by Jay Stringer
‘Well, Rab’s not going to be coming back for it,’ I said.
He stared at me in the mirror. ‘With all the blether about him going missing, I got worried. Been sitting here all day with the cash, and all it took was someone working out what I’d agreed with him, and they might come and hassle me. I figured if he wasn’t going to be coming for it, I’d take it home.’
‘Right.’
‘So I left him a few voicemails, sent him a few texts—just innocent ones, asking what time he wanted to meet, if the deal was still on—nothing detailed.’
‘Okay.’
‘He texted me back half an hour ago. Said he was lying low, and that he’d come pick up the money around 8.30.’
I looked at the clock on the dash. It was 8.30 on the dot.
‘So if Rab’s dead’—Phil asked the obvious—‘who texted you? Who’s coming for the money?’
We sat in silence. Rain started to spatter on the window and drum on the roof. Light at first, then picking up, turning into one of those soft summer rains that set the air free. We watched people walk along the street. We watched traffic speed by.
We watched Andy Lambert walk up to Lebowskis and step inside.
Thirty-Eight
Lambert
Pregnant?’
Lambert paused. How the hell to respond? Certain moments came along as tests, he’d always thought, and you were defined by how you reacted to them. He’d never wanted children. They’d always been clear on that, and Jess had agreed.
No kids.
No drama.
No hassle.
Two adults getting to live their lives free of any ties or links. Never needing to worry about whether they could have the holiday they wanted because the hotel might not allow children. Never having to worry about saving up for university fees in case the government reintroduced them. And deep down for Lambert, he knew, never having to stop and think about occasionally screwing someone else while the mother of his children was at home waiting to see his smile.
And yet, neither of them had ever discussed him having the snip. Surely a conversation that would have come up at some point if they were both locked in to the idea.
The ground stopped spinning beneath his feet.
This was one of those moments. He was about to be defined.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Two different test kits. I’ve been feeling a little crampy the last few days, and my period would have been due around the end of last week. I’ve been really tired, but then there’s nothing new in that.’
‘You always feel tired during term time.’
‘Yeah, so I ignored it at first. But then my boobs got really sore, and I looked up all the symptoms online, then bought two different test kits. It’s happening. I’m cooking.’
She looked at Lambert, and he could see in her eyes that she was waiting to read him, to see what he wanted to do.
‘Well, I . . . uh, I mean.’ He stopped and tried again. ‘That is, ummm . . .’
Jess smiled and squeezed his hand.
‘Apparently pregnancy turns men into gibbering wrecks,’ Lambert said.
They both laughed, and a little of the tension eased from the room.
He realised the one thing he needed to ask. ‘What do you want to do?’
She rubbed her belly gently, touching it as if there would be something there at this early stage to feel the touch. She nodded, more to herself than Lambert, and smiled.
‘I want to keep it,’ she said. ‘I know we’re both old for this, but it feels right—I think?’
Lambert looked at his wife. He turned and stared at the photographs on the wall, their wedding day, fifteen years and a million decisions ago. He thought of how happy she’d been and of the deals he’d had to make with Joe McLean. Lambert had got a promotion and a cushy job, and over the years that was what he’d started to remember most. But that wasn’t what had come first.
First had been a young woman with a great smile, a university student training to be a teacher. The world stopped moving beneath his feet for the first time that day.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s do this.’
Jess leant in and kissed him on the cheek before giving him a warm hug that lasted for five minutes. ‘What are we going to do about Dad?’ she asked.
‘What?’
She pulled away and gave him a look. A ‘no shit, Sherlock’ look. ‘Now’s not the time to treat me like an idiot. I’m his daughter. Mum knew it, and I knew it. Even as a child, we had better living conditions than the other cop families. The same kind of living conditions the two of us have had as adults.’ Lambert didn’t make a move to deny it, so she carried on. ‘You turn a blind eye when it’s your family. And because you’re getting the benefit of it. But it doesn’t mean you don’t notice it.’
