Fair Friday

by Peter Turnbull

  Sussock went upstairs and into a small room where his remaining belongings had been dumped. He sifted through the cardboard boxes, pulling out some light summer clothes. He went back downstairs and out of the house. As he was walking down the drive his wife flung open an upstairs window. She was a small woman with hurried movements and a pinched face which darted from side to side when she shouted. ‘And don’t come back, I don’t want you back here again, just interested in catching robbers, you were never good to me and Samuel.’

  Sussock drove back to his flat in the West End. He told himself it was all working out, soon the divorce would be through, the house would go up for sale, they’d pay off the building society and split the remainder. Then he’d be solvent. Again. Have enough to put down on a place of his own, a little place like Elka’s in Langside. He felt he needed the security of his own bricks and mortar.

  Montgomerie dropped Fiona off outside the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and then drove on up to Rutherglen. He parked his car on Rutherglen Main Street and started hoofing round the bars, showing the photofit to the publicans, each time getting the predictable headshaking response. He tried the bus crews, kids in the street, the loners just walking around. It became so routine holding the card up, the headshake and apology, the thanks, that Montgomerie didn’t immediately latch on when someone gave him the name and address of a murderer.

  It was 9.30 p.m., the evening was still warm but beginning to get dark, though not dark enough for the cars to have to use their headlights. Montgomerie was standing by a telephone kiosk and was in two minds whether to stop an old guy shuffling towards him. The old guy didn’t look too observant, his head hung down and he tapped his stick rapidly as he walked. Montgomerie had had a long day, he reckoned he was on a hiding to nothing, just one more, he thought, just one more and then I’m away home, and the last one may as well be the old guy.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Montgomerie, and the old man stopped shuffling. He looked up at Montgomerie. ‘I wonder if I can ask you to look at this picture.’ He showed the man the photofit. The man took the card and held it in the hand which also held his walking stick.

  ‘Aye,’ said the man.

  ‘Do you recognize the man, sir?’ Montgomerie asked mechanically, already reaching to retrieve the photofit.

  ‘Maybe,’ said the man.

  Montgomerie was pulling the card out of the man’s hand before his reply had registered. Then he let it go like it had stung him. ‘What?’

  ‘This one,’ said the man, ‘would he wear a cloak or a cape now?’

  ‘A cape,’ Montgomerie spluttered. ‘He probably wears a cape.’

  ‘Well, if he does it’s him all right.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him, sure it is.’

  ‘Who is him, sir?’

  ‘Bernie McCusker.’

  Montgomerie scribbled furiously in his notebook. ‘Would you know his address, sir?’

  ‘Aye, son. He stays up the stair from me. Fancy wee toff.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Two-two-four Carrick Road. Just around the corner, son.’

  Montgomerie went back to his car and radioed for assistance. He drove to Carrick Road, parked his car a few closes up from 224 and waited. A few minutes later a Sherpa van with three constables pulled up behind him. Men and women talking in groups turned and looked at the van. Children were grabbed and pulled inside off the street. As soon as the Sherpa pulled up Montgomerie left his car and spoke to the constables in the van. They walked to close number 224. Montgomerie and Piper ran up the stair, one constable stayed at the bottom of the stair and one went into the backs.

  The door with ‘McCusker’ on the front was two up on the right. Montgomerie pressed the bell. He heard a scuffling sound inside the flat and pressed the bell again, this time following it up by hammering on the door and yelling ‘Police!’

  Then he heard a shout from outside, looked out of the stair window and saw a figure swing down a rope and kick the constable in the face. The constable went down, the figure fell on him and kicked him in the head a couple of times to make sure he stayed horizontal. Then the figure ran off across the backs with the second constable in hot pursuit.

  Montgomerie and Piper ran down the stair and into the backs. Montgomerie ran after the second constable while Piper stopped briefly by the injured man, took off his tunic and slipped it under the mans head, radioed for an ambulance and assistance and then sprinted after Montgomerie. He ran across the backs, scaling two walls before he finally caught up with the action.

