Our Little Secrets

by Peter Ritchie

  The money was her own – an official payment would have had to be authorised above her rank, witnessed and signed for at the handover. She didn’t care about money; her lifestyle was fairly simple and she had more than she needed. There was nothing in her life but the game and, hopefully, the promotions to come. For a few moments, she forgot Tonto was sitting opposite her and imagined being behind a desk in a big fuck-off office grinding her competitors into the carpet.

  ‘Is that okay?’

  Tonto had asked her something, but she’d drifted off. ‘Sorry, I was thinking of something. You lost me for a minute there.’

  ‘I’m saying they’re talking about another big run to make up the loss. Paul’s ragin’ an’ wants Sean to take charge of it. They’ve said it’s “need to know” for this one but Sean’s the man in charge so that might help you. Eh? What do you think?’

  ‘That’s interesting. Would Sean do the run himself?’

  As Tonto talked, Hadden considered her options. At some point, she might have to dismantle the Graingers’ business and that would be a huge result on its own. If the youngest Grainger could be taken out without Dominic pointing the finger at her, it would put him under enormous pressure, drive Paul halfway up the wall and she could apply pressure at will. It could give her even greater control over the situation. Played the right way, she could drive the knife into Dominic’s back ever so slowly and he wouldn’t even know it was her hand guiding the blade. It was complex and dangerous. She felt a strange sensation, which was almost sexual.

  Tonto stared at her, thinking she looked like someone thirty seconds after their first hit of smack, and asked if she was okay.

  ‘I’m fine, Davy.’ She came back down and smiled at him as if they were partners in a great plan. Tonto couldn’t have understood that what she was imagining was the possibility that at some stage in the future he would make a perfect sacrifice in the game.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she added, ‘even if it is need to know, bell me if there’s anything that looks like they’re moving to do the run. Guess it would be a fair amount of gear if he goes himself.’

  ‘Definitely.’ He was excited by Hadden’s obvious interest in the job, and the thought that he might contribute to the fall of a top man like Sean Grainger gave him his own form of thrill. There was just a moment of doubt, because Tonto knew that although the brothers had given him a hard time over the loss of gear, Sean wasn’t the worst guy in the world. But that doubt lasted no more than the briefest moment before he said ‘fuck it’ to himself. Tonto also knew that in God’s great creation he was pond life and chances were he’d never rise above that level. The conversations he’d had with the detective proved that. The Graingers were taxing him to fucking death and here was a chance to exact his own form of revenge. He could never shove it in their faces, but he could watch from the sidelines and gloat when they felt what the guys who worked and took the prison time for them had to endure time and time again.

  Tonto was experiencing a kind of epiphany. All his life he’d staggered from one personal problem to another. He’d had no chance as a kid, underperforming at school because all his friends were like him: the future they aimed for was there on display in gangster films and the life displayed through drama and print. Sharp clothes, fast cars and women who just turned up and performed because you were a name. He was a young man and on his second term inside when he realised that he was just like all the other poor bastards who were exploited by the police and the gangsters. There was no honour among thieves, just survival in a world where your mate could cut your face open if the gaffer told him to or you could be tossed to the bizzies as a form of human titbit. He shook his head every time he heard that some poor sod running gear up the road had been taken out by the law. It was always the same with these arrests – some pot luck, some good detective work by the bizzies or the guy’s boss throwing the detectives a diversionary bone.

  ‘Any chance of a lift back?’ he asked, guessing there was no chance. He was on the money.

  ‘Christ, think what you’re saying! You get spotted in the wrong place with the wrong person, in other words me, then your current problems will seem like a fucking blessing.’ She saw him look down at the table with a worn expression. She knew guys like Tonto were kicked in the Henrys every day of their lives. He’d just handed her the chance of a cheap shot at one of the Graingers and he might pick up something else to firm up the job. She wanted to get back and organise a job but she needed to keep him on board.

