Blood City

by Douglas Skelton

  ‘Good.’ Satisfied, he turned his gaze back to Andy. ‘And the gun? Did you get rid of it like I told you?’

  Andy nodded eagerly. ‘In the Clyde, just like you said.’ That was another lie, for the gun was hidden away under his small bed in the caravan.

  The man nodded again. ‘Very well. We have to move you. Pack your things, we leave at once.’

  The brothers nodded and moved back into the caravan. Andy tried smiling but received a glare in return. He moved back into the caravan and the boss followed.

  As he climbed the small steps to the door, the boss looked behind him, his eyes scanning the field around them for signs of life. He listened for an engine or voices, but all he heard were crows calling and the soft wind sighing through the conifers. He closed the door behind him and turned first to the McGuinness brothers, who had already begun gathering their belongings and had their backs to him. He took his hand out of his coat pocket and aimed the silenced automatic at their backs, pulling the trigger four times. They pitched forward without a sound, the bullets punching through their bodies and drenching the side of the caravan with blood.

  Andy had been wondering how he was going to sneak the gun out from under his bed without being seen when he heard the faint pops behind him and he whirled round, but the gun was already trained on him.

  ‘Don’t…’ said Andy, but the boss merely shrugged, his face impassive behind the pistol.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Andrew,’ said Joe the Tailor. ‘But you just cannot be trusted, I’m afraid.’

  And then he squeezed the trigger for a fifth time. Andy’s head snapped back, a red hole appearing at his forehead. He seemed to hang there for a moment, his face bearing a quizzical expression, as if trying to understand what had happened, before he slumped to the floor.

  With a final, sorrowful, look at the bodies, Joe turned and left. He drove away from the scene quickly, but not fast enough to raise any suspicions if seen, leaving the caravan to the gentle breeze and the mournful cry of the crows.

  15

  IT TOOK AUDREY half the morning to pluck up the courage to speak to Barclay Forbes. She was the newest member of the news team, just a few months out of the journalism course at Napier College in Edinburgh. He, on the other hand, was a near legend, an experienced reporter who had covered Glasgow crime for 30 years. He’d been with the Daily Record for a time and from there he’d done a stint with the Glasgow Herald, but broadsheet ideology hadn’t sat well with him and he made the move to the Evening Times. He was a tabloid hack through and through, a clear and concise writer with a sense of drama and a clever turn of phrase. His contact book was the stuff of legend, reputed to contain an array of lawyers and cops for whom Forbes ‘bought a drink’ now and again.

  He was a small man, as thin as a posh soup but without the breeding, with a thick head of black hair which had kept its colour for the past 20 years only with the aid of the hair care counter at Boots the Chemist. Audrey watched the veteran reporter from across the news room that Monday morning, wondering if she should approach him. He sat with his foot propped up on an open bottom drawer, a phone hooked between his ear and his shoulder as he scribbled on a pad in front of him. Occasionally, he smiled as he talked, causing his heavily-lined features to crease into a facsimile of tight isobars on a weather map. A cigarette dangled between his lips and jiggled up and down as he spoke.

  Barc hung up and stubbed what was left of the cigarette out in an already overflowing ashtray before lighting a fresh one. Without lifting his foot from its makeshift rest, Barc swung round and faced his typewriter then began stabbing at the keyboard with stilletto-like digits. Occasionally he glanced at the notes on his pad, but mostly he worked from memory and his eyes clicked from keyboard to paper frequently.

  Audrey took a deep breath and stood up from her desk. The big room around her was remarkably quiet. Telephones rang, typewriters clattered and people spoke, but there was no frenzied racket, no hardened hacks rushing in with scoops demanding that the front page be held. Of course, it would heat up towards the next deadline later that morning, but it was nothing like the movies. She slowly picked her way towards Barc’s desk sitting out on its own away from the others, which was the way he liked it. There was one thing you could never accuse Barc Forbes of, and it was being a team player. She lingered close to his desk, hoping to catch his eye, but he didn’t seem to notice as his attention remained squarely on his words. Just as her nerve was about to desert her, she heard his familiar voice rasp at her, ‘You’re hovering, hen. I can’t abide a hoverer.’

  He spoke without lifting his head from his typewriter, but when she still hesitated to speak, he looked up at her, sat back in his chair and plucked the cigarette from his mouth. ‘Spit it out, hen – what’s on your mind?’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mister Forbes.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, as long as it’s important.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know...’

