She looked me up and down.
"You're not an Army man," she said.
"Right again," I replied, and gave her a smile I hoped was reassuring. "But I know a man who is... Fraser MacDougall?"
"Never heard of him," she said, and started to close the door.
"George has though," I replied. "And I'm guessing here, but if he needs a doctor, is it because he's been seeing things, hearing things?"
That stopped her short. She looked me up and down again.
"What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't, but it's Adams, Derek Adams. I'm here on behalf of Mr. McDougall, an old friend of George's from way back. He thinks he can help."
"I'm not sure anything can help," she said. "But if it's news of an old friend, it might at least take his mind off what's bothering him. Come away in, he's through in the living room."
George Brown was the most pitiful looking man I'd ever seen. He sat, huddled up close to a two-bar electric fire, trying to soak in heat. He wore a pair of pajamas several sizes too large for him, carpet slippers that a dog had chewed through, and the general air of a man so ill at ease with the world that he'd gladly leave it. Almost black shadows shielded bloodshot and rheumy eyes. Although it wasn't far past ten a.m. he had a glass of whisky in his hand and judging by the level of the bottle at his feet, I guessed it wasn't even his first of the day. He looked me up and down.
"I don't know you," he said.
He didn't offer me a drink. I'd have to settle for tea; his wife was in the kitchen, filling a kettle and rattling the china with enough noise to let me know she was there, and not listening at the door.
"No, you don't know me," I replied, taking the chair opposite him. "I'm here on behalf of a mutual friend, Fraser McDougall."
It a couple of seconds for that to register; failing memory, or booze, I wasn't sure which, but then finally he recognized the name.
"I haven't thought about him for, what, getting on for thirty years? We used to go for a drink in the same crowd when we were in the O.T.C., but we were hardly friends. What does he want with me now, all these years later?"
I wasn't sure the best way to approach what had to come next, so I just gave him the story the same way it had been given to me; soul-selling in the bar and weird death of a diplomat and all. He didn't immediately threaten to toss me out on my ear, so that was something in my favor.
The arrival of his wife bearing tea and biscuits interrupted any reply he might have, and he didn't speak again until she left the room.
"I'd forgotten all about that night," he said, barely above a whisper. "I was pished as a fart, and the next morning I threw up over the sergeant major's boots – that's what I remember."
He looked up at me.
"McDougall, he's been hearing things, hasn't he?"
"Seeing, rather than hearing. But yes, he's getting twitchy."
"Twitchy isn't the word for it. There's a dark fucker in the shadows that I can nearly see, but it's the fucking singing that's driving me nuts."
"Singing?"
"More like chanting. Fucking monks and nuns or some such shite in Latin. And never quite close enough for me to figure out where it's coming from. It's been days, nearly a week of the bollocks now. And it's getting louder. McDougall thinks it's got to do with that night in the Union Bar, does he?"
I nodded, unsure what else I could say.
"And he has a plan?"
"He wants a meet," I replied. "At his house, Wednesday night. It'll be thirty years passed to the day, or so he says."
"Aye, that'll be about right," Brown replied. He cocked his head to one side. "Do you hear that?"
All I heard was his missus clattering about in the kitchen. Brown shook his head sadly.
"I thought not. She disnae hear it either. I've got a gun in the cupboard upstairs, and if this bloody racket doesn't stop soon, I'm going to put the barrel in my ear and pull the trigger. But give me the wee man's address. Maybe I'll turn up to see what he has to offer. Or maybe I'll just sit here and drive me and her next door doolally."
I read out the address from McDougall's card.
"Balloch, eh? The wee bugger's done all right for himself?"
"Better than all right I'd say," I replied. "How about the others? Have you had any contact with them?"
"I never saw McDougall or MacMaster again after Uni," he said. "And I know Davy Jordan went into the M.O.D. after the Corps, some sort of research unit. Never saw him again either. But I served with Joe Kelly in the desert. He took a bad one, lost a leg and was sent home. He turned insurance agent, then security guard. Last I heard he was out of work and shacked up in the Gorbals with some blonde tart."
