Two One Three: A DCI Daley Thriller Short

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘I smell like a poof, Jim,’ he complained as they sat with their beers. ‘And you need a fucking mortgage tae buy a drink in here. This cost me nearly a quid!’ He examined the contents of the German beer bottle, his lip curled. ‘Tastes like shit, tae.’

  Daley looked around the room. There was no sign of the girl he’d been admiring on and off for about three months. Though he’d visited the club on his weekends off with his flatmates, he’d only ever seen her on a Wednesday night, so if he happened to be off duty on that day, it was here he would come.

  As the latest single from Tears for Fears reverberated around the room, Scott drained his bottle and looked into it ruefully. ‘You don’t get much for your money, eh? No’ much mair than a half pint in this bloody thing. On a Wednesday night in oor bit you get a pint o’ heavy for forty-five pence. Here, dae you want one?’ He offered Daley a cigarette. ‘I’ll away up and get another round in. Just as well we’ll be hammering the overtime in the next few days,’ he roared above the din.

  Daley watched his new friend thread his way to the bar, as he drew on the cigarette. He couldn’t explain why his heart was thudding in his chest; it just was. The prospect of seeing her again thrilled him in a way he knew would seem ridiculous to his companion. The last time he’d been here she’d smiled at him, but before he could muster the courage to go and talk to her, a tall young man in a trendy suit had intervened and dragged her onto the dance floor. Daley had then drank too much and seen her again only fleetingly as he was about to leave, though he was pleased to see she was still with her friends, and not with the man she had danced with earlier.

  As the DJ put on a slow song, one by The Blue Nile about love, loss and lights that shone, he saw her. She was with three other girls, making her way to the bar from the cloakroom. Dressed in an elegant black shift dress, her legs were long and tanned, her copper-coloured hair feathered and flecked with highlights. On her wrist, a gold bracelet caught the light and flashed in response.

  ‘Bang goes another three hours’ work,’ said Scott, placing two bottles of beer on the table. ‘What’s wrong wae you, seen a ghost or something?’ He followed Daley’s eye-line and saw the girl. ‘Ah, is that the lassie you’ve been on aboot? Aye, right enough, I wouldn’t kick her oot o’ bed tae get tae you, it has tae be said. Get that doon you and go and get her on the floor. Strike while the iron’s hot, big man. It’s the only way with the bints, I’m telling you.’

  Before he knew it, buoyed by Scott’s encouragement and the beer, Daley was walking over to her. Just as he neared the bar, she turned round and smiled. ‘I hope you’ve plucked up the courage to ask me for a dance this week?’ She laughed, her friends giggling in accompaniment.

  Awkwardly, Daley asked the question, and the pair forced their way onto the floor, just as the opening bars of ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police rang out across Paris nightclub in Paisley.

  How appropriate, thought Daley, as they held each other, swaying in time with the music on the crowded dance floor. Though hardly any words had passed between them, and he knew nothing about her, he already liked her. There was something about her – unlike any woman he’d ever met. He couldn’t explain it to himself, never mind anyone else.

  When the music stopped, she whispered into his ear, ‘I’m Liz, by the way. What’s your name?’

  ‘Jim, Jim Daley,’ he replied, gazing into her cornflower-blue eyes.

  ‘Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jim Daley. Do you mind if we join you and your friend for a drink?’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ spluttered Daley. ‘We’re over there.’ He gestured to where Scott was sitting, still examining his beer bottle grimly.

  ‘I know. I saw you on the way in.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ replied Daley with a beaming smile.

  ‘Hey, don’t get your hopes up, kiddo. I was just looking for a table. Yours was the best option – away from the racket.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Oh, dear, Jim Daley.’ She laughed. ‘But don’t you have an expressive face. Not much chance of you being a good liar, I reckon … I’ll go and get the girls.’

  He watched her walk away: tall, straight-backed and graceful. Though he’d never talked to her before, he somehow wasn’t surprised that she was well spoken; it just seemed to fit, somehow.

  ‘I’m going oot wae you again, Jimmy boy,’ slurred Scott as the girls they’d shared their table with for the last three hours headed en masse to the toilet. ‘Quality, every one o’ them. You don’t get birds like that in my local.’

