Terms of Restitution

by Denzil Meyrick

  PRAISE FOR DENZIL MEYRICK

  ‘Absorbing . . . no run-of-the-mill tartan noir’

  The Times

  ‘The right amount of authenticity . . . gritty writing’

  The Herald

  ‘Touches of dark humour, multi-layered and compelling’

  Daily Record

  ‘Spellbinding . . . one of the UK’s most loved crime writers’

  Sunday Post

  ‘Striking characters and shifting plots vibrate with energy’

  The Library Journal

  ‘If you favour the authentic and credible, you are in safe hands’

  Lovereading

  ‘A top talent, and one to be cherished’

  Quintin Jardine

  A note on the author

  Denzil Meyrick was born in Glasgow and brought up in Campbeltown. After studying politics, he pursued a varied career including time spent as a police officer, freelance journalist and director of several companies in the leisure, engineering and marketing sectors. His DCI Daley thrillers – Whisky from Small Glasses, The Last Witness, Dark Suits and Sad Songs, The Rat Stone Serenade, Well of the Winds, The Relentless Tide, A Breath on Dying Embers, Jeremiah’s Bell and For Any Other Truth – are global bestsellers. Denzil lives on Loch Lomond side with his wife, Fiona.

  Terms of Restitution

  Denzil Meyrick

  First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Polygon,

  an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.

  Birlinn Ltd

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.polygonbooks.co.uk

  1

  Copyright © Denzil Meyrick 2021

  The right of Denzil Meyrick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978 1 84697 583 7

  eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 466 5

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request

  from the British Library.

  Typeset by 3bType, Edinburgh

  To the good folk of Paisley,

  ‘buddies’ one and all.

  La vendetta è un piatto che va servito freddo.

  Prologue

  Two years earlier

  Paisley

  Most young guys would have approached a Saturday night out on the town differently. In order to save money, most young guys would have sat in the home of a friend or partner necking cheap supermarket booze or enjoying the balm of illegal drugs before hitting the nightspots. On the other hand, most young guys wouldn’t be wearing a three-grand Italian suit.

  Danny Finn wasn’t ‘most young guys’.

  He swaggered towards the bar in New Street as though he owned Paisley, passing like a malevolent wraith through the regular crowd of smokers, who stepped back, anxious not to catch his eye or the blank gaze of his friends. When he pushed open the door, it could have been a scene from the Wild West. Of course, it was by sheer coincidence that the music faded at this moment. But the general hush that spread along the length of the pub was another matter entirely.

  Danny and his youthful crew were notorious – especially on Saturdays. But nobody thought for one minute about asking them to leave; not even the owner, sitting in the corner with a friend, gave it a moment’s consideration. That was asking for trouble. Things were just the way they were. It was Saturday night in Paisley; it was their turn to play host.

  Danny placed his drinks order politely, making sure the barmaid took twenty quid for her trouble. She smiled at him, though her hand trembled as she poured the first pint. Most of the men eyed her, each with their own version of a mocking smile. Apart from Danny, that was, who regarded the whole process with an air of relaxed detachment.

  ‘Davie, get that pair off the table at the back,’ he commanded, before taking his first sip of a pint of Italian lager. Danny liked to sit with his back to the wall, looking straight at the door. He’d learned this from the movies, and it was just one of the many things he did in order to make an impression. After all, his father ran the town. Almost every pub, club and many other businesses owed their existence to either the financial help he’d given them to start up or the money they paid to stay open. The heir to the empire had every right to demand whatever he desired – or so he reasoned.

  Danny glanced to the table at the back of the bar as a pale young man tried desperately to pull his girlfriend away. She was pointing her finger in Davie’s face, her partner holding his hands up in a gesture that said, ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Here, get those two a bottle of champagne,’ said Danny.

  The barmaid looked at him blankly. ‘We just have prosecco.’

  ‘Aye, okay, a bottle of that, then.’ He raised his glass to the unseated couple as they stood awkwardly between two tables, drinks in hand, as the bottle in an ice bucket was delivered. The girl glared at her boyfriend as he wiped beads of sweat from his brow.

  Soon all five of them were seated at the table, Danny in the middle, telling jokes, making them all laugh, like a medieval robber baron and his retinue.

  The barmaid arrived to wipe down the table, using the opportunity to pass on a message. ‘Mr Payne says the next round is on him.’

  ‘Oh, cheers!’ shouted Danny, to thank the proprietor for his kindness. His attention returned to the barmaid. ‘Make it the next three rounds and Jamie here won’t go and bust that ugly coupon of his.’

  She nodded, finished with the cloth and hurried away, giving her boss a barely perceptible shrug of apology as she walked by.

  As she served the third round of drinks to Danny and his crew, the bar was noticeably quieter. Even those who didn’t know the rowdy young men at the top table sensed a charged, unpleasant atmosphere and had decided another establishment might be a better option for a relaxing drink.

  ‘Hey, Mr Pain-in-the-Arse!’ shouted Jamie. ‘I think another round’s in order, eh?’

