Squeaky Clean E-Book

Callum McSorley

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 485

Beschreibung

WINNER OF THE McILVANNEY PRIZE for SCOTTISH CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR FEATURES AN EXTRACT FROM THE NEXT ALISON MCCOIST THRILLER, PAPERBOY 'Amazingly accomplished' The Times, Crime Book of the Month 'Loved it'Kevin Bridges 'A talent to watch'Chris Brookmyre 'Very funny'Scotsman 'Pitch dark yet dripping with warmth'Caz Frear __________ Half the Glasgow copshop think DI Alison McCoist is bent. The other half just think she's a fuck-up. No one thinks much at all about carwash employee Davey Burnet, until one day he takes the wrong customer's motor for a ride. One kidnapping later, he's officially part of Glasgow's criminal underworld, working for a psychopath who enjoys playing games like 'Keep Yer Kneecaps' with any poor bastard who crosses him. Can Davey escape from the gang's clutches with his kneecaps and life intact? Perhaps this polis Ally McCoist who keeps nosing around the carwash could help. That's if she doesn't get herself killed first.

Leseprobe

Winner of the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year

The Times Crime Book of the Month

‘A manic tale of blood and suds told with laconic humour and warmly engaging characterisation. McSorley is definitely a talent to watch. I knew within a page that I was in good hands’

Chris Brookmyre

‘An absolute knockout of a debut! Pitch-dark and yet dripping with warmth. Packed with brilliantly drawn characters, laugh-out-loud humour, and lots of blood’

Caz Frear, author of Sweet Little Lies

‘Shattered from staying up until the daft hours finishing this. Loved it… A serious talent’

Kevin Bridges, author of The Black Dog

‘An uproarious, sardonic noir thriller from the Glasgow depths… Brutal, wonderfully humorous and a great addition to Tartan Noir, this novel unveils a terrific new talent’

Crime Time

‘McSorley writes with a wonderfully light touch… There is humour on every page, too – this really is a very funny book despite the dark material. Both main characters are works of genius, and I very much hope there will be a sequel’

Scotsman

‘A fast-paced thriller with a dark sense of humour, a grisly crime caper in the vein of Breaking Bad and Guilt’

Sunday Mail

‘An absolute blast… reads like a brilliant mash-up of Irvine Welsh and Alan Parks… I can’t recommend this one highly enough’

Raven Crime Reads

For Lisa

Contents

Title PageDedicationPrologueNovember1234567December8910111213141516171819January20212223242526272829March30313233343536373839April40414243444546474849June505152535455565758596061626364656667Epilogue12AcknowledgementsExtract from ‘Paperboy’Available and Coming Soon From Pushkin VertigoCopyright

Prologue

The ash was shot through with burnt scraps of newspaper, lumpy where the hammer had failed to smash the charred bone to dust, and slushy like dirty, roadside snowmelt where the shoebox had started to let the damp in. Faint, pish smell of a doused fire—spent charcoal and blackened meat.

The logo on the side belonged to a brand of shite trainers—the kind worn by bully victims and the lonely, sexless men they grew into. Of all the fucking indignities, McCoist thought, suppressing both a manic smile and the coffee burning its way back up her gullet. She peered at the contents, eyes snapping shut with every flash of the camera, opening again dazzled and scorched but fixed on the grey powder mulching in the corners of the cardboard, the gloved hand of a SOCO sifting it as if looking for gold.

“Is it?…”

“Cannae say till the tests huv bin done.”

“But is it?…”

She couldn’t see the SOCO’s face for his surgical mask and the hood of his paper suit, after-image spots dancing where his eyes must be. Other bodies moved around outside the tent erected over the shallow hole they’d dug in the ground, shadows going about bad business.

“Cannae say,” he said.

They had a recorder and a microphone, they had glasses of water and a jug between them, they had thick folders stuffed with papers lying perfectly parallel to expensive-looking pens. They had laptops and tablets and severe silences at their disposal. On the other side of the table, McCoist had a chipped mug full to the brim with cold coffee. The words on the side—faded by a thousand quick scrubs of the ancient, hairy Brillo that lived by the sink in the office mess—declared her the World’s Best Maw. The lanyard she wore said Detective Inspector.

It was three on one. A fifth—a greying man with crowns on his epaulettes and glasses hanging from his neck by a chain—perched on the window ledge. Referee? Lifeguard? Executioner? McCoist didn’t know. He hadn’t opened his mouth since the inquisition started, not even to speak his name for the DIR. Officially, he wasn’t there. Unofficially, he lurked and listened and scratched his balls now and again.

The old goat in the middle seat straight across from McCoist was also a superintendent. He licked a finger and leafed through some loose pages. He was a man who could make rustling paper sound very loud indeed. “And these remains, DI McCoist, whose were they?”

McCoist touched the handle of her mug, turned it slightly, but didn’t pick it up. “The remains were of an unborn child belonging to the murder victim, Dannie Gibb, sir.”

“The lab results don’t confirm that.”

“No, sir, but Mr Knightley stated so as part of his confession.” Which is in the paperwork right in fucking front of you.

“And you trusted completely in what he said?”

“Every word, sir.”

“Why?”

McCoist followed the man out into the garden, keeping her distance. He lumbered along in an old T-shirt and joggies, smelling unwashed and sour. If his head weren’t naturally inclined to slump towards his chest, his shoulders hunched, he’d have had to duck to get through the door. The sweat on his back was a dark continent which tapered into an arrow diving into the cleft of his arse crack, the valley exposing where everything was spilling out between the gap of his too-tight clothes.

There was filthy plastic furniture on a paved terrace buckled by weeds. Beyond was a jungle, the dilapidated shed a half-hidden outpost in the bush. He walked to an island of fresh soil in the middle of the overgrown grass. He turned to face her and, with a shy smile, dug at the patch of earth with his heel, like a child trying to break through an iced-over puddle. “Right here,” he said.

“Mr Knightley, I need you to wait inside while I make a phone call.” She didn’t worry at all that he would try to run away. While she waited for the cavalry to arrive and the return call from the sheriff about the warrant, Knightley offered to make her a cup of tea in his poky kitchen that smelled of microwave macaroni and the overstuffed bin. A greasy window looked out onto the garden and what was buried there. “No thank you, Mr Knightley,” she said, her voice hoarse and dry in the too-close kitchen, palms slick and fingers wriggling out the excess energy firing through her.

