by Bill Daly
‘Is there any way the service providers can pinpoint the location of those phones?’
‘Not unless they’re switched on again,’ Freer said.
‘Not much chance of that happening,’ Charlie said grimly. ‘It’s odds on that the killer disposed of both the phones as soon as he could.’
Harry Thompson was bored out of his skull. Turning up the volume of the CD player in the Volvo, he drummed his fingertips on the steering column in time to the music. He looked at his watch for the umpteenth time. Two o’clock. Time was dragging by. Another half hour before he’d be able to knock off. But at least the new girl looked promising. Harry ran his fingers round the inside of his shirt collar. He hated wearing a suit, never mind a shirt and tie, but Jim Colvin had insisted on it and, if you wanted to work for Colvin, you had to follow his instructions. This wasn’t his idea of ‘work’ but his dad had told him that he had to serve his time, make a good impression. His father had worked for Colvin for more than twenty years. Colvin didn’t normally take on nineteen year-olds, but Harry’s father had pulled a few strings to get him on the payroll. You had to admire Colvin. He knew how to spot an opportunity and exploit it. Most people wouldn’t look on a foodbank opening up on the south side of the city as a chance to make a killing, but Jim had spotted the potential straight away. That’s why he was where he was today. Always one step ahead, always thinking outside the box. If people were in such a bad situation that they needed to use a foodbank, Colvin had told him, they had to be pretty desperate – and desperate people would clutch at any straw that was offered to them. That’s where Harry came in. He didn’t like this job – in fact, he hated it, but Colvin had assured him that it would only be for six months and if he did okay he would get more interesting work to do. That couldn’t happen soon enough as far as Harry was concerned – four months down, two to go.
From where he was parked, Harry could observe everyone going in, and coming out, of the foodbank. Not for the first time he wondered who had named it Butterbiggins Road. Such a daft name for a street.
Having been here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the past four months, Harry recognised a lot of the regulars as they struggled along the road, carrying their laden carrier bags.
Harry picked up his packet of cigarettes from the passenger seat and tapped one out, cupping his lighter in both hands as he lit up. When he glanced up, he saw the girl he was waiting for. He’d never seen her before today, but he’d spotted her earlier on, pushing an infant in a buggy as she headed towards the foodbank. How long had she been inside? Harry checked his watch again. It would have been about twenty minutes – which was par for the course. He studied her as she walked past his car – oblivious to his presence. Black, attractive, with strong features – it looked like she was in her early twenties. Probably African, Harry surmised. What kind of hell hole must she have come from, he wondered, if Govanhill was an improvement? As she walked past his car, Harry saw several plastic carrier bags dangling from the handles of her push chair. It looked like she would be an ideal candidate.
Harry waited until the girl had turned into Cathcart Road before leaning over to the back seat and picking up his briefcase. Getting out of the car, he straightened his tie as walked briskly to the corner. He followed the girl down Calder Street until he saw her turn into a tenement close.
Wait at least ten minutes before approaching her to make sure she doesn’t associate you with her visit to the foodbank, he reminded himself. Those were Jim Colvin’s strict instructions.
Checking his watch as he walked up and down the street, Harry dropped his cigarette butt onto the pavement and crushed it under his heel before ambling down to the mouth of the close. There were six names on the bell pushes – not too bad – he’d seen a lot worse. He scanned the names. Probably not any of the four ‘Macs’, he thought. Jackson or Ikande? Ikande looked like a strong favourite. Deciding to try that one first, he pressed the bell.
‘Who is it?’ a female voice asked over the intercom.
‘Could I speak to Mr Ikande, please?’
‘There is no Mr Ikande.’
First hurdle overcome. ‘Sorry, it’s Mrs Ikande that I’m looking for.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m from the Home Office.’
‘What do you want?’ the voice said hesitantly.
‘Would you let me in, please?’ Harry said. ‘There’s something I need to discuss with you.’
There was a delay before the buzzer sounded to open the door.
