Butcher (18 page)

He felt like a tourist in his own Glasgow.

There was no sign of Scullion, so Perlman wandered, half-expecting at any moment to be stopped and questioned by a Cathedral security guard – but there were none. How about that. He was free to set aside his paranoia, and roam.

He found a plaque on a wall, inscribed to the memory of a certain Lieutenant John Sterling, twenty-three, of the Bombay Army attached to the cavalry of His Highness of Nizam. Sterling ‘fell while gallantly leading an assault against the fort of Dunahooree. MDCCCX XVIII.'

Fighting for Empire, slaughtered, and commemorated in a cathedral. Perlman thought: Imperialism, death, and God – human history, capsule form.

Scullion tapped his shoulder from behind.

Perlman jumped, turned. ‘Oh, it's you.'

‘Who were you expecting?'

‘God mibbe. It's that kind of place.'

Scullion smiled and sat down on one of the wicker chairs that were placed here and there. Perlman sat beside him, deeply relaxed by the serene almost liquid quality of light.

Scullion said, ‘Let's talk about this hand of yours.'

‘All ears.'

‘No
prints
.'

‘No what?'

‘Burned off. Sid says a blowtorch might have been used. Lysergic acid hurried the process. The serious decomposition is a hindrance.'

Somebody began playing scales on an organ hidden somewhere. Hands on keys, hands in ziploc baggies. Perlman looked down at his own hands, studying the fine hair on the backs of his fingers. He remembered Latta's wolfman hands, hairy horrors.
Polisman haunted by hands. Checks into rest home
.

‘What the hell is Tigge doing, Sandy?'

‘Head stuck in a computer, scanning missing persons lists. I don't think he likes leaving the office and hitting the streets.'

‘He's a
teuchter
, he doesn't
know
the streets. He hasn't bothered his arse to interview me. Odd, considering where the damned thing was found.'

‘Skip Tigge, what have
you
been doing?'

‘Outsky aboutsky. Poking my nose in here and there.'

‘Knocking on some funny doors, eh? Hanging out with scruff, tap-dancing in shady lanes?'

‘These are a few of my favourite things.'

‘You're a secretive bugger, Lou.'

‘Born furtive.'

‘Grapevine chatter is you had the sorry task of ID-ing your cleaning lady's son.'

‘She's more like a friend who wants to put my house in order.' A friend. He'd promoted her already.

‘She'll need your shoulder to lean on. Her kid's victim number three in the last two weeks. Nouveau-riche Chinese capitalists are crying out for new organs.'

‘I'm never sorry for rich capitalist pigs, Chinese or otherwise.'

‘I talked to an old acquaintance of yours. Reuben Chuck. He thinks the world of you.'

‘It's not a mutual appreciation. I haven't seen Chuck in, oh, two years, George Square, Christmas insanity. We exchanged some chitchat.
Bred any good crooks lately bla bla
?'

‘A killer routine, Lou.'

‘Here, Stanley Baxter used to steal my stuff. What struck me most was the woman with him. Glorianna … I didn't get her last name. Easy on the eye, articulate, not your standard crim-crumpet. She was loaded down with Armani bags, aye, but I don't think she was fluff along with Chuck for the material ride.' Perlman remembered her eyes the colour of drinking chocolate, and black hair suffused with small blonde touches. She'd worn a full-length fur coat that didn't conceal the slimness of figure. ‘If Chuck's on your score-sheet, Sandy, nail the bastard.'

‘You tried a few times.'

‘He's slippery as a rat in a drainpipe.'

‘You should see his digs. Penthouse luxury. He invited me for dinner at his upmarket bistro. And oh – check this: he's got himself a guru, a certain Baba Ragada.'

‘Guru.' Perlman emitted an involuntary scoff at the word.

‘Chuck seems to rate him.'

‘He's probably donating a bunch of money. Thinks he can buy anything, enlightenment included.'

‘If I drilled his head to a wall with a twelve inch nail that might enlighten him quick.'

‘It would get his attention.'

The organist played ‘Abide With Me' and then struck a bum chord, at which point he segued into a couple of Jerry Lee Lewis boogie riffs before he stopped, leaving a silence that vibrated.

‘Cool,' Perlman said. ‘Whole Lotta Shakin. God allows rock in His house. I like this place.'

