Whisky from Small Glasses

by Denzil Meyrick

  Daley looked warily at the side of the boat, then decided he would have to make yet another nautical leap of faith. He grabbed the gunwale with both hands, arms stretched out over the inky void between the vessel and the pier. Judging the rise and fall, he heaved himself up, managed to get one leg over the side then propelled himself in a rolling motion onto the deck, to the sound of tearing fabric.

  ‘That’s another pair o’ breeks away, Jim.’ Scott grinned from below, as the DCI, dignity barely intact, got back to his feet with a curse.

  Paterson’s head poked around the door leading to the lower deck. ‘It would appear that we have the all-clear, sir. No sign of a seventh crewman.’ No sooner had he uttered these words than a distant crack sounded over the harbour, closely followed by another. It took no expert to recognise the report of a firearm. Instinctively, all heads turned to the likely source of the shots – the east pier, some seventy yards away.

  ‘Code twenty-one. Man down. Repeat, man down!’ The voice over the radio was panicked; Daley recognised it as one of the young uniformed cops. He was also aware of Carter yelling into his radio, as what sounded like an aircraft sped between the gap in the two piers.

  More shots.

  Daley jumped back onto the gunwale of the fishing boat, paused for a moment, then leapt down onto the pier, coming down so quickly that he had to take a couple of rapid steps forward, like a poor gymnast’s dismount, to stop himself falling. Scott was at his side; together they made for the short length of promenade that separated the twin jetties of the harbour.

  ‘DCI Daley to DC Fraser. Position, please. Over.’ Daley shouted breathlessly into his throat mic. ‘DCI Daley to any unit stationed at the’ – he had to pause to gulp down air – ‘bottom of Main Street with DC Fraser. Come in. Over.’ Ominously, there was still no reply. Though his lungs were bursting with exertion, Daley was desperately trying to piece together what had happened. Paterson and his men had appeared to have the situation entirely under control: the crew were rounded up and a search of the vessel with the captain was complete. Then he remembered the high-pitched buzz he had heard just before giving the order to spring the trap. It had been a small boat.

  Scott was ahead of him now and getting further away despite being the older man. Suddenly his earpiece burst into life. ‘Firearms being discharged. Officer down.’ The voice in his ear was muffled, the words a rush of fear and adrenaline.

  ‘DCI Daley receiving. More details. Which officer’ – he swallowed more air – ‘is down?’

  Silence again, though from the corner of his eye he was aware of the movement of black figures heading rapidly up the jetty. Scott had reached the top of the pier with Daley following; then, without warning, he felt a weight land on him from behind, and momentarily his world went black.

  His first instinct was to fight. He didn’t feel fear, only the desperate need to get whoever, or whatever, it was off his back.

  ‘Stay down, man! Stay down!’ He recognised the young lieutenant’s voice. More shouting now, urgent and insistent, like two people trying to make themselves understood across a busy street. Then, for a heartbeat, complete silence, followed by a blood-curdling yell and the deafening sputter of automatic gunfire.

  Daley felt a hand with fingers spread wide hard on the back of his head. The pressure was pushing him down to the pavement. He was aware of someone at his side, also on the ground, getting to his feet. Looking up he saw Carter standing over him, offering a helping hand up while talking urgently into the large radio.

  ‘Jim, Jim, get over here!’ This was Scott, standing a short distance away at the head of the east pier.

  Daley pulled himself to his feet with the help of Carter’s outstretched hand, nodded his gratitude, and hurried over to his DS. He saw the look on Scott’s face, the blood on his hands. ‘Brian, have you been hit? How . . .’ He followed Scott’s line of sight. On the ground a few feet away he could see someone lying on his back, legs wide apart, like a tired man who had just flopped down onto a particularly comfortable bed. Two men in dark clothing were standing around the recumbent figure; a third was kneeling.

  On the breast of the black jacket, a deeper stain had spread, at its heart a gaping dark hole around which the blood was already congealing under the streetlight. The body was motionless, head turned to the side as though in repose, not flat against the cold concrete. Even under the ethereal orange glow the face was devoid of colour, the features standing in sharper relief. A strand of red hair curled onto the pallid forehead.

