Glasgow Noir Box Set

by Gavin Graham

  “Rumours?”

  “Aye, they were all saying what an evil, demonic bastard you were, spawn of The Devil and all that. A total psychopath, my boys said you were. Well, those types of people are always on my radar,” Arthur spoke with pride and admiration in his voice, it was a messed-up situation. “Problem is though,” he continued now, with a more spiteful tone of voice, “when they come back and fuck you over for no good reason.”

  “No good fucking reason? You see, you saying that Arthur is such an insult, losing fourteen years of my life in that fucking jail may be nothing to you but not for me…” he took a pool cue from behind a small tree. The cue tip had been chopped off and the pointy edge filed down into an ultra-sharp spear, deadlier than a blade, and Arthur was about to get it in the chest. “You ready to die then, ya’ auld bastard?”

  The Godfather just smiled with arrogance, much like Mad Dog had done in court when his sentence had been passed. He raised his head defiantly, stuck up there on his crucifix, naked and freezing in the cold night air. “Come ahead ya’ wee dick,” he said.

  The two men were more alike than they’d ever know.

  Mad Dog ran up and stuck it into his body with full-force; it was almost tribal. The spear went in at the solar plexus and the old boy groaned like he’d been punched in the stomach. The blood poured as a perfect downward river, slight streams braking off around the sides of the ribcage. He was just lunging there with his eyes half-closed.

  “So, any last words, from the illustrious Godfather?”

  He managed a smile. “Aye, it wasn’t my lads who set you up for that assault, it was your sister.”

  “What did you say?”

  “It was your sister…” the lights went out and Arthur died on the cross.

  Chapter 50

  Revelations

  Life is a curious mystery, at the best, and at the worst of times…

  The word of Arthur’s demise had spread pretty quick and was on the front pages of all the papers: CRIME FAMILY KILLED IN MASS EXECUTION - GANGLAND MURDERS ACROSS THE CITY - GLASGOW GODFATHER CRUCIFIED.

  The big question on everybody’d mind was - who was going to take over?

  ‘Machinegun’ Jack?

  ‘Vlad’ the Russian?

  Only the painful passing of time, and the inevitable spilling of blood on the streets, would tell…

  It was a cool, wet day.

  Depressive.

  A persistent layer of mist was persevering around Glasgow’s Mafia Mansion, like it was nature’s way of mourning the crime lord’s crucifixion.

  The Inspector drove his German ‘heap’ right up to the main entrance of Casa D’Oro. He stopped the car abruptly and it jolted ever-so-slightly as he set the parking brake. He kept the engine running, with the heaters blowing hot air and dust.

  As before, ‘Bear’ Townsley drew his weapon as if looking to blow off some steam, and walked up to the driver’s window. “What you wantin’?” he asked the DCI, his gun aimed at McGreavy’s head.

  “Put that fucking thing down or I’ll make sure you regret it for the brief remainder of your short-lived life,” the Inspector barked, grinding his teeth with contempt. “Got it, Son?”

  Bear lowered his weapon.

  “Good, thank you. A few questions, if I may? Did you catch any sight whatsoever of the man who abducted Arthur?”

  “No, he hit from behind, I went out cold.”

  “Did you see anything strange, sense anything, smell anything…?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not much of a security expert then, are you?”

  “Why are you here, Inspector?” Bear was losing his patience, grudgingly.

  “I’m led to believe the old man was meeting with some kind of psychiatric counsellor…you must have known about it Bear, you see every person that comes and goes here.”

  The security man took a deep breath and looked up to the house, to the window where Arthur would stand, staring down, awaiting a visitor as he fiddled with his cuffs. Like he was seeing his ghost, still standing there. “Aye,” he said, as if somehow defeated. Deflated. “The whole thing was kinda’ top secret, nobody was supposed to know that Arthur was losing his marbles, having some kind of a mental breakdown. You know what a’ mean?”

  The Inspector nodded, he’d always felt that Arthur and he were perhaps similar creatures, kindred spirits on opposite sides of the fence. Haunted men with emotional baggage that nobody else would understand. Both tormented by ghosts of the dead, for Arthur it was those he’d killed, for McGreavy it was those he hadn’t saved.

  “A sign of weakness like that…” Bear continued, “…is not good for business, makes us look vulnerable. Who knows, maybe somebody worked it out, and they used it against us. Targeting those girls, specifically, it was mental torture. Sending photos of Ferris and Richardson with their faces shot off. Porno videos of the killer interfering with those poor girls, especially with that young lassie, the Down Syndrome one. It really got to us all, but especially Arthur. Then his three boys getting burnt to death in that cottage, just before he killed him, the final nail in Arthur’s coffin. Or, crucifix, should I say. He wouldn’t even have wanted to live after his boys got roasted like that. He’d have topped himself. That’s what I reckon, Inspector.”

  “This counsellor…”

  “More of a confidant, you could say…”

  “Like, a friend?”

  “Well, I always had my suspicions that she was much more than a friend.”

  Mac’s gaze trailed up in slow motion, as if following a uniform swarm of imaginary fairies, all the way up to where Bear looked down. “She? The counsellor was a woman?”

