Authors: Chris Brookmyre
‘Do you remember their names?’ Laura asked, notepad at the ready.
‘Sure,’ Audrey replied. ‘There was Ciara Flanigan. That’s C-I-A not K-E-I. She was training to be a teacher. Somebody said she’s at Croftbank High, back where she started. And the other one, I don’t know what happened to her. Her name was Yvonne Sharp.’
Catherine and Laura looked straight at each other, utterly failing to keep their responses inconspicuous.
There had been a power outage cutting the streetlights along Shawburn Boulevard. It made the Old Croft Brasserie stand out like a beacon, the floods illuminating its car park apparently fed off a private source. Through the windows Jasmine could see that the place was full, as though the reservations had piled up and the diners been hovering impatiently during its temporary closure.
It was a different crowd from the private function the other morning, fair to say. All that money and effort cultivating an image and a reputation for her restaurant: Sheila knew implicitly what the people she was pitching for wanted, what they expected, how they dressed, how they conducted themselves. Stevie’s crowd were so not it. She wondered how Sheila felt whenever a party of them pitched up of an evening, and how good she was at hiding it.
Jasmine could see her as she stepped though the double doors. She was in hostess mode, showing a party of four to their table, two staff in close attendance to take coats and hand out menus. She was in a neat black shift dress, her appearance smart but not flashy, as though she knew she had to look good for her clients but not more dressed up than they were. Her hair and make-up evidenced time and care, flattering but not overdone. She looked in her element: busy, genial, authoritative; the hostess into whose care the diners eagerly delivered themselves, as much the face of the business as the hot-shot chef was the driving force.
How many of the clientele would know she had just been widowed, or under what circumstances? How many would now be aware that she had been married to a notorious Glasgow crime boss?
There was certainly no evidence of a morally motivated boycott. Maybe it was like Starbucks: the product on offer was sufficiently tempting that most punters would rather swallow their principles than go without swallowing the fare they had come to crave.
Jasmine watched her smiling, like the place had been shut for a few days over a burst pipe. Nobody at any of the tables would have a clue how she really felt. She couldn’t hide it from Jasmine, though. She hadn’t finished her drama training, but she was enough of an actress to recognise when another one was practising her art.
Jasmine waited to be noticed, standing next to the corralled station where the bookings ledger and the phone sat next to a computer running the table-management and billing systems. A waitress glanced her way, burdened by a tray of plates, looking around to see if someone else could help. She spoke, directing her boss’s attention.
The mask failed for just a second, a look of concern flashing across Sheila’s face, followed by a brief glimpse of the defensive aggression that had greeted Jasmine previously. Then the hostess was back, calm and politely approachable, albeit not smiling.
‘I’m afraid we’re full,’ she said, breezily apologetic, as though she’d never seen Jasmine before. ‘And unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to offer you anything for the foreseeable future,’ she added, making play of flipping through the ledger.
‘I get the message,’ Jasmine told her. ‘But I just have to ask you one question, and then I’ll leave you alone.’
‘As you can see, we’re extremely busy just now, and I don’t have time to—’
‘One question,’ Jasmine repeated. ‘Woman to woman, nobody else party to the conversation.’
This time, Sheila got the message.
‘And what would that question be?’
‘What makes you think Glen Fallan didn’t kill your husband?’
In keeping with the complexity of the overtures, the buy was no straightforward handover.
‘I told you they were jumpy bastards,’ Stevie told Tony. ‘They’ll accept the payment from me, but they’ll only hand the merchandise to you. I hand over the cash, and once it’s verified they make a call and authorise their man to release the goods to you. Separate locations, that’s the way they like it.’
‘Why?’
‘Means if anybody’s picked up a tail there’s no transaction for the polis to witness. Plus it means no mad rocket gets tempted to try blowing everybody away and walking off with the gear
and
the cash.’
‘So how does that work? You just hand over a case full of money at point A and hope they’re nice enough to return the favour to me at point B? What if they just take a gun to you and piss off with two hundred and forty large while I stand there like a fanny waiting for a bus?’
