‘Aye, Senga, how can I help you?’
‘I need to talk to Zander, and quickly.’
‘Haven’t seen him, though I know he’s out somewhere.’
‘Out?’
‘Didn’t you know? He got huckled for those attacks.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ She mentally cursed the fact that Joe had more than likely known about this but said nothing.
‘I might be able to do something.’
Senga bit her lip. She knew the old tale about keeping important things close to her chest. Her time as Paton’s boss hadn’t gone smoothly; in fact, this was the first conversation they’d had in months. ‘No, it’s okay, Donnie. Just do me a favour and get Zander to call me. Tell him it’s really important.’
Having finished with Donnie Paton, her next call was to her daughter Gillian.
44
Gillian picked up the phone from the table in the restaurant and stared at the screen. She raised her eyes to her sister. ‘It’s Mum.’ They were together in an Italian restaurant in Glasgow’s trendy Merchant City. The lunchtime crowds had gone, and the place was quiet. Still, it was open all day, and her mother’s intrusion promised to ruin a nice long lunch.
Sandra grimaced. ‘Just when we were relaxing, as well. Fling her a deafy, Gildy.’
Gillian hesitated and then decided to ignore the call. ‘You’re right. Mum always leaves me on edge these days.’
‘Aye, especially since our dear father came back from the dead.’ Sandra moved uncomfortably in her seat, her stomach bulging in pregnancy.
‘It must be really uncomfortable. You know, with your bump and all.’
‘You bet it is, sis. Do yourself a favour: forget having babies. It’s bad enough now, and I haven’t even got to the difficult bit yet.’
‘Huh, you sound like Mum.’
‘Oh yeah.’ Sandra put the back of one wrist to her forehead and feigned a distraught expression. ‘The pain, oh the pain of it. You’ll rue the day,’ she said, adopting her mother’s tones.
‘Ha! Just like her.’
‘Well, it’s not as though I haven’t been listening to her for long enough, is it? But, seriously, when I see these guys with the big beer guts, I think, what the fuck? How can you bear being this uncomfortable?’
‘I’m sure it’s not the same.’ Gillian laughed and took another sip of white wine.
‘How can it not be? It’s like carrying your weekly shop around in a big bag on your stomach.’
‘Now you’re really beginning to sound like Mum.’
Sandra took in her sister’s face. She still had bags under her eyes, and her skin was pale. Otherwise she was much improved when compared to the poor wretch who had lain in the hospital bed after her overdose. ‘Can I ask you something?’
As though reading her sister’s mind, Gillian replied with an answer before the question had been asked. ‘No, I’m not going to do it again.’
‘That wasn’t my question, Gillian.’
‘What, then?’
Sandra lowered her voice. ‘All this stuff with the Albanian gangsters. . . . do you think Dad was behind it?’
‘No! He was with me at the theatre. We even went to a pub after. These people, you know what they’re like.’
‘These people?’
‘The Albanians, whatever. They’re always fighting amongst themselves. Ask Dad, he’ll tell you.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘You know what it’s like for him. He’s always the one to blame. He only came back because . . .’ Gillian’s voice trailed off.
‘Yes, why did he come back?’
‘He hasn’t told you?’
‘No. Why would I ask, otherwise?’
Gillian looked round the room. A bored waiter smiled at her. She ignored him. ‘It was because Uncle Malky thought we were in danger.’
‘He certainly was.’
‘You know what Malky was like. He never gave up, not like Dad, Sandra.’
‘Wow! I might be beginning to sound like Mum, but you’re starting to sound like our father! I seem to remember people saying that about Danny.’
‘I’m just saying that Dad doesn’t want any more trouble. He just wants to keep us safe – get on with things at Chancellor, go straight.’
‘And that’s why they arrested him?’
‘They go for anyone with a past. Dad was the easy option. I gave my statement to our solicitor. He’s out, you know that.’
‘Yeah, probably off getting pissed.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘I could murder any drink right now. As soon as I push this sprog out, I’m going to get plastered.’
