White Rage (32 page)

‘The writing's Arabic,' Murdoch said.

‘I see that. And what's the magazine?'

‘It's a comic book.' The young constable unfolded it, straightened it on his lap. The garish front cover depicted a space creature with demonic features in pursuit of two young characters, clearly earthlings, in space helmets. Murdoch flicked the pages. Inside was a Spiderman adventure, lurid in colour.

The speech balloons contained Arabic letters. ‘There was more stuff lying around,' Murdoch said. ‘I didn't have time to grab it all. Sweetie wrappers, cellophane bags, a few toys, items of clothing.'

Perlman braked when the car was out of sight of Bargeddie Haulage. He pulled to the side of the road and skimmed the magazine. ‘I assume Bargeddie Haulage sends its drivers overseas, Dennis. Places like Bahrain. Qatar.'

‘And they come back with kiddie sandals and Arab comics. Sergeant?'

Perlman stared through the windscreen at a stand of birch trees. Sandals and comic books. ‘Which wouldn't generate much in the way of income for Barry, would it?'

Murdoch said, ‘I have one other thing.' He reached into his pocket again. He pulled out a sheet of paper charred around the edges. ‘This was inside the comic,' he said. ‘Here.'

Perlman took the paper carefully from the young cop. It was clearly some kind of official form, perhaps a document of identification; in the lower right-hand corner of the page was a small photograph depicting a boy of thirteen or fourteen. A rubber stamp had imposed an inky blue circle over the photograph. The words on the page, like the words in the comic book and on the sole of the sandal, were Arabic.

‘Well?' Murdoch asked.

Perlman had the feeling he was on the edge of some luminous perception that would clarify all the mysterious connections that bamboozled and teased him. But then, like an elusive muse, the sense of expectation vanished.

‘Find out if we know anything about this Willie Glone when we get back to Pitt Street,' Perlman said.

‘Will do, Sergeant.'

‘You drive. And lend me your mobie, will you?'

37

On the way to Pitt Street, Perlman tried to reach Joe Adamski a couple of times on Murdoch's phone, but the Sergeant was out somewhere. Murdoch drove while Perlman looked at the city going past in a gloss of sunlight. Even Duke Street, a thoroughfare he usually found claustrophobic, was enlivened, shop windows glowing, buses reflecting squares of light.

Newsagents advertised the day's papers outside their shopfronts:
City of Death
, according to the
Daily Mail. Hate Killings Shock City
, the
Daily Record. Glasgow's Bloody Broken Heart
– the
Sun
, making a valiant tabloid attempt to be maudlin and sensational simultaneously. Here and there, instead of newspaper headlines, he saw copies of the picture of the girl who'd called herself Celia.

The mobile rang in Perlman's hand.

It was Sandy Scullion. ‘Where are you?'

‘Duke Street approaching High Street,' Perlman said.

‘You walked out.'

‘Don't tell me somebody noticed?'

‘You don't like Deacon, fine. But you're doing yourself no favours by exposing your feelings.'

‘I'll wear a mask next time.'

‘Sometimes you're so diabolically hard to talk to, Lou. All I'm trying to say is I don't want you to get the axe just because you can't stand the sight of Deacon.'

The axe, Perlman thought. Guillotine for a gendarme. ‘Fucking Deacon's up to something. I wouldn't be surprised if Mary Gibson knows what it is.'

‘She's on
our
side, Lou.'

‘People are sometimes on both sides. And sometimes they just sit on the fence and watch what happens before they declare themselves.'

‘Whatever.' Scullion sounded weary, a man whose friendship was forever being tested. ‘The gun checked out, by the way. Same weapon both times. What we thought.'

Perlman listened as Sandy went on about the explosive used in Cremoni's – a North Korean variant of the old Czech Cold War favourite, C-4 – but he was thinking of the gun. He imagined Indra Gupta looking into the barrel of it in much the same way as Nat Blum must have done, a microsecond of realization, a moment out of time, the inevitability of that last lethal sound, then a world of silence.

‘How long before you come in?' Scullion asked.

‘Ten minutes.'

Perlman switched off. He tapped the end of the mobile phone against his lower teeth in an absent-minded way, then decided to try Joe Adamski again. Still no reply.

