Fair Friday

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Gilheaney…five years ago last Friday…’ Donoghue said to himself, slowly realizing something.

  ‘That’s right. She was knifed. The papers called it the Fair Friday Murder.’

  ‘FFM,’ said Donoghue.

  ‘Sorry?’ She inclined her head and raised her eyebrows, slipping back into acquired habits.

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ he said. ‘Yes, I remember the case quite well, although I wasn’t actually involved.’

  Ray Sussock sat with an empty coffee cup on his lap and said nothing. He had been in charge of the police investigation and the resulting submission to the Procurator Fiscal which had put Jack ‘the Granite’ Gilheaney inside, despite a not guilty plea which went all the way to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh.

  Donoghue wondered whether the death of her sister had hurt her badly or whether she had weathered the storm, had hardened by then. It seemed to Donoghue that her survival code in this world of hard knocks lay in the philosophy of getting shot of as much emotion as possible.

  ‘Were you close to your sister?’

  ‘Not very.’

  Surprise, surprise. Donoghue patted the cat.

  ‘But it worked out, you know, good out of the bad, because that’s how I met John.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Anne worked for John, she was his secretary and receptionist in the office in the city centre, before John moved out to Byres Road. She had a lovely telephone voice.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. After she was murdered John kept coming round to my flat. He was very supportive, not emotionally supportive, but supportive in a practical way. He helped me sort out Anne’s effects, I was her only relative by then, and John was the only person who could advise me. That’s how we got close…well…’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But he did help a great deal, you know—he told me what to keep of Anne’s and what I could chuck out…’

  ‘Sorry.’ Donoghue held up his hand. ‘He told you what to keep and what to sling?’

  ‘With regard to her papers—not her personal belongings, her clothes, her records, but her papers. She had collected a lot of legal-looking papers, statements, columns of figures. John advised me about them; in fact he said I could burn the lot, so we did. Anyway he was getting middle-aged and I was a young and pretty virgin, he was rolling in it and I was broke. We were married a year later. I made him wait until after the wedding until he got anything. It didn’t bother him, he was screwing around like a rabbit throughout our engagement and he still got a white wedding to please his old mum.’

  ‘Are you happy with that?’

  ‘Aye. Like I said, I’ve got comforts and food and heating and no big demands. Any marriage is a form of gaol sentence, so why not make your cell as comfortable as possible?’ She held up her left hand but Donoghue was unsure exactly which was the wedding band. ‘There’s probably a female on the boat right now, or maybe he’s taken a brace this time.’

  ‘That doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Not unless he comes home and gives me a dose. He hasn’t so far.’

  They left when Donoghue sensed that the conversation was getting circular. On the steps Donoghue said he might well be calling back, probably tomorrow.

  ‘Do that,’ said Carol Spicer, and smiled in a way which unnerved Donoghue. As he turned he noticed stickers in the rear windows of both Spicer’s cars. ‘How is he disabled?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s got a small right arm,’ she said, still smiling, but having regained her middle-class-woman-at-the-door-of-her-home pose. ‘He said it just stopped growing when he was about twelve years old. He has no strength in that arm or that hand. But it’s never bothered me.’

  On Rothesay front Donoghue suggested a lager. They left the Rover and inspected three bars and, finding each packed to bursting point, abandoned the idea, much to Sussock’s relief; he had walked alongside Donoghue clutching his 53p in a clammy hand. Instead they walked around the harbour while waiting for the ferry. As they turned back towards the ferry terminal they noticed a white sailing cruiser nudging its way gently into the yacht basin. There was a young blonde woman in white jersey and white slacks coiling a rope on the foredeck, and a second woman, also blonde and dressed in white, was securing the mainsail to the boom. At the tiller was a thin middle-aged man with a narrow face which seemed frozen in a permanent grin. He held the tiller with his left hand and controlled the throttle with a foot control. His small right arm hung useless.

  ‘He seems to be the sort that likes them in uniform as well,’ said Sussock. ‘Will we interview him now?’

