White Rage (30 page)

The same gun, okay, Perlman thought, but how did it get from Bobby Descartes into the hands of whoever shot Blum? Did it come from Magistr32? Was she the provider, the quartermaster?

‘Second, the hammer that was in Bobby Descartes' possession,' Deacon said. ‘Linklater phoned me an hour ago to confirm that the tissue samples and the blood matched Helen Mboto.'

Since when did Sid Linklater report to Deacon? Special Branch, of course, those bastards took control, they had secret tracks they could pursue, quietly sinister avenues along which they could move. Deacon made no acknowledgement of how the hammer had been acquired. He talked as if the implement had just materialized, a miracle akin to the face of Christ appearing on the surface of a potato scone.

Nice to get credit, Perlman thought. ‘Are you taking questions, Inspector?'

Deacon narrowed one eye, as if he were looking down a microscope at a dubious specimen. ‘Depends on the question, Sergeant.'

‘Bear with me. I thought the investigation of these various murders came under the aegis of Superintendent Gibson and DI Scullion, with a team member such as my humble self somewhere down the pecking order. Are you saying Special Branch has stepped in, and this is now a joint op? Or are you saying you've taken control altogether?'

‘No, we haven't taken control –'

‘Fine. So my next question is whether you have fresh information re White Rage that you're prepared to share with Superintendent Gibson and the team.'

‘All in good time,' Deacon said.

‘When is a good time, Inspector? I mean, how many people have to shuffle off the mortal coil before you deem it a good time?'

‘That's an impertinence, Perlman.'

‘Look. I'm sick and fucking tired of being up to my knees in blood, Inspector. If you can help us in any way?'

Deacon said, ‘I'm not being uncooperative just to obstruct, Perlman. There are some things I can't divulge.'

‘Because they're –
sensitive
?'

‘Exactly.'

‘And how do you define sensitive. Inspector?'

Deacon made his right hand into a slack fist, and glanced at Mary Gibson. Did something pass between them at that moment? Perlman wondered. A look of complicity, a tell? Was Mary Gibson in league with the Devil here?

‘You don't qualify on a need-to-know basis,' Deacon said.

‘Um, a need-to-
what
basis? Excuse me, when exactly did we become the Glasgow sub-branch of MI6? Did I miss an in-house bulletin or something?'

‘
Lou
,' Mary Gibson said.

‘I'm sorry, Superintendent, but people are being killed and pardon me, I feel a responsibility. I don't sleep well. I'm not eating. My nerves are shot. I just don't think we're getting any fucking help from Inspector Deacon's clique.'

There was a silence in the room. Scullion, who'd grown pale over the last few days, studied his watch. Fraser Deacon sighed. Mary Gibson looked down at her own shadowy image in the polished surface of the table. Perlman got up and gazed into Waterloo Street, where a growing crowd gathered, and a line of uniforms prevented them from getting too close to the building. He blew on the glass and watched it steam up; the morning sun, red as a drunkard's nose, rose slowly over the rooftops.

He turned to face the room. ‘Question. Is there some governmental involvement here? Are we getting too close to an area where ordinary foot soldiers shouldn't be straying?'

‘Governmental?' Deacon asked.

‘Don't play games with me, Inspector. You haven't intervened in this investigation simply because you want to make us flat-footed plodders look like inferior dullards, have you? There's something else at the nub of this. Something you don't want us to know. Maybe something the Scottish Office doesn't want us to know. Or Whitehall. I'm guessing, I'm stabbing in the dark.'

‘Has Perlman become the department eccentric or the resident conspiracy theorist, Superintendent?' Deacon asked.

‘He has his odd moments,' Mary Gibson said quietly. ‘But he's a good policeman, generally.'

‘I'll have to take your word for that,' Deacon said. ‘Just the same, I'm wondering if perhaps the Sergeant is a little burnt out by his workload. It's a heavy one.'

Only an idiot could have missed the point: Perlman was being undermined. Doubts about his energy were being cast. ‘I can handle it,' he said.

‘Glad to hear you say so,' Deacon said. ‘But still, you know …'

‘No, I don't know. You tell me.'

‘This is nothing personal, Perlman, but we all reach a certain stage of life when the reflexes aren't what they used to be. The muscles lose their elasticity. The brain slips up when it comes to concentration … The human condition, Sergeant. We're all going in the same direction.'

