‘Dad!’
‘Then your granny called me up and said that she was looking for someone to keep you under control for a couple of hours so I said I’d love to. Just for a couple of hours though, I’ll go back to work in the afternoon. How are you feeling now?’
Trying to change the subject, move her away from talking about work. She said she was feeling a little better and left it at that. She didn’t much like me moving the subject along without her permission. She knew what I was doing.
‘How’s the photography coming along?’ I asked her. I’d gotten her a digital camera for Christmas; it had become her new obsession. Taking photos and then messing around with them on the computer at home. Her grandparents insisted the computer be in the living room where they could see what she was up to. She threw a wobbly about that; I put my foot down. One of those occasions where I could be the bad guy because they had to live with her all day and I only had her at weekends. No way was I letting her have a computer in her room, not at her age. Not after some of the stories I’d heard.
‘It’s going okay. I got some good shots last week.’
‘You should email them to me.’
‘I will,’ she said, glad that I was showing an interest but trying to hide it because she wanted to seem terribly cool.
The phone rang. I got up and went out to the hall with it. Another number that I didn’t recognize. All these calls from strangers, never anything but bad news.
‘Hello, Nate. This is Paul Greig.’
Let me tell you something about Paul Greig. He used to be PC Paul Greig. He was so fucking bent that even the crooks he was working for couldn’t trust him. One of the most unreliable pieces of shit that ever woke up in this city. A skinny little guy, scar down his face, always looking for a way to make a quick buck. He got caught though. Got rumbled during the fallout from Jamieson’s arrest, booted out of the police. They should have prosecuted him but they didn’t want the bad publicity. Made it seem like he hadn’t done anything illegal, made it seem like he was departing the service on good terms. That was bullshit. They knew he was more a criminal than most of us.
‘What do you want?’
‘I have a business proposition. I have information that you will want to pay good money for.’
This was what he was up to now. Selling info, working as a middleman, as much a criminal as when he had a uniform on. ‘You think I’m going to trust anything you give me? You think I’m going to put money in your pocket?’ I was keeping my voice down. Becky was in the next room. I could hear the music from the TV, hoping it covered my voice.
‘I’m a man with information that you need.’
‘No, that’s what you think you are; that doesn’t mean you think right.’
‘I don’t want to get into an argument with you here, Nate.’
‘I doubt that you do.’
‘Let me tell you a little bit of it, just to whet your appetite. You can decide if it’s something you’re interested in.’
‘So, tell me.’
‘I have information that could very well lead to you finding Adrian Barrett. That’s what you’re working on, right? Trying to find Barrett. The whole city knows it. I can tell you someone who’s been working with him. It’s . . . interesting. We’ll meet, you pay me, I give you the info.’
‘How much?’
‘Five hundred. Come along to Alessandro’s in the town. You know it?’
‘I do.’
‘Three o’clock.’
He hung up. I went back into the living room; Becky was just sitting down on the couch when I did. Now, she could have been anywhere before she was sitting down again, but I was sure she’d been listening at the door. I was too busy trying to remember my side of the conversation to tell her off. Trying to remember if I’d said anything incriminating. She didn’t ask who had been on the phone.
We passed the next twenty minutes with less conversation than before. She could see that I was in a bit of a mood about something. I didn’t want to say anything in case my bad mood crept out into the room and spoiled things. Whatever shite Greig was going to throw at me, it certainly wasn’t Becky’s fault.
By the time Gordon and Mary came back to pick her up, I had calmed right down. I was goofing around with her, joking about the music and the music videos. Telling her it was no wonder she was sick, that rubbish made me sick as well. When I was her age I was into wrestling, which I tried to persuade her was a noble entertainment experience. This got more laughs. She was in good spirits by the time she left.
‘I’ll see you at the weekend,’ I told her, kissing the top of her head as she left. I meant it, at the time, but I had no idea what kind of weekend was waiting for me.
16
The first thing I needed was five hundred quid. This wasn’t a charitable effort so I wasn’t going to spend my own money. Having a fund ready for people like me to dip into should have been done at the start, and as far as I was aware it hadn’t been done yet. There were a minimum of four of us working on this: me, Ronnie, Conn and Mikey. That was four guys motoring around the city, looking for trouble. There were costs to that, and nobody had done anything to cover them.
I went round to Currie’s warehouse, knowing he’d be there. He was a creature of habit, happy to be reachable, always presenting himself as a man with nothing to hide. That was going to change. The more influence within the organization he had, the more he had to lose. Wouldn’t be long before he started to mix up the routine, make himself a little bit harder to find.
Biggest reason I was concerned about going there was because there was a chance of bumping into Kelly. She worked out of the warehouse in Hillington, making sure the dodgy goods that passed through the place went to the right people. A time might come when I was willing to think about a relationship with her, but this wasn’t it. That time would be a time of peace.
I pulled into the yard, made sure I parked out of the way. The warehouse was busy, always packed with stuff. This was Kevin’s kingdom, where he ruled with dazzling brilliance. There was nobody in the city who got more gear shifted in and out without detection than him. Any kind of knock-off you wanted, he had it. That took a lot of skill, a lot of organization. There were people who underestimated Kevin. He was pleasant and cheerful and he didn’t get involved in much violent stuff so they thought he was a bit soft. You don’t run a business like Kevin’s if you’re soft.
