Brennan turned stiffly. Even in the half-light of the dimmed chapel, Rankin could see the tears in his eyes and the trails of moisture lining his cheeks. Brennan showed no interest in concealing his torment.
“Ever since I was a little lad, when things, they’d go wrong, I came to chapel to make them right. First with me ma’ and da’ and now they’re gone, on me own. Things have gone wrong badly this time, Tommy. I don’t know that they can ever be right again with me.” The giant hung his head in his hands.
Rankin had never seen Frankie Brennan so low, so vulnerable and so utterly desolate. He liked it, for in his calculating mind it showed there was plenty of weakness for him to work with.
“Listen Frankie, I know this whole thing has been real tough for you but me and Declan, we’re your friends; we’re not going to abandon you the way Gazza did. It’s bad enough you find out the guy who’s been watchin’ your back, and you his, has been lying to you all these years. Pretending he’s something he ain’t but then to find he’s gonnae be grassin’ you up to the rossers, man, it would blow anyone’s world to bits. But we need to get you thinkin’ straight again, and quick, because Reid isn’t dead and he managed to give the filth your name. But worst of the lot, the word is he’s gonnae pull through.”
Brennan’s head rose, and the old feral fire burned in his emerald green eyes momentarily, only to be doused almost immediately by the despair he seemed determined to wallow in:
“So I’ve let Mr Meechan and yourself down, Tommy. I didn’t do the job and that grassin’ little Judas lives and will end up putting us behind bars, all because I made an arse of things.”
Rankin held his hand up to stem the torrent.
“That may be the case, Frankie, but Declan wants you to know you’re part of our family and we’re not going to see you go down. We aren’t planning on goin’ down ourselves. First we need to get you out of here, cleaned up and calmed down and then far, far, away, and I know just the place.”
“You’d do that for me after the mess I’ve made of things?”
Rankin held his hand out and grasped Brennan’s massive paw, palm to palm:
“Of course we would, Frankie, now let’s get going.”
Rankin ushered his shell-shocked mate into the back seat of the shiny grey BMW.
“Okay Tam, take us out to Mr Meechan’s up by Mugdock.”
The huge black wrought-iron gates of Meechan’s mansion opened as if they had been expected. Rankin ushered the Irishman into an oak-panelled anteroom just off to the right of the hallway. There, staring into the dancing shadows of the log fire, sat Meechan. Turning his head slightly, he looked up at Brennan and pointed to the cream leather armchair opposite him. The giant, who suddenly resembled a naughty schoolboy, wandered over and sat down obediently.
“Tommy, there’s a bottle of Jamieson’s in the cabinet. I think we all need a drink,” said Meechan. His icy gaze fell on Brennan.
“Well, Frankie, this is all looking a bit of a mess and it’s only going to get worse if Reid pulls through. I expect Tommy has put you in the picture with everything?”
“He has, Mr Meechan, to be sure.”
“I think it would be best if you were to lay low here until we can get you away on Thursday.”
Meechan stopped to enjoy the Jamieson’s Rankin had poured for him, and charged his glass with his two associates, one of whom didn’t know he had a death sentence hanging over his head.
Brennan broke out of his despair. “Boss, can I ask what yer gonnae do if Reid looks likely to pull through?”
“The matter is all in hand, Frankie. Suffice to say his life expectancy is short in the extreme. The good Lord maketh and He taketh away, so to speak.”
Chapter 28
Heavily sedated, Reid had made it through the night and awoke to the usual noises which accompanied life in a hospital ward. Attached to a drip and aware of the burning ache caused by his surgery the previous night, even a shift of weight in his bed was almost too painful to contemplate.
He was nil-by-mouth for the foreseeable and although that was the case for nearly everyone in intensive care, when he saw what fell under the description of “breakfast” he felt relieved. Reid had never been in hospital in his life, something he guessed was pretty lucky considering his line of work. As he surveyed the surrounding ward and out into the corridor beyond the doors where the two polis stood guard, he began to realise what they meant by crisis in the NHS.
