Snapshot (40 page)

‘You tell me.’

‘Oh I will. Even though you know already. I found two photographs filed together. A kid called Rory McCabe and our old friend Steven Strathie. As soon as I saw the name McCabe I knew I was right. The picture of Strathie meant I’d hit the jackpot.’

He was grinning smugly. So smart. Winter wanted to smash his face in.

‘There was a link right there. Those marks on their chest. Identical. The blow-ups of them that you had left no doubt about that. Now I didn’t know what they meant but I knew they put McCabe in the middle of the case. Yet you didn’t think to mention that to Alex Shirley or Nightjar, did you?’

‘Fuck you.’

Monteith ignored him and went on.

‘No, you didn’t. Now that is either because you were too fucking thick to make the connection or because you were in thick with your crooked mate Addison.’

There was a third reason, a worse one in many ways, but Winter wasn’t for sharing it with Monteith. He wasn’t going to give the cop anything never mind the shameful fact that a bit of him was happy to let the Dark Angel carry on at that point. He just looked back at him blankly. Monteith could think what he wanted.

‘Nothing to say, eh?’ he smirked. ‘Idiot or up to your neck in it. Has to be one or the other.’

‘So what does that say about you, Monteith? ’Cos I’m betting you didn’t take that bit of info to the Temple either.’

Winter knew it was a mistake the second the words were out of his mouth and winced as he took another kick, to his right knee, the one he injured earlier. Monteith put his weight right through it and it stung like hell.

‘You don’t tell me what I should have done, you cunt. You don’t get to tell me anything. I am a cop. I get to do what I want, you don’t.’

‘Anything you want?’ Winter asked him. Monteith shook his head.

It was Winter’s turn to stare back at his captor, but Monteith wasn’t for biting just yet.

‘I checked the case file and the kid McCabe was beaten up in the street. Stupid wee fucker done over by other stupid wee fuckers. I read through it but it seemed no big deal. But then I ran McCabe’s name through the computer and found out that he’d been interviewed after his best mate died of an overdose. A kid called Keiran McKendrick. Sound familiar?’

Winter shrugged but Monteith just laughed.

‘Doesn’t matter either way. It was more drugs and I knew right away it fitted. Not sure you would have the brains to do that.’

Winter took the bait.

‘So that’s why you went to see Mrs McKendrick in Whitevale Street, is it, Monteith?’

The cop looked surprised but it was quickly replaced by a sleek grin.

‘You know that? Yes, of course you do. That’s how you found out about this place. The old bat must have told you about it the same as she did to me. Silly cow barely knew what day it was but she remembered the place her precious son kept banging on about. If only she could see him now, eh?’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Accident. I told you.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

Monteith closed his eyes briefly then opened them to look right through him.

‘Winter, you know that Mafia line about how if I told you then I’d have to kill you?’

He nodded.

‘Well if I tell you then I’ll have to kill you.’

Winter let the suggestion settle on him. He’d already come to the conclusion that he’d had it anyway.

‘Like you killed McKendrick?’

He shook his head at Winter with what looked like a rueful smile.

‘Have it your way, dead man. But like I said, it was an accident. Not going to be worth your life.’

Winter wasn’t sure what would be worth that but he knew he wanted to hear it.

‘Like I said, as soon as I knew the McKendrick kid was involved with drugs then I knew I was on the right track. A wee bit of digging and I discovered he had a brother in the Navy. That was pure gold. Nightjar had already identified the L115A3 as military issue, probably Special Ops. The boxes just kept on getting ticked. I put in a call to Northwood and learned that Ryan McKendrick was officially off active duties after suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Unofficially, they didn’t have a fucking clue where he was.

‘But I did. Thanks to you and his mother. I wasn’t sure what she meant by Grahamston, not at first, but a couple of phone calls and a visit to Google and I was certain. The only problem was finding exactly where he was hiding down here. It’s a big place.’

‘How did you find your way in?’ Winter asked, somehow still hoping that the answer wouldn’t include the lane behind McDonald’s.

‘Through the front fucking door, what do you think? Never you mind, you won’t need to find your way out. You’ll be spending the rest of your days down here. The good news is it won’t be for long.’

