He leaned forward as far as his bad back would allow, still a few inches from her hand. ‘You’ll have to help me out here. I’ve got a touch of arthritis in the old back. You know how it is.’
‘Fortunately, I don’t.’ She raised her hand to his lips and let Mannion brush them against her wrist. ‘Take a seat, Mr Mannion. Over there, I think.’ She gestured to a deep leather armchair that matched the couch. ‘Coffee?’ she said, while gesturing with her eyes to the two men who had accompanied Mannion into the house.
‘Aye, black with three sugars, please.’ Mannion heard the door close quietly and looked around to notice the taciturn pair had gone.
‘White, or brown?’
‘No, just black, please.’
‘The sugar, not the coffee.’ She smiled mirthlessly.
‘Ah, right. It’s just that my wife has three stages of coffee. White’s made with milk, black with no milk, and brown with milk poured in, if you know what I mean.’
‘Fascinating,’ she said, pouring the beverage into a small china cup on the table. ‘My name is Ginerva, by the way.’
‘Nice name. I’m not up with Albanian names, I’m afraid to say.’
‘What makes you think I’m Albanian, Mr Mannion?’
‘Oh. I just sort of assumed,’ he stammered. A shaft of fear caught his heart, but he managed not to let it manifest itself as an expression.
‘Not your fault. If I were you, I’d probably have reasoned that I was from that shithole, too.’ The word sounded strange coming from her. She was so elegant. Probably of early middle age, in a well-cut, black trouser suit. Her dark hair was neatly bobbed, and though she was wearing makeup it was applied subtly, augmenting her sallow features rather than prettifying them. ‘I hope you like the coffee.’
‘Oh, aye, thank you.’ Mannion lifted the delicate cup to his lips, worrying that, with his meaty fingers, he didn’t have a proper grip of the fine handle. ‘Aye, just the job,’ he said after a slurp.
‘Now, you mentioned Albanians. I believe that you’ve been experiencing a few difficulties with them of late?’
‘Aye, well, you could say that. The buggers – I mean, they folk – just seem to appear out of the woodwork.’
‘How apt. Yes, they do have a habit of that. I don’t care for them myself,’ she said, as though referencing a biscuit or a brand of cornflakes.
‘Well, we agree on one thing, at least.’
‘Oh, Mr Mannion, I’m sure we’ll agree on many things.’ Ginerva smiled enigmatically. ‘Have you ever been to Italy?’
*
Before they managed to leave the vehicles, Langley ordered her units to intercept. In a matter of moments, the two vans at the back of the college car park were surrounded by police officers, some of them armed.
Langley jumped from the back of the observation van and hurried round the corner to assess the situation. If she was right, this was a major coup. Better still, should Finn and his associates be armed in any way she would be able to take down one of Scotland’s most dangerous criminal gangs at a stroke.
Amelia Langley heard shouts of protest as she pushed her way through the throng of officers.
Five women, of what could best be described as being ‘of a certain age’, were gathered together, hands in the air. One of them looked defiantly at her under a pair of etched-on eyebrows.
‘What the fuck is this all about?’
Langley hesitated. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Huh! You tell me first, lassie. Me and the girls here have just come to pick up some items from a friend in the college.’ Maggie Finn looked less than chuffed. ‘I wasn’t aware that constituted a crime these days, but obviously I was wrong.’ She glared at Langley.
‘Where’s your son, Mrs Finn?’
‘How the fuck should I know? He’s a big boy now, or haven’t you noticed? He’s not in the habit of telling his mammy where he’s going every time he leaves the house.’
Langley spoke into her airwave radio. ‘All units in Abercorn Street, enter Chancellor Fabrications. I repeat, enter Chancellor Fabrications now, over.’
‘Are you looking for some garden gates? The boys are great in there, do a fabulous job, so they do. Don’t buy the double-glazing, though. The wind blows through mine. Right shoddy.’ Maggie looked around the gathered police officers. ‘You must be after a good few items, by the look of all these folk you’ve brought along. I’m sure they’d have delivered if you’d just asked.’
