Gutted (11 page)

‘Could everyone exit by the door to the rear, please.’

I shook myself from my daze. ‘
Everyone
?’

I schlepped out with the rest of them. At the door I looked for Johnstone, cuffs at the ready. He was nowhere to be seen. Then a kerfuffle up the corridor, a flash of Boss tailoring and some swing doors being pounded.

‘Mr Dury, could you come this way, please?’ said the desk sergeant.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Get you booked out.’

‘What? Come again?’

‘You’re free to go.’

‘So the line-up . . . all a fucking farce.’

The sergeant leaned into my collar, spoke softly: ‘Him – he was picked out.’ He pointed to Rod Hull.

I smiled, let out a sigh of relief, said, ‘He just doesn’t look right without that Emu under his arm, does he?’

‘You what?’

‘No matter.’

IT TOOK FOR
ever to check me out of the station. A mob of teenagers, wankered on cheap cider and alcopops, were being booked in. They were all trussed up with cable ties. The girls among them were crying their eyes out, black mascara running down their cheeks. The boys were silent enough, save for the times when they started hacking their guts up. It was a scene I knew was being repeated up and down the country on an almost nightly basis. It had been this way for as long as I’d known. Scots and drink . . . O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious.

Said, ‘It’ll be the good weather, brings out the party spirit.’

‘Bollocks,’ said the desk sergeant, ‘it’s like this the year through.’

I resisted another comment – like I could judge.

I was handed my belt and laces and two plastic bags, one containing my wallet and some loose change, the other with my mobile phone, tabs and matches.

‘That you?’ said the sergeant.

I nodded. ‘We’re good.’ It could have been two bags of air; I wouldn’t have complained if it meant getting free of the place.

‘I’m so dead,’ said one of the teenage girls. ‘My dad’s gonna kill me.’ She burst into tears, set off her friend. I couldn’t stand any more. Strangely, the scene made me even more desperate for a drink.

Outside the nick I breathed deep, though not so easy.

A kid on Heelys sped past me, nearly put me in the gutter – as if I needed help. There was a throbbing in my head, an ache in my chest. Both called for attention, the type that comes in quarter-bottles. I looked about, tried to catch my bearings, and then a horn sounded.

A Smart car across the street looked nearest; driver crouched up looked like an Easter Island statue behind the wheel. I didn’t recognise him. The horn blasted again and this time I caught where it came from: black E-class Merc parked further away. I recognised this face.

As I walked over, Fitz the Crime drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. More filth was the last thing I needed, but this one might be some use. The fact remained: he owed me. Big time. Fitz and I went way back. We’d both been known to help each other out from time to time. By the kip of him he’d done very well out of the last favour I put his way – blowing the lid on that Eastern European people-smuggling racket. Fitz had taken all the collars, whilst some of his colleagues had taken their jotters.

‘Could ye make any more of a feckin’ show of it, Dury?’ said Fitz as I reached the door of his new motor.

‘You what?’

‘Feck me, ’tis yerself in the frame for murder and you walk the road like a brass . . . Get in, would ye!’

I opened the door, tried to make myself invisible as I sat down. Fitz gunned the engine, burnt up the road.

We drove in silence for a few minutes then I asked, ‘Any smokes?’

Pack of Lambert & Butler tossed in my direction. Sparked up.

‘There’s a heart-warmer in the glovebox,’ said Fitz.

I dived in. It was Dalwhinnie; seriously expensive malt. ‘My, Fitz, you’re moving up in the world.’

He fingered his collar. ‘Well, the work’s its own reward.’

I gave a loud tut.

‘And that would be supposed to mean something, I suppose.’

I unscrewed the bottle, quaffed more than I should, felt a heavy burn, said, ‘Is anything?’

‘Oh, the feckin’ riddles already, is it? Always the riddles with ye, Dury.’

