The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy) (18 page)

It’s not his concern. The killers, the victim – they’re for Fisher to entertain himself with. This case seems to hold little importance, as far as Greig can see. Falling into
conjecture of his own, he works it all out. Lewis Winter has got hold of Zara Cope. He wants to keep hold of her. Who wouldn’t? He starts living the high life to keep her happy, throwing
money around. Maybe he borrows cash. Maybe he takes on a lot of gear from his supplier, on the promise of future sales. Maybe the sales don’t come, the supplier doesn’t want his gear
back, he just wants money. Winter doesn’t pay, so he gets a bullet. Or maybe he was fighting so hard to make more money for Zara that he strayed onto patches where he wasn’t welcome.
Typical dealer death.

Greig’s interest is in Cope. She’s still at the station. Due to leave in the afternoon. Been interviewed, told every tale she has to tell. Seems to be dealing with the whole thing
pretty well. Not obvious yet what she’s going to do with her life. Seems like she was pretty tied up in Winter. Bad move. The guy was a walking disaster zone; girl that smart should have
noticed. Now she’s got nowhere to run. The cop looking after her has already put it around that the girl has nowhere to go. Going to dip into her meagre savings to pay for somewhere.
Won’t go back to the house. Meagre savings. He finds that hard to believe. She must have something.

It’s the middle of the afternoon. It feels like she’s been in that police station for days. They’ve told her all the right things. You can go back to the
house tomorrow. Don’t want to. You can rest assured that we don’t think there’s any threat to you. Never thought there was. If there’s anything we can do for you, please
come and see us. I won’t. If you remember anything – no matter how insignificant – that you think can help, get in touch. I definitely won’t. If anyone contacts you
regarding the murder of your partner and tells you anything that might be of any interest to us, let us know. Wow, you people really don’t know how this world works, do you? She didn’t
say these things to them, of course. She nodded along. She was polite. She was the pretty little victim. The tragic case with nowhere to go.

There was a grain of truth in that. She feels tragic. She has nowhere to turn. How can you get this far through life, twenty-eight years, with good looks and a decent brain, and still have
nobody to turn to? It doesn’t make sense to her. It should be easier than this. Fine, deal with it. No moping around. No feeling sorry for yourself. You still have to make sure that you get
out the other end of this with as much of a cushion as possible.

First step in that is going and seeing Stewart, and getting what she gave him. She’s not in the mood to deal with him. She can picture him pawing at her already, but she doesn’t have
a choice.

The address she knows by heart. If he’s lied to her and their paths ever cross again, then she won’t be responsible. By God, she isn’t in the mood to be pissed around by some
self-adoring little dweeb, just out of nappies. She walks away from the police station for twenty minutes. There’s an instinctive paranoia. It’s fed into you by the industry she’s
lived within for nearly a decade. You get used to thinking of the police as the enemy. You get used to thinking of an enemy as someone sneaky and underhand. Zara can’t shake the feeling that
the police might be watching her. Someone following in the middle distance, just close enough to see where she goes and who she talks to. Not impossible. It’s obvious that Fisher
doesn’t like or trust her. But she can see nobody out of place behind her.

She’s calling a taxi. What are the odds that it’s the same driver? Slim. It isn’t; this guy’s much younger. She gives him the street that Stewart gave her. The guy
drives. He makes idle chit-chat. She wishes he would shut up; she’s trying to listen to what’s being said on the radio. It’s a local radio station. There’s a news report.
She can’t hear what they’re saying. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything about the shooting. It’s maybe a little soon. Tomorrow, probably. If Fisher decides to go to
the media. Maybe he’ll keep it all under wraps. Some sort of evidence that he wants to use.

The city rolls past her as she sits in the back of the taxi, thinking about it all. She wants them to catch the people who did this. In her heart, she wants them to pay for what they’ve
done. Okay, Lewis wasn’t perfect. No angel. Their relationship was hardly perfect, either. It was theirs, though, and nobody else has the right to take it away from them like that. Not
perfect, but could have been for life. Now, in the blink of an eye, it’s all gone. The future has gone. They had no right. But her head tells her that she doesn’t want them to be
caught. If they’re caught, then you’ll never be able to put all this behind you and get on with your life. They’ll tell about Stewart. She’ll fall into the hole she’s
dug for herself. Head rules heart. Stay professional, you murderers, and stay free.

