Blood Lines (13 page)

‘He’s watching us,’ he commented.

‘Who?’

‘Don’t give me that. You know. Glasgow Joe is in his office pretending to do his accounts but he can’t take his eyes off that surveillance camera.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You should know better than to ask me questions like that, Brodie – on this occasion I’ll answer it. I always approach the Rag Doll via the backyard, not being a big fan of CCTV in general. I only came round the front ’cause I wondered what he was watching so intently. I should have known. Nothing grabs Joe’s attention like you. Poor bastard.’

‘Don’t be impudent, young man.’

Moses mockingly moved to defend himself from an imaginary blow.

‘Seriously, the guy is hard. Wouldn’t like to be the one that gets between you and him.’

‘If
you’re
saying he’s tough, he must be.’

‘Joe’s nothing like me, Brodie. That man is your original freedom fighter. He’s got ethics.’ Moses spat the word out as if it was dirty – it was all front; he had his boundaries just like Joe.

‘Stop being so dramatic, Moses.’

Moses was the original drama queen, which made him difficult to handle at times – still, given his past I thought he deserved a bit of leeway.

‘You can say what you want, Brodie, but you can’t argue with facts. He was recruited for the IRA through a boys’ football club. He was in Gaddafi’s training camps. You know better than me that he ran to America to escape prosecution.’

‘You’re right, I do know all this. Are you writing his CV?’

Moses tapped Awesome with his walking cane.

‘He went underground in LA and joined the Blue Angels – they don’t wear the Hells Angels’ colours – they’re their own men.’

‘You don’t know everything, Moses.’

‘I know. He won’t tell me some stuff …’

Moses’ wolf eyes stared at me eagerly, prodding me for information, but there was no way I was telling him the truth. Unfortunately, Moses is not sensitive to other people’s feelings. What he’d said was all true but Moses had no idea how catastrophic all of Joe’s choices had felt in my world.

‘You were out there for a bit, weren’t you?’ He kept digging. Maybe if I gave him a few snippets, he’d shut up.

‘I went out to join Joe in Las Vegas at the end of my fifth year at school. I had all the qualifications for university but I had made up my mind I wasn’t going to be a student.’

‘Your ma must have been pleased.’

There was no use denying it, Mary McLennan was furious. Of course, she blamed Joe, but when I left Turnhouse Airport I wasn’t even sure I could find him. For ten days I searched Las Vegas, asking every scruffy, dangerous-looking biker I could find.

‘I didn’t know where he was – I had cards printed up with my photo and name on it and gave them to everyone I met in case they saw him and could pass one on.’

‘Were you scared?’

‘I was seventeen, Moses. I thought I was invincible. When Joe eventually got in touch, we spent our first night fighting.’

‘That must have been bad.’

‘I smashed God knows how many beer bottles at him for being ungrateful. I’d travelled round the world for him and all he could do was criticise me for putting myself in danger.’

‘You might no longer be seventeen, Brodie, but age hasn’t knocked any sense of self-preservation into you.’

I gave him a sharp kick on the ankles.

‘Why’d you leave Joe in Vegas?’

‘My mother was dying.’

‘Mary?’

I wanted to slap him – of course Mary. I knew that he adored Kailash, but it offended me to think that Mary would get usurped for her. I kept quiet – and also didn’t say that whilst I was at home grieving, Joe had gotten a quickie divorce from the State of Nevada.

I screwed up my chip paper and walked over to the bin.

‘I think we’ve kept him waiting long enough,’ I said. But as the doors of the Rag Doll swung open, I began to regret my words.

Joe was kissing someone.

Not a friendly ‘great to see you’ kiss, but a full-blown passion-igniter.

‘Is that his new fancy piece?’ Moses asked, adding, without waiting for me to reply: ‘I’ve never seen him with anyone before – I mean I didn’t think he was gay or anything, but … funny, I always thought you two would end up together.’

‘Brodie!’

Joe shouted at me across the bar when he came up for air. He didn’t look embarrassed. Well, why should he? But then why did I? He tapped his woman on the butt and she scurried out the door.

‘What do you want to drink?’

Joe shouted our orders to his barman and led us to a table. Nothing had changed since my last visit – still the same torn red leatherette benches and Formica table – so why did it feel so different?

‘How’s business, Moses?’