  McCusker had his back to a wall which was too high for him to climb. He had grabbed a length of metal which he held in his hands, holding it high over his shoulder like a baseball bat. Montgomerie and the other constable stood just outside swinging distance. When Piper joined the party he took up the left-hand position, only seeing too late that if McCusker did start to swing, he’d be the first one to catch it.

  ‘C’mon, polis bastards,’ hissed McCusker. ‘I’ll get one of you.’

  They didn’t need to be told that. This was the end of the line for Bernie McCusker. The problem was how to get in there without copping at least one fractured skull.

  Montgomerie didn’t know how to work it but he did find time to reflect on the accuracy of Mrs Laing’s photofit. She’d missed the mole on his cheek but other than that, there it was, in the flesh, length of hair, the nose, the chin, a finely balanced actor’s face, spoiled at the moment by being screwed up in a fit of hate, loathing, fear and aggression. McCusker was small, just over five feet tall, but had developed a strong chest and legs, and by the way he was able to keep that metal bar in the air, Montgomerie reckoned he had pretty powerful arms into the bargain.

  Two-tone klaxons and yankee-style woofer sirens pierced the air, pretty close too, thought Montgomerie, two or three minutes away at most.

  McCusker evidently agreed with him. He relaxed his tone and lowered the end of the metal bar to the ground. ‘OK,’ he said.

  And they fell for it, relaxing their tone and walking into the arc of McCusker’s weapon. Piper’s left leg was the first to go, splintered at the knee, then McCusker brought the metal bar crashing down on to the ribcage of a startled Montgomerie. The second constable backed up, white-faced, as McCusker jabbed the bar into his solar plexus. McCusker ran a few steps, turned, came back and kicked Montgomerie in the head, before running through a close, into Rutherglen, into the city.

  Sergeant Rafferty drove Montgomerie to the hospital, following the ambulance. ‘Made a right little pig’s ear of that, didn’t we, sir?’ he said.

  Rory McNulty opened up the West End outpost of McNulty, Spicer and Watson with a ring full of keys and a hefty shove of his shoulder. ‘These old properties,’ he said, reaching round the doorway and switching off the burglar alarm.

  ‘Does the customer have to do this?’ asked Donoghue, sliding in between the door and the frame, pushing it open.

  ‘No, of course not. It’s part of our ever-open door policy. Here, have a card.’ McNulty reached forward and picked up a card and handed it to Donoghue. On the front the card said that the door was always open 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Monday to Friday.

  ‘You should still get it replaced,’ said Donoghue, sliding the card into his top pocket with every intention of tearing it up as soon as he was away from McNulty’s company. ‘It gives a bad impression if you’re dealing in property.’

  ‘This is John Spicer’s responsibility. I dare say he thinks it’s service rather than appearance that matters…’ He glanced at Donoghue whose eyebrows were slightly raised. ‘Aye, well, we’ll see about that.’

  McNulty opened the safe, took out a small bunch of keys and used one to open a filing cabinet. He and King took the files and ledgers out of the filing cabinet and laid them on the desks. Donoghue took the opportunity to light his pipe.

  ‘Everything,’ McNulty said, placing the last ledger on the pile, ‘relevant to John Spicer’s work should be contained in that lo
t.’

  ‘How often are the accounts inspected?’ asked Donoghue, opening a ledger and leafing through page after page of numbers, all utterly meaningless to him.

  ‘Annually.’ McNulty’s golden hair shone in the evening sun which streamed through the window. ‘By the Law Society’s accountants.’

  ‘So they are inspected quite closely?’

  ‘Oh yes. The Society takes these matters seriously. What are you driving at, Inspector?’

  ‘Would it be possible to falsify those accounts so that the Law Society accountants wouldn’t notice any discrepancy?’

  ‘Frankly, yes. It would be extremely difficult but not impossible. No system is that foolproof and if the accountants really went to town they’d find something amiss all right. They’re very thorough, but in the annual audit they are principally concerned with our ability to cover.’

  ‘Cover?’ Donoghue flicked his lighter.

