‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She opened the car door and climbed in behind the wheel. ‘I’m sorry how things have turned out. Think about it this way. At least Tina has two people who care enough to battle for her. Think of Molly. How great would it be if someone actually wanted her and she didn’t have to spend the rest of her childhood in care?’ Vikki put the key in the ignition. ‘So, will I maybe see you at the party?’
‘I’m not on the guest list.’
‘Let me work on your dad,’ Vikki said. ‘I’ll talk him around. Don’t go too far away Saturday afternoon and keep your phone switched on.’
44
Vikki’s tail lights had no sooner rounded the corner and disappeared down the dark country road that meandered from my dad’s cottage in the general direction of Linlithgow, than Jake Turpie called. The eagle hadn’t so much landed as been snatched and bundled into the back of a Transit van.
Ten minutes later my own vehicle was trundling up a rough track to where Jake was waiting for me along with Tam, one of his regular workforce, a band of hard-living, hard-drinking men, whose names frequently graced the Sheriff Court’s rolls of business. Tam had been elevated to the post of Deek’s replacement. Something that Jake intended to be a temporary promotion. Personally, I thought it more likely to be a permanent appointment.
Between the two of them, legs stretched straight out in front, sitting on a car seat that had been ripped from some scrapped vehicle or other was what appeared to be a man, his head stuffed inside a grimy-yellow cloth bag secured by silver duct tape around his neck. The man’s arms were wrapped either side of the seat, his wrists locked together at the back by an electrical cable-tie.
Jake took me aside. ‘It’s the Eyetie. I’ve got him. I had Tam stake out the hospital and grab him. So, what’s the plan?’
‘The plan? What are you talking about? I don’t know what your plan is. My plan is not to get involved in crazy stuff like this. You can’t go about abducting folk off the street. You want us both to end up inside with Deek?’
As ever, Jake was having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t a law unto himself. ‘But this is him. This is the Tally that Deek speared. What was I supposed to do? Let him get away?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what you should have done. Let him get away and have Tam follow him, find out where he lives. That way we maybe could have built up some sort of a case. Until we’ve got more evidence, all we’ve got is Deek’s word for any of this. We’ve nothing to take to the cops. We can’t even give a reason why your man here would want to murder Daisy Adams.’
For Jake the motive was obvious. ‘Robbery gone wrong. We’ve all been there.’
‘No, we haven’t, Jake. And, anyway, what had Daisy Adams got that anyone would want to steal?’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ Jake said. He turned, walked up the wooden steps to the door of Turpie International Salvage Ltd and rattled his fist on it. From inside came loud snarls and fierce barking. I’d wondered where his scrapyard mutt was hiding.
At the sound, the man in the seat struggled from side to side, straining his arms in his efforts to break free. With all the diplomacy of a wrecking-ball, Jake clumped back down, marched over and booted the back of the car seat. The man’s thrashing around stopped. His breath came short and sharp, the cloth bag flattened to his face and then billowed out rapidly in quick succession.
‘Would you stop that?’ I had to shout at Jake to be heard over the racket his dog was making. ‘And take that thing off his face. How’s he supposed to talk if he can’t breathe?’
Jake sagged his shoulders and, head cocked, looked sideways at me as though I was some sort of molly-coddler.
‘And don’t kick him again,’ I said. If the man taped to the car seat was freshly discharged from hospital having sustained a punctured kidney, Jake’s prescription of repeated steelies to the lumber region was not the therapeutic aftercare his medical team would have prescribed.
Jake whipped a knife out from a boiler suit pocket and proceeded to cut the tape around the man’s neck. He ripped off the yellow bag to reveal a thin face, beneath a mop of curly dark hair all bunched up on top because of more silver tape wrapped around the man’s forehead and over his eyes. Free from the bag, the man sucked in huge lungfuls of air, turned his head to the side and spat.
I hunkered down. ‘Do you speak English?’
The man spat again. This time right in my face. I jumped to my feet, wiping the spit away.
‘You want to try it my way now?’ Jake asked.