  ‘No,’ said Donoghue. ‘He’s not going anywhere and before I see him I want to have a look at the Gilheaney file, and pick your brains about the matter. There’s something sinister here, Ray.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Montgomerie knocked three times on the door and was about to knock for a fourth time, although by encouraging one of the constables to use his shoulder instead of the palm of his hand, when the door was opened with a gentle, half-apologetic click. In the doorway stood a thin, drawn, ashen-faced woman with black hair. She blinked at Montgomerie and at the two constables behind him.

  ‘Is he in?’ Montgomerie snarled.

  ‘No, he’s away,’ said the woman, shaking her head. ‘He’ll no be back, sure he won’t.’

  ‘Where’s he away to?’ asked Montgomerie.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘You’re Mrs McCusker, aye?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  The woman looked at him.

  ‘McCusker’s got to be at least thirty-seven,’ said Donoghue. ‘You don’t look to be much over seventeen.’

  ‘I’m thirty-two,’ she replied thinly.

  Then he could see the tiredness in her eyes and the odd grey hair, but she was so small and fragile; like a little bird. ‘And he’s not here?’ he said.

  ‘You should know, you’ve had a man in a car out front all night. He should’ve come up and waited in here. I’d have made him a cup of tea.’

  Montgomerie started to tell her not to get too wise and then realized that she was being serious. So he said again, ‘He’s not here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you won’t mind if we take a look around?’

  The woman stepped aside in a gesture of total acquiescence to authority. Montgomerie and the two constables walked into her home. Montgomerie stepped lightly, his ribs were badly bruised and he had suffered the additional indignity of having them strapped up tightly by Fiona. They hurt like hell all the time except the brief instant when his left foot touched the ground, when it felt like he was stopping the iron bar all over again.

  The McCusker household had a musty sort of smell about it. The living-room seemed well fitted out, three-piece suite, television, hi-fi, sideboard, but a close look revealed that it was all old second-hand junk that a labourer could pay for with a good day’s wages. The bedroom was the real nitty-gritty, an old three-quarter bed with blankets and sheets, clothes strewn over an old settee which had been pushed against the wall under the window. The kitchen had a yellow formica-topped table, two stools, a sink full of dirty mugs and plates, a working surface with a packetful of cornflakes and a bottle with some milk inside.

  ‘Fallen on hard times, have you?’ said Montgomerie when he went back to the living-room.

  ‘Bernie’s got a plan,’ she said, not really looking at Montgomerie. After a while people in authority get so they don’t have faces or personalities, they’re just the polis, or the social, or the welfare, or the factor, or the gas or the ’lectric. They’re all one and you just say “sir”. After a pause she added, ‘sir’.

  ‘Like when his ship comes in,’ said Montgomerie. ‘Only it hasn’t got anywhere in the last twenty years and both of us know it’s not likely to get anywhere in the next twenty.’

  She looked at him and then looked down at the carpet. Blue, and burnt here and there with cigarette ends.


  ‘So why don’t you tell us where he is?’

  ‘Don’t know where he is.’

  ‘This his?’ Montgomerie picked up a black cape which was hung over the back of a chair.

  ‘Aye.’ She looked at it and then looked back at the carpet, maybe to see if it’s still there, thought Montgomerie.

  ‘I’m taking it away with me.’ Montgomerie handed the cloak to one of the constables.

  ‘He’ll not like that,’ protested the woman, the city waif. ‘It’s his thing, like. He got it off a market stall.’ She looked again at the carpet.

  ‘Well, if he wants it back tell him to enquire at the desk of DC Montgomerie, the police station, Charing Cross, Glasgow G3.’ He turned to leave and then he too glanced at the carpet and then at the furniture on the carpet. It was all junk, but heavy junk, solid bits of wood, as though it hadn’t been bought so much for furnishing but to hold the carpet in place. He checked the edge of the carpet: it was fastened by nails hammered in at six-inch intervals.

  Naturally they ripped it up.