  ‘No, I bet you don’t,’ replied Daley.

  ‘See when you get her outside, don’t let on you’re in the polis.’

  ‘I noticed you never mentioned it to them.’

  ‘Nae wonder. Biggest turn-off on the planet, Jim. Especially for posh birds. No way Daddy’s going tae let them have anything tae dae wae a cop. Naw, merchant bankers and playboy businessmen, is all they’ll have their eye on.’

  ‘You reckon? So what do you suggest?’

  ‘You’ll have tae make something up, Jim. Fuck’s sake, you’ve been in court enough times since you joined up. If you can sell a tale tae the Sheriff, you can surely convince some wee lassie.’

  ‘I don’t want to start off by lying to her,’ replied Daley seriously.

  ‘Och, it’s like thon John Lennon says, if you tell a lie often enough, it’s just as though it was true.’

  ‘That was Lenin,’ said Daley.

  ‘Aye, like I said. Clever boy, much mair aboot him than that McCartney bloke. Anyway, you’ll be hoping the song’s “Ticket To Ride”, the night, and no danger.’

  As it turned out, Liz and her friends lived in Bridge of Weir, an up-market village about ten miles away from Paisley. Daley walked her to the taxi rank, his arm around her waist. He could hear Scott, a few yards behind, telling her friends jokes and sending them into gales of laughter.

  ‘I’m at uni,’ Liz said, smiling up at him. ‘What do you and your friend do?’

  There it was: the question he’d been dreading. ‘Oh.’ Daley hesitated. ‘Eh, he’s in insurance.’

  ‘And you?’ She stopped, and was eyeing him curiously now.

  ‘Me, oh … I’m a civil servant.’ He was as happy with this deceit as he could be under the circumstances. Strictly speaking, he was a civil servant. He smiled at her shyly. ‘Could I see you again?’

  ‘Of course you’ll see me again. We’re out every Wednesday – bound to bump into you.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Daley, deflated.

  ‘You’re so cute, do you know that?’ She giggled as she rummaged about in her bag, removing a Filofax and a pen. ‘Here’s my number, dopey,’ she said, tearing a page from it and handing it to him.

  She looked into his eyes, then kissed him passionately on the lips.

  For the first time in his life, Jim Daley was utterly smitten.

  IX

  ‘Just as well you had some o’ that mouthwash, big man,’ said Scott as they made the train journey to Glasgow the following morning. ‘Policeman’s friend, and no mistake. Here, dae you want a Polo?’ He handed Daley one of his mints.

  ‘Feeling rough, Brian?’

  ‘I’m used tae it. Nothing a few cups o’ tea and a bacon roll won’t fix, buddy.’

  They had hardly entered the CID office before Burns leaned his head around the door and summoned them with an index finger. He was holding a clear plastic evidence bag, containing a slim notebook.

  ‘Right, lads, this was found in Tracey Greene’s flat. I’ve had the forensic boys take a look at it. There’s a few names and addresses, but mostly just initials, phone numbers and car number plates.’

  ‘Why the car numbers?’ asked Daley.

  ‘That’s what the lassie’s on the street dae,’ replied Scott. ‘If they go off in a car, their mates take a note of the car reggie. Kind of security – in case they don’t come back, or take a beating. A way of identifying the punter. The girls give us the number of the motor, then we cat
ch the bastard.’

  ‘Well, that’s the theory, anyway,’ said Burns. ‘I want you boys to find out all you can about anyone in this book. I want to know who they are and where they live. Oh, and you’ll see there’s been a page torn out. The lab boys looked at the marks made by the pen on the next page when she was writing it. Here.’ Burns handed a note to Daley that read ‘M. A571 WHT’ in bold letters.

  ‘Obviously, check that one out first.’

  ‘I wonder why she tore the original page out?’ asked Daley.

  ‘That’s what I want you to find out. You’ll find most of these are just punters, but we need to eliminate them from the inquiry. And you never know …’

  ‘Any sign o’ Dandy, sir?’ asked Scott.

  ‘No. Not a thing. If she was just giving him money out of the kindness of her heart, I doubt we’d get much out of him, anyway–’ Burns was about to add to this when he was interrupted by another officer.

