One Last Dram Before Midnight

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘Aye, right enough. Help yourself tae milk and sugar,’ MacDougall said, pointing to two green jars on the marble worktop. ‘I’ll get changed and gie you a lift. Here, where dae you stay now, by the way?’

  ‘Shettleston. Me and Ella have got a wee flat up in the scheme.’

  ‘Aye, good for you. You must be proud,’ MacDougall replied with a wink. ‘See if my car gets scratched by your neighbours, you’re for the bill. Cannae trust folk in they kind o’ neighbourhoods, know what I mean?’

  Scott poured himself some coffee, stirred in three sugars, and sighed. He would have to make his excuses at work. He couldn’t phone Dines until the evening, as instructed.

  Life was getting complicated.

  Daley stopped in his tracks. Two figures were approaching Stewart Street Police Office from the opposite direction. Sanderson’s rolling gait was familiar, but so was that of his companion, who stalked along straight-backed at his side.

  John Donald was transformed. He appeared to have lost weight, his unruly dark hair was slicked back, and he was tanned. Pristine white shirt cuffs emerged from the sleeves of an expensive black suit.

  Daley waited for the pair to enter the office, then followed them slowly.

  His worst nightmare had actually come true. He would be forced to work with this man who loathed him. Indeed, as his detective sergeant, Donald would be his immediate boss. The officer who had tried to stop him getting into the CID was now in charge of his career.

  Daley made his way dejectedly to the ground-floor CID offices and sat at his desk. He began to organise his day, making sure that the follow-up to the initial report about Provan’s discovery was ready to go to the DCI. Without warning, the door to the general office almost swung off its hinges as Sanderson burst into the room, making Daley and the two other DCs jump.

  ‘DC Scott, where the fuck is he?’ shouted his superior, his mouth taking on its characteristic slack-jawed appearance once he’d asked the question. ‘Daley, you’ll know if anyone does. Why’s he not at his desk?’

  ‘Don’t know, sir. I’m just in. Getting the follow-up to the Provan report to you, sir.’

  ‘Well, you needn’t worry too much about that. The Serious Crime Squad took on the case, as I expected. Get it to me in the next hour.’

  Daley wasn’t surprised by this information. He’d seen DCI Dines interviewed on TV at the weekend, so reasoned that A-Division CID had lost out again – not that the squad seemed to be having much more success in bringing the Machie family to book than they had. JayMac and his associates always seemed to be able to escape justice, no matter how obvious their involvement in one case or another appeared to be.

  ‘As soon as Brian Scott gets in, send him directly to me, got it?’ barked Sanderson.

  As he turned to leave, Daley spotted a figure at his back. John Donald strolled into the CID office as his superior left. He was smiling broadly, holding a large manila envelope in his right hand.

  He walked to Daley’s desk and loomed over the young DC.

  ‘Well, well. Hello, Jim,’ he said with an insincere smile. ‘Imagine me and you working together again. Just like old times.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure, Sergeant,’ replied Daley, noting that not only had Donald gone through a physical transformation since his elevation to CID, his entire demeanour appeared different. Gone was the guttural Possil twang; replaced by the cultured tones of Glasgow’s exclusive West End. It was clear that John Donald was a work in progress, although the sarcastic tone remained.

  ‘Thought you might like a little look at these. Interesting how your buddy spends his weekends, eh?’

  Donald removed four black-and-white images from the envelope and laid them on Daley’s desk.

  The first showed Scott emerging from a seedy-looking pub with the Machie family’s second in command, Frank MacDougall. They were accompanied by another man – tall, heavily built – whose face Daley couldn’t put a name to.

  The second photograph showed them getting into a large BMW. Scott’s head was flung back in laughter and he looked more than at home in the company of one of Glasgow’s most notorious gangsters.

  In the third image, the venue had changed. The three men were at a corner table in a club with two pretty young girls draped over MacDougall, who was leaning forward, having his cigarette lit by Brian Scott.

