The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy) (7 page)

Some runners get their guns from legitimate sources. You find people who own them legally, and you buy them. Most do not. For most, the guns are acquired either through theft or from unseemly
sources. You find people who own guns legally and you rob them. That happens. You find someone working with guns and you bribe them. That happens more often. Soldiers are a source. Guns go missing
from an army barracks. There’s a lot of guns there; it’s easy for one or two to walk. Handguns always. Only an idiot or a show-off buys something more than that. You can get bigger
guns. You can get automatics. But why? You won’t need an automatic or a shotgun in a gangland environment, unless you expect a pitched battle. You certainly won’t be in a good position
to hide the thing, and dispose of it afterwards.

The most common source remains reusage. A runner will buy a gun from someone who’s used it on a job. Then they sell it to someone else. Then they buy more guns secondhand, sell them on
again. Many guns will go round in endless circles. Many are used on multiple jobs by various people, passing through the hands of several runners in the process. It’s a lucrative market, and
the one Calum most often uses. He uses the same runner because he’s the only one he’s thus far learned to trust. Some will use multiple runners to make sure that no one supplier knows
how often they work, but you only do that if you trust more than one runner. That takes time. So far, always the same one. Reasonable prices, sell the gun back after use. Essentially rental,
although you never know when you might be forced to ditch the weapon mid-job. Usual cost, four or five hundred pounds. That will be more than swallowed up by Jamieson’s payment to Calum.

There is another source of weapons. Many guns have come across the water from Northern Ireland to supply people. Many people have come across from Northern Ireland to make use of their criminal
skills. Some people like that, welcome them. Others don’t. Jamieson doesn’t, and Calum certainly doesn’t. There are plenty who claim to do his job, although this is a different
environment from the kind of killings they’re more used to. They’re outsiders who think themselves at home. They don’t belong, but haven’t noticed. Too many friends have
welcomed them and allowed them to take root. They have weapons galore to sell, and there are plenty buying. Not Calum. Not ever. Different kind of criminals. Different kind of people.

He visits his runner in the early evening. No warning. Turn up at his house. He keeps them in the loft, only ever two or three in his possession at a time. If they were found, he would look like
a dangerous small-time operator. Two or three guns found. How many hundreds have passed through his hands in the three decades that he’s been in the business? He’s knowingly supplied
many killers on many occasions. He’s always kept his head down and his mouth shut, and perhaps nothing is more important for a runner. Once you have a name, a public awareness, then you have
nothing. Little is said. He knows why Calum is there. He retrieves the weapons, money changes hands and Calum leaves. Two small handguns. No whistles and bells. No silencers, for example. Not
needed in a job designed to send a message. Expensive, heavy, unnatural. Very few gunmen like them – gives you a harder shot. Job’s hard enough, thank you very much.

Out on the streets with two guns in your pocket. A nervous time. Calum is driving straight home. He’ll hide the guns, pushed in through an air vent on a blocked-up chimney in his bedroom.
One more thing to do, but that can wait. He has more than twenty-four hours before he does the job. The last thing to do will be done the following morning, and it will involve the help of his
elder brother. A precautionary measure, and he takes a few of those. There is an issue with that, though. There’s an issue with taking too many precautions. You change everything about
yourself and people start to notice. You make radical changes to yourself or your life before every job, and people will notice. Someone will put two and two together. Nothing that draws
attention.

The following morning he calls his brother William at the garage that William has a share in. His brother, two years older (certainly not two years wiser), must know what he does. He definitely
knows that Calum works in the industry. He must be aware. William has many contacts in the business himself. He played a role in introducing Calum to a lot of people in the business. William now
runs a semi-legit garage in the east end. Small place, small-time. Makes reasonable money, topped up by supplying cars to people in the trade. Help out people you trust, make a bit of money. Keeps
things ticking over nicely. With Calum, it’s a little bit different.