When Harry climbed to the first floor she was waiting for him on the landing. He flashed an ID card in front of her eyes before following her into the one-room flat. Harry’s gaze ran round the depressing room, the sum total of the furniture comprising a rickety kitchen table, two upright wooden chairs and a single bed with a torn sleeping bag draped across it. A child was asleep in a cot beneath the cracked window. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls and a stale smell of dampness permeated the entire room.
The food that she had collected from the foodbank had been ranged neatly on the draining board beside the sink. Various tins of soup, corned beef and vegetables, a packet of pasta, a jar of jam, a box of cereal, a jar of coffee, a bag of sugar and a carton of long life milk. Two packets of nappies were lying on the kitchen table. As far as Harry could see, the only other things in the flat were one plate, one mug, one knife and fork and a tin opener, which were lying on the ledge beside the sink.
Harry hated what he was about to do, but he justified it to himself on the basis that, if he wasn’t doing this, Jim Colvin would have sent someone else to do it.
‘What is your full name?’ Harry asked, easing himself down gingerly onto one of the chairs beside the kitchen table, testing it to make sure that it would bear his weight.
‘Chibundo Ikande.’
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Nigeria.’
Harry took a manila folder from his briefcase and placed it on the table. Removing a sheaf of paper, he started to thumb through the pages.
‘What is your immigration status, Mrs Ikande?’
‘I’m an asylum seeker.’
‘Are you here on your own?’
‘There’s just me – and my daughter,’ Chibundo said, nodding towards the infant in the cot.
Harry took a pen from his inside jacket pocket and ran it down a column on one of the pages. He let out a long, low sigh. ‘I regret to have to inform you that your application for asylum has been turned down, Mrs Ikande. You and your daughter will have to return to Nigeria.’
The colour drained from Chibundo’s face. ‘But… I can’t go back there,’ she spluttered. ‘They killed my mother and my father. They’ll kill me. They’ll kill my baby.’
‘I only wish I had better news for you,’ Harry said with a shake of the head as he got to his feet.
‘There must be something that can be done,’ Chibundo pleaded. Tears started to seep from her eyes. ‘I can’t go back there. I just can’t.’ Burying her face in her hands, she started to sob uncontrollably.
‘You are entitled to lodge an appeal,’ Harry said as he was putting the folder back into his briefcase. ‘But in order to do that you would need to enlist the services of a lawyer – and they don’t come cheap.’
Chibundo dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I don’t have any money – and I’m not allowed to work.’
‘I’m very sorry.’ Harry moved slowly towards the door, then turned back. ‘Look, I really shouldn’t be saying this, but –’ His voice tailed off.
‘Saying what?
‘I really shouldn’t…’
‘Tell me!’ she pleaded.
‘There might be a way. No.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t. It could cost me my job.’
‘Please tell me!’
Harry hesitated. ‘All right – but it would have to be just between the two of us.’
CHAPTER 13
Gavin Carter jumped o
ff the bus in Maryhill Road and ran all the way to the entry to Andy Carter’s close. Loping up the tenement stairs two at a time, he hammered on his uncle’s door.
‘Have you heard the news?’ he blurted out as soon as Andy opened up.
‘Aye,’ Andy said. ‘I had the cops round.’
‘Was it you, Andy?’ Gavin said excitedly. ‘Did you get Murdoch?’
‘I wish it had been me, son, but I’m sorry to say it wasn’t.’
‘Was it my Dad?’
‘He’s in the kitchen. Why don’t you ask him?’
‘Did you get Murdoch, Dad?’ Gavin asked as he strode into the kitchen.
‘It was nothing to do with me, Gavin. I was in a poker school on Saturday night.’
‘Who could it have been, then?’ Gavin asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Terry said. ‘Talking about Saturday,’ he added. ‘What happened to you, Gavin? You were supposed to meet me in the cemetery at two o’clock. I stood waiting for you at Tommy’s graveside for more than half an hour in the pissing rain.’
‘I couldn’t make it,’ Gavin said. ‘There were things I had to do.’
‘What was more important than paying your respects to your wee brother on his anniversary?’
