THE SAM BRYSON COLLECTION Read online

  The room wobbles a bit, but I get my balance after a moment. For a second, I think I might be queasy, but it passes and I’m satisfied that I am not hungover.

  I call the office and Babs, my secretary, answers. She says that Mr. and Mrs. Sweets called, just to check in. She asks if there’s anything I want to tell them, and I state, perfunctorily that the investigation is currently ongoing and that there are some promising leads.

  Babs gives a little cough to indicate she follows, and then says, “You sound a wee bitty rough.”

  “I had a few last night.”

  “Tae blend in, of course?”

  “Aye,” I say, feeling a schoolboy caught out by the headmistress, “that’s it exactly. I was talking with people about the case. I was trying to make them feel a wee bit more at ease. When in Rome, and so forth.”

  Babs doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. I know how she feels about my drinking. She’s sixty-two years old next month, a veritable matron. She’s been there, seen it, done it, and—as the cliché goes—she’s got the T-shirt. Which is why she’s one of the few people in the world best qualified to pass judgement on anyone.

  “Will you be in later”

  “Aye,” I say. “For a while. A few things I want to check out.” Like want to find those addresses I noted down the night before; they’ve gone missing and I’ll be damned if I know where they are.

  I hang up on Babs after saying goodbye, and massage my temples. I’ve got a fly buzzing inside my brain, which perhaps zaps my no-hangover hypothesis straight to hell. Not that it matters. I have work to do and, fly aside, I’m in a fit state to do it. Right after breakfast, of course.

  Breakfast consists of fried bacon and some rolls I find in the bread bin that haven’t yet gone hard. This is a rare occurrence and in my flat a miracle of near-Biblical proportions. I’m a moderately successful man running my own business (which is why the windows of my offices have “Bryson Investigators” stenciled across them in big letters), but I’ll be damned if I can keep a tidy home and properly stocked cupboards.

  After breakfast, I shower quickly and decide that, yes, I’m feeling a whole lot better. I get dressed—blue suit trousers, white shirt, and black tie—before pulling on my black overcoat and heading out the door.

  I have a car, but try to use it as little as possible. I was raised in the country – specifically over in Fife, just across the River Tay—and I guess I got used to walking most places. The car’s useful, mind you. In this job, you sometimes need to get someplace real quick.

  Luckily for me, however, my offices just off Court Square, above an insurance agency, are within five minutes’ walk of my flat. I stalk on over and say hello to an insurer having a quick cigarette break on the street. We exchange pleasantries for a minute. He asks if I can kill his wife and I explain that I’m an investigator, not a Contract Killer. We laugh, even though it isn’t particu larly funny, and I head through a wee door just beside their grander entrance and walk upstairs until I reach the main door of Bryson Investigations.

  Babs is at her desk. She looks at me with one pencil-thin eye- brow cocked. I smile, a little nervously, and say, “Good morning.” She says, “There’s some mail for you in the office. Jamie’s away dealing with some miscreant worker. Trailing some wee wanker who’s been taking a sickie and moonlighting for someone else.”

  “Fine,” I say. Jamie is twenty-four, a good lad, and willing to learn. He trained as a police officer at eighteen and left the force a year ago to come work for me. I knew him a little when I was on the force, but not that well. We became good friends when our paths crossed on a case. For him, it was a simple B&E, for me it was blackmail. Our methods clicked and we became good friends. It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before he left and came to work for me.

  “Oh,” says Babs, “and about Ronnie Sweets. Sandy called. He wants to talk to you.”

  I nod. I go into my office, Close the door, and worry How did Sandy know I was doing some digging into the life of Ronnie Sweets?

  Sandy is my contact on the force. We were school friends and joined the force together. He stays there because he feels that being part of the system keeps him a good guy. He’d feel naked and exposed, I guess, outside the machinery of the police. I guess he’s frightened of being a loner—he’s got a vicious temper and I suppose the pressure of group work keeps him contained.

  I open the little drawer at the left side of my desk and take out the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that’s hidden away under some papers.

  I take a swig. It’s hardly the real thing, but it helps keep me going on those days I feel I can’t.

  I put the bottle back in the drawer, pick up the phone, and dial through to the police station, asking to speak with Sandy Griggs once I get through.

  When Sandy answers, he says, “How are you fixed for lunch?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good. Meet me,” and he names a bar we both know. The food there is good old pub grub. Just what you need after a night of accidental drinking.

  ***

  Sandy is already there. He’s a detective, so he’s not conspicuous in uniform, and from a vantage point we probably look like two old friends meeting. But something in his face says this lunch is business.

  We exchange pleasantries, study the menu, and then he orders from the bar. He comes back bearing a Coke for himself and a Sprite for me. I was tempted to get a beer but some little voice at the back of my head tells me to keep clear today; tonight’s a working night.

