Butcher

by Campbell Armstrong

He shut his eyes, trying to ignore the ache in his gut, where he was bruised. He’d worked hard for his present position. Before marriage, the Bank was everything to him, his favourite Uncle, his future, his retirement. Had it not provided him with a generous mortgage for his house in Bearsden? And had it not loaned him, at preferential rates, funds to purchase the BMW of which he was very fond?

  He owed the Bank. OK. But it was piss compared to what he owed Meg. Meg was his world. Before Meg, life had been acceptable but dull. And then came lightning, and his heart was liberated. He loved her beyond anything or anyone. He was stunned by love.

  He looked at his watch again. Nine oh eight. White latex gloves. He kept seeing them.

  No, the Bank didn’t matter a damn. Anyway, it was unlikely the Bank would ever know what he’d done, unless he confessed. And he wouldn’t, because it meant having to reveal the sordid details of the despicable way his wife had been treated. He remembered with deep disgust the man urinating on her, the stains on her negligee, and the strong hop-like after-scent of his pee.

  She’d been humiliated.

  Dangerous men, all three of them. Animals.

  And they were still in his house.

  All night long he’d been separated from her, locked in a small storage room – but where were they keeping Meg? He’d listened hard, ear pressed to storage-room door, but he’d heard no sound of her. Once or twice there were noises from downstairs, men clumping and thumping around, going from room to room, laughing and cursing as they broke into the drinks cabinet.

  But nothing from Meg.

  Was she in the bedroom, miserable and alone?

  Was somebody with her, guarding her, making sure she didn’t try any desperate moves? The fact he had no idea escalated him to a new scary high of anxiety. He’d shouted aloud a few times, called her name, but the only response he got was when one of the men climbed the stairs and struck the door with what might have been a hammer and screamed at him to shut the fuck up and if he didn’t, if another peep was heard out of him, if if – the man didn’t spell out the consequences.

  Montague had listened to the footsteps fade and then more clattering noises from below. He’d sat hunched in the tiny box of a room, tense and miserable hour after hour, plans rushing through his mind only to be discarded: escape the windowless storage room – but how? Rescue Meg – but only if he could free himself from his prison. Nothing came to him, and his nerves grew all the more taut. Meg, where was she? What were they doing to her?

  In quieter moments, when he managed to think with any kind of lucidity, he understood the policy – separate and conquer, keep them apart and Montague would be all the more malleable and ready to meet their demand.

  He rose from his desk, walked out of his office. He didn’t look at the staff. He wondered if anyone was watching him. One of the gang, say. Sent here to keep an eye on him. Fine with him, he was being obedient, he wasn’t doing anything stupid like secretly calling the police, he’d never jeopardize Meg. He thought of her now as he entered the locked vault where the safe-deposit boxes were stored. He’d asked to see her, just to check on her before he’d left the house that morning, and all he received was a shotgun thrust into his chest. Do the business, you’ll see her then …

  The air in the safe-deposit vault was filtered but still stuffy. In and out, quickly. Even if he gave these animals what they wanted, he had no absolute guarantee of Meg’s safety. Were they the kind of men who’d keep their word?

  Fat chance, but one he had to take.

  He used his emergency pass-keys to open a safe-deposit box, which he carried to a private cubicle. Inside the box he found an envelope, ordinary, brown. This everyday envelope was worth his wife’s life. He had an urge to open it. He checked the seal, slipped his finger beneath it, tested the strength of the gum. He could slit this open and reseal it without anyone ever knowing.

  He eased the flap open very carefully.

  It contained a single sheet of paper with the typewritten words: The Azteca Bank of Aruba. Account: 957 8671-045. Password: countdracula. He placed the paper back in the envelope, licked what little gum remained on the flap, resealed the envelope and pressed it tight with the fingertips of his good hand. He put the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket and stepped out of the cubicle, then returned the box to its place among all the other safe-deposit boxes.

  Done.

  He left the Bank, conscious of Mrs Liddle watching him from behind her desk, and he walked up Buchanan Street. He was a tangled knot of aches and pains and nerves. On St Vincent Street he headed west. Somebody will meet you: that was what he’d been told. You’ll hand over what you took from the Bank and go back to your office until we call you.

