But I regrouped, repaired the crack in my cold armour and pressed on.
‘And Jan,’ I asked him, quietly. ‘What about Jan?’
He looked at me with his first show of regret. Not remorse, that’s different; this was only regret.
‘Aye son,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about that, but it was necessary. Thanks to my hot-headed daughter, and to her own skill as an accountant, your lass was about to find out about Gary’s wee sideline, and to tell Susie. I had to stop her from doing that, at all costs, I’m afraid.’
‘Gary’s wee sideline,’ I repeated. ‘So you did know about it.’
‘Oh yes. Almost from the start. I was still running the business when he dreamed it up, so I spotted it within the first two months.’
‘So why didn’t you turn him in?’ asked Dylan, incredulity written all over his face. ‘Why did you cover it up?’
Gantry laughed at him, and shook his head. ‘Michael, Michael, Michael, I am a politician, first and last. The job of the politician is to give the people what they want; not to tell them what they want - that’s the real, patronising, Old Labour way - but to give it to them.
‘And what you and those like you must know but are afraid to admit is that the poor, ordinary underprivileged folk in all big inner city areas want Temazepam and the like, and they want heroin. For good or evil those things have become part of their culture and they want them: more than that, they will have them, come what may.
‘So, as a good politician, what’s my responsibility? That’s right, it’s to give it to them.’
He looked at the policeman, blandly, as if lecturing a child. ‘Which would you rather see happen, Michael? You know my views on the danger of criminalising drugs.
‘I ask you what’s more desirable; to see the housing schemes bled dry to pay for all sorts of uncontrolled poisons - all to make some local criminals, and ultimately some Colombian, or some Burmese, even richer - or to turn a blind eye, as I did, while my nephew gave them a quality supply at prices that let them feed their kids?’
‘For fuck’s sake, man,’ Dylan screamed at him. ‘In these schemes, it’s the kids who are on smack!’
The Lord Provost stared at him, genuinely astonished by his reaction. ‘In every walk of life, Michael, there are good parents and bad.’
He gathered his jacket around him. ‘Listen, I’ve really had enough of this now. Call your people, Inspector, and have Gary taken out of my freezer. I’ll give you a full statement. My nephew came to my house and asked for money to get out of the country. I turned him down and he attacked me. It was self-defence.
‘As for everything else we’ve discussed, you must realise that was off the record. I will never repeat it, either informally, or under caution. You three may allege that I said it all, of course, but it’ll be your word against mine.’ He paused and beamed at us.
‘And remember, I’m Jack Gantry.’
That was it for me. He stood there, and I knew that it had been him I’d really wanted to kill all along, even more than I had wanted O’Rourke. All of a sudden that became the most important thing in my life. I went for him with nothing but my bare hands, to finish him if I could. My first punch, a right hander, staggered him, but the second, a shorter blow, stunned him and knocked him down. I was on top of him then, my left hand tight round his throat squeezing the life out of him, my right fist punching, punching, punching; trying to smash that bland, benign, calm, unspeakably awful face.
All the time, Dylan stood transfixed above me, watching me killing the Lord Provost. It was Everett, eventually, who prised my hand from his throat, and very gently, his great arm wound round my waist, lifted me up and off him.
‘That’s enough, buddy,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t let the man ruin your life any more than he has already.’
He sat me down in an armchair, and everything left me; my strength, my anger, and the last of the restraints which my mind had placed upon my grief. I was back on top of that old Greek wall once more, but this time, there was nothing held back.
Chapter 59
I woke, and sat bolt upright in bed. Someone had drawn my curtains, but the sun was full on them so my room was light. I swung my feet on to the floor, noticing as I did that I was still wearing my boxer shorts, walked to each window and threw them open.
It was a bright spring day outside, the kind that gives you energy by the very sight of it, the kind on which Jan and I, when we were kids, used to jump on our bikes and cycle to St Andrews. Not today though; I felt exhausted.
I went into the bathroom, stepped out of my boxers, and into the shower. Normally I’d have shaved first, but somehow I couldn’t be bothered.