A small voice sounded, attracting both Finn and Langley’s attention. ‘Here, Maggie, can you ask these polis to let me go? All this carry on – well, I’m fair needing the toilet. A number two, if you get my drift.’
A pair of fire doors at the rear of the college opened up with a clatter and scrape. The gathered police officers, as they had been trained, swung their weapons to face what could well be an imminent threat.
‘Oh, cool your jets,’ said a man in a brown dustcoat. ‘I’m just helping out some of our senior citizens. What the fuck is going on?’
‘Helping them with what?’ said Langley, irritably.
‘Bits and pieces of furniture and the like – here, take a look. The apprentices make them as part of the courses. We give them to charities, like the old biddies here.’
‘Less of the old biddies, Jimmy Dow,’ said Maggie.
‘You can go and ask the principal, if you want. It’s all above board, like.’
Langley heard a call on her radio. ‘Langley, go ahead.’
‘Unit one, over. No sign of any suspects at Chancellor Fabrications, ma’am. We’ve been right through the place, over.’
‘Suspects? Are welders criminals now?’ said Maggie. ‘I mean, I know they’re lazy bastards and that. But this is ridiculous.’
‘Stand down,’ Langley shouted into her radio. She turned to the elderly women, all still with their hands in the air. ‘Where did you get the vans, eh?’
‘My son sells second-hand cars and that,’ said one of the women.
‘Aye, you tell her, Betty,’ said Maggie.
‘Return to base,’ Langley shouted.
‘Thank fuck for that!’ An old woman in a headscarf limped off in the direction of the fire doors. ‘Here, let me in, Jimmy, before I shite myself.’
A group of students had gathered. Almost all of them were holding out mobile phones, on which they were filming this unexpected diversion.
‘Classic, man,’ said one tall, spotty youth with a laugh. ‘This is going to go viral!’
33
‘Come on in, boys,’ said landlord Raymond Deans. ‘It’s all set up in the top room for you, as usual.’
Deans owned a pub in what had once been a sleepy Renfrewshire village but was now the size of a small town. Handy for commuting to Paisley, Glasgow and Ayr, one private housing estate after another had gone up over the previous ten years. Initially this had raised Deans’ spirits; after all, more people surely meant more customers. But as was the way of things in the licensed trade these days, his new potential clientele were overextended by mortgages, car loans, credit card payments, mobile phone contracts and holidays, with their two point four children. They had no spare cash to fritter away on fags and booze the way the previous generation had with such abandon. The pub still had a few regulars, and the odd function, but in effect Raymond Deans was in semi-retirement.
Finn watched from the secluded cellar door of the bar as one by one his crew slithered down the bank from the house on the hill above. The owner was a friend, and he didn’t mind a parade of gangsters parking in his driveway, tramping through his home and down the hill to their meeting. In any event, Finn made it worth his while every time this happened.
Tam Skillen was the first to arrive. He looked down as Finn shook his hand. ‘Can’t believe it, Zander.’ His voice trembled with emotion.
‘Nobody can,’ said Finn.
Donald Paton was next, then Davie Kelly. They patted Finn on the shoulder before taking to the stair to the room above
.
Lonesome Dove looked exactly as his nickname suggested. He was younger than the rest of them, and the sadness in his brown eyes blended in with the grey day. Sandy Hamilton looked at Finn with tears brimming onto his cheeks. ‘Anything, Zan, you know that.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Big Dusky was bad enough – but Malky.’ He bounded up the steps two at a time.
‘Just help yourself to drinks and that, Zander,’ said Deans. ‘There’s nobody in the bar. The cleaner left about half an hour ago. I’ve laid out some grub. Nothing fancy, just the usual.’
‘Cheers, big man. You know it’s been a hard time, eh?’ said Finn.
‘Oh, aye. We all liked Malky – everybody.’
‘And Big Dusky?’
The publican shrugged. ‘He was what he was. Didn’t deserve that, mind you.’
‘No, you’re right,’ said Finn, not meaning it. ‘I better get up there before McKinlay eats the lot.’
When Finn walked into the small function room, he saw the same faces that had greeted him in the ‘canteen’ at Chancellor Fabrications so recently. Though they were two down. He swallowed hard when he looked at the small bar, half expecting to see Malky standing there, ready to serve up the drinks.
