The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy) (2 page)

Nothing for another minute or two. More shots carefully picked out, even when the frame is won, even when the maths prove it. When it’s over, and the balls are being laid out again –
best of three – Young speaks again.

‘We’re without anyone now. Shame to lose Frank for a few months.’

‘Didn’t see it coming?’

Young laughs. A short laugh, not a happy one. ‘Frank’s one of those guys that can’t admit when there’s something wrong with him. Not until it’s too late. He should
have warned us. He knew for ages and said nothing.’ He shrugs, a what-can-you-do shrug.

Calum’s turn to break. It’s messy: reds everywhere, white in the middle of the table. Trying too hard. Young feels confident enough to talk early.

‘How old you now, Calum?’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘Gettin’ old.’ Young laughs, self-deprecatingly; he’s a podgy but youthful forty-three. His eyes twinkle when he laughs, like he means it; his forehead crinkles and his
tousled dark hair seems to fall forward. He looks jolly, but you never forget who he is. ‘You thinking about settling down?’

It’s a professional question, not personal. ‘I haven’t thought about it at all. Time might come. I don’t feel like I need it. I like my freedom, but I’ll see how
the wind blows.’

Young nods. It’s a demand. He’s saying that if he settles with Jamieson, then he doesn’t want to be overworked. It’s a demand that Young can live with, one that fits with
other wishes.

Talk quiets. The frame is getting more serious. Young was too casual, too confident. He’s missed three shots that he should have made, and Calum is ahead. Calum misses a shot he would
usually miss. Young concentrates. He starts knocking in shots, making a break that requires skill. He needs to get as far as the blue to guarantee the win, and he gets there at the first attempt.
They shake hands. Young thanks him for coming.

When he knows the boy has gone, he puts his cue back on the rack and crosses the room to the back corridor. At the far end is Jamieson’s office. Two knocks and Young
enters without waiting for a reply. They’ve been friends since they were in their late teens, since they were both starting out in the trade. Thrown together by circumstances – a chance
meeting on a shared job – they recognized immediately how much each could do for the other. Jamieson was in charge, that was clear; Young the right-hand man. No other right-hand man earns so
much or is given so much control. He’s trusted.

‘You are the brains,’ Jamieson would tell him when drunk, ‘I am the balls. It works.’

It wasn’t that Young lacked courage, or that Jamieson wasn’t smart. Young could get his hands dirty, but Jamieson’s instinct for the nasty work was unrivalled, and evident from
a young age. Jamieson was intelligent, but Young was tactical, and that was an important difference. Separately they were talented; together they were lucrative.

Jamieson has to be in charge. He has to be seen to be in charge. It doesn’t matter what either of them thinks; their employees and their rivals have to believe that the man they fear most
is the man in charge. Perception. PR. You would be amazed how important that is in a trade like this. Being in charge comes with a downside, though. You’re at the top of the tree, where
everyone can see you, where so many others want to be. Jamieson can handle that, no problem. Besides, their operation isn’t yet quite big enough to spook the top dogs into action. Yet.

Jamieson is sitting where he always sits, on the swivel chair behind his desk, facing away from the door. The desk faces the door, the chair rarely does. There are two televisions on a long
stand behind the desk, both showing horse racing, another passion. He gambles, not because he needs to, not because it’s a thrill, but because he has a need to beat other people. In this
case, the bookies. He isn’t trying to be rude when he sits with his back to you; he’s just the sort of person who can be consumed by the things that interest him.

Horses don’t interest Young in the least. Miniature Irishmen torturing dumb beasts in the name of a sport funded by the gullible and controlled by the idle rich. His seat in the office is
on a small leather couch at the right side of the well-lit room, just beside the large window. There are newspapers on the table, mostly local, some national, scanned for any references to their
work. These days you need to spend more time checking websites to make sure people don’t make unfortunate references to you. Young sits and waits.

‘I spoke to the boy MacLean,’ he tells Jamieson when he’s sure both races have finished.

‘Boy? How old is he anyway?’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘That all? Feels like he’s been around for ages. What did he say?’

