by Tony Black
I agreed: ‘Walking in front of a car, in this weather — lunacy.’
‘I’m not talking about that.’ He whipped out the claw hammer, put it on the dash. ‘I could’ve brained the cunt. That thing nearly cut me in two.’
I was glad to have Mac beside me. There had been times in the past when I thought the friendship was at an end.
‘How you faring this weather, Mac?’
He scratched the corner of his mouth, inflated his chest, said, ‘Och, you know me.’
I knew better than to press him. ‘What about Hod? He putting any work your way?’
‘Bit… you know how it is.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. Hod, our mutual friend, had taken over the Holy Wall pub, once a going concern but truly junked after my efforts. ‘How’s the Wall looking?’
‘You not been in yet?’
‘Uh-uh.’ I couldn’t face it.
‘It’s a bit plush, but fur coat and nae knickers if you ask me.’
True Scots wisdom, defies logic.
‘Sounds… different.’
‘Well, he’s taken down your pictures of the dogs playing snooker, if that’s what you mean.’
‘The heathen.’
‘You’ll have to pay a visit.’
‘Yeah well, when I’m a bit more flush.’
‘You still looking for work?’
I gave him a look that said Isn’t everyone? ‘There’s nothing out there. My racket’s finished: they write newspapers with work experience and student interns these days.’
Mac followed a loose train of thought: ‘Still, you have this to be going on with.’
This wasn’t any kind of work either, deffo not anything I wanted to pursue, even if I had Debs’s approval for it — which I certainly didn’t.
As we reached the factory gates, the conversation shifted immediately — we weren’t alone.
‘What’s the filth doing here?’ said Mac.
I pulled up the car, yanked the handbrake on. ‘Mugging my hole.’
Chapter 5
The dog got excited, prowled the length of the back seat, jumped up to the window and scratched at the glass. I pointed him down. He sat, then lay on his stomach watching Mac and me as we readied ourselves.
‘Get that hammer under the front seat,’ I told him.
He grabbed it off the dash, stashed it away. ‘The powder — get it over.’ He opened the glovebox, made space among the petrol receipts and empty Smints boxes Debs stored in there. I passed over the speed and gave him a nod of recognition.
We opened doors, got out and started to cross the road.
A cold haar blew off the sea — felt like we’d be encased in ice in seconds. I remembered Shir Shean’s advice from The Untouchables and stamped my feet: made no difference, but set Mac off.
‘What you doing?’
‘Stamping out the cold. It’s the haar.’
‘Hardy-haar… Don’t be daft, you look mental. Want us lifted?’
The smell of frying onions came wafting our way from a burger van. Bloke inside looked out and nodded. He was after the goss on the police visit, or maybe a quick sale. I fired him back a friendly wave: ‘Something smells good.’ A bloody lie, but thought he might be useful to me at some point.
I felt the speed racing through my veins now. I had a slight twitch on my upper lip but I was primed, ready for action. Fitz the Crime had let me think my brother’s murder was an open-and-shut case: coming down to Newhaven to turn over his business didn’t square with that.
As I reached the front doors I caught sight of two uniforms coming our way down the corridor: they were getting gloved up. At their backs was Fitz, kitted out in a chalk-stripe three-piece and a red tie. It was an outfit designed to make those he met feel underdressed. Well, he was mixing with the seriously wedged-up — can’t expect him to turn up in his baffies.
The doors eased open and the two uniforms passed by us without a nod. Mac eyed them up and down and got some stares, reminded the pair of shitheads to strut, shoulders back. Funny the effect Mac has on some people, I thought.
When Fitz reached us, Davie Prentice came into view behind him. He copped an eyeful of me and lunged for Fitz’s hand, a great sweeping shake that near raised him off the ground. ‘Well, if there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to get back in touch,’ said Davie.
I watched this scene, my gut fighting to keep its contents in.
As fat Davie dropped Fitz’s hand, I said, ‘I’d count those fingers now, if I were you.’
Silence.