‘Okay.’
‘But you’re not handling it the way he does. I talk to other families. I know you’re always in trouble at work. I know you’ve got a disciplinary coming up and that you’ve been visiting the therapist for stress. The man I fell in love with, the man I married, was not a man who does dirty favours for Joe McLean.’ Lambert started to protest, but she waved the words away. ‘Look, I know, okay? I’m not judging. You’ve been doing what you thought was right, standing by the family.’
‘What’s changed?’
She rubbed her belly again. ‘This is the family now. You, me and the potato.’
‘That’s your first choice of name?’
‘I’m willing to be debated down on that one, maybe to “Spud” or “Chip”. I draw the line at “Freedom Fry” .’
‘I fucking love you, Jess.’
‘Don’t say it like it’s a surprise.’ She let a dark smile sit on her lips for a while before slapping him to show it was a joke.
Lambert felt light. There had been weights pressing down on his shoulders for so long, he’d stopped noticing they were there. But once his father-in-law found out about the baby, it would become just one more thing for him to hold over them. Now he’d be emotionally blackmailing two parents about a child’s future, rather than a husband about his wife.
‘So, what do we do?’ he asked. ‘About Joe.’
‘I’ve got savings. You’ve got savings, right? This house is his; neither of us has ever had to make a mortgage payment—how much do we have saved up between us? I’ve got about forty grand. You?’
Lambert didn’t have a figure. He’d been putting three hundred pounds a month into a savings account ever since the wedding, and his defence against dipping into it was to make sure he never saw a statement for the account, never knew how much he had to blow on a stupid car or a trip to Vegas. Plus there was money McLean had given him over the years, kickbacks and silence payments. He’d paid each one into the bank.
He did some quick sums in his head. ‘Probably around eighty,’ he said.
His phone buzzed and he saw a text from Sam, but ignored it. As far as she knew, he was in bed. It could wait until later. If Jess was fazed by the buzzing of the phone, she didn’t show it.
‘Okay, so we’ve got over one hundred grand that we can get to,’ she said. ‘Who needs my dad? Who needs Glasgow? Is there anything you really treasure that you wouldn’t be able to pack into the back of the car?’
Lambert thought about it and, no, all of his belongings were just stuff. He hadn’t managed to accumulate anything in the last two decades that would break his heart to lose if the house burned down.
‘You’ve got the police pension. We could work out if there’s a way to get at that further down the road, and I’ve got my teacher’s pension, the last of the good ones. We don’t need to be here. We can just drive somewhere else, start a new life, and work everything else out later.’
‘A hundred grand isn’t a lot these days. We won’t get that far.’
‘You kidding me on? A hundred grand is a lot in any year.’ She slapped him again, and it was still playful but carried a little more of an edge. ‘It’ll get us far enough. We’ll contact Dad in a year or so, send him pictures of his grandchild.’
Lambert nodded. He said they’d better start packing. Then one of his phones started to ring. It was the unlisted one, and it brought reality back into the conversation. It would be Joe or Gilbert. There was still Rab’s dead body in a lock-up in the city, and people who were expecting to see him. He needed to tie up some loose ends before they could run.
Thirty-Nine
The Barge was a well-known local restaurant. It had originally been called The Barge on the Clyde, but the second part of the title had become redundant by its obviousness. The restaurant was a large boat docked on the river, permanently moored beside a refurbished stretch of the riverbank next to a large casino.
It was a restaurant, a bar and a wedding venue. On that particular night, though, it was playing host to a meeting.
Lambert approached the barge from the shadow of the M8, the motorway bridge that crossed the river. The entrance to the restaurant was a metal gangway which linked the dock to the barge, and standing guard on either side of the doorway were two of Neda’s people. Two squat men in faded denim jackets, with their collars turned up. Lambert didn’t see the guns, but the shapes beneath the denim were easy enough to read. The man on the right of the entrance looked Lambert up and down before nodding for him to enter. The man on the left kept his eyes fixed on the middle distance.
