February's Son

by Alan Parks

  ‘What? You sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘You heard,’ said Murray. ‘Knock the door in.’

  McCoy looked around, walked back up the corridor and pulled a large red fire extinguisher off the wall. Weighed a ton. He stood at the door with it. ‘You sure?’

  Murray nodded so he stepped back, took it in both hands and launched it at the lock. The door cracked and splintered but held. He swore under his breath and swung it again. This time the door gave way, swung into the room, leaving a handle surrounded by splintered wood still attached to the lock.

  ‘Mr Connolly? You there?’ he shouted.

  The room was gloomy, just a sliver of weak morning light seeping in through the net curtains. McCoy stepped in, immediately recoiled at the smell. Was like rotten food and something like blocked drains. He turned round to look for the light switch and that’s when the chair hit him.

  It just missed his head and caught him on the shoulder but he went down all the same. Had a brief glimpse of Connolly’s bald head above him before he brought it down again. One of the chair legs went right into his chest, hurt like fuck. He cried out, tried to roll away. Looked up just as Connolly jumped over him and rammed the chair legs into Murray’s chest, pushing him back, pinning him against the corridor wall. One of the legs digging into his chest, the other digging into his windpipe. Connolly rammed the chair forward and Murray let out a horrible gurgling as the leg burst through the skin and dug further into his neck.

  McCoy got himself up onto his knees but that was as far as he got before Connolly turned and whacked him across the side of the head. He didn’t know what it was he’d hit him with but it was hard and heavy, got him right on the temple, knocking him back against the bedroom wall and that was that.

  He could only have been out for a minute or so. He came to, head spinning, seeing tiny flashes of light. He looked up. Connolly was gone and Wattie was crouched down over Murray.

  ‘He okay?’ McCoy managed to get out.

  Murray struggled up, pushed Wattie off to the side. ‘Of course I’m bloody okay! Get after him!’ he bellowed at Wattie. ‘Move!’

  Wattie scrabbled up and started running down the corridor towards the stairs.

  McCoy sat up and rubbed at his head, could feel a lump there already. Looked down, two squares of blood were coming through his shirt. ‘What the fuck happened?’

  Murray was pressing buttons on his radio, shouting into it. All he was getting was static; he chucked it at the wall, shouted, ‘Fucking thing!’ Then rounded on McCoy.

  ‘I’ll tell you what bloody happened. He got past me and you, brushed Wattie aside like a bloody fly and he was off like the clappers.’

  ‘Uniforms’ll get him then,’ said McCoy, holding out his shirt and looking down into it. Blood was running down his chest.

  ‘Some bloody chance of that. Fucking useless, the lot of them!’

  An unlucky uniform appeared at the top of the stairs and got both barrels. Murray shouting orders at him about covering exits, watching the car park. Seemed like a waste of time to McCoy but it was probably making Murray feel better.

  He crawled towards the bed and pulled himself up on it. Eased his jacket and shirt off, looked at himself in the dresser mirror and winced. The square dent from the chair leg on his chest was bleeding badly, raised red welt. Had a horrible feeling he’d a couple of broken ribs.

  He leant in for a closer look and that was when he noticed them. Behind him, reflected in the mirror. Twenty or so old milk bottles lined up against the wall, each of them full of different levels of dark yellow piss. He looked away and groaned, the smell thick in the back of his throat.

  He pushed the bathroom door open, looking for a drink from the tap, and suddenly the smell got even worse. He pulled a worn towel off the rail over his mouth and tried to breathe through that. Couldn’t believe what he was looking at. The bath was full of paper bags stuffed full of shit, flies buzzing and crawling over them. Each of them complete with a weight written on them in ballpoint pen: 4oz, 5oz. Realised they were grouped together by similar weight. He groaned, spat the taste out his mouth into the sink, wiped his mouth with a wad of toilet paper. There was an open paperback on top of the cistern.

  Sven Hassel. Assignment Gestapo.

  Big burning tank on the front. Shaving kit was on the shelf, navy blue wash bag with a drawstring. He pulled it open. A bottle of Brut aftershave, facecloth, nailbrush and a bottle of pills. He took the bottle out, gagging again at the stink. No chemist label on it. Two different kinds of pills, black bombers and Mandies by the look of it. He slipped the bottle into his trouser pocket, put the wash bag back.