“Dye mind if a huv wan? There’s biscuits in the tin an aw.” He tapped a clumsy rhythm on a shortbread tin with long, ragged nails. He had large, fleshy hands. The skin looked soft but hid the power of an industrial vice. The rest of him was the same—a gentle, blubbery overcoat on something more powerful than he could control. “Maw goat this when she wis in Edinburgh wan time an kept it full ae bickies ever since. A try tae…”—he wheezed then coughed into his hand with a phlegmy rattle from the bottom of his lungs—“…try tae keep it up, ye know? The…”—his chest made a noise like a stone being sucked up the hoover—“…scuse me. The tradition.”

“I had no reason to believe he was lying.”

“Is that so? For someone of your rank and experience that strikes me as somewhat naive, DI McCoist.” The super’s eyes were large in thick glasses, showing off red cracks and gunky corners. They didn’t blink enough. “Didn’t it strike you as odd he didn’t try to hide what he’d done?”

“Well, he’d certainly hidden Dannie Gibb’s body. If it wasn’t for the tip-off it could have been weeks till she was found.”

“This tip-off—who did it come from?”

“Anonymous, sir.”

The super sighed in a way that made it clear this was somehow McCoist’s fault. “You didn’t try to track the caller down?”

“Of course, sir—”

“The caller could have been Knightley himself. Isn’t that right?” The man on the super’s left—a DS with the wet-look haircut of a teenage boy and the sulky eyes and flushed cheeks to match—cut across her. Wee prick. McCoist made sure there was none of the deference she gave to the super in her eyes or manner when she turned to address him.

“No, that is not right, Sergeant. The officer who received the tip-off was played multiple examples of Knightley speaking and confirmed he was not the caller.”

“Confirmed?” The DS smirked. “This officer, a PC…”—he made a show of looking through his notes, a clumsy imitation of his boss—“…Kirsty Ravani—she’s got a good ear, does she? A big music fan is PC Ravani, eh? Not exactly a scientific test.”

“Mr Knightley has a distinctive voice,” McCoist said (pitched too high and nasal for his size and with a breathless rasp—just the memory of it gave McCoist a shiver, fingertips squeaking across the skin of a balloon), but the DS ignored her and continued.

“Look, as soon as you show up at his door, he admits—without pressing—the whole charade with Miss Gibb and points out where he’s buried the baby. Let’s just admit there’s a good chance he tipped you off to the body’s location in the first place.”

“Charade? He battered and throttled that woman to death then cut out her—”

“We know what he did, Inspector,” the super said, sounding almost bored.

“Then why are you asking me to explain it all again?!”

Less than silence—the sound of five pairs of buttocks clenching tight. The super slid his glasses up onto his expanding forehead and glared with the small, hardened, beady things he’d revealed. McCoist stared back, her left hand clamped to the arm of the chair to stop it trembling, the right snatching up her old mug and slugging a mouthful of room-temp Nescafé instant—no milk, no sugar, undissolved granules dredging through her teeth. She grimaced and wiped her mouth with her cuff. The woman on the super’s left, a DCI, failed to hide a smirk. The DS had to look away, his cheeks flushing even more, jaw jutting out as he struggled to keep his gub clamped, desperate to say something, to have a go at her, but knowing it wasn’t his place. In the corner of her eye, McCoist caught the mystery man smile—the same surreptitious twitch with which he scratched his nads from time to time.

The super’s shoulders heaved up and down in a deep breath, his glasses sliding back onto his nose with it. “Detective Inspector McCoist, watch your tone, please.”

“Sir,” she mumbled.

“So you took this man at his word?”

“The Macadam Street girls said he’d been a customer of Miss Gibb’s and that he was strange. He was hanging around, pestering her. Complaints had been made against him by other women. Miss Gibb’s belongings were found in his house and the remains of the foetus were buried in his garden where he said they would be. I took his word only because it was corroborated by other sources and the evidence, sir.”

“The evidence…”

The DCI pushed her tablet towards the super and flicked through some slides. McCoist saw a flash of jewellery on the screen. “Items found in Stuart Knightley’s house that belonged to Dannie Gibb,” she said. She looked younger than McCoist, despite her rank. Her voice was pure private-school blazer brigade—an accent impossible to lose. You can fake upwards but not downwards, McCoist knew. “Confirmed by DNA matches and supported by witnesses—women who worked at the brothel on Macadam Street with Miss Gibb and allege to have seen these things in her possession.”

“All quite neat then, wouldn’t you say?” The super looked back up at McCoist.

“The procurator fiscal was happy enough,” McCoist said, trying to get some steel into her voice.

“The fiscal have some questions to answer themselves,” the DS chipped in, leaning forward in his chair and uncrossing his legs so they now splayed out, a hand resting on each knee, the bulge caused by the zip of his trousers pointing at her. The super placed a hand on his shoulder and he sat back again, folding himself away.

“You didn’t feel the need to explore other avenues?” the super asked.

“At the time, the evidence seemed clear.” McCoist kicked herself. At the time. Seemed. Too close to admitting fault.

“You didn’t think to look into the possibility of a link to organised crime?”

McCoist shuffled in her chair, now feeling aware of how stiff her back was, the blood sitting heavy in her legs. “This is… this is all hindsight. There was nothing that hinted in that direction.” She jabbed her finger on the desk to emphasise each point as if laying it all out on the table between them: “Knightley was the victim’s customer, he’d been seen hanging around her at the time of her disappearance, he had her belongings in his house, the ashes in his back garden, and he confessed to the whole thing.” (Double tap.)

“But the brothel was owned by Paul McGuinn!” The DS slammed his hand down on the table, as if to wipe out McCoist’s invisible schematic.

“Says who?!” she snapped back. “Show me his name on the lease, Sergeant. Go on. Get me a utility bill. A bank statement. Get me a Tesco Clubcard catalogue that puts that name with that address.”

The super put a hand on the DS’s shoulder again, firmer this time, signalling McCoist to back down with his other. “That may well be, DI McCoist, but do you think if you hadn’t been in such a rush to charge Knightley and close the case, had you asked yourself whether Stuart Knightley might have motivation to confess, you might have come across such a connection?”

