The Bad Fire (34 page)

Scullion drove to the end of the street, turned right. He adjusted the sunshade. ‘Let's say Haggs told them to take Bones for a drive. Why?'

‘Maybe they were instructed to mess him up. A wee reminder of something. But it all got out of hand. Bones was Mallon's man, and we know there was no love lost between Jackie and Long Rodney. It gets tangled, Sandy. Maybe it's one of those fucking gangster sagas where somebody gets shot and it all boils down to nothing more than a matter of territory, or an insult blown out of proportion …' Perlman realized he didn't sound very convincing. It was more than territory, more than some inflated outrage.

‘Tell me, Lou. How good is this witness of yours?'

‘The alcoholic eye doctor? Bloody useless. For an eye-doc he's blind as a bat. Plus his head's scrambled permanently.'

‘Oh,' Scullion said.

‘But I believe he saw what he says he saw. Because I'm a fucking cockeyed optimist, Sandy.'

‘And the blood?'

‘Matty was AB negative, according to a report from the Victoria Infirmary where the wee jockey was taken in 1984 when he fell from a horse at Ayr races, and his face split like a pomegranate dropped from the Scott Monument. But AB neg is common as dirt. So common, Sandy, it's my blood type as well.'

‘You're just an old-fashioned bullshit artist,' Scullion said, and smiled.

‘Probably.' Perlman watched a big black mongrel strut in front of the car, pursued by a snot-nosed infant, in turn chased by his teenaged mother who wore her hair in curlers under a scarf.
Come back, ye wee bugger
. Perlman sighed, and his eyelid throbbed, and he remembered what it was he'd intended to do, and that was to see if Caskie had run Tommy G through the computer. Growing old, things slipping, fuck it.

Rita said, ‘What do you think, doll?'

‘I don't know what I think.'

Rita asked, ‘Call Haggs?'

‘No fucking way.'

‘Haggs'll go mental, John, if it turns out Perlman's got something up his sleeve.'

‘Haggs is already mental.'

Rita pouted and said, ‘We can always shag this situation out of our minds.'

‘I'm up for that,' Twiddie said.

‘I notice.'

43

Eddie Mallon entered Central Station and walked under the high glass roof that allowed bright light to illuminate the huge interior. He stashed the Armani bag containing the pistol in a left-luggage locker. A smell of strong coffee floated in the air, and a vendor sold fruit and an assortment of nuts in the forecourt. Eddie bought a bag of cashews. He chewed on them while he walked to the location of the timetables, which were arranged on boards.

He found the schedule he was looking for.

A train left Central, destination Largs, at forty-five minutes past each hour. Jackie had been anxious to be dropped off at the station by 10.35 a.m. Why? Because he needed enough time to buy a ticket, he wanted to make sure he had a cushion of about ten minutes to spare him a crazy rush to catch the train.

Eddie looked at the station clock: 11:37. He went inside the ticket office and bought a day-return, then he walked quickly to the platform and took a seat on the train. The carriage was filled with women and little kids. A trip to the beach, a release from the dry streets of the city. He stared out, and wondered if McWhinnie had followed him to the station, if he was somewhere on the train. Or if McWhinnie had even bothered to go to work today.

The train moved. Eddie gazed at warehouses and factories, the unplanned outskirts of the city. Kids, some of them in swimsuits, scampered up and down the aisle. The Kiddy Express – except it wasn't an express, it stopped at a number of stations on the way. The first was a few miles from Glasgow: Paisley, Gilmour Street. More kids and mothers boarded here. Fugitives from Paisley. Eddie had an impression of bright sun-hats and pacifiers and baby-bottles containing orange juice. The women, pink-skinned for the most part, were dressed in lightweight shorts and summery blouses. They had the cheerfully relieved smiles of people jettisoning the drudgery of the city for a few hours at the beach.

He observed the landscape yield to deep green pasture. Out of the city's reach he felt a certain freedom. The sky had no limits here. The small towns and settlements the train zipped through were blinks of an eye. He imagined his father travelling this way a week before. He wondered if Jackie looked from the window, or if he read a newspaper, or if he sat with his eyes shut and dozed. Did he think of the honeymoon in Largs, the old days, first love? Had he chosen Largs as a meeting place because it had associations for him? Had somebody asked,
Where will we meet, Jackie?

And had Jackie replied:
Largs, I know a hotel where we can talk in peace?