  Payne looked at Danny Finn, who stared back with a blank expression. He nodded to his barmaid, who started pouring more drinks.

  ‘And some chasers this time. Five large vodkas with Coke!’ said Danny.

  ‘I like mine with fresh orange,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Okay, we’ll have five vodkas with fresh orange, and five vodkas with Coke. That way we can all decide what we like best.’ Danny’s request sent his friends into another chorus of raucous laughter.

  Through their mirth, they didn’t see the door open. Two figures in hooded sweatshirts entered, rucksacks strapped to their backs. The barmaid was the first to scream as they advanced towards the end of the bar, removing automatic weapons from their backpacks.

  Just as Danny Finn stood, a rattle of gunfire hit him in the temple, spraying blood, bone and brain against the wall behind, now pockmarked by bullets, splinters of wood and the puff of dislodged masonry. He slumped back, a perfect quarter of his head missing, almost as though it was a neatly cut portion of a cake.

  Beside Danny’s lifeless body his friends’ shoulders rolled in a sedentary dance of death as bullets ripped through their bodies.

  The killers turned and walked calmly back through the premises. One of them stopped at the table where sat the shocked proprietor. Only a short burst of gunfire ended Mr Payne’s life.

  As she rushed to bolt the door, the barmaid stood on a shard of
broken glass that went right through the flimsy sole of her sneaker, making her scream in pain and hop the rest of the way.

  She fumbled for her mobile phone in her pocket and pressed the emergency button on the screen.

  Six men dead in a dead man’s pub . . .

  *

  I’m sitting in the comfortable lounge I’ve come to know so well. The room is wood-panelled, with paintings on the walls but no photographs, something that has always puzzled me. Though he is a retired priest, none of these paintings are religious. They are mainly landscapes from his homeland in Calabria – the tip of the boot, as he always calls it.

  Father Giordano is busy pouring whisky as I sit in misery. I feel like this because my son has gone – murdered.

  ‘Here, drink this,’ he says, his expression all sadness, compassion and concern. I’ve known this man since I was a child. I can trust him. I take the small glass and gulp down its contents. I need it.

  ‘How long have we talked about this?’ Suddenly, his voice has a harsh, accusatory tone that surprises me.

  When I tell him I’m not here to talk about the past, he shakes his head. Again I notice he has become old. His hair isn’t grey the way my grandfather’s was, but white. It is in stark contrast with the cracked olive skin on his face. He sits down heavily on the old leather winged-back chair. He lets out a sigh, no doubt a quiet protest at the pain of his arthritic knees that I know trouble him.

  ‘Yet it’s the past that has brought you here.’

  I shrug, placing the empty glass back on the old wooden chest that serves as his coffee table.

  ‘You remember why I became a priest, don’t you?’

  ‘You wanted to be more than just a head doctor,’ I reply less than graciously.

  ‘That’s true – psychiatry has its limitations. I only studied that as a pastime. But it is not the main reason.’

  I’m always struck by the way he sounds as though he’s just stepped straight off the boat from Italy. His accent is as strong as it was when I first remember him as a child. He hasn’t picked up any Paisley inflection, not a hint that he has spent more than fifty years away from his homeland; this, aside from his annual holiday back to Italy. Something of which he never speaks.

  ‘You only have two choices.’

  ‘And they are?’

  ‘You stay, fight and kill.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘You leave, and all this will end.’ He looks at me intently with his dark, almost black eyes. There’s still youth there; when I meet his gaze I can see a hint of the young man he once was. ‘If you stay, well, you know what happens. More parents like you, sitting in rooms like this, or bars, or at home alone with whisky or needles puncturing their skin. Whatever eases the pain in their souls. This is how it works. It is the way it will always be.’

  I shake my head. I want to shout at him. I want to ask him, where is the compassion that I saw in his face when I arrived? I want to ask him why he’s speaking to me like my father and not the curator of my spiritual wellbeing. But in my heart, I know.

  As if he can read my thoughts, he replies, ‘If you want, I can take your confession.’ His face is blank now.

  ‘But you don’t want to, right?’

  ‘What I want and don’t want is unimportant. It is what God wants that matters. And, of course, you.’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s my problem.’

  ‘You are usually a man of action, decisive. Why has this changed?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Another death. You’ve seen plenty of those.’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ I hear the faint tremor in my own voice.

  He sits on the edge of his chair and holds out his hands. When I reach forward, he clamps my right hand in his strong grip. Yes, he’s still strong for an old man.

  ‘Sometimes it’s better to go, to leave things behind. Often that is the only way to find yourself, to find salvation.’ He stares at me. I can see tears in those dark eyes. ‘I can offer you penance, absolve your sins. But I know you don’t believe that’s in my gift. I talk to you as a friend now, Alexander. You go, you make peace with yourself. Do this in memory of your son. Do not repeat the sins of others. Do not make this world an even darker place. I know there is goodness in you. It is time to act on what is in your heart.’

