Every Night I Dream of Hell (15 page)

‘So, you want something for lunch?’ I asked Becky when they were gone.

She frowned. ‘I don’t know.’

Sometimes she knew exactly what she wanted, and woe betide the person who tried to make the decision for her. Other times she couldn’t possibly make up her mind, and you had to step in. This was the latter, and that meant she was hungry but worried about throwing up again.

‘Something light. I’ll make you some toast; you can nibble at it.’

It was perfectly mundane. Perfectly being the key word. Making her some toast while she flicked through the channels on the TV and landed on what was optimistically referred to as a music channel. It was ordinary. It would probably be a boring, everyday occurrence for most parents. She ate a little of the toast I gave her.

‘Are you not working today?’ she asked me.

She’s a smart little girl, my Becky. She knew, or at least had a sense of, what that question meant. She didn’t know what I did for a living. Not exactly. Myself and her grandparents had agreed to try and protect her from the truth of it. But she had an idea. She seemed to sense that I was involved in something people didn’t talk about, that it might be something dangerous. Maybe she was young enough to think that was glamorous, exciting.

It was a conversation I was dreading. The moment she asked me to explain why I did what I did. I spent so much of my time with her trying desperately to be a good person. Trying to be a father that she could be proud of. If she ever truly understood what sort of person I was, what I did to others for money, then she might hate me.

‘Well, I was at work, first thing in the morning, when you were still bent over the toilet bowl.’

‘Dad!’

‘Then your granny called me up and said that she was looking for someone to keep you under control for a couple of hours so I said I’d love to. Just for a couple of hours though, I’ll go back to work in the afternoon. How are you feeling now?’

Trying to change the subject, move her away from talking about work. She said she was feeling a little better and left it at that. She didn’t much like me moving the subject along without her permission. She knew what I was doing.

‘How’s the photography coming along?’ I asked her. I’d gotten her a digital camera for Christmas; it had become her new obsession. Taking photos and then messing around with them on the computer at home. Her grandparents insisted the computer be in the living room where they could see what she was up to. She threw a wobbly about that; I put my foot down. One of those occasions where I could be the bad guy because they had to live with her all day and I only had her at weekends. No way was I letting her have a computer in her room, not at her age. Not after some of the stories I’d heard.

‘It’s going okay. I got some good shots last week.’

‘You should email them to me.’

‘I will,’ she said, glad that I was showing an interest but trying to hide it because she wanted to seem terribly cool.

The phone rang. I got up and went out to the hall with it. Another number that I didn’t recognize. All these calls from strangers, never anything but bad news.

‘Hello, Nate. This is Paul Greig.’

Let me tell you something about Paul Greig. He used to be PC Paul Greig. He was so fucking bent that even the crooks he was working for couldn’t trust him. One of the most unreliable pieces of shit that ever woke up in this city. A skinny little guy, scar down his face, always looking for a way to make a quick buck. He got caught though. Got rumbled during the fallout from Jamieson’s arrest, booted out of the police. They should have prosecuted him but they didn’t want the bad publicity. Made it seem like he hadn’t done anything illegal, made it seem like he was departing the service on good terms. That was bullshit. They knew he was more a criminal than most of us.

‘What do you want?’

‘I have a business proposition. I have information that you will want to pay good money for.’

This was what he was up to now. Selling info, working as a middleman, as much a criminal as when he had a uniform on. ‘You think I’m going to trust anything you give me? You think I’m going to put money in your pocket?’ I was keeping my voice down. Becky was in the next room. I could hear the music from the TV, hoping it covered my voice.

‘I’m a man with information that you need.’

‘No, that’s what you think you are; that doesn’t mean you think right.’

‘I don’t want to get into an argument with you here, Nate.’

‘I doubt that you do.’

‘Let me tell you a little bit of it, just to whet your appetite. You can decide if it’s something you’re interested in.’

‘So, tell me.’

