Blood Whispers Read online

  An attractive redhead was reading the headlines. ‘There are unconfirmed reports of three fatal shootings in the Thornwood area of Glasgow early on Sunday evening. The victims, thought to be a lawyer, a legal secretary and a young woman – believed to be a client – were discovered in the lawyer’s apartment at around eight o’clock yesterday evening. We’ll have more on that story later in the programme.’

  Aquino pulled the stem microphone attached to the headset he was wearing closer to his mouth and spoke.

  ‘You watching this?’

  ‘The Dervishi girl didn’t last too long out in the big, bad world. Five hours then Bam! That must be a world record, no?’

  ‘You coming down?’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the coffee station in two.’

  ‘See you there,’ replied Aquino, pulling the headset off and slamming it hard on the desk.

  *

  Gregg Moran made his way down the long glass corridor of the CIA’s Langley headquarters wiping beads of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He reached Tommy Aquino – who was waiting for him with a paper cup full of steaming black coffee.

  ‘Drug deal gone wrong. Simple as that,’ said Moran with his usual offhand tone that was beginning to piss Aquino off. ‘Only there’s no goddamn mention of drugs. What the hell is that all about?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Gregg! We told the son-of-a-bitch: only the girl dies.’

  ‘Let’s take it one problem at a time. There’s no frickin mention of what should have been a significant drug find in the apartment. You think they haven’t found it yet, or d’you think the shit was never there?’

  ‘I was told the end of last week it was in place, or it was definitely going to be in place. I have no idea what the hell happened, but I’ll find out.’

  ‘We’ve got to feed the drug scenario into the mix: get the signal-to-noise ratio working in our favour by creating plenty of static. It was only ever a back-up plan if the lawyer started screwing us about, but she’s dead now anyway, so she’s got nothing to bitch about if her reputation gets trashed. It could still be useful, though. It’d buy us some time, but where the fuck is it? With her discredited – whether people believe the drugs rap or not – anything else that shows up in the meantime in relation to Abazi can be dismissed as rumour and speculation too. We got anyone on the ground over there, apart from that useless piece of shit Kade?’

  ‘No,’ replied Aquino, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I already told you.’

  ‘There needs to be some merchandise found at the crime scene to back up the scenario that the lawyer was dirty. You think that’s gonna be possible after the fact?’

  ‘Truthfully, I don’t see what the hell difference it’s going to make now.’

  ‘Without the drugs it’s a straightforward homicide with one possible explanation. With the drugs it opens up all sorts of possibilities as to who and why: confuses the investigation.’

  Aquino gave Moran a look. ‘I don’t need a fucking lecture on how it works, Moran. What I’m saying is, it’s too late: the lawyer is dead, we don’t need the leverage, and to try and plant it in there now just to muddy the waters would be crazy. I told you already, my information was that it had already happened. As soon as I speak to Abazi, I’ll find out what the hell is going on. But let’s forget about that now. Whether the drugs are there or not is minor league. We have a much bigger problem to deal with. We need to have a serious look at the possibility of replacing Abazi.’

  ‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Moran, sipping at his coffee. ‘Really?’

  ‘Every fuck-up in history has had a starting point, a moment of crisis where the wrong decision is made, that’s followed very quickly by the resolution point where the undertakers stand with open coffins waiting for the guys that didn’t realize they were fucking up. Our starting point was Kade getting a crack on the skull and the girl getting picked up trying to leave the goddamn country: our crisis point is right now. We’ve got to make sure we don’t make the wrong decision.’

  ‘If – as you say – this is the touchpaper lit, let’s not wait around to get our asses blown off. If it’s time to move on, let’s do it. Let’s clean up and get the hell out of there. If it’s just a blip, then we need to have someone ready to step in and take over from Abazi, but even as I’m saying this out loud, I don’t believe it’s the way forward. My assessment is that the Serbian is no more. Hell, we could take the asshole down in a second: we’ve got a whole detachment of Navy Seals scratching their butts just up the road on the west coast of Scotland. But tempting as that scenario is, we have to play it smart. He spots one cloud of the storm coming his way and we’re all catching a cold in the rain, y’know what I’m saying?’