‘Oh you’re a funny man, Monteith. You should be on the telly.’

He laughed in Winter’s face, a cackling laugh that disappeared in a flash and was replaced by a snarl and a rifle barrel shoved against Winter’s forehead. He felt it rough and hard and cold, scraping against his skin, pushing his head back.

‘Maybe I will be on the television, Winter. Maybe I am already, maybe all over the world. And I’ll tell you what, I’ll be having the last laugh. Is that all right with you? Is it?’

The bastard was losing it and Winter didn’t want to give him any excuse for squeezing that trigger. He knew he was halfway to dying but as much as he wanted to meet his mother again, he didn’t want it to happen any sooner than it had to. He nodded his head the best he could.

When Winter gave in to him, Monteith seemed to calm down a bit. He pulled the rifle off Winter’s head with one last scrape of the barrel for good measure leaving a tear of skin and a squeeze of blood.

‘As I was saying. I had to find McKendrick down here. Big place but not that hard, even a fuckwit like you managed to do it,’ he sniggered. ‘I wandered around till I found this place; it was obvious he had been here and then all I had to do was wait.’

Monteith hesitated to allow Winter time to be impressed but he wasn’t giving him that satisfaction.

‘The way the sound reverberates down here you can hear someone coming from a long way off, especially if they don’t expect you to be waiting for them. And if they are as stupid as you are. McKendrick was no better.’

He smirked at Winter, daring him to answer but he didn’t.

‘He walked in here and virtually begged me to club him over the back of his head with this four by four. He had a rifle so I had to put him down in one go. He went out like a light. The man was twice your size but went down just the same. There he was, the man they called the Dark Angel, the man they were all talking about, at my feet.’

This guy was seriously fucked in the head. Winter could hear his sense of himself growing with every word that spewed from his mouth. He was boasting that he had managed to knock McKendrick out when the man hadn’t been looking. In his own head, he’d done what no one else could. But what had he done next?

‘Did you talk to him when he came round?’

‘Of course I did. That’s my fucking job. Think I don’t know my job? Of course I talked to him. I wanted to know everything he had to say. He wasn’t exactly shy about it anyway. He was . . . he was pleased with what he did. And so he should have been. He should have been fucking proud of it.’

Monteith was wandering on the spot now as he talked. It was spilling out of him like blood from a wound. Just to be sure, Winter was going to stir his pot even further.

‘What did he have to be proud of?’

He paid for it with the butt of the rifle being spun and crashed against the outside of his left knee. It wasn’t as bad as the kick had been to the other one but the hurt still shot through him, sharp and deep.

‘Are you kidding me? He took out the bastards that were responsible for the shit that was going through the veins of all those kids out there. Quinn and Caldwell got rich, fucking minted, by selling death. They had been fucking up this city and so had the cunts that went before them and those that would have come after them. They’ll think twice now though. Maybe not be so quick to push out drugs if they know there’s someone out there who’s going to take them out.

‘What did he have to be proud of? You’re only a fucking photographer but you’ve still been out there, you’ve seen what that stuff does. Stick insects chasing powder up their nose or firing shite into their veins. Their kids starving and half naked, their chances completely fucked of doing anything other than following in the footsteps of the bampots that spawned them. Entire communities screwed because of that stuff. Stealing off each other, walking round like zombies, no fucking interest or energy in getting a job even if they could stay clean long enough to find someone stupid enough to give them one.

‘Drugs have killed this place. You walk five minutes in any direction from Buchanan Street and all those million-pound shops and you’ll find some poor bastard who barely has the strength to pick up their giro because their body is shot to pieces. You drive five minutes from George Square and you drive past shitholes full of people who never had a fucking chance. You drive fifteen minutes and you hit schemes where those who aren’t on drugs aren’t trusted by anyone else.

‘Do you really think these poor bastards want to spend their lives stealing a fiver from some prick that’s got a fiver more than they have? You really think that girls want to go on the game and blow some fat drunk for a tenner? Think they wanted to grow up and be skanky whores? It’s the fucking drugs and it’s the fucking bastards that push it at them. Of course he should have been proud. He did something when everyone else did fuck all.’

Monteith fell back against the wall, the exertion of his rant leaving him momentarily breathless. Maybe Winter should have known better but he recognized a soft spot when he saw one.

