Heads or Hearts

by Paul Johnston

  ‘I’ll get these back to you,’ I said, heading for the door.

  ‘Here, hang on.’

  I did so, but not because he wanted me to. ‘Alec Ferries,’ I said.

  Smail’s expression didn’t change. ‘What about him? Alec might be the boss of our deadly rivals, but we get on.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. When did you last see him?’

  He thought about that. ‘Coupla weeks ago, maybe. We’re playing his lot next month.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know that he’s disappeared?’

  ‘Alec? Never! He’s got too many—’ He broke off and looked down.

  ‘Too many what?’ I demanded, moving closer.

  He kept his peace, then raised his head. ‘Too many good players to look after.’

  That sounded about as convincing as a barracks commander ordering his auxiliaries to smile at citizens. I smelled the excremental odour of illicit activities. Not that Derick Smail was going to admit that.

  Davie was in the away team changing rooms, which reeked of embrocation and malfunctioning drains – the latter no doubt deliberate to put the opposition off their game. He was talking to a player with a green-and-white Mohican, while another four with less lunatic haircuts sat on the benches at the far side. They were all looking down and keeping quiet, having obviously been yelled at. Davie questioned citizens as if the Council’s relaxation of the regulations had never happened.

  ‘Spoken to these guys?’ I asked, showing him the folders.

  ‘This clown is Allie Swanson. The other one’s over there.’

  ‘I’ll take him,’ I said, pointing out their addresses to him.

  Davie nodded. ‘The showers are in there. I recommend giving him five minutes in a cold one before you start.’ He grinned at Swanson. ‘You’ll get yours after.’

  ‘Lachlan Vass,’ I called.

  The player who stood up was tall and well built, as befits a goalkeeper. He had a moustache Pancho Villa would have revolted for and his hair looked like an anti-personnel mine had gone off in it. At least it wasn’t dyed in the club colours. I led him into the shower room and closed the door.

  ‘Citizen Dalrymple,’ I said. ‘Call me Quint.’

  ‘Ah ken who ye are,’ Vass said, lowering his head.

  ‘You’re a friend of Grant Brown’s?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you that he’s dead.’

  That made him look up. ‘Whit? Ah saw him at training the day before yesterday.’

  ‘There’s more. He was found in the Union Canal. Without his head.’

  This time the goalkeeper didn’t respond.

  ‘Can you think of any reason for that?’

  The eyes were down again. ‘Accident? He’s a builder, ye ken.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ We still had to check the squad he worked on, but if there had been a major accident it would have been reported. ‘You and Allie stay in Portobello, eh?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Grant lived in the Grange. Quite a bike ride.’

  ‘Aye, well, we usually get pished on Sunday nights in the Easter Road pubs. And efter training.’

  ‘Did you not wonder where he was tonight? I hear he never turned up late.’

  ‘Naw, he didnae. Ah thought he mustae got caught up at his work.’

  I moved closer, making him back up against the erratically tiled wall.

  ‘Pished. Know what that makes me think of?’

  Lachie looked away. ‘A sore heid?’

  ‘Don’t!’ I yelled.

  ‘Whit?’ he said in a hurt tone.

  ‘Play games with me, son. What’s Porty most famous for? And don’t say the beach.’

  ‘Aw, Ah get ye. The Portobello Pish.’ He shrugged. ‘Ah dinnae ken any ae them. Honest. Ah’m a kitchen porter at the Waverley Hotel. Ah only go home tae sleep.’

  ‘You went to school in Porty,’ I said, glancing at the file. ‘You must have known some of the gang.’

  He was avoiding my eyes again. ‘Ah kent Yellow Jacko’s wee brother, Pete. He wisnae a friend, though.’

  ‘And he was shot dead in a raid on the bonded warehouse in Leith five years ago.’

  ‘Is it no’ longer?’

  I shook my head. ‘Memory playing up?’

  ‘Naw, it’s amazin’ how time flies.’

  ‘This is official, Lachie,’ I said. ‘If you lie to me, you’ll spend a year down the mines.’

  He gulped. ‘Aye, OK.’

