by Tony Black
Chapter 22
‘Do you want to tell me what this is about?’ I said.
Obviously he didn’t: the uniform put his hand to his belt, took off his cuffs. I was spun by the shoulders and thrown onto the table.
‘For fucksake!’
Hod was on his feet. ‘This is out ay order.’
‘Shut it,’ said the flatfoot. ‘I can easy take you in as well.’
Hod raised his hands. I saw the old waitress come back from the window to join the rest of the folk in the caff staring at me, mouths open, heads shaking. I thought, What the fuck have I done?
On the street I got passed to another uniform, heard the first one talking on his radio, ‘Yeah, bringing him in now, guv.’
My head got pushed down as they forced me into the meat wagon. I protested and arced up, ‘What the fuck is this about?’
‘Shut yer fucking yap, Dury.’
It concerned me how well known my name had become, in all the wrong circles.
We took the ride to Fettes with the blue lights on. I thought this was a bit much, but there was no doubting their effectiveness on the Edinburgh traffic. I was thrown about in the back of the wagon; the cuffs dug into my wrists and stretched my arms from their sockets.
At the nick they hauled me in. ‘Look, you gonna tell me what this is about?’ It was ten minutes before the bastards took the cuffs off me, shoved me in an interview room.
Minding me was what looked like one of the force team’s rugger buggers: flat nose, beefy chest, and thighs that meant his trousers required the special attention of a tailor. He didn’t even glance at me, stared off into the middle distance, a dream of Murrayfield glory dangling before him.
I rubbed my red wrists as the door opened, a waft of air hitting me in the face. It was Fitz; he looked proper furious. The spruced look had gone — his collar open, the tie hanging like a noose. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and he was unshaven. I saw some burst blood vessels in his eyes when he looked at me.
‘Dury, by the fucking cringe.’ He slapped a folder down on the desk. I watched it fall; some pages escaped its edges.
I wasn’t biting. ‘Why the fuck am I here?’
He saw me rubbing my wrists. ‘Did they try the rough stuff?… Sorry, I told them to go easy.’
It made little difference to me, the situation hadn’t changed. ‘Do I have to ask you again?’
Fitz pulled out the chair in front of me. It stuck on a table leg. He cursed it, yanked so hard the table shook. I leaned back and fixed eyes on him. He was aware of my glare but didn’t respond. He ferreted in his pocket for a pack of Dunhill, found them, realised he didn’t have a light, said, ‘Ho, bonnie lad, you got a light?’
The uniform shook his head, pulled out his empty pockets.
Fitz said, ‘Ah, a feckin’ fitness freak.’ He opened a drawer and located some Swan Vestas, sparked up. He offered me a smoke; I declined.
‘Are you going to tell me?’ I said.
He drew in. ‘You don’t know?’
This was insane. ‘My telepathy’s on the blink, Fitz.’
He peered into me, over the smoke; I knew I’d been tested. Maybe I was still being sussed out. Either way, Fitz’s tone changed. He turned it up: ‘Ye feckin’ reckless young heller!’ He jumped out of his seat and slammed the table.
I’d seen bursts like this before, some in this station. It didn’t faze me. ‘Sit down, man.’
He paced, turned to me again. ‘You are one daft fecker, Dury. Daft as feck… Running about all over the shop, wrecking my investigation.’
Was this going somewhere? ‘Look, do you want to fill me in?’
‘I’d feckin’ love to fill ye in, Dury!’ He drew fists, ash fell from his cigarette. ‘Nothing would give me more feckin’ joy.’ He stamped back to the desk, grabbed the folder and opened it up. He plugged his tab in the corner of his mouth, muttered as he turned pages to find what he was looking for. The folder held photographs. He picked them up, one by one he flung them at me. ‘Feast yer eyes on that little lot… Jaysus, if it doesn’t make ye throw I don’t know what will.’
Fitz stamped away again, walked over to the wall. I watched him running his hands through his hair, then he hoisted up his trousers by the belt loops. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he turned to watch me pick up the photographs.