  The fourth photograph was the most disturbing. It looked to have been blown up, so the image was fuzzier than the others. However, despite the loss of detail, what it depicted was clear. DC Brian Scott was bent over the table, snorting a line of white powder through a rolled-up bank note. MacDougall and the other man were laughing uproariously, as were the girls, one of whom was trying to kiss Scott on the cheek.

  ‘I don’t get it. What is this?’ asked Daley in disbelief.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’ve lost none of your detection skills, Jim,’ said Donald with a sneer. ‘That is a picture of your new best friend snorting coke with two of the biggest scumbags in the city – Frank MacDougall and Gerald Dowie.’

  ‘I don’t understand . . . where did you get this?’

  Donald gave Daley a sickly smile. ‘That’s the best bit. The Daily Reporter was good enough to give us fair warning about these little gems. They’re going in tomorrow’s paper, which, as you know, hits the streets . . . oh, let me see’ – he looked at his watch – ‘in approximately eight hours, for the early editions.’

  Daley stared at the photographs, his mind whirling. Shock was giving way to anger, as he remembered Scott asking him for information about the sauna raids. Yet he couldn’t believe that the man he’d come to know so well would intentionally deceive him in such a way. But did he really know Brian Scott?

  ‘I see the implications of all this are beginning to dawn on you, Jim. One of the first on the scene when Machie’s accountant was discovered murdered, out for a bender on drink and drugs with his first lieutenant a couple of nights later.’ Donald scooped up the photographs and placed them back in the envelope. He leaned in towards Daley, almost whispering in his ear. ‘Poor bastard. Did you hear how they killed him?’

  ‘No, how? I haven’t seen the post-mortem yet. All we knew was that he’d lost a lot of blood.’

  ‘Death by a thousand cuts – an old chestnut, but no less horrific. He had literally dozens of small wounds all over his body – and I mean all over. Whoever killed him knew what they were doing.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Managed to keep him alive for hours, letting him suffer. Made sure not to administer the coup de grâce until the very end. Our man Provan died in agony. Torture of the worst kind.’ His face took on a look of mock regret. ‘And the best bit is, don’t think you’ll come out of this all shiny and new. Guilt by association!’ he spat into Daley’s ear. ‘They’ve known Machie had a source in the police for a long time. Looks like we’ve found him – well, the Daily Reporter has, at any rate.’

  ‘Nobody’s proved anything yet,’ said the young DC defiantly.

  Donald stood up straight, sliding his hand through his oily hair as he did so. ‘The only way Scott will get off with this is if some inept bastard like you is left in charge of the investigation, and that’s not going to happen.’ He looked around the room. The other detectives were keeping their heads down, fully aware that trouble was brewing. ‘Just what you need on a Monday morning, eh? Turn up for your work and get arrested as an accessory to murder.’ Donald glared at Daley once more, turned on his heel and walked out of the door, whistling tunelessly.

  Daley couldn’t believe it. It had taken his old nemesis no time at all to get back to normal, no matter how much he had changed superficially.

  What the hell was Brian up to?

  He got to his feet and, without a word to his colleagues, left the room.

  VII

  Daley walked out of Stewart Street Police Office, through a car park adjacent to the nearby flats, and along to Cowcaddens Underground Station.

  He was pleasantly surprised to f
ind that the public phone in the vandalised phone box was still working. He thrust a coin into the machine and waited for a reply. Sure enough, after a few rings, Ella Scott’s familiar voice sounded on the other end of the line.

  ‘Hello, Ella. It’s Jimmy. Is he there?’

  He heard a quick intake of breath and then, ‘Aye, he’s here. Just here, mind you. Been oot a’ night. I don’t know what the hell’s got intae him.’ He heard her hand muffle the call as, none too politely, she called her husband to the phone.

  ‘Aye, Jimmy. Sorry, I’m having a wee bit o’ a domestic here . . .’

  ‘Never mind that, Brian. What on earth were you up to last night?’ Daley went on to tell his friend about the photographs, emphasising just what a serious predicament he was in. ‘They’re after you, Brian. Donald says that if you don’t turn up for work they’re going to issue a warrant for your arrest.’

