by Tony Black
He read the date; it never changed: Thursday, 11 June. The paper hadn’t had time to yellow yet. He unfurled the cutting at its crease. It seemed pathetically small for such an important piece of news. Important to Rob Brennan. The edges of the paper were starting to deteriorate, little nicks and tears making it look flimsy; it would soon be too fragile to touch.
He read the headline first: POLICE PROBE LOCAL MAN’S SHOOTING. That always made him shake his head; they were still probing the case. There was a subheading on the article which read: FORCE BAFFLED BY DAYLIGHT KILLING AT FARMHOUSE. He had almost memorised the rest:
The shocking midday shooting of a much-loved and respected Glasgow builder was being investigated by Strathclyde Police today.
Andrew Brennan, 37, was shot three times at point-blank range in what police have confirmed bears all the hallmarks of a ‘gangland hit’.
Mr Brennan, a father of two, was undertaking refurbishment work at the farmhouse on the outskirts of the city when the incident occurred at around 2 p.m. yesterday. His wife and children were said to be in shock after the news and being comforted by friends and family. Floral tributes appeared outside the family’s Bearsden home soon after the news broke and well-wishers continued to gather on the doorstep until late in the evening.
Those who knew Mr Brennan described him as a popular and much-loved local figure.
Councillor Tom Fulton, who worked alongside Mr Brennan in the construction industry, said it was ‘heartbreaking news’.
Cllr Fulton commented: ‘I knew Andy since he was a boy. He came up with his dad, Gregor, and took to the business with great enthusiasm. He was a lovely, decent, solid bloke and this news is just heartbreaking. My thoughts and feelings are with his family and Jane and the boys right now.’
Police confirmed they were not investigating any links Mr Brennan may have had to underworld activities. They said no positive identifications had yet been made but several witnesses had reported seeing a ‘limping man’ in the area and they appealed for anyone with any information to come forward.
Detective Inspector Ian Lauder confirmed: ‘We are exploring all avenues but proceeding on the assumption that this tragic incident was a case of mistaken identity.
‘There is no indication of any wrongdoing on Mr Brennan’s part whatsoever and likewise we have been unable to establish any connections to organised crime.’
He added: ‘Several people did attest to there being a man with a pronounced limp in the area and we are keen to locate him in order to eliminate him from our inquiries.’
No funeral arrangements had been released at the time of going to press.
Brennan smoothed down the edges of the newspaper cutting, stared at it without taking in the printed words. It was becoming an artefact, a holy relic of the brother he once knew. Brennan berated himself for being so weak, for allowing himself to torment his emotions, self-flagellate. Why did he carry the story around with him? He knew every word of the short piece by rote. Reading it again and again didn’t make him feel any better, but he knew what it did do: it kept his anger aflame. He needed these little reminders to himself that no one had solved his brother’s murder, and the longer it went on, the less likely it was that his killer would be found.
The door to the gents banged open; loud chattering bounced off the walls. For a moment Brennan was thrown. He was still deep in his reverie, but then the tones took on a familiar sound. He knew the voices, and they were two people he’d have paid to eavesdrop on. Slowly, he slid the newspaper cutting back into his wallet, and his wallet into his jacket. He raised his shoes from the floor and tucked them on the rim of the toilet pan; it was an uncomfortable seating arrangement but necessary. The door latch was loose and slid from its catch easily; it would show green for vacant on the other side if anyone looked.
The voices cackled. The most prominent was Lauder’s.
‘I’m sure Galloway fancies me, you know that?’
‘Oh, really.’ It was McGuire, playing the straw-man role.
‘Every time I’m in her office she’s leaning over me, flashing the flesh an’ that.’
McGuire laughed, played up: ‘So, you think it’s her orifice she wants you in?’
Loud guffaws. Brennan sneered inwardly.
‘You could say that, Stevie, you could say that . . . You see, the thing with me is, I get a lot of women coming on to me like that.’
‘I see . . .’
