The Night the Rich Men Burned

by Malcolm Mackay

  The two of them are in the office. Oliver behind his desk, the other fellow taking something out of a filing cabinet. Jesus, they almost look respectable. A pair of office boys. The other one’s looking at him without a hint of recognition. Oliver’s slumping back in his chair. A look of displeasure on his face. Rolling his eyes to the ceiling and then glaring back towards the door. Doing his best to make his own grandfather feel unwelcome.

  ‘Can I help?’ the other one is asking, sliding the drawer of the cabinet shut.

  ‘Not you, son, no,’ Arnie’s saying.

  ‘What do you want?’ Oliver’s asking him. ‘You should have phoned. I don’t have time for catching up. I’m busy.’

  ‘Phoned, that’s a laugh. I phone here and all I get is this wee bugger telling me you’re not in. You’re never in for a phone call. Disappear on the first bloody ring. I figured the only way you were ever going to be in was if I was in with you. No pretending then. So we can talk. Because we need to talk, Oliver. We do.’ Trying to sound reasonable. Started with an irritated tone, but worked hard to calm it before he stopped talking. He doesn’t want this to turn into an argument any earlier than it has to. Inevitable that it will at some point, but he has to try.

  ‘Listen, I need to go out and . . .’ But Peterkinney’s trailing off, because Arnie’s already turned round to look at Kilbanne. He’s standing behind his desk on the other side of the room now.

  ‘You can go make yourself scarce. Get lunch. Get lost. I don’t care. Just get yourself out. This is a private conversation. Family talk.’ Not bothered about being polite with him. The amount of times he’s been lied to by this snivelling bastard, he hasn’t earned politeness.

  There’s something remarkably intimidating about an angry old man. Arnie’s not that big, looks unhealthy and sounds a little wheezy these days. But when he points and barks at you, you pay attention. Kilbanne is looking across at Peterkinney. Waiting for instructions from the boss. Maybe Peterkinney doesn’t want to be left alone with this old guy.

  ‘Go. Come back in fifteen,’ Peterkinney’s saying. ‘This won’t take longer than that.’

  Kilbanne’s leaving. Arnie still standing in front of Peterkinney’s desk. Looking down at his grandson. Looks a little fuller in the face than he did. A little older. A little more rugged. Like he’s lived something of a life now. Yeah. And at whose expense? Arnie’s shaking his head.

  ‘Why haven’t you been willing to talk to me?’ he’s asking quietly.

  ‘I’ve been busy. Working, you know.’ Said with a hint of sarcasm. Pointing out the fact that Arnie hasn’t had a job for some time now.

  Oliver still hasn’t asked him to sit down. Not that Arnie wants to. He wants to stand over the boy when the argument starts. Feels like a position of strength. But he’s noticed Oliver’s making no effort at being welcoming. He still doesn’t want to talk. Doesn’t want his grandfather to be a part of his life any more. The man who took him in. Gave him a home. Did his best, such as it was, to raise him. Don’t throw that at him though. That’s not the way to win this argument. Oliver clearly feels no sense of debt.

  ‘I know what work you do.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Not a secret.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, is it? Everyone knows. Everyone’s talking about you. Talking about how you had your thugs beat up some woman along the street from me. That you don’t give a shit about the law or anything else. Tough little bastard, you are. That’s what they say. How tough you are. Hiding behind your thugs. Stealing money from the weakest people you can find. Yeah, everyone’s talking about you all right. Tough little nut, uh? Very scary.’ Damn it. Didn’t want to go off on a rant this soon. Wanted to make a persuasive argument, not an aggressive one. Just couldn’t control it. Months of knowing what his own flesh and blood was doing. Months of doing nothing about it. His own embarrassment at not doing this sooner was to blame. There was just too much locked away in there that needed to come out.

  ‘You here about her? I heard about that, already reprimanded someone for it. It was a mistake. An accident. Shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry, okay? We done?’

