Snapshot

by Craig Robertson

  When Winter arrived at half-past eight, there was a quite different view, the kind that money wouldn’t want to buy. He was looking at two men lying dead either side of a gleaming black BMW, its paintwork daubed in splashes of vermilion. There was a lot more of the stuff on the ground and over the clothes of the two guys that wore it.

  Addison, Colin Monteith, Campbell Baxter and his forensics plus a whole bunch of uniforms were already there when he arrived. Tenting was getting assembled and by the look of the skies it was going to be needed. It was going to chuck it down any second.

  ‘I know this one,’ Addison was muttering, nodding at the man on the left of the car, a heavy-set gorilla, well over six feet tall. ‘Jimmy Adamson. They called him Gee Gee because he was a big punter on the horses. He’s an enforcer for Terry Gilmartin, broke legs for a living.’

  The DI was shaking his head and chewing on his lip, obviously not best pleased.

  ‘He was shot first then the other one,’ he murmured, looking from one body to the other. ‘The second cunt is familiar too.’

  ‘It’s Andrew Haddow, Gilmartin’s accountant.’

  Winter turned to see who belonged to the female voice behind him and saw Jan McConachie glowering out from her white bunny suit and blue overshoes.

  ‘He kept the books and put Gilmartin’s money in piggy banks from here to the Cayman Islands,’ she added. ‘He also ramped up interest payments on loans owed to Gilmartin and put people in the poorhouse. He was a piece of shit and I hope he burns in hell.’

  ‘And a good morning to you too, DS McConachie.’

  ‘Piss off, Inspector.’

  ‘Someone didn’t get any last night then,’ sneered Addison.

  ‘With respect, sir, fuck off. For your information, I’ve been taking a statement about one of Caldwell’s dealers, Jake Arnold, they call him Beavis. His people weren’t for saying but I heard he’d disappeared off the face of the earth. Some think he’s done a runner with some of Caldwell’s money but others say he wouldn’t have the bottle. Either way no one knows where he is. Sir.’

  The tone was full-on mock sincere, guaranteed to get right up the DI’s nose and it was a dangerous game. Winter recognized that Addison looked like he was suffering a raging hangover but McConachie had gone for it, delivering her information with an exaggerated smile before turning away from him.

  ‘Right, if you two could just play nice,’ he said, trying to break the tension before anyone else got hurt, ‘I’ve got some photographs to take.’

  ‘Just get on with it then, camera monkey,’ snarled Addison. ‘Leave the talking to the big boys. And girls,’ he added with a condescending nod to McConachie. ‘Jan, get a best guess out of Two Soups. Don’t take any of his shit, just get an answer on where he thinks the shot came from, and flood the area. I’ve had enough of this cunt. Tony, hurry the fuck up.’

  Winter ignored him and turned the lens of his Nikon onto Adamson, lying half on his side and half on his back where the impact of the bullet had sent him spiralling. The man they called Gee Gee had a purplish tinge to his cheeks, a drinker by the look of it as well as a gambler. His fingers also had the telltale orange glow of a smoker. A true Scotsman, not judged by what he wore under his kilt but by how he abused his vital organs. Winter imagined that if he looked in the car there would be half a dozen Scotch pies, some square sausage and a litre of Irn Bru. Breakfast of champions.

  The man had hands like shovels, huge meaty paws that had made a career of meting out justice according to the laws of Terry Gilmartin. How many legs had he broken, how many kneecaps had he smashed, heads busted, jaws punched or eyes gouged? Winter looked at every scar and bump on his hands and wondered if they related to a dealer, an addict, a granny with a bad bingo habit or a rival thug.

  His full-length leather coat looked like it weighed a ton, a heavyweight article that gave him the look of a rock-star gun-slinger. It was soaking up his rosso corso and Winter couldn’t help but think it was a waste of a cool coat. But then again this guy had been a waste of a pulse.

