One Last Dram Before Midnight

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘Well, yes, kind of.’

  ‘Brian Scott told my mate he was an inspector and you were his sergeant.’

  ‘Really? That bas . . . that swine . . .’ he said, quickly correcting himself.

  ‘I wasn’t joking about my dad, mind you.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘But who cares what he thinks. The man’s a dinosaur. There’s not a man on earth he thinks is suitable for his lovely daughter. Be prepared for a hard time in that department.’

  ‘You mean you want to see me again?’

  ‘Oh, I want to see a lot more of you, Jim Daley.’ She winked at him. ‘You’re not left-handed, are you?’

  ‘No, right-handed, actually. Why?’

  ‘Aw, pity. If you were left-handed and your hand was out of commission all of this time, I’m sure it must have been very hard.’

  ‘What?’ Daley’s throat was dry. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears. Could he be feeling slightly faint, even? ‘My flat’s not far from here, Liz,’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Good-oh.’ Liz winked at him, a large grin spread across her face. ‘But let’s have another glass of wine first, eh? Chop, chop, Jimmy boy.’

  SINGLE END

  A DCI Daley Short Story

  I

  Glasgow, 1989

  It wasn’t the first time Detective Constable Brian Scott had been in Strathclyde Police’s Pitt Street HQ – not by any means. Usually he would push open the smoked-glass doors and trudge over the expensive carpeting to attend a training course, or, more frequently than he’d have liked, the Complaints and Discipline Office where he was becoming a familiar face.

  He reflected on his last visit as he sat outside the office of one DCI Thomas Dines of the Serious Crime Squad. He’d been at the football with his father and Uncle Ronnie when things had taken a turn for the worse and they had found themselves at the heart of a bar brawl with their fellow supporters, which was unusual.

  Despite his protestations that he was a colleague in the CID, Scott was huckled into the back of the van with the rest of the miscreants. He’d spent a miserable few hours in custody until someone had realised that he was a police officer and arranged his release.

  That had been almost a month ago, and he’d hoped the official warning administered by the discipline inspector was the end of the matter. Now that he was sitting at the door of one of the Crime Squad bosses, he wasn’t so sure.

  He heard a buzzer sound. The fragrant secretary he’d passed on his way in leaned her head round the corner.

  ‘DCI Dines is ready for you now, DC Scott. Just tap the door and go in,’ she said brightly, clearly without the same brick in her stomach he had in his. The Serious Crime Squad were well named – this really wasn’t funny. It was the last thing he needed.

  He gave the door a rap with his knuckles and pushed it open, just as a voice called ‘come’ in an authoritarian fashion. This was the one aspect of policing with which Brian Scott was least comfortable. In short, he struggled with authority. He’d tried really hard to fit in with the protocols, but, somehow, calling a person he had little or no respect for ‘sir’, stuck in his throat – and that was just one of his issues.

  ‘DC Scott, A-Division CID, sir,’ he announced, doing his best to stand to attention.

  ‘Take a seat, Brian,’ said Dines pleasantly, from behind a huge, well-polished desk. He was a neat man with short dark hair, a well-ironed shirt and a pair of half-moon glasses, over which he appraised his visitor.

  Scott noticed the expensive Swiss watch and a tan that pointed to the fact he’d holidayed abroad recently. Maybe he was getting better at this detective stuff, he thought to himself.

  ‘Give me a moment, will you?’ Dines returned his attention to a document he was reading, licking his thumb and forefinger before turning the page.

  Scott tried to look as nonchalant as possible, but his stomach had decided to make loud gurgling noises – gurgles that seemed to grow in volume the longer he sat there.

  ‘IBS, Brian,’ said Dines, removing his glasses and fixing Scott with his steely green eyes.

  ‘Eh, sorry, sir,’ muttered Scott, trying desperately to remember which aspect of police procedure the acronym IBS represented. The bloody job was full of them, and, despite himself, he couldn’t bring this one to mind.

  ‘Have you suffered for long? My wife’s had trouble too, poor thing,’ continued Dines.

