One Last Dram Before Midnight

by Denzil Meyrick

  Hoynes was about to sit down when he heard a voice. Coming towards him, looking rather unsteady on his feet, came Keacheran the fish merchant, clutching what looked like a jar. ‘Sandy Hoynes, you’ve done Maggie proud – aye, and us all fine the night, wae a great spread and a few drams.’ A cheer ensued. ‘So, by way of thanks, I brought you the leg o’ that octopus you were good enough tae sell me the other day. Knowing how fond I am o’ the creatures, it was good of you. So I marinated a wee bit o’ it, an’ here you are!’

  Iain Watson sat open-mouthed as Hamish shrugged and announced, ‘Here’s tae you, skipper! I telt you I’d a bad feeling aboot this.’

  TWO ONE THREE

  A Constable Jim Daley Short Story

  I

  Glasgow, March 1986

  Police Constable Jim Daley smiled as he caught sight of his reflection in the window of the expensive clothing store. He had just finished his second stint at Tulliallan, the Scottish Police Training College, and his trim physique was testament to the rigorous fitness regime there.

  He walked on, then paused for a few moments, gazing at the display in Curry’s window. The latest VHS recorder took pride of place beside a Sony hi-fi system. He grinned; his sergeant, John Donald, had just spent a small fortune on a state-of-the-art Betamax unit, which already appeared to be obsolete. Serves him right, thought Daley, and moved on.

  It was just after 5 a.m. As he scanned the shops and offices across the street, he passed his gloved hand over the plate-glass storefronts on his right. This way, he could check both sides of the road at the same time, ensuring that if any break-ins had occurred during the nightshift, they wouldn’t go undiscovered. It was called Plate Glass Patrol, and his colleagues across Glasgow city centre were following the same routine.

  When he’d first joined Strathclyde Police and embarked upon his basic training, he’d hoped to be sent to some of the more far-flung parts of the force area – the Cowal Peninsula, Ayrshire, even distant Argyll with its islands and county towns had been potential postings – but here he was in the city he’d grown up in, plodding down Sauchiehall Street in the grey dawn of a March morning. He was sanguine about this, though, and now of the opinion that he would learn more from the hard-bitten cops who worked the tough streets of Scotland’s largest city than from their despised country cousins.

  A sudden noise made him stop in his tracks, and he averted his gaze from the shops across the street to the small lane immediately to his right, which ran between two office blocks. Steam was already rising from vents in the building as boilers were fired up in readiness for the arrival of the workforce. The lane was littered with the normal city detritus: fish-supper wrappings, empty beer cans, the green glass from a smashed bottle of tonic wine, blobs of white chewing gum, now stuck fast to the pavement, and scores of carelessly abandoned cigarette ends. He narrowly avoided standing on a used condom as he made his way up the lane to investigate.

  There it was again, a cross between a mumble and a song, coming from a large refuse skip at the end of the lane. He took the heavy rubberised torch from the pocket of his flimsy uniform raincoat and flashed the beam towards the skip.

  ‘Hey, you, ya bastard!’ came a loud slurred voice as, from underneath mounds of cardboard and plastic bottles, a figure emerged. The man blinked in the beam of the torch. He was wearing what remained of a beige gabardine coat, torn and filthy, down which straggled a matted beard. His salt-and-pepper hair was long and tangled, almost dreadlocks, but Daley had encountered this man before, and knew that the hairstyle was merely the result of being left so long unwashed.

  ‘Right, Dandy, come on. Time you had a wee trip up the road, eh? Get you cleaned up and a hot meal inside you,’ said Daley, holding out his hand to help the man get out of the skip. He tried not to recoil at the stench as the tramp, holding his arm with a vice-like grip, vaulted clumsily onto the pavement, mumbling incoherent curses as he did.

  ‘Dandy, man,’ said Daley, screwing up his face, ‘you’re reeking. What were you drinking last night?’

  The tramp looked at him through sad bloodshot eyes. ‘Meths,’ he growled. ‘White sunshine for a cauld night.’ He laughed hoarsely, revealing an array of rotting black and yellow teeth.

  A number of tramps frequented Glasgow city centre, men ruined by drugs and drink, the product of fractured existences. The rumour was that Dandy – ironically named because he was anything but – had once been well-to-do, with a good job, and a middle-class life, but had given up when his wife took their daughter and ran off with another man. This, of course, could be true, but was more likely to be one of the many rumours that circulated among the city’s finest. Whatever the reason, this unfortunate soul lived on the very periphery of life, in a sense neither dead nor alive: begging, finding shelter where he could, and spending most of his time anaesthetised from the misery of his existence with cheap wine or industrial-strength alcohol. He was arrested occasionally, not from fear of his being a danger to the public, merely as a duty of care. He would appear in front of a Justice of the Peace at the district court, be bound over to keep the peace, then a place would be found for him in one of Glasgow’s homeless hostels, themselves remnants of the city’s notorious Victorian slums. He would eat, get cleaned up and stay sober for a few days, then abscond, and the cycle of despair would begin all over again.