‘I think he’ll do it, if he’s one of two or three. Doesn’t want the full workload.’ Jamieson is concentrating now, sitting forward, hands gently tapping on the
table. This is his tool to focus on what matters, the constant patter of hands on desk. ‘He ain’t exactly a bag of laughs,’ Jamieson smiles. ‘But I like him. He’s
good. Smart. Quiet. Frank says he’s the best of the new breed. I agree. We’ll make him an offer.’

Young waits three days before he calls Calum again. The current job can afford to wait three days. It’s also like dating – you mustn’t seem too desperate. If
you give the impression of hurry, then people will demand more in return. With Calum, it could scare him off. The boy is clearly wary of commitment. That’s naive; Young’s experience
tells him that. In a few years he will be craving it. The regularity, the comfort, the safety net. Doing a job in this business is like being fired from a cannon: doing it freelance is being fired
without a net to land in. The big organization, it protects you, it has ways of keeping you safe. Eventually the pressure of the job will wear Calum down and make that safety attractive. But not
yet.

Calum is back on his couch, playing video games.
God of War III
, if you’re interested. He finds it frustrating. The phone rings – mobile this time. He pauses, picks up the
phone, looks at the screen. Young.

‘Hello.’

‘Calum, it’s John Young. How are you, busy?’

‘No, not busy at all.’

‘Good, come down the club. Me and Peter want to speak to you, okay?’

‘Right away?’

‘Right away.’

A job offer, obviously. Important? Maybe, but he’s waited three days, and that suggests not urgent. Perhaps that’s what it’s supposed to suggest. It’ll be temporary, but
it could be designed to draw him into something longer. Frank MacLeod isn’t going to last forever. Nobody in this business does. Calum switches everything off, leaving nothing on standby. He
gets a coat; it’s a colder day. Blustery outside. He picks his car keys from the top of the fridge in the kitchen, and leaves the flat.

There’s nothing in the flat that can tell you what he does for a living. There’s certainly no gun. No one who works with a gun and has any sense keeps a gun in their home.
There’s no documentation. Keep no reminder. Some people keep souvenirs. Those people are stupid. Dangerously stupid. Maybe a bit sick. They will be caught. A police raid will tell nothing
about Calum. No emails. No tweets. No text messages. Tracking phone calls would tell that he was in touch with people like Young, but you can’t go to jail for the friends you keep. Calum has
never been arrested, no convictions, never seen the inside of a jail cell. He’s been in the business for ten years. He won’t gloat about avoiding arrest until he’s retired.

Avoiding arrest is not the same as avoiding suspicion. Not sure how he’s doing on that front. Do the police know that he exists? Surely. They must know about Jamieson; everyone else does.
Jamieson is the up-and-coming figure. Calum has done work for Jamieson before. He’s done work for one or two more established figures as well. He’s not tied to any of them, though
– that’s important. He’s a moving target. A chance that the police don’t know him. A chance they don’t know what he does. That’s what he wants for himself, and
what Jamieson wants from an employee as well. Starting with a clean slate.

He goes into the club by the front door as he always does. No point sneaking in. If people are watching the club, then they’re watching the back as well as the front. Sneaking in the back
only makes you look more suspicious. Up the stairs, through the door. The snooker hall is open to the public, the bar open. Six people using three different tables, another four people at the bar.
One of the men at the tables is Kenny McBride, Jamieson’s driver. Driver is a broad description. Jamieson can drive himself most of the time. Kenny’s a taxi for the boss. He’s a
driver on important jobs. He delivers things. He picks things up. Anything that needs a car. Calum nods hello, walks past.

Along the corridor, all the way to the end. Nobody outside the office door, no obvious security. Never is. No paranoia yet, although that will probably come. It does with most. Jamieson is
mid-forties. Not old. More youthful than most people his age. Not big enough yet to be plotted against. So most people think. A hands-off approach to security. Ruthless, yes, but casual too. Calum
knocks on the door three times and waits to be shouted in. He doesn’t have the sort of relationship that allows him to enter uninvited. Somebody calls for him to come in. He opens the door,
steps inside and closes it behind him.

