by Alan Parks
Murray groaned. ‘Oh Christ, don’t say that. You think they’re mixed up in the bloody IRA or something?’
McCoy shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Well, we’re going to go down every road before that one. The last thing I need is bloody Special Branch involved. Besides, I did a bit of digging. The wife’s brother lives in Dundee. Was arrested a couple of years ago when he still lived here. Sex with a fifteen-year-old. Claimed he thought she was seventeen. Got a suspended sentence. Being brought in today.’
Sounded like clutching at straws to McCoy, but he wasn’t going to say. Supposed any lead had to be worth following up at this point. And by the look on Murray’s face and the dark circles round his eyes, that’s what they were down to.
‘I found Laura,’ he said.
Murray’s face brightened. ‘Well done, Harry, that’s one bloody bright spot. Did you take her back to Bearsden?’
McCoy shook his head. ‘She’s not going back.’
Murray looked at him incredulously. ‘What do you mean? She’s bloody fifteen, it’s not up to her what she does. Where is she?’
McCoy took a breath, wished his head was clearer. ‘I’m not telling you.’
Murray looked at him, face starting to go red, usual warning of an explosion, but he spoke quietly and slowly. ‘What do you mean you’re not telling me? It’s not up to you what—’
‘She’s got burns and cuts all up her arm, burns her mother gave her.’ McCoy spoke quietly. ‘I’m not sending her back to get more.’
He looked over at Murray. He was staring down the garden, wouldn’t look him in the eye.
‘You knew, didn’t you?’ said McCoy. ‘You knew all along.’
Murray sighed, rubbed at the stubble on his chin. ‘It’s not that simple, Harry. I don’t . . .’
McCoy stared at him, couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘You tell me why it’s not that simple, Murray. Because the scars up her arm make it look pretty simple to me.’
Murray pulled his pipe and his tobacco out his trouser pocket, lit it up, blew out a cloud of smoke and started talking.
‘Laura’s mother has always been highly strung, skittish. She’s been in and out of Gartnavel since her and John got married. Her nerves, as John calls it. The past couple of years she’s been better, she’s got religion now. Some church in Shettleston, evangelical nutters, seemed harmless enough.’
‘But . . .’
‘But as Laura got older, she convinced herself that Laura’s bad behaviour wasn’t the usual teenage stuff. She got it into her head that it was a manifestation of some inner evil.’
Murray hesitated. McCoy wasn’t sure he was going to go on, but he did. ‘Laura woke up in the middle of the night, her mother was standing over her with a hot poker, said she needed to cleanse her through suffering, release the spirit.’
‘Jesus.’
Murray smiled weakly. ‘The very man.’
‘What happened?’ asked McCoy.
‘Her mother got packed off to Gartnavel for a month, had some electricity treatment or suchlike, supposed to be foolproof.’
‘Wasn’t foolproof enough, Murray. You should see her arm.’
He looked pained. ‘I didn’t know, Harry. I swear to you. John said she was fine, that the treatment had worked. Said her and Laura were getting on fine. He said he’d no idea why Laura was running away.’
McCoy leant back in his chair, head settled a bit. ‘Is your brother such a bastard that he’d drag his daughter back to that just to play happy families for the voters?’
Murray didn’t answer, didn’t have to. Answer to McCoy’s question was written all over his face.
‘Is she safe where she is?’ he asked.
McCoy nodded. No way was he telling Murray she was at Stevie Cooper’s.
‘Tell her I’m sorry,’ Murray said, then stood up.
‘You off to Stewart Street?’ McCoy asked.
He nodded. ‘Yep. Then I’m going to take a trip out to Bearsden. Pay my brother a little visit. He must have known more than he told me. Thought I might take him out to the garden and teach him a lesson.’ He smiled grimly.
McCoy nodded, wouldn’t want to be his brother for all the tea in China.
‘And you,’ said Murray. ‘Home. Now.’
THIRTY-THREE
McCoy thanked Wattie for the lift and told him he was fine to get up the stairs. He walked halfway up the close, leant against the wall and lit up. Smoked half his cigarette, decided that would be long enough for Wattie to be gone. Dropped it on the ground, stamped on it and walked back out into the sunshine.