McCoist had to turn away, her face twisting into a painful smirk at the absurdity of a senior officer suggesting a slower approach would have been acceptable. She wanted to ask him what that would do for the targets, the numbers, the public relations, the politics, the bullshit. She turned an escaping chuckle into a cough and sniffed hard, her eyes starting to sting as they watered up, her bottom lip threatening to pout. These fuckers. How dare these fuckers? “No, sir,” she managed.

“Let me ask you outright, were you truly just being naive here or were you being wilfully ignorant in order to close the case quickly?” the super said.

The look on the DS’s face showed the younger man believed neither of these things, thought that it went deeper, that McCoist was rotten at the root, that she’d bungled it on purpose.

“I worked the case I had in front of me,” she said. “I worked with the evidence. I couldn’t have done any different.”

“Was it yours?” McCoist asked, head tilting at the window—steaming up as the kettle boiled—and the garden through it.

“Wit? Eh…” His brows furrowed, drawing creases across his forehead as thick as corduroy piping. A Simple Simon look. “Well, now ye says that, a, eh…” The kettle clicked and he stood much quicker than his large frame would seem to allow, making McCoist flinch for the first time since she’d come into his home—this glaikit man who had committed an atrocity, with the strength to choke the life out of a woman, saw her open, and then…

“Did you do it because you thought it wasn’t yours or because you thought it was?”

Knightley seemed to be puzzling this out, huffing as he mixed his brew—half water and half milk with three sugars. He drank with the teabag still floating in it then fell into another fit of crackling and wheezing. He faced McCoist, face red and dripping. “Either. Either wouldnae be good, would it?” He pawed through the biscuit tin, sieving and turning the Penguins and Viscounts and Blue Ribands.

The heating was up high; McCoist felt her skin prickle with it. She felt the stuffy, swampy existence Knightley lived within the confines of the two-bedroom council kip he’d shared with his maw. She was out living in some pensioner pen now but the decor looked as if she’d never left. Only Knightley’s bedroom was a reprieve from seventies faux walnut and swirling floral fabrics in washed-out pinks and blues and oranges.

Most of the space was given over to a bed with a caved-in mattress, the floor hidden by trampled clothes, the walls by sun-bleached film and fitbaw posters with the odd Page 3 plastered here and there. A dusty shelf displayed Celtic bobbleheads (players long retired), cans of Lynx and Right Guard and tubs of hair gel, and an action figure of Al Pacino as Tony Montana, posing with his “little friend”. It smelled like a gym changing room and gave McCoist a creeping fear that the prickling she felt wasn’t due to the sweaty heat but because there were mites crawling around under her clothes.

After Knightley had been taken away, no need for cuffs, Scenes of Crime turned the room over. They had the benefit of gloves, booties and coveralls that could be burnt afterwards. Didn’t take them long to find the hammer (still dusty) and a long kitchen knife rusted with dry blood. The team working the old shed found a recently used barbecue stinking of burnt meat and white spirit, scraps of newspaper kindling in the bottom.

“Thank you for your time, Detective Inspector McCoist,” the super said, sliding his glasses up, business done. The DCI was putting the papers back in order while her junior fumed silently and continued to stare McCoist out. “You may be called upon again to answer further questions before the inquiry is concluded. We will be in touch.”

“It’s been a pleasure,” McCoist grumbled, her voice hoarse, hands sweating and shaking, starting to come down from the adrenaline her panicked body had been drip-feeding her throughout the meeting.

She snatched the door open, but before she could get through it a voice called her back. It was the grey-haired mystery man by the window, Mr Itchy Baws. He held out her mug to her. “A detective’s most important tool, don’t lose it!” His voice was pleasant—chipper, even—his face long and thin but unthreatening. With those specs hanging from their chain he reminded McCoist of a librarian.

“Thank you, sir.”

He winked and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, miming the word “phew”.

November

1

He was waiting outside the closed shutter at 7 a.m., a Mr Big type: shirt open down to his freezing nips revealing a heavy gold chain nestled in greying chest hair, fag resting between the sovvy rings on his thick fingers, tailored jeans and pointed black shoes, both expensive and dated, the dress of the middle-aged working class gone wealthy. Behind him, a gunmetal Range Rover, engine idling, exhaust smoke fogging the early morning air. Its vanity plate read: V1P MCG.

“We’re no open yet,” Sean said, taking the padlock keys out of his pocket as he arrived at the car wash. Sean was the owner, a wiry and shrivelling forty-year-old with skin like tanned cowhide, who spent most of his time during winter in the office chaining joints and watching Russia Today. In summer, he took a folding chair out front and sunbathed while the boys worked.

“A know,” the man said. “Sorry fir turnin up so early, pal, it’s just am in a bit ae trouble here.” He took a fast, hard draw on his cigarette.

Sean snuck a look past the guy’s shoulder. The headlights were blinding but Sean couldn’t make out any damage on the four-by-four’s bumper, and it didn’t look particularly mockit either. “It’s a big motor, it’ll cost ye twenty just fir a wash.” Overpricing was a method Sean often used when he wanted a customer to get to fuck.

“Actually am lookin fir a valet an aw. The full hing. Seats shampooed and windies polished. The lot.”

“Ye want the seats cleaned?”

“Aye, how much will that cost?”

Sean laughed, a broken-throated, cackling honk. “At seven in the mornin? Fifty quid, easy.”

The guy sucked the fag down to the filter and tossed it onto the road. “Sure hing, pal.”

Fucksake. Sean wasn’t one to hide his thoughts from his facial expressions. His hard-living eyes, sunk deep in their sockets, rolled in disgust. “Look, the boays will be in at half past, can ye wait that lang?”

“Ye goat a kettle in there?” He pointed at the shutter.

Fuck. “Aye, moan in.”

The guy’s name was Paul McGuinn and you might have heard of him. At least, that’s what he seemed to think. “Call me Paulo. Am fae Brigton, originally,” he said, meaning that although he didn’t live there any more his roots were still in the east end, meaning he was one of the lads, not some posh cunt like his car might indicate. He was rich the way a footballer was rich, not rich the way a Tory was rich. That’s the impression he wanted to give anyway. “Yersel?”