He cocked his head again, listening.
"Bastarding singing is still getting louder. Tell MacDougall I'll see him on Wednesday," he said, and set to attacking what was left of his scotch.
3
It didn't take me long to track down Joe Kelly; blonde tarts hanging around with one legged men aren't exactly two to a penny, even in the Gorbals. All I had to do was to flash some cash in one of the south of the river bars and wait. I had a couple of pints and a couple of smokes in the beer garden as the word spread.
The winner was a wee man who looked like his best days had been before I was born. His suit had been expensive, once upon a time, but now showed the years nearly as vividly as his face, each rent and tear, stain and burn bearing witness to his descent into age and booze. His eyes looked too red, too wet, reminding me of Brown with his scotch, and his gaze fluttered between my face and my wallet as I waited for his info. He also did something disgusting with his false teeth, sliding them in and out over his bottom lip; I had to look away from that, although I couldn't escape the sound of gums smacking. He reminded me of our old dog when I was a kid; I could only hope he wasn't incontinent as well.
"You're after Joe Kelly and his wifie," the wee man said. He smelled too; stale tobacco, cheap booze and the faintest whiff of pish. I decided to keep things short and simple.
"Aye. There's a twenty in it for you if you've got his address."
"I heard forty," he said.
"And I'm not Santa," I replied. "Twenty for the address. Right now, or bugger off."
I'd read him right; twenty would keep him in booze until oblivion, which was all he needed.
"Twenty Six Hughes Road," he said, all in a rush like it was one word. "And he's in just now. I walked past and looked in the windae. He didnae see me, I was proper discreet, like."
He'd have smelled you though.
I didn't say it; I didn't need any further conversation. I passed him the twenty, he made it vamoose fast, and before I could tell him to bugger off, he did it on his own accord heading, I hazarded a guess, for the nearest supplier of cheap liquor.
I hated Hughes Road as soon as I walked round the corner into it.
The old Gorbals were already mostly razed to the ground when I was a lad but I've seen the pictures, heard the stories, of tall tenements, faded grandeur and a community spirit that held the area together against all comers. All of that is long gone, leaving a wasteland of modern housing in little boxes that look, and feel, more like pens and prisons. There were no kids in the streets, no music in the air, just silence, and the twitching of curtains as I made my way along to number twenty six. It was no different to number twenty, a bit more looked after than number twenty two, and a bit shabbier than number twenty four. The only thing that distinguished it from number twenty eight was the lack of dog shite on the doorstep.
The doorbell played Amazing Grace when I pressed it. I stood there rehearsing what I would say in my head, but I still didn’t know my lines when the door opened. It wouldn’t have mattered. No amount of rehearsal would have prepared me.
It wasn’t Joe Kelly who answered. The door opened and revealed a small, pneumatic blonde. I couldn’t vouch for the authenticity of the hair color; I was too busy looking elsewhere. She wore a short, red silk kimono slit at breast and thigh,
leaving nothing to the imagination. Her skin looked smooth, her tan deep and luxurious. She moved slowly, sinuously, like a cat.
I don’t think she’d even started to register my presence. In her right hand she held a crystal glass with enough whisky in it to give you a hangover, and in her left she had a thin cheroot that she puffed on with small, delicate movements of her mouth that made me look, then look away fast. Her eyes were glazed, and I guessed there was plenty more of that whisky already inside her.
"I'm looking for Joe," I said.
"Well, we're all looking for somebody, aren't we," she replied, her accent belying her tan.
She waved me inside, but didn't step out of the doorway, so I had to squeeze in, close enough to feel the heat coming off her, and taste her booze, and her perfume, at the back of my throat; both strong enough to fell a horse.
"He's watching the telly," she said. "Bastard's always watching the telly. It's all he's good for these days."
