by Jay Stringer
I push off from the wall and head back towards the city, up Govan Road, to the Pit. I guess, really, this is where it all started. This was the last place I spoke to Rab; this was where he sent me away to get my dick wet. It’s also the cheapest pint in town, and I can already feel the cool beer on my tongue as I push in through the door.
The room is packed, normal for this time of night. There’s nowhere to sit, but when I walk in, someone at the back stands up and clears a stool for me at Murdo’s table. Murdo waves for me to join him, and the guy who got up is already heading to the bar to get me a pint. Why would anybody not love a place like this?
I sit down in front of Murdo. I’m not sure how this will go. It’s the first time we’ve spoken since I threatened to chop his boaby off, and as I understand it, people can get a bit arsey about something like that. He just smiles at me, though.
‘Good to see you, son,’ he says.
Is it?
‘Is it?’
‘Yeah.’ He stretches the word out, showing there’s no hard feelings. ‘Listen, I owe you an apology. A lot of them, actually.’
‘Aye?’
He nods. ‘I know a lot more than I did this morning. You were right to be looking for Rab. Someone’s grabbed him, and he isn’t coming back. I’ve talked to a few people, to Hillcoat—you know him? Aye, you remember the name anyway. I talked to your doctor, Elizabeth.’
‘You talked to Beth?’
My voice went up a wee bit there, like an idiot. He noticed it. I noticed it. We move on.
‘Aye,’ he says. ‘I think she’s sweet on you.’
‘Yeah, well, I am a stud.’
‘Okay.’ He smiles, but it’s a nervous one. ‘She told us she thinks you’re innocent, that you were set up over that young lass back in the day—what was her name?’
‘Jenny.’ My voice cracks again, but this time I don’t mind. ‘Jenny Towler.’
‘That’s it. Yeah. So, Elizabeth—Beth—she tells us that she thinks you didn’t do it. That someone used you because—well, you know, your issues and that. You were an easy target. And it makes me think about all the times you’ve said you don’t remember doing it and all the times we’ve talked you into it, saying that you’d blocked it from your memory.’ Murdo takes a large pull on his pint. This bit isn’t easy for him. Emotions and all that. ‘I always thought we was helping you, aye? Helping you accept it. But now I think maybe we was getting in the way.’
And this jogs memories. Like, lots of memories. For a long time, Beth’s been trying to get me to talk about the night Jenny died, and lately she’s been asking me questions about it. That’s where my Columbo things come from—she says watching things like that will help me think the right way. And there’s something else, something I can’t quite place.
‘And then last night,’ Murdo carries on, ‘last night you was in here asking Rab about it, asking if he could get someone to look into the murder. You were almost out and out saying you thought you’d been set up, and we laughed you off, sent you to the whorehouse to take your mind off it.’
‘And that’s where all of this happened.’ I pat my bad leg.
‘Aye, the Venture Brothers. I’ve heard about that since this morning too. Shit, son, if I’d known it was them that’d gone after you, I wouldn’t have been such a dick to you this morning. They’re serious business. Someone really wanted you out of the way.’
Well, your dick was certainly involved this morning, I think to myself. I don’t say it, though, because he’s being all nicey nice, and I don’t want to ruin the mood. But am I innocent? Am I really innocent? It wasn’t me who killed Jenny? That idea feels right. That idea has always felt right. Why the fuck would I hurt Jenny? I love her. No, loved her—get it right, Malcolm. She’s dead.
Who killed her?
I’m going to fuck them up.
I feel the emotion bubbling away in my head. Popping sounds come just before the anger. I need to fight this down. I need to keep hold of that light gassy feeling in the pit of my stomach, the one that’s about to get my blood boiling. I need to think straight. I need to hold on. Wait—there’s another question. Another stupid obvious thing I’m missing.
‘Murdo, how much would it cost to hire the Venture Brothers to take me out?’
