Flesh Wounds (52 page)

Doke managed a nod, but he was still missing something. Hadn’t Fallan said
both
problems? Apart from the murder charge, what was the other one? And why would Jazz want a gun to kill a lassie?

Then it dawned on him.

‘He was planning to kill you as well,’ Doke sussed. ‘But why?’

‘That was the thing he was already upset about,’ Fallan replied, and suddenly it all came into focus.

‘You always were a sleekit bastard, Single. I never realised it extended to your sex life.’

‘It wasn’t like that. And you know Yvonne didn’t belong in that world. She was looking for a way out of it. We both were.’

‘And this is what you told Stevie? From what happened next, it doesn’t sound like he was very understanding.’

‘I knew he would be left in a difficult position. That’s why I gave him a solution that worked for everybody. What do you think all that carry-on with the envelopes was about?’

‘Stevie thought it up to protect us from—’

‘It was my idea, Doke. And it was so that none of Stevie’s team would ever know that
nobody
got the instruction to kill me. I promised Stevie I would disappear, and I did it in a way that would serve him well. I made him look ruthless, powerful and loyal to his family. I owed him that.’

Doke’s brain was running to catch up, rapidly reassembling his picture of the last twenty-odd years to fit the new reality he’d been hit with.

‘I know you set up that thing in the jail,’ Fallan said. ‘And I’m telling you that’s the end of it. No comebacks.’

Doke was nodding before he was even aware of doing so. He knew he wasn’t a smart guy, but he wasn’t fucking stupid either. Fallan was telling him the same thing Sheila had been, and this time he was listening.

‘No comebacks,’ he confirmed, unable to prevent a long sigh of relief from venting after he spoke.

His fingers were shaking. He needed a pint. He caught sight of a flag fluttering in the middle distance and realised he had forgotten he was in the middle of a round.

‘One last thing,’ Fallan said, sounding, if it were possible, that wee bit more steely than before.

‘Whit?’ Doke asked, having stopped himself from saying ‘Fire away’.

‘Tony McGill used Jasmine to get to me.’

‘How come?’

‘Because he’d worked out that I’m her father.’

Doke reeled again. At this rate he was going to have to check his own name when he got home.

‘But she came to the restaurant and told us she—’

‘Think about it, Doke. If Jazz had fathered one wean he’d have fathered twenty. You ever hear of any other wee Jazzlings back in the day?’

He thought about it.

‘Jesus.’

‘Jasmine’s my daughter. It’s out there now: people know. So I want you to get the word out in case anybody else is stupid enough to make her a target.’

Doke nodded, eager to convey his assent.

‘I hear you, Single: mess with her and they mess with you.’

‘No, David. That would be to gravely misunderstand the nature of the risk, in the same way Tony McGill did, before Jasmine killed him with her bare hands then put his bawbag son in the hospital.’

Doke gawped like a fish, but any seeds of disbelief were crushed by the look on Fallan’s face telling him this was exactly how it went down.

Something inside him sang. Get the word out? He’d pay for a fucking billboard.

‘See, Jasmine and I are making up for lost time,’ Fallan explained. ‘We want to see more of each other, so we’re going into business together. She’s bringing me into her detective agency. She inherited it from her uncle: that’s the Sharp family business. But I want every bam, rocket and heidthebaw in this town to know that Jasmine’s a Fallan as well, and she’s been learning
my
family business.’