Talking to Murray about Laura had got him thinking. If Laura had managed to keep what had happened with her mother a secret, he had a feeling that she was keeping something else secret too. He needed a word.
He walked down the hill, waited outside the phone box until a fat bloke with a Rangers top and denim shorts finished his conversation, then went in. Called Cooper’s house to make sure she was there. She wasn’t, but Billy told him where she was. He sighed. Nothing was ever easy. Came out the phone box, walked down to Dumbarton Road and hailed a cab.
There had to be a reason they had let Alice go, then taken the dad. She hadn’t been harmed, sexually or otherwise. Family had no money for a ransom. Couldn’t even come up with a reason for taking her, never mind her father. Whole thing made less sense the more it went on.
The taxi stopped outside Trerons and he got out. Looked up at the big department store. Windows were full of summer dresses, displays of china, bolts of fabric. Wasn’t a place McCoy often visited. He opened the door, let two ladies out and stepped into the store. Looked at the directory on the wall by the lifts. Second floor.
‘Ladies,’ said McCoy cheerily, pulling up a gilt-backed chair and sitting down.
Laura looked surprised to see him, Iris just looked.
‘Harry, what are you doing here?’ asked Laura, putting down her teacup.
‘I phoned the house and Billy told me you were here,’ he said.
He looked round the elegant department store tearoom. Windows over Sauchiehall Street letting the light stream in, pale carpet, waitresses in stiff black uniforms and wee lace caps busying around. Customers were all of a type: women from the expensive suburbs, doctors’ wives, lawyers’ wives. All dressed to the nines. He’d never seen so many hats in his life.
‘Not exactly either of your styles, is it?’ he said.
Laura smiled. ‘Actually, I really like it. I used to come here with my gran when I was wee.’
‘Oh aye. And what’s your excuse, Iris? Getting some tips on silver service for the shebeen?’
‘Get it right up ye, McCoy,’ Iris said brightly.
She’d got all dressed up for her lunch with the Glasgow smart set. No matter what the weather was. Hat, fur stole over the chair, pink dress with a deep neckline showing off her assets. One thing he could say about Iris, she still scrubbed up well.
‘So, what’s this meeting of the minds in aid of?’ asked McCoy, taking a wee orange cake off the top layer of the china plate tower.
Laura smiled. ‘Simple. It’s called friendship, Harry.’ She smiled at Iris. ‘Maybe if you had any friends, you’d know how it works.’
‘Very funny. But now we’re talking about friends, when was it you were going to tell me who it was that attacked you?’
‘What?’ Laura said quickly, but not quite quick enough.
‘You’re a clever girl, Laura, but you didn’t get it quite right.’ He brushed the cake crumbs off the front of his shirt. ‘You never said anything about the attack. Never asked me where the guy might be or why he’d done it. Never even wondered why it had happened. Only one explanation for that, as far as I can see. You know fine well who did it and why.’
No reply. Around them the sound of polite chatter, cups clinking and tea being poured suddenly seemed very loud.
McCoy shifted round in his seat. Smiled. ‘How about you, Iris? You got anything to add?’
> Silence from both of them. McCoy was getting a wee bit tired of Laura and her selective memory. Tired of getting the run around from her and her family. Tired of being fed wee bits of information rather than the whole picture. Time to poke the fire.
‘I tell you what, girls, let me make this simple for you. Unless one of you starts talking I’m going to go over to that phone by the toilets, put a tanner in and call Maitland Street and get Iris here’s shebeen shut down. And then every single time Cooper pays Archie Lomax his exorbitant fee and it gets opened up again, I’ll get it raided again. And again, and again.’
He leant back and lit up a cigarette.
‘Stevie Cooper is many things, but he ain’t stupid. Won’t take him long to realise it’s Iris that’s the real problem and, bearing in mind he’s only keeping the place open to shut you up, he’ll count the cost of Lomax, and show how much he really cares about you by booting you out on your arse.’
He leant forward, picked up a bit of shortbread. ‘Nobody want this last one?’