  Archie Fraser was dead.

  16

  Throughout his career, Daley had felt nothing like the pain – the burden of responsibility – that now enveloped him as he stared, transfixed, at Fraser’s corpse. All that life and promise extinguished, and worst of all, it was his fault.

  Daley had seen many corpses, had often pondered whether any residue of consciousness remaining after death was a medical possibility. Could the brain still perceive, be aware, even though the heart had stopped beating? He remembered being on points duty as a young cop in Glasgow city centre during the run-up to Christmas. Shoppers hurried to and fro clutching bags whose logos spoke not only of their likely contents but also something of the individuals carrying them: a tall patrician figure with a small paper package bearing the name of an exclusive watch manufacturer; giggling teenage girls, arm in arm, huddled together like an amorphous entity, their bags proclaiming the latest and most trendy shops; a whey-faced middle-aged woman bearing the basic wares of a discount store. On and on they came: wet, cold, happy, sad, chattering, silent, fat, thin, bald, hirsute; man, woman, child – the whole world was here, or so it seemed. All caught up in the whirl of Yuletide.

  So large were the crowds, policemen were stationed at every pedestrian crossing in the city centre in a vain attempt to keep some kind of order. The one was subsumed by the heaving mass that was the many; an entity in its own right. Red man – stop; green man – walk: the principle was simplicity itself. And, just in case the visually impaired, or just plain stupid, should happen along, a shrill, insistent beep provided audible indication of when it was safe to cross. This, though, proved too difficult a concept for many. Pitting their few pounds of frail flesh and bone against the hard heavy edges of hurtling traffic, pedestrians regularly took insane risks in a festive game of Chicken – a game that the overwhelmed policemen, mostly those wet behind the ears, and who stood for nine hours at a time, were trying to prevent.

  Daley had been standing at one of Glasgow’s most dangerous crossings, now long consigned to the city’s history. An attractive blonde girl waited dutifully across the road in the company of a phalanx of fellow shoppers, watching the red man, who stood out against the gloom of the dull December day. In his mind’s eye he could still see her in every detail: her faux fox-fur jacket and tight blue jeans tucked into knee-high boots. Then, things happened in slow motion. The crowd of shoppers began to move, like corn rippled by the wind. The girl stumbled forward, as though she had been pushed. To Daley’s left, the giant shape of yellow, white and green that was a Corporation bus hurtled into view in a mechanical growl of diesel engine and sigh of air brakes. A teenage boy pushed past the pretty blonde girl, looking neither right nor left. He had a blue sports bag thrown casually over his shoulder and the red of his hair nearly matched that of the amber of the traffic signal.

  He was unlucky. He stopped when he saw the bus. He was halfway across the road and the shock of seeing the vehicle hurtle around the corner prompted the moment of indecision that would kill him. The driver slammed on the brakes with a banshee wail, too late though to arrest the momentum of the vehicle. The youth was smashed into the roadway with a soft thud. The front wheel of the bus crushed his skull, bursting his brains out of his head like a squeezed pimple.

  Daley looked down at his polished right boot and the white and red pulp that was dashed across it and up his trouser leg. He had never forgotten the sense of unreality that he had experienced during and after the
incident – something he had never encountered before, or since, until now.

  Back in the office now, Daley tried to piece things together. By what could only have been pure luck, a small dinghy had set out from the rear of the fishing boat, out of sight of the assembled police officers, moments before they sprung the trap. The buzzing Daley had heard had been the whine of the tiny outboard motor. Scott reckoned that the crewman in the dinghy had used the arrival of the larger boat to deflect attention from a proposed clandestine meeting with a third party. He had moored his small boat at the pontoons and was then disturbed by the noise created by the raid. In an effort to escape he had stumbled upon the tragic Fraser, whom he had shot twice at point-blank range in the chest, just before the marines, who had spotted the dinghy using night-vision gear, had a chance to speed into the harbour. It was they who had killed the Latvian.

