With these cheerful thoughts I made my way back to the car, barely noticing my surroundings, which wasn’t like me and turned out not to be clever. I still had Mrs Ahmad’s parcel under my arm. I peeled back one of the edges to take a look at what was so precious to him. I almost laughed when I recognised what it was. What the hell was I going to do with a pair of football boots?
I’m a trained killer. Okay, Iwas a trained killer. I’m now a trained killer who’s old and slow and has lost his touch. But, still, it was embarrassing to walk into their ambush so easily. They must have been watching me for a while, because two of them came from my left with all the precision of an SAS snatch team as I passed a small alleyway, and two from directly behind. They hit hard and they hit fast, barely giving me time to react, and I was lucky they were only armed with baseball bats and not knives. Pure instinct saved me. In the Army they teach you to react to the immediate danger and trust your mates to cover your back. I didn’t have any mates. In the first frantic blur of action I used Shoaz Ahmad’s football boots to block a scything sweep that would have broken my jaw, and danced left into my attacker in a move that took me out of the way of the guy trying to pulverise my kidneys. My mind went into combat mode, and my right foot in its heavy, sensible shoe, came down on the outside joint of thug number one’s left knee, followed by a welcome squeal of agony. I ducked low just as one of the apes behind me tried to score a home run with my head and I felt the wind of the bat whip through my hair. It was pure luck, but it gave me time to grab my one-legged, squealing friend by the neck and whirl him round in time to take a flailing baseball bat on the side of the face with enough force to ensure he’d be eating through a straw for a month. If they’d kept coming they’d have had me on a plate, because sooner or later luck or speed was going to desert me. But they didn’t much like it when I used their pal as a tooth-spitting human shield.
Things happened so fast I didn’t even consider who was trying to beat me to a pulp – it didn’t cross my mind they might mean to kill me – but I guess I still had a vision of the glaring faces in Mr and Mrs Ahmad’s lounge. It turned out I was wrong; the panting, wide-eyed trio facing me were all Asians in their late teens, clothed in some kind of gang uniform of dark track suits and white trainers. I was doing a fair bit of panting myself, but I was also wearing the shark’s grin that for me always accompanies involvement in adrenaline-fuelled violence. The bully boys who’d ambushed me weren’t expecting that. It made them hesitate, and in gutter-fighting he who hesitates ends up in A&E. But there were still three of them and one of me, and although the boy squirming and moaning in my fist was useful to keep them at bay, he wasn’t much of an offensive weapon. Which meant we had a stand-off.
The kid on the left stood taller than his friends and had hair that fell over his eyes. The others glanced sideways at him for a lead, which made him the leader – and my next target. He feinted left with his bat hoping I’d go with him and open my own left side to his mates, but I kept the injured boy in front of me and gave him a kick on his dodgy knee for good measure, which made him howl.
‘Get the fuck out of here before I break his other leg.’ My voice emerged as a sergeant-major’s contemptuous snarl. I knew I hadn’t broken his leg, but they didn’t. I sounded confident and in control, because I was. I’d been in this situation before, back against the wall with the odds stacked against me, but this was all new to them. I understood these kids. They hunted in packs, and if they fought, it was only when they had the opposition outnumbered and outgunned. I was outnumbered, but I definitely wasn’t outgunned.
‘We’re gonnae bust you, pal. Bust you good.’ The broad Glasgow vowels coming from the cinnamon-skinned face surprised me. Why it did, I don’t know – the boy was probably third-generation Scottish – but it did, and maybe that said something about me I didn’t like very much.
‘You couldn’t bust a balloon, son. If you couldn’t take me when I wasn’t looking you’re not going to take me now.’ I shifted my grip so my right hand was on the back of my captive’s neck and my left on his chin. ‘Maybe I’ll break his neck instead? How about that? All it takes is one little twist.’ I put on a little power for effect and he gave a panicked squeak as he felt the vertebrae click: ‘Fuck. Sanj!’
