The Bad Fire (31 page)

Gurk wondered, but never asked. Asking would be unhealthy. Perhaps fatal. He wasn't finished with this incarnation anyway. Things to do. Discoveries to make.

‘I picked your message up,' Kaminsky said. ‘McQueen has perished. This is bad.'

‘Yeh,' Tommy Gurk said, remembering McQueen's invitation to dinner last night. If he'd accepted, then Billy might be alive today. You just never knew these things.

Kaminsky said, ‘Murdered, of course.'

‘He fell from a high place.'

‘I know many people who have fallen from high places, friend. So now. What to do? What is next step?'

‘I was hoping you'd have some wisdom to impart,' Gurk said.

‘McQueen was the lemon. He might have been squeezed a little harder. Now we have no McQueen, and that means no lemon juice, correct?'

‘As you say.' Gurk looked at his passion-fruit ice cream, which was melting. Buddha is in everything, he thought. In melting ice cream, McQueen's death, a canister of mace. All life was an encounter with the True Path.

Kaminsky said, ‘I have always said this deal was stinking. Like a dead cod. It has never felt to me right. Find the ones who killed McQueen. Start there.'

‘I can't just pluck names out of thin air, Joe.'

Kaminsky sucked on something. A slice of orange. Coffee. Maybe that tea with honey he liked. ‘I will help you, of course. Information has been telephoned to me only in the last hour. It has come to me from a source in Glas-cow. Unexpectedly, but why look inside a gift horse's mouth, huh? I will give you this name. You memory it.'

‘My ears are pricked.' Gurk pictured Kaminsky's small black shades and the set of whiskers he sported. They made him look like an Eastern potentate.

‘And no writing this on paper,' Kaminsky said.

‘Gotcha.'

Kaminsky spelled out the name with exaggerated care, and then an address. He went on to add, ‘To your hotel will be delivered a package. In a few hours from this time now. You will need what it contains. In Glas-cow, a car will be available to you. You will find details of the location in the package. Do this job. Do it fast and do it well.'

‘Gotcha. Nod's as good as.'

‘What is this, this nod?'

‘Slang, Joe.'

‘I never understand this English slang, never.'

‘You need to be born into the environment, Joe.'

‘Pah,' Kaminsky said, and cut the connection.

Gurk went out of the café and stood for a time watching seagulls in the morning sky and sun on bright water. He drew the smell of brine into his lungs: satisfying.

39

Eddie walked from the house in Onslow Drive towards Alexandra Parade, where he'd find a taxi for the city centre. On the corner of Craigpark and Golfhill Drive a wine-coloured Jag drew into the kerb directly in front him, braked hard and Roddy Haggs stuck his head from the window. Surprise surprise, Eddie thought. Haggs had been tracking him. How else to explain his sudden appearance in this part of the city?

Haggs said, ‘Just the man I'm looking for. Get in the car.'

Eddie hesitated.

‘A minute's all I need. Come on.' Haggs opened the passenger door without getting out. Eddie climbed in. The interior smelled of leather and cigar smoke. Haggs, dressed in an expensive pin-striped suit, smiled and cracked his knuckles. The car stereo was playing ‘Rhapsody in Blue'.

‘I like this,' Haggs said. ‘Gershwin. Always like a bit of George and Ira. Funny name for a fella, Ira.'

‘Yeah. What's on your mind?'

‘You,' Haggs said.

‘Any specific context?'

Haggs laughed:
chukka chukka chukka
. ‘Always looking for the angles, eh? You've got a cop's brain.'

Eddie didn't like Haggs's laugh. He tapped his fingertips on his knees.

Haggs said, ‘I won't delay you, wherever you're going. I have something for you. A wee present.' He reached behind, retrieved a white paper bag from the back seat and opened it. He removed a varnished pine box about eighteen inches long and six wide, with brass hinges. It was highly polished and Eddie saw his reflection in it. Haggs set the paper bag, which bore the name Emporio Armani, on his lap, and then laid the box on top of it.

‘Here's the thing,' Haggs said. ‘A man dies, and you realize maybe you should've been closer to him when he was alive, and a wee bit kinder. You following me?'

‘You're talking about Jackie,' Eddie said.

‘Right. I could've tried harder. We might've done business together if we'd been less stubborn. Allies. Know what I'm saying?'

Eddie looked at the box. ‘Now you regret missed chances.'