Murdoch drove into the busy heart of the city. George Square was crowded. Lunchtime diners took advantage of a rare sun and sat on walls and benches. They ate sandwiches and sipped coffee from cardboard containers and studied newspapers, looking for some kind of explanation of what was happening to their city. Nothing's easy, Perlman thought. You can't just reach up and pull a solution from the sky. Poverty, an impoverished health service, low-grade housing, drugs – you couldn't add up these social problems and hope the total would provide a satisfactory answer. There was no mathematical formula, nothing you could crunch through machines.

Murdoch drove up St Vincent Street and found a parking space half a block from Force HQ. Perlman got out, and as soon as his feet hit the pavement he felt a muscular ache in his lower back and remembered the Dalmatian that had bushwhacked him – when? How long ago had that been? He couldn't recall. Another man's history. Days bled into other days.

Inside Force HQ he walked directly to the stairs.

‘Don't forget Glone,' he said to Murdoch.

‘ASAP.'

Perlman left the young cop and continued upward until he came to Scullion's office. Sandy was sitting behind his desk, shirtsleeved.

‘We're getting a lot of calls about the computer sketch,' he said.

‘Anything positive?'

‘Funny how one image can be open to so many interpretations,' Scullion said. He picked up a bunch of phone messages from his desk and waved them at Perlman. ‘She's Jean such and such from Carmyle, she's Mary so and so from Stepps, she's Martha this from Possilpark, she's Denise X from Castlemilk. Oh, this one's a beauty, you'll love it – she's Yan Yomomata, a Japanese terrorist.'

‘She couldn't look oriental if you met her in a bloody geisha house in Tokyo,' Perlman said.

‘This is definitely a round-eyed girl we're chasing.' Scullion tossed the papers down. ‘It's a slog now.'

Perlman picked at a loose button on the cuff of his coat. ‘Am I still up shit creek? Do I still have pariah status?'

‘Not from where I sit,' Scullion said. ‘Except you haven't done anything about Tay's request concerning Colin, have you?'

‘No, not yet, I've been diverted, you know that.'

‘He phoned me again ten minutes ago. Not in a good mood, Lou. He wants those files. He wants you to get all your reports updated, start building again.'

‘Why?'

‘Only a psychic could read Tay's mind,' Scullion said. ‘All I can tell you is you're going to have to spend some time on this business, Lou.'

‘I feel a tide rising around me, Sandy.'

‘Find a way to stem it.'

‘I'm Canute. Turn back the fucking sea. Is that the way? Regal fiat?' He laid his hands flat on Scullion's desk. ‘You got an aspirin or five?'

Scullion took a box from the drawer of his desk. ‘Nurofen. Help yourself.'

Perlman shook three pills into his palm and swallowed them dry, even as he twisted to reach behind himself and massage the pain at the base of his spine. ‘Jesus. This just kicked in a quarter of an hour ago.'

‘Try sitting down.'

‘Better if I stand.' Perlman had a bitter taste at the back of his throat from the Nurofen. He walked slowly around the room. He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and leaned against the wall. He had the odd feeling that Scullion was withholding something, although he wasn't sure what.

What the fuck is wrong with me? Everywhere I turn I sense conspiracy, legerdemain under the surfaces of everyday life, furtive acts of behaviour. The holiday idea everyone had bruited about seemed suddenly ripe with wonderful promise. Malaga, yeah. Malta. The boat to Dunoon, the train to Troon. There were all kinds of places he could fuck off to, and shake the smell of Glasgow out of his system.

‘So I'm to collate my reports and update all the bumph I've collected?'

‘Fast as you can, Lou. That's what the man wants.'

‘Did he say I should abdicate the Indra investigation?'

‘Not specifically. He indicated that you were too engrossed in other matters for his liking. I surmise he meant White Rage, what else? But he didn't issue a
verboten
dictate. I had a feeling he wanted to, but then how would it look to take an experienced officer off a case as big as White Rage? Somehow you're going to have to make the time to do several things at once.'

‘I'll get it done, Sandy. I promise.'

‘I'll be watching you.'

Perlman sat in puzzled silence, his mind picking away at the why of Tay's urgency. He supposed a meeting with Tay was always a possibility, but would any of his questions receive straight answers?