  It was a plausible theory, but something about it didn’t ring true. There was too much chance involved. And, in Daley’s experience, chance was a rarefied commodity.

  Why didn’t I make him wear a bulletproof vest? Daley asked himself over and over again. But the answer was simple: no one had expected Fraser, nor any of the uniformed officers manning the temporary road blocks, to be in any danger.

  ‘The question is: who was this guy expecting tae meet? If it wiz Peter Mulligan, then we can hardly put them in the frame for his murder.’ Scott waited for his boss to reply but got no response. ‘Jim, you canna go on blaming yersel’. Nane o’ us could have predicted that.’ Still no reply. He tried a different tack. ‘You fancy a coffee or something?’ On seeing the blank look on Daley’s face, he decided to get him one anyway, touching the DCI on the shoulder on the way past in a typical example of restrained West of Scotland male sympathy.

  Police officers had been sent to Fraser’s parents’ home in Glasgow, and Daley resolved to call them once the news had been imparted. It was a task he was dreading. He couldn’t get the sight of the broken figure lying on the pier out of his mind. If this was the price of the promotion he had so coveted, it was far, far too high. He was aware of the door being opened and didn’t bother to look up, assuming it would be Scott. In fact, it was Donald.

  ‘I know you’re devastated, naturally. Though I barely knew the boy, it’s a tragedy.’ No response. Donald walked over to the window. Though only half past five, the sun was beginning to light up Main Street. Gulls, crows and a myriad of other birds contributed to the early-morning cacophony, which today somehow seemed so inappropriate.

  ‘This may not be the best time, Jim,’ the Superintendent spoke in a low tone, ‘but for some time now, I’ve felt that your eye was off the ball, that you were distracted . . .’ He turned to look at the DCI, whose head remained firmly in his hands. Undaunted, he continued. ‘Under these extreme circumstances, and if you have no objection, I have decided to take operational command of this inquiry.’ He raised his eyebrows in an expression that demanded some kind of answer.

  Daley felt the wheels in motion, the buttons being pushed, and despite being fully aware of it could not resist. ‘So you swan in here with your platitudes and your empty sympathy.’ He was leaning back in his chair, but looking anything but relaxed. ‘Let me tell you something: for some time now I have thought you to be a thoroughly detestable man. Vain, arrogant, and absolutely unsuited to running an investigation of this nature. Your whole career has been predicated on the hard work of others. And if you think I’m going to hand the reins of power over to you, so that you can stumble along to who knows what conclusion, then blame me when you turn up fuck all – you can think again. There are four people lying dead, and I don’t care if I have to leave the job and become a private investigator, I’ll solve this case. Understood?’

  Donald stood in silence with his back to Daley. He then turned on his heel and walked towards the door. ‘OK, DCI Daley, this time you have it your way. But, remember this: a young man gave his life to this cause. Don’t let him, or me, down.’ He stared at Daley for a few seconds, then left, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Daley ran his hands roughly through his hair. He knew that he had just been in receipt of the proverbial kick up the arse he needed to galvanise himself back into action. He picked up the phone from his desk and dialled the nightshift custody sergeant’s internal number.

  Donald reflected ruefully on the night’s events as he got into his car. He would have to get a couple of hours’ sleep, then face the inevitable press conference. The death of a young police officer, particularly under these circumstances, was bound to create yet another feeding frenzy. He certainly would not be leaving it to Daley and Scott; neither of them had what it took to appear competent in front of the media. Daley always looked fat, unfit and careworn, while his DS looked more like the criminals he was trying to apprehend than the highly effective, if unorthodox, detective he was.

  Donald had always found Jim Daley a man full of contradictions: a talented sportsman who had let himself go, early, to seed; such a volcanic temper, yet a man who could be paralysed by over-sensitivity; a quick, intelligent individual, yet one who could, as again today, be easily manipulated. But, above all, he was one of the best police officers Donald had ever worked with.

