by Jay Stringer
She smiled and set the mug down in front of him.
‘It’s been in the book all week.’
Alex knew she was right. He couldn’t afford to act the fool on this one, not even to try and bluff his way through a headache. Khan was Emma’s boss just as much as his, and he needed to appear on the ball at all times.
Khan and Joe were booked in to discuss the big takeover. Alex and Emma had lined up all of the deals. The gangs, the businesses, the lawyers, everything. All of the last round of buyouts were due to go through at 1 p.m. on the same day.
It had been Emma’s idea, actually. A brilliant way to broker the peace between all sides. If some of the deals had gone through before others, people might have got antsy, suspected double crosses. If they were all done at exactly the same time, nobody would feel left behind.
It would be a bloodless coup.
The deal was going through in two days, and that’s why Alex wanted his own project with Fergus to go through now. People were distracted. They were busy. This was his one chance to slip away.
Emma had proved invaluable to Alex since he had joined the firm. To begin with, she would do the honest work. The legitimate customers and the clean accounts. She would set up meetings, deals, paperwork, and then pass them off to Alex at the last moment to rubber stamp. This left Alex free to be more hands-on with the other side of the business, the list of clients euphemistically titled ‘Friends of MHW’.
Over the past few months, since Khan’s big project was put on the table, Emma had stepped in to help with the friends, too, and she was a natural. She was also good at running interference with Khan. Alex could handle Joe. They got on well enough, and Joe was a skilled people person – he could make you feel valued even if he hated your guts.
But Khan? That was different.
She was ridiculously young, for one thing. Her family had sent her to study in America, and she’d gone native. She came to high-powered business meetings in jeans and a hoodie, or a retro band T-shirt. Usually, her hair would be styled and coloured. It was blue the last time he’d seen her.
Alex’s career was being controlled by some dot-com brat, and he hated it.
He blinked, put his professional mask back in place. ‘Of course. What time did you say the appointment was? Two o’clock?’ He checked his watch. ‘But it’s only eleven. You said she’s here now?’
Alex noticed for the first time that Emma was wearing her jacket, and her handbag was slung over her shoulder. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Ms Khan is here early, but not to see you.’
Alex shook his head, his mouth forming an O in question.
‘She’s hot, she’s single and she’s asked me to lunch.’
‘It’s eleven.’
‘It’s going to be a long lunch.’
‘And you’re telling me all of this now because?’
‘Well, you’ve got one of the worst hangovers I’ve seen in a long time. I thought you needed time to prepare yourself.’
‘I sense an “and ”.’
‘And a hot woman wants to take me out, for a very long lunch, and I think everyone should know.’
Emma smiled and left. Alex rubbed his face and opened the file. Emma had typed out the whole brief for him. He started to read, and his eyes drifted out of focus after three sentences. He couldn’t concentrate on work.
He opened a desk drawer and pulled out holiday brochures.
THIRTY-TWO
SAM
10:48
I asked Phil to start running background checks on both Mike and Callum Gibson. Three jobs was too many to have going at one time, but I could get away with it if I delegated. Phil could get a head start for me on the Gibson case.
I headed out to my bike from the coffee shop, and loaded up the GPS app on my phone. It was linked to the two devices Phil had planted, and showed me two dots: a blue and a red. We used similar technology for the courier firm. Clients could log onto the app and track our phones to see how close we were to making the delivery, and what route we’d chosen.
I’d say we were Uber for parcels and mysteries, but I’ve already cracked that joke, haven’t I?
Phil hadn’t bothered to label the trackers with each of the Pennans’ names, so all I had were the dots on the screen. If I pressed one of the dots, I’d be taken to another page, full of information about where the tracker had been, and how long it had stopped at each location.
I wasn’t going to need that to figure it all out, though. The red dot was located near to where Alex Pennan worked, in the city. The blue dot was at Firhill. So, unless the Pennans had decided to swap jobs for the day, I could tell which was which.
I took a chance to fire off a quick reply to Fergus.
TheSamIreland – I used to run. Cycle now.
I crossed the river and headed into the city.
There’s an area to the west of Central Station that the council have been trying to rebrand as the ‘financial district’. For over a year, signs and billboards had been up over empty land and derelict buildings, each depicting a photoshopped vision of the future, with tall buildings of metal and gleaming glass. Some of the older buildings that stood in the way of progress had managed to burn down, but I wasn’t going to look too closely into that. The area was also home to two of the most popular brothels in the city centre. They’d clubbed together to hire me a few weeks back. There was a guy who was making a habit of roughing up the women. I tracked down his home address, but there wasn’t much they could do. Reporting him to the cops wasn’t an option. It would be impossible to prosecute the case when the victims had to lie about how they’d met the attacker.
The financial district idea was starting to take hold, and developers were throwing up tall structures, wrapped in glass and steel. They were being filled by banking firms, call centres and pension companies.
MHW was based in a three-sided building, halfway down York Street. I’d delivered packages to this place a few times. I locked my bike up to the stand outside the building, and then logged on my phone that I was starting surveillance. I’d stand there for a couple of minutes while our detective agency app recorded my GPS data. Phil had built a small cheat into the software, so I could pause the GPS, effectively stalling it in one spot while I moved to another. It came in handy on days like this, when I could go and work a personal case while I charged a client. Leaving it there meant that the tracker on our app would show Kara I was doing her work.
