White Rage (31 page)

‘Precaution,' Swank said.

‘Oh yeah? What about that idiot she brought in. That Beezer.'

‘She cleaned up her own mess.'

Pegg said, ‘And this Oyster. What's his game?'

‘He supports the movement.'

‘He gives money, right,' Pegg said. ‘I'm fucked if I know what he really
supports
. How did she find him? Why doesn't she introduce us to him?'

Swank had the pipe properly stoked and primed now. His face was eclipsed by smoke. ‘We need contributions, Pegg. Maybe the guy prefers anonymity.'

‘Cash is the only thing that concerns you so you can buy more bells and whistles for that computer of yours.'

‘We need the fucking computer. Who's going to pay our expenses if this Oyster folds his tent?'

Pegg stared at his companion for a while. ‘You think the sun never sets on her, don't you?'

‘You might be right there.' Swank seemed regretful. ‘I wish I was twenty-five again, instead of this raddled old misanthrope you see before you. I'd be in with a shot. Wham. Watch my afterburn, baby.'

Pegg said, ‘All I'm saying is we should be re-evaluating her on a constant basis.'

‘We all need re-evaluation, Pegg.'

‘I couldn't agree more. Complacency is death.'

Pegg stared at the remains of Swank's breakfast on the table. Cornflakes, tinned strawberries, a banana skin. ‘She's blonde now.'

‘Are you trying to excite me, Swank?'

‘It's not hard.'

‘Naw, but it could be.' Swank laughed as he grabbed at his own crotch.

Pegg plucked a squashy strawberry from the open tin and popped it in his mouth. ‘We just need to be careful. Okay?'

‘I don't disagree with that, brother.'

36

Bargeddie Haulage was hidden behind a stand of trees on Gartcosh Road in the far east of Glasgow. Perlman parked outside the wire fence of the compound and walked with Murdoch to the padlocked gate. About fifteen big trucks – each identified by the logo BH, two letters circled by flame – stood idle inside the yard. There was no sign of life. A long metal building dominated the area. A garage probably, Perlman thought. Somewhere out of sight a dog barked with unrestricted fury.

A man emerged from a prefabricated office and walked to the gate and looked through the wire at Perlman and Murdoch. He was small and sinewy, and had the collapsed cheeks of someone with no back teeth. He wore a baggy brown uniform with the BH logo on his breast pocket.

‘Aye?'

Perlman showed his ID.

The man said, ‘Yews here about the accident, eh?'

‘Got it first time,' Perlman said.

The man unlocked the gate. Perlman and Murdoch stepped into the yard. Perlman scanned the compound quickly. Cardboard boxes, wooden pallets, used tyres.

‘I didn't get your name,' Perlman said.

‘Jimmy McCutcheon. Cutch is what I use.'

Perlman looked beyond Cutch at the prefabricated office, a simple construction erected on breeze blocks. ‘What do you know about the driver of the stolen vehicle?'

‘He didn't work here, Sergeant.'

‘So he came in and stole the truck right out from under your noses?'

‘People come and go here. During a hectic spell, you've got a dozen trucks in and out. A guy could come in and he might not be noticed driving a lorry away.'

Perlman wasn't buying. He had the feeling that security was a little more tight than Cutch wanted him to believe. He turned to see Murdoch strolling between parked trucks, glancing inside the big metal building. Good, Perlman thought. The boy was sneaky: showed promise.

‘You any idea what caused the accident, Cutch?'

Cutch took a tube of lip balm from his pocket and applied it to his cracked lips. ‘It's a write-off, zall I know. Mibbe a steering fault. A blow-out. Lotsa things can go wrong. These machines.'

Perlman noticed two cars parked behind the prefab office. A Jaguar and a VW Golf. He gestured towards them.

‘I suppose the Jag is yours, Cutch?'

‘You've got a bloody good sense of humour. Mine's the VW.'

‘So who owns the Jag?'

Cutch didn't reply. Perlman moved towards the prefab, and Cutch scurried after him.

‘This area's private. Sergeant.'

‘Stop me,' Perlman said.

Cutch caught his arm. Perlman gave a hard stare and shrugged Cutch's hand aside.

‘You'll get me in trouble,' Cutch said.