  ‘I think we should keep our direct involvement to a minimum . . .’ replied Aquino. ‘How about we wait and see who reacts first? Word on the wire is that Abazi has few friends anyway. A lot of the local, well-established drug gangs are none too happy about being constantly undercut: can’t figure out where the hell he gets his supply. All they know is they’re being forced out of the market. But none of them can get near him: he works with a very small unit, three or four guys at the most, and they don’t take any shit. Maybe we could drop one or two of his competitors a line: give them some intel on where he’s at. If a narco war breaks out and he gets hit, no one’s going to look deeper than what’s floating on the surface. That way our involvement is barely noticeable.’

  Moran was shaking his head. ‘We gotta move fast. Drive this situation in the direction we want it to go. We may be on a bus with a bomb strapped to the exhaust, but we’re still in charge of the GPS. A narco war is fine, but we have no control over the outcome. Let’s put some measures in place that are going to guarantee the Serbian’s future is a short one.’

  A female in her early twenties was striding along the corridor towards them holding a brown file full of papers. She beamed Aquino a smile as she approached. ‘This just in. I’ve got the scoop on the lawyer you’re interested in.’

  ‘Too late, Gonzalez,’ interrupted Moran. ‘She’s getting measured up for a wooden sleeping bag, as we speak.’

  ‘She’s dead? Are you bullshitting me?’

  Aquino shook his head.

  ‘Shit! I just hit the jackpot.’

  ‘What’d you get?’

  ‘Got up early this morning, too . . . should have stayed in bed.’

  ‘What’d you get?’ repeated Aquino.

  ‘Her grandma just died . . .’

  ‘Hold the front page!’

  ‘Hold your dick Moran, or next time you need a favour I’ll ask my supervisor if putting the CIA central computer to this sort of use without an Operations Title or authorization is strictly legal. Maybe tell them who it was that requested the info as well.’

  ‘So, what did you get?’ asked Aquino for the third time.

  ‘Grandmother, mother and daughter were all living under an assumed name.’

  ‘Okay. How’d you find that out?’

  ‘Granny’s death certificate. She wanted to be cremated back in Ireland, but the name on the certificate doesn’t match the one she’s been using in Scotland. Lynch is not the family name. Mother and daughter changed it legally, Granny never bothered. When we followed that on we found out the lawyer has a major paramilitary connection through her father: Granny’s son.’

  Aquino raised an eyebrow. ‘Shit! You just never know the minute, do you?’

  ‘How strong a connection?’ asked Moran, suddenly showing an interest in what Gonzalez was saying.

  ‘At one stage the father was in line for the top job in the Irish Republican Army: his brother – her uncle – was a goddamn hit man and‚ although not a card-carrying member of the IRA, that’s where most of his work came from. Curiously, her online presence is almost zero, but by a happy coincidence MI5 have a lot of intel on her, all to do with her work as a lawyer. She was quite outspoken and regarded as a troublemaker – anti-establishment. They keep a “soft” eye on her. The
re’s been a shift in the law over there – or they’re trying to shift it – so that, effectively, instead of the state having to prove a person committed a crime, the person has to prove they didn’t: something to do with agreeing admissible evidence and disclosure, I don’t know the ins and outs, but she was fighting it all the way: got a “first in, last-out” work ethic. A lot of the Establishment don’t like her; shame she’s dead. I even did some character profiling. I liked her.’

  ‘I told you she had something going on,’ said Moran. ‘All that therapy bullshit when she was younger! “Events” don’t get much more “significant” than having two terrorists in the family.’

  ‘D’you still need this,’ asked Gonzalez, holding up the file, ‘or did I give up my lie-in for nothing?’

  ‘Sorry. We’ve only just heard the news ourselves.’

  ‘You want me to shred it?’

  ‘I’ll hang on to it, but thanks.’

  ‘Yeah! I’ll give you one,’ chipped in Moran.

  ‘The expression is, “I owe you one.”’

  ‘I know.’