  Keep walking along St Vincent. How far, he didn’t know. He reached the corner of Hope Street.

  Hope Street: remind me of irony.

  He wondered again if he was being watched. Perhaps a member of the gang had been detailed to track his movements. Or maybe there were more than three men involved, a fourth member whose task it was to make sure he did what he’d been told. He knew nothing about how gangs were structured. All he knew was that this vicious trio dictated his future. Christ, he felt such a loathing, such a burden of anxiety.

  He was so absorbed by his feelings he didn’t see the man who appeared at his side.

  ‘You got something for me?’

  Montague turned. The man wore a navy blue scarf that covered his jaw and mouth. His sunglasses were impenetrable. The scarf muffled his voice. A slit allowed Montague to see that the man’s cheeks were volcanoed with the pockmarks of old acne. They looked like small asteroids that had been bombarded by space debris.

  ‘Hand it over fast.’

  It was suddenly of enormous importance to Montague to have reassurances. ‘I want to know you haven’t harmed my wife.’

  ‘She’s shipshape.’

  ‘How can I believe you?’

  ‘Because I’m fuckn telling ye.’

  ‘That’s not good enough. I’m supposed to accept your word—’

  ‘Pal, it’s a matter of choices. You give me what you’ve got for me, OK, your wife will be waiting when you get home. Intact, if you get my drift. You act in any other way, you go home to an empty house.’ The man slipped a hand menacingly into his coat pocket. ‘Another choice is I fuckin chiv you right here in the street, mate. Nay problem. And then you’ve got nothing but a big bad bleeding wound, likely fatal. And the only home you’ll go to then is a funeral one.’

  He imagined Meg being harmed. Or worse, made to disappear. He imagined dying in a city street, a knife in his ribs. The images ripped him apart.

  He took the envelope out, and gave it to the man who glanced at it before pocketing it, and then he was gone quickly, overcoat flapping, down Hope Street in the direction of Sauchiehall and God knows where after that.

  Montague walked back to the Bank. In his office he shut the door and thought, I could have tackled the man, grabbed him, dragged him to the police. In whose dreams? He’d wait until 5 p.m., then leave. He wondered why these villains needed – and here he checked his watch – another seven hours? What did they propose to do with all that time?

  Of course, it might take them hours to make sure the paper was authentic. Phone calls to make, people to confer with. They might have to wait until the Azteca Bank in Aruba opened before they knew for sure that they had the genuine article. He’d never heard of the Azteca Bank. He didn’t know their hours of operation. Complicated time zones might be a factor. He tapped his keyboard. The Azteca Bank had a gaudy website, all blue and gold and palm trees. He scanned it quickly.

  The Azteca Bank, founded in 1987, has deposits of 13 billion dollars. Our aim is customer satisfaction, complete confidentiality, and discretion. We offer investment counselling, and professional advice on legal matters, among many other services. Contact: azteca@aruba/14.com.

  It’s a money-laundering outfit, Montague thought. No phone number, no address, no opening hours
.

  He swallowed an aspirin and thought of Meg. He needed to hear her voice. Nobody had told him he couldn’t phone the house if he wanted. He punched in six of the seven digits, then replaced the handset. If he called, he might upset these gangsters.

  But Meg. God, he needed to know she was all right, if being all right was even possible in the circumstances.

  He fingertipped the numbers slowly. The phone rang for a long time. What was happening in his house, what was Meg doing, what were the gangsters—

  He heard Meg’s voice. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Meg,’ he said, relieved. ‘Are you free to speak?’

  ‘Yes, Sammy.’

  ‘How are you darling?’

  ‘Fine, I’m fine.’

  Fine, how could she be? ‘Those men, what are they doing?’

  ‘They’ve been different this morning,’ she said.

  ‘Different?’ Did he hear somebody breathing on the extension? He wasn’t sure.

  ‘Not like yesterday.’

  ‘I got what they wanted,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why they’re pleased.’

  Montague was appeased somewhat. But still unhappy. ‘They haven’t hurt you, have they?’

  She said, ‘No, nothing like that. They’ll be gone before you get home.’

  ‘And you … you’re comfortable with the situation?’