  ‘Under the society’s rules any firm of solicitors has to have money in its own account at any time which is in excess of the sum of all monies held on the behalf of clients. I think that’s rule 4(1a).’

  ‘I see. So it’s against the Society’s rules to use clients’ monies for personal short-term investment, for example?’

  ‘Absolutely. We can take money out of our account and put it where it gets a better interest but we always have to leave enough in the current account to pay all our clients on demand should they all want their money back on the same day. God forbid that it should happen, but we have to be ready for the eventuality.’

  ‘And if a solicitor does abuse clients’ money?’

  ‘He’s curling on thin-ice,’ replied McNulty. ‘He’s likely to be struck off or given a restricted practice licence, to say nothing of running the risk of arousing the suspicion of you gentlemen.’

  ‘Which he has done,’ said Donoghue.

  ‘But you said this was a murder enquiry?’

  ‘It still is, but John Spicer is linked somehow and it’s my guess that it’s his shady business practices.’

  ‘Allegedly shady,’ said McNulty shortly.

  ‘Well, shall we see? Would you like to explain the system to us?’

  ‘It’s really very simple,’ said McNulty, and began an explanation which soon left the two police officers in the dark.

  ‘Sorry.’ Donoghue held up his hand. ‘You’ve lost me and I think DC King as well. I wonder if you could look over the books and see if you can find anything to give you cause for concern.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said McNulty.

  Donoghue raised his eyebrows.

  ‘For respecting my professionalism.’

  ‘Well be in the next room,’ said Donoghue. He and King sat in the reception area and began browsing through magazines and property lists.

  ‘Thoughts?’ said Donoghue suddenly, his head buried in a sports magazine.

  ‘Well…’ King cleared his throat and put down the copy of Ideal Home he had been reading. ‘I can’t really add anything to what you said to McNulty, sir. Bill McGarrigle had an interest in this firm. Spicer seems to be rotten. This guy in Maryhill was in a state of oblivion and when he comes out of oblivion it’ll be to a wrecked marriage and no job and no money. He’ll blame a lot of that on Spicer screwing him inside out.’

  ‘You seemed to believe him.’

  ‘I still do.’ Donoghue hadn’t lowered his magazine and all King was addressing was the back and front covers behind which a plume of blue smoke was lazily rising.

  ‘Jumping the gun, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Remember the small percentage of allegations which result in proven verdicts. Ten, fifteen per cent, is it? I can’t recall.’

  ‘Somebody had Bill McGarrigle worked over to stop him getting too close to something. That something is either here or where Spicer takes us. I’m convinced of it.’

  ‘Good. I like confidence in my officers.’ He lowered his magazine and relit his pipe. ‘Well see what, if anything, McNulty turns up.’

  They sat and read all the magazines. Donoghue walked out and bought an ounce of tobacco; it would do until he could get some more of his special mix made up. They turned on the lights and began to re-read the magazines. When after three hours McNulty had not emerged from the office Donoghue rose, tapped on the door and walked in to find what if anything McNulty had turned up.

  ‘This will be the end of this firm,’ he said slowly. He was white-faced and drawn.

  ‘King!’ Donoghue called over his shoulder. King joined him. ‘What have you found, sir?’

  ‘Enough to ruin my life’s work.’ McNulty laid his pen down. At the side of the ledger were sheets of notepaper covered in rough calculations:

  ‘What have you found?’ Donoghue asked again, a little firmness creeping into his voice. He switched the light on in the office.

  ‘Thank you. I hadn’t realized how dark it had become.’ McNulty squeezed his eyes. ‘Well, gentlemen, I’m afraid you are right. John Spicer is up to something. Basically he’s not covered, he is in breach of rule 4(1a). If all his clients asked for their money tomorrow he could pay about a third of them. I found these as well.’ He reached into a drawer and pulled out a folder containing blank bills and wads of blank headed notepaper. He dropped them on to the desk in front of Donoghue. ‘Building firms, electrical contractors, plumbing companies, glaziers, garages, surveyors—oh, it goes on and on. You name it, there’s a bill for a company in that field, all blank, waiting to be filled in.’

  ‘How does the system work?’ asked Donoghue.

