Authors: Christopher Brookmyre
Drummond stared at her for a long moment, leaning forward, both his forefingers and thumbs resting on his desk, little arches at the ends of his arms. Then he nodded and stood up straight again.
‘What’s important to remember about Bob Cairns is that the revelations about his criminal activities do not automatically suggest that everything he did was corrupt, or that all of his police work is automatically suspect.’
Catherine opened her mouth to acknowledge his point, but clearly it wasn’t her turn to speak yet. Far from it, in fact.
‘And although it in no way excuses any of the dreadful things he did, it remains true that Cairns would not have survived in the job as long as he did were it not for the fact that he was a highly competent investigator. Indeed, I worked with him, and indeed I learned a few things at his side but, like everybody else, I had no inkling about the other aspect of his character.’
He went on in that vein for a bit, laying it all down, speaking like he was the one who had called her here to talk about it. That was when something struck her about his manner, never having been one on one with him before: he spoke like he was giving a press conference. Everything he said was considered, neutral and precise. And as Moira said, it was always about him.
Catherine wondered what he was like with the wife of a morning, over breakfast.
‘What needs to be stressed about this coffee is that though the milk itself has turned, this in no way reflects upon the quality of
the beans, and should not be allowed to colour people’s impressions of the croissants or the jam.’
Catherine waited until the official statement on the DCC’s lack of contamination by Bob Cairns was over, before reminding him of what she was actually here to discuss.
‘Do you remember much about the case, sir?’
He glanced out of the window, a calculated pause to add gravity to his next pronouncement.
‘I remember
too
much about it. Even if it hadn’t been one of my first murder cases, I’m sure it would still have stuck. It was just one of those dreadful affairs, tragedy upon misery; no closure, just completion. A young woman was murdered, her family devastated. We got the killer, but there was no satisfaction in that. He confessed and the evidence was uncomplicatedly irrefutable, but nobody was buying trebles to celebrate a result, you know? I mean, we’ve both had cases where you feel it in the gut, almost a sense of elation that you put the bastard away, but this wasn’t one of them.’
He looked down at his desk, regret weighing heavy upon his features. She could only spy it from a certain angle, but it was the most human emotion she had ever seen on his face.
‘Sheehan died in prison a few years later, did you know that?’ he asked.
She answered with a nod.
‘There were conflicting accounts, rumours it was a suicide,’ he stated quietly. ‘I don’t think it matters either way: it was one tragedy compounding another.’
When he raised his head again, he was composed once more, back in press-conference mode.
‘Should he have been in the general prison population? A place like Bailliehall? I don’t think so. Was he competent to make that confession? I’m not sure; it wouldn’t even be procedurally legal these days and a competent lawyer would be able to drive a coach and horses through the whole thing. Did we get the right man? Absolutely. That was the only consolation. It was as nailed on as the one you’re dealing with now, with Fullerton and this Fallan character. How is that coming along, by the way?’
‘Well, sir, our efforts right now are centred on what Fullerton might have done to precipitate his death, which is why I’m here. We know he visited Sheehan’s sister Brenda, and he was at the Mitchell Library looking up old press reports of the murder. To that end, can you think of any reason why Fullerton might have been interested in the Julie Muir case?’
He was shaking his head before she finished speaking.
‘I honestly can’t. There was no gangland connection, so—’
‘Unless you count Bob Cairns,’ she interjected, instantly regretting it.
Drummond didn’t bite, though. Rather, he looked like he was considering it.
‘I still can’t see where it would fit together,’ he said. ‘Was there any other link between Fullerton and Brenda Sheehan? And how lucid is she, these days? That was another tragic element to the whole mess: the poor woman was—’
‘She’s dead, sir.’
Drummond looked shaken. He was a man used to pretending nothing was news to him, even as he was learning it, but his gifts were failing him now.
‘But you just said Fullerton . . .’
‘We found her two days ago. She had choked on her own vomit. The autopsy hasn’t been completed yet, but I think she was murdered. She hadn’t touched a drop in years, but her house was staged to make it look like she was back on the drink with a vengeance.’
Drummond put a hand to his mouth. There were no prepared statements to be read out on this one.
He turned away and gazed out of the windows. He didn’t want to look at her, and quite possibly didn’t want to be seen right now either. Catherine had feared raising the spectre of Bob Cairns, but now Drummond looked haunted by a different ghost.
This press conference was over.
All the Small Things
Glen often heard murders or other acts of violence attributed to gang wars, drug wars and turf wars. Indisputably, gangs, drugs and territory were factors in these incidents, but they were never the primary cause. In Glasgow, folk didn’t plan ahead when it came to bloodshed. They didn’t go in for campaigns and strategies. Vendettas, yes. Feuds, absolutely. Tit for tat. Grudges. Vengeance. There were wars of attrition that could span decades and even generations, but they were never over anything so abstract as a commodity. It was always personal. Always petty.
