Loss (29 page)

I read and scrolled, and then I stopped.

I didn’t expect this.

A photograph of the Czech lodger that my brother had installed in his home had been put up. Vilem was standing in the garden, seemingly unaware his image had been captured. In the comment box beside the photo Alice had keyed: ‘Welcome to my Boy Zone!! . . . More to follow!!’

I didn’t know how to interpret this – was it just a teenage girl being a silly wee lassie? She’d posted the picture a week before my brother’s death. A few of Alice’s friends had posted comments in their hybrid language of text-speak and slang, but Alice hadn’t updated the site again. It seemed pointless to leave a message for her there if she wasn’t using it right now.

I logged off the web.

Shut down.

I felt guilty for not giving Alice more attention. I knew she was taking the loss of her father hard. I should have intervened earlier, maybe come down on her harder about the drinking. Decided I would try her mobi again. I had the contacts book open, finger hovering on the call button when I heard a knock at the door.

I jumped up to the spyhole. The back of a head covered it. I opened up, immediately regretted the move.

A shoulder forced the door into my face. I went back, tumbled downwards and felt my palms get scorched on the carpet. Next thing I felt was a backhander knocking me into the wall.

‘All right, Gus boy.’ It was Dartboard; the pug with the parka stood behind him. ‘. . . You and me are going on a wee visit to a friend of ours.’

He grabbed my hair and hauled me up.

‘Get his coat, Sammy.’

THE UNDERTAKER WAS DRESSED IN a double-breasted grey suit. The last time I saw lapels that wide it was in an Edward G. Robinson movie. He had on a black shirt and it was open at the collar, an eyeful of bling played for attention beneath a heavy white chest rug. His eyes followed me as Dartboard prodded my back all the way across the bar floor. My head throbbed from the spank he’d given me in the flat, and I was sorely tempted to land a fly jab in his puss. Only thing that held me back was I knew this boy had some moves; maybe I was learning.

The Undertaker nodded to Dartboard and he pointed me to a velour-backed seat. ‘I’ll stand, thanks.’

I didn’t see the fist coming for my gut, but I felt it, compressed me like an accordion; I made as much noise too. Fell onto my knees, panting and wheezing. I looked up at Dartboard, tried to figure how he’d packed so much power into a blow that had come straight from his pocket.

‘You’re gonna . . .’ I coughed my guts onto the floor, tried again, ‘you’re gonna have to show me how to do that.’

He smiled, impressed with himself.

The Undertaker stood up. ‘Get the cunt in the chair.’ He looked even closer to death than the last time. Under the full glare of the lights his skin was almost transparent. He was like a waxwork of himself, before they’d applied the paint.

Dartboard dragged me into the chair, sat me down. I watched as he retreated to the other end of the room with the parka prick they called Sammy. Neither spoke, just stood with their hands at their sides, clenched fists.

The Undertaker walked the floor. His legs were so thin beneath his baggy trousers that his kneecaps poked out like shards with his every step. He was like a cadaverous Peter Crouch. There’s a phrase,
all arms and legs
.

‘What did I fucking ask you, laddie?’ he said. His tone had changed too: the sandpaper rasp was still there but now a belt-grinder was working it. He was keenly pissed at me, proper furious. ‘Eh,
y’cunt
 . . . What did I ask ye?’

I held in my entrails. I felt that if I took my hand from my stomach it’d spill on the floor. ‘Do you mind standing still?’ I said. ‘It might come back to me then.’

He stopped dead. I saw the false teeth in his head as his mouth widened. The Undertaker looked as if he’d been poked in the arsehole with a sharp pencil.

Sammy seized the initiative and dived forward, clapped a mitt on my jaw. I fell off the chair. He had a way to go before he was in Dartboard’s league. I shook it out and clambered back onto the seat. ‘You’ve stopped pacing, good. The answer you’re after is . . . Davie Prentice. You gave me a message, and I passed it on. So why the fuck am I here?’

The pug with the skinhead got nodded away, the Undertaker approached me. As he leaned in I saw the grease on the back of his collar. His breath smelled as though a rat had been living in his mouth for a year and there was dandruff falling on me from his shoulders as he spoke. ‘Aye, that’s right, laddie, I gave you a wee fucking simple message to pass on to that fat cunt . . .’ He turned to Dartboard and Sammy. ‘Should’ve been
simple
, eh no?’

