The Bad Fire (32 page)

Not Lou Perlman.

Linklater, whose hobby was making charcoal rubbings from ancient tombstones, pushed his glasses up his long nose and gazed down at his work-table. He wore see-through plastic gloves. In his right hand he held a pair of tweezers. ‘Let's go the number one route just for you, Lou. No frills. No fancy cocktails.'

‘My boy,' Perlman said.

There was debris on the table, and Linklater poked at it. One plastic ashtray, a couple of misshapen cigarette filters. A small pile of wet ash and scraps of scorched paper. A square wallet of black leather lay to one side in a small dark puddle. There was a smell of petrol.

‘These would-be arsonists splash a little petrol inside the van,' Linklater said. ‘Strike a match, drop it in, buzz off. They leave the window on the passenger side open – a slit, no more than that. They overlook a basic principle of the firemaker's skill. Flame needs oxygen. This fire goes, but it isn't the spectacle it's supposed to be. Some of the spilled petrol burns, sure, but this isn't a movie, Lou. The tank isn't going to blow up. We get some flame, enough to destroy the fabric on the seats. More dramatic black smoke than flame. The fire suffers oxygen deprivation, so it's too slow for the light display the arsonists must've wanted. Anyway, there's bugger all in the back of the van to burn, no rags, no papers, nothing, just this wallet … then along comes the fire brigade, hoses blasting. The wallet was just beginning to ignite. There was blood on the floor of the van which the firemen, despite their zeal, didn't manage to hose entirely away. It's AB neg. No fingerprints on the steering wheel. Some in the interior. There's mud on the tires. Fresh.'

Linklater touched the wallet with a latexed fingertip. ‘I emptied it carefully,' he said. ‘I set the contents over here,' and he tweezered to the side a sheet of opaque plastic, under which lay banknotes that had been browned along the edges, scarred first by fire then doused with water. Linklater gently shoved the wilting money aside and concentrated on a sheet of lined paper.

‘This appears to be a page out of a cheap notebook, Lou. The writing's felt-tip and the water's made it run. It seems to be some arrangement of numbers. An accounting, maybe. Somebody adding and subtracting.'

‘Ah-hah. What else have you got?'

‘It wasn't exactly
stuffed
with goodies,' Linklater said. ‘But there's this.' He edged a piece of folded pink and green paper towards Perlman, who bent forward and looked at it through his one good eye. The other eye, lid still swollen from the insect bite, smarted beneath the patch.

‘A driving licence,' Perlman said.

He bent until his face was only six inches from the table. There was no photograph in the licence, but the name of the owner was legible. Perlman heard birdsong in his head. He straightened up and smiled, and in a very bad voice cranked out an 80s song lyric. ‘
The tide is high, I'm moving on.
'

‘What in God's name is that appalling noise?' Linklater asked, feigning great terror.

41

Eddie Mallon met Christopher Caskie in a café a couple of blocks from Force HQ. It was a fashionably relaxed place with ferns and high arches and pretty waitresses, unlike the mutton-pie and strong-tea brigade of grim aproned matrons Eddie remembered from Glasgow restaurants years ago. The girls who served you were good-looking, moussed hair, modishly pale complexions. Eddie ordered a bottle of mineral water, espresso and a chocolate croissant. Caskie, with a prim little nod of his head, asked for tea.

‘Nice room,' Eddie said.

‘I come here now and again,' Caskie remarked. ‘Is that a bruise on the side of your neck?'

‘I had an upset,' Eddie said. ‘I lost my footing.'

‘Sorry to hear that. I hope it's not too serious.'

‘It's fine.' Did he know? Had McWhinnie told him? Eddie seriously doubted McWhinnie would make a report of their encounter.

‘Been shopping?' Caskie nodded at the bag.

Eddie set it on the floor and said, ‘Just something for Claire.'

‘Nice thought,' Caskie said. ‘You phoned, so am I forced to assume you have more tricky questions for me? See if I can guess. It's about Tommy G.'

The waitress, a lovely trim girl in short black skirt, had a good-natured face. She set coffee, croissant, Strathmore water and tea on the table. ‘If you need anything else, let me know,' and she was gone discreetly. Eddie swallowed the mineral water instantly, then tasted his coffee and bit into his croissant.

Caskie said, ‘I ran the name, Eddie. The computer has no record of Tommy G.'