‘They want me for a shag, think I’ll be good for a bit of the old wham-bam-thank-you-man . . .’
‘No strings attached, eh?’
‘Exactly, I just give off that kind of vibe, y’know, and I’m discreet – ask your missus, she’ll tell you.’ Lauder burst into laughter. He sounded like a teenager to Brennan.
When the laughter subsided, the topic of conversation touched on something that was more interesting to the DI in the toilet cubicle.
‘What about Brennan, then? Must have put the shits up him to see Aylish from the News there,’ said Lauder.
‘I hear he wasn’t chuffed . . . Apparently she near lamped him with a voice recorder. Jesus, what a picture that would have been. Galloway would have had his balls for earrings . . . !’ McGuire’s voice halted.
‘What is it?’ said Lauder.
‘Nothing.’
‘No, come on . . . What’s up?’
McGuire exhaled loudly, his words coming out like a puncture. ‘I’m getting kicked about on this case already.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I just . . .’ He held schtum. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter.’
‘No, say . . .’
McGuire sounded livelier: ‘They say Brennan’s a top operator, don’t they?’
Lauder bit: ‘Do they?’
‘I mean, that’s the word about the station, that he’s a good cop and has landed some good collars in his day.’
Lauder arked up, ‘You fucking fancy him now?’ The DI raised his voice: ‘I’ll tell you this, I don’t rate him and I’ve been in this game long enough to know who the top operators are, son.’
McGuire didn’t respond. The atmosphere in the toilet block seemed to have cooled. Brennan felt his legs start to ache. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to hold them up for much longer.
The sound of a tap turning, the splash of water, took over from the silence. A hand dryer blew out a violent blast.
‘I’ll catch you later, Ian,’ said McGuire.
Lauder didn’t answer.
Brennan waited for the creak of the door. He let the hinges sigh and the wood kiss the jamb before he stood up. Lauder had started to whistle; as Brennan opened the cubicle door he saw the DI pitching up on his toes as he relieved himself into the urinal. He had his head facing the tiled wall, but cocked it sharply to the side as his colleague appeared.
‘This’ll be where the pricks hang out then,’ said Brennan.
Chapter 10
DEVLIN McARDLE WAS SITTING IN the Wellington Café on London Road when the cabbies came in, asked for the television to go on. They saw McArdle and nodded, took some more nods from the bloke behind the counter and moved to sit at the rear of the premises where the dusty windows faced the street. The PVC seats squealed as the men lowered themselves down. The cabbies looked over the greasy, laminated menu and clawed at the new prices that had been stickered over the old; there was already a rim of sauce and crumb-dust ringing the white tabs. McArdle looked the other way, towards the television. He waited for the midweek football results to come on. He was only interested in the fortunes of Heart of Midlothian but in the absence of a fixture for his team, scanned the rest of the division. They were all losers to him – anyone not on the Deil’s side was a loser.
‘Can you believe the run United are having?’ said the bigger of the two cabbies.
‘Dundee United?’said McArdle. ‘Fucking Scum-dee . . . Who cares what kind of a run they’re having? Do they even have a stadium up there? Does the manager take the strips home for his missus to wash
? There’s only one team: Hearts . . . The fucking glorious Jam Tarts!’ McArdle felt his face warming as he spoke. He knew his voice had risen because there was an old couple sitting at the front of the café who looked at him. They had to crane their necks over a rack of vinegar bottles to see him. Their effort bothered McArdle; he didn’t like being put on show. ‘What do you fucking want, Granny?’
The elderly couple turned away immediately, dropping gazes back to their fish teas. The cabbies laughed it up. The bigger one spoke: ‘Nice one, Deil . . . Showed them!’
‘Fucking pair of p-r-i-c-k-s-s-s . . .’ He stretched out the word for effect, savoured the sound of it on his tongue. For a moment he seemed satisfied within himself, but the expression soon changed. ‘Right, what you pair got for me?’
