‘You’ll have to help me up first!’
‘Yes, of course.’ Finn leaned over his stricken daughter and hauled her to her feet. ‘Where’s Gillian?’
‘What?’
‘Gillian – where is she?’
‘Home by now – I don’t know. Anyway, what can she do?’
‘Were you with her this afternoon?’ Finn had her arm around his shoulder and was helping Sandra out of the kitchen.
‘Fuck, I’m about to have a baby and all you’re worried about is where my sister is!’ She cried out as she put weight on her twisted knee.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘When I fell, I hurt myself.’
‘Here, just stand still.’ Finn lifted his daughter in his arms, the blood from her face staining his shirt. ‘You didn’t used to be this heavy.’
‘Cheers, Dad,’ said Sandra through gritted teeth.
‘Come on, but I need to know about Gillian.’
‘We had lunch, what’s the problem?’ Father and daughter were out on the landing now. Finn staggered, as he took the first step. ‘Shit! Don’t drop me, Dad.’
‘It’s okay, trust me. But you need to tell me where Gillian went after lunch.’
A figure appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Kevin!’ shouted Sandra. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’
‘You know where I’ve been. What’s wrong, where are you going?’ He looked between Sandra and her father as he carried downstairs.
‘My dad’s taking me to the swing park, what the fuck do you think?’
‘Where’s your car?’ Finn demanded.
‘Just a bit down the street. Some wanker has parked a pink Mini in my space.’
‘That’s mine.’
‘You’ve got a pink Mini? What the fuck is going on? Have they given me the gas and air already.’ Sandra looked bewildered.
‘Come on, Kevin. You need to get Sandra to the hospital.’
Kevin Mannion looked non-plussed. Here was the man who terrified him, carrying Sandra, his partner, who had blood pouring from a wound on her face. ‘What have you done to her?’
‘Eh?’ said Finn, struggling under the weight of his pregnant daughter as he made for the close door.
‘I fell, Kevin. Just do what he says, for fuck’s sake!’
Finn carried Sandra down the path and out onto the pavement.
‘Your car – where?’ said Finn, breathing heavily.
‘There, follow me.’
Soon Finn was manhandling his daughter onto the back seat of Kevin’s BMW.
‘Will I get a towel, or something?’ said Kevin.
‘If you’re worried about me staining your upholstery, we’re finished.’ Sandra glared at her boyfriend.
‘Just get her to hospital, you clown!’ Finn leaned into the car. ‘You have to tell me about Gillian.’
‘Kevin took her home. That’s where he’s been. Why are you so worried about her, right now of all times?’
‘Okay, you relax. You’ll be in hospital, soon.’ He closed the door. Finn beckoned Kevin behind the car.
‘What, Mr Finn?’
Zander grabbed the father of his unborn grandchild by the throat. ‘I know what your father is doing. Tell me where my daughter is, or I swear I’ll cut your throat right here!’
‘She’s at the old Chinese on Springpark Road. Not far from St Brandon’s.’
‘You took her there, didn’t you?’ Finn tightened his grip on Kevin’s throat.
‘My father – I had no choice.’
Sandra screamed from the car.
‘Get her to hospital. But I swear, if you had any part in any harm coming to my daughter, you won’t live to see your baby.’ He pushed the younger man away.
*
Maggie Finn directed her daughter-in-law along the road in the East End of Glasgow.
‘I’d really like to know what we’re doing here,’ said Senga.
‘Trust me. Don’t you know this is where your boyfriend does his business?’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘He was until this morning.’
‘Piss off. This isn’t important now, is it?’
Senga pulled the car up across the road from the Iron Horse. ‘What now?’
‘We go in and find this bastard, that’s what.’
‘Really?’
‘Do you want to find Gillian or not? This is where he takes people.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Trust me, I just know.’ Maggie looked her son’s estranged wife in the face. ‘All the time you thought you were being smart, you were just putting everyone at risk. Joe Mannion is a snake, he always has been.’
‘I’m not here to talk about who I do and do not see, Maggie.’
