by T F Muir
It didn’t take him long. Not wind speeds that time, but depth markers that jumped out at him – 832 feet; 820 feet – followed by a series of numbers that he’d read as bearings. The same depth markers appeared on the same day the following week, but with a different set of numbers after them.
He pushed from his desk and walked to Jackie’s room. She was seated at her desk, half-hidden by her computer, eyes fixed on its screen, fingers tapping the keyboard with the dexterity of a court reporter. She looked up as he entered, and gave him a wide smile.
‘Are you busy?’ he asked.
She wobbled her head, and managed to say, ‘Duh …’
‘I need you to do something for me.’ He shoved his scribbled notes in front of her. ‘These numbers,’ he said, and pointed at the wind speeds. ‘09 – 01 – 06. And 832 – 820.’
She looked at him, and nodded.
‘Find out which banks use these as their sort codes,’ he said, then handed her a copy of Mhairi’s notes, and instructed her to go through them, and see if she could find sort codes for other banks.
Back at his desk, he compared the numbers from Christie’s logbook with those they’d passed to Harvey Kenn. But after fifteen minutes he was none the wiser. His theory of simple arithmetic cryptology seemed fatally flawed. He checked his emails to find one from Jackie confirming that the numbers were sort codes for the Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander, and that she’d found one more for Bank of Scotland. Assuming that the numbers following these codes were account numbers, then they had a total of ten bank accounts to investigate.
He collected his notes and went off in search of Mhairi.
He found her outside in the car park, on her mobile phone.
She ended the call when she saw him approaching.
‘Here’s a list of ten bank accounts,’ he said. ‘Get hold of Harvey Kenn as a matter of priority, and have him check them out. I want a printout of last year’s statements on every one of them, and details of each of the account holders.’
‘We can’t get hold of him,’ she said. ‘He’s not returning anyone’s calls.’
‘Try him again,’ he said. ‘And failing that, drive to Glenrothes and deliver them to him in person.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He returned to the Office, feeling as if he was getting somewhere at last.
He found Jessie at her desk, on the phone, looking miserable. With his team being pulled off Stooky Dee’s investigation, and Jessie being benched from her brother’s murder, he’d assigned her the mundane task of creating a list of local fishermen and businessmen with whom Joe Christie might have had contact. Even though they knew that whatever she came up with would more than likely lead them nowhere, Jessie had delved into it with initial enthusiasm. But you could keep up appearances for only so long.
‘Fancy a break?’ he said.
She froze mid-dial, returned the handset to its cradle. ‘Thought you’d never ask.’
‘Grab your bag,’ he said.
Jessie gathered her jacket and scarf from the back of her chair, picked up her bag from the floor, and chased after him. She just caught sight of him as he pushed through the main doors onto North Street, mobile to his ear. She was still some ten yards behind him when he stepped into College Street without a backward glance. But she knew from experience that he was keeping his phone conversation private.
She tucked her head down and scurried after him.
She expected him to enter the Central by the side door – he was known to like a pint with his pie, chips and beans, and it always puzzled her why he never put on weight – but he strode beyond the bar’s side entrance and into Market Street where he turned right.
She caught up with him in the queue in Costa Coffee.
‘Latte? Skinny?’ he said.
‘Make it a fatty latte. I lost a couple of pounds running after you. And order me one of these muffins while you’re at it. I missed breakfast.’
He smiled, and placed the order. ‘Two medium lattes, one skinny, and a couple of muffins. Blueberry and …?’ He glanced at her. ‘A cranberry?’
‘Whatever.’
‘And a cranberry,’ he said.
‘I might not have been joking about the fatty latte, you know.’
‘Never known you to order anything but a skinny.’ He removed his wallet. ‘See if you can grab a couple of seats in the back. Somewhere quiet, if you can.’
She gathered a handful of napkins, and walked through to the back. Trying to find somewhere quiet in Costa Coffee was a tough ask that close to lunchtime, but she was surprised to find two tables deserted and cleared.
