Screams in the Dark (7 page)

*

Frank had been jittery enough since Tony’s suicide and the subsequent questions by cops probing why a successful lawyer like Murphy would do himself in. But now he felt as if the walls were beginning to close in. He had managed to hold it together for the hour before he came here while Tony’s widow Millie wept on his shoulder over some letter that had arrived in the morning post. It was almost a week since he’d killed himself, so how could a suicide note turn up now? Frank had had a skinful of booze at Tony’s funeral yesterday and was nursing a hangover when Millie called him, bawling down the phone. He’d gone straight out to Murphy’s house, where he found her weeping on the sofa, clutching a letter. He was as baffled as she was he told her, while he read the few short lines …
I couldn’t go on with any more of the lies …

The words had swum in front of him on the page and he had to sit on the sofa to steady himself. It was definitely Tony’s handwriting.

‘What lies?’ Millie had sobbed. ‘What lies, Frank? He must have been having an affair.’

Frank had spread his hands out, apologetically.

‘I don’t think so, Millie. Look, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, but I don’t think so.’

Millie was inconsolable. ‘Then why, Frank? What does he mean? What lies? He must have had a woman.’

Frank had held her as she cried on his shoulder. He didn’t know what to say. If Tony had a bit on the side that was more serious than the occasional illicit shags the pair of them had got up to down the years, then he didn’t know about it. But what the hell: Let Millie think he had a woman. As long as she thought her husband had been betraying her, she wouldn’t suspect anything else, but she’d insisted on phoning the police despite his protests that bringing the cops in would only prolong the anguish. If he
was
having an affair, the woman might be out there, and even if she was tracked down and found, what would be the point of dragging it all up, Frank told her. It wouldn’t bring Tony back, and it might just pile on the agony for Millie and the kids. But she was having none of it.

She phoned the cops, and he had to sit there and listen while the two detectives who had been at his office that morning quizzed him again about exactly what he saw when he arrived at the office. He told them again. Only the cleaner Tanya was in the office when he arrived. It was she who found Tony hanging. There was nothing on his desk, because the first thing he had looked for was a suicide note, but there was nothing. He had even said
to Tanya at the time that he didn’t know what he was going to tell Millie. He was as bewildered as the cops as to where the note had come from. They asked him if the Tanya woman could have taken the note, and Frank dismissed it. She was just the cleaning lady who came in for an hour in the morning. And no, Tony was not having an affair with the Ukrainian office cleaner. He was certain of that much.

*

He ordered another Jack Daniels. It wasn’t whether or not Tony was having an affair that made his guts churn, but the idea that there was a letter from Tony at all. What if there were more letters? He wondered if one would arrive at his house or office – if it did, he certainly wouldn’t be calling in the cops. But right now there was an even more pressing matter: striding towards him with a face like thunder was big Al Howie, flanked by two of his henchmen.

‘Frank.’ Big Al looked down his nose at him, his eyes narrow with contempt. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll see you up in the office. Got a phone call to make first.’

Frank nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, but Al – cocky bastard that he was – was gone before he had time.

Al Howie was always tipped to be the man who would take over Big Jake Cox’s mob if it ever came to the crunch. He’d grown up under Jake’s watchful eye, coming into the family as a tearaway teenager with balls like coconuts, who was as handy with a knife as he was with a gun. After the statutory stints in young offenders’ institutions
and graduation to a stretch in jail, Jake had used him as an enforcer for drug debts and watched with pride as his protégé carved out a reputation for violence that even he would struggle to match. But Al was an even bigger psycho than Big Jake, and with Jake now more on the sidelines since his near-fatal shooting in Spain last year, the word on the street was that there would be a bloodbath if Al were left to run Jake’s turf. He wasn’t old school like Jake. Frank shuddered involuntarily. He knew exactly what Howie was. Big Al had no boundaries, no lines he wouldn’t cross; he was one of the most chilling bastards he’d ever encountered. Added to that he was a total cokehead, and since he wasn’t yet forty, he still had a lot of damage to do.

Frank waited and looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes and still no call to go upstairs. He watched another stripper and sipped his drink.

‘Nice tits.’ Clock Buchanan, one of Al’s henchmen came up beside him. ‘You’ve to go up.’ He stood facing Frank, with one hand in his jacket pocket.