The door of the prefab office opened. Perlman looked at the man who stepped into the frame. He hadn't expected Bharat Gupta to be here. He'd assumed that Gupta would have stayed away from his place of business in the aftermath of his daughter's death.

‘Sergeant Perlman,' Gupta said. He came down the short flight of wooden steps and strolled towards Perlman.

Cutch said, ‘I tried–'

‘It's okay, Cutch. Everything is fine. I know Sergeant Perlman. Don't worry. Run along.'

Cutch shrugged and walked off in the direction of the metal building, presumably to eyeball the roving Murdoch. Bharat Gupta held out his hand for Perlman to shake. ‘You must excuse Cutch, Sergeant. He's over-protective. He knows when I want to be bothered, and when I don't.'

‘Your personal bodyguard,' Perlman said.

‘I fear he isn't physically imposing enough.' Gupta wore a black jacket and a white shirt open at the neck. His hair looked buoyant, as if blow-dried only moments before. There were small dark circles under his eyes, and the whites were cracked with pink lines: the eyes of an insomniac. ‘When it comes to protection, I prefer to rely on Kumble,' and he turned to look at the chained mastiff, huge and brown and bellicose, snarling in the doorway of the prefab.

‘Spooky,' Perlman said.

‘Very effective. He roams the area at night. Quiet, Kumble! Quiet now!' Gupta made a chopping gesture with his hand. The dog grumbled, then settled down.

‘I heard about the accident,' Perlman said. ‘I understand the dead driver wasn't an employee.'

‘Indeed. We'll investigate how he managed to steal one of our vehicles, of course. The missing truck was unnoticed for some time, it seems … Perhaps some of our security procedures need to be reassessed.'

‘Frankly, I wasn't expecting to find you here today.'

‘A truck was stolen and a man died. There were other policemen asking questions before you came along. And as you can see my yard's at a standstill today, because I've closed the business for this period of mourning … so who else is going to cope with the accident and its insurance consequences? Cutch? He has serious limitations. And Dev isn't really mature enough to deal with the practicalities of running this enterprise.' He put his hands in his pockets and looked directly at Perlman through his clouded eyes. ‘If I'm not being imprudent, let me ask … are you making strides in the murder investigation?'

‘A little headway,' Perlman said.

‘But you can't say how much, of course. The discretion of the police is sometimes admirable, but more often frustrating.'

‘I don't like to raise false hopes. I've seen them collapse too many times.'

‘I am reading about this group White Rage in all the newspapers. Suddenly they're everywhere. It crosses my mind to wonder … did they kill Indra? And then I sometimes think, does it matter who pulled the trigger?' Gupta paused, ran the back of his hand across his lips. ‘Even if you find the killer, it will not assuage our grief. Not by one tear.'

Perlman was quiet. Murdoch had surfaced about a hundred yards away, and was talking to Cutch. Cutch was listening to whatever Murdoch had to say; he shook his head every now and then.

Gupta said, ‘Perhaps you are being just a little furtive, Sergeant. Perhaps the conversation you had with my wife made you curious about my businesses, and brought you all the way out here.'

‘She told you we met?'

‘She didn't have to.'

Perlman thought, Okay, a man might have a number of reasons for having his wife watched – he was jealous, he suspected some extra-curricular slap and tickle. But he didn't think these applied to Gupta's marital espionage. He assumed Bharat had bodyguards tracking Madhur for her own safety.

‘She no doubt spoke to you about the phone calls, the anonymous notes,' Gupta said.

‘Yes, she did.'

‘And about sabotage at a dry-cleaning concern? Or vandals in one of my supermarkets? You don't have to worry about breaking a confidence, Sergeant. She has anxieties, and it's quite natural she'd voice them to a policeman.'

‘All the more so since you haven't reported any of these matters yourself,' Permian said.

‘I can take care of my own family,' Gupta said.

‘Really? So what happened with Indra – an unfortunate failure of your policy?'

‘I wish you had kept that comment to yourself, Sergeant.'

Perlman instantly regretted his remark, the unintentional cruelty. ‘I'm sorry. I should be more diplomatic at times. But the fact is, your daughter received threatening mail, and you didn't take steps to contact the police. You failed to report criminal offences. You preferred to construct a private fortress, complete with soldiers and watchdogs, around your business and your family. But you fucked up.'

