From that day, Terry Gilmartin still paid her for information but there was never any doubt that he no longer had to. She would do what he wanted and Amy wouldn’t get any more visits from her new uncle George. Instead George Faichney initiated regular meetings with her, sometimes in person but usually by phone, to get whatever it was that Gilmartin wanted that week. Jan’s co-operation kept Amy safe. Until now. Now Gilmartin wanted more than she was able to give and that made everything dangerous.
‘Who is fucking doing this to me?’ he repeated.
‘It isn’t just to you,’ Jan told him. ‘This guy is targeting every senior drugs figure in the city.’
‘Don’t tell me it isn’t me,’ he screamed down the phone. ‘My son is in intensive care. Jimmy Adamson and Andrew Haddow are dead. This bastard is knocking on my front door. You tell me what the fuck is going on.’
So she did the only thing she could do. She told him everything that the police knew and everything that they didn’t. It didn’t please Gilmartin that there was much more of the second than the first.
CHAPTER 24
Thursday 15 September
Winter had Rory McCabe’s address in his records from his visit to see the teenager in A amp;E at the Royal. The boy lived with his parents in a close in Whitehill Street, just a couple of hundred yards from where his mates found him lying in Craigpark Drive with a busted knee.
Dennistoun was tenement land, built by the Victorians to house the middle class but instead taking in respectable working-class families when they couldn’t attract enough white collars. Whitehill Street was in the heart of it, a long line of four-storey terracotta-and-blonde stone buildings behind neatly hedged gardens. Mostly there were eight families to a close, hiding secrets behind lace curtains.
Winter hadn’t exactly worked out what he was going to say or how he’d explain being there. But he figured that saying little was the way to go. In this case, less was more. He parked up outside, climbed the stairs of the tenement to the second floor, knocked sharply on the door and prepared to wing it.
A blonde woman in her late-forties answered almost immediately, well dressed and polite.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
Winter held his SPSA identification up in front of him, hoping she wouldn’t look too closely at it.
‘Mrs McCabe? I’m Tony Winter, I was part of the investigation into the attack on your son and spoke to him while he was in hospital. I was hoping to speak to him today as part of a follow-up enquiry.’
‘Oh. Has there been a development?’ the woman piped up excitedly. ‘Do you know who did it?’
‘Not yet, but we are still investigating. Today’s visit is partly to reassure you that we haven’t given up on finding who did this.’
This seemed to please the boy’s mother because she smiled at him and pulled the door wide, standing back to let him in. The house was tidily kept and looked as if it had been recently decorated. Mrs McCabe ushered Winter into the living room from where he could hear the noise of a movie or maybe a computer game.
It turned out it was both. Rory was sitting on a couch with a PlayStation 3 in front of him while a crappy afternoon movie was thundering away on the television. A pair of crutches rested on the wall behind the settee. The boy didn’t bother looking up till his mother told him for a second time that he had a visitor.
He knew Winter right away which explained why he got a glare. Either that or else he simply wasn’t best pleased at having to interrupt his game.
‘Rory, this is Mr Winter from the police. Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Winter, I forgot what rank you were.’
‘It’s fine, Mrs McCabe,’ he said with as much authority as he could muster. ‘Thank you. I’ll just talk to Rory now if that’s okay.’
The woman flustered a bit and backed away.
‘Oh yes, yes. Of course. Can I get you a cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Coffee?’
‘No, I’m fine. Thanks.’
She gave up her mission of hospitality and closed the door behind her, leaving Winter alone with her stroppy teenage son.
‘Hi, Rory. How you doing? That knee of yours getting better?’
The kid sighed.
‘It’s okay.’
‘You able to get around on those things?’ he asked, nodding at the crutches behind him.
‘I can manage okay. Listen, I’m no’ as daft as my mum. I remember you. You’re not a detective, you’re a photographer. So what you doing here?’
Winter gave him a smile intended to tell him that he recognized that the kid was smart. And it wasn’t completely a lie. He wasn’t going to get anywhere by treating him like an idiot.
‘I didn’t say I was a cop, your mum just assumed that. But obviously I do work with them. I wanted to ask you some questions about the person that did this to you.’
‘I told you already and I told the cops. I don’t know who it was.’
‘Yeah, I remember. But I still think you know more than you’re telling.’
Rory frowned and looked out of the window.
‘The guy that beat you up, he had a ring on his finger, right? Must have hurt like fuck when he punched you in the chest.’
His head spun towards Winter, his mouth dropping. He quickly clammed it shut again but it was enough to let Winter know he was rattled.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ McCabe mumbled. As he did so, his mobile beeped, signalling a text, and he picked it up, punching in a reply.
‘My mate across the road,’ he said, without looking up. ‘Wanting to know if that was a cop going into my house. He’s looking out for me.’
‘So what did you tell him?’
‘Said you weren’t a cop. But that you were hassling me for information.’
‘Ach, it’s hardly hassle, Rory. More like trying to help you.’
‘Aye, right.’
Time to push his luck, Winter thought.
‘Your mum seems really nice.’
He was wary. ‘Yes, she is.’
‘Looks after you pretty well I’d say,’ he continued. ‘Thinks the world of you.’
‘Aye. ’
Winter lowered his voice.
‘It would be terrible if she found out about the drugs.’
He was reaching, guessing. It could have been game over before it had barely begun but he knew the link was there.
‘Fuck off,’ Rory hissed at him. ‘That’s not cool. You can’t do that. It would kill her. She thinks I’m the only teenager around here that’s clean. And I am clean. It was only a bit of weed.’
‘Just a bit?’ he guessed again.
‘Okay, more than a bit but it’s no big deal. But I don’t want her to know.’
‘No problem,’ Winter smiled. ‘You help me and I help you. And everything you tell me stays between us.’
The teenager stared straight through him, gnawing his lip and thinking hard. Tears began to run down his cheeks.
‘Fucking bastard,’ he choked. ‘This isn’t fair. If he finds out I’ve talked… he’ll kill me. I’m scared.’
‘I know you are but he won’t find out from me. I promise.’
He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, his cheeks scarlet with embarrassment and worry.
‘You promise?’
‘Yes,’ Winter nodded.