Of course, I don’t put that kind of behaviour in my adverts.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
FergusSingsTheBlues – Oh god. Cyclist? You’re one of THEM ;)
Fergus, you don’t know the half of it.
Before I left York Street, I called the number of my own solicitor, Fran Montgomery at Crowther & Co. He’d been my father’s lawyer before I took over the business, and we’d pretty much inherited each other when everything was passed to me.
The call was answered quickly by the Ukrainian receptionist, Alexei. He was big on self-improvement, and had spent his first couple of years in Glasgow trying to master the language. He spoke it fluently now, but he still liked to show off by using a different word for hello every time he greeted someone. ‘Howdy, Crowther & Co, how may I direct your query?’
‘Hiya, Alexei,’ I grinned at the sound of his voice. He was a loveable big bear of a man, and even hearing him made me feel happy. ‘That’s a pretty formal greeting there, dude.’
He laughed. We had a running joke to use the word greet as often as we could slip into conversation. It started back when he got confused over something I’d said, because he’d only just learned that greeting meant to say hello, when I’d used it in the Glasgow form, to mean crying.
‘Aye, I’ve been working on it.’ It was strange listening to Alexei talk. He still had most of his original accent, but with the occasional Glaswegian edge to it, and he dropped in Scots dialect. ‘You’re wanting a blether with the boss?’
‘Please. Is he around?’
> ‘Haud on.’
The line beeped a few times while I was on hold. Then, Fran’s voice boomed down the line. ‘Samantha, how are you?’ Considering he had two degrees, I didn’t want to be the one to condescend to him by pointing out the handset had a microphone, and he didn’t need to shout.
‘I’m fine, Uncle Fran. You?’
‘Aye, crackin’,’ he said. ‘Especially now I’ve heard your voice. What favour is it you’d like from me this time, my dear?’
‘Am I that obvious?’
He chuckled but didn’t answer.
‘Okay, you got me,’ I said. ‘Couple of things. First, do you know who represents Mike Gibson?’
Fran had been working in the town for fifty years. He knew all the old names, and their connections. He always managed to give me information without breaching any confidentiality; he stayed on the right side of the line.
‘Dave Lockhart,’ he said. ‘Shady bugger. Works all of those old lot.’
‘Do you know if he looks after Callum, too?’
‘I don’t, no. Not sure. Maybe, but I think they had a falling out. I can ask around for you?’
‘That’d be great, Uncle Fran. Could you ask if he has a money man, too?’
‘Aye. As long as the answer doesn’t involve anyone I work with, you know.’
‘Of course. Hey, listen, I want to sound you out here. A wife hires me. She says her husband is cheating, and she wants proof.’
‘The wife?’
‘Yeah. But I reckon she might be up to something. Would there be a way to find out if they had a pre-nup?’
‘No. A prenuptial agreement doesn’t really exist in Scots or English law. But if there is a pre-written agreement, it would be a private contract – it wouldn’t need to be publicly posted.’
‘Crap. Okay.’
‘Sam, no good marriage ends in divorce. Your dad told me that. Even one that starts out good, it’s in a bad place by the time they end it. It could just be she wants help ending it.’
Maybe it was that straightforward.
When did I start seeing lies in everything I was told?
THIRTY-THREE
FERGUS
11:50
I get a call from my dad.
Can I go pick up Zoe? Sure. It beats sitting here and thinking of other ways to pretend to kill someone.
I don’t say that to him, of course. My parents think the same thing the taxman does: I run a small security consultation firm. Stan and my sister are named with me on the board of directors, and we each draw nominal salaries. My real income comes through the dark web, and never shows up on my tax returns.
Oh aye, you’re judging me right now, right?
Look at him. Dodging tax.
Playing a little fast and loose with the amount I owe to the government is probably the least of my offences. But I don’t mention that to my dad, either. He’s Mr Left Wing. Shop steward wherever he worked. Our family pet when I was a wee boy, a cute little terrier, was named Trotsky. When I was working for the government, I found out our family had been on a watch list in the eighties, with my parents suspected of being in league with the communists. Our phones were tapped and some of our mail was intercepted.
And yet, somehow, despite being from a family of alleged commie spies, I was still able to land work in both the military and British Intelligence.
Kind of shows you how seriously they take their records, aye?
But, anyway. I don’t tell my dad that I’m fiddling my taxes. I suspect he’d be more upset over that than at the thought of what the money had been paid to me for originally. But I didn’t want to put that theory to the test.
The income Zoe gets from my fake company covers a lot of her living costs. She gets money from the state, too. Disability benefits. But the government keeps messing with her entitlement, and I think having income of her own is good for her independence and self-esteem.
Zoe also has a part-time job at a school in Shawlands. She works mornings in the office, answering phones and sorting paperwork. She designed a new filing system for them, updating the attendance register onto a spreadsheet that automatically sends out alerts based on lateness or absence, and generates an email telling the relevant department heads to contact the parents.
