The driver looked in the rear-view and grinned at his partner and Kerr. Woods was propped up between them, a line of dribble running down his chin and onto his neck. ‘That poor bastard has a bad day coming. Christ, imagine coming off that much bevvy and dope and waking up with Psycho on the case. Fuck!’ The driver chuckled at the prospect and hoped he could watch the action. ‘By the way, is his phone in the jacket, Sammy? The boss’ll want a look at that if there’s a fucking grass.’
‘It’s there alright.’
They settled down, chuffed that Frankie and Abe Logan would be pleased.
Two hours after the abduction McCartney couldn’t settle. After he’d put the phone down on Woods it suddenly came to him that both their fates were tied up. He needed to know what had happened to Woods, even if he’d managed to get out of the city, so he could make his own plans. McCartney imagined what might happen and the bottom line was that Woods would last about two minutes before telling them everything they needed to know. He should have made an arrangement with Woods to keep in touch to try and save both their skins. He pulled his phone out and called the number but it went straight to voicemail.
‘Goggsy. Just wonderin’ if you managed to get away from this Sammy character. Watch the back, pal, and let me know once you get the train. If I hear anything I’ll bell straightaway.’
McCartney put the phone back in his pocket and realised that he should have said fuck all. He groaned and hoped to hell that Woods was okay.
When Woods’ phone rang it was lying on a table next to Abe Logan while he was talking to the boys who’d lifted him. They all looked at the phone when it went off and did synchronised grins when the voicemail was played back. Abe Logan listened to it a second time before he played back the stored voicemails and heard the one Woods had received in the pub.
‘What the fuck? Someone’s been openin’ their big fuckin’ gob. It just gets better and better! I hope that fuckin’ lunatic Psycho is the problem. He’s a pish-heid an’ they can never keep it zipped.’
Abe called his brother Frankie to let him know there might be a problem with a leak somewhere.
McCartney tried the number a couple more times round midnight but there was no reply. He withheld his number and kept it shut this time when the voicemail came on. The fact that he couldn’t get through was enough to convince him that Woods was in deep shit and he might have already dropped his name to the Logans. The hard men could be out searching for him already, and that meant game over. He sent a text to his sister to let her know what had happened. Despite his fears McCartney felt exhausted; however, he also knew what he had to do and that for the time being he was safe at Waddell’s. He managed to sleep, which was more than could be said for his sister, who spent the night hours chewing her knuckles and chain-smoking while trying to think of a way out.
If McCartney had been willing to help, Paterson would have killed McManus, but she realised that it was probably futile and either the CID or the Logans would get them before they could make a new life. It was a mess, and it was time to do something or end up with McManus’s hands round her throat. If the story about Woods was true and they had him, the Logans might already be working out what had led to the fuck-up in Edinburgh. McManus could get the call anytime and then it would be her turn.
It was the early hours of the morning and the flat was cold. She started to shake uncontrollably. There was nothing left in her stomach – she’d retched up what little had been there already.
Gradually she calmed down and made a decision. McManus was old-fashioned and always kept a stash of money in the flat rather than at the bank. It was only a couple of grand but would keep her going for a while. There was no way she could take her kid so her mother would just have to get on with it. She’d never wanted the child anyway – it had been an unintended conception after a hen party in Blackpool.
When she checked the bedroom, Paterson was relieved to find McManus snoring quietly, and the room stank of stale whisky, so with any luck he wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon. She hated the bastard and had to fight the urge to plunge into him with a bread knife. It was definitely time to pack up and go.
She kept some of her stuff in the spare room, which looked like an explosion in a charity shop but was safer to plunder for wearable clothes than the bedroom. Next she needed McManus’s stash of money from the holdall in the hall cupboard. Unknowingly, he’d given her a small break by adding a bonus from the Logans for the Edinburgh turn to his stash and there was nearly three grand. She felt a slight lift – it was a fortune for someone like her – although she couldn’t work out that it would only keep her safe for a few weeks at most. It didn’t matter – she’d already decided that if she had to go on the game then so be it. At least she’d be alive.
Twenty minutes later she was on her way to the station. At 6 a.m. she called her mother to break the news and was surprised when the old woman didn’t make any fuss. The truth was that her mother felt like she’d been given a second chance and she was getting what she wanted: another child of her own so she had a reason to live.
After Paterson bought her ticket she stood for a moment while all her emotions seemed to be battling for supremacy. She had to leave all of her life behind, including her child, who she was fond of to some extent. There was no going back and she had no idea what future was lying in wait for her, but like her mother, she felt a moment of excitement that maybe, just maybe this could be the start of something better. She was tired, but cleaned up was a good-looking woman. If she went on the game then it would be escorting, and she’d take care to do it on her terms. She had pals who flogged it, so what was the problem? Delusion was the drug that would keep her going for the time being.
