Читать книгу February's Son - Alan Parks - Страница 22

NINE

McCoy put his mug of tea on the pile of Phone Mary at the Record notes on his desk and sat down, yawned. He’d finally got to sleep about the back of three. Felt like an unmade bed. There was a dun-coloured folder sitting in the middle of the desk. McCoy recognised the neat fountain pen capitals. Gilroy the medical examiner had attached a note to the corner: Wasn’t quite sure who to give this to then remembered your sympathy for those fallen on hard times.

McCoy shook his head. Care about one jakie and that’s you, tarred for life. He opened the autopsy report, started reading. So now he knew what the TRAGEDY IN CHURCH on the paper seller’s board was. One Paul Joseph Brady had hung himself in the Hopehill Road Chapel, St Columba’s. As far as McCoy could remember, killing yourself was a mortal sin. Doing it in a chapel just seemed to be taking the piss.

He skimmed through the rest of it. Age approx 30–35. Death by broken neck caused by body weight. Body was undernourished, showed evidence of long-term alcohol abuse. Cirrhotic liver damage, scarring on lungs caused by smoking. Previous evidence of broken arm in childhood. Nothing unexpected, except that by looking at his picture McCoy would have said the man looked nearer fifty. Life on the street takes its toll, right enough.

He closed it over. Hanging yourself wasn’t a crime. Wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do with the report. Shove it in his drawer in case anyone ever came looking for it, he supposed. He checked it again, no mention of any next of kin.

He got out his fags, lit one up, inhaled, coughed, inhaled again. Why would you kill yourself in a chapel? For someone like Brady the way out was standard. Fill yourself with paracetamol and cheap vodka and jump off a bridge over the Clyde. He looked at the picture again. Paul Joseph Brady. Had to be a Catholic. Maybe he just wanted to be nearer his God to thee when he checked out.

McCoy sat back in his chair, looked round the office. Usual noise of chatter, people on the phone, a uniform waiting to see somebody, hat on his lap. Thomson wandering round with the Racing Post collecting lines to go to the bookies. Robertson collecting mugs off everyone’s desk, his day to make the teas. Wattie was the exception, working hard, receiver jammed into his neck, list of hotels and B&Bs in front of him. Looking for Connolly.

Wasn’t quite sure why, but one of the questions the psychologist had asked him kept going round and round in his mind. Do you still feel you want to be a detective?

Did he? Truth was he’d never really thought about it, not for years anyway. Joined up straight after he’d left school and just kept his head down and kept working. What else would he be if he wasn’t a polis? That’s what he was, as much part of him now as the colour of his hair or the scar on his eyebrow he’d got from Jamie Gibbs.

He yawned again, took a sip of his tea, gave himself a shake. He opened the red jotter. Wrote

Charlie Jackson

Connolly

‘That it?’

He looked up and Murray was standing over him.

‘We can call off the troops now, McCoy’s on the case.’

‘Very funny,’ said McCoy.

‘Get Watson. We’ve had a tip-off,’ said Murray. ‘Sounds kosher.’

*

The St Enoch’s Hotel was right in the centre of town, a huge Victorian building above St Enoch Station. Up until a few years ago, the station had been the main route south but it was closed now, all the lines moved to Central. They’d cemented over the long platforms and tracks and turned them into a huge car park. The glass-and-iron roof of the station was still there, full of broken panes and nesting pigeons. No more steam trains and Flying Scotsman to shelter, just the parked cars of Glasgow’s shoppers.

The hotel itself was still open. Just. What had once been an ornate red sandstone frontage was now black with soot and neglect, chicken wire wrapped round the more fragile carvings in case they fell off and hit someone. A couple of the upper floors were permanently closed, curtains in all the rooms shut, windows stained with pigeon droppings and grime. The whole building looked like it was hanging on for dear life. Incessant rain wasn’t helping the picture look any prettier. Low grey clouds looked like they were only yards above the building’s spires and towers.

McCoy and Wattie drove the unmarked Cortina up the ramp past the open sign and parked outside the front entrance. McCoy got out, yawned and stretched, still knackered, and walked over to where Murray was standing under the awning. He was looking up at the hotel, empty pipe clamped in his teeth. Took it out, used it to point at the windows on the top floors.