Stobhill Hospital was simultaneously grimy and gruesome, even though it compared favourably with the GRI. The latter had a record for hygiene problems, and the Royal’s dark grimy Victorian exterior appeared more like something out a Bram Stoker novel than Glasgow’s biggest and best infirmary. Perhaps it was just as well his little accident had happened in Springburn and consigned him to a Stobhill berth. And of course he was alive and his path was now mapped out for him, all need for doubt and debate removed by Frankie Brennan.
Ironic that, thought Reid, by trying to use me as a pin cushion the big fucker has pushed me straight down the throats of the polis.
By the end of the afternoon he would have unburdened himself of all his guilt, all the anger and confusion that had been building up inside him these long years. He would have the last laugh on Brennan, Rankin, Meechan, the lot of them: the thought brought a smile of satisfaction to Reid’s face.
His mind wandered to Gerry McIlroy and what would become of the two of them. He held his hand to the right side of his face and felt the four-inch scar that ran its length. The scar that meant Brennan had left his mark on him, even if he had failed to send him to his grave. Reid had always found it hard to reconcile Brennan’s cruelty and the pleasure he took from his work with the contrition he showed as he repeatedly sought to make good for the horrific sins he had perpetrated, through his belief in Christ.
Reid was a believer himself, but the broken nature of his childhood had meant his faith in Christ and Roman Catholicism was not underpinned by the same zeal as Brennan’s. Yet at that moment, he realised the need to unburden his soul was something he desperately wanted to do, a sort of spiritual starting afresh for his new life.
He’d never thought he would have been so pleased at the sight of two coppers in uniform, but that was the case now. For all these years he had treated anyone wearing a polis uniform with contempt and hate, viewing them as having sold out to authority and trading in their individuality for the sake of the power that went with a uniform, and in this case, a couple of Heckler and Kochs. But after speaking to the two cops babysitting him, he’d discovered that if you gave them a chance they were just normal geezers like him. Family, kids and concerns, they had it all. Having said that, Mikey seemed more interested in chatting up the nurses at their station along the corridor, while Bob buried his head in a Sun.
The priest wandered along the corridor toward the intensive care ward, smiling graciously and benignly as he held his prayer book in one hand and a plastic bag containing holy water in the other. His rosary beads were wrapped around his fingers.
Stopping at the nursing station, he politely said,
“Good morning” to the duty sister.
Flustered by a constantly ringing phone and a depleted shift, and hit harder by a viral outbreak, she nodded a brief “Hullo, Father.”
Engrossed in her staffing problems, the sister took almost no notice of the tall black-haired priest with the harsh Northern Irish accent. The priest continued along the corridor heading for the two police officers sitting outside the ward.
“Good morning, my sons, Father Gerry O’Hare, Roman Catholic chaplain for Stobhill, just along to provide some spiritual comfort and encouragement to my flock.”
PC Bob nodded and then reburied his head in the Sun. PC Mikey stood up and offered his hand in greeting:
“Good morning Father, they’re all yours.”
“Thank you my son,” Father Gerry said, making the sign of the cross and strolling into the ward to tend to his flock.
The good Father
made his way to a bed containing an elderly male who was barely conscious, opened the plastic bag containing the holy water and sprinkled it on the old man’s head. Holding his beads in one hand, he opened the prayer book and muttered a prayer over the apparently comatose patient. It was hard to tell if the old man had heard a word, or was even aware of the priest’s presence, but Constable Mikey certainly was and gave a good-hearted thumbs-up from the doorway.
Smiling down at the old man Father Gerry walked across the ward to Gary Reid:
“Good morning my son, how are you today?” he asked in a concerned fashion.
Gazza Reid couldn’t believe his good fortune.
“Ah Father, I’m a bit sore to be honest, had surgery last night and it’s painful to even move in the bed. But I’m so glad to see you.”
“That is always nice to hear, my son, it’s not always the case you know. I take it you would like me to administer a blessing? I will anoint you with the holy water then if you wish, I will say a prayer.”
