Glasgow Noir Box Set

by Gavin Graham

  The next morning, Fat Boy was at CID HQ for questioning, on a different and much more personal matter.

  “So, Fat Boy. Who do you think would have a reason to abduct and kill your daughter?”

  “No comment.”

  “Oh, for Christ sake. Don’t be such a bloody-minded fool and drop the Mafioso shite. You’re not Michael Corleone, OK? Chances are, Son, you’ve got a hit out on your head. Personally? I couldn’t give a shit…”

  Fat Boy glared at the DCI with glazed, heavy eyes; he smirked, arrogantly.

  “But that poor girl didn’t deserve to get caught up in the trails of your mess. With all your drugs, and your…” he wanted to say ‘whores’, but opted not to, out of pity for Fat Boy’s wife, sitting with her head down and sobbing into a handkerchief.

  Fat Boy glanced at her too and took a deep breath.

  “Look, I know you and the Godfather go back a long way, so I’ll say this and this alone. I know who did it, Inspector.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t say, but I’ll find him and I’ll sort him out.”

  “Why can’t you say?”

  “Because, Inspector, he’s already dead…”

  Chapter 46

  The House of Gold

  Never underestimate a well-mannered gentleman, especially the one who carries a gun…

  Arthur McConnell, the Godfather, wasn’t just a ruthless gangster who lived in a mansion and had the looks of a Hollywood film mogul.

  No, he was a man that represented and served his community.

  His family.

  Members of his criminal empire.

  Drug dealers.

  Gun runners.

  Bookies.

  Massage parlours.

  All the way up to his international import/export companies.

  He was a gentleman.

  A sharp dresser.

  A businessman.

  He had a short fuse and had killed men in cold blood; some for good reason, some for no apparent reason.

  He was a man who could appreciate the old-fashioned ways of murder.

  Torture, mainly.

  More biblical than medieval: crucifixion, to be specific.

  He was a problem solver, too, and a man folk could go to for help. Sergej ‘the Latvian’ says he’s gonna stab ma’ maw in the eye if he disnae’ git’ five hunner’ quid by Friday, he needs tae’ be stopped, he’s terrorising the whole street… I need the McGregor twins off ma’ back, they already petrol bombed my car, next it’s gonna’ be a bullet… Ma’ Granny isnae’ gettin’ a bed up the infirmary, she’s at death’s door Boss, I want her tae’ go in peace, that gaffer up there needs a word in his ear…

  And, he always tried to help, in any way that he possibly could.

  But, the day always came, surely, when those people were called upon to go back and see Arthur for a meeting; on his terms, non-negotiable. Because once indebted to a man like that, a favour is owed and it has to be called-in, eventually. Because, a job that needs doing has to get done, by somebody. Could be a package that needs delivering, a few kilos of cocaine or a few grands worth of ecstasy tabs. Money, that needs collecting. A lad on some shit-hole estate that needs a kicking. Or, a pub somewhere in town that needs a Molotov cocktail throwing through its front window.

  Could be any number of things.

  But, if the Godfather sent them on a job, they had to take care of it. Round up a crew and get it sorted, somehow. Whatever happened, though, he always protected his own. He put his neck out for them, in a way that no other Glasgow gangster would. On the street or in the jail, if you were associated with the McConnell crew, nobody was going to touch you, not unless they had a death wish.

  He was just as rich, too, as he was feared.

  Mafia rich.

  And money commands respect on the streets of a city like Glasgow.

  Fear.

  Plus, money.

  Plus, respect.

  Equals, power.

  Once you get the power, the rest is down to survival.

  You need to survive to thrive in the business of crime…

  That means being smart.

  Careful.

  Choosing your battles wisely.

  Most importantly, it meant relying on good information.

  Intelligence.

  Tip-offs from informants.

