Ways to Die in Glasgow

by Jay Stringer

  He won’t mind.

  We pack our bundles into the back seat of Beth’s car, a small little French thing that’s meant to be eco-friendly, and she looks over the roof at me before we climb into the front.

  ‘You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?’

  ‘Course not, hen.’

  Stupid? No.

  I’m gonna kill a bunch of shitey bastards to avenge a hooker and a dog.

  If that’s stupid, then call me Elmer Fucking Fudd.

  Five

  Sam

  I was woken by the phone ringing. I lay and listened to it, waiting for the machine to kick in.

  Yes, I still had one. It had been my father’s and was one of the few things I’d managed to retrieve from our old office when the bailiffs came in. It was twenty years old. I’d had to buy an adaptor to make it work with a modern phone. I’d thought about recording a new message when I took over the business, but people seemed to expect a male voice when they called a private investigator. It was still loaded with my father’s old Rockford special: ‘Ireland Investigations. Leave your name and number, we’ll get back to you.’

  I reached for my pack of emergency cigarettes but saw it empty and crushed into a ball on the floor. I only remembered smoking two of them the night before, but I also only remembered drinking one bottle of wine, and my head told me there had been more than that. I opened the drawer and found my electronic cigarette and sucked down the vapour, pretending it was the same. Sometimes you can sense a shitty day is on the way. I liked to give them levels—scores out of ten. The game was to guess at the start what level of shite the day would achieve. I’d got pretty good at it. I judged I was at the beginning of a seven. Maybe I’d be able to get it down to a six if I went for a run later, got some air into my brain and cleared out the booze.

  I usually went for a run every day, but I’d been skipping it for a week, and already I was feeling the guilt, imagining the fat cells in my body taking hold. I ignored the phone. I’d had a lot of calls from journalists over the past couple of months and had got used to blanking them. I lay back and stared at the ceiling, but when the message started to record, I heard an educated voice. An east coast accent that carried the fake hint of Englishness you could only get from expensive Edinburgh schools.

  I heard the name of a law firm and the start of a phone number.

  I heard money.

  Money would be good for the rent.

  I fell out of bed and made it to the phone before the woman on the other end had finished. She paused for a moment when I picked up, and a little doubt crept into her manicured voice. I probably sounded like hell. I certainly didn’t sound like someone who should be taking calls from her kind of law firm. She asked again if she’d called the offices of Ireland Investigations, and I said yes. I didn’t tell her that she’d also called the bedroom.

  She asked me to attend a meeting with her employer at 11.23 a.m.

  I got a kick out of the precision in that request, and decided to show up at 11.25.

  The name of the firm was Hunter & Simpson. I lied and told her I’d heard of them and that I didn’t need the address. My father had taught me long ago, always pretend you’ve heard of someone if they have money. Always pretend you’re on their level and that they should be paying you for things. He was better at pretending than me. He wasn’t the one who’d lost the office. It wouldn’t be difficult to find the address. They’d be online, or in the phonebook. Failing that, all law firms had offices in the same area of Glasgow. They were never hard to find.

  The timing of the meeting would have given me time for a morning run, but my need to pay the rent beat my need to feel the burn. I had errands in town and invoices to drop off.

  I checked myself in the bathroom mirror. Always a mistake. Never do that before the shower. Only do it after, if it’s been a good shower. It was usually best to avoid the whole reflection thing until it was time to straighten your hair and apply the make-up. My father didn’t teach me that. The red wine showed in my eyes, and the cigarettes came back with a rattling cough. I managed to have that perfect kind of hangover shower; the kind that freezes time and holds the water in the air around you. I’d been trying to switch to decaf coffee, but I broke the foil on a new jar of the real stuff and drank two large cups. The pastry probably wasn’t strictly necessary to help chase away the hangover, but it didn’t do any harm.