  Sandy broaches it first. He says, “Did Mr. and Mrs. Sweets tell you who put them on to you?”

  “No.” I knew the answer, but I let him tell me anyway.

  “I did. For a very good reason. You seem to be able to turn stones that I can’t. I just thought you might want to know.”

  “You told them in an official capacity?”

  “Yes and no. I told them on duty, but they were to keep it strictly under their hat.”

  “They were vague about where they got my number from, right enough.”

  He sips his Coke and I notice that his face is getting more lined.

  The bags under his hazel eyes seem more pronounced. His fair hair is getting thinner. Like me, he’s only twenty-nine, and his appearance worries me.

  “Sam,” he says, “I want your cooperation on this one.”

  “Of course,” I say.

  “I’m serious. You like to play the archetype, sure. You like to play the one good guy working outside the system. But let’s face it, most of the time you just track down unfaithful husbands and runaway kids.”

  “I do good, though.”

  “Aye,” says Sandy. “The point is, I want to know where you’re going with this one. Ronnie Sweets isn’t a coke fiend. He isn’t a mugger. He doesn’t have any priors. He’s just a kid who smoked dope and probably did a lot of minor offences that he got away with. Problem with minor offences is they’re always just one step away from the not-so-minor, you know what I’m saying?”

  I nod. The food arrives. Sandy has a vegetarian baguette. I have scampi. It smells good.

  When the waitress is gone, Sandy says, “I think some real hard cases are mixed up in this. And I don’t want an arrest messed up all because you aren’t a police officer. I want arrests to be made. That’s why I want you to keep in contact with me a wee bit more than usual. I’ve done you enough favors; time you did me some.”

  He tucks into his food as he’s speaking.

  I don’t say a word for a moment, but simply nod between hot mouthfuls of scampi. It tastes good, but that might be just because any food tastes good when you’re recovering from a monster hangover. I know what he’s saying. I try to think of it as helping

  Sandy, not helping the police. It makes the idea just a little bit easier to stomach.

  “Sure,” I say. “How is the kid?”

  “Not good,” says Sandy. “I telephoned the hospital this morning. He hasn’t come round. Chances aren’t good.”
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  “The parents telephoned me this morning. They want to know how much progress I’ve made. Christ, it’s only been a day.”

  “We’re single men, Sam,” he says. “We don’t have kids, at least none we know about. I don’t think we quite understand what they’re feeling.”

  “No,” I said. “I suppose not.”

  ***

  That afternoon I make some phone calls from the office, getting numbers from the names Jimmy gave me. Two of them get me answering machines. On the third, a man answers. He says, in a gruff voice, “Whit?”

  I say, “Is that Jim Mackie?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Mr. Mackie, my name is Sam Bryson. I’m a friend of Ronnie Sweets.” That little sentence earns me an abrupt dial tone. I cradle the phone, smiling. I have my man.

  A little bit of work earns me Jim Mackie’s address. Mackie is one of the names that Jimmy gave me the other night. Jimmy swears he really only knows Mackie by reputation. Mackie’s a dealer, and a hardarse at that. He might even be pimping and into God knows what kind of crap. For a guy hitting thirty that’s not bad going.

  I make a little note to pay Mister Mackie a visit when it gets dark.

  I don’t mean to, but I fall asleep sometime in the mid afternoon. I’m typing up notes and filling in official forms when the tiredness hits, and I close my eyes, leaning back in my leather chair. The blackness takes over entirely, and I fall into sleep.

  I dream.

  ***

  I’m floating through the hospital. The corridors are all exactly alike. They’re hazy, like looking through a pair of glasses that are far too strong for your eyes. People walk past in slow motion and their words are quickly forgotten, almost as though I never really heard them.

  I’m standing next to Ronnie Sweets when the dream comes into focus.

  His injuries are somehow more shocking than they were in the flesh. I feel sick to my stomach, and something inside me turns as his head levers itself round so his bloodshot eyes are looking right into mine. His flesh is purple and red, the veins on his forehead standing out almost half an inch from the skin. He reaches out with a clawlike hand and I cannot tell whether he means me harm or if he’s reaching out to ask me for help.

  In the distance, slow and muted, comes a deep groan of pain.

  ***

  I wake up and look at the clock on the desk: five thirty P.M. It will be getting dark soon. The sun’s down by seven thirty this time of the year. The best time to make an impression on Mackie will be after dark.

  Babs knocks on the door and walks in with barely a beat. She says, “My Raymond’s waiting downstairs. It’s our anniversary. He’s booked dinner. For tonight.”

  I say, “Go, enjoy yourself”

  “You’ll be okay?” She looks concerned.

  “Aye,” I say. “Fine.”

  “Good. Maybe you should have yourself an early night.”

  I smile. “I have work to do.”

  “of course. Take care, Sam,” she says, and something in her voice tells me she really means it.