The shit-lickers nodded. Dartboard tucked his hands behind his back. He looked as if he was trying out for a job at Slater Menswear.

The Undertaker started on again: ‘Well . . . you fucked it right up!’ He grabbed me by the ear and hollered, ‘Davie’s fucking scarpered . . . He’s had it away on his toes, and I’m oot my poppy!’ He let go of my ear, stepped back. It was like watching a stork wading into a river for fish.

I said, ‘He’s what?’

‘Fucked off . . .’

It was news to me. ‘When was this?’

‘The factory’s been closed doon. His fucking Czech fancy man’s been hauled doon the polis station and I’m no’ best pleased, Dury.’

It made sense to me: the Czechs were Davie’s shield; without their protection, what choice did he have but to go rabbit? The prospect of getting any cash out of him seemed distant now. I wondered where all of this left me, and Michael’s killer.

I said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Don’t play wide with me, Dury,’ he said. ‘Remember what I told you last time I had you in here?’

I replayed the speech: ‘You didn’t like bad news.’

‘And remember what I said I’d do to you if you fucked up, Dury?’

I nodded.

‘Aye, well, I had a wee think aboot that and came round to the conclusion that since you clearly don’t give two fucks for yerself, I’d have to take it out on someone else.’

I sat up in the seat. I thought of Debs leaving the flat shortly before me: fucking hell, had they grabbed her? I rose to my feet. Dartboard came behind me and grabbed my arms.

‘If you’ve . . .’

The Undertaker leaned over me. He looked like a suited-up Albert Steptoe as he spat at me, ‘If I’ve what? . . . Hauled in yer wee niece and her Czech boyfriend, tied them up ready for going the same road as your brother?’

I struggled to get to him. Dartboard twisted my arms up my back. The pain sent nails into my joints. ‘You fucking dirty bastard . . .’

He started to chuckle, frothy spit gathered in the corners of his mouth. His whole frame shook and then he fell into a hacking cough that rattled off his ribs. ‘Come on, Dury . . . deal’s a deal after all. That’s what I told yer brother before he got his.’

I stopped struggling. Played him hard: ‘You’re shitting me . . . You don’t have my niece.’

‘That right, eh . . .’ He called the pug over. ‘Sammy, get that fucking fancy phone ay yours over here.’

The screen of the phone got shoved in my face. A video played. I saw Alice on her knees in a field. She was gagged and tied. Vilem was tied behind her; he had tape over his mouth, a badly bruised face, and blood on his shirt. They’d both been tethered to a rusting tractor axle; Alice struggled to try and free herself, tugging at the rope on her hands. I wanted to reach out to her, and then the scene shifted, a flash of sky as the camera moved on an excavator in motion. The driver leaned out the cab – it was Dartboard – then he lowered the digger into the frost-hardened ground. As the screen’s angle shifted again I saw he had already dug one hole in the ground. Dartboard was working on the second as the screen changed again, homed in on a Transit van. An arm came before the camera and opened the back doors. Inside was stacked with pine-box coffins.

I’d seen enough, looked away.

The Undertaker took the phone up. ‘That niece ay yours has got a tidy wee arse on her . . . No wonder the Czech was poking her.’

I didn’t want to listen. I saw the pug start to laugh.

The Undertaker pointed to the phone. ‘See this Czech boyo here? Your brother told me they put that cunt in his hoose to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t do anything stupid like break their wee arrangement.’

I looked up, saw the Undertaker twisting his mouth at Vilem. I said, ‘What are you saying?’

He shrugged. ‘See me, I don’t waste time thinking, Dury . . . I act. When those cunts cut me oot I told Michael, get those wagons running again or there’ll be bother. Your brother was a smart laddie, he knew I didn’t waste time on threats. No like these Czech bastards . . . That’s why he went home to tell that fucker to get out his hoose, and get his nose out our fucking business.’

‘He killed my brother?’

‘Oh, I’d say so . . . Wouldn’t you?’

I strained to free myself again. ‘I’ll kill him.’

The Undertaker stepped back. ‘You might no’ get the fucking chance.’ I looked up at him. He continued, ‘You’ll do something for me if you want your wee niece back . . . And your hands on her boyfriend.’

My head burned up. I couldn’t think fast enough to take it all in. ‘What do you want?’

