Funeral Note

Mario McGuire

Some people actually volunteer to visit prisons. I can never get my head round that, because they are the most depressing places I know. Even today, when our society is forced by human rights conventions and such to care about the conditions in which it locks people up, even without pisspots during the night, they are grim places, devoid of all but the darkest humour, and with an air of pent-up aggression that’s so pervasive it’s almost palpable.

I’ve helped to send a right few people there in my career. While all those results were satisfying professionally, I’ve taken no personal pleasure from any of them, save one, perhaps, a police officer who’d betrayed us all, and who’d earned our righteous anger. That guy killed himself inside, possibly before someone else could do the job for him, and as I turned into the access road that leads up to HMP Saughton, I found myself wondering what would be waiting for Jock Varley when he found himself banged up, as I was determined he would.

‘That sign always gets my attention,’ Andy Martin said as we drove past a pole by the roadside.

‘How come?’ I asked. I’d never noticed it.

‘It says “Beware possible traffic queue”. It’s hard to imagine folk queuing to get into a jail. Out, yes. In, no.’

‘You’re in a cheerful mood,’ I remarked.

‘Am I?’ He sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Yes I suppose I am. I’ve got my weekend sorted out.’

‘Are you going to see the kids?’

‘Sunday, yes.’

‘How’s Karen?’ I’ve known Andy’s soon to be ex-wife for as long as he has.

‘She’s fine. We’ve sold the house up in Perth, and she’s bought a place in Lasswade; she moves in September. Once Robert’s old enough for nursery school she’s going to apply to rejoin the force.’

‘She won’t have any problem getting back in, not with her experience.’

‘I know that, Mario,’ he said. ‘But everything will have to be done by the book.’

And I knew whose book it would be. Karen’s re-employment was a racing certainty.

There was no traffic queue at the newly built entrance to the prison complex, and there was plenty of space in the car park. The video camera picked us up as we walked to the door next to the vehicle entrance. I told the entry system who we were and why we were there, and it was opened for us.

Kenny Bass was waiting for us in an interview room in the remand unit, to which we were led by one of the gate officers. He’d been told that we were coming and had called in a brief, a smart-suited midtwenties kid from Criminal Lawyers R Us or some similar operation. His name was Laurence. . his surname escapes me; I don’t think I’m ever going to need to remember it. . and he was keen, but he had the wrong idea.

‘Let me set the ground rules for this meeting, gentlemen,’ he began. ‘My client. .’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Andy murmured, just as I was about to tell the lad to shut the fuck up. ‘This is an informal interview with your client, and it doesn’t relate directly to the offence with which he’s charged. So you don’t need to worry about him incriminating himself, or about protecting his human rights.’

‘Nevertheless. .’ the young solicitor exclaimed, then stopped short, as Andy nailed him with those green eyes of his. They’re made unnaturally bright by the tinted contact lenses he wears, the only sign of an affectation in the man. He can make them seem as if they might turn red in an instant, without pausing at amber, and I guess that’s what he’d done with Laurence.

‘There’ll be nothing recorded,’ he promised. ‘Unless your client wishes it, of course.’ He beamed at Kenny. ‘Do you, Mr Bass?’

The prisoner shook his head. ‘It’d be a waste of a tape,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve got fuck all to say to yis. I’ll take my chances in the Sheriff Court.’

‘Oh yes?’ I laughed, softly. ‘It may not stay at that level, Kenny. You should know the Edinburgh sheriffs by now. Plead guilty if you like, and I’m sure your lawyer here will put in a very eloquent plea in mitigation for you, but the guy on the bench will have your whole criminal history in front of him. Worse, you might get that new lady sheriff, Levy. Have you heard about her? A pal of mine in the fiscal’s office told me they call her Miss Whiplash in the court. She’s allowed to put you away for five years, but on her current form, she might decide that’s not enough. In that case she’ll send you to the High Court for sentence.’

He frowned and tried a shrug that didn’t quite come off.

‘But as my colleague said,’ I went on, his attention secured, ‘we’re not here to talk about that. Are we, Mr Martin?’

Bass glanced across at him. ‘I didnae know you were back,’ he muttered. Many members of the alternative society in Edinburgh have come to know Andy Martin personally, and nearly all of them, apart from the very young talent, will have heard of him. They’ve never quite known what to make of him, not since the early days when he was very obviously Bob Skinner’s pupil.

