Gutted (25 page)

Jonny Boy hid hands in his pockets, strolled over to the desk and stared at me.

I said, ‘Hello there, Jonny. Looking well . . . My ex must be taking good care of you.’

LA Law spoke: ‘DI Johnstone is assisting me; a mere observer.’

I flicked my index finger, said, ‘Gotcha!’

Jonny lunged, grabbed the digit, said, ‘Don’t get fucking smart, cunt . . . We’re putting you away.’

He had a firm hold on me. I reached out with my other hand to work on his grasp, but the pain in my shoulder was too great. Couldn’t have been a good look – verged on capitulation.

‘Keep that look, Dury, that’s the one we want you to show when they throw away the key.’

As he let my finger go I gasped uncontrollably, said, ‘This would be playing hardball, I guess?’

LA Law answered, ‘No, Mr Dury, this is checkmate.’

‘Come again?’

He flicked on the tape recorder, made his spiel, announced himself
as
McAvoy. He raised a polythene bag from the sheaves of paper. Inside was the skunk I had taken from my nephews. ‘Yours, I believe, Mr Dury.’

I said nothing. Shrugged.

‘Oh, it is. Let me assure you.’

I looked at the bag, said, ‘You’re seriously doing me for a bag of puff?’

McAvoy looked to Jonny. The pair exchanged thin smiles.

‘Oh aye, Dury,’ said McAvoy, ‘there’s laws against this kind of thing.’

‘How about I take the caution and go back to my life?’

McAvoy’s smile faded. He tipped himself back in his chair; the legs creaked on the tiled floor. As he shuffled his feet I saw his socks. They matched the colour of his shirt. He read out the charge.

I looked to the ceiling, scratched my head, said, ‘Fucking hell.’

McAvoy switched off the tape, threw himself at me, brought his dart of a nose to within an inch of my face. ‘I’m just getting started on you . . .’ he bellowed. I felt my ears throb. ‘I’m watching you very closely, Dury, and if I hear you’ve been near the Crawfords again you’ll have plenty to worry about.’

I held up a hand. Had seen this done on
Oprah
– knew it would get a reaction.

‘Whoa! Who’s pulling your strings? You have precisely fuck all on me, McAvoy. Jonny couldn’t fit me up, so you’re having a go now, is that the game?’

‘This is no game, laddie . . . A man’s dead.’

‘I make it two . . . one a witness who confirmed to you I was nowhere near the scene when Moosey was killed.’

McAvoy gave a silent laugh, pointed to me as he winked at Jonny. ‘You hear this shite? That fucking jakey was away with it. He was off his nut on meths.’ He laughed louder this time, shook his head.

I wanted to put a boot in his teeth. ‘He might have been a jakey
but
he wasn’t a ponce, and he had more of a clue about this case than you.’

He waved to the pug, who raced to the desk and put me in a headlock as McAvoy yelled in my ear. ‘Listen to me, you scrawny little shitkicker. If I say you killed Tam Fulton then that’s the way it’s going to be and you’ll be begging me to take a confession so’s to keep Rab Hart from chopping you into fifty grand’s worth of tiny fucking pieces.’

My head felt about one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. There was no way I could form words.

‘Aye, that’s better, adjust your attitude . . . We know you’re short of cash, Dury. Now, the missing money might get you out of a big hole – that’s some incentive, is it no’?’

I still couldn’t speak.

McAvoy continued, ‘You see, these days evidence can be made to tell any fucking story you want. You’ve seen
CSI
. . . a fingerprint here, blood smear there, it’s magic! But things like motive, that’s what can’t be faked – and that’s what gets folk put away.’

I went for a gob in his face. Fair sprayed out, caught some of his shirt.

The pug squirmed. ‘You dirty prick.’ He lost his grip on me.

I roared, ‘Mark Crawford either killed Moosey or knows who did and you fucking know it too! . . . He’s been running with the young crew and playing the dog-fighting scene to get his chance and he took it.’