“Possilpark.”

“At least ye didnae say Easterhoose. Fuckin blacknecks!” He laughed and Sean returned a grimace. Up close in the cramped, gyprock office Sean had built at the back of the unit—it had no desk or filing cabinet but did have a couch, television, fridge, kettle, microwave and George Foreman grill—Sean could smell Paulo’s aftershave and a hint of BO underneath. In the harsh light of a bare light bulb, he could see sweat stains on Paulo’s white shirt, seeping from under his arms and spreading out from the small of his back. Hair gel was slowly being washed down his forehead and onto his red face. “Here, can a smell grass?”

Of course he could: Sean puffed through five or six joints a shift. The earthy stink of weed had soaked into the couch cushions and the carpet (a patchwork of car mats) and seeped into the plasterboard walls like damp.

“Mind if ye roll wan up while we wait? Been oan the gear aw night an I could dae wae chillin oot a bit.” He tapped his nose when he said “gear” and winked.

Sean sighed. “Let us put the kettle oan first.”

2

“What time d’you call this, Davey Boy?” Tim tapped an invisible watch on his wrist. He’d already straightened out the hoses and dragged the water barrel with the lances in it out onto the street, and now he was stacking up sponges and mitts and topping up various bottles of polishes and degreasers. He tossed Davey a clean rag. “You’re late so you’re het for mopping up the jizz.”

Davey looked over the mammoth four-by-four under the powerful halogen work lamp beaming down from its bracket above the shutter. “Christ. We dain inside an aw?”

“Full valet, detailing the plastic and everything.”

Usually Davey would take the piss out of Tim because of the way he said “val-lay”—without the “T”, like it was French, rather than pronouncing it to rhyme with “mallet” like a fucking normal person—but it was still before eight o’clock and some prick was already wanting his monster truck washed, so Davey found he wasn’t in the mood. Especially not on top of the phone call from Sarah that morning—the reason he’d been late leaving the flat. Annalee had been up during the night puking, and as she’d been visiting with him the day before, this was obviously his fault.

“The fuck are ye feedin her?!” Sarah screeched.

“Mushrooms a foond growin in the gerden.”

“Wit?!”

“Chicken nuggets and chips, fucksake! It’s a stomach bug, aw weans get stomach bugs.”

He’d had to run by the time he got her off the phone but had still missed the start of the shift. And now, as Tim had called it, he was having to scrub cum stains off the back seat of a big bastard tank. A much easier task with leather seats but, in this case with fabric upholstery, Davey was having to shampoo the seats. There were handprints on the nearside window, footprints on the far. “Should bloody well leave wan ae them fir his missus tae see,” Davey grumbled.

“Check this out.” Tim was in the front with the hoover. He pointed the nozzle at the pocket behind the handbrake, where a fine dusting of white powder had gathered in the corners. “Big man’s had a heavy night.”

“An doesnae want his bird tae know aboot it. Cannae go hame wae spunk aw oer the seats an charlie oan the mats.”

The guy in question was pacing around the unit passing a joint back and forth with Sean, who was having to answer a barrage of questions about soaps and waxes and running costs and was looking more fucked off by the minute. “How’s that degreaser shite fir dissolvin stuff? The neighbours ever complain aboot the noise ae the washers? Ye goat a meter fir how much water ye use or is there a way roon it?” He was indeed a big man, all muscle turning to fat, but still looked capable of ripping heads off shoulders. He’d made a point of introducing himself to Tim and Davey, grabbing their hands in turn with a sweaty paw and crushing their knuckles. “Am Paulo, fae Brigton. Originally.” He said it like he knew his reputation preceded him but wanted to be polite and appear humble, the way a celebrity might. Every so often he would give Sean a break and come to check on the boys’ progress. “Daein a bang-up joab there, lads! Mind an dae under the mats an aw, right?”

“Will do, sir,” Tim said.

“Sir? Call me Paulo, fucksake, am no a million year auld! Am no even auld enough tae be yer da.”

Davey snorted. Paulo’s face and clothes put him mid-forties at least, and his attempts to spike up his dyed hair to make himself appear younger only made it worse. In short, he was old enough to be a grandad if he was, as he said, from Brigton. (Originally.)

“Yeez huv goat it awright here, int ye? Gaffer sparkin up joints an that, no bad at aw, right? How’s that seat lookin, son? Am needin the whole hing back tae factory-fresh, get it?”

“So yer wife doesnae find oot wit yev bin up tae?” Davey said. “Or is it yer girlfriend?”

Paulo’s face fixed itself into a red-cheeked mask. His jaw jutted out, eyes boring into Davey’s, who struggled not to look away, cold fear suddenly swirling in his belly. The Voice of Reason squealed in Davey’s head: Why the fuck would ye say that? This gakked-up beefcake could crush ye like an empty can ae ginger, ye fuckin eejit! Then Paulo grinned. “Baith,” he said.

Tim squeezed out the shammies once they’d finished; Davey gave the back windows a final check.

“It’s gleamin, boays, gleamin!” Paulo took a tour around the shining SUV. “Fuckin toap-shelf joab yev done there. Ach, ye missed a bit!” He pointed to the front door panel. Even after eighteen months of working at the car wash, with anywhere from two to five arseholes a day pulling this one, Davey still fell for it. Maybe because Paulo’s massive, coke-jittering bulk had put him on edge, or maybe because he was distracted thinking about Sarah and Annalee. Either way, he craned his head for a closer look and Paulo clapped him on the back and burst into moronic laughter. He nudged an elbow into Tim’s ribs and Tim had to join in, though he hated that shite patter as much as Davey did. “You missed a bit” was second only to singing “Car Wash” by Rose Royce as the most common and irritating “joke” that customers and passers-by made them suffer.

To the boss’s credit, Sean didn’t laugh. He just held out his hand and said: “That’s fifty quid, pal.”

“A bargain!” Paulo took a thick, folded wedge of notes from his pocket and slid a few out into Sean’s hand as if he were dealing cards. There were five twenties. He then turned to Tim and Davey. “Cannae forget the boays who dae aw the work!” He pressed a score into each of their hands and jumped up into his Range Rover. “Cheers, lads, yev saved ma life the night!” The engine roared to life and the radio began pumping out a heavy, thumping dance beat, all bass with no discernible melody. “Cheerio!”

