‘Four. It was nineteen grand, not—’
‘Dry yer arse, Constable Henderson: that was before ye decided to miss yer repayments. Now it’s twenty-one thousand, all in, with interest.’
Do it. Walk right up to her right now and blow a hole in her head big enough to shit through. Take out the gun and fucking do it.
I took a step closer.
She smiled. ‘Last time we had a wee chat with yer girlfriend. Want us to have one with yer missus and kid?’
‘Listen up, Mrs Kerrigan, and pin your lugs back because this is the only warning you’re getting—’
‘Who the feck do yez think yer talkin’…’
Her mouth fell open, eyes wide.
I rested the barrel of the Beretta against her forehead. ‘In case you’re wondering: it’s French, there’s no safety.’
She shut her mouth, licked her teeth.
‘Your one and only warning. You ever go anywhere near Katie … or Michelle, I’m coming after you. There won’t be any sirens, there won’t be any uniforms – there’ll be me, and you, and a shallow grave in Moncuir Wood. And it’ll take a long, long time. Do you understand?’
A pause. ‘Yes.’
‘Fuck with my family and I’ll make you beg for it.’
‘I said I understand. Now put that thing away before you get hurt.’ She backed up, turned, and whub-wheeked towards Andy Inglis’s Range Rover. ‘And it’s still six thousand.’
The big double gates on the other side of the racetrack swung open and an ancient-looking Ford Capri rattled and banged to a halt just inside. A big man in a parka jacket followed it in, then hauled the gates shut again with a muffled clang. He dragged a figure out of the car’s boot: a young man, dressed in blue jeans and a black T-shirt, hands behind his back, as if they were tied together.
T-Shirt struggled to his feet. Parka Jacket slammed a punch into his kidneys and he went down again. Then Parka Jacket grabbed a handful of the kid’s hair and dragged him across the track, and onto the grass – making for the Range Rover. The kid’s legs kicking out behind him. Not so much as a scream.
I slipped the gun back in my pocket and marched after Mrs Kerrigan.
‘Ash, you old bastardo.’ Andy Inglis stuck his hand out. Five foot four, broad shoulders, short arms, Glaswegian accent, and a collar-length sweep of grey hair surrounding a little freckly bald crown. He was wearing a double-breasted suit in a dark-blue pinstripe: playing up to the image. ‘How’s it going?’
His handshake was like a car crusher, making my knuckles scream.
I gritted my teeth and forced a smile, keeping my eyes on Mr Inglis. Not looking at Parka Jacket kicking the living shite out of the young man on the grass. ‘Can’t complain: no bugger would listen.’
Mr Inglis clapped his hands together and roared out a laugh, hunching his shoulders, doing a little two step, as if the ground beneath his feet was lurching. ‘You remember that Russian? What was his name, Mikhail Massivesonofabitchovitch? Fists like shovels?’
The young man had duct tape over his mouth – which explained the silence – tears and blood running down his angular face, grunting every time Parka Jacket slammed another boot into his stomach, ribs, thighs, and back. He was razor-thin, with straggly brown hair and Keith Richard dreadlocks.
‘Thirteen rounds!’ Mr Inglis beamed. ‘Man, that was a beautiful fight.’
Parka Jacket staggered back a few paces, then bent double, hands on knees, puffing, breath steaming out from inside his fur-trimmed hood.
Mr Inglis popped a couple of punches into the air. ‘Right hook, jab, jab, then that haymaker! Wham!’ He shook his head. ‘Happy days… You hear he croaked it? Three weeks after he got out of hospital, bunch of guys – lost a lot of money on the big Ruskie – decided to recoup their investment. Used a wood-chipper.’
Lovely. ‘Mrs Kerrigan said you wanted a word?’
‘Man, you were something special…’ He tilted his head on one side, eyes flicking across my face. Probably taking in the bruises and the scabbed-over scrapes. ‘Let’s see them golden hands of yours.’
I held them up. ‘Wanted to drop off a chunk of cash. I know I’ve been a bit behind but—’
‘Ash, what do I keep telling you?’ He shook his head. Sighed. ‘Gottae go in with your elbows, not your fists. Look at these knuckles. With your condition?’