She pulled the mobile phone out of her bag, stared at it like a junkie looking at their last bit of dope, took the SIM card out and broke the phone up into pieces. She dropped the SIM in another waste bin and felt her old life drifting into the past. The train was already waiting at the platform by the time she’d bought an overpriced first-class ticket, and no more than a couple of minutes after she sat down it started to pull away, gradually picking up speed as it left the station and crossed the points. She closed her eyes and hoped she could make it alone.
28
McCartney was up early for the first time he could remember. It was a big day and probably the end of his aspirations to become a major criminal, but as everyone who ever knew him could bear witness, you just never knew with the boy. His head felt remarkably clear, and the combination of an imminent threat to his life and the imminent high of walking in the front door of a cop shop and grassing up some serious people had given him the most amazing buzz. The rush made him feel healthy, although when he stared in the bathroom mirror the guy staring back looked like a car crash.
‘Weird,’ McCartney said to his reflection as he attempted to make himself presentable for his trip to the local pig farm. He shaved the bum fluff from his coupon with a razor that was so old it hacked rather than glided and left him with several pieces of toilet paper glued to the nicks on his chin. He slapped some gel on his hair, combed it back, saw that his hairline was retreating and for the first time admitted to himself that he was balding. McCartney was still a young man, but the signs of age were showing already, and he felt a knot of fear that he was mortal, something that hadn’t occurred to him before. At least he looked cleaner than normal after he’d squeezed out the contents of a couple of yellow-capped plouks and dabbed the red patches with some cheap aftershave. Although there wasn’t much he could do about his clothes, he’d asked Waddell to buy him a couple of things, and the new sweater and jeans made him look almost respectable. They were a real change in style from his usual gear, which marked him out as a total chav.
He walked through to say his goodbyes to Waddell, who was still in bed and rubbed his face, trying to work out why McCartney would be up and about in what was still the middle of the night for him.
‘That’s me away. No’ sure when I’ll
be back, pal, but big respect for letting me crash here.’ He felt something unusual: gratitude. Waddell had done more for him in a couple of days than all his so-called mates in the past. The boy thought McCartney was the business and that was all he’d ever wanted in life.
‘Let me know how it goes. Anytime you need me, pal, just shout.’ The wee man smiled, and McCartney felt a lump swell in his throat and wished he could just stay there, watch shite movies, talk football and smoke a bit of dope. It would have been better if he’d never met a gangster, far less try to be one.
‘Take care, Peem, and when the dust settles I’ll see you.’
McCartney walked out into the street and Waddell thought he’d better follow the news for some big event coming off. McCartney hadn’t told him what was going down but it had to be good.
At 7.45 a.m. McCartney walked in the front door of Helen Street police station, better known as Govan polis. It was the most secure station in the country and McCartney thought it was appropriate for what he was about to do.
‘Can I help you . . . sir?’ The receptionist wasn’t quite sure whether McCartney deserved the salutation, but they were trained to be courteous to everyone, regardless.
McCartney explained that he had information for the CID and that it was ‘big stuff’. The receptionist thought that’ll be shining bright but told him to sit down and called up one of the local suits she was having a fling with.
The detective was busy: he was not only up to his eyes in paperwork, he was sitting with the rest of his team having his morning coffee and participating in the daily team rant about how one chief constable could manage to bring down so much crap and problems on the force. He didn’t need the call, but the thing with the receptionist was in its first passionate weeks so he had to keep her sweet. ‘What’s his name, Beth?’
She told him and the detective shook his head. It meant nothing to him so he tried the name on his team.
His DS was sitting at his desk trying to ignore the criticism of the Chief and work out how he could shift his reports to the Fiscal before he was due to go on holiday. He was pissed off with the pressure of trying to meet his targets for the month and wondered if he could go off sick with stress, maybe get a couple of weeks at the police convalescent home then retire due to ill health. The job had changed out of all proportion and he just wanted out.
When the DC shouted out the name Pat McCartney it caught his attention and he looked up. It wasn’t the most unusual name in Glasgow but rang a particular bell. ‘Ask her for a rough description and date of birth.’ He looked back at the memo that had come down from the area commander saying that everyone needed to push harder on housebreaking. ‘Twat,’ he said under his breath and wondered if he had a problem with blood pressure. He was drinking to calm down at night and eating shit. It had to be having an effect.
When the DC looked up from the phone, gave the date of birth and description, it made the DS perk up. ‘Christ, it’s Bobo McCartney. I was in the source-handling team and ran the tout that put that wee fucker away for the job in Edinburgh, remember?’ A couple of the DCs nodded, though not too enthusiastically, in case the DS asked them to speak to him. No one needed another problem for their day. The DS couldn’t face looking at his in tray any longer, decided it would be a distraction and said he would take care of it himself. The DCs breathed a collective sigh.
The DS went to the front desk, said nothing more than, ‘Come with me,’ and took McCartney to the only spare office he could find in the building. He recognised McCartney from the photographs when he’d got the original information from the tout for the failed bank job in Edinburgh. He knew the boy was regarded as a bit of an arse, but you never knew and lived in hope.