‘Come on!’ Maggie opened her door and was soon heading across the street.
The bar looked deserted from the outside, but, then again, that was exactly the way it had been designed. Only barred windows, high up on the wall, let out some light to indicate that there was anyone within. The big door was heavy. But Maggie forced it open. She looked around the bar, hands on hips. ‘Right, where’s Big Joe?’
‘Ho-ho, now we’re talking,’ said the elderly pianist, adjusting his flat cap in order to impress. ‘Where did you spring from, honey, eh?’
‘I’ll spring my toe up your withered arse.’ Maggie approached the bar, Senga behind her. ‘You, son, where’s Joe Mannion?’
Pavel shrugged. ‘How should I know? I work for him, he doesn’t work for me.’
‘Well, you’ll not mind if we head up for a look, then, eh?’ Maggie tried to make her way behind the bar to access the stair to Mannion’s office above.
Two middle-aged women stood. One of them, her thighs thundering under tight jeans, grabbed Maggie by the collar of her jacket and dragged her back. ‘If the boy says Mr Mannion isn’t in, he isn’t in. Got it?’
‘Are you his wife?’ Maggie turned to Senga with a knowing look.
‘Naw, I’m a friend of his. And if you want to keep that wrinkled coupon of yours intact, then you’ll fuck off back to wherever you came from.’
‘I can’t match a big lassie like you,’ Maggie replied. ‘Here, Senga, we better get going. We’ll get no joy here.’
As everyone, including the bruiser who still had a loose grip her collar, turned to face Senga, Maggie twisted from her grip and grabbed a glass bottle of lemonade that was sitting on the bar. In one fluid movement, she crashed it off the head of the woman who’d grabbed her.
‘You old bastard!’ shouted her friend, and made to grab Maggie.
Maggie smashed the bottle off the bar and was left holding only what was left of it in her hand, as glass splintered onto the linoleum floor. ‘If you’d like this in your teeth, then just come ahead, you fat cow.’ She flourished the broken bottle in the woman’s face by way of a further deterrent.
‘I’ve seen it all now,’ Pavel muttered, as he located himself nearer to the TV at the other end of the bar. ‘Go up, if you want. You are a mad woman.’
‘Thank you, son. Just you make sure that Hardy and Hardy here don’t follow us.’
‘They wouldn’t make it up the stairs, carrying that weight,’ he replied, without taking his eyes from the horse racing. ‘But you’ll be disappointed. There’s nobody there.’
‘Aye, well, I’ll just have a look myself, if you don’t mind.
Maggie and Senga made their way behind the bar and took to the steps leading to Joe Mannion’s place of business.
49
Zander Finn was back behind the wheel of the pink Mini when his phone rang. He picked it up, hoping to see Gillian’s name, but was disappointed. The screen just read ‘Private number’. Nonetheless, he decided to answer.
Finn put the phone to his ear. At first the sound on the other end was hard to discern, but soon he thought he could make out the cross between a gasp of breath and a sob. ‘Gillian, is that you?’
‘No, but you’re close, right en
ough.’
Finn instantly recognised Joe Mannion’s voice, as it curled from his phone like a serpent. ‘That’s your wee lassie you can hear. Do you want to know what we’re doing to her?’
‘I swear, Joe. You and all your men will go exactly the same way as these Albanian bastards!’
‘Typical, eh? You never listen, just want to speak. You just love the sound of your own voice.’
As Finn listened in, he heard a muffled scream.
‘Not that you’re interested, Zander, but we’re water-boarding her – neat, eh?’
‘I know where you are and I’m coming for you. This is your last fucking day, Joe Mannion.’
‘Oh dear.’ Mannion adopted a mocking tone. ‘Are you in a bad mood because I’ve been fucking that tart of a wife of yours, or my son got your other slut daughter up the stick? I just can’t make up my mind.’
‘I’m coming, and you’re dead!’
‘Well, don’t rely on the cavalry to come and save you. They’re otherwise disposed.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your main man – well, since big stupid Malky ended up swinging off the Erskine Bridge – old Paton. He’s been firing you into the OCU. Leaky ship, Zander. Nothing worse.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Give him a call, see if he replies.’