Reid continued to smile.
“That would be great, Father, but I’d also like to receive confession and unburden my soul of the sins that are blighting my life. You see, Father, I have the chance to make a fresh start and to make a new life but before I do, I need to confess.”
Father Gerry stroked Reid’s arm: “That is good, my son, for the Lord holds those dear who wish to make good their soul and repent their mortal sins.”
“To tell you the truth Father, I’m just so pleased to have this opportunity. Last night I was stabbed. I thought my time had come and I would never have the opportunity to repent, never mind receive my Last Rites. Father, you must be the answer to my prayers.”
“Ah, Gary is it?” Father Gerry pointed up at the name board above Reid.
“You make my heart sing with joy; it is my good fortune to meet you upon the Lord’s work this morning. Do you want me to draw the curtains so you may confess in privacy?”
“That would probably be best, Father, as the sins I have to unburden myself of are for your ears and those of the Almighty only.”
“Very good, Gary, let me just check with the officers that’s going to be all right. I take it they are in here for your benefit?”
Reid nodded and watched as Father Gerry strolled lithely back to the doorway for a brief chat with PC Bob who, after a brief shake of the head, resumed devouring his Sun avidly.
Father Gerry returned to Reid’s bedside and, smiling, set about pulling the plastic curtain around the bed. He opened the plastic bag with the holy water and sprinkled it in the shape of the cross over Reid’s forehead. The priest opened the prayer book and Reid noticed something glint inside the unfolding pages. Father Gerry smiled once more, then stood up and, removing the blade from his book, he quickly placed his left hand over Reid’s mouth. Leaning over the patient he spoke:
“In the name of the Father and the Son and Declan Meechan, may you rot in hell forever more, you grassing bastard.”
Father Gerry ran the knife across Reid’s throat, holding him down in an iron grip as he watched the blood gurgle out of the wound.
Reid twitched desperately and tried to break free but did not have the strength in his weakened state. His writhing soon subsided and his eyes rolled to the heavens above. Father Gerry bent over and closed the staring eyes. He emptied some of the holy water from the plastic bag onto a towel at the side of the bed and cleaned the blade before returning it to the centre of the prayer book. Without haste he turned Reid’s head towards the nearby window, taking care to clean up some of the blood streaming from the wound before placing the towel in the bedside bin. Quickly he checked the mirror on the side of the wall, making sure there was no evidence of his morning’s work on his dark suit and satisfied, he parted the curtain and walked towards the door. Smiling at PC Bob, he said:
“Thank you, my son, I think Gary will sleep the better for confession. I took the liberty of leaving the curtains shut in that regard.”
“Nae bother, Father, all the best.”
“You too, my son.”
Father Gerry walked serenely along the corridor, smiling as he passed PC Mikey, who waved back cheerfully, and made his way out of the exit doors and down the stairwell.
It was close to midday when Thoroughgood’s mobile rang. The DS had just been running over with Morse how he planned to take the interview with Reid, which would result in his whistle-blowing statement. Morse knew immediately there was something wrong from the look on Thoroughgood’s face and the raised voice at the other end of the mobile. The DS walked through to his bedroom and shut the door.
Five minutes later he returned to the kitchen where he saw Morse seated at the table, the colour drained from his face. A feeling of déjà vu swept over Thoroughgood as he related the events that had unfolded in the intensive care unit up at Stobhill Hospital that morning. The overwhelming feeling was that he had failed the wee man once again. There would be no fresh start for Morse, no new life with Gary Reid: the outlook for the informant was utterly bleak.
Chapter 29
The fallout from this latest fiasco was quick and ACC Crime, Graeme Cousins, had almost immediately summoned Superintendent Tomachek and DCI Farrell to a meeting at Force HQ, Pitt Street at two p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.
Cousins—or “kissin”’ as the rank and file liked to call him—made it perfectly clear the force’s reputation was now on the line, as well as the Chief Constable’s ever-diminishing hopes of a knighthood. He had ordered that every informant’s palm must be greased in order to get the information that would allow the current spate of killings, which now stood at seven, to be brought to an end.