‘Not too hot, Joe, not too hot. I’m getting hit from all directions. I was hoping you might be able to help me out actually.’

‘Sorry, Moses, but these guns aren’t for hire.’ Joe flexed his biceps, more for himself than me or Moses.

‘I’m not looking for that, Joe – the only muscle I’m interested in is the one between your ears. No, this is a whole other business. Here,’ he said, as if he had just thought of it, ‘like that lassie – very nice by the way.’

Joe handed us our drinks. Moses, as usual, stuck to Irn-Bru. Mine was a neat Glenmorangie. The little display I had been treated to when I first entered the pub had made up my mind to take a taxi home.

‘
Slainte
.’

Our glasses clinked in friendship and union. For better or worse, our lives were linked together.

‘What’s up?’ Joe asked, looking at me. Moses butted in.

‘You know I’m trying to go legit, big man?’

Joe coughed politely and, to his credit, said nothing. Moses didn’t even have the courtesy to blush.

‘Well, someone is cutting in on my supply lines. When I go to my dealers, they’re not there, so they are getting their gear elsewhere, and the worst of it is they’re not afraid. Even that idiot the Alchemist ignored my instruction and got Bridget Nicholson as a lawyer instead of Brodie.’

I kept silent. I was in no mood to do the Alchemist any favours by sticking up for him and repeating what Tanya had written about him asking for me.

‘Do you want another one?’ Joe had noticed that my glass was empty and rather disapprovingly ordered a refill.

The music in the background started up and the lunchtime dancer leaped onto the makeshift stage. She wasn’t the worst that I had seen Joe employ, but, like most of the girls who freelanced here, it was most definitely her last-chance saloon. Not that this deterred her small band of ardent admirers, who whooped with delight. I think because she wasn’t that bonny even the toothless old men thought they had a chance.

‘Brodie – what’s troubling you?’

Where would I begin? On safe ground, I thought.

‘It’s Duncan Bancho – he’s determined to stitch me up with Alex Cattanach’s murder.’

‘Well, the word on the street is you’re equally determined to stitch him up for planting evidence on the Alchemist.’ Joe did not look amused.

Moses interrupted. ‘Tell me you’re kidding, Brodie? Go after Bancho if you like, although I don’t think you should, but even I don’t believe that the Alchemist is innocent.’ Moses poked me on the shoulder, forcing me to look at him.

‘I’m not defending myself.’

‘Do you have any idea what it means to attack the police so directly? It’s madness.’ Moses was staring into my eyes, trying to detect signs of psychosis.

‘I didn’t start it – I’m only trying to find a way to finish it.’

But already the doubt was creeping in. Had Bancho thrown the first punch or had I?

‘Well, Brodie, if you’re successful Duncan Bancho will lose his career and get at least five years in Saughton,’ said Joe cynically.

‘Don’t give her a hard time, Joe – he’s bent all right. If you want proof, I contact him through a chat room for singles looking for a date. There’s a password, which I’m not saying in front of Brodie in case she misuses it. Anyway, I arrange with him a time to send an instant message, which is completely untraceable, and he tips me the wink about the things that are going on in his patch. He’s useful and I don’t want him busted. Contrary to what it says on the news, bent coppers are not ten a penny, they’re hard to come by these days.’

‘What information do you buy?’ I asked, feeling totally vindicated.

‘Shops or warehouses that have dodgy alarms mainly – then I know we’ll have a clear run at a job.’ Moses continued, ‘Obviously for a gold standard service like that I pay him – well, I deposit his money in the Swiss bank near George Street; it’s a numbered account so there’s no name. If you’re hoping to trip him up then you’d better be good because he always watches his back, covers all the angles.’

‘I’m having difficulty with a bank account too,’ I added. ‘It’s no secret that Alex Cattanach thought I was dodgy after the Law Society had examined the books. Our margins were just too small and our overdraft too big. Cattanach’s convinced I was laundering money and putting it into an account named Tymar Productions.’

I never heard Joe’s reply. Our attention was taken by a stramash at the front door. A group of drunken Dark Angels barged in, led by the Alchemist. It was the first time I had seen any of them with colour in their faces; some of them looked rosy with drink, others looked green.