‘Aw, don’t call him a sprog!’
‘Him? You’re confident. Even we don’t know. I think it’s bad luck.’
‘It’s a boy, definitely.’
‘Mystic Gillian, over here.’
As they laughed at the joke, a waiter appeared at the table.
‘Can I offer you ladies something from the dessert menu?’
Sandra gave him a doubtful look. ‘Something? Just give me the whole lot.’
The sisters burst into more laughter.
*
It was impossible. Senga Finn knew she had to do something, but she couldn’t get anyone on the phone. Without stopping to shower or even putting on her lipstick, she was dressed and heading for reception.
‘I’d like to check out, please,’ she said to the fat youth behind the desk.
‘Are you sure?’
‘What?’ The question was sharp.
‘Just the gentleman – you know, the one you booked in with – he said you were staying the night.’
‘Well, he was wrong, wasn’t he?’
A knowing smile spread across the youth’s face.
‘What’s up with your coupon?’
‘Nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘How would you like to pay, cash or card?’
‘You mean my friend didn’t pay the bill?’
‘No, he said you were covering it. The room is in your name, Mrs McGinty.’
‘I’ll pay by cash.’ Senga rummaged in her handbag for her purse. ‘How much?’
The receptionist looked at his computer screen. ‘Sixty-nine, ninety-five, please.’
Hands still trembling, Senga counted out the money from a roll of ten-pound notes. ‘There’s seventy quid.’
‘Hang on and I’ll get your receipt and your change.
‘I don’t need a receipt,’ she said, as she zipped up her handbag. ‘And please, keep the change. Put it towards a membership of Weight Watchers, you cheeky fat bastard!’
With that, Senga Finn turned on her heel and ran out to her car.
*
Joe Mannion pulled up in his space outside the Iron Horse. There were no markings on the road reserving it or cones to block it off, but everyone in the neighbourhood knew that this was where the ‘big man’ parked his car.
Before entering the pub, Mannion lit a cigar. He had to puff at it a few times before clouds of grey smoke emerged, fusing with the grey sky above, as spits of rain began to fall.
As he walked through the bar, the usual sight greeted him. Three elderly women were sitting next to the toilet door, and an old man was hammering a tune he couldn’t recognise from the badly maintained piano. There were a few worthies slumped against the bar, and a table occupied by three young men who didn’t look old enough to be of drinking age.
Mannion sighed. He wasn’t particularly bothered about this. After all, he hadn’t seen a police officer grace the salubrious surroundings of the Iron Horse since the late nineties. Still, he wanted to draw as little attention to his place of business as he could. ‘Hey, Pavel, why the fuck did you serve they boys?’
The Polish barman, who looked perpetually bored, managed to drag his gaze from the horse racing and turned to his boss. ‘They deliver a package for Mr Sammy. I think they wait for a reply.’
‘Mr Sammy? Is this Basil Brush or some fucking thing?’
&
nbsp; ‘Basil who?’
‘Never mind.’ Mannion looked back at the boys at the table. He didn’t know them, and he knew most of the lads that age in the area. ‘Cokes, no more alcohol, do you understand?’ He bounded up the steep stairs behind the bar to his office.
Mannion was about to berate Sammy Sloane for encouraging underage drinking in his establishment, when a large wooden crate on his desk caught his eye. ‘What the fuck is that, Sammy?’
‘Fucked if I know, big man. They boys delivered it. Said it’s only to be opened by you and they’ve to bring back an answer.’
‘You don’t say. So it’s not Amazon, then?’
Sammy furrowed his brow. ‘No, I don’t think so. How, have you ordered anything, like?’
Mannion made his way towards the box on his desk. ‘Aye, two toasters and a spice rack.’
‘There’s your answer, then. I must admit, it had me worried; I tried to get you on the phone, but . . .’
‘I’m being sarcastic, you thick bastard! Get a knife and open it up.’
Sammy Sloane bent down and removed something from his boot. In a second, a stiletto blade flashed from its casing and the big man set to work at opening the box. ‘Here. I think I’ll need a jemmy, big man.’
