It came in waves, the panic. Your hands are tied, there’s a hood over your head, you’re in the boot of a car in Belfast. Just think about that. You’re fucked. Best you can get away with is a beating or a kneecapping and we all know what the worst is. Dragged out the car, forced to kneel, feel of a gun barrel at the back of your head and then nothing.
The car turned sharply and he hit the side of the boot. Shifted, tried to get in a less painful position. Wasn’t easy. Had no idea how long he’d been in there, just knew he wanted out, wanted to be in Glasgow buying a drink at the Victoria, talking shite to Wullie the barman. Wanted to be anywhere but where he was.
The car turned again, seemed to drive off the road, started lurching from side to side. A huge wave of fear and nausea as he realised they were driving across a rutted field. Only one reason to be in a field. And that was the worst reason he could think of. The car slowed, stopped. He could hear two doors opening, then being banged shut. Then nothing. His heart was racing. Felt like it was thumping in his chest. Felt like he was going to start crying or to piss himself.
He could hear voices – not what they were saying, just the noise and rhythm. And then he heard a gunshot and he thought he was going to be sick. Started praying to his mum, God, anyone to get him out of there. He tried to separate his hands, but they were tied tight at the wrist. Bag over his head smelt of sweat and hair oil, realised it must have been used before. Another lurch of terror. Heard someone laughing. Heard crows or some sort of birds squawking.
Wondered if this was it. Where he was going to die. Crying for his life in a field outside Belfast. Another lurch of fear. What if they thought he was something more than just a Glasgow polis? What if they thought he was Special Branch or Intelligence? That he knew something. Something that they would torture him to find out? That was it. Fear broke him and he was sick into the bag, felt it run down his chin. Had never felt as scared or as lonely in his life. Realised he was sobbing too.
And then the boot opened, hands pulled him out and he was dropped onto the ground. The bag was pulled off his head. He blinked a few times in the dim evening light, looked up. Realised he was looking up into the face of William Norton.
‘What did I tell you, McCoy?’ he said. ‘Don’t ever try and take the piss out of me.’ He smiled, wiped some cigarette ash off the sleeve of his blazer. ‘And what did you go and do?’
He pulled his foot back and kicked McCoy straight in the face. McCoy’s nose burst and blood added to the sick and the tears. He tried to sit up, couldn’t. All he could do was lie there and look at Norton and Duncan Stewart his driver, and the fact that Duncan Stewart was holding a gun.
‘How did you know I was here?’ he managed to get out.
‘I didn’t,’ said Norton. ‘Not until Duncan saw you outside the Europa, was waiting to pick me up, take me to the ferry, and there you were. Asked the boys at the site across the road what you had been asking them. So we thought we should have a chat and get the later ferry.’
He laughed, Duncan laughing along with him.
McCoy’s mind was going full tilt. Adrenaline pumping into his brain. Realised he had to keep them talking, play for time.
‘I’m a polis, Norton. You better watch yourself.’
Norton laughed. Duncan joining in like the good yes man he was.
‘This is Bandit Country, McCoy. The Wild West. Anything can happen here. All bets are off.’ He grinned. ‘And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re the one tied to a tree.’
‘I should have known,’ said McCoy. ‘Realised what was going on.’
‘And what would that be, McCoy?’ asked Norton.
‘You even told me, didn’t you?’
‘What?’
‘In the back of your car in Bilsland Drive,’ said McCoy. ‘One of them will always think he can fuck the others over.’
Norton hacked up, spat on the ground. Looked at McCoy, didn’t look happy.
‘Kelly fucked you over, didn’t he? Took the money from the Southern General job and ran. Took his chance to change his life. Came here to lie low until he could move on. Driver, was he?’
Norton smiled, not an ounce of humour in it. ‘Clever boy.’
‘What happened to the usual one? He get pulled in?’
‘Measles,’ said Norton. ‘Got it off his daughter.’
‘Thirty grand or so. Must have buried it somewhere near Belfast.’
‘That right?’ said Norton.
‘And you took his fingers off one by one until he told you where,’ said McCoy.
Norton smiled, shook his head. ‘Great imagination you’ve got, McCoy. Wasted being a polis. Imagination like that you should write a book something.’
Norton squatted down in front of him, pointed over to the left.
‘Over there, Belfast, lovely city but a dangerous place. People get murdered all the time. Wander into the wrong district, say the wrong thing, meet the wrong people. Think that’s what happened to poor Finn Kelly. Wrong place at the wrong time.’
He smiled again.
‘Nothing to do with me. Stupid bugger must have had an argument with some of the Boys. It’s obvious. Why else would he be lying dead just off the Falls Road with both his kneecaps gone? Just another casualty of these terrible troubles. That right, Duncan?’
His driver nodded, didn’t take his eye or his gun off McCoy for a second.
‘Same thing could happen to anyone, any stranger in town. Maybe even a Glasgow polis wandering round Belfast asking questions. Wouldn’t be a surprise if the Boys took him for a ride in their car. Maybe bring him to a field like this one. After all, a man like that must have a reason for being here, eh? Can’t just be an ordinary copper. Must be up to something. Maybe that’s why they tortured him before they killed him. Find out who he really was.’
