‘Any later and they’re likely to be full of drink,’ said King, glancing at his watch. ‘I mean it’s coming up five o’clock already. Pretty soon they’ll be full of flight or fight, probably fight.’
‘So you too would go in immediately?’
‘I think so, sir.’
‘With the knowledge that there’s likely to be firearms in there and with all these people on the street?’
‘Well…’
‘You surprise me, King. Ray, your opinion?’
It was Sussock’s strongly held personal opinion that they should go in there and get it over with as soon as possible while he still had strength to muster. But after clearing his throat, he said, ‘Very early morning would be the best time, I think, sir.’
‘Suppose Spicer goes in the meantime?’
‘I don’t think he will.’
‘Why?’
‘He was carrying a bag—an overnight bag I would think.’
‘That is a significant fact and it wasn’t reported,’ growled Donoghue in voice like iced gravel. He didn’t direct the statement but Montgomerie felt particularly uncomfortable.
‘Anyway,’ said Sussock quickly, feeling tension begin to rise in the confines of the car, ‘he’s cutting it pretty fine if he wants to get back to the Isle of Bute tonight. If he doesn’t leave within the next ninety minutes he’s staying on the mainland tonight.’
‘Could he sleep anywhere else in the city?’
There was a moment’s silence and then King said, ‘The only other place he could sleep is his weekend retreat in Argyllshire, Clematis Cottage.’
‘He’ll not be trekking up there the night,’ said Sussock.
‘So we can assume he’s staying in the safe house tonight with his criminal accomplices?’ Donoghue turned and looked at the other three, who nodded their agreement. ‘Good, good,’ he said as he faced forward. ‘I’m pleased you agree with me. The raid has been timed for three a.m. We’ll be supported by an inspector and a sergeant from the uniformed branch plus twelve constables. Weapons will be drawn. Spicer and his friends should be sound asleep by then, and besides the constables won’t be free until well after midnight. A lot of folk will be starting back at work tomorrow morning so there’ll be a lot of commiseratory drinking on the town tonight.’
‘It’s a dog’s life, a copper’s life,’ said Montgomerie.
‘You said something?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Good. So, Montgomerie, you stay here with the unmarked car. Whistle if there’s any developments. We’ll get back to the station, rest up, grab some food.’
Food, thought Sussock, food, food, food.
Montgomerie sat in the unmarked car and adjusted the rear-view mirror so that he looked diagonally across Great Western Road at the safe house. It was a comfortable observation station compared to some he’d been on. Once he’d suffered exposure after observing a farmhouse for twelve hours one winter’s day with nothing but a tree for shelter. But despite the comfort of this observation station it did have the problem of all other observation stations: one of unremitting tedium. Tedium allowed Montgomerie’s mind to dwell on things, like visiting Tiny Jardine, like an interview with Chief Superintendent Findlater, like his P45 in the morning post, like signing on the dotted line at the Job Centre.
The unremitting boredom was broken only once. At approximately 7.15 a Ford estate car drew up outside the close in which the safe house stood. Montgomerie left the Granada and strolled along Buckingham Terrace until he was directly opposite the safe house but was also partially obscured by a tree. He noted the number of the estate car. Ten minutes later the two men who had arrived in the estate car reappeared on the street; this time they were accompanied by a third man who looked as white as a sheet. The three men got into the estate car and drove off. The third man was Neutron John McCusker.
Montgomerie walked back to the Granada and radioed in to ‘P’ Division.
‘I don’t think we’ll change the plan,’ Donoghue’s voice crackled over the radio. ‘McCusker won’t be going very far. We can pick him up when he surfaces.’
Montgomerie remained on station until he was relieved at midnight by King.
The raid was mounted at 0305 hours Tuesday. It was a warm and still night, as dark as a deep twilight with just the faintest crack of dawn visible in the north-east.
Ray Sussock, who had declined to carry a revolver, led a uniformed inspector, who carried a gun, and six constables along a back lane, across a back court and stopped at the railings in front of the concrete roof.
‘Just two at a time across the roof,’ said the inspector. ‘It doesn’t look safe.’