‘I have information that could very well lead to you finding Adrian Barrett. That’s what you’re working on, right? Trying to find Barrett. The whole city knows it. I can tell you someone who’s been working with him. It’s . . . interesting. We’ll meet, you pay me, I give you the info.’

‘How much?’

‘Five hundred. Come along to Alessandro’s in the town. You know it?’

‘I do.’

‘Three o’clock.’

He hung up. I went back into the living room; Becky was just sitting down on the couch when I did. Now, she could have been anywhere before she was sitting down again, but I was sure she’d been listening at the door. I was too busy trying to remember my side of the conversation to tell her off. Trying to remember if I’d said anything incriminating. She didn’t ask who had been on the phone.

We passed the next twenty minutes with less conversation than before. She could see that I was in a bit of a mood about something. I didn’t want to say anything in case my bad mood crept out into the room and spoiled things. Whatever shite Greig was going to throw at me, it certainly wasn’t Becky’s fault.

By the time Gordon and Mary came back to pick her up, I had calmed right down. I was goofing around with her, joking about the music and the music videos. Telling her it was no wonder she was sick, that rubbish made me sick as well. When I was her age I was into wrestling, which I tried to persuade her was a noble entertainment experience. This got more laughs. She was in good spirits by the time she left.

‘I’ll see you at the weekend,’ I told her, kissing the top of her head as she left. I meant it, at the time, but I had no idea what kind of weekend was waiting for me.

The first thing I needed was five hundred quid. This wasn’t a charitable effort so I wasn’t going to spend my own money. Having a fund ready for people like me to dip into should have been done at the start, and as far as I was aware it hadn’t been done yet. There were a minimum of four of us working on this: me, Ronnie, Conn and Mikey. That was four guys motoring around the city, looking for trouble. There were costs to that, and nobody had done anything to cover them.

I went round to Currie’s warehouse, knowing he’d be there. He was a creature of habit, happy to be reachable, always presenting himself as a man with nothing to hide. That was going to change. The more influence within the organization he had, the more he had to lose. Wouldn’t be long before he started to mix up the routine, make himself a little bit harder to find.

Biggest reason I was concerned about going there was because there was a chance of bumping into Kelly. She worked out of the warehouse in Hillington, making sure the dodgy goods that passed through the place went to the right people. A time might come when I was willing to think about a relationship with her, but this wasn’t it. That time would be a time of peace.

I pulled into the yard, made sure I parked out of the way. The warehouse was busy, always packed with stuff. This was Kevin’s kingdom, where he ruled with dazzling brilliance. There was nobody in the city who got more gear shifted in and out without detection than him. Any kind of knock-off you wanted, he had it. That took a lot of skill, a lot of organization. There were people who underestimated Kevin. He was pleasant and cheerful and he didn’t get involved in much violent stuff so they thought he was a bit soft. You don’t run a business like Kevin’s if you’re soft.

I didn’t see her as I went in, walked through the warehouse and into the office at the back. Kevin was in there alone, sheets of loose paper in front of him. The thought of what mathematical gymnastics he had to perform to keep all his deals looking presentable hurt my brain.

‘Nate, what’s up? You’re looking serious.’

I think that might have been a joke at the expense of my always serious demeanour, but I’m not sure. ‘We have a very minor issue we need to resolve quickly,’ I told him. ‘I need money for something, buying info. Five hundred quid. We should have a pot for stuff like that and we don’t.’

‘Damn it, of course. Should have had that from day one, shouldn’t we? Right, I can sort that out right away. Don’t you worry about it.’ He pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out a large wad of cash. There must have been a couple of grand there. He counted off five hundred, talking as he did. ‘Would have had this set up much earlier if we’d been handling it for ourselves. With this being one of Lafferty’s men, I don’t know, I suppose we were waiting for each other to sort out the details like this. Here, that’s five hundred. You want an envelope for it?’

‘Please.’

He pulled a white envelope from the middle drawer and put the money into it. ‘From now on, if you need any cash for anything at all, get in touch with Ben. I’ll make sure he has a fund, so there’ll always be some cash there. Within reason, of course,’ he said with a smile, handing me the envelope. Ben was Ben Carmichael, his right-hand man. ‘This info we’re buying?’