His pal’s predicament gave Sanj something to think about. He faced the classic commander’s decision: he could reinforce failure and sacrifice his foot soldier, but there was no guarantee that would work, because I’d already shown him what I was capable of. Or he could withdraw in good order and everyone would live to fight another day. The second option was the right option, but that would mean losing face, and Sanj wasn’t a kid who looked as if he wanted to lose face. I watched his eyes, because the eyes can tell you a lot. Sanj’s glittering eyes told me that he wasn’t scared and he didn’t give a fuck about his mate. But he was also confused, and that was interesting. I realised that the two kids beside him had barely taken a swing at me, and now that I had a chance to study them I could tell their hearts weren’t really in it.
‘Sanjiv, enough.’ The gruff voice came from behind me and I risked a glance over my shoulder. Gulam stood about five yards up the street with the two men who’d been with him in Mr Ahmad’s living room. He didn’t give me a big, reassuring smile, but he didn’t look threatening either, so I turned my attention back to Sanj, who still had his baseball bat and seemed to have a different concept of the meaning of enough. We stared at each other for a while, until I saw his eyes flick past my shoulder and he gave a little disappointed shake of his head and turned away.
‘S’go.’ The two boys beside him turned to follow.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ I gave my prisoner’s injured knee a nudge and he let out a yelp of pain. Sanj turned back, frowning, and nodded to his two sidekicks, who came forward as I released my grip on the boy and let him limp towards them. When they were gone I picked up the parcel containing Shoaz Ahmad’s football boots and walked up the street until I was face to face with Gulam.
‘Thanks,’ I said. He didn’t acknowledge my gratitude, which wasn’t surprising since I was ninety per cent certain he’d set up my little work-out. Why else would he turn up at the right place at what would have been just the right time if Sanj had done his job properly? I guessed he had a message for me, one he’d hoped to pass on when I was on my knees and spitting blood into the gutter. I was right.
‘I don’t want your thanks. I just want you to leave and not to come back. This is none of your business.’ His voice was steady and controlled. He’d been angry in the house, but he wasn’t angry now. Not angry, but certain, the way a padre is certain when he tells you God’s on your side just before you go into battle; a certainty that allows no argument or dissent. He waited for me to move, but I wasn’t going anywhere until it suited me. He shook his head in reproach. ‘You’re not a fool, Mr Savage – maybe a fraud, but not a fool. We do things differently here. Shoaz was one of ours and we’ll mourn him in our own way.’ He didn’t say it, but the unspoken words were there – ‘and avenge him in our own way’.
I stared at him, trying to read his face behind the beard. The eyes could have been fashioned from basalt for all the emotion they betrayed; two chips of bleak, unyielding rock that, conversely, told me as much about Gulam as if I’d been able to read his mind. Here was a man capable of the same things Glen Savage had once been capable of. It wasn’t that he was cruel; certainly not that he would regard himself as cruel. No, he wasn’t cruel. He was pitiless, which could be much more dangerous. A pitiless man would continue killing when a cruel man would be sated by the slaughter. Because it was right. I’d believed his antagonism towards me was some kind of reverse racism, but now I wasn’t so certain. Was there more to this than concern for Shoaz Ahmad’s family? Gulam spoke with the authority of a leader of his community, but there are different types of community leader. I’d got the impression Mr and Mrs Ahmad weren’t entirely comfortable with him in their home, and that raised a few questions.
I’m not good with dates, but two of them came to mind now. 9/11 and 7/7. On 11 September 2001 the twenty men who hijacked airliners to attack the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had given a new and sinister meaning to the word Islam. Four years later, on 7 July, it had only taken four misguided young men willing to die for their cause to kill scores of people in the London Tube bombings. Gulam reminded me of pictures I’d seen of the leader of the Tube bombers; maybe a little stouter, a little older, but not too dissimilar. I wondered what he did down at the mosque of an evening, where he went for his holidays, and about his relationship with Sanj and the other kids who had ambushed me. Of course, that didn’t make him a terrorist, any more than the thousands of young Asian men who board trains and buses every day carrying rucksacks are terrorists. But 9/11 and 7/7 have made me wary of those young men; not frightened, but wary. I wasn’t frightened of Gulam either.