The taxi pulls up in a street she doesn’t recognize. Respectable. Old houses, pre-war. Large. Probably all split into flats. An area full of the aspiring. The first step on a property
ladder that will lead to something much grander. Good for them. She’s walking along the street, looking at numbers on gates. She finds the right one. Well-maintained front garden. At the
front door there’s a buzzer with four buttons. Four names. She knows she’s looking for Flat C. It has the names Macintosh and Shields on it. Which one is Stewart? She presses the
buzzer.

He sounds almost breathless through the intercom. Tells her he’ll be right down. Through the glass in the door she sees a figure bounding along the corridor to the door. He opens it.
He’s grinning. Then he stifles the grin, realizing that it’s not appropriate for the situation.

‘Come in. Come up. It’s so good to see you. How are you?’

Stewart sounds so enthusiastic, no matter how hard he tries to sound sympathetic. He’s been living on his nerves. Sitting at home all day, waiting for the buzzer. Will it be the cops or
Zara? Please be Zara. It is. She looks dowdier than she did. No make-up. Plain clothes. Still beautiful. The intoxication of the moment guarantees that, anyway.

He takes her upstairs. He shows her into a sparse but clean flat. Nice, but obviously little lived in. Occupied by two people with better things to do than stay at home. Lucky them.

‘My flatmate’s not here. Just the two of us,’ he’s saying nervously. Maybe that sounds like a come-on – say something else. ‘We can talk freely.’

She’s sitting down at the little kitchen table. He’s sitting opposite.

‘Okay,’ she’s nodding. ‘That’s good. Did you get back okay last night, no trouble?’

Bless her. She’s been worrying about him. ‘Yeah, fine, no bother at all,’ he says, aiming for nonchalance. Better not tell her that he was thrilled by the whole thing.
Now’s not the time.

She looks nervous. She’s trying not to look fed up, but he can see it in her. What do you say? So many firsts. First time he’s been in this situation. First time he’s felt this
way about a woman. But then, how much of that is real, how much is the thrill? Most of it’s the thrill. She’s pretty, but he’s aware enough to know that it’s not her that
he’s falling in love with.

‘So, what do we do now?’ he’s asking. He’s aiming for sympathetic. He’s aiming for conspiratorial. He’s aiming to keep them together.

‘Did you manage to keep what I gave you?’ she’s asking. Down to business.

While he’s disappeared off into another room, Zara’s taking the opportunity to have a look round. Maybe Stewart’s earning reasonable money. Maybe he’s not such a bad
option. It’s a boyish flat. The flat of young men who live like young men. Still, potential. Maybe nothing long-term, but useful for a little while. No. Don’t settle for clinging to
short-term measures. Don’t fall into any port in a storm. You have to do better. The only way to get a better life is to aim for something better. He’s coming out of the bedroom with
the wads of cash and bags of drugs in his hands. He seems to think she’s going to take them as they are.

‘Do you have something I can put them in?’ she’s asking, not bothering to hide her incredulity.

‘Oh, yeah.’

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that he doesn’t know what he’s doing? Good that he’s not likely to try to cut in on business, get involved. Bad that he might not realize the
gravity of his situation. She decides she’s going to spell it out. He’s coming back in with a shoebox and a plastic bag. He begins packing it all into the shoebox for her, and she
starts to speak.

‘Stewart, you do understand how serious all this is?’

He pauses and looks at her. ‘I heard your partner being shot dead. I don’t suppose it gets more serious than that. I ran away from the scene of a murder with drugs and cash.
That’s serious.’

‘Good. It’s important that you realize that this isn’t something to make light of, joke about with your friends. This is the sort of thing that you don’t talk about at
all. You need to understand what the consequences will be if you do run off at the mouth.’

He pauses as he’s putting the lid on the shoebox. That sounded a little bit threatening. Is she threatening him to keep his mouth shut? He’s looking at her quizzically. She looks
back, maybe guessing what he’s thinking.

