The Low Road (34 page)

In the kitchen his mother and Mrs. Crawford were sitting at the table making a black-and-white jigsaw puzzle from scraps of photographs, the result more a modern abstract from an art college student than a family photograph.

His wee brother's silver boxing trophies were lined up on the kitchen cabinet and, in spite of the bashes and the twists in the thin metal, they were gleaming.

Mrs. Crawford saw him smile. “Ach,” she said, “may as well clean them afore we take them to yon man down the Trongate. A right good silverworker he is. I'm sure he'll make them as good as new.”

“And when you've pieced the photos together I'll take them
to the
Herald
. The photographic department might be able to do something with them,” he offered.

“Maybe,” Mrs. McAllister said, “but I found an old envelope wi' the negatives for most o' them. Mind you, they're old . . .”

“The lads in photographic are brilliant with old stuff and can at least give it a go.”

At that news everyone cheered up. They had a cup of tea together. Then he left them to finish what needed finishing, his mother telling him that the beds were made, the borrowed sheets and pillows ready for use.

“Not yet,” Mrs. Crawford said. “You're stopping wi' me till this is all over.”

Again his mother surprised him by agreeing.

“Soon,” he promised. “It will all be over soon.”

She nodded. “Do your best, Son.”

It was what she always said when, at school, he struggled with his arithmetic and mathematics. And again his guilt at involving her angered him. He could only nod in reply.

• • •

At the
Herald
reception desk, the same woman greeted him and gave him a similar sheet of cheap notepaper, the writing in the same hand. As he read it, he pursed his lips, nodding to himself.
Just short of three hours and already Wee Gerry's heard. Maybe told by the man I was speaking with.
McAllister had noticed the phone box across from the newsagent and was convinced this was what had happened.

The huge clock above the reception desk showed it was nearing six o'clock. The note read,
Meet me at seven
and named a pub. He took a bus to the well-known Celtic supporters' pub in the Gallowgate, next to Barrowland, the huge covered market beloved by Glaswegians searching for bargains, secondhand goods, and items that “fell off o' the back o' a lorry.”

He took off his tie and stuffed it into his pocket before he went in. There was nothing he could do about his twenty-guinea suit. Ditto his hat, old but expensive from a hatter's in London. He took a seat in a corner as far as possible from the door to the lavatory, where the smell, on another warm summer's evening, was noticeable, though not enough to deter the hardened drinkers that frequented the place.
Gerry has chosen this place well,
he thought as he ordered a Guinness, eyeing the shamrock etched into the mirror above the bar.
Home turf.
McAllister may have escaped a Christian Brothers education but he knew the etiquette. And the songs.

Gerry Dochery too was early. As he came in, most eyes in the pub acknowledged him. The barman went to pour his Guinness without being asked. He took a seat next to McAllister, knowing the porter would be delivered to the table once it had settled and the foam the perfect depth.

Gerry was angry—almost as angry as McAllister had been when he'd learned of James Gordon and his brothers terrifying Joanne. His face was red, his voice almost a squeak and, speaking with his lips barely moving, the intensity of his words made McAllister reappraise his old pal—for the better.

“You had no right seeking out ma family,” Gerry said.

“You started it,” McAllister replied. “It was appalling what you had done to my mother's place, an old woman who never harmed a soul.”

Gerry didn't look at him. “I'm sorry. It was that or something much worse.”

McAllister half believed him, remembering the man beaten to death and dumped, as a warning, maybe, and wondered if that should have been his fate. “Picking on me, fair enough. But my mother? How come women are now a fair target?” He knew Gerry would know he meant his girlfriend.

“You can't tell anyone about Sheena. Or about Wee Sheena. Not even ma faither knows. And them, if they found out . . .”

“I won't. I know how it feels. So the same goes for me and mine.”

“He already knew about
your
family.”

“He?”

There was silence between them. But not in the bar. Conversation was loud, but not inebriated loud, convivial conversation loud. A wireless was playing faintly in the background. Someone started on a halfhearted version of “The Minstrel Boy.” As yet no other singers were drunk enough to join in, and the song tapered off.

