The Bad Fire

by Campbell Armstrong

  Eddie thought, Charles McWhinnie in a nutshell: no sense of self-worth, needs to be valued, praised now and then. ‘Somebody thought the job was important, Charlie. Who?’

  McWhinnie swivelled his jaw from side to side. It made a clicking sound. ‘I’m no Judas, Mallon.’

  ‘I haven’t heard the clink of thirty pieces of silver, Charlie.’

  McWhinnie said, ‘It’s not only following you that depresses me, Mallon. It’s not just that …’

  Eddie waited. He understood he couldn’t force McWhinnie to talk. He couldn’t threaten him. He’d spent his violence. Anyway, what good would it do? McWhinnie would say what he had to in his own time.

  More couples entered the hotel dressed for a formal dance. Women with crisp hairdos and long dresses, men in evening wear. It’s too hot to dance, Eddie thought. Jackie and Flora in Largs, had it been too hot for them to dance, or had they held each other close and sashayed across the floor of their hotel? A fast foxtrot, a whirl, Jackie’s delicate feet barely touching the floor and Flora desperately in love.

  Why did he keep coming back to that honeymoon, like a man returning to the origin of a myth he’d never understood? An effect of pain, confused signals rushing this way and that through his head, messages coming in from unusual sources tapped out in a neural Morse he’d never heard before. He hurt. It was as if a ghostly figure, with no training in the healing arts of the Orient, was sticking acupuncture needles into his ribs in all the wrong places.

  Oh boy. He needed painkillers, strong ones. Darvon. Percodan. Soon you can lie down and stretch out on the sofa in Joyce’s flat. She’s wondering where I am. The brother who goes missing. Sometimes for years in a faraway continent.

  McWhinnie said, ‘I’d like to step out of this car with the feeling that I haven’t betrayed anyone, Mallon. I’d like to unload some of the dung I’m choking on, but at the same time I don’t want to feel that I’ve regurgitated it in such a way that I’ll have long sleepless nights bedevilled by questions of loyalty. Is that clear?’

  ‘There’s stuff you can’t tell me, I understand that.’

  ‘No. Stuff I won’t tell you. I have a conscience like a sack of coal, Mallon. I’ll set it down for a moment … Here’s a shock to your system: Bones, alleged killer, was under police protection.’

  Bones: the name fished out of the air. ‘Protection? I don’t follow that.’

  ‘He was ensconced in a flat in Govan for his own safety after the killing.’

  ‘Safety from what?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt me. This is hard enough. The flat, I assume, is used from time to time as a kind of secure house. It’s a dump, a place people pass through. Witnesses, say. Informants. I bought groceries for Bones. I delivered them to the flat. I told him to stay there and I left. He was a reprehensible little shite with bad teeth. I didn’t ask myself why we were being hospitable to him. Probably I just assumed it had something to do with the murder of your father, and maybe Bones needed protection in case the killer was looking for him too. I just did the job.’

  ‘And?’

  McWhinnie said, ‘This job also involved paying off certain debts Bones had incurred with questionable bookmakers throughout the city. It was over two thousand pounds, it doesn’t matter the exact sum. I gave the markers to Bones. I wasn’t sure why we were buying him in such a blatant way – except perhaps to keep him cheerful while we interviewed him in connection with your father’s murder. That’s what went through my mind, I suppose. We were oiling a potential witness. We were bribing him, after a fashion …’ McWhinnie tried another smile but the side of his face had swollen up, as if he had a crab-apple stuffed in his cheek. The smile looked like a gash. ‘Some time that day, Bones disappeared. I went in the evening to the flat to check on him, and he’d gone. Where and why? I don’t know. Did he leave under his own steam or did somebody come for him? Again, I don’t know. But that’s only a part of the conundrum, Mallon … Answer this. Why was he stuck inside a safe house when he should have been taken to Force HQ for questioning immediately after the murder? Why were we being so cooperative to a man who’s suddenly become the major suspect in the killing?’

  ‘He wasn’t a suspect immediately,’ Eddie said.

  McWhinnie said, ‘He should have been, Mallon. That’s my real point. Why wasn’t he in your father’s car when Jackie left Blackfriars pub? Where was he when somebody was shooting your dad? And then what – did he walk around for a while before he returned to the car and saw cops everywhere? You see, he should have been taken in and questioned hard as soon as he reappeared. Instead, he gets the soft-shoe treatment. Safe house. Gambling debts paid. Groceries. Scotch. He was given preferential treatment – why?’