  Back in the bedroom he pulled the curtains wide and opened the window as far as it would go, tried to avoid the stink of the piss, breathe in the fresh air. Realised the bottles were marked too; amount in each one written in chinagraph pencil on the side.

  He opened the dresser drawers. Nothing much, a couple of shirts. Nothing much in the wardrobe either. Just some dirty Y-fronts and a pair of trousers on a hanger. Connolly certainly did travel light. He started feeling a bit dizzy again so he sat back down on the bed, started breathing deeply. It hurt each time he breathed in, ribs must be fucked right enough.

  Realised there was a picture pinned to the wall right in front of him. It was the picture that he’d seen in the paper. Charlie Jackson and his fiancée Elaine Scobie at the Provost’s Ball. Charlie looking young in a dinner suit, Elaine in a long dress, hair pinned up with a flower in it. Charlie’s head had gone in an angry scribble of blue ballpoint pen. Beneath it there was something written on the flowery wallpaper in pencil, hard to make out. McCoy leant to the side, let what light there was from the window hit the wall.

  BYE BYE CHARLIE

  Everything tastes the same.

  My soul sometimes leaves my body.

  He sat back, uttered a quiet ‘fuck me’ under his breath.

  ‘You all right?’ asked Murray, stepping into the room.

  ‘I’ll live,’ he said. ‘You?’

  Murray nodded, rubbing at the welt on his neck with a bloodstained hanky. ‘What’s the bloody smell?’

  McCoy gestured at the bottles. ‘Don’t go in the bathroom, it’s even worse. The sick bastard’s been keeping all his piss and shit and measuring it.’

  ‘He’s been what?’ Murray was staring at the bottles in disbelief. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  McCoy pointed at the writing on the wall.

  Murray read it, shook his head. ‘Fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘No idea. Think Lomax was right after all. He has gone fucking nuts. Did we lose him?’

  ‘Looks like it. Did you no see him when you came in?’ asked Murray.

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Aye, I saw him. That’s why I let him clobber me with a fucking chair. What about you?’

  Murray sat down on the other bed and shook his head. ‘Maybe I’m not as young as I used to be. Didn’t know what was happening until you were down and he was stabbing me with those bloody chair legs.’ He looked up. ‘What you grinning at?’

  McCoy shook his head. ‘Two of us. Glasgow’s finest. Brought to our knees by some loony armed with a bedroom chair. Maybe put in for a medal, eh?’

  Murray shook his head. ‘C’mon. After this shitshow I need a bloody drink.’

  *

  ‘Nowhere, sir. Uniforms didn’t move from the exits, didn’t see anything. Nobody came past them. We could search the building but it’s almost four hundred rooms . . .’

  ‘So where the fuck is he?’ asked Murray.

  Wattie shrugged. ‘He’s either hiding somewhere in the hotel or he managed to get out some other way.’

  Murray put his glass back on the table. They were sitting in the empty lounge bar, tartan everywhere. Smell of damp in the walls. Miserable bartender polishing a glass and looking at them suspiciously. Only other patrons were two old ladies sipping sherry.

  ‘He’ll be gone. No way he’s going to stick ar
ound here.’ McCoy took a sip of his pint, waved his arm around. ‘This hotel is fucking huge. Even if we’d covered the exits there’s windows, service entrances, delivery chutes, loads of ways he could have got out.’

  Murray knew he was right, just didn’t want to admit it. ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘Nothing we can do. He’ll turn up. Don’t think Connolly’s ever been out of Glasgow in his puff. He’ll no be going anywhere. Not while Elaine Scobie’s here. We’re looking for him, we’ve got our touts looking for him, even Scobie’s cronies are supposedly looking for him. He’ll turn up. Just need to go in mob-handed next time, make sure he doesn’t get away.’

  He held up the paperback he had found in Connolly’s hotel room. ‘He’s underlined something in here.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Murray, looking sour. ‘What?’

  McCoy read it out. ‘“The colonel had died badly. He had begged and pleaded and babbled hysterically, with tears down his cheeks, of the favours he could arrange for them if only they would spare his life. His last despairing words had been to offer them free use of his wife and daughters . . .”’

  ‘That supposed to be about Jake Scobie?’ asked Wattie.