Sussock nodded. He began to feel faint. He hadn’t given a reason for refusing a firearm but had declined because the lack of food was sapping his strength at a i ate of knots. He no longer felt able to hold and point a gun. or if necessary squeeze the trigger. He felt a danger to himself and his colleagues. A senior constable had taken the gun in his place.
The inspector and an unarmed constable climbed down from the concrete roof and crouched, one at either side of the window. The constable drew his truncheon.
‘Wait until we hear the door getting taken down,’ murmured the inspector. Then he added. ‘Steady, lad.’
King and Montgomerie edged into the close. They each carried a revolver. Behind them was a sergeant of uniformed branch and six constables. At the rear of the column, taking care not to brush his suit against the wall of the grimy close was Detective-Inspector Donoghue.
King and Montgomerie reached the door of the flat. It was dark, the old, badly maintained close could boast no stair lighting and King took out his pocket torch to shine on the door. The door was solid and old and heavy, no name above the letter-box, three locks, one barrel and two mortices.
‘What do you think?’ asked King.
A line of policemen stood silently, tensely on the stair.
‘I think we should give this up and go and knock over the Bank of Scotland,’ replied Montgomerie without lowering his voice. ‘Why don’t we just knock?’
‘Get a grip, Mai!’ King was anxious.
‘Grip of what? That’s just it, nothing to grip—no handle, just keyholes.’
‘What the hell…? You didn’t bring any keys?’
‘Didn’t think we’d need any.’
‘You didn’t think we’d…’ King groaned like an old wooden ship groans for the last time, long and low. ‘What did you think we’re on here—ding dong, Avon calling?’
‘So you’re so bloody wise why didn’t you bring them?’
‘Because I was on observation, remember? And because I’m not a dab hand at getting in and out of people’s flats. You’ve acquired a reputation for that.’
‘I have?’ Montgomerie smiled. ‘Recognition is so nice.’
King put his hand to his head. ‘I can’t see the point in going on,’ he moaned. ‘This is a job we’ve got here, Malcolm.’
‘Mr Donoghue wants to know what the delay is for, sir,’ whispered a constable from just behind Montgomerie’s head.
‘Slight technical hitch,’ said Montgomerie and he heard ‘technical hitch’ being whispered from mouth to mouth down the stair, culminating in the flicking of a cigarette lighter at the bottom.
‘Everybody’s so calm,’ moaned King.
‘We need skill for this,’ said Montgomerie.
‘Oh, you are working for us, then?’ King said.
‘Skill, expertise, knowledge, experience,’ chanted Montgomerie.
‘Mai, it’s three-ten. Ray Sussock will be wondering if he’s got the right gaff.’
‘Skill,’ said Montgomerie. ‘Do we have McMullen in our team?’
‘Aye, we do,’ sighed King.
‘McMullen!’ hissed Montgomerie. ‘Up here!’
A big shape loomed out of the shadows, moved up lightly and crouched silently beside Montgomerie, no mean feat since McMullen stood six seven, weighed eighteen stone and was full back in the Strathcly
de Police first fifteen.
‘What do you think?’ asked Montgomerie.
‘Skill,’ sighed King, playing the beam of his torch over the locks for McMullen’s edification.
‘Tough one, this one,’ said McMullen slowly, tapping a lock two-thirds of the way down the door. ‘I know locks like this, they’re basically a bar of steel a foot long, half an inch thick and three inches deep. They extend four or five inches into the door frame. You lock and unlock them with three or four turns of the key.’
‘Don’t get locks like that these days,’ said Montgomerie.
‘They had big problems with housebreaking in the days when these houses were built.’
‘That right?’
‘Aye, nothing’s new,’ said McMullen.
King sank back against the wall and made a sound like there was a cat trapped in his stomach.
‘Any of you gents got a penknife,’ asked the mountainous McMullen. Montgomerie handed him a knife. ‘Small blade,’ he said apologetically.
‘It’s big enough.’ McMullen stood and began prodding the door at the other side. ‘Aye, like I thought,’ he said. ‘It’s turned to driftwood. One good blow should fetch the hinges off, but watch the door falling. They weigh a ton.’