“He?” McAllister repeated. This was what he'd come for. This was what he needed to know. But Gerry wasn't answering, and McAllister saw he never would—at least not to a direct question, for that would make him an informer.

“How did it all go wrong, Ger? We were pals. An' you were always as bright as me, just not at book learning.”

“Wrang? Wrang?” Gerry was furious.

His answer, almost shouted he was so angry, made the barman look over, reach for the already broken chair he kept to deal with any troubles, then leave it at a signal from Gerry. He brought over two fresh pints. Back at the bar, he watched the two men sip their Guinness. They had dropped their hackles—or at least their shoulders. But he kept the chair handy.

“It never went right.” Gerry lit a cigarette without offering McAllister one. “I hated you in those days.”

But not now?
McAllister thought, lighting a cigarette of his own, understanding that Gerry Dochery was not being rude, just remembering McAllister's taste in cigarettes. That bond between them, knowing each other's tastes in beer and cigarettes and football teams, pleased him.
He was—is—my oldest friend.

“Your mother, she was always ready wi' ‘the poor soul,' always showing me up as the boy to be pitied, always showing you aff as
the boy who done good. An' them holidays when she made me wear your auld clothes, us being the same size. And her chiding me on ma manners—‘What's the magic word, Gerald?' It was all, ‘Please, Mrs. McAllister. Thank you, Mrs. McAllister. Yes, missus, no, missus, three bags full, Mrs. McAllister.' ”

McAllister laughed.

Gerry glared.

“Sorry Ger, that's ma mother to a tee. She's a right stickler for manners, but she was no different to me and ma brother.”

“Aye. I know. An' I'm sure I'll be the same to ma wee one.”

Good
, McAllister thought,
now we're really talking.
“How old is she?”

“Three. No one knows about her. I'm right sorry I can't take ma faither to meet her. If thon man, or his psycho brother, finds out . . .”

“You still work for him?”

“I've never worked
for
him. Never. When the word was put out that whoever found the tinker could collect the one thousand pounds, well, no one could turn down that much money.”

One thousand pounds.
That made McAllister think.
Same amount, same debt?
“Jimmy? Is he a . . . around?”
Alive
, was what he wanted to ask.

“No idea.”

“He was shot at with an air rifle.”

“Was he now?” Gerry's expression gave away nothing.

“At the warehouse in Whiteinch, he went into the river and no sight nor sound o' him since.”

McAllister kept watching Gerry. Nothing. He kept going. “The lad that died, the death DI Willkie tried to fit me up for, what was that about? I know the boy was sent to duff me up, and it was more luck than any skill on my part that he didn't do worse damage, but why was he beaten to a pulp?”

This time Gerry reacted. “Beaten, you say?”

“A colleague saw the body. She said whoever did it was a right sadist.”

“Mary Ballantyne?”

“It was bad, Gerry. He was tortured.”

“Thon maniac,” Gerry muttered and looked away, but not before McAllister caught his distress.

Their glasses were empty. McAllister was about to return to the bar to order again when he saw the men come in. Two of them. Obviously brothers. One was wearing a Rangers football scarf.

Outright provocation
, McAllister was thinking,
and enough to get a man glassed in a bar in the Gallowgate.

From the way the room went quiet and no one heckled them over their colors, they were obviously known. McAllister guessed the barman and customers were waiting for the signal from Gerry, who gave a wave of his forefinger, and conversation resumed. But everyone was watching, and this time the barman had not only a chair within reach but also a loaded sawn-off shotgun, under the till.

“Who's yer friend, Ger?” One of the men was standing too close to their table, so close McAllister imagined he could feel his breath.

Gerry Dochery showed no emotion. As though he was inquiring the time of the next bus, he asked, “What do youse want?”

Then McAllister guessed who they were. The family resemblance was strong but these two looked like factory rejects, blurred, slightly unformed. He introduced himself. “John McAllister. Gerry and me, we were at school thegether.”