The cabbies dropped hands in their inside pockets, removed rolls of banknotes. They were mixed denominations, tightly bound and held by elastic bands.
‘These are a bit fucking light,’ said McArdle.
The thinner of the two, a stubbly chin and chalk-blue eyes, said, ‘No one’s got the money, big man.’
‘What do you fucking mean, no one?’ McArdle’s eyes widened. He showed his bottom row of teeth – they were yellowed, stubby.
‘It’s the recession an’ that,’ said the other man.
McArdle slammed his fist on the table. The elderly couple flinched; the woman dropped a knife. ‘Since when did schemies feel the pinch? They’re on the dole, on the rob.’
The pair looked at each other. McArdle knew he had them scared. He grabbed one by the shirt front. ‘Don’t you be coming to me for gear, taking the fucking gear, and then not selling it. I’m not a fucking charity, right?’
‘Yeah, I know . . . I know.’
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’
‘We’ll go back out.’ The cabbies turned to each other, nodded. ‘We’ll go back out. No bother.’
The old man and woman crossed to the counter to pay up. They hadn’t finished their meals. McArdle blared, ‘You’re fucking right you will. Get down to the Links and crack onto the brasses. There’s no recession for punters looking for blow jobs last time I heard. And if they’re not on it, get them on it . . . Right?’
The pair nodded. ‘Yeah, sure. Sure.’
McArdle stood up and the two men followed. As they did chairs scraped on the laminate flooring and put a scare on the old woman. She hurried towards the door. ‘Boo!’ yelled McArdle. The couple increased the speed of their steps and McArdle laughed as they fumbled with the door handle. ‘Night-night, you old p-r-i-c-k-s-s-s.’
As the door closed McArdle returned to the cabbies; his demeanour returned to assault mode. In a flash he fired out a fist. It caught the large man clean on the nose. His head shot back on contact and he stumbled into the orange plastic chair he’d just left. The back of his thighs caught the tabletop and stopped him from falling to the floor. He was dazed, his eyes rolling wildly in his head.
‘Take that as a taster,’ said McArdle. He held up a roll of cash. ‘You come back to me with a bundle like that again and it’ll not be your nose I’m bursting next, it’ll be your fucking head with one of those big cleavers out the kitchen.’
The man behind the counter laughed as he turned a dishtowel over his shoulder. The cabbies turned for the door, the bleeding one helped by the other.
McArdle raised a thumb to them. ‘What do you make of that pair of pussies?’
Shakes of head. ‘Can’t get the staff, eh?’
‘Hard times, I tell you . . . Hard times.’
McArdle sat back down and the waiter brought him over a mug of coffee. As he counted out the takings, separated it into denominations, then clear plastic money bags, McArdle glanced idly at the television. The football scores had finished and the Scottish news headlines were being read out by a pretty young girl in a red party dress.
It was the same old stories: job losses, strikes. Some eighty-year-old in the finals of a talent competition. None of it interested McArdle. He only liked the news when there were serious crimes reported. Then he would shout at the screen, blast the criminal’s idiocy. He knew better than most how to make crime pay. No one was ever going to put the Deil behind bars again. He’d spent the eighties in Bar-L, had a stint in the Nutcracker Suite. He’d learned all he needed to know in there about staying out and he’d put it into practice every day since.
The Scottish news turned into the local news and immediately McArdle’s interest was gripped. The top story was an eye-catcher.
The girl in the party dress said, ‘The body of a young woman was found on an Edinburgh housing estate today.’
So what? thought McArdle.
She went on, ‘Police have yet to identify the victim but witnesses confirmed the badly mutilated body was found in a communal bin in Muirhouse. Residents described being alerted to the grisly find by four young girls who stumbled across the body.’
The newsreader made the familiar tilt of the head that indicated the screen was about to change. Some new footage started up, fronted by a less-attractive male reporter at the housing scheme.
His piece to camera was backgrounded with some shots of police cars coming and going at the crime scene.
