Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid (22 page)

‘Oh aye?’

‘The demon drink, I’m afraid,’ said the tramp and flicked the neck of the wine bottle with his fingernail. ‘Of course, I wasn’t the only one who was somewhat over-fond of the sauce. I just happened to get caught being squiffy on the job a few times too many. That and the fact that most of the top bods couldn’t bear the sight of me. Truth is, I never have got on very well with authority figures.’

MacFarland snorted. ‘Huh. Tell me about it.’

‘Spot of bother with your… employers, eh?’

‘Ye could say that, aye.’

The old man finished off the wine and dropped the empty bottle into a waste bin at his end of the bench before pulling a full one from inside his overcoat. ‘Care to share the gory details?’

‘Some other time mebbe,’ said MacFarland, wincing from the fire which shot up his leg as he levered himself up into a standing position.

‘Something I said, dear boy?’

‘Nae, yir fine. Have tae be on ma way is all.’

‘The aforementioned employer, eh?’

MacFarland’s eyes narrowed as he watched the tramp take a corkscrew from another pocket in his overcoat and open the fresh bottle of wine. There was something about this guy that bothered him. Not the stories about football or all the doctor stuff. They were harmless enough even if they were – as he suspected – a load of bollocks. No, it was more a feeling that he seemed a little too… over friendly. And why had he turned up when he did? Why hadn’t he gone to one of the other vacant benches? Hell, he thought, maybe the old bugger just liked to chat and he happened to be the nearest victim. Anyway, he’d got more important things to worry about right now, like telling Harry Vincent how he’d cocked up yet again.

‘You sure you don’t want me to take a look at that foot?’ said the tramp when MacFarland tried to put weight on it and gasped with the pain.

‘It’ll be fine. Just a wee bruise, I expect.’

The old man raised the bottle as if he were proposing a toast. ‘Oh well. Here’s to a complete and speedy recovery. Nice to meet you, Mr… Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’

‘MacFarland. Jimmy.’

‘Julian Bracewell, at your service.’

He tipped the bottle to his mouth and drank deeply. MacFarland turned and half hopped, half limped his way across the street to the hotel. He hoisted himself up the steps, relying heavily on the handrail for support, and was heading for the revolving door when he suddenly changed direction and made for the more conventional door instead. The moment he took hold of the handle, he thought he heard someone shout, ‘And don’t forget to give my regards to Harry.’

He spun round, but the tramp had vanished.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

When Delia got back to the room, Harry was still sitting at the desk, munching on a panini. He swivelled his chair to face him and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, his expression negating any need to put the question into words.

Delia shrugged. ‘Sorry, Harry. He was already on his way down in the lift, and by the time I got down the stairs, he’d disappeared.’

‘Oh for f—’ Harry slammed his fist down onto the desk with such force that everything on it jumped, including the gun. ‘So where’s MacFarland?’

Delia’s shrug was even more emphatic. ‘Didn’t see him.’

Harry heaved himself out of the chair and stomped over to the window. ‘I ‘ave to say, I’m not undisappointed, Delia,’ he said, looking down at the street below. ‘I mean, I expect the Scotch git and all the other muppets to fuck up, but not you. You, I thought I could rely on.’

‘What can I say, Harry? The little sod was just too quick for me. I’m not as young—’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Harry with a curt wave of the hand. ‘He’s not that important anyway. But if Porridge Boy loses the tart as well, I’m twenty-five grand down the toilet.’

He returned his attention to scouring the street for any sign of MacFarland and the woman, and Delia wandered over to the room service trolley and picked up one of the two remaining pints of lager. He took a sip and then removed the aluminium lid from one of the plates. He eyed the panini, chips and onion rings with suspicion and tried a chip. As he’d suspected, it was stone cold.

‘’Ang on a minute. What the…?’

At the sound of Harry’s voice, Delia replaced the lid over the food and looked up. Harry had his right cheek pressed against the window and was wiping his condensed breath from the glass with his sleeve. He seemed to be straining to get a better view of something which was on the edge of his range of vision.