‘Well, for someone like you, someone with a violent streak, it would be probably somewhere about—’ His eyes go wide, and his mouth flaps open and closed. He looks at me and then carries on. ‘Sixty grand.’
Motherfucker. We both see it. Sixty grand. The same amount Rab was borrowing off Gary Fraser. The same amount he needed to raise in a hurry, not long after sending me round to Copland Road.
‘Rab hired them.’ I decide stating the obvious is as good a start as any. ‘My own fucking uncle wanted me dead. Why?’
I look into Murdo’s eyes, but I can tell he’s as shocked as I am. He didn’t see this one coming. So Beth whispers in my ear, gets me thinking about being innocent. I start talking to Rab, and then he orders a hit on me. He has to be involved. Rab was one of the people who set me up. Rab knew who really killed Jenny T.
I need to find Jenny and tell her.
No, fuck, hold on to it. Jenny is dead.
I need to find Beth and tell her.
I need a pill.
I climb to my feet and head over to the payphone. I dial in one of the few numbers I’ve ever been able to learn, and wait until Beth’s phone starts to ring. It rings for a long time. Long enough that I start to doubt myself, think maybe I dialled the wrong number. I think it back three times, getting the same number each time. No, I dialled right.
Then a man answers.
‘Hello?’ It’s Gilbert. ‘Who is this? Is this Mackie? Hello, son. We have a wee present for you here. You might want to hurry up, though. I’m not sure how long she’ll last.’
I let go of the feeling in my gut. The anger bubbles and rises. My brain pops away.
I’m coming, Jenny.
This time I’m going to save you.
PART FIVE
‘Who died and made you Batman?’
—Cummings
Forty-Five
Mackie
We don’t go straight round and kill all of the bawbags. We wait. Against my better judgement. Murdo wanted to come along, which was fine—the old guy felt like he had a stake in this, and I respected that. But then he said he wanted Senga to come. She was that dykey one from earlier. Sorry, that’s wrong; I’m trying to be good now. She was the unattractive woman from earlier. The one I never mistook for Jenny.
Murdo calls her, and we wait in his taxi.
He bought it years ago as a joke. A black cab that he can drive around. It had come in handy a few times when he’d wanted to slip by the cops and also when he wanted to make a little money on the side. Murdo looks nervous. There was a time when he’d be all about this kind of shite, but he’s just a beaten-down old man these days. Probably rather be doing the gardening.
‘You got a plan?’ he asks.
‘Aye. We go round there and kill all of the bawbags.’
‘That won’t help save your girl.’
‘Aye, it will. None of the bawbags will be able to hurt her if they’re dead.’
The door opens and Senga climbs in the back to drop onto the seat next to me. She says hello to Murdo. I don’t rate a greeting yet.
She looks at Murdo. ‘We got a plan yet?’
‘Aye,’ I cut in, annoyed that she didn’t ask me. ‘We’re going to kill all of—’
‘Not yet,’ Murdo says. ‘Maybe we should go and take a look at the place first.’
I sit and sulk while Murdo drives. He pulls up across the river from the barge, and we pile out onto the street. There’s no easy way to get to the barge. The path on either side of it is exposed, with no shelter, and there’s an open paved space of about a hundred fe
et between the barge and the road. That’s got to be why they like it—nobody can sneak up on them.
Unless—
‘By water,’ I say. ‘We could get at them from the river.’
‘Oh aye, son.’ Murdo nods at me, looking like he agrees at first. ‘You just go get your boat, and we’ll row right across.’
Senga stays quiet a little longer and then points across to the open space between the barge and the road. ‘We need to draw them out. Turn their advantage against them and get them onto that open bit there, where they’re exposed.’
‘Fire?’ I say. ‘We could set the boat on fire. They’ll run out.’
‘If we could get close enough to set the boat on fire, we wouldn’t be needing to set it on fire.’
‘Fair point. How’s about if we sink it?’
‘Same answer.’
