Two more. And you are glad it has happened. You are glad they are dead. We both know that.
‘I’m sure they will get him soon. Don’t worry about it. You have to stop thinking about it. Isn’t your soap opera on the other side?’
‘Can’t watch that. Not now.’
Her eyes were wide. As if I’d suggested she go swimming at midnight or walk to London. She was glad.
‘Well, I’ll get you a cup of tea then.’
‘No, no tea. I don’t want tea. Do you, do you think he…’
She rarely mentioned him by name.
‘Do you think he was picked somehow because of what he had done?’ Her words trailed off quietly.
‘Don’t know,’ I mumbled.
‘But you’ve thought about it. Don’t tell me you haven’t. You have. Do you think that was why he was picked?’
Yes, of course it was. It was why he was killed. It was because of what he did that they were all picked. Why they were all killed.
‘No, it was just coincidence. Police have said so.’
‘Too much of a coincidence. That Thomas Tierney was a drug dealer. Maybe that’s why he was picked out.’
She was glad.
‘Not what the police say. Anyway, the others hadn’t done anything wrong.’
‘Well, not as far as we know. Might all have sinned.’
Everyone sins. Stop talking like that. You are glad. Admit it. Thank me. You are fucking glad.
‘There has been nothing in the papers about any of the others doing anything wrong,’ I said. ‘What about that dentist? What did he do?’
She looked at me in despair. Reaching for an answer.
‘I’m going to take my other pill. Should have had it by now. Getting late. I’m tired.’
She was glad. She was glad he was dead. She was glad they were all dead.
Within fifteen minutes the questions had stopped. Another quarter of an hour and she was going to bed.
I was left alone again, safe from her conversation and her worries. No more theories or guilt trips, no more pretending. No more talk of sin or reason or knowledge. No more fucking words. Just give me the silence of the room and the night and the road and the city. Give me peace.
Give me fucking peace.
CHAPTER 35
My boss, Cammy Strang, ran a legit taxi operation. As legit as a private hire firm gets in Glasgow anyway. Cammy was ex-army. He would look after himself and his drivers and sometimes that meant hurting people. But an occasional swing of a baseball bat didn’t make Cammy a bad guy. Not compared to some.
Bribes and bungs, threats and lies, punters hijacked and flyers taken down. That kind of stuff was just business. It was what you had to do to survive, what was needed to turn a profit but it didn’t make you a crook. Not compared to some.
He’d started out with just one cab, driving it himself. Established private hires tried to put him out of business but Cammy wasn’t having it. He paid a couple of late-night visits and made his point.
He bought more cars and took on more drivers. Ended up with a fleet of eight, made himself a bundle.
Working for Cammy was a good deal. You could work hours that suited you both and he’d be straight with you. No need to worry about all your money being there or that he’d take someone else’s side over yours. Play fair by Cammy and Cammy would play fair by you. Above all, if you got a call for a job from Cammy then you knew there would always be someone in the taxi. Sounds obvious enough but elsewhere, other firms, that wasn’t always the case. Plenty of them ran ‘drops’.
The driver would get a call, pick up a package rather than a passenger and deliver it. No chat from the back of the cab, no tip. Door-to-door drugs. Class A all the way. There had never been drops in any of Cammy’s cabs. He held a hard line on drugs, would have nothing to do with them.
But the wolves were out there, getting closer. Three other private hire firms had been bought out in the past few months alone. Word was that all three of them now did drops. Word was one guy was playing monopoly.
The more cab firms that were taken over, the less chance of getting a job with another company. Less chance of another job, less scope for saying no when asked to do a drop. Just business.
Cammy knew that the guy was coming and knew he could do nothing to stop him. Cammy had one baseball bat, the guy had a whole team.
Time to retire, Cammy told us. Tenerife for him and the missus. An offer he couldn’t refuse. We knew.
Who’s taking over the firm? asked one of the boys. I held my breath.
‘Guy named Arthur Penman,’ Cammy said. I breathed again. Sometimes it’s better the devil you don’t know.
Cammy didn’t say goodbye. The handover was to be on the Wednesday and he went home Tuesday night as per usual. Wednesday came and there was a new face behind the desk and a couple of new faces in the cabs. Handover done, Cammy and Jean halfway to Santa Cruz.
Penman was a lanky guy with glasses and a nervous cough. Studious looking. I recognized an accountant when I saw one. Penpusher not drugs pusher.
Penman wasn’t the man.
Our jobs were safe, he said. Business as usual, he said. Even giving us a couple of new drivers. He owned other cab firms, he told us, so he wouldn’t be there all the time. He’d pop in regularly though, just to keep us on our toes. The radio controller would do the rest. And the new drivers, Tobin and McTeer. He knew them already and they’d help things tick over when he wasn’t around.
Nobody said much. Wasn’t much to say.
The radio controller was new too. A grumpy big guy with close-cropped hair and an angry, pock-marked face. Old Annie had gone into early retirement. Tollcross for her, not Tenerife. Spending the rest of her days smelling the McVities biscuit factory. Which was a bit ironic really.
Penman’s new drivers were sullen and sure of themselves. They only spoke to each other, seemed to drive when they felt like it and spent a lot of time holed up in the cab office with crabbit Robert the new controller.
A week went by and nothing much changed. I still drove a cab with passengers in it and Penman’s was the only name above the door. There were moans and mutterings amongst the drivers. I dodged most of the gossip because there were things I didn’t want to know. A name I didn’t want to hear.
Then on the third Wednesday, two weeks after Penman first showed up in the office, he was back.
I heard the sound of laughter as I went in. Penman was sitting on the edge of the desk, long legs crossed in front of him and arms across his chest. He was listening like everyone else, a smile on his face.
A few feet from him, a man with his back to me was holding court. All I could see was a smart suit stretched across broad shoulders, neatly cut hair and arms going. He was tugging at his cuffs as he spoke, then arms open wide. Inviting. Including.
The guys were laughing, lapping up the routine. They liked this guy. Funny man. Stand-up comic, stand-up guy. Written all over their faces.
I didn’t want him to turn round. Didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want him to see me.
I sidled round the side and joined the edge of the group. Stood next to Tobin, one of the new guys, who turned and took me in with a slow look, saying nothing.
The suit was still talking, winding up his spiel now. Saying how pleased he was to be an associate of Mr Penman, saying how things could go on as they were under Cammy, maybe be even better. Maybe more money to be made.
He threw in another couple of jokes and started glad-handing the troops. He shook hands with them, beginning at the other end of the line and working his way along. Chatting with some, listening to others as if they were saying the most interesting thing he had heard in his life, laughing at the funniest jokes he’d ever heard.