‘Spent the first night of my honeymoon in there. Look at it now, fucking shithole.’

‘Where’d you spend the rest?’ asked McCoy, lighting up.

‘Eh? Oh, Whitley Bay.’

‘That any better?’ asked McCoy.

‘Not much,’ said Murray, looking round. ‘Where’s Watson?’

‘Here, sir,’ said Wattie, locking the car. He wandered over, joined them, looked up. ‘What a dump. Cannae believe it’s still actually open.’

‘Used to be something in its day. I can remember it,’ said McCoy.

‘Certainly was,’ said Murray. ‘Honeymoon suite cost me a bloody fortune.’

‘Connolly’s flat was a waste of time,’ said McCoy. ‘Nothing there. But the flatmate told us Charlie Jackson thought Elaine was seeing someone else.’

‘Did he now,’ said Murray. ‘Connolly, you think?’

McCoy shrugged. ‘He didn’t know. Could be.’ He looked up at the hotel. ‘So what’s the story here?’

‘We got a tip from a bloke that works at the front desk,’ said Murray. ‘One of Billy’s touts. Says he’s sure Connolly’s here. Not using his own name, calling himself Mr McLean, but he fits the description. Been here for a couple of days, he says.’

McCoy was still looking up at the building; clouds of sparrows were whirling round the roof, looking for somewhere to land.

‘He in there just now, is he?’ he asked, turning to Murray.

He nodded. ‘Bloke thinks so. He tends to come and go via different doors, must be about twenty of them in this dump. They should have knocked it down when they closed the bloody station.’

‘Scobie and his cronies can’t have been looking that bloody hard,’ said Wattie. ‘Great big hotel right in the city centre. He’s no exactly keeping a low profile, is he?’

‘Would you stay in here?’ asked McCoy.

‘Nobody would,’ said Murray. ‘Probably why he’s here.’

A single-decker coach drew up at the entrance, Caledonian Tours and a big Lion Rampant painted on the side of it. The driver honked the horn and they moved to the side to let it park.

Murray pointed one way then the next. ‘There’s pairs of uniforms at every exit door and these two clowns’ – he nodded at a pair of big constables – ‘are covering the front. We go up and chap Connolly’s door, see if he’s home.’

McCoy waited for the rest of the plan. Didn’t come. ‘Is that it?’

‘Is that what?’ said Murray.

‘That’s the plan? The bloke’s a bloody nutter! And we’re going to chap his door and see if he wants to come for a wee hurl in a polis car?’

Murray looked unimpressed. ‘He’s a villain like every other, no bloody Superman. Get a grip on yourself, McCoy. Now, c’mon.’

The hotel lobby was vast, an ugly and worn-out combination of pea-green carpet and beige walls. A group of pensioners with wee suitcases were milling around, making their way out towards the coach and the next stop on their tour of Scotland’s most miserable hotels. The restaurant was through glass doors, white cloth-covered tables stretched for miles, waiting for diners who were never going to appear.

The bar was next door. Tartan carpet and a few Highland landscapes on the walls. Barman wearing tartan waistcoat and an expression that would turn milk. Looked like the kind of place you would go to have a last drink before topping yourself. A fat man with a gold piped uniform sitting at the reception desk looked up and gave them a nod.

‘It’s the second floor,’ said Murray. ‘Two one four.’

They started up the big marble stairway. Wattie looked as nervous as McCoy felt.

‘You sure that’s it, sir? We just chap the door?’ McCoy asked.

‘What else do you suggest?’ said Murray. ‘Machine-gunning the cunt through it?’

‘Fair enough.’ He decided to shut up. Couldn’t help but remember what Charlie Jackson had looked like, eye and the back of his head gone, blood seeping into the puddles around him.

On the second-floor landing, two corridors of yellowing doors stretched off either way. Half the bulbs were missing in the overhead globes, stained carpets, occasional tray of congealing food outside a door. Looked more like a marginally more upmarket Barlinnie than anything else.