‘I know I’m a bit behind, but—’
‘See, you use this bit.’ He pressed his right fist into his right shoulder and threw the elbow out, head height, fast. Caught it with the palm of his left hand with a sharp smack. ‘No cartilage in there, no joints to break, just a nice wee slab of bone to shatter the bastard’s face with…’ He frowned. Turned. ‘Mrs Kerrigan?’
She appeared beside me without a sound, as if she ran on castors. Wellington boots in stealth mode. ‘Mr Inglis?’
He hooked a thumb at the young man bleeding into the grass. ‘Aye, what’s the story?’
‘This little bollox needs taught a lesson in manners. Robbin’ off his employers.’
Parka Jacket straightened up, grinned from the depths of his fur-lined hood, then stomped on the T-Shirt’s head a couple of times, grunting with the effort.
Mrs Kerrigan nodded. ‘That should do, Timothy. Break both his legs, then yez can dump him outside Accident and Emergency.’
Parka Jacket got to work.
Mr Inglis turned his back on the beating. ‘I hear you’ve had a wee problem with that house of yours in Kingsmeath. Place is all flooded and wrecked?’
I stared at Mrs Kerrigan. ‘Council says it’s “not fit for human habitation”.’
‘Never was, Ash. Come on: enough with the hair shirt. You got to live for the day, ’cos Mr Time’s gonnae eat you up.’ He curled his hand into a fist. Squeezing the life out of the air. ‘Man like you shouldn’t be living in a shitehole like that. How about I set you up in one of them executive flats down Logansferry? Dock-front property: got a whole heap of them sitting empty. Every bugger’s broke.’
‘Well, thanks, but really I can’t—’
‘Nah, not another word. Be my pleasure. What are friends for?’
T-Shirt screamed behind his duct-tape gag as Parka Jacket jumped up and down on his shins.
‘Mr Inglis, I—’
‘Mrs Kerrigan’ll sort you out keys and that.’ He grabbed my hand again and pumped it in his car-crusher grip. ‘Don’t be a stranger, OK?’
‘Constable Henderson?’ Mrs Kerrigan took my arm and led me away towards the exit. ‘Seven hundred pound deposit, plus one month’s rent payable in advance. Call it eleven hundred for cash. We can add it to the six thousand yez already owe.’
‘But I don’t want—’
‘And just so we’re clear, I’m needin’ half by Wednesday lunchtime, and the rest the week after. Mr Inglis likes yez, but that doesn’t mean you can do a legger on your debt.’ Mrs Kerrigan stopped outside the entrance to the tunnel, the stand looming above us. She pulled out a small yellow notebook and scribbled something down, then tore out the sheet, folded it in half, and handed it to me. ‘Let’s not get back into arrears, OK? ’Cos if ye miss yer payment by so much as a gee hair, yez’ll end up as dog food. And I will personally feed yer yockers to the greyhounds.’
‘I don’t want a bloody flat!’
She pulled on a tight little smile that didn’t touch her eyes. ‘Constable Henderson, are yez really spittin’ in Mr Inglis’s eye, when he’s been nothin’ but the friend of ye?’
I stared at her in silence.
She stared back. Then nodded. ‘Thought not. Now if yez are lookin’ for a way to repay Mr Inglis’s kindness, ye could think about doin’ him a favour. Brian Cowie’s comin’ up for trial in a couple of weeks – maybe yez’d like to lend a hand gettin’ him off: names and addresses of the witnesses, copies of statements, that kind of thing.’
‘A favour.’
‘It’ll get yez a thousand off what ye owe.’ She
shooed me off down the tunnel.
I stomped away into the darkness. Seven and a bit grand…
Her voice came echoing behind me. ‘And one more thing: you’ll feckin’ regret stickin’ a gun in my face. Should’ve pulled the trigger, Constable Henderson. Trust me on that.’
I clunked back through the turnstiles – Arabella still had her chip-pan face in her book, lips moving as she read. She didn’t look up as I slumped past.
Seven thousand, one hundred pounds. Three and a half by Wednesday, the rest the week after. That weight was back, pressing down on my chest. Seven thousand, one hundred pounds. Everything I’d done – the extortion, the car, the jewellery, the cash – and I still couldn’t see out of the pit. And Mrs Kerrigan was merrily shovelling dirt in on top of me.