  His eyes didn’t register much except astonishment, unlike the accountant’s. His were terrified. Haddow had seen Gee Gee get shot in the head and would have known instantly who did it and what was coming next. He would have had the time it took an expert to reload the L115A3 and take fresh aim. Time enough for his arse to empty, his life to flash before his eyes and for him to take a couple of fruitless steps back towards the flats.

  The difference between his hands and Adamson’s were all too obvious. Smaller, softer and weaker. Still covered in blood though. These hands had never punched anyone or picked up a baseball bat but they were guilty all the same.

  He was in his early forties, small and slight, dressed in a black pinstriped suit with an open-necked white shirt. It must have been the season’s colour for getting shot in.

  If Adamson was a waste of a pulse then the accountant was a waste of an education. The bits of brains that were littered over the pathway could have been put to much better use. Keeping Gilmartin’s books was the job for a lab rat. In many ways that angered Winter more than Gee Gee making a living out of his muscles. McConachie was right, the man had been a piece of shit.

  Winter walked back twenty paces and framed the whole scene before it was covered by the tent. The Beamer was nearly new, the two men lying on either side of it in a way that BMW probably never considered using in an advert. The Ultimate Dying Machine didn’t have quite the same ring to it. With the expensive Glasgow Harbour pads as a backdrop it all yelled money. A caption for his photograph sprung to mind, hardly original but apt. Crime Doesn’t Pay.

  He took some more scene-setting pictures. Cop cars, residents hanging over their terraces at a view they hadn’t expected, a local drunk who had wandered over for a nosey, forensics picking their way over the pathway. He managed a cracker of a man in a suit on one of the balconies, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and a quizzical look on his face as if he’d been looking for Cash in the Attic and turned on the wrong channel. As he was taking them, Winter sensed a presence over him and looked up to see Campbell Baxter glowering at him. The forensic had not softened to him in the slightest.

  ‘Mr Winter,’ he sneered. ‘It is my understanding that you have been assigned to this investigation in order to photograph the victims so as to help facilitate a successful prosecution case in the event of it proceeding to trial. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to how your photographs of local residents or passers-by, no matter how expertly taken, will be beneficial in that regard. Can you tell me that? Can you?’

  Winter didn’t need this.

  ‘It is a procedure known as scene setting,’ he began to bluff.

  ‘Really?’ The scorn in his voice suggested that Baxter was unconvinced. ‘Please do enlighten me.’

  ‘There are, er, various benefits. It provides scale, local character germane to the crime scene, all helping to create a, eh, panoramic image rather than simply a one-dimensional approach based solely on evidence photographs. Also the subjects within them may prove to be vital witnesses that might otherwise be missed by the investigating officers.’

  Baxter gazed at him in mild confusion.

  ‘Panorama? Local character? It is not in my nature to indulge in intemperate or coarse speech but this is bullshit, Mr Winter. Bullshit. I don’t know what you think you are playing at here but this is not the sort of professional behaviour that I demand of my officers. I shall be speaking to Superintendent Shirley about this and expressing my continuing dissatisfaction with both your role and your methods. If I get no satisfaction from him then I shall not hesitate to take the matter higher. Do you understand me?’

  Winter understood perfectly well.

  ‘Yes, I do. You don’t like me.’

  Winter saw a vein in Baxter’s temple throb and wondered whether the man was about to bust a blood vessel.

  ‘Like you? Like you? Mr Winter, you have not the merest comprehension of what I like or dislike but I can ass
ure you that my personal feelings have no bearing whatsoever on my judgement of a person’s professional ability. None whatsoever. Like you? It would not occur to me to either like or dislike you. I dislike what you do and the way that you do it but do not dare to think that impinges on my professional assessment.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said okay. I accept what you say.’

  The vein in Baxter’s head pulsed even stronger.

  ‘I . . . I . . . This is not acceptable. Not acceptable at all. We are the dog and you are the tail and I shall not allow the tail to wag this dog. We are the dog. You . . .’ he pointed a finger at Winter, ‘you are the bloody tail. Get on with your work.’