‘Is that why you took over where he left off?’

The cop lifted his head off his chest slowly, his eyes suddenly full of fire. His lip curled back and Winter wished he hadn’t said what he had but that thought was quickly overtaken by pain as Monteith rushed towards him, rifle butt high. He turned his head to the side to avoid the blow but Monteith had fooled him. The kick came to his balls and the pain seared through him like lightning. Winter doubled over as much as the bindings would let him, his balls throbbing and screaming. His eyes watered and he spat out the ache that soured his mouth.

Monteith stood over him, the rifle still clenched between his fists, raising it up and down threateningly but Winter doubted he could hurt him more with the gun than his boot had.

‘I’m telling the fucking story,’ he raged. ‘You just shut up and listen. Just keep your questions to yourself.’

‘Fuck you.’

Monteith giggled at that. An off-the-wall, manic giggle that worried Winter far more than the threat.

‘Listen to the big man. McKendrick did more for this city in a few days than you could do in a lifetime. He took action. He avenged his wee brother and he did so much for this place while he was at it. He had reason to be proud.’

Winter settled for just lifting his eyebrows by way of a question. Monteith was doing fine without prompting. Winter didn’t need any more hurt before the cop did whatever he was going to do.

‘He was more . . . angry, though. Just very angry,’ Monteith continued. ‘Like he had unfinished business. That bothered him more than the fact that I’d knocked him out and taken his rifle off him. He didn’t seem to give a fuck what happened to him except that it stopped him from doing what he’d planned. He just sat there fuming, ready to rip Monteith’s head off the first chance he got. Like a caged bear. I told him that I didn’t blame him for doing what he’d done but it didn’t wash with him. He just wanted to have a go.

‘He kept going on about his brother. How it was his job to look after Kieran and that he’d let him down. How he’d failed him and how he had to make up for that. The poor bastard had lost it. I think the post-traumatic stress disorder thing from the Navy was only half a lie. If you ask me, he was probably wired to the moon before his brother died and it just pushed him over the edge.

‘I asked him how he knew where to get at Caldwell and Quinn and he was happy to tell me. He roughed up some two-bit dealer, the cunt who sold the gear that killed his brother. Shook him down for every bit of info he had, which was plenty. The guy squealed like a stuck pig, told McKendrick everything he needed to know. Places, likely times, habits. Told him about couriers and their schedules. Told him the entire hierarchy of firms across the city. The lot.

‘Then when he had Strathie and Sturrock, he learned more. Beat the shit out of them until they coughed as well. He felt bad about the old boy Turnbull at the services. Shooting him had been a mistake. Still, it all helped lead him to Haddow and Adamson. Bang bang, another two scumbags down. He had a list, a long list. He had all the stuff that we should have had. But even then we couldn’t have taken these bastards down within the law. He didn’t need to bother about that though.’

Monteith stopped and looked at his watch.

‘So what happened to him?’ Winter asked.

‘It’s time for me to go.’

It wasn’t an answer, it was an aside. Winter decided he was going to push his luck.

‘So what happened to McKendrick’s list?’

Nothing.

‘Did someone decide to finish it for him?’

Monteith looked at Winter blankly before coming over behind him and taking his watch off his wrist. Monteith fished into Winter’s left pocket then his right where he found his mobile phone. Standing up again, he dropped both onto the ground in front of him. He looked Winter in the eye again briefly before stamping on first the watch and then the phone. Both lay in bits.

‘I’ve got work to do,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t miss me too much.’

He turned and closed the door behind him, leaving Winter trussed on the floor next to the rotting corpse of a killer, somewhere deep in the bowels of the city. A key turned in the lock from the outside. A bad day had just got a lot worse.

Winter listened to Monteith’s departing footsteps, trying to work out which way he’d headed so that he’d know if he used the same entrance or a different one. It was hopeless though. He’d no idea if the cop had gone straight out or had done something else first. He’d obviously taken the rifle out of the cupboard with him but if he was going on duty then surely he wouldn’t take it above ground with him. That might mean he had planked it somewhere and then headed in another direction. Although the ‘job’ he had to do might have been something else entirely from police work