  ‘Might be,’ said McCoy. ‘Really need to get Elaine Scobie to come in. Picture of the hotel-room wall’s proof if we even needed any. He’s obviously obsessed; she’s not safe.’

  Murray nodded. ‘I’ll have another go at Lomax.’

  McCoy finished his pint, stood up, winced.

  ‘Where you off to?’ asked Murray.

  ‘Boots the chemist and Marks. Aspirin, some plaster for these bloody cuts and a new shirt. You?’

  ‘Into the shop for a couple of hours then back home to change. Got dinner at the City Chambers. Some charity thing. All I do these days is go to bloody dinners.’

  ‘Perils of being a big boss.’ McCoy pointed at his neck. ‘Make sure the dress uniform doesn’t cover your war wound, give all the lady councillors a thrill. I’ll catch up with you later, see where we are.’

  ‘We need to be bloody somewhere,’ said Murray gloomily. ‘Between the press and the Super this Charlie Jackson thing needs to get sorted. Press went national today.’ He looked up at them and for the first time McCoy noticed he was starting to look old. More grey in his beard than ginger. ‘He’ll no be happy we lost Connolly today.’

  ‘We’ll get him, sir. Not be long.’

  McCoy headed for the door, hoped it was true.

  He was crossing the shabby foyer, almost at the hotel’s front doors, when they burst open in front of him. Jake Scobie and two of his boys were standing there trying to look like the bloody cavalry.

  ‘You get him?’ Scobie asked, looking round.

  ‘Not this time,’ said McCoy. ‘Got away.’

  ‘For fuck sake!’ Jake’s shout echoed round the empty foyer. Fat guy behind the desk looked up in fright.

  Murray appeared beside him. ‘Scobie? What are you doing here?’ he asked angrily.

  Jake’s colour was up, fists bunched. ‘You lost him, you stupid cunt, didn’t you!’

  Murray stepped forward; McCoy put his arm out to stop him going any further. Way Scobie was shouting the odds, he was definitely looking for a fight, and way Murray was feeling, Murray would be more than happy to give it to him.

  ‘Mr Scobie, can I ask you how you knew we were here?’ asked McCoy.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can’t be a coincidence you turning up here, can it? How did you know we were here?’

  Jake looked exasperated. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? You had Connolly and you let him go! Fucking useless shower. Usual polis shite.’ He shook his head. ‘Can see I’m going to have to do this myself.’

  Murray was still pressing against McCoy’s arm, trying to get to Scobie; could feel the weight of him. McCoy held firm. Last thing this investigation needed was Murray and Scobie going at each other in the foyer of the bloody St Enoch Hotel.

  ‘I’ll ask you again, Mr Scobie. How did you know we were here?’

  No response, just a glare. One of his boys cleared his throat, spat on the carpet.

  ‘Okay, Mr Scobie, let me explain things to you in simple terms. You are refusing to tell me how you knew the police or Kevin Connolly were here. If it turns out you are bribing or pressuring any officers on this case for confidential information that led you here, I’ll arrest you and make sure you spend the next couple of months in Barlinnie, Archie Lomax or no fucking Archie Lomax.’

  McCoy wasn’t quite sure where all this bravado was coming from, but it seemed to be working. Scobie had been expecting a screaming match about how shite the polis were and that was the last thing McCoy was going to give him. He was talking quietly, calmly, even though his heart was racing.

  ‘Any answers, Mr Scobie?’

  Scobie looked at him. Whether he was or not, he obviously thought McCoy was serious. He pointed at him, started talking, saliva flecking the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Listen to me, you jumped-up fucking cunt. I know your name, where you live. You and the fat cunt behind you. When this is over I’m gonnae pay you both a wee visit. You remember that.’

  He turned, nodded to his boys, walked out the double doors.

  I liked the St Enoch Hotel. The room, the bed, the empty floors upstairs. I slept up there sometimes. Woke up in the middle of the night, in the dark, walked the corridors. Listened to the mice in the walls, the pigeons in the roof, and the whispers of the dead. I found a pile of scud mags in one of the rooms, cotton hanky on top stiff with dried spunk. Maybe someone had been there before me but I thought I recognised the girls in the magazines, thought I knew them. Maybe I’d bought the magazines myself? Couldn’t be sure.

  The older one, the one with the hat, had come to talk to Scobie once. Acting the big man, talking shite, just another puffed-up polis without a clue. I should have got the chair higher, pushed the leg hard into his face. His eye.