‘Wattie, you wait here by the stairs. If he gets past us you stop him,’ said Murray.

Wattie looked more surprised than scared. ‘Me?’

‘Aye, you,’ said Murray. ‘You’re a big bugger. Flatten him.’

Wattie nodded at them, tried to look alert and ready for any eventuality. Some hope.

Room 214 was halfway down the corridor. It was only when they stopped outside the door that McCoy realised he’d been walking on his tiptoes. He looked at Murray, who looked at him and pointed at the door. He sighed, knocked it hard. Here we go.

‘Mr Connolly! Police! Need you to open the door.’

Nothing.

He looked back at Murray, who nodded at the door impatiently. He knocked it again.

‘Mr Connolly. Glasgow Police. Need you to open up now!’

Nothing again.

‘Maybe he’s gone out one of the other doors. Uniforms might have got him already?’ said McCoy hopefully.

‘Pan it in,’ said Murray.

‘What? You sure that’s a good idea?’

‘You heard,’ said Murray. ‘Knock the door in.’

McCoy looked around, walked back up the corridor and pulled a large red fire extinguisher off the wall. Weighed a ton. He stood at the door with it. ‘You sure?’

Murray nodded so he stepped back, took it in both hands and launched it at the lock. The door cracked and splintered but held. He swore under his breath and swung it again. This time the door gave way, swung into the room, leaving a handle surrounded by splintered wood still attached to the lock.

‘Mr Connolly? You there?’ he shouted.

The room was gloomy, just a sliver of weak morning light seeping in through the net curtains. McCoy stepped in, immediately recoiled at the smell. Was like rotten food and something like blocked drains. He turned round to look for the light switch and that’s when the chair hit him.

It just missed his head and caught him on the shoulder but he went down all the same. Had a brief glimpse of Connolly’s bald head above him before he brought it down again. One of the chair legs went right into his chest, hurt like fuck. He cried out, tried to roll away. Looked up just as Connolly jumped over him and rammed the chair legs into Murray’s chest, pushing him back, pinning him against the corridor wall. One of the legs digging into his chest, the other digging into his windpipe. Connolly rammed the chair forward and Murray let out a horrible gurgling as the leg burst through the skin and dug further into his neck.

McCoy got himself up onto his knees but that was as far as he got before Connolly turned and whacked him across the side of the head. He didn’t know what it was he’d hit him with but it was hard and heavy, got him right on the temple, knocking him back against the bedroom wall and that was that.

He could only have been out for a minute or so. He came to, head spinning, seeing tiny flashes of light. He looked up. Connolly was gone and Wattie was crouched down over Murray.

‘He okay?’ McCoy managed to get out.

Murray struggled up, pushed Wattie off to the side. ‘Of course I’m bloody okay! Get after him!’ he bellowed at Wattie. ‘Move!’

Wattie scrabbled up and started running down the corridor towards the stairs.

McCoy sat up and rubbed at his head, could feel a lump there already. Looked down, two squares of blood were coming through his shirt. ‘What happened?’

Murray was pressing buttons on his radio, shouting into it. All he was getting was static; he chucked it at the wall, shouted, ‘Fucking thing!’ Then rounded on McCoy.

‘I’ll tell you what bloody happened. He got past me and you, brushed Wattie aside like a bloody fly and he was off like the clappers.’

‘Uniforms’ll get him then,’ said McCoy, holding out his shirt and looking down into it. Blood was running down his chest.

‘Some bloody chance of that. Fucking useless, the lot of them!’

An unlucky uniform appeared at the top of the stairs and got both barrels. Murray shouting orders at him about covering exits, watching the car park. Seemed like a waste of time to McCoy but it was probably making Murray feel better.

He crawled towards the bed and pulled himself up on it. Eased his jacket and shirt off, looked at himself in the dresser mirror and winced. The square dent from the chair leg on his chest was bleeding badly, raised red welt. Had a horrible feeling he’d a couple of broken ribs.

He leant in for a closer look and that was when he noticed them. Behind him, reflected in the mirror. Twenty or so old milk bottles lined up against the wall, each of them full of different levels of dark yellow piss. He looked away and groaned, the smell thick in the back of his throat.

