The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy)

by Mackay, Malcolm

  ‘Always people coming into the city. I stick to the established.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And the new ones are goin’ after the established, so you could be on the wrong side. Just, you know, keep careful. Make sure you don’t get caught out by the changes.’

  It’s strange to hear his brother talk like that. He knows William cares about him, just as he cares about his brother. They hadn’t been especially close as children; Calum always had the impression that he annoyed his brother. He wasn’t sure why. Then they grew up, and suddenly they found that they had a great deal more in common than they realized. A bond developed. When their father died, the bond became closer. They both felt the responsibility to help their mother, help look after her. She was hardly an invalid, but she was a sixty-year-old woman on her own for the first time in her life, and they each did their share to alleviate that. They were brothers now more than they had ever been. That was what made his brother’s words more unsettling.

  They don’t talk business. Ever. They talk everything else, but there’s no need to talk business. Each knows what the other does, what the other’s involved in. Calum doesn’t need to talk about the minimal involvement William has in the business, because it isn’t worth talking about. He knows what his elder brother does to supplement his legit income. He does it well. He doesn’t get too involved. And William knows what his little brother does. He doesn’t want details. It’s usually safer not to know. He doesn’t ask. This is the first time he’s asked anything at all. He’s known what Calum has been doing for almost eight years, and this is the first warning. That spooks Calum a little. What’s prompted it? New people in the city? There are always new people in the city, people making moves against the established order. That alone is nothing worthy of comment. William must know something else. He must know something specific that he doesn’t want to have to share. They don’t talk detail. He knows something specific, something relevant to Calum, something that worries him.

  14

  A routine meeting. Routine for Young, anyway. Maybe not routine for the cop he’s meeting. Hardest thing in the business. Young always said it, and he had heard others say it too. Getting a cop on board. Get someone on the payroll and keep them there. Hardest thing you can do. You have to judge it just right. You have to make sure you approach the right person at the right time. Once you know they’re interested, you have to play them just right. You tempt them, you convince them, then you hook them. Once they’re in, things change. You have them over a barrel, so they’re a little more secure. Still, they have the ability to bring you down if they’re feeling self-destructive. They can make life unbearable. They can be much more hassle than they’re worth. You have to make them feel happy and secure. Make them feel like they’re not doing much wrong. Don’t let them know how important they are. If they want to meet you, you meet them. If they want you to keep your distance, you do.

  Over the years Young has managed to lure two cops onto the books. He holds them both at arm’s length, but they surely know who he is and who he works for. They know they’re working for Peter Jamieson, although neither of them has ever met him. Both are male, uniformed officers. One is destined to stay that way. Young picked Paul Greig up years ago, but the man is so utterly corrupt that he’s untrustworthy to everyone. Untrustworthy even by criminal standards. He takes money from numerous criminal enterprises in the city, helps them out occasionally. He seems to be riddled with a desire to make life difficult. Young keeps him at a very safe distance indeed. He’s one to use only when really needed. A last resort. In case of emergency, call Greig. He had been the first copper that Young had snared; it had seemed like an achievement. Over the years Young had lost trust in him. He was convinced Greig had sold info about the Jamieson organization to other crime figures. That was why he needed a second.

  He had heard about Joe Higgins from a number of people in the business. His family had been involved in all manner of unmentionable mishaps. His parents owed money to many different undesirable people. His seventeen-year-old sister had embarked upon a chosen career that she needed to be rescued from immediately. There were questions to be raised about the legality of several things his family had done, and several things he had done himself. A wonderfully calamitous bunch. John Young organized a meeting with the young man. A twenty-three-year-old cop. A lad who made an unlikely recruit for the police force, but seemed to be doing his best. After the meeting Young came away with the impression that Higgins was both an unlikely copper and an unlikely member of his own family. His family were tough, loud and unpleasant. The boy was nervous, polite and eager to please.

