Where No Shadows Fall

by Peter Ritchie

  ‘Course I did. It’s no’ the same when you’re away on a job. How did it go? You said Frankie was pleased wi’ somethin’.’ She pushed her face into his shoulder to avoid his eyes.

  ‘Fuckin’ right he was pleased.’ McManus’s mind was concentrating elsewhere, and that was on food. ‘I could murder a pizza, honey. Nuke a pepperoni. I’ll go an’ have a wee wash and you open that bottle at the same time. Good times are here again.’ He grabbed the remote and got Little Richard blasting from the sound system before heading for the bathroom.

  Paterson cringed at the noise but so far so good. When McManus disappeared into the bathroom she whacked on the pizza and opened the bottle, pouring a king-size shot into the glass to make sure he packed in as much booze as possible. The idea was to get him talking then comatose so as to buy her another night to think it all through.

  When he came out of the bathroom he was showered and wearing a clean vest that showed off huge arms and his tattoo – the word ‘kill’ above a bleeding dagger, and when she put the pizza on the table in front of him he wolfed it down as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. She knew that wouldn’t be the case – he was just a greedy bastard. He threw back the whisky in one go and pulled open an extra strong lager he’d taken from the fridge.

  ‘So how did it go then?’ She tried a smile and stuck her hands in the pockets of her zip top to hide the shakes, which had steadied slightly. In some ways it was easier having him there: at least she might be able to find out what the score was and how much danger they were in.

  ‘Sweet, honey. Two fuckin’ cowboys tried to rob us in Edinburgh.’ He was slurring his words, and she filled his glass again, leaving it neat. ‘No problem though an’ they legged it once I made it clear what the score was. Know what I mean?’ He leaned over the table and squeezed her breast in what he must have seen as a sign of affection. The word gentle didn’t mean much to him. It hurt, but she tried not to show it.

  ‘So the gear was okay then?’ Paterson tried to sound matter of fact, but she had to be careful and was asking questions she normally left alone. She just hoped he was pissed enough not to see anything in it.

  ‘Saved the gear and chased the bastards. Kicked one o’ them in the chuckies an’ actually got a look at them wi’ the balaclavas off. Can you believe it?’ He snorted a laugh as he finished the lager and crumpled the can before throwing it at the rubbish bin, missing by a mile. A trickle of lager dribbled from the can and across the floor. It didn’t make too much of a difference because the floor, like the hall carpet, hadn’t been cleaned for a while. It sounded like everyone had Velcro on the soles of their shoes when they walked across the kitchen floor.

  ‘Frankie Logan was just a wee bit pleased. Big bonus and we’re on the town tomorrow so I need a good night’s kip – though after we’ve had a wee drink.’ He sank the second whisky and his drinking followed a familiar pattern – when he was so far gone, he drank to go lights out. He stopped tasting the stuff and just poured it over his throat as fast as he could.

  ‘What about those boys then? Logan after them?’ She felt her stomach squeeze into knots waiting on the answer.

  ‘I’ve got the job an’ tell you what . . . when I find them they’ll regret ever seein’ me. Chances are it’s The Bitch an’ her team, but we’ll soon find out.’

  Paterson felt the nerves in her face twitch and one minute later she threw up in the toilet as quietly as possible. She splashed some cold water on her face and squirmed when she looked at the haggard woman staring right back at her in the mirror. She dried herself and drank some water from her cupped hands. When she went back into the kitchen McManus was on his feet with the bottle in one hand, his glass in the other and was dancing, or what he thought was dancing, to Ben E. King’s version of ‘Stand by Me’. He started drinking straight from the bottle and when the recording finished he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her towards the bedroom. The temptation to scream was almost irresistible but she knew he would pass out before anything actually happened. She was barely managing to keep it together but succeeded in manufacturing an expression that just passed for pleased.

