White Rage (3 page)

He removed the gun. He admired its compact design. Amazing how this wee thing, less than five inches long and weighing about ten ounces, could kill. He balanced it in the palm of his hand, and thought
lovely
. He stuck the gun in the right pocket of his tracksuit trousers.

When the time comes. Reach, find, remove, fire.

Today's the day, he thought. No turning back. Enough's enough.

He walked inside the room where his mother, Her Highness, lay. Sandrine Descartes, sixty-six and leathery from half a century of smoking, adjusted her shawl. She looked as if some high-tech latex special effects had been used on her face; her eyes were bright but her skin was pure crone.

Ugly old cow, Bobby thought. Day after day she lay in this dim room and smoked cigarettes with the blinds drawn. She lived in a state of perpetual shade. One day he expected he'd come into the room in time to see her fade into infinity.

On the telly a white-faced woman with long greasy hair was weeping. ‘
I never told her I loved her
,' she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

The show's hostess squeezed the moment. ‘
It can't be easy to admit you have lesbian feelings for your own sister
–'

Bobby picked up the remote and zapped the TV.

‘I was watching that, Robert.'

‘It's shite,' Bobby said.

‘It interests me. The whole human drama.' She smoked a Kensitas.

‘You see more human drama from your own window.'

‘It depresses me to look out, Robert.'

He had the feeling his mother was about to launch into her usual mumbo about her late father, an important Frog lawyer with a big house in the Loire Valley. Fine wines, crystal, silver candlesticks, the works. Bobby sometimes wondered how much of this story was true.

The plotline was total suds: young French woman of a certain class marries beneath herself, falling for a charming adventurer called Jacques Descartes, who drags her halfway round the world in doomed pursuit of lost gold mines and oil deposits, riches based on wild rumours eavesdropped in the taverns of shabby port cities where travellers traded dodgy map fragments or dog-eared geological reports for a few drams of booze or some cash. The lovers marry in Mozambique and, having survived various disasters – a shipwreck, an earthquake, according to Sandrine – they wash up in Glasgow many years later because Monsieur Le Loverboy has learned of a forgotten silver mine in the hills of Lanarkshire.

Of all places. Lanarkshire. The sticks.

The story culminated in sickness and poverty, Jacques dying from TB, and Sandrine living out a miserable widowhood in this unpleasant corner of a cold Scottish city, her only legacy Bobby, who remembered his dad, his
papa
, as an embittered man with a frighteningly big head and thick white hair, who sometimes sang ‘La Marseillaise' if he was pished. Which was often.

It was all rubbish, Bobby sometimes thought. Pure
keich
. Or maybe there was some nub of truth, enough to keep Sandrine warm on cold nights. Fuck did it matter?

‘I'm going out,' he said.

‘Where?'

‘Don't interrogate me, Ma. I'm thirty-seven years old.'

‘In your head, ah, you are an adolescent.' She made a Gallic gesture, shrugging then throwing her hands up in the fashion of a juggler. ‘No job. No prospects. No girl, Robert. No love. Where is love? Life needs love.'

Her accent turned Robert into Robair. She pronounced their last name Daycart instead of Deskarts. He hated that. Daycart. It was like something with wheels.

‘You do not make anything of yourself.'

‘At least I don't lie around on a clapped-out old sofa watching crap TV.'

‘Ah, no. You are so busy acquiring a university degree, of course. Forgive me, I forget.'

Her sarcasm. Her love story. Her broken heart. Her maroon sofa and that bloody shawl. What else didn't he like about his mother? He headed towards the door. ‘One day you'll be proud of me.'

‘I hold my breath.'

He paused on the way out. Just for a second his nerve wilted, but he pushed his uncertainty aside and shut the door before hitting the stairs. Beezer – one of whose ancestors was a famous French philosopher, a fact Sandrine had fruitlessly tried to impress on her son years ago – was on the go.

With murder in his heart.

4

Leo Kilroy weighed twenty-five stone, give or take. He dominated the space of Scullion's small office. His great jellied jowls wattled his neck; his eyes were lost in mounds of flab the shape of gnocchi. Perlman never knew which was more overwhelming: the man's sheer presence or the garish nature of his clothing. He wore a long red leather coat, a suit of brushed blue suede, an antique brocade waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed beige hat with a wide band of neo-Aztec design. It was difficult not to think of an overstuffed trotter got up for a fancy-dress ball.