  The Godfather was always approachable. Open to a ‘sit-down’, so long as the visitors didn’t mind heavies in balaclavas aiming sawn-offs at their heads whilst an otherwise civilised conversation took place. Didn’t matter who they were or what estate they were from, Arthur would hear them out. Because nobody walked into Casa D’Oro unarmed without a damn good reason. The McLean brothers are gonna’ light up your Bentley after the Old Firm game, wae’ a hand grenade and a coupla’ AK-47’s… Paddy Boyle is gonna’ set about Fat Boy wae’ a meat cleaver, chop is heid’ aff’ fur’ puttin’ his wee sister oan’ the game… Big Boaby Campbell, a barman in one of yer’ pubs, he’s a grass, I saw him talkin’ tae’ the CID outside Central Station, handin’ over papers n’ stuff…

  If it was related to business or family security, they knew Arthur would gladly listen and pay. Some wanted cash, or a job. Others wanted protection. Whatever it was, if they were on the level and their stuff was solid, the McConnells would look after them, up to the point that they were the ones on the wrong end of the Chinese whispers, then they might be the ones winding up in the infirmary, laid up in a bed next to so-and-so’s Granny, tubes fed up their nostrils and drips all over the shot. Or worse, they could end up dead, swimming in the Clyde with a pair of concrete brogues. Or, at the wrong end of ‘Red Dot’ Richardson’s sniper rifle.

  That’s just the way things got done if you were dealing with Arthur McConnell.

  The Godfather wore a crisp white shirt and crimson red silk tie, beneath a bespoke Italian three-piece suit, a double-breasted pin stripe in winter grey.

  He never took the jacket off.

  A suit should be worn as a suit…

  Immaculately tailored it was, too. His pressed double-cuffs were visible jutting out from the jacket sleeves, adorned with gold and onyx cufflinks, engraved A.M.

  He stood, gazing out the window of his study, subconsciously pulling the cuffs neatly beneath the sleeves and adjusting the position of his lavish cufflinks.

  Another dour afternoon, frosty and miserable. A crunch echoed in the distance, tyres pressing over gravel stones. It commanded Arthur’s attention as he was patiently awaiting a visitor. He noticed the rumbling chug of a motor, as a vehicle appeared at the front of the house, an old Mercedes saloon. The car was a bit of a heap, on its last legs.

  Some might say it was ‘classic’ or ‘vintage’ but to Arthur it was just a heap.

  A well-made, indestructible German heap.

  It spewed exhaust fumes, swirling white clouds of icy fog that vanished in the chill December air.

  Johnny ‘Bear’ Townsley was on security detail, looking distinctly bearish in his KGB-style furry hat and a bomber jacket that boasted an extravagant faux-mink collar: his ‘winter rig’. He watched as Bear approached the car with his weapon drawn, a suppressed Glock-17. The driver rolled down his window and exchanged words with Bear, who gradually lowered his weapon, seemingly unthreatened.

  An Intercom unit buzzed from a mahogany desk, the study’s dominating feature, sparsely decorated with a MAC-10 sub-machine gun, a square-set ship’s decanter half-filled with Lagavulin whisky and a humungous crystal ashtray, occupied by a partially-smoked Honduran cigar; its aroma was infusing the air, just nicely.

  He sauntered back to the desk and pressed the push-to-talk key, activating the speaker-microphone unit that was a direct line to the front gate.

  “Boss?” a voice crackled from the speaker.

  “Bear, is that the Inspector?”

  “Aye, it is.”

  “Right, well send him up to the house. Don’t leave him hanging out there like a spare prick at a wedding.”

/>   “Aye, alright Boss, fair do’s.”

  He closed the call and, again, gazed out the window. Looking upwards to the caw of a winter crow, he hoped that it might be a good Omen, for the old gangster desperately needed help.

  Chapter 47

  Whisky & ghosts

  “Take a seat Mac, whisky?”

  “No, thanks, I’m aff’ the drink,” McGreavy said, settling in a brown leather Chesterfield wing chair and noticing a variety of guns and knives that were randomly placed around the room. McConnell was the original ‘old-school’ type of gangster and he would never change. But, he was a smart man, and the Inspector could sense that he needed help.

  “Aye? You love a drink though?”

  “Loved, Arthur, that’s all in the past. Truth is, I was visited recently by the spirit of a dead person, and they asked me to stop. So, I’ve stopped.”