  ‘Donald? Oh great, I’d forgot aboot him. What do you think I should dae? I tell you, Jimmy, there’s something no’ right here . . . Shit, this could be it. No’ just losing my job, but ending up in the big hoose!’

  ‘Tell me what you’ve really been doing, Brian. This is serious now, and I’m not buying the superintendent-in-charge-of-car-parks story. I never really did.’

  As Scott relented and described his deal with Dines, Daley’s heart thudded faster in his chest.

  ‘You should never have agreed to that, Brian. No senior officer has the right to put you under that kind of pressure. We’ve got representation from the Federation, you know.’

  ‘Aye, and the wean’s got a toy monkey that shouts “hello, mama” when you pull its tail. They’re fuck all use, Jimmy, you know that. The only chance I’ve got is tae get a haud o’ Dines and get him tae sort this oot. Once he lets the gaffers know what I was up tae last night, we’ll be sorted.’

  ‘No. Hang fire, Brian. Don’t contact Dines.’

  ‘Eh? He’s the only bloke who knows what’s really going on. Why should I no’ gie him a bell tae get this fixed. I’m no’ wanting huckled away.’

  ‘They’re making a connection between you and Provan.’

  ‘What dae you mean?’

  ‘Well, you and I were the first cops on the scene. Two nights later, you’re out snorting coke with one of the prime suspects. What got into you, Brian?’

  ‘I was just playing the part, you know, getting their confidence. Just like Dines telt me tae dae.’

  ‘Well, you’ve played the part that well you’ve now got a starring role right across the front page of the Reporter.’ Daley bit his lip. ‘Listen, is there anywhere you can go? Somewhere they’ll not be able to find you, I mean.’

  ‘Who’ll not be able tae find me?’

  ‘The police – us!’

  ‘I could lie low at my wee mate’s hoose. He lives a few streets away. Good bloke, me and him go right back, but he’s no a great fan o’ the cops, so nobody knows aboot him. Likes the pigeons.’

  ‘Well, see if you can roost there,’ said Daley lamely. ‘What about Ella?’

  ‘I’ll get her tae go oot tae. It’s no’ as though she needs much persuasion normally.’

  ‘Well, probably best you’re both out the picture for a few hours. Another thing, phone in sick. It’ll go to the uniforms at the bar office. I don’t think this will have reached them yet. You can cover your back that way.’

  ‘Good thinking, Jimmy. What aboot you? I’ve left you in a right pile o’ the brown stuff. Sorry, mate.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea, but I’ll have to be quick. What’s your friend’s phone number? I’ll give you a call later and let you know how I’m doing.’

  He heard Scott cursing as he tried to remember the number. Eventually this process seemed to help him bring it to mind, and Daley memorised the digits.

  ‘Get moving, Brian, and I’ll speak to you soon.’

  ‘Listen, buddy, I owe you . . . again. But don’t get yourself intae any bother. I appreciate your help, but this is my mess. If nothing can be done, nothing can be done, and I’ll have tae face the music and dae my best.’

  Daley finished the call and jogged the short distance to Stewart Street, trying desperately to work out what was going on as he went. He didn’t quite know why he’d told Scott not to contact Dines – just instinct, he supposed. After all, the man was in charge of Strathclyde’s top investigation team. However, Daley had been in the police long enough to realise that, given the right circumstances, certain senior officers would happily sacrifice junior colleagues’ careers in order to save their own.

  It seemed to the young DC that, whatever Dines had planned to do with Scott, thanks to the intervention of the newspaper and the death of Provan, things had gone spectacularly wrong. He would be under pressure, and who knew where that could lead. He needed advice, badly. Thankfully, he knew just who to turn to.

  Daley bounded back into the CID office just in time to bump into DCI Sanderson, who was leaving, his face puce.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Call of nature, sir.’

  ‘Still no sign of Scott?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Right, get a pool car and get out to his house.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And if necessary, arrest him. If you won’t, I’ll send the local uniforms to do the job. Got it?’

  As Daley drove out of the car park he couldn’t believe his luck. Sanderson had given him the perfect excuse to get out of the office, as well as some precious time.

  He knew he had to use this time well.