William always helps Calum, every job. Calum goes to him because he’s his brother, and he can trust him. William would take any punishment rather than allow his little brother to be found
out. He suspects what his brother does, why he needs the cars. Fine: supply him. Don’t talk directly about the work. Warn him to be careful. He worries, though. It’s an industry where
it’s hard not to make a little mistake. Little mistake means big punishment. What would it do to their mother, if her younger son were to find himself locked up for life? So he always helps
Calum, but there’s a growing reluctance. The more jobs his brother does, the more likely he is to be caught. Does William warn him? Does he say something about the business, breaking the
unwritten code of silence that exists between them on the issue? Not yet.

Calum arrives in his own car, but he won’t leave in it. People take their cars to the garage in all good faith. They hand them over to be fixed or serviced; they’re told to come back
the following day to collect them. They don’t know that the car is going to be used in a criminal job. Once upon a time these defensive efforts weren’t necessary. Now, thanks to CCTV,
they are. Calum doesn’t want his own car being picked up anywhere near Winter’s house. So he uses the car of some poor innocent soul, someone the police wouldn’t even think of
suspecting. Use it, return it. His brother hands it back to the owner the following day – everyone’s happy. There’s a risk. If the police get a bee in their bonnet about that
particular car. They see it on CCTV, decide to dig deeper. Question the owner. Find out it was in the garage at the time. Less of a risk than using his own car.

‘How you doin’, little bro?’ William smiles as Calum walks into the garage. There’s another mechanic working on the underside of a car, a customer standing beside the
little office at the back. ‘Let me deal with this guy, I’ll be with you.’

Calum nods and waits. William is talking to the customer, telling him how to avoid repeating the damage he’s done to his car. Calum pays little mind, knowing nothing about cars. The man
leaves the garage with his car keys in hand, looking haunted by the bill he’s been given. William is walking across to his brother, shaking his head. ‘Some people shouldn’t be on
the road. So what’s up?’ He stays cheerful, but he knows this will be business.

‘Can we talk?’ Calum’s asking, nodding to the office.

They’re standing in the little office now, just the two of them. It’s cramped. There’s a door leading out to the alleyway behind the garage, a desk with a computer and some
paperwork, a Pirelli calendar. The windows look out into the garage itself.

‘I need a car for the night. I can bring it back middle of the night, or first thing in the morning.’

William is nodding. ‘I can get you a motor. Any likely damage?’ He asks as a matter of routine. There’s almost never a risk. He wants to know if his brother is going to go far
in it, maybe use it on country roads. Anything that might make it obvious that it’s been out of the garage. He can fix the clock if he needs to.

‘Nope. Won’t leave the city, all very ordinary.’

‘Fair enough,’ William says to his little brother. ‘I can do you a wee Corsa, not gonna draw much attention. Being picked up tomorrow afternoon, so make sure it’s back by
then.’ He’s handing Calum the keys from a little rack.

‘You bein’ careful?’ William asks Calum as the latter is making to leave the office.

‘Work, or birds and bees?’

William grins. ‘Jesus, if I still need to give you the birds and bees speech . . . I mean work. You bein’ careful with work? Careful who you work for, I mean.’

Calum is shrugging. ‘I’m always careful what I do, you know that. Why, what’s got you spooked?’

William shrugs. ‘I dunno. I hear things. Been hearin’ people talk a lot these days about changes. Apparently there’s new people comin’ into the city.’

‘Always people coming into the city. I stick to the established.’

‘Uh-huh. And the new ones are goin’ after the established, so you could be on the wrong side. Just, you know, keep careful. Make sure you don’t get caught out by the
changes.’

It’s strange to hear his brother talk like that. He knows William cares about him, just as he cares about his brother. They hadn’t been especially close as children; Calum always had
the impression that he annoyed his brother. He wasn’t sure why. Then they grew up, and suddenly they found that they had a great deal more in common than they realized. A bond developed. When
their father died, the bond became closer. They both felt the responsibility to help their mother, help look after her. She was hardly an invalid, but she was a sixty-year-old woman on her own for
the first time in her life, and they each did their share to alleviate that. They were brothers now more than they had ever been. That was what made his brother’s words more unsettling.