  ‘Sorry, sir, but it looks like we have another dead girl. Same MO, in one of the high flats in the Gorbals.’

  Burns sighed. ‘Right, you pair get on with it. I want to know who everyone in that address book is before close of play this afternoon.’

  Scott and Daley decided to take half of Tracey Greene’s address book each. Daley was responsible for A to M, whilst Scott was taking care of the rest.

  ‘You better try the one fae forensics first,’ said Scott, about to make a call of his own. ‘I’ll call these phone numbers and you hit the car registrations, then we’ll swap and see where we get.’

  Daley wandered through to the uniformed side of Stewart Street Police Office, where Three Shift were on duty. Having worked with them on overtime, he knew some of the officers.

  The controller, Derek, sitting behind his desk in subdued light, welcomed him in hushed tones. ‘Right, we’ll go through them in between calls,’ he said, gesturing to the desk, where the radio communications of every officer in the division were being monitored and dealt with, personnel being deployed and their calls being handled.

  ‘Can we start with this one?’ said Daley, handing him the note that read ‘M. A571 WHT’.

  Derek typed in the letters and digits, then raised one eyebrow. ‘This number was checked by your mates on the nightshift last night.’

  ‘Oh, who by?’

  ‘Your friend and mine, Davy Fraser. Not often he calls in a reggie plate, eh?’ Derek laughed. ‘You can’t see many cars from the back room of the Hurdy Gurdy, can you?’ He waited for the details of the number to display on the screen in front of him. ‘There you are – company car by the look of things, Murchieston Transport, registered at their Possil offices.’

  Daley wondered if the ‘M’ on the note might stand for Murchieston. He then pondered as to why Davy Fraser had checked the number plate during the previous nightshift.

  Slowly, they worked their way through the list, until Daley had the address corresponding to every car number plate in his half of Tracey Greene’s address book. Most of the cars were registered to residential addresses, but some, like that on the torn-out page, were company cars.

  Daley decided to take a punt. He looked up Davy Fraser’s personal details, then called him at home. There was something about that page torn from the address book: why tear out just one, and, if so, what for? He could see the image of Tracey Greene talking to Dandy the tramp in his mind’s eye. For some reason, his thoughts kept drifting back to the grainy video footage.

  ‘Davy, sorry to bother you mate, it’s Jim Daley.’ There was a considerable amount of coughing on the other end of the line, accompanied by some distant oaths, no doubt directed at Fraser by his long-suffering wife, who had taken the call.

  ‘Jimmy, what the hell are you doing calling me at this time? I was in court all morning off the nightshift. I’ve got a heid like a jackhammer, son.’

  ‘Sorry, Davy. I just have a quick question. I’m helping the CID out on the Tracey Greene case.’

  ‘Oh aye, I know fine. I had Sergeant Donald in my ear half the night about it last night. He’s no’ happy wae you, and that’s putting it mildly.’

  Daley felt his hackles rise. ‘Oh, you and him having another one of your wee chats?’ he said, remembering that it was Fraser who had told Donald that he’d been drinking on duty.

  ‘Aye, well … so what dae you want, now you’ve woken me up? I’ve got tae get some shut-eye before I go back on tonight.’

  ‘You ran a vehicle check last night, on an XJS, A571 WHT. What were the circumstances?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Fraser, pausing to cough again. ‘Och, I just ran that to get an annoying bastard off my back. Some guy, said he’d been walking across High Street when that car nearly took him out. Apparently it was fair tanking along. I ran the vehicle check and told him we were on the case.’

  ‘Which we’re not.’

  ‘You know yourself, Jimmy. His word against the driver, and all that … the guy was walking about fine, no’ a scratch on him. No harm done in my book.’

  ‘So he was there when you checked the details? He heard the response from the controller?’

  ‘Aye, well, if he can understand oor controller, he would’ve heard it. How, what’s the matter wae that?’

  ‘Not really good procedure, is it?’

  ‘Listen, son, when you’re no’ so fucking wet behind the ears, you come and tell me aboot procedure. Now, dae you need anything else? I need a drink o’ water. My tongue’s stuck tae my mooth.’