  “Well, aye, a bit of a looker too. She drives around in a red Mini Cooper.”

  The Inspector frowned with focussed concentration, as if attempting to decipher a complex mathematical equation.

  In the distance, a small red car had stopped, a woman at the wheel.

  Music played, fast and noisy, and she tapped a high-heeled toe lightly upon the accelerator pedal. She looked out carefully to the entrance of the McConnell residence, using a small set of binoculars, and carefully set the focus with a steady hand until the blurry image became clear.

  She saw Bear and a visitor in a car.

  She studied the vehicle.

  She knew fine well who it belonged to. Without hesitation, the short-haired woman in the leather skirt pulled a swift U-turn and drove off in the opposite direction.

  Chapter 51

  Evil in the blood

  Never underestimate a person’s capacity for betrayal and deceit…

  Mad Dog was sat outside his sister’s block of flats, waiting patiently with heavy eyes and aching limbs. He felt light-headed and hadn’t slept well, waking up at 3 am, shivering with a feverish chill.

  “Do one thing for me,” she’d said. “Don’t ever turn up at my home uninvited, OK? Just call first and arrange something, promise?”

  “Aye, Sis, nae’ bother,” he’d assured her.

  Something wasn’t right though, Arthur McConnell may have been many things but a liar wasn’t one of them. So, for him to say something like that, on his death bed? It had to be taken seriously.

  He waited and waited until eventually a red Mini Cooper pulled up and parked on the kerb, right outside her house. A woman got out in high heels and a mini skirt, looking like a prostitute. He wondered who it was, till she turned around to look up and down the street. He took a second take and his jaw dropped - it was Jane, his sister. “What the…?” he muttered, lost in repudiation.

  As soon as she was in her front door, Mad Dog got out and approached the humble abode, like a man who was going to commit murder.

  Something wasn’t right.

  He needed answers.

  Three abrupt knocks and she came to answer the door. “Frankie, what the heck are you doing here? I told you not to…”

  “Aye, I know you did, but I’m here now and I think we need to have a brother-to-sister chat�
��” he said, matter-of-factly, barging in past her.

  She put on a brew and they sat on the couch with hot cups of tea.

  “Are you sick, or something? You look like death, seriously…”

  “I’m fine,” Frankie said, staring at her. From her silky, shiny hair, all the way down to her long legs and sexy high heels. It was wrong, but he was feeling aroused in her presence.

  She looked like a different person.

  Like a whore.

  An adulteress.

  He was now imagining how it would feel to have sex with his own sister and the confused mix of emotions made him feel very uncomfortable.

  She noticed how he was looking at her and she smiled; a dominant and empowered smile that was sensual and dangerous.

  “Look, I know you’re up to no good, but you’re still my sister. I just need to know the truth, OK? I’m not going to kill you.”

  “You really want the truth?”

  “Aye.”

  “OK, Frankie, it was me who set you up for Charlene Ferguson’s attempted murder. It was me who attacked her and I put you in the frame.”

  He shook his head with rejection and wonder. “Why, Sis, why would you do that, tell me?”

  “I had plans, Frankie. Big plans. Plans that were bigger than you and bigger than Glasgow.”

  “What bloody plans…?”

  “It was about fifteen years ago now. Christmas time, 2003. I was standing at a bus stop one night when I got chatted up by this Russian guy. A business type. Charming, too, he was. He asked if he could walk me home and I said yes. On the way, a couple of wee neds gave us some lip. Vladimir put all three of them in hospital that night, punched the crap out of them, one of them almost died. He reminded me of you, to be honest, still does.”

  “Still does?”

  “Aye. That night, he took me to a hotel and we had sex. It was the best night of my life and my first real experience of lust and passion. Do you know what that feels like?”

  He nodded, sombrely.

  Yes, Frankie had felt that, but he’d killed the woman whose touch he’d lusted for.

  “He made me feel so empowered, this mysterious man that had appeared from nowhere on the pavement, and we became lovers. I came to find that he was ambitious, like you. A ruthless businessman. A gangster. He wanted to be the ruler of Glasgow and take over from the McConnell family; that has always been our main goal. He wanted me to be his girl, to be there by his side as he took power, but we had to set you up and get you sent to prison.”

  “Why?”

  “First, I had to keep the whole thing secret and somehow get close to Arthur. Secondly, I knew that if you suspected the McConnell family of framing you that you would strike back and eliminate them. And, you did. You took your revenge, so the plan worked, and now Vlad has a shot at becoming the next Crime Lord of Glasgow.”

  “Devious fucking cunts…”

  “Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?” she looked at him, no longer as a brother, but as an enemy.

  “And, what do you mean about getting close to Arthur, were you fucking him too?”

  “Well, you know that I work in the field of counselling, well I work in the field of psychiatric counselling. I worked, in total confidentiality, with Arthur. He told me things in professional discretion, private things. About his feelings. Insecurities. Fears. All the time, I was relaying information back to the Russians. Snooping around and taking stuff here and there. Planting bugs and eavesdropping on his business dealings.”

  “You are a spy for the Russian mafia? And, you set me up for attempted murder? Is this real, or, am I having some kind of a twisted nightmare?”

