“Roughly the same process. The delivery trucks drop off to the clubs and pubs we own, run and protect in the city centre and the West End, all of which do food, and then it’s up to the management to make sure all goes smoothly when the clubbers are looking for the coke.”
Morriston was impressed: “A military operation, by the sounds of it.”
Chapter 37
Celine parked her silver-and-black Mini Cooper in the car park on the far side of Milngavie Reservoir. Her mind wandered to thoughts of Declan Meechan and the night ahead. The name of his house, Tara, brought a smile on her face.
The thought struck Celine then, how could any girl not fall in love with the type of man who would name his house after one of the greatest love stories in film history?
Shutting the door of the Mini, she pulled her baseball cap down, her hair bunched through the gap at the back, and jogged across the road, turning right and running along the first and smaller of the two expanses of water. It was three-fifty p.m. and she knew that by the time she reached the wooden bench on the far side it would be nearer four-fifteen than the agreed meeting time of four p.m. But that was a woman’s prerogative.
The sky was clear blue, but how the wind stung! The uneven ruts of the footway encircling both pools were almost full with rainwater, and the splashing grimy liquid soon left her trainers wet. But as she gazed down on the valley below sweeping out over Milngavie, and as the path turned forty-five degrees, providing a panoramic vista that took in the north of Glasgow from Springburn inwards, she forgot about the damp clinging cold and began to revel in the sheer physicality of her union with the elements. The quality of the air was so much better, so pure it almost stung lungs attuned to the polluted oxygen of Glasgow city centre.
By now she was running parallel to the main road climbing out of Milngavie and through the hamlets of Strathblane and Blanefield. Turning left at the gatehouse, the pathway began to drift round behind the larger pool and she could detect the fresh scent of various bushes lining the grass bank that swept down to the path. Checking her watch, Celine saw it was now ten past four, and she knew that around the hydrangea bushes masking the next corner was the bench where she would find Gus Thoroughgood, the man she had once loved more than life itself, very nearly costing him his life as a result.
Thoroughgood had parked his RX-8 at the top end of the car park at three-thirty and taken a slow walk anti-clockwise to their bench, knowing he would probably be there, seated and shivering, at least five minutes prior to four p.m. He wanted to be early to wallow in the memories of all those beautiful spring and summer evenings they had spent enjoying a walk or a jog round the reservoir. All so long ago.
He stood for a while in front of the bench, the minutes melting away as he lost track of time, so immersed in his own mad world had he become. Transfixed by the grey breaking water, remembering the times they had kissed and embraced without a care. Eventually, as he sat down, a voice snapped him from his vigil.
“Hi Gus, I should have known you would be early, old habits die hard!”
Thoroughgood tilted his head up, smiling into the beautiful face sitting incongruously under a black baseball cap. “I could say the same about you, Celine. I just wanted time to think.”
She sat down on the bench beside him. “And what did you want to think about, Gus?”
He strained every sinew in his being to avoid turning round and losing himself in those eyes. He didn’t know why he said it, but when he had he was glad, because it was the bottom line and that was where they were now. “You, me and Declan Meechan.”
He gave in and looked round, drinking in her features; it had been so long since he had sat close to her and he realised that the familiar surroundings and her proximity were assaulting his self-control in a pincer movement he didn’t think he could fight.
Celine smiled nervously and leant back against the bench.
“But Gus, there is no ‘me and you,’ now there’s only me and Declan.”
If that was the bottom line, then it hurt, however he was not surprised by what he had prepared himself for as the inevitable.
“You’ve made a big decision, Celine, and I respect that. But before you throw your life away, I owe it to both of us to let you know the bigger picture. If you are going to take Declan Meechan for better or for worse one day, then you need the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Before it’s too late.”
Celine remained relaxed against the back of the bench but the smile was gone and her face had tightened.
“Are you the right person to give me the truth about Declan, Gus? Can you be honest with me?”
