but Robert isn’t great on his feet. He’s not drunk or high now, but it’s a rare lull. That’s why George is here. The lender is concerned that Robert won’t live long enough to pay back much of the debt. Shouldn’t have lent to him in the first place. Wouldn’t have, if he’d realized how bad a state his life was in.

  ‘Ah can dae somethin’,’ Robert mumbles, almost on his feet.

  No, he can’t. Not reliable enough to deal. Not intelligent enough to work. If he has no money, then he has nothing at all.

  All lenders are scum. In this case, the lender is a man called Marty. Not only an exploitative thug, but a boastful irritant as well. Always hanging around Jamieson’s club, trying to ingratiate himself. Despite his ability to maintain his temperament, George has often wanted to shut Marty’s boastful mouth. He’s so used to beating up people that he cares nothing for. He doesn’t hate these people, doesn’t even dislike them. Mostly he just feels sorry for the people he’s sent to deal with. It’s the job, though, and he’s learned not to care. He would actually enjoy carrying out his work if Marty was the target. No such luck. Maybe one day. People do fall out of favour after all. So far, though, Marty has always been able to make enough money to stay popular.

  Not just money. Women too. Marty is a big provider for Jamieson and others of that rank. He finds young women, provides good venues, organizes the best parties. Living to excess, cutting loose because you can afford to. Marty provides. It’s how the other half live. The other half from Robert, who is now on his feet. A grim little flat, almost no furniture to speak of. A life not worth living. And now George has turned up on his doorstep to make it even worse.

  ‘Ah can get some money.’

  George sighs lightly. They all say that. They say it no matter the circumstances, because they think it’s what he wants to hear. It just isn’t enough. Marty has already said that this guy has no money, and no prospect of getting it. This will be a final warning.

  He waits until Robert has straightened up again. He raises his hand, and he pauses just long enough to allow Robert to duck slightly. He catches him on the ear; Robert falls to the floor again. It isn’t a hard hit; George can’t be bothered with that. He’s made his point.

  ‘You got one week. One week from today, someone’s gonna come round and see you. You have the money by then.’

  George walks out of the flat and moves quickly down the filthy stairwell to the exit of the building. A typical job. Robert will get some money, by hook or by crook. He’ll steal it from somewhere. He’ll borrow it from another lender. He won’t get everything Marty claims he owes, but he’ll get enough to avoid the worst punishment. He’ll end up digging an even bigger hole for himself in the process. They just don’t live a life at all, George is thinking, as he drops into his car.

  He’s stopping the car outside his flat. No more work today, a
s far as he’s aware. Finished by lunchtime. If something else comes up, they’ll call him. Otherwise, his day is his own. Jamieson doesn’t pay him a huge amount, but he makes enough to get by, and he enjoys getting by. A casual life – no responsibility, a lot of fun. He bounds up the stairs, sees a figure sitting on the top step as he comes round the corner. He pauses. You always worry. He might not be a key employee, but you can always be a target. It’s people like him, people who are easy to get to, that some will go for first. A revenge attack on Jamieson by attacking someone who doesn’t think he needs protection. A little warning for those higher up. Easier to attack than a person who’s actually waiting to be attacked.

  ‘What’s up, Cal?’ he’s asking, but he already knows.

  They’ve known each other for eight or nine years. Calum’s a year older than George, but he’s been in the business a year less. He’s risen fast, while George has happily stayed low. They’ve worked together several times before. When Jamieson’s used Calum, and Calum has needed backup, he’s always used George. George is the only friend he has who works for Jamieson. He’s the only friend he has that he would use on a Jamieson job. Calum isn’t the sort of friend who drops round unannounced unless he has a good reason. Too well mannered. Too considerate. He’s here because he needs help on a job, and he wants George to be that help. And George can’t say no. It’s his job. Calum knows it. He thinks George will be happy to help, so he asks. He also knows that George has no choice. George can’t call Young or Jamieson and ask if he has to do it. He knows he has to. To wriggle out of it would raise uncomfortable questions.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Calum asks, standing on the top step.

  ‘Yeah, course,’ George is nodding. He’s not going to leave his friend out on the step, no matter what. This is work, not social. This is work he won’t want to do. But it’s work he will end up doing. He’s opening the door, knowing that by letting Calum in he’s accepting the job. He holds the door open; Calum walks in. Calum’s walking straight through to the kitchen, taking a seat at the kitchen table. It’s the strange thing about his flat, the thing George has never been able to understand. People always gravitate towards the kitchen to talk, rather than the living room. He either has a wonderful kitchen or an unwelcoming living room. He’s not sure which.