  He took a long draw on the cigarette, blew the smoke out of his nose and squinted at her through the fog. ‘Audrey, isn’t it?’

  She was surprised he knew her name. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hen, you’ve been itching to come over and speak to me all morning. Now, handsome devil that I undoubtedly am, I don’t think you’ve come to ask me on a date. So that means it’s something to do with a story, am I right?’

  ‘Yes… well, no… I mean… I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s what I like, a girl who knows her own mind. Let’s have it then.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Do you know of a guy called David McCall?’

  His brow furrowed. ‘I know of a Danny McCall. Hard bastard. He had a boy, might’ve been called David. Why?’

  Audrey recounted the rape attempt and how Davie had come to her aid. She didn’t tell him about the grilling she’d received from her dad when she got back home with her good white suit covered in blood. She had spun him a yarn about a friend’s nosebleed and their attempts to stem the flow in the toilet, during which she’d got blood on her hands and on her suit. Her father wasn’t a stupid man and he clearly didn’t believe a word. But, in the end, he trusted his daughter and knew that she would not get into anything that would worry him. Audrey felt badly for that because she was fairly certain she was about to get into something that would worry him.

  The fact was, she hadn’t stopped thinking about Davie McCall. It was his eyes that held her, so blue, so clear, and when she closed her own eyes she still saw them. She had hoped he would come over and talk to her in the pub, but he hadn’t made a move. On the few occasions she looked back, his gaze shifted and he looked ashamed, which told her he wasn’t a creep, just shy.

  Barc asked, ‘So has this McCall phoned you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘But you want him to?’

  She looked away and shrugged. ‘Well…’

  He smiled slightly. ‘Aye. What do you want from me, hen?’

  ‘I just wanted to know if you’d heard of him. You think he might be McCall’s son?’

  ‘It’s possible. I’m sure his name was Davie. His dad used to work for Joe the Tailor. You heard of him?’

  ‘Gangster, isn’t he?’

  ‘Aye, he’s about as big as they come around here. He likes to cultivate new talent, if you know what I mean. He’s like Fagin; finds young lads with promise and teaches them the ropes. There’s been talk that old Joe likes to teach them some other things, too, unsavoury things that would frighten the horses if you did it in the street, but that’s a load of bollocks. Boyle and Sinclair I definitely have heard of. Boyle’s a bad wee bastard, Sinclair’s a follower. They run around with a bloke called Johnny Jones. They’re as nasty a pair of neds as this city can churn out. You want me to ask around for you, see what I can find out?’

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘Mind? You heard what happened yesterday?’ She nodded. ‘We’ve got five dead bodies and the word is they could all lead in some way to Joe the Tailor, and now you
come to me with another name linked to the old bastard. Hen, this is serendipity if ever I saw it.’

  * * *

  Jack Bannatyne was angry and when Jack Bannatyne was angry, he didn’t believe in bottling it up. He stood behind his desk and leaned towards Jimmy Knight, who sat in the chair opposite looking even more tired and bedraggled than he had the previous morning.

  ‘I don’t need maverick cops on my team,’ said Bannatyne. ‘Leave that shit to Hollywood, understand?’

  Knight nodded, all he had the energy to do. He hadn’t had a shave or a shower since Saturday, and here it was Monday. He had spent Sunday chasing around Glasgow, trying to track down Andy Tracy, but in the end all he found was his dead body – and two others. Tony Rome had taken him to the caravan outside Lennoxtown and together they’d discovered the bloodbath inside. When Knight had pulled open the caravan door, he found Andy on his back, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, and the other two sprawled over the caravan’s seats. Knight had snapped at Tony not to touch anything, but the sight of the blood congealing on the caravan walls had the idiot throwing up all over the crime scene. Knight didn’t know who the other two corpses were, nor did he care at this moment. All he wanted was this arse chewing to be over with so he could go home and get some sleep.

  ‘You want to stay on my team, you learn to be a team player, Knight, okay?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Don’t fuckin “yes, boss” me. You gad about like Dirty Harry again and I’ll have you bounced back into uniform so fast the blue serge’ll chafe your balls.’

  ‘Yes, boss… I mean, sorry, boss. I just didn’t want to waste any of the lads’ time on what might’ve been a wild goose chase. I thought I’d chase it down on my own time.’