With a face full of saliva, it was tempting to give Jake free rein. On the other hand, while I was all for preparing a successful defence for Deek Pudney, that did not extend to my being art and part in the torture of a potential witness. Instead, I took a couple of paces to where I thought I was safely out of spitting range, and asked again, ‘English. Do you speak English?’
‘English!’ Jake shouted at him, adopting the kind of approach exercised by Sheriff Brechin towards those immigrant-accused unfortunate enough to find themselves in his court. Surely everyone understood English if the words were spoken clearly and loudly enough. ‘Do you speak English!’
The man started to struggle again. I could sense Jake’s pent-up anger. Hoping fear might have assisted the man’s understanding of the language, I had another go. ‘Just tell us what we want to know and no one’s going to harm you.’
Nothing.
Jake climbed to his cabin again, opened the door and stood back. Like its owner, the dog wasn’t big, but compact and solid and every inch as evil. It took a cautious step onto the landing, looked at us all through pale eyes and trotted down the stairs, growling every step of the way.
‘Stay!’ Jake roared, once it had reached the bottom of the flight. The dog froze. Jake disappeared into the cabin for a moment and returned with an open tin of dog food. ‘Take his shirt off.’ Without question, his assistant went over and with much ripping and pinging of buttons, tore the shirt from the man in the car seat.
Jake tramped down the steps, dug a hand into the can of dog food and smeared it across the man’s bare chest. The terrified man’s head swung from side to side as he strained on the electrical tie that kept him secured to the car seat. Jake said nothing. No words were necessary. Jake had the gift of universal language. He was saying in his own way, ‘now would be a good time to remember that you speak English.’
A snap of his fingers and the dog was at Jake’s side. He took it by the scruff of the neck and brought the snarling snout level with the man’s ear.
‘You can’t do this!’ I shouted.
Slitty-eyes fixed on the man in the car seat, Jake pushed the dog’s face closer to the man’s. ‘You said we need him to tell us why that Daisy Adams woman was killed. He’s going to tell us.’ Jake let go of the dog’s neck. It stood there, shivering in anticipation. Waiting for its master’s voice. ‘Trust me. If he knows anything, he’s going to want to tell us it in about ten seconds. Nine, eight . . . ’
The man might not speak English, but he knew a countdown when he heard one. By the count of five his struggles were so violent that the car seat toppled sideways.
Jake paused at three. His assistant righted the seat.
‘Two . . . ’
I jumped in between prisoner and dog. ‘I’m warning you, Jake. I’m not letting this happen.’
Jake, all clenched teeth and fists, begged to differ.
‘Whoah! Look at this!,’ Tam yelled, and rubbed away some of the dog food to reveal a tattoo situated directly over the man’s heart: a navy-blue, two-headed eagle.
A snap of Jake’s fingers sent the dog back up the stairs and into the cabin. He shuffled forward and bent over for a closer look. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a gang tattoo,’ Tam said. ‘I was dubbed up with one of these guys when I was in Spanish jail. He’s mafia. He’ll never talk and if his mob find out we’ve got him, they’ll kill the lot of us.’
‘That’s tha
t then,’ Jake said. He kicked a lever at the side of the chair and it reclined. Quickly. Jake was on him in an instant, sitting astride the man’s chest, hammering in blow after blow. I grabbed hold of Jake and wrenched him back by the shoulders. ‘Stop! You’re going to kill him.’
Jake climbed off the man to confront me. ‘What do you want me to do? Call him a taxi?’ He pointed down at the man in the car seat who was now blowing bloody bubbles from a deformed nose. ‘If we let him go what do you think he’s going to do?’
Jake drew back a steel toe-capped boot. I shoved him, knocking him off balance. He spun around, face bright red, the deep furrows in his brow livid-white. Tam rushed forward as though his boss might need assistance. I squared up to the two of them. ‘Would you listen to me? We need him alive. So what, he’s got a tattoo? Big deal. He doesn’t know who we are. How can he? His head’s been in a bag for the last two hours. He doesn’t know who we are or where he is. Thanks to you and Tam, we’re in a dodgy situation already. Let’s not make things any worse.’