Tony seemed to think he was the wise old head outlining a legitimate concern. He didn’t realise that even his fears were based on his limited perspective and obsolete thinking.
‘Do you think pulling something like that would be worth the grief to these guys?’ Stevie asked him. ‘For the sake of less than a quarter mill? They’ve got half a dozen buyers giving them that kind of money four and five times a year. This is big-time, Tony.’
‘Well, if you’re happy enough, fine. It’s you that’s taking the risk, and just so we’re clear, it’s you that’s liable for the money if anything goes wrong.’
Stevie assured Tony that nothing would, but nonetheless requested that Glen accompany him to his end of the handover rather than Tony’s. It was a request to which Tony was more than content to accede. Indeed, before the two vehicles set off on their respective runs, Tony took Glen aside and made sure he understood his job.
‘Protect my money,’ he told him. ‘That chancer’s expendable – my money isnae. If this goes bad, the debt is his, but if he doesnae make it, the debt is yours. Get me?’
Glen thumbed his lapels, letting Tony see the Steyr nine-mill he had recently added to his arsenal.
‘Got you.’
Stevie seemed very nervous throughout the drive. He kept checking his watch and was equally attentive towards the rear-view mirror of his MR2 to make sure Tony and Arthur were still following in the Jag. It was an utterly uncomfortable ride for Glen all round, as he felt like a deckchair folded up inside the cramped little Toyota.
Both cars stopped at a service area outside St Helens for a final check by payphone that everything was still on. The call lasted mere seconds, just a formality. Stevie simply said ‘Yeah, it’s me, we’re set,’ then paused a moment before responding: ‘Okay.’
They had an hour to kill, so the four of them grabbed a coffee and a fry-up, then got in their cars and went their separate ways, to their very different fates.
Tony and Arthur returned to the warehouse at Waterloo Dock for the pick-up, while Stevie’s drop was supposed to be at Lime Street station: public but anonymous, and close to payphones for the authorisation.
Stevie barely uttered a word after leaving the services, which struck Glen as all the more uncharacteristic for a guy with his gab. It wasn’t every day you drove around with that kind of cash in your motor, right enough, to say nothing of what the goods would be worth in the long run. Still Stevie kept glancing at the time – all the more, in fact, now that he couldn’t alternate it with checking Tony and Arthur were still around.
Stevie pulled his MR2 into a multi-storey and switched off the engine. He sat restlessly, fingers fidgeting, then eventually turned the engine back on so that he could listen to his Simple Minds cassette. His face seemed a little pale, but more noticeable was the fact that the tips of his ears were glowing red, like he’d been outdoors in freezing wind and just come inside to the warm. He stared out of the windscreen at nothing in particular, his fingers now occupied by tapping a rhythm, and seemed to drift away in his thoughts.
Glen checked the clock himself after a while, and noticed that the appointed drop time was only two minutes away.
‘Shouldn’t we be getting a shift on?’ he asked.
Stevie came out of his reverie with a start, then looked again at the clock.
He nodded, almost reluctantly, where Glen would have expected him to spring out of the vehicle.
They walked around to the station, Glen keeping a vigilant watch fore and aft for anything amiss, not least some chancer of a bag-snatcher who might score the spawniest grab of his life.
‘I don’t see Sammy,’ Glen observed, scanning the concourse.
Stevie said nothing, just checked the time yet again and led Glen towards a bank of payphones, where they stood in wait.
They waited two minutes, which became five, which became seven, ten.
Glen kept scanning the entrances, but Stevie only had eyes for the clock. That was when Glen realised that Stevie wasn’t really expecting to meet anybody.
He was about to ask what was going on when one of the payphones began to ring. Stevie dived across to answer it, giving fright to some old dear who had been approaching the thing when it went off.
‘It’s me,’ was all he said.
He stood there gripping the handset, listening intently, his eyes focused on some indeterminate point, a relegated sense.
Stevie listened for only a few seconds, then replaced the handset gently, as though it or the cradle might shatter. He placed a hand on the silver trunk of the payphone, steadying himself, then let out a slow sigh before straightening up.
‘Are we okay?’ Glen asked.
Stevie just nodded, the tiniest tremor of his head, then began to walk away.
