ridiculously ornate domed ceiling and the elaborate cornices of seraphim and cherubim.
The Corinthian annoyed me. It was a bank until the late 1920s when it became the city’s high court for nearly seventy years until it was then turned into this monument to bad taste. It is debatable at which time it was more criminal. It was a magnificent Victorian building but it had been plastered with so much gold leaf and crystal that it reminded me of an old whore with far too much make-up. It tried for plush refinement and it managed classy brothel.
Carr and the fat man he was with, the man he called Alastair, were fitting clients. It flattered them to be somewhere so cheap and yet so expensive. The cost of the drink was intended to keep the riff-raff at bay. They were drinking champagne at?60 a bottle. It was Glasgow and it was lunchtime. Drinking champagne was ridiculous.
A young woman walked past and Carr fixed his eyes on her bottom. He raised his eyebrows and licked his lips. Alastair laughed and leered with him. I loathed them.
They finished. Good, we could go. I was out of place here and I didn’t like that.
Carr made a show of holding the champagne bottle upside down to check it was empty then slipped a fiver under it to leave as a tip. He slapped Alastair noisily on the back and they made for the door.
I didn’t turn to see them leave but finished my beer and gave them a head start. I knew where they were going.
I caught sight of them again walking down Ingram Street, maybe sixty yards in front of me, in a direct line to the Duke of Wellington with the traffic cone on his head. I wouldn’t get too close. Not yet.
CCTV cameras. They were everywhere. On me now for sure. On Carr. On Alastair. Following every step, every twitch of the head, every thought. The cameras made life difficult but not impossible. There was always a way.
At the Gallery of Modern Art they separated. Alastair waddling towards Queen Street, Carr going on towards Buchanan Street. I stayed with Carr, crowds between us, protecting him, protecting me.
He had a swagger that was ridiculous on a man that was just five foot five. It was a strut. He swayed along Buchanan Street as if he owned it.
He turned onto Bath Street and made for his offices. It was 2.30. I watched him spring up the stairs to number 1024 and disappear behind mahogany doors. That would be him for the afternoon and I’d return at 4.30 and sit in the cafe across the road. It was Wednesday and he would most probably leave sharp and head for Milngavie. Milngavie was where the redhead lived.
Three Wednesdays I had watched him and three times he had gone there. What did he tell the blonde wife? Bridge club, business, a snooker match, Rotary? It didn’t matter to me.
When I returned, I had to sit in the cafe for just fifteen minutes before the doors to his office opened and Carr scampered back down the steps onto Bath Street. A man on a mission. He would go to the NCP on Renfield Street and get his TT. He would take Port Dundas Road to the A879 and then Auchenhowie Road to Milngavie. He’d park in the next street to the one where the redhead lived on the edge of the village. He’d leave around 11.00 and be intending to be back at his flat by 11.30. A creature of habit.
I followed him from a distance until I was certain where he was going. I then turned, went home and waited.
I drove to Milngavie, stopping just once, then on through to the other side of the village. The stop took just a few minutes and I was earlier than I’d intended. I had to drive on for fully ten minutes then turn back towards Glasgow.
My eyes were all over the clock, my speed and the road in front. I was a bit scared. My heart raced. So many things could have gone wrong. He might have noticed before he began driving. Someone else might have stopped for him. Someone might drive by. He might have left earlier. Or later.
My plan was full of holes. I’d need to do better.
Then there it was stopped in front of me. The TT. He’d not got quite as far as I’d thought but close enough. I could just pick out the silver Audi in the dark. He was standing by the back wheel with a mobile phone in his hand. I prayed he hadn’t used it yet.
I pulled up behind him and got out. He had a flat tyre, of course he did. He seemed to have driven over a nail. Unlucky, I said.
He didn’t look twice at my false numberplate, paid no attention to the baseball cap that covered my face to anyone driving past and couldn’t possibly be aware of the spare tyres that I had put on the car before I set off to ensure I left no discernible, traceable pattern from my own.
Of course Carr didn’t know how to change a tyre. I did and could help. He was really grateful about that. He had been just about to call someone.
The road was too narrow where he had stopped, I told him. There was a lay-by half a mile up the road that he could pull into. It wouldn’t do the tyre or the car any more harm.
He did so.
The lay-by was hidden from the main road by a row of slim trees. It was perfect.
I told him I would get a jack out of the boot of my car and asked him to have a look at the wheel so he’d get an idea of how it came off in case it ever happened again.
I saw the look on Carr’s face. He had no intention of ever changing a tyre. He’d buy a new car before he did that. Still he’d bend down and pretend he was looking at something if it kept me happy.
That’s how he was when I closed the boot and walked to his car. That’s how he was when I swung the jack and smashed the back of his head.
I felt the impact reverberate through my arms. I hadn’t expected that. I readied myself to swing again but there was no need.
His face crashed into the car’s side with a bang and when he slumped back soundlessly I saw that his face was almost as bloodied as the back of his head. He fell to the ground unconscious.
I took the duct tape from my pocket and stuck it firmly across his mouth, sealing it shut. I then took out the tube of superglue and dabbed spots of it on the inside of his nostrils.
Satisfied that there was enough of it, I then held the sides of his nose and squeezed. A few drops of the glue leaked out onto my surgical gloves but the rest soon locked his nostrils tight.
Carr stirred. Maybe the initial blow had worn off, more likely the fact that he couldn’t breathe had alerted his inner emergency alarm.
He looked puzzled. He fought for air but there was none to be had. His head rolled, his jaws tried to work the tape free, his eyes pleaded. I watched his chest heave as his lungs searched for oxygen and hurled themselves against his chest. He looked up at me. I looked down at him. Looked him in the eyes.
He didn’t seem quite so full of himself now. Jonathan Carr. Salter, Fyfe and Bryce Solicitors. 1024 Bath Street. Didn’t look quite so cocky at all.
Air hunger kicked in. An interesting condition. Strangely, it isn’t diminishing oxygen levels that cause it but rising levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. This is detected by sensors in the carotid sinus and causes all hell to break loose in the body. It triggers respiratory distress, provoking the body to find any way it can to get air into the lungs. It is irrational and desperate. Carr’s body thrashed at the air around it.
The hunger didn’t pass but was overtaken by hypoxia. His head hurt. His skin took on a faint blue tinge. He shook. Brain damage was already in motion. Heart failure was minutes away.
His eyes closed over. He still shook, still kicked for oxygen that wasn’t coming.
A few more minutes and he was dead. Suffocated. Asphyxiated. Comprehensively and fatally deprived of oxygen.
Finally, I took the pair of secateurs from my pocket and cut.
Strange. I had expected more blood.
CHAPTER 3
I’d come up with the idea of cutting off his finger after a bit of thought. I wanted something to make sure they knew it was me, something to remember me by. The finger was easy, straightforward and not too messy. It