He asked for it, so I let him have it. Both barrels. ‘What is it now? Detective sergeant? Chief fucking super? You were padding Leith Walk in uniform before I handed you that . . . white arrest.’

A screech of tyres. The car halted and a hail of angry horns belted out behind us.

Fitz jumped from the car. I watched him walk over to the multi-storey. He flashed his badge at the attendant and up went the barrier. A row of traffic immediately cleared as he headed back.

‘
Noblesse oblige
,’ I muttered.

‘What?’

‘Rank has its privileges, I see.’

He laid a glass eye on me as he put the Merc in gear again, screeched off. The multi-storey was dark; it took headlights to get around the bays. When he parked, Fitz killed the engine.

We were in almost total darkness, silence too. Was this the effect he was going for? He turned, uneasy, with his vast gut pressing on the wheel.

As Fitz spoke he spat through his tiny teeth: ‘Now I want feckin’ answers, Dury. No bullshit. No riddles. And nothing else that’ll put me closer to cracking yer feckin’ head this minute . . . You got me?’

I nodded. What was I going to do – walk home?

Fitz grabbed the bottle, unscrewed the cap and tanked it.

He said, ‘This Moosey fella, did ye kill him?’

I grabbed the whisky back, roared, ‘Are you fucking serious?’

Fitz put his bulb-nose in my face, spat at me. There was madness on him. ‘I will do for ye, Dury, I swear it! Feckin’ tell me. Is it you?’

‘No! For Chrissake, no . . . Of course it’s not me.’

‘Well, it could look that way.’

‘If you’re following the fantasy of that dumb fuck you have on the case, maybe.’

It felt like waiting for traffic lights to change hanging on Fitz’s response.

‘Johnstone’s that . . . I’ll grant ye.’

‘You’re not one of his fans, then?’

‘He’s fast-track, been blazing a trail through the ranks. Nobody likes a big shot . . . I’m no different, but there’s nothing personal in it, I just think the cocky wee prick needs taking down a peg or two.’

I ran my hand over the walnut dash of the Merc. ‘Frightened he’s got an eye on your new car, Fitz?’

‘Feck off! I’m rock. After the people-smuggling bust I’m . . . well, I’m solid, that’s all.’

The Eastern European gang I handed to Fitz a while back held precisely zero weight here. We both knew this. However, were it to become public knowledge that a murder suspect had, in any way, been linked to a senior member of the force – that gave Fitz something to think about.

I trod carefully. This was filth we were dealing with, I wouldn’t have put it past him to be on a fishing expedition for Johnstone. I said, ‘You know who to thank for that.’

‘Dury, don’t play that tune with me. Don’t feckin’ even try it.’

‘I’m not playing any tune, all I’m saying is, there is a tune . . . and if it gets played, you’ll be paying the piper.’

Fitz’s face changed colour; his skin took on the texture of corned beef. He pulled at his shirt cuff, mopped his brow. As he carefully wiped the sweat on the white cotton his voice dropped: ‘We have a garden now, Gus . . . Missus is overjoyed to have it, spends all the hours God sends picking out the weeds and tending the little flowerbeds. I’ve never seen her so happy . . . She never had a garden before, never in her life, y’know, not even in the old country.’

I drew on my tab, kept schtum.

‘If you want my help, Dury, you better be cleaner than a cat’s arse.’

‘I am.’

‘More than that, boyo, you better be onto the real murderer, because laughing boy has no hope other than to hang it on you . . . and he’s a boner for ye.’

I threw my dowp out the window, said, ‘And for my ex-wife.’

Fitz wiped his lips. ‘You what? He’s balling your ex?’

‘I think the term’s “cohabiting”.’

‘The mad bastard . . .’

‘Come on, Fitz, she’s not a bad-looking bird.’

‘Dury, I’m not on about that. He’s only throwing due process out the window. How’s that going to look to the courts if he gets you to trial?’

My pulse jumped a notch. ‘Can you get him hauled off?’