  Instead of driving towards the east of the city, where Scott lived, he headed north. He hadn’t had time to make a call. As he sped along, he hoped beyond hope the man he was looking for was at home.

  As Brian Scott trudged through the scheme, he marvelled at the way his wife could adapt to anything. Ella and her sisters were no strangers to the trials of life, much of which had consisted of making sure their father – normally a pleasant, hard-working man – couldn’t find them when he was on a particularly vicious bender. Ella had complained bitterly, of course, but Scott had managed to persuade her to make herself scarce, though his ears were still ringing from the process. He’d kept the full reason for this subterfuge quiet; he wasn’t sure if she was in any way reassured by him telling the partial truth that they were, temporarily, at least, in danger. He hadn’t told her from whom.

  He turned the collar of his leather jacket up against the rain that was starting to fall heavily. He was only a few streets away from his friend’s house, so the weather was the least of his worries.

  He shook his head, wondering why he’d been so stupid. A dark shadow of doubt crept in. Was he only in the police thanks to his background? Had something like this been on the cards from the start? Had his career to date merely been a preamble to bringing down the men he’d grown up with?

  He resolved not to think about it; after all, for the time being, he could do nothing about it.

  He was only a few houses away from his destination when he heard a car slow down behind him and then follow him at walking pace. He didn’t turn round, hoping that it was a coincidence. But the voice he heard calling from the vehicle stopped him in his tracks and froze his heart.

  ‘Brian Scott. Now, imagine bumping intae you here, eh?’

  Scott looked over his shoulder. A large black Jaguar was at his back, a face leaning out from the passenger window. The man had short cropped hair, almost a skinhead. Though he was young – mid- to late twenties – he could have passed for someone much older. His features were sharp, and the slant of his high cheekbones gave him an almost Nordic appearance. Indeed, the Viking had been his first nickname, and he’d done his best to live up to the wanton brutality with which it was associated. However, he was known by a different nickname now: JayMac.

  With a hooked finger, James Machie beckoned Scott to the limousine. ‘Come here, son. Me and you have tae talk.’

  VIII

  Daley drove through small villages, pa
st country pubs and garden centres, and finally to the stunning hills and lochs of the Trossachs, before he came to the small Stirlingshire village that was his destination.

  He drove up the steep incline that was the main street and looked around, returning the wave of a little girl with wavy brown hair who smiled at him. This place was much more like Bridge of Weir, his new home, than the place he was supposed to be visiting. Expensive cars lined the clean, well-kept streets, and there was no sign of the graffiti or deprivation he associated with the East End of Glasgow.

  He’d been here a few times. The man he was coming to see had been his first mentor, the man who had given him his big chance out of uniform. Though he’d been retired for a few months now, he was still required to give evidence in the odd case or two left over from his last days in the job. On these occasions, Daley had been more than happy to act as his chauffeur.

  At the far end of the village, Daley parked his car outside the neat sandstone home of Ian Burns, former DCI at Stewart Street CID.

  As he unhinged the red wrought-iron garden gate and then headed up the little stone path to the front door, Daley prayed that his old boss was at home. If anyone could help him with Scott’s predicament, it was the man they’d known as Wyatt Earp. In his day, he’d been one of the country’s most respected detectives.

  Amanda Burns beamed a toothy smile at him as she opened the door. ‘Jim, what a lovely surprise! How are you – and Liz? You’ll be looking for my husband, I take it.’

  ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ replied Daley. ‘Sorry to just drop by like this. I hope you don’t mind if I borrow your husband for a moment or two.’

  ‘Be my guest. He’ll be in his potting shed, as usual. His new hobby. Something had to replace the police, goodness knows.’

  She invited Daley to follow her out to the garden. ‘You’ll find him just down there. See the trees? You can’t miss it. He’s even got a little stove in there now.’

  Daley thanked Mrs Burns and made his way down the garden. Sure enough, under a large copper beech tree, already losing its leaves to autumn, sat a sizeable shed, not the tiny construction ‘potting shed’ had conjured up in his mind. A little chimney belched out smoke, and, through a window, Daley could see movement from within.