‘I don't think God heard. Since we're talking about Chuck, here's a sad wee story for you.'

‘Och, gimme something to cheer me up,' Perlman said.

‘I'd like to, believe me. Guy called Samuel Montague, bank manager, was brought into Pitt Street earlier this morning. His house in Bearsden was invaded yesterday by a gang of three Neanderthals breaking stuff, abusing his wife. They wanted a favour.'

‘Funny way of asking,' Perlman said.

‘Brutal. In return for his wife's safety, he was obliged to provide the password to a bank account in Aruba. Montague's understandably desperate, steals the info, then goes home expecting to find his wife safe and free …' Sandy Scullion paused.

‘Do I want to hear this, Sandy?'

‘You're going to. The poor bastard finds her naked, hanging by a black leather strap in the attic. He's hysterical, out of control, calls the local cops who can't get a coherent statement out of him. Paramedics shoot Montague with enough dope to fell a giraffe. When he comes round hours later, he's still disoriented, so they shunt him over to HQ. They assume we're better equipped to handle him.'

‘Where does Chuck come in?'

‘Getting to that. Montague supplied these intruders with the password to a bank account in Aruba which was the property of the recently dead Jimmy Bram Stoker. Now who'd want access to Bram Stoker's money?'

A penny rolled swiftly down a chute in Perlman's head. ‘Whoever seized the badlands and couldn't find Stoker's stash.'

‘Could be Chuck.'

‘Lots of luck proving it.' Perlman tipped his chair back to the wall. ‘That rumour about Stoker's hidden zillions has gone round Glasgow so many times it's developed a serious case of vertigo. The tax gestapo had a season ticket to. Jimmy's anus, and they were up there regularly with microscopes, but even
they
couldn't find it.'

‘Well, somebody's trying to find it now, and I'm praying Montague remembers some little detail. Maybe a name, or a peculiar accent. Or he might just recognize somebody when he's rational enough to go through the mug shots – although these bastards wore scarves over their faces. But they might have left something behind. They usually overlook a little thing.'

‘Or we'd never catch them,' Perlman said.

Scullion glanced at his watch. ‘I need to get back.'

Perlman accompanied him out of the cathedral, where clouds had begun to drift across the formerly clear blue sky. Glasgow darkening: rain by noon. Count on it.

‘Bram the bampot,' he said, and stuck his hands in his pockets, swaying a little on his heels as he stared back up at the spire. ‘He had a thousand mourners at his funeral. All those thicknecked thugs and their stout wives in black gear
weeping
for this piece of human
schmatta
.'

Scullion said, ‘Gangster glamour.'

‘Is that what you call it?'

Perlman shook his head in despair. A thousand mourners for a monster. In this disaffected world, criminals attained the status of superstars and developed an obedient following. Jimmy Stoker might have been a minor pope, for all the pomp and grief of his burial. Pope Bram the First.

Scullion walked to his car. ‘I'll be in touch.'

‘What made you want to meet here?'

Scullion smiled a little. ‘Faith, Lou. I'm in constant danger of losing mine, and I need a reminder every now and again.'

‘What faith?'

‘A simple one. That there's an order in the world.'

‘And you get that here?'

‘You'd be surprised.'

Perlman watched him drive away.

Scullion's faith: in all the years he'd known the man, it was the first time he'd ever heard Sandy mention any. The things you don't know about the people close to you. He studied the spire for a while and wondered about the faith of the men who'd built it. The higher you rose, the closer you got to God.

It must have seemed a good idea at the time.

24

Treading water at the deep end of his glass-walled rooftop pool, Reuben Chuck said, ‘Run that again. The woman's what?'

Ronnie Mathieson, who stood at the edge of the pool in a black suit, spoke quietly. ‘Dead, Mr Chuck. Hung herself.'

Reuben Chuck stared through his streaky goggles. ‘Hung herself by the neck, is this what you're sayin?'

‘Big Rooney says she was going round in her nightie, flashing her tits, groping the lads.'

‘Are you tellin me this bird was actin the hoor? This was a respectable woman, a banker's wife, not some five quid bint workin a street corner.'

Mathieson looked unhappy. ‘Yeh, but she was making herself available so, ah … so they sort of took turns at her. More than once.'