When I trotted downstairs, barefoot, in my jeans and a check shirt, Dylan was there. So was Everett, standing in the doorway of the living room, carrying four large pizza boxes. I counted heads and guessed that two were for him. I was surprised to find that I didn’t have to piece together memories of the night before. They were all there, crystal clear, right up to the point at which the police surgeon had given me a sedative.
‘So,’ I asked the world in general, ‘what’s the news today?’
‘Well, for a start,’ said Mike, as Everett disappeared into the kitchen, ducking below the door, ‘the gold chain will be round another neck very soon. Gantry’s been sectioned. He was examined by two psychiatrists during the night and they agreed that he’s clinically insane, and probably has been for a long time.
‘He’s a hypnotic personality, but under it a total megalomaniac with his own idea of the difference between right and wrong. In another age he could have been Hitler.’
I laughed. ‘In this one he was Lord Provost of Glasgow. The principle’s the same.’ I dropped onto one of the sofas.
‘Okay, guys,’ called Everett, emerging from the kitchen. ‘Lunchtime for you two, snacktime for me. Git outside these.’ He handed pizzas to Mike and I, each cut into eighths, then returned with two plates, as I had assumed, for himself.
‘So how have things wound up at your workplace?’ I asked Dylan. His face fell.
‘I am deep in the shit,’ he said. ‘Going to arrest the Lord Provost on my own was a step too far. My promotion’s jiggered; Christ, I’ll be lucky to stay a DI.’
‘Hell with that, man,’ said Everett, abruptly. ‘That ain’t going to happen. I’ll write a personal letter of thanks to the Chief Constable for what you did to catch O’Rourke and Gantry. I’ll even tell him that if anything bad happens to your career, my next letter will be to the Editor of the Herald.’
He grinned. ‘That ought to see you all right. They tell me I am a big man around here.’
‘What about Susie?’ I asked.
Mike’s face fell once more as quickly as it had brightened up. ‘I went to see her as soon as they’d taken her dad away. It was a difficult conversation, as you’d guess. Naturally, she’s broken up by what’s happened to him. But worse than that, Oz, she’s completely racked with guilt that what she let slip to him led to Jan’s death.’
I smiled at him weakly. ‘Well, you tell her not to be. I go further back than that with the guilt thing. If we’d never met you that night in Babbity’s she’d still be alive. If I hadn’t come back from Spain and married her, she’d still be alive. Susie’s no right to blame herself; I reserve that for myself. She’s got a big enough burden to bear.
‘You and she going to be all right, d’you think?’ I asked him, with a sideways look.
‘Bastard,’ he grinned. ‘You mean, am I moving out of your place and back in with her? I am as it happens, for now. We’ll see how it goes. It’ll be difficult at first, I know, but I love the girl. Someone has to help her through the tough times, and I’m first in the queue.’
We concentrated on our pizzas for a while. When Dylan was finished, he wiped his mouth and stood up. ‘I’ve got to get back to work, mate,’ he said. ‘Your keys are on the sideboard. I’ll call you.’
I watched him, as he headed for the door. Suddenly, l
ike me, he had become an older, more sensible, and maybe more likeable, character.
And that left Everett, in the act of killing off his second pizza, to the last anchovy. ‘I gotta go too, man,’ he said. ‘I just dropped by to see you were okay, and to tie up tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Sure. The GWA is safe, the pay-per-view was a sensation, and on the back of that, I just had a very informal approach from HomeView, the US cable network that shows CWI. Things are heading our way.
‘You got a job as a ring announcer for as long as you like. How about it?’
I reached another of my instant decisions. ‘You know what?’ I told him. ‘I think I’ll do it. The money’s good, it’ll get me out of the house; and anyway, I like you guys.
‘Mind you, Ev. I’ll want a few weeks off soon though. I want to go back to Spain for a holiday. I think I need one.’
‘That’ll be no problem. See you at the airport tomorrow, ten am. It’s Frankfurt this week; guest commentator Jerry Gradi. I’m not on the card so I’m flying over late. You can come with me, and catch up on the fight bill on the plane.’