‘What’s up? I thought you said we were okay?’
‘Not here. I’ll tell you in the motor.’
Stevie was sweating by the time they were both back inside the MR2, and not from the exertion of a brief walk. His breathing was weird too: he kept letting out these protracted exhales. His hands were gripping the steering wheel even though the engine was off, and Glen could see his pulse ripple the skin on the inside of his right wrist. The guy’s heart was thumping.
‘What’s the script?’ he asked. ‘Why did the drop not happen? Is it still on?’
Stevie swallowed, then turned to face Glen.
‘Tony and Arthur have been lifted,’ he told him.
Glen felt something tighten inside him, a sense of danger, a fear of being trapped. He always felt a twinge of this when he heard someone he knew had been arrested, but this was pure-strain.
‘On their way to the warehouse? What for?’
‘Naw.
Inside
the warehouse. There was a raid.’
‘A raid? So the filth
were
on to these other guys? Nae wonder they said they were getting a polis vibe. Tony and Arthur will be fine, though,’ Glen reasoned. ‘They never made a purchase. Wrong place, wrong time, that’s all.’
Stevie shook his head.
‘They were lifted in possession. Enough H to send them down for all day.’
Glen couldn’t work it out.
‘But you never made the drop.’
Stevie let out another huge sigh, throwing his head back.
Then he saw it: the nervousness, the heart rate, the sweating, checking the time, checking the rear-view.
Glen pulled out the Steyr and levelled it at Stevie’s ribs, out of sight below the dashboard.
‘You set him up, didn’t you? You grassed him.’
Glen cocked the hammer, his thumb unlatching the safety.
‘I asked you a question.’
Stevie turned and looked Glen in the eye.
‘They say it’s not polite to answer a question with a question, big man, but you should indulge me, because this one’s a stoater. Tell me: who puts on a mask to give somebody a doing?’
Glen didn’t follow. He was still reeling from the news, and he couldn’t begin to see where Stevie was going with this.
‘I ask you again, Dram: who in Gallowhaugh, or anywhere else in Glasgow, puts a stocking over their heid, or a balaclava over their face, to give some poor dick the message?’
‘Somebody who doesnae want caught?’ Glen ventured.
‘Naw, Dram. The answer is: nobody.’
Glen was about to counter, which was when he saw it, the mirror he was preparing to hold up turning back into sand.
They had come for him: nylon stockings pulled over faces, reversed balaclavas with eye-holes torn out.
‘
Heard my boys just got there in the nick of time. I’m Tony, by the way. Tony McGill
…’
Glen felt the little MR2 come loose from the world and drift, unanchored in time and space.
‘
They’ll come after you again – unless you’ve got friends too
.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to stop his head from spinning, the images and memories from crowding him, all glimpsed in new light, altered meaning. When he opened them, he was back in that Liverpool car park, back in reality, but it would be a new reality.
‘Were you there?’ he asked.
Stevie said nothing, which was a yes.
Glen uncocked the gun and let it rest in his lap.
‘What happened today, Stevie?’
Stevie stared ahead again, across the concrete, where a woman was folding up a toddler’s buggy to fit it into her boot.
‘I beat him at his own game, that’s what happened. Did what he’s been doing for years: fed him to the polis. Scaled it up, though. I wasnae dealing with CID no-marks and chucking them wee tiddlers. I removed him from the picture and I took him for a hundred and sixty grand in the process.’
‘Why?’
‘He was in the way. He’s a fuckin’ dinosaur. All this “keeping drugs out of Gallowhaugh” pish. He should have retired gracefully and left us all to it, but he still wanted to be the big man. He sealed his fate when he sent Arthur round to Donny Lawson. That’s when I knew he needed tell’t.’
Glen thought about everything that had happened since the re-opening party. Stevie being the man with a contact, dangling the bait, making it look like it might all fall apart so that Tony would be all the more eager to grasp it. He thought of the first trip to Liverpool, the warehouse, Sammy, the guys with semi-autos. Heckler & Kochs. Serious hardware.
Preferred
police
hardware.
‘This has been a set-up all along, hasn’t it?’