‘OK,’ said Montgomerie. ‘Ready when you are.’
McMullen went to the far side of the landing and ran at the door, leading with his shoulder. There was a rendering, splintering sound, McMullen bounced backwards, plaster fell from the walls and from the next landing up, and inside the flat somebody shouted and a window smashed. The door stayed where it had always been.
‘That’s Ray going in,’ King said.
‘Again!’ yelled Montgomerie.
McMullen ran at the door a second time and this time it gave. He pushed it open, splintering the wood round the hinges and bending the old metal in the locks, forcing a gap of three feet between the door and the frame. Montgomerie and King went in, groping in the dark. There was a flashlight at the far end of the hallway, maybe thirty feet away. ‘Police!’ yelled a voice from behind the light.
‘It’s us!’ replied King. The flashlight was turned away.
King went into a room on his right, Montgomerie followed him, switching on the light. They pointed their guns at an empty room.
‘Where the hell are they?’ yelled Montgomerie.
‘I don’t know,’ screamed King.
They went back into the hall. Somebody yelled, ‘In here!’ They moved forward as a man came running out of a room on the left of the corridor, fists flailing, and naked except for underpants. He collided with Montgomerie, who hissed as pain jabbed his bruised ribs. He threw the man to the floor and sat on him while he snapped on the handcuffs.
Somewhere a woman screamed. Two thugs ran into the corridor. King held up his gun. ‘Against the wall! Move!’ Somebody found the light switch just as Steamroller Forbes and Jug McLintock backed against the wall. The light came on just in time for King to see the colour drain from their faces.
‘I’m arresting you,’ said Montgomerie, hauling the man to his feet, ‘for assaulting a police officer in the course of his duties. That’ll do for now. Constable!’ The man was hustled down the stair and into the waiting van, as were Jug McLintock and Steamroller Forbes.
King went into the room from which Jug McLintock and Steamroller Forbes had emerged. There were three beds in the room and Sam ‘the Weight’ Dolan was staggering out of the third, sleepy and drunk. Keep on coming,’ said King.
In the main bedroom of the house Spicer was sharing a bed with a blonde girl. They lay blinking at the policemen, Spicer resting on his good arm and holding the undersized version across his eyes as a shade from the light-bulb. The girl pulled the sheet up to her throat and looked like she wanted her mummy. There was a big loud silence until Donoghue edged his way into the room and said, ‘How old is she, Spicer?’
‘Sixteen. She’s sixteen!’ His voice was like a storm in the night, howling in every direction.
‘She’d better be,’ said Donoghue. ‘Mind you, in your case it’s academic. You’re washed up and finished.’
‘I want to make a statement,’ Spicer said. Even though he was frightened, on edge, his face was still fixed in a grin, like a death’s head mask.
‘I’m sure we can accommodate that request,’ snarled Sussock.
‘What are you arresting me for, Officer? You have to arrest me.’ He was beginning to recover. I won’t go anywhere unless you arrest me.’
‘Conspiracy to murder,’ said Donoghue.
‘Who, who?’
‘William McGarrigle, the reporter.’
‘Oh yes, I read about that. Struck me as being an offence of culpable homicide at the most. Anyway, how do you tie me in?’
‘Via Neutron John McCusker.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘That isn’t what Mrs McCusker says.’
‘These are all strange names to me, Mr…er…’
‘Donoghue. Would you like to make a statement about the armed robbery which you had planned for later this morning, with a little help from the Jardine brothers and the thugs outside? That would be conspiracy to rob with violence.’
‘Really, Mr Donoghue, this is all too fanciful.’
‘You think so? Do you want legal advice? How about calling your senior partner, McNulty? I’m sure he’d like to chat about your company’s accounts.’
‘You won’t touch me so easily, Officer.’
‘Excuse me, sir.’
Donoghue turned.
‘Firearms in the kitchen, sir.’
‘Right,’ said Donoghue, ‘put a man on them. Nobody to touch them until Forensic get here.’ He turned back to Spicer. ‘I hope you were able to resist the temptation to touch those guns.’