  ‘Two one three to Alpha,’ said Daley into the mouthpiece of his Motorola radio. ‘Just found Dandy, need the van, over.’ He gave his position to the crackly voice at the other end and escorted the tramp from the lane and onto the street to await transport back to Stewart Street Police Office. He held the sleeve of the tramp’s filthy raincoat firmly, knowing that, despite his physical condition, the man was not beyond making a dash for freedom – if that’s what he truly felt about his life on the street.

  Dandy mumbled something and Daley leaned towards him. ‘What is it? We’re just waiting for the van. At least you’ll get your breakfast.’

  Dandy turned to look at him with what Daley thought was a smile. It wasn’t, though. Before the young policeman could move, Dandy opened his mouth wide, as though about to yawn, then spewed copiously over himself and Daley’s dark uniform.

  PC James Daley, rooted to the spot for a few moments, looked down ruefully at the stinking green liquid that now dripped down his sleeve and lapel. He turned his head away and was sick on the pavement, just as the white Sherpa van drew up at his side.

  II

  Daley spent most of the morning trying to rid his uniform of the rancid smell of vomit, but to no avail. By lunchtime, he had given up, resolving to leave it at the dry cleaner at the first opportunity. He would have to wear his best uniform tonight. He looked at the clock and sighed, realising that he would have to get some sleep before going back on the nightshift at 11 p.m.

  He shared a flat in Paisley’s West End with two other young cops. It was far enough away from where they worked to afford some freedom for a group who hadn’t long left their teenage years behind. For Daley, who had never lived anywhere apart from Glasgow, the tough, former cotton-manufacturing town seemed almost exotic. Paisley was famed for its rough pubs and its pretty women. It was upon the latter that the young constable mused as he made his way through the rows of shops, houses and high flats of the Townhead in Glasgow in the early hours of the next morning, his habitual beat.

  By 2 a.m., he was ready for his refreshment break, but still had an hour to wait until he could return to the office to eat the sandwiches he’d made before reporting for duty. It was a weekday night, quiet as the grave, with most of the good citizens of Glasgow tucked up in bed ahead of another hard day at work. But not all.

  His radio burst into life. ‘Two one three, attend 18c Kennedy Path. A Mr Martin reporting a housebreaking, over.’

  Daley acknowledged the call and made his way over to one of the multi-storey flats looming in the orange glow of the streetlights. As he approached the building he kept his wits about him, scanning the scene before him for
someone – anyone – who appeared in the slightest suspicious. There was no one to be seen though, as he pulled open the heavy door and walked into the property, past walls daubed with the familiar graffiti identifying Glasgow street gangs. He pressed the button for the lift, noting that the plastic arrow pointing up had been burned, most likely by a cigarette lighter, and now a bare bulb was showing through the melted green plastic.

  He coughed in disgust as he stepped into the lift, which stank of piss, though consoled himself that at least it was working and he didn’t have to walk up eighteen flights of stairs. As Daley breathed through his mouth to avoid the stench, the lift juddered to a halt and the doors wheezed open.

  The door to Flat C was brightly painted, and a garden gnome sporting a tiny fishing rod sat incongruously beside a thick hessian welcome mat. Despite the hour, Daley knocked loudly on the door. A glow appeared in the fanlight as someone shuffled along the hall.

  ‘Mr Martin?’ said Daley, as an elderly man in a maroon dressing gown opened the door. ‘Constable Daley here. You reported a break-in?’ He studied the front door, puzzled; it bore no signs of forced entry.

  As though picking up on his thoughts, the man replied. ‘Och no, no’ my hoose. Doon the landing there, Flat G,’ he said, pointing round the corner. ‘I heard a commotion about an hour ago. Nothing unusual there, mind you.’

  ‘Nothing unusual? What do you mean?’

  ‘Lassie stays there . . . well, young woman, I should say. She has a lot of friends,’ he continued, with an exaggerated wink.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You know, men friends,’ the old man said, looking into Daley’s face for confirmation that he was getting the point, but noting that he wasn’t. ‘Aye, you’re young, right enough. She’s on the game,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘Folk coming and going all times of the day and night. Bloody disgrace, if you ask me. My poor wife’s sick o’ it. Mind you, she’s a polite enough girl – always says good morning, that sort of thing, you know. Broken her faither’s heart, I shouldnae wonder. Would break mine an’ aw, seeing the state o’ her.’

  ‘The state of her?’

  ‘Skin and bone, son. On the drugs. A strong wind would blow her away. Hell o’ a way tae live, if you ask me.’

  The man accompanied Daley along the corridor and around the corner to the woman’s flat. One door stood in splendid isolation in an alcove, facing another which was boarded up and covered in graffiti. No garden gnome here. The door to Flat G had been forced open. Bright splintered wood showed through faded red paint, where the catch had been levered off, most likely with a jemmy. The brass screws of a Yale lock were scattered across the stone floor of the landing like small gold coins.

  ‘They’ve done a number on it, right enough,’ remarked Mr Martin. ‘These bastard drug dealers, they’ll no’ stop at anything tae get their dosh.’