‘He’s only sat on a bench ‘avin’ a good old chat with some bloody tramp,’ said Harry, his voice distorted by the pressure of the glass on the side of his mouth.

‘Who? Mac?’ Delia joined Harry at the window and pushed his own face against the glass, scanning the area outside until he spotted the bench in question.

* * *

‘Where the fuck ’ave you been?’ said Harry when MacFarland hobbled into the room. ‘More to the point, where’s the tart with my twenty-five grand?’

MacFarland hopped to the nearest bed and slumped, his face contorted in pain as he massaged his foot. ‘She got away. Sorry, boss.’

‘What’s the matter with your foot?’ said Delia.

‘Stupid
bitch
ran over it.’

‘Never mind his bloody foot. Just tell me she didn’t get away with my money.’

‘Believe me, boss. I only wish I could.’

‘Jesus wept,’ said Harry and slapped his palm hard against his forehead. ‘So you wanna tell me how a big tough Glaswegian hardman like you managed to get shafted by some bloody tart – and an unarmed bloody tart at that?’

MacFarland opened his mouth to speak, but Harry motioned him to silence. ‘And while you’re at it, you might want to put some serious thought into givin’ me one good reason why I shouldn’t separate you from your precious meat and two veg with a fucking chainsaw.’

By the time Harry finished the sentence, his voice had increased in volume to such an extent that he was screaming like a jet engine on full thrust. His face had turned a vivid shade of crimson, and every visible vein seemed to have more than doubled in size.

MacFarland swallowed. ‘Thing is, boss,’ he said, ‘it wasnae just her. The wee bawbag was there too. I couldnae figure out why ye’d let him go.’

Delia couldn’t remember ever having seen Harry flustered before – or even mildly embarrassed – so his reaction on this occasion was one to be treasured in the memory. He transformed the beginnings of a smirk into a cough as Harry said, ‘Never mind that. Just… just get on with it.’

Taking a deep breath, MacFarland explained how he’d gone with the woman to her car and about the tricks she’d used to try and escape. When they’d got to the car, he’d kept his gun on her while she’d opened the glove compartment, which is where she’d said the money was. The next thing he knew, the dog tried to take a chunk out of him and—

‘Dog? What dog?’

‘She had a dog in the back o’ the car. Big bastard too. Teeth like ye’ve never seen.’ He went on to describe in some detail how the dog had launched itself at him and the woman had used the distraction to grab a pistol from the glove box. By then, the dog had MacFarland’s gun arm clamped between its massive jaws, so the weapon was useless. With his free hand he’d knocked the dog unconscious with an uppercut and, at exactly the same time, lashed out with his foot and sent the woman’s gun flying. But just when he’d thought he’d got the situation back under control, he’d felt a heavy blow to the back of his head. ‘I must’ve been out for a coupla seconds because when I came to, the bastards were driving off. That’s when they ran over ma bloody foot.’

As if to reinforce the point, he bent down to give it a rub, although Delia suspected this was simply a sham to avoid Harry’s piercing stare. There was a lengthy pause, the only sound coming from Harry cracking his knuckles, one… by one… by one…

‘So ‘ow d’you know it was our bloke that jumped yer?’ Harry said at last.

‘Sorry, boss?’

‘Well, you say you got whacked from behind. So ‘ow come you knew who it was?’

Delia noticed MacFarland become even more attentive to his latest injury. Christ, Harry might be a loud-mouthed, uneducated slob, but he wasn’t stupid. He couldn’t fail to see that the guy was lying his arse off. A dangerous game to play when you’re up against the likes of Harry Vincent, he thought. A very dangerous game indeed.

‘Er… I saw him in the car. Aye. When they drove off like,’ MacFarland blurted out eventually.

With slow deliberation, Harry picked up the gun from the desk and tapped the tip of the barrel against his front teeth. ‘Okay, so what about this dog? This hound of the fucking Baskervilles.’

‘Aye, big bastard it was.’

‘And it ‘ad yer by the arm, you say.’

‘Tae right, boss. Hurt like buggery.’ He moved his foot-massaging hand and gingerly laid the palm onto his forearm.