  ‘You, Allie and Grant – none of you have anything to do with the Pish?’

  Now he was looking at me again. ‘Ah dinnae ken aboot the others, but Ahm clean. And that’s the truth.’

  It was also suggestive. I led him out and took another of Davie’s suspects. He lived in the western suburbs and seemed well out of his depth, even when it came to football. When we’d finished, we compared notes.

  ‘I didn’t get much out of mine,’ Davie said.

  I told him about Lachlan.

  ‘What about the manager?’

  ‘He seemed to be genuinely surprised on all counts. All right, let that thrusting young guardsman handle the rest of the questioning. It’s time we got an overview at the command centre.’

  ‘I’m pretty keen on getting a five-course meal as well,’ Davie said.

  I was about to abuse him for prioritizing his gut, then my own rumbled louder than a packed citizen bus going up Leith Walk. Fortunately the canteen at the castle was one of the city’s best, though it was still substantially worse than the cheapest tourist restaurant.

  I had soup and haggis, neeps and tatties. Davie had three bowls of soup, four rolls, two platefuls of haggis etc., and a bowl of the concrete-like porridge that’s on offer round the clock.

  ‘That was more than five courses,’ I observed.

  ‘Who’s counting?’ Davie replied, grabbing an apple from a passing guardswoman’s tray. She gave him a smile that suggested they were more than acquaintances.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re on duty till this case is over.’

  ‘I’ve got to sleep.’

  ‘On my sofa.’

  ‘I resign.’

  ‘Can’t see you as an ordinary citizen, big man.’

  ‘No, I resign from working for you.’

  I shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. But if we make sense of this, think of your career prospects. If Scotland reunites, you might be top cop.’

  ‘If Scotland reunites, I’ll eat my boots.’

  ‘You eat them on a monthly basis anyway. How about going on a diet?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Ah, there you are, Quint.’ Guardian Doris sat down on my side of the bench. ‘Anything to report?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same question.’

  She smiled tightly. ‘Except that guardians don’t report to citizens, not even special investigators.’

  ‘If you’re going to be like that …’ I started piling my plates and cutlery.

  ‘All right,’ the guardian said, her hand on my arm briefly. ‘Report, please.’

  I told her about Cecilia, and the Hibs manager and players.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Grant Brown’s building team leader,’ I went on. ‘He swears there was no bad blood or anything else at his work. The Housing Directorate’s carrying out further checks.’

  I would do my own interviews in time, but the housing guardian was one of the few Council members I respected and his fiefdom had never been involved in any major case. Still, there was always a first time.

  ‘I don’t suppose Alec Ferries has made a miraculous reappearance?’

  ‘No, and there’s been no sign of Hume 481 or his parents. Oh, I have this for you.’ The guardian handed me a folded sheet of paper. ‘Upcoming visits by outsiders.’

  I had a look. ‘Nothing tomorrow, thank Plato. The day after tomorrow, the governors of Orkney and Shetland.’

  ‘They’re in some kind of union,’ the guardian said.

  ‘Good for them.
Friday, the Lord of the Isles.’ I looked at Davie. ‘I thought he was just here.’

  He nodded.

  ‘He controls a lot of financial interests,’ Guardian Doris said.

  I immediately thought of Jack MacLean and Billy Geddes. Their tongues would be heading straight up the aristocrat’s kilt.

  ‘And Saturday, the first minister of Glasgow. I thought it was first secretary.’

  ‘Andrew Duart got himself upgraded.’

  ‘He’s still in place, is he?’ I said, remembering the hole he’d dug himself into five years ago. ‘At least his chief cop isn’t on the list.’

  ‘Hel Hyslop?’ said the guardian. ‘She’ll be coming. He never goes anywhere without her.’

  ‘Magic,’ I mumbled. Hyslop and I had history, not of the peaceful variety. Her first name was extremely apposite. ‘No sign of the missing head?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. At least no more hearts have turned up.’

  ‘Not yet. Anything on those missing citizens?’

  She shook her head. ‘Those five you gave us have been gone for weeks – they must have crossed the border. As for our list—’ She sighed. ‘There are dozens of them and I don’t have the resources to follow up on the last sightings of them and so on.’