  Young had laid all the options on the table. He’d been open with the boy, judging that the best approach to take. Don’t frighten him; don’t try to play at being his best friend. The lad needs help, whether he realizes it or not. Young promised to make all the moneylenders go away. He promised to make his sister unemployable in her chosen field, and instead find her something more dignified to do with her life. He would help the boy, and all PC Higgins had to do for him was provide him with little updates. Nothing too risky, nothing too clever. Just let Young know what was being said, what was happening to other people. Gossip. Police gossip. Nothing that would put his career at risk. The boy agreed. That had been three years ago.

  He never asked much of Higgins. If there are risks to be taken, then let others take them. For now, he is cultivating the relationship. He needs the boy to feel comfortable with them. This is a regular meeting – sometimes once a month, sometimes once every six weeks. They’re always chatty, relaxed. Young never pushes him on anything. If the boy has something interesting to say, then he has something interesting. If not, no big deal. Next time. No pressure. Never pressure. This time Young is keen to find out certain details, but he can’t suddenly push him. He rarely asks for specific detail, and only when he knows it’s something Higgins can easily find out. No pressure. This will be a step forward.

  They meet in a small flat that belongs to Jamieson, in a quiet part of town. Access is off the road, out of view of the street. It’s quiet. Safe. Young always gets there first, lets himself in and waits. He always goes alone. Always. A second person would scare Higgins. He’s never introduced the boy to anyone else in the business. If he can avoid it, he never will. Higgins is smart, diligent and well mannered. He’s the sort of boy who has the potential for promotion. It’s the dream for Young: a detective on his books. Maybe higher even than that. Someone with control over cases. Someone who can direct the flow of the police service away from the Jamieson organization. One day, perhaps. Big ambitions. For now, Higgins is still useful. For now, he can find out little things that Young could use to big effect. Young settles in and waits for Higgins to arrive.

  A sitting duck. It occurs to him every time he goes to that flat to meet Higgins. If Higgins knocks on the door and has half a dozen of his colleagues standing beside him, Young would be finished. No way out. That’s the risk of getting close to any copper. A knock on the door. Young’s getting up, walking across and looking through the peephole. He can only see Higgins. He opens the door, nods hello and holds the door open until the twenty-six-year-old is inside. A quiet boy, but an imposing figure. Youthful face, but tall and broad-shouldered. Now young and athletic; likely to end up fat and with a bad back.

  ‘Want a cup of coffee, anything like that?’ Young asks him. They’re strolling through to the large, open-plan kitchen and living room.

  ‘Nah, ta, I’m okay.’ Higgins is in jeans and a hooded top. Casual. A day off. They never meet when he’s on duty. That would be criminally irresponsible.

  They sit and Young asks him about his family. He does that every time. Make it seem like he cares. At the same time remind the boy that his parents’ financial security and his sister’s livelihood all depend on him. She’s a beautician now, whatever that is. Young has no idea. It’s what she wanted, so it’s what she got. She’s useless at it, apparently, but Jamieson owns half of the salon, and her brother
is useful, so she keeps her job. Higgins has answered politely, as always. He’s smart enough not to share any further troubles with Young. Smart enough not to dig a deeper hole. Not yet. The way things are going with his family, though, he may need to soon. Young knows it, but says nothing.

  ‘Heard anything relevant?’ Young asks. Standard question. It means have you heard anything that Peter Jamieson and I ought to be concerned about. The answer has always been no, and Young assumes that Higgins is smart enough to alert him immediately if he hears anything urgent.

  ‘Nope, not a lot of interest happening. Most of the focus is still on outsiders.’

  Always good to hear. Outsiders are the bogeymen, as much to the police as to the established crime organizations. The police, subconsciously or not, take a better-the-devil-you-know approach. The outsiders become a priority. Takes the eye off the established order. Now and again the police would have a spurt of activity against established people, but they’re occasional. One of the points of having a cop on the books was to boost the opportunity of knowing when the police’s interest had turned back towards the established. You try to prepare, do all that you can to take yourself off the radar. You have a better chance with advance warning.