‘I was examining material evidence for a client.’
‘Don’t give us that cat meat,’ growled Sussock.
‘The onus of proof rests with you,’ said Spicer, now grinning with his eyes as well.
‘I know my job,’ said Donoghue. ‘We’ve been doing some digging, we’ve got spadefuls of gold dust on you.’
‘Such as?’
‘The murder of Anne McDonald. A few months before you married her sister.’
‘How the hell did you find out about that?’
‘Neatest confession I ever heard,’ said Sussock.
Donoghue drove down to ‘P’ Division. He reached it at 4.00 a.m. when the sky was grey with blue round the edge. He approached the desk sergeant and asked that he pass a message to Forensic to attend the house on Great Western Road.
‘Can’t immediately, sir.’
Oh.’
‘No, sir. Jimmy Bothwell’s over at Bishopbriggs. So is Dr Reynolds.’
‘Murder?’
‘Dead body at any rate. They asked that I ask you to attend as soon as possible, sir.’
‘I can’t. I’ve got the Spicer case to wrap up, that’ll likely take the rest of the day.’
‘You’re the senior officer on duty, sir.’
‘Who’s at Bishopbriggs from the CID?’
‘Abernethy, sir. Very inexperienced.’
‘I know. All right, where in Bishopbriggs are they?’
Donoghue arrived at the scene of the crime at 4.30 a.m. Already in attendance were two Panda cars, a mobile incident room, three unmarked cars, one of which Donoghue recognized as Dr Reynold’s Volvo. A milk-float rattled past, its driver peering at the scene. Donoghue left his car and strode to where a black sheet was laid out on some waste ground. He was pulling and blowing on his pipe and was met by Dr Reynolds.
‘Male, apparent age thirty-six years. Time of death, possibly six or eight hours.’
‘Quite fresh then?’
‘Yes, hardly cold.’
‘Cause of death?’ Donoghue took his pipe from his mouth and made to put it in his pocket, but the bowl was too hot so he laid it on the top of a low stone wall which stood beside him.
‘Gunshot wounds to the head
, I would think,’ said Reynolds. ‘I can’t be certain until I’ve done a complete PM.’
‘Seems pretty certain to me,’ said Donoghue, smiling. ‘I mean, if a bloke has a big hole in the side of his head, then…’
‘It’s at the front actually,’ replied Reynolds. ‘And it came out at the back. But we might find, for instance, that his heart was already very still before he was shot, in which case we’d have to look elsewhere for the cause of death.’
‘All right,’ conceded Donoghue wearily.
‘I’d like to take him away and start poking around inside if I may.’
‘I’ll check with Abernethy,’ said Donoghue. ‘I dare say it’ll be all right. Oh, incidentally that PM you were about to do when I saw you on Sunday, was it a knife attack?’
‘No. He drowned. I can’t account for the marks on his body but they didn’t contribute to the death.’
‘Thanks. I was curious.’ Donoghue walked over to where Abernethy was standing. Abernethy was looking shaky and green round the gills.
‘First murder?’
‘In CID. Yes, sir.’
‘Found by?’
‘Gentleman in the next house down, sir. Came home very early this morning from his Fair weekend holiday. Saw some stray dogs sniffing at something and investigated.’
‘Any ID?’
‘I didn’t touch the body too much, sir.’
‘I see. Well, I suggest you leave a man here to keep the public off this stretch of ground until we know we’re not looking for a murder weapon, or until we find out what sort of weapon we are looking for. Then I suggest you accompany Dr Reynolds to the pathology lab and go through the dead man’s clothing in an attempt to determine his identity.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Stay until Dr Reynolds has completed the PM so that you can bring me his preliminary findings. He may allow you to witness the PM.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then a full report on my desk A.S.A.P, complete with photographs and PM report.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Donoghue walked across to where the body lay. It was mostly covered with a sheet and the sick sweet smell of the Grim Reaper was just beginning to rise. Jimmy Bothwell, the forensic assistant, diligent but always awkward in his movements, was calmly taking the dead man’s fingerprints. He’d seen it all before. This was just one more stiff.
Fair Friday Page 16