‘Oh, fuck no…’
The images were horrific. They’d been taken at a crime scene; nothing had been missed out. I saw a face robbed of its features, black bruises and deep-drawn wounds where you would expect a nose or an eye. The pictures were in colour, but seemed to lack the full spectrum: everything appeared black or white, the death-mask skin so pasty, the blood so dark. The only hint of colour I found was on the collar of the old Lord Anthony ski jacket.
Fitz stood over me, ‘You recognise him?’
I nodded. ‘It’s Andy… from the factory.’ I kept turning the pictures. There were wider shots, had taken in the length of his body. A particularly gruesome image showed Andy lying spreadeagled, on wasteland. There was a dark pool of blood behind his head, down his front it looked like another bucket of the stuff had been tipped over him. Something was pinned to his chest — I saw the hilt of a blade.
I pointed. ‘What’s that?’
Fitz leaned in, drew on his tab. ‘That there… that would be the poor bastard’s tongue.’
I felt a heave in the pit of my gut. ‘They cut his tongue out?’
‘I don’t think the fecker did it himself.’ Fitz stubbed his cigarette, moved round the other side of the desk, sat. ‘I know ye spoke with Andy Gregory earlier in the week.’
I looked up from the photos, pushed them towards him. This was quite a turn of events. ‘Have you been trailing me?’ I knew he hadn’t; I’d never met the plod who managed that trick without making it as obvious as a donkey’s cock.
Fitz pointed a finger at me. ‘Dury, don’t feckin’ quiz me on this investigation. Ye have already gone and bollixed it up.’ He moved his finger to the photographs.
‘You blame me for that?’ The accusation jabbed me. Andy was a good man. He had helped me out, because he knew there were wrongs being done and because he respected the memory of my brother. I felt enormous guilt to have endangered him. All I could think about was what I had said to fat Davie on the Craigs, about having a snitch. Mac had held me back — I knew I’d fucked up. Had I caused Andy’s death?
Fitz kept still, then spoke slowly: ‘I don’t know the exact circumstances… Andy Gregory was obviously in over his head.’
It was time to tell Fitz what I knew.
I revealed everything I’d learned from Andy about the Undertaker’s involvement. He seemed to know all about it, sounded like the factory had been under surveillance for some time, which told me how they knew I’d met with Andy. I told Fitz that I knew Davie Prentice was up to his nuts in it and that got nods. He didn’t know what fat Davie had told me about Michael meeting with the Undertaker the night he died, and he knew nothing about the Czechs — or pretended not to.
‘What else did you question Andy Gregory about, Dury?’
‘The factory, y’know… what was going on in there.’
‘And what did he tell you?’
‘The Czechs had pushed out McMilne and he wasn’t happy.’
Fitz reached for another smoke. I took one too this time.
‘This is getting feckin’ tribal,’ he said.
I lit my cigarette. It tasted too mild after the Marlboros. ‘It’s only going to get worse. The Czechs are…’ I was going to tell him about the visit to Michael’s home the night he died, about the bloke with the black Pajero, but Fitz shot me down.
‘Don’t tell me how to do my feckin’ job, Dury.’
I saw he had a boner for the Undertaker. Fitz was glory-hunting, he was imagining the headlines, knew he had a press favourite on his hands. It made me mad as hell. Another man had died — how many more would there be? ‘If you did your fucking job I wouldn’t
need to tell you. And I wouldn’t have a dead brother.’
That wounded him. Fitz rose from his chair, swept up the pictures and closed the folder. He walked to the door. Before he went through it, he turned. ‘Leave this to the professionals, Dury, or sure as there’s a hole in your arse you’ll be joining your brother soon.’
Chapter 23
I walked home, struggling to keep a straight line. Nothing new for me there, however this time I was sober. My legs felt so limp, my knees weak. Every few steps a shiver came up from the street and rampaged through my gut en route to my heart. Another man had lost his life. A good man. Andy had a family, he’d worked hard all his days to keep them; now they’d be spending Christmas without him.
I couldn’t keep Andy’s face from my mind: not his troubled, forlorn, world-weary face, but the bloodied, brutalised mash I’d seen in the photographs. My life had taken another turn; the slow, ponderous descent into ruin had been hastened. I had another soul on my conscience.
