The Last Darkness (31 page)

Perlman realized that Quick had made the assumption that the blade used to kill Dogue had been dumped. Why not? It was an obvious conclusion to draw. You kill a man, you clean the weapon and toss it. Bury it. Destroy it. Whatever. But Furfee hadn't dumped it because presumably he had an attachment to his antique razor that went beyond
Practical Murder and How to Get Away with It, an Introduction
. Rid yourself of the weapon. Don't forget that, students. Basic stuff. Maybe there was a mystical bond between the skinner and his tool, an attachment no average person could understand. Maybe Furfee slept with the damn razor under his pillow at night. It was a security blanket, a special toy, an object without which he felt a searing insecurity. Who knows? A psycho's mind wasn't an easy read.

The big man kept moving. When he reached the door he'd flee, and an unseemly chase would follow, and he'd sneak into the grid of dark streets that branched off the Gallowgate. Perlman wondered if he had the courage to intervene. No weapon, no protection: what chance did he have against the Pollokshaws Peeler?

‘Get out my way, Perlman,' Furfee said.

‘Think,' Perlman said again.

‘Step to the side.' Furfee waved the razor. It was as silver and fleet as a salmon leaping, and it came perilously close to Perlman's face.

‘Next time it's your nose,' Furfee said.

‘I'm attached to this nose, Willie. Had it a while.'

‘You don't want to lose it, do you?' Furfee crouched as he made his way in the direction of the door. His reflexes were tuned to an invisible range in the upper register of instinct. A demented light had begun to burn in those hitherto dull eyes. The razor turns him on, Perlman thought. It's the source of his power, his thrills. He rules the world through a six-inch strip of honed steel. And I am his unwilling subject.

Furfee was a couple of feet from the exit now. Any second he'd be out the door and gone, lost in one of Glasgow's less penetrable neighbourhoods, narrow streets and backcourts and dank dunnies under the tenements. Perlman thought: Move,
do
something. But the notion was suicidal. Move and you get spliced to ribbons, flesh hanging off bone, blood geysering out of veins. He made an empty gesture with his hands, a so-what
I can't stop you leaving, Furfee
.

Then suddenly Quick was roaring past him, Quick as quick as his name, head down and charging. Perlman's first thought was that the deposed Monarch of Glasgow Rock was rushing for the exit but, whether deliberately or by accident, he collided hard with Furfee and the force knocked the big man back against the wall. Furfee gasped, reflexively slashing air with razor in criss-crossing patterns, gouging the side of Quick's neck with the blade.

‘Ahhhh, holy Mary mothera
God.
' Quick held a hand to his neck and staggered away from Furfee, who turned to open the door, but Scullion was already at him, wondrously fast, swinging the chair in the air and bringing it down with marvellous ferocity against the side of the big man's skull. Perlman heard wood splinter and saw pieces of the shattered chair fly in the air and he remembered that Sandy had played scrum-half in his school rugby team, that he'd been a reserve for a place in the Scottish Under-18 national squad.

Sandy, a
nice
man, was also a tough one, tough enough to power in a couple of swift hefty kicks to the big man's head, then follow up with a knee into Furfee's adam's apple. Furfee crumpled, the razor fell out of his fingers and Perlman put a foot on it, then bent down to pick it up. It was surprisingly light, the handle smooth to touch. On his knees, Furfee looked up at the blade and blinked in the puzzled manner of a horse led up into light after years of working down a mineshaft.
I always wondered if there was a surface, a world outside
.

Scullion took the razor from Perlman, and held it against the back of Furfee's head, almost daring the Peeler to move, then threw his mobile for Perlman to catch. ‘Call for assistance, Lou.'

‘Right away,' Perlman said. He looked at Quick, who was lying under the window and bleeding freely from the neck.

‘Mothera
God
. The
pain.
'

Perlman kneeled beside him. The wound was deep but it wasn't going to kill Quick, if he got attention soon.

‘Thought you'd make a run for it, eh?' Perlman asked.

Quick stared at him. ‘Run? Is that what you think? Run, my arse. I was acting like a good citizen. Man's a killer, for God's sake. And what thanks do I get?'

‘Let me get this straight, Bobby. You
intended
to disarm Furfee?'

‘Aye, I did. Of course I did.'

