by Denise Mina
Did McKay see Mr Manuel after that occasion? Yes he did. Manuel came to see him on the 10th of January this year at the club. The date is a few days after the Smarts were found dead in Uddingston, the day before Manuel was arrested.
‘Why did Mr Manuel come to see you on the 10th of January?’
‘He came to ask me for one hundred and fifty pounds. He said he wanted to leave the country.’
‘Did you oblige?’
‘No, I did not oblige. I saw Mr Manuel down the stairs of the club and he did not return.’
No one asks why Peter Manuel thought Dandy might give him one hundred and fifty pounds to leave the country the day before he was arrested.
No one asks about the identification parade the next morning either, which was held at Hamilton Police Station, when Peter Manuel picked Dandy out of a line-up and Dandy set about him–Not the face, Mr McKay, please! Not the face!
Dandy is the man who owns the club where all the witnesses worked. He is the man who lives in Florence Street in the Gorbals, where the guns were got and Mr Watt crashed his car and Manuel left Mr Smart’s Austin 35.
But no one asks these things, though everyone knows about them. They never come up.
While Dandy gives his evidence he looks straight at Manuel. Manuel is glad that no one can see his face from the press or public galleries. He keeps his eyes trained on McKay’s chin, hoping that distance makes it look as if he is meeting his eye. During a lull in the questioning, when Grieve and Leslie are discussing something or other in low whispers, McKay gives Manuel a twitch of a smile. Manuel feels sick when he sees it. If Dandy McKay wishes you ill, then ill will surely come to you. When Dandy holds his eye and blinks slowly Manuel knows he will die soon, one way or another, because Dandy has ordained it. And Manuel remembers the night in December, when Shifty and Scout took him and Watt to the Gordon. Manuel remembers that there is worse that Dandy McKay can do to him.
When he was arrested Manuel said he bought the Beretta from ‘a man’ inside the Gordon Club.
Dandy is thanked for his cooperation. He gets down from the stand. Unlike the other witnesses, he doesn’t scuttle guiltily through the witness-hall door. Dandy has decided to stay. He wants to watch from the witness seats but they are all full. Three different men half stand to offer him their chairs. Dandy takes the best one and orders the man next to him to leave as well. Dandy likes to spread out.
14
Tuesday 3 December 1957
MAURICE DICKOV SIGHS HEAVILY and asks William Watt, ‘What do you think you are doing?’
‘I’m trying to speed things up,’ Watt says sheepishly. ‘DON’T.’
Watt shakes his head and speaks softly, ‘Maurice, when I paid for my wife, I didn’t expect–’
‘Did you think I would go there myself?’ Dickov bares his teeth in a smile. ‘Did you?’
Watt doesn’t answer. Scout seems to be giggling and trying to hide it. Shifty is ablank. It’s as if he isn’t there.
Maurice comes around the desk to Watt, who cowers.
‘William, we are both businessmen. We have all chosen the wrong men to work for us at one time or other. It is not easy to find a man for a task like that. What can I say? I chose the wrong man for the job.’
It sounds so reasonable, Watt doesn’t know what to say.
Maurice continues, his hands out, ‘I have asked you before: let me fix this. You said yes. Now you’re interfering with our plans. You have been recompensed with the land deal, a big deal, and now–’ Dickov opens his embrace towards Manuel and looks disappointed–‘this.’
Watt tries to explain. ‘Maurice, it’s been over a year… it’s too long.’
Dickov glowers at the rug. He is actually furious now.
Dandy reads how angry Maurice is and it makes him nervous. Everyone is afraid of Dandy but Maurice Dickov is the problem. Dandy steps in to take over before something terrible happens. He comes around the desk and stands between them and Maurice’s wrath.
‘We’ve been chasing you two bastards a’ night.’
William Watt means to step forward to address his accusers but he is extraordinarily drunk and staggers about in a strange offbeat dance. The circle of men watch until he is still. Now he has blacked out again and forgets why he is dancing in front of men in a dark office.
Dickov raises his voice. ‘THIS IS DECIDED.’ This is rare. Everyone is scared now, except Watt because he’s blacked out and wouldn’t know trouble if it bit him on the arse.