‘She screwed the crew, eh? And why do you suppose she hung herself, Mathieson?'

Mathieson shrugged. ‘Guilt. Shame. I'm guessing, Mr Chuck.'

Chuck dismissed this. ‘What I think is they gang-banged her stupid and then hoisted her themselves so she can never tell anybody what we did. A buncha gorillas would've behaved better.'

Mathieson said, ‘I'm only the messenger, Mr Chuck.'

‘I laid down the law on this one. I was specific.'

‘I gave them your instructions word for word, Mr Chuck.'

Chuck snapped off his goggles and stared at Mathieson. It was the killer stare, the one nobody liked to see. ‘I count on you, Mathieson.'

‘I wasn't at the scene to prevent this.'

‘Mibbe closer attention to these vermin and this wouldn't have happened.'

‘I can't be everywhere at once, Mr Chuck.'

Chuck scratched his wet hairy chest. Mathieson was loyal insofar as you could ever be certain about any man's fidelity. But he'd taken his eye off the ball, that's what he'd done. He sent the wrong crew. When it called for a modicum of finesse, he'd sent brainless hooligans who couldn't follow instructions even if they'd been written in bold crayon by five-year-old kids.

Chuck's fingernails dug the flesh of his palms. Disobedience was first cousin to disloyalty. He'd been very specific, no more blood. Don't lay a finger on anybody unless
absolutely essential
. No more polis fuel. Possible ammunition for the polis, even if Chuck didn't fear them, was not a bright idea. He wanted at least a semblance of calm after all the blood that had been spilled. One day he wanted to open a newspaper that didn't have the word Gangland in it. Let me sail my boat in quiet waters and enjoy this life.

‘Big Rooney – and who else was on the team?'

‘Stipp and wee Vic.'

‘Wee Vic? He's a
perv
. He'd stick his willie into a cup of maggots. Why did you send him?'

‘I let Rooney choose the team.'

‘Why did you let that scrote choose? He's a stick of gelly waitin for a match. Your judgement's out the window, Ronnie. I telt you, pick men you can rely on. Do I have to do everythin myself? Do I?'

Mathieson had the pale look of a man whose parachute remained stubbornly closed at five thousand feet and dropping.

‘And where's the husband, Ronnie?'

Mathieson stroked his chin with an unsteady hand. ‘I hear he's in polis custody, Mr Chuck.'

‘Answerin questions, is he?'

‘He can't identify anyone.'

‘How do you know that? How can you be
sure
of that?'

Mathieson was silent, chewing the inside of his mouth. He looked down into the pool where water was disturbed, foamed by Chuck's movements. He took a few steps back from the edge. Because he was a non-swimmer, pools made him wary. And the fact that Glorianna was stretched out on a lounger at the shallow end and hearing Chuck's anger, added to his discomfort.

Now Chuck fell into a fulminating silence, and looked past Mathieson at Glorianna, whose face was hidden behind a magazine. She wore a cream bikini and a gold bracelet, and she had one leg raised, angled suggestively.

I remember when we were at each other like two cats in heat, Chuck thought. He had a surprise underwater erection, hard as Rothesay rock. Auld Lang Syne. He hadn't felt this desire in a while. Celibacy was a killer.

‘Should you not be on your way somewhere, Glori?' he asked.

‘Is it that time already?'

‘Close enough,' Chuck said. ‘You know the address?'

‘Welded to my memory.'

‘You'll need to take a taxi, doll. Charge it to the Fitness account.'

‘I thought Ronnie would drive me—'

‘I'm no finished talkin to Ronnie yet.'

She'd been looking forward to travelling in the Jag. It was the least Chuck could provide, considering she was setting out to do business on his behalf. But no, she was dismissed, get yourself a cab, charge it. Thank you, Reuben. Oh, thank you for making me feel like just another employee on the Big Man's payroll.

She rose from the lounger and padded barefoot along the tiles. She took her magazine with her. She'd been reading an article entitled Five Sexiest Couples in Hollywood.

‘See you later,' Chuck called out to her.

She snubbed him, didn't look back to answer. She left the pool area and began to dress in Chuck's spare bedroom where an ornately framed photo of Baba sat on the dressing-table surrounded by a few rose petals and some quartz crystals. A wee shrine to the guru: what's
happened
to you, Reuben Chuck?