The tyres spun as he screeched off, spraying fresh, oily black tyre-shine all over the wheel arches.

“Wit. A. Fuckin. Dick,” Sean said.

3

A detective’s most important tool. Brown frothy liquid in a paper cup, oversweet and bubbling with synthetic jizz which passed for cream, a post-Starbucks-invasion coffee-machine horror. McCoist took her coffee shite but this was something else. Still, she drank it down, rubbed her dry, stinging eyes, made something in her neck crack as she stretched.

If caffeine was the detective’s most important tool then the computer and its eyeball-burning screen was the second. She’d been trawling through grainy CCTV footage of the Southside for nearly two hours, though it felt longer in the gloomy, blinds-down Operations Centre. The glare-reducing under-script lighting from the consoles bathed everything in a deep-blue glow which only made her feel more sluggish, as if she were sunk in the depths of the sea. Beyond her own terminal, the huge screens beaming in footage from all over Glasgow floated in the semi-dark, her fried eyes unable to pick out more than shadows of the uniforms working along the front desk, silhouettes on a rippling, shifting patchwork collage of the bustling city.

Before, she would have had somebody else do this, but now there was rarely anybody available to take her orders. Every DS and DC in her office had a full plate. Busy bees, every one of them. Apparently. In fact, before she would never have been investigating a brick going through a shop window at all, never mind sitting there at Eastgate, melting into an overengineered, ergonomic throne as she chased a suspect of petty vandalism camera to camera, screen to screen. It was fucking ridiculous. Her warrant card still read “Detective Inspector Alison McCoist, Major Investigation Team” but the fallout from the Gibb/Knightley inquiry had, in McCoist’s case, severely broadened what could be called a “Major Investigation”.

“This could be a hate crime, DI McCoist, and Police Scotland takes that very seriously indeed,” Robson had said, the first part of which at least was true and made it even more irritating—that his sabotage of her career had a well-justified cover. “Get to work.” The gaffer wanted her to quit. More than the stench of failure or the suspicion of corruption that caused all her colleagues to observe a radioactive exclusion zone around her, Detective Chief Inspector Robson was pissed off that she’d undermined him by going to the fiscal with the Knightley evidence over his head. But the inquiry had cleared her of wrongdoing, so he couldn’t fire her—he’d need to wait for her resignation. And, watching this wee bam with a scarf over his face and his hood pulled up pan in Mr Chandra’s window again as she started the trace from scratch once more, she might just give it to him. Staple it to his ever-growing forehead. Prick.

The window shattered inwards as the brick passed through it and the wee guy in his matching hoody and joggies sprinted out of the camera’s field of view. Seconds later, Mr Chandra himself appeared outside, brick in hand, chasing the lad down the street. Mr Chandra, sixty-nine years old, bald on top with a wiry white beard, had explained to her: “I was goin tae feed it tae the wee bastart!” He didn’t tell McCoist the exact words of the stream of obscenities he hurled at the vandal as he attempted to catch him up on arthritic knees, but Mrs Chandra filled her in in great detail, her soft, Indian-inflected Glaswegian giving the torrent of filth a gentle lyricism. “And I agree with every word,” she’d finished.

So did McCoist after hours squinting at screens, trying to follow the bampot through blind spots and busy streets—the big problem being him diving into Queen’s Park, leaving her to scour the surveillance in the areas around every one of its exits trying to find him again. Pure grunt work. Punishment. And all because Stuart Knightley had looked at her with thick, cow eyes and calmly told her how he’d sliced open Dannie Gibb, torn out the baby inside her and torched it on a barbecue. She’d believed him; she was wrong.

When she finally got outside Eastgate—a modern, boxy glass cupboard of a council building, which in thirty years would have the same sad bearing as the brutalist efforts from the seventies—the morning had been completely lost, her early start amounting to nothing. Hopefully local uniforms would pick the guy up based on his description. Guys like this were frequent flyers: the polis around there would be on first name terms. Part of the young team, probably, headed for the real gangs, the big boys, if he could be of use to them. Most likely as a stooge of some kind—it was always good to have brainless fodder to take a fall and do the time for you. People like Stuart Knightley, McCoist thought. (Today was obviously a day for dwelling. Sulking.) The tedious, soul-crushing, mind-numbing CCTV trawl had really made her feel the depths she’d sunk to; it was no surprise she kept returning to the object of her undoing.

Knightley hadn’t had any personal ties to gangs though, other than frequenting the brothel on Macadam Street allegedly owned by Paul McGuinn. Paulo. The Big Man. Brigton’s best and brightest, McCoist scoffed, but he’d beaten her in a game she hadn’t even realised she was playing. Not until it was too late.

She sighed and her breath plumed in the cold air. More coffee.

4

The rest of the morning had been quiet, with only a few more customers coming in for a quick wash on their way to work, all of them regulars who mercifully waited inside their cars while Davey and Tim worked and only spoke to say “Thanks” before handing over their money.

Tim finished at noon and headed off for afternoon lectures. He was studying at Strathy, working his shifts around his uni timetable for beer money. Tall and skinny with long, floppy hair, bumfluff decorating an ever-present and earnest-looking smile, Tim wasn’t the type Sean would usually employ but he seemed trustworthy and never complained about anything. Plus Sean needed the extra pair of hands—something was wrong with his shoulder, or maybe his back, and he needed a break from manual work. He was supplementing his usual medication (weed) with diclofenac the GP prescribed him.

“Al jump in if it gets busy, Davey Boy,” Sean said. “Just geez a shout.”

“Nae worries,” Davey said, watching the gaffer slope off into his office. That was unlikely anyway—the weather was pish. A continuous, misting drizzle fogged up the air, making everything damp and chilly. Not many folk would be wanting their cars washed in this weather. Still, a couple of valets would be good to see him through the rest of the afternoon, otherwise he’d just be standing there by the shutter door with his joints getting cold and stiff, trying to space out the cups of tea, waiting for the inevitable point where he’d cave in and ask Sean if he could steal some baccy to roll a fag. Every day was quitting day; every day he relapsed.