Watt shrugs and steps back to Manuel’s side. That is a big mistake. It suggests an alliance.
Dandy watches Dickov carefully as Dickov tilts his head, a smile localised to one corner of his mouth.
Watt begins his defence. ‘The night fell away from us,’ he says. ‘But, Maurice, you must understand. I’ve been disgraced, my business–’
‘NA’B’DY GAES A FUCK, WILLIAM.’ Dickov’s accent is no longer affected émigré. It’s pure Shettleston. ‘You want people to think you’re a good guy. You want to think you’re a good guy. You think you can pay us to kill your wife and still you’re not responsible? You’re a fucking VUSHKA.’
Dickov has shocked himself by using a word of his baba’s. It is low Bulgarian for parasite. He stops. He breathes and says calmly, ‘The whole deal has been a mess, I admit. In part because you don’t even know who is in your house at night-time. But we are fixing this–’
Watt whines, ‘It’s taking so long.’
‘WE’RE CLEARING THIS UP AND YOU’RE PISSING ALL OVER IT. You’ve been with Scout to the cops. It’s decided.’
No one says anything for a moment. It is in the pause that Manuel steps forward and speaks to Maurice Dickov. His life has been a catalogue of impulsive errors but this is the biggest mistake he will ever make.
‘I’m going to hang?’ he slurs. ‘Just me, myself? Why wouldn’t I just tell them yous have give me the job?’
Maurice seems calm. He smiles pleasantly. He crosses his arms. ‘You let yourself go in that house, Peter, didn’t you? You did what ever little fancy came to mind. Now you pay. You hang. We will take your mother. We will rape and kill your mother.’
Manuel’s mouth falls open. He looks as if he might cry.
‘We will rape and stab her tits,’ says Maurice. ‘We will dump her fucked bleeding naked corpse in the front garden of your pitiful home. Your father will be found guilty of it.’ Manuel is afraid to breathe. Maurice hasn’t made the threat conditional yet and he makes Manuel wait. Then he leans in. ‘If you tell.’
Manuel knows Dickov means this. Dickov will find a man for the job, a man with a history of doing things like that, and he will pay him to indulge the worst of himself on Manuel’s mother, just as Manuel did his worst on Watt’s family.
Dandy McKay is watching this and listening as his world collapses. Dandy has done dark things, bad things. He justifies them through a complex, fragile theology. All of this is shattered by Maurice threatening to have someone’s mother raped and killed. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he sees that the Gordon Club will end soon. Dandy will lose a lot of money and status because of Peter Fucking Manuel.
Abruptly, Dandy punches Manuel hard on the side of his head. Manuel loses his footing. It wasn’t a very hard hit but he was off balance. He stumbles three steps and the circle of Scout and Shifty close in around him. Watt is left outside, looking away, confused and needing the toilet.
Manuel has his fists up but only to block. He knows he can’t hit back. He looks from Scout to Dickov to Shifty to Dandy. Only Scout, grinning and showing his raggedy teeth, meets his eye. Scout’s eyes say, Sorry, pal, but I’m at work.
Dandy punches Manuel again and again until he hits Manuel’s cheekbone at an awkward angle and splits the skin on his knuckle. Dandy shakes his hand and huffs. He’s angry about it.
Scout waves Dandy back, offering to take over, which is good of him because he’s got two shiners and a broken nose already.
Graciously, Dandy lets him.
; Scout tips his head to ask if Manuel is ready?
Manuel is ready and drops his hands. Scout throws a punch in a wide arc, looking as if he will hit his face but actually aiming for his stomach. As the fist hits it winds Manuel and Scout laughs at his own joke. Manuel wasn’t ready for it. It knocks the breath from him, makes him stagger.
Scout giggles and, smack, hits Manuel on the side of the head, then on his ear. He short-jabs Manuel’s mouth and cuts the inside of his lip; blood bubbles up between Manuel’s teeth.
Scout maintains eye contact with Manuel while he hits him. They’re having a conversation–ready? Bam! Here comes another one. Crack. Over soon. Come on, pal. Here’s another. Not too bad.