‘I'm surprised,' Eddie said.

‘I am too.'

‘You'd expect –'

‘I always try to avoid expectations,' Caskie said. He tasted his tea and made a face. ‘I don't remember asking for herbal …'

Tommy G: a blind alley. Eddie swallowed the last of his croissant. ‘Did you run it as Tommy G or Tommy GEE?'

‘Both.'

‘Are there other sources you can try?'

‘They take time.'

I don't have time, Eddie thought. A funeral, then home. The end. Back to Queens. Back to a dead junkie in an abandoned house. ‘You heard about Billy McQueen?'

Caskie said, ‘On the radio.'

‘You knew the guy?' Eddie asked.

‘Barely.'

‘Friend of Jackie, they tell me.'

‘I believe there was a vague fiscal relationship over the years,' Caskie said.

‘Why would anyone murder him?'

‘Has it been confirmed that he was murdered?'

‘Come on. You think he had some freaky thing about scaling unfinished buildings in the dead of night? Like a dangerous hobby that just got out of hand and he slipped? Maybe he dressed in some Spiderman get-up and went out across the scaffolding to look for handy dangling places.'

‘A touch theatrical,' Caskie said. ‘I can't begin to guess, Eddie. If I knew the man better, maybe I could proffer an opinion.'

Caskie had a small half-smile on his face: Detective-Inspector Enigma.
This man might have been involved in the death of my father
, Eddie thought. He gripped the edge of the table and felt his hands tighten, and he saw the inside of his head change colour – as if emotions were tints – and the pattern of his thoughts went this way and that, and he suddenly wanted to reach out and grab Caskie by his striped necktie and drag his head down to the table and pound it and pound it. Then he let the feeling go, and he tried to relax, and he pushed his chair back from the table a few inches.
Complicity in a brutal murder
. What if you're wrong, Eddie? What if you've miscalculated? But your heart, sometimes reliable in the past, and occasionally impetuous too, says you're right. Believe in it now.

He leaned towards Caskie and said, ‘Tell me about safe houses.'

‘What houses?'

‘Safe. Places where cops put witnesses for security reasons.'

‘I've never had any use for such places personally, Eddie. I assume they exist. I may be wrong.'

‘But you don't know for sure.'

‘Why are you so interested in the subject?'

‘It popped into my head, Chris.'

‘Without reason?'

‘All kinds of things pop into my head without reason.'

‘You ought to control that tendency.'

‘I try, Chris, I try. Here's another one. For example: Do you think it's possible for a cop – a senior officer, say – to run a kind of private fiefdom inside a force? Like his own little kingdom, I mean, where he could do what he liked, he could make his own personal use of manpower, use police property – like safe houses – any way he wanted, he could decide what was right and what was wrong without involving his fellow officers. This guy would be unaccountable. Up to a point.'

‘The man who would be king, eh?' Caskie smiled. ‘It's hard to imagine an officer abusing his power to such an extent.'

‘Sure. But it could happen, right?'

‘Is there some reason behind this little fantasy, Eddie? Or does it simply amuse you?'

‘Is it a fantasy, Chris?'

‘I imagine so.'

‘Come on, Chris. Give me a better answer than that.'

Caskie pushed his cup aside and sighed, a long sound. ‘When did you first decide you disliked me, Eddie?'

‘You changed the subject, Chris. Didn't enjoy the last one?'

‘I had a feeling it wasn't going anywhere. Now it's my turn to be curious.'

‘Fine,' Eddie said. ‘Dislike you? Funny, I can't decide if it's simple dislike or a more complicated contempt.'

‘Contempt is strong. Where does it come from, Eddie? Do you despise me for being closer to your family than you? Is that the root of it? I knew your own father better than you ever did. Is that it, Eddie? I'm this stranger, this outsider who got to know your dad and your sister and you can't cope with that.'

‘You wanted to sling Jackie's ass in jail, Caskie.'

‘If I'd had the chance. Jackie knew that. He understood the rules. It didn't stop us being close.'

‘The best of pals,' Eddie said. ‘I doubt that. You didn't even trust each other.'

‘We had a working arrangement. We were friends despite the obstacles. Which is more than you ever achieved.'