  ‘So far as I can make out, half the house surveys are just not carried out but the client is billed anyway.’

  ‘And the rest?’ Donoghue tapped the pile of blank bills.

  ‘Who knows, it’ll need a thorough investigation, but what I think is happening, judging from the outgoings from John Spicer’s accounts, is that work carried out by legitimate firms is billed for under a bogus name.’

  ‘With a mark-up?’ said Donoghue.

  ‘Yes. A client who is buying a house may well ask us to arrange for it to be rewired, which is often a condition of having a mortgage advanced. John Spicer then seems to contact a reputable firm who do the job and send him their bill for, say, five hundred pounds. He will then make out a bill for the same piece of work under a bogus name, this time for six hundred pounds, and debit the client’s account for that amount.’

  ‘He pays the legitimate firm and pockets the rest,’ said Donoghue.

  King picked up the yellow pages.

  ‘None of these firms are listed,’ said McNulty. ‘It’s the first thing I checked.’

  ‘How did you find out he can’t cover?’ asked Donoghue. ‘Despite this fraud, the figures should balance.’

  ‘Simply,’ said McNulty. ‘His books don’t balance.’ He spoke slowly, wearily, thought King, who imagined the emotion McNulty must have kept in check as he exposed corruption in that which he had created. ‘Notwithstanding the fact that he has been milking clients’ accounts, his own personal business account is heavily overdrawn, so it means that somewhere among these two hundred-odd accounts there is a sink hole. I’ve spent most of the last three hours looking for an account that has been consistently credited over the last three months. I took three months as an arbitrary figure, it has no significance, and I found it in the name of Carol McDonald.’

  ‘By a large amount?’ Donoghue opened his notebook.

  ‘Oh yes, sufficient to bring Mr Spicer’s own account back into the black, and probably a lot of clients’ accounts too.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Who knows? Years perhaps. He probably starts juggling money around a few weeks before each audit to make the accounts look good.’

  ‘By how much are the accounts short?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know exactly. I don’t know the extent of the fraud, but the account of Miss Carol McDonald stands at forty-five thousand pounds, or thereabouts.’

&
nbsp; ‘Thereabouts?’

  ‘Give or take a thousand. I haven’t worked it out to the last penny.’

  ‘Is there any indication where the money is going?’

  ‘It’s going to a concern called the Fleur de Lys bar in the centre of the city. According to these documents Miss McDonald is the owner, and according to her accounts it’s haemorrhaging badly.’

  ‘What address is given?’

  ‘There’re two,’ said McNulty. The bar is on Coburg Street and Miss McDonald’s home address is given as Clematis Cottage, near Strontian, Argyllshire.’

  ‘We’ll go and see if we can get hold of her at the Fleur de Lys,’ said Donoghue. ‘We don’t have time to go up to the Highlands.’

  ‘You won’t get her at either place,’ said McNulty. ‘I suggest you try the old school house on the Isle of Bute.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because that’s where Carol Spicer nee McDonald lives with her husband, John Spicer, solicitor, of McNulty, Spicer and Watson. I attended their wedding. Clematis Cottage is their holiday home. I’ve been there.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Fair Sunday morning filled Scotland with top to bottom sunshine. By 9.00 a.m. in Glasgow it was warm enough for shorts and vests, for sunning in the Botanical Gardens, or packing a few things and away down the water with the kids to the holiday beaches at Ayr or Saltcoats, to Millport or to Arran for a day’s walking on the fell, or to the Highlands, or to Loch Lomond for a day’s sailing.

  Donoghue sat in his Rover outside ‘P’ Division station, and looked up Sauchiehall Street. He had hung his jacket in the car but kept his shirtsleeves down to his wrists, pinned with silver cufflinks. He sat on the leather seat, baked, and listened to Radio 4. Ray Sussock came panting up to the car and tapped on the nearside front window. His jacket was slung over his arm and beads of sweat dripped off his deeply furrowed brow. Donoghue leaned over and unlocked the door. Sussock sat in the passenger seat and began apologizing vociferously for being late.