Harry nodded towards the arm. ‘Roll it up then, ‘Aggis.’

‘Uh?’

‘The sleeve. I wanna ‘ave a butchers at this nasty dog bite of yours. I mean, you can’t be too careful with dog bites. Tet’nus. Gangrene. Rabies even. You might need medical attention.’ Harry’s face twisted into a leering grin, and his eyes were those of a predator that knew it had its prey trapped and totally at its mercy. ‘You see how much I care about yer.’

‘Thing is, I dinnae think it actually broke the skin ‘cos I—’

Harry’s grin vanished, and he whipped the gun round to point it at MacFarland’s forehead. ‘Roll – up – your – fucking – sleeve.’

MacFarland stole an imploring glance at Delia, but there was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable.

‘Whassa matter? You want Delia to do it for yer?’

MacFarland’s hand slid down his arm towards the button on his shirt cuff. ‘Ye know anyone called Julian Bracewell?’ he said quietly.

‘What?’ Harry’s expression instantly changed to that of prey rather than predator, and all trace of colour flooded from his cheeks.

‘I think that was the name anyways,’ said MacFarland, who seemed to be making very little progress unbuttoning his sleeve.

‘Julian Bracewell?’

‘Aye. He said tae give ye his regards.’

‘When?’

‘Just now. I’d sat down on a wee bench outside tae rest ma foot for a minute, and this soap dodgin’ auld wino comes up and…’

His voice tailed away as Harry got to his feet and dropped the gun onto the desk before slowly making his way over to the window. MacFarland gave up all pretence at fiddling with his shirt button and seemed to have a sudden flash of inspiration.

‘Hey, wait a wee second,’ he said. ‘Julian Bracewell. I thought the name was familiar. But I thought he was deid.’

‘Well he’s either a fucking ghost or I was sadly misinformed about ‘is very timely demise.’ Harry had his back to them and his voice sounded muffled. ‘Either way, it seems as if our Mr Bracewell‘s come back to haunt me, and if that’s the case, we could well find ourselves in some seriously deep shit in the very near future.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

She lay on her back on the rear seat of the Peugeot, her legs wide apart, writhing and squirming and occasionally letting out a soft moan of pleasure.

‘At least someone seems happy,’ said Sandra, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

Trevor screwed his head round to see that Milly was indeed exhibiting every physical manifestation of a dog who was beside herself with ecstasy. She’d treated them both to an impressive display of acrobatics when they’d first returned to the car, but by the time they’d reached the outskirts of the city, her unrestrained joy had given way to a rather less energetic demonstration of contented bliss. They were on the road again, which meant that the reunion was not a temporary one. More than that, they were on their way to some new destination which would no doubt be abundant with fresh sights and smells and, with a bit of luck, a mouthwatering array of ground-level snacks.

Soon after they’d made their escape, Sandra had quizzed Trevor about how he’d managed to get away from Harry, and he’d told her the whole story, adding that he’d been surprised the Delia guy hadn’t caught up with him before the revolving door incident.

He’d asked her about the cigarette packets, and it turned out he’d been right that she’d opened one of them while he was having a pee at the side of the road, but that didn’t explain where she’d got the replacement pack from.

‘Like I told Harry,’ she’d said. ‘I quit smoking. Six months, one week and four days ago to be precise. Never really thought I’d hack it, so I always made sure I had some with me. Still do. Silk Cut blue label. Not
quite
the same as Harry’s purple of course but close enough.’

‘Yeah, until he opened the bloody thing,’ Trevor had said.

Since then – and up until the moment that Sandra commented on Milly’s antics on the back seat – the two of them had barely exchanged more than a few words. Sandra had been concentrating on finding her way out of the city as quickly as possible but without damaging any innocent pedestrians, and Trevor had simply stared through the windscreen in a daze of catatonic stupor. His mind had gone into rewind and then fast forward, freeze-framing intermittently as he struggled to make sense of the last couple of days, and especially the last hour or so. It wasn’t that long ago that his only excitement in life was sitting down in front of the TV on a Saturday night to check the lottery results or finding there was fifty per cent off frozen peas at his local supermarket.