Davie was first to gasp into action, a histrionic luvvie air shining from him. ‘Gus, I’m so sorry for your loss… Michael will be missed.’
I raised a hand, said, ‘Really?’
The tension jumped a notch. Fitz broke it, turned to Davie and thanked him for his help, then, ‘Dury, if I may…?’ He indicated the car park; a quiet confab was called for. A warning, perhaps?
Davie went inside and Fitz quickly turned me by the elbow, led me away. As he passed Mac he stopped, rocked on his shiny brogues and said, ‘I might have feckin’ known you’d be putting in an appearance. Slightest whiff of trouble, yer like a feckin’ dog with two dicks.’
Mac huffed, shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, rattled his change. It was a practised ‘bollocks to you’ look. Served him well.
I followed Fitz for a few steps then spun him. ‘What the fuck are you playing at, man?’
He was indignant, eyebrows shot up. ‘What am I playing at? Jaysus, Holy Mother of God… I told ye, Dury, to leave this investigation to the force.’
I squared my shoulders. ‘You told me it was a fucking mugging.’
‘Yes, yes… and all evidence points to that. This is procedure, Dury, procedure.’
He had no right to be so rattled. He hadn’t lost a brother. Where was this coming from?
I jutted my head forward. ‘What’s your angle here, Fitz?’
‘Y’what?’
‘You’re not coming down here’ — I flicked his lapels — ‘in the good bag of fruit to talk procedure with Davie Prentice.’
Fitz’s mouth drooped, a thin line of saliva stretched between upper and lower lips. He looked scoobied. ‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing.’
‘You want me to put it in writing?’ The drugs had me racing through the gears; I needed Fitz more than he needed me but I was too rattled. ‘Draw you a picture?… I dunno, interpretation through the medium of fucking dance?’
Fitz closed his jacket, fastened the buttons. ‘Go home, Dury.’
‘Fuck off… mate.’
His voice was low, flat. ‘I mean it, go home. Get some rest. We’ll talk another time.’
‘We will that.’ I pointed at him. ‘Mugging my arsehole.’
I watched him get in the car, drive away.
As I turned to the building I saw fat Davie at a window. He clocked me and ducked inside.
‘What d’ye make of that?’ I said to Mac.
Mac shrugged his shoulders, removed his hands from his pockets. ‘I never trust the filth, me. Asking the wrong bloke.’
‘But did you see the way he was with fat Davie… all pally?’
‘Aye, I got that impression — the auld pals act.’
I turned for the door, the speed ramping in me, stormed past Mac. ‘I’m gonna burst him.’
I got about two steps before I was grabbed. ‘Calm it, eh.’
‘Y’what?’
‘Gus, just turn it down a bit. You don’t want to be going in there guns blazing, you’ll get fuck all that way.’
I knew he was right, I needed to watch my mouth. I was getting agitated; the anger I felt was hard to control, though. ‘Okay. Okay. You lead the way.’
Davie had disappeared from the window. As we went through the front doors I was overcome by the shoddiness of the set-up. Cheap carpet tiles on the floor, budget emulsion on the walls, institutional magnolia at that. I’d always imagined the place my brother earned su
ch a good living from to be a classier affair altogether. I was wrong. It was designed with a purpose in mind, and the purpose wasn’t comfort, it was graft.
A pretty blonde girl on the reception desk piped up. Polish or something, a definite Eastern European — there were still stacks in the city despite the papers insisting they were all headed home since the economy nosedived. I imagined the ones that were left got a pretty hard time from the native troglodytes — in the seventies they all shaved their heads and chanted jingoistic slogans; now they were harder to spot, but I’d bet no fewer in number.
Mac nudged me, whispered, ‘Wouldn’t mind going a few rounds wi’ that!’
I shoved him away, went for warmth: ‘Hello there, can you tell your boss I’d like a word, please?’
‘That would be Mr Prentice. Do you have an appointment?’
‘No. I’ve no appointment… I think he’ll see me, though. I’m Michael Dury’s brother. We just, er, spoke.’
‘One moment.’
