He’s paying for the bag of groceries. Doesn’t come to much. Living frugally. He’s always done that. Even with the cover story, he worries about it. Money’s a trap. It’s the thing people in the business tend to trip over. Things like women and pride are dangerous, but neither is universal. Money is. Some people hanker after every pretty girl they see and it gets them into bother. Some are obsessed with their own self-importance, can’t keep the ego under control. All need money. You need it to survive. You try to hide money, but eventually you need to spend it. Someone finds it. Money is the cop’s best friend. Frank’s always worried about it. Seen too many good men fall over piles of cash. Cops couldn’t get them from real evidence, but the criminal couldn’t explain where he got the money. So he’s always lived well within his means. Now he has plenty of money in the bank, and nothing to spend it on.
Back in the house now, putting away the little shopping he bought. He’s checked the phone–nobody called while he was out. If they were looking for him they would have called his mobile after the house. He wouldn’t have answered it in the pub, but he’d have come straight home. They’re not looking for him. He’s sitting in the living room now. The TV’s off, but he’s staring at it anyway. Wondering if he should switch it on. Wondering what the point would be. Switch it on. Flick through the channels. Switch it off. Ten more minutes of his life thrown away. Every minute is a waste. Just accept what you already know. They’re going to push him into retirement. They can’t keep him on after this. Maybe, just maybe, Peter Jamieson will be sympathetic; he’ll give him one last chance. Nah, no second chances. Nobody gets a second chance. Jamieson would be stupid to give him one. Everyone gets one chance, and that’s all. His chance has lasted a hell of a lot longer than most.
Most gunmen say goodbye to the world with a bang. Frank’s still here. He’s lasted longer than he should have. Retirement, old age, they aren’t things men in his line of work usually have to deal with. It’s okay for the likes of Young and Jamieson; they expect to live to a ripe old age. There are plenty of men at the top who have waddled into the sunset in their seventies or eighties. Not a lot of gunmen. Most peak in their thirties or forties. Most are gone by the time sixty gets here. There are so few pros anyway. Sometimes a handful, sometimes a dozen or so. Sometimes there’s a spike, and there’ll be more than usual in the city. That happens when there’s trouble. Sometimes it happens organically, and someone has to make way. Right now, there are maybe a dozen pros working for seven or eight organizations. There might be another seven or eight freelancers who choose to work more rarely, but have pro standards. A few months ago Frank thought he was better than any of them. Now, he feels beaten.
24
Peter Jamieson. Shug Francis. John Young. Glen Davidson. Calum MacLean. Okay, put the first three aside because they’re obvious. It’s the last two. The last one in particular. Fisher’s been thinking about all of them for so long. Trying to get a meaningful investigation off the ground. Get funding, some people to help him. Nothing. All he has is a vague link to the death of Lewis Winter. A death that most people stopped caring about right after it happened. Trying to put these people together. Trying to get information that will clear the fog. Nobody talking.
A few things make sense now. Things that he didn’t know before. Shug’s decided to get into the drug trade, that’s certain. Clears up a few things. Dumb move. He’s trying to get in by taking Peter Jamieson’s patch. Dangerous move. Anything thereafter, Fisher knows little about.
Lewis Winter may have been working for either Peter Jamieson or Shug Francis. It seems more likely to Fisher now–sitting at his desk, months after Winter’s death–that he worked for Shug. He has nothing solid to prove it. It’s guesswork. Jamieson wouldn’t need a guy like Winter. A desperate case. Shug needed him, because Winter was willing to take risks on Shug’s behalf. Which would mean Jamieson most likely had Winter killed. The likely candidate would have been Glen Davidson, but phone records changed all that. That scumbag Greig comes to him and tells him that Davidson’s disappeared. He makes it look like maybe Davidson murdered Winter and did a runner. Fisher hasn’t seen much of PC Paul Greig lately. Keeping his head down. Fisher sees him round the station now and again, but his name isn’t coming up as often as it used to. He’s making an effort to be low-key. Wise move. Fisher longs for the moment that Greig slips up.