‘And that was my fault? I was taken away, for fuck's sake. What chance did I have?' Eddie gazed past Caskie to the far side of the room where one of the waitresses was watching him in the glazed manner of the daydreamer. His eye travelled beyond her and into a shadowy place. He could have shown Jackie his home in Queens. Toured him around Manhattan. Empire State Building. Staten Island Ferry. The whole works. He could have taken him to a soccer game. Jackie might have liked that, hotdogs, cold beer in waxy cups, the passion of the Hispanic fans. Lost ambitions. Such simple ones.

Eddie pushed his chair back from the table. Dislike. Contempt. He wished he had the kind of dignity that didn't allow him to yield so easily to these feelings. Claire would have said something like how we're only human after all and that means weakness as well as strength, vanity as well as humility, but right now Eddie could only think of the fact that his mind was smoking and the smoke smelled of sulphur. Claire had a world of her own, where charity and understanding reigned.

He got up from the table and looked down at Caskie. ‘Tell me, Chris, how long have you known Haggs?'

‘I believe I answered that question before,' he said.

‘Why the fuck are you lying?'

Caskie asked. ‘I don't remember lying to you, Eddie. You asked if I knew the man, I told you I didn't.'

Eddie smiled. ‘You're cool, Chris. You're a fucking cucumber on ice.'

‘I've been called worse. Don't forget your bag.'

Eddie picked up the paper bag. Outside he blinked in the unrelenting sun of this pink and blue city. Tarmac shimmered. Starlings flocked above rooftops, a glossy black swarm. He looked this way and that, thinking how clumsily he'd cut the ribbon of polite pretence between himself and Caskie, then decided his destination.

42

Although he was superior in rank to Perlman, Sandy Scullion felt like a trumped-up impostor in the older man's company. Lou Perlman, a legend in the Force, was a throwback to the old days, when DNA might have been the acronym for a savings bank, and electronic gizmos were primitive hand-held Asteroid games that came direct from Taiwan to the Barras market and lasted about forty-five seconds before going on the blink.

The car in which the two men travelled moved along Moss Road on the south side of the city. Scullion drove because Perlman hated cars. They always broke down on him. On the right was the dark-brown Victorian façade of the Southern General Hospital. A couple of young nurses walked across the lawn in front of the hospital; in sunlight their white uniforms had a fluorescent look.

Perlman watched the girls. He had a feeling he'd forgotten something he'd promised to do. It dogged him. ‘Some days I feel my age,' he said.

‘Don't we all?' Scullion eyed the rearview mirror. ‘Where do I turn?'

‘Left. Langlands Road.'

Perlman coughed into his hand. His lungs hurt. He wished he could kick the nicotine habit. ‘Some mornings I get up and my throat's scratchy and I need to pee like my bladder's bursting and my bones ache and I think this is it, this is the day I'm writing the resignation note, and ballocks to it all.'

‘Retirement,' Scullion said.

‘Aye. Downhill Drive,' Perlman said. ‘I could sit in the park and give crumbs to birds. I could buy a wee dog, take it walks, wait patiently while it poops.'

‘You've got a couple of years in you,' Scullion said.

‘Could you put a wee bit more enthusiasm into your voice when you say that, Sandy? I want to be convinced. What am I without my work? A hollow man. The walking dead. Take a left here.'

Scullion turned the car into Kennedar Drive, a street of shabby tenements. Kids played on the pavement. A van with a punctured tyre listed at the kerb.

‘Number twelve,' Perlman said.

Scullion parked, pulled on the handbrake. ‘You lead,' he said.

‘I know these buggers,' Perlman said. ‘They try my patience something fierce.'

‘I'll be a silent presence, just along for the ride.'

They went inside the tenement. The close was dim and the air cool. They climbed to the second floor. Perlman held the banister rail, which was sticky – probably from some kid's ice cream or sweetie. At least he hoped it was something as innocent as that. The city rubbed off on you, he thought, in bad ways and good. Live in it all your life, you know its corners and its angles, you can rattle off bus numbers and routes, all fifteen names of the underground stations in any order, you remember the streets where the trams used to run, those clattery old bone-rattlers that travelled in seeming defiance of Newtonian physics, you recall buildings long ago demolished, even the names of people who lived in them. He remembered the old Jewish families. The Sakols. The Finemans. The Jesners. Others. Take a couple of Jews and you've got a potential diaspora. Where had they gone? Where had all that piety gone? The respectable suburbs. Giffnock. Newton Mearns. Beyond.