The Bad Fire

by Campbell Armstrong

  Caskie interrupted. ‘I’m not lying, and I’m not protecting Senga or Joyce.’ He looked up at the sun, blinked. ‘It might interest you to know Joyce was attacked today.’

  ‘Attacked?’

  Caskie told him about the assault, and Tommy G. He was pleased to see that the story had a distressing effect on Haggs, who clamped his hands together and cracked his fingers quite rhythmically. ‘Let me get this straight. This Tommy G said he had a deal going with Jackie?’

  Caskie nodded. ‘A big deal. His very words. Maybe it’s even the same deal as the one you’re so interested in, Haggs. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the teeth? Competition for you.’

  Annoyed, Haggs asked, ‘Who the hell is Tommy G?’

  ‘He’s up from London.’

  ‘That’s really helpful. And what else?’

  ‘Tommy G alias Tommy Gurk alias Thomas Gilfillan alias Tommy Zen. Any of these ringing your chimes, Haggs?’

  ‘No.’

  Caskie said, ‘Jamaican Londoner. Did a short stint in the Scrubs for possession of hashish with intent to sell. A year, time off for good behaviour. Then he entered a monastery.’

  ‘A monastery?’

  ‘He became a Buddhist, Haggs. In Tibet.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that our dear wee Joyce was attacked by a pacifist vegetarian? What did he hit her with – a fucking bean-curd egg-roll? Note to self: always make sure you’re armed with a sharpened parsnip when you’re in conversation with a Buddhist.’

  ‘Buddhist or not, he’s connected,’ Caskie said. ‘He takes trips. Rotterdam sometimes. Also Zurich. He has associates in both places.’

  ‘What kind of associates?’

  ‘Business types.’

  ‘Straight business or funny?’

  ‘Funny, I’d say.’

  ‘How funny?’

  Caskie didn’t answer. He loved to keep Haggs dangling. He looked at the dopeheads beyond the wire fence. The druggy underclass. Thin stoned faces blissed to the hilt. A wine bottle, label peeling off, was doing the rounds. One of the kids, a girl dressed in baggy jeans with a plaid shirt knotted round her waist, blew him a kiss and called out, ‘Hey Santy Clause! Can I suck yer beard, eh?’ She tugged her khaki blouse open and flashed a small sad breast at him and then sat down with her back to the wall and rolled a cigarette.

  ‘Nice wee tit,’ Haggs said.

  Caskie ignored the remark. ‘As far as I can gather from the skimpy data I was able to access,’ he said, ‘Gurk is associated with a dubious character in Zurich called Josef or Joe Kaminsky. According to police surveillance reports, Gurk stays at Kaminsky’s country house when he visits Switzerland.’

  ‘And what’s so special about Tommy Gurk that he merits surveillance? What business is he doing with this Kaminsky?’

  ‘Anything that pays is my guess.’

  Haggs said, ‘Give me specific.’

  ‘Kaminsky is wanted by the Israelis on charges of – I quote – currency irregularities. The Swiss have resisted extradition efforts.’

  ‘Currency irregularities? Fuck does that mean?’

  ‘It sounds like a catch-all phrase. Maybe he’s evaded taxes, or traded illegally in securities … I don’t know. There’s also the chance it’s a smokescreen to cover activities which have absolutely nothing to do with fiscal matters.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  Caskie nodded. What he’d told Haggs wasn’t the whole truth. But enough to rattle Haggs’s cage. Haggs didn’t need to know everything in the database. ‘The Police National Computer has its limitations, Haggs.’

  Haggs thought, Jesus Christ. Rotterdam. Zurich. Israel. A monastery in Tibet. It was getting out of hand, going international, spreading to places where he had no control and no affiliates, where he didn’t know the bloody languages. He didn’t like it when his ventures had connections beyond Glasgow or, at a pinch, the Scottish border, because it increased the chance of complexity, elaborate rip-offs, encounters with men whose ways of doing things might be alien to him. He couldn’t make the link between Jackie Mallon and the Jamaican Buddhist called Tommy Gurk or G or Zen, between a terraced house in the east end of Glasgow and a country house in fucking Switzerland. He couldn’t connect a junkyard near Duke Street with ‘currency irregularities’ in Israel. Weird planets were colliding. He felt as if the road he’d been travelling towards the hidden world of Jackie Mallon – badly signposted as it was – had suddenly reached a fork where the directions were posted in languages he couldn’t translate.