  She didn’t have the resources or the volition, I thought, frowning at her. ‘Come on, guardsman.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The Portobello Pish. You know they only come out at night.’

  Davie’s face lit up. ‘Gang-banger banging. My favourite.’

  ‘There’s a couple of reports of suspicious behaviour that haven’t been checked yet,’ said the guardian. ‘One in Leith and one in—’

  ‘Porty,’ I supplied.

  ‘Correct.’

  Davie was already on the way to the command centre to get the details.

  ‘Do you really think this is gang-related, Quint?’ Guardian Doris said.

  ‘They’re the nastiest criminals we have in the city so it makes sense to look at them.’

  She nodded, not convinced. ‘Be careful down there. You know what it’s like after dark.’

  ‘I do, but I have Davie to cover my front, back and sides.’

  ‘You’ll be taking a squad or two as well?’

  ‘I presume so, but the younger Guard personnel don’t have the commitment that he has.’

  ‘No one does, Quint,’ Doris said, shaking her head. ‘The Enlightenment’s running out of steam.’

  I knew that, but I never expected a Council member to say it. Maybe becoming part of Scotland wasn’t such a bad idea. After all, we were few and they were many …

  EIGHT

  One of the abiding irritations concerning the Portobello Pish was that the Guard had never been able to pinpoint the gang’s headquarters. It was likely that several premises were used, none for very long. The head-bangers had been communicating by mobile phones smuggled in from Glasgow for years, technicians they knew having adapted the signals so that they could be passed on by the Edinburgh system. The number of competent telecommunications experts the city had was smaller than the members of a football team, substitutes not included. But even when it seemed the Guard had a solid lead, the gangs slipped away before they got close. That was very much not a feather in Guardian Doris’s and her predecessors’ berets, but no one else could do any better.

  ‘Where to, exactly?’ Davie asked, as we took our place at the head of a line of 4×4s.

  ‘Grant Brown was an only child and his parents died when he was young, so let’s go and see his footballer friends’ families. Get your people to split up and keep their distance.’

  ‘Two hundred yards?’

  ‘That should do. But as always in the northern suburbs, they need to be ready to respond as rapidly as a meteor.’

  Davie gave the orders and we moved off. I’d considered sending him to Lachlan Vass’s place and handling Allie Swanson myself, but decided we’d better stick together in the badlands. Besides, Davie had a bad feeling about Swanson so we were going there first.

  We headed down London Road, past what was now the Meadowbank Rangers ground. Decades before independence it had been an athletics stadium, then the original Meadowbank Thistle played there – that emblem of Scotland wasn’t acceptable to the Council, of course. It had been a barracks rugby ground too. I remember seeing Davie take out an opposition guardsman with a shoulder charge that would have got him a straight red card before the rules were changed to make the game more spartan.

  ‘What was it about Allie Swanson?’ I asked. ‘Apart from the haircut.’

  ‘You’ll see. He’s hiding something.’ Davie turned on full beam. The only other vehicles in the suburbs were Guard patrols, street lights being few and far between. We passed a few citizens on bikes, but what their aged dynamos produced could hardly be classed as light.

  We turned on to Portobello High Street. About a hundred yards further on, Davie pulled up.

  ‘It’s round the corner. Regent Street, number 14.’

  We went on foot, Davie having checked the vicinity. The main road was safe enough, but as soon as you were off it … At least we knew there was backup a minute or so away.

  I knocked on the door of the two-storey terraced house. It was opened by a bald middle-aged man, who was chewing with his mouth open.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt your meal,’ I said. ‘Call me Quint. Can I see Allie, please?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ my host said, spraying the last of his mouthful towards me.

  Davie pushed past and grabbed the man by the throat.

  ‘What was that?’ he demanded.

  The answer was unintelligible.

  ‘Let him go, Davie. Before he chokes.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘So, is Allie here?’

  Davie suddenly pounded down the hall and up the stairs. ‘Backup to Bath Street and Regent Street!’ he shouted into his communications unit before disappearing.