Petty. From the French
petit
, meaning small. Small things, small men. It was said that a person was only as big as the smallest thing that annoyed them, and no matter how high they climbed, none of the criminals Glen knew was ever bigger than the most trivial slight. None of them was ever wise enough, secure enough, to just walk away. When they went to war, no matter how history dressed it up, ultimately it was over their own fragile egos.
Pish wars. That’s what they truly were, but that didn’t read so well in the newspapers and the true-crime best-sellers.
Looking back, it was inevitable that Stevie Fullerton and Tony McGill were going to clash. Stevie was as ruthless as he was ambitious, and while he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to make an enemy of Tony, if Tony got between Stevie and what he wanted Stevie would never have been shy of the fight. Tony, for his part, had that endemic Glaswegian affliction whereby he just hated seeing somebody else getting on. The sight of somebody younger and sharper, making plans and making money, bothered him more than losing money himself or his own plans going awry. Their interests didn’t need to run contrary in order for Tony to feel threatened. He was a middle-aged man still kidding himself that
he was in his prime, that the best was yet to come, and everything he saw in Stevie told him otherwise.
Stevie bought a pub over in Croftbank, where he grew up. This was when Glen began to understand what he meant when he said there were things you couldn’t buy with a sports bag full of fivers. He had already got the lease on Nokturn, but he wanted bricks and mortar. He was empire-building, and starting close to home.
Too close to Tony’s home.
Croftbank was three miles along the dual carriageway from Gallowhaugh, past Shawburn and closer to the city. The pub was called the Bleacher’s Vaults, where Stevie had been drinking since he was old enough and bold enough to get served, and which had latterly functioned as his unofficial HQ.
The official licensee was still Donny Lawson, the same guy whose name had been on the paper for a decade, but both the business and the premises were separately owned by Stevie through two shell companies, one of which also owned the ‘company’ that owned his car-wash business.
Stevie moved his money like a magician working the cup-and-balls routine: just when you thought you knew what he’d done with it, you realised he was up to something else. A pub, being largely a cash-only business, was another good way of turning dirty money into legitimately accounted profits, but the car wash was still adequate for what Stevie needed laundered at that stage. Clearly, he anticipated having larger revenue streams to process in the very near future.
Maybe Tony understood these ramifications and maybe he didn’t. Either way, he decided to put down a marker by offering to supply the Bleacher’s Vaults with spirits. He was sleekit about it too: sent his new bag man, Arthur, to talk to Donny Lawson, who was happy enough to meet the prices being quoted.
This was how it got murky, entirely in keeping with Tony’s intentions. Some might say he was disrespectful in going behind Stevie’s back rather than talking to him directly, but Tony could claim he was according Stevie a certain status by showing that he regarded purchases such as this as matters for their respective
underlings to deal with. However, this latter interpretation overlooked the widespread understanding that Tony ‘offering’ drink to a pub or a restaurant made a very strong statement about the nature of his relationship with that establishment’s proprietor.
Egotism. Pettiness. Pish.
Tony wasn’t trying to do Stevie a favour or work out a mutually beneficial arrangement; nor was he struggling for outlets for his supplies of smuggled and stolen drink. He was telling him: know your place.
Equally, it was in Stevie’s gift to humour the older man, take his cheap booze and let him kid himself he was the Gallowhaugh Godfather if he wanted to. Stevie didn’t need to make Tony an enemy until he
was
an enemy, and that was how Stevie played it – on the surface at least. In reality, by dipping his fingers into his business Tony had not only infuriated Stevie but had inadvertently made it clear that he would present an obstacle to his ambitions.
Stevie said nothing about the booze Tony was supplying. He appeared to take it in his stride, even inviting Tony to the Bleacher’s Vaults for the official Under New Management re-opening party, where he gave him all the deference the older man felt he was due. Stevie played the part of the eager and ambitious up-and-comer, a man with plans and new ideas but who knew he could still learn from a master like Tony.
In fact, the party was an appropriately auspicious occasion for him to break the news of an opportunity that could vastly benefit both of them.
‘It’s early days, and I could be getting ahead of myself, but I think I might – might, okay? – be on to a supplier.’
They were sitting in a horse-shoe booth in the main lounge, Stevie gulping a pint of lager, Tony sipping malt poured from a bottle of twenty-one-year-old stuff that his host had presented to him. Glen was standing close by, holding a can of Irn-Bru. He didn’t drink alcohol and he didn’t much like pubs, but Stevie had invited him along. As ever, he blended into the background: saw more than was seen, listened far more than he spoke. He may have been the only observer to read the true significance of Stevie’s gift
to Tony, having previously heard him disparagingly refer to whisky as ‘an old man’s drink’.
‘A supplier? Of what?’ Tony inquired, trying to sound only mildly curious.
