but then you wouldn’t, would you. You’d take it as understood.’
Heenan, tall, fair and well-groomed, smiled suavely. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What we’re talking about,’ said Superintendent Donaldson, ‘is the murder of Carl Medina in his home yesterday. The day after he repaid your thousand pound loan, and told you that you could whistle for the interest.
‘Where were you yesterday morning?’ he asked, suddenly.
Maxwell’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. ‘I was here,’ he said at last. ‘In my upstairs office. My wife was in the shop.’
Donaldson whistled. ‘That’s your only alibi? Your wife? Tommy, you’re in the shit. We’ve got Medina’s girlfriend at St Leonard’s, looking through our rogues’ gallery to pick out the heavy you had with you last Saturday. I think the three of us should join her, don’t you?’
‘Why did you kill him, Tommy?’ asked McIlhenney, roughly. ‘Normally eight hundred’s only a broken-leg job. Was it because he told you to fuck off in front of your minder? Did you think you had to save face? Because if you did, your saved face is going to cost you a life sentence.’
Donaldson stepped up to Heenan and laid a hand on his shoulder, pushing him towards the door. Suddenly, with a quick sideways flick, the loanshark kicked the policeman just below the left knee, with the hard outside edge of the sole of his right shoe. As the Superintendent yelped with pain and collapsed to the floor, clutching his shin, Heenan dived through the doorway, and down the narrow flight of stairs which led out into Peffermill Road.
McIlhenny’s way to the door was blocked by his fallen colleague. Awkwardly, he stepped over him, then crashed down the stairway, bouncing from wall to wall until he reached the door at the foot. In the street he looked first right, then left, where he saw Heenan’s disappearing back, already almost thirty yards away.
It was another mild day and the midday crowds were gathering in Peffermill Road, most of them young men bound for an afternoon in the football grandstands. The natural instinct of many, witnessing a chase, might have been to stand aside for the pursued and impede the pursuer. But Neil McIlhenney, gathering pace, was a formidable object. The pavement throng parted before him, like fans before a Tour de France cyclist as he set off after Heenan. The few unfortunates who did not step aside were sent flying as the big Sergeant swept them out of his way.
McIlhenney, while a laborious runner, was quicker than he looked over a short distance, but he was able to make up little ground on the slimmer Heenan. He dug in, looking for his last yard of speed, but the cause seemed lost. The detective knew that if Heenan avoided arrest, then he would disappear and be swallowed up by the underworld in which he moved. He felt his thighs begin to tighten. He heard his breath begin to rasp. He saw Heenan, almost fifty yards ahead now and without slackening his pace, look over his shoulder, with the faintest of smiles.
And Neil McIlhenney smiled back. By the time it had dawned on Heenan to wonder why, it was too late. The child’s plastic tricycle, which had rolled, seemingly of its own volition, out of an open doorway, was directly in his path. He tripped over it and fell headlong, rolling, tumbling across the pavement.
He scrambled on the ground, trying to regain his footing, but his disaster had given the big detective renewed energy. As Heenan stood up, McIlhenney, travelling at full speed, hit him with a flying tackle which was part Rugby League, part all-in wrestling.
The loanshark went down again, this time with all the Sergeant’s weight bearing upon him. They lay there together, Heenan moaning, McIlhenney recovering his breath in great gasps.
‘Tortoise and the hare, Tommy,’ he wheezed at last, his forearm jammed across his captive’s throat. ‘You should have remembered. Fucking tortoise wins every time.’
38
It was as if the vulture was peering out at them. Evan Mulgrew sat across the table, shoulders hunched, in the interview room in the administration block of Peterhead Prison. His prison uniform shirt was unbuttoned almost halfway down, giving Rose and Pye a clear view of part of his right shoulder, and of the bizarre bird’s head.
‘Memorable, all right,’ thought the Chief Inspector. The scavenger’s beady eye stared out at her. From its beak a piece of bloody carrion hung loosely, red and horribly realistic.
Mulgrew caught her glance and smiled. ‘Want to see the rest, hen?’ he said, beginning to unbutton his shirt still further. At once, he was grabbed by one of two big prison officers who were flanking him. He was hauled roughly to his feet, and his arms were held pinned to his sides while the other officer buttoned his shirt tight, up to the neck.
As he was slammed back into his seat Rose smiled evenly across at him. ‘Sunshine,’ she murmured, ‘I’ve seen better at home.
‘D’you know,’ she said, still smiling, ‘my husband nicked you, Mulgrew. Three years ago. He said that when it came to it, you were a pure pussy-cat. Pity you don’t have a cat’s luck. It has nine lives; you attack a judge’s daughter and get a twelve stretch.’
Mulgrew looked away from her and stared out of the barred window. Early Saturday afternoon in northerly Peterhead was much less mild than in Edinburgh, and thick globules of sleety snow were splashing against the glass. ‘Aye okay,’ he muttered. ‘So what d’yis want?’
‘When you were walking about on the outside, Mulgrew,’ Rose began, ‘you used to work out at the Commonwealth Pool.’
‘Aye.’
‘Do you remember talking there to a man called Carl?’
The Vulture scratched his chin. ‘Youngish chap, fair hair?’ Sammy Pye nodded.
‘Aye. So what?’
‘Do you recall,’ asked Rose, ‘telling Carl about a man named Douglas Terry, and about people who did odd jobs for him?’
Mulgrew’s slightly bored expression changed suddenly to one of real concern. ‘I might have done. I cannae remember.’
‘Come on, Evan, Carl didn’t make this story up. You were bragging to him, weren’t you?’
The Vulture looked down at the desk and shrugged his shoulders, very slightly.
‘You told Carl that you knew someone who did heavy work for Terry, and you mentioned specifically an attack on a Hearts footballer, Jimmy Lee.’
Mulgrew shook his head.
Sammy Pye took a chance. ‘Come on, Evan. D’you want us to bring Carl up here? Now, why did you tell him that story? Are you just a windbag, is that it?’
The Vulture stared hotly across at him. ‘You and me in a room, son, and we’ll see wha’s a windbag. I was trying tae sort out if Carl was interested in that sort of work. He said thanks, but he wisna.’
‘So who was the man you knew?’ said Pye.
Mulgrew’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Maggie Rose. ‘What’s in it for me?’ he asked.
The Chief Inspector raised her eyebrows and tossed her red hair. ‘You’re in for attempted rape, so it can’t be much. But we can put a note on your file for the Parole Board. Then maybe, just maybe, mind, we can get you transferred out of this Godawful place, to somewhere like Shotts or Saughton.’
The prisoner sat silent for almost two minutes, fidgeting, chewing his right thumb-nail, glancing occasionally out of the window. At last, he looked across at the two detectives. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Ah’ll tell yis.
‘The man I mentioned tae Carl was Ricky McCartney. He lives out in Craigmillar, and he works for Dougie Terry.’
‘What do you know about Terry?’ asked Rose.
‘He runs a chain of betting shops and minicab companies. ’
‘What does McCartney do for him?’
‘He puts teams together. Heavies. Like when somebody’s out of order and needs sorting out.’
‘Like Jimmy Lee, you mean?’
‘Aye, like Jimmy Lee.’
‘And how was Jimmy Lee out of order?’
The Vulture hesitated again. ‘Saughton, right?’ Rose nodded.