  DC Scott decided to take a stab at it. ‘I didn’t know your missus was in the job, sir.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I didn’t know she was polis, so tae speak.’ Scott’s face was getting redder, and his stomach chose that very moment to let rip with an extraordinary noise.

  ‘She’s a dentist, actually. Whatever made you think that?’

  ‘Och, eh, just when you said she was having trouble wae they IBS boys. Must be a term dentists use and a’, then.’

  ‘Irritable Bowel Syndrome, man – IBS! That stomach of yours sounds as though it’s doing cartwheels. That’s probably why.’

  ‘Aye, right, right you are, sir,’ replied Scott, wishing the ground would swallow him up. ‘Just get a bit nervous here at HQ, sir, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Considering your record I’m surprised you haven’t passed a stool by now, DC Scott.’

  Scott desperately tried to remember if he’d passed any stools on the way in. He was about to reply in the negative – all he could remember were the low metal seats with the blue upholstery – when Dines interrupted his train of thought.

  ‘Anyway, I want you to know that you are of great interest to me . . . to the squad, in fact.’

  ‘I am? Oh, right, sir,’ said Scott, waiting for the bit where he’d have to justify some buttock-clenching misdemeanour.

  ‘Yes. You must have wondered why your entry into CID has been so smooth. You’re sitting your inspector’s exam for the third time, I hear.’

  ‘Aye, I’m getting better each time, mind. Right foxy, they guys that set the questions.’

  ‘Well, never mind that. Let’s just say you have a very interesting background, don’t you, Brian? Grew up with some of the country’s most notorious gangsters, I believe – not least Frank MacDougall and the self-styled Godfather himself, James Machie.’

  ‘Aye, aye, I did. I don’t have nothing tae dae with them noo, sir, you understand,’ replied Scott hurriedly, realising the implications of such associations.

  Dines paused and put his glasses back on. He lifted a green file from his desk and opened it, reading it in silence for a few moments.

  ‘Do you know, they tell me all these files we accumulate will soon be things of the past? What with this new computer system on the way, it’s all change. I’ll have a screen sitting on my desk here, where I can access anything I want at the touch of a button. All stored on a central database,’ he mused as he flicked through more pages, skimming the content.

  ‘I cannae see it myself, sir. You know machines – oor washing machine never works right. Flooded the whole flat the other day. Aye, and the guy doonstairs, he wasn’t too happy aboot it. Before you know it, the bloody things will be on the bum, and you’ll be left haulding yer ain —’

  Before Scott could further embarrass himself, Dines put down the file and spoke again. ‘We want you to reacquaint yourself with your old friends, Brian.’

  ‘Who, big Frank and JayMac? No chance, gaffer. They know I’m in the cops – won’t touch me wae a barge pole. Likely try and blow my heid aff.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. They’d come round if you gave them something.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, how d’you mean? Gie them what, exactly?’

  ‘Something that will help them, Brian. Information, perhaps.’

  ‘What kind o’ information?’

  ‘The Machie organisation has five saunas in the city centre, so I’m reliably informed, and your colleagues at A-Division have a squad dedicated to cleaning that up. They’ve been tolerated as legalised brothels for too long, so the divis
ional commander tells me.’

  ‘Aye, that’s true. I’m no’ on the squad, though.’

  ‘But your friend DC Daley is, I think I’m right in saying?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he is,’ replied Scott, beginning to get the gist of what was going on.

  ‘We want you to get information on these sauna raids – I don’t care how – and when you’ve done that, make contact with one of Machie’s gang. Who do you know best?’

  ‘Frank MacDougall was oor neighbour for years. Stayed in the same single end. But why don’t you just get this information from the divisional commander, sir?’

  Dines pursed his lips. ‘We’ve got a rotten apple somewhere, Brian. Or, at least, we think we have. Some bugger is feeding information to the underworld, particularly Machie’s organisation. If this approach of yours looks less than authentic, with a suspicion that it’s come from me, your friends will find out from their source.’

  Scott looked doubtful. ‘What if I don’t fancy this, sir? I mean, it’s a big ask.’

  ‘You don’t need to play ball, of course. But then again, neither do I.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning whatever you think it might mean, Brian. Man with your record of indiscipline, well . . .’ Dines left the threat unsaid.

