The Bad Fire (26 page)

A tall man in a dinner jacket stepped out of a limo and, with an angelic gowned woman on his arm, entered the hotel. There was a sound of dance music as the doors opened, brassy stuff from the big-band era. ‘Just One of Those Things.' Eddie was reminded of Flora. Flora in her greenhouse, thinking of Jackie, remembering the honeymoon in Largs, her long-lost love and his cruelty.

McWhinnie said, ‘I don't want to go all philosophical on you, Mallon, but do you believe that in order to maintain the law we sometimes have to break it?'

‘I think we walk very close to the edge at times,' Eddie said.

‘But not over it?'

‘It's debatable, Charlie. It's all grey areas and no maps. Why? Have you broken a law?'

‘I'm an upstanding policeman,' McWhinnie said. ‘I do what I'm told. If I have questions, I keep them to myself. If I have doubts, I choke them down.'

‘And you're choking now,' Eddie said.

‘I have … let's say, gristle lodged in my gullet.'

‘I'm listening.'

‘A small thing perhaps – but why the hell was I following you?'

‘Yeah. Why?'

‘The truth is, nobody told me and I didn't ask. I drove around. I watched. I made notes. But I'm not some bloody espionage agent, Mallon. I joined the Force because I had this notion of upholding the law, achieving something positive I could be proud of, if that doesn't sound Pollyanna and risible – not to waste my time and training running after a cop from New York who, as far as I could tell, wasn't armed and represented no threat to public order. Work like that … don't have a clue what its
purpose
is. And obviously I'm not even very good at it.'

Eddie thought, Charles McWhinnie in a nutshell: no sense of self-worth, needs to be valued, praised now and then. ‘Somebody thought the job was important, Charlie. Who?'

McWhinnie swivelled his jaw from side to side. It made a clicking sound. ‘I'm no Judas, Mallon.'

‘I haven't heard the clink of thirty pieces of silver, Charlie.'

McWhinnie said, ‘It's not only following you that depresses me, Mallon. It's not just that …'

Eddie waited. He understood he couldn't force McWhinnie to talk. He couldn't threaten him. He'd spent his violence. Anyway, what good would it do? McWhinnie would say what he had to in his own time.

More couples entered the hotel dressed for a formal dance. Women with crisp hairdos and long dresses, men in evening wear. It's too hot to dance, Eddie thought. Jackie and Flora in Largs, had it been too hot for them to dance, or had they held each other close and sashayed across the floor of their hotel? A fast foxtrot, a whirl, Jackie's delicate feet barely touching the floor and Flora desperately in love.

Why did he keep coming back to that honeymoon, like a man returning to the origin of a myth he'd never understood? An effect of pain, confused signals rushing this way and that through his head, messages coming in from unusual sources tapped out in a neural Morse he'd never heard before. He
hurt
. It was as if a ghostly figure, with no training in the healing arts of the Orient, was sticking acupuncture needles into his ribs in all the wrong places.

Oh boy. He needed painkillers, strong ones. Darvon. Percodan. Soon you can lie down and stretch out on the sofa in Joyce's flat. She's wondering where I am. The brother who goes missing. Sometimes for years in a faraway continent.

McWhinnie said, ‘I'd like to step out of this car with the feeling that I haven't betrayed anyone, Mallon. I'd like to unload some of the dung I'm choking on, but at the same time I don't want to feel that I've regurgitated it in such a way that I'll have long sleepless nights bedevilled by questions of loyalty. Is that clear?'

‘There's stuff you can't tell me, I understand that.'

‘No. Stuff I
won't
tell you. I have a conscience like a sack of coal, Mallon. I'll set it down for a moment … Here's a shock to your system: Bones, alleged killer, was under police protection.'

Bones: the name fished out of the air. ‘Protection? I don't follow that.'

‘He was ensconced in a flat in Govan for his own safety after the killing.'

‘Safety from what?'

‘Don't interrupt me. This is hard enough. The flat, I assume, is used from time to time as a kind of secure house. It's a dump, a place people pass through. Witnesses, say. Informants. I bought groceries for Bones. I delivered them to the flat. I told him to stay there and I left. He was a reprehensible little shite with bad teeth. I didn't ask myself why we were being hospitable to him. Probably I just assumed it had something to do with the murder of your father, and maybe Bones needed protection in case the killer was looking for him too. I just did the job.'