Finn heard another yell.
‘Here, have a word with Gillian. Lovely lassie, so she is.’
Finn could hardly make out what his daughter was trying to say. But between desperate gasps for breath, he understood.
‘Dad, they’re killing me.’
‘Gillian!’ Finn roared. But the next voice on the phone was Joe Mannion.
‘I’m not sure how much more she can take. But I’ll make a deal with you. You come over and we do a nice wee swap. Your daughter goes free, and you stay with us. Come alone, mind.’
Finn swallowed hard, desperately thinking of a way out. ‘Okay, I’m on my way. But don’t you dare lay another finger on her.’
‘Good. You know where we are. I’ll leave her be for the moment. Any shit and I’ll cut her throat myself.’
Finn heard the line go dead. Quickly, he found Donnie Paton’s number. He listened to the ring tone until the prompt to leave a voice message sounded loud in his ear.
*
As the barman had promised, Mannion’s office was empty. Maggie Finn stared at the big desk, a dark frown spreading across her face.
‘I don’t know what we’re going to achieve here,’ said Senga. The thought of the man with whom she had been intimate with was making bile rise in her throat.
‘Just look for stuff,’ said Maggie.
‘Like what?’
‘Anything that’ll give us a steer as to what this bastard is up to – or where he is.’
The pair went through drawers, filing cabinets and cupboards. But they found nothing to indicate that Joe Mannion was anything other than the respectable owner of the bar downstairs.
Maggie walked across to a drinks cabinet. ‘Here, have some, we’re going to need it.’ She poured two large measures of vodka into glasses and handed one to Senga.
‘And who’s going to drive?’
‘You know, for a lassie that puts it about so much, and was in charge of a criminal gang, you ask the most fucking stupid questions. Drink the bloody thing!’
Senga grabbed the glass and downed the spirit in one gulp. ‘Another,’ she said.
‘We’ve done what we can do. We have to leave everything – well, leave it to others.’
‘Who? This mystery person you were talking to in the car?’
‘Yes, and my son.’
‘It’s a trap, Maggie. You know that. Joe will lure Zander to where he has Gillian and he’ll kill him. That’s what this is about.’
‘People have tried to kill my son before.’
‘They succeeded with mine!’
‘I know Zander – so should you. And don’t underestimate the power of prayer.’
‘Really? You’re trying to convert me, Maggie? Now’s not the time!’
Maggie ignored the comment. ‘Right, we can’t just stay here. Anyway, Dumb and Dumber down there will soon get the wind back to get up they stairs.’ She spotted the shine of metal sticking out from under Joe Mannion’s desk. Maggie pulled at it and drew the vicious-looking blade from its cubbyhole.
‘It’s a sword!’
‘Aye, well done, Senga. You should get yourself on one of these quiz shows on the telly. Sharp as a tack, so you are. Come on. If nothing else, I can stick this in one of they fat bastards down in the bar.’
*
Zander Finn drove through the traffic, calculating the chances of rescuing his daughter. Amelia Langley popped into his mind. But in his heart he knew he couldn’t trust the police. And knowing Joe Mannion as he did, he would kill Gillian at the first sign of the constabulary.
He had only one choice. He had to give himself up to save his daughter, and to do that he must sacrifice his life. It was stark, but he would rather die than bury another one of his children. In truth, he’d felt despondent for a long time. He’d known what was in store. His flight to London had been as much to do with giving him the space and time to come to terms with what he saw as his inevitable demise as it was to mourn his dead child.
‘Live by the sword and die by it.’ It was a mantra favoured by Father Giordano. The old priest had been warning him of the consequences of his many sins for longer than he could recall.
Finn was on a less busy road, away from the dual carriage-way, away from the crush of men, women and children in tiny metal boxes, all part of the suicidal race of existence. It was a neat metaphor for life. Everyone was hurtling towards oblivion. It didn’t matter what road you were on, or how fast you travelled. The outcome was always the same.