‘Oh, yeah? What do you suggest smart-arse?’ Jake replied in response to the outlandish notion that we didn’t beat the prisoner to death.
‘What I suggest,’ I said, ‘is that we do this my way.’
‘And that would be?’
‘Have you any write-offs that are still driveable?’
Jake jerked a thumb at a row of bashed cars on the far side of the yard.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Put our friend in one and let’s take him for a drive.’
45
‘It’s called stalking,’ Hugh Ogilvie said, not looking around as I slipped into the queue behind him. ‘They’ve brought in a whole new law about it. Section 39 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act Two thousand and something. You should read it sometime.’
‘It’s hardly stalking, Hugh. I like coffee, you like coffee. Why wouldn’t we bump into each other now and again?’
‘Two days in a row?’
‘Purely coincidental. Mine’s an Americano, by the way.’
Mine wasn’t to be an Americano. At least not an Americano paid for by the Crown. If I’d stayed to buy my own, Ogilvie would have been off and safely behind the door of his office before I’d had a chance to count my change so, coffeeless, I tailed him out of the shop and along the mall walkway.
‘I heard you’ve caught the man who stole one of my client’s cars last night,’ I said. ‘They tell me he’s Italian. Drink-driver, was he? What else have you got him on? Careless or dangerous, obviously. Did he stop at the scene?’
‘Oh, he stopped all right,’ Ogilvie said, as he came to the exit, lemon and poppy-seed muffin in one hand, cardboard cup of coffee in the other. He allowed me to pull open the big glass door for him. ‘He was stopped right up against a wall the other side of a bus shelter.’
‘Seat belt?’
‘Doesn’t seem like it, He’s bashed-up and spent the night in hospital.’
‘Thought as much, no seat belt. That’s section fourteen. Drink-driving and dangerous driving, Sections 5 and 2. He won’t have had insurance, 143. Stolen car? Has to be a 178 at least. What about a licence?’ Ogilvie didn’t reply, just speeded up his walk. ‘There you are then. Lob in a Section 87 and that’s bound to be the best RTA bingo card the Fiscal’s office has had in a long time.’
Ogilvie stopped walking, turned and faced me. ‘What do you want?’
‘Yesterday you tell me that the man my client is supposed to have killed—’
‘Murdered.’
‘Okay, the man my client is supposed to have murdered – was Italian. Now you’ve got another Italian stealing cars and crashing into bus stops.’
‘So?’
‘So, I want to know who he is and, as you told me yesterday, you’ve got the Interpol connections to find out. While you’re at it, you might want to check his DNA with the prongs of a garden fork Scene of Crime bagged and tagged up at Sunnybrae Farm.’
Ogilvie looked from me to his coffee, weighing up whether continuing the conversation was worth the risk of a cold cappuccino. Apparently it wasn’t.
And while you’re at it, check for any tattoos that might link him to an organised crime gang.’
‘How do you know about that?’
Had I struck a nerve? It was worth a gamble just to see Ogilvie’s reaction. ‘The dead guy at Sunnybrae Farm. He had a tattoo, didn’t he?’
Ogilvie pushed the cake into his pocket, pulled the lid off his coffee cup and had a sip. The foam stuck to his top lip. His silence was enough of an answer.
‘It’s nothing that wouldn’t have been disclosed to me by the Crown, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘In the fullness of time.’
‘Joanna Jordan,’ he said.
‘What about her?’
‘It’s her, isn’t it? She’s getting inside information from her old pals in my office.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s definitely not. I haven’t even seen her today.’
‘Then how do you know about the Italian?’
‘I have my sources.’
Ogilvie grunted, drank some more coffee.
‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ I said.
‘No.’ He replaced the lid on his cup. ‘But I have this horrible feeling you’re going to tell me.’
‘It was a hit. The mob didn’t turn up at Daisy Adams’ back door to ask if she needed a spot of weeding done.’
Ogilvie slapped his broad forehead with the hand not holding the coffee. ‘Of course not. How stupid of me not to have realised this all along. The mafia had a contract out on Daisy the farmer. Seriously, Robbie, I liked your alibi defence better.’