Thoroughgood turned sideways, opening up a small gap between their bodies: he wanted her full attention, for he knew this was the last chance he would get to say what had to be said.
“Yes, I believe I am Celine, because there is nobody else. But can you bear to hear the truth?”
She shot him a stare and there was nothing passive in those liquid-chocolate brown eyes:
“Try me.”
“Okay. I guess that with you running his city centre clubs and pubs, you’re already aware of quite a lot that is going on, but not enough you can’t turn a blind eye to it: the charlie dealt around the dance floors and in the toilets and maybe a bit of smack too, but then you’re only managing those clubs.”
“You tell me of one city centre club that doesn’t have a cocaine problem. We have CCTV installed in every one of our premises and it’s still not enough. Come on Gus, you’re a cop so try living in the real world, or don’t you get out much?”
Thoroughgood smiled: “Aye, maybe that’s my problem. Your problem is; we have information that at least half of the coke and the smack coming into the city is down to Declan Meechan. Information is telling us he’s getting his supply from up north, possibly from the Western Isles. That’s after the drugs are smuggled in from the continent and then dropped on the shore somewhere off the west coast.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve never heard Declan mention anything or anywhere in business terms that is not right here in the heart of the city. All his energy is going into building the new multiplex in the West End. This is just ludicrous, Gus.”
Thoroughgood smiled, flexing his shoulders back and stamping his feet to get the blood pumping again.
“Ludicrous it may seem, but almost certainly true. Where do you think all the money has come from to finance this complex? Thin air? Funnily enough, we also have two unsolved murders involving two Teuchter brothers from the Isle of Lewis. One fished out of our . . .” Thoroughgood’s anger momentarily got the better of him as he gestured out at the rippling water.
“Sorry, this reservoir, minus his limbs, and the other riddled with lead and char-grilled. But it would be too much of a coincidence linking them both to your fiancé’s drugs operation coming in from roughly the same area.”
“This is just fantasy now, Gus. How can you expect me to believe all that? Declan is a respectable businessman; his wild days are behind him. He told me that and I believe him.”
Celine’s tapping foot betrayed signs of agitation Thoroughgood couldn’t miss.
He pressed on. “You might also be aware that from time to time other crime syndicates try and encroach on Meechan’s turf. That’s why three members of the Brown family are in the mortuary, all of them riddled with lead, one of them half-burnt and the other with most of his insides missing thanks to a gutting with a machete.”
As Thoroughgood paused for breath Celine opened her mouth to protest but he quickly shot a hand up to halt her:
“That was the price the Browns paid for encroachment and the drive-by shooting outside the City Chambers.”
Celine remained unmoved.
“Let’s face it, Gus, the Browns had plenty of enemies. Declan wouldn’t be the only one with plenty of reasons to want them removed from the scene.”
“Maybe not, but he was the only one who put together a four-man gang to carry it out and guess what, when one of the
m decided he wanted out, he had his throat cut.”
“There is no way you’re telling me Declan cut anyone’s throat,” said Celine defiantly.
“No he didn’t, but he did have Frankie Brennan sent round to try and gut him. When that didn’t work, a bogus priest turned up in Stobhill Hospital and slit his throat. We know the bogus priest is a contract killer and guess what, we know he grew up with Declan Meechan in Belfast.”
“Coincidence. You can’t surely expect me to believe Declan is hiring hitmen to come in and take out people who worked for him?”
“Yes, I do, and it gets better. After Gary Reid was taken out we managed to get two younger members of the gang, Chico Jarvis and Ricky Simms, to come across inside the Bar-L for the promise of protection and a better life. You recognise these two names from any of the doormen or dealers you’ve seen round the clubs and boozers?” Thoroughgood could see from her face that she did. He went on:
“So they finger big Frankie Brennan—that name ring a bell? And mention they’ve met Meechan at least once for a pat on the back and a nice wedge of cash for a job well done. That means we need big Frankie but unfortunately, the big man gets rumbled inside the offices of you-know-who last night and after a shoot-out—you know, the one that’s been on the news all day—big Frankie is no more and the whole case against Meechan we hoped to build by apprehending Frankie and using the evidence of the two kids, collapses.”