‘And?'

McWhinnie said, ‘This job also involved paying off certain debts Bones had incurred with questionable bookmakers throughout the city. It was over two thousand pounds, it doesn't matter the exact sum. I gave the markers to Bones. I wasn't sure why we were buying him in such a
blatant
way – except perhaps to keep him cheerful while we interviewed him in connection with your father's murder. That's what went through my mind, I suppose. We were oiling a potential witness. We were bribing him, after a fashion …' McWhinnie tried another smile but the side of his face had swollen up, as if he had a crab-apple stuffed in his cheek. The smile looked like a gash. ‘Some time that day, Bones disappeared. I went in the evening to the flat to check on him, and he'd gone. Where and why? I don't know. Did he leave under his own steam or did somebody come for him? Again, I don't know. But that's only a part of the conundrum, Mallon … Answer this. Why was he stuck inside a safe house when he should have been taken to Force HQ for questioning immediately after the murder? Why were we being so cooperative to a man who's suddenly become the major suspect in the killing?'

‘He wasn't a suspect immediately,' Eddie said.

McWhinnie said, ‘He
should
have been, Mallon. That's my real point. Why wasn't he in your father's car when Jackie left Blackfriars pub? Where was he when somebody was shooting your dad? And then what – did he walk around for a while before he returned to the car and saw cops everywhere? You see, he should have been taken in and questioned hard as soon as he reappeared. Instead, he gets the soft-shoe treatment. Safe house. Gambling debts paid. Groceries. Scotch. He was given preferential treatment – why?'

‘Where was he apprehended?' Eddie asked.

McWhinnie said, ‘I don't know. I've talked enough. I draw a line here.'

‘Did he go back to the car and somebody took him into custody? Did he walk into a local station and say here I am? Did he meet somebody by prearrangement? Who took him to the safe house in the first place? Whose idea was that? There must have been some short preliminary interview at the very least before he was given sanctuary. There has to be a written record somewhere.'

McWhinnie smiled. ‘Oh really? A written record, you say? I used to be a big believer in written records. Now? Who knows? I've nothing else to say. I'm in pain and it's getting harder all the time to speak.' He opened the passenger door, and stepped out. ‘Keep the car. Use it. I feel like drinking. Medicinal reasons. Sorry about the punch-up, it's not really my style, far too uncivilized, if you knew me better you'd realize that, and you'd know how sick to my soul I've become,' and he turned and walked stiffly towards the hotel.

Eddie got out of the car and called to him. ‘You haven't told me who issued the order to have me followed.'

‘Right, I haven't,' McWhinnie answered, without turning to look.

‘A name,' Eddie said.

McWhinnie kept moving. ‘Not from these lips.'

‘McWhinnie, wait,' Eddie shouted. ‘Who gave you the cash to pay off the gambling debts?'

McWhinnie stopped and looked back. ‘This is all I'll say. You know him.'

It had to be somebody inside the Force. Somebody who could pull strings, play power games. ‘I know him … Is it Caskie?'

McWhinnie turned away, kept moving. He pushed the door and stepped inside the Hilton and Eddie saw the glass swing back in place in a quick little disturbance of distended light. He thought of going after McWhinnie, but he knew McWhinnie had nothing more he was prepared to say. Eddie didn't get back in the car. No way was he driving to his sister's place. Wrong side of the street, one-way systems, few recognizable landmarks. He was dragging ass now, and the night was closing down on him.

Outside the hotel he found a taxi to take him to Dennistoun. He sat in the back and he thought of what McWhinnie had said, and how he'd make sense of it.

33

On the phone, Billy McQueen told the nurse he couldn't come to see his father. It was inconvenient, he had business meetings, he plucked excuses out of the air. The call-girl, Leila, was dead asleep on the floor. She'd passed out here a dozen times.

Thelma said, ‘Look here. He's your father. Your dad. He was wandering around in his pyjamas in the street. In the street, mind you. That's serious. God knows what the neighbours are thinking. I've given him something to help him relax, but he's going on about a TV delivery and somebody called Giovanni and I can't follow him. I strongly suggest you make an appearance, because if you don't, well, I can't be responsible if he decides to go walkabout again. I do have other patients, Mr McQueen.'