He pushed the bathroom door open, looking for a drink from the tap, and suddenly the smell got even worse. He pulled a worn towel off the rail over his mouth and tried to breathe through that. Couldn’t believe what he was looking at. The bath was full of paper bags stuffed full of shit, flies buzzing and crawling over them. Each of them complete with a weight written on them in ballpoint pen: 4oz, 5oz. Realised they were grouped together by similar weight. He groaned, spat the taste out his mouth into the sink, wiped his mouth with a wad of toilet paper. There was an open paperback on top of the cistern.

Sven Hassel. Assignment Gestapo.

Big burning tank on the front. Shaving kit was on the shelf, navy blue wash bag with a drawstring. He pulled it open. A bottle of Brut aftershave, facecloth, nailbrush and a bottle of pills. He took the bottle out, gagging again at the stink. No chemist label on it. Two different kinds of pills, black bombers and Mandies by the look of it. He slipped the bottle into his trouser pocket, put the wash bag back.

Back in the bedroom he pulled the curtains wide and opened the window as far as it would go, tried to avoid the stink of the piss, breathe in the fresh air. Realised the bottles were marked too; amount in each one written in chinagraph pencil on the side.

He opened the dresser drawers. Nothing much, a couple of shirts. Nothing much in the wardrobe either. Just some dirty Y-fronts and a pair of trousers on a hanger. Connolly certainly did travel light. He started feeling a bit dizzy again so he sat back down on the bed, started breathing deeply. It hurt each time he breathed in, ribs must be fucked right enough.

Realised there was a picture pinned to the wall right in front of him. It was the picture that he’d seen in the paper. Charlie Jackson and his fiancée Elaine Scobie at the Provost’s Ball. Charlie looking young in a dinner suit, Elaine in a long dress, hair pinned up with a flower in it. Charlie’s head had gone in an angry scribble of blue ballpoint pen. Beneath it there was something written on the flowery wallpaper in pencil, hard to make out. McCoy leant to the side, let what light there was from the window hit the wall.

BYE BYE CHARLIE

Everything tastes the same.

My soul sometimes leaves my body.

He sat back, uttered a quiet ‘fuck me’ under his breath.

‘You all right?’ asked Murray, stepping into the room.

‘I’ll live,’ he said. ‘You?’

Murray nodded, rubbing at the welt on his neck with a bloodstained hanky. ‘What’s the bloody smell?’

McCoy gestured at the bottles. ‘Don’t go in the bathroom, it’s even worse. The sick bastard’s been keeping all his piss and shit and measuring it.’

‘He’s been what?’ Murray was staring at the bottles in disbelief. ‘Jesus Christ.’

McCoy pointed at the writing on the wall.

Murray read it, shook his head. ‘Fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

‘No idea. Think Lomax was right after all. He has gone fucking nuts. Did we lose him?’

‘Looks like it. Did you no see him when you came in?’ asked Murray.

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Aye, I saw him. That’s why I let him clobber me with a fucking chair. What about you?’

Murray sat down on the other bed and shook his head. ‘Maybe I’m not as young as I used to be. Didn’t know what was happening until you were down and he was stabbing me with those bloody chair legs.’ He looked up. ‘What you grinning at?’

McCoy shook his head. ‘Two of us. Glasgow’s finest. Brought to our knees by some loony armed with a bedroom chair. Maybe put in for a medal, eh?’

Murray shook his head. ‘C’mon. After this shitshow I need a bloody drink.’

*

‘Nowhere, sir. Uniforms didn’t move from the exits, didn’t see anything. Nobody came past them. We could search the building but it’s almost four hundred rooms . . .’

‘So where the fuck is he?’ asked Murray.

Wattie shrugged. ‘He’s either hiding somewhere in the hotel or he managed to get out some other way.’

Murray put his glass back on the table. They were sitting in the empty lounge bar, tartan everywhere. Smell of damp in the walls. Miserable bartender polishing a glass and looking at them suspiciously. Only other patrons were two old ladies sipping sherry.

