The Purple Contract (16 page)

'Gavin Donlevy,’ he said after a time. ‘Runs an outfit called Five Star Fabricators in East Kilbride. It's a legit company and they turn out some pretty good stuff. He went straight into the yards as a welder when he left school––must have worked in every shipyard on the Clyde.’ He grunted morosely. ‘ In those days there
were
shipyards on the Clyde. When I first knew him, he had just taken up Stock Car racing and some of his custom body jobs were beyond belief.'

‘Can he be trusted?’ Trusted to keep his mouth closed even if direct questions were asked. But that wasn’t likely to happen unless Hollis’ project suffered major exposure––and then it would be the least of his worries.

Gojo gave his grimace of a smile. 'He went inside for a couple of years when they caught him doing hefty chassis modifications specially designed for Ram Raiding. He knows how to keep his mouth shut all right.'

Thank Christ
, thought Hollis, feeling a weight lift in the depths of his mind. Thank Christ for Gojo and his never-ending contacts. For the next hour they spoke of happier days, staying off the more sensitive subjects in unconscious deference to these antiseptic surroundings. Gojo learned more about his friend in that hour than in all the previous years put together.

At the age of nineteen, after a lengthy series of dead-end jobs washing cars and filling shelves, interspersed with regular petty crime, a judge gave him an ultimatum: six months in jail or volunteer for the armed forces. No contest. Later that same day Mike Hollis had walked into the nearest recruiting office, which happened to be the army.

It was the best thing that ever happened to him and he knew it. The year was 1975.

The army succeeded in supplying the one item that had been missing from Hollis' life: discipline. They taught him self-respect and self-reliance––and he responded with enthusiasm. He excelled with firearms of all sorts, resulting in the comparatively rare "exceptional" comment appearing in his official confidential records under the appropriate heading. He went on to represent his unit at several auspicious small arms competitions in the following years.

In February 1982, at the age of twenty six, he came close to losing both legs as a result of a training accident involving explosives. It had been partly his own fault: young men consider themselves invulnerable. Returning after nearly a year in hospital, the army medical board refused to give him the vital grade allowing active service. Instead the army offered him an administrative appointment which would have carried with it considerable promotion.

But pen-pushing was not for Mike Hollis. With no other options available, they invalided him out and he found himself right back where he had started: job hunting along with tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen.

It was hopeless from the start. Without a proper trade the only work on offer was the sort of menial task that had sickened him before. There are few openings in civilian life for a trained weapons expert and natural marksman.

The ward was thinning of visitors now and Hollis had noted the nurse in charge casting glances in their direction. 'I'll be getting thrown out soon, is there anything you need?'

'Aye. A bottle of malt and a straw.'

Hollis laughed, the ludicrous image clear in his mind.

'Can you phone somebody for me? Get him to pick up the bike and keep it until I get out of here. The bloody thing will disappear for good otherwise.'

'Sure'.

Gojo gave him a phone number.

'I'll only be in town for a few days, then I'm going away for a while. When I get back I'll come down again and we'll have a few beers.'

'Thanks for comin' in, Mike.' said Gojo. God alone knew where his friend was going and who it was this time. One of these days …  'Watch out for yourself, okay?'

Hollis saw that Gojo's colour had improved noticeably and he looked stronger. Good. Unbidden, a memory of his recent conversation with Dave Jordan came into his mind. Reminding him of something he had to say before he left this place. 'This is the last one, Gojo. I've been thinking about it a lot over the past year and it's time to quit. I've had enough,' he said seriously. 'Getting too old for all this running around,' he added, trying to make a joke of it.

It was surprising admission, even though Gojo had suspected something like it was coming. The signs had been there all right. 'Aye. You're a poor old soul, right enough!' he grunted from his hospital bed.

They both laughed.

'I'll come in again tomorrow,’ Hollis assured him. ‘You keep your hands off the nurses, hear?'