  “Your wife?”

  The Inspector nodded.

  And the Godfather nodded back too with compassion and understanding, not for the dead wife, but for McGreavy’s capacity to connect with a supernatural dimension.

  “What’s it about, then, old boy?”

  “I want to share something with you.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “Someone is out to take me down, Mac. He’s killed two of my most important men - Ferris and Red Dot.”

  “I heard a rumour they’d both jumped town, or that they’d been abducted by a London crew.”

  Arthur took a brown A4-sized envelope and took two photographs out, placing them down on the side-table next to Mac. They were pictures presumably of The Bookkeeper and The Sniper, both laid out, unrecognisable having had their heads blown off.

  “Are these hits in any way connected to the murder of Fat Boy’s daughter?”

  “Aye, it’s all related…”

  “So, there is more…?”

  Something vibrated on the desk, not far from the sheath of a samurai sword.

  “Sorry, I need to take this,” Arthur halted the conversation and picked up his mobile to take the call. “What? No…I understand,” he glanced up at McGreavy, nervously. “I don’t want the Polis’ sniffing around…just get rid of the body…aye…and keep it clean, got it?” he cancelled the call and chucked his iPhone back onto the desk.

  “What’s the score, Arthur?”

  “Nothing,” it wasn’t nothing though - the old whore’s body had been found in a garbage tip outside the Oasis Sauna; torn and gutted, just like the last girl. The gangster bowed his head, fighting intrinsically with his own ‘code of silence’.

  “Tell me, for fuck sake.”

  “He’s killed another. It’s too late to do anything. But Irene is missing too, she’s a student at Glasgow Caledonian.”

  “Jesus Arthur, I thought you were smarter than this, I really did. What are you trying to prove?”

  “We take care of our own business, you know that.”

  “Fat Boy said he knows who the killer is, that he’s already dead. Would you care to elaborate?”

  “OK, Mac. I’m going against the grain here but if you can do anything to get that girl back then promise me you’ll keep it low-key. We need to catch Mad Dog and stop this. He’s gone too far this time.”

  “Frankie ‘Mad Dog’ Murdoch? He’s dead…”

  “Aye, exactly…”

  “Do you care to explain?”

  Arthur took a deep, long, defeated breath. “OK, you win, Mac. I’ll start from the beginning, shall I?”

  Arthur commenced, explaining how they’d come to learn back in 2004 that Mad Dog was the Hangman who’d raped and killed Richardson’s daughter. “He was living in his own little dream world, he worshipped the ground I walked on, see? Wanted to be my number one hitman. Wanted Red Dot to take the backseat and let him muscle-in on all the hits that needed doing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was a great admirer of Mad Dog’s work. You see, the boy just loved killing people…he loved murder…he was a real psycho…my kind of guy…but he’d been turned crazy by all the sexual abuse he’d suffered at home. He was a liability, you see?”

  “Aye.”

  “My boys, Mac, they were shit scared of him, although they’d never admit it. The Devil incarnate, that’s what they called him. I reckoned he was too. He is, should I say…”

  “But, the body they found…?”

  “What, just because that body had an identical tattoo? Ha, do me a favour Mac.”

  The Inspector took a deep breath and shook his head.

  “Look, Mac, watch this…” Arthur hit the play button on a plasma TV and ran some video footage of an unidentified man with Fat Boy’s kid. It was sick and twisted, but he watched it, persevering to see if the man would disclose his true identity. Then, it came: “OK, just peel off your pissy little cotton panties sweetheart, time for Mad Dog to see what a virgin retard really feels like,” Arthur paused the video.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry. But, there could be hundreds of guys with that nickname in Glasgow.”

  “No, Mac, it’s him. He even has the same crucifix tattoo, you can see it on the camera when he gets undressed.”

  The Inspector turned slowly and gazed back as Arthur paused the video once more, accepting it for the first time, that Mad Dog was indeed risen from the dead.

  Old Professor Sinclair had been right all along.