  ‘Aye, and if you’d told us we could’ve covered more ground a hell of a lot faster. A phone call to Lennoxtown could’ve had uniforms up there in minutes and right now Tracy could’ve been bursting like a wet paper bag in the interview room! But no – you had to be Clint fuckin Eastwood and go it alone, and in doing so you’ve lost us the one lead we could’ve had. You should’ve been at home getting some sleep yesterday! Look at you! Look at the state of you, ready to drop off that chair.’

  Knight couldn’t argue because he actually was ready to drop off the chair. He’d sent Tony back to Lennoxtown to call the killings in while he waited at the caravan. Tony made the 999 call then legged it back to Glasgow, but Knight didn’t much care. He’d find him again if he needed. When the cavalcade arrived from the local station, naturally there were questions to be asked, which Knight elected to answer truthfully. When he was finally allowed back to Baird Street late on Sunday, Bannatyne was getting ready to visit the scene himself. He’d told Knight to wait in the station until he came back. He’d been gone all night and Knight had tried to catch some sleep in an empty cell but the bed there was like a lump of stone. Now here he was in Bannatyne’s office getting a verbal kicking.

  Bannatyne sighed and sat down, his anger abating. ‘Okay, get yourself home, get some kip. We’ll take it from here.’

  Knight stood up and walked from the room. Bannatyne shook his head and reached for the phone. There was a slip of paper on his desk with a number on it, and he squinted at it as he dialled. He waited until he heard the voice on the other end of the line and said without introducing himself, ‘Things are getting out of hand.’

  ‘I know,’ said Joe on the other end.

  ‘We need to talk…’

  16

  IF THE WEATHER was fine, Audrey often walked from the paper’s Mitchell Street offices to the Ramshorn Kirkyard where she could enjoy her packed lunch in peace and quiet. It was one of the city’s oldest churches and graveyards, a compact square of graves and slabs surrounded by taller buildings. There was a bench where she could catch some sun as it slipped past the tall Kirk, letting her mind clear. It was warm, even for May, and she had read a report that morning predicting rising temperatures in the days to come. Soon she’d be able to sit here every day if she wanted – later that summer the paper was moving to the old Express building, which sat on the eastern edge of the graveyard.

  ‘They said you’d be up here,’ a rasping voice said, and she opened her eyes to see Barc Forbes looking down at her. As usual he had a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and he was wearing a fawn coloured trenchcoat. All he needed was a trilby with a Press sticker in the band and he’d look like a Hollywood reporter. He held a pack of Embassy tipped cigarettes in his hand and Audrey could see the white spaces on the cardboard were covered in scribbles.

  ‘Your boy Davie’s the goods, right enough,’ he said. ‘Dad was Danny McCall, a hardman for Joe the Tailor, like I said. By all accounts he was also a bit of a drunk and liked to smack his wife and wean around when he’d had a few too many. Drink apparently brought the nasty out in him, and he was a vicious enough bastard when he was sober. You heard the stories about a bloke getting crucified back in the late ’60s? Hands nailed to a wooden floor?’

  Audrey nodded. The crucified man was a bloody slice of Glasgow folklore.

  ‘Well, Danny McCall’s the boy that supposedly did it. Joe the Tailor likes to see himself as some kind of Knight Errant, protecting fair virgins and shit like that. This boy raped the daughter of a guy who paid Joe protection money and Joe sent Danny out to deliver a message. No one knows if Joe told him to do the hammer and nails act or if Danny took it upon himself. Anyway, the boy ended up spread-eagled on the floor of some new-build houses in the Gorbals, nailed to the wooden floor. Workies found him next day. They say his blood had soaked the wood so bad they had to replace the planks.’

  Barc paused to take a deep drag from his cigarette and turned the pack to find a new note on the side. ‘So, Danny’s a bad bastard and he works for Joe the Tailor, who’s a nice enough bloke unless you piss him off. But the drink’s got a real hold of Danny and one night he rolls home and he starts knocking seven kinds of shite out of his wife, a nice woman, they say, who really didn’t deserve what she got. How she ever got mixed up with Danny McCall in the first place beats me, but there’s all kinds of stories like that.’

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t like that when they met.’

