The Sudden Arrival of Violence: A Glasgow Underworld Novel 3 (6 page)

She’s gone back to bed. Calmed down a little. So he’s late. Very late. That’s not a first, now is it? He’s been late plenty of times. This is a bigger job than usual. A more intense challenge. Maybe there’s a very different aftermath to these things. If Kenny was involved in something big, then it’s fair to assume that the clean-up will be bigger, too. She’s convinced herself, at ten past three in the morning, that this is just the natural consequence of a bigger job. There are women who go through this every night. Women tied to men who do big jobs on a regular basis. Deana’s met a few of them over the years. Some of them look like they don’t have a care in the world. Some look exhausted. That’s how she tells the difference between the ones who really love their men and the ones who don’t.

Kenny’s not the first man in the business that she’s been in a relationship with, but most of the others were down the chain, too. Low-rank people of no consequence, the sort who don’t get big jobs. She’s been with a couple of guys higher up, but only briefly. One was a long time ago, when she was a teenager. It was a fun thing for both of them; went nowhere. The other was since she met Kenny. Since they moved in together. Theirs is a curious sort of relationship. Each trusts the other to be untrustworthy. Each knows the other isn’t entirely faithful, but they care about each other’s feelings. There’s nothing open about it. They have no kids, a decent income and a good time together. They’ve come to love each other. It’s not the sort of love that people get giddy about, just the type that lasts.

She met a guy outside a restaurant. She’d been out with friends; she was calling a taxi to get home. Kenny was working, probably late. This guy approached and asked her if he could give her a lift. Nice-looking guy, a little younger than Deana, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She was thirty-three then, thirty-four now. This guy was mid- to late twenties, could have passed for younger. She’d seen him before. He’d seen her. Something relating to Kenny’s work. Something at the club, she thought. Or maybe somewhere else. His name was Alan Bavidge. He worked for a man called Billy Patterson, a man with a growing reputation. Patterson has an organization of his own, but it deals in the murky end of things. He’s managed to grow in the shadows, not stepping on toes. Stayed out of most parts of the drug trade. His business revolves around moneylending and the security business. Being with Bavidge was an eye-opener for Deana.

She spent five weeks with him. Sweet, handsome guy, smart too. She worked him around Kenny. He was fun, but she knew Alan wouldn’t last. Five weeks together, and he stood her up four times. All because of the work he did. He was high up in Patterson’s organization. He never told her exactly what he did, he wasn’t a talker like Kenny, but she’s good enough at maths to put two and two together. Alan did nasty things, no doubt. Beatings – maybe more. At first she was annoyed about being stood up, but his apologies were genuine. He had a tense and weary look when he eventually showed up, which you don’t get just because you’re late. He’d been working. He would keep that tension for hours, sometimes days. They went their separate ways. Kenny was getting irksome; he’d figured someone else was on his scene. Neither she nor Alan was committed to the relationship. They parted on good terms. Alan wasn’t the sort of man anyone could have a relationship with. Too many nights standing at the living-room window, wondering if he would make it home that night.

Strange thing was, when she found out Alan was dead she didn’t feel anything. Not sad, not emotional in any way. It always seemed inevitable. He was the sort of man who lived to die young. Killed by someone as yet unknown. His body found in an alleyway behind a row of shops. A place he had no business being in. Who knows what he suffered? What he was suffering even when she was with him. She found it hard to care. Alan knew what he was involved in. He knew the risks and he faced them head-on. That was the impression she had of him.

Kenny is the total opposite. Only vaguely aware of the dangers, unwilling to face them. Such a good man. She can’t bear to think of him suffering. Another glance at the clock. Ten to four. Come on, Kenny, where the hell are you? She’s drifting off to sleep. She’s waking with a start now. Looking at the clock. Five past eight and Kenny’s still not home.

8

Calum’s taking almost nothing. Purposely leaving anything they would expect him to take. He has to give them doubt. They have to believe that he might have died last night, same as Kenny and the moneyman. Maybe something went wrong, and all three of them are lying dead in a forest somewhere. That thought will scare the crap out of them. They’ll go looking for the body. Good. Look for something you can never find. That’ll prove a useful distraction for Calum. He wants Jamieson and Young to have as many distractions as possible. The second they suspect what he’s actually up to, they will hunt him down like a dog. He will become their absolute priority, at the expense of all other things. He has to be long gone by then.