When he thinks about a bent copper like Greig, he gets angry. Then he loses his train of thought. Davidson. Phone records. They showed that Davidson called Calum MacLean the day before Greig reported Davidson missing. Think about MacLean. An odd case. A man pushing thirty who doesn’t appear to have had a job in his life. Living on the sick, apparently. Turns up for an annual medical, lies through his teeth, gets away with it. Some people are good at that. Fake mental illness. A bad back. Some muscular problem that no doctor can get to the bottom of. The real smart ones send someone else to take their medicals for them. The doctors don’t have pictures. As long as the person’s the right age. As long as they have the right, identifiable illness. As long as the same wrong person has been doing the medicals from the start, you can get away with it. Some genuinely ill people make good money on the side. Helping criminals hide amongst the unemployable.
MacLean has to be involved in the industry, although none of Fisher’s contacts seem to know him. Questioning those close to him now only alerts MacLean that he’s on the police radar. Far more likely to slip up if he thinks he’s unknown. That’s all he is for now, on the radar. There’s little to nothing against him. Besides, Calum MacLean’s confusing, but there are more pressing concerns.
Toxicology reports on Scott and McClure were a little surprising. Some trace of drugs in McClure, but days old. Alcohol in both, but again, traces of drinks consumed at least sixteen hours before death. Neither had drunk anything or taken any drugs in the day before death. Which would suggest that McClure killed his best friend, and then himself, whilst sober and clean. Fisher’s not sure. Not sure that McClure would do it drunk, less sure still that he would do it sober. It doesn’t give him evidence. It doesn’t give him something that he can meaningfully use, but it builds a picture. These two were clean and sober. Best friends who turned into murderous enemies in the course of a few hours. Nope, not buying that.
Shitty day. Rain pouring down, dark-grey sky. Another investigation going nowhere. Too many of those lately. A cop can get a reputation: a man who doesn’t know how to close a case. Even good cops can get tainted with that. Bad luck plays a part. You get lumbered with a few cases in succession that nobody can crack, and you take the blame. There are a number of bad cops who’ve managed to stumble their way to a reputation as closers. Guys who get the job done. Nothing the bosses love more than that. Cops who don’t deserve their reputations. Fisher’s shaking his head. There are many people round here who wouldn’t even be cops, if he had his way. He would do it differently. Too many people just looking to climb. Looking for a reputation. That’s when he tumbles back into the cliché of the grouchy cop with high standards and a decent heart. That makes him shake his head again.
They’ve spent the day chasing contacts, looking for info. Christ, even DC Davies has managed to look busy. Still nothing. You just keep building that picture. One thing’s become quickly obvious. Scott had a rapid ascent, followed by a quick ending. He was working for Shug, but it hadn’t been for long. A month, maybe less. Scott worked hard and fast. He built a small network quickly, used all the contacts he had, pushed people hard. He took weeks to go from nothing to leaning on Jamieson’s established men. That was obviously the patch he was aiming for. Get rid of people working for Peter Jamieson. Correction, probably working for Peter Jamieson. Hard to prove. That’s the word from his contacts, and Fisher believes it. The problem is evidence. None of these peddlers has ever met Jamieson; a lot of them probably don’t even know that they’re working for him. He’s too good for that. Interesting, though. Lewis Winter tries to muscle in on Jamieson and he’s soon dead. Scott t
akes the same journey. Building a picture.
Everything done in a hurry. That was the secret to Scott’s success. People didn’t know how to stop something moving that fast. Also the most likely reason for his failure. Everything in a hurry. Mistakes made. The hurry included the gun. Fisher’s convinced of it. Scott wouldn’t have had a gun when he was peddling round the estates or running in a gang. He would have had blades, obviously, but probably not a gun. This clean handgun suddenly turns up lying next to McClure’s body. Maybe, just maybe, he went and got one when he started working for Shug. Scott seems to have been smart. Smart enough to understand that he was going places. Still, it’s likely that the gun had been in his possession for a few weeks at the most. Days more likely.
Pulling on a jacket, out of the building, into his car. He’s checked with almost all the useful contacts he has, drawn a blank. Everyone on the investigation team has. Not surprising. Most of their contacts still thought Scott was working solo. The ned on the bike, most of them called him. They knew who he was, though, which shows he had more talent than most.