Billy McQueen thought: I have had better days.

The deal is fucked.

Gurk gets maced.

And now Larry is wandering the streets in his pyjamas. Plus this Giovanni – who the hell was he?

He said, ‘It's difficult for me, Thelma. I'm up to my neck.'

‘Neck? You'll be in over your head if you don't get here, because I'll phone Social Services and tell them your father needs to be hospitalized for his own safety –'

‘Thelma, I pay you to deal with all this –'

‘I have other patients, Mr McQueen. I'm already late for a Parkinson's in Bearsden.'

‘Right, right, I'll be there as soon as I can.'

‘It better be quick,' she said.

Billy put down the handset.
Fuck you, Thelma
, he thought. He limped to the window and looked out. Darkness and orange lamps. I don't want to go out there. I don't fancy the streets tonight. Climbing in a taxi, take me to Hyndland, no way José. Bloody Larry in his pyjamas.

Leila turned over in her drugged sleep and muttered, ‘
On an ocean liner sure.
' Night trips, Billy thought. Seagoing escapes under cover of darkness. He wished he was inside Leila's dream and the big propellers of a ship were churning. Destination Tahiti, oh aye.

He picked up the cordless, punched in the number of Gurk's hotel room.

‘Yeah?' Gurk said.

‘I was wondering … are you all right?'

‘Rinsed my eyes out a few times with Evian,' Gurk said. ‘Sight has been restored. Lamps working, happy to say.'

‘Glad to hear that … Look, I was curious to know if you wanted to step out, have a bite to eat, a drink, something? I know a nice place in the West End.'

‘Kind of you. Have to decline, sorry.'

It's not your company I want, Billy thought. It's the safety of your presence. Be my bodyguard, please. ‘It won't take long, Tommy. Half an hour mibbe. I'll send a car down for you.'

‘No can do, me old son. I been talking with some of my people. Options are being discussed. People are openly worried. Money is out there, to say nothing of vanished articles. Makes me wonder about other dimensions, Billy. Can things disappear into alternative realities? Are there diversions along the everyday continuum? Anyway, I'm stuck here waiting for the sodding dog to ring again.'

Billy said, ‘But –'

‘Tell you what. Gimme a bell later.' Gurk hung up.

Billy phoned the number in Hyndland. Thelma answered on the first ring. ‘I hope to hear you say you're on your way, Mr McQueen.'

‘Even as we speak,' Billy said.

‘Your dad's ranting.'

‘Fifteen minutes,' Billy said.

I should have stuck him in a home. He's dead weight, he's lumber I have to carry on my back, he's my cross. All I wanted was his affection. You've worked at that, and you're still not getting it, Billy. He put on an expensive black silk shirt, then black trousers and shoes. Camouflage. Creature of the night. He covered Leila with a cotton sheet then phoned his usual cab company for a taxi.

While he waited, he thought about Gurk's dark-red eyes. Beyond bloodshot. Like Halloween contact lenses, the colour of terror. He remembered how Gurk had come stumbling out of the tenement in Ingleby Drive after his visit to Joyce Mallon.

Why hadn't he tried harder to persuade Gurk to keep him company? The Dreadlocked One was obstinate. He made up his mind and that was that. Phone calls, associates, outstanding debts, a transaction gone all to hell: the pressures were stacking up. Gurk managed to escape into meditation and fanciful questions about diversions along some continuum.

Billy's questions were less esoteric but just as mysterious, such as: who shot Jackie Mallon and why did this sweet deal go all wrong? Sometimes the stars were light-years out of joint.

He sweated. His stump chafed against his prosthesis. He needed a splash of industrial-strength moisturizer. Go to Hyndland, appease Larry, stuff him with more medication. Why can't I just wash my hands of you, Larry, you bitter old sod?

His buzzer sounded. He pressed the button on the wall.

‘Taxi, Mr McQueen.'

‘Is that you, Alec?'

‘Aye.'

‘I'll be down in a flash.' Alec McGroaty. One of his regular drivers. He didn't want strangers. He turned the lights off, left his penthouse, descended in the lift where the mirrored interior reflected a multitude of Billy McQueens dwindling to infinity. I feel that tiny, he thought. A dot in a frozen eternity of silvered glass.