The Quaker. Liam McIlvanney

Чтение книги онлайн.

       6

      McCormack sat at his desk in the Murder Room, staring at a typewritten document. The document was two pages long, held together by a paper clip. It contained the witness statement of a man who had danced a single dance with Ann Ogilvie on the night of 2 November 1968, in the Barrowland Ballroom in the city’s East End. Ann Ogilvie, victim number two. Later that night, at some point between midnight and 3 a.m., Ann Ogilvie was strangled with her own American tan tights, having been raped, beaten and bitten by the killer known as the Quaker.

      Every twenty-five seconds the pages of the witness statement rippled in the breeze from a circular fan on McCormack’s desk. But McCormack wasn’t reading the words. He was basking in hatred. The tension in the stuffy room was like a palpable force, a malevolent beast that crouched invisibly on top of the cabinets, stalked between the legs of desks, breathed its rank breath on McCormack’s neck. The tension amplified every sound. Typewriter keys sliced the air like cracking whips. A filing cabinet drawer rolled open with a rumble of thunder. People lunged at ringing telephones, desperate to silence their clamour.

      He knew, of course, what was causing the problem. The problem was him. He was the rat. The tout. The grass. Resentment came at him in waves from the shirtsleeved ranks.

      But what did you expect? It was Schrödinger’s cat: the observer affects the experiment.

      Ten days ago Duncan McCormack had been the man of the hour. Ten days ago he’d been sipping from a tinnie in the squad room at St Andrew’s Street, watching his Flying Squad colleagues ineptly gyrating with a couple of more or less uniformed WPCs and some of the younger typists from Admin. It wasn’t yet noon but the party was hotting up. There were muffled whoops as someone upped the volume on the Dansette. All three shifts of detectives were present. Guys had left the golf course or the pub, or wherever they went on their days off. Brothel, maybe. Everywhere he looked people perched on desks or gathered in grinning groups with their plastic cups of whisky and vodka.

      Flett was edging towards him through the throng. DCI Angus Flett, commander of the Flying Squad. Chins were tipped in greeting, cigarettes raised in two-fingered benedictions. Flett gripped elbows, punched shoulders, clapped backs, threw mock punches, twisted his hips in that drying-your-backside-with-a-towel move when he passed a dancing typist.

      The squad room looked like Christmas. Strings of paper bunting were pinned above their heads. Two desks had been pushed together to form a makeshift bar. Bottles of spirits clustered in the centre: Red Label, Gordon’s, Smirnoff, Bacardi. Four-packs of beer in their plastic loops, green cans of Pale Ale, red cans of Export. Someone had gone out for fish suppers and the sharp tang of newsprint and vinegar and pickled onions mingled with the smoke and sweat and alcohol.

      On an adjacent table stood a large birthday cake edged with blue piping, a ‘12’ standing proud of the icing on blue plastic numerals. Twelve was the tariff. Twelve years in Peterhead. They’d watched him cuffed and taken down to the cells, James Kane, one of McGlashan’s lieutenants. It took them over a year to build the case and now they’d got him. Attempted murder. Serious assault. Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Guilty on all three counts. Au revoir, fuckface. Have a nice life.

      McCormack raised his can of Sweetheart Stout to salute Angus Flett. He felt the beer sway inside the tinnie. He didn’t like beer. He’d drunk just enough so the can wouldn’t spill. He liked whisky well enough but he was playing shinty tomorrow, a grudge match against Glasgow Skye, and he wanted to stay fresh.

      ‘The hard stuff, Duncan?’

      McCormack worked his shoulders, straightened up. ‘Got a game tomorrow, boss.’

      ‘A game? I’d say war would be nearer the mark. I watched a match once, up in Oban. Jesus. Tough game. They say ice hockey’s based on it.’

      McCormack shrugged, sipped his tinnie.

      ‘Anyroads, need to talk to you, son. Won’t take long.’

      In Flett’s office, McCormack closed the door behind him, muffling the noise of the party. Flett got straight to business.

      ‘Job’s come up, son. I’m putting you forward.’

      McCormack nodded slowly. When Flett sat down with the sun at his back, McCormack noticed that he hadn’t shaved; little filaments of stubble caught the light.

      ‘What’s the job, sir?’

      ‘It involves a change of scene. You’ll be based in Partick. The old Marine.’

      ‘That’s the Quaker inquiry. They’ve got Crawford, already. They need another Squad guy?’

      Flett held his hand out flat, palm down, swivelled his wrist.

      ‘It’s not a straightforward job, Detective. It’s not the operational side of things. I had Levein on earlier’ – he nodded at the phone on his desk. ‘The feeling is, it’s gone on too long, the whole circus. Guts is, he wants us to review the investigation. See where things went wrong. What can be learned. Make recommendations.’

      Peter Levein. Head of Glasgow CID. Bad bastard. Due to retire at the end of the year, to no one’s regret.

      ‘Recommend what? What’s Cochrane saying about this?’

      ‘Nothing he can say. They haven’t caught him, have they? He’s not going to like it, but he’ll cooperate.’

      McCormack was still frowning. ‘Make recommendations as in shut it down?’

      Flett leaned forward. ‘Do you need it spelled out, son? This job? It’s not a popularity contest.’ Flett nodded at the door. ‘You think those fuckers out there like me? Think I want them to?’

      ‘It’s not that, sir.’

      ‘What, then?’

      ‘I’m a thief-taker, boss. That’s what I know.’

      ‘This still McGlashan? You’re still on about McGlashan?’

      ‘We’re close, sir. We’re gonnae get him.’ He jabbed his thumb at the door, at the sounds of beery triumph. ‘See that, sir? That’s nothing. That’s just the start. We’re building the case. We’ll bring it all down, the whole rotten empire.’

      ‘All right, McCormack.’

      ‘What – you think I’m making it up?’

      ‘No, Duncan.’ Flett spread his hands. ‘No, I’m sure you are close. Thing is. Nobody knows who McGlashan is. We know who he is. The poor bastards in Springboig and Barlanark and Cranhill: they know. But the punters out there? The ratepayers? They’ve no idea. They know about the Quaker, though. Jesus.’ He tapped the folded Tribune on his desk. ‘They know about him.’

      ‘So we tell them.’ McCormack shifted in his chair. ‘We’ve СКАЧАТЬ