I heard the sound from the front room, the staccato frenzy of a horse-racing commentator just failing to keep up with the action. A broad, Scots, accented voice rose above it.
"Get a fucking move on, you stupid nag. I've got a tenner on you."
The blonde waved me through.
"I don't go in there much these days. I'll be through the back, if you need me," she said, every syllable a come-on that I didn't have to try too hard to ignore.
I went into a front room that might have been neat at one time but was now a mess of newspapers, overflowing ashtrays, empty beer cans, half-empty whisky bottles and the smell of stale sweat and rage. Joe Kelly didn't even register my presence at the door; his full attention was on the TV set, and the closing stage of the race. His face contorted, beet red either from the drink or from anger; either way he looked close to apoplexy as the race finished and he swore, long and loud at the set before hitting himself hard on the left leg. If I'd done it I wouldn't be able to walk for a week, but there was a dull thud, plastic or metal under the material, and I remembered Brown telling me of the war wound Kelly had taken.
He didn't look round at me until he'd ripped up his betting slip and threw the scattered pieces over his shoulder to join a mass of their friends.
"Who the fuck are you?" he shouted. He didn't make any attempt to turn down the TV set. I decided on starting with a name he'd know.
"George Brown told me where to find you." I shouted back. "He's got a message for you."
"Aye? And what might that be?"
"Can you turn that bloody noise down so we can talk?" I shouted.
"Nope," he answered, and I saw something apart from rage in his eyes then; a flickering shadow of fear, deep down in the dark. I spoke on instinct.
"If it's about the monks and the singing, I think I can help."
All the color left his cheeks. He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time then switched off the TV volume. The next race was about to start, but at least I had his attention for a wee while.
"George has been hearing the singing too," I said. I'd meant to reassure him that he wasn't going mad, but the fear was back in his eyes again now, so I went on quickly. "Fraser McDougall thinks he can help."
"McDougall? That wee nyaff? What's he got to do with the singing?"
So I told the story for the second time of the day, and to his credit, he listened, although he was less accepting of the premise than Brown had been.
"Away tae fuck, man," he said. "How much are you getting paid to spout this bollocks?"
I shrugged.
"I'm getting paid to tell you about the meet in Balloch on Wednesday night. I've told you. Job done."
"Aye, job done," Kelly said. "Now fuck off. I've got a fiver on the gray in this next race."
I turned to leave as he switched the TV volume back on.
"Balloch, Wednesday," I shouted against the commentary, but I really didn't care whether he heard me or not.
And there wasn't even a blonde in the doorway to show me back out onto the street.
4
I felt pretty damned pleased with myself, having tracked down and told the story to two of my three quarries by afternoon of the first day. It was some of the easiest money I'd earned in months. I celebrated by returning to my office and working down the whisky bottle while making some more calls.
But the well had gone dry. I got the three wise monkey routine from all my sources, and even George at The Twa Dugs couldn't find a Davy or David Jordan, formerly of the O.T.C. now, presumably, somewhere in the M.O.D. Given that department's fingers in its many pies, my man could be just about anywhere. I tried to get creative, going through the University's alumni archive, but the last address and phone number they had for Jordan was his student flat in Oakfield Avenue some thirty years previously and when I called that I got a number discontinued message. I tried the phone books, working my way through Davy, Davie and David Jordan, and while that was mostly grunt work and even occasionally entertaining it got me nowhere except a nearly empty whisky bottle and a full ashtray.
It was partly the booze, and partly desperation that made me try a Hail Mary call before bed. I rang up the M.O.D depot in Beith; being from that area originally I knew there were always rumors of secret research going on, and it was one of the biggest armaments depots in the country. All I needed was a chink in someone's armor that would give me a way to worm in toward finding Jordan. I wasn't intending to rattle any cages; I asked after Jordan, and was told there was no such person at the facility.