‘You’re no’ doing us any favours, Moses,’ shouted one skinny bilious male Angel. Moses did not react, even when the boy started pointing a finger at him. The others looked shaken, as though they would like to disassociate themselves from him, but if they did he would have fallen flat on his face.

‘Shut up, Bruce.’ The Alchemist was trying to shush him, but the boy still had a point to make.

‘Your days of controlling us are over, Moses. Your loyalty seems to belong to her, not us,’ he said, twitching his head over to me. ‘The Alchemist had a good lawyer and you made him change and take her. She’s nothing to us, Moses, she’s not an Angel.’

‘Can’t argue with that,’ Joe whispered in my ear.

‘You can’t control nothing any more, Moses. We’re out of here – come on, boys.’

They turned drunkenly on their heels and left the pub. Moses hadn’t uttered a word throughout. He watched the closed door. After five minutes he stood up, saying ‘I’ll catch you guys later’ as he walked out. How could he be so calm? I needed to take lessons from him, I thought.

Joe and I sat there in silence after Moses had left. He was always a hard act to follow. ‘What’s going on there, Brodie?’ Joe finally asked. ‘Moses getting none-too-subtle threats from his own guys? Not like him to sit back and let that go on.’

I nodded in agreement, before the silence settled on us again. We both realised it at the same time – Moses wouldn’t accept it.

Joe knocked a stool over as we ran through the crowded pub. We reached the door just in time to see Moses underneath the lamplight across the road.

He had made no sound and the Angels hadn’t heard him.

We watched as he placed one arm around Bruce’s neck.

Bruce fell to his knees, forced to stare into Moses’ face.

Moses whipped a stiletto knife out of his boot.

With skill and accuracy he cut out his victim’s eyes.

It was like watching a butcher slice a pig.

Blinded, Bruce fell to the pavement. Blood poured from the sockets of his eyes. He searched around for his companions but they had all fled with Moses over the cemetery wall.

‘We’ve got to help him, Joe,’ I whispered, terrified.

‘He’s beyond help, darlin’. He won’t die, but no surgeon in the world can help him now.’

‘What’s going to happen to him?’

‘Moses will take care of him. Blind Bruce is now valuable to Moses – he’s a cautionary tale.’

‘You can’t leave him.’

‘I didn’t say I would leave him. I’ll see him right but you have to get out of here – find Cattanach.’

Joe placed the helmet on my head; at least it muffled the sound of Bruce’s cries.

‘He’s getting no help till you’ve gone,’ he told me as I lingered on Awesome.

I must be a Good Samaritan at heart, because I was like a bat out of hell as I drove up Coburg Street.

Chapter Fifteen

‘A friend in need is a pain in the arse. Go away, Brodie,’ Lavender shouted from behind the door.

‘Just open up, Lavender.’

I followed her into the hallway when she finally consented to let me in. Barry White was crooning in the background and the smell of coq au vin made my mouth water. My nose led me straight to the kitchen stove. Lifting the lid off the pot, I asked, ‘Whose favourite dish is this?’

‘Well, even if it’s yours, you’re not staying.’

I picked up a wooden spoon, stirred it and naturally had a taste. ‘It needs a little more seasoning.’ I cracked the sea salt and pepper corns into it, and tasted again.

‘That’s not bad, Lavender.’

‘Don’t kill me with your praise, Brodie. We’re not all aiming for Michelin stars.’

‘What, or who, have you set your sights on with this little lot?’

Unusually, Lavender wasn’t forthcoming, but I was determined to get an answer. I made my way to the kitchen window, which overlooked Hibernian football stadium. Lavender’s flat was a fanatic’s dream; for any member of the normal population it would be a nightmare. I had often wondered what had possessed her to buy it, then each time remembered that Eddie was a fan.

‘Tell me, who’s the mystery guy?’

Still she didn’t say a word, busying herself with setting the table. For two. When she placed the candles on the table I knew she was serious. I looked out over the football ground again. I was missing something. Barry White was still warbling on repeat.

‘You’ve got something in common with the Walrus of Love, Brodie.’

‘Is this going to be some smart-arsed reference to me having put on weight?’

‘As if. That would be the kettle calling the pot black. No, Barry was a fellow jailbird, he got done for stealing Cadillac tyres and …’

‘Can’t you let me try to forget about it, Lav? That’s why I came up here. I thought we could just chat and talk about shoes or whatever else you find interesting.’