  As Baxter turned and left, muttering under his breath, Winter flicked a V at his retreating bulk and took one last picture of the scene, knowing while he did so that it was a bad idea but doing it anyway. McConachie was standing over Haddow, a snarl of disgust under her nose as she cast a shadow over the accountant’s bloodied body. He couldn’t resist it.

  She threw up her head, staring at him, but the look of disgust didn’t disappear; instead her eyes narrowed and Winter became the object of her scorn. He was no one’s flavour of the month. Still, McConachie seemed much madder at Addison than at him and she was even madder at the corpses on the ground than she was at the DI. She glowered over them, seemingly resisting the urge to boot them as they lay there.

  ‘What the fuck is up with that crazy bitch?’ asked Addison, now standing at his shoulder. ‘Does she not know they are already dead? She looks like she wants to kill them again.’

  Winter didn’t feel much like speaking up for the angry DS but the decision was taken away from him when Addison’s mobile rang the Top Cat ringtone. He turned away from the photographer as he took the call. He was nodding and talking and nodding some more. What Winter could hear of his tone of voice meant it was no time for messing around. Alex Shirley was all business.

  ‘Shirley,’ Addison announced to the team as he hung up. ‘He’s just finished up with Ally Riddle, pulled him in first thing. It’s why he’s not here. Wasn’t exactly best pleased at the news that there’s two more of them. He’s got steam coming out his ears. Says another of Riddle’s team hasn’t been seen for two days. Reckons one of the opposition has been balancing up the numbers and he’s probably under a flyover somewhere.’

  ‘What’s Riddle saying?’ Monteith asked.

  ‘Seems he’s playing it very cool. A smart cookie according to the Temple. He’s being cooperative enough but giving nothing away. That’s assuming he has something to give away.’

  With that, Addison shooed both the detectives and the forensics in towards the bodies, walking to the side where Winter joined him.

  ‘And you think he has something to give away?’ Winter asked him.

  ‘Who knows? Could be that he and the Temple have come to an understanding. It happens.’

  ‘Like what? Shirley turns a blind eye to Riddle putting his feet under Quinn’s desk in return for info?’

  Addison gave him an odd look.

  ‘Let’s just say he’s helping with our enquiries.’

  ‘What? I’m getting the stock media answer now? I’m in the same boat as the twats from the tabloids?’

  ‘For now anyway.’

  ‘Thanks for nothing. There’s no “I” in team Addy and there’s no “Fuck U” in it either.’

  ‘Oh calm down for fucksake. You know the score.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean I like it.’

  ‘Christ, here we go again. Get over it.’

  If Winter had been in any doubt then that made his mind up for him. Whatever it was he knew about the marks on Rory McCabe and Stevie Strathie was staying with him. He was Addison’s mate and he reckoned that should have been reason enough for the DI to let him in. If he wasn’t going to then neither was Winter. Of course, he knew that he was telling himself a steaming pile of shite but he didn’t give a toss.

  Addison must have bored of messing with him because he’d turned his fire on McConachie instead. She was still scowling at the two bodies and shaking her head.

  ‘DS McConachie, any chance you could get your finger out your arse and join in this investigation. There’s a hundred witnesses in those flats need interviewing.’

  She nodded slowly, her eyes never off Adamson and Haddow.

  ‘I’ll talk to them, sir. I’m just wondering if it will be a terrible thing if they haven’t seen anything.’

  Addison spat on the ground.

  ‘What, you buying into this “Dark Angel anti-hero” shite? I thought you had more sense.’

  ‘No, course I’m not. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world that these two scumbags have been taken out. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘Is that right? Well what I’m saying is that I need a fucking breakthrough on this or the Temple is going to burst my baws. This fucker is taking the piss big time and he’s not getting away with that on my watch so I want everything you’ve got whether you like it or not. We’re the law round here, not some nutter with a rifle. Remember that, DS McConachie.’

  The sergeant was stung and desperate to come back with something but she gnawed on her tongue and let her eyes blaze instead, settling for a stone-cold, ‘Yes, sir’ as an answer.

