by Alex Gray
Instructed to drive east, Kirsty found herself in a part of Glasgow that she remembered well from her stint in uniform. The old tenement buildings were just the same, beyond the swishing windscreen wipers, many windows boarded up as the developers sought to tear down and renew this area. Regeneration had taken place because of the Commonwealth Games, Glasgow’s proud moment on the world stage, the Athletes’ Village now home to many families. But it was not to any fancy new pub by the riverside that DC Wilson was directed but an old place on the corner of a street much further along London Road.
‘Park round the corner,’ Murdoch told her, as she glanced at the double yellow lines beneath the streaming gutters. ‘We won’t be that long, but why take the chance, eh?’ He grinned again and Kirsty began to wonder just what awaited them here at this public house, its ancient metal sign proclaiming THE BIG YIN, a faint picture of a bearded man below just discernible in the teeming rain.
‘Don’t ask questions, Wilson,’ Murdoch said suddenly as he unclipped his seat belt. ‘Just watch and listen. Okay?’ He tapped the side of his nose and slid out of the Honda as Kirsty resisted the urge to raise her eyebrows to heaven. What on earth were they doing here at this time in the morning? Okay, she glanced at her watch as she closed the door and pulled her raincoat hood over her head, it was officially legal to sell alcohol… but why had Murdoch brought her here?
The interior of the pub was dark but warm and dry, a welcome refuge from the torrent beating against the windows. An older man was standing behind the bar flicking through a sheaf of papers, his bare arms sporting a myriad of blue tattoos. He looked up when Murdoch strode inside.
‘All right, Jock?’ Murdoch nodded to the barman.
‘Aye, yourself?’ The man nodded back but clearly did not expect a reply, his eyes immediately returned to the documents in his hands.
Murdoch walked across the empty room to a corner table where an old man was sitting nursing a half pint of beer, the empty whisky glass beside him testament to a desperate need to fortify himself. Against the weather? Kirsty wondered. Or because DS Murdoch was now drawing up a stool and sitting opposite?
‘Whisky and water for Tam and me,’ Murdoch announced. ‘And an orange juice for the young lady.’
Kirsty turned to see the barman, who had crept up silently behind them. She tried to make eye contact but the man called Jock had already gone back across the room to fetch their order.
‘This is Miss Wilson,’ Murdoch said, making the old man look up at Kirsty with his rheumy eyes. ‘Tam McLachlan,’ Murdoch said shortly by way of introduction.
‘How do you do?’ Kirsty said, stretching out her hand, but to her annoyance Murdoch slapped it away.
‘Don’t touch this auld beggar. Never know where he’s been,’ he said sharply. But the grin belied his action and the old man began to titter as he lifted up the glass to his lips.
Certainly Tam McLachlan was no oil painting, that was for sure, Kirsty thought, looking at him with renewed interest. Several days’ growth sprouted from his chin and broken red veins made a pattern across his nose and cheeks, the telltale sign of a heavy drinker. Now Kirsty guessed exactly why she had been brought here. Tam McLachlan was not just any old codger. He was evidently one of Murdoch’s snouts from the past.
‘My round, I think.’ Murdoch pulled some notes from his raincoat pocket and handed them to Jock the barman as he arrived with a tray, flipping beermats on to the old wooden table before placing down their drinks. It was hardly worth the bother, Kirsty thought, looking at the scarred tabletop, its varnish worn away by years of neglect.
Murdoch waited until Jock had gone away again then he held out his glass and clinked it against the old man’s.
‘Here’s to you, Tam,’ he said.
Kirsty sipped her orange juice, noting the other man’s gap-toothed grin, the decay in his mouth a sign of poor nutrition or simply neglect. Or, she thought suddenly, had Tam McLachlan lost some of these teeth in other ways? Brawls in the street? Fights amongst gangs? He looked too old and spent now to do much harm, the wrists skinny as he held his whisky glass, but perhaps in his youth he had been a different person.
Murdoch fumbled in his pocket and brought out a roll of twenty-pound notes that he placed on the centre of the table. The old man’s eyes gleamed with sudden greed and he put out one claw-like hand.