  ‘Where was he apprehended?’ Eddie asked.

  McWhinnie said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve talked enough. I draw a line here.’

  ‘Did he go back to the car and somebody took him into custody? Did he walk into a local station and say here I am? Did he meet somebody by prearrangement? Who took him to the safe house in the first place? Whose idea was that? There must have been some short preliminary interview at the very least before he was given sanctuary. There has to be a written record somewhere.’

  McWhinnie smiled. ‘Oh really? A written record, you say? I used to be a big believer in written records. Now? Who knows? I’ve nothing else to say. I’m in pain and it’s getting harder all the time to speak.’ He opened the passenger door, and stepped out. ‘Keep the car. Use it. I feel like drinking. Medicinal reasons. Sorry about the punch-up, it’s not really my style, far too uncivilized, if you knew me better you’d realize that, and you’d know how sick to my soul I’ve become,’ and he turned and walked stiffly towards the hotel.

  Eddie got out of the car and called to him. ‘You haven’t told me who issued the order to have me followed.’

  ‘Right, I haven’t,’ McWhinnie answered, without turning to look.

  ‘A name,’ Eddie said.

  McWhinnie kept moving. ‘Not from these lips.’

  ‘McWhinnie, wait,’ Eddie shouted. ‘Who gave you the cash to pay off the gambling debts?’

  McWhinnie stopped and looked back. ‘This is all I’ll say. You know him.’

  It had to be somebody inside the Force. Somebody who could pull strings, play power games. ‘I know him … Is it Caskie?’

  McWhinnie turned away, kept moving. He pushed the door and stepped inside the Hilton and Eddie saw the glass swing back in place in a quick little disturbance of distended light. He thought of going after McWhinnie, but he knew McWhinnie had nothing more he was prepared to say. Eddie didn’t get back in the car. No way was he driving to his sister’s place. Wrong side of the street, one-way systems, few recognizable landmarks. He was dragging ass now, and the night was closing down on him.

  Outside the hotel he found a taxi to take him to Dennistoun. He sat in the back and he thought of what McWhinnie had said, and how he’d make sense of it.

  33

  On the phone, Billy McQueen told the nurse he couldn’t come to see his father. It was inconvenient, he had business meetings, he plucked excuses out of the air. The call-girl, Leila, was dead asleep on the floor. She’d passed out here a dozen times.

  Thelma said, ‘Look here. He’s your father. Your dad. He was wandering around in his pyjamas in the street. In the street, mind you. That’s serious. God knows what the neighbours are thinking. I’ve given him something to help him relax, but he’s going on about a TV delivery and somebody called Giovanni and I can’t follow him. I strongly suggest you make an appearance, because if you don’t, well, I can’t be responsible if he decides to go walkabout again. I do have other patients, Mr McQueen.’

  Billy McQueen thought: I have had better days.

  The deal is fucked.

  Gurk gets maced.

  And now Larry is wandering the streets in his pyjamas. Plus this Giovanni – who the hell was he?

  He said, ‘It’s difficult for me, Thelma. I’m up to my neck.’


  ‘Neck? You’ll be in over your head if you don’t get here, because I’ll phone Social Services and tell them your father needs to be hospitalized for his own safety –’

  ‘Thelma, I pay you to deal with all this –’

  ‘I have other patients, Mr McQueen. I’m already late for a Parkinson’s in Bearsden.’

  ‘Right, right, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  ‘It better be quick,’ she said.

  Billy put down the handset. Fuck you, Thelma, he thought. He limped to the window and looked out. Darkness and orange lamps. I don’t want to go out there. I don’t fancy the streets tonight. Climbing in a taxi, take me to Hyndland, no way José. Bloody Larry in his pyjamas.

  Leila turned over in her drugged sleep and muttered, ‘On an ocean liner sure.’ Night trips, Billy thought. Seagoing escapes under cover of darkness. He wished he was inside Leila’s dream and the big propellers of a ship were churning. Destination Tahiti, oh aye.

  He picked up the cordless, punched in the number of Gurk’s hotel room.

  ‘Yeah?’ Gurk said.