  ‘Comfortable? How could I be comfortable? It’s better than it was yesterday, that’s not saying much.’

  There. He heard a tiny note of stress in her voice. Why wouldn’t she be stressed in this situation, for heaven’s sake?

  ‘When you come home, all this will be behind us. And we’ll forget, won’t we?’

  ‘We will, I promise. We’ll go away for a few days. Somewhere nice.’ He adored her. ‘I love—’

  The connection was cut. He imagined a man’s hand tugging the wire from the wall.

  He took another aspirin. Seven hours, counting down.

  22

  Perlman napped fitfully in the armchair, and opened his eyes only when Betty shook his shoulders.

  ‘I’ve been up for ages,’ she said. She had a blanket draped over her shoulders. ‘It was my place to go to the morgue, not yours. I didn’t have the courage. I couldn’t look at him.’

  ‘Courage doesn’t come into it.’ His mouth was dry. Betty followed him inside the kitchen where he filled a glass from the tap and drank it in one long swallow.

  ‘I backed out. I was a coward. You saw him. Now it’s my turn. A mother should see her son.’ She lit a cigarette.

  Maybe not, Perlman thought, and drew a second glass of water. ‘They’re going to need a family member to make the formal identification. I tried getting in touch with Kirk’s wife, but I couldn’t track her down—’

  ‘No, I don’t want her to go before me. Kirk never loved her.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘It’s what I need, Lou.’ She made a flustered gesture with her hands, as if fumbling for something in the air. Cigarette smoke wafted into her eyes and stung. ‘Fuck. Fuck.’ She leaned over the sink and splashed water into her eyes then dried her face with a paper towel.

  Perlman listened to the squeak of the old tap and wondered how he could prepare Betty for the morgue. This was once your wee boy, Betty. Now he’s skin and bone, opened up and restitched, in a cold box.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m grateful, Lou, but I need to do this on my own.’

  A mother looks at her dead son and indescribable emotions churn through her – feelings beyond Perlman’s experience. He didn’t have the biological equipment, he hadn’t carried a child, hadn’t established that bond, he wasn’t even a father.

  This was more than a dead son, this was a butchered carcass.

  ‘Let me drive you there,’ he said.

  ‘No, I’ll take my own car.’

  You couldn’t break down her obstinacy if she’d made her mind up. He realized that much about her. ‘I could call you a taxi.’

  ‘I’ll drive myself, Lou.’

  He held her a moment, then he walked with her to the front door. He needed to prepare her. There was no way he’d let her leave, not knowing. She opened the front door.

  ‘Wait, Betty. Just wait. Before you go.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and looked directly at her.

  ‘Tell me what it is, Lou,’ she said.

  He tried to pick his words. You’re not going to find him as you might expect, Betty. He was cut—

  She interrupted. ‘He was stabbed, is that what you mean?’

  ‘No, it’s more than that—’

  ‘How more? They cut his face?’

  Perlman shook his head. There was no simple way to say it aloud. He fumbled to make a compassionate sentence out of words that had no mercy. He heard himself speak as if novocained.

  She buckled, and Perlman caught her, held her against his body. ‘Oh dear God, oh dear God, no, no …’

  ‘I’ll come with you, Betty.’

  She pushed him away fiercely, as if to say she could stand on her own two feet, she didn’t need anyone else to do things for her. She looked stricken and lost and yet utterly determined to maintain one small space inside her that was intact – even if it was already beginning to crumble. She ran toward her car, an old brown Mini with a faded gold racing-stripe. He went after her, calling out her name, but she didn’t turn back. He waited until she’d driven out of sight before he shut the front door and listlessly gathered the few items of mail that lay on the floor. An electricity bill. A TV licence reminder. A credit card statement. He tossed the post back on the floor.

  His phone rang, and he went into the living room to answer it.

  ‘Meet me,’ Scullion said.

  ‘Where and when.’

  ‘I’ve got a quiet place in mind.’

  23

  Perlman had never been inside Glasgow Cathedral. He’d passed it almost every day of his life, but he’d never entered it. Some hangover from childhood. Good Christian Germans had murdered his relatives in camps – Ephraim never quit drumming the holocaust into him. He looked up at the spire, idling before he went inside. A morning of rare sunshine gave the dark grey steeple a bright clarity. He pictured monks wandering around here through the centuries, chanting, praying, growing things – whatever else monks did.