'You ain't no fun no more,' replied Gojo in a mocking imitation of an American accent, passable even through his bruised lips. He watched Hollis walking back down between the two rows of beds, shrugging into his jacket and running a hand through his sandy hair. He spoke cheerfully to a nurse at the door and she glanced back twice, smiling, as he disappeared down the hallway.

Gojo felt a shiver run down the length of his spine. He had been careful to say nothing. He would not,
could not
, have asked his friend to sort this out for him. It wasn’t his way to ask anyone for anything. Better not to have debts which would need repaying at some time. But the certainty lay over him like a blanket of ice. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would be wise if the hospital casualty department got two beds ready pretty damned soon.

'Look. I don't care whether he's in a meeting or sitting on the toilet, I want to speak to whoever it is in your organisation that's responsible for security matters!' Frank Wedderman closed his eyes in despair. 'Well make damned sure you
do
.' He put the phone down and glared at it.

'Having trouble, Frank?' one of the two officers drafted in to assist him asked, grinning at his expression.

'These people aren't
real
!' Wedderman shook his head in disbelief. 'I'm trying to tell them that we think this guy Mintushi is in danger of his life, but all they're concerned about is whether the guy’s name should be in red letters or black letters on the award certificate!' He looked around the room as if searching for enlightenment. 'In the unlikely event of them actually calling me back, I'll be with the boss.'

When the door closed behind him the other two officers glanced at each other.
Christ
, they were both thinking, I wouldn't want
his
job.

In the hospital foyer, Mike Hollis replaced the telephone handset and picked up the tattered phone book from the shelf beneath. The voice at the other end had been surprised to hear that Gojo had been hospitalised. Hollis had passed on the request about the motorbike and received ready agreement. He had also suggested that Gojo could do with some visitors so maybe a few friends could be rounded up …?

'One last thing, I need some bits for my own bike, where's the best place to go? Jimmy who––oh, Blind Jimmy? Right. Where will I find him? Okay, thanks.'

It was easy enough to locate Five Star Fabricators in the same phone book. He made a mental note of the address and walked out into the sunshine.

The congestion wasn't getting any better and it took Hollis nearly twenty minutes to get clear of the city centre and across one of the many bridges spanning the River Clyde to where the traffic was thinner. He made better time now, skirting the town of Rutherglen through a well remembered short-cut and heading for the Cathkin Braes and the climb up out of the Clyde valley.

By the mid-60's the increasing problem of shortage of building land to house Glasgow's ever-growing population was becoming acute. Consequently the City Council thought it would be good idea to resurrect an
overspill
strategy first formulated as the Clyde Valley Plan in 1946. Simply put, this meant the transference of city residents to outlying areas where new towns would be built specifically for the purpose. Some of these were green-field sites and other involved a huge expansion of an existing countryside community. One of the first of these new towns was East Kilbride, intended from the beginning to be a self-sufficient community and not merely a dormitory area.

Less than twenty years later 30,000 folk lived in the new town, and the population target had been increased yet again to 70,000. As the town grew in size the local people, many of whom had been transplanted from Glasgow, began demanding more control over their own affairs. And as a direct result, in 1963 East Kilbride became a Small Burgh complete with it’s own Town Council.

This overspill policy certainly achieved the desired result of reducing housing demand within the city limits, but it tended to draw away more skilled workers than unskilled ones––which was not in fact what had been intended. History does not regard it as a success.

The tenancy board was peeling badly and a lower corner was missing altogether. Hollis stared at it though the open side window of the car, finally spotting Five Star Fabricators tucked away in a corner, in a cul-de-sac off another cul-de-sac in the usual pattern of modern industrial, and housing, estates. Supposed to cut down through traffic and reduce noise and road hazard they did neither, instead having the inevitable result of funnelling every vehicle coming or going down the same restricted roadways.

Another triumph for modern planning, thought Hollis cynically. He had never been overly impressed with the standard of ability displayed by local government officials in general.

An empty Toyota pick-up stood in the yard in front of the gaping loading bay door. From the gloom beyond an actinic blue spark flickered, and further into the dark recesses Hollis heard the screech of a metal-working lathe.