  ‘I was wondering … are you all right?’

  ‘Rinsed my eyes out a few times with Evian,’ Gurk said. ‘Sight has been restored. Lamps working, happy to say.’

  ‘Glad to hear that … Look, I was curious to know if you wanted to step out, have a bite to eat, a drink, something? I know a nice place in the West End.’

  ‘Kind of you. Have to decline, sorry.’

  It’s not your company I want, Billy thought. It’s the safety of your presence. Be my bodyguard, please. ‘It won’t take long, Tommy. Half an hour mibbe. I’ll send a car down for you.’

  ‘No can do, me old son. I been talking with some of my people. Options are being discussed. People are openly worried. Money is out there, to say nothing of vanished articles. Makes me wonder about other dimensions, Billy. Can things disappear into alternative realities? Are there diversions along the everyday continuum? Anyway, I’m stuck here waiting for the sodding dog to ring again.’

  Billy said, ‘But –’

  ‘Tell you what. Gimme a bell later.’ Gurk hung up.

  Billy phoned the number in Hyndland. Thelma answered on the first ring. ‘I hope to hear you say you’re on your way, Mr McQueen.’

  ‘Even as we speak,’ Billy said.

  ‘Your dad’s ranting.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ Billy said.

  I should have stuck him in a home. He’s dead weight, he’s lumber I have to carry on my back, he’s my cross. All I wanted was his affection. You’ve worked at that, and you’re still not getting it, Billy. He put on an expensive black silk shirt, then black trousers and shoes. Camouflage. Creature of the night. He covered Leila with a cotton sheet then phoned his usual cab company for a taxi.

  While he waited, he thought about Gurk’s dark-red eyes. Beyond bloodshot. Like Halloween contact lenses, the colour of terror. He remembered how Gurk had come stumbling out of the tenement in Ingleby Drive after his visit to Joyce Mallon.

  Why hadn’t he tried harder to persuade Gurk to keep him company? The Dreadlocked One was obstinate. He made up his mind and that was that. Phone calls, associates, outstanding debts, a transaction gone all to hell: the pressures were stacking up. Gurk managed to escape into meditation and fanciful questions about diversions along some continuum.

  Billy’s questions were less esoteric but just as mysterious, such as: who shot Jackie Mallon and why did this sweet deal go all wrong? Sometimes the stars were light-years out of joint.

  He sweated. His stump chafed against his prosthesis. He needed a splash of industrial-strength moisturizer. Go to Hyndland, appease Larry, stuff him with more medication. Why can’t I just wash my hands of you, Larry, you bitter old sod?

  His buzzer sounded. He pressed the button on the wall.

  ‘Taxi, Mr McQueen.’

  ‘Is that you, Alec?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a flash.’ Alec McGroaty. One of his regular drivers. He didn’t want strangers. He turned the lights off, left his penthouse, descended in the lift where the mirrored interior reflected a multitude of Billy McQueens dwindling to infinity. I feel that tiny, he thought. A dot in a frozen eternity of silvered glass.

  He entered the foyer, nodded at the night security man, Cutcheon, who’d once been a professional wrestler. He looked hard and bulky in his black suit. Alec McGroaty was standing at Cutcheon’s desk. A small man in a fawn cardigan and baggy tartan trousers such as a golfer might wear, McGroaty had a deferential manner.

  ‘Hot outside, Mr McQueen,’ Cutcheon said.

  ‘Aye, it’s like the Costa del Sol,’ McGroaty remarked.

  McQueen didn’t feel like small talk. He followed McGroaty outside to the taxi. He climbed into the back.

  ‘Novar Drive,’ he said.

  McGroaty said, ‘On our way.’

  McQueen observed the streets. He had the feeling he was travelling through the veins of the city. At Charing Cross he saw the lights of the Mansions Café & Bar. Fun. Life as average people live it. He had the urge to instruct McGroaty to drop him off at the café where he could lose himself in the throng, have a couple of drinks, loosen up. Then he thought of Larry in his pyjamas.

  Out west now, over the River Kelvin and buzzing along Dumbarton Road and then up into the dark red sandstone maze of Hyndland where Billy eyed the well-maintained tenements, the ornate cornices and rosettes and high ceilings you could see in rooms where curtains hadn’t been drawn. Comfortable lives. He longed to scratch his stump which had begun to itch seriously. He felt fevered.