Manuel knows who he is among. He has taken beatings all of his life and knows when it is worth fighting back. He has taken much worse than this, knows Scout is being measured. He is hurting Manuel but it’s really only symbolic.
‘Yes, darlink, but do be careful,’ Dickov admonishes gently. His eyes are on the carpet and the glass display cabinet. He doesn’t want his office smashed up.
‘Sure,’ grins Scout, panting a little. He looks at Manuel again, punching him on the side of the neck this time.
Manuel chokes, coughing blood, wheezing. The circle tightens around the beating. William Watt is out of the circle. He looks up and sees himself in a mirror over Dickov’s desk. A shadow is over his face, it hoods his eyes. He looks dead. He can hear the smack of knuckle on bone, the huff of breath from Manuel, feet shuffling on carpet.
Watt looks like death. If he was dead he would be with Marion, who knew him as no one else ever will. He didn’t know what sort of man Dickov would send. He didn’t know Vivienne was there, she’d said she was going to Deanna’s house. He didn’t know Margaret was there. He isn’t responsible for what happened. He just got in with a bad, bad crowd.
Scout stops suddenly, and says, ‘Oh no!’
He yanks his shoe off. He caught the heel on the side of Dickov’s desk and pulled it loose. He examines it, mutters, ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He has ripped the leather. He’s annoyed about it. He likes these shoes.
Manuel holds his hot face, swallows blood and looks at the broken heel. It is only ripped along the seam, he says, any cobbler could fix that, easy.
‘Really?’ asks Scout.
‘Aye,’ says Manuel. ‘They can stitch along there. Any good cobbler.’
Shifty leans in to look at the damage. ‘’S cobbler. Good’un. Skinny wee joint by Central.’
‘Next to the sweeties place?’ asks Scout.
‘Nah,’ says Shifty, ‘down by the low-levels.’
The beating has reached its natural end. They look to Dickov for direction and he nods. ‘So, that’s enough. No more of this.’ Dickov gives Manuel a linen handkerchief to wipe the blood from his chin. He pats his arm. ‘This is how it has to be.’
Manuel nods.
Scout pats Manuel on the back. ‘No harm done.’ They all look at the damage Scout has done to Manuel’s face. Manuel couldn’t hit back so it feels kind of wrong, as if Scout was taking his black eyes out on Manuel. Scout wants to apologise, redress the balance of power between them, but Manuel is already down. An expression of sympathy would compound his disadvantage, so Scout leans in and whispers, ‘Couldn’t see your way to lend us five bob, could ye, pal?’
Manuel laughs, spluttering blood onto Dickov’s lovely rug. Scout laughs with him. Even Dandy chuckles a bit.
‘Right, that’s enough.’ Dickov claps his hands together and raises a gentlemanly hand towards the door.
Grinning, Scout reaches for the handle. His knuckles are bloody and ripped and swollen but Scout doesn’t seem to have noticed.
Watt and Manuel head out and Dandy follows them. Scout calls ‘Cheerio’ and Manuel grins back through his rapidly swelling lips.
Dandy leads them to the stairs. They stand in the cold and quiet. No one knows what to say. ‘I left my car at the Cot,’ says Watt to no one in particular. Dandy looks down the stairs, feels the cold morning coming and this whole glorious period of his life coming to an end. He had money and power and celebrity but it is over. Dandy knows who is responsible. He goes for Manuel again, grabbing him by the hair, dragging him to the top step. He throws Peter down sideways.
The sound of a bag of meat being rolled down stone steps echoes through the stairwell. The falling stops. Manuel doesn’t groan but Watt knows he isn’t dead because he hears him panting. Then he hears him trying to get up, sliding down the wall, groaning. He’s not dead.
Watt is frozen. He thinks Dandy will come back and get him if he moves. Dandy’s shoulders are slumped. He seems very sad. Then, with the smallest gesture imaginable, Dandy nods Watt out.
William Watt scurries past him, keeping to the far side of the stairs. He jogs down the landing, takes Manuel by the elbow, lifts him to his feet and gets him out onto the street.
Manuel is winded and cannot speak. He tries to pull away but Watt holds his elbow tight with one hand and hails a taxi with the other.
‘Mm fine,’ growls Manuel, his teeth clenched, blood bubbling on his lips. His knee buckles but Watt holds him up.