“John McAllister, eh?” the shorter, rounder one said, making a play of scratching his head in puzzlement. “No'
the
John McAllister, big-shot newspaperman.” He pronounced
John
the Glasgow way—
Joan
. His brother was giggling and grinning like a Halloween lantern.

At the high-pitched-hysterical-wee-girl sound, McAllister looked more closely at the second brother. Only slightly taller, he had that look Scots would call glaichit—glazed, blank, lights on but no one home. And evil with it.

The man giggled again. “I ken who you are,” he was saying to McAllister, “an Ah ken your Hieland friend.” He made a gun with his right forefinger. “Ping! Pop! Ping! Splash! The tinkie's deid.”

“Wheesht!” His brother poked him in the ribs. It did no good, and he kept pointing his forefinger but was now mouthing the sounds.

McAllister was forcing himself not to move. As was the barman. And the customers. But how long Gerry could contain them was uncertain.

Brother number one sensed it. “Right, we'll be off. Good to meet you at last, Mr. McAllister. We'll see
you
later, Ger.” He was all business. Polite. McAllister sensed that he was the brain—and, he decided, one between them was possibly all the brothers had. McAllister also surmised that the articulate brother was keeping his reputation for being the reasonable one intact, by using his sibling as a human Gatling gun.

“You'd better leave an' all,” Gerry told McAllister after the brothers had left and the swing doors finally stopped, and the murmur in the bar resumed.

“That was the one who killed Jimmy.” McAllister was too shaken to be angry.

“He's the psycho in the Gordon family. Keep well away from him.”

“James Gordon? As in the Gordon Brothers? Is that who you're working for?”

“I work for no one!” But Gerry saw McAllister's eyebrows reaching up to his hairline. “I take contracts now and then and . . .”

“And one thousand pounds is an awful lot of money,” McAllister finished. He was not passing judgment. He knew how it was.
And better Gerry is involved than some unknown gangster.
“Gerry, if anyone comes near my mother again, or my fiancée, or her daughters, I'll—”

“You'll what, McAllister? Get your hands dirty? Get someone else to do it for you? You have no idea what you are dealing with here. Thon manny . . .” He gestured towards the door where the brothers had left. “He's no' right in the head—a complete and absolute nutter, so he is.”

“He shot at Jimmy.”

“I believe you. Look what they done to the lad at your mother's flat.”

For the first time McAllister wondered if the young man was dead from a beating in order to implicate
him
. They had almost succeeded. And it had revealed the extent of the Gordon brothers' influence—the police, perhaps the procurator fiscal's office, and from what Mary was discovering, perhaps the City Council.

“You knew the dead man?”

“Aye, I did. A good lad.” Gerry fumbled with his cigarettes but didn't light up. “And that, that is one more thing between me and . . . and a Gordon.” The finality in his voice, the way he slammed the box of matches onto the table, spilling them into a puddle of beer, made McAllister back off with the questions.

Gerry took up the empty pint glass. Not wanting to look directly at McAllister, he was staring at the dark dregs and dirty foam flecks as though preparing to make his case to Saint Peter. “If you want to protect your missus, call off Mary Ballantyne. The rest is nothing to do wi' you—it's between him and the McPhee fellow.” He caught the question in McAllister's eyebrows. “If he's alive,” Gerry added.

“It's too late for me to back off.”

Gerry nodded. Then sighed. “We
were
friends, weren't we? Long ago?”

McAllister understood the change of subject; Gerry Dochery would never rat on anyone, no matter how evil. “We were. I hope we still are.”

“Sheena took to you.”

Again it was McAllister's eyebrows that asked the question.

“The lass wi' the bonnie brown curls.”

McAllister nodded. “I took to her, too.”

“If anything happens, would you see her right? Her and Wee Sheena? And tell ma da?”

Gerry looked straight at McAllister as he asked this, and McAllister could detect no fear, only resignation. He knew not to spout empty assurances that all would be well because, likely as not, it wouldn't. Maybe not this time, but some time, Gerry Dochery's life would catch up with him. One way or another.