‘I’m thinking of you, Stewart,’ she’s saying to him. ‘Me too, I admit, but you have to be very careful now. If the police find out that you were ever there, they
will lock you up. You could easily get a couple of years for what you did. I don’t want that. I don’t want to think of you suffering because you wanted to help me.’ There are
little tears forming in the corners of her eyes. ‘I feel like I’ve lost so much. I just want to protect the good things that are left.’

He’s getting up and rushing to her, throwing his arms around her as she breaks down. He’s hugging her, telling her all sorts of comforting things that matter little. It sounded so
impressive. It sounded like she was throwing herself at him. Like this was going to be a long-running thing. That would be good. He realizes that he does want to be with her. Not just because
she’s pretty, but because of the life they could live together. The thrills. More nights like last night. Sex, guns and going on the run. That’s exciting.

That sounded a little stronger than she intended. She’s laying it on too thick. She needs to keep him happy for a while, to make sure he doesn’t make life difficult, but she
shouldn’t lead him in directions that she has no intention of going in herself. This isn’t going to be a relationship. In an ideal world, this will be the last they see of each other.
That’ll be tough to pull off. He seems a little too interested to just let it go. She’s going to have to be gentle with him. Be careful. Always good advice.

She’s pulling herself away from him now.

‘I’d better go. I have a lot to do.’

‘Oh. Where . . . uh . . . where are you staying?’

‘I’m going to rent somewhere for a few weeks, then take it from there,’ she says, before she has a chance to realize that a lie might be the better approach.

‘Well, you could stay here,’ he’s saying, brightening as he speaks. ‘I’d love to have you here. It would be a great place for you.’ He doesn’t believe
that, but he wants her to stay.

She’s already shaking her head. ‘No, it’s not a good idea for us to be seen together so soon. People might ask questions.’

Her instincts are better than his, he must concede that. She’s thinking more clearly, not rushing into things. She’s considering the consequences. She’s getting up and heading
for the door. He’s walking behind her, trying to think of something to say that will make an impression. It doesn’t feel like he’s handled this meeting especially well. Say
something.

‘I want to help you,’ he’s saying, not knowing where he’s going to go next. ‘I like you a lot. I want to protect you. I want to be there for you.’

She stops and looks up at him. ‘That’s sweet,’ she says and reaches up to kiss him briefly on the mouth. Then she’s out the door.

The Heavenly nightclub. Do they have a sense of irony when they name these places? Maybe they realize that their clientele are all pissed when they turn up, so they can’t
judge their surroundings. It’ll be dark inside at night anyway – that hides the multitude of heavenly sins. Fisher walks along the edge of the dance floor to the bar. Someone’s
cleaning behind it. He hasn’t seen anyone else since he came in. Noticed the CCTV cameras on the outside, though. Good start.

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for the manager,’ he says brusquely. The stout woman behind the bar looks at him and then points towards a door across the dance floor.

Who does she think he is? She didn’t even ask. Maybe she recognized that he’s a cop. He hates that. Some people pretend they can spot a cop a mile off. He doesn’t believe it.
Never has. The cleaner has probably been told not to ask questions of those who come looking for the manager. Never mind. Across the floor and through the door, into a dingy corridor. It
doesn’t seem like a building that’s had a great deal of money spent on its upkeep. That’s a concern. First thing to suffer when money is tight is often security. Maybe those
cameras don’t even work.

He’s walking down the corridor slowly, inspecting everything, when someone emerges from a room ahead. The man stops and looks at him. Surprised, obviously. Not happy to see someone in the
private area of his club.

‘Can I help you?’ the man’s asking. Trying to sound hard. Trying to sound like he’s not in the business of helping people. Fisher encounters this a lot.

‘I hope so. Detective Inspector Fisher, Strathclyde Police. I’m looking for the manager.’

‘You found him.’

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

The man knows Fisher isn’t here to arrest him; he wouldn’t be by himself if he were.

‘Aye,’ the podgy little man nods, ‘this way.’

Do I know who the manager of Heavenly is? Fisher’s thinking to himself. No. Should I? Maybe. He looks like someone with something to hide. Balding, short in the arse, chubby, mid-thirties
at the most. Many people in his business have connections they shouldn’t. A lot of others fear the police because they don’t want their place getting that sort of reputation. Might be
nothing.