  Somebody will be watching the house. It’s a dead certainty.

  He leaned forward to the driver. ‘Alec, go round the block.’

  ‘Awright,’ McGroaty said.

  The cab completed a circle of the building. Billy McQueen glanced up at the windows of his flat. The light was on in his father’s room. The other windows were dark.

  ‘Go round again,’ Billy McQueen said.

  McGroaty drove round the block a second time. Then he parked outside the entrance to the tenement McQueen would have to enter sooner or later. Billy peered from the cab at the security door. No sign of anyone loitering. But how could you tell if it was safe beyond the security door? How could you know there wasn’t an intruder waiting for you? And even if the close was empty, there were about a million cars parked along the street and a dark figure could be sitting in any of them, just biding his time until you got out of the cab.

  Billy, Billy, this is no kind of life. He said, ‘Alec. Do me a favour.’

  ‘If I can, Mr McQueen.’

  ‘See if it’s all clear.’

  McGroaty turned and looked back at his passenger. ‘Eh, how do you mean all clear?’

  ‘Go inside the building, see if there’s anybody loitering.’

  McGroaty said. ‘Is there the possibility of danger here, Mr McQueen?’

  ‘There’s somebody I don’t want to see.’

  ‘Aye, but is there danger? Do I have a guarantee of my personal safety?’

  ‘I’ll make your tip excessive,’ McQueen said.

  ‘You’re scared, right? And you want me to test the waters for you?’

  ‘Scared? Not at all. Just a precaution, Alec.’

  McGroaty appeared to consider this. ‘How much of a tip are you talking?’

  ‘Fifty.’

  ‘Could you make it an even hundred? I’ve got a kid –’

  ‘– at Eton, and the fees are high?’

  McGroaty laughed. ‘Aye, they’re extortionate.’

  McQueen said, ‘A hundred then.’

  ‘I’m to make sure nobody’s loitering in the building, zat all?’

  ‘Exactly. Here’s the key to the outside door.’ McQueen handed McGroaty a key-ring. ‘The big brass one opens the security door. Just go inside, see if anybody’s hanging around, then come back and tell me. Got it?’

  McGroaty said, ‘Got it.’

  Mc
Groaty left the engine running. McQueen watched him walk up the path to the security door. McGroaty unlocked it, entered the building. The door swung shut behind him. Billy thought, I’m having a bad moment. I’m cut off from my lines of communication.

  A man materialized in the driver’s seat. A black shape.

  Billy banged a fist on the glass partition that separated him from the driver. ‘Hey, you, what the fuck? This is McGroaty’s taxi.’

  The man said, ‘Just a wee detour, Billyboy.’

  The cab moved slowly forward.

  His heart scampering like a hot greyhound sprung from a trap, Billy reached for the door handle. I’ll step out, I’ll get away, I can do it, gammy leg or not. The door to his right opened and a girl jumped in beside him. She was big and wore black gloves with spiked attachments on the knuckles, and under the muted glow of a streetlamp Billy saw that her face was battle-hard and unforgiving and that her mouth was set in an expression of vicious determination.

  ‘What the hell’s this?’ Billy shouted.

  ‘Shut your fucking gob.’ The girl slammed him in the mouth with one of her spiked gloves.

  Billy felt brutalized, his face lanced with buckshot.

  ‘Not another word out of you,’ the girl said. ‘Unless I say so.’

  ‘Right,’ Billy mumbled.

  ‘That was a word, diddy,’ and she backhanded him hard, and he felt the taxi turn upside down like a carnival ride that was making him ill.

  34

  Eddie let himself into Joyce’s darkened flat. He switched on lights, calling his sister’s name. No answer. He remembered she said she was going to see Senga. She was probably still there. Inside the bathroom he rummaged through the medicine cabinet and found Solpadeine capsules. He read the ingredients on the side of the box. Codeine, far out. He swallowed a couple of caps then walked into the living room, sat down on the sofa and massaged his face. He was motionless for a long time, weary. He had to stay alert to call Claire.

  He thought about time differences, then his mind wandered to sequences of time lost – such as the period between Bones’s disappearance from Jackie’s parked car and his sanctuary in the safe house. Okay, Lieutenant, what have we got?