  Scott sighed. ‘So they’ll know aboot these sauna raids already, then.’

  ‘No. That’s tuppeny-ha’penny stuff. Much more sensitive information is being leaked by a corrupt officer. We want you to ingratiate yourself with them, gain their trust, then find out who this bastard is.’

  ‘I’m telling you, sir. As long as I’m in the polis, they won’t trust me. They hate me because I joined up.’ Scott could vividly recall some of the threats made against him by the lads he had grown up with when he first donned the police uniform, though he preferred not to.

  ‘Oh, that won’t be a problem, Brian. You’re about to lose your job.’

  ‘I’m what?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, leave that bit to me. All part of the act, but only you and I will know that. The fewer people involved in this, the better. This is a deep cover operation, Brian. I’ve spent almost thirty years in this job and I’ll be damned if some dodgy bastard is going to make me – make us all – look like low-life crooks on the take. You have no idea how much I want this bastard.’

  As Scott emerged into the noise of the city to walk the short distance back to Stewart Street, he felt as though his heart was in his boots. He’d never wanted to be like his peers growing up: never able to relax, always waiting for that knock at the door that would lead them to years of incarceration, or worse, oblivion at the hands of a gang rival.

  Now here he was, about to be thrust back amongst them, and only he and Dines knew why. He could see the logic of it all. However, it needed a strong, clever man to do this. A stronger, cleverer man than him.

  The return journey to his place of work became a miserable trudge.

  II

  The CID room in Stewart Street Police Office was empty as Brian Scott slumped in the rickety swivel chair at his untidy desk.

  He looked around. Everything was the way it always was: a girlie calendar on the wall; jackets and coats almost toppling a flimsy coat stand; the odd briefcase on the floor, belonging to those who didn’t take their sandwiches to work in a bread wrapper like him; a cork notice board, complete with various photos of criminals beside yellow Post-It notes; desks – some messy like his, others with everything in order. In short, nothing had changed; but, in his private world, everything had become different – darker, much darker.

  He picked up a copy of the Daily Reporter. A large photograph of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was emblazoned across it, complete with the bold headline ‘NO TO POLL TAX SAY SCOTS!’

  He put the paper down with a sigh. Politics was the last thing he wanted to read about, and he’d exhausted the sports pages earlier in an effort to take his mind off the predicament he found himself in.

  He heard the door creak open, and was relieved to see the tall figure of his friend Jim Daley walk into the room.

  ‘How did you get on, Bri?’ asked Daley, his attention still focused on the folded newspaper he was reading as he sat down, Styrofoam cup of coffee in his other hand.

  ‘Och, you know, same old, same old. The usual grief.’ Scott wasn’t ready to spill the beans on what had just taken place – not even to Daley.

  ‘Oh well, not as though it’s something you’re not used to, eh?’

  ‘No, that’s true.’ Scott thought for a moment. ‘You fancy a couple o’ pints later, Jimmy? I’m right scunnered, could do wae a bevy or two.’

  ‘I suppose so. Liz is at her yoga tonight, so no rush to get home.’

  ‘Yoga? I thought he was a bear.’

  ‘Very funny, Brian. You know she likes to keep active.’

  ‘Aye, I can see that every morning you come in here wae they bags under your eyes, Jimmy.’

  Before Daley could reply, the door swung open again, revealing the bar sergeant, his shirt sleeves rolled up neatly, the bottom of his tie tucked between the buttons of his shirt.

  ‘Is this all there is?’ he asked, scanning the room.

  ‘Aye, Bertie. What mair could you want?’ replied Scott.

  ‘Right, in that case, the pair o’ you can get down tae the multi-storey car park at Sauchiehall Street. Your gaffer’s just off the blower. He’ll be there as soon as he can. Been a body discovered in a car there. The forensic boys and the FMD are on their way from Pitt Street. Three shift have cordoned it off.’

  With that, he headed off.

  ‘Come on, Brian,’ said Daley, shrugging on his jacket. ‘Better get down there before the boss.’