  ‘Aye, maybe. Anyway, the boy – Davie, your Davie – was there. He must be 14, 15, and he tries to stop his dad. But the old man picks up a poker and he lays the boy out, snapping his arm in the process. The boy couldn’t do anything but lie there and watch as his mother was beaten to death.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  Barc nodded. ‘Danny must’ve realised what he’d done, so he goes round to his boss Joe for help. But Joe won’t have anything to do with this. He phones the cops himself and Danny legs it, disappears. There’s some that say Joe had him topped and his body’s in the foundations of some new office block. Maybe it’s true. All I know is Danny McCall hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘And what about Davie?’

  ‘Joe took him under his wing, like I said. He pals around with big Rab McClymont.’

  ‘Rab? I met a Rab on Saturday. He saved Davie.’

  ‘Aye, thick as thieves they are, literally. He’s as close to your boy as anyone can get.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your boy’s a bit of a loner, hen. He doesn’t say much, prefers to let his fists and his feet do the talking. He’s like his dad in that way. He’s only 18, but he’s already one of the scariest guys on the streets. There’s more of his dad in him than I think even he’d like to admit.’

  Audrey thought about Davie’s blank expression as he swung the Coke bottle against Sinclair, how the blue eyes were totally devoid of any kind of heat, as if the mind inside had died and he was a machine just doing its job. And yet, he had waded in to defend her. He had followed them to defend her. Everything he’d done was to defend her.

  ‘You’re wondering why he protected you, aren’t you?’

  She looked back at Barc’s lined face and nodded. ‘That’s Joe’s influence,’ he said. ‘Joe’s the fat
her Davie never had. He’s intensely loyal to the old man. Well, all his boys are. He also inspires great hatred. Norrie Kennedy and him had been feuding for years, and there’s others who would happily see him dead and buried.’

  ‘Do you think Davie had anything to do with the murders?’

  Barc sighed and looked down at his fag packet as if the answer was there. ‘No, hen – your boy’s no the type to use a gun. He’s strictly a hand-to-hand guy – maybe a chib, a blade, anything that comes to hand but no a gun.’

  She exhaled in relief. She was uncomfortable enough with the violence she saw in Davie, but the idea of him gunning anyone down, even another crook, was unacceptable.

  ‘He phoned you yet?’

  She shook her head.

  Barc nodded and pushed his Embassy Tipped packet into his coat pocket. ‘He will. What you gonnae do when he does?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He’s a good looking bugger from what I’m told.’

  She nodded and the older reporter sighed. ‘Look, I’m no yer da, so you can tell me to mind my own business, but you want my advice?’

  She looked at him and nodded again.

  ‘Keep away from him. I know, he came in like Sir Galahad and, I know, he’s no repulsive. But he’s a dangerous boy. You’re a nice lassie, you’ve got a life ahead of you, a career, husband, weans, whatever. Davie’s got the jail or a grave. He’s no for you, hen. He’ll bring you down. He won’t want to, he won’t mean it, but he’ll bring you down. Jail or the grave, hen. That’s the way it is with these guys.’

  She knew he was right. She knew that Davie McCall was not someone she should allow into her life. But when he phoned later that afternoon, she arranged to see him.

  * * *

  Street lights rippled and swam on the surface of the river like iridescent fish while, above Joe the Tailor’s head, cars thundered over the huge concrete canopy that was the Kingston Bridge. He stood alone, leaning against the railings on the walkway, watching the dark waters slap against the wooden beams below. Daylight was fading, the sky above the city reddening as the sun sank inexorably into the west. He looked across the Clyde at the warehouses and derelict buildings on the opposite bank, crumbling reminders of the city’s past prosperity. Glasgow was changing. Its reliance on the river for its fortunes had long since passed. The bridge above him and the traffic which rumbled over it were symbols of the new Glasgow, going somewhere fast. Joe was not certain he wished to go with it. He did not think that the new city was necessarily a good thing. The building of the bridge and its motorway had destroyed communities on both sides of the river. On the north bank, where he was looking, he could see where Anderston once was. It was gone now, just a memory, as were other streets, other homes where people had lived and loved and died. The great industries were dying, too. The shipyards were shadows of their former glory. The ironworks which had glowed with hellish intensity into the night had been extinguished – Dixon’s Blazes in the south was now a vast empty gap site, the Parkhead Forge was gone. The old style economy of building and manufacturing was being replaced by financial and service industries. The drug trade that Johnny Jones was selling was another, if illicit, example of this new economy.