  “It’s real, Frankie, and I don’t regret it.”

  Mad Dog frowned, showing his evil eyes. He was trembling and looked like he might pounce on her at any moment and choke her to death with a firm grip. Somehow, he was able to control himself. He took a deep and controlled breath. “You are evil…an evil cunt.”

  “Waw, look who’s talking? Look, I know you’re not going to hurt me, because I can see the way that you are looking at me,” she stood up slowly and began to unzip her tight leather miniskirt.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Sis?”

  “What does it look like?” she eased the skirt down over her hips and it fell to the floor. She unbuttoned her blouse and that came off too. “Look at you, you are practically eating me with your eyes. When was the last time you were intimate with a woman, Frankie? Have you ever been intimate with a woman?”

  He was breathing heavy and his face flushed hot and red, no more chills. His heart was beating like a pipe band drum and he felt his biceps as they trembled uncontrollably.

  “It’s OK, Francis, let me show you how it can be. The right way. Do you want to touch me?” she watched as his chest heaved and she slipped a hand down into her panties, to touch herself. She wanted it, badly, always had done. She had an inclination too that her brother was now on the same track; two runaway trains on a head-on collision course.

  It was going to happen, she felt it.

  “I only know one way, Sis. The hard way. I’ve never experienced sex the way that normal people do it. For me, it’s like how it was with Dad, I just do it for the violation and the control. The sheer deviance of it. You know what a’ mean?”

  “I do Frankie, it turns me on, I know you’re a monster. I love you, you’re my very own brotherly monster. Do you want to rape me?”

  “Yeah…is that what you want?”

  She was probing with a finger, deep inside her own body.

  She moaned and whimpered.

  Flames of need, for the sordid act - incest - burned in her eyes.

  Mad Dog sprung to his feet and clenched a fist around her throat. He walked her across the room, put her over the dining table and slammed the side of her face down against its hard glass surface.

  She squealed and yelped.

  It was difficult to comprehend.

  Pleasure, or pain?

  Fear, or excitement?

  Or, all of the above?

  “Stay down bitch and don’t move until I’m done, got it?”

  “Yes, Dad, I understand,” she said obediently, her voice suddenly sounding younger and more innocent, as if she was transgressing into the past and her days of abuse at the hands of her own father.

  “Keep it in the family, eh?” her father had told her when he’d abused her for the first time and he’d left her to lay on the bed, crying with confusion and an odd feeling of guilt, like it was somehow her fault.

  Mad Dog growled like the animal he was. “You’re going to die,” he said as he came inside her back-end.

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “I won’t hurt you…” he said, jerking violently inside her, grinding himself into her till the very end, “…but the virus will. I’m HIV-positive…” he whispered and began to laugh as he pulled himself out and watched her slump to the floor.

  In tears.

  In pain.

  Violated, the way she had been used and abused as a child.

  “I fucked this whore in Bangkok, see, and she passed on the virus. I’ve got all the symptoms. I’ve got it. I know I have.”

  The sister lay face down, hair strewn across the floor as her body heaved.

  She wept, in chugging splutters, sobbing pathetically.

  She slammed her fists against the carpet and tried to scream. “You are The Devil, Francis, The Devil incarnate! May God have mercy on your twisted fucking soul…”

  Well, I suppose I will discover the Lord’s mercy sooner rather than later. This little charade is over now, Sis. I’ve achieved all that I wanted to do in this miserable excuse for a life. The only thing that kept me alive over the years was a primitive need for vengeance, that’s how karma works, is it not? We all get what’s coming, in the end. Like us. You will die. I will die. We will all die,” he concluded and began to walk from the room.

  “Where are you going?”
>
  “Up to the roof,” he replied, casually.

  He was going to jump.

  Neither of them had noticed, but as that sordid act of sexual deviance had played out, a man had been watching them from the front window.

  It was Vlad - the Russian.

  He’d decided to retreat and not get involved. He had also done something that strongly went against the better side of his criminal nature - he’d dialled 999 and reported an act of domestic violence to the Police.

  Chapter 52

  A spike in The Devil’s chest

  You can’t beat death, as the Reaper waits in the shadow…

  When the call came in about a violent incident at the residence of one Jane Murdoch, McGreavy and his team were already en-route to question the woman who was now believed to have been a confidant to the late Godfather.

  “Any update?” he asked Siobhan as she floored the pedal, tyres screeching, swerving around traffic like a lunatic.

  “He’s on the roof.”

  “A jumper, eh?”

  “Looks like it. You know, I always thought it was Sinclair, my old buddy that was the Godfather’s counsellor. I never would have pieced this puzzle together in a thousand years.”

  “Well, the story isn’t over yet, Boss. We’ve yet to see the grand finale…”

  As they pulled up on the kerb, they saw him with his back to the wind - the Man with the Crucifix Tattoo - arms out to his sides and head down, like a silent depiction of Jesus nailed to the Cross; he was going to end it on his terms.

  As they got out the car, he turned around as if in slow motion and smiled down at them with his evil eyes. It was an iconic moment; an unsung hymn of sober rectitude echoed in a wind that was almost unfelt.