The Sudden Arrival of Violence: A Glasgow Underworld Novel 3 (4 page)

Nothing else about this night is right. Calum’s pressing the towel down against the wound, not letting the blood flow out. Holding it tight as he presses the old man down into the tarp and rolls him gently onto his side. Going through his pockets. Car keys, a wallet and a few coins. No mobile. Calum noted the fidgety fingers letting it drop onto the driver’s seat of the car back at the office. An ageing man in a nervous hurry to help the police. The wallet and keys Calum takes, the coins he leaves. He’s lifting the tarp up and wrapping it around Hardy from both sides, creating the burial sheet. Hopeful he’s done enough to make sure that no blood escapes before Richard Hardy’s put in the ground. The tarp will serve another purpose, now that Kenny’s proven his incompetence as a gravedigger. It should keep the smell in for longer. It really doesn’t look like a deep grave, which it should be. Shallow graves are for the unprofessional.

‘Right, that’ll do,’ Calum’s saying to Kenny. There’s a last lazy swipe of the shovel from the driver, and now he’s placing it on top of the mud pile he’s created. Clambering out of the grave, not watching where he’s going. Stumbling, exhausted. He has no sense of caution. No sense that even muddy boot prints could be a giveaway. Someone walks a dog through the area, past the barn; sees the boot prints, realizes they’re fresh. They go over and poke around, see the disturbed ground where Kenny hacked the turf. It could happen. But Calum won’t criticize Kenny. Not to his face, anyway. He’s a driver. He chauffeurs Peter Jamieson, their boss, around. He delivers stuff. This is way out of his league. He was obviously shocked when John Young, Jamieson’s right-hand man, told him he’d be working the job with Calum. A little horrified. He’s done it, though. Done it to the best of his ability, such as it is. He probably hasn’t seen a hit up close before. Hasn’t been involved in something this tense. That excuses his nerves.

Kenny’s plodding across towards Calum and the body. Looking to Calum for guidance. Calum has to lead the way. He’s the one who’s been here before. The one who knows how this works. He also appears to be completely at ease. No obvious nerves. No sweating, no shaking, no quivering voice. Seems like it’s no big deal for him.

‘You take the legs,’ Calum’s saying.

Kenny’s reaching down, grabbing the tarp in his hands. He’s starting to drag it a little. Then he’s startled by the raised voice.

‘No,’ Calum’s saying, louder than intended. ‘Don’t drag. You’ll leave a mark. Lift it up; carry it clear of the ground.’

Kenny’s doing what he’s told. Struggling to lift, the sweat running off him. But being obedient. What else can you do in this position? He’s conflicted, and it probably shows. He needs to do a good job, because he doesn’t want a bad report going back to Jamieson. Last thing he needs is to lose his job, especially now that they’re moving against Shug Francis. At the same time he doesn’t want to do such a good job that this becomes a regular thing. Please, God, let this be a one-off.

They’re lifting Hardy up now, carrying him across to the grave. Placing him down at the graveside. Calum’s starting to sweat a little now. Not used to manual labour. Burials like this aren’t common. Most of his jobs have been gun and run. This is how it’s going to be from now on. When you’re the lead gunman for a major organization there’s a lot of cleaning up. His last kill had a burial too, but he doesn’t want to think about that now. Kenny’s moving to lift the body again – Calum’s stopping him.

‘No, get in the hole.’

‘What for?’ Kenny’s asking.

They’ve been through this before. Calum explained the whole thing to him last night, but Kenny’s ignored a lot of it. You have to dig the grave carefully at the top, to remove obvious traces. You have to dig the rest quickly, to reduce the amount of time spent at the barn. Reduce the time between the victim realizing what’s happening and the kill. You have to make sure that you leave no mark away from the hole. And you have to bury carefully.

‘We have to position him in a way that takes up as little space as possible. You know this,’ Calum’s saying, exasperated. He told Kenny last night. You make the body as small as possible. You pack the soil around it as tight as possible. That way, when you roll the turf back on top, it should look just like it did before you got there. It won’t, because the turf will be a mess. Hopefully it’ll knit together before the soil pushes up. A small mound will form, but you hope that by then the turf will heal and it’ll look natural. It’s why you always try to bury on bumpy ground. Calum explained all this last night, and he doesn’t like having to say it again. Not now. A good sidekick doesn’t need a second set of instructions.

‘Fine,’ Kenny’s saying. He’s dropping carefully back into the hole. Ready for Calum to pass the body down.