McCoy couldn’t think for the fear. Kept rising up, filling his mind, images of kneecapping and bolt cutters. He tried to breathe, tried to think clearly, just hoping that something, anything, would happen. His mind was racing. Needed to do something quick.
‘Not your style, I didn’t think,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’ asked Norton, lighting his cigarette with a gold Dunhill lighter.
‘Well, I can see the theory. Makes sense. You kidnap Alice to flush the dad out. Get him to appear back in Scotland so you can pick him up. What father wouldn’t?’ He stopped, shook his head. ‘But things go wrong, don’t they. The wee girl’s not so wee, she’s almost a teenager, a pain in the arse, so you start drugging her to shut her up, force whisky down her throat. Christ knows, doing that to a kid was bad enough, but then to do something like that to a wee girl . . .’
Norton snapped the lighter shut, walked over and kicked McCoy in the stomach. Hard.
‘Don’t know what you think you’re implying, McCoy, but nothing like that happened.’
‘You sure?’ asked McCoy, still wincing from the pain.
Slight flicker on Norton’s face.
McCoy pressed on. His only hope.
‘I was at the hospital when they examined her. She’d been raped. Repeatedly. That the kind of people you run with these days, Norton? Nonces like that?’ How are you going to keep wandering around Milton like the bloody Godfather when people find that out? They’ll be fucking spitting on you in the—’
Didn’t manage to get ‘street’ out. Boot in the face from Stewart.
McCoy rolled back in the grass, tried to deal with the pain. Lay there. Could hear Norton hissing at Stewart, voice low but angry, very angry. McCoy opened his eyes a bit, took a look. Stewart was holding his hands up, shaking his head. McCoy shut his eyes again. He’d bought himself a couple of minutes anyway. Not sure how much good it would do him. His mind was starting to drift. Wasn’t sure if it was the last of the concussion or just his mind shutting down so it wouldn’t have to deal with what was happening, but he felt calm, even a bit sleepy. Could hear Norton and Stewart arguing. Could feel the dry grass beneath him, watched the sun starting to fall behind the hills in the distance.
Suddenly he was pulled up, set against a fence. Norton was standing in front of him.
‘Without you,’ he said, ‘no one is going to connect the body with Glasgow, me or any bank robberies. So you tell me why I shouldn’t just let Stewart here shoot you?’
‘No reason. Tell him to go ahead,’ said McCoy, trying to sound calm.
Norton raised his eyebrows.
‘But if you do, all that gentleman bank robber stuff is gone, no matter how much money you’ve got. All that will happen is you’ll be remembered for kidnapping a wee girl who got raped over and over again on your watch. Soon enough people will just think it was you. It’s a better story that way.’
Norton looked white. ‘It was nothing to do with me!’
‘Maybe so,’ said McCoy. ‘Pity that.’
Stewart advanced towards him, pulled his boot back again.
‘If that clown touches me again,’ hissed McCoy, ‘I’m going to stop talking.’
Norton put his hand out and Stewart stepped back.
‘I can fix it,’ said McCoy. ‘Make sure the assault disappears off the report. Persuade the mum that it’s better for the girl if nobody knows about it and she doesn’t try and prosecute. You let me go and I’ll do it. If the truth comes out and people find out what really happened to her, you can shoot me in the street.’
Norton looked at him. McCoy could see his mind working behind his eyes. He held out his hand to the driver, nodded at the gun.
‘Give us that. Away and get me more fags from the car. I’ve none left.’
Stewart nodded, handed the gun over and walked off.
Norton knelt down in front of McCoy, pushed the gun into his mouth, pushed it as far as he could. McCoy gagging on the metal and the oily taste. Norton primed the trigger.
‘You try any funny stuff and this is what will happen to you. Except you’ll be in so much pain you’ll be praying for me to pull this trigger. Deal?’
McCoy tried to nod.
‘Who?’ asked Norton. ‘Who was it?’
Norton pulled the gun out his mouth and McCoy spat on the ground, gagged. Was his last chance but he could hardly get the words out. ‘She said he had red hair. The man that did it. He said call me Daddy Duncan.’
Stewart walked back from the car, a new packet of Rothmans in his hand. He held it out and Norton took it, put it in his pocket, then he turned, held the gun up and shot him in the face.
McCoy felt the hot blood splatter across his chest, saw Stewart fall, blood pumping out of what was left of his head. He leant over and retched. Nothing came out, just saliva, felt Stewart’s hot blood running down his face, retched again. He looked up to see Norton aim at the driver’s kneecap. He shot the left one, then the right. Shot him again in the chest. Air was full of smoke, the smell of bullets and blood, noise ringing in McCoy’s ears.
Norton walked back to him. ‘Fucking nonce deserved it.’
McCoy nodded.
Norton turned, started walking towards the car and McCoy realised he was going to leave him there, bound hands and feet, covered in blood and lying next to a dead body.
He shouted after him. ‘Norton! Norton!’
Norton didn’t turn back. He walked towards the car and got in, started the engine. The headlights cast white beams over the