Blood Whispers Read online

  ‘Ah don’t know anything, I’m making this shit up.’

  ‘How d’you know I was shot three times? How did you know which hospital I was in?’

  ‘There’s only one hospital in Glasgow that specializes in gunshots. Where else are they gonnae take you?’

  ‘The police are working to trace the caller who phoned in the shootings; was it you?’

  ‘If the Holy Man shakes your hand is he likely to screw you over?’

  ‘They recovered bullets from two different guns. Theory is that someone tried to shoot the killer, does that sound about right?’

  ‘What you asking me for?’

  ‘Can you just answer the question?’

  ‘You answer mine first. Is the Holy Man the type of guy that’ll fuck you about?’

  ‘No. If he’s given you his word, then that’s it: even if it means him taking a hit. What did you shake hands over?’

  ‘Holy Man wants me to report back if I find anything,’ replied Jay-Go, avoiding her question. ‘Is it okay to tell him I’ve seen you’re alive?’

  ‘When did you hook up with him? I thought you were a lone gun?’

  ‘It’s a one-off. Doing a deal: some business.’

  Keira interrupted. ‘You’re trying to sell the Holy Man the kilo of heroin you took from my apartment?’

  Jay-Go shrugged. ‘Man, way off.’

  ‘Was it you who phoned for the ambulance?’

  ‘Ah wis nowhere near your apartment.’

  ‘How much did he offer you?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘For the heroin.’

  ‘Ah don’t know what you’re fuckin’ talking about, Miss . . . What heroin?’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘For a kilo!’

  ‘For half, then ten for the other half. I asked for fifty for the whole lot, which is still half of what it’s worth, by the way, but there’s a war on and they’re using “the silence of money” as their main weapon. Whatever the fuck that means.’

  ‘You’re talking in riddles, Jay-Go. Just listen to me for a second. I want you to go back to him and tell him you’ve changed your mind, you want sixty.’

  Jay-Go was staring at her. ‘Are you still bombed on general anaesthetic? He’d stick my arse on my head like a fuckin’ beanie.’

  ‘Ask for sixty, settle at forty.’

  ‘Are you negotiating a deal for me, Miss?’

  ‘I’m speaking my thoughts out loud and you happen to be in the same room. He won’t be happy, but you can tell him he owes me and I’m calling it in. Tell him I’m alive and I’m okay.’

  ‘How does he owe you?’

  Keira didn’t have time to answer. Suddenly the door opened and the officer who was supposed to be on guard duty was in the room. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine, pal,’ answered Jay-Go, giving off way too much attitude for someone passing himself off as a doctor.

  The cop looked over at Keira. ‘You all right, Miss Lynch?’

  ‘I’m grand, thank you.’

  ‘I was just sorting out her meds,’ said Jay-Go, winking over at her. Then to the cop: ‘I could get you some amphetamines if you think that would help. Maybe give you something to stop the snoring too.’

  The cop didn’t have a response.

  ‘Plenty of rest, you,’ said Jay-Go to Keira as he headed for the door. ‘Take that trip,’ he continued, ‘but don’t wait too long. Niagara’s lovely at this time of year. Excuse me,’ he said making the cop step aside to let him pass.

  ‘Ask for sixty . . . Betty’s not a cheap date.’

  ‘Who’s Betty?’

  ‘Ford.’

  ‘Aye, very good.’

  ‘It’s my way of saying thank you.’

  ‘North Pole, no T-shirt, Miss. Too fuckin’ cool!’

  Twenty-seven

  Jay-Go rode the top deck of the number 41 night bus to Westerhouse Road from Glasgow city centre with a noddy-dog drunk and an elderly couple who looked like it was way past their bedtime. It was the second bus he’d been on since leaving the hospital – a journey that had taken over an hour. Jay-Go liked the bus. If you avoided pub closing and school hours, they were a good way to get around and they were cheap. He didn’t travel out of his area often, so the thought of blowing some of the money the Holy Man had given him on a cab hadn’t even occurred to him.