She picked up the phone — one of the old BT jobs, must have been a few years old. I didn’t think I’d see one of those again; this place was in a time warp.
‘Yes, if you follow the red tape.’
‘Follow the what?’
‘The tape, Gus,’ said Mac. He pointed to the floor. Where the carpet ended there was a lino-covered floor, two thick strips of tape running side by side along the edge, one yellow, one red. ‘You never worked in a factory? It’s how they get about.’
I looked over. ‘It’s like The Wizard of Oz.’
‘Come on, we’re still a long way from Kansas.’
The tape led us through the shop floor. It wasn’t what you’d call heavy industry. Couple of assembly lines, lots of people in starched white dustcoats packing boxes. Occasional forklift. Radio playing ‘Eye of the Tiger’.
Mac tapped my arm. ‘You remember this?… Rocky, innit?’
‘Got that right.’
He curled his lower lip. ‘Ain’t gonna be no rematch.’
As we walked I caught sight of a familiar face: it was Vilem, the one Jayne had described as ‘the lodger’. He was on the line, but didn’t look to be grafting. There was a group of dustcoats around him but Vilem was in full flow, barking orders. He caught me staring and stopped, mid-blast, then crept away with that limp of his. I saw him remove a mobi from his pocket and press it to his ear.
‘Watch out,’ said Mac. A forklift forced us into the wall. We got pelters in a foreign tongue from the driver, who pointed to the floor.
Mac was none too pleased, looked set to lamp him. This time I hosed him down: ‘Think he wants us to stay behind the line,’ I said.
‘He should have fucking said that then.’
‘He did… in Russian or something.’ As I spoke I saw Vilem disappear from the line; I turned head.
‘There any Scottish folk in here?’
‘Oh, aye,’ I nodded up the corridor, ‘here’s one now.’
Davie stood outside his office, waiting for us. For a man in his mid-to-late forties, he wasn’t wearing well. Pot belly, ruddy lardass complexion and the classic sloping shoulders of the desk-jockey. He did himself no favours in the style stakes either: an unruly side-sweep like Bobby De Niro in The King of Comedy and thick square-framed glasses that I hadn’t seen since Frank Carson was last on the telly. He wore a striped shirt, frayed at the collar, and a too-wide-to-be-trendy tie that looked as if it had been cut from the tablecloth in a greasy-spoon caff.
‘Yes, gentlemen, what can I do for you?’ he said, smiling — fucking optimistically, I thought.
I walked past him through the doorway.
Mac said, ‘Get inside.’
Davie stepped back into his office, Mac shut the door behind him. A large window faced out onto the shop floor. Venetian blinds were tied up: Mac lowered them, blocking out the view.
‘Is that really necessary?’ said Davie. He smiled, tried to appear relaxed. He was convincing, I’ll give him that.
Mac said nothing, stood with his hands behind his back, played pug.
I answered for him: ‘Now, you tell me, Davie, is it necessary? Suppose that depends on whether you have something to hide.’
He creased his nose and I noticed something about fat Davie I hadn’t until now: he had a tache. It was a completely different colour from his barnet, much lighter, and it sat above his mouth like an anaemic slug. I’d never seen a mouth more inviting of a punch. He said, ‘I’ve nothing to hide, why would I have anything to hide?’
I took out my Marlboros, sparked up. A chair sat beside the wall. I nodded to Mac and he dragged it into the middle of the floor, manhandled fat Davie into it. ‘Is there any need for this?’ he barked.
‘Need for what, Davie?’
‘This… this rough stuff.’
Mac laughed, shot him a sideways glance.
‘Rough stuff, Davie? We haven’t even got started yet.’
‘Look, I’m not about to stand for this.’
‘You’re sitting, Davie. We gave you a seat, remember.’
He started to get up. Mac pushed his shoulders, forced him back down. Now Davie sat quiet. I expected him to finger his collar, take out a handkerchief and dab at his brow but he was ice. Fair shook me.
‘Okay, Davie, let’s take it from the beginning… When did you last see my brother?’