McArdle laughed out, ‘Fucking plod! Useless bastards.’
The reporter went on, ‘Lothian and Borders Police are remaining tight-lipped about what is believed to be a brutal murder scene in the Muirhouse area. Of course, this locality has had more than its fair share of murders over the years but the teenage girls who stumbled upon the body revealed some particularly horrific details for me when I spoke to them earlier . . . I do warn viewers some of the comments they made to me are of a graphic nature and not for those of a delicate disposition.’
The camera angle changed again.
‘Hey, turn this up, mate,’ said McArdle, ‘sounds good, this.’
The four girls were huddled together in the front room of a small council flat. A picture of a crying Spanish orphan hung on the wall behind them. One of the girls had a cigarette in her hand, which trembled every time she brought it to her lips. The other three competed for the camera.
‘It was pure nasty . . . Loads of blood an’ that,’ said the loudest, a small freckled girl who seemed to be wearing too much make-up.
McArdle sang out, ‘Wee fucking tramp!’
Another girl spoke: ‘I saw her first, well, second likes, after Trish, but it was me that saw the arms were missing. They’d been pure sawn off so they had.’
McArdle chuckled to himself. ‘Christ, it’s a braw laugh seeing folk from the town on the telly.’
The screen changed again, the reporter handing over to the studio.
McArdle stood up, took the first sip of his coffee and put it back down. ‘Right, I’m off.’
The man behind the counter nodded.
‘Put that on the tab, eh.’
Another nod came.
On the street McArdle’s strides were full of purpose. The cash in his jacket wasn’t enough, takings had been sliding down of late, but there was another option now that might come good. It was a bit more risky, and he still had his doubts, but he hadn’t been turned over in a long time. This was Edinburgh as well, where they chopped the limbs off young girls and dumped them in bins at the end of dark lanes. The filth had enough to be getting on with just keeping the streets free of folk killing each other. What were the chances of them taking an interest in his activities? So long as he played by the rules he’d set himself, then what could go wrong? Muirhouse was a long way from Germany and once he’d collected the cash, bunged Barry Tierney enough to keep him quiet, then the evidence would be out of the way. Well out of the way; the filth could say and do all they liked, but the evidence would be out the country.
McArdle’s car was parked outside the post office. He turned the key in the lock and eased into the driver’s seat. The clock on the dash said it was after six now. That meant Tierney had had the best part of five hours to shoot that shit into hi
s veins. It might just be worth giving him a rattle, making sure there was a deal to be done. You just couldn’t take a junkie’s word for it; these things had to be checked out. He started the ignition, engaged first gear and pulled out. The traffic was light on the roads, hardly anybody walking about either. Funny that, thought McArdle. He wondered if it had anything to do with the young girl’s murder he’d just seen on the news.
Chapter 11
BARRY TIERNEY BRUSHED DRIED VOMIT from his face. He couldn’t recall being sick, but there was no disputing the fact. At some point in his stupor, somewhere between taking the works from the Deil, going home to Vee, and shooting up, he’d thrown up. It was a milky sick, like a baby’s. He was familiar with the sight of baby sick lately, though this was a new occurrence and not entirely something he was happy about.
The child was crying again.
Barry pushed himself up. His sick-wet hand slipped on the greasy mattress and he fell towards the floorboards. The motion sent his brain swimming in his skull. He felt another heave in his gut; more puke rose in his throat and appeared in his mouth. He delivered the mouthful onto the mattress. He didn’t care whether it stained or smelled, he’d long since lost all desire to care about such matters.
The child continued to cry, loud breath-filled shrieks. She’d be hungry again. Why the hell did they need so much feeding and changing? Did it never end?
Tierney suddenly felt cold. He started to shiver. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and tried to rub warmth into his arms and shoulders with the palms of his hands. It didn’t seem to be working. The cold he felt was too deep. There was no heating in the flat – they had no money left for power cards after paying McArdle for their hit.