Inside the restaurant the tables had been set for a normal evening’s service, but none of the staff was anywhere to be seen. They would be used to this by now, being hustled out and told to come back in an hour, a paid break. Lambert headed through to the large kitchen at the rear. Food was laid out on work surfaces, ready to cook, but there was nobody working on it. Plastic chairs had been arranged in a semicircle, like an AA meeting. In the centre of the circle was a small table that held a pot of coffee and some biscuits.
Lambert was the last to arrive.
Already seated were Gilbert Neil and Joe McLean. Nick, the Polish man who did Gilbert’s dirty work, stood in the centre, bending over the table to pour coffee. He looked up as Lambert walked in, but didn’t offer a nod. Neda sat at the end of the semicircle, leaning back in the chair, with her beefy arms folded across her chest. She glared at Lambert as he took a seat at the opposite end. She hated cops, and crooked ones were the worst kind. Even though she dealt with them on a daily basis, she never stopped hurling insults their way. Nick slurped at his coffee, then hissed as it burned his lips. He took a seat beside Gilbert.
‘Who wants to start?’ Neda said, laying on the thickness of her accent for effect. She looked at Joe. ‘It was you who called this meeting.’
Joe cleared his throat and leant forward.
‘First things first,’ he said, looking from Lambert to Gilbert and then finally to Neda. ‘We would all like to apologise for the mess at Copland Road. I know you’ve had to spend money on fixing the problem. We’ll pay you back for the costs and losses.’
Neda nodded at the apology. ‘Money is—eh.’ She made a dismissive gesture. ‘I will lose some. But it’s the family of Marisha, the woman your hit men killed, who needs to be reimbursed. She was sending money back for her parents. She had a boy; he is without mother now.’
‘We didn’t send the Venture Brothers,’ Gilbert cut in, waving with his hand, like this was the most important point of the evening. ‘I don’t know who did.’
I think I know, thought Lambert, but that can wait.
‘It doesn’t matter the who or the why.’ Neda’s tone was scolding and dismissive in equal measure. ‘All that matters is the dead. She didn’t ask to be shot, and one way or another it’s down to you people.’
‘You’re right.’ Joe smiled. ‘Aye, that’s on us. There’s a lot on us in the last couple of days, and we’ll put it right. We’ll make sure the man responsible for this whole mess is taken out—tonight.’
Lambert saw Joe glance sideways at Nick as he said that, but Nick didn’t notice. Then Joe made eye contact with Lambert and nodded. It was a gesture he couldn’t miss. A set-up. Nick wasn’t to blame for any of this, but he was expendable. He just didn’t know it yet.
‘A good start,’ Neda said. ‘I want to see proof. Maybe his balls in a jar. Something to send to Marisha’s family as a gift. And then, we come to you fuckers lying to me. You thought you could clean up a mess at my own business without telling me. There is the time and money it has taken to get rid of the police.’
‘We’ll cover that too,’ Joe said. ‘And more. Just name the price.’
Neda cocked her head to one side like a child thinking through a puzzle. ‘Then maybe you start with some answers. What happened really with Rab?’
‘Like you said,’ Gilbert cut in. ‘It’s not the who or the why. All that matters is he’s dead.’
‘So he is dead? You broke our deal. I needed to speak to him first, get information for myself. My business. You’ve cost me money.’
Everyone in the room turned to look at Lambert, who realised it was his turn to join in the game. He nodded and coughed away the dryness in his throat. ‘Had to be done,’ he said. ‘If he was still alive, we’d all be panicking now.’
Neda shrugged. ‘Do I look like I panic? But okay. Rab was trouble. Always. Maybe it was his time.’
Joe stuck his hand out towards her for a shake. ‘So we’re good?’