‘You look pale, Lou,' Kilroy said. ‘Peely-wally.'

‘It's the effect you have, Leo. You drain the blood from my face.'

Kilroy smiled. ‘Have you changed your hairstyle or did you just get your finger stuck in a light socket?'

‘Tell me where I can catch your stand-up act.' Perlman went to the window of Scullion's office, which overlooked Pitt Street. He needed light, even if it was only this insipid grey muslin that enclosed Glasgow like yesterday's ectoplasm. Kilroy's presence was oppressive, an eclipse.

Kilroy said, ‘A sea cruise in sunny climes might be just the thing to get some colour into your cheeks. I can recommend a first-rate vessel sailing the Caribbean. I know el capitano.'

‘I don't have holiday time coming up.'

‘Too bad.'

‘Mibbe this has escaped your notice, Leo, but the majority of people work for a living. Most of us are on schedules and incomes that don't allow much time for globe-trotting. Most of us aren't on first-name terms with the el capitanos of seagoing vessels.'

‘My, don't tell me we're going down the slope to snide, Lou. My ears are pricked. Will you be calling me Fatso next?'

Perlman stuck a hand in his coat pocket and fingered his cigarettes. He regretted his brief foray into cheap sarcasm. There was no dignity in it. Kilroy would see it as a victory: I got under the Sergeant's skin easy as breaking wind, heh heh.

A smoke, a smoke, Lou thought. His need for a stick of tobacco was profound. In the street below he saw the Dalmatian still hauling its owner along the pavement. What did a little old man want with such a big dog? Protection against the terror of the city, of course. Tenements were fitted with security doors and alarm systems. Fear of violence was a condition of the world. Old people were lost in a savage jungle they didn't understand.

Leo Kilroy's lawyer, Nat Blum, stood directly behind his client. Blum was as slim as Kilroy obese, a spindle of a man with a narrow face and dark eyebrows. He was handsome the way the head of an axe might be handsome. His black hair was glossy. Perlman wondered if it was dyed.

‘Let's try and keep this cordial, Lou,' Blum said.

‘Working at it, Nat. Sweating over it.'

‘After all, we're here in the service of the due process of law. The least you can do is show appreciation.'

Appreciation
. Perlman choked back a number of responses, none witty. He glanced at Scullion, who was rearranging the framed pictures on the desk. Sandy's private icons – his pretty wife, Madeleine, his two sweet kids. The Inspector had an existence beyond Pitt Street, a home to go to. Perlman's life was laundry he never got round to doing, a ton of old newspapers he'd never managed to discard – some of them dating back to a misty age when tramcars swayed on electric wires through cobbled city streets, and the coins in your pockets were big hefty pennies or chunky florins.

Blum looked at his watch and said, ‘Let's get to the point. You have some quote unquote fresh evidence, so I'm told.'

Perlman propped himself against the window ledge. He remembered the blue classic car pass under the streetlamps, and heard the blast of the weapon rolling through his head like a memory of thunder. He said, ‘Kilroy's car, the Bentley –'

Blum interrupted. ‘
Again
with the car? We dealt with the bloody car months ago.'

Kilroy said, ‘The night your brother died my Bentley was stolen. It's a matter of record. A felonious person, or persons, made off with my pride and joy.'

‘The car was subsequently torched,' Blum added. ‘The charred ruin was found a couple of months ago in a godforsaken part of Ayrshire. This is ancient history –'

Perlman said, ‘I know that –'

‘In any case, haven't we already proved that my client had nothing to do with the slaying of your brother?'

‘Not to my satisfaction,' Perlman said.

‘I'm heartbroken to learn that you aren't happy, Lou, but the Procurator-Fiscal threw your case out, or have you forgotten?'

‘I'd forget a thing like that?'

‘I'm sorry Colin's dead, but you can't keep trying to dump the blame on my client.' A greased lank of black hair had fallen over Blum's forehead, and he swept it back. ‘You saw a gun in the window of a classic Bentley one night last December. Somebody, whose
face
you didn't see, fired a shot that killed your brother. My client doesn't even know how to
use
a gun, for God's sake. You don't have
anything
that links the killer to Mr Kilroy. What's so interesting about the car all of a sudden?'