  It’s a funny thing. Really is. You live with someone for a few years and you get a pretty good handle on the sort of person they are. You lose track of them for six months. Catch up with them again and they’re someone else. Completely different person. Oliver was distant, and he could be cold. He wasn’t always an easy boy to love. But he was respectful, because he understood that that worked best. He was never a dismissive, arrogant little shit. He understood what it meant to be a good person. He could be morally hazy, sure. Arnie wasn’t going to judge him for that. Anyway, he was a kid, a little bit immature. All kids make mistakes. Follow the wrong path once in a while. Didn’t make him a bad person, not at heart. He was a decent person, when push came to shove. Now look at him. He’s someone else.

  ‘It will kill you, you know,’ Arnie’s saying. Saying it quiet. Saying it with genuine regret. A sadness that catches Oliver out.

  He’s looking up at his grandfather. A puzzled look. ‘What?’

  ‘This. All this. The work you’re doing. The life you’re living. It’s going to kill you. You won’t be the first one, oh no. It’ll destroy anyone innocent first. That’s what it does, this life. It kills the good people first, then the bad. This life of yours is poison. That poison will catch up with you. It will. Has to. You mark my words, boy. It will catch up with you and it will kill you. I’ve seen it. People being murdered. Or getting into drugs. Some stupid thing. And I’ll have to go. I’ll have to go to your funeral and stand over your grave and know that I didn’t stop you. Couldn’t stop you from doing it to yourself.’

  He’s stopped talking. He was rambling and he knew it. His voice was quivering with emotion and Arnie isn’t the kind of man who likes to hear that in himself. Old school. He came here to be strong. He didn’t come here to be emotional.

  ‘I think you should go.’ Oliver sitting there, looking up at him. There’s a look of shock on his face that he’s doing a poor job of hiding. Never heard his grandfather talk like this before. Never seen that sort of emotion from him.

  Arnie’s looking down at him. Scowling to cover the emotion. Shaking his head, because he just can’t think of anything else to say. Wishes there was something convincing to say, but there isn’t. He’s turning and walking to the door. Pulling it open, but stopping. Looking back at Oliver. Just looking at him, because he’s scared he might never see him again. And leaving, because he can’t help a man who doesn’t believe he needs help. Who won’t realize until it’s too late.

  2

  Furious. Actually, furious doesn’t begin to sum it up. If he had the mobility, he’d be bouncing off the walls. Potty Cruickshank has never been so angry. Never in forty-eight angry years. Six hours ago he was arrested. First time in his life. Some detective and a couple of plods turned up at his house and arrested him. Led him out into the street for all the neighbours to see as they loaded him into the back of a police car. Deliberately embarrassing him. Suspicion of laundering money, they said. Took him away to the station. The thing he was most angry about? They were right.

  He’s always been so careful with his money. That was hammered into him by Uncle Rolly. The money is the easiest way for the cops to get you. You always hide it away. You take every last precaution to make sure it’s well out of view. Someone grassed. Someone who knows about his systems went to the police and spilled their guts. It’s the only way. They couldn’t have known what they did without inside info. So now he has to find out who.

  They haven’t charged him yet. Questioned him for a few hours. A lot of questions he genuinely didn’t know the answers to. He doesn’t know every exact detail about every penny that gets hidden. He hires people to handle that. He has deniability on the details of it. A few questions he did know the answer to. Those he chose not to answer anyway. It did give him a few clues about timing. They only seemed to be asking about money that was moved within a certain period
. About a year ago until about six months ago, give or take. That’s interesting. That’s a place to start investigating.

  The cheek of them. Arresting a Cruickshank. Didn’t even have enough to charge him with. That’s what he thought. Not what his lawyer thought. In the car on the way back to his house the lawyer had a different idea to share. After five hours in the station, Potty wasn’t thinking straight. So the lawyer put him right.

  ‘They brought you in to scare you. See if they could trip you up. They’ll be arresting other people. Must be, the evidence they have. I think they will arrest you again, Mr Cruickshank. They’re setting you up to arrest you a second time, and this time they’ll charge you.’

  He was right. Potty’s been at home for nearly an hour. Taking that time to try to calm down. Not happening. This kind of fury will take days to calm. He needs to find out who grassed him. Find out what damage has been done. There’s an easy place to start. The police were asking about money from that period of time. Time to get in touch with the man who was moving his money around at that time.