I didn’t see her as I went in, walked through the warehouse and into the office at the back. Kevin was in there alone, sheets of loose paper in front of him. The thought of what mathematical gymnastics he had to perform to keep all his deals looking presentable hurt my brain.
‘Nate, what’s up? You’re looking serious.’
I think that might have been a joke at the expense of my always serious demeanour, but I’m not sure. ‘We have a very minor issue we need to resolve quickly,’ I told him. ‘I need money for something, buying info. Five hundred quid. We should have a pot for stuff like that and we don’t.’
‘Damn it, of course. Should have had that from day one, shouldn’t we? Right, I can sort that out right away. Don’t you worry about it.’ He pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out a large wad of cash. There must have been a couple of grand there. He counted off five hundred, talking as he did. ‘Would have had this set up much earlier if we’d been handling it for ourselves. With this being one of Lafferty’s men, I don’t know, I suppose we were waiting for each other to sort out the details like this. Here, that’s five hundred. You want an envelope for it?’
‘Please.’
He pulled a white envelope from the middle drawer and put the money into it. ‘From now on, if you need any cash for anything at all, get in touch with Ben. I’ll make sure he has a fund, so there’ll always be some cash there. Within reason, of course,’ he said with a smile, handing me the envelope. Ben was Ben Carmichael, his right-hand man. ‘This info we’re buying?’
‘Has potential. I’ll wait and see
though. Could lead us to Barrett in the best-case scenario. Not a source I’m willing to trust just yet,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders.
Kevin didn’t need any more detail than that. Not yet. The only thing that was necessary for him to know was that I was buying info and he was paying. If there was anything to update him with later on I would. Better for him to know as little as possible at that point; you never know what you’ll later need to deny.
As I was driving out of the warehouse I saw her. She was in her car, coming back from somewhere. We passed on the road, Kelly waved to me and I raised a hand. I didn’t want to encourage her, not too much. We had met in ugly circumstances and that would always hang over us. My work was dangerous, and would be dangerous for her if she got too close. I kept saying that to myself, trying to persuade myself.
The traffic wasn’t too bad on the way in but it took me a while to find somewhere to park. I was a few minutes late going into the cafe, a nice enough place if you like that sort of thing. There were plenty of people around, and that was deliberate. Paul Greig didn’t want to meet me in private. He needed the security that a room full of witnesses brought. Didn’t have his uniform to hide behind any more. He was at a table close to the door, an oversized cup in front of him. The tables were low, the chairs were large, cushioned things with arms on them. I guess it was supposed to feel like twenty people had just turned up in your living room. I dropped my weight into a chair and looked the skinny bastard in the eye.
‘You have the money?’
‘You have the info?’
‘I know how to find Adrian Barrett. I know someone he’s been working with in the city. This person will know where he is, although you might have to persuade him to tell you.’
‘Fine,’ I said.
Persuading people to tell me things was a big part of my job description. I reached into my pocket and came out with the envelope. Looked like a thin little thing, too thin to buy anything of value. I passed it across the table to Greig and he slipped it into his pocket without bothering to look inside. Maybe he trusted me to give him the right amount; more likely he didn’t want me seeing his mistrust. Also didn’t want any of his helpful witnesses seeing the envelope and wondering what was inside. Sort of thing nosy people remember. Once the envelope was out of sight, done subtly by both of us because we’ve both done this sort of thing before, it was time for some information to change hands.
‘Remember when I tell you this that I’m just the messenger and that I have nothing to gain from telling you something that isn’t true,’ he said. Being dramatic.
‘Get on with it.’
‘Barrett’s right-hand man is a guy called Elliott Parker. He was in the city before Barrett, I think. If my information’s correct then Barrett only turned up in the last couple of weeks and Parker’s been here longer than that, setting things up. One thing they needed was a girl. A lure, among other things. Now I didn’t know about this at the time, wish I had; would have taken the info to you sooner, or to Lafferty anyway. I heard they got the girl from Adam Jones, manager of Heavenly. You know Heavenly?’
‘Know of it.’
‘Well, the manager there, twin brother to your friend Marty, keeps women on his books for the little parties he throws and he handed one over to Parker. They had some sort of arrangement, some sort of deal that paid Jones good money. He handed over the girl and this morning I found out that she was seen leaving Heavenly with Lee Christie on her arm the night before he was killed.’
‘This info is rock solid?’
‘As close to guaranteed as any info you’re ever going to get. I know the girl was working for Parker, whether she wanted to or not. Young local girl, probably didn’t realize what she was getting into, so I wouldn’t want any of this coming down on her. But Parker was the set-up man, here before his boss came north. He got the girl, got her into this, and they must have used her for the lure on Christie. Now, I can’t guarantee that she was the lure, but that seems to make sense to me: Christie was the kind to fall for it from what I hear. Brain in his boxers. I’m also hearing that Parker’s still in touch with Jones. Jones thinks he’s going to get the girl back and has told at least one person that he knows where they’re staying.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Well, I think you’ve got your money’s worth if you ask me, but there is one other thing. Again, I’m just the messenger here, so keep that in mind. I’ve heard that when Barrett came north there was someone with him, a woman. Now, I think this woman might be the reason he’s here, might be the person that—’
‘I know Zara’s with him.’