‘Use this.’ Mannion reached under his desk and pulled out a short sword. ‘Lever the bastard open with it.’
Sloane looked at him, open-mouthed.
‘What’s wrong? Have you never seen anybody pull a sword out of their desk before? Just get moving!’
Sammy Sloane grabbed the weapon and soon the lid of the box’s wooden casing split open. ‘Here, it’s stuffed with these wee polystyrene balls.’
‘Well, pull them out!’
Sloane cupped his hand into the box, then recoiled.
‘What’s up?’
‘There’s something wet in there.’ He examined his hand, which was slathered in blood. ‘What the fuck?’
‘Here, give it to me!’ Mannion thrust his hand into the box and grabbed at what felt like a wet dog’s coat. He hauled out a severed head, blood dripping from what was left of the neck.
‘Oh, you bastard!’ said Sammy Sloane, taking two involuntary steps backward.
Mannion held up the head and examined its features. ‘Do you recognise him?’ He still had a grip of the grotesque object by the ruffle of blood-stained red hair.
‘Naw. How, do you?’
Mannion let the head go. It landed with a damp thud on the linoleum, sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling. He delved further into the box and removed a plastic envelope. He opened it and pulled his reading glasses from the breast pocket of his jacket before peering at the printed note.
‘The last Albanian. Now, do what we discussed. Everything is in place. G.’
Joe Mannion read on. There was the name and address of a Glasgow restaurant underneath the main message.
‘Okay, Sammy. Phone Davie and the boys. They know what to do. Give them this address.’ He handed the anonymous note to Sloane. ‘Aye, and tell they weans down in the bar that the matter is in hand. Give them a ton for their trouble.’
‘What about that?’ said Sloane, looking in disgust at the severed head.
‘Och, we’ll just leave that for the cleaner, eh?’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
Mannion shook his head. ‘Get the mop and bucket, Sammy. Aye, and make sure it’s not stinking of pish this time.’
45
Senga Finn’s nerves were frazzled as she arrived in the outskirts of Glasgow. So much for modern communication, she thought. She’d tried everybody, including both of her daughters and Zander. She’d left messages on all of their phones. But nobody had returned her calls.
She banged the steering wheel in frustration as the traffic in front of her slowed to a crawl. What was the point in having a mobile phone if you didn’t answer it? Senga screamed in desperation, then thought of a last resort.
*
Amelia Langley was in an unmarked car not far from the pub in Argyle Street. They had a direct line of sight to the door through the straggle of shoppers and office workers making their way home from Glasgow city centre at the end of the day. She looked on as an old man with a walking frame stopped to take a puff of an inhaler.
‘Poor old bastard,’ said Neil Dickie. ‘That’s what’s in store for us all.’
‘If we’re lucky,’ replied Langley.
‘It’s a grim prospect.’
Langley checked the time on her phone. ‘Finn must be well drunk by now. He’s been in there for ages. Are you sure our guys are paying attention at that back door? He’s a slippery bastard.’
‘He’s a hard bastard. Made short work of that pair of arseholes in the bar in Hope Street.’
‘Richly deserved, from what the barmaid told us.’
‘No doubt.’ Dickie placed the radio to his mouth. ‘Unit one, any sign of the subject, over?’
‘No, sergeant,’ came the instant reply.
‘We’ll give him another fifteen minutes, then we’ll have to get somebody in there. I didn’t want to do it – you know what an uncanny knack he has of spotting cops.’
‘Well, if we’re to keep tabs on what he’s doing and who he’s speaking to, I don’t think we’ve much choice.’
Langley sighed. Why did everything have to be so complicated? She’d had to justify her actions to ACC Green, but she was convinced her superior was holding something back. She had agreed to Finn’s release and covert observation all too readily. But, like everything else, Langley just had to do her best. She was too tired and disillusioned to second-guess everybody. Green must do as she saw fit, and she would do the same.