  Under the carpet they found an area of loose floorboards, under which they found: four twelve-bore shotguns with barrels and butts sawn off, twenty-five twelve-bore cartridges, two .38 Service revolvers with six rounds of ammunition each, three pounds of gelignite in commercial blasting sticks, five detonators, fifty feet of fuse wire, black masks and balaclavas. In one of the wardrobes they found six combat jackets, three pickaxe handles and two jemmies.

  ‘Going to knock over the Bank of Scotland, are you?’ said Montgomerie to the city waif who was chewing her knuckles. ‘Get your coat, you’re coming for a ride.’

  Cleopatra McCusker was taken from the rear seat of the police car and down to one of the interview rooms in the basement of the police station. She sat on the chair and began to shiver although the temperature in the room was a comfortable 65°F. A stout policewoman stood in the room with her but said nothing.

  Montgomerie signed in and went up to the CID rooms. In his pigeonhole was a print-out from the Police National Computer. It read: McCusker, Bernard—no trace

  ‘That’s all I need,’ he said, walking over to his desk and sitting down.

  ‘What is all you need, my son?’ asked King from behind the Sunday Standard.

  ‘No trace on that ned that filled in Bill McGarrigle. And bruised my ribs.’

  ‘Not to mention PC Piper’s fractured leg.’ King laid the paper on his desk and peered closely at the newsprint. ‘The spirit of Scotland, strange to say, one word, three letters.’

  Don’t you have anything better to do?’ Montgomerie reached forward and picked up the phone on his desk. He consulted an internal directory and dialled a two figure number.

  ‘I’m waiting on Fabian and Ray Sussock coming back. They went to the Isle of Bute this morning.’

  ‘And they call that work.’

  ‘It’s rum,’ said King.

  ‘It’s jam,’ said Montgomerie, holding the phone to his ear. ‘Getting a trip to Bute on the company’s expense, that’s jam.’

  ‘Scotland’s spirit is rum.’ King scribbled with his ballpoint.

  ‘I thought it was supposed to be whisky.’

  ‘It’s a double meaning—you know, spirit of the soul—or didn’t you know you were supposed to be dour?’

  ‘Hello, collator?’ Montgomerie picked up his pen and held it over his notebook. ‘DC Montgomerie, request information on one Bernard McCusker, probably known as Bernie, of 224 Carrick Road, Rutherglen. Yes, I’ll hold, thank you.’ He held for a moment and then began writing. When he had finished scribbling he thanked the collator and replaced the receiver. He read over what he had written.

  McCusker Bernard, Bernie. Alias: Neutron John No age, no employment, no previous. Known associate of Sam ‘the Weight’ Dolan. Jug’ McLintock and ‘Steamroller’ Forbes. (PNC data on above). All criminal associates of Phil and Tiny Jardine. Case live to DC King.

  ‘Eh, gringo…’ said Montgomerie, looking at King. King grunted.

  ‘Gringo,’ Montgomerie said again. ‘Maybe we can do business, exchange a leetle information as we say in Mehico?’

  King glanced up from the crossword. ‘You slay me,’ he said drily.

  ‘I want only information, compadre.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Whatever you can tell me about two banditos.’

  ‘Jardine?’

  ‘Si, eljardino.’

  ‘The Jardine brothers. Phil and Tiny. Tiny’s the older and the heavy, Phil is the brains.’ King put his ballpoint on his desk, leaned backwards and took a file from his filing cabinet. He laid the file on his desk and patted it. On a scale of one to ten for thickness Montgomerie would have given it nine point five. ‘Oh, there’s more than this,’ said King cheerfully. ‘This one is marked, Jardine, brackets, Overspill. You should see the first file. What we’ve got on the Jardines would make a Mafia Kangaroo Court ooze with satisfaction, but it does not impress our own dear Fiscal’s office.’

  ‘Let me have the condensed version.’