He won’t be notifying anyone that he’s leaving the flat. That’s obvious. A man who’s possibly died the previous night doesn’t then notify people of his departure. He will disappear. Not just from Young and Jamieson, but from everyone. Well, not quite everyone, because he needs a little help here. Can’t do this alone. Things have to be organized, and quickly. The first is the departure from the flat. He has to show them what they expect to see. Let’s make no bones about it: they will come round to the flat. Calum has no doubt that they have a spare key. They’ve never told him they do, but Jamieson provided the flat. They won’t own it – they’re smarter than that. They don’t want people knowing that Calum’s their employee, so they won’t do anything as crass as put him in their own property. Still, they’ll have taken every precaution. After all, they had a key to Frank MacLeod’s house when they sent Calum to kill him. His own predecessor. The man he’s trying to avoid becoming.

They’ll expect him to have left his mobile behind, so that’s been untouched since he put it on the kitchen table last night. He’ll leave it where it is. He won’t buy a new one until he’s out of the city. His wallet he’s leaving on the counter in the kitchen. Don’t pile all your belongings up beside one another – makes it look like you’ve left them to be found. Put them where others would expect to find them. A wallet tossed casually onto the counter. The mobile checked for messages before he left, placed on the table, ready for him to check again on his return. Living up to their expectations. His passport is in the drawer of the desk in the living room. Won’t take them long to find that. His driver’s licence is there with it, his cheque book too. The driver’s licence is the only one he had to stop and think about. He’ll be getting a new one anyway, but where would they expect it to be? They might think he would have it in his car. No. Maybe someone with lower standards, but not Calum. They know he wouldn’t have it anywhere near him on the night of a job. Leave it where it is.

He’s been thinking about running for weeks. Months, truthfully, but it was an idle thought to begin with. Then it became a plan. Not a lot he could do in advance. Not when he didn’t know when the chance would come. It’s here now. One thing he has prepared are clothes. Not much, but he has what he needs. Clothes and a bag. Went out and bought them with cash. Not all at once. A few different shops, over the course of a week. Assume that Jamieson’s organization will be able to access your bank details. If they see you were spending money in clothes shops in advance of disappearing, they might start to wonder. Why does a fellow who rarely buys new clothes suddenly splurge? A few items of clothing and a bag, hidden in the bottom of his wardrobe. Never worn before, ready for departure.

He’s done the same thing with money. He won’t empty his account. Leave something there, just in case Jamieson has access. So you take out a little more than you need each time you go to a cash machine. You need fifty quid, so you take out a hundred. He’s been doing that for five weeks now. It’s not a perfect system. More money than usual goes out, and someone with a sharp eye will spot it. The hope is that no one with a sharp eye will look. Hope that Young and Jamieson will only glance at his account and see that there’s still plenty of money there. No large transfer of money. If they don’t look for a spending pattern, they won’t see anything of note. So he has more than six hundred and fifty pounds in a wad, wrapped in three elastic bands. That’s going into the bottom of the bag.

It’s a funny feeling when you know you’re leaving a place for the last time. He never had the chance to feel this way about his old flat. That one he left in a hurry, after Shug Francis sent Glen Davidson round to stab him in the night. Calum is still very much alive. Glen Davidson is not. He breathed his last on the kitchen floor of Calum’s old flat. A place that felt like home. And then he could never go back. He and George got rid of the body, but you can’t take the risk of returning. You can’t go back to a place where you killed a man. If that place happens to be your home, then you never go home. He’d lived in that flat for eight years. He knew every little piece of it and felt so comfortable there. He had his routines. Everything was in its rightful place. The last time he left it, he left with both hands slashed open. He had dishcloths wrapped round them, trying to carry his share of the weight as he and George Daly took Davidson’s body down to the van. He never went back. This is different. No sense of leaving home. Just leaving a flat. Not coming back, and wouldn’t care to, even if he had the option, thank you very much.