Largs, Christ. All this could be a crazy construct of your own brain, Eddie, he thought. The conviction that Jackie had travelled this way for a meeting could be something you've cobbled together from the assorted odds and ends of your own imagination. The big hunch that turns out a total disaster. A misguided step in the dark. You just don't know.

Suddenly, startling as a great mirror of quicksilver, there was the sea, and in the distance through the haze of heat the awesome grey spine of an island – Arran, which looked like a man at rest. The train stopped at Saltcoats Station. The kids yelled and laughed and pressed their faces to the windows as if they might smell the sea through glass.

Fifty minutes after it had left Glasgow Central, the train arrived at its destination. Eddie made his way on to the platform and walked to the main street. He smelled the sea air that stirred in a breeze so soft and slow you could barely feel it. He strolled past shops – the Baker's Oven, the Craft Shop, the Bagel Basket – until he arrived at the seafront, where a ferry of the Caledonian MacBrayne line was taking on passenger cars for the short trip to Cumbrae, a humpbacked island less than a mile off the coast.

The ferry was mobbed by screaming gulls. On the pebbled beach, gaggles of kids paddled in the shallows under the vigilant eyes of mothers. The kids consumed copious amounts of ice cream. Bold seabirds approached, scavenging for broken cones or any kind of appetizing spillage. The air smelled of salt and burned toffee.

Eddie turned right, away from the pier. Small, with well-kept gardens and neat bungalows in side streets, Largs lacked that tawdry quality he associated with resort towns. No high-roller casinos, no cheap eateries. Ahead, facing the sea, stood a couple of large structures that might have been hotels. The first one he reached was indeed a hotel, but it wasn't the Seaview. He continued to walk.
Am I getting warm, Jackie? Am I close?
He thought of Jackie and Flora, arm in arm, strolling this promenade. Young lovers who couldn't wait to be shut inside their room away from the world.

The board with the name ‘
THE SEAVIEW HOTEL
' had been freshly painted in blue and gold. ‘Bed & Breakfast. 70 Rooms En-Suite. Function Room. Bar & Restaurant.' The building was grey stone, flowerboxes on sills, a cheerful midsize hotel with an unimpeded view of Cumbrae.

Stay away, son
, Jackie said.

Hey, you just don't go in here blind, unprepped
, Tom Collins said.

Eddie climbed the steps, entered. The air was cool inside, venetian blinds half-shut. For a second he couldn't see anything except the ghosts of things left in his eyes by the sunlight. Then he could make out the reception desk, a smiling girl in a floral dress, a wall-map of North Ayrshire, a sign with an arrow:
BAR
&
RESTAURANT
. He went inside the bar, a narrow room beyond which was a large fern-clogged dining room half-empty. He asked for a club soda with ice, then he sat down in a darkened corner of the bar and drank quickly. He ached. His head. His body. He wanted Solpadeine. He had none.

‘Hot one,' said the barman.

‘Pleasant,' Eddie said.

‘I like it cooler.' The barman wiped the counter. ‘There's a change coming. So I hear.'

Eddie finished his drink, set the glass down. Now. I get up, I go back to the reception desk, I ask them if Jackie Mallon was a guest here one day last week, did he have company, I show my NYPD identification and hope it pulls strings and opens door for me.
Jackie Mallon, you say? Did he stay here? I'm sorry, we can't give out information about guests, sir. And you're well out of your jurisdiction, I believe
.

Eddie paused in the doorway between the bar and the reception area. The girl at the desk, pretty, Nordic, smiled at him. She had wonderful straight teeth and a kindly look. Eddie took a step towards her, reaching in his hip-pocket for his ID, then he stopped, because a man in a bright floral shirt appeared at the desk and said something that made the receptionist laugh, and the man laughed too, then ran a hand over his dreadlocks and turned his face, scanning Eddie quickly before returning his attention to the girl.

Eddie couldn't move, affected by a sudden paralysis. He imagined this man breaking the stained glass of Joyce's door, charging inside her flat, attacking her.

The man made another joke and the girl smiled and said, ‘I always forget jokes. Every time I hear one, in one ear and out the other.'

‘Takes a special kinda brain, pet. An empty one.' The man laughed and then turned his face a second time to Eddie. Eddie felt he was being filed, stored for future reference. The eyes were sharp and calculating, no sign of mirth. The man moved from the reception desk and passed close to Eddie on his way to the bar.