‘You’re off your scone, Dury,’ said Jonny. ‘He’s the son of a fucking judge!’

‘So what? You’re both law and as crocked as all fuck.’ I was still roaring, banging my chest with one hand and fingering the air with the other. ‘Someone’s got you pair told to look the other way and you think I’m gonna let you put me in your sights. Fuck that! Fuck the lot of you . . . You want a fight? I’ll give you one.’

I saw Jonny Boy make a lunge for me, but I missed the pug
trailing
him. As I dodged Jonny’s blow the hefty biffer caught me above the eye. With the shortness of my breath it was more than enough to call lights out.

The floor swallowed me.

IT FELT LIKE
being dropped from a cliff into the ocean.

The pug leaned over me after throwing the bucket of water in my face. I could tell that the sight of my eyes flickering felt like incitement to him. He was stupid enough to confirm it, said, ‘You want me to give him a slap, guv?’

McAvoy intervened: ‘No I bloody don’t . . . Get him back to the table.’

He lifted me by the collar; this guy had been working out. Although the weight of me, I’d guess I was the lower end of his warm-up reps.

The chair skitted across the floor as I was flung into it. I got a size ten in the back to push me under the desk.

McAvoy perched over, poised to strike like a cobra. He grabbed me by the ear. ‘You listen to me, Dury . . . You are a washed-up piece of shit.’

Like I could argue that, said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘You think you’re it, think you’re a name cos you brought that grief on this place.’ He raised his other arm to the roof, waved it around. ‘Well, let me correct your thinking, cockhead: you are nothing. Less than nothing.’ He twisted my ear harder, brought my head down to the tabletop, pointed to the skirting. ‘See that? See down there, where the roaches and the vermin crawl about?
That
’s your home. That’s where you belong. Down among the filth and the scum of the earth.’

‘The filth?’

That got him – knew it would. He released my ear, slammed his fist into the side of my head. My vision blurred. Room spun. As I tried to focus, to see what was coming next, I caught sight of him looming over me, yelling. Shit knows what he said. He was mad angry. Going Lou Ferrigno on me. I imagined a tear ripping down the back of a flannel shirt. Eyes bulging. Bottom row of teeth on show. Fury wasn’t in it. This was beyond rage.

I reined it in, stood up. Faced him. Jonny Boy and the pug lunged for my arms. I pushed all the buttons. ‘C’mon, then, let’s fucking have ye, McAvoy.’

Meet rage with rage. Always seemed to work in my boyhood home.

I struggled. Put my jaw out. ‘You think you’ve got something on me? Let’s fucking have it.’

He looked shocked. Slunk back. His face changed shape.

‘I said, let’s fucking have it, McAvoy . . . Give it your best shot. You want to put me away, you better be fucking smarter than the other pigs that came before you.’

He drew a fist. Launched it in my gut.

I buckled over. Wheezed. ‘I said “smarter”. Not every bit as pig-shit thick.’

He drew his fist again. Planted it back in my gut.

I grinned at him.

The days of me taking this kind of punishment were well over; I’d be crumpled on the floor in no time. But something – stubbornness, bitterness, whatever – kept me sticking my hand in the fire.

‘Like I thought: you’re all the same. Dumb as fuck.’ I knew I was risking a booting to end all bootings, but I also knew this guy’s anger would be his undoing. If I could get him noised up enough, he’d balls up. How I knew this, well, it takes one to know one.

It was Jonny Boy who surprised me. Called five. Gathered up the papers and evidence. They left me alone, to catch my wind.

My head throbbed. My body felt hollow, empty. Like there was nothing from my chest to my groin. It felt so numb, until I touched it, then every muscle and sinew in me shrieked in agony.

Inside ten minutes the three returned.

McAvoy looked as if he’d combed his hair, straightened his tie. I’d have guessed maybe mopped his brow with a towel. He spoke with a different voice entirely now, the one I presume he reserved for brown-nosing his superiors. It put the shits up me. There was a grin delivered on every word.