  The thick wad of cash was pressing against his thigh as he strutted his way up Grudie Street. The railing-topped wall of the community fire station was over to his right. A row of boarded-up terraced houses to his left: most of the occupants of which had either moved on or had flitted to the new houses further up the estate.

  It was just after one o’clock in the morning.

  The dark streets were deserted, the quiet disturbed by the distant sound of a heavy bass dub-beat banging away in some inconsiderate stoner’s house. The air was filled with the incongruous smell of freshly cut grass wafting down from the square of green common at the top of the road.

  Jay-Go was just about to turn right into his street when his mobile buzzed.

  It was a message from Yogi Bearcat.

  ‘Party was at your house? Heated Funny waiting out front. Picked up something else: not Funny. Be COT don’t be caught.’

  Yogi was a gang member with brains who lived on the estate. He monitored the police activity in the area with a selection of scanners he’d bought from the Internet. For a small subscription charge he would send text messages warning of any possible problems with, or sightings of, the cops. As Jay-Go was his dealer, he didn’t have to pay. The enterprise was never going to earn Yogi enough money to buy a house, but the guy had enough successes to make it a popular service. He earned sufficient to keep him in dope and cigarettes.

  The first part of the message was pretty straightforward. The police had raided his flat and were now waiting outside. ‘Heated’ meant they were armed. Jay-Go was pretty confident they wouldn’t have found the heroin, but he’d left kit all over the table in the lounge. They wouldn’t need to test it to know it was covered in residue.

  The second sentence of the message was more worrying. Yogi had picked up something else on the scanner, but if it wasn’t the police who was it?

  ‘Be COT, don’t be caught’ was Yogi’s sign-off – ‘Be Careful Out There,’ was a line from an old TV cop show.

  Jay-Go thumbed a quick reply. ‘Ta v much yogi. OU1’. If the message had come through two minutes later, Jay-Go would have walked straight into a set of cuffs.

  Jay-Go’s brain was frayed around the edges, making it difficult to hold on to a thought long enough to form any sort of plan. If the cops picked him up now, the 007 in his pocket would send him straight to jail, and if they’d raided his flat and found the Serb’s heroin, he’d be looking at the big stretch – anything up to life for possession and intent to supply a commercial quantity of class A.

  And this haul was triple-A rated.

  Jay-Go ran across the road and disappeared into the shadows shrouding the gable end of his apartment building. Partially obscured by the overgrown hedges that bordered the small gardens in front of each block, he sneaked a glance round the corner and saw a dark-coloured car containing four men parked in one of the bays at the end of his street.

  Small wafts of smoke rose into the night sky through the car’s open windows.

  Jay-Go figured he had two options. Option one: drop the PPK in the bin, walk round the corner and front it out with the cops; stroll up to the car and bang on the windscreen: ‘Hello officer. Is it me you’re looking for?’ Or option two: head up the back stairs of his apartment block and break in through the toilet window, retrieve the heroin, then climb through the roof space to the end of the building and make his exit through his neighbour’s front door. They wouldn’t be happy, but he’d done it before.

  After that he’d go find somewhere else to stay until he could figure out his next move.

  The biggest problem with o
ption two being that the back door was usually bolted shut from the inside.

  The harder Jay-Go tried to come up with an answer the more he realized he was reading the situation in Braille. A line of coke would sort him out.

  Muttering ‘This is shite’ under his breath, he edged backwards along the side of the building – past a tall brick wall tacked on to the end of the gable – until he came to a set of metal gates used to secure the communal garden at the back of the apartment block known as ‘dog-bog alley’.

  He heaved himself up and over the metal gate, down on to the other side. The thin strip of overgrown grass ran the length of the block and was enclosed by high, wire-mesh fencing that reminded him of the exercise yard at Barlinnie.

  The back door – shuttered with metal sheet – made a loud screech and several juddering creaks as he tried to force it open, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Jay-Go thumbed Yogi’s number into his phone again.

  ‘Need the cavalry, big man?’