Getting a grip of a dead weight wrapped in slippery material is a nightmare. This isn’t going to be dignified. Lifting Hardy, and taking a little baby-step to the edge of the grave. Ready to pass him down to Kenny, who has the easy part here anyway. He can just drop Richard and shove him into a corner.

‘I’m going to get mud on my clothes,’ Kenny’s saying now.

Bloody hell! They’ve been through this, too. ‘You’re going to get rid of every stitch you’re wearing,’ Calum’s saying, with a wheeze.

Kenny has a loose grip of the body, but it’s firmer than Calum’s. Calum’s let go, Kenny’s holding the body for all of half a second, pulling it backwards and letting it drop with a thump onto the soil. There’s a moment of relief for both of them. Familiar for Calum; a new experience for Kenny. It always comes when the body is in the grave. It’s that sense that you’ve broken the back of the challenge you faced. The hardest part done.

Kenny’s making a meal of moving the body. All he has to do is shove it over to the corner. The grave’s four feet deep at most. It’s almost circular, and not a fine example of Scottish engineering. There’s already a dent where part of one wall has fallen in. Calum’s shaking his head, preparing himself for the next part. Kenny’s oblivious to this. Trying to shove the lump inside the tarpaulin with his boot. Shoulders and arms burning from the effort of digging. Sliding the body across to the closest resemblance to a corner that this grave has. It’s the deepest point. He thinks he’s done.

‘No,’ Calum’s saying. ‘On his side. Push him right up against the wall. Flat as possible.’

Kenny’s sighing, but not complaining. He’s the junior man. The junior man doesn’t complain. He gets on with the job, no matter how bad. Get this done, go home and forget about it. That’s what he keeps telling himself. It’s a one-off. Doesn’t matter if you hate it. You’ll never have to do it again.

He’s right – he’ll never have to do it again. As Kenny’s bending over, shoving the body against the wall, Calum is taking his gun again from his inside coat pocket. He’s standing at the edge of the grave, just above Kenny. Calum’s dropping down to his haunches. Watching. Waiting for the right moment. Kenny is ducking slightly again, pressing the tarpaulin as tight to the body as possible. Now. Calum’s extending an arm. Kenny’s head is almost at knee height. An easy shot into the temple. Louder this time. Much more likely to be blood-spray. That’s the risk. Watching Kenny slump forward, face into the wall of mud. Calum dropping down beside him, pulling Kenny’s body from the wall. Laying him out and rolling him onto his side. Checking every pocket, making sure they’re as empty as Kenny was instructed to keep them. Pushing the body up against Hardy’s. Pulling the edge of Hardy’s tarp around Kenny. It needed a deeper grave for two bodies. Kenny should have seen this coming. Should have realized. This is what happens to a grass.

5

He’s out of the grave, filling it in. Not as quickly as he’d like. Always so cautious, always trying to do the perfect job. Patting the soil down with the spade every chance he gets. All the time worrying that someone could be on the way. You have to work fast, and Calum’s working as fast as he reasonably can. Stopping to look at his watch. Twenty minutes to nine. Pausing. He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. The job’s taking longer than he’d like, but he guessed that would be the case. He’ll be back in the city in less than an hour, he hopes. Going about the cleaning-up process with people still out on the streets – that can’t be good.

Throwing in another spade full of mud. Reaching down and patting it. He’s started by filling in around Kenny and Hardy, making sure they’re kept firmly in place. Now he’s filling up the rest of the empty space in the too-wide, too-shallow grave. And now, with the sweat starting to trickle down his back in an annoying manner, he’s dropping the mud on top of the bodies. He’s immune to the effects now. Once upon a time he might have been moved by the thought of burying a man he knows. Didn’t know Kenny well, but saw him around the club a lot, always said hello. Kenny was a grass. He created this ending for himself when he started talking to the police. There’s no sympathy. You do the job, and you keep your focus.

Calum’s not used to this intensity of work. He’s done burials, of course, but usually with a second pair of hands. He does the killing, and they’re happy to do the spadework. Most people will do anything to avoid being the one who pulls the trigger. The lackey of choice to accompany him on this job turned out to be Kenny, for reasons that were never explained to the driver himself. Jamieson called Calum into his office. Went through the job proposal in all its unfortunate glory. Killing the moneyman was no big deal. Usually Calum would have asked for George Daly, a Jamieson employee, to come along with him on the job. He’s forgiven George for ruining his relationship with Emma. It wouldn’t have been George’s idea to interfere. Would have been Jamieson’s. Or, more likely, Young’s. Protecting their investment in their number-one gunman. Get rid of the girl who’s become a part of his life. A good gunman needs to be isolated. He doesn’t hate George for scaring her away. He just hates the life he has to live.

