I carefully placed the pinkie of the man I now knew to be Thomas Tierney in a padded envelope. I drove to the east end and posted it in a pillar box in Bridgeton.
With that it was winging its way directly to the desk of Rachel Narey who was doubtless already waiting for the postman with bated breath and forensic scientist.
Package posted, I turned around and drove to work.
I did all that with the utmost certainty that things had just begun to go wrong.
CHAPTER 14
I had a problem. Potentially a rather serious problem. The little man with the mouse-eating grin was named Thomas Tierney. Known, apparently, as Spud. The papers said so. They said he had been stabbed just minutes from his home. They said police were seeking witnesses to his last movements. They said he had been drinking in the Brig Tavern. They said he had been brutally murdered. They said it may have been a gangland killing.
Yes. Gangland.
They said Tierney was a known associate of Alexander Kirkwood. That was the problem. The papers said Kirkwood was a well-known Glasgow businessman. That meant gangster. That meant trouble. In Alec Kirkwood’s case, it meant trouble with a capital F.
Glasgow is a village with a city within it. Everyone who lives and breathes in the other city plays by different rules, speaks a different language, lives by different laws. The world is woven inside, under and around the official Glasgow.
The other city has its own police, its own civic leaders, its own lawmakers. It has its own code of conduct and it all runs perfectly smoothly as long as everyone plays the game. Some people live entirely within the other city and couldn’t leave it if they tried. Some live on the fringes, others make day trips in and out. Some of us can speak the language and know lots of people who live there but try to keep our distance all the same. Except when it suits us.
Right then, it suited me to trade chat with people who lived closer to the other city than I did. They heard things that I wanted to hear. Things I needed to know. Alec Kirkwood was police, councillor and lawmaker in the other city. Big cheese. Bad man.
He wasn’t strictly A-list. The very fact that he was even known to the likes of me made him B-list. Big and bad but B-list all the same. No one knew who the A-list guys were but chances are, these days, they were not even in Glasgow at all. Strings pulled from Liverpool and London.
I knew of Kirkwood but I knew people who knew people who knew him. Guys like Ally McFarland. He knew people but thought he was people. Ally was in his late twenties and not as bad as he liked to make out. He’d sell some dodgy gear and get in a fight when he’d had a swally but that was about it. He was mates with some of the heavies in the Star Bar over in Royston and liked to drop their names in to impress. He also liked the sound of his own voice. And best of all, he liked me.
I think there was a bit of him that felt sorry for me after what happened. Normally I’d hate that but it suited my purpose. Let him think what he likes as long as he talks. And he talked about Kirkwood when I asked. Kirky was not a happy bunny. He had taken the killing of Spud Tierney as a personal insult.
Image is a funny thing in the other city. The likes of Alec Kirkwood need to keep a low profile for the public and the press but needs his name in lights as far as the scumbags go. They need to be shit-scared of crossing him. Even the thought of thinking about messing with him should make them pish their pants.
He made sure everyone knew that if you touched one of Alec Kirkwood’s boys then you were a dead man. Simple as that. I’d touched one, big time. Serious problem.
The people that knew people said that Kirky had this thing about having a quiet life. He believed that if everybody did as they should then everybody would be all right. Everybody would have money in their pockets and an easy life. Everybody knew the cops wanted a quiet time of it too. They didn’t need to come around stirring up dirt to see what shit was lying beneath it, they already knew. Everybody was happy.
Kirky had this line he liked to put about. Everyone behaves and everyone’s fine. But if some muppet shits in the ice cream then the party is over.
I’d killed Spud Tierney. I’d put the keech in the Haagen-Dazs. Now Alec Kirkwood wanted revenge. He wanted me. He just didn’t know it yet.
The strange thing is that I’d actually met him once. I was drinking in the Comet in Ruchill, a pub with a certain reputation. I hadn’t been that comfortable even going into the place. It was only the fact that the two guys I was with were locals that I could even be in there without getting my head kicked in. A quick pint and away.
Then the door opened. In walked this guy and the entire place froze. Got the distinct feeling guys would have jumped through windows if there weren’t bars on them. I didn’t know who he was but there was no doubting that he was somebody. He was no more than five foot ten but gave the impression of being bigger. And that was despite being followed in by four gorillas who were all well over six feet. He reminded me of a game show host. Weird but he did.
Smart, tailored suit. Corporate hair cut. Always adjusting his cuffs or the knot in his tie. Grinning like a man who knew all the answers. I guess he was good-looking. Ask a woman.
I’d say he was about thirty-two. Face unmarked, which surprised me even before I knew who he was. There was something about him reminded me of George W. Bush. That wasn’t a compliment.
Game show host. Businessman. Politician. It was as if he had been on some correspondence course for charisma. He was glad-handing everyone around him. He even shook mine. He would hold people’s gaze with this grin and nod at whatever they were saying as if they were saying the most interesting thing he’d ever heard. Above all, there was a supreme confidence about him. It was an arrogance, a sureness that was almost surreal. It was as if he was running for election but had already got every vote locked away.
The guys I was with were lapping it up. The man’s pure class, they said. Got five jacuzzis in his house, they said. See that suit? Bought me a drink. Great guy.
Aye, right. He nodded and grinned at me just the way he did with everyone else. I don’t think he heard a single word I said. When I found out who he was, that suited me fine. Alec Kirkwood had fought his way out of Asher Street in Baillieston, a mental bampot who was as handy with his head as he was with a baseball bat. He hurt a lot of people and won the kind of reputation you need to separate yourself from the herd.
Those that tried to stop him found their houses fire-bombed. Those with asbestos homes had their pets poisoned. Some even went to their kids’ school to find that Uncle Alec had already picked them up and looked after them for a couple of hours. He never touched them. It was a message.
A mental case. Psycho. Mad, bad and deadly to know.
He worked his way up. Swapped his bovver boots for an Armani suit and his knuckleduster for a chartered accountant. Too smart to get his hands dirty these days. Still plenty of blood on them though.
He now had one of those knock-through council house rows where three homes had been turned into a ranch. He was established. He was establishment. Other city establishment. He thought himself a cut above the rest, a smart guy among smartarses. A game show host among mongrels.
Those who knew said that Spud Tierney was a dealer for Kirkwood. He was an irritating wee shite by all accounts. It was only being Kirky’s boy that had kept him alive for as long as it did. People knew he was Kirkwood’s and that was his passport through closes and schemes, it was his shield of invincibility. Right up till when I killed him.
They said he was a yappy wee dick who was always winding folk up. He’d needle guys twice his size and the only wonder was that he’d never been killed sooner.
Spud was low life and low rent. He’d bang out wraps to wasters. A few quid here, a dirty tenner there. He’d shank out smokes and snifters, pills and pokes to any hoodie or Burberry bam that had scraped the necessary from their giro.
He wouldn’t be missed but there was something else. I’d worked it out. I just hadn’t worked out if it would be a good thing or not. I had sawn off Spud Tierney’s finger for my own purposes. Kirkwood obviously wouldn’t know that. So what would he think? Easy peasy, he’d take it as a sign. Tierney had been killed because he was Kirkwood’s and that finger was someone’s way of telling him so.