She sat back in her seat and closed her eyes, taking in the so familiar sounds of the city in which she was born. Loud voices, the intermittent rattle of trains from the nearby railway bridge, the squeal of bus brakes, the jarring punctuation of car horns: it was this symphony of Glasgow that lulled her into a much-needed doze.
*
Gillian was feeling more than merry. The wine had gone straight to her head. Unlike the rest of her family, she’d never been a heavy drinker. Her mother, father and siblings made up for that. Not to mention her grandmother, who could drink a sailor on shore-leave under the table. She enjoyed the effects of alcohol to a certain point, but dreaded the hangover that was bound to hit her the next day. Gillian also hated the feeling of losing control, the disorientation that inevitably overtook her if she drank too much.
She remembered being out with her father. With him, she hadn’t minded the feeling of vulnerability, basically because she hadn’t felt it. That Zander Finn, her father, would keep her safe from just about anything, she was certain.
Gillian smiled as Sandra waddled back from the toilet.
‘Everywhere I go now is like climbing Everest. I’m knackered just going to the loo and back,’ said Sandra.
‘Not too long now,’ Gillian replied.
They’d had a great chat, a catch-up. Sandra was sipping soda water and lime, while Gillian drank her wine with rather more gusto. A trickle of late afternoon/early evening customers were beginning to arrive, but their hosts seemed in no hurry to see the sisters leave.
‘Why don’t we do this much more often?’ said Gillian.
Sandra shrugged. ‘I guess it’s just we’ve got separate lives – all of us. I mean, what’s there to hold us together but Gran?’
‘And her egg, beans and chips.’
Sandra laughed. ‘You know, I wonder how Dad got so tall on a diet of that when he was growing up.’
‘He seems to have done all right.’
Sandra pecked at a bit of biscuit from the big cheese board that sat between them. ‘Do you ever think of Danny?’
‘Wow, you hit me with that like a rock, sis.’
‘I just wondered. It’s something none of us ever talk about – or poor Robbie, come to that.’
Gillian gulped back the ache in her throat at the mention of her dead brother’s name
. ‘I still miss him, so much. I mean, I know he could be an arsehole, especially when he was around those mates of his. But when he was on his own – well, he was different.’
‘He was just our brother. I miss him too.’ Sandra smiled at her sister. ‘If you’re right and the baby is a boy, I’m going to call him Danny.’
‘Aw, that would be so . . .’ Gillian hesitated.
‘What?’
‘Well, I was just wondering what Kevin’s family will think of that.’
Sandra’s face darkened. ‘You still think Joe Mannion has something to do with what happened to Danny, don’t you?’
‘No – I don’t know. Shit, Sandra, does it really matter now? He’s gone, Uncle Malky – who next?’
‘You can’t think like that.’
‘But I do.’
‘Do you believe for one second that I’d stay with Kevin if I thought his family had anything to do with Danny’s death?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Wow, it’s true what they say. Speak of the devil . . .’ Sandra nodded towards the front door of the restaurant.
When Gillian turned round to follow her sister’s gaze, sure enough, there was the father of her sister’s unborn baby, Kevin Mannion, winding his way through tables towards them.
*
Maggie Finn was watching her favourite afternoon quiz show when a knock sounded loudly at the door of her flat. Recently, she’d been plagued by hawkers trying to sell her everything from dishcloths to sunglasses. This time, she was ready for them. From under a cushion on the sofa she produced a short baseball bat. While she had no intention of using it, word would surely get around that the old dear with the leopard-print shoes was not to be messed with or disturbed. She strode purposely from the lounge as another knock echoed down the hall.
Maggie swung the door open with a flourish. ‘Right, you bastard!’ She brandished the baseball bat, then let it drop at the sight of her daughter-in-law standing forlornly in the close. ‘What’s up with you? The clap?’
‘Listen, I need to come in, Maggie. There’s no time to waste.’
Maggie Finn was many things, but a fool she was not. She recognised someone who was really worried when she saw them. ‘Come in, Senga. What on earth’s wrong with you?’
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