He hadn’t far to go. By his reckoning, he was now only a few streets away from saving Gillian.
‘One day you will do the right thing. You will redeem yourself. But it may well lead you to eternal damnation.’ Father Giordano had said this to him such a long time ago, but it had stuck in his mind. He remembered being insulted by the thought that his confessor, his priest, his spiritual mentor, had not only seen fit to abandon the soul of one of his flock but also to happily taunt him about it.
‘And how will you find redemption?’ He remembered asking the question so vividly.
‘When the time is right, I will know, my son.’
At the time, this reply had troubled Finn. Now he was beginning to realise what the old Italian had meant.
As he turned the corner, he could see the building Joe Mannion had described. For Zander Finn, the time to find redemption and eternal damnation had arrived. And they were one and the same.
50
The chapel was empty, save for the man on his knees before the life-size depiction of Christ on the cross. Father Giordano looked up at this embodiment of sacrifice and pain in exactly the same way he had when he was a boy in Italy so, so long ago. He knew he should feel joy. That Christ had shouldered the sins of the world was his certainty. But he could only ever feel an overwhelming sadness, an undiminishing sense of loss.
‘What more could you have done, had you lived?’ It was a question he’d asked in many places of worship for many decades. For life was never simple. The world, both spiritual and temporal, was not quite what one expected. And as age, and hopefully wisdom, accumulated, knowledge of what was to come became ever more uncertain. It was as though the boundless faith of youth – his faith – was being tested to destruction. This, so that when the day of judgement came he would be the one who would condemn himself in front of the Lord he so loved, not the reverse.
But was this not the fate of mankind? Surely, he’d come to believe, it was predestined that man, not God, would seal his own fate. The Almighty wasn’t keeping score because he didn’t have to. The ability to look into the hearts of sinners – and everyone sinned – would suffice.
This plague of rea
lisation that had dawned on him only became more real as the years advanced. Was he a sinner? Most certainly, he was. Had he helped others? Yes, to the best of his ability, he had. But also he had brought others to their end, without mercy. To the young version of himself, this had been right. The older man, though, cried out for the forgiveness he knew he didn’t deserve.
Father Giordano genuflected and rose stiffly to his feet.
When he left the quiet confines of the church, he was propelled back into the secular world. Many thought that what happened in places of worship was fantasy, but, what passed for reality outside the confines of the church was the real illusion to him. As he stared at the many going about their business under the glow of the streetlights, he could see only players. The drama was of their creation, but the curtain would fall for all, as surely as the darkness had fallen over Paisley this night.
The spire of the church cast a long shadow in the harsh sodium glare. He walked to its peak and turned left, out of the gates and onto a hill on a rise that overlooked much of the town that had been his home for so many years.
He could hear the sirens of the emergency services. A great cloud of smoke hung over the north part of Paisley. It was illuminated by the streetlights, looming like a monster, a devil, slowly morphing in shape and size, as though ready to consume them all.
Head down, the priest began the short walk to his home. But it was the walk to oblivion he had always feared, and it was his next destination. But he knew it was a walk he could only make alone.
*
Maggie Finn was driving, as they crossed over the flyover on the M8 that looked across Paisley.
‘That’s some fire by the look of things,’ said Senga Finn. She had spent the short trip from Glasgow with her head pinned back against the headrest of her own car, as her erstwhile mother-in-law peered into the blinding display of headlights.
Maggie cast a glance to her left. ‘That’s not just any bloody fire!’ She put her foot to the accelerator, jerking Senga back in her seat.
‘Be careful! Remember, you’re probably over the limit.’
‘I don’t give a fuck!’ Maggie had her face thrust towards the windscreen, as she negotiated her way through the heavy traffic to the nearest exit from the motorway. Soon, she was winding through the dimly lit streets of the town she knew so well. Every street, every pub, every shop – open or boarded up – every school, every empty space where a building had been demolished; everywhere she passed held its own memories. Some were fleeting, a mere moment in time, while others held a greater significance for the woman who would always call Paisley home.
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