‘Aye. I was up late last night thinking about them and …' Haggs's voice faded away. ‘Take this last deal he was into. We could've done something together …'

‘What deal is that?'

‘He never mentioned the specifics, Eddie. And I've been less than honest with you, I admit.'

‘Really,' Eddie said.

‘You heard we argued. I told you I'd forgotten the reason.'

‘And that was a lie?'

Haggs looked contrite. I'm expected to buy the expression, Eddie thought.

Haggs said, ‘This is the way it was. Jackie needed some extra cash to finance his deal. He asked me to participate. He didn't say what the biz was. I was supposed to trust him. I said, you're asking a hell of a lot, Jackie. He said, Haggs, you're too fucking cautious. And if I ever decided to put my faith in him I could come back with the green. Then I thought, what the fuck, I'll take a chance, a bit of a flyer, I'm not short of a few quid after all – but it was just too bloody late, and Jackie was …' Haggs shut his eyes a moment and looked sadly pious.

‘He invited you into a deal,' Eddie said. ‘Only you didn't know what it was.'

Haggs, eyes still shut, spoke softly. ‘Aye.'

‘You didn't tell me this yesterday.'

‘I felt fucking awkward about it, Eddie. I didn't want you thinking I'd turned your dad away like that. Let him down.'

No
way
, Eddie thought, although he enjoyed Haggs's act, the flicker of shut eyelids, the dry solemn tone of contrition in the voice, the
mea culpa
of it all. He watched Haggs's eyes open and how they swivelled towards him without the man's face having to turn.

Haggs said, ‘Maybe the deal still has legs. Maybe it's alive and kicking and just waiting to be financed. I'm thinking of Senga, Eddie. She might be hurting for money.'

‘Ask her,' Eddie said. ‘Maybe she'll be able to tell you something.'

‘I have a sneaky feeling Senga doesn't like me,' Haggs said. ‘Some past misunderstanding. I have every regard for her, Eddie. Believe me. But I think my best approach … well, it's through you.'

‘You want me to ask Senga? You want me to tell her that Roddy Haggs would like to partner her in a business deal? Maybe even become her benefactor?'

Haggs smiled. ‘You've picked me up wrong, Eddie. I'm not thinking along that road. I'm wondering if …' He hesitated, eyeballed the street as if he suspected that the scraggle of shrubbery might conceal an enemy.

‘Wondering if
I
know anything?' Eddie asked.

‘Right.'

‘If Jackie confided in me?'

‘Now you're talking.'

Eddie smiled, tilted his head back. From the corner of his eye he was aware of the glossy box in Haggs's lap. His gift. ‘I hate to disappoint you, Roddy. Jackie phoned me a few times when I was in New York, but he never talked business.'

‘Not once, eh?'

‘Not once,' Eddie said.

‘Ah well.' Haggs sighed and opened the box and took out the Kentucky Flintlock pistol and weighed it in the palm of his hand. ‘I brought you this, Eddie. You seemed to admire it yesterday. I want you to have it.'

‘I can't accept that,' Eddie said.

‘Take it, for Christ's sake. I'll be annoyed if you refuse.'

‘I can't take it, Roddy. It's too expensive.'

‘Money, money's pish, there's always loadsa money,' Haggs said. He lifted the pistol and levelled it and, closing one eye, stared along the barrel at Eddie.

He held this position and the light in his eye was pure concentration, as if Eddie were a target. ‘You could blow somebody's head clean off from this range,' he said.

‘No problem,' Eddie remarked.

‘You really could.'

‘I'm convinced.' Eddie gazed into Haggs's face and the fierce brightness in his eyes and for one bad moment he wondered if the man had gone insane and planned to kill him.
American Cop Slain in Glasgow Suburb
. A random murder, inexplicable and irrational. He imagined Jackie looking down the barrel of a gun. Jackie's terror. Jackie's life came to this in the end, a hole, a bleak aperture.

‘One shot,' Haggs said.

‘That's all it would take for sure,' Eddie said.

He felt sweat form on his body and his T-shirt stick to his skin. Haggs wasn't going to shoot, this was some form of threat, a demonstration of what he could do if he took it into his mind. This was Haggs flexing muscle, pumping his own kind of iron. The gun was a Nautilus machine, an exercise bicycle.
I can shoot you the fuck into oblivion if I want, Eddie baby
.

Haggs said, ‘Now if I had a beef against somebody. Boom.'

‘Yeah,' Eddie said.

‘Do I have a beef against you, Eddie?'