  ‘All I’m thinking of is keeping you safe. We can’t afford even one mistake with these people.’ She was careful to say ‘we’ so he would know they were working together. ‘Okay?’

  He looked up and nodded.

  ‘Right, I need to go. Anything, and I mean anything . . . just get back to me on the number.’

  She stood up and headed for the door.

  Tonto stared at her back and wondered where this one would go. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t be a happy ending, but he was getting to the stage where he didn’t much give a fuck any more. If this was his life and future, he wondered what it was for. He looked at an old guy sitting in the corner on his own, aged before his time, his right hand shaking as he carefully lifted the beer to his mouth and sipped a little from the top. The beer was only a quarter gone and the old boy had already had it on the table when Tonto had taken his seat nearly an hour before. He’d seen the same kind of punter often enough in the boozers, sitting there all morning and afternoon nursing what bevvy he could afford and remembering or regretting the days when he was Tonto’s age.

  Tonto picked up his paper and stepped out into a blustery south wind, blinking at the punters walking past the boozer with no idea who he was and what he was involved in. They had their own lives and problems – why would they care about him?

  A couple walked past clasping hands and the girl turned to her boyfriend, laughing out loud at some story he’d told her. He was grinning at her and they really seemed to like each other. Imagine that, he thought. Even if they didn’t have another thing in their lives, they had each other. He shook his head, turned and went back into the bar to sit opposite the old boy.

  ‘Fancy a game o’ doms, pal? Beers are on me, right?’

  The old boy looked puzzled for a few seconds then grinned; it was Christmas come early. Human contact and a bevvy thrown in for good measure. ‘Nae bother, pal.’ The old boy looked at his drink. ‘Any chance o’ a wee goldie on the side, son?’

  Tonto smiled and nodded. ‘Have what you want, pal.’

  Tonto and the old boy spent the next three hours getting totally pissed and the fifty quid Hadden had given him was well and truly arsed. The old boy turned out to have done three big stretches in Bar L. Serious assault, attempted murder and an armed robbery, which meant years inside that had taken him from his late thirties till what felt like the start of old age.

  The last question Tonto asked him before they started talking drunk shite was: ‘Any regrets?’

  The question annoyed the old boy but only for a minute. ‘Regrets, son? What dae ye see here? When I walked oot the gates the last time Glesgae wis gone, son. Men I knew were like me. Fucked either wi’ time inside or the drink. Rangers were relegated an’ I hadnae a fuckin’ clue whit anyone wis talkin’ aboot. Regret it every fuckin’ day.’

  Tonto looked at the old man as if he was a ghost come back from his own future. When they split up, he gave the old boy his last tenner.

  ‘What’s yer name?’ Tonto asked him, having suddenly realised they’d talked for hours without monikers.

  ‘Davy – always known as Davy, son.’

  The old boy headed off; Tonto’s tenner would see him through the next day in the pub and the few hours they’d been together would be a happy memory for him. Every day he’d look at the boozer door and hope that Tonto would walk into his life again.

  23

  On the way back to Edinburgh, Hadden started the ball rolling. She decided to pass off the meet
she’d just had with Tonto as a chance encounter and would get a co-handler to go back and see him. They’d get the information on Sean Grainger and the possible run south.

  The next morning, she called Tonto and even with her lack of empathy thought he sounded a bit flat. Nevertheless, she told him they needed to meet right away to get the same info in front of the co-handler. She warned him to say it was an accidental meet the day before. ‘We keep the co-handler in the dark a bit. That way I can do you the odd favour for free. Right?’

  Tonto said okay as if there was a choice. He wasn’t quite sure what it all meant but he’d seen enough of Hadden to know she was no saint.

  The meet was as sweet as a nut and the co-handler didn’t pick up any problem vibes. In fact, Hadden was that good she nearly had Tonto convinced that their meeting the previous day had been a figment of his imagination. She could have acted for a living.