Some believe that he only ever played Good Cop to the chief’s Mr Nasty, but there was always much more to him than that. I could read the ambition in him on the day I met him. He knew from the start that it wouldn’t be realised by standing in someone else’s shadow, so he made his own space early on, and made himself memorable. That’s what the green contacts are about, and that leather jacket he wore for ever, and still has, I believe. He’s the second most visible cop in the country, and it’s no accident. As for those assumptions, big Bob has never gone in for that sort of stereotyped role play. Most of the time, the people he interviewed were only too keen to tell him what he wanted to know.

‘I’m not,’ Andy replied. ‘This is a special guest appearance, Kenny, just for you. We want to ask you about a man called John Varley.’

‘So ask.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘The name’s familiar. Is he no’ a comedian?’

‘No relation. This would be Inspector Varley.’

‘One of your lot? He’ll no’ be funny at all, then.’ He started to smile, but then flinched. I guessed that Andy had given him another warning look. ‘I think I met him a few years ago,’ he volunteered. ‘He might have been a sergeant then; aye that’s right, he was. I had a massage parlour then and he came in to check on the licence.’

That was news to me. ‘Why did he do that?’ I asked him. ‘Those places all have public entertainment licences; you can inspect them in the council offices.’

‘You tell me; that was his excuse for coming in. He wanted to look over the premises.’

‘And you let him?’

He sniffed. ‘Aye sure, Mr McGuire. Like I was going to tell a uniform sergeant to fuck off.’

‘Okay, so he looked over the premises. Then what?’

‘Then he left.’

I laughed; couldn’t help myself. It was so spontaneous that it startled Laurence the lawyer who sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘Bollocks, Kenny,’ I chuckled. ‘A cop comes into your massage place, has a quick look round then goes away. That’s all, and yet a few years later you remember the incident then him. Something else happened, didn’t it?’

He shook his head. ‘No, nothing,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing happened, nothing else.’

I leaned forward, not laughing any longer. ‘Don’t bullshit us, now. Did he try to extort money from you?’

‘No.’ He was staring hard at the tabletop. If Laurence hadn’t been there I’d have made bloody sure he was looking at me as he lied to me, but I couldn’t.

‘Then what, Kenny?’

‘Nothing.’ His voice was so quiet that if we’d been recording I’d have asked him to repeat it.

Andy leaned forward. ‘Listen, this is not going to get you done,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a fuck about. .’ Bass flinched again and he hit on it. ‘A fuck,’ he repeated. ‘Varley leaned on you for a freebie from one of the girls, didn’t he?’

Finally Bass raised his eyes from the furniture and met ours. ‘I’m saying nothing, okay.’

‘Why not?’ Andy asked. ‘Is it because Varley’s related to Freddy Welsh?’

Those eyes went blank, as if two shutters had dropped. ‘Who’s Freddy Welsh?’

‘Freddy Welsh is the guy you met for a drink in Lafayette’s pub last Wednesday night,’ I reminded him.

‘Gentlemen,’ Laurence intervened, tentatively.

‘Shut up!’ Andy snapped. He did.

‘I was on my own.’

‘You were sitting with Freddy Welsh,’ I countered. ‘We’ve got you on video.’

‘Sure,’ he blustered, a little animation restored, ‘a guy came and sat at my table, but I didnae know him.’

‘That’s not what the video shows.’

‘Fuck your video; that’s what I’m saying.’

‘He took a phone call then he left,’ I continued, ‘without looking at you.’

‘Exactly,’ Bass exclaimed, as if we had made his point for him.

‘Then you left too. Right away, straight after him.’

‘I finished my drink. I was leaving anyway.’

‘No, Kenny, that’s mince, and we both know it. You were there to meet Freddy. Look, we don’t want to ask you about these fags you’re being done for. We want you to tell us about Freddy himself, and why a supposedly straight-up reputable businessman should be involved in a pretty run-of-the-mill tobacco smuggling deal.’

‘Who’s Freddy Welsh? Who’s Freddy Welsh? Who’s Freddy Welsh?’

Andy stopped any further repetitions, with a warning, pointed finger. ‘He’s a guy who’s got you scared shitless, Kenny. You might be relatively small time as criminals go, but you’re experienced and you know the ropes. The fact that Welsh can do that to you makes him a person of interest to us.’

‘Fine,’ Bass hissed. ‘Then go and ask your pal Varley about him, if they’re related like you say they are, because you’re getting fuck all out of me.’