'Gavin Donlevy?'

The man turned a knob and the bright blue flame of the oxyacetylene cutter flicked and died. He flicked the welding mask up and revealed a bearded face topped with long untidy hair. Two extremely bright eyes gazed back at Hollis from under bushy brows and a thumb was waved at the lathe on the other side of the workshop. Then the mask dropped again and he turned back to what appeared to be a damaged ploughshare, the torch popping into life again.

The lathe whined down into silence while the boiler-suited figure alongside it scrutinised his work with care. Hollis, who set great store by first impressions, noted the critical appraisal and smiled wryly when the workpiece was thrown casually to one side with a clatter.

'Crap. Next time it'll be right.' Gavin Donlevy was about the same age as Mike Hollis, with an accent that betrayed his roots in rural Aberdeenshire. 'What can I do for you?' He scratched an ear with an oily finger, leaving a black smudge.

'Did you know Gojo's in the hospital?' Hollis met the other man's eyes.

'That right?'

'I didn't put him there if that's what you're thinking. Got beaten up by a couple of thieves who were trying to steal his bike.'

Donlevy wiped his hands on a rag. 'I wasn’t. I've told him a dozen times him he should get rid of that bloody Honda and buy another car, but he won't listen.'

'Yamaha. And he’s never owned a car in his life.' The tension eased a little.

'Ok, so we both know Gojo and I'm sorry he's had some bother, what can I do for you?'

'Somewhere we can talk?'

There was silence for a few seconds while Donlevy digested this. 'Like that, is it?'

Hollis shrugged.

'Come on out back.' The two men went through a small door at the rear of the workshop past a tiny cluttered office and out into a large storage yard lined with racks of raw materials and several rusting skips containing offcuts and rejects. A steel-blue MGB crouched against the chain link fence between Donlevy's unit and the one next door. At least forty years old, it had been lovingly restored to pristine condition and Hollis nodded to himself in admiration––this was his kind of car. Donlevy pulled the driver's door open and waved his visitor to the other side.

'Can you make this for me?' Hollis handed over the detailed sketch he had made last night in the hotel room, working until the early hours and carefully reproducing every aspect of the NorthTek filter casing. There was no way he was handing over the original spec sheet with the company’s name plastered all over it.

Donlevy studied it carefully for some minutes while Hollis admired the interior of the car. Several times Donlevy looked outside at one storage rack or another. Finally he asked the obvious question. 'What's it for?'

'Present for my kids.'

'Yes, all right, fuck you too.' Donlevy grunted. 'The thing is, I can make this up for you in two or three days out of ordinary stainless sheet steel.' He held up the page containing the materials specification Hollis had copied from the NorthTek brochure. 'This stuff is a non-standard gauge, I'd need to order it from down south. That means you wait a week or more plus the time to make it,' he looked across at Hollis over the top of his spectacles. 'You design this, did you?'

'No. That's too long, suppose you make it with what you've got, it'll be lighter, right?'

'Thinner gauge, less weight. Sure.'

It had just occurred to Hollis that the replica would have to be lighter, at least at first. A firing mechanism had to be assembled inside and that would add weight––it wouldn’t do for the replica to be noticeably heavier than the real thing. Ass before elbow, should have talked to the armourer first. Oh well.

'That'll be all right. As long as it ends up lighter and not heavier. Definitely not heavier.'

‘Anything else I need to know?’

‘It’s important that you follow the spec exactly, apart from the weight thing. I trust Gojo’s judgement and he told me you were the best man to make this.’ Hollis folded the drawing and handed it over. ‘Don’t let me down.’

‘Fame at last.’ Donlevy grunted. 'Okay. This is Friday, come back on Tuesday and it'll be ready.'

Hollis pulled the lever and swung the door open. Both men pulled themselves out of the low slung car and stood beside one of the big scrap material containers.

'How much?' Not that it was important but you didn't hand out blank cheques.

'Five hundred,' said Donlevy flatly. The tone of voice said take it or leave it. 'Cash.'