He rose, like a time-lapse film of a skyscraper being built. I had to ask him. ‘How about Diane?’
He looked down at me. ‘Hell, Oz, maybe I’m as crazy as Gantry, but I love her. She just got captured by the man. Shit, a whole city did. I can’t kick her out of my life. You, of all people, gotta know that.
‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Yes. I’ll look forward to it.’ I showed him to the door. Somehow, he felt like family.
So there I was, left alone, but not for long. I had just finished clearing up after Dylan . . . as usual . . . dusting, shaking down my duvet, and putting a load into my new washing machine, when the video-buzzer from the street door sounded.
I went to answer it, and saw Prim’s face on the screen. She wore her rarely seen contrite expression. ‘Sorry I got precious on Wednesday,’ she said, through the speaker. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Okay, but you’ll have to find the flat for yourself.’
I timed her. It took her four minutes.
‘Hi,’ she said, as I let her in. ‘I thought I’d have a day in Glasgow before I went back. You know me, the parents exasperate me after a while.’
She stepped into the living room, but unlike anyone else who had ever seen it for the first time, made no comment at all. ‘So how are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine. I had a busy night last night though, so I’m a bit tired today. I’ll need to rest up, for I’m off to Frankfurt tomorrow.’
I led her through to the kitchen and made her a coffee. I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t look at the washing machine, at all.
Back in the sitting area, she looked out of the window, across Glasgow, as she sipped from her mug. At last she looked across at me.
‘Oz,’ she began, ‘the truth is I’m not sure about going back to St Marti.’
‘Why not?’ I asked her, cautiously.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking. I’m too young to vegetate out there. Also I just can’t cut myself off from the people I love. My mum and my dad, that is, even though they drive me loopy at times.’ She hesitated.
‘And yes, you too; even if I understand that you can only ever have one soulmate.’
We looked at each other for a long time. Nothing showed in my expression; I had nothing to show.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I’ve been to see a nursing agency and there’s the possibility of a casualty job in the Royal. I was thinking I’d get myself a flat in Glasgow. I’ve had it with Edinburgh, like you.
‘What do you think? I mean, would it upset you in any way, to have me around, even if we’re only in the same city? Or would it be better if I just went back?’
I stared at her, and at the future. ‘You get yourself a flat,’ I told her. ‘There’s some nice stuff for rent down in the Merchant City.’ She looked at me, almost gratefully.
‘But you don’t really want to be a nurse again, do you?’ I said. ‘You told me when we met that you were finished with that career.’
‘That’s true, but it’s what I do. It’s what I’m trained for.’
I shook my head. ‘No, there’s something else you’ve done. Listen, I’ve agreed to carry on this GWA stuff for a while. If I do that, and I will, I’m going to need a partner in my main business.’
She stared at me, wide-eyed with surprise. ‘What, back to being Phillips and Blackstone?’
‘Stuff that for a game,’ I told her, straight away. ‘Blackstone and Phillips, and no nonsense.’
I could see her head about to nod. ‘I want you to think about this before you agree,’ I said. ‘We’re friends, and we work well together, but it’s a business arrangement. We work from an office, not here.
‘Outside that, I’ve got to get a life, and so have you. I’ll be back from Frankfurt on Sunday night. Call me then. Unless you’ve gone back to Spain, that is.’ I stood her up and marched her to the door.
‘You’ve changed indeed,’ she said. ‘I like the new bloke though; as much as the old. I’ll call you.’
I stood in the doorway and watched her until she reached the end of the corridor. She knew it, and waved to me as she turned the corner.
I went back inside and sat in my captain’s chair. I tried to look out of the window at the afternoon city, but my eyes grew heavy, and gradually my head fell back.
As it had done on the afternoon before, a vision of Jan formed itself in my mind. She was sitting in a field - one of our places, hers and mine, just outside Anstruther. She was wearing a purple dress, and she was smiling.
Wearing Purple (Oz Blackstone Mystery) Page 30