‘What news on the Indra front?' Scullion asked.

‘I'll talk to you about Indra after I make this phone call.' He'd absconded with Murdoch's mobile. He punched in the number he'd been trying for the past hour. This time Joe Adamski answered.

Perlman said, ‘I'm going to send you a document by email, Joe. Have a look at it. Then phone me right back at Pitt Street. Give me a few minutes.'

Perlman switched the mobile off.

‘Joe who?' Scullion asked.

‘Adamski. E-Division.'

Scullion rapped his fountain pen on the desk. ‘Did I hear you say email? Do you
know
how to scan a document into a computer, Lou?'

‘Ah. Problem there. I was hoping you'd show me.'

‘Where's the document?'

Perlman took the charred paper out of his inner jacket pocket. ‘Here.'

Scullion glanced at it. ‘Any idea what it means? What language is it?'

‘I'm hoping Adamski knows.'

Scullion walked to the computer terminal in the corner of his room. He stuck the document into the scanner as Perlman watched with a bewildered, suspicious eye. The modem kicked in, making a series of squeaks and beeps. Scullion tapped the keyboard with fast fingers. The whole chore was completed quickly. He removed the paper and passed it back to Perlman.

‘Very impressive,' Perlman said.

‘I can perform certain basic tasks, but I'm limited. Now tell me about that document, Lou.'

‘Murdoch came across it at Bargeddie Haulage.'

‘And you think it has some significance?'

Lou bit on the fingernail of his fourth finger, right hand. ‘In a roundabout way.'

Scullion sighed. ‘Remember when cases were smooth sailing? Remember when you had a crime here, and a criminal there, and all you had to do was join the two? Or am I dreaming it was really like that?'

Perlman smiled. ‘We had easy ones, also tough ones. Like this one now, which is all over the fucking place. One thing leads to another, and the pattern goes round and round. Roll up, step on the merry-go-round, it birls you in a circle but it takes you right back to where you started.' Perlman shut his eyes for a second.
Imagine a candle in the dark of your head
. He'd read that in a feelgood book in a dentist's waiting room. He could never get the candle to light.

The telephone rang. Scullion reached for it.

Murdoch appeared in the open doorway, bulky in his dark uniform. ‘Am I interrupting, Sergeant?'

Perlman looked at the young man. When was I ever this eager to please? he wondered. ‘What's up, Dennis?'

‘I thought you'd want to see this,' and he handed Perlman a sheet of paper. ‘From the National Crime computer.'

Perlman looked at it, but before he could absorb the information Scullion called him to the phone. ‘Adamski. For you.'

Perlman took the handset. ‘Joe,' he said. ‘You checked that paper I sent?'

‘Yeh. In fact we picked up this kid a couple of nights ago, Lou.'

‘Where?'

‘He was wandering around Shettleston. Not a great place for a young boy to be, especially when he doesn't speak English and he's freezing his arse off, and he's penniless and starving.'

‘Where's he from?'

‘Damascus. Name's Achmad Aballah.'

‘Where is he now?'

‘We shipped him to London. He'll probably stay in a camp for a while.'

‘How did he get to Glasgow?'

‘By truck from Calais. He believed he was going to Dublin. The destination's always a mystery for these people. They never really know where they're going. The drivers don't tell them. They drop them anywhere they feel like. It's not as if Achmad can claim compensation under the Fair Trades Act. Where did you get this ID?'

‘Let me get back to you on that, Joe. Thanks.'

Perlman experienced a quiet stirring of life, as if he'd risen refreshed from a deep sleep. Achmad Aballah. Bargeddie Haulage. The connection quickened him.

And then something else touched him too, a shadow thrown by fire on the pocked face of a subterranean wall, a ghost locked in the busy arteries of memory. Leave it alone. It'll come. Just don't labour it.

Something to do with Kilroy –

He looked at the paper Murdoch had handed him. ‘Nice,' he said. ‘Very nice. A wee bit surprising, mibbe. But it's the kind of surprise I can deal with.'

‘Explain,' Scullion said. ‘I'm all ears.'

‘Willie Glone,' Perlman said. ‘Mean anything to you?'

‘Not a dicky.'

Perlman said, ‘Six years in Peterhead for GBH in Dundee.'