  Young carries on the conversation, asking numerous questions about things that don’t matter much to either of them. Higgins tells him about several crimes of significance that have occurred in the last few weeks. A couple of murders, a drugs bust, a counterfeiting operation. Young has already heard of all of these things, probably knows more about them than the police, but he nods along politely. Don’t let the cop know that you have more information than he does. Let him think he’s the one with the valuable knowledge. There’s no mention of Lewis Winter. Young isn’t sure how long Calum will take to carry out that particular hit. He tends to take a little longer than most men in his profession. More careful.

  More ponderous. More successful. If it had happened, Higgins would have mentioned it. So he’s still waiting.

  ‘What do the police know about Hugh Francis?’

  Higgins blinks. ‘Shug Francis? A bit. Involved in a lot of car crime. Not so much these days, harder to steal cars than it used to be. A pest, but I don’t think he’s a priority. Doesn’t use violence. Don’t think the public are aware of him. Last I heard he’d bought a racing car,’ Higgins is saying with a smile.

  ‘Track-day car, yeah,’ Young is nodding. He’s heard all the charming stories of Shug’s geeky adoration of cars. ‘You guys haven’t looked any deeper into his work?’

  Higgins shrugs a little. ‘I heard someone say that they had looked into him a couple of years back. Not a lot to find. He’s a smart guy, y’know. Hides everything real well. I think they looked at him to see if he had anything else going on, if he was using his car set-up to do other stuff. Don’t think he was, or we would have taken measures. Has a good legit business to hide everything behind.’

  Young raises an eyebrow. He isn’t going to say anything else.

  ‘You think we should be looking at him?’

  Young thinks about it for a moment. ‘Might be worth it. Could soon be relevant. I can’t say more than that.’

  He can’t say more than that because he can’t be entirely sure. It annoys him so much, not to be sure. Someone is making moves against Jamieson and, despite the scepticism of some, Young is sure it’s Shug Francis. He has the means. He’s smart enough to pick the right targets. Jamieson is the right target. If you want to come into the market, you need to take share from someone. You steal market share from someone worth stealing from. You don’t steal share from someone so big they can stamp on you and wipe you out with ease. Jamieson is on the rise, so he isn’t liked by the big players. Respected, yes. Feared, absolutely. Liked, no, because they recognize the threat he poses. Someone chipping away at him would not be loathed by the top people in the business. One thing Shug Francis has always been good at is ingratiating himself with people who matter.

  They end the chat. Whether Higgins recognized the significance of Young mentioning Francis, Young can’t be sure. He seems to treat it as a normal meeting, doesn’t give any indication that he understood the difference. Young doesn’t bring up specific cases. He doesn’t go asking for particular information. This time he has tried, and he isn’t sure it even worked. By raising the name of Shug Francis he is making Higgins aware of his interest. He wants Higgins to go away and think about it. He wants Higgins to have a look at what the police already know about Francis, and bring that information back to him. The cop is young. He’s inexperienced. He might not realize what he’s being asked to do.

  The cop leaves first. Young waits for a boring twenty minutes before leaving the building, making sure there’s distance between them. He goes to the club, where he knows Jamieson will be. They’ve discussed the issue so often. Someone is making moves. They need to know exactly who. There would be nothing more damaging and embarrassing than attacking the wrong enemy. They don’t yet know exactly who is to blame. Young finds Jamieson playing snooker. He waits patiently for the frame to end, and the pair of them make their way back to Jamieson’s office. It’s remarkable how relaxed Jamieson is about it. Young agonizes constantly, wondering who their target should be. They know the person is using Winter. Hitting Winter will send a powerful message. He hopes it will also draw the real target out into the open.

  ‘Boy doesn’t know anything about Francis,’ Young’s saying as they take their usual seats.

