The Bad Fire (18 page)

He opened one eye. The white was scarlet. She couldn't bring herself to look into it.

Why hadn't her neighbours heard glass smash? Why hadn't the pathologically nosy-parker Mrs Curdy in the flat across the landing called the police? Why hadn't she seen Tommy G intrude?

‘Listen … to me,' he said. His voice croaked. She thought of sandpaper on rough wood. She pushed against his grip and tried to raise herself from the floor, but he had brute strength.

‘Listen hard, darling. I had a … business deal with your father. A big deal …'

‘I don't know anything about my father's business,' she said.

‘He has something that belongs to me, my lovely,' Tommy G said.
Somefink. Loverly
.

‘I don't know shit about that. Let me up. Get off me.'

‘Why? You're soft. A woman ought to be soft. I'm in pain … my eyes are killing me … I need something nice, something soft, where I can lay my head.'

She thought: the chemical had lost its force since she'd bought it. Just the same, she had only herself to blame for the way she'd surrendered the initiative. She ought to have clattered him across the skull when he'd been crawling around blindly. She ought to have hurried inside the kitchen and picked up a knife and cut him.

‘What did Jackie tell you?'

‘Nothing,' she said.

‘Come on, sweetheart … What did he tell you?'

She said, ‘I swear. Nothing.'

Tommy G slapped her, hand open. The blow stung her lip. She felt blood. It was the first time in her life she'd ever been struck by a man.

A morning of sunlight and broken glass. Her mouth ached.

He slipped a hand inside her robe and touched her breasts and she turned her face defiantly to the side. He whispered,
Nice tits, nice tits, oh yeh, warm
.

She pushed his hand away. He didn't resist. She felt strength go out of him, but she sensed he had the power to summon it whenever he liked. He rolled over on his back, coughed for a time.

Please just go
, she thought. She listened to the hacking sound he made. She saw him draw the hem of his shirt up to his mouth. His brown body was muscular. He had long eyelashes. I could run, she thought. Get up and run. Out that door and gone.

He said, ‘Pain is illusion. Pain's negative energy. Did you know that, love?'

‘No,' she said.

She saw the canister. It was about a foot from Tommy G's right hand. She thought of reaching over him and getting it and maybe this time it would function.

‘There's a portal through pain to the other side,' he said. His voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘If you can reach it. If you know the way.'

Portal, she thought. Illusion. Had the spray affected his mind? He sat up. He turned his face towards her. His eyes were closed. His head was tilted to one side in the manner of a blind man listening. He had a menacing little smile on his face. He stood up with some effort, blinking madly as he peered through the slit of one eye. Broken glass crunched under his feet. He noticed the canister and kicked it and it rolled towards the door.

‘You play rough, girl,' he said. ‘Tell you what. Why don't you work on your memory, eh?' He tapped his skull with two fingers. ‘I wouldn't like to come back … because the next time I'll really fucking hurt you.'

She watched him make his way to the door. He was unsteady. He stooped, picked up the canister, stuck it in his pocket. She heard him go down the stairs. Whistling.
Whistling
. She recognized the tune, couldn't name it, something cheerful out of Gilbert and Sullivan. ‘My Object All Sublime' … was that it? She went inside the living room. She tried to light a cigarette but her hand was trembling. It took her four matches before she succeeded. She drew smoke deep as she could into her lungs. She sat down, still shaking, and she thought of Tommy G's eye, the colour of prime rib.
Christ, what is this legacy you've left us, Jackie?

24

Detective-Superintendent Malcolm Tay's office was situated at Force HQ in Pitt Street, a few blocks south of Glasgow's most famous thoroughfare, Sauchiehall Street, which had had a certain bustling elegance at one time, but was now a yard or two downmarket, fast-food eateries and theme pubs and nightclubs, although a few department stores stood here and there. To the east of Pitt Street was Blythswood Square, formerly the red-light district, but genteel these days. South was the slab of the Hilton, close to the motorway that had been driven with civic disregard through the centre of the city.

Force HQ was a red-brick building attached to a glass office block that must have been constructed at an earlier time. The effect was of mismatched parts, botched architecture. The Strathclyde Police motto, Eddie Mallon had noticed in the brownish marble entranceway, was ‘
Semper Vigilo
'.