  Half an hour later Paterson managed to disentangle herself from McManus – he was completely out for the count. It crossed her mind that she could have stabbed him there and then but there was no way she’d get away with it. The cocos would have her dubbed up in a day, and apart from one conviction for shoplifting she had limited experience in lying to the police.

  She stared down at the snoring heap and shook her head. ‘Pity,’ she said, knowing that if there was a way to escape from McManus she’d need to figure it out as soon as. When he was sobering he’d smell her fear, and he would have to make the connection between McCartney and her eventually. They already thought it was Big Brenda, so they’d soon tie the whole team down and figure out who was who. McManus was pissed and intended having a day off, so that meant another day of him being on the bevvy, which gave her some room to manoeuvre. She pulled on her coat, took the lift to the ground floor and called McCartney. ‘We need to meet now, Pat.’

  McCartney had fallen asleep watching big Arnie take on the Predator for the umpteenth time. He was in his old room and wished he was back with the gang he’d had before he’d decided to rob that fucking bank in Edinburgh. Life had been good then. He surfaced in response to the jangling tune on his mobile and didn’t want to hear the grim reality of his situation. ‘Jesus. Can it no’ wait till the mornin’?’

  ‘Are you fuckin’ serious? We’re in the shit, brother, an’ you’re dead meat if we sit and wait. Move your arse an’ I’ll come over to you.’

  McCartney heard the tension and fear in her voice and he got it. He switched off the film, which wasn’t real, and remembered that McManus was very real and hurt people for business and pleasure.

  ‘What do we do, sis?’ His voice trembled with the question.

  ‘We have to waste the bastard.’

  ‘Eh?’

  21

  Early the following morning Macallan and McGovern were on the road to Glasgow. They’d hardly spoken a word since leaving Edinburgh, but it was that comfortable situation where old friends could sit and take care of their own thoughts without feeling the need to say something just to fill the gaps. Neither had imagined they would get to work together again. For McGovern, his heart problems had forced him behind a desk, and he had only a short time left before retirement; he just needed another shot of something near the real thing. Perhaps this job would be no big deal, but it was out there and investigating so probably the best he could hope for. The bonus was working with Macallan again, and he knew she was in the same place as him, although for different reasons.

  Macallan smiled as they passed Harthill services, that cluster of eyesore constructions that marked the logical halfway mark on the road to and from Edinburgh. She closed her eyes for a second and spoke. ‘So, how’s it for you, Jimmy?’

  ‘It’s just good to be away from the office, but on the other hand . . . are we just delaying the inevitable? I’m retiring soon enough, but what about you? How will Jack see this one?’ McGovern frowned when he said it – they were both on sensitive territory.

  ‘I’m going over to Antrim this weekend. He’s there with the bairns and making sure the builders have made a job of the extension. I’ve told him a bit, and to be honest he sounded sceptical – but then he’s a lawyer and knows how I operate.’ She tried to put any explanation to Jack to the back of her mind for the time being and they both drifted back into their own thoughts.

  McGovern eventually broke the silence again. ‘Well I think in this case his suspicions will be right on the money.’

  When they pulled into the small car park in front of the old prison there was the evidence for all to see that there was never enough public money to go around. The main entrance was relatively new in comparison to the prison itself, but what should have been ‘Barlinnie’ in giant letters above the entrance had been reduced to ‘B L NI ’ through the ravages
of weather, time and cheap workmanship. Macallan experienced the same feeling that she’d had every time she’d gone to a prison to interview a prisoner or speak to an informant: as soon as she walked over the threshold it was like entering an alien environment. Like every detective, she’d only ever dealt with one or a few villains at a time, but here they were all stuffed into the one tinderbox. The men and women who worked in these places were never seen in the same light as the glamorous beings depicted in a thousand detective stories, where troubled investigators tore themselves apart but almost single-handedly brought down the worst of the worst. In this world they dealt with cold, unpleasant reality, and it took a special kind of person to spend all their working hours inside and, in most cases, watch a hopeless parade of wasted lives walk past them several times in a career.