She took the table by the corner, then sat down, her back to the wall.
A moment later, Gilchrist appeared, balancing two coffee mugs on a tray.
He sat opposite her, and placed the mugs and plates on the table.
Silent, Jessie tried to read his face. His apparent reluctance to return her gaze warned her that he was about to share some bad news.
‘There you go,’ he said, and slid a plate with the cranberry muffin over. He tore a chunk from the blueberry muffin and held it out. ‘Sure you don’t want to share?’
She shook her head, took a sip of latte – hot and creamy.
‘Got something I’d like you to do,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want you to do it if you’re not comfortable with it.’
‘It’s about Tommy, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘In one way, yes. In another, no.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘Where’s your bag?’
‘On the floor.’
He waited until she placed it on her knees, then he removed a small parcel the size of a book from his jacket pocket, which he slipped into her bag. She didn’t need to open it to know it was Christie’s logbook.
‘No one knows we found it,’ he said.
‘Except for Mhairi, and her friend, whatsherface.’
‘Carol Granger.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘We can trust her,’ he said.
‘Since when did we start trusting anyone?’
He ignored her comment, and leaned closer. ‘If no one other than the four of us knows that we have it, then no one else will be surprised when they learn that we don’t have it.’
Jessie frowned. ‘We’re going to toss it in the bin?’
‘Not quite. I’ve agreed to give it to Jock Shepherd.’
‘What?’ She struggled to keep her composure.
‘In exchange for information.’
She watched a smile touch the corners of his eyes, then fade as his look hardened. She knew she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. ‘What information?’ she said.
‘The name of Tommy’s killer.’
Time stopped, as if her senses had failed, her breathing, her heartbeat, the very life of her locked in that silenced moment for a stilled lifetime. Then her world rebooted, and she sucked in air with a hard gasp. ‘One of Shepherd’s men killed him?’ she said.
‘He didn’t say that. He said he had information on Tommy’s killer.’ He shook his head. ‘As you’re off the case, and the logbook officially doesn’t exist, I thought you should be the person to hand-deliver it to him. But I’m troubled by it all, I have to tell you. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.’
Jessie leaned forward. ‘Was that who you were phoning on your way here?’
He nodded.
‘When is he expecting to have it?’
‘No later than three o’clock this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Or the deal’s off.’ He frowned with surprise as she slid from the table. ‘You should finish your coffee.’
‘I’m already on my way.’
‘Well, in that case you’ll need an address.’ He handed her a business card.
She didn’t look at it until she was seated in her car. She recognised the name of the street from her time with Strathclyde Police – Nithsdale Road – and knew it was somewhere in the south side of the city. If her memory
held up, she might be able to drive straight to it.
‘Right, you bastard,’ she hissed. ‘It’s time you and I had a heart to heart.’
CHAPTER 40
Early afternoon
Nithsdale Road, Pollokshields, Glasgow
Pollokshields is known for its upmarket property, and Nithsdale Road slices through its middle, running east to west for almost a couple of kilometres. At its eastern end, where it connects with Pollokshaws Road, Nithsdale Road is lined on both sides with red and brown sandstone tenement buildings. But in general terms, the farther west you drive, the less urban the area, the more upmarket the residences become. In the most expensive enclave, lengthy driveways cut through striped lawns and pruned shrubbery to stone mansions large enough to cost a detective sergeant’s annual salary just to keep heated.
Jessie’s memory didn’t fail her. She found Shepherd’s address without difficulty and, just as she expected, although Shepherd’s home might not have been the largest mansion, it couldn’t be far off it. At the stone-pillared entrance, she had a decision to make – park her wee Fiat 500 kerbside, or drive up the paved driveway and park beside what she could only describe as a gleaming display of exotic cars.
She chose the former.