  He was glaring at her and daring her to disrespect him. Addison would take plenty of banter at the right time and place but clearly this wasn’t it. He wanted answers, not arguments.

  Part of Winter was still bursting to tell him about the link, but he knew he wasn’t going to. He was going home to look at photographs again instead.

  CHAPTER 23

  ‘Who is fucking doing this?’ he raged. ‘Who is fucking doing this to me?’

  McConachie thought she could hear self-pity in the voice on the other end of the phone. It was beneath the fury and hidden behind the thunder but it was there. Self-pity wrapped up in fear. The Dark Angel, whoever he was, was getting closer and Terry Gilmartin was bricking himself.

  That was bad news for Jan and she knew it. If Gilmartin was scared then he’d also be desperate and that put Amy at risk. There wasn’t a single day that she didn’t regret taking his money but few times that she’d regretted it more than right then. It had seemed so simple at first that she’d ignored just how wrong it was.

  Amy had needed that tutor, she’d convinced herself of that and her class teacher had agreed. It wasn’t that she wasn’t bright, that was the thing – it was that she wasn’t fulfilling her potential. It had been Jan’s fault that her daughter had been badly affected by the break-up with Amy’s dad. Her school work suffered as a result and she needed the tutor to catch up and be all that she could be.

  She’d always told herself that if she hadn’t needed that money right then she’d have told Gilmartin where to go. But he’d somehow sensed her desperation or her weakness. All he wanted was some information, an advance warning of impending trouble. Once the tutor was paid for then she’d get back on the straight path, he could look out for himself and no one would be any the wiser. How could she have been so stupid to think it could ever be that simple?

  He had his claws into her and he’d never let go. When she’d sent one of his heavies back to him with the cash still in his pocket then Gilmartin turned the screw. Jan picked up Amy after school to find her beaming all over her face, happily showing off a new pair of trainers that her mum had never seen before. It turned out that a friend of Mummy’s had got there before she did and given her the present, trainers that fitted perfectly. He’d told Amy that he could bring her presents any time because he knew where she lived. Amy was much happier at that prospect than her mummy was.

  From that day, Terry Gilmartin still paid her for information but there was never any doubt that he no longer had to. She would do what he wanted and Amy wouldn’t get any more visits from her new uncle George. Instead George Faichney initiated regu
lar meetings with her, sometimes in person but usually by phone, to get whatever it was that Gilmartin wanted that week. Jan’s co-operation kept Amy safe. Until now. Now Gilmartin wanted more than she was able to give and that made everything dangerous.

  ‘Who is fucking doing this to me?’ he repeated.

  ‘It isn’t just to you,’ Jan told him. ‘This guy is targeting every senior drugs figure in the city.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it isn’t me,’ he screamed down the phone. ‘My son is in intensive care. Jimmy Adamson and Andrew Haddow are dead. This bastard is knocking on my front door. You tell me what the fuck is going on.’

  So she did the only thing she could do. She told him everything that the police knew and everything that they didn’t. It didn’t please Gilmartin that there was much more of the second than the first.

  CHAPTER 24

  Thursday 15 September

  Winter had Rory McCabe’s address in his records from his visit to see the teenager in A&E at the Royal. The boy lived with his parents in a close in Whitehill Street, just a couple of hundred yards from where his mates found him lying in Craigpark Drive with a busted knee.

  Dennistoun was tenement land, built by the Victorians to house the middle class but instead taking in respectable working-class families when they couldn’t attract enough white collars. Whitehill Street was in the heart of it, a long line of four-storey terracotta-and-blonde stone buildings behind neatly hedged gardens. Mostly there were eight families to a close, hiding secrets behind lace curtains.

  Winter hadn’t exactly worked out what he was going to say or how he’d explain being there. But he figured that saying little was the way to go. In this case, less was more. He parked up outside, climbed the stairs of the tenement to the second floor, knocked sharply on the door and prepared to wing it.