  “He suspected my lads of setting him up all those years ago and he’s out for vengeance…this is it…this is his payback…”

  “Right, well, the missing one and the dead girl at the Oasis, call them in Arthur. Let us deal with it and take Frankie down for you.”

  “The boys are already on the case. Mad Dog was always good at covering his tracks, not this time though. He has a place, where he takes the girls and kills them. The whore’s phone got left behind so we now know the location of his secret little Kill House.”

  “Let us do our job Arthur, I’ll see him put away for life.”

  “No chance Mac, life would be far too good for that devious little cunt. We’ll sort him out the McConnell way, with a proper Glasgow send-off.”

  Chapter 48

  The roasting of human flesh

  As emotions run high, we fail to see things clearly as they really are…

  Mad Dog watched from the comfort of his Land Rover as they approached his temporary abode - his Kill House.

  Three gangsters.

  Dressed in black.

  They jumped the back fence and swaggered up to the bungalow from the side. Razor, as always, led the pack and stealthily approached the door which he found ajar.

  It was a trap, but they were too foolish and headstrong to smell it.

  “Whit’s that noise?” Fat Boy whispered though the mouth-hole of his IRA-style ski-mask as they each listened with an ear at the door.

  The three men stood in the cool night breeze, not feeling any of the chill as their hearts thumped with adrenalin. They heard faint sounds, a female voice, whimpering and calling for help, like she was dying and being stabbed to death with a military-grade Commando knife. “Dad, please, help…don’t kill me, please…”

  Murdoch had made the tape whilst torturing the last girl and was playing it in the house through a stereo speaker. The voice belonged to a girl who was missing but already dead.

  It was all part of Mad Dog’s trap.

  The heavies took a moment to look at one another, each observing the determination in the other’s eyes, the intent to maim and kill. They shared a nod and took their weapons in hand, ready to rescue their girl and kill any living soul on the premises. Razor went first with a flash light, it was pitch black inside. Fat Boy followed and Dancer took the back foot with a Glock-17 on a side-to-side sweep. It was the gunman at the rear who closed the door behind them and activated the bomb. All three realised in the intrinsic eternity of a split second, they’d made a fatal error.

  A lapse of awareness.

  It was an easy trap and they’d been played like fools by a Master of the Game; schoole
d, good and proper.

  In the confined space of the small bungalow, they were torn and roasted, obliterated in a chaotic, fiery furnace of flesh, bone, cartilage and brain. Mixed with flammable gases, burned electrics, charred woods and random domestic materials the entire property exploded to a magnificent orange glow, alive with growing plumes of grey-black smoke.

  They burned like pigs at the midnight slaughter and Mad Dog drove off into the night, headed out the Mafia Mansion for his final abduction - the taking of the Godfather.

  Chapter 49

  The last crucifixion

  If you live by the cross, you die by the cross…

  The crucifix was around 8’5” tall and 6’ wide. It was well-made and sturdy, as was the tough old hoodlum who’d been nailed to it; he barely shed a tear.

  Mad Dog used Indonesian nails.

  Long ones with no head.

  He’d learned about nails in jail.

  Not for any specific reason, but stuff like that can come in handy some day, like when you decide to crucify an enemy. The feet were done with tape and he spared the gangster a barbed wire halo. Seeing how resistant he was to pain though, he should have made it more intense, ripped his scalp off with a straight razor and cut his face up a bit - some old school stuff - the sick old cunt probably would have appreciated it.

  “You remember this Church, Arthur?”

  “Aye, I do,” he spoke casually, like he was sitting in the park on a Sunday afternoon. He wasn’t though, he been stripped to his pants, nailed to a cross and put up by the back of an Old Parish Church.

  “Remember the guy? That old Miner that owed you money? I cut his balls off with a set of garden-shears from Homebase, then gouged his eyeballs out with a Swiss Army blade; remember?”

  “Aye,” Arthur chuckled. “I remember, you blasted him in the face with a shooter anyway,” the old man spoke with affection, “you just did all that other nasty stuff because you got off on it. I’d wanted to come and see you at work, to see if all the rumours were true.”