The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(106)

‘Parcel for you, sir. Courier just delivered it.’

PC Gregg stood in the doorway to McLean’s office and tried not to look like she was staring. He couldn’t blame her, really. He must look a state. Six stitches in a gash on his right temple, black eyes, singed hair, burnt-red cheeks like he’d been boozing all his life. And he still couldn’t get rid of the horrible smell of smoke that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.

‘Thank you, constable. Just put it on the desk. If you can find a space.’

She did as she was told, then hovered as if waiting to be dismissed.

‘Was there something else?’

‘I didn’t know if you heard, sir, but that lad we were looking for just walked into the station and gave himself up.’

‘Lad? What lad?’

‘You know. We interviewed his brother at Christmas.’

‘Peter Ayre?’

‘Aye, that’s his name. He’s down in Interview Room 3 talking like he don’t know how to stop. I’ve never seen Dag— er, Chief Inspector Duguid look so happy, sir.’

‘I’ll have to go and have a word with him.’ McLean pictured the destruction done to his tenement. Saw the pale dead face of his neighbour. ‘Thanks for letting me know, constable.’

PC Gregg nodded and scurried out of the room, leaving McLean with his parcel. It sloshed like a bottle of something and was about the right shape and size for a good malt. He slit the brown paper with a careful knife, and opened it up to reveal a twenty-five-year-old Springbank, nestling in a wooden display box. There was a note attached, written in surprisingly childish handwriting: ‘My wee girl can rest in peace now. You have my thanks for that. I won’t forget. This and the other present are a token of my gratitude.’

It wasn’t signed, but McLean knew exactly who it was from. He slid the bottle out of its box and held it up to the light. Liquid gold. By rights he should take it straight to the chief superintendent; accepting gifts from a Glasgow gangster could get him into all manner of trouble. And there was also the question of how MacDougal could possibly know what had happened. On the other hand, McLean reckoned he’d earned it. And it would probably be a month before his throat was healed enough to drink it. Slipping it back into the case, he shoved the whole lot in a drawer and headed off for Interview Room 3.

Peter Ayre looked as bad as McLean felt. Quite apart from the obvious signs of withdrawal, his face was a mess of bruises and he held one arm like it might well have been broken. His right hand was wrapped up in a grubby, bloodstained bandage that looked suspiciously like it hid too few fingers. He should have been in a hospital, not an interview room, but McLean wasn’t going to be the one to tell Dagwood that. Not this time.

The chief inspector had a look of insufferable glee on his face, and it wasn’t hard to work out why. From the observation room, McLean could hear Ayre’s dull monotone junkie voice listing names and addresses as if he’d had them drilled into him. Even given Dagwood’s track record, the gang responsible for the cannabis farms dotted around the city were going to be finding it very hard to operate.

‘Can you believe he just walked in?’ DI Langley stared at the interview being carried out on the other side of the glass. ‘He pretty much begged us to lock him up. He’s terrified.’

‘What about his information? Any good?’ McLean wasn’t sure why he asked. He knew what the answer would be.

‘What we can tell so far. It’s pretty early days. But he seems to have been a key player. He knows all the sites, all the people. And he’s said he’ll testify if we can help him get cleaned up. Someone’s due a promotion out of this.’

Aye, and we all know who that’ll be, thought McLean, and he’s not standing in this room. ‘So who do you think will move in on the patch. Once you’ve put this lot away?’

Langley looked at McLean with a quizzical expression. ‘What do you mean?’

‘My money’s on Glasgow. East side.’ McLean pulled open the observation-room door to leave. ‘Those Weegie bastards have been trying to get a foothold over here for years.’

Outside the station, the cold air soothed his face, but tickled his throat. McLean put his head down against the wind and started the long walk across town. His grandmother’s car was safely tucked up in its garage, away from road salt and exploding buildings. He’d give it a really good wash just as soon as the weather turned a bit warmer. Then maybe take it to that garage in Loanhead he’d heard about, get them to do some serious rust-proofing. He wondered if the electrics were up to powering an airwave set.

Despite the credit crunch, Christmas being over, most of the banks going bust and unemployment rising faster than Dagwood’s blood pressure, Princes Street was as full of shoppers as ever. He dodged between teenage mothers wheeling pushchairs, old biddies with lethal umbrellas unfolded despite the clear skies, teenagers in clothes several sizes too large and a hundred and one other variations on humanity.

And then he saw him, staring into the window of a huge chain bookstore at a display of the complete works of Ian Rankin.

‘Anderson!’ The shout spasmed his throat and McLean bent double, coughing and hacking like he was a sixty-a-day smoker.

‘You OK, pal?’

After an eye-watering minute, McLean was able to look up. From a distance, perhaps, the man who was talking to him might have looked a bit like Donald Anderson. But now he was standing there, it was quite obviously not him. His face was rounder, for one thing, and the nose was all wrong. And Anderson would never have worn clothes like that.