‘Not so fast, Tam.’ Murdoch’s great fist covered the old man’s fingers tightly. ‘You know the rules. Have to earn it first.’ He took away his hand and Kirsty saw him replace the money in his pocket, Tam’s eyes following the gesture.
‘Right. Billy Brogan,’ Murdoch began.
‘Aw, Mr Murdoch, I dinna ken where Billy is,’ Tam moaned, his eyes sliding sideways in the way of every liar Kirsty had ever seen.
‘Do we believe him, Miss Wilson?’ Murdoch turned to Kirsty, a mock innocence in his expression.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head as she lifted the glass of juice. She didn’t add sir. This wasn’t an official scene and besides, Murdoch had introduced her as Miss Wilson, not DC.
‘See, Tam, the young lady thinks you’re telling porkies. Now, you don’t want to be impolite, do you? So,’ Murdoch leaned across the small round table and took the old man’s jacket between two meaty fists, ‘tell us what we want to know. Where’s Brogan?’
I didn’t see that, Kirsty told herself, notching up one more tick against Murdoch. The man had his ways, old-fashioned and unprincipled they might be, but it was nevertheless breathtaking to see what would emerge from this confrontation.
‘Agh, Mr Murdoch, you’re choking me!’ Tam pleaded then gave a cough, sitting back heavily as Murdoch shook him free.
‘Brogan,’ Murdoch said. ‘And I won’t ask you again, Tam.’
‘More than my life’s worth, Mr Murdoch,’ Tam McLachlan whined, his eyes lighting on the detective sergeant’s raincoat pocket.
There was silence for a few moments then the old man slumped in his seat, an air of defeat resting on his shoulders.
‘He wis in the Byres Road flat with Franny Bissett,’ Tam whispered at last.
Kirsty froze, the memory of that stinking cadaver coming back with a jolt.
‘They had some sort o’ a deal goin’ on,’ he continued, taking a gulp of the whisky and eyeing his now empty glass meaningfully.
Murdoch ignored the unspoken entreaty. ‘What kind of deal?’
‘Something to do with a big import,’ Tam said quietly. ‘Brogan was into it big time. Wee Franny was jist his runner.’
‘What happened in that flat?’
‘How the hell dae ah know, Mr Murdoch?’ Tam protested. ‘Brogan wis jist staying there wi’ Franny when he cam oot the Bar-L back in July. But ah do ken this.’ The old man moved closer to the two detectives so that Kirsty caught a whiff of his sour breath. ‘Brogan wis dealing before he left the jail. It wis some job that started when he wis inside. Naebody kens jist whit is wis. But if I had to guess I’d say that our Billy-boy was holed up with that cellmate o’ his.’ Tam nodded, a glint in his eye. ‘Guy done for armed robbery.’
Murdoch stared at the old man for a moment then snapped his fingers in the air.
‘Two more halfs, Jock. Big ones this time,’ he called.
‘How long have you known him, sir?’ Kirsty asked as they drove back into the city.
‘Too bloody long!’ Murdoch exclaimed. ‘Was a time when Tam McLachlan gave decent information about the goings-on in that part of town. Had a nose for trouble, that one, but the drink got to him, as you can see. Muddles things up a bit nowadays. But I’m willing to bet that this wee nugget is pure gold, even from Tam’s wasted brain.’
‘Billy Brogan seems to have cropped up before,’ Kirsty mused aloud.
‘One of your pal’s old cases.’ Murdoch snorted. ‘Lorimer and your dad were both working on that one, as I recall. Bloody shambles, if you ask me,’ he humphed. ‘But they got Brogan all right. Put him away for a few years anyway.’
Kirsty
remained silent after that, following Murdoch’s directions as they navigated through the streets, turning south towards the address that Murdoch had eventually prised from the old snout.
The road wound around the curve of a park then Kirsty found herself driving in and out of a series of old streets, their run-down tenements a far cry from the East End’s regeneration.
‘Loads of foreigners,’ Murdoch remarked as they passed a gypsy-looking man and woman outside the mouth of a close, a baby swaddled in a blanket across its mother’s chest. ‘Place is hoaching with druggies and whores,’ he added with disgust.