He has the bag of new clothing and nothing else. Well, the clothes he was wearing last night, but he needs to ditch those. And the gun. That’s still in the inside pocket of his coat. He needs to ditch that, too. He knows it. Should have done it sooner. Unprofessional to have it so long after using it. It’s a comfort, though. In the wake of any job you have the threat of arrest. That’s something he’s accustomed to, after ten years of killing people for a living. That threat is old hat. There’s a new one this time, never before experienced. The threat of his own employers. They aren’t going to arrest him. They aren’t going to make sure he has a lawyer present at the time of punishment. They’re going to do what they do to anyone who tries to walk away without permission. Anyone who knows too much. They’ll put a bullet in him. The gun’s comforting, but too much of a risk. He’ll find a random bin and ditch it. Usually he would return it to the person he bought it from and get some of his money back, but no one must know that he’s alive.

Out the door, locking it. He’ll chuck the keys along with the clothing. Down the stairs and out through the front door, looking carefully up and down the street. Nothing out of place. No car that he doesn’t recognize. Calum’s stopping at the top of the three steps outside the front door. Pretending to fiddle about with something in his bag. Using the seconds to look carefully. Is there anyone peering out a window who can see him? Anyone slinking down in the driver’s seat of a car, trying to hide from him? Can’t see anyone.

Down the steps and along the street. Moving quickly, but not so fast that it would grab the attention of the casual observer. Round the corner and along the next street. Every now and again checking behind him. Not too often – that would be conspicuous. Mustn’t look like a man who’s checking behind him. Onto the street where he left his car last night. Starting it up and driving away. So far, so good; but so far was the easy part. Now he needs the help of others. He’s going to see his big brother.

9

The phone call is made by one of the women who work across the hall. They think it odd that Hardy hasn’t turned up for work. They can’t remember him taking a day off in all the time they’ve shared the top floor of the building. They didn’t report it straight away. You don’t, do you? You don’t rush to call the police just because someone doesn’t turn up for their work. Could be any number of reasons. Maybe Richard Hardy is sick. Been a bit of flu going around, after all. So they do nothing, until a client turns up looking for him. An Asian businessman who visits regularly. Been visiting for years, seems to be an important client for Mr Hardy. They buzz him into the building. The man’s knocking on the office door, obviously unsure whether or not to leave. His accountant’s never stood him up before. It’s so unlike Hardy.

One of the women has come out into the hall and is talking to him now. Asking whether Mr Hardy cancelled their meeting or not.

‘No, he didn’t. I’m very surprised at him,’ the businessman’s saying.

‘I don’t want to overreact,’ the woman’s saying, ‘but he’s never missed a day before. We both said it when we got here. We both said: He’s not here, and that’s not like him at all.’

‘I have his mobile telephone number,’ the businessman’s saying, putting his briefcase down and taking his own phone from his pocket. Calling, but getting no answer. People don’t like to make a fuss. The businessman and the woman are agreeing that they’ll leave it until lunchtime before they take it any further.

The businessman’s down the stairs and out the front door when he stops in his tracks. Isn’t that Richard’s car? Sure looks like it. Might not be, but that’s the sort of car he drives. A pause. He’s taking his phone out of his pocket and trying again. This is concerning. Holding the phone to his ear, leaning against the car he thinks is Hardy’s. Sounds like the ring is echoing. That’s weird. It’s coming from inside the car. It
is
Richard’s car. That’s his phone on the seat, the display lighting up as the businessman rings it. Well now, this is beginning to look like something worth being nervous about. Richard would never go off without his mobile. Goodness, he would never go off without his car. A man of his age, how far would he get? No, this is definitely unusual. He’s been buzzed back in now and he’s knocking on the charity-office door. He’s talking with the women.

At this point, because none of them know Richard’s home number, they call the police. The woman calls. Helen Harrison, her name is, if you’re interested. PC Joseph Higgins is interested, for about ten seconds. When he hears the missing person has been missing for a couple of hours and has only missed one appointment, he is less bothered. Pretty blasé about the whole thing, in fact. The car’s outside. The woman’s confirmed that Hardy usually gets to the office before them. So Hardy gets here. Decides to nip along to a shop to pick up something. Maybe falls over. Maybe takes a turn. Maybe some emergency comes up. A respectable, ageing guy like Hardy, it’s usually health-related. He’s gone somewhere and had some kind of episode. Probably in a hospital as we speak, being told that he needs to lower his blood pressure, take a holiday. No big deal.