  ‘Just quickly, Davy. This guy who reported the speeding car, what was he like?’

  ‘Och, just run o’ the mill. Aboot my height, short hair, dark, going grey. Clean-shaven. Kind of rough-looking, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘How rough-looking? Meaning he’d been drinking?’ asked Daley, wondering just how easy it would be for Fraser to have spotted, given he’d probably been drinking himself.

  ‘No’ rough like that, son. Sort of lived-in features, craggy, you know what I mean. Big bags under his eyes. Looked as though he’d no’ slept for a week. Don’t get me wrong, he was polite enough. Ancient suit, though – big lapels, like fae the seventies. Aye, and he could’ve done wae a trip tae the dentist.’

  Daley ended the call, astonished by the amount of detail Fraser had been able to retain. He supposed that old habits died hard, and that having been a cop for years, despite his drinking, Fraser must have clung on to some of his training and experience.

  He went back to the CID office just ahead of DCI Burns, who had a short stout man in an ill-fitting suit with him.

  ‘Scott, Daley, in my office!’ Burns shouted.

  Burns was sitting behind his desk, lighting a cigarette, when the two young officers knocked at the door and went in. The stout man introduced himself as Inspector Ward from the Serious Crimes Squad and squinted at Scott and Daley through thick glasses.

  ‘Seems you’ve been treading on Inspector Ward’s toes,’ said Burns ominously.

  Without giving them time to respond, Ward spoke up: ‘The Cool Winds Sauna, lads. Tell me what happened.’

  As Scott stumbled through a roughly accurate version of what had happened when he and Daley questioned Jat Suleiman, Ward scrutinised him.

  ‘Well, thanks to you pair, they’ve shut up shop and buggered off. We’ve been keeping tabs on the place for months. Part of an ongoing investigation into money laundering, amongst other things. And there have also been two vehicle identification requests on a vehicle – A571 WHT – the last one within the last hour, authorised by a Constable Daley.’

  ‘That’s me, sir,’ replied Daley.

  ‘Well, I want you to stop,’ said Ward, banging the table in front of him. ‘If you jeopardise my investigation, you can wave bye-bye to a career in the police. Got it?’

  ‘Oh, hang on,’ said DCI Burns, getting to his feet. ‘The boys were acting on my orders. Are you going to jeopardise my career?’

  ‘No, sir, of course not. But this investigation is critical.’

 
‘Does it have anything to do with Murchieston Transport?’ asked Daley.

  ‘And what if it does?’ roared Ward, swinging round in his chair to face Daley.

  Burns intervened. ‘Tell me about Murchieston.’

  ‘Listen, do we have to speak in front of the boys here, sir?’

  ‘Boys! These boys, as you call them, are part of my murder investigation team, Inspector. In my book, that trumps your inquiries. Spit it out!’ shouted Burns, his face turning red with anger.

  ‘Allan Murchieston has had a lot of success lately. The business has grown from a few wagons to a fleet of lorries and a construction company. All I’m saying is, we don’t think it’s happened by purely legitimate means.’

  ‘Is this guy running knocking shops on the side?’ asked Scott.

  ‘He’s into lots of stuff. But that’s all I’m saying.’ Ward turned to Burns. ‘I’m sure you understand the need for discretion, sir,’ he said curtly.

  After Ward left, Burns listened to what Daley had to say about the vehicle and the man who had reported it to Davy Fraser.

  ‘So, what do you think, Daley?’

  The young constable hesitated. ‘Honestly? I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Listen, Jim,’ said Burns, leaning forward on his chair, ‘the greatest asset any cop can have is instinct. Never try and ignore it – no matter how ridiculous it seems. That’ll set you in good stead. Now, I’ll ask again, what’s your instinct?’

  ‘I think Murchieston is involved with this, sir. Especially now we know about his connection to Cool Winds. It can’t be a coincidence that he has clandestine dealings with the place and one of his company car registrations appears in Greene’s address book.’

  ‘Yes, logical enough, Daley, but by the same token, it doesn’t make him a killer, either. We’ll have to tread carefully with this one. I don’t want the Squad on my back, as well as everything else. You and Brian go to Murchieston Transport, find out who drives that car, and we’ll take it from there.’