  Maybe he needed a church today. Maybe he’d find some form of uplift. He never prayed, but perhaps he could find it in himself to offer up a few silent thoughts about Betty.

  Inside, the cathedral was as huge and hushed as a god’s heart. No city traffic could be heard. The long stained-glass windows, etched in rich colour, magnetized him. In the nave, his eye followed a line of stone arches which supported a second arched storey. Higher, there was a vaulted ceiling that suggested impenetrable mysteries. He was surprised: in the centre of this rowdy city a lovely sanctuary of tranquillity he’d never known.

  He felt like a tourist in his own Glasgow.

  There was no sign of Scullion, so Perlman wandered, half-expecting at any moment to be stopped and questioned by a Cathedral security guard – but there were none. How about that. He was free to set aside his paranoia, and roam.

  He found a plaque on a wall, inscribed to the memory of a certain Lieutenant John Sterling, twenty-three, of the Bombay Army attached to the cavalry of His Highness of Nizam. Sterling ‘fell while gallantly leading an assault against the fort of Dunahooree. MDCCCX XVIII.’

  Fighting for Empire, slaughtered, and commemorated in a cathedral. Perlman thought: Imperialism, death, and God – human history, capsule form.

  Scullion tapped his shoulder from behind.

  Perlman jumped, turned. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Who were you expecting?’

  ‘God mibbe. It’s that kind of place.’

  Scullion smiled and sat down on one of the wicker chairs that were placed here and there. Perlman sat beside him, deeply relaxed by the serene almost liquid quality of
light.

  Scullion said, ‘Let’s talk about this hand of yours.’

  ‘All ears.’

  ‘No prints.’

  ‘No what?’

  ‘Burned off. Sid says a blowtorch might have been used. Lysergic acid hurried the process. The serious decomposition is a hindrance.’

  Somebody began playing scales on an organ hidden somewhere. Hands on keys, hands in ziploc baggies. Perlman looked down at his own hands, studying the fine hair on the backs of his fingers. He remembered Latta’s wolfman hands, hairy horrors. Polisman haunted by hands. Checks into rest home.

  ‘What the hell is Tigge doing, Sandy?’

  ‘Head stuck in a computer, scanning missing persons lists. I don’t think he likes leaving the office and hitting the streets.’

  ‘He’s a teuchter, he doesn’t know the streets. He hasn’t bothered his arse to interview me. Odd, considering where the damned thing was found.’

  ‘Skip Tigge, what have you been doing?’

  ‘Outsky aboutsky. Poking my nose in here and there.’

  ‘Knocking on some funny doors, eh? Hanging out with scruff, tap-dancing in shady lanes?’

  ‘These are a few of my favourite things.’

  ‘You’re a secretive bugger, Lou.’

  ‘Born furtive.’

  ‘Grapevine chatter is you had the sorry task of ID-ing your cleaning lady’s son.’

  ‘She’s more like a friend who wants to put my house in order.’ A friend. He’d promoted her already.

  ‘She’ll need your shoulder to lean on. Her kid’s victim number three in the last two weeks. Nouveau-riche Chinese capitalists are crying out for new organs.’

  ‘I’m never sorry for rich capitalist pigs, Chinese or otherwise.’

  ‘I talked to an old acquaintance of yours. Reuben Chuck. He thinks the world of you.’

  ‘It’s not a mutual appreciation. I haven’t seen Chuck in, oh, two years, George Square, Christmas insanity. We exchanged some chitchat. Bred any good crooks lately bla bla?’

  ‘A killer routine, Lou.’

  ‘Here, Stanley Baxter used to steal my stuff. What struck me most was the woman with him. Glorianna … I didn’t get her last name. Easy on the eye, articulate, not your standard crim-crumpet. She was loaded down with Armani bags, aye, but I don’t think she was fluff along with Chuck for the material ride.’ Perlman remembered her eyes the colour of drinking chocolate, and black hair suffused with small blonde touches. She’d worn a full-length fur coat that didn’t conceal the slimness of figure. ‘If Chuck’s on your score-sheet, Sandy, nail the bastard.’