‘This was your old patch, sir?’
‘Aye,’ Murdoch replied but said nothing more, his eyes intent on reading each house number as they crawled along the street.
‘Round the corner,’ he said at last, after leaning forward and giving a quick glance at the upper windows. ‘And just sit where you are. These men might have guns. We’ll need back-up for this one.’ He looked across at Kirsty and gave her a grim smile.
It was less than half an hour later that the cars arrived, armed officers heading round to the back of the tenement and others swarming through the front close.
‘Stay put,’ Murdoch ordered, strapping the bulletproof vest to his chest.
Kirsty opened her mouth to protest but Murdoch silenced her with a scowl.
‘Your dad would have my guts for garters if anything happened to his wee lassie,’ he grunted. Then he was gone, running in the wake of the armed officers, leaving Kirsty wondering just what would happen if Billy Brogan had a weapon.
The man wasn’t doing anything other than his job, Kirsty told herself as the uniformed officers led Brogan and another swarthy-looking man away to the waiting police van. But she still owed it to Lorimer to see what she could learn.
‘Good to know we’ll be a bit further along the road in finding out what’s behind this Quiet Release thing, sir,’ she began.
‘Aye,’ Murdoch agreed, sitting back and fumbling in his pocket for his packet of cigarettes.
Kirsty rolled down the passenger window without being asked and glanced across as Murdoch lit up.
‘Must have been hard for you, personally, I mean, sir,’ she continued bravely.
‘How d’you mean, Wilson?’ The DS turned away to blow smoke out of the window.
‘Seeing your wife so ill and knowing later that someone was close by, taking other patients’ lives,’ she ventured.
There was silence between them for a few moments and Kirsty wondered if she had gone a step too far but then a faint smile played about the man’s mouth.
‘Irene loved life,’ Murdoch said at last. ‘She’d never have condoned assisted suicide. Even to the very end she wanted to be here.’ He turned and stared at the girl by his side. ‘See, when they say they want an end to it all, most of them mean an end to the pains and discomfort, not an end to their existence. It’s not the same thing at all,’ he muttered. ‘And if we could have found a cure or even a way of prolonging her life, we would have done anything…’ He broke off, staring over the river as they crossed the Kingston Bridge away from the place where his wife had taken her final breath.
‘Do you think I should have helped her to end her life, Wilson?’ he asked softly, turning to stare into Kirsty’s eyes.
‘No, sir,’ she answered.
‘Good,’ he said shortly, taking another drag on his cigarette. ‘Not everyone thinks that way. See, I was one of the lucky ones. I got a chance to say goodbye to my loved one.’
Murdoch’s brow furrowed as he tossed the butt of his cigarette out of the window. ‘I can tell you, Wilson, I’m one hundred per cent behind Lorimer on this case. I want to catch the bastard that’s doing this to sick people. Taking the choice of life or death out of their hands. Stopping them from being able to say their last goodbyes.’
CHAPTER FORTY
Detective Superintendent Lorimer looked around the interview room. It should have been Murdoch here instead of himself but the detective sergeant and his young colleague were seated on the other side of the glass wall that separated this room from where they sat waiting for the interview to begin, able to hear and see all that was going on but invisible to the occupants of the room. A little apart from the table and empty chairs sat the bearded psychologist, his presence a little unusual perhaps, but Lorimer wanted the man to witness all that was going to happen in the next hour or so.
Both men looked up as a uniformed officer led Billy Brogan into the room, followed by a tired-looking Pauline Dick, whose services Brogan had requested.
There was a swagger to the man’s gait as he came into the room and sat down, scraping the chair under him as if eager to begin.
A spell in prison had not done anything to improve the drug dealer, Lorimer thought, looking at Brogan. The man’s once sandy hair was turning grey, cropped close to his skull to mask the diminishing hairline. His arms were folded defiantly as he stared across the table at Lorimer. Once upon a time Billy Brogan had been a small-time dealer until his thieving ways had landed him in a lot of trouble. Something had changed while he’d been inside, Lorimer thought, regarding the man silently. There was a hardness around that thin-lipped mouth, a knowing look from those pale blue eyes so similar to the ones that the detective had read over the years. I’m a hard man, his expression seemed to be saying. Crack me if you can.