‘H.’
Tony nodded, then a strained look came across his face, the expression of someone who has seen this lassie flash her knickers a few times but never given up the goods.
‘It’s not local,’ Stevie went on. ‘No pre-cut bags of powder you’d be better off sticking in your washing machine. This stuff’s coming off a boat pure. That’s the problem, in fact. I’ve not quite got my foot in the door because I’m not quoted. I can raise the money, but these guys are looking at the big picture and they’re not interested in doing one-off deals with second-division outfits. Not only is it piecemeal, it’s risky for them too, because I could be anybody. I could be polis. They want regular purchases and they want names they can trust. Names that carry weight. So what I’ve got to ask you, Tony, very politely, with lots of very pretty pleases, is whether I can give yours.’
It was a couple of weeks before Stevie was able to report back; time enough for Tony to grow sceptical over whether Stevie knew where this door even was, never mind his chances of getting his foot inside it.
‘That boy says more than his prayers,’ was how he put it, his growing impatience and disappointment betraying how much he wanted to believe Stevie’s claims.
Eventually, though, Stevie made a trip to Liverpool and returned with a sample. Tony wouldn’t have known pure from Persil, but for a man who had ‘fought to keep drugs out of Gallowhaugh’ he wasn’t long in getting it into the hands of someone who could analyse it for him.
The quality was verified, the price deemed acceptable and – eventually – the split agreed. Stevie was fronting eighty grand, Tony a hundred and sixty, with the merchandise to be divided seventy-thirty in Tony’s favour. Stevie was authorised once again
to make representation and confirm arrangements down south. However, this time when he returned, there was a major stumbling block.
‘They’re jumpy,’ Stevie reported. ‘They’re about ninety per cent ready to back out. They say they’re getting polis vibes from somewhere. My contact says they can be like this; reckons they’re paranoid because they’ve never dealt with anyone in Glasgow before.’
‘I thought you said my name would carry weight?’ Tony protested.
‘Aye, a wee bit too much as it turns oot. The problem is, the name Tony McGill is synonymous with . . .’
Tony looked white as he faced the prospect of several decades’ worth of chickens – or should that be stoolpigeons – coming home to roost.
‘Polis? They’re getting a polis vibe off
my name
?’
‘I’m no’ saying that,’ Stevie corrected hurriedly. ‘But you’ve carved a fair old reputation for keeping drugs off your turf, and let’s just say they’re finding it difficult to believe you’re willing to buy.’
Tony sighed with frustration, and no doubt a modicum of relief. It was a misunderstanding: that was all. Nothing that couldn’t be cleared up, especially if—
‘What if I spoke to them myself? Can you set that up?’
‘I can ask,’ was all Stevie could promise.
Six days later, Tony travelled down to Liverpool with Stevie, accompanied by Glen for security and Arthur for his counsel. Arthur had moved up the pecking order a couple of years back, when Walter and a headcase called Sweenzo both got found shot dead in a field in Ayrshire.
Glen drove, at the wheel of Tony’s Jag. They met Stevie’s contact in a pub on Chapel Street and he led them to a warehouse at Waterloo Dock. There were three other vehicles outside: two Granadas and a Merc. The place was disused, the dock itself in its dying days. It looked to Glen like the kind of place they always filmed the showdown scene in
The Sweeney
. When they got inside, this impression was further enhanced by the sight of two blokes
standing at the foot of an iron staircase packing semi-automatic rifles: HKs, serious kit.
They exchanged uneasy nods of recognition with Stevie’s contact, a Mancunian named Sammy who asked the Glaswegian quartet to wait while he went upstairs. He returned a tense and silent few minutes later, and announced that Tony, and Tony alone, could go upstairs.
Tony looked to Stevie, as though seeking assurance that this was the standard procedure.
‘I’ve never been here,’ Stevie confessed quietly. ‘Never even seen these guys. I told you: I’m not quoted.’
Tony glanced at the hardware momentarily, then a stony composure settled upon his face before he mounted the stairs. There followed another long, silent and increasingly tense wait, until the sound of laughter rang out from above, replacing the indistinct hum of guarded voices.
Tony emerged after another half an hour, leading them wordlessly back onto the broken-cobbled street.
Glen opened the Jaguar’s rear door for him, keeping an eye on the warehouse entrance. Sammy came out not far behind, heading back to his Chrysler Sunbeam as Tony climbed into the back of the Jag.
Tony waited until everyone was inside and the doors all closed before making his announcement.
‘It’s on. Two weeks’ time. They’ll contact Stevie with the time and location, but it’s me that has to make the buy personally. Just this first time, they said. After that they’ll deal with Stevie.’
‘Ya dancer,’ Stevie declared. ‘You are some man, Tony. You are some man.’
Tony just smiled with quiet satisfaction, contemplating his bright new future all the way back up the road.