Pray for the Dying

Twenty

‘I think I preferred it when you were just another DI, and Max Allan kept you in the background.’ Scott Mann stared at the kitchen wall clock; it showed five minutes to midnight. ‘What the hell time’s this tae be comin’ in?’

His wife stared at him. ‘Don’t you bloody start,’ she warned. ‘The number of times I’ve asked you that question. That and “Where the hell have you been?” although it was always all too obvious.’

‘Ye’ll never let me forget, will ye?’

‘Bloody right I won’t; not when you start digging me up about my work. I’ve had the day from hell and I don’t need you narking at me. I didn’t ask to catch the shout to the concert hall last night, but I did and that’s the end of it. Okay?’ She barked out the last word.

He winced and glanced towards the ceiling. ‘Shh,’ he whispered. ‘Ye’ll wake the wee man. He’s no’ long asleep. He tried to stay awake for you. Ah made him put his light out at half nine, but he did his best tae hang on.’

She smiled, with a gentleness that none of her colleagues would have recognised. ‘Wee darlin’,’ she murmured. An instant later she glared at her husband. ‘As well for you though that it’s the holidays, and tomorrow’s not a school day.’

‘Well it’s no’,’ he shot back, ‘and that’s an end of it.’

‘Aye fine,’ Lottie sighed, deciding that further hostilities were pointless. ‘Where did you go, the pair of you?’ she asked.

‘We got the bus out tae Strathclyde Park. There’s a big funfair there; he had a great time. Ah got him a ticket. . a wristband thing, it was. . for all the rides.’

‘What about you? Did you go on any?’

‘Shite, no! Me?’

‘Come on, Scottie,’ she chuckled. ‘You’re just a big kid at heart. What was it? Too dear for both of you?’

‘No, Ah just didnae fancy it.’

‘Did I not give you enough money?’

He shook his head. ‘No, no,’ he insisted. ‘I had enough if Ah’d wanted.’ He paused. ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘I had a sandwich earlier. I just want a cup of something then I’m off.’

In truth, she would have considered committing murder for a brandy and dry ginger, but she refused to keep alcohol in the house, unless they were entertaining, when she bought wine for their guests. She had seen her husband drunk too often to do anything to undermine his constant, daily, effort to stay sober.

‘Ah’ll make you a cup o’ tea,’ Scott said. ‘Go and take the weight off your plates.’

She did as he told her, slipping off her shoes and her jacket, then slumping into her armchair. She was almost asleep when he came into the living room a few minutes later, carrying what she saw was a new mug, with the theme park logo, and a plate, loaded with cheese sandwiches and a round, individual, pork pie.

‘Eaten?’ he laughed. ‘My arse! Where are you going tae get a sandwich anywhere near Pitt Street on a Sunday night? Wee Danny Provan’s no’ going to run out and get you something, that’s for bloody sure.’

She squeezed his arm as he laid her supper on a side table. ‘You’re a good lad, Scott,’ she murmured.

‘Ah do my best,’ he replied. ‘Honest, Ah really do.’

‘I know.’

‘So,’ he continued, ‘how’s it goin’? Have you solved the case yet? No’ that there’s much to solve.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, but there bloody is. For a start, we’ve established who the two dead guys were.’

‘Ah thought you knew.’

‘We knew who they had been, through our “intelligence sources”,’ she held up both hands and made a ‘quotation mark’ gesture with her fingers, ‘so called. But now we know about them. That’s why I’m so late in. One of them went under the name of Bryan Lightbody. He lived in Hamilton, New Zealand, with a wife and a wee boy Jakey’s age, and he owned four taxis there.

‘The other one was known as Richie Mallett, single, well-off, low-handicap golfer. He lived in Sydney, in an apartment near somewhere called Circular Quay, and he had a bar there. Both of them seem to have been very respectable guys, apart from when they were moonlighting and killing people.’

Scott whistled. ‘They’ll no’ kill any more, though.’

‘No, but they did leave us a wee present.’ She broke off to demolish half of the pork pie. ‘Do you remember when you were in the job,’ she continued, when she was ready, ‘hearing of a guy called Bazza Brown?’

He frowned. ‘Remind me,’ he murmured.

‘Gangster. Fairly small time in your day, but come up in the world since then.’

‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘Aye, but vaguely.’

‘Well, they’d heard of him,’ Lottie declared. ‘We traced their car this afternoon, and we found Bazza shut in the boot.’

‘Eh?’ her husband exclaimed. ‘So he must have been in it all night. Was he still alive?’

‘No.’

‘Did he suffocate?’

‘I don’t think so. I doubt if he’d time before they shot him in the chest.’

His eyes widened. ‘Fuck me!’ he gasped.

She chuckled. ‘Those may very well have been his last words.’ She ate the other half of the pie and washed it down with a mouthful of tea.

‘No’ much use to you dead, though, is he?’ Scott remarked, recovering his composure. ‘He’ll no’ be much of a witness.’

‘He’s not going to tell us a hell of a lot,’ she conceded. ‘But nevertheless, even dead, he’s a lead of sorts. We think we know why he was involved with them. I don’t believe for a minute that he was behind the whole thing, too small a player for that, but if we can find who he was in touch with before he died, that may lead us to whoever ordered Toni Field killed.’

‘My God,’ he whispered. He looked at her, frowning. ‘You’re sure she was the target, and no’ the de Marco woman?’

Lottie nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘There’s no doubt about that now, sunshine. The crime scene team found her photo, tucked away in Botha’s false passport.’