Meeting another contact. This one an awkward one. There are some you get, and you string them along as a contact because they’re not worth arresting. The kind of criminal his boss can replace within an hour of you taking them off the street. Better to have them out there as a contact than just have to start from scratch. Then you get contacts like Mark Garvey. Fisher only got close to him so that he could arrest him. A gunrunner. Buying and selling, putting weapons into the hands of killers. A smart gunrunner. Fisher got close, but Garvey knew why. Brilliant at covering tracks, excellent manipulator. Always happy to give the information you want. Always happy to keep your eye on someone else’s business.
Took the best part of the day to set up the meeting. A car park outside a supermarket. Pick him up, drive around and talk, drop him back there. The bigger they are, the more precautions they take. Garvey’s big enough. Should have arrested him by now. No chance has come along. No chance has come along and, if we’re being honest here, Fisher hasn’t chased one. Too good a contact. You shouldn’t settle for having him as a contact when you should be locking him up.
Pulling into the car park, parking by the big recycling bins, as agreed. Sitting in the car with the radio on for four minutes, when the passenger door opens and a figure drops in. Early fifties, but youthful. Probably dyes his hair, silly sod. Should know better at his age. His wife’s in her thirties, apparently. Bit of a smooth operator, likes the sound of his own voice. Smart, though; says a lot of words and none of them meaningful. A useful skill.
Driving out of the car park, haven’t said anything to each other yet. They won’t pretend that they’re friends. Some try–the dumber contacts. They seem to believe that they can create a friendship, and that will somehow protect them. Garvey’s smarter than that.
‘You’ll have heard about Tommy Scott,’ Fisher’s saying to him, eyes on the road. It’s a statement of fact, not a question. If Garvey hasn’t heard, then he should have.
‘I heard. Him and his wee buddy–terrible shame. Happens, though. You know better than me. What percentage of killings are carried out by people you already know?’
It’s a bullshit question. ‘I want to track the gun that was used. I want to know when they got it.’
‘Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t know anything about the buying and selling of prohibited weapons, Detective,’ Garvey’s saying. Keep up the pretence. Deniability. Don’t admit in private what you later may have to deny in public.
Fisher doesn’t have the patience to play at these sorts of games. Might be why he doesn’t have as many good contacts as he thinks he ought to. Most are scared away from an aggressive cop.
‘I can tell you a wee rumour I heard about that pair, if you want, though. Don’t know how reliable, but there you go.’ Garvey’s shrugging.
‘Go on.’
‘Word is, the day before they popped it, they were out looking for a piece. Went to more than one person, couldn’t find anyone who would help them. That’s what I heard. See, kids like that, they have no reputation. People don’t want to risk selling to them. I heard that they came away empty-handed. I guess that events show that wasn’t quite true.’
Fisher’s driving, watching the road. They went looking for a gun and came away with nothing. Not impossible. Still most likely that the gun was their own, but not impossible that someone else brought it into the flat on the night. Someone comes in, kills them and then sets up the murder-suicide angle. Nobody moved them post-mortem. The blood patterns on the walls show they died where the neighbour found them. But maybe not with their own gun. Again, not usable evidence, but building a picture.
‘Anything else you might want to share with me now?’ Fisher’s saying. Share it now, because if I find out you held back on me, you’re in trouble. That’s the implication.
‘That’s all I know about Scott and his mate. Scott was the brains of it, in case you haven’t worked that out. I guess you worked out that the guy called Clueless wasn’t the brains of the business. That one was just a hanger-on. Came as a surprise to me that Scott had a brain. I guess now he doesn’t,’ Garvey’s saying with a chuckle.