  ‘How do you know it’s the work of drug dealers, Mr Martin?’ asked Daley, looking along the dim hallway of the flat.

  ‘They’re up here all the time looking for money. Scum o’ the earth, as far as I’m concerned. If I was ten years younger, I tell you . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘I want you to go back to your flat, please, sir. If it’s OK, I’ll come in and take a statement from you in a few minutes. I need to check inside here, if you don’t mind.’

  As Daley watched the man padding away in his slippers, he radioed in the incident. ‘I’m just going into the flat to take a look.’ He could hear the controller making a call to his section sergeant. ‘A-Alpha calls two ten, two ten – come in please, Sergeant Donald.’ There was a pause, then the controller spoke again. ‘Two ten attends in about twenty minutes from High Street, two one three.’

  As Daley stepped gingerly through the open door and into the hallway, he pictured the look of disgust on his sergeant’s face as he was forced to leave a comfortable doss – a bolthole from a chilly night where cups of tea could be made and cigarettes smoked – and venture out into the night at the behest of his young charge. But the feeling he had in the pit of his stomach concerned Daley more. He was relatively new to the police, but his instinct for something being wrong was already acute. He edged further into the flat.

  To his right, he found the kitchen, illuminated by a single bare lightbulb at the end of a brown twisted flex. One cracked plate stood in a dish rack and a mug still half full of cold tea sat beside an old kettle. Daley felt his feet sticking to the grimy linoleum, which was stained with dropped food and spilled drink. The whole place smelled of decay. A cupboard door was lying open, but there was nothing inside apart from a single tin of tomato soup. Daley backed out of the room.

  The next door he came to was closed. He pushed it with his boot and shone his torch inside. The bathroom contained a filthy toilet and a white enamel bath sporting a thick line of black scum. The wash-hand basin was spattered with what looked like dried blood. A single syringe lay on a glass shelf, together with a rubber tourniquet. A large beetle skittered across the floor at his feet.

  There were only two doors left, sitting side by side across from the bathroom. Both were closed. Daley opened the furthest one, to find a large cupboard. Again, it was empty, save for an old doll’s pram. His sister had had one just like it.

  He took a deep breath as, with a gloved hand, he opened the last door. He shone his torch around the room. A wardrobe, with a cracked full-length mirror, stood beside a squat chest of drawers. A few clothes were scattered about the floor, mostly underwear. There were no pictures on the walls, no curtains on the window.

  On a double bed lay the body of a young woman. A large plume of dark red blood was visible on the white sheet beneath her parted legs. Her skirt was scrunched around her thighs. Daley felt his stomach churn as the light from his torch caught her lifeless staring eyes.

  He reached for his radio.

  Sergeant Donald looked down at the body. ‘Another bloody junkie,’ he observed, looking for somewhere to stub out his cigarette. ‘What’s its name?’

  ‘Her name is Tracey Greene, Sergeant,’ said Daley sharply. ‘Shouldn’t you maybe dispose of that fag outside? The forensic guys won’t want to have to eliminate it from the inquiry.’ As soon as he had uttered the words, he wished he hadn’t. Forensic science was a relatively new discipline in the police force. It represented a great stride forward in the art of detection, but had yet to reveal its full potential.

  Donald looked at the tall slim constable. ‘If I need any fucking advice, son, I’ll be sure to ask.’ He stubbed out his cigarette on the windowsill and flicked the butt through the open window, where it spun eighteen floors to the ground. ‘In the meantime, shut it.’

  They awaited the arrival of the CID, who would take charge of the investigation, in an uncomfortable silence. Despite the position of the body, it was still too early to say how the young woman had died. Forensics would move her remains to the Glasgow Mortuary, where cause of death would be assessed. It was not yet obvious to Daley’s barely trained eye.

  ‘You getting a good eyeful?’ sneered Donald.

  ‘No, I was just trying to see if I could work out how she died,’ Daley replied.

  ‘You stick tae shoplifters and parking tickets, son. You don’t have tae worry aboot this shit – probably never have to. A life on the beat for you, I’m guessing.’

  ‘You never know,’ replied Daley. He wanted to say more, but with only fifteen months’ service behind him, disagreeing with his immediate superior would not make for the best career move. He had to pass his two-year probationary period, and this overweight man with the double chins and the wheeze could still make life very difficult for him. Sergeant John Donald was the kind of policeman they had been warned about in college. He was rude, arrogant and lazy. Daley wondered how he had ever risen to the rank of sergeant; he’d been told that Donald did his best to ingratiate himself with higher-ranking officers when off duty. The young cop himself had noted how Donald’s behaviour changed when anyone with braid turned up.
His rough working-class tones would be replaced by an accent altogether more refined; his habitual slouch transformed into a more upright, yet subservient, stance.

  One of the older cops on Daley’s shift had discovered that Donald had recently joined an expensive health club, of the type frequented by senior officers. No doubt the man they encountered there bore little relation to the uncouth specimen Daley saw before him in the dead girl’s bedroom.