  ‘Maybe there’s nothing to know.’ Jamieson knows Francis. Knows he’s smart. Knows he isn’t a risk-taker.

  ‘I’m convinced. Why is it so hard to find out anything about his operation? Because he’s hiding something. He has the whole thing locked down. Didn’t used to. I’m telling you, he’s making some sort of move. If it ain’t against us, then it’s against someone else, and I can’t find anyone else who’s being moved against.’

  Jamieson taps the desk. ‘So what?’

  ‘So we wait and see what the reaction is to Winter. When he gets hit, something happens. Whoever was working with him will need to approach someone else. They have to come out in the open, just a wee bit. Then we know.’

  ‘He still hasn’t hit Winter?’

  ‘Not yet. Soon.’

  15

  He doesn’t like Fridays. Busiest day of the week, workwise. People are buying for the weekend. Hardcore users buy every day. A lot of casual users buy only on a Friday. He has to make sure his people are well stocked for the spike in orders. He spends most of the morning doing that. He meets all six people that he’s using to sell his gear. Five of them are users; they’re always difficult to track down. Unreliable. All over the place. Chaotic lives. He stocks four of them, and the one reliable dealer he has. He might make greater use of that non-user in the future. If things are going big-time, then he might make the boy an offer. He’s jobless, maybe a little feckless, but he isn’t entirely stupid. And he’s clean, that’s the most important thing. That stupid, using peddler. The one who hadn’t been able to sell what he’d been given. He’s nowhere to be found. He’s gone missing with the gear he had left. Stolen for his own use. That requires punishment. He has to be seen to be tough. He won’t attack the man himself, but he will pay someone else to do it. Get back any gear the guy still has, which will probably be none. Then never use him again.

  There’s another reason why Lewis Winter hates Fridays. Zara wants every Friday to be a party. They have to go out. There is no question, no debate. They are going out. They will drink, they will dance, they will be out until the middle of the night. Twenty years ago he would have enjoyed it. Now, he hates every second. He doesn’t like being drunk; it makes him feel more insecure and maudlin. It increases his hatred of the people Zara attracts. They’re all terribly young and terribly trendy. Men hover around. He tries to keep pace, but his heart isn’t in it. She wants to dance. He knows how absurd he looks. It looks like she’s brought her uncle to the club with her. People have different attitud
es now. They seem more aggressive in matters of enjoyment. They have no trouble hitting on a man’s girlfriend when he’s right beside her. The old rules have gone. Sometimes she flirts back.

  If she would just stop inviting people back to the house. They have no business being there. He doesn’t want them there; she does. It’s his house. It’s their house. He’s committed to her. Like it or not. He’ll have to sit down and talk to her. At some point in the relationship he has to stop feeling like shit. It’s making him miserable. It’s because she walks all over him. He will say something. Not tonight. She’ll already have made plans for tonight. She’ll have called some of her friends and they’ll all have arranged to go to the same place together. A group night out, to begin with. Some will bring boyfriends, some are single. They’re all much younger than he. They’ll all enjoy the night out, except him. He’s just there to buy drinks. He’s there to call the taxi to get them all back home. He’s the chaperone.

  He gets home after four o’clock. There’s nobody downstairs. He can hear loud music from upstairs. He knocks on their bedroom door. Zara calls for him to come in. He opens the door. There’s Zara and a friend in the room. Another tanned, blonde, vacant-looking friend. They all look the same to him. The friend is sitting on the bed with a glass in her hand, surrounded by clothing. Zara is in front of the full-length mirror, looking at herself. She has on a party outfit. There’s a wine bottle and another half-filled glass on the dresser.

  ‘Hey, sweetie,’ she coos at him. She only ever speaks in childish, endearing terms when there are other people around. Keeping up some pretence. ‘Nah,’ she says decisively, and pulls the short dress up over her head. She throws it onto the pile on the bed. She’s now standing in front of the mirror in just her underpants. When she’s drinking she likes to be the centre of attention.