‘Simple, Dury. That fat cunt’s no’ going anywhere owing me the poppy he does. Bring him back here and I’ll do you a wee favour – since it’s Christmas – I won’t put her in the ground till she’s dead.’ He paused. ‘Way the weather’s going, though, that won’t be long.’

He started to wheeze with the exertion of baiting me, rasped into a cough. He broke away, nodded to Dartboard.

I felt my arms released. I landed on the floor.

‘Get the fuck up, Dury,’ said the Undertaker. ‘Time’s ticking away, laddie.’

I STOOD IN THE SNOW facing Tollcross in the dark of night. The Christmas lights draped over the road glowed down on the traffic, danced on the car roofs. I heard screams and wails carry from the showground in Princes Street Gardens. The sounds sliced me as a double-decker bus passed by, wet spray flying from the gutter. A man with gift-wrapped parcels in his arms tried to squeeze past me, grunted when I didn’t move. He dropped a glove, failed to notice; I didn’t tell him.

I stood staring. Watching the traffic lights change, the taxis turn in the road. I started to get wet. The snow fell heavily. I’d never seen snow like it. It settled where it lay, inches of it already on parked cars. My hair flattened to my head, stuck to my brow. An old woman approached me and held up the fallen glove. She asked if it was mine but I didn’t answer. She waved it at me but I ignored her. The woman’s mouth kept moving and moving and moving but I didn’t hear the words. Eventually she walked away, placed the glove on railings and continued up the street.

I felt cold. My lips grew numb and my hands froze in my pockets. I stood and I stared ahead and I felt the tears forming in my eyes, but they wouldn’t fall. They held there like I held myself to the exact same spot on the pavement and then I felt a dig in my shoulder as a late shopper pushed past me, and the tears were dislodged. I turned to hear the shopper apologise, wiped my face with the back of my hand. I didn’t know what to say. I was beyond words. Words could be formed into thought and I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to think and I didn’t want to feel. I wanted to trade places with my brother. I didn’t want any part in this misery called life any more. I knew I couldn’t go on if anything happened to Alice.

‘Gus, Gus . . . fucking hell, Gus.’ Mac called me from the street.

I looked up. He had Hod’s truck stopped in the road; a trail of angry drivers blasted horns behind him. I found myself moving towards the vehicle, automatically opened up the door and got in. Tyres spun on the wet road as he took off.

‘Jesus, you were away with the pixies there, mate,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

The heater blew in front of me. I started to thaw.

‘I know who killed my brother.’

‘
Wha’
?’ Mac turned his head. ‘Who?’

I saw my fingernails turning pink. ‘It was the Czechs . . . They put one of their own in Michael’s house, as a frightener.’

Mac pulled over the truck – we drew in beside the Meadows. ‘How do you know?’

I told him what the Undertaker had said. ‘It all stacks up. On the night he died Michael went to see McMilne; he says he was going to cut out the Czechs.’ I looked out to the Meadows, where they had found my brother’s body. ‘Michael must have went home and had it out with Vilem.’ I saw nothing in the park but blackness. ‘We have to find fat Davie: he’s legged it since Radek got lifted . . . McMilne has my niece.’

Mac spoke: ‘Your niece?’

‘He’ll put her in a hole if we don’t bring him Davie . . . We have to get that piece of shit right now.’

Mac started the engine. ‘Let’s go.’

I jerked my head away from the blackness. The Undertaker’s lumps had been searching the city and got not a sniff of him. ‘Where to fucking start?’

Mac pulled right across the road; a blast of car horns went up. He engaged reverse and went for a three-point turn. ‘I’ve got a fair idea where he might be.’

We headed back towards Tollcross. I said, ‘Where are we going?’

‘Remember when I was tailing him, I told you he had a wee scrubber stashed away in a flat in Restalrig? . . . I bet you a pound to a pail of shite the fat wee gimp’s up there.’

Mac bombed it down Lothian Road, ran lights on Princes Street, but the traffic ground to a standstill on George Street. The middle classes in their uniform Barbour jackets trotted back and forth between the glitter and the tinsel and the bright lights. A crowd of excited schoolgirls giggled and shivered at the crossing; I thought of Alice.

‘Come on, Mac . . . punch it.’

‘It’s chocka. Christmas Eve, mate.’