‘The alibi was just a misunderstanding. A mix-up over dates.’
‘No, it wasn’t. It was a lie. An attempt to pervert the course of justice.’
‘Hugh, could you try and focus on what’s important? And I don’t mean your coffee and bun. Can’t you see? The day Deek Pudney went to the farm he was there on legitimate business and found himself in a situation where he had to defend himself.’
‘He’s an enforcer. He’s an employee of Jake Turpie and he was there to collect a debt for his boss.’
‘And what would be the point of killing the debtor? How does Jake get paid then? Ask the person to leave the money in their will?’
‘Killing non-payers sends a message to anyone else who thinks they might fall behind with instalments.’ Ogilvie pulled the lid off his coffee again, had another mouthful. ‘For all we know, the Italians were in on it with Pudney and they fell out over money or something.’
‘Would you listen to yourself, Hugh? Deek Pudney doesn’t need to take two gangsters with him to put the squeeze on a woman about late car payments. He was there on business, was attacked in the process and killed one of the people who’d murdered Daisy Adams. Summary justice, it saves you all the hassle of a trial and no expensive jail time either. I thought you’d appreciate it. You should be striking a medal, not prosecuting him.’
The PF wiped froth from his face. ‘Oh, so he’s a hero?’
‘He might have been if he’d arrived earlier. It’s just unfortunate he arrived too late to save Daisy.’
Ogilvie pressed the plastic lid back onto his coffee cup. ‘I’ll look forward to you leading that defence at trial. The jury should find it quite amusing. Especially considering that we don’t know if this other Italian was even there.’
‘Not yet we don’t,’ I said, ‘but check the fork.’
46
‘Option three?’ Barry Munn pursed his lips and blew, scratching the back of his head like a builder who’s just been asked to knock down a supporting wall. ‘Tricky.’
I thought that while I was in Livingston I might as well drop in on my family lawyer and make sure he was giving my custody case the urgent attention it deserved. With superb timing I’d walked into his office just as he was showing a client out and he’d agreed to give me ten minutes of his precious time over lunch. He’d already poured it.
/> ‘I know it’s not going to be easy, I just want to know what I’ve got to do to win?’
‘These lunchtime visits are becoming something of a habit,’ he said, ‘and we’ve been over it all before. I still think you should go for option two. Regular contact, but with Mrs Reynolds having full residence. Even that’s not certain to be agreed, but, if it is, you’ll have the best of both worlds. You remain footloose and fancy-free and still see your daughter. Think of it. No homework, night-time toothache, laundry, no nagging her about what she’s wearing, her choice of friends, no “what time do you call this to be coming in at?” None of that stuff. You’re the guy who turns up at the weekend, takes Tina off to do something nice before returning her. It’s like being a grandparent, but in reverse. Perfect for the single man.’
‘Barry, listen to me. I want to be there for Tina when she’s growing up. I want to help with her homework, nurse her toothache—’
‘Do the laundry, ironing?’
‘Girls get the hang of that sort of thing pretty quickly, don’t they?’
Barry shook his head. ‘You asked for ten minutes and if you wore a watch you’d know you’ve had half of them.’ He took a restorative slug of wine. ‘If you really want to go all out for custody then you either need to talk Mrs Reynolds around . . . ’ that wasn’t happening in a hurry, ‘or have Vikki Stark write you the child welfare report of a lifetime. How are things between the two of you anyway?’
‘Fine, and I mean that both professionally and extremely platonically. I saw her last night at my dad’s. They’re gearing up for the big party.’
‘Why is Vikki arranging your dad’s party?’
‘It’s not for my dad. It’s for Tina’s friend Molly. You know, Daisy Adams’ daughter.’
Barry scowled. ‘What’s Vikki been saying about me?’ He stood up, walked over to his window and looked out.
‘Nothing.’ I thought I’d leave it at that. Whatever his problems with Vikki, I didn’t want to know. I had enough of my own. ‘Right, I’ll be off then. I’ll catch up with Vikki, turn up the Robbie Munro charm full blast and talk her into a stoater of a report.’
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