  Potty has two different men who handle the money, but neither of them is young any more. One of them, Willie Caldwell, has hardly done a hand’s turn for a year and a half. The man’s seventy and had treatment for cancer. He was Uncle Rolly’s moneyman for many years, just carried on working for Potty. He’s started doing a bit of work again in the last three months, but nothing as far back as six to twelve months. Which just leaves Steven Wales. Sixty-three, and amongst the most dependable criminals that God ever placed on this earth.

  Potty’s calling his house. It only rings twice and there’s an answer. A woman’s voice. That’ll be Mrs Wales then. The often-mentioned, never-seen spouse. Potty’s never met the woman, for all that he’s heard Wales talk about her over the years.

  ‘Hello, I’m looking for Steven Wales. Is he home?’

  ‘No. No, he isn’t. Who’s calling, please?’

  The woman sounds emotional. Potty doesn’t have the patience for emotional. Not in the mood. ‘This is Ronald Cruickshank.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Cruickshank,’ she’s saying. There’s relief in her voice. Something Potty doesn’t like to hear. Usually means someone expects you to do them a favour. ‘Oh, Mr Cruickshank, they came to the house this morning. The police came and they took him away. They said they were going to question him and he hasn’t been back yet.’

  Potty’s grimacing, but in a sense it’s good news. They’ve arrested Wales, which means Wales isn’t the grass. Wales is the one who knows the most. He was the one cleaning the money. So long as he keeps his gob shut, that’ll prevent the police knowing the worst of it. So the grass is someone else. Someone a little further away from the centre. Someone who knew that Wales did work for Potty. Knew at least roughly what that work entailed. Specifically from that time period.

  ‘Now you listen here, Mrs Wales. I will do all I can to make sure your husband is well treated. I’ll get my lawyers on it right away. Your husband won’t be in any trouble if I can help it.’ He can’t say that her husband has done nothing wrong because, well, he has. She must realize it. There may be trouble that Potty can do nothing to stop.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cruickshank. It helps to know.’

  Wasn’t Wales. Then who? Sitting down and thinking things through. Considering the options. And there’s one there. Lurking in the back of his mind, elbowing its way forwards. Someone who was around a lot back then. Helped him out. Someone who’s been drifting away from him for no good reason in the last six months.

  He’s made three phone calls and come up short. Nobody knows just what exactly PC Paul Greig is up to these days. Conflicting reports. One person saying he’s working for Shug Francis. Another person saying he’s working for Alex MacArthur. So now Potty’s calling Alex MacArthur.

  ‘He isn’t doing any work for me,’ MacArthur’s saying. There’s an edge to his tone. Their relationship has been good these last few months, since the Bavidge thing. But this call doesn’t seem to be welcome. Sounds like the old man’s distracted. ‘I think he’s been doing work for Don though. Call Don if you want to ask about him.’ Didn’t say Don Park’s name with any great love. One of his own men. Sounds like the old man is finally getting wary of potential successors. They all do, in the end.

  Calling up Don Park. Getting a chuckle at the mention of Greig. Smooth little operator this one. One to keep an eye on if MacArthur’s health gets worse. ‘Working for me? Not exactly. Working for everyone. You know what he’s like. Doing work for me and doing work for Peter Jamieson. Doing work for you and doing work for Oliver Peterkinney. That’s Greig. A finger in every pie.’

  That’s as much as Potty needs to hear. Greig doing work for Peterkinney. Of course he fucking is. A new kid turns up and starts making an impact. Growing untouched. Getting good deals. Knowing where to go. Contacts that others take years to find. Needs experienced people to point him in the right directions. Help him along. People very much like Greig.

  Starting to make a lot more sense now. Peterkinney gets Greig onside. They strike a deal. Greig helps Peterkinney by removing the opposition. Good Lord, Potty didn’t take the kid seriously enough. Some little bastard who worked for Marty and set up his own business. Not like he would have learned much from Marty. He did mean to watch him. Had every intention of doing something about him sooner. Should have. Would have. Too busy pulling the rug out from under Billy Patterson. This is what happens when you take your eye off the ball. Slap on the wrist for Potty, move on.