  ‘Get me more, Caskie. I need more.’

  ‘Easier said than done. I could go through Interpol, but there are protocols.’

  ‘Fuck protocols,’ Haggs said.

  A rock thrown from the old warehouse smacked the wire fence and made it vibrate. Haggs wished he had a rocket-launcher and he’d just blow those crack-smoking guttersnipes all to hell.

  A young man with wild hair called out, ‘How much is it to rent one of them fucken cars, eh?’

  Haggs turned his back on the crack crew and looked at Caskie. ‘I suggest you dig a wee bit deeper, pal. If you know what’s good for you.’

  I’ll dig your grave, Caskie thought. That’s how far I’d like to dig.

  A shadow moved at the back of his mind. Then it took definite form, brightening. He thought: Maybe. Why the hell not? He recalled what he’d experienced when he’d first run Tommy G through the computer – a dim awareness of possibilities, a disjointed sense of enlightenment – but it was expanding now, it was growing from seed to shoot.

  Another rock struck the fence, then another, a third, eventually a fusillade. The restive crackheads drifted across the street. Ragged, white-faced, skinny, these kids looked like extras from a cocaine version of Night of the Living Dead. More rocks thudded the fence. Then faces were pressed to the wire and grubby fingers hooked the metal strands. The fence was kicked and rattled and shaken vigorously. A rock flew into the lot and struck the roof of a Ford Mondeo.

  Haggs roared, ‘Fuck off out of here, the whole bloody lot of you! You shower of shite! You bunch of arse-wipes! Fuck off! You hear me?’

  Some of the kids laughed and hooted. A gaunt girl in yellow-tinted glasses and a mini-kilt and purple Doc Martens climbed a few feet up the fence before she fell back. A few of her friends cheered and helped her up and she began to climb again.

  Haggs looked at Caskie. ‘You’re a cop. Do something about this scum, for God’s sake.’

  ‘They won’t get over the barbed wire at the top,’ Caskie said.

  ‘I’m not counting on it,’ Haggs said. ‘Have I got to dial the police myself?’

  ‘You know the number, Haggs?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Haggs said. He took his cellphone from his jacket. The girl climbing reached the top of the fence and tried to seize the coiled strands of barbed wire. She cut her hand and fell, clattering against the pavement.

  ‘You can never find a policeman when you need one,’ Caskie said, enjoying his moment of supremacy – that and the fact the shadow was taking on ever more solid form, and he saw it clearly now. He felt a jolt, a thrill, of inspiration. How to get Haggs out of my life … How often had he asked himself that? And now he had a possible answer. But did he have the guts?

  ‘Bloody joker,’ Haggs said, punching buttons.

  Caskie was miles away, thinking. Yes. One longdistance phone call.

  30

  Lou Perlman said, ‘This pub’s a kind of shrine for addicts like me.’ He indicated old football photographs and posters that filled every available space on the wall. Glass display cases contained various editions of the green-and-white hooped jerseys of Glasgow Celtic Football Club. Medallions hung here and there, and scarves had been stapled to the ceiling beams.

  Perlman went on, ‘Traditionally, Celtic has had a predominantly Roman Catholic support – on account of the club’s Irish origins – but not exclusively so. You remember your social history, Eddie?’

  Eddie Mallon remembered. Jackie was usually disappo
inted when Celtic defeated their Southside rivals, Rangers. Eddie took the half-pint of lager Lou Perlman pushed along the bar towards him, and sipped. Perlman had a shandy, which he rapped cheerfully against Eddie’s glass, and said, ‘I’m a nut about Celtic, a passionate headcase – so what can I do? Some of these players on the walls are old heroes of mine. Charlie Tully, a right comedian on the wing, Willie Fernie, played like he had the ball attached to his boot with an invisible thread, Billy McNeill, tower of strength in defence … I’m boring you, right? I always bore people when I go on about Celtic.’

  Eddie said, ‘I liked the game when I was a kid.’

