bugger,’ said McCoy. He thought for a minute. ‘You know something? I just don’t get it. Why would anyone want to shoot Charlie Jackson, carve some shite into his chest? What’s he ever done to anyone? He’s what, twenty-two? All he’s ever done is kick a ball.’
They moved into the side of the caravan to let a group of girls clattering through the puddles in platform boots pass by. They had skimpy wee dresses on, halter tops, coats held over their heads to keep the rain off their hair. Even if it was pissing down and freezing it was still Saturday night. Bit of weather wasn’t going to stop a Glasgow Saturday night.
‘That photographer boy Andy seemed to know a bit about him,’ said Murray, watching the girls joining the end of the queue already forming outside Tiffany’s.
McCoy looked surprised. ‘Andy? What’d that wee prick have to say about it?’
‘Said he’d taken pictures of Jackson for the sports pages, chatty young lad apparently. Told him all about his fiancée, plans for the big day.’
McCoy dimly remembered a picture of Charlie Jackson and a girl in the paper, some big charity do. ‘A dark-haired lassie? Good-looking? That her?’
Murray put his mug up on the counter. ‘That’s her, and, according to young Andy, she’s Jake Scobie’s daughter.’
McCoy had brought his cigarette up to his mouth, was about to take a drag. Stopped. ‘You’re having me on.’
Murray shook his head. ‘Need to get it checked out but he seems certain.’
‘Charlie Jackson is Jake Scobie’s future son-in-law?’ McCoy shook his head. ‘How the fuck did I not know that?’
Murray shrugged. ‘What? Harry McCoy’s not as clever as he likes to think? Wonders will never cease.’
‘Very funny,’ said McCoy.
‘Maybe the boy didn’t know what he was letting himself in for.’
‘How could he not? Can’t be anyone in Glasgow who doesn’t know who Jake Scobie is.’ Something dawned. ‘That’s got to be why he’s been killed. Maybe Charlie Jackson was playing away, if you’ll pardon the expression, and Scobie found out. Maybe he—’
‘Maybe’s the bloody word! I don’t know what happened and you certainly don’t know what happened. That’s what we need to find out. It’s called being a polis.’
McCoy was on a roll.
‘Makes you wonder what Jackson did to his daughter. Must have been something bad. Maybe he got another lassie pregnant, that might explain the cock-in-mouth scenario.’
Murray looked exasperated. ‘I’m talking to my fucking self here. We don’t know who did it. Got that?’
McCoy nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘First principles, not bloody fantasies. Okay?’
McCoy nodded again.
Murray seemed temporarily satisfied. Had managed to locate his pipe, now came the process of getting it lit. He knocked the barrel on the heel of his shoe. ‘How d’you think he got him up there?’
‘Arrange to meet him nearby? Put a gun in his back and march him up the stairs? But why go all the way up there? Doesn’t make any sense, too much chance of him getting away, even with a gun. Why go to all that trouble? Why not just kill him in his flat?’
They looked up at the half-built building. ‘No one to see you up there,’ said Murray. ‘Or hear the gun. All the time you want to do what you want. That’s why.’
The crime scene lights at the top of the building were still on, shining out in the rain like some kind of lighthouse. McCoy didn’t want to think about what had gone on up there, how many of Jackson’s screams went unheard, how much pleading there had been, how much pain. Still, didn’t see how the office building made sense. Why not some waste ground or an empty house? Plenty of those around here. Be a lot easier.
‘Maybe the office block is one of Scobie’s jobs? He runs a security firm, doesn’t he?’
Murray nodded. ‘Amongst other things.’
‘He could have cancelled the guards, made sure there was no one around to see what was going on.’
‘Get Wattie to check, give him something to bloody do,’ said Murray.
‘Will do. Shooting someone in the head, that’s like an execution.’
‘Something a hit man would do,’ said Murray.
‘Okay, and don’t go nuts again but Scobie’s got one of those,’ said McCoy.
Murray unclipped his bow tie, opened the top button of his dress shirt. ‘That’s better. I can bloody breathe now.’
He looked at McCoy. ‘Kevin Connolly.’
McCoy nodded. ‘Don’t know that much about him apart from he does Scobie’s dirty work.’
‘Well, I do,’ said Murray, finally getting his pipe lit. ‘He’s a right nasty piece of work is our Connolly.’
‘Nasty enough to do that to Charlie Jackson?’
‘Oh aye. Something like that’s not a problem for Connolly. Was at one of his trials, prosecution lawyer described him as “a truly evil man”. Way he grinned when he said it, Connolly seemed to take it as some sort of compliment.’
‘Did he get done?’ asked McCoy.
Murray shook his head. ‘Too many witnesses who suddenly forgot their testimonies and Archie Lomax in his corner. Archie Lomax is many things, but he’s also a bloody good lawyer. Don’t think Connolly’s done jail time for anything serious for years. Scobie needs him around, happy to pay Lomax to make sure he is.’
He looked back up at the building. ‘What we really need to find out is how he got to the top of that bloody building.’
‘Hang on,’ said McCoy.
He left Murray standing there and hurried across the road. The paper seller outside the Variety Bar was packing up for the night, pulling the headline paper from under the crossed wires on the wooden board in front of him – TRAGEDY IN CHURCH – and crunching it into a ball. Luckily he had one Sports Times left. McCoy gave him the four pence, flicked through it on the way back. Found what he was looking for by the time he got back to Murray.
‘Jackson was on the bench. Didn’t play. Need to find out what happened between the end of the match and . . . you know. You going into the shop now?’
Murray shook his head. ‘Pitt Street. Need to do a report for the Super getting in.’
McCoy nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll go back to the shop, see if I can get hold of Scobie or his daughter. Quite looking forward to disturbing Archie Lomax’s peaceful Saturday night. You know Jackson was a left-footer?’
‘A Catholic?’ asked Murray.