  Gonzalez thrust the file into Aquino’s hand and set off down the corridor shaking her head. ‘You’re such a loser, Moron.’

  ‘That’s Moran!’

  ‘I know,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she disappeared round the bend.

  Moran waited until she was out of earshot. ‘Goddamn it, if we’d known this earlier we wouldn’t have wasted our time setting the lawyer bitch up for a drugs rap. This is frickin dynamite!’

  ‘Was frickin dynamite,’ replied Aquino.

  ‘You screwing Gonzalez, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch?’

  ‘She’s screwing me.’

  Twenty-two

  As he folded the thin square of foil it crossed his mind that he might be making a big mistake, but he was the test pilot and the lure of hitting the big ‘float’ was too hard to resist. Jay-Go had been clean for a couple of weeks now, but with all the shit that had happened in the last few days, he needed to relax and forget, even if it was only for a short while.

  The quality of heroin he was used to slamming was at the lower end of the purity scale, forty, fifty per cent if he was lucky. This bag was straight off the plane, uncut; if he shot the sort of bang he was used to, he’d end up on a slab with some socially retarded ghoul doing a dodgy make-up job on him. He had to be careful.

  This was considered an experiment: see how far he could fly on a lower dose. If it was as clean as he hoped, he’d have a good hit and still live to tell the tale. Then, the plan was to market the powder as Daz.

  On the upside, he’d finally made the big score: he only had to sell half of it and he’d still make nearly twenty-five grand; maybe more if he cut it with some caffeine and dropped the price.

  It was all profit, too. No overheads, no down-the-line dealers taking their cut, no worries as far as he could see. If he got rid of the whole lot he could buy his own boat and sail to New York, New York, so good they named it twice. From there it was a quick flight to LA and straight into rehab. Screw Glasgow, screw Abazi and his crew of shithead-sister-shaggers; Jay-Go was going straight.

  Easterhouse, Glasgow, so shit they named it once.

  Jay-Go’s mind was in a tailspin; Miss Lynch was dead and that was wrong. He was supposed to be looking out for her. He’d given her the Jay-Go promise, then screwed the deal. Another person to add to the list of people he’d let down over the years.

  The lawyer had always done her best for him. Once, when it looked like he was heading to the Bar-L for anything between four and a half to sixteen for dealing and illegal possession of a firearm – she’d pulled something out of the hat at the last minute and saved his skinny hole. He’d gone down for a year, done six months and been released on probation – which involved having to check into a clinic every day for testing – but that was still a result.

  ‘Ah told ye the bogey-man was comin’, Miss. Ye should have fuckin’ listened,’ said Jay-Go out loud to the empty room. ‘Who’s looking out for you now, Miss? Jesus and his posse of guardian angels? And, who’s looking out for me now, eh?’

  First thing he had to do was test the gear: make sure it wasn’t a bag of baking powder. Then hit the streets and offload as much as he could as quickly as possible.

  After that, he’d get his bony arse out of town.

  There had been nothing on the news about her funeral: where or when. Jay-Go wasn’t ever down for a pall-bearers’ job, but if he could find out where it was going to be held, or where she was going to be buried, he’d maybe slip by and pay his last respects before he left.

  Something else was bothering him. Should he offload the gear locally, or take it out of town? It would be a lot safer to head over to Ireland with it and open up for business there, but Jay-Go didn’t even have enough money to get to the ferry, let alone buy a ticket for the crossing.

  He’d have to sell some of it first. But as soon as it hit the street the chase would start. Whoever owned it would know exactly where it had come from and track him down. Jay-Go’s hunch was that caballo this pure could only have come from one source – if it was true, he’d have Abazi on his arse, and that mad fuck didn’t operate a buy-back scheme, he went straight for the kill.

  He glanced around at the bare peeling walls. The floor of the living room was covered in filth. A one-bedroomed pigsty paid for by the state. Most of the time he didn’t notice the amount of crap everywhere, but today was different. Today there was the possibility to do something about it and that was giving him ideas. The benefit money he received every week was supposed to go towards its upkeep: heating, cleaning and maintenance, but by the time he’d bought enough cigarettes, beer and blow to get him through, there was barely enough left for food.