Celine’s face was now like stone and it was hard to comprehend just what was going through her mind, but Thoroughgood had not finished.
“There is one last thing, Celine: we think he’s getting information from inside the force. When Hardie and I arrived at Reid’s the night Brennan tried to do him, the giant had just very conveniently left, as if he had been tipped off. The night Brennan got it at Meechan’s office we were on a wild goose chase looking for him up at your fiancé’s mansion in Mugdock: only for one of our senior officers to get a tip off that mad Frankie was at the office. Then surprise, surprise, there’s a shoot-out, Brennan has half his head blown away, taking all that incriminating information with him to his grave. Does the name Henry Farrell mean anything to you?”
Celine shook her head from side to side but her eyes were blazing and her voice crackled with anger.
“This is ridiculous, you’re trying to say Declan hides Frankie in his office and then what, one of your colleagues shoots him? Then you claim Declan has this DCI Farrell in his pocket? Well, I’ve never heard of Farrell, and how the hell can you blame all this on Declan?”
“It seems to me, Gus, you’re so desperate you would pin the Ripper murders on him if they hadn’t happened in the nineteenth century. This is just a trash-talking exercise to slaughter the man I love for something he did to you ten years ago. I know what Declan did was wrong but you’ve got to get over it and put it behind you before your whole soul rots with revenge. Move on, Gus.”
Celine stood up and for a moment she didn’t say anything, looking over the reservoir which had begun to calm as the breeze had dropped.
“You know, I didn’t know what I would find when I came here today to meet you. I suppose if I’m honest, I’d hoped there would still be something left from what we had together. Something I always thought was special but there’s nothing left now, just the anger and hatred that has been eating you up for the last ten years. You just can’t take it anymore and you had to make one last attempt to bring back what we had in the past. Well Gus, it’s gone now.”
She took a step forward to the edge of the path, her arms folded in front of her, and stared out into the horizon. She could feel Thoroughgood’s eyes burrowing into her back but for a moment he said nothing, and the only sound was the dying breeze rustling in the bushes behind them.
“I know you’re finding this all hard to take, and I can understand why you think it’s some cheap shot from me to get back at Meechan. It isn’t. I know now I can be far more honest about my feelings for you and that’s probably because I know it’s the last chance in this life I will get to do so.”
Still there was not even a tremor of movement in Celine as she remained impassively scanning the horizon. Thoroughgood continued, determined he would finally get everything that had been weighing him down for the past decade off his chest.
“It took me nearly two years, between lying on hospital beds and operating tables, to be put back together again and fit to return to my job, but the scars inside me have taken a helluva lot longer to heal. That’s because I love you, Celine. I loved you then, I loved you even though I thought the only thing I felt for you was hatred when you believed all the lies he told you. And I still love you now. But I guess time really is a healer and now I know I can live my life without you.”
At this she turned round and took the three steps needed to reach the bench before dropping onto it like the weight of the world was suddenly on her shoulders. He stared into her eyes and at last thought he saw the anger dimming.
“For so long, when you didn’t come to visit me in the hospital, or up at Castlebrae, I hated you. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t come. When I found out why, it gave me something to help come to terms with it all. The memories and the hurt still seem so fresh. And now I see you’re about to throw your life away on what? A tissue of lies and deceit? Sure you get to live in a mansion and money will never be a worry again, but does this mean one day you will never want to scratch the surface?
“I don’t know how he has convinced you to become his fiancée, that’s between you and him. I just wanted to say what I needed to say, and let you know nothing has changed in the way I feel about you, and probably never will. I know now it really is too late and you were right, I have to let go and move on. At last maybe I can do just that.”