  ‘You could say. Ah need a diversion.’

  ‘Get the Funnies away from the front of your house?’

  ‘Bang on! They might be waiting inside too.’

  ‘I’m in the zone, Jay-Go. I don’t know how much good Ah’ll be to ye. What’s the deal?’

  ‘Take a stroll over to my block, let them think you’re me. Head up to the flat and put the light on or something, make it look like I’m home. You’re bound to get huckled, so it’s gonnae be an inconvenience, but there’s fifty notes in it for you. I just need to get into my flat for two minutes. How stoned are you?’

  ‘Three spliffs down. Nothing major. Why don’t I just let you in the back door?’

  ‘If I get lifted I’m in big trouble. Too risky.’

  ‘Fifty notes, you say?’

  ‘I’ll meet you at the back gate and give you the money with the keys right now. And I’ll throw in a wee wrap of something nice to go with, by way of a thank-you.’

  ‘What’s the catch?’

  ‘I’ll have to drop the gear by in the next few days, ’cause I don’t have it on me.’

  Yogi was weighing up the deal.

  ‘I’ve never bounced on you yet, Yogi; you know I wouldn’t be offering you that much if I didn’t have it. You can tell the Funnies you’re looking after my place while I’m away.’

  ‘Where will Ah say you’ve gone?’

  ‘Niagara.’

  ‘It needs to be somewhere real.’

  ‘Niagara is real, ya spanner.’

  ‘What about Spain?’

  ‘Who gives a fuck where it is? Make it up.’

  ‘Ah’ll do it for a hundred.’

  ‘Fair enough. Ah can give you that right now if you want, it’s just the gear I don’t have.’

  ‘Na! Bring it round the morra. If I get carted off to the station with that kind of dough on me I’d be answering questions for a week. See you in two minutes.’

  *

  DI John Mullin caught a movement in the wing mirror. He took a final draw on the single-skin roll-up and flicked it out of the window on to the road.

  ‘Bandit at six o’clock,’ he said to the three other officers in the car.

  The men watched as a lone figure made his way down the east side of Grudie Street and crossed to the corner of Sielga Place.

  ‘We’ll let him get in. Give him a minute to get the kettle on. Word is, he likes to carry a shooter, so we’ll go in hot, but no twitchy fingers unless he’s actually got the gun in his hand. We’re here to make an arrest, not funeral arrangements, all right? Neil and Seb come with me, Ross you wait at the bottom of the stairs. There’s no point covering the rear of the premises unless he’s going to jump from a second-floor window.’

  Mullin turned to Neil and Seb in the back. ‘If we have to use the ram, I’ll do it and you two cover me, yeah?’

  The two officers nodded.

  ‘What’s this clown up to?’ asked Ross. ‘Is it definitely our man?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  *

  With his hoodie pulled tight around his face, Yogi Bearcat strolled past the row of parked cars and round the side of Jay-Go’s block of flats.

  A hand suddenly reached out from a hole in the hedge and grabbed his arm.

  ‘Fuck me, Jay-Go, you nearly gave me a heart attack.’

  ‘What are they up to?’

  ‘Just sittin’ there. Where’s the keys?’

  ‘Here.’ Jay-Go handed him a small set on a skull-and-crossbones key ring. ‘This is all yours,’ he continued, fanning out a wad of ten-pound notes.

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Take it just now if you want.’

  ‘Nah, tomorrow’s fine.’

  Yogi sidled round the side of the building and headed for the front entrance.

  Once inside, he climbed to the second floor, then made his way along the narrow balcony overlooking the street below.

  It took him a few minutes to work out which key fitted which lock on Jay-Go’s heavily fortified front door, but eventually he turned the final deadlock and pushed through into the darkened hallway.

  The air inside smelled stale and there was an undercurrent of dampness and food long past its sell-by date.

  Yogi flicked the hall light switch, but nothing happened.

  After feeling his way through the blackness he came to the entrance of the lounge and reached round the doorframe for the switch panel.