  I followed the swearie man into the sitting cum dining room. A thin woman with a short blonde perm and two teenagers were at the table, the remains of a chicken in front of them. The Supply Directorate doesn’t run to fowl unless you’re a tourist. I heard heavy boots in the hall.

  ‘I’m all right,’ I said to the hefty guardsman. ‘Just stay there.’ He loomed in the door, an effective bogeyman. I looked meaningfully at the chicken and then at the adults.

  ‘What’s up with your Allie, then?’

  They exchanged worried glances.

  ‘Dinnae ken,’ the man said hoarsely.

  I directed my gaze at his other half. She didn’t favour me with a reply, apparently trying to make their dinner disappear by telekinesis.

  Time for the Hume 253 memorial threats.

  ‘He’s in the Pish, isn’t he?’

  Silence.

  ‘Let me rephrase that. He’s in the Pish. You’re doubtless aware of what happens to gang members’ families, but let me spell it out. Children under eighteen are separated and put in Welfare Directorate care homes. Fathers are sent down the mines for a minimum of two years. Mothers work on the city farms for a minimum of two years. Grandparents are removed from care homes and—’

  ‘All right!’ Citizen Swanson shouted. ‘We dinnae ken what he does efter fitba training. He’s twenty-three.’

  ‘Shame he didn’t get his own flat. Why was that?’

  ‘Likes it doon here,’ said the mother.

  ‘He would, what with this being Porty Pish territory. And chicken for dinner.’

  ‘He’s no’ a bad laddie,’ the woman said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He just disnae listen. He nivver did.’

  ‘Nora,’ her husband growled.

  Davie called on my mobile. ‘The bastard got away. We’re combing the streets.’

  Now I had to play even harder ball.

  ‘Guardsman, take the children.’

  He and his colleagues did so, after a lot of screaming and struggling. The parents were shoved back on to the
ir chairs, their shoulders in the grip of Davie’s toughest guardswomen. He claimed they were better than their male counterparts when it came to the crunch, as often happened.

  ‘This situation hasn’t quite reached terminal yet, Citizens Swanson. I don’t give a shit about the chicken, but it proves you’ve got contacts in the black market – and around here that’s run by the Pish, correct?’

  The man nodded once. ‘We cannae clipe on them. They’ll kill us.’

  ‘Not if we put them behind bars like their leader.’

  ‘Disnae matter,’ said the man. ‘Skinny Ewan’s been running …’ He broke off, his cheeks reddening.

  ‘And where would we find Skinny Ewan?’ I asked.

  ‘Dinnae ken,’ they said in unison.

  ‘Take him,’ I said to the guardswoman. After the citizen had been manoeuvred out, which involved a heavy blow to his abdomen, I told the remaining guardswoman to leave.

  ‘It’s just you and me now, Nora,’ I said, sitting beside the sobbing woman. ‘Your man resisted arrest, so that’ll be another year down the mines. Or everything can be forgotten. It’s up to you.’

  ‘Ah cannae … Ah cannae …’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  She looked at me. ‘What’ll happen to Allie?’

  ‘I can’t make any promises about him, especially if he’s a gang member.’

  She dropped her gaze.

  ‘But I can put in a good word if you cooperate.’

  ‘Ah dinnae believe ye.’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m not a member of the Guard, but I have direct contact with guardians.’

  ‘Aye, you’re their golden boy,’ she said scathingly.

  ‘That would be a stretch. Where are the Pish gathering tonight, Nora? Tell me and your family will be finishing that chicken in two minutes.’

  She thought about that and then looked up. ‘They change their meeting places a’ the time, but I heard Allie mention that old church in Brighton Place taenight. St John’s, I think it was called.’

  I stood up, got her family back inside and called Davie.

  Twenty minutes later we were in position round the former place of worship, which was only a few hundred yards from Regent Street. Davie had Guard personnel on every side of the battered building. I remembered it from pre-independence times: the tower was strange, four shorter rounded turrets surmounted by a taller one with a tall metal cross. The whole thing had collapsed, probably during the drugs wars as there were shell and bullet holes all over the rest of the building.