  ‘Ah, the game’s only a small part of it,’ Perlman said. ‘It’s the culture. It’s Glasgow. It runs in the blood of the city. Of course, you’ll find people who’ll try to tell you they’ve got no interest in the two teams. View such individuals as suspect, son. They may be aliens from beyond the city limits. You’ll find other people who take the game to extremes, and see it as a holy war. On one side is Ulster and the Union Flag and our beloved monarchy, on the other is the IRA. View these nutters with suspicion as well. They may be dangerous. And then some people will tell you we’ve moved on from all that shite, we’re liberated from old hatred … take that with a pinch of salt, Eddie. We’re impaled on the past like a pig on a spit.’

  Perlman stared at the various posters in silence for a time. He smiled. He had a good smile. It changed his face the way sudden sunlight transforms a dark room. His lower teeth were slightly misaligned and discoloured by tobacco. ‘So what’s an old Jew like me doing supporting Glasgow Celtic, you wonder? They’ve been the immigrant underdogs, and Rangers the establishment. So who’s a Jew with a liberal streak to support, eh?’

  ‘Not the Presbyterian establishment,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Got it,’ Perlman remarked.

  They carried their drinks across the bar to a table hidden in a corner behind the jukebox. A few drinkers, wearing team colours, stood at the bar and argued about an arcane footballing matter. Perlman removed his glasses and wiped them on the sleeve of his jacket. The knot in his wide gold tie was undone and his collar unbuttoned. ‘I’d rather talk football than crime any day of the week. Except crime pays my wages and football only fuels my passion … So crime it is. On the phone you said somebody attacked your sister.’

  Eddie described the break-in, the assault.

  ‘Your sister’s never seen this character before?’

  Eddie said, ‘No. And Senga had never heard of him either. Slim gleanings for you, huh?’

  Perlman held his glasses up to the light, then replaced them. The lenses were still smudged. ‘The next question is – what’s this situation between Tommy G and your late father? I assume you’ve asked yourself a few questions and come up with nothing.’

  ‘Less than nothing.’

  ‘No conclusions, no inspired guesses.’

  ‘None. I thought Roddy Haggs might be able to throw a little light –’

  ‘You talked to Haggs?’

  ‘Was that a faux pas?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you he was on my list?’

  ‘I didn’t think it could do any harm to see him. I hoped he might know what Jackie was up to, and maybe I could somehow hook that information to Tommy G –’

  Perlman said, ‘Let me tell you this. I’m the Force’s numero uno Haggs Watcher. When it comes to Roddy, I’m like a fucking encyclopedia. The main thing to remember about Haggs is he’s driven by a completely disgusting greed. He sees something he wants – slurp, out comes the tongue like a demented anteater, and the object of desire is digested. Roddy belches, and moves on to the next acquisition. If he believes your dad had something tasty, he’d want to suck that down too. Haggs is dangerous, Eddie. He’s got some unpleasant cronies.’

  ‘Are you saying I could be in trouble?’

  ‘I’d be lying if I denied it.’

  ‘I’ll look out for myself,’ Eddie said.

  ‘See that you do. Seriously.’ Perlman tore the filter off a cigarette. He lit the vandalized cigarette and regarded the filter with scorn. ‘I hate these sorry attachments. So you say Caskie phoned Tommy G’s name into Force HQ for a crime computer check?’

  ‘Right,’ Eddie said.

  ‘I’ll double-check, see what result came through.’ He coughed and swallowed some shandy.

  ‘Why? You think Caskie might just be going through the motions?’

  ‘There’s a whisper about good old Chris. I’ve been hearing it on the streets for donkey’s. It’s always been constant but quiet as a lullaby, and what it says is that Caskie’s very friendly with Haggs. This isn’t to accuse Caskie of anything illegal, don’t get me wrong. Cops and criminals, they’re in the same industry basically, so why shouldn’t they know one other? But with Caskie the talk has always suggested something more, like he’s maybe a wee bit too close to Haggs. People in Pitt Street have heard this gossip, but nobody’s ever done anything about it. Most cops would put it down to criminal malice. Some wanker out there wants to spread a bad word about a cop, undermine him. But this particular whisper has been unusually long-lived.’

  ‘Nobody ever looked into it?’

  ‘Eddie, the world is bursting at the seams with criminals and assorted louts. Who’s got time to probe a groundless rumour, eh?’

  Caskie and Haggs, Eddie thought. Friends. What kind of friendship was it? What sort of benefits could they derive from such an alliance? He imagined Caskie and Haggs meeting in dark places, heads close together, whispers. An exchange of information, favours flowing back and forth between them. Find out what Jackie Mallon is up to, Haggs says. You’ve got the inside track.