‘I’m here because Shoaz Ahmad wanted me to come, not through choice. The kid’s mother and father made me welcome and gave me their hospitality, which puts me in their debt. I thought that meant something in your community, or have I got that wrong?’ His mouth tightened but he didn’t reply. ‘I’ll make a deal with you,’ I continued. ‘If the Ahmads don’t want me back, you’ll never see me again, but if they do, and I’ve got something to tell them, nothing you or your bully boys do will stop me.’
He laughed at that, but there was no humour in it. It was like seeing a smile on the face of a Siberian tiger. ‘You have no idea what you’re getting into, do you?’ he said softly.
I stared at him, but the sound of a siren made me turn, and when I looked again, Gulam had vanished.
CHAPTER 18
Monday, 11 June 2007
‘So what did the police say when they got you to the station?’ Aelish asked.
‘They wondered if I’d ever seen a riot.’
‘A daft question for a man with your CV.’
‘True, but they don’t know me as well as you do.’ Aelish knew I’d seen enough riots to last me a couple of lifetimes. On the Falls Road and up by the Divis flats during the H-Block protests. It had been a rhetorical question, but that hadn’t stopped me answering it in my head. A rampart of blazing cars and a maelstrom of bricks and bottles. A thousand mouths screaming for your blood. A carpet of glass that shone like diamonds in the summer sun. Snatch squads and snipers and the stench of burning tyres.
‘And the Asian boy isn’t going to press charges?’
‘I don’t think they ever found him. The cops got a call about a disturbance in the street and I happened to be the only one there when they arrived. I think someone on high already knew about my visit to the Ahmads’ house, so they pulled me in to put the frighteners on me.’
She giggled, which meant the big joint she was smoking was taking effect. Cannabis relaxes the muscles and eases the pain that is the constant companion of an MS sufferer. Like everything else, there will be a price to pay for using it, but we’ve decided to worry about that later. Aelish swears by it and I risk the wrath of the penal system to procure it for her. Would you do any different?
‘Do they really think there’s going to be a riot?’
I shrugged. ‘There’s a huge amount of pressure on them to find Shoaz Ahmad’s killer. On the surface, they’re dealing with a community that’s a model of co-operation, but the police know that underneath there are things they’ll never hear about. Things that could possibly help crack the case. Race, religion, prejudice: they’re all working against them.’
‘But why, Glen? Surely everyone wants the killer to be caught?’
‘Sure they do. Most of them. But . . .’ I hesitated, because I wasn’t sure how to say it without sounding patronising or worse, racist. ‘. . . the people who live in that part of Glasgow – where the Pakistanis and Indians have congregated – view life from a perspective we can’t really relate to. For more than five years they’ve been living in the shadow of those big twin columns of smoke coming from the World Trade Center . . .’
‘So has everyone else,’ she pointed out.
‘But they think . . . they truly believe . . . that they’re being blamed – not individually, but as a culture, for what was done that day. Not by everyone, but by a lot of people. And they may be right. There are sixteen-year-old Pakistani kids who have lived each day of their lives since 9/11 with the knowledge that in the eyes of their school-pals they’re the next generation of terrorists. Those were the kids who tried to give me a doing today; kids looking for payback. They’re scared.’ A thought struck me. ‘They’re so scared that maybe they’re setting up their own little militia just in case something else happens and the drunks and the no-hopers from the other side of the river come for a visit with their samurai swords and Molotov cocktails in Buckfast bottles. Now poor Shoaz Ahmad is snatched off the street and someone’s cut his throat, and they’re more frightened than ever. That’s why they tried to see me off.’
Aelish was ahead of me. ‘And that’s why the police don’t want a big, scary-looking Caucasian mongrel trampling all over their patch.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, but I knew she was right. It looked as though the stakes were higher than I’d been aware of and I’d almost made an idiot of myself. She continued to stare out of the window with dreamy eyes and I knew she was drifting off to a pain-free world of her own. Soon she’d ask me to take her to bed. I realised I’d been so wrapped up in what had happened that I’d forgotten she’d offered to look for a link between Shoaz’s killing and other unexplained deaths.