  The lights were dead there, too.

  Behind him was the door to the kitchen.

  Yogi leant across and tried there as well.

  Light from a single sixty-watt bulb, dangling from the kitchen ceiling, spread through into the lounge, casting long shadows across the coffee table littered with Jay-Go’s gear and an untidy sofa scattered with clothes, empty DVD cases and ding-dinner containers.

  Yogi headed for a lamp over by the window in the lounge. Jay-Go had told him to switch it on to let the cops know he was home, then take a seat and wait for something to happen.

  As he picked his way through the rotting debris strewn across the floor, he was suddenly aware of a presence behind him.

  Before he could turn he heard a familiar metallic click and felt the cold end of a gun barrel being pressed firmly into the back of his neck, forcing his face hard against the window.

  ‘You have ten seconds to tell me where the heroin is,’ came a voice.

  ‘What heroin?’

  ‘Nine.’

  ‘You’re supposed to shout a warning or something before you pull your weapon, fuckhead. I’ll have you for misconduct,’ cried Yogi.

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about any heroin, ya fuck.’

  ‘Seven.’

  Yogi tried to push backwards off the window, but there was a hand pressing hard into the middle of his back, making it impossible to move.

  ‘Six.’

  If this guy was a cop he was coming on way too strong.

  ‘I don’t know anything about any fuckin’ heroin‚ pal, all right? I don’t live here. This isn’t my flat.’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Please. I’m doing a favour for a friend.’

  ‘Four.’

  Yogi struggled again, but it was no use, he couldn’t move.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Okay, okay . . . I’ll tell you! Get the gun away from my head and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘It’s in my car,’ cried Yogi, stalling for time. ‘It’s in my car.’

  ‘Where’s your car?’

  ‘Right outside the flat. If you switch the lamp on, I’ll get the keys for you. They’re in here somewhere, on the floor.’

  ‘What make?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘What make is the car?’

  ‘A Ford,’ he answered quickly.

  ‘How much of it is left?’

  ‘Of what?’

  The gun was forced harder into the back of Yogi’s neck.

  ‘The heroin.’

&
nbsp; Yogi had no idea how much heroin there was, but he needed to keep the guy talking. ‘All of it.’

  ‘The whole two kilos?’

  ‘Yeah, the whole lot. I haven’t touched any of it. Two kilos.’

  ‘One,’ said the gunman, resuming the count.

  *

  John Mullin and his team were halfway across the road when the window in Jay-Go’s flat exploded out, spraying the ground directly in front of him with shards of glass and tiny fragments of bone and tissue.

  While the rest of his men scattered and took up defensive positions behind whatever cover they could find, Mullin dropped to his knees, shouted a warning that they were armed police officers and cracked off two shots up at the window. Then, shuffling forward along the ground, he made his way over to the hedge until it blocked him from the line of fire.

  The four officers crouched or knelt, weapons drawn, waiting to see if there were any more shots coming.

  Mullin signalled silently for Neil and Seb to cover so that he and Ross could break for the front door at the same time. It was a manoeuvre they’d practised many times in training. Presenting two moving targets instead of one gave the gunman more to shoot at, which made him more likely to rush the shot, reducing his accuracy.

  Mullin mouthed the words ‘After five’, then held his left hand splayed in front of him, folding each finger in turn as he counted backwards.

  With no further communication the two officers were suddenly on their feet sprinting towards the front of the building, their weapons trained on the upstairs window.

  *

  Jay-Go had been watching from the corner of the building when the window exploded into the darkness. The loud crack of gunfire made him duck and press his back hard against the rough wall. Seconds later, just six metres or so from where he was hiding, he heard the rattle of the metal gate. A figure holding a gun climbed over and jumped to the ground.

  Jay-Go’s first thought was that it might be Yogi.

  He was about to call to him when he realized he was wrong.

  The guy’s profile looked familiar, but it wasn’t the Bearcat.

  The shadows falling on his face made it difficult to make out his features, but he had definitely seen the guy before.