Eddie stood still a moment. What now? What move to make now? You've come this far. You take the next step. He went back inside the bar and stood next to the guy, who was making banter with the barman.

‘Biggest mistake the English ever made in Scotland was building a road that led south,' he said.

The barman said, ‘Now that we've got our own Parliament, we'll throw all you English out.'

‘Your own Parliament? That lot in Edinburgh are all gums, no teeth. They can't even fart unless they get the green light from Westminster.'

‘At least we beat you at rugby last time,' the barman said.

‘Once in a blue moon, mate.' The man turned to Eddie and said, ‘What do you think, chief?'

‘Think about what?' Eddie asked. This man
struck
Joyce, Eddie thought. Gurk's strength was evident from his muscularity. The powerful crag of brow suggested brute force. Joyce would have no chance with a man like this.

‘Hallo? Is that American I hear?'

‘Right,' Eddie said.

‘Don't tell me. Lemme guess. Noo Yawk. The Great White Way. Times Square.'

‘Cool,' Eddie said.

‘There isn't an accent I can't get,' the man said. He held out a hand. ‘Tommy Gurk.'

‘Eddie.' The grip was very strong, combative, almost a challenge.

‘Nice to meetcher, Eddie. You on holiday here?'

‘Right. You?'

‘Business. I sell novelty items to shops. You want suggestive picture postcards or a yo-yo that whistles – I'm your man. Don't knock it, mate. It's a living.'

‘I wouldn't think of knocking it. Been here long?'

‘I'm in and out. Off and on. What's your game?'

‘Retired,' Eddie said.

‘At your age? Lucky sod. What was you before?'

‘A cop.'

‘Some of my best friends,' Tommy Gurk said. ‘Drink?'

‘Club soda. Thanks.'

Gurk ordered two club sodas. He clinked his glass against Eddie's. For a time Gurk was silent. He stabbed at an ice cube with a long brown finger.

‘I didn't catch your last name, mate,' Gurk said.

‘I don't think I mentioned it.'

‘Travelling incog, are we?' Gurk nudged Eddie. ‘I understand that. Bloke has his reasons for going around free as he likes using any name he likes. On the run from a wife, or more likely a wife's lawyers, hey, a geezer has the right to change his own sodding name … People looking for you, Eddie?'

Eddie shrugged, left the question unanswered. Let Gurk think what he liked.

‘You play your cards close to your chest,' Gurk said.

‘Force of habit, nothing personal,' Eddie said.

‘No offence taken. None whatsoever.'

Gurk set his glass down. ‘I'll be running along. Maybe we'll meet again.'

‘Yeah,' Eddie said.

Gurk dropped a pound coin on the bar and inverted his glass over it. ‘Your tip, Jack.'

The barman said thanks.

Gurk stepped out of the bar. Eddie heard him exchange some words with the receptionist. More laughter. This Gurk was a joker. He spread good cheer wherever he went.

‘He's a character,' said the barman. ‘Laugh a minute. He's been here more than a week and had us all in stitches.'

More than a week, Eddie thought.

The time-frame was right.

He felt the ghost of Jackie in the bar and imagined that if he turned his head he'd see the old man sitting at a corner table, inclined over a drink. The feeling of being haunted spooked him. He took a five-pound note from his pocket and slid it towards the barman.

‘I've got a question,' he said.

The barman looked at the money, but said nothing.

‘Has he had visitors?' Eddie asked.

The barman rubbed the side of his face. ‘That wouldn't be for me to say, sir.'

Eddie dropped another note on the bar, a tenner. ‘Now can you say?'

The barman leaned forward. He had a skinny face and his eyes were dark slits. ‘Mr Gurk, our resident comedian, had two visitors last week. Dinner companions.'

‘Describe them,' Eddie said.

‘One was a guy in his late sixties about. Thin black hair. Looked dyed. The other was maybe fortyish. Walked with a pronounced limp. They had a few drinks, they stayed the night. That's all I know.'

Eddie looked at the ice melt in his glass. He smelled roasted meat waft from the direction of the kitchen, and strong vegetable matter boil, brussels sprouts, cabbage maybe. Gurk and Jackie and McQueen – all three of them had come to the Seaview to discuss business, but the deal had gone sour. Jackie and Billy McQueen had been murdered, and Gurk was left holding the bag, and probably under pressure from somewhere.