‘Did you have any luck today?’ I asked belatedly, knowing that she would have told me if she had.
‘Uh uh.’ She shook her head sleepily. ‘Just the usual drunken stabbings, depressed old ladies who walked into the river and tormented father’s killing their kids because they don’t want their wives to have them. What would make someone do that, Glen?’
‘I don’t know, love. How far did you go back?’
‘About two months.’
‘Maybe try a little further back tomorrow. And see if you can find any link to something about God’s Warrior, or Warrior of God.’
She looked up, her eyes a little brighter. ‘That sounds interesting – or ominous.’
‘It’s just a phrase I stumbled across today.’ I’d decided not to trouble her with Shoaz Ahmad’s mutilation so soon after she was out of hospital. ‘It might be relevant, or it might not.’
She mumbled a reply, but her head was nodding on her chest. I took the handles of her chair and gently wheeled her through to our room. She was already in her nightdress and it was a simple task to lift the slender body from the chair and into the wide bed we share. In some ways MS has brought us closer together, in others it’s the prison wall that divides us. The bedroom is one of those places. Once it was pain that kept us apart in bed, now I’m not so sure. Since Aelish lost the baby she can barely stand me touching her. There is a coldness, or, maybe more accurately, a barrenness, that has nothing to do with the disease. I stood over her for a moment, watching. The drug had relaxed her and her face was at peace, with none of the fault lines that pain can sometimes etch on those beautiful features. Her chest rose and fell beneath the blankets, and I remembered her as she once was, her body almost glowing in the late afternoon sun as she lay on a Mediterranean beach in a tiny red bikini; all curves and orbs and thoroughbred lines. A liquid feeling started in my brain and poured down through me, leaving me weak with desire. I started to reach out to her, but my hand stopped of its own accord a few inches from her body. I turned and walked out of the room and went to the computer – where my other demons waited.
Dewar called again the next morning, but his news was disappointing. ‘Still nothing concrete. A few hints and a few rumours. It happened somewhere in the back of beyond, but not in Strathclyde or I’d know about it.’
‘Definitely linked, though?’
I felt him shrug at the other end of the line. ‘That’s what they’re saying. I saw you on the telly the other
night. Uglier than ever. No’ a bad bit of stuff, though, the wee lass. That was some doing she gave your pal Dorward. Did you get what you needed – at the castle?’
‘They’d already taken the kid’s body away, but I made a bit of progress,’ I said guardedly. I’d decided to keep the information about Shoaz Ahmad’s missing heart to myself. Willie had a way of passing on secrets to the places and the people he thought needed them most, and there was always a chance our opinions on that differed. ‘You haven’t come across a big bearded bloke called Gulam, from Pollokshaws way, on your travels?’
‘Brown face, speaks with a funny accent?’
‘That might be him.’
‘Perm any one from a thousand,’ he chuckled. I didn’t respond and he must have felt something. ‘It was a joke, Savage. You know me, not a racist bone in my body. Have you heard of an outfit called the Scottish Defence Association?’
The name rang a bell, but I couldn’t place it.
‘Bunch of right-wing nutters, made a big song and dance around the time of the Kriss Donald thing?’
Now I remembered. Kriss Donald was the white kid who’d been kidnapped and murdered by an Asian gang a few years back. The Scottish Defence Association had appeared like fungus in a shower; a bunch of parasites feeding on the community’s fear. They’d found few takers for their anti-immigrant bile but I thought they’d crawled back into the sewer they’d come from.
‘No, they’re still hanging about like a bad smell. Some dodgy characters there, and no friends to our brown brethren. I hear Pitt Street’s taking an interest. Working on profiles of individual members, that kind of stuff.’
We chatted for a while longer, but the old harmony had been disturbed. Sometimes somebody can be your best friend for half a lifetime and you suddenly discover that you never knew them at all. When he’d rung off at the end of an awkward silence I went through to Aelish’s study and passed on the information he’d given me.
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