  Donald was in no doubt as to his own talents. He had always found the endless grind of a major investigation too much to bear. He quickly lost any sense of objective and became bored with the exhausting schedule of fact and procedure, and the eternal sifting of a grain of truth from a beach full of lies. No, he knew that his talents lay entirely in his ability to make people bend to his will with a casual comment or harsh word that would send them into a flurry of productive activity. He smiled to himself in the rear-view mirror, then turned the key in the ignition.

  *

  The persistent bleep of her husband’s alarm clock was enough to rouse Liz from her slumber. She had asked Jim to set it for her, as she wanted to be up and about in plenty of time for her trip with Mr Seanessy. From what she could glean through the yellowing net curtains, the day looked like a huge improvement on the previous twenty-four hours or so – a return to a glorious spring, in fact.

  She stretched and yawned, smiling at the sight of her husband’s Patrick O’Brian novel and the fact that it didn’t matter where in the world the couple found themselves, his side of the bed always looked the same: radio and a good book. He actually pined for the BBC when he was abroad, and would go to extreme lengths to receive the World Service, no matter where they were. She laid her head on his pillow, breathing in his smell. The last few days had reminded her of how things had been when they were first married. Despite the responsibilities of running a murder investigation, her husband seemed more at ease with her than he had been for a very, very long time. She supposed that being away from home and hearth threw people together more and that exposure to the unusual reinvigorated interest in each other. Anyway, regardless of the reasons, it was most welcome. At times like this, Liz was afflicted with gnawing feelings of guilt, like a drunk waking up in the morning remembering acts of intoxicated stupidity from the night before. The litany of her infidelities often played, unbidden, in her head. This, she reckoned, was a reminder of her own inadequacy, of her need to feel wanted in the most primal way, as though sexual intimacy would banish the demons of loneliness and insecurity that haunted her when her husband – the man she truly loved – immersed himself in yet another impenetrable case.

  The knock at the door was quiet but urgent. Preferring to sleep naked, she reached for Daley’s jumper, which would serve as an impromptu dressing gown. ‘Hello! Just give me a second,’ she called to her visitor. The reply she received was indistinct, but she could tell it was a woman. She pulled the jumper over her head, took a quick look in the long mirror, smoothed out the tangles of sleep from her hair and tiptoed across the cool floor to the door. ‘Oh, Annie, how are you? Did I book a wake-up call? Sorry, I didn’t remember. Jim . . .’

  The look on Annie’s face made her stop speaking. ‘Is there some
thing wrong? It’s not Jim, is it?’ She felt panic strike at her heart and stomach, making her legs feel weak.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Daley.’ Annie’s face was pale, and the look of uncertainty she bore was out of place with her habitual cheerfulness.

  ‘Annie, tell me. What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m jeest telling you whoot a’ the gossips are comin’ oot wi’ jeest noo.’ She was in the room now, and had closed the door. ‘There wiz some kind o’ polis operation last night, doon at the quay. Did Mr Daley tell you?’

  ‘I knew something was happening, but I never discuss my husband’s work with anyone, Annie. I probably know less than you do.’ Liz could feel herself becoming annoyed. She liked the genial hotel manager, but was in no doubt as to the major role she played in the dissemination of local gossip.

  With a hurt look, Annie chose to continue, the words tumbling from her mouth in her hurry, in an effort to justify her visit. ‘I’m jeest here tae tell you that everyone’s sayin’ that a polisman got killed last night, and I wisna sure if you were awake or no’. I . . .’

  Liz darted to her jacket. She fumbled her mobile from the inside pocket despite the trembling of her hands. She tried hard to focus on the screen: no messages, no missed calls. She began dialling a number, then realised it was the number of Daley’s office in Paisley. ‘What’s the number of the police office here, Annie?’

  Annie gave Liz the number. Liz decided to call Jim’s mobile first. I’m sorry. The person you are calling is not available, please try again later or . . . She hung up and dialled the number that Annie had just given her, and, after what seemed like an eternity, the call was answered. ‘Kinloch Police Office, Desk Sergeant Williamson. Can I help you?’