  My Bridgeton flat used to have two bedrooms. Now it had one bedroom and an office piled with filing boxes, paperwork and old furniture. I dug out the telephone directory, but it didn’t have a listing for the law firm. I fired up the ailing laptop and left it clicking over while I picked an outfit for the day. I wanted to make at least an effort to impress, so I found my best suit, a Primark special that looked like it had been ironed by a blind man, and fought with my hair for ten minutes. I checked in on the laptop, restarting it a couple of times until it worked, and then typed the name of the firm into the small search box and sent the request to the gods of Google.

  It fired back the address on West Regent Street, naturally enough, and also a few news stories. I scanned through mentions of the company being started by two young upstarts, Fiona Hunter and Douglas Simpson, who had each walked out on huge jobs in the city’s biggest law firm. They both posed for the camera on the steps to their office building. Two young and sickeningly attractive people, each with a perfect suit and tan. They looked just like the woman on the phone had sounded.

  Money.

  I downgraded my estimation and put the day at only a two on the shitey meter. My last decision before leaving the flat was an important one: heels or flats? If in doubt, the answer was always sunglasses.

  I left in a good mood, choosing to ignore that I’d forgotten my keys.

  Six

  I walked across Glasgow Green, sucking in the fresh morning air and trying to blow away the cobwebs in my head. The Green was great in the morning, with only a smattering of joggers and dog walkers. The sun beat down on the Clyde, which looked like an actual river at the Green, not the pile of brown sludge it turned into once you got to the city.

  At the other end of Glasgow Green I walked out onto Saltmarket.

  This part of town looked run down, but beneath the dust and soot lay some of the finest buildings in town. Old properties in Glasgow had a habit of burning down in time for new developers to come in, but around Saltmarket and the Green you could still see the old city.

  Halfway up the road, nestled between a bar and a Chinese takeaway, stood Crowther & Co., a walk-in law firm that was open to the public twenty-four hours a day. The frontage was painted white, with the firm’s name in Gothic script beside an image of a skull wearing a judge’s wig. The exterior gave off a very rough-and-ready impression, but the inside couldn’t have been more different. Smooth and tidy, the waiting area was a narrow space made up of clean sofas that lined two walls and framed a reception desk. Behind the desk sat the receptionist, a large Ukrainian man named Alexei. He looked like a hairless bear, but he was as friendly as a puppy, always keen to please and to show off his new English words.

  ‘Salutations, Sam.’ His grin spread wide.

  He looked me up and down, lingering in all the places he thought I didn’t notice. Alexei was harmless, though. I didn’t want to make him feel awkward.

  ‘Hiya, Alexei, how you doing?’

  ‘I’m spiffy.’

  I had no idea what that meant, but I rolled with it. ‘That’s good to hear. The lord and master home?’

  ‘Yes, go on in.’

  I stepped past the desk and pushed through the door set into the wall at the rear. The room beyond was a larger space, with filing cabinets lining the walls and three desks arranged in a semicircle. Only one of the desks was occupied, though the others were piled high with papers. Fran Montgomery was in his late fifties, with a fuzzy face and the hands of a mechanic. He
’d known my father, back in the day, and he’d always tried to throw business to us. He smiled at me now and waved at the empty seat in front of the desk.

  ‘Hey, hen. What can I do for you? Is it invoice time already?’

  I plucked two envelopes out of my bag as I sat down, and passed them both to him.

  ‘Double trouble,’ I said. ‘The Boswell thing and the Johnny Shaw case.’

  He laughed and typed something into the computer on his desk, loading up the files. ‘Shaw, the guy with the paint tins?’

  ‘Art installations, I think he called them.’

  ‘Aye, that’ll be that modern art that people talk about.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I leant into the chair, getting comfortable. ‘I thought there was something timeless, almost classic, about the way the police cars looked when he was finished.’

  He chuckled, a gentle rumble that spread from his gut and rolled upwards.

  ‘Aye, all right. If you say so. How did the background check go?’