Ignoring the question, Gavin turned to Andy. ‘If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t my Dad, who do you think could’ve bumped off Murdoch?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ Andy said. ‘But it must’ve been somebody who knew his history. It can’t be a coincidence that he was killed on Tommy’s anniversary.’
‘Apart from us, Andy, who else would’ve had a reason to do him in?’ Terry asked.
‘What about Alice’s new bloke?’ Andy suggested. ‘Do you think your missus could have put him up to it?’
‘I suppose she might have,’ Terry said. ‘I can’t think of anybody else who would’ve had the bottle.’
‘I can,’ Gavin stated.
‘Who?’ Andy queried.
Gavin hesitated for maximum effect. ‘I’ve been winding both of you up,’ he said, his features breaking out in a broad grin. ‘It was fucking-well me!’ he exclaimed, puffing out his chest and punching the air.
‘You?’ Andy spluttered, staring open-mouthed.
‘You better believe it!’ Drumming his chest with his fists, Gavin marched up and down the kitchen. ‘That’s how I paid my respects to Tommy, Dad. I didn’t waste my time taking him a bunch of flowers. I fucking-well nailed the bastard who raped him!’
Andy snatched a cigarette from the packet lying on the table. ‘For fuck’s sake, Gavin,’ he said, striking a match and lighting up. ‘Why did you do it, son? I told you to let me know straight away if you ever managed to track Murdoch down.’
‘Because I wanted to handle it on my own, Andy,’ Gavin said, his eyes flashing. ‘For Tommy’s sake. I wanted to take care of Murdoch, all by myself. I found the bastard – I set him up – and I got him. And I did it on Tommy’s anniversary. Did I do all right?’ Gavin said, offering Andy a high five.
‘Fucking hell! You did brilliant, son!’ Andy said, reaching up to slap the palm of his nephew’s hand. Throwing his arms around Gavin’s shoulders, Andy held him in a tight bear hug.
‘You shouldn’t have done that on your own, Gavin,’ Terry said, shaking his head. ‘What if you get caught? I’ve already lost one son because of Murdoch, I don’t want to lose you as well.’
‘Don’t you worry about that, Dad. You won’t be losing me,’ Gavin said as Andy released him slowly. ‘I covered my tracks perfectly. There’s no way the cops will be able to pin anything on me.’
‘We need a plan,’ Andy said. ‘The first thing we have to do is sort out an alibi for you, Gavin,’ he said, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. ‘We’ll need a watertight story about where you were, and who you were with, on Saturday night.’
‘Could I say I was with you, Dad?’ Gavin asked.
‘I told you – I was in a poker school on Saturday night,’ Terry said.
‘I could say I was there.’
‘That wouldn’t work, Gavin,’ Terry said with a shake of the head. ‘I’ve already given the polis the names of everyone who was playing. It would look odd if I tried to add your name to the list now. Besides, I couldn’t trust some of the blokes who were there to back up that version of events when they find out it’s a murder enquiry. How about that bird of yours?’ Terry suggested. ‘Would she cover for you?’
Gavin’s brow furrowed. ‘I don’t think so, Dad. She’d want to know why I needed an alibi. If she thought for one minute that I was in trouble with the polis, she’d go ballistic. Besides, I already told her I was in Edinburgh on Saturday night. Stuart was doing a gig and I told her I went through with him. I could stick with that story, Andy. Stuart’s a good mate. If I ask him, he’ll say I was with him in Edinburgh. That way, I couldn’t have been in Glasgow when the murder took place. I covered up for Stuart last month when the polis were after him for flogging knocked-off fags. I’m sure he’d do the same for me.’
Andy shook his head. ‘That won’t work, Gavin.’
‘Why not?’ Gavin queried. ‘Stuart’s okay.’
‘I’m not saying that he isn’t,’ Andy said. ‘But this isn’t in the same category as flogging dodgy fags, son. This is murder. If the cops suspect you were involved – and Stuart says you were with him in Edinburgh – they’ll put him through the wringer. They’ll threaten to charge him with perverting the course of justice. They’ll threaten him with ten years in the Bar-L for being an accessory after the fact. They’ll paint a picture of what life would be like for him on the inside – and it won’t be pretty. There’s too much of a risk that Stuart would crack – and then you’d be up shit creek without a paddle.’