Neda took his hand in hers and shook once, holding his eyes with a stare that said, No, but we’re good enough for now. That’s all it ever was in the business. Things were good between people until they weren’t; then violence started until it all stopped.
‘Okay, the next piece of business, then.’ Gilbert nodded to Lambert. ‘Who are these people that want a meeting?’
‘They’re rich; that’s all I really know.’ Lambert warmed to the subject now they weren’t talking about death. ‘The law firm who hired Sam Ireland, I visited them earlier, and they have too much money. They hired Sam as a way of smoking out people who worked with Rab, and they seem to know about the business. Or they know enough. They want a slice, and they seem willing to pay.’
Joe laughed. ‘They always seem willing to pay. That’s how they get you round the table. Then they cut your throats. It’s how it’s always been done. Hell, it’s how I did it when I first wanted in. I just used a police badge to get them to trust me.’
Neda and Gilbert both nodded at that, with distant expressions in their eyes, as if viewing the good old days through a sepia filter.
‘All the same,’ Lambert said. ‘I think it might be worth you meeting them.’
And if they slit your throat, he thought, then that’s one less thing for me and Jess to have to worry about when we blow town. No angry granddad coming looking for us. Joe stared at Lambert with a neutral expression. Did he know? Had he figured it out?
‘Maybe I will,’ Joe said after what felt to Lambert like an age.
‘I’ll arrange it, if you want to meet them. Tonight,’ Neda said. ‘Security and neutral ground here; you know my price. And if they’re as well-to-do as your dirty cop says, maybe we cook for them too.’
Joe nodded.
‘Maybe they’re for real.’ He looked at Lambert again. ‘Or maybe they’ll be daft enough to try something on. Either way, what can it hurt? Either I get paid, or I get rid of another problem.’
‘Speaking of problems,’ Gilbert said. ‘We still have two.’
‘Two?’
‘Aye. Mackie slipped my guys at the hospital, beat them up for information. Luckily they were in the right place for treatment. The cops are out looking for Mackie too, but I don’t think they’ll find him. He’s coming for me now, and I’m running out of people willing to go up against him. He’s already kille
d two people and hospitalised two others. I don’t fancy waiting around until he announces his presence.’
‘And the second problem?’
Before Gilbert could answer, the kitchen doors swung inwards. One of Neda’s men from the entrance walked in, followed by Senga. She was carrying a gun, but nobody at the meeting felt threatened.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘But I have a solution to your Mackie problem.’
Everyone filed through to the main restaurant area. A few tables had been pushed aside to clear a space, with a chair placed in the middle. There was a blond woman in the chair, looking scared.
‘This is Beth,’ Senga said. ‘She’s Mackie’s doctor.’
Forty
Beth looked up at them as they gathered around her. She didn’t look hurt, and she wasn’t tied down, but Senga had a gun, and guns were very powerful to people who’d never seen one.
She looked familiar to Lambert. He’d seen her around somewhere. Maybe at the police station when she was visiting a patient, or in the witness stand at a court case. Now didn’t seem like the right time to ask.
‘She and Mackie are sweet on each other,’ Senga said. She raised the gun again, making sure the woman got the message. ‘She helped him escape your guys at the hospital.’
‘How did you get her?’ Gilbert said. ‘How do you know all this?’
Senga nodded at Joe. ‘Ask your man there. He told me to stay with Murdo no matter what, said Andy here was bound to fuck something up and leave a few loose ends and that staying on Murdo would help us see what needed to be done.’
‘Aye.’ Joe smiled, then cast a hard look at Lambert and Gilbert. ‘Both of you. I knew we’d need a backup plan.’
‘You were right, Boss. I stuck with Murdo. He’s started asking questions now, so he’ll need to go. And he’s working against us. He went straight to Hillcoat, so he’s in it too. Hired Sam Ireland to find out who’s killed Rab. He says it’s all linked to the thing with Mackie and the Towler girl.’