Stop thinking about it. For God’s sake, keep your focus. There’s so much to do. Tonight will be busy; the next few days will be busy. Concentrate on getting the soil into the awkward little gaps between the bodies and the wall of the grave. Use every available inch of space. Filling in fast, arms starting to burn. The sweat’s running off him now. Forcing him to accept that the donkeywork that’s so often done by others isn’t as easy as it looks. This is going to take longer than anticipated. How the hell does George fill these things in so fast? He’s been working at this for more than ten minutes and Calum’s only just covered the bodies. Another five minutes to fill it up completely. It looks okay, though. Not much of a mound, if any at all. Certainly nothing that’ll be out of place in this bumpy area.

Now the turf at the top. What a bloody mess Kenny made of it. Jesus, look at it! His last job, and Kenny fucked it up. In a typical burial you have four or five strips of turf, usually three or four feet long. Done well, you can be left with only a couple of strips, carefully rolled up and then rolled back out again when you’re re-laying them. Depends on the turf. Kenny, in his infinite wonder, has managed to hack it into at least twenty pieces. No time to stop and count. Calum could almost believe that Kenny had done it on purpose. Pick out the pieces; push them in hard against the undisturbed turf at the edge. Work your way across from one side to the other. Pushing them in as tight as possible, sometimes tucking a piece under the edge of its neighbour. Make sure every piece is returned, and that the final picture is as close to its original state as possible. Calum’s stepping back and looking at his work. Not good. Thank you very much, the late Kenny McBride. It’s an obvious patchwork. It will knit together in time. Maybe quite quickly. The hope is that nobody stumbles across it before it does. It’s not perfect, and that’s going to nag at Calum.

Too much work to do to stand and worry. It’s done. He’s throwing his own and Kenny’s shovels into the tarpaulin that was used to collect the dug-up mud. Rolling it up, shovels inside. Lifting it carefully and checking the ground underneath. Well, they got that bit right at least. There’s no telltale thin film of mud on the ground beside the grave. Without the tarpaulin they would never have got every speck back into the grave. It would be all too obvious that someone had been digging here. Calum’s now carrying the tarpaulin sheet back to the car. Opening the boot and throwing the tarp in. Ready to leave. Always a good feeling to leave the scene of a burial. Tonight’s different, for all sorts of reasons. Tonight Calum’s stopping beside the driver’s door and looking across to the trees. The headlights illuminating the scene. Taking it all in.

Pulling slowly away. Don’t go screeching and skidding and creating tyre marks. Driving slowly and carefully along the narrow lane, back to the road. Wouldn’t it be just his luck to drive the bloody thing into a ditch and get stuck there? What a story that would be to tell his fellow inmates when he’s serving life. Got caught on the way out. Didn’t see the edge of the road. Oh, how they’d laugh. Looking at the clock on the dashboard. One minute past nine. Still no idea if that’s good or bad. He knows it’s bad that he’s working at this hour. Knows that a job shouldn’t be carried out when the world around you is still awake and alert. No choice. Needed to pick Hardy up at an hour that would convince him to get into the car. You turn up at his house at two in the morning and he might refuse. They would have had to put together a fake warrant. First rule: keep everything as simple as possible.

Driving back into the city. Taking a different route, but still trying to keep away from the main roads. His first target is the only one he scouted yesterday. It was all at such short notice. Not for the job itself, but for Calum’s own plans. If he can just get this right, it could change everything. The first job is getting rid of the tarp, shovels and Hardy’s identifiable belongings. Then the car. He scouted a location for ditching the tarp. Supposed to go back to a garden shed that Jamieson uses – a random house in a random street that happens to be owned by a Jamieson man. A trusted man. The man would wait a couple of days and safely ditch whatever little surprises he happens to find in his shed. He’s not warned in advance, so he’ll be expecting nothing. That’s a good thing; Calum can’t have someone wondering if the job’s been done. Can’t have anyone asking questions. Not yet. Not for a while. So he’s parking up on a building site he found yesterday afternoon. Harder than it used to be to find a good building site. Nobody around. Opening the boot, placing the wallet and car keys with the shovels inside the rolled-up tarp. Taking out the tarp. Another look round, and he’s hurling it into a half-filled skip. More building-material detritus will be thrown on top of it, and it will all be carted away.