Pray for the Dying

Thirty-One

‘Ye cannae do this,’ the prisoner protested, ‘ma lawyer’s no’ here. I’m saying nothin’ till he gets here. And this charge! What the fuck yis on about? Conspiracy tae fuckin’ murder? That’s pure shite. Ah never murdered onybody.’

‘Technically that’s true, Cec,’ Dan Provan admitted. ‘The jury was stupid enough tae convict you of culpable homicide, and the judge was even dafter when he gave you five years. But the boy ye killed was just as fuckin’ deid, so let’s no’ split hairs about it.’

‘We can do it,’ Lottie Mann assured him. ‘We can do pretty much what we like.’

‘Oh aye?’ Cecil Brown stuck out his jaw, with menace, then took a closer look at the expression on her face and realised that aggression was not his best option.

‘Oh aye.’ She pointed at the recorder on the desk. ‘That thing is not switched on. When your brief gets here it will be and we’ll get formal, but until then, tell me what business you and your brother had with the South Africans.’

He stared back at her. When they had arrested him, the DI’s impression had been that he was genuinely surprised. As she studied his big, dumb eyes, that feeling moved towards certainty. ‘What fuckin’ South Africans?’ he asked.

Provan leaned forward. ‘Son,’ he murmured, ‘off the record, who’s your biggest rival in Glasgow?’

‘Ah don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’

He laughed. ‘Of course you do. Don’t fanny about, Cec. I’m askin’ you who you’ve got in mind, what mind ye have, that is, for toppin’ your brother. Paddy Reilly? Specky Green? Which of those have you crossed lately? Which of those are we liable tae find in the Clyde any day now?’

When the sergeant floated the second name he saw Brown’s eyes narrow; very slightly but it was enough. ‘It’s Specky, right? Let me guess; you and Bazza ripped him off on some sort of a deal, or moved gear intae one of his pubs. So you’re thinkin’ it was him that bumped off the boy. Well, if ye are, ye’re wrong.’

‘Aye, sure.’ The tone was a mix of scepticism and contempt. ‘Ah might be thick, but no’ so thick Ah’d believe youse bastards.’

‘He’s not kidding, Cecil,’ Lottie Mann assured him. ‘This is how it was. We found your brother’s body yesterday afternoon crammed into the boot of a car in the multi-storey park next to the Buchanan Street bus station. It had been there for a day, and it was starting to hum.

‘It was a hire vehicle from London, and it was meant to be the getaway car for the two men, those South Africans I mentioned, who shot and killed our chief constable in the Royal Concert Hall on Saturday evening. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t get away, and they’re no longer,’ her eyes narrowed and she smiled, ‘in a position to assist us with our inquiries.’ She paused, letting the slow-moving cogs of his mind process what she had said.

‘Now we don’t actually believe,’ she went on, ‘that you and your brother were the masterminds behind a plot to kill Ms Field, but the fact that we found him where we did, and also that our forensic team will prove that he was killed by the same gun that was used to shoot two police officers outside the hall, that puts you right in the middle of it.’

Cecil Brown’s mouth was hanging open.

‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘I can see you get my point. So we need you to tell us what your role was, and how Bazza came to meet up with those guys. You help us, before your brief gets here to shut you up, and your life will be a hell of a lot better. For openers, you will have a life.

‘We are going to put somebody in the dock for this, make no mistake, and at the moment you’re all we’ve got. I’m not talking about five soft years for manslaughter here, Cecil. If you’re convicted of having a part in Chief Constable Field’s murder you’ll be drawing your old age pension before you get out.’

‘Personally, laddie,’ Dan Provan yawned, ‘Ah’d love tae see that happen. You sit there and say nothing and we’ll build a case against ye, no bother.’

‘Ah don’t know anything!’ the prisoner shouted. ‘Honest tae Christ, Ah don’t. Bazza said nothin’ tae me about any South Africans.’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘Nothin’.’

‘Come on,’ the DS laughed, ‘when did your big brother keep secrets from you? The pair of you wis like Siamese twins. You lived next door tae each other, drove the same gangster motors. . what are they, big black Chrysler saloons. . ye both married girls ye’d been at the school with, ye shared a box at Ibrox. Come on, Cec. You cannae expect us to believe that Bazza was involved in the shooting of the chief bloody constable and he kept you in the dark about it.’

‘Man,’ the surviving Brown brother protested, ‘ye’re off yir heid. Bazza would never have got involved in anything as crazy as killin’ the chief constable, or any fuckin’ constable. The amount of shite that would have brought down on our heids! It’s the last thing he’d have wanted. He had nothin’ to do with it.’

‘But he had, Cecil,’ Lottie Mann boomed. ‘Like it or not, he was with Smit and Botha, the two men who shot Ms Field. He was involved with them, and he could have identified them, so they killed him when they had done whatever business they had with him.’

‘If you say so,’ the prisoner muttered, his lip jutting out like that of a rebellious child. ‘But he never telt me about it, okay?’

She sighed. ‘Yes, right. Let’s say I accept that, for the moment. Did Bazza keep a diary?’

‘Eh?’

‘Did he keep any sort of written record of his life; his meetings, deals, and so on?’

‘In a book, like?’

‘Book, computer, tablet.’

‘Ah don’t know. Maybe on his phone.’

‘We don’t have that,’ Mann said. ‘Would he have had it on him?’

‘Oh aye, a’ the time.’

‘Did he have a contract or did he use a throwaway?’

‘He had a top-up. He took it everywhere, even tae the bog.’

‘Then Smit and Botha must have dumped it after they killed him.’ She leaned closer to him. ‘Cec, we want whoever was behind them. So do you, for your brother’s sake. Help us.’

He met her gaze. ‘How can Ah, if Ah don’t know anything?’

‘Where’s Bazza’s car?’

Brown turned, at Provan’s question. ‘Parked outside his hoose,’ he replied.

The DS looked at the DI, eyebrows raised, as if inviting a response.

It came. ‘Did Smit and Botha pick him up from home?’ she asked.

‘Naw. Ah’d have seen them,’ Cec volunteered, with certainty. ‘We’ve got CCTV. It covers both houses. Ah checked it this mornin’, as soon as Senga told me he was deid. Ah was looking for Specky, or his boys. There was nothin’, other than us, the paper boy and the postie.’

‘So that makes us wonder. How did he get to wherever he met them?’

‘Ah suppose Ah must have took him.’

‘Where? When?’

‘Friday evenin’. Ye know that big park with a’ the shops, beside the motorway? Bazza asked me if Ah’d take him there for seven o’clock. He said he was meetin’ a burd. He always had bits on the side,’ he added, in explanation. ‘Our cars are a wee bit obvious, so if he is. . when he wis. . playin’ away he liked tae use taxis. Ah took him there and Ah dropped him off, in the car park, must hae been about seven, mibbes a wee bit after.’

‘And that was the last time you saw him?’

‘Aye.’

‘But you didn’t see the woman?’

‘Naw.’ His eyes were fixed on the table. ‘There couldnae have been one, could there? Ah must have delivered him tae the guys that killed him.’

‘Then it’s too bad for him he didn’t tell you what was going on. You could have hung around and watched his back.’

‘Fuckin’ right,’ Cec muttered.

‘Is there anything else?’ Mann asked him. ‘Anything that could help us?’

‘I wish there wis. If Ah could, Ah would, honest.’

‘You know what,’ she said, ‘I think I believe you. Cec, you’re free to go, but I warn you, we’ve got search warrants for Bazza’s house, and for yours, and for the office of that so-called minicab company that you run. We’re enforcing them right now, going through the records, and looking for anything that’ll tie your brother to those guys. If we find something, and you’re involved after all, you’ll be back in here before you’ve even had time to take a piss.

‘In the meantime, my advice is to watch your back. If the man we’re after gets it into his head that Bazza might have confided in you, he might decide that it’s too big a risk to leave you running around loose.’

Brown’s eyes seemed to light up with a strange intensity, that of a man with two bells showing on a one-armed bandit and the third reel still spinning. ‘Ah hope he does, Miss. Ah’d like tae talk tae him.’