‘He’ll be gone. No way he’s going to stick around here.’ McCoy took a sip of his pint, waved his arm around. ‘This hotel is huge. Even if we’d covered the exits there’s windows, service entrances, delivery chutes, loads of ways he could have got out.’

Murray knew he was right, just didn’t want to admit it. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘Nothing we can do. He’ll turn up. Don’t think Connolly’s ever been out of Glasgow in his puff. He’ll no be going anywhere. Not while Elaine Scobie’s here. We’re looking for him, we’ve got our touts looking for him, even Scobie’s cronies are supposedly looking for him. He’ll turn up. Just need to go in mob-handed next time, make sure he doesn’t get away.’

He held up the paperback he had found in Connolly’s hotel room. ‘He’s underlined something in here.’

‘Oh aye,’ said Murray, looking sour. ‘What?’

McCoy read it out. ‘“The colonel had died badly. He had begged and pleaded and babbled hysterically, with tears down his cheeks, of the favours he could arrange for them if only they would spare his life. His last despairing words had been to offer them free use of his wife and daughters . . .”’

‘That supposed to be about Jake Scobie?’ asked Wattie.

‘Might be,’ said McCoy. ‘Really need to get Elaine Scobie to come in. Picture of the hotel-room wall’s proof if we even needed any. He’s obviously obsessed; she’s not safe.’

Murray nodded. ‘I’ll have another go at Lomax.’

McCoy finished his pint, stood up, winced.

‘Where you off to?’ asked Murray.

‘Boots the chemist and Marks. Aspirin, some plaster for these bloody cuts and a new shirt. You?’

‘Into the shop for a couple of hours then back home to change. Got dinner at the City Chambers. Some charity thing. All I do these days is go to bloody dinners.’

‘Perils of being a big boss.’ McCoy pointed at his neck. ‘Make sure the dress uniform doesn’t cover your war wound, give all the lady councillors a thrill. I’ll catch up with you later, see where we are.’

‘We need to be bloody somewhere,’ said Murray gloomily. ‘Between the press and the Super this Charlie Jackson thing needs to get sorted. Press went national today.’ He looked up at them and for the first time McCoy noticed he was starting to look old. More grey in his beard than ginger. ‘He’ll no be happy we lost Connolly today.’

‘We’ll get him, sir. Not be long.’

McCoy headed for the door, hoped it was true.

He was crossing the shabby foyer, almost at the hotel’s front doors, when they burst open in front of him. Jake Scobie and two of his boys were standing there trying to look like the bloody cavalry.

‘You get him?’ Scobie asked, looking round.

‘Not this time,’ said McCoy. ‘Got away.’

‘For fuck sake!’ Jake’s shout echoed round the empty foyer. Fat guy behind the desk looked up in fright.

Murray appeared beside him. ‘Scobie? What are you doing here?’ he asked angrily.

Jake’s colour was up, fists bunched. ‘You lost him, didn’t you!’

Murray stepped forward; McCoy put his arm out to stop him going any further. Way Scobie was shouting the odds, he was definitely looking for a fight, and way Murray was feeling, Murray would be more than happy to give it to him.

‘Mr Scobie, can I ask you how you knew we were here?’ asked McCoy.

‘What?’

‘Can’t be a coincidence you turning up here, can it? How did you know we were here?’

Jake looked exasperated. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? You had Connolly and you let him go! Useless shower. Usual polis shite.’ He shook his head. ‘Can see I’m going to have to do this myself.’

Murray was still pressing against McCoy’s arm, trying to get to Scobie; could feel the weight of him. McCoy held firm. Last thing this investigation needed was Murray and Scobie going at each other in the foyer of the bloody St Enoch Hotel.

‘I’ll ask you again, Mr Scobie. How did you know we were here?’

No response, just a glare. One of his boys cleared his throat, spat on the carpet.

‘Okay, Mr Scobie, let me explain things to you in simple terms. You are refusing to tell me how you knew the police or Kevin Connolly were here. If it turns out you are bribing or pressuring any officers on this case for confidential information that led you here, I’ll arrest you and make sure you spend the next couple of months in Barlinnie, Archie Lomax or no fucking Archie Lomax.’