‘Has potential. I’ll wait and see though. Could lead us to Barrett in the best-case scenario. Not a source I’m willing to trust just yet,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders.

Kevin didn’t need any more detail than that. Not yet. The only thing that was necessary for him to know was that I was buying info and he was paying. If there was anything to update him with later on I would. Better for him to know as little as possible at that point; you never know what you’ll later need to deny.

As I was driving out of the warehouse I saw her. She was in her car, coming back from somewhere. We passed on the road, Kelly waved to me and I raised a hand. I didn’t want to encourage her, not too much. We had met in ugly circumstances and that would always hang over us. My work was dangerous, and would be dangerous for her if she got too close. I kept saying that to myself, trying to persuade myself.

The traffic wasn’t too bad on the way in but it took me a while to find somewhere to park. I was a few minutes late going into the cafe, a nice enough place if you like that sort of thing. There were plenty of people around, and that was deliberate. Paul Greig didn’t want to meet me in private. He needed the security that a room full of witnesses brought. Didn’t have his uniform to hide behind any more. He was at a table close to the door, an oversized cup in front of him. The tables were low, the chairs were large, cushioned things with arms on them. I guess it was supposed to feel like twenty people had just turned up in your living room. I dropped my weight into a chair and looked the skinny bastard in the eye.

‘You have the money?’

‘You have the info?’

‘I know how to find Adrian Barrett. I know someone he’s been working with in the city. This person will know where he is, although you might have to persuade him to tell you.’

‘Fine,’ I said.

Persuading people to tell me things was a big part of my job description. I reached into my pocket and came out with the envelope. Looked like a thin little thing, too thin to buy anything of value. I passed it across the table to Greig and he slipped it into his pocket without bothering to look inside. Maybe he trusted me to give him the right amount; more likely he didn’t want me seeing his mistrust. Also didn’t want any of his helpful witnesses seeing the envelope and wondering what was inside. Sort of thing nosy people remember. Once the envelope was out of sight, done subtly by both of us because we’ve both done this sort of thing before, it was time for some information to change hands.

‘Remember when I tell you this that I’m just the messenger and that I have nothing to gain from telling you something that isn’t true,’ he said. Being dramatic.

‘Get on with it.’

‘Barrett’s right-hand man is a guy called Elliott Parker. He was in the city before Barrett, I think. If my information’s correct then Barrett only turned up in the last couple of weeks and Parker’s been here longer than that, setting things up. One thing they needed was a girl. A lure, among other things. Now I didn’t know about this at the time, wish I had; would have taken the info to you sooner, or to Lafferty anyway. I heard they got the girl from Adam Jones, manager of Heavenly. You know Heavenly?’

‘Know of it.’

‘Well, the manager there, twin brother to your friend Marty, keeps women on his books for the little parties he throws and he handed one over to Parker. They had some sort of arrangement, some sort of deal that paid Jones good money. He handed over the girl and this morning I found out that she was seen leaving Heavenly with Lee Christie on her arm the night before he was killed.’

‘This info is rock solid?’

‘As close to guaranteed as any info you’re ever going to get. I know the girl was working for Parker, whether she wanted to or not. Young local girl, probably didn’t realize what she was getting into, so I wouldn’t want any of this coming down on her. But Parker was the set-up man, here before his boss came north. He got the girl, got her into this, and they must have used her for the lure on Christie. Now, I can’t guarantee that she was the lure, but that seems to make sense to me: Christie was the kind to fall for it from what I hear. Brain in his boxers. I’m also hearing that Parker’s still in touch with Jones. Jones thinks he’s going to get the girl back and has told at least one person that he knows where they’re staying.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Well, I think you’ve got your money’s worth if you ask me, but there is one other thing. Again, I’m just the messenger here, so keep that in mind. I’ve heard that when Barrett came north there was someone with him, a woman. Now, I think this woman might be the reason he’s here, might be the person that—’