Now he flared up: ‘You surely don’t think I have anything to do with that.’
Mac crossed the floor again. ‘Answer the fucking question.’
Davie didn’t know who to address. He started to speak to Mac: ‘I don’t know anything about that…’
Mac put a mitt on Davie’s jaw, spun his face towards me, said, ‘Tell him, you prick.’ He bared his bottom row of teeth, looked tempted to panel Davie into his soft slip-on shoes.
‘I–I, come on, you can’t seriously…’
‘Davie, this is a simple enough situation we have here. Now, you’re an intelligent man, are you not?’
Silence.
Mac kicked the back of his chair. ‘Answer him.’
Rapid-style: ‘Yes. Yes.’
‘Good. That’s very good, Davie. Now, as an intelligent man you must know I’m not playing with you here… You know that, don’t you?’
He turned around swiftly to watch Mac. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
‘Excellent. Then, purely in the interests of clarity, let me confirm: you will answer every fucking question I ask of you, fully, truthfully and without hesitation, Davie, or Mac there is going to punch you a new hole. Got it?’
Head in spasm: ‘Yes. I understand. Yes. Yes.’
I took a drag on my tab, said, ‘When did you last see my brother?’
‘Erm… it was, er, last, er, yesterday afternoon.’
‘Where?’
‘Here… it was here in the office. Erm, in his office. Next door.’
‘What time exactly?’
‘It was lunchtime.’
‘What fucking time exactly?’
‘One… it was one-ish… one-thirty.’
‘Who else was there?’
‘No one. We were going over the returns for the accountant. They have to be in by the new year and…’
‘And what?’
‘Nothing… That’s it. Look, it was just another day at the factory. I never thought-’
I leaned into his face, blew out smoke. ‘You never thought he was going to get plugged out on the Meadows?’
Davie turned away, wiped at his soft moustache. ‘No, I never… You don’t think he was murdered? The police, I mean, they don’t think he was…’
I walked around the chair where he sat. I flicked ash from my tab as I went. ‘Maybe the police don’t have all the facts, Davie.’
‘What… what do you mean?’
I nodded to Mac. He tipped back Davie’s chair — his slip-ons went in the air. ‘I mean, do the police know how things are here? About the lay-offs? Sounds like cost-cutting — you must be feeling it.’
Mac l
et Davie’s chair go. He fell backwards onto the floor. His glasses came off, he flapped about like a recently landed cod. When he found his specs he jumped up and ran to his desk, picked up the phone.
Mac was on him: ‘You fucking cheeky wee cunt.’ He grabbed the line and yanked it out of the wall. The thin cable snaked up and whipped a polystyrene ceiling tile, showered a little dust. Davie put his hands to his head like the sky was coming down.
I said, ‘You never answered the question, Davie.’
‘What question?’
I moved over to face him, sat on the edge of his desk and brushed the white dust from his shoulder. ‘Do the police know about your financial troubles?’
Davie shifted his gaze, left to right, ‘I don’t have any financial troubles.’
‘You don’t?’ I turned to Mac. ‘How about that? I’m all right Jack, he says. Funny your business partner was finding things so tough, was it not?’
Davie straightened his tie. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No. I don’t.’
I felt my pulse pounding. There was an angle being worked here. What was this shithead saying, that my brother was in some kind of trouble of his own making? Michael was the canniest man I’d ever known: he wouldn’t get into any difficulties if his own firm was still paying its way.
‘You’re telling me this place is sound?’
‘Of course it is… There’s no trouble here at all.’
I flicked his tie. ‘Very well, Davie, I’m impressed. You seem to be the only businessman in Edinburgh riding out the economic storm, with no ill effects.’
He tipped his head, smirked. ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’
‘No, Davie… and neither do I. You see, I might not be a businessman myself, but I do know when someone is trying to sell me a crock of shit.’
I nodded Mac to the door. He opened it up and waited for me to step through. I didn’t give fat Davie the benefit of a backward glance.
Mac said, ‘We’ll be seeing you.’