He got what he wanted and a few punters turned up for hoovers, keeping him busy, keeping his mind off the fags and Sarah. In the afternoon he was on his knees, sponging brake dust off the burnt alloys of an old silver Merc—the kind driven by fairly well-to-do retirees—when a pair of scuffed, black Oxfords appeared in his view.

“Excuse me, are you the owner?”

Davey looked up at a thirty-something heavyset geezer in a cheap suit, the kind you borrowed off your da if you had a court appearance. “We don’t dae shoeshines,” Davey said.

The guy smiled—Davey could tell he was masking his irritation but he joined in the crack: “That’s too bad, these old loafers could do with a polish, I work them hard.”

“Ye sellin somethin?” Davey stood up and tossed his sponge into a tub of greasy black water.

“More in the way of collections, actually, Mr Prentice. This is about something you’ve already bought.” He held up the ID card on his lanyard for Davey to get a closer look.

It took a monumental effort for Davey not to grin but he managed it. He shook his head. “Mr Prentice is the gaffer. In the back there.” He pointed to the closed office door at the back of the unit.

“Cheers, big man,” the guy said and strode away. Davey almost felt bad for the bloke until he turned round, halfway there, to shout, “You missed a bit!”

The guy knocked on the door and Sean yelled, “Moan in!” The guy stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Davey had counted all the way to five by the time the screaming started—Sean must have had a decent buzz on already, five seconds was pretty laid back. Through the plasterboard walls Davey heard Sean’s greatest hits: “It’s no a fuckin law, it’s a fuckin act!”; “Al pay fir it when a start watchin the shite!”; “Am no fundin some corrupt state broadcaster”; and “After wit they did tae us wae the Indyref? Ye should be fuckin ashamed tae work fir they cunts!”

The door flew open and the TV-licence bloke beat his retreat with Sean following, still yelling. “Come back here an al huv the polis dae ye fir harassment. It’s a fuckin racket, that’s wit it is! Aw just part ae the West Minister criminal fuckin empire! RT, that’s the real fuckin news! That’s the real world!”

When the licence-fee collector was back outside on the street, Sean appeared to let it go and stomped back into his office. The collector puffed his cheeks and blew out a long, steamy breath. He caught Davey with a look and raised his eyebrows. “What a fucking headcase,” he said. The office door slammed open again, jumping on its hinges, and Sean came striding out with a dangerous-looking, long-barrelled air pistol which he’d bought from a guy down at the Barras to up the ante in his war of attrition with the local pigeons. (The pigeons, who roosted under the arches of the nearby railway bridge and seemed to particularly love crapping on freshly cleaned cars, were the other great enemy of Sean’s life and times.) The collector took off running.

“Smarmy cunt,” Sean said and spat on the ground. He sloped off, leaving an alarmed-looking pensioner in beige trousers and matching sport coat in his place. The old man turned from Davey to the retreating figure of the fee collector and back again.

“Bloke said the prices were too high,” Davey said by way of explanation. He handed over the keys to the Mercedes he’d been washing and said, “That’ll be twenty-five quid then.”

5

“I can’t just skip out the door whenever I please, Mark,” McCoist hissed into her phone, hunched down behind her computer terminal, stacks of paperwork and printouts providing extra screening on the sides.

“But you’re out and about all the time on work anyway—and it’s not like I’m asking you to dog it just to go for a coffee,” Mark whined. McCoist glanced over at the weeks-old collection of empty paper cups lining the edge of her desk (“World’s Best” mug currently in her other hand) and swivelled her chair around so they were out of sight. “I’m asking you to pick up your child from school.”

“Funny how you only seem to remember she’s my child when—” She cut herself off as DI Jarvis passed close to her desk. She caught his quick, averted glance and drilled him with a glare in return, causing an ever so slightly speedier step in his walk to wherever he was off to—the kettle or the bog or to polish the gaffer’s boots with his tongue, the triumvirate of Jarvis’s working day. “Why can’t you go?”

“I have a meeting and I can’t cancel—it’s already been rescheduled once. I’d ask my mum but she hasn’t driven since Dad—”

“Fucksake, Mark, don’t bring your dad into it, that is so cheap.”

Mark’s chuckle scratched through the phone line. “Come on, Alison. You’re always saying you want to see the kids more.”

“Stop talking.” She took the phone from her ear to take a deep breath. “What did the nurse say was up with her?”

“Eh, I think she said she was having, um, cramps. You know? Pains down—”

“I get it… Shite. That…” That hasn’t happened before. The dumb thought finished itself in McCoist’s head in a sluggish, spaced wonder.

“Sounds like she’s pretty upset, there was blood and—”

“I know how it works, Mark.” Tess was thirteen, so while it should have been somewhat expected, McCoist still found herself taken by surprise. Something tugged in her chest—it was like seeing an old photo of yourself and being amazed and horrified that so many years had passed without you noticing.

“You should go.”

“Shite… right, yeah. Do you really have a meeting? Don’t answer. I’d better go home first and pick up some spare—”

“DI McCoist?” DCI Robson—a fifty-something with a red-wine face and a steak-and-chips body—was standing over her, a beady eye roaming the mess of her workstation and taking in her half-folded posture, which betrayed a personal call during business hours. “If you’re not too busy I have a statement that needs following up on—a man says he was shot at with an air pistol at a car wash on Bell Street.”

McCoist strained not to roll her eyes, not to groan out loud. Yet another bollocks “case” to add to her workload of other bollocks cases—her stock-in-trade ever since the Fuck-Up last year. Farmers didn’t work with as much fertiliser as DI McCoist did. The idea of spending the afternoon running around the east end quizzing red-eyed, tracksuited teenagers who would rather throw themselves under a bus than be seen talking to her (other than to rip the pish out her name) was deeply unappealing. Especially after the morning’s fruitful fun at Eastgate.

She heard Mark’s tinny voice calling her through the phone speaker—she hadn’t hung up. “Actually, sir, I need to pick my daughter up from school. She’s not feeling well.” As the gaffer started to reply, McCoist jumped in front with a two-footed tackle: “She’s just had her first period.” She plastered a big Songs of Praise smile on her face and clasped her hands together. “We’re so proud!”