‘Thank fuck I'm not a horse,' Perlman said. ‘Or I'd be off to the abattoir at the crack of dawn. I'll go cheerfully when my time comes, not before. And especially not now, when it seems that White Rage has declared open season on Jews.' He was furious with Deacon, and trying to tamp the feeling down. ‘Doesn't it seem that way to you?'

‘It's hard to predict,' Deacon said. ‘But you're right, it seems that way.'

‘So I should watch my back?'

‘You should always watch your back.' Deacon smiled in a frosty way and lowered the register of his voice so that he sounded soothing, like a smooth late-night deejay playing bluesy old standards for insomniacs and lovers. ‘Listen to me, Lou. And don't get petulant. If you feel you want to take some holiday time, I'm sure Superintendent Gibson would be sympathetic. We'd all understand.'

How deplorably heavy-handed Deacon could be, Perlman thought. It was the
worst
suggestion he could make. Deacon didn't have a clue who he was dealing with. Sideline Perlman? Give him time out and maybe he'll bugger off? A beach somewhere, a bottle of vino, chickadees walking past in G-strings and leaving the tang of suntan lotion on sultry air. No fucking
way
, Perlman thought. Not in a thousand years.
Leave the job now?
Leave Glasgow because it might be more convenient for Prase Deacon, who doesn't want me aboard his mystery train?

Why did everybody suggest he take a fucking holiday anyway? Fat Leo had advised a sea cruise. Mary Gibson had suggested Malaga or Malta. Now here was Deacon making a contribution to Lou's vacation plans. I'm in everybody's way, he thought. My realm of influence, that tiny fiefdom, is being reduced by the minute. My movements are being curtailed. Never mind what the grown-ups in Special Branch are doing, you're not part of the team.
The human condition, Sergeant
.

He wondered if Tay was behind this, or if Tay and Deacon were in collusion; what if Mary Gibson was a player in this sorry game too? Add Latta, and pretty soon you've got all kinds of officers aligned against you. And, God help you for wondering, was Scullion blameless?

He looked at Scullion, who half-smiled, as if to say: It's okay, I understand, Lou. Come home with me, it's fish-pie night again, we'll relax, sup a few brews.

I can't do fish pie tonight; sorry, Sandy, Perlman thought. I still have the killer of a young Indian girl to find, and it doesn't matter that I hate the taste of bureaucratic fodder, and the shit-stink of interference from High Places, and the condescending suggestions of Baldyheid from Special Branch.

He thought of Nat Blum, Kilroy's front, his decoy, the glove puppet that fitted neatly on Leo's fat hand. Poor ambitious hotshot Nat. Now a dead man. Why? Why out of all five thousand Jews in the city had Blum been chosen? Why not a prominent rabbi, or a community leader? Why not
me
, a policeman?

I'll ponder Inspector Deacon's suggestion about a vacation,' Perlman said, and addressed the remark to Scullion, who knew that dismissive tone very well. ‘Meanwhile, I've got some paperwork to catch up on. Reports, Sandy. Right? Detailed reports? Up to the minute, nothing overlooked, right?'

‘Right,' Scullion said.

‘
In my hour of darkness
,' Perlman sang, as he left the room and walked towards the corridor. He kept moving, although he thought he heard Mary Gibson call his name. Keep moving, keep singing. ‘
O Lord grant me vision, O Lord grant me speed
.' Was that meant to have a drug connotation, or did Gram Parsons believe God could give you wings so you could fly fast? He walked to the lifts, pressed the call button.

Fucking Deacon
. Patronizing me, suggesting I can't cut it.

He stepped into the lift. He had a pain at the back of his eyes. New glasses is what I need. Take a vacation. Aye. Up yours. He exited the lift at street level. The entrance was crowded with coppers. He pushed his way through, trying with each little thrust of his elbows to keep calm, restore sanity, straighten his gyroscope.

He made it to the street. An inquisitive crowd blocked the pavement. He squeezed through. When he was free of the spectators, he walked to the nearest corner and lit a cigarette. He sucked the smoke deep and long. He realized that this was the corner where he'd stopped yesterday with Madhur Gupta. Waterloo and Wellington Street, Hope Street ahead. A grieving mother.