‘All right, Dury . . . get out my sight.’

‘What?’

‘You heard. Shift it. I don’t want to see your skanky arse round here . . . today.’

I opened my arms wide, turned up my palms. ‘Finally – some common sense.’

Jonny walked over to McAvoy’s side, whispered in his ear. McAvoy’s eyes shot left, caught the Boy Wonder’s gaze. For about a minute they played this over between the pair of them, then the cobra was back.

‘Just one more thing, Dury. Tread very carefully with your press friends.’

I went for cocky. Scrub that: cocksure. ‘Yeah, well, you work your side of the street, I’ll work mine.’

Another glance shot at Jonny Boy.

Tension.

McAvoy’s face hardened. ‘Out! Get fucking out of here!’ He jumped up so hard his chair left the ground, smacked off the cell wall. Jonny ran at his heels, clipping them like a gundog. The pug’s lower lip drooped in utter confusion.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Shut yer yap!’ the pug barked, then he followed the others.

The door closed tightly behind them. Keys in the lock. An hour
later
I was given back my bootlaces and belt. Pointed to the front desk by a uniform.

‘No more cosy chats with Detective Inspector McAvoy?’

A shove towards the door.

I collected my things from a dour thirty-something with tied-back dirty-blonde hair. She looked unfussed who she offended. Thrust the lot at me, pointed a chipped pink fingernail to the box I should sign, said, ‘Off to get blootered, are you?’

I looked her up and down. This one wouldn’t need a mask to do ET in fancy dress. Said, ‘Jealous?’

She snatched back the clipboard. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

Hit back: ‘Do I look like a fucking magician, love?’

Outside, the rain was coming down in sheets. Edinburgh rain falls straight as stair rods and is liable to do as much damage. I hunkered in the doorway, fed my belt through the loops, laced up my Docs. My stomach turned over in agonies with every move. I wondered how many others they put through that treatment. Was it just me, or all those they knew wouldn’t stand a chance of carrying a complaint?

I was about to move off when:

‘You are piss weak, Dury.’

Jonny Johnstone stepped beside me, hands in his pockets. He looked out into the rain. He waited for a response. I gave him none. He turned, looked me up and down, said, ‘Piss weak.’

‘I heard you the first time.’

‘So bad hearing’s not one of your flaws, then?’

I knew this was going somewhere, only Jonny’s little intimidation didn’t wash with me. I saw through him. He was a type I’d turned up too many times before. Shiny-arse on the make. Loose-moralled little brown-noser with an eye on the big office, the Beemer, the whole ball of wax.

‘Pal, I’d take my flaws over your virtues any day.’

I let that fry a few brain cells.

He ruffled. ‘Look, shithead, I’m warning you . . .’

I squared up to him, met his eye. ‘What are you warning me?’

‘I’m on your fucking case.’

‘Yeah, well, I know that already . . . Do I look frightened?’

‘You look like a fucking nobody.’

I laughed. This from
him
. Went with, ‘A tip, Jonny Boy . . . Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is for ever.’

He turned down the corners of his mouth, mumbled, ‘Is that supposed to be like a quote or something?’

‘Napoleon. You should look him up, you share some . . . traits.’

Guess he didn’t take it as a compliment. He put his finger in my chest, was close enough to smell the – what was that, Obsession?

‘Know this, Dury: Debs is with me. I’m the one she comes home to every single night.’

I felt my facial muscles tightening. He had some moves after all.

‘Every single
fucking
night . . . and that’s how it’s going to stay, you get me?’

I said nothing.

He went on, ‘I have Debs. You don’t. And I am going to give her everything you never could – the big house, the two cars parked out front, the foreign holidays, the kids – we’re gonna be living happily ever after and you . . .’

He trailed on for so long I lost interest. My mind was stuck on the little dream scene he’d created for him and Debs. It didn’t square with the facts. Either he was totally deluding himself, or Debs was doing it for him.

I turned to walk away.

‘Hey, I’m talking to you.’