  ‘Well, you can probably build something around his arresting officer. Lindsay—you’ve heard of him?’ I waited for him to nod before proceeding. ‘Yeah, fancies himself a gambler, likes to lose big in town, was seen drinking in the casino only a few hours before his shift, so the arrest itself would be questionable.’

  ‘Could work, but it’s too late. Johnny’s decided to plead guilty. He says he’s too proud of the work to let it go unclaimed, wants credit for it.’ He scanned through my invoices for a second. ‘You’ll take a cheque, right?’

  I raised my eyebrow, and he chuckled again before scrawling a quick signature across both and sliding them into his to-do pile. He passed me a sheet of paper and waited while I scanned down it, a divorce case that was getting messy. The marriage had ended in theft and accusations of domestic abuse.

  ‘Fancy taking a look into the husband on that one for me? See if you can get anything?’

  I folded the paper into my bag and started to stand up before thinking better of it. ‘Fran, do you know anything about Hunter & Simpson? I think they want to hire me for something.’

  ‘Oh, aye. The new breed. It’s all the rage with the kids. They show up, flash some cash, take a couple of high-profile cases and get their names in the papers, take on a few celebrities as clients. Then at their first chance, they sign media deals and get onto TV and into publishing, ditch their practice. These guys are hunting out celebrity criminals, true crime cases, so they want the saucy stuff .’

  ‘Not worth working with them?’

  ‘Did you not listen to a word I said? Cash? Celebrities? Who wouldn’t want in on that? Just remember me when you’re rich, okay?’

  I left with his chuckle rolling out the door after me.

  Seven

  Hunter & Simpson’s office was on West Regent Street overlooking Blythswood Square. The grey stone front of the building looked down its nose at me as I walked up the steps; these things must have been designed specifically for solicitors.

  Blythswood Square was a small, fenced-off garden which used to be one of Glasgow’s most notorious red light districts. By day you’d pay to get screwed by lawyers, and by night you’d pay for the real thing. The council and cops had worked together to try and clean up the square; they’d cut back all the bushes and trees, and mounted large metal fences around the garden with gates that were locked at night. Now the hookers had moved further down the hill, towards the riverfront, and the solicitors were all a lot more tense.

  Inside the front door of the building, I checked the directory, looking to see which floor the firm was on, only to find that they used all of it. The recession hadn’t reached this far up the street. The reception area was decorated in muted shades of black and tan. Anything that didn’t share that colour scheme was made of glass. A woman who was far too young and far too skinny greeted me. She took my name and waved me into a large waiting area.

  She didn’t whisper that she was a child slave or beg for help.

  She didn’t ask if I could sneak her a cheeseburger.

  The waiting area was more comfortable than my flat, with two large leather sofas and a glass coffee table full of the morning’s papers. I sat there, flicking through a newspaper, until the receptionist came back and said that Ms Hunter was ready to meet me. I checked the time on my phone: 11.23.

  The receptionist led me through a glass door and up a small staircase to the top floor. It was decorated in a similar vein, but a lot of sleet grey had been added to the colour scheme, and the glass panels were frosted. She knocked on a large door straight ahead of us and then left me outside while she went in alone. She stepped back out and held the door wide for me to walk through, before shutting it after me and returning to whatever she did while she refused to eat. The office was large but minimal, a strange combination. There was a desk against the far wall, with a large window behind it. There were a sofa and coffee table along the wall to my right, and a large framed photo of Glasgow’s dockyard on the left.

  ‘Nice photo, isn’t it?’ The young woman who rose from behind the desk was from the news story. She looked even more expensive in the flesh, and my clothes instantly felt jealous. Her dark pin-stripe suit was pressed and tailored, and her shirt was probably silk, but I was no expert. Her fake tan was so expensive, you’d think it was real anywhere other than Glasgow, and her eyes were the sharpest blue I’d ever seen.

  ‘It’s great. Where’d you get it?’