Robson found something interesting to look at on the wall, cleared his throat. “Oh well, yes, um… Get back as soon as you can and get down to Bell Street. The details are, um…”

“First thing tomorrow!” McCoist beamed, snatching her coat from the back of her chair.

Tess—wearing too-big lost-and-found trousers, a bag containing her own balled-up clothes immediately handed to McCoist—didn’t speak from the school infirmary to the car. Setting off, she stared out the window, eyes not seeing anything whipping by, studiously ignoring her mother’s attempts to cheer her up.

“You know, when I get mine I like to eat steak. Red meat. It’s silly but I feel like I’m replacing all the iron I’ve lost, you know? Maybe you could have dinner with me tonight and I’ll cook us a couple of nice, fat steaks. Just you and me. Cam can go back to your dad’s and eat beans on toast. No boys. We can have a talk about—”

“I’m vegetarian,” Tess said with a look that suggested McCoist was a very slow-witted person indeed, possibly the dumbest on the entire planet. And the tone of voice, where had she learnt that? Where do all teenage girls learn it?

“Since when? Last time you were over you—”

“Muuum, just…” She finished the sentence with a huff, did the job better than any words she could have said.

“Bacon butties have meat in them, you know.” McCoist knew she was winding her up now. Stop then. McCoist never wanted to be that parent who belittled their kids’ interests or took the pish out their clothes and tastes and phases—so why could she not help doing it now? Mark wouldn’t have. Bad cop at work, bad cop at home too.

Back to the window.

“What’s so interesting out there?”

Tess dumped her jacket and bag on the hallway floor and marched into the living room, flopping down on the settee, grabbing the telly remote.

“You want a cuppa?”

Slight nod of the head.

“You still drink milk or?…” Stop for fucksake. No answer. Tess flicked through the channels too fast to see what was on any of them. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

McCoist checked her personal phone as she boiled the kettle. A couple of messages from Mark asking after Tess, all very concerned now he could deal with the situation from a distance. Her work phone had the details of the car-wash thing. Looked like the complainant—a TV-licence-fee collector (McCoist’s stomach turned a little at that, filth)—wasn’t actually shot at with the air pistol, only scared off at the sight of it. Still, those things could be dangerous, especially in the hands of some wee heedbanger. Guy’s name was Sean Prentice: owned a car wash, some minor this and that on his CHS file from a while ago, hadn’t paid his TV licence in some time. A real prize, a collar to get you into the history books. McCoist gave her phone a bitter smirk and filled the cups.

Another email pinged—from Robson. The subject said “Special Assignment”, punctuated with an emoji of a paw print. Whatever fucking next.

She put the mugs of tea down in front of Tess, who kept her eyes on the telly. “Can you take me home?” she said.

6

The rest of Davey’s shift was uneventful and quiet, not counting the half-hour of Sean’s seething, rambling BBC-induced rage that followed the fee collector’s appearance. (“These fuckin animals, Davey Boy! Fuckin parrots, just spewin back aw the shite the government feeds them! And we’re forced tae pay them fir that? Fir wit?! Fuck off!”)

Sean paid Davey at the end of every day, cash in hand, and with Paulo’s bonus on top, it wasn’t bad for a none-too-strenuous day’s work—though it was still pretty far from good. Davey had come to the car wash after being made redundant from the big Tesco’s where he’d worked night shift on time-and-a-third, forty-five hours a week. The car wash was a fair step down but not many places would hire Davey, an unskilled labourer with a short, potted CV of menial work that was only slightly longer than his criminal record, which itself showed little ambition in that direction either. Theft, assault, vandalism, drug possession—the list hadn’t been added to in a good number of years, since around the time Annalee was born. Steady work and a decent wage at the Tesco had been good for him too, though the unsociable hours had done their part in breaking up his relationship with Sarah.

He took his money and walked home in his wet jeans and hoody, feeling the chill set in even through the thermals he wore underneath. He was splashed with mud from hosing tyres and the sweet smell of car soap hung around him in a cloying but not unpleasant cloud.

He lived in a second-floor one-bedroom flat in a housing estate near an abandoned plot where the cattle market had been back in the day—now a weedy, dug-shite minefield surrounding the skeleton of an old warehouse where they used to hold the auctions. Every one of its windows had been panned in, its doors battered down, their padlocks rusty and broken. Sheets of corrugated iron were peeling and the roof was almost completely gone, showing off its bleached wooden frame. It was a den for kids and druggies. Some nights Davey would walk by and see flickering orange light from a fire going inside. Polis were always chasing people off, mostly homeless folk with nowhere else to go at night.

Sarah was waiting for him outside his door. “Answer yer fuckin phone!” she said.

“Hows aboot fuckin ‘hello’?”

“Fuck up, av bin callin fir oors!”

Davey checked his phone—it had been on silent. Ten missed calls from Sarah and five from his maw. His stomach went cold, the same way it had that morning when he thought Paulo was about to lamp him for asking about his wife.

“Wit’s happened?” He licked his lips, his mouth and throat suddenly feeling dry.

“Annalee’s in the hoaspital.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck’s right! A stomach bug ye said! She’s goat some fuckin parasite. Somethin she picked up in that shit pit ye live in!” She kicked his front door and hurt her toes. “Fuck!”

He was about to question how she knew that for sure, then stopped himself. “Am goin tae see her,” he said instead.

“Naw ye arenae. Ma maw’s wae her the now an am headin back the night, eftir a pick up some clathes fir her. You stay away, awright? That’s wit a came tae say.”

“Wit? Ye cannae stoap me fae—”

“Aye a can. Stay the fuck away.” She pushed past him, car keys jangling in her hand.

7

Davey was early the next morning—couldn’t sleep. He chased himself around the bed most of the night, seething at Sarah, scared for Annalee. Howsit ma fuckin fault? Howsit it always ma fuckin fault?! He must have dropped off at some point but his eyes were open before the alarm went off, red and unrested.

He put on yesterday’s clothes, which he’d hung on the radiator—any foosty smell of sweat completely blitzed by the car soap, which never seemed to wash out anyway—and walked to work. He stood waiting at the shutter in the cold and dark. He’d given it a rattle in case Sean was in already—he sometimes dossed on the couch in the office if he was too stoned to be arsed going home—but there was no response.