‘Okay, son, talk to me. You walked in the door, I’ve just given you a nice coffee from the machine and I’m all ears. Don’t waste my time because I’m always in a bad fuckin’ mood, right?’
McCartney nodded and sipped the coffee. He struggled to find the first words but the DS had seen it all before and knew just to let him take his time. If it was shite he’d kick his arse, and if there was something in it, he’d get the credit.
McCartney scratched the site of one of the plouks he’d squished that morning and the DS screwed his face up until the young man started to talk, at which point he realised he needed to concentrate on McCartney’s story instead. It was a bit garbled, because that’s how his mind worked, but it was all there: working for Big Brenda, the attempted robbery in Edinburgh, the total fuck-up and everything that came after it. What really got the DS high was the possibility that someone called Goggsy Woods might at that moment be dead or about to die or could just be being tortured. McCartney had then thrown McManus’s name into the pile and the DS knew all about that particular fruitcake. If there was an ounce of truth in the story and there really was an imminent threat to life then he needed to get his arse into gear. It was the kind of situation that could end your career if you dragged your feet and the subsequent enquiry found you hadn’t acted properly. The media loved that stuff.
The DS changed colour slightly, called his office and told one of the DCs to quit scratching his arse and join him ‘fuckin’ pronto’. The detective was there in two minutes and the DS spoke to him outside the office. ‘Do not let this wee fucker move till I get back.’ He left to start making the calls.
The wheels started to turn almost immediately – the DS had a good reputation and people listened. The teams required for an intelligence/rescue operation started to mobilise, but the big problem was that McCartney hadn’t a clue where they would have taken Woods. The first call went to the duty detective super, who recognised right away that this would have to have an SIO trained in kidnap management. He breathed a sigh of relief because he didn’t have that expertise, but there was something else: one of his close friends was Superintendent Charlie MacKay, who was trained, had run a few of those jobs in the past and, more than that, had a special interest in the Logans.
Charlie MacKay was with the team about to run a surveillance job on a Somali gang who were on the point of taking delivery of a consignment of guns and drugs. When he took the call from the duty super he closed his eyes for a minute and his team saw that whatever he’d just been told was a problem. He made a couple of urgent calls and one of his DCIs took charge of the Somali job.
MacKay might have been a couple of ranks below executive level, but he was one of the most powerful men in the force because he’d almost grown up in special operations, knew more than almost anyone else about the subject and the executive were frightened to argue too hard with him because they hadn’t a clue how the dark arts really worked. There was an exception – Macallan’s experience in Northern Ireland gave her the edge, but they’d never met and only knew each other by name. That would change, because the events they were both involved in would draw them together in ways they could never have predicted or wished for.
The clock was ticking, but MacKay acted against his instincts. He didn’t really want to intervene in anything the Logans were doing at that time because he was already running an eighteen-month intelligence operation that would be coming to fruition as soon as all the pieces were in place. It made no difference, because the report of an abduction had been made, and if they didn’t act and there was a loss of life, he’d take the hit and far too many worms would crawl out into the light. The problem was that he was the authorising officer for a high-grade covert human intelligence source (CHIS) who was being controlled by his DCI, Tony Slaven, and handled by one of his DIs. The source, known as Jigsaw, was gold dust and right in the guts of the Logans’ set-up. It all required careful balancing.
MacKay had already spent a lot of time dismantling the Slab McMartin team to the point it was almost no more than a memory. The abduction was a chronic pain in the arse and could tear up all he’d planned for. At least being able to take charge of it was a lucky break, and hopefully he could control some of what happened. He called in Slaven, filled him in on the develop
ing situation and watched the DCI pull a couple of uncomfortable faces at the prospect. Slaven knew some of what was at stake – not as much as MacKay but enough to be concerned.
‘I know it’s not the arrangement we have with him, but we need to get a hold of him right now, find out whether he’s involved and, if not, where the fuck they’re holding this boy. Get to it and I’ll start setting the teams up.’
There was nothing more to say and the DCI left the office.
Next, MacKay called the DS at Govan, got every detail he could and told him to go over it again with McCartney then bring him close to the team he was setting up in Pitt Street. This was the old Glasgow HQ for Strathclyde and had all the comms required for a hostage situation. ‘We might need to pick his brains during the op. One of the handlers from the source-handling team will take over from you. Is he looking for a deal or something?’
‘Just going to ask him, sir, and then get him over to your boys as soon as.’ The DS knew the situation was growing arms and legs above his pay grade, and he was happy to unload the thing and take a bit of undeserved credit later on. He hurried back into the interview room and nodded to the DC to give them a moment.
When the door closed he looked at McCartney and hoped his story was on the money or he’d take some serious flak. ‘Okay, son. This thing’s moving. We’re doing our best to track down this Goggsy, and fingers crossed this McManus character doesn’t get too much of a start.’
‘God willing!’ McCartney said it straight-faced and he was serious, although his words threw the DS for a moment. He squinted at McCartney and looked for a half-smile that would signify the twat was delivering an inappropriate stab at satire.
Where No Shadows Fall Page 16