The driveway had to be a hundred yards long, and Jessie had walked no farther than five yards into the property when four men materialised from the corners of the mansion ahead, like silent warriors, hands inside black jackets, fingers no doubt gripping automatic pistols or whatever weapon was the order of the day for any self-respecting Glaswegian bodyguard. As she slipped her hand inside her own jacket to remove her warrant card, she had a surreal sense of the scene sizzling alive with tension.
‘Hold it, miss.’
The voice had come from her left, and she turned to face a young man in his twenties, with shoulders out to here and a shorn head that glistened nutmeg brown, as if he’d spent the winter sunning in the Caribbean. For all she knew, he probably had.
‘I’m with the police,’ she said, and held her warrant card out to him.
But he seemed disinterested in it. His lips moved as he spoke out of earshot into a mouthpiece that scarred his cheek. His right hand slid Napoleon-like inside his suit, the material straining from the simple flexing of muscles. He still stood some ten feet from her, off the driveway, where he’d been stationed behind the stone wall. His gaze never left hers as he listened to instructions through his earpiece. Then he removed his hand from his jacket, and approached her.
‘Arms out.’
Jessie did as she was told, expecting to have a set of hands feel their way over her, but the man produced a metal wand of sorts from a leather holster under his jacket, and ran it up and down her body, front, sides and back, then along her arms.
‘No mobile?’
‘It’s in the car.’
‘Spread your legs.’
‘It’s not in there.’
‘Spread them.’
‘Touch my crotch with that thing and you’ll be singing soprano for the rest of your life.’
But Jessie needn’t have worried. The wand swept up and around her inner thighs, hovering close but not quite touching. Then the man stood back and tapped his mouthpiece with his index finger. ‘She’s clean.’ He waited for some response that was beyond Jessie’s earshot, then nodded to the mansion.
‘Nice talking to you,’ Jessie quipped, as she returned her warrant card to her jacket.
By the time she arrived at the front entrance, she’d counted eleven cars parked on the cobbled driveway, all sparkling showroom new, all top of the range of whichever make they were. Two she recognised as Mercedes from the star logo on the front grille, but the others could be American classics for all she knew. What she did know was that her wee Fiat 500 could fit into the boot of any one of them.
At the mansion’s front door, the four bodyguards stepped aside like hotel doormen. As she walked up the granite steps and into a marbled vestibule, the heady fragrance of spicy aftershave drifted after her. A small man in a white double-cuffed shirt and tartan waistcoat – no jacket – and a face that could have tested the blades of a meat grinder, greeted her with a gruff, ‘Follow me.’
She was led along a carpeted hallway rich with the fragrance of polish, into a spacious lounge in the back of the house. A lawn as large as a football park stretched like a green blanket to a row of Scots pine. The door closed behind her, and she realised with a flutter of concern that she stood alone in the room with two men. One she recognised as a skeletal version of the patriarchal gangster, Jock Shepherd. The other could have been a younger version of the man.
Shepherd tried a welcoming smile, but it didn’t suit him. ‘Come in, hen,’ he said, and waved a thin arm in the air. ‘Come in. Have a seat.’
The room was redolent of varnish and something less appealing, more clinical, almost antiseptic, like the aftermath of a hospital party. She walked towards Shepherd, conscious of the younger man’s eyes watching her every step, as if he feared that she was going to attack Shepherd all of a sudden and put him out of his misery. Shepherd, on the other hand, seemed more interested in dabbing his mouth with a white handkerchief.
He coughed as she sank into the chair facing him, a sound that seemed to rumble from a hollow chest. Then he swiped his mouth, and crushed the handkerchief into his hand. ‘We’ll no bother with the formality of shaking hands for obvious reasons.’ He leaned forward, and Jessie had the feeling of being stripped from head to toe, then back again. As if satisfied by the result, Shepherd sat back. ‘I cannae say you look like Jeannie,’ he said. ‘More like your brother, Tommy.’ As if seeking affirmation, he glanced up at the young man who now stood behind him, hands on the back of his chair as if to make sure he couldn’t get up and leave the room in a hurry. But from the look of him, Shepherd was not capable of going anywhere in a hurry.