‘I hope not.'

‘I wouldn't like to have a beef against Jackie's son.'

‘I wouldn't like to give you a reason,' Eddie said.

‘Sometimes I wish duelling was still legal. Pistols at dawn. Name your seconds. One man facing another. Equality of chance. You'd tell me if you remembered Jackie mentioning anything.'

‘Yeah, for sure.'

‘I'm fucking serious, Eddie. I'd like to give Senga a helping hand. After all, she's a widow, give or take a legal document. So don't just put the matter out of your mind. Understand me?'

Haggs moved the gun an inch closer to Eddie. It was one of those moments when your life is a gyroscope turning on a wire. Eddie felt a drop of sweat slide down his nose and trickle to his upper lip.

‘You have my word,' Eddie said.

‘Your word, terrific. Wonderful.' And Haggs laughed, lowered the weapon. ‘Note to self: Eddie Mallon doesn't like looking down the wrong end of a gun. Even when it's unloaded,' and he laughed again, delighted with Eddie's visible unease. ‘Oh, Christ, I enjoy a wee bit of mischief. The secret lies in looking serious.'

‘You looked pretty serious all right,' Eddie said. He felt strangely out of balance, as if sunstruck. He was thirsty.

Haggs boxed the weapon, shut the box and stuck it back in the Armani bag, then passed it to Eddie. ‘She's all yours, Eddie. Look after her. Grease her from time to time.'

Eddie took the bag. ‘I don't know what to say.'

‘Just don't forget where you got the gun,' Haggs said.

‘Count on it.'

Eddie pushed the passenger door open.

‘Need a lift anywhere?' Haggs asked.

‘No, really, I'm fine.' Eddie got out of the car.

Haggs laughed again and said, ‘Hi-ho Silver,' and the big Jaguar screamed away, tyres burning, engine roaring. Motionless under the high hot cinder sun, Eddie clasped the Armani bag to his chest and thought, Yeah, Haggs looked pretty serious all right, goddam serious, like a man with more than a passing acquaintance with deadly violence.

40

Sometimes when Detective-Sergeant Lou Perlman listened to experts, forensic know-alls with their university ties and big brains, his attention wandered. After all, what did he
really
need to know about the temperature at which paper burned, or the amount of oxygen required to conduct flame through a narrow enclosed space? Cubic this and cubic that. It was all just so much slosh, like milky tea spilled into a saucer.

‘Is there a point you're getting to, Sid?' he asked, sounding raspy and sullen. ‘No hurry anyway. I've got all bloody day to waste.'

Sidney Linklater, a graduate of Edinburgh University, thirty-three years of age and a Force Support Officer – a
civilian
– blinked at Lou Perlman in surprise. It always astonished him that others could fail to be fascinated by his world of fibres and threads, of flames and melting points, of decomposition and putrefaction. He likened the non-scientific mind to an asteroid turning pointlessly in space.

‘All right, I'll hurry along, Lou, if you're finding this a bit of a bore,' he said.

‘Don't get your knickers in a twist, Sid. Some of us are cut out to be scientific. Others of us are just men with big feet and big bunions and wee brains. Like me. The dogged sort. We pound pavements. We're happy just chugging along. Clip clop. Fucking Clydesdales in human clothes.'

‘I find false modesty indigestible,' Linklater said.

‘So is all your fucking data, Sid. No offence intended.'

Linklater said, ‘Sometimes I feel like a missionary preaching to savages.'

‘I
am
a savage, Sid. Keep that in mind when you talk to me. Simple words. Short sentences. See Dick pish. See Spot shit. Remember, I was brought up in the Gorbals. Correction. I was
dragged
up. We'd only just got electricity installed the day before the demolition people moved in. I'm a child of the gaslight generation. We didn't have PCs and websites. Ours wasn't the Information Age. We knew fuck all.'

‘And I was delivered by a stork.'

‘Oy vey,' Perlman said. ‘Those hankie deliveries can be tricky.'

Linklater shrugged and looked round his workroom. Assorted objects, seemingly unconnected to one another, sat on shelves. Two pairs of Wellington boots. A charred shotgun. A couple of hunting knives with shiny blades. Bottles of various chemicals. A bicycle bent out of shape. Spades, trowels, a big fishing net. A microscope, also a load of computer gear that Perlman, who was quite proud of being misaligned with the electronic age, couldn't identify – maybe they were scanners, or photograph enhancers, or some kind of UV equipment, who cared?