He saw a tear well up in the side of her right eye and trickle down her cheek, and when she turned her face towards his he could see that she was indeed crying.
“I loved you so much Gus, and then it all went so badly wrong and I didn’t know who to believe. I’ve probably spent the last ten years still not knowing. Now it’s not about who is right or wrong, it’s about making a future and a life for myself and accepting the consequences, whatever they are. I’m so glad you said all these things and I think it’s the same for me but it’s just too late now. Our time has gone,” and with that she leant forward, cradled his face in her two hands and kissed him the way that only she could.
He could feel their tears intermingling and for a moment imagined their souls had too. She pulled back and stood up, taking a deep breath and wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “Goodbye, Gus,” she said.
Chapter 38
They lost track of the time, such had been the passion of the moment as they sat entwined on the dark green leather sofa, but the headlights from the driveway alerted them to the fact that their guests had arrived. Meechan drew himself from her reluctantly and asked:
“Does the lady of the house wish to receive her first guests?”
“Couldn’t we just stay here ourselves on the sofa soaking up the fire?” she asked.
He stood up, towering over her, stopping to brush his lips over hers.
“I’m afraid not darlin’, much though I’d love to.”
“All right Declan, the lady of the house will do as her master commands.”
“Not commands Celine, never commands, only asks.”
She smiled and lithely moved off the sofa, aware that his eyes had never left her.
“What?” she asked artfully.
“I’m just wondering how I managed to survive all these years without you,” said Meechan, straightening his lilac silk shirt and trying to flatten out the creases in his beige linen trousers.
Tommy Rankin was surprised to see Celine behind the opening door, but with his surprise went plenty of pleasure.
“Celine, how you doin’? It’s been a while but you look great.”
“Hi Tommy, always the flatterer,” and as her eyes strayed over his shoulder sh
e added:
“This must be Mr Morriston, our guest from the Isles?”
“It is indeed, young lady, so you are the lovely Celine who I have heard so much about?” said the smallish man with the darting shrewd eyes and brown wavy hair, holding out his hand and shaking Celine’s in a light grip.
“I think I will like you, Mr Morriston. Now please, come in and make yourselves comfortable, Declan’s in the lounge,” she said, ushering them in.
Meechan, standing in front of the crackling log fire, smiled as they entered but left a brief pause as he made Morriston only too well aware he was sizing him up. Morriston had little doubt that was exactly what was going on as he felt the menace of Meechan’s piercing ice-grey eyes sweep over him. Unperturbed, he strolled forward and extended his hand.
“Mr Meechan, it’s my pleasure to finally meet you. Thank you so much for making me a guest in your impressive home.”
Meechan’s grip was vice-like, as, nodding towards Rankin he said:
“Tommy has spoken highly of you so I thought that since we are starting out on a new venture, it was only fitting we had you to dinner when you were down in Glasgow on business. I hope you like steak?”
They all laughed and after a couple of drinks the atmosphere was relaxed with an easy familiarity springing up between the company which boded well. There had been more humour when Celine presented the prawn cocktail for the first course, Meechan making a great play of extolling the virtues of the North Atlantic prawn.
By the time they had made it through dinner and a cheese board as well, Celine made her excuses and informed them that after tidying up in the kitchen, she intended to have an early night. After much good-humoured protesting and some gentle jibes from Rankin that he was amazed Meechan was not turning in prematurely as well, she headed back through to the kitchen and began to load the dishwasher.
It had been a good night. She’d always had a soft spot for Tommy Rankin, the classic lovable rogue, while Morriston had come across as an amusing down-to-earth type who was determined to make a success of his business. She was sure she had detected real pride in Declan at her presence and fussing over everyone, so it had not been a bad debut as his fiancée. But now was exactly the right time to let them talk over their business in peace with a couple of drinks. Dissecting the profit margins to be had from frozen seafood at midnight was not Celine’s idea of enjoyment.
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