My pulse pounded in my throat, lungs fizzing, fingers tingling. Jesus…
Outside the sunshine had disappeared, leaving a cold wind behind that whipped crisp packets, dust, grit, and leaves into a drunken dance. The protesters were gone and so was their minibus, but steam curled from the open hatch of Bad Bill’s Burger Bar. The big man was scraping mayonnaise out of a jar and into a squeezy bottle, while Dr McDonald stood at the counter drinking from a polystyrene cup.
Seven thousand, one hundred pounds.
She looked up, saw me, and waved.
Deep breath. Straightened my back. Walked over there as if something wasn’t chewing its way through my stomach.
Bill unscrewed the top from one of the brown sauce bottles. ‘Still in one piece, then.’
I nodded at Dr McDonald. ‘You ready to go?’
‘Bill gave me some hot chocolate.’ She held up her cup. ‘It’s got marshmallows in it.’
The big man poured a hefty measure of vinegar into the bottle. ‘Katie’s been telling me what a great dad you are. She’s a good kid. You’re lucky – my eldest is a wee shite.’
I stopped. Opened my mouth. But Dr McDonald got there first.
‘That’s what I keep telling Mum, but she never believes me.’ Big grin. She swigged from the cup, then placed it on the counter. ‘Thanks, Bill, it’s been fun talking to you.’
He smiled, his chin disappearing into a roll of neck fat. ‘My pleasure, darling. Good luck with university.’ Then he dug beneath the counter and chucked something to her. ‘Gotta keep your strength up.’
Back in the car she unwrapped the muesli bar. ‘He’s nice.’
I gripped the steering wheel. ‘You’re not Katie.’
A sigh. ‘I know, but it made him happy, didn’t it, and you didn’t exactly disabuse him of the notion when you left me with him, did you, so I played along. It was your idea really.’
She had a point. The Renault’s suspension squeaked and groaned as we crossed the rutted car park. ‘How come, with me you’re this rambling gibbery wreck, but with Bill you’re like a normal person?’
‘Are you going to tell me who this Mrs Kerrigan is?’
‘No.’ I took a left onto Angus Road, heading back towards Castle Hill.
Chapter 28
‘No. No I don’t.’ The flat-faced woman with the frizzy blonde hair ushered us outside. Then peered down the stairs towards the road. Wrinkled her top lip. ‘And can you not do something about those horrible people?’ She ducked back inside and closed the door.
McDermid Avenue can’t have been much above freezing. The sky had gone the colour of charcoal, streaked with fire as the sun sank towards the hills. I stuck my hands deep into my pockets, hunched my shoulders. ‘How many’s that?’
Dr McDonald scored the woman’s name off the list, then blew a foggy breath into stripy woollen gloves. ‘Another twenty-six to go.’
Those ‘horrible people’ were parked in a collection of tatty vehicles on the other side of the street, the shiny black eyes of their cameras pointing at us. Carrion crows looking for a fresh kill. At least they’d stopped pestering us for quotes.
I followed Dr McDonald three doors down – to the next address on the list. A people-carrier moved along a couple of parking spaces. Click. Click. Click. ‘You’d think they’d have something better to do with their time: catching politicians shagging their mistresses, rapist footballers getting hair extensions, D-list celebrity’s secret boobs-out shame…’
Number fifty-two had a Volkswagen camper van sitting outside – gleaming paintwork, not a spot of rust, personalized number plate.
Dr McDonald marched up the stairs and rang the bell.
A man in a dark-blue anorak clambered out of the people-carrier and hurried across the road, big digital camera in one hand, some sort of Dictaphone in the other. Hairy; no chin; pointy nose. Half monkey, half rat. He locked eyes with me then froze, one foot on the pavement. Opened and shut his mouth a couple of times. A pale strip of sticking plaster crossed the bridge of his nose, a bruise leaking out from underneath. That’d be where I’d smacked him in the face with his own camera.
Frank somebody – Jennifer’s photographer. Which meant she probably wasn’t that far away. As if my luck wasn’t crap enough already.
He took a step back. ‘I…’ Cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t want to file a complaint, it was all Jennifer’s idea… I made sure they dropped the charges…’
Car doors clunked shut on the other side of the street. The murder was gathering: scenting something to feed on.
I turned and frowned up at the house. ‘Who lives here?’
Dr McDonald checked her list. ‘Steven Wallace?’
Never heard of him.
She rang the bell again, and the crows settled in a semicircle at the foot of the steps. Click. Click. Click.