It’s just Jamieson and Young. The TVs are off, which means business. Jamieson is behind his desk. Is he trying to look like a businessman, trying to look respectable? Unlikely. He has
bucketfuls of self-awareness, he doesn’t feel a need to try and look like the good guy. The desk isn’t to make him look respectable; it’s to let you know he’s in charge.
Young’s sitting to the side on the couch, as always. Neither one of them is intimidating. But then neither one of them is trying to be. Young isn’t capable – too podgy and
relaxed. Jamieson can do it. He can scare, when he wants to. His eyes, that’s what does it. It’s almost always about the eyes. If your eyes can’t do scary, then you can’t do
scary. Jamieson could give a look when he chose.

‘Good to see you, Calum, been a while,’ Jamieson says, nodding for him to sit on the chair in front of the desk. ‘Take your coat off.’

Calum does as he’s told, because you do what you’re told. He places the coat over the back of the chair and sits in it. Now he’s facing Jamieson, and Young is only just out of
view. That’s disconcerting, deliberately. You don’t know what Young is doing. You don’t know if he’s mouthing something to Jamieson. You don’t know if he’s made
a gesture or not. You can’t see his reaction. You don’t even know if he’s paying attention. That’s the point. You will leave that office not knowing what at least one of
them is thinking.

‘Let’s get down to business,’ Jamieson says, with that cold face that tells you to pay attention. ‘Have you been doing much work lately?’

He wants to know if Calum has killed many people lately. Kill too many in a short space of time and you will inevitably draw attention to yourself. Jamieson’s clever about that, good
instinct. Don’t hire someone who’s been too busy. Don’t hire someone who hasn’t been working at all. Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. A Goldilocks employee. You
answer because you have to, but it’s awkward. Nothing wrong with Calum’s answer, but you have to trust Jamieson with the answer. You have to trust that the only people who hear it are
the people in the room. No bugs. They’re rare, but not impossible.

‘I’ve been keeping to a regular schedule,’ Calum answers. ‘I don’t like to overstretch.’

It’s the right answer. It means little, but it’s right enough for now. Jamieson knows Calum is smart. Calum knows what answer Jamieson wants to hear. In this case it’s true,
and Jamieson believes him, but takes everything with a pinch of salt.

‘I might have a job for you, if you’re interested. You know we’re short.’

‘I heard. I might be interested. Depends, though.’

‘On?’ Jamieson’s frowning now. He doesn’t like conditions. He particularly doesn’t like guys who haven’t even hit thirty making demands, when people like
Frank MacLeod rarely do.

‘The schedule I work is good for me. I don’t want to break that.’

Jamieson nods. Not unreasonable. Also fits with his own plan. No more relying on one man to do such important work. Frank was great, but now he’s broken and there’s nobody to step
in. They have to recruit from outside. From now on, they always have at least two.

‘You know Lewis Winter?’

Now it’s real business. It’s considered that the job has been accepted. Calum hasn’t said he’ll do it, but he’s laid down a single condition and, by moving on to
the job, Jamieson has accepted the condition. You don’t talk money. They both know what the ballpark figure is. Now it’s specifics for this job. Calum is on board. Jamieson and Young
have both accepted it. Now they will treat him as though he’s one of their people, in the organization. Maybe just for this one job. It’s been like that before, when they had a big job
and Frank chose him to ride shotgun. You’re in the family for one job. Then you’re on the outside, with them keeping an eye on you, making sure you don’t say anything you
shouldn’t. Also making sure you stay useful to them, for moments like this.

‘I know of Lewis Winter. Met him once, briefly. Wouldn’t say I know him.’

But Calum knows enough. He knows who Lewis Winter is, and he knows what Lewis Winter does. That’s enough. Lessons from Frank MacLeod, lessons from others with experience. Don’t learn
from the ones who have been caught and tell their stories to all and sundry. Don’t learn from those who know how to do it; learn from those who know how to do it well. They tell you to learn
everything. Not a glib comment. Learn who everyone in the business is and what they do, because you don’t know when you’ll run into them. So you learn who people like Lewis Winter are,
even though they’re not important people. You learn every nook and cranny of the city, because you don’t know when you’ll be there. Calum has done it. He’s kept himself up
to date. He drove around the city, exploring areas he didn’t know. He made sure he knew the industry better than it knew him. He made sure he knew Glasgow better than it could ever know him.
If he needed to move quickly, he would know the route. He might only need the knowledge once in his life, but that once could decide the length of that life.