Frank looked at him, and glanced at the hand in his jacket. Clock’s real name was Billy, but the nickname came from a birth deformity that had left him with a withered left hand, much smaller than the right. In the Glasgow housing scheme where he grew up, they weren’t big on sympathy towards anyone who stood out from the crowd, even if it was because of a physical handicap. So they nicknamed him Clock, on account of his big hand and wee hand. Clock had told Frank the story himself, and said that as long as his good hand could pull the
trigger of a gun and handle a knife that was all that mattered.

‘Come on,’ Clock said. ‘I’ll take you up, but I’ve got to go out to get something for Al.’

Frank got off his stool and followed Clock along the front of the stage into the darkness of the musty hallway and up the tight stairway.

*

‘What’s this pish I’m hearing, Frank, that you don’t want to work with us any more?’

From behind his desk, Big Al motioned him to sit down. ‘By the way, sorry about Tony. Fuck’s sake, man.’

He sniffed and touched his nose. ‘Got to be better ways to top yourself than hanging from the ceiling.’

Frank didn’t answer. His mouth was dry. He sat down.

Al looked at him and folded his arms. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

Frank could feel the damp on the palms of his hands. ‘I’m just worried, Al. It’s not that I don’t want to work with you. Not that at all. But this business … this refugee business … I just don’t think it can go on indefinitely.’ Frank shifted in his seat. ‘What if something comes out.’

Al looked impatient. ‘How the fuck is it going to come out, Frank? Tell me. How? Nobody gives a toss about these bastards. It’s not as if they’re doing a head count every day, making sure they’re all there.’ He snorted. ‘It’s working for the boys down south and they’re not having a problem with it – London, Liverpool, Manchester – they’re doing it and making big money. That’s why we’re
in it. We’re all getting a share of it, but we’ve got to provide our share, Frank. That’s the deal. This is the future.’

Al took a wrap of cocaine out of his drawer and opened it. ‘You knew that from the start, Frank. You knew the deal. You can’t back out now.’ He emptied the contents onto to the polished tabletop and chopped it into two lines. He looked up at Frank and raised his eyebrows.

‘Want a wee toot, Frank? It’ll make you feel better.’

Frank shook his head and swallowed as he watched Al roll up a twenty-pound note and snort a line, then sit back.

‘Good stuff that. The fucking business.’ He sniffed, studying Frank.

‘That bloke,’ Frank said. ‘The one last week, from the two guys I gave you. One got away, your boys said. Did you get him yet?’

‘It’s under control, Frank,’ Al said. ‘You don’t need to know shit like that.’

‘But that’s what I mean, Al. It’s not under control if suddenly there’s some guy out there who can talk about what happened.’

Al said nothing. He lit a cigarette.

Frank sat forward. ‘And what about that body in the Clyde? That torso? I read in the
Post
it was a torso. There’s all sorts of speculation about it – ritual killing, drug murder. Then I heard something about organs being removed or something. Might even be a refugee, the paper said.’ Frank was trying to keep calm. ‘That was one of
your guys wasn’t it, Al? How the fuck did it end up in the Clyde?’

Al burst out laughing. But it was more the manic laughter that unnerves you than the kind you want to join in with.

‘I know. I asked the same question myself. Fucking hell. Try explaining that one away – a fucking headless torso with no lungs or heart. No baws either.’

‘What happened, Al? How did it get there?’

Suddenly the door opened and Clock, along with the other sidekick came in, both of them dragging along a skinny guy with a badly bruised face. He was filthy and smelling.

Al got up from his desk.

‘You want to know how it got there, Frank? Ask this cunt.’

The skinny guy could barely stand up. His face was puffy and bloodstained, but Frank recognised him as Tam Logan, a small-time hood who worked for Big Jake.

Frank looked at Tam, who winced in pain as his arms were being pinned behind his back.

‘He got greedy, Frank. Wee Tam got greedy. Simple as that,’ Al said.

Frank looked from Al to Tam. His stomach was in knots. He was afraid to speak.

‘He didn’t just get greedy, he got
brave
.’ Al’s mouth curled a little. ‘This wee fuckwit even thought he could blackmail us. Can you imagine that? Fucker was going to blackmail me.
Me!
’ He shook his head and his voice went up an octave.

‘What do you mean?’ Frank ventured.

‘He stole the fucking torso.’ Al said.

‘Stole it?’