Before he’d even returned to Stewart Street City Centre office, Tomachek had been on the blower telling Thoroughgood he expected both him and Hardie in his office within the hour, and they had better have their thinking hats on.
Having made sure Morse was happy staying in his flat on his own, emphasising that the tout was to call him the minute he thought something wasn’t right, Thoroughgood was actually relieved, guilty though he felt, to be leaving the grief-stricken Morse home alone. Leaving the flat, he was immediately forced to turn the collar of his Barbour up to shut out the stinging rain funnelling into the close. He jumped into the waiting CID motor to find Hardie strangely subdued. His only contribution for the duration of their ten-minute journey was summed up in the terse one-liner:
“What a fucking mess, and not a bleedin’ thing we can do about it.”
Detective Superintendent Tomachek was not so reticent in his summary of events:
“I’ll tell you exactly where we are right now. We have an incompetent little jobsworth leading a multiple murder inquiry without a fuckin’ clue. His only lines of enquiry are those generated by the HOLMES Unit, and we all know how fuckin’ pedestrian they are. Our only witness is lying in the morgue after having his throat slit by a priest in the middle of intensive care up at Stobhill while two uniform coppers sat outside chatting up nurses and reading newspapers.
“Balls and buggery, I say. I can see the headlines about killer priests right now. On top of that we have Declan Meechan’s most brutal enforcer, identified for an attempted murder on the deceased and fingered for the Brown triple killing, gone to ground, and we don’t have a fuckin’ clue where. I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a fuckin’ disgrace, a disgrace do you hear?”
Tomachek finally took time to come up for air but it was an impressive rant, even by his standards.
“Now, I know the only information we have come up with has come from your tout. I know if it hadn’t been for the pair of you Reid would have been dead twenty four hours earlier than he was, but boys, we need to get our heads together and come up with something. It’s bleedin’ obvious Henry Farrell is way out of his depth, and the good name of Strathclyde Police is going to go down the pan because of it. Gentlemen, your thoughts please.”
Thoroughgood looked at Hardie as if to say “on you go” but the veteran detective knew be
tter than to become the filling in a sandwich between two superiors.
Eventually the DS opened his mouth, albeit still uncertain what would come out.
“We know Frankie Brennan was behind the attempted murder on Reid and that he also took part in the killing of the Browns. That’s a start.”
All of which led to a slightly nonplussed raising of over-substantial eyebrows by Detective Superintendent Tomachek:
“Bally marvellous. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Thoroughgood persisted:
“We also have two kids in the Bar-L on warrants who were part and parcel of the Brown triple murder. I think Hardie and I should pay Simms and Jarvis a visit inside Barlinnie and see if we can’t entice them with the same deal we were going to put to Reid. As for Brennan, my guess is that Meechan has him holed up somewhere or he’ll be murder victim number eight within the next twenty-four hours. Either way, we’re really going to struggle to pin him down. Nope, for me gaffer, I’d say go after the kids.”
“What about this fuckin’ priest? Who the fuck might he be?” asked Tomachek, running his smokestained hands through his greying hair. Hardie spoke up.
“He’s got to be a contract killer brought in to do a one-off job. We all know about Meechan’s links to Belfast and the Provos. A priest with an Irish accent? I think we have our answer there. We’re going to be struggling on that one boss. Okay, the CCTV up at Stobhill Hospital will give us a decent visual, but there’s about as much chance of our Father being a genuine priest as there is of Partick Thistle ever playing in the SPL again,” Hardie continued:
“We’ll get an all ports and airports warning out to try and nab him before he gets out the country but you know as well as I do, professionals have so many tricks up their sleeves when it comes to changing their appearance, we’re probably going to be onto plums. We need to fax a copy of the file to both the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that our man has PC’s for this kind of MO, i.e., dressing up as a priest to send someone to meet their maker.”
Parallel Lines Page 19