‘Ah, right, well, took the wind right out of my sails there. That’s all I’ve got for now then, but I’ll assume you’d like me to keep in touch with my contacts, keep trying to find out anything that might be useful to you.’
‘You can assume that.’
We were done. I got up and left the cafe. Left Greig with his giant cappuccino and his little world of secrets and bribes. Perhaps his info was correct, and that was fine, but it was more complicated than that. You had to trust the information that he was giving you, that it was given with straightforward intent. Wouldn’t be a new tactic for someone to feed false information. Wouldn’t be Greig himself. He knew what the price would be if he was deliberately misleading me with this. But someone could give the false info to him with a straight face and allow him to pass it on in good faith.
Honest or not, it was explosive. It was a suggestion that the twin brother of Marty Jones was helping Adrian Barrett and his crew. A suggestion that he was still involved with them, still talking to them. That implicated Marty. It was the kind of information that an enemy of the organization would be happy to provide. The sort of thing that all of us within the organization had to handle with great care.
I got in the car and drove straight back to the warehouse. Whatever the truth of it, Kevin needed to know this. Needed to find out before Lafferty did, because Lafferty wasn’t likely to take a careful approach. I parked and went in. Kelly was standing talking to someone in the warehouse, a notepad in her hand. She saw me but I didn’t stop, marched straight in and went into Kevin’s office. He was alone, still going through his papers.
‘Nate, you okay?’
Apparently I looked more serious than ever. ‘You need to find out where Marty Jones is.’
17
They must have known as soon as we came through the door that there was going to be trouble. The kind of trouble none of them were looking for. One thing everyone in the business knows: you have less chance of seeing it coming when your own people start turning on you. Your enemies are the ones you face; your friends can sneak right up on you.
They were in a posh-looking office on the second floor of a building in Blythswood Square. The place had had a ‘To let’ sign outside it for as long as I could remember. It would fetch good money in the right market. It wasn’t the sort of place you would associate with Marty Jones, but that was probably the point. This was his off-the-radar office. A classy three-storey building with a pretty view of the green square.
It had taken Kevin all of three minutes to find them, which was impressive. I was talking to Ben Carmichael in the warehouse while Kevin put the call in. I had already called Ronnie, told him to drop what he was doing and get his arse round to join us. Kevin came out of the office as Ronnie screeched all too dramatically into the yard.
‘He’s having some pow-wow with Billy Patterson, Conn Griffiths and Mikey Summers,’ he said, a little bit of concern on his face.
I nodded. I wasn’t going to commit to saying that Conn and Mikey weren’t involved. I trusted them, sure, but that meant nothing. They were Billy Patterson’s people; he was the one who had employed them. Their loyalties didn’t lie with me or with Kevin.
Ben drove us round there. I did some violent maths. Four of us and four of them. Marty’s not a fighter in any meaningful sense, so you take him out. Same goes for Kevin, with bells on. So it’s three on th
ree. But I didn’t fancy Ben’s chances in a fight with Billy Patterson. Billy knew his way around a right hook. So it was three on two, in their favour. One of our two was Ronnie, the least experienced of all of us. I didn’t expect this to turn into a fight, too many smart heads, but you still work out your odds. Ours told me we had to make sure this didn’t get physical.
Kevin went in first. The front door was unlocked; there were other offices operating in the building. We went up the stairs and into Marty’s, not bothering to knock. The place was immaculate, all new furniture and fitted carpet. The four of them were sitting round a table near the tall window, only Marty looking like he belonged. They were having themselves a conversation that stopped as soon as the door opened. Uninvited guests kill a good conversation. They might have been more relaxed if it was just Kevin, but I made sure I was second through the door, setting a tone. Ronnie and Ben followed me in, closed the door, still not a word spoken. No attempt at jovial hellos. They must have had an idea what was coming.
‘Kevin,’ Marty said. You could hear the nerves in his voice already; he knew that not planned equals not good. ‘What’s up?’
Kevin moved across to the table the four of them were sitting around, looking down at Marty. He didn’t look angry because he makes a point of not looking angry, but you could tell. The way he moved, the way he was watching Marty. Everyone in that room was wary now.
‘We found out that Barrett used a local girl as the lure for Christie,’ Kevin said. ‘The girl was, I don’t know, a party girl, a hooker, I suppose.’
‘Not one of mine,’ Marty said, and you could hear how sure he was. Marty kept his girls on a short leash and cut them loose if they struggled. If it was one of his, he would know.
‘No, not one of yours. One of your brother’s.’
There was silence in the room, people glancing around and making eye contact with each other. Everyone in that room knew everyone else in that room, just about. Maybe not Ronnie, but the rest of us had crossed paths. Everyone was looking to everyone else for answers.
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