‘Aye, stole it.’ He sniffed. ‘You know something, Frank? I gave Tam a break from the run-of-the mill jobs. Paid him big money to drive the van up and down to Manchester with the containers. You’d think he’d be grateful wouldn’t you?’ Al looked at Frank, who said nothing.

‘Aye,’ Al went on. ‘He should have been grateful. He wasn’t getting asked to shoot or slash anyone, or steal fuck all. No drugs involved, just drive the van and drop the stuff off. But no. Tam had to get nosy. He went on a wee spying mission like James fucking Bond and saw what was going on. Then he gets brave and decides he can make big money by blackmailing me.’

Frank could see the beads of sweat beginning to appear on Al’s top lip, the more he was winding himself up.

‘I wouldn’t have done it, Al,’ Tam squeaked. ‘Honest, big man. I just went a bit crazy. I’d never have done it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, big man.’

‘A bit late to be sorry, Tam.’ Al turned to Frank, his eyes glassy. ‘You see what I’m up against Frank. You were saying what if things get out. Well, as long as you have wee arseholes like Tam among us – people who might open their trap – there’s always that chance.’

He went back to his desk and opened a drawer. He took out a gun. Frank felt his head swim. He thought he was going to pass out. Al walked across the room towards Tam.

‘So, you have to get rid of the traitors.’

By the time the last word was out, he had fired the gun into Tam Logan’s chest at point-blank range. Tam slumped, his mouth open in a protest he didn’t get the chance to make.

‘Oh, fuck, Al.’ Frank put his hands to his face. ‘Jesus Christ man. You’ve killed him.’

‘That was the idea, Frank. Christ, you’re good.’ Al walked back to his desk and put the gun in the drawer. He snorted the other line of coke and sat back, looking at Frank, his pale-grey eyes narrowed. ‘Anyway,’ he half smiled. ‘You’re a bit pale. Don’t worry, Frank, did you think you were next?’ He chuckled.

Frank felt sick. He watched in silence as Clock and the sidekick dragged Tam out of the door, the blood bubbling out of his chest and onto the floor. Al sat staring, his face cold and expressionless. He’s completely fucking mad, Frank thought. Insane.

‘Right,’ Al said, eventually. ‘You might as well go now, Frank. I just brought you along so you could witness that wee situation there.’ He looked him in the eye. ‘Know what I mean, pal? Just in case you get some kind of crisis of conscience and feel like turning us all in.’ He sniggered. ‘Not that any fucker would believe you anyway.’

Frank stood up and felt his legs weak under him.

‘Just keep up the good work, Frank,’ Al said. ‘And stop worrying.’

Frank said nothing. He nodded his head slightly, then turned and left the room.

CHAPTER 8

Tanya glanced back at the wall clock in the hallway as she pushed open the door of Frank Paton’s office. At the most she had half an hour to see what she could find. She had no real idea what she was looking for, but she hoped there would be something, some tiny bit of information that would give her an idea what it was that was making Frank Paton so edgy these days. Ever since that day she’d overheard the men seeming to threaten him in his office, Tanya had been watching him closely. She could have put his mood down to grief over the suicide of his best friend, but the dark shadows under his eyes and the redness of his face from booze had got worse since those men told him he couldn’t back out of whatever it was he was involved in. And now, since the visit from the police over the suicide note, he looked even more wrecked.

Last night, as Tanya had sat in her tiny flat planning her next move, she’d asked herself why she was even bothering to find out what Frank was involved in. What
was it to her? It should mean nothing. Because even though whatever it was probably involved Tony, it had been made crystal clear to her from the suicide letter and what she saw at Tony’s funeral, that she’d played no real part in his life. She was nothing. But still, she couldn’t let it go.

She had surprised herself at how calm she’d been when the detectives arrived at the office to go back over again exactly what she saw when she discovered Tony’s body. Tanya had been expecting them after she’d sent the letter to Millie, and she was prepared. She’d looked suitably bewildered when they asked if there was any note on his desk. She’d shrugged. She would never look on Mr Murphy’s desk she told them. He had always told her to leave his desk as it was and never touch it, because he had his own system where he knew where everything was. So she didn’t even pay any attention to his desk. She’d been so shocked when she saw him hanging from the ceiling, that was all she could see. Tanya had filled up as she spoke about her ordeal that morning. It had been a convincing performance, and she’d found herself feeling quite proud later as she walked back to her flat.