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Davie turned and began to retrace his steps back to his cell, a spring in his step as he broke out into a tuneless whistle.
He didn’t notice his brother watching intently as he stood by the pool table with the younger prisoner whose call had been interrupted.
16
MAX HAD JUSTfinished working out in his makeshift gym in the garage at his farm cottage in Culross when his phone rang. He picked up the handset from the weights bench and looked at the display. There was no number.
‘Yeah?’ he said as he answered it.
‘Is there something you need to tell me?’ said Bruce Ferguson.
‘Is this line secure?’ said Max, still slightly out of breath, sweat cold against his cheek where the phone was against the skin.
‘Max, it’s me you’re talking to here, man. VPN enabled and web-based; GCHQ wouldn’t even be able to hack it.’
‘Good, and what do you mean?’ said Max, guardedly.
‘I think you know what I’m talking about. Hardie’s getting out of jail tomorrow, to go to identify the burial site. Are you involved?’
Max sighed and rubbed at the dull ache that was beginning to appear at the back of his head. ‘I didn’t even know about it. We’ve been ordered off the case, totally. Literally forbidden on pain of getting sacked from having any involvement at all.’
There was a long pause at the other end of the line.
‘Bruce?’
‘I’m still here. This is madness, Max.’
‘Tell me about it. We made a fuss, but the new DCC is looking to make a name for herself, and she wants us nowhere near it. It also sounds like she wants us disbanded.’
‘Can’t you go over her head?’
‘No. Chief’s on holiday.’
‘He can’t be allowed to escape, Max.’ Bruce’s voice was edged with steel.
‘Well, we’re out of the picture, completely. We’ve been ordered on leave.’
‘Isn’t that a bit concerning?’
‘What being on leave?’
‘No, the timing of it. A Hardie being taken from prison on a bullshit story, you get removed from the case and now they put your whole team on leave. That stinks.’
‘Nothing I can do about it.’
The ex-commando exhaled with frustration. ‘You know my feelings on this, Max. I won’t have a Hardie running around the place, free. No fucking chance.’
‘My advice is to stay out of this, Bruce. It’s really big, and is being scrutinised at the highest of levels. I can’t protect you, if you do anything daft.’
‘I’m not asking for anything. You take care, Max. An angry Hardie on the loose is a threat to you, as well as to me. Those bastards couldn’t forgive a two-hundred-year-old feud, and they won’t forgive you.’ The line went dead.
17
JACK SLATTERY SIGHEDas he ascended the stairs towards his cell at Saughton jail, his plastic tray in hand. The hollowed-out compartments in the tray were filled with his evening meal, and it didn’t look appetising to say the least. Some grey meat stew that was on the menu as ‘stovies’, a couple of soft oatcakes and a jam roly-poly, with congealing custard. He also clutched a plastic bag that contained his breakfast for the morning. A bag of cereal, some milk and an apple. It wasn’t much, and he was thankful that his cell contained a supply of Super Noodles, some tinned tuna and a variety of biscuits, all bought with his canteen allowance, or bartered with other cons. He was adept at trading for food, as he wasn’t a junkie, but managed to get spice smuggled into him via an approachable officer. He then would sell it on to the jail’s junkies to keep him in tobacco and extra food. Despite being an ex-cop, his years of associations with the Hardies and a couple of other criminal gangs meant that he was off-limits to the hot-heads. He mainly kept his head down, and rarely got into confrontations.
But it was still hateful in here, and he had at least eighteen years left to go. Eighteen years of at least twenty hours a day in bang-up, often twenty-three. He cursed his luck in getting involved in the Hardie business, and even more, the fact that it brought him up against that bastard Max Craigie.
He pushed his door open and was thankful that his pad-mate, the overweight and malodourous scumbag ‘Shorty’ Maguire was nowhereto be seen, which was in itself unusual. What wasn’t unusual, however, was Galbraith, a big unit of a con from the ground floor, who was currently sitting on the chair in his room, an open can of tuna in one hand, and one of his forks in the other, as he chewed away.