Tay's office was sparsely furnished. The walls were bare save for a cork bulletin board with a schedule pinned to it. Nothing personal here, no cosy family pictures, which didn't surprise Eddie. He imagined Tay's life as one of solitary self-containment. No encumbrances.

The superintendent, who sat behind a desk, was wearing the same charcoal suit he'd worn at the airport. Scullion was also present, standing with his back to the window. Chris Caskie leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling. Eddie Mallon felt he was a figure in a contemporary still life:
Hot Room with Policemen
.

Tay opened the middle drawer of his desk. ‘I made you a promise last night, Mallon. I said I'd keep you posted.' He looked at Eddie, then reached into the drawer and produced a clear plastic bag with a cardboard tag. He laid the bag on the desk. ‘And here we are.'

Eddie saw the gun under the kinks in the plastic.

‘This is the weapon that killed your father,' Tay said. ‘A Smith and Wesson 4006.'

Eddie felt blood hurry to his head and depth charges detonate in his heart. He was accustomed to guns every day of his working life, they were commonplace, but this one was different, this one was surrounded by static disturbances, as if an impression of the assassin's touch lingered upon the weapon. Eddie had an urge to pick up the bag, remove the gun and hold it in the palm of his hand and feel this instrument that had been used to slay Jackie. He looked at sunlight dulled in the folds of plastic.

‘Whose gun is it?' he asked.

‘Matty Bones's,' Tay replied.

‘Bones?' Eddie asked.

‘The only prints on the weapon are his. And there are any number of people who say they've seen Bones with this gun. It seems he liked flashing it when he was jarred. Something of the cowboy about our Matty.'

Scullion said, ‘The weapon was discovered by DS Tony Bothwell and PC Vicky Kyle during a routine search of Bones's flat.'

‘So you're saying – Matty Bones shot my father?' Eddie said.

Tay said, ‘That's how it looks, Mallon.'

Eddie was incredulous. ‘They'd known each other for more than thirty years. Long-time associate, intimate – then Bones suddenly decides to shoot his old friend. Why? A brainstorm? A seizure? You got any ideas?'

Tay picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk. ‘Who knows? In my experience, money's usually involved somewhere down the line. Maybe Bones owed your father cash –'

‘Which he couldn't pay back, so he shot Jackie?' Eddie said. ‘That's too goddam drastic.'

‘Is it? People get killed for all kinds of reasons, some of them seemingly very petty, even ludicrous, to you or me …' Tay picked up the plastic bag and appeared to weigh the gun. ‘Maybe there was an argument we know nothing about. Or a long-standing grudge. Or maybe Bones was indebted to somebody who wanted Mallon struck down. Bones had the weapon and the opportunity –'

‘Now you're looking at a weird-ass scenario in which Bones is a hired gun.'

‘I'm throwing darts, Mallon. See what might stick to the board.'

This metaphor struck Eddie as inappropriate in the circumstances of a murder investigation, reducing the search for Jackie Mallon's killer to a game. He stared angrily at Tay and said, ‘Fuck darts. Jesus Christ. Let's talk about your whole line of inquiry. Let's look at the big picture. Why are you so cheerfully embracing the half-assed conclusion that Bones was the killer? Because it's easy? Because you're too goddam lazy to go out there and shake the bushes?'

‘Eddie, for God's sake, calm down,' Caskie said.

He ignored Caskie. ‘Have you interviewed the people he did business with, Tay? Have you been talking to auctioneers and estate agents who might have worked with him when an estate was coming under the hammer and who might be able to point you in the direction of any deals he was trying to make? Have you talked to any of his competitors in the salvage business? Have you got people looking into where he went when he left Glasgow last week? God knows, that might be important. You're pecking at the goddam surface. You're just scratching around. And now you've got the murder weapon and Bones's prints are all over it and that's it, case closed, no loose ends.'

He was thirsty, and glanced round the room; no sign of a water-cooler. He watched a muscle work furiously in Tay's jaw.

‘You've crossed the line, Mallon,' Tay said.

Eddie paid no attention. ‘This gun that belonged to Bones. You're saying he used it to kill Jackie, then he took it back to his flat and hid it? Why didn't he toss the fucking thing in the river? Why run the risk of it being discovered –'

‘Criminals aren't neurosurgeons,' Tay said.