Baws. This whole thing is difficult. And I’m getting impatient. Beth is over there, and she needs my help. Fuck it, maybe I should just swim for it. My leg’s still messed up, and the river is a killer at the best of times, but we have no better plan.
Another taxi pulls up across the river, on the road nearest the barge. Two people climb out of the back, a fit woman and a weedy-looking man. They’re both dressed in suits that are too sharp for them to be cops. They must be on the other side.
A man with a gun walks out from the barge to meet them. He pats them down and then leads them towards the barge. Easy as that. I guess they have an appointment. Or they’re really hungry.
‘I have an idea,’ Senga says.
Me and Murdo both turn to her, but she stays silent. It’s like she’s waiting for us to ask, waiting for us to be amazed at how clever she is. Aye, right, show us the goods first—then we’ll think about it.
‘Murdo, you still got your gun?’
He thinks it over, then says yes. Like that’s something you’d have to think about. Then again, he is old. Maybe he’d forget to wipe his arse after taking a dump. Still, though, do you forget a gun?
‘It’s in the glovebox.’
We pile back into the car and drive around to the front of the barge. As we climb out, Senga grabs the gun from the glovebox and waves it at us, telling us to go on ahead and play along. We walk towards the barge and the guard comes out to meet us. He looks like Che Guevara, or like that guy who played him in the film, anyway. That one with all the singing and Madonna.
Yes, I watched a musical; fuck off.
‘I got a present for your boss,’ Senga says to him.
He stares at us for a while, like he’s trying to spot the trick. He gives Senga this weird look, then says, ‘I’ll need that gun.’
She starts to hand it over, but when he leans forward she hits him with it, across the head, like a fucking badass. Twice. I hear both of them, and the sound makes my own brain shake. The guy falls to the ground slowly, sliding down against the railing behind him. He’s not out cold, but his eyes are looking glazed. I’ve seen that look plenty of times on people who’ve disagreed with me.
‘Aye, pal.’ I want to join in on the coolness. ‘You just sit down a while, take a rest.’
We head on down, Senga keeping the gun on us the whole time. She’s liking this. I think I would too. Wish it was the other way around. Must be fun to be the hero with the gun. At the bottom we step through the open glass doors and into the restaurant.
Gilbert’s there, and so is some old guy I recognise, though I don’t know from where. His face tugs at the back of my brain. Give me time, I’ll find it. The two people in the suits are standing with the old guy, the woman shaking his hand. The washer lady is here too. What’s-her-name, Neda. She’s bent over a chair with her back to me. When she steps aside, I see Beth. She’s not moving. Her head is slumped forward onto her chest, and there’s blood all down her front. Too much of it. I know that much blood—I’ve seen it before.
My brain flashes and rocks. It goes hot and cold, and my arms tingle.
They’ve killed Jenny.
The bastards.
They’ve killed my Jenny.
Again.
I start to lose it. I can feel my head going, my gut bouncing, all the same old heat. It’s like having butterflies in my stomach, except they’re all on fire and really pissed off. I look again at the old man, and his face flashes younger in my mind, and I’ve seen him before. I’ve seen him here before, the last time they killed Jenny. The last time I killed Jenny. Wait. No. Breathe. Calm down. Think what Beth said, before she turned into Jenny.
Before.
Beth’s dead.
I love Beth.
I turn to throw myself at Gilbert because he’s nearest. Something hits me in the back. Hard. It knocks me to the ground, and I spit blood. What the fuck? I know this feeling. I felt it last night, and I didn’t like it then, either. I’ve been fucking shot again. This time my back is burning. When I was shot in my leg, it was cold. I wish my body would make its fucking mind up. I roll onto my side and look up. Senga is stood over me. Murdo is lying on the floor next to me. His face is missing. When did that happen?