The cold north winds scattered litter and leaves before me. Bodies bent into the onslaught and fought to stay upright. The entire city seemed to have been drained of blood, everywhere looked greyer, darker than usual. I couldn’t focus on what had changed. Perhaps it was everything; perhaps it was me. My existence seemed futile. I held tight to the quarter-bottle of Grouse in my coat pocket. It felt cold; my fingers clasped tight but there was no warmth to be had. I knew that bottle held fire, I knew it also contained answers, of sorts. Those who say, ‘You won’t find any answers at the bottom of a bottle’ are dead wrong. The one and only answer was in there: oblivion.
I craved an escape from my life. I wanted to unscrew the cap on the bottle of Grouse and swill deep. I wanted to taste the heat of it, the burn of memory being obliterated, thoughts turning to smoke and ashes. I was lost. I knew I had no clue as to who had killed Andy, or Ian Kerr, or Michael. I had my gut telling me it was the Czechs one minute, then the Undertaker the next. I had Davie Prentice calling for a bullet out of sheer frustration, but I knew that was just my anger, my stupid lust for revenge.
The truth was, I had failed Michael; and now Andy had paid the price with his life.
Snow fell again. It came down quickly, deep and thick. It settled on the street and the walls and the railings. The rooftops turned white and the cars slowed as the roads filled with slush. No one seemed to be bothered by the downpour: they dashed in and out of shops with carriers and Christmas trees and rolls of wrapping paper as if nothing mattered save the coming celebrations. What happened to the crisis in capitalism? I thought. What happened to economic misery? To the great woes we had all embraced, the new-found common enemy? I wanted no part in readying myself for the festivities. I knew that in the next few days, three families would be gathering with empty chairs round the table. It didn’t seem right. Nothing was right any more.
I schlepped through the town, along the main drag and onto Waterloo Place. On Regent Road I looked up at St Andrew’s House, had a thought of praying to our nation’s patron saint but let it pass. A weather-beaten saltire flew above the building. It was so faded I could hardly make out the cross on it. I tried to look at it, tried to raise my head from the gutter, but the snow kept filling my eyes.
I was wet and cold and tired. As I made my way back to the flat I stopped to watch a window cleaner, working a cake shop’s front pane. Chocolate tarts, topped with strawberries and cream, sat on the shelf inside. I wanted to ask him: ‘How can you do that without your mouth watering?’ But I didn’t have it in me. Michael was the man to stop and share a craic with anyone — I didn’t feel capable of bringing a nice moment to another’s life.
When I got to the flat and looked at the keys I realised I’d walked home in a daze: I’d left the car parked on the south side. I thought to call Debs and ask her to retrieve it on her way home from work, but I’d have to give her an explanation and that would cause more grief.
Usual went wild. He’d been cooped up all day — a walk would do him good. I shook the snow off my coat, said, ‘Okay, boy, soon, just let me get warmed up a bit.’ My solution was to take some speed from the cistern, got my heart racing right away. I worked through the wraps, dreaded to think the kind of shit storm this would raise if Debs found out.
I was losing her again, I knew it. I had lost her once before: we had been married and she’d divorced me. Why she gave me another chance I’d no idea. I wanted to make it different this time, I had tried and tried but things were slipping away. I knew Debs deserved more and I wanted that for her; maybe it would be for the best if she dumped me for good. I saw an image of me alone, drinking and wallowing in my misery. It was a picture of defeat. ‘Is that what you want for yourself, Gus?’ I mouthed. Knew I might not have a say in the matter.
I clapped at the dog. He seemed filled with joy, running to his basket to retrieve his favourite plastic hotdog toy. He bit it and made it squeak, ran with it to me and thwacked it off my leg. I took the challenge, held tight to it and watched as he tried to tug it away again.
‘If only everyone was so easily pleased, boy,’ I said.
I was stunned by the dog’s stamina, got the impression he’d be able to keep this up all day. Me, I needed wraps of speed to keep me in the game. I was coming round to the idea that things were as bad as they could get. I had been going in reverse for so long, perhaps it was time I changed gear.
I took out my mobi, called Hod. ‘You all right?’
‘Gus, fuck tae fuck… Are you down the nick?’
I snorted, felt my nose running. ‘No, I’m out. Look, where are you now?’