She talks me through all of the things she does to improve how the school functions, and I marvel at all of it.
I don’t tell her that, though. Because she’s my sister.
Zoe would be well capable of driving if she took the test and got a specially adapted car. I’ve even offered to buy one for her, and pay for the test. She tells me she wouldn’t feel confident, and that her attention span is too shitty to drive. Secretly, I think she just likes being chauffeured about.
On the way there I get a call from Joe Pepper. I take it on the hands-free.
He gets right to it. ‘So I tried booking a job, but your agent says you’re on holiday?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What kind of bullshit is that?’
‘Serious, Joe,’ I say. ‘I’m taking a break.’
Maybe forever, I don’t say.
‘Aye, mebbe. Well, look, I know you lied to me about the last job. That girl you didn’t mention? She had something I need. So I think you owe me a going away present.’
You fucked up, so do this, or else. Maybe. I’m starting to hear threats in everything he says, so maybe it’s just me being nuts.
‘You want me to do the woman?’
‘No. That’s been sorted. But I want you for something that’s more up your street. I’ll need someone to vanish afterwards. Keep the rest of your day free.’
Zoe’s already waiting for me at the kerb when I get there. We play the usual game of me offering to help her into the car, and Zoe insisting she’s fine to do it herself. We can’t break out of these roles. I always offer way more support than she needs, and she always insists on needing less aid than she does. I fold down her chair and put it in the boot, while she settles into the passenger seat and starts fiddling with the radio.
She’s switched it over to a sports phone-in show by the time I sit in the driver’s seat. She shares our dad’s passion for the game where they pointlessly kick a ball around a field. We sit in silence at first while she listens to the opinions on the radio. She disagrees with almost all of them with quiet scoffing and tutting sounds.
She turns to me. ‘You coming for barbecue tonight?’
‘They had barbecue last night.’
‘So? Sun’s out. They’ll have another.’
This is true. They almost certainly will. ‘We’ll see. I might be working, depends how late it goes.’
‘All work and no play.’ She pulls out her phone and starts pressing the screen. I figure we’re about to sit in silence again when she says, ‘Hey, she’s cute.’
‘Who?’
I take my eyes off the road for a few seconds to look at her phone as she holds the screen up to me. She has the app loaded for the dating website, signed into my account. She’s looking at Sam’s profile. I should have guessed Zoe’s keeping tabs on me.
Zoe presses play.
Hi. My name’s . . . Okay, I’m Sam . . .
‘Turn it off,’ I say. I can hear the embarrassment in my own voice, so I know for a fact that Zoe will have picked up on it.
She presses a button, and the messenger app loads up.
‘You two have really been getting on.’
‘Stop.’ Even I can tell I don’t really mean it. I want to talk about Sam, but I want it to sound like I don’t. You know, proper teenage stuff.
‘Have you asked her out yet?’ Zoe says.
‘No, ’course not. Barely know her.’
‘Huh.’ She sounds like she doesn’t believe me. I look over to see her flicking the screen down to show how many messages Sam and I have sent each other. ‘Looks like you two have been talking loads.’
‘On a website. Doesn’t mean she wants to meet me.’
‘See lassies that you’ve as
ked out before, in pubs or clubs or wherever?’ She seems to be under the impression this is something I’ve done a lot. Fine. I’ll go with it. ‘How many of them had you talked to as much as you’ve talked to this Sam?’
‘None. Okay, I get the message.’
She’s right. Maybe I need to ask Sam out. For a coffee, at least. At least. Doesn’t need to be a big thing, just to hang out.
I kill people for a living, how scary can this be?
THIRTY-FOUR
SAM
12:00
I walked round to Virginia Street.
Hanya had mentioned that the police had found eye-witnesses. Touching an open police investigation was risky. It could get a private investigator burned. The worst-case scenario was usually that I could be arrested. This felt different. Paula was undercover, and I didn’t know why. She’d felt the information on the tapes was worth dying for, and it had been me she’d handed them to, not the police. I wanted to see it through.
I had an advantage over the feds. I’d been at the scene before the cops arrived.
Virginia Street doesn’t get much footfall during the day. It’s just off Argyle Street, one of the city’s busiest shopping areas, but it’s not a useful shortcut to anywhere. There hadn’t been anyone else on the scene in the moments before the attack, because I would have seen them.
Sure, someone could have walked into the street after I left. But there was also a good chance that whoever had described me to the cops had been inside one of the buildings overlooking the exchange.
And if they saw me, they may also have seen the attacker. Even if they didn’t realise it.
The road was open to the public again. The spot where Paula had died was taped off. The entrance to the garage was closed, with a phone number written on a piece of paper and taped to the door.
I stood in the same spot I’d been when I’d stopped my bike the day before, in the seconds before Paula had stepped out of the entrance. Immediately opposite the closed garage was the side wall of another high street shop. There were closed fire exits on the ground floor. The windows on the first and second floors were black, reflecting the opposite side of the street. I couldn’t tell whether they were painted black or if it was just dark glass. It was possible someone had seen something from there, though would anyone in a busy high street shop be stood staring out of the window?