Who the hell was Steven Wallace?
She shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s not in?’
And that’s when the door opened. A slightly chubby man beamed out at us: bright-blue suit, bright-yellow shirt, blond hair jelled into spikes, a little ginger goatee, and tiny rect-angular glasses. ‘Hey, hey, hey, what’s all this then?’ Big cheesy voice, big cheesy grin.
Dr McDonald checked her list again. ‘Mr Wallace?’
He winked. ‘But you can call me Sensational Steve!’
Oh Christ… Steven Wallace, host of Sensational Steve’s Breakfast Drive-Time Bonanza. He was even more of a tosser in real life. Mugging it up for the cameras.
I flashed my warrant card. ‘Can we come in, please, sir?’
‘Course you can, course you can. Walk this way!’ Then he turned and hobbled off down the hall, dragging one leg behind him, one shoulder up as if he had a hunch.
Dr McDonald pursed her lips. ‘Right…’
I put a hand on the small of her back and encouraged her inside, then stepped in after her and slammed the door.
‘…and that’s why I think it’s so important to do as much for charity as I possibly can. I mean, you’ve got to use your celebrity as a force for good, am I right or am I right?’
The conservatory glowed like a bonfire as the sun set. It was big enough for a baby grand piano, a leather sofa with matching armchairs, coffee table, a couple of large pot plants, and Sensational Steve’s ego. He took up the entire couch on his own, arms draped along the back.
Prick.
Dr McDonald sat quietly in the other seat, batting her eyelashes at him, knees together, leaning forwards, drinking in his shite like it was nectar.
I took a sip of the weak green tea he’d served up from a china pot with his own face on it. An over-sized oil painting hung on the wall behind him – Steven Wallace posing like some eighteenth-century gentleman in front of a log fire – and a handful of teddy bears wearing ‘SENSATIONAL STEVE!’ T-shirts sat next to him on the couch. The piano was covered with framed photos of him grinning away with various musicians and actors. Look at me! Look how famous I am!
‘And you didn’t see anything?’
‘What?’ He blinked a couple of times. ‘Oh, yes, when the girls went missing. Well … no. Not a thing. Sorry: wish I had.’ He shuffled forwards in his
seat, looked left, right, then dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Seriously, how wonderful would that be? Think of the publicity: radio personality helps police catch serial killer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – I’ve done four interviews this week, two with the BBC and one with Sky News. But actually being a witness… I’d be on every front page in the country.’
He sat back again, picked up his tea and smiled into the cup. ‘Next thing you know: I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! I have the bone structure for TV, don’t you think?’
I flipped open my notebook. ‘Tell me, Mr Wallace, where were you last night?’
‘Oh, some dreary fund-raiser for Cancer Research, or something. I was your host with the most, making the toasts. You should have seen it, we did a prank call live on stage – not everyone has the chutzpah for that. You have to time it to perfection, pick the perfect victim, or it’s a disaster.’
‘What about the afternoon: quarter past three?’
A pause. A frown. And then he flashed his veneers at me. ‘Right, well, I was at home getting ready for the gig. I like to meditate: helps me shine.’ He stood and walked to the wall of glass, looking out over his back garden towards the ivy-covered wall at the bottom. Cameron Park lurked on the other side, shadows growing darker as the sun disappeared. Three of the SOC tents were visible through the rampant bushes and jagged trees – glowing blue in the twilight. ‘I have to admit: it’s not easy with that going on all day and night. I have to be up at four to get to the studio and rehearse the Breakfast Drive-Time Bonanza.’ A sniff. ‘Spotlights shining everywhere, tents, generators, it’s like a bloody circus out there.’
‘Well, on behalf of Oldcastle Police let me formally apologize that our investigation into the murder of ten teenaged girls is disturbing your beauty sleep.’
Silence.
Then he turned around, that cheesy grin plastered across his creosote-tanned face again. ‘Ha! Quite right. Sensational Steve’s a team player, he knows how to take one for the good guys.’ He shot me with a finger. ‘Don’t sweat it.’
Dr McDonald squirmed in her seat. ‘Your house is simply amazing, Sensational Steve, I mean it’s so great, how long have you lived here, must’ve taken forever to get it looking like this.’ Big acolyte eyes.
Birthdays for the Dead Page 22