‘Some of them know about survival,' Eddie said. ‘They know about covering their tracks. I'm getting the feeling you just want to shut the book on this and save yourselves a load of legwork. Chalk one up on the old blackboard –'

Tay stood up. His face was tense and when he spoke his lips barely moved. ‘Shut up and listen. I'm satisfied we've got the murder weapon, and it's only a matter of time before we find Bones. And I'm damn sure he can be persuaded to tell us just why he shot Jackie Mallon.'

‘Persuaded?' Eddie said. ‘That has a nice sound.'

Tay beat a rhythm with the tip of his pencil, then he stepped out from behind his desk and unexpectedly clapped a hand on Eddie's shoulder. ‘I'm not a sentimental man, Eddie. It's a well-known fact we Scots are only allowed that luxury on New Year's Eve. But I remember when my own father died I lost the plot for a while …' He appeared to run out of steam quickly, as if this moment of human contact was embarrassing to him. He sighed, raised then dropped his shoulders. ‘I understand what you're going through. Grief. Pain. I understand all that. But trust me with this case, Eddie. I know what I'm doing. The Strathclyde Police knows what it's doing. Believe me. We'll find Bones …'

Eddie stood up. ‘Thanks for the progress report.'

Tay said, ‘You ought to get some medication to help you relax.'

I'll dope myself just for you, Tay. I'll be a zombie. I won't be a nuisance. Eddie went to the door, stepped out. Caskie followed him. In silence, they walked to the stairs.

Then Caskie said, ‘That was bloody stupid.'

‘Too upfront for you, Chris? Too open?'

‘Bloody rude.'

‘Oh, yeah, let's not forget rude. I'm the bad-mannered Yank. What do I know about fucking etiquette?'

Outside, in the shadow of the building, Eddie stuck his hands in his pockets and rattled some loose change. He watched uniformed cops enter and leave the hive that was Force HQ.

Caskie said, ‘Even after you railed at him, Tay had the decency to open his heart to you. That doesn't happen often.'

‘Was that his heart? I thought it was the hinge of a crypt creaking,' Eddie said.

‘Give him some credit, Eddie. He was trying to be understanding.'

Eddie stepped out of shadow into sunlight. The blue sky was high and cloudless. The sun had no mercy. Why expect mercy anyhow? If Bones had killed Jackie, he'd shown no mercy to him.

If Bones had killed Jackie.

I'm not buying, Eddie thought. It doesn't make sense. Maybe to Tay it does. Cut. It's a wrap, guys. Go home.

A couple of black taxis were parked on the other side of the street. He wondered where Matty Bones, alleged murderer, was hiding.

‘I think I'll grab a cab and head back to Joyce's place.' Eddie raised an arm, signalled, saw the taxi spin in a tight circle towards him.

Caskie's cellphone rang just as Eddie entered the taxi. Eddie watched him speak into the handset, saw his face change, that placid mask slip like flesh peeled from bone.

‘Shit,' he said, and looked as if he'd just been struck by a club. He stuffed the phone clumsily in his pocket and climbed inside the taxi. His tone of voice was urgent. ‘I'm coming with you, Eddie.'

25

Eddie's first impression was of broken glass everywhere, an explosion of bright colour, as if a rainbow of ice had fallen out of the sky and shattered. He saw Joyce standing at the end of the hallway holding a wet towel to her mouth. The cord of her robe was loose. He and Caskie hurried towards her. She fell into Eddie's arms, and he led her inside the living room and made her sit.

But it was Caskie who took her hand and stroked it with a slow gesture of concern. ‘Eddie, there's some brandy in the kitchen. Would you mind fetching a glass for Joyce?'

Eddie thought, He's good with the women in Jackie's life. He's attendant physician, private nurse, counsellor, favourite uncle. Eddie wondered if he was envious of Caskie's role in Joyce's world. He looked at Caskie's neat little beard and the long fingers with the perfect nails, and he thought, yeah, I don't like the guy, and maybe it's connected to a mild jealousy or associated with Perlman's low opinion.

He went into the kitchen, found a bottle of cognac in a cupboard, returned with a half-filled glass.