  Clicking his tongue, Scott followed in his friend’s wake, and soon they were in an Austin Metro pool car, making their way down the hill towards Sauchiehall Street.

  It was early October, but still warm, with a hazy dusk settling over the city. In a few weeks it would be pitch-black at this time of day, almost five o’clock in the afternoon.

  Scott nodded to the old caretaker in his woolly Partick Thistle hat.

  ‘What’s up, Jackie?’

  ‘Your friends are all on the second floor,’ replied the caretaker in halting English. ‘A cleaner, she find the body earlier. Car has been there since this morning, but I guess everyone thought the poor guy was asleeping, you know.’

  Jackie was an institution at the car park. He’d been a Free Polish fighter pilot during the Second World War – a decorated one, at that. Though he made little of his bravery, generations of cops had enjoyed his yarns as they sat out many a long, cold winter night in his cosy office, where the kettle was always on the boil and a packet of biscuits was regularly on hand.

  ‘Do we know him, Jackie?’ asked Scott, acknowledging the fact that the old caretaker was on good terms with many of the ne’er-do-wells the police spent their lives trying to keep in order.

  ‘There is something familiar, I think. But I cannot place him. Sorry, Brian.’

  Daley and Scott took the stairs, and on reaching the landing on the second floor were met by a wan-looking cop, his hat tipped to the back of his head as he smoked a cigarette.

  ‘Davy Fraser,’ said Scott with a smile. ‘Imagine finding you hanging aboot a stairwell wae a fag when there’s real police work tae be done.’

  ‘Huh, what would you know about real police work? You and the boy there are just out the wrapper. Get in there and get this moving so we can get back on the beat.’

  ‘Back to that wee pub at the top o’ Wilson Street, you mean,’ replied Scott.

  Fraser shook his head as he stubbed out his cigarette and let the two young detectives through the door and into the spacious floor of the car park.

  Though it was full of vehicles, no civilians were to be seen, only a small group of police officers, some stationed by exits, making sure no members of the public accessed the second floor. Two cops were standing beside a beige saloon at the end of a long
row of other vehicles. Water dripped from the floor above, forming puddles that reflected the neon lights. The echo of their footsteps accompanied them towards the car in which the body had been found.

  ‘What have we got, Denny?’ Daley asked of the young uniformed constable next to the Ford Granada.

  ‘Take a look for yourself, Jim. Guy sitting in the front seat, looks as though he’s fast asleep. It was the cleaner who saw the blood at his wrists, eventually.’

  ‘The big sleep,’ mused Scott, peering in through the driver’s window at the corpse. He turned to Daley. ‘I tell you something else, Jimmy. I know him, tae.’

  ‘Who is it?’ asked his colleague, craning his neck to see past Scott.

  ‘Ian Provan, that’s who it is. Ring any bells?’

  ‘You mean the Ian Provan, as in Machie’s accountant?’

  ‘Yup, I sure do. I’ve known him since I was a wean, and that’s Provan all right. Started off as a tally man, then got intae university. Always a smart bastard. No so smart noo, mind you.’ Scott shivered.

  The duty force MD arrived with the forensic team. The doors of the car were opened carefully with gloved hands, ensuring any fingerprint evidence was preserved. The doctor, who neither Daley nor Scott knew, leaned into the vehicle and placed his fingers on the deceased’s neck, checking in vain for a pulse. He knelt down on his hands and knees to get closer to the corpse, then lifted one arm. There was a livid gash on the wrist. The doctor sniffed at the pool of congealed blood gathered in the footwell.

  ‘What do you think, doctor? Suicide?’ asked Daley.

  The doctor stroked his neatly clipped salt-and-pepper beard, deep in thought, before he answered. ‘On first sight, that’s what you’d think. But, look at the wrists. Lots of bruising, and a distinct mark here.’ He flashed a small torch at the dead man’s wrist. ‘Some kind of restraint, I reckon.’

  ‘So you think someone has tied him up then cut his wrists?’

  ‘Yes, something along those lines. I’d bet money that the other wrist will bear the same marks. This type of bruising would only take place before he was in his death throes, so it’s murder, boys – pending further examination, of course.’