  All that was about to change.

  It was Jay-Go time.

  He squeezed some lemon juice over the small pile of pale brown powder sitting on the foil, to make it dissolve properly, then boiled it up over his lighter. As the paste liquefied he quickly sucked it into the syringe standing ready on the coffee table before dipping it into a cup of iced water to cool it down.

  Jay-Go strapped his arm to raise a vein, then eased the needle under the skin and gently squeezed the syringe until it was empty.

  Even now, after years of doing this, it still surprised him how instantaneous the urge to throw up was. As soon as the tar hit his bloodstream he wanted to vomit. The sensation didn’t last long, but it was always unpleasant.

  He swallowed hard a few times and tried not to retch.

  Just a few more seconds!

  He started counting down in his head: preparing himself.

  ‘Ten, nine, eight . . .’

  He only got as far as seven.

  It was in this initial stage of euphoria that the idea struck him.

  Small-time thinking getting in the way of the big ideas! No point scrabbling around with the poor folk selling the odd bag here and there: go for the big score man. Sell it all in one hit!

  A thin smile of contentment spread across his face and his eyelids started to droop. ‘Man, this powder will wash your brain whiter than white,’ he said as his head dipped forward and his mind floated upwards on a warm thermal until it reached the jet stream.

  *

  ‘Puff?’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Jay-Go.’

  ‘Awright Jay-Go, when did ye get out?’

  ‘Few weeks ago . . . on probation.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Fancy a beer?’

  ‘They’d have you straight back in the Bar-L without yer arse ever touching the ground, pal; you can’t associate with me, I’m a known criminal.’

  ‘I don’t want to associate with you; I want to buy you a beer. You still working for the Holy Man?’

  ‘The odd job here and there, but I don’t discuss business over the telephone, dude; too risky these days.’

  ‘Any chance you could set up a meet with him?’

  ‘With
you?’ Puff replied, a bit too quickly for Jay-Go’s liking. ‘I don’t think so, Jay-Go. You’re just out of the jail, bag man. You’ll have the Funnies checking your every move. Nobody’s gonnae give you any gear to sell in a million years. I can tell you now the Holy Man won’t touch you.’

  ‘I’m not buying. I’m selling.’

  ‘Aye right! You’re charged up, dude . . . I can tell by your voice. Call me when you’re around the turn.’

  ‘Wait, Puff! I’ve had a wee bang, that’s all. Just testing the gear to make sure it’s a runner. But I’m fine. Ah know what I’m saying, Ah know what I’m doin’. I’ve got something to sell, but it isnae just that. The hit on Miss Lynch: I might know something about it. She was the Holy Man’s brief, he’ll want to know too.’

  ‘So tell me and I’ll pass it on.’

  For a brief moment it crossed Jay-Go’s mind that maybe the Holy Man wasn’t the best choice of players to sell to. All of his crew – especially Puff – had a hair trigger when it came to throwing a punch. It could make negotiations difficult, but the guy had some money behind him and was less likely to screw him over.

  ‘C’mon Puff, put in a call. It’s not just the lawyer thing. I’ve got a big score for him. If I end up taking it elsewhere and the Holy Man finds out he could have had first bid on some smack that’s Janice Joplin-pure . . .’ Jay-Go didn’t finish the sentence. Puff didn’t need reminding of the Holy Man’s tendency towards violence. ‘C’mon, I know I’m a fuck-up, but you know I’m straight up. Put in a call.’

  There was a brief silence then, ‘I’ll think about it.’

  The line went dead.

  Jay-Go went to the fridge to get himself a can of beer. He popped a couple of Dihydrocodeine from a blister pack he had in his pocket and swallowed them down with a few swigs of lager. The withdrawal had started already. His head was hurting and he was getting the shivers.

  There was no doubt in his mind that Puff would call back and he wanted to be ready. He retrieved a spoon from the kitchen drawer and tipped a few grams of heroin into a clear plastic bag to take with him, then put a small amount on the end of the spoon and had a quick snort: one up each nostril.