Dropping him back at the supermarket. An unpleasant little man. One day Fisher’s going to have to do something about him. There are worse runners in the city, but that’s not the point. Driving back to the station. He needs a target. He doesn’t have a trail of evidence to follow, so he needs something to aim for. Jamieson would be nice. The big fish. Bigger, at least. Bigger than Shug Francis anyway. Won’t be long now until Jamieson makes a move against one of the three big sharks in the local water. The three organizations that dominate. Jamieson has the talent to take one of them down, become a dominant force himself. But there isn’t enough evidence for Fisher to chase him. Lewis Winter and now Tommy Scott. Jamieson benefits from their deaths. Usually a good indicator. Maybe Shug, though. He’s the better option, thanks to that one phone call. His employees screw him over because he’s new; he hits back. The connection with Davidson would make some sense of that. Finding out who MacLean is would help more. Damn it! All going round in circles again. Happening too often. Only there’s one more possible contact now.
25
One of the best things about being a driver is that you don’t have a heavy schedule. Kenny maybe works four days a week. The days he works might be long hours, but it’s long hours doing nothing. Waiting to pick people up, mostly. Boring stuff, you have to have a lot of patience. The most important thing, he realized early on, was never complain. Most people think you’re lucky to be a driver. You’re getting decent money to do something anyone could do. You’re taking fewer risks than most of the people around you. If you complain, they think you’re an idiot. Be happy to do the job, and remember that most other people will needlessly complain. It’s the single reason he’s driving Jamieson now.
He’s not bad at what he does. He knows the city, knows his way around. He checks his routes regularly, driving around for the sake of driving. You can’t be a driver who gets lost. Still, even that’s boring. People don’t understand. He’s making twenty-two thousand a year to be bored whilst helping criminals. It’s that last bit that gets him. The money is fine–more than he’d get doing anything else. He knows he’s not smart enough to get rich. He’s thirty-seven now; he hasn’t really done anything else in his life. He has a steady girlfriend, but no kids. He’s not entirely faithful to her, but she isn’t to him, either. They both know it, and they can live with it. It’s a good coupling that neither of them wants to abandon. She’s made a few hints about him finding another job. She’s worried that he’s going to end up in court. Probably more worried that she’s going to end up there beside him. When someone pesters you enough, you start to worry.
He’s been thinking about it for a while. More than a year, truth be told. Almost did it once and backed out at the last minute. Too intimidating. The consequences were too big. Consequences are still the same
size, he’s just more worried. A few things have tipped him. It would have been nice to have a little more praise. A little recognition. He’s not needy; it just feels like everyone else is a part of a team, and he’s their only spectator. It’s the Shug thing, too. It’s dragging on. People are talking. He takes most of what he hears with a pinch of salt, but there’s some truth in what they say. It shouldn’t take this long for Peter Jamieson to deal with a guy like Shug. He should have ended this weeks ago, yet it’s still rumbling on. Jamieson has to do more jobs to try to get the better of Shug. The more jobs he does, the more risk of failure. Everyone in Jamieson’s organization is entitled to be concerned.
It’s been keeping Kenny awake at night. Making him think of trying again, one last time. He made the phone call, set up the meeting. Now he has to decide whether to keep it. Didn’t last time, but that was last time. Jamieson seemed strong then. He seemed like the man who was going to take over the city. Now he looks weaker. Looks a little bit run-of-the-mill. This time Kenny can’t persuade himself that he’s overreacting, that he’s just being a sissy. This time it feels like he needs to do this. Why shouldn’t he protect himself if he can? Chances are lots of other guys are doing it. Lots of guys in the business. They wouldn’t admit it–more than their lives are worth–but people take precautions. He can’t be the only one. Doesn’t make it okay. Doesn’t lessen the nerves.
He’s sitting in the car, outside the place they’re supposed to meet. He could drive away. If someone sees him–Jesus, it doesn’t bear thinking about! It looks like a normal house to him. Terraced street, kind of old-fashioned. The door will be unlocked, just come straight in. Three steps and he’s in. There’s nobody around, not on the street anyway. There might be someone peeking out from behind the curtains. How many times has he heard people complain about nosy neighbours? This one small step is tearing his guts apart. How do they do this? How do people go out on a regular basis and do dangerous jobs? They have something inside them that he doesn’t. Or maybe it’s the other way round. He’s opening the car door and stepping out. Closing the door, pressing the keyring to lock it. Three long steps and he’s at the door, pushing it open.
How a Gunman Says Goodbye Page 12