  ‘The Jardines are serious hoods. They’re as heavy duty as anything in this city, and have been behind most of the big jobs north of the river in the last ten years. They seem to operate a fall guy system, because all the neds who get sizable terms for armed robbery or robbery with violence couldn’t think their way out of George Square. But they pull the job efficiently, like programmed robots, and don’t get picked up until days or weeks later, by which time all the money has vanished without trace. Like I said, everything points to Phil Jardine being the brains and cuddly Tiny being the recruiting sergeant, but things have moved a bit since the witch-hunting days, we cant just point a finger any more. Anyway, Fabian Donoghue wants them badly, so does Findlater, and so on up to the top of the hierarchy of the great organization of which you and I are but humble servants. Our perennial problem is that evidence and the Jardines seem mutually exclusive.’

  ‘You’re working on them at the moment?’

  ‘Not actively, my son. Just watching them, and keeping my ears open. Not a dicky-bird for a wee while, though. The last job that could be put down to them with any degree of certainty was the wages snatch at the north entrance to the Clyde tunnel.’

  ‘They rammed it with a car with a railway sleeper sticking out over the bonnet and cut their way in with a chain saw.’

  ‘That’s the one. Took close on a quarter of a million in just under a hundred and twenty seconds, left their car and the van blocking the road, took off in a second car and disappeared into the south side.’

  ‘Not bad pay for two minutes’ work.’

  ‘About sufficient to keep the Jardines in a manner to which they have become accustomed for about twelve months. They put some aside to pay off the fall guys after they’ve done their bird. I think they’re regrouping: Tiny’s been seen in the Jardine bars with some up and coming neds.’

  ‘They run bars as well?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I reckon they put their illegitimate gains into legitimate businesses. You’ve seen the chain of gin bins around the city, all called Delayney’s?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘They own them.’

  ‘Do they now. I’ve been in one of them a couple of times. Cheap wine, hard whisky and short measures of both.’

  ‘That’s the unmistakable Jardine touch,’ said King. ‘Downbeat bars but they pay, and enable the Jardines to live in palatial splendour. Phil is out in the foothills of the Campsies, in a big Victorian house with stables and his own private curling pond which, when it melts in the spring, provides trout fishing. Phil is married with a couple of daughters whom he’s trying to unload on to any two members of the respectable business community, but nobody wants to know on account of the fact that they’re spoiled rotten. Tiny’s pad is out by Barrhead. Have you driven from Paisley to Barrhead and noticed a long low bungalow standing in a field? It has a frontage of at least a hundred feet with a white five-barred gate at the entrance to the drive.’

  ‘Don�
��t tell me that’s Tiny’s.’

  ‘Afraid so. It’s got a western name, the “double J” or the “JJ” or something like that. Anyway, it’s known to all in the syndicate as “the ranch”. One end of the building is given over to a gymnasium because Tiny’s into a physical culture kick and, not to put too finer a point on it, he’s built like a brick shithouse. He doesn’t have his younger brother’s stability, Tiny likes his women young and usually has not less than three in the house at any one time.’

  ‘And you think the clan is gathering again, about to mount a raid on the defenceless hamlet of G?’

  ‘I think so. Like I said, Tiny’s been seen recruiting. I think he’s got three, Dolan, McLintock and Forbes. They’re all neds with PCs for violence. If the Jardines follow the usual pattern a bank or something will be knocked over, Dolan, McLintock and Forbes will be collared because they’re too stupid to avoid it. Scanty evidence will link them to the Jardine brothers, who will of course have a cast-iron alibi as to their whereabouts at the time of the raid and will never have met or had any contact with anybody connected with the raid. The money naturally will never be recovered, but only a matter of weeks later the Jardines will be spending like they’ve had a pools win and another bar will open and add to the growing Delayney chain.’

  ‘The neds will get ten years plus but because they’ve only been small timers before they might be able to get away with patter on the lines of “I was just a hothead getting in out of my depth”, get transferred to an open prison after four or five years, stick to the rules like superglue, be very contrite and get paroled after another couple of years.’

  ‘Which is not a hard ride.’

  ‘Of course not, and when they do step outside they suddenly come into money. If they’re married, their wives don’t appear to live the hand to mouth Supplementary Benefit existence of most prisoners’ wives.’