‘You any idea how long it would take me to believe this pathetic story? Imagine the sun as a big black cinder and all the oceans dry. That's how long. You were
bolting
. You were obviously for the offski, Bobby. My guess is you realized Furfee hadn't tossed the razor and you didn't want to be implicated in anything he'd done and so you had some kind of brainstorm. But you made a right ballocks of it and ran head-first into your headcase associate. And you've just come up with this yarn. I hold my sides in laughter. And they said Vaudeville was dead.' Perlman began to punch in the number for Pitt Street.

‘I was only thinking – mothera
Christ
! this cut
hurts
– how I might help you fellows out. Lend a hand like.'

‘I hear music and there's no one there,' Perlman said. ‘Let's stroll together into the real world. Nobody is going to believe you unless it's some
teuchter
down from his sheep farm for a day in the big city.'

‘Perlman. Lou. Listen. If Furfee killed anybody – oh shite shite
shite
the pain – I don't want to be associated with anything like that. I stopped him getting away. Gimme some credit.'

‘Don't even think about trying to con me.'

‘I didn't know fuck all about him going to the hospital. Or any of this Terry Dogue stuff. I swear.'

‘On your mother's grave.'

‘My mother's not dead yet,' Quick said. ‘But
I
might be if you don't get me some attention.'

‘You're a self-serving prick. I'd love you to bleed to death. You want to survive? Talk to me about the man in the picture.'

‘I know nothing about him, Perlman. Swear.'

‘In the event of your demise, who do I call? Is there anybody who'd actually give a toss?'

‘Christ. I'm in fucking
pain
. Get on the blower to Pitt Street, Perlman. For pity's sake. Tell them to send a paramedic. Is this what I get for helping you out, eh?'

‘Who's the face, Bobby?'

‘Ah, fuck,' Quick said. ‘This was a lovely club once. Many's the time we just boogied the whole damn night away. I want it back, Perlman. I want my
life
back.'

‘I'm feeling tearful.'

‘Don't be a heartless bastard, Lou.'

Perlman lit a cigarette, which he sucked on hard as he finished tapping the numbers in for Pitt Street. He was connected, patched through to Detective-Sergeant Bailey – or was it Bernigan? They sounded alike, the same nasal voices. Rodgers and Hart. He asked for immediate backup, gave the address, then shut off the phone and looked at BJ Quick.

‘The bandages are coming,' he said. ‘Now. What were we talking about?'

‘This picture you're obsessed with.'

‘I'll ask Furfee,' Perlman said. ‘Maybe he'll know something.'

‘Ask away.'

Perlman shook his head, and sighed. Why were criminals such dumb bastards? It didn't seem to have crossed Quick's mind that Furfee might be prepared to answer the questions Quick refused to countenance. Instead, in his fantasyland, in his Palace of Dreams and Mirrors, Quick was clinging to the fiction that he'd acted to assist the law, because of some new found civic-minded bullshit. Born-again BJ.

‘Warning. Furfee's a clam,' Quick said.

‘Clams open,' Perlman said.

43

A silver grey four-door Mercedes had been sitting for a couple of days in Kelvinbridge outside the house of a man called Teddy Gregorsky, an antiques dealer. Parking spaces were rare in Belmont Crescent where Gregorsky lived, and he knew that this Merc – which practically blocked his drive and thus made it difficult for him to get his Porsche in and out – belonged to none of his neighbours. So he telephoned the police in Pitt Street, and a Constable called James Brady was despatched to look at the car.

Teddy Gregorsky said, ‘It's just been sitting here.'

PC James Brady, known as ‘Diamond Jim' because of his enormous appetite, flicked on a torch and looked at the vehicle. The streetlamps were dim.

‘I expected you to come out in daylight,' Gregorsky said. He wore a velvet smoking jacket robe with a monogrammed lapel.

‘These are busy times at HQ, sir,' Jim Brady said. He strolled round the car.

‘It's freezing cold. I'll leave you to do what you have to do and I'll go back indoors.'

‘No problemo,' Diamond Jim said. Fag, he thought. Warms his arse in front of his fire, while I freeze my buns out in the street. It was zero degrees. A night for Guinness stew with totties done so they were crumbly enough to soak up the gravy, the beef tender as a virgin's clitoris, and some encyclopaedia-sized chunks of crusted brown bread to dook into the leftover gravy. Oh, and three pints of McEwan's heavy to wash the whole thing down. Then half a Vienneta with a big dollop of vanilla ice-cream for afters. Followed by a Godalmighteeeee rip-yer-belly-out-yer-throat belch.