They were sitting at a large round table with a battered copper top.
‘Okay, King Arthur, what is your pleasure, my liege?’ Davie Kelly hated sombre situations, and he was doing his best to lighten the load, the sadness they all felt.
‘Dusky was playing for both sides,’ said Finn, taking a seat, but leaning on the bar.
‘I always thought it,’ said Tam Skillen. ‘I should have crushed that bald dome of his.’
‘The guy changed. We all saw it,’ McKinlay observed, as he lifted a pie to his bloated face.
‘How come I never heard about it?’ said Davie Kelly. ‘Not much you can’t find out from the shite on the streets my guys come into contact with.’
‘Trust me,’ replied Finn. ‘He was at it – with Mannion. He jumped when I took some time out.’
‘You left us, Zander.’ Sandy Hamilton’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper.
‘It’s in the past,’ said Donnie Paton. ‘He’s back, and we’re in the collective shit. You know the cops are pulling Chancellor apart, Zander, eh?’
‘We knew they would. Langley will be pissed that we’ve outplayed her. It’s just them puffing out their cheeks. We all remembered the code, I’m glad to say.’
‘Aye, but what are we going to do, big man?’ said Skillen. ‘If we reckon it’s they Albanians, then we have to hit back – aye, and quickly. This can’t be left the way – well, you know what I mean, Zander.’ He looked nervously at the bar.
‘I agree.’ Finn looked at Kelly. ‘Have you done what I asked?’
‘Aye, we know all the dealing sites. Wasn’t that hard. I mean we used to have half of them.’
‘Good, so we hit them where it hurts, in their pockets.’
‘Look what happened to Mannion when he tried to disrupt the supply,’ said McKinlay. ‘His man didn’t get very far. They was ready for him.’
Finn looked at Kelly again. ‘We’ve worked that out. Tell them, Davie.’
Kelly cleared his throat. ‘Right, we all know how they operate. Stick guys on near our dealers, then offer cheaper gear.’
‘Better stuff, too,’ said Sandy Hamilton.
‘What are you, a heroin connoisseur?’ Kelly stared at him and carried on. ‘Every time we – or Mannion, come to that – have tried to push back, they’ve had feet on the ground in minutes.’
‘Which means?’ Skillen asked.
‘Which means that every dealer they have on the street is protected. Aye, at close quarters, too.’
Finn was behind the bar now. He poured himself a large glass of whisky from an optic, emptying it three times before he was satisfied with the level of the spirit in the glass. ‘They always use local junkies as dealers. These guys know nothing apart from where to pick up the shit, where to sell it and where to deposit the dosh. That’s why these Albanians are like fucking ghosts. Nobody knows who they are, or where they are.’
‘But now we’ve worked out how to flush them out,’ said Kelly.
‘Aye, keep us in suspense,’ said Tam Skillen.
Finn smiled. ‘Here’s what we do. We have each dealer clocked. We create a diversion – just enough to bring the cavalry, you know. A wee skirmish here, a drunk guy getting aggressive there, another not wanting to pay up or, worse still, trying to pocket the take. Anything that brings out the minders.’
‘Good idea, Zan,’ said McKinlay, chewing hard on a slice of pizza.
‘I’m glad you agree.’ He looked at Skillen. ‘Your boys are the diversion. They go in there, start whatever it is they need to do to get noticed.’ He turned to Sandy Hamilton. Lonesome Dove was staring at the copper table. ‘Sandy, when the Albanians show themselves, then you go in, okay?’
‘How many guys do I need?’
‘Thirty – forty – I’ll leave that up to you. But the most important thing is that this all happens at the same time, on the same night. They won’t know what’s hit them.’ He looked around the faces he knew so well. ‘This won’t be like Mannion’s attempt to get back at them. When we’re done, we should have a few bodies to be able to lead us to who is at the heart of this Albanian mob.’
‘Make them speak, you mean?’ Skillen asked.
‘Aye. I’ll leave that to you, Tam.’
‘We’ll lose people,’ said Sandy Hamilton.