Too right, pal, Lorimer told himself grimly.
‘Interview beginning on Wednesday the twelfth of October,’ he began.
A sudden thought of the following week flashed into his mind; they had pencilled in for a break while Maggie was off school for the half-term holiday. If they could wrap this up in the next few days…
Kirsty watched the scene before her, conscious of the man by her side who was munching his way through the second of a plate of scones and jam that he’d lifted from Sadie’s trolley. Comfort food, she told herself. Or maybe he’d not eaten breakfast. How did you cope in the aftermath of a loss like Murdoch’s? The thought was pushed aside as they saw the detective superintendent move some papers around on the table, a look of affected boredom on his handsome features.
‘How does he do that?’ Kirsty whispered.
‘Years of practice, Wilson,’ Murdoch grunted. ‘Watch and learn, eh?’ he added with a chuckle.
Either Brogan had forgotten the tall detective’s methods or he was too cocksure about his own ability to dissemble, for the man leaned back in his chair, drumming the heels of his trainers against the linoleum as though he were home and dry already.
‘Francis Bissett,’ Lorimer began, not looking at Brogan but at the notes in front of him. ‘Slashes to the throat, fatal injury being the severing of his windpipe. Left to die in the bathroom of his rented flat in Byres Road.’ He looked up suddenly as though he had just remembered the presence of the prisoner.
‘Your flat too, Billy.’
‘Aye, jist for a wee while,’ Brogan replied, his jaws moving up and down as he masticated a piece of chewing gum.
‘After your release from Barlinnie on July the twenty-sixth,’ Lorimer agreed, his bank manager’s voice dry as dust.
Brogan sighed and nodded, clearly bored already by the conversation.
‘Please speak for the tape,’ Lorimer instructed, not deigning to look at Brogan.
‘Yes, I stayed with Franny Bissett for a couple of days,’ he agreed. ‘So what?’
The impertinent addition made Kirsty draw in her breath. Surely Lorimer would pounce on that piece of cheek? But no, he seemed not to have noticed.
‘And what date did you leave Byres Road?’
Brogan shrugged and shot a look at Pauline Dick who nodded to him to answer the question.
‘End of the month,’ he said, glancing sideways and licking his lips.
‘Effing liar!’ Murdoch growled by Kirsty’s side. ‘Bet you were there when poor wee Frankie copped it, you nasty piece of shit.’
Kirsty raised her eyebrows. Tam McLachlan had referred t
o the dead man as Franny, like Brogan, but the cops had known him as Frankie, as if there had been another side to him. A better side? Kirsty wondered. Nobody she’d met in the course of her work had been totally evil, had they? Wasn’t there always a redeeming feature in even the worst criminals?
‘We have reason to believe that you stayed a lot longer than that, Billy,’ Lorimer said mildly, stopping at a particular piece of paper and staring at it intently as if the evidence to support his statement was right there in front of him.
‘Who says?’ The words came out as Brogan raised his chin defiantly.
Lorimer smiled at him. ‘Oh, you know we cannot divulge our sources, Mr Brogan,’ he said. ‘Let’s just say we have been reliably informed that you left the Byres Road flat and took up residence in Cartside Street in mid August, around the time of Frankie’s death.’
He flicked through the papers again and, as if reading from the one he held up towards him, intoned, ‘August the nineteenth, to be exact. Just before all the students came back to look for flats in the area. Good time to move, I suppose.’
Brogan shuffled his feet, clearly rattled by this piece of news. ‘So what? Never been very good at dates and that,’ he blustered.
‘So you agree that your residence at Cartside Street did in fact commence on August nineteenth?’
‘Whit?’ Brogan frowned at the formality of the detective superintendent’s words, echoing as they did the sort of parlance that Brogan might come across in a court of law.
Clever, Kirsty told herself. Make him feel he’s in the dock already.
‘Aye, well, that’s right but ah wis staying with a burd before that,’ he said, one leg bouncing up and down, a sure sign of the man’s growing anxiety.