Blum's confidence riled Perlman. Nat was infatuated with himself, the slickly dressed man about Glasgow familiar to maître d's and chefs alike, one who drew waiters to him as a magnet attracts metal shavings. Nat's world was champagne cocktails in the Rogano and a penthouse flat in some flash new development on the river. He was the boy who'd risen from a mean background – Dad an impoverished tailor – to become the high-paid legal representative of assorted gangsters and criminals. He'd bought himself expensive implanted teeth, and buffed the rough edges from his Glasgow accent. He never swore. As he'd risen in the world, he'd elevated his language.

Perlman said, ‘If you'll just listen without getting your silk boxers in a fankle, Nat, I might get a word in … An eyewitness says he saw Kilroy driving the Bentley
after
the time of my brother's murder. If that's true, it hammers a stake through the heart of your client's alibi. Correct me if I'm wrong.'

‘An eyewitness, Lou? Four months later and suddenly an
eyewitness
?' Blum looked at Scullion. ‘Is the Sergeant in his right mind, Sandy?'

Scullion said, ‘A person made contact.'

‘A person made contact? How exactly? Letter? Email? Did he tell you my client was driving the car after it was reported
stolen
?'

Scullion blew his nose, then glanced at Perlman. ‘Lou, why don't you tell Blum your story?'

Perlman was quiet for a moment. Okay, this was a shot in the dark with a crooked crossbow, but the important thing was to appear confident, a man privy to great secrets. ‘The contact was made by telephone last night.'

‘And the caller left a name and address?' Blum asked.

Perlman smiled at the lawyer. Hold the smile, sustain the confidence, the ease. ‘As a matter of fact, no.'

‘I'm hitting rewind. A total stranger phoned, spun you a story, then – what? He gave you
nothing
by way of ID?'

‘He said he'd call back.'

‘And he hasn't?'

Perlman nodded. ‘No, but it's only a matter of time.'

Blum said, ‘And you recorded the message, I assume.'

‘I don't tape my calls. He said he'd call with more details –'

‘And that's
it
? Some schmuck phones you with a message he doesn't substantiate, he gives you no indication of its provenance, he doesn't even
identify
himself, and you have me drag Mr Kilroy down here on
this
basis? It's a nonsense. I know what you're doing, Lou. You're harassing my client. This is part of a pattern you've established over the years.'

Perlman waved a hand dismissively. ‘Fuck's sake, Nat. I'm not harassing anyone. I'm presenting you with a simple statement of fact that contradicts your client's story.'

‘An anonymous phone call doesn't constitute a statement of fact, Lou. Is this all you've got?'

Perlman shrugged. ‘Somebody out there knows something, Nat. I just thought you should be aware.'

‘And I'm supposed to take your word that this phone call actually happened?'

‘Are you saying I'm a liar, Nat?'

‘I've had consommé that was thicker than what you're trying to serve up,' Blum said. ‘Just because some murderous bastard with a pistol stole Leo's car, you jump – no, you
leap
– to the conclusion that it was Leo who killed Colin. Now you're reduced to anonymous eyewitnesses. You're a sad old bastard, Lou –'

Perlman said, ‘My phone'll ring again. Today. Tomorrow. Whenever. And when I pick it up, wham!'

Blum looked at Scullion. ‘Do I have to listen to any more of this, Sandy? Perlman's been harassing my client for years. Every petty little thing he can dream up. If it's not contraband cigarettes, it's some kind of protection racket for the better boutiques and clubs of our dear city. Or it's alleged bribery of some city official. One fake accusation follows another.'

‘My brother and Kilroy were involved in serious fraud, Nat,' Perlman said.

‘So you claim,' Blum said.

‘All right, I don't have documentary evidence, and I don't have corroborating statements because the people who might have been in a position to make them are all fucking boxed and dead.'

‘Anything you've got is either fabricated or circumstantial.'

Perlman ignored the lawyer: let a lawyer rabbit on and you're shafted. ‘Your client killed my brother because Colin knew the scam in and out and up and down, how it worked, who profited and who was cheated. And because Kilroy feared exposure, he killed Colin. Just the way Colin killed the men he thought might expose
him
.' Perlman felt an ache in the lower area of his spine. That damn dog. That big spotted hellhound. ‘One day, Nat, I'll nail your fucking client to the wall. I promise you.'