No response, so he bit into the biscuit. Iris and Laura staring at him as he chewed it over. ‘Good shortbread,’ he said.
‘Now, Iris, let’s be realistic about what’ll happen next. You’re a good-looking woman but you’re a bit long in the tooth to be working the hotels now, so unless you want to end up standing on the corner of Blythswood Street doing hand jobs for five bob I’d persuade your wee pal here to start talking.’
Popped the rest of the shortbread in his mouth.
‘That’s not fair, Harry!’ Laura hissed at him. ‘It’s nothing to do with Iris, leave her out of it.’
He shrugged. ‘You wanted to be away from the bourgeois suburbs, Laura, making your way in the big bad world. First thing you’ve got to learn is that life isn’t fair. Is that not right, Iris?’
Laura looked at him and then she looked at Iris, at the too-red lipstick, the creases around her eyes and the out-of-date fur stole. She gave McCoy a look that would curdle milk and started talking. ‘Alec Page was selling pills. Sold them in pubs like the Strathmore and at the dance halls. The Maryland. Places young people go. He was making a fair bit of money.’
‘Who was supplying him?’ asked McCoy.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Honestly. But whoever it was worked out that Alec was skimming him. He was selling the pills for more than he was meant to, keeping the extra money back for himself.’ She hesitated, chewing the side of her lip. ‘When they found out they came to see Donny, asked him to take care of it. Said they’d hand the business over to him if he took care of Alec.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Scare him off. Beat him up.’
McCoy didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. Laura looked ashamed enough. Not only was her boyfriend not the good guy she’d tried to persuade him he was, he was happy to batter his pal for the sake of a few quid.
‘You sure you’ve no idea who this person was that asked him?’
She shook her head emphatically.
‘So Donny MacRae got to Page?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not Donny.’
‘Who, then?’ said McCoy, voice rising. ‘Who was with him when it happened? Who was it tortured him first?’
The ladies at adjoining tables were looking over. Iris reached out and held Laura’s hand. ‘Come on, hen, just tell him, get it over with.’
Laura straightened herself up, dabbed her face with the hanky. ‘It was Wee Tam,’ she said. ‘Wee Tam was with him.’
‘Wee Tam?’ McCoy wasn’t expecting that. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I was too scared. After I found Donny lying there in the flat I just wanted to get away, so I went to Iris’s. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whether Wee Tam knew if Donny had told me about what he’d done. When you said to meet you in the Strathmore I thought if I went in there with you he’d think I was protected. And when he spoke to me he was just normal, just annoying Wee Tam looking at my tits again. So I thought everything must be okay, that he didn’t know Donny had told me.’
‘Until Cooper’s?’
She nodded. ‘He was waiting for me in the street. He punched me, hit my head off the pavement when I fell. Then he kicked me in the . . .’ She faltered, couldn’t think of the best word to use. ‘He kicked me down there. He said he knew where I’d been, what I’d had done. He must have been following me. He told me if I ever said a word about him or Donny or Alec he’d follow me again and this time he’d do to me what he did to Alec.’
Laura was wringing the napkin in her hands, tears running down her face. She looked lost and terrified, fifteen again. Iris leant over, put her arms around her, pulled Laura into her, patting her back, telling her everything was going to be all right. McCoy hoped it was. Wasn’t sure it ever would be.
‘Will you keep an eye on her?’ he asked.
Iris nodded.
‘Take her back to Cooper’s. She’ll be safe there. Don’t let her out on her own.’
Iris nodded again. ‘Is that it, McCoy? You finished?’
He nodded, about to go but Iris put her hand on his arm.
‘Two things, McCoy,’ she said. ‘First of all, never ever threaten me again. And second, don’t ever use me to do your dirty work.’ Then she stood up, picked up her cup of tea and threw it in his face. The women at the next table gasped and the head waitress hurried over.
McCoy stood up, wiping the cold tea from his eyes with a napkin. ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ he said.
‘You did. Just think yourself lucky I waited till it was cold.’
THIRTY-FOUR
McCoy pushed open the doors of the Strathmore, looked round the empty pub.
‘We’re shut!’