  The big clock hanging from the roof of Central Station says half past four. I am a free man. Stay wherever I want. Start my collection over again. Was vital I kept a record. Really should be weighing everything. See what’s leaving my body.

  I bought a Mars Bar from the newsagents. One and three quarter ounces. Unwrapped it and took a little bite. Grimaced. Everything tasted the same.

  TEN

  McCoy walked back into the office, swallowing two aspirin with a gulp from a bottle of Irn-Bru. He stopped a second, put it and the Marks bag down on his desk, and burped loudly. Felt better. Rolled the six notes from the desk sergeant telling him to call Mary at the Record into a ball and threw it twenty feet towards the bin beside Wattie’s desk, raised his hands in triumph as it went straight in.

  ‘No bother!’ he said. ‘You see that?’

  Wattie looked up from his paperwork. ‘Marvellous.’

  McCoy took off his jacket, started to pull his tie loose. ‘Christ, what’s up with you?’ he asked and immediately wished he hadn’t as Wattie started his rant.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s up with me. Every fucking thing that nobody wants gets dumped on my desk. Look!’

  He stood up, spread his arms wide. McCoy had to admit he had a point. His desk was covered in all sorts of shite.

  He went on. ‘Files that nobody’s put back, phone messages for every cunt in here, the tea kitty tin, Thomson’s fucking requisition forms! I’m supposed to be a junior detective, supposed to be learning things, not the bloody office junior!’

  McCoy pulled his shirt from his trousers, started unbuttoning it. ‘Finished?’

  Wattie sat back down, looking glum. ‘And while you’ve been out bloody shopping I’ve spent the last two hours phoning every bloody B&B and boarding house in Glasgow.’

  McCoy pretended to step on something, bent down to pick it up, held out his hand to Wattie. ‘Your dummy. Think you must have spat it out.’

  Despite himself, Wattie laughed. ‘Arse.’

  ‘Detective Arse to you, Watson.’ He got his shirt o
ff, started to unwrap the new one. Wolf-whistle from across the room. Thomson grinning at him.

  ‘Thomson! You’ve finally realised you’re working with a sex bomb?’

  ‘Seen more muscles on a bloody worm,’ said Thomson.

  McCoy was trying to get the tin of Elastoplast open. Eventually managed to prise a nail under the lid and pop it up. He got a couple out, started the equally difficult process of getting them out their wee wrappers. Noticed a large brown paper bag on Wattie’s desk. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘More shite. Why are you in such a good mood anyway?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ he said, sticking a big plaster on one of the cuts on his chest. ‘But it doesn’t happen often so you better make the most of it.’

  He really wasn’t sure why he was in such a good mood. Adrenaline from the confrontation with Scobie probably. Plus Murray had taken him aside after, told him he had done a good job diffusing the situation, the right thing. Golden boy, right enough.

  ‘Okay, gonnae take this then?’ Wattie held out the brown paper bag. ‘Remember that guy that hanged himself in the church—’

  ‘Chapel,’ said McCoy. ‘What about him?’

  ‘This is his personal effects. What am I supposed to do with the bloody things?’

  ‘Here,’ said McCoy, sticking the other plaster over the cut above his left nipple. ‘Give us them.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve got the autopsy report. I’ll put it with them and dump it all on Thomson’s desk when he goes out.’

  Wattie handed the bag over, went back to trying to clear his desk. ‘Thomson!’ he shouted. ‘How about moving your shite off my desk?’

  Thomson held his hands up. ‘I didn’t bloody put anything on your desk.’

  McCoy left them arguing, sat back down, looked at his old shirt, decided it was beyond saving and put it in the bin, buttoned up his new one. The bag Wattie had given him was pretty light for a man’s final possessions. He opened it. Folded suit and shirt smelling of sweat and fags. Least his underwear and socks weren’t in there. His wallet was sitting on the top. McCoy got it out. Opened it.

  A pawn ticket for a watch, a wee prayer card. St Jude, patron saint of lost causes. Hadn’t done much for this poor bugger. He turned it over. The back of it was covered in Bible verse references written in neat ballpoint pen. Usual ones: Corinthians 13.4, John 3.16, Matthew 11.28. He’d had the Bible rammed down his throat for so many years at the schools and the homes that he knew most of them by heart.