‘What’s with the car auction?’ Jessie said.
‘We have guests,’ Shepherd replied. ‘A meeting of sorts.’
Jessie looked around her. ‘They all hiding, are they?’
Shepherd tried another smile, but it looked like it hurt. ‘I see you haven’t lost your sense of humour.’
‘I could tell you the joke about the Glasgow gangster who smoked forty a day and got fucked by cancer, but I don’t think it would go down well.’
Shepherd dabbed his handkerchief to his mouth again, and managed to stifle a cough.
Behind him, the younger Shepherd’s jaw rippled, and his fists tightened their grip on the chair. Then the moment passed, and he said, ‘Would you like me to escort her to the door, Mr Shepherd?’
Shepherd raised his hand. ‘That’s awful tempting, son, but let’s leave it for a wee while longer, yeah?’ Then he stared hard at Jessie. ‘You’ve brought something with you.’
Jessie said, ‘Not on me. But I can lay my hands on it in a hurry if I need to.’
Shepherd scowled. ‘I’m no here to play fucking games, hen. Do you have it or don’t you?’
‘I have it.’
‘Right, then, fucking hand it over.’
Jessie felt the first stirrings of fear. This was not how she’d been told it was likely to play out. Shepherd had something to give Gilchrist in return for Christie’s logbook – not to have a look through it first, then decide whether or not the exchange was worth it. But she managed to steady her nerves, and keep her voice strong. ‘And what do I get in exchange?’
Shepherd gave an upward nod at the man behind him, who removed a sealed envelope from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to him. Then Shepherd held it out to Jessie, and said, ‘This.’
‘Which is?’
‘What you and your boss, DCI Gilchrist, need to see.’
The emphasis on the word need intrigued Jessie. Again, not what she’d expected. She stretched her arm out to take the envelope, but Shepherd pulled it back, out of reach.
‘I’m waiting, hen.’
Jessie slipped her hand inside her jacket, and removed
a small padded envelope. She jerked her lips in imitation of a smile, and said, ‘I lied.’
‘Now why am I no surprised at that?’ Shepherd gave an upward nod, and the young man walked from behind the chair. Two steps and he was almost upon Jessie. He reached for the package, but Jessie tightened her grip. She held her other hand out to Shepherd. ‘Quid pro quo,’ she said.
Shepherd handed her the sealed envelope and she released the logbook.
The young man passed it over to Shepherd, then resumed his position behind his chair. Shepherd held the padded envelope in the palm of his hand, as if weighing a lump of meat.
‘You can check it out,’ Jessie said. ‘It’s what you asked for.’
‘I know it is, hen. That boss of yours knows what’s what. No like the others.’
‘What others?’ Jessie said.
Shepherd gave a hint of a smile as his gaze drifted to the sealed envelope.
‘Would you like me to escort her to the door now, Mr Shepherd?’
Shepherd coughed into his handkerchief, then managed to say, ‘A word of warning.’ He stifled another cough. ‘Tell that boss of yours no to let me down.’
Jessie frowned at that comment, but didn’t question it. Instead, she said, ‘I can find my own way out,’ then strode to the door.
But the young man beat her to it.
A large hand with manicured nails took hold of her arm with a grip like a vice. She tried to shrug it off, but his steel-like hold tightened. ‘If you want arrested for assaulting a police officer, you’re going about it the right way.’
But the young man smirked at her as he opened the door, then held her as they walked – not quite arm in arm – along the hallway.
From behind a closed door on her left, Jessie thought she heard the murmur of voices, felt the vibration of movement, weight shifting through the floorboards. She had a sense of a large gathering in the front room, but the young man’s grip almost carried her along as she was ushered to the front door.