‘At the pub. Want to tell me what happened?’
I wiped my nose. ‘Yeah, soon. I’m going to collect the motor. I’ll get you at the Wall.’
Hod flared up, ‘Ah, not a good idea. Remember that McMilne cunt’s been round here looking for you.’
‘So what?’
I heard him prepare a warning, tip the granite in his voice. ‘Are you forgetting he put me in the Royal?’
I knew what Hod was aiming at, but the point was wasted on me. I needed to see him and Mac. I had an idea forming that might just lead to some progress. ‘Look, Hod, if Ronnie McMilne wants to come dig me out he can…’
‘It’s a fucking grave he’ll be digging if he gets hold of you.’
I hosed him down: ‘Hod, that’s just shite. The Undertaker’s putting a threat on me because he wants something.’
‘Wha’?… What’s that then?’
‘That I don’t know, but I’m figuring it’s not something I can’t do if I’m in the dirt.’
Hod sighed. I could hear a punter ask if he was serving. ‘I think you’re taking an unnecessary risk.’
‘No, Hod, every risk I take now is entirely necessary… I’ll catch you in a half-hour. Try and grab hold of Mac, I’ll need you both for what I have in mind.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Look, you’ll see… Tell Mac to bring his hammer, though.’
‘I like the sound of that.’ I imagined him smiling into the phone.
Hung up.
Snow covered the car. Even the tyres. As I tugged open the frosted door Usual raced in before me. I took a sketch at the caff, saw the old waitress shuffling about inside. It crossed my mind to go in, apologise, but I thought it might just put a fright on her. I’d caused enough grief for one day.
The engine started first time, surprised me. The wipers struggled a bit on the windscreen, got snagged on all the snow. I went back out and wiped away a swathe, then I clocked the ticket. ‘The fuckers,’ I muttered. Leave a car parked in this city without a watch on it, you’re getting ticketed. I thought to scrunch it, throw it into the street, but knew I’d get caught on camera, and done for littering. Pocketed the bastard and cursed.
It took the now mandatory time to get through the town. It shitted me, but I had grown used to it. When I got to the Wall, I parked up. Left an inch of window open for the dog; didn’t think anyone would have the knackers to tr
y breaking in with Usual on shoatie.
In the pub, Mac stood behind the bar. He wore a black T-shirt with a picture of David Hasselhoff that read, ‘Don’t Hassel the Hoff’. I nodded, gave him an ‘All right, squire.’
‘Gus, boy. What you having?’
‘Give us a Coke.’
He frowned, watched the pint he was pouring fill to the brim. ‘We’re out of Coke.’
A pub out of Coke? Things didn’t look good here. ‘Well, give me whatever… juice, water.’
Got a nod and a wink as Hod came in; he seemed to have relaxed a bit. Planted a slap on my back. ‘You right?’
‘Yeah, yeah… What about you? You look on the mend.’
He tapped his pocket. ‘Dr Mac there got me a few Harry Hills.’
Whatever it was, it was working. Hod clapped his hands together, pointed to the seats at the back of the bar. As we walked over Mac called through the kitchen hatch for somebody to mind the till. My eyes dropped to the uplighters in the floor. They seemed solid purple now. ‘You got the mood lighting a bit severe today, Hod, have you not?’
‘That’s him,’ he said, pointing to Mac, ‘fucker’s colour-blind!’
Mac reached a hand to Hod’s mozzer, tweaked it. ‘I’m not working in a pink palace just because the boss’s a buftie, aw right.’
We laughed it up — Hod less so.
Mac spoke as we took our seats: ‘So, you were lifted?’
‘Aye, no charges or owt… Just had my collar felt.’
‘So what was plod after?’
I filled them in on the murder of Andy. I left out the most gruesome details: didn’t want to put the shits up them because I needed their help. Not that it would put this pair off — more likely it would incite them to damage of an altogether more serious nature.
‘He was a nice bloke,’ said Mac.
I agreed. ‘He was.’
Hod smoothed down the edges of his moustache. ‘So, who do you think did him over?’
I went into my back pocket, pulled out the torn piece of Regal pack that Hod had given me earlier. Mac snatched it, read, ‘Radek… Who the fuck’s that?’