  ‘I took it myself.’

  I gave her a second look. Photography was my real passion, and I’d been studying it at university when I’d had to quit to take over the family business. She offered me her hand for a shake, and I noticed she was wearing cufflinks. That struck me as odd. Her perfume had a masculine edge to it, a slight musk.

  ‘Fiona Hunter,’ she said. ‘And you must be Ms Ireland.’

  I nodded, and said, ‘Yes, Sam.’

  ‘Ireland Investigations.’ She said the name of my company as if she was walking round it and kicking the tyres. ‘That’s a brave name in this town.’

  ‘I suppose my dad was making a point when he chose it.’

  She looked at me again for a second, as if she was placing me from a memory. ‘I’ve seen you. Out on the Green on a Saturday, maybe? Are you a runner?’

  I smiled. ‘Yes. You won’t see me on the Green on a Saturday morning, though. I go there at night to unwind. It’s right by my flat.’

  ‘Pollok Park, then? Parkrun? What’s your PBT?’

  ‘I’ve been sneaking in just under twenty for the last few weeks. I’m pushing for nineteen, but it keeps beating me.’

  ‘Twenty minutes is a great time. Six-minute miles? Getting any faster than that is hard going.’ She gave me a smile, and I knew what was coming. ‘I’m at seventeen minutes.’

  Runners. ‘Well done,’ I said through gritted teeth. We pretend to be supportive, but really? It’s all pissing up the wall. Am I faster than you? Are you fitter than me? Do you spend more money on your running shoes? I wanted to hate her for that alone.

  ‘I liked what you did with that insurance case.’ She saved me from plotting her slow murder on the running track. ‘And the way you tried to avoid the publicity. That’s a quality we admire.’

  I’d picked up a case a few months previously that had got me some attention. An insurance firm had hired me to check over a few formalities before they paid out on a tenement building that had collapsed on London Road. It had turned out to be more involved, and I’d set the ball rolling for the police on what turned into a major fraud investigation. The newspapers had come calling, but I’d stayed discreet and refused to talk to them. Now didn’t seem like the right time to tell Ms Hunter that the only principle I’d been holding out for was the one called the right price.

  ‘Discretion like that is better than any business card. Your name is coming up at all the right dinners.
We’re in a similar position right now.’ She paused for a moment, and I wondered if she was waiting for me to say something, but then she continued. ‘We’ve had some success in our dealings, and we’re looking to expand the business, take on new people. After seeing that you know how to handle things, we would like to give you a try.’

  Give you a try. She actually said that, like testing a car. My need to pay the rent was slowly giving way to the need to make cheap points.

  ‘I don’t really do test drives.’

  She stopped me short. ‘You’re not interested?’

  Was I? Hell yes.

  ‘Naturally, I—’

  She stopped me short again by turning and walking back to her desk. She sat behind it and waved for me to take the opposite seat, which I did.

  ‘I’m going to level with you, Sam,’ she said. ‘My partner, Douglas—he has a lot of family connections in town. There are a lot of people he wants to bring in, established investigators, people who’ve been around for years and already know all the right handshakes. Not people I want to do business with if I can help it. They make my skin crawl. I’m pushing hard for you to be given the chance. I’m hoping you won’t let me down.’

  I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t need to. She placed a manila envelope on the desk and slid it towards me.

  ‘What is it?’

  A very expensive shrug. I wondered if they taught them at rich school. ‘Legal papers. Boring, really. Have you heard of Rab Anderson?’ I nodded. Anderson was a Glasgow celebrity. Which is one way of saying dangerous. She continued. ‘There’s a craze at the moment. True crime memoirs. These guys like to get paid for admitting in print things they used to dispute in court. We spend more time these days dealing with publishers than we do with prosecutors, but there’s money in it, so we’re not complaining. Anderson’s on his third book, and one of our clients is taking legal action, but we can’t find him to serve the papers.’