‘No. No. No. These chickens need to roost.’

‘Now it’s you with the riddles.’

Fitz held out a hand for the bottle, took it, slugged slow, said, ‘Getting him hauled off the case, sure, that’s only showing our hand.’

‘Fitz, we have no hand.’

‘Neither has he. Didn’t the line-up come down on your side? Now, he gets booted off the job, we’re in a much better position . . . unless anything else turns up.’

I didn’t like his reasoning, sounded dodgy, said, ‘This is all making me more than a bit uneasy, Fitz.’

He turned over the engine, made to pull out. ‘Leave it with me, Dury . . . Sure, your wee revelation might just prove to be for the best. Keep your hopes up our wide boy likes playing it close to the knuckle. That ambition of his might be his undoing.’

I watched Fitz settle into the heated leather seat and drive smoothly. One of his little crises might be over but I knew my major one wasn’t. I mean, what did it matter to me who took the case at the end of the day? I was still being put in the frame for murder.

‘Fitz, if Jonny gets his arse canned, that’s got to be bad.’

‘No, it’s good.’

‘For who?’

Fitz frowned, reached for a tab and pushed in the cigarette lighter button. ‘Me and you, sure.’

‘How does it help me to know the man who wants to bust my
balls
, for a murder I didn’t commit, is rousted off the case? It’s only gonna make him madder.’

Fitz held the fag in his mush, pursed his lips, made little kisses on the filter as he got it going. ‘Dury, chill the feck out . . . You’re not seeing the bigger picture.’

‘Then fill me in, Fitz . . . what is the bigger picture?’

‘Way I see it, Jonny gets canned, you get more time to find Fulton’s killer. Harsh, but them’s the facts.’

‘That’s your considered opinion?’

‘Yes . . . call it my professional assessment of all the, er, known factors.’

‘I know what I’d call it.’

‘
What
?’

‘A ticket to jam with Bubba in the showers.’

FITZ DROPPED ME
in the New Town, middle of Queen Street. An African drum quartet, kitted out in lion manes and warpaint, competed with a lone piper. Tourists shunned the homegrown gig and he upped the volume. I thought I wouldn’t like to see this scene get messy: lions are one thing, but the Scots know how to fight dirty. The city had been making it tough for our national musicians, banning them from the main thoroughfare, the Royal Mile. In their wisdom, the city fathers had even decided to dish out antisocial-behaviour contracts to those pipers who flouted the new regulations. Antisocial behaviour? What the hell was that? In my day antisocial meant staying in to watch the footy on
Scotsport
instead of going down the drinker. They were mangling the language to mangle with our heads . . . as if mine needed any more of that.

I lolled along in a daze. Don’t know how many times I got asked for directions to Rosslyn Chapel. Fucking
Da Vinci Code
. Had ceased to be an amusement long ago; man, was this ever letting up? One of these days, someone is going to end up wearing that book like a butt-plug.

I knew I was moping. My feet slid along the pavement. Could hear the words ‘You’ve a face like a constipated greyhound’ coming my way soon. I didn’t care. Like I could feel worse.

At the junction with St Andrew Street, the Portrait Gallery halted me. Always does. The red sandstone’s a show-stopper among the grey squares, circuses, parks and terraces of this aristocratic ghetto. Add Italian Gothic architecture to the mix, you’re in serious eye-catcher territory. None of that does it for me, though: they have my father’s portrait in there.

C
ANNIS
D
URY
, W
ORLD
C
UP
S
QUAD
, S
PAIN
’82 it says on the brass plaque beneath. Must stand about six feet high. He never stood that tall in real life. He never needed to. A finer example of the wee man complex would be hard to find. With this type the mantra is fight for the respect your size denies you.

And he did. Not just on the park either. My mother, God bless her battered heart and soul, bore the brunt of it. Just the thought reminded me how much I’d neglected her since my father’s funeral. I knew I must call her soon; what was stopping me?