  *

  Back at the station, she organised a meet with the head of a specialist team, and a surveillance operation was set up on Sean Grainger within hours. The timing was perfect as they’d hardly had eyes on him before he picked up a hired car, which immediately got the surveillance team buzzing. A hired car was exactly what they were looking for as an indicator that the job or something else was good to go.

  Hadden got the feedback and sat back in her office chair. It felt good, all so good. If someone like Sean Grainger could be taken with a load of gear, there were all sorts of possibilities. He might talk and turn himself over as a source. It happened, brothers informing on brothers. Who knew? If he was caught there would be a range of options and all of them would be good for her.

  She was called into her chief inspector’s office and gave a rundown on her progress so far. He was impressed, no doubt about it. He felt it impossible to warm to her, but she seemed to be someone who’d come home with the prize, and success for her was even more success for him. That’s how the game worked.

  ‘You’re not letting the grass grow under your feet, Janet,’ he told her. ‘Impressed, very impressed.’

  He was a tosser who was only in his post for a quick spell, a tick in the box before moving onwards and upwards towards executive level, and he probably hadn’t seen an angry man or woman in his service. She hid her contempt and swore he would be one of the first she’d humiliate someday. He wouldn’t last five seconds in a darkened room with her, and it almost made her choke to think that this was the kind of man who’d have a leading role in a world full of threats. She knew she was equipped to take on the dangers coming from so many dark places. Fire with fire: she knew what was required even if they didn’t.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Appreciate that and just want to do the best I can. I’ll keep you informed.’

  She went back to her office and settled into her chair to wait.

  Her boss thought he might have misjudged her, that like him she wanted to do things properly. She certainly had nice legs, and that had really impressed him.

  As it started to get dark Hadden got the call that Sean Grainger had left his flat, was in the hired car and the surveillance team had watched him meet up with his brother Paul for half an hour in a hotel near the Gyle shopping complex. A footman had been deployed to the hotel and watched the brothers in conversation before they split up, with Sean Grainger heading for the motorway.

  All good as far as Hadden was concerned, and exactly how she expected the scenario to pan out if it was, in fact, the prelude to a run for more gear.

  24

  Frankie Mason was making progress and the job felt like it was stacked with possibilities. He smirked at the sheets of paper spread chaotically on the desk in front of him. He’d been speaking to bent contacts in the phone companies for hours and was now working his way through the lists of subscribers who’d been in contact with both Dominic Grainger and his wife. A list of names was building, but apart from the obvious ones like Dominic’s brothers, he didn’t know who anyone was yet, and it was a shitload of work to get checks done on who some of these people were. Over the years he’d built a substantial intelligence system of his own and recorded every detail he’d came across. It helped, but he still needed inside info, which often cost money, so it was always better if he could blackmail some fucker in a prime position to feed him what he needed.

  He felt like he was staring through the keyhole into a bedroom that was currently in deep shade. Everything would become clear once he’d worked the information – all bought and paid for by people who’d sold their integrity to the detective. He was made for the age of greed and information technology, because all he had to do was find the dealers in the market. Mason loved every minute of what he was discovering and was so excited when a picture came into focus that he would scratch his face in a nervous gesture. It was something he could never control, and when he was really high he would do it till he bled. He kept his nails as short as possible to avoid the problem; they were still clarty though.

  It was fair outside, but Mason didn’t care what the weather was like, and in a way, he preferred the colder miserable months, because he’d rather cover up than wear light clothing, which showed up his rather scraggy frame.

  He was being fed the subscribers to the phone numbers from his sources and at first it seemed as if there was nothing too interesting. But he knew he had to be patient and sooner or later the ripple would show, that little hint that something was there and all you had to do was reach out and grab it. All of life’s routine would be there covering the traces of dark little secrets.

  Mason had seen it time and time again when he was following people day after day and all they would seem to do was go to the shops, the game, gyms and all the other things that filled people’s lives. The worst gangsters were just the same: so much of what they did was just what everyone else did to put food on the table and interact with friends. Then it would come out of nowhere.