He leaned down and turned his torch on the number plate. Oh aye, what's this? He called HQ and asked for the number of the Mercedes that belonged to the dead solicitor.

The young WPC who'd answered said, ‘Hold while I check.'

Brady pictured her. He'd categorized her when she'd first joined the Force: nice wee thing, shame about the face. She looked like a frog. But you just knew no Prince Charming was coming her way with a kiss. Ever.

She read him the number.

‘Aye,' he said. ‘That's it. Can you arrange for a tow-truck, hen?'

44

Shiv Bannerjee liked his women to wear silk underwear. He liked a slight convexity of navel. He enjoyed that expanse of skin leading from nub of bellybutton to pubic shrub. He'd spent some of his happiest hours with his head pressed to this plain of flesh. He enjoyed being equidistant from breasts and cunt. He liked sex in cheap hotels. He liked his women to talk to him during the act. He preferred Caucasian blondes such as Charlotte Leckie, who was presently inclined, legs parted, against the end of the bed in the Waterloo Hotel, situated above a Chinese restaurant in Sauchiehall Street.

Bannerjee penetrated her from behind, controlling her movements with hands on her hips. Her bottle-green silk underwear had puckered around her ankles. She'd ripped them in the act of stretching her legs to receive him. She was twenty-two, read the
Herald
, played three-card Brag for pennies with her mother every Sunday, and liked to watch football on TV. She shopped a lot. She had a charge card for the House of Fraser in Buchanan Street, and a Bank of Scotland Gold Mastercard with a credit limit of £5,000. She owned a comfortable three-room flat in Havelock Street in an area between Partickhill and Hillhead, although she preferred to say she lived in the latter because it had a more genteel reputation. She didn't smoke and she rarely drank, except for the occasional glass of Babycham. She'd never used drugs. She sang in a choir that rehearsed once a week at the University. Sometimes she did volunteer work at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. She wept whenever she read of little children with serious illnesses. She prayed for these kids. She thought the world was a cruel place, and God had some serious questions to answer.

These regular Thursday nights with Shiv were enjoyable, even if this hotel he favoured was far less pleasing than the places where she met her other men. But it made Shiv happy, and that was what counted. He was a gentleman, always kind to her, always thoughtful. He had his peccadilloes, but what person didn't?

She felt him grow harder. She gave her pelvic rotation more urgency and raised her voice from a whisper. ‘Oh Shiv, Shiv love, oh Shiv, do me, do me, your big brown cock is making me come, Shiv, harder, deeper, oh I love it, love it, love it, take me to the moon, sweetheart, ride me ride me ride me,
Shiiiiv
, yes yes yes.'

Bannerjee's eruption was volcanic and prolonged. He spoke in Hindi. At least Charlotte Leckie thought that's what it was. She gasped as he came. She was never quite sure where the line lay between genuine responses and acting. She'd been playing this role for a couple of years now, the pliant mistress, the surrogate wife. Men like Shiv were generous to her. They didn't treat her as some common whore. They held her in esteem. They confessed things to her they couldn't tell their wives. This was a huge responsibility, she thought. The stuff she learned. The secrets she kept. She considered herself a courtesan of the old school.

She felt Shiv soften, then he slid out of her, and she turned around to face him. She held him in her arms as if he were a helpless boy, and she smoothed a hand through his thick white hair and called him baby, because she knew he liked this. In the distance kids were singing Christmas songs. Charlotte was touched by the sound. The Christmas period always made her feel vulnerable and weepy; all that tinsel and those silvery ribbons reminded her of something she'd lost, although she wasn't sure what.

Bannerjee said, ‘I need to lie down.'

‘Poor Shiv. I wear you out, do I?'

‘You use up my energy, my dear. A man of my age.'

‘You're not old. Don't say that.'

They lay together. Shiv Bannerjee caressed her breasts, kissed her nipples. He buried his face deep. He loved the weight of her tits. She sang to him softly. ‘
If that mockingbird don't sing, momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring.
' She had rather a sweet voice and Bannerjee was enchanted by it. Of all the women he'd bedded in the past few years, he'd allowed only Charlotte Leckie to get close to him. He was very fond of her.