A taxi draws up and Watt opens the door without letting go of Manuel.
‘I’m taking you home, Peter. It’s the least I can do.’
15
Monday 19 May 1958
THE MEDICAL EXAMINER, PROFESSOR Allison, is in his mid-seventies. He is bald and thin. He doesn’t like the feel of dentures, not even for moments as formal as a High Court appearance. His mouth is clapped in. He looks like a cheerful crescent moon.
Despite his Gothic appearance and the horrific nature of his testimony, he has a twinkle in his eye and a cheery demeanour because he is talking about his work. The courtroom is spellbound, everyone cranes to listen. He smiles a gummy smile up at the balcony of women, wishing that his students would listen as carefully.
Manuel gave detailed confessions to all eight murders but he has pled not guilty in court. This is why the forensic details of each and every death have to be presented to the jury.
M.G. Gillies asks him to tell them about Isabelle Cooke first. Professor Allison tells the court that she was strangled. When her body was finally found her muffler was still tied around her mouth, which would have contributed to her asphyxiation in no small measure, but the real cause of her death was her brassiere. Her brassiere had been ripped off. He proves this by showing the broken clasp and the way the metal hook has been yanked straight. The brassiere was then wrapped firmly around her neck, crossed at the back and pulled tightly thus: he jerks his hands away from each other. It would be a threatening sight but Professor Allison is very old and frail and it doesn’t look scary, just informative.
‘Had Isabelle sustained any other injuries?’
‘She had been beaten on the back and the neck. She had lost both shoes and cut her foot during the episode of running. And she had extensive bruising on her crutch.’
M.G. Gillies hesitates. Professor Allison has said ‘crutch’ instead of ‘crotch’. Gillies doesn’t want to linger on the poor child’s crotch but he worries that it is unclear. He stares at Allison, hoping the professor will correct himself but he doesn’t. Gillies doesn’t know what to do so he just moves on.
‘Were there signs of intercourse on Isabelle’s body?’
‘No. But she had been handled very roughly and her under-garments had been ripped off. Also, when she was buried, she was naked and posed so that she was exposed on the bosom and the “crutch” area.’
Professor Allison smiles a little and nods, letting M.G. Gillies know that he is saying ‘crutch’ deliberately, because of all the women listening. He expects the advocate-depute to be pleased at his delicacy but M.G. Gillies is of a different generation. Gillies was in the Royal Artillery. He was evacuated from France in 1940, went back with the Allied invasion of Italy and fought on for two more brutal years. He knows there are worse things in the world than directly referencing a woman’s crotch,
but he enjoys Professor Allison’s conviction that there isn’t. It is sweet and naive, so much of a gentler time that he envies it. Gillies moves on to ask about Anne Kneilands.
Anne Kneilands is an older case. A bludgeoning as opposed to asphyxiation, says Professor Allison. Her head was battered and ‘human debris’ was found as far as ten feet away. Yes, Allison smiles and nods, indeed, an awful lot of force would be required to break through the human skull and spread the contents so widely over the golf course. Really, an awful lot of force. This piece of angle iron was found at the scene and is a remarkably good fit to the wounds.
To illustrate, he is given Anne Kneilands’ skull and the angle iron. The skull has an oblong hole smashed in the back. Professor Allison turns the iron lump in his hand, fits it into the matching hole in the skull and smiles triumphantly up at the court. His pragmatic face says, See? See what I did?
The angle iron is ‘devoid of human debris’ though because it was found in a burn.
Professor Allison is furnishing the court with the cold scientific facts but they have the narrative too. Manuel signed a detailed confession.
This is Manuel’s story:
Anne is in East Kilbride, waiting for the bus home, when a man walks out of the dark. She calls out to him: Tommy? No, he says, I’m not Tommy. My name is Peter. He joins her at the bus stop. Has the number 70 has been yet? She says no and they fall to talking. She tells him she’s just been stood up by a soldier she met at a dance last week. She’s fed up.
Auch, never mind, he says, that happens to everyone.
Does it?
Aye, everyone gets dizzied sometimes. People miss buses, forget or run out of dough to get where they need to be.