A shout from behind the bar, then Big Tam appeared from the cellar steps, wooden crate of beer bottles in his hands.
‘Don’t worry,’ said McCoy. ‘I’m not here for a drink.’
Big Tam didn’t even say hello, just nodded when McCoy approached the bar. Almost as if he’d been expecting him.
‘Need a word, Tam,’ said McCoy. ‘With you and your boy.’
Tam reluctantly opened the bar counter and led him through to the back room.
Been a while since he’d seen Tam’s wife May, not that he was complaining. She didn’t seem pleased to see him either. She was sitting on the couch knitting, didn’t get up when he walked in, hardly even looked up. Obviously, she hadn’t been expecting company. Her hair was in curlers and she was wearing a floral housecoat, feet in slippers.
‘Evening, May. How’s Wee Tam?’ asked McCoy.
No reply or invitation to sit down was forthcoming, so he made himself comfy on the couch right beside her. If they wanted to play silly buggers, so be it. They’d come to the right man.
McCoy leant in close and peered into her lap. ‘What’s that your knitting, May?’
She drew her eyes off him and stuffed the knitting down the side of the couch.
Big Tam was hovering by the fireplace, looking like thunder. ‘Remember you’re a guest here, McCoy.’
McCoy held up his hands. ‘Spare me the lecture, Tam. Just go and get the wee fucker. I want a word.’
Big Tam looked down at May. She nodded imperceptibly and he went off to fetch him. After two long and silent minutes marked off by the ticking of the sunburst clock above the mantelpiece the door opened and Wee Tam shuffled in, his dad behind him.
McCoy let out a low whistle. Wee Tam was a changed man.
He sat down on the armchair and pulled his flannel dressing gown around him. Didn’t look very happy. McCoy could hardly blame him. He was eighteen years old and stuck with a face like Frankenstein for the rest of his life. A long scar stretched across the bottom of his chin and almost up to his ear.
‘Who did that to you, son?’ McCoy asked.
May suddenly sparked into life. ‘He’s no idea, he spoke—’
McCoy held his hand up. ‘Button it, May. It’s the razor king I’m here to talk to, no
his mammy.’ He turned back round to the boy.
Wee Tam shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Is that right?’ McCoy said. ‘So you’ve no idea why someone would want to run a razor up your face?’
He shrugged again. ‘Haven’t a clue.’
McCoy leant back in the settee, stretching his arms along the top of it. His left hand brushed the back of May’s head. She tutted and sat forward.
‘All right, son,’ said McCoy. ‘Let me try and help you, then, how’s about that? Somebody messing with somebody’s girlfriend maybe, that the story?’
May couldn’t manage to keep it shut any longer. ‘He’s no got a girlfriend. All those drunken wee whoors in the bar chasing after him. He’s no interested. Are you, son?’
Wee Tam shrugged again.
McCoy turned back to May. ‘That what they are, then, May, your customers? Drunken wee whoors?’
‘Painted up like whoors, no even sixteen some of them.’ She spat the words out, face full of contempt.
‘Not all the girls that come in here are wee whoors, are they, Tam? Some of them are smart girls from the posh end of town. That the ones you like? Even if they don’t like you?’
Wee Tam said nothing.
McCoy decided he’d had enough of sitting there being treated like an arse. ‘Okay, I’ll make it crystal clear for you, Tam. You come anywhere near Laura Murray again and you are fucked. If I hear you’re even in the same fucking pub, I’m going to march her into the station and make her repeat what she told me about you under oath. You understand me?’
‘He wouldnae hit a lassie,’ said May defiantly.
‘You know what’s funny, May? I didn’t say anything about hitting lassies. Why are you talking about that?’
May scowled. Realised she’d been caught out.
‘Come on, McCoy, you cannae make accusations like that without any evidence. When was this supposed to have happened?’ asked Big Tam.
‘Frankenstein here did it two days ago.’
Soon as McCoy said it, he realised he’d fallen into a trap.
May smiled triumphantly. ‘Two days ago was Thursday. He was with me all day, went to see my mother in the hospital in Perth. Took us all bloody day to get there and back, didn’t it, son?’