  Move on and work out what he’s going to do about Peterkinney. What he’s going to do about Greig. Don’t let personal feeling get in the way of a business decision. Be very careful with Greig. He’s a cop. A lying, cheating bastard, but a cop. You don’t pick a fight with a cop. Not unless you’re on solid ground, which Potty isn’t. No way he can make a convincing allegation against Greig without implicating himself. No way he can bring down Greig without Greig making life even more difficult for him.

  But Peterkinney. He’s a different business. He can be taken down. There are things that Potty can and will do to teach that wee boy a few lessons. The first lesson being that you don’t pick a fight with a Cruickshank until you’re 100 per cent certain of victory. So now Potty’s plotting. Trying to work out ways of getting at Peterkinney. He tried once before with the Bavidge thing. Didn’t work out perfectly, but that didn’t matter much at the time. Peterkinney didn’t end up getting any of the blame, as Potty intended. But that was always a bonus to the main event. This is different. Now Peterkinney’s going to be the main target.

  3

  Glass didn’t leave the flat for days afterwards. Spent the whole time waiting for a knock on the door that didn’t come. Only person who came to the flat in that time was Ella, and she has a key. She spent some time with him, trying to work out what was wrong. He wasn’t responding to her. Lying in bed, refusing to tell her what had happened. She made an effort. A week of treating him like an invalid. Cooking for him, getting him to shower. Never forcing him to share anything, but trying to coax it out of him. Nothing she did made an impact.

  It upset her, seemed like he was deliberately pushing her away. So Ella made a decision. Try and shock him into action. Get him out of his bed and into the world again by giving him no other option. She stopped coming to the flat, and he was completely alone. The idea was that it would compel him to get up. Go out and get some food, get into the world. Didn’t work. She waited a week, and no phone call came. Went past the flats a few times and saw no sign of life. When she went back in, he was the same as ever. He’d fed himself, yes, because he had to. But he was eating food way past its sell-by date. Unwilling to leave the flat even for that. She cried over it, and went back to playing nursemaid, fitting it around her work.

  One thing Glass made the effort to do was constantly check websites and local TV news. They found Alan Bavidge’s body the following morning. Multiple stab wounds, is what was reported. Knife found at the scene. Didn’t say that i
t was still in his body. Said they were hopeful of progress. Glass knew what that meant. Meant his fingerprints were on the knife. Meant they had all the evidence they needed for a conviction; all they had to do was track down the killer. But time passed and they didn’t track him down. They had his fingerprints on the knife, but nowhere else.

  But there was so much else. The longer he lay in bed thinking about it, the more he remembered what he had done wrong. The people who had seen him. The CCTV cameras that must have picked him up. Leaving the car in a car park. A bloodstained car with the number plates still on it. Would take them all of ten seconds to put two and two together. But nothing. No knock on the door. Nobody coming to tell him that he was being charged with murder.

  He’d already decided that if they came for him, he would confess. No point in denying it. He couldn’t claim innocence, so he would confess and hope they were gentle with him. He wouldn’t tell them why. He’d decided that. If he grassed Potty then Potty would take revenge. Could kill him. No, he would say that he owed money, and that he thought Bavidge was going to collect from him. Something like that. Take all the blame for himself. Looking at a long time inside. Thinking about how he would survive it. Twenty years. Thirty, maybe. But the knock on the door didn’t come. It was like they didn’t check the CCTV. Like they didn’t interview the witnesses. Like they never found the car.

  Which they didn’t. Not the police’s fault. The witnesses never came forward. Not one. Not even the guy who stopped and got out of his car outside Bavidge’s house. He went home and decided to forget about it. If he saw the report of the dead body found behind the shops, he either didn’t connect the two things or didn’t want to get involved. That’s the thing. People don’t want to get involved. Not if they can avoid it. So the driver of the car that Glass nearly reversed into pulling out of the alleyway said nothing. They must now realize that they saw the killer leave the scene, but he or she is keeping it to themselves. Scared of getting tangled in a gangland dispute.