‘He wouldn’t let me down, Andy,’ Gavin protested. ‘He knows what Murdoch did to Tommy – so even if he finds out why I need an alibi, he’ll stick to the story.’
‘It’s not as straightforward as that, Gavin,’ Andy said. ‘If you tell the cops you were at a gig in Edinburgh with Stuart, they’ll want to know where it was.’
‘I can find that out.’
‘That’s not good enough. The cops will track down other people who were at the gig and ask them if they saw you there. They’ll want to know how you travelled through to Edinburgh and they’ll check the CCTV for the route you claimed to have taken.’ Andy started pacing up and down the kitchen. ‘Let me think this through,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I need to keep a clear head. Is there any possibility that somebody might’ve seen you doing in Murdoch?’
‘No way!’ Gavin said.
‘Are you sure? Are you absolutely certain that there were no witnesses?’
‘Of course I’m sure, Andy. No one saw me do it. I was dead careful.’
‘Okay,’ Andy said, sinking down onto a chair. ‘Take your time, Gavin. Sit down, and tell us exactly what happened on Saturday night. I want to know every single detail.’
‘It’s what you might call a paedophile’s paradise, sir,’ Eddie McLaughlin announced as he walked into Charlie Anderson’s office. Placing John Preston’s iPad on the desk, McLaughlin took the chair opposite Charlie’s desk. ‘It didn’t take me long to crack the password – and from there on it was one pornographic image after another – mostly of boys between the ages of ten and fifteen, I would guess.’
‘Was there anything else on his iPad, apart from the indecent images?’ Charlie asked.
‘There were e-mail communications with several people – and from the tone of some of the messages, it looks like he was in contact with quite a few young boys. There was also a lot of correspondence with someone called Malcolm Steel, but that dried up about eighteen months ago. I gathered from the exchanges that Steel used to be Preston’s partner – and from the content of the more recent e-mails, it doesn’t look like it was an amicable break up.’
‘Did you come across the names Tommy Carter or Ronnie Gilligan?’ Charlie asked.
‘Both of those names cropped up several times
– and the more recent correspondence with Ronnie Gilligan is particularly interesting.’
‘Print out all the relevant stuff for me, Eddie,’ Charlie said.
‘I need a fucking drink,’ Terry Carter said, heaving himself to his feet as soon as Gavin had finished recounting what he’d done.
‘There’s whisky in the cupboard above the cooker,’ Andy said.
Terry took the bottle of Bells from the top shelf and lifted three glasses from the draining board. Unscrewing the cap, he poured out three stiff measures.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Terry asked as he was adding a splash of water to his drink from the kitchen tap.
‘For a start, Gavin will need to talk to the cops,’ Andy said.
‘Do I have to do that?’ Gavin looked imploringly at his uncle. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere near the polis.’
‘You have to talk to them, son.’ Andy stood up and put a reassuring arm around Gavin’s shoulders. ‘They’ll want to speak to you and it’ll make them suspicious if they think you’re trying to avoid them. It’s much better to brazen it out and go and see them before they come looking for you. That way, you give the impression that you don’t have anything to hide.’
‘What’ll I say to them?’ Lifting his glass to his lips with a shaking hand, Gavin screwed up his face as he gulped down a mouthful of neat whisky.
‘Before we talk about that,’ Andy said, ‘the first priority is to sort out an alibi for you for Saturday night.’
‘Could I say I was with you, Andy?’ Gavin asked.
Andy shook his head. ‘I’ve already told the cops that I was here on my own.’
‘That wasn’t very clever,’ Terry interjected. ‘Could you not have come up something more original than that?’
Andy glowered at him. ‘If you don’t have an alibi, the worst thing you can do is tell the polis you were with somebody. When push comes to shove, you can’t rely on anybody to back up your story. If you tell the cops you were on your own, the onus is on them to prove otherwise.’
‘What were you up to?’ Terry asked.
‘I was doing a job for Jim Colvin in The Jaco – but it’s not something I’d want to talk to the cops about.’