He didn't see Dennis Murdoch approach. In uniform, he looked very young, a pink boy. He had good trustworthy eyes.

‘The pits,' Perlman said.

Murdoch nodded. ‘It's hard to know what to make of it all. The why of …'

‘Don't worry, Dennis. I've been round the block a few times and the whole circus still wrecks my head.'

‘I'd been looking for you, Sergeant, but then all this happened,' and Murdoch gestured at the crowd, the swastikas, the situation in general, ‘and I didn't have a chance to catch up.'

‘You don't have to make excuses,' Perlman said. ‘What did you find out about the accident?'

‘It's a wee bit strange. The driver was identified as one Willie Glone. The cab exploded. He died of massive burns. According to the person I phoned at Bargeddie Haulage, they didn't have a driver by that name.'

‘Meaning what? They're lying, or the truck was stolen?'

‘They hadn't reported it stolen, Sergeant.'

‘Either it was stolen, or the late Willie Glone had permission to drive it. One thing or the other. If it's the latter, then it's downright weird his name isn't known to Bargeddie Haulage. What's the name of the person you spoke to?'

‘I didn't get a name, Sergeant. Some guy in the office.'

‘What cargo was the truck carrying? Any idea?'

‘None,' Murdoch said. ‘I spoke to the officer who'd been at the scene, and he said the vehicle was empty.'

‘Cause of accident?'

‘Not yet established. All I heard was “out of control”.'

Sort of like the way I'm going, Perlman thought. He laid a hand on Murdoch's sleeve. ‘Let's take a drive, Dennis.'

Murdoch gestured in the direction of the crowd. ‘I'm supposed to –'

‘Just follow my orders, son,' Perlman said. ‘We'll walk back to Pitt Street and pick up my car.'

Murdoch looked uncomfortable countermanding an order to protect the graffiti-stained building. A conscientious cop, Perlman thought, an honest man.

Good.

35

‘I think she's fine, she's great,' the man called Swank said.

‘Because you lust after her, don't you,' Pegg said.

Swank said, ‘Lust, me? No, mate. I happen to think she's terrific at her game.'

‘She loves drama,' Pegg said. ‘She should have been an actress.'

‘Look, I think she's pulling her weight. She's a good girl. It's not like she's some skinheid with blue tattoos on her skull. Or some common yobbo screaming monkey slogans at a football match.'

Swank lit a briar pipe and sucked on it. His cheeks imploded. He had a cadaverous face, deeply engraved by premature ageing. His long thin hair, a straggle of black and grey, hung down over the shoulders of his brown velvet jacket.

Pegg waved away an aromatic fog of tobacco smoke and looked round Swank's flat in the basement of a tenement in Garnethill. Paint peeled from the walls like skin. The ceiling had been water-damaged at some time, and had developed an eczematous look. The sweet smoke killed the smell of rising damp. An enormous bank of computer equipment, stacked against the back wall, gleamed incongruously; there had to be four or five grand's worth of equipment here. Swank enjoyed the computer culture.

‘Don't like my digs, do you, Pegg?'

‘It reeks in here. Socks. Damp. Tobacco. Sweat.'

‘Nobody's keeping you. You're not shackled to the bed.'

Pegg asked, ‘Have you ever fucked her?'

‘Don't make me laugh.' He swallowed smoke and coughed. ‘Fucked her? Have you looked at her closely, Pegg?'

‘Can't help it, seeing how her face is in newspapers everywhere today.'

Swank said, ‘She's gorgeous, mate. She's a wanker's dream. What could I offer her?'

‘You know about her family background?'

‘I don't think that's relevant.'

‘Her mother liked to fuck blacks,' Pegg said. ‘She brought them home.'

‘So.' Swank relit his pipe.

‘You know she committed suicide?'

‘I heard it was something to do with diabetes.'

‘You could say. She OD'd on insulin. Coma. Death. Our girl found her mother lying naked on the kitchen floor. Needle right beside her.'

‘How do you know all this crap?'

‘I make it my business to ask around. It only takes one weak link, Swank.'

‘Wowch.' Swank burned his finger on the flame of a match.

Pegg said, ‘She told me her mother died of diabetic complications. She's in a dream world, Swank. She makes things up. She's just reinvented herself. Plus she's too
secretive
at times.'