  There were jobs where he’d spent days wondering at the sheer agonising routine of someone’s life and then suddenly they’d look around as if they knew they were being watched, but they didn’t. It was that gesture before the job lived up to expectations – the moment before they turned into the hotel where they were meeting the other half of their affair, or perhaps the sauna where their favourite escort brought them relief. All the pillars of society thinking no one knew their secrets.

  He remembered the elder of the kirk driving all the way to another city to spend the day tucked up with a rent boy. His wife thought he was seeing another woman and the shock of what Mason described had nearly killed her. You just never knew about people. Except that Frankie Mason did – and as far as he was concerned they were like him, just less obvious in what they were.

  He was working on Dominic Grainger’s number first. It was a busy phone, which was what he expected from a man who ran a successful business. Gradually the patterns began to show in the way his life moved through the weekly cycles. It was remarkable how the phone traffic alone of a modern man or woman could draw a fairly accurate outline of what they were and how their lives functioned. In time, Mason knew what time of the morning Dominic Grainger started to tick; he couldn’t say what time he was up but he knew that a man like him would start taking and making calls fairly early. He could see a number that he called every morning around 8.30 a.m. and it turned out to be a landline in his office. Mason decided to get the billing for that number as well, though Grainger was likely just checking with an assistant of some kind, making sure there were no problems.

  The routine was crucial, because once you knew the routine you had a large part of the map that made up that person’s life. It surrounded the black hole, that dark space where the secrets were concealed. Knowing what he did already about Grainger, it was a nap that the assistant would be female and a looker.

  Mason called the subcontractor to check whether he could confirm that his assessment was close to the mark.

  ‘Fuckin’ right. She’s in there before him in the mornin’ from what I can see so far. When o
ur boy arrives, she appears about ten minutes later an’ toddles along to the local coffee shop for the caffeine. A wee belter she is. Too good for you but just my type.’

  The subcontractor was still laughing when Mason put down the phone, because he wasn’t interested in the joke or the female, just in confirming what he thought, and he was pleased he was on the money so far. It meant that, to a great extent, Grainger would be predictable, and that was almost always the case.

  Mason had looked at hundreds of cases in his time, and if he’d learned nothing else it was that men really were creatures of habit. Even the ones like Grainger, who were supposed to be so interesting. As for the assistant, she would be like a packet of paper tissues – required every so often but that’s all. Grainger would be doing the business with her during office hours, and love and affection wouldn’t come into it. These arrangements usually suited both parties unless feelings came into the equation. He couldn’t imagine that would be an issue with Grainger, who he was sure was a heartless bastard even on a good day.

  But for the moment, none of it mattered – it was simply another space to fill in on the map. He’d find out who she was and it would probably be another item for the rainy-day box. Whoever she was, she would know a lot about the business, so it was just possible he might need to dig her out at some stage. For a minute, the thought crossed his mind that she might be married or in a relationship, which would be ideal if she was as tidy as she sounded. Prime for a bit of blackmail.

  ‘Another time, Frankie,’ he muttered as he wiped away the little trail of dribble at the corner of his mouth.

  Hours looking at Grainger’s phone traffic eventually made Mason’s brain hurt, and by late afternoon the pain had reached his neck, which meant it was time for a break, with a beer or two included. But it was at that point that the Belfast number caught his attention. On its own it didn’t mean anything, though, and when he checked the subscriber it turned out to be a bar in the city. Although he was on the point of getting up from the seat to stretch, he decided to make one last check to finish that one off. He called another ex-army source who’d settled in Northern Ireland, married a local and drove taxis for a living. It was remarkable how many squaddies had lived through the hard times there but decided to settle once the peace process had taken hold. Mason had served two tours there with the man and, like all taxi drivers, the guy was an encyclopedia for what was going on in his city. He was one of Mason’s best sources over there and was paid a flat fee for each enquiry Mason sent him.