‘I don't think you should be involved in affairs that don't concern you.'

‘Barry, the law gets broken, I'm involved.'

‘Some matters are immensely personal, Sergeant.'

‘I don't give a flying fuck how personal you might think they are. If the law's been broken, it's black and white.'

‘How tidy your view of the world is,' Gupta said.

‘Only where crime's concerned.'

‘An orderly universe,' Gupta said. ‘You're fortunate to have such a clear vision.'

‘I didn't say it was always clear.'

‘You have moments of doubt? Surely not.'

‘More like moments of terror, Barry. What's happening to our world. Why are people so homicidal. The usual everyday matters.' He felt the mid-morning sun emit a little miserly heat, but enough to take the chill from the day. ‘You have enemies, Barry? People who don't like you? People who'd steal your property and threaten your family?'

‘I can't think of anyone in particular.'

‘Come on. They crash your trucks and vandalize your supermarket and light fires in your dry-cleaning store. You've stepped on toes, and some people don't like that. Question: Who are they?'

‘Even if such enemies existed, do you think I would
name
them?'

‘So you've got a bizarre notion of honour? The villains' guild, eh? Misguided, Barry.'

‘I'm no villain, Sergeant. But I have my own code.'

Perlman said, ‘It's a dangerous one.'

‘In your Old Testament it says an eye for an eye.'

‘I cancelled my subscription to the Old Testament years ago.' Perlman laid a hand on Gupta's arm. ‘Talk to me. I can help you.'

‘I don't think I need your help, Sergeant. Kind of you to offer, of course. But what do these tiresome business matters have to do with the death of my daughter anyway? What does her murder have to do with some anonymous people who may have developed a dislike of me? You are wasting valuable time looking in the wrong places, Sergeant.'

Perlman tipped his head back as if to draw a deeper warmth out of the sun. He suddenly remembered a matter he'd pondered some time before: the fact that White Rage was getting money from somewhere. People were backing hatred with hard cash. The race junkies had access to a computer, weapons, explosives.

Okay. Imagine these backers had some role to play in infusing money into White Rage. Did they also have
some
say in picking and choosing the targets? If so, what could possibly have induced them to sanction, for example, the murders of Ochoba and Helen Mboto? Two African students, innocents, what the fuck had
they
done that they had to die?

They hadn't done anything. They didn't
have
to do anything. They were black. Look no deeper. White Rage didn't need any help with its agenda. They called their own shots.

He lit a cigarette and blew smoke away from Barry Gupta's face. ‘Private vendettas are often very bloody, Barry. I could help you, but I'd want you to be more open with me.'

‘We all want something we can't have,' Gupta said.

‘Point taken.' Make the dead come back to life. Raise them up, Lord. ‘So, back to where we started. What caused the accident to your truck? Do you know?'

Gupta said, ‘The wreckage is being examined. Of course, you assume sabotage.'

‘Recent events in your history suggest it's a possibility,' Perlman said. He saw Murdoch come towards him. Cutch stood in the background, leaning against the cab of a truck. There was an element of wariness in the small man's pose.

‘We'll talk again, Barry,' Perlman said.

‘I anticipate it.'

They shook hands and Perlman walked with Murdoch in the direction of the gate. The unlocked padlock clanked against wire as Murdoch thrust the gate open; the mastiff, tuned to such sounds, barked angrily a couple of times. Perlman got behind the wheel of the Mondeo and Murdoch folded his long frame into the passenger seat.

Perlman changed the angle of the rearview mirror just slightly. ‘What were you talking to Cutch about?'

‘He wasn't very happy with me snooping round,' Murdoch said. He put his hand in his coat pocket. He removed a couple of objects. One was a child's sandal, the other a rolled-up magazine. ‘I picked these up when Cutch wasn't looking.'

‘What have you got there? A kid's shoe?'

‘Found it in a rubbish bin inside the metal shed.'

‘A sandal. What's so special about a sandal?'

‘The imprint on the sole caught my attention.'

Perlman adjusted Murdoch saidhis glasses, glanced at it. The maker's name, scuffed and illegible, was carved into the sole. At least he assumed it was the manufacturer's.