  Caskie, maggot in the apple, agrees.

  A kid approached the jukebox, spread his hands against it, studied the playlist. He dropped in a coin and pressed a couple of buttons and then swaggered back to the bar. The music was an Irish tune played by a folk band.

  ‘“Fields of Athenry”,’ Perlman said, and laid a hand on his heart. ‘My anthem.’ He listened to the music a moment before he leaned across the table and said, ‘Tay showed you the gun, I’m told.’

  ‘I saw it.’

  ‘Did he tell you where the gun was found?’

  ‘Bones’s flat.’

  ‘Did he say where exactly?’

  ‘Just the flat. That’s all I was told.’

  Perlman beckoned Eddie closer with his finger crooked. ‘It was wrapped inside a Tesco grocery bag and stuffed under the kitchen sink. The fucking sink.’

  ‘No way,’ Eddie said.

  Perlman said, ‘Does the word transparent come to mind?’

  Eddie said, ‘See-through. A man has a gun that was used in a murder and he wraps it in a grocery bag and sticks it under his sink, which must be the most blatantly obvious place in the history of crime for stashing anything.’

  Perlman said, ‘Too fucking easy to find.’ He blew smoke. ‘You can bet your mortgage Bones didn’t stash it there.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘There’s no other candidate but Bones, Eddie. That fact has come down from a very high place indeed. It’s the gospel. Tay wants it signed and sealed.’

  ‘What is it? Is Tay lazy? Is he too busy to dig any deeper?’

  Perlman crushed out his smoke. The cigarette paper burst and flakes of tobacco stuck to his fingers. He blew them away. ‘Laziness isn’t a factor, Eddie. Tay is at his desk dawn till dusk some days. His assistant Sandy Scullion also works all the hours sent by God, although he’s altogether a more pleasant human being than Cardinal Tay. But you know the shitty way it works. If the murder victim had been the Lord Mayor of Glasgow, you can bet your arse Tay would have been crawling all over the crime, witnesses and potential witnesses would have been hauled in on crowded charter buses.’

  ‘And Jackie was a nobody,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Not quite,’ Perlman said. ‘Jackie Mallon wasn’t the Marquis of Govan, right, but he had a criminal record, albeit small. Also he was suspected o
f various wrongdoings down the years. Theft of artworks. Masterminding a scheme to persuade some decrepit aristo in his dotage to part with precious pre-Revolutionary Russian coins. Stuff like that. None of it ever stuck to your dad, but it occupied police man-hours, it produced paperwork and more paperwork, and so Jackie Mallon was something of a fucking nuisance if you worked in Pitt Street.’

  ‘Now he’s not a nuisance.’

  ‘Score,’ Perlman said.

  ‘It sucks. It’s –’

  ‘Unacceptable? Unfair? Sure it is. It’s like the fucking National Health Service, Eddie. If you’re rich, and can go private, you’ll get good service. If you’re Untermenschen, you can wait a year or two for a hernia operation. Same with the law. If you’re a star, you’ll get star treatment. If you’re a small-time fucking pain-in-the-arse like Jackie Mallon, and. somebody shoots you – oy – you’re off the books. It’s the system, Eddie.’

  ‘And that’s what Jackie was, a small-time pain-in-the-arse?’

  Perlman said, ‘That’s what they tell me.’

  ‘Never big-time.’

  ‘Unless he changed horses lately.’ Perlman opened his cigarette packet and saw it was empty. He began to tear it in strips. ‘You want him to have been sweetness and light, eh?’

  ‘He’d never been that.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s say … worthy of love.’

  Eddie finished his drink. ‘That,’ he said.

  ‘Boys and their fathers,’ Perlman said. ‘Dear God, the complexity of it all. I’ll walk out with you.’

  They left the pub. Eddie looked at the darkening sky, then at Perlman who was smoking thoughtfully. ‘You married?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  Eddie detected nothing in the response, no regret, no sadness: it was a dry fact dryly uttered. ‘Any kids?’

  ‘Never had the time. I’m going home. What about you?’

  ‘I’ll stroll for a while,’ Eddie said.

  ‘I’ll be in touch. Mind how you go.’

  ‘I will.’

  Perlman turned and moved away.