I hear two gunshots, but neither of them hits me. Then I hear a scream that sounds like me. My brain is catching up. It’s replaying the last couple of seconds, just in case I hadn’t figured out what happened. I try to kick at Senga, sweep her legs out, but I can’t move. I could swear I had a body a minute ago, but now all I can feel is a tingling. Then cold. Ah, here we go—this is more like it. Am I underwater? I feel like I’m in a cold bath.
I look again at Beth.
I let her down. I didn’t get to her in time, just like I didn’t get to Jenny.
I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to rip every motherfucker on the planet apart with my bare hands. Instead, I laugh. It’s a weird feeling, laughing without having a body.
The old man bends down and looks into my eyes.
‘What’s funny?’ he asks.
‘I’m not a monster.’ I spit blood at his face.
Forty-Six
Sam
Andy crumbled when he saw us. It wasn’t a dramatic thing—there was no explosion, but his shoulders sagged, and he looked ready to fall over. We led him out the front door and then walked a couple of blocks to a small whisky bar, somewhere that felt more neutral.
Phil went to the bar for drinks. He came back with a pint for Andy, a rum and Coke for me and a plain old Coke for himself. It sucked to be the designated driver in the middle of a crime investigation.
‘Tell us what the hell is going on.’
‘They’re coming for you. They’ve already tried to do me.’ He pulled back his coat to show a small red stain soaking through his T-shirt. He tried to shrug the coat off his shoulder to show more, but it was too painful. He panted a few times before continuing. ‘You’ve got to run.’
‘Yeah? Well, I’m good at running, so that’s fine. But who are you talking about? The people who’ve killed Rab?’
He paused. I couldn’t read his face. He looked to be choosing which version of the truth to tell us. Was he holding back?
He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And they killed Jenny Towler too, right?’
‘That I don’t know. Wait.’ He looked directly at me, and I could see he was remembering something. ‘Senga turned up. She had some doctor with her, Mackie’s psychiatrist. They were going to use her to lure Mackie. Someone said something then—I don’t remember who. A lot has happened.’ He touched his shoulder again. ‘But someone did say something about Mackie being innocent.’
‘Senga’s on their side?’ Shit. That changed everything. That meant Hillcoat was in trouble. And if they had Beth, I needed to do something. ‘We’ve got to save Beth.’
Lambert shook his head. ‘Don’t be an idiot. How you plan to do that? You’re not Rambo. Or Rambette. You walk onto that boat, and you’re not coming back off again.’
I pulled my phone from my bag and waved it at him. ‘Who said anything about going there myself? Which boat are they on? I’m calling the cops.’
Lambert reached across the desk and grabbed my wrist with his good arm, pulling the phone away from my face. Phil pushed between the two of us and grabbed Lambert’s arm, forcing him to let go, before slamming it down onto the table. We became very conscious of other people in the bar, and the barman stopped talking to one of his customers to stare at us.
I smiled at him and shrugged an apology.
Strike one. We were on borrowed time in here. That was fine—we seemed to be on borrowed time everywhere.
‘What the fuck?’ Phil spat at Lambert. I’d never seen him so protective.
‘Sorry.’ Lambert was panting hard now, and I could see the red stain spreading beneath his jacket. ‘Not thinking straight. Decisions, fuzzy. She’ll already be dead. If you call the police, all you’re doing is sending me down too. The people on the boat, they’ve set me up. They’re making it look like I killed Rab, and now that they have my blood, they can do a good job of it. I just need a little time to figure my way out of this.’
I turned the face of my phone to him to show that I’d killed the connection. I put it down on the table without letting him see that I’d pressed record on the dictation software.
‘Andy,’ I said. ‘Start talking.’
‘Rab talks too much. And with his books, it’s even worse. At first he wrote about the small things, fights he’d been in, people he’d hurt. He’d stretch the truth and make himself out to be a lot harder than he was. Everyone knew it—both sides, them and us. Officers working Rab’s file didn’t bother reading his books sometimes because they knew there were too many lies in them.’