Tim arrived with a Starbucks cup in his gloved hand. “Morning, Davey Boy.”

“Wit fancy drink ye goat the day, Tim?”

“Eggnog latte—they’ve got the Christmas drinks out already.”

Davey snorted. “Christ, it’s no even December yet. Wit the fuck is eggnog?”

“It’s some American thing—I think they make it with alcohol over there.”

“Any in that yin?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Sounds rank.”

“Tastes good but.” Tim took a sip, a smugness coming over his face from the warmth of it—bliss on a cold bastard morning.

“Just mind an drink it up before Sean appears—it’ll set him aff. He’ll be bangin oan aboot tax dodgin fir fuckin oors an a cannae be arsed wae it the noo. Av goat a splittin heedache.”

Tim laughed. “He is right though, I shouldn’t be giving them my money, it’s just it’s the only place open on my way here.”

“An yer a fuckin addict an aw.”

“That too.” He took another gulp and a cloud of sweet-smelling steam emanated from his mouth.

“Ah, Tim, wit’s that shite yer puttin in yersel?!” Sean already had a joint hanging from his mouth, stomping towards them with his bent-backed swagger. “Thoat ad fuckin telt ye aboot they fuckin crooks!”

“Fucksake, here we go,” Davey said.

Tim chuckled.

Sean unlocked the shutter and hit the switch, the door grinding its way up in a racket that reverberated down the street, bouncing off the dusky yellow stone of the closed factories currently in the process of being converted to luxury flats which made up most of the buildings from the car wash to High Street. “Am no huvin ye bringin that shite intae ma shoap, ye better drink it oot here an go find a bin somewhere else fir the cup.”

“I know the rules,” Tim said.

That didn’t stop Sean launching into his usual tirade—one that eventually ranged, in a raging stupor, into all sorts of areas of politics and ended up lambasting the UK government and celebrating the bare-chested, horse-riding Vladimir Putin, hero of RT—“the real fuckin Don”.

“You’re het fir any jizz the day, Tim,” Davey said. “You an yer fuckin eggnog latte.”

“Back in a minute.” Tim ran off down the street to the nearest bin while Davey set up for the day. Once he had the hoses laid out—snaking out the shutter door, down the street and looping back to where the big blue barrel held the lances—he didn’t bother delaying hitting up Sean for some baccy. He wasn’t even going to pretend to quit today.

“Wit’s the matter wae ye?” Sean asked. “Yer rattlin like skeletons shaggin in a biscuit tin.”

“The wean’s in the hoaspital.”

“Fuck, man. Wit’s wrang wae her?”

“Don’t really know yet, Sarah willnae let us see her.”

“Shite… Ye needin time aff?”

Davey rolled a cigarette—Sean didn’t even have a lighthearted grumble about him stealing his tobacco.

“You not well, Davey?” Tim came into the office, pulling off his hat and gloves, his long, lazy student hair falling into his face, which he swept back behind an ear.

“His wean’s in the hoaspital.” Sean answered for him while Davey smoked his life-preserver. “The ex willnae let him visit.”

Tim didn’t know what to say to that. He never knew what to say about any troubles Davey had—separations and sick kids were very far removed from Tim’s current situation and experience in life. He put on a serious face and managed: “Sorry, David.”

Davey and Sean’s eyes snapped together, smiles widening. They looked back at Tim, who took a beamer.

“David?! Ye ma maw noo?” Davey said.

“Fuck you guys!” Tim said, red-cheeked. The three of them burst out laughing.

“Fucksake, Timmy, put the fuckin kettle oan fir us. Sean, could a huv wan ae yer tablets? Ma heed’s bangin.”

“They’re up oan the shelf there, David.”

“Fuck the pair ae ye.”

Tea, fags and painkillers evened Davey out, made him functional. They had some steady work in the morning: a decent chain of washes and a couple of valets that weren’t too manky. Tim didn’t seem to want to start any sort of conversation and that was fine with Davey—they had work to get on with anyway. He didn’t feel he needed to supervise the lad either—he was a good one. It wasn’t that washing motors took much skill, but at the same time anybody who said it was a piece of pish was generally doing a crappy job of it. There was a line to walk between attention to detail and getting it done fast and Tim had the knack of it. You had to have a pattern, and once you had a solid pattern, your body could work through it mechanically without missing anything—no stripe of dirt along the lower door, no muck in the corner of the alloy spokes, no soap scum left to dry on the bumper. With a good line of cars to get through, you could get into this rhythm, move fast, and your mind would drift away and wander while your body did its thing.

Davey’s mind went places he didn’t want it to go. Annalee, white-faced and frail in a too-big hospital bed, sheets too stiff, machinery and tubes and bleeps and buzzes—all this purely his imagination as he hadn’t been to see her. Couldn’t go to see her. Wasn’t allowed. Wisnae fuckin allowed—says who? Says Sarah. Sarah’s word was law for now, but she’d made plenty of threats to take it higher up, to go to the courts. He was waiting for that hit to come, he knew she was winding it up already, could feel it in the anger coming off her last night in radioactive waves. It wasn’t that Sarah was quick to get nippy—she was never usually one for unnecessary aggro, always the peacemaker on the drunken nights out of their not-too-distant youth—but when she did get angry, holy fuck, it was cataclysmic. And where the subject of Davey and Annalee was concerned, she had very little patience and the whole thing strung with so many trip wires Tom Cruise could use it as a set piece in his next film.

Davey was valeting a rusty red Ford Fiesta—scrubbing away at the layer of dirt on the inside corners of the door with a rag—when he finally noticed Tim saying his name.

“Wit?!”

Tim was standing with a woman in a long coat, dyed brunette hair showing grey at the roots, face prim and puckered like a schoolteacher’s.

Davey launched into his spiel: “A wash fir a wee car is a fiver, any bigger an it’s six or seven, dependin oan how much bigger. A hoover is a tenner, a full valet and yer twenty. Ye want the seats shampooed ye can bung another fiver oan tap.”

“I’m not here to have my car cleaned.” Her accent was only just middle-class, maybe self-taught.

“Well, we don’t dae anythin else.”

“Detective Inspector McCoist.” The woman held out her warrant card at arm’s length, lanyard wrapped around her fist. “Is Mr Prentice in?”