‘Aye, we will. But if we don’t do this now, we’ll lose everybody. Just the way we lost Malky.’
There was silence in the room, broken only by the murmur of music coming from the bar downstairs. Finn recognised ‘Thru And Thru’ by the Rolling Stones.
‘You’ll be running it, Zander?’ said Hamilton.
‘No. I’ll be at the theatre with my daughter. Donnie will run it, with Davie the street boss. He has all the logistics. Okay?’
Silence.
‘It’s that old thing: speak now, or forever hold your peace.’
‘I’m ready,’ said Lonesome Dove.
‘Aye, me too,’ Skillen added.
‘Good, let’s get a drink. Enjoy it, because it’s the last one until we do this. No room for fuzzy heads.’ Finn lined up a row of whiskies along the bar. One by one, they left their seats at the table and each lifted a glass. ‘To Malky Maloney!’ said Finn.
Those in the room echoed his toast.
*
Ginerva smiled at Mannion. ‘You see, we too are no strangers to those who try and take our place. It happens all across the world. If it’s not the cartels from South America, it’s the Russians, or the Mexicans. We’ve faced Latvians, Albanians, Jihadists, white supremacists, black supremacists. Then we have the Yakuza, the Chinese. The list just goes on and on.’
Mannion looked puzzled. ‘Wait, this isn’t a big pie – in Glasgow, Paisley – Scotland, even. Why would somebody like you care about the small shit we do?’
‘Because we want everything, Mr Mannion.’
‘Oh great! So we just swap one foreigner for another. No disrespect, you understand, Ginerva.’
She stood and walked over to the large bay window that looked out across Loch Lomond. ‘How is your history, Mr Mannion?’
‘What, like Robert the Bruce and all that? Aye, I know as much as the next man.’
‘Before then. Long before then, Mr Mannion.’
‘Oh, right.’ Mannion looked confused.
‘Let me give you a little history lesson.’ She turned to face him, now a silhouette in front of the bright light from the window. ‘My ancestors, the Romans, we ran the known world. And what we didn’t know about wasn’t worth knowing. But, more importantly, we only cared about discovering and conquering places that would bring us something.’
‘Well, I think you’ll find poor fare up here.’
‘No, not in the slightest, Mr Mannion. You are an island. It is one of the biggest eco
nomies in the world. There are people all over this nation who will buy our drugs, use our other services.’
‘Oh, aye.’
‘But what we’ve lacked is a base here. Places like London, Manchester, Liverpool, they have strong organisations already at their heart. Here in Scotland, not so much.’
‘We do our best.’
‘County lines. From what I can glean, those running such projects are doing so from England. If a junkie in Stornoway buys a line of coke, it more likely comes from Liverpool than Glasgow, yes?’
Mannion shrugged. ‘I don’t do much business in Stornoway.’
‘You don’t do much business in London, either.’
‘I’m sorry, Ginerva. But you’ve got to see my point of view. What’s in it for me, apart from the pleasure of watching you use my old stamping ground as a base for your world domination?’
‘Ah – this is where we come back to the Roman Empire, Mr Mannion.’
‘Do we have to?’
‘Oh, I think you’ll like this bit.’
‘Go on then, if you must,’ he said wearily.
‘When we conquered lands two thousand years ago, we had to hold it. To do that, we had to have help – cooperation. In this country, old tribal chiefs took off their war-paint and became rich. They swapped their wattle and daub huts for our villas, with hyper courses and hot baths. Togas replaced homespun tunics; wine filled glasses, instead of rough ale in horn mugs. We were good to those who co-operated with us. Do you see?’
Mannion was looking into space, picturing himself in an emperor’s robes. ‘Aye, I think so. Carry on.’
‘Imagine a world where not only are there no Albanians but you have no competition at all: a world where you rule your little kingdom without hindrance. But this is a much bigger world than just Glasgow or the west of Scotland. You, taking money from London to Newcastle, from Edinburgh to Orkney.’
‘All the time paying you a nice hefty cut.’
‘Think of it as the Pax Romana, Mr Mannion.’
‘You’ll have to help me get rid of the Albanians first – aye, and the likes of Zander Finn.’
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