"Well, if you see him," I said, "tell him Fraser McDougall, George Brown and Joe Kelly say hi." I also might have mentioned the name of the dead diplomat, but by that time the booze was making things blurry round the edges. I took my spinning head to bed, and was asleep almost as soon as I hit the pillow.
I woke to the sun on my face and the sound of somebody clattering through the drawers of my desk. They weren't pretending to be quiet about it either. I went through to the front room, immediately realizing I wasn't dressed for visitors. I wore only a vest and boxers, and made the two big chaps ransacking my filing system look overdressed for the occasion, even though they were color coordinated, black on black, turtle neck pullovers, leather bomber jackets and the whole military heavy team cliché.
"The whisky is in the top drawer, the smokes are on the desk, and the kettle's in the kitchen," I said. "Anything else I can help you with?"
"Get your trousers on, Mr. Adams. You're coming with us."
"Do you have a warrant?"
"Do we look like we need one?"
He had a point there. My hangover wasn't up to wrestling with two gorillas, so I played nice, had a quick shower and dressed for an interview.
By the time I went back through to the office they had all my files packed into black bin-liners. They patted me down efficiently, then allowed me to take my smokes and lighter from the desk; I wanted to take the scotch too, but didn't push it as they ushered me downstairs, outside, and into a waiting Range-Rover. Unsurprisingly, it too was black.
They packed the bin-liners in the back, and as I turned to look I saw old Joe's pale face in the window of his shop. I gave him a cheery wave but the vehicle's windows were heavily tinted, and if he saw me, he didn't show any sign of it as the car pulled away down the road.
We headed south. By the time we crossed the river and onto Paisley Road West I had a good idea where we were going.
"Beith, eh?" I said to the two guys in the front seats. "If you stop at a florists, I can go and visit the folks in the dead center of town."
I got the silent treatment, but that was fine by me. I hadn't meant to rattle any cages last night, but it appeared I'd managed it anyway. Now I had to find a way to use it to my advantage in getting to my quarry. I got out a smoke and paused, expecting to be admonished, but the two in front paid me no heed so I lit up, watched the well-known road go by, and planned my spiel for whoever it was I was being taken to see.
We reached Beith half an hour later, and headed roun
d the bypass, out toward the depot. My dad had traveled this same road most of his adult life, heading to work at loading weapons of destruction onto lorries for delivery to wherever in the world they were needed at the time. If my life had taken a different turn I might even have joined him, but I had no regrets on that score.
We were let in through security on a nod, and drove through the quiet countryside that surrounded the mass of weaponry stored in the center of the facility. Finally we came to a halt outside the largest of the blocky concrete buildings and I was once again ushered along, like a rogue sheep being herded by two collies. They took me inside, down a long gray corridor, and pushed me into a room that was little more than a cube of concrete containing a table and two chairs. The door slammed with a clang that sounded final, but that second seat gave me hope that this wasn't actually a prison. There were no ashtrays, but there was a wastebasket, so I took that as an invitation, and lit up a Marlboro.
I was on my third before the door clanged again as the handle was turned from the far side. I expected the gorillas again, but instead got a short, well-groomed black haired man, tanned, fit and sure of himself. He looked at my smoking cigarette, raised an eyebrow, but didn't speak until he'd sat opposite me.
"Kelly, Brown, McDougall and MacMaster eh? I haven't heard those names for many a year."
"You'll be Mr. Jordan then? You're a hard man to find."
"There's a reason for that," he replied. "You caused quite a stushie with your phone call. I had to persuade the heavies that you had nothing to do with the death; they wanted to work you over anyway, but you're just McDougal's messenger boy, aren't you?"
He had an underlying supercilious nature that was already starting to grate. I sucked smoke for a few seconds before replying. And just before I did, he cocked his head to one side, as if listening. I made the connection straight away.
"Let me guess," I said. "Monks or nuns?"
That got through his veneer, and there was a touch of anger in his voice when he spoke.
"How the fuck do you know about that?"
Deal or No Deal? (The Midnight Eye Files, #0) Page 2