They don’t talk business. Ever. They talk everything else, but there’s no need to talk business. Each knows what the other does, what the other’s involved in. Calum
doesn’t need to talk about the minimal involvement William has in the business, because it isn’t worth talking about. He knows what his elder brother does to supplement his legit
income. He does it well. He doesn’t get too involved. And William knows what his little brother does. He doesn’t want details. It’s usually safer not to know. He doesn’t
ask. This is the first time he’s asked anything at all. He’s known what Calum has been doing for almost eight years, and this is the first warning. That spooks Calum a little.
What’s prompted it? New people in the city? There are always new people in the city, people making moves against the established order. That alone is nothing worthy of comment. William must
know something else. He must know something specific that he doesn’t want to have to share. They don’t talk detail. He knows something specific, something relevant to Calum, something
that worries him.

A routine meeting. Routine for Young, anyway. Maybe not routine for the cop he’s meeting. Hardest thing in the business. Young always said it, and he had heard others say
it too. Getting a cop on board. Get someone on the payroll and keep them there. Hardest thing you can do. You have to judge it just right. You have to make sure you approach the right person at the
right time. Once you know they’re interested, you have to play them just right. You tempt them, you convince them, then you hook them. Once they’re in, things change. You have them over
a barrel, so they’re a little more secure. Still, they have the ability to bring you down if they’re feeling self-destructive. They can make life unbearable. They can be much more
hassle than they’re worth. You have to make them feel happy and secure. Make them feel like they’re not doing much wrong. Don’t let them know how important they are. If they want
to meet you, you meet them. If they want you to keep your distance, you do.

Over the years Young has managed to lure two cops onto the books. He holds them both at arm’s length, but they surely know who he is and who he works for. They know they’re working
for Peter Jamieson, although neither of them has ever met him. Both are male, uniformed officers. One is destined to stay that way. Young picked Paul Greig up years ago, but the man is so utterly
corrupt that he’s untrustworthy to everyone. Untrustworthy even by criminal standards. He takes money from numerous criminal enterprises in the city, helps them out occasionally. He seems to
be riddled with a desire to make life difficult. Young keeps him at a very safe distance indeed. He’s one to use only when really needed. A last resort. In case of emergency, call Greig. He
had been the first copper that Young had snared; it had seemed like an achievement. Over the years Young had lost trust in him. He was convinced Greig had sold info about the Jamieson organization
to other crime figures. That was why he needed a second.

He had heard about Joe Higgins from a number of people in the business. His family had been involved in all manner of unmentionable mishaps. His parents owed money to many different undesirable
people. His seventeen-year-old sister had embarked upon a chosen career that she needed to be rescued from immediately. There were questions to be raised about the legality of several things his
family had done, and several things he had done himself. A wonderfully calamitous bunch. John Young organized a meeting with the young man. A twenty-three-year-old cop. A lad who made an unlikely
recruit for the police force, but seemed to be doing his best. After the meeting Young came away with the impression that Higgins was both an unlikely copper and an unlikely member of his own
family. His family were tough, loud and unpleasant. The boy was nervous, polite and eager to please.

Young had laid all the options on the table. He’d been open with the boy, judging that the best approach to take. Don’t frighten him; don’t try to play at being his best
friend. The lad needs help, whether he realizes it or not. Young promised to make all the moneylenders go away. He promised to make his sister unemployable in her chosen field, and instead find her
something more dignified to do with her life. He would help the boy, and all PC Higgins had to do for him was provide him with little updates. Nothing too risky, nothing too clever. Just let Young
know what was being said, what was happening to other people. Gossip. Police gossip. Nothing that would put his career at risk. The boy agreed. That had been three years ago.