  ‘Why don’t you back to Italy, Father? You’re retired, after all.’ It’s a question I’ve wanted to ask him for a long time. I fear this may be my last chance.

  ‘If I were to answer that, then I would have to lie. Do you want me to add to the sins of this world?’

  ‘No.’

  He nods at me and lets go of my hand.

  ‘We should pray. Then you must follow your heart.’

  1

  The Present

  Police Scotland HQ

  The Detective Chief Inspector of Police Scotland’s Organised Crime Unit Amelia Langley looked across her desk at the photo on the wall. Three rows of young police officers stood in a passing-out day group photograph. Langley barely recognised herself; but there was no doubt the fresh-faced young woman under the cap was indeed her.

  The sight made her smile. But as she looked along the line of brand new police officers, the pinched face of Mary Green jumped out. Now her boss – an Assistant Chief Constable, no less – her rise had been meteoric. This woman was her nemesis – or so it felt. Now her smile turned into a scowl, a scowl because there was more, much more. It haunted Langley, but she had to live with it.

  She had considered taking the photograph down, reasoning – quite reasonably – that she felt the same mix of emotions every time she looked at it. But Langley realised that removing ACC Mary Green from her office wall would certainly not have the same effect on her life. Green worked in a much larger office on the floor directly above her. Her presence would still loom over Langley, photo or no photo.

  They had been the intake of ‘bright young things’, as one instructor at the police college had sarcastically named them. All university graduates, they were promised a rapid rise through the ranks. This was a proper career in senior management, rather than an unpredictable trudge through the lower levels of ‘the job’.

  For many it had worked – she had certainly benefited from the Accelerated Promotion scheme. Others had fallen by the wayside. The tall young man to her right had quickly decided that the police service was not for him. He was now CEO of an oil company in Aberdeen. Langley guessed he had few regrets about ending his law enforcement career after only a few short weeks.

  She knew that she should be happier with her lot. But Green, superior in rank – well above her, as she was physically in the building – would always be a source of her dissatisfaction. This notion was not merely the product of jealousy; it came from the genuine belief that Green had taken shortcuts. Langley knew she’d made all the right friends in the force’s hierarchy, but she’d also moved far too freely among some of the people they were employed to bring to justice. Unfortunately, as far as the latter was concerned, she could prove nothing.

  The thought also made her feel like a hypocrite.

  A knock on the door shifted her thoughts from what might have been firmly into the here and now. DS Neil Dickie sat down heavily on the chair opposite.

  ‘Well, what have you managed to find out, Neil?’ Langley liked her right-hand man in the Organised Crime Unit, despite a nagging feeling he didn’t relish having a female boss, and at times made that far too obvious.

  ‘The Albanians are like that Japanese knotweed, ma’am. They’re coming out of the woodwork.’

  ‘Carving up more of Glasgow?’

  ‘Aye, doing their best. Paisley is just about finished. Well, the Finns are, at least.’

  Langley sat back in her chair. She should have been thinking about the rise to power of Eastern European organised crime in central Scotland. Instead, she could picture only one face: a man who had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth when his son had been gunned down in a Paisle
y pub two years before.

  Zander Finn.

  London

  As there were a few spaces in the Notting Hill street, he had been able to park reasonably close to Mrs Quinn’s ground-floor flat. She and her husband had bought it in 1979 for fifty thousand; now it was worth over two million pounds.

  She was of the old school – no airs, no graces. A straight-talking Londoner, originally from the East End.

  ‘We’ll just get you onto the ramp, Mrs Q,’ he said, pushing her slowly past a Ferrari towards the patient transport ambulance.

  ‘It’s roast beef today down at the centre. A good old sing-song round the old Joanna, too. I love a Tuesday, me.’

  ‘I could do with some roast beef myself,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you Jocks liked haggis.’ She laughed at her own joke.

  ‘Can’t stand it, dear. I’m more of a caviar man, myself.’ He smiled as she laughed heartily at the seemingly unlikely nature of this.

  ‘You’re always a tonic, son. Remind me a bit of my Jake, you do. He loved a laugh, did Jake.’

  He positioned the wheelchair on a flat ramp, secured the guard rail, pressed the button and watched Mrs Quinn ascend into the back of the ambulance.

  ‘It’s like Southend when I was a gal,’ she chortled. ‘Only thrill I get these days.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve still a few thrills left, dear.’

  ‘Huh, the nearest I get is having a good piss in the morning. Trust me, son, you don’t want to get old.’

  As he made sure her wheelchair was secured in the back of the vehicle, the thought of getting old made him suddenly melancholy. Too many young people didn’t make it. Though he tried, day after day, not to think of this vexed subject, nearly every morning he was reminded of the tragedy of it all when Capital news told of another young person who had lost their life to knife crime. Unprompted, the old sadness returned.

  ‘That’s you, Mrs Q,’ he said, knowing she loved the rhyme.

  ‘Thank you, son. If we get round there sharpish I’ll get a space near the piano.’