  She leaves without another word. I watch out the window, to see her cross the street and meet her husband, Raymond, who’s waiting for her in a grey Peugeot 306. She looks up to the office window and I know I cannot escape her gaze, so I wave and smile. She returns the gesture and gets in the car with her husband.

  I wonder how long it is they’ve been married. I’m sure she’s told me, but I can’t remember.

  I feel jealous of them, in a sense. I never wanted to marry. I don’t think I’m the marrying kind, really. All around me, my friends are marrying and divorcing at a rate of noughts and I can’t help but wonder if there’s any point. I love Ros, but there are some days I can’t shake this doubt, this feeling that what we have can’t last forever. Looking at Babs and Raymond it seems so easy, but some part of my mind still says love only happens in the storybooks. In real life, you have only a finite and randomly allocated time with someone you love. If you don’t end it, death surely will, and the end of love is the end no matter how it comes. Love is no more than luck of the draw in the end. But that’s life all over: luck, circumstance, 0and Fate with her blindfold delighting in the chaos she causes.

  ***

  I make one call before I leave the office. I tell myself I’m just being considerate to an old friend.

  Mackie’s pad is on the Hilltown up the back of the Weilgate Shopping Centre. The Hilitown moniker is pretty apt, because the road runs up a steep angle for what seems like miles.

  Mackie lives above a cheap, independent video rental place. I go in there for a moment and browse the shelves. I’m not really looking for anything, but I’m just taking a moment to focus. I feel too wound up, and I have to take a moment to force myself to relax.

  The clerk behind the counter at the rear of the store eyes me carefully. I’m his only customer. Maybe I’m imagining things and maybe he doesn’t give a shit what I’m doing in here, but I can’t shake the feeling he’s watching me carefully.

  I look over and smile at him. I only succeed in making him more nervous. He’s a kid around twenty years old with a bad complexion. His face must have been a battleground once and the war on acne left its scars pockmarked all over. He’s naturally greasy and his short hair is arranged in spikes that must take him hours to achieve in the morning.

  I pick up a video and examine the back of it. It’s a low-budget, low-rent British crime thriller. Unsurprisingly it’s a tongue-in-cheek East End London gangster comedy. Ever since that Lock Stock nonsense, everyone’s been trying to jump on the same pony.

  No wonder it’s in danger of its back breaking.

  I waste a bit more time, but I can’t procrastinate forever, as appealing as the idea may be. I nod to the clerk and walk outside. Mackie’s security door is to the left of the video store. I buzz his number and wait. A voice answers after a moment. “Aye?” Same voice I heard on the phone earlier.

  “Let me up,” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a friend of Ronnie Sweets.”

  There is no reply. The other end of the connection dies. I wait around anyway, and my instincts prove to be correct. I hear a low buzzing noise. I push the door and it opens, letting me inside.

  I walk up the stone steps to the first floor. Mackie’s door is right at the top of the first flight. It stands open and a man with a football-shaped head and squat, muscular body stands in the space. His hair is cut short and he’s going bald. His eyes are road maps, his pupils are small, his irises watery green. He wears faded blue jeans and a scabby white sweater. He has a pair of scabby Nike trainers on his feet that are almost dead.

  “I don’t know you,” he says.

  “But you know Ronnie Sweets, right Mister Mackie?”

  “Aye. What’s he to you?”

  I bend the truth a little and say, “A family friend. Can I come in.”

  “No.

  “You hurt him, didn’t you, Mister Mackie? And if it wasn’t you, you know whoever it was that did, am I right?”

  He’s more intelligent than he looks. He stares blankly at me, giving nothing away.

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  “Are you the polis?”

  “No.”

  “You look like polis.”

  “You want the truth? I was and I retired.”

  “Why?”

  A girl appears behind Mackie now. She’s waiflike, with skin as white as porcelain and a sheen on her hazel eyes that tells me she’s been using. Her long blonde hair falls about her face in straggly strips. “Who’s this?” she says. “Are ye no going to invite him

  Mackie stands aside. “Come in,” he says, like it’s a challenge. He’s confident, maybe even thinking I don’t have the balls to follow into the hallway. They lead me down to the right and a chipboard door into what must be the living room. a small TV in the corner no video or DVD player.

  The TV’s tuned to Channel 5; some lurid documentary When Car
jacking Crime Goes Wrong or some such crap. There’s a dead couch and several mattresses spread out on the floor. I count four people in here and a baby’s cot in a darkened corner.

  One of the four people stands up. He’s tall and skeletally thin with long white-blonde hair. His bare arms are marked with tracks, but he appears fairly lucid. “Who are you?”

  “A friend of Ronnie’s.”

  “Ronnie was here once, man,” he says. “That’s all. He was here the once and he split because he said he wis better than us.” His voice is high pitched and nasal, like he’s talking through a broken nose.