  Like everyone who’d served in Northern Ireland, Macallan had watched the demented lunacy of the Maze prison turn into a theatrical farce in front of the public’s eyes. What had started off as a place to hold and control many of the world’s most experienced and dedicated terrorists had been crippled by political expediency. The prisoners watched the other side weaken in the face of what the world saw as over-harsh treatment. The hunger strikes and dirty protests had proved that they were strong, and gradually they had gnawed at the prison regime till they virtually ran everything inside the walls. It was a victory for the men behind bars and a nightmare existence for the men and women who worked there and pretended that they were still in control. The lesson Macallan had learned from this was that she could never work in those conditions. Being a detective had given her a form of freedom that most prison officers only dreamt of having, and she thanked her stars for that one. It was one of those jobs that no one wanted to do but, miraculously, some people were prepared to take up the challenge.

  This was someone else’s world, and the detectives were under control as much as the prisoners when they walked within the walls of Bar-L. The very name conjured up images of a Glasgow world past and present that represented all the old stereotypes. Hard men and hard time. Battlers who wore their facial scars like badges of honour. But if you had a lie-down in Bar-L you never forgot what that could do to the toughest men, and the reality was that in the dead of night, generations of screws had walked quietly past the doors and heard the sounds of hard men sobbing quietly. In the day they could act the part and say ‘fuck you’ to the world, but in those quiet dead hours when all they could imagine were years of isolation, there was nothing but despair. Some famous killers had taken their last walk to the gallows within those dull grey walls, and there were screws and inmates who swore blind they could still hear those men with their entourage of guards and ministers take those last steps to the execution chamber.

  The detectives passed through the security checks, and stuffed coats and electrical equipment into plastic boxes for the security scans that were obligatory even for lawyers and police. The days when they were seen as being on the same side were long gone, and no one was trusted as safe anymore.

  They sat down and waited with their coats over their laps, stripped of much of the power they carried in their everyday lives. They both stared at the wooden plaque with the names and dates of service of all the old governors and conjured up images of the men who’d played God in Bar-L down through the years.

  They were to meet the deputy governor, Bertie Stanton, who was standing in for his boss, who was off with a long-term illness. When he arrived to greet them, he seemed to squeeze through the door rather than just pass normally. Macallan had been told that his nickname was The Bear, and the title was well chosen. He looked like two people had been stuffed into the one skin. Years of playing rugby beyond his time, including six caps for Scotland, were cut into his ears and eyebrows, which were thick with a build-up of scar tissue. His red hair formed part of a mop that seemed to have ignored any attempt at brushing and was closer in form to wire than anything of human origin. Macallan thought Jack was a big man, but Stanton was something else, and she wondered what it must have been like on the playing field, watching this man bear down on you.

  His smile was immediate and broad, as if he was seeing old friends for the first time in ages. According to his reputation, he was a good man to have on your side and a complete bastard if you wanted him as an enemy. The background they had on him was that he was respected from floor to ceiling and had earned his spurs inside some of the toughest prisons in the country. He’d done a two-year secondment in the Maze during a difficult period and SB intelligence was that if the peace process hadn’t been on the table, the paramilitaries would have had him near the top of their target list. Macallan knew the very fact he’d volunteered to serve there made him special.

  Stanton shook Macallan’s hand first and she was sure half her arm disappeared into his paw. It was that gesture that convinced her she could like the man. For all his size and obvious strength, the handshake was as gentle as a child – he didn’t do the inadequate-man thing of trying to crush her hand to show what a big guy he was. He grabbed Jimmy’s hand next and just gave equal pressure. The two men looked into each other’s eyes and liked what they saw.

  ‘I hope you like builder’s tea, Superintendent; it’s the only way I serve it.’

  Macallan smiled and started to relax. ‘Please call me Grace. And we’re polis, Mr Stanton; a brew keeps us going through the long dark days until the pub opens.’

  The governor laughed warmly and the sound he made reminded her of Brian Blessed going full tilt at an audience. They became even more at ease when Stanton went through his acquaintances in the police and it turned out that Macallan had known and worked with the SB liaison officer who was based in the Maze when he was there.

  ‘Tough times then, Grace. Some of those paramilitaries really didn’t like me too much.’

  ‘I think you should take that as an inverted compliment. They tended not to like it when you did your job.’ She sipped her tea. He’d been right that it was brewed builder’s strength – it almost drew her cheeks together. Somehow, she couldn’t quite imagine him doing a fruit tea.

  Stanton leaned forward, rested his Popeye forearms on his desk and got down to business. ‘You know you’ll get every cooperation from me and this establishment, but I’m still not entirely sure what the issues are and why they’ve brought in yourselves from the Far East.’ The question was reasonable and there was no hint that he had taken the hump at the development.

  ‘I’m not sure how much you know about the McMartin case, Bertie, but we want to be as open about this as possible. I’m sure you know about Jacquie Bell’s campaign, and that must be causing you enough problems on its own.’ She waited for a response because anytime the papers got on the case in public life, it tended to swamp normal business.

  ‘I’ve met Jacquie Bell a few times.’ He stopped for a moment and picked his words. ‘She’s obviously a talented reporter but she’s causing senior management heart attacks at the moment.’ He spread his hands. ‘Having said that, I’m big enough, ugly enough and paid a lot of money to handle it, so we’ll see where it goes and what you have to tell me.’

  ‘Do you know what the results of the PM were?’ McGovern stepped in, which was how they’d planned it in the car. They’d worked together in the past and trusted each other’s ability.

  Stanton said he’d heard there were problems at the post-mortem, but the CID who were involved had been tight-lipped, and he couldn’t get a hold of the senior detective who’d run the investigation. Stanton was clearly in the dark and struggling for answers to a problem that he didn’t quite understand.

  McGovern explained what had happened and that the detective in charge was unlikely to answer any more calls, at least in an official line.

  ‘You’ve more chance of seeing him in here as a customer the way things seem to be going,’ Macallan said with no more than a trace of a smile. She pulled out a briefing note they’d prepared and gave it to Stanton. ‘Everything that’s an issue is there on paper. We�
�re not CID or major-crime-team officers so the powers that be aren’t treating it as a crisis.’ Macallan said it in as businesslike a way as possible, but before she’d finished Stanton had put his palm up for a pause in the conversation.

  ‘Look, cards on the table. Neither you nor Jimmy are traditional desk jockeys, so I don’t think that the fact you’re not with the celebrity detectives means this is half-hearted. That’s not the reputation we’ve heard about in here, so I’m confident you’ll do what you need to do.’ For a moment he looked like his shoulders had sagged and Macallan wondered at the strain that must have been on this man’s back for so many years.

  ‘We really just want to go through the witnesses here again, and there might be nothing to add to what they’ve told the police already.’ McGovern looked Stanton straight in the eye when he delivered his next line. ‘This is definitely no witch-hunt, and as far as I can gather, his family – God bless them – are not setting up any protest movements claiming it’s all the authorities’ fault.’

  Macallan picked up the next lines. ‘The Jacquie Bell thing is something else, but I guess we’ll see her at some stage.’

  ‘Good luck; she’s definitely a one-off.’

  ‘Ah, Jacquie’s an old sparring partner and I know how she operates. Anyway . . . who do you suggest we see first?’

  ‘His co-pilot and friend, Andy Holden. If there’s anything to find out, he’s the man for you.’

  ‘And when will we be able to see him?’

  ‘Now. I’ve already set it up.’ Stanton looked pleased with himself, and the detectives both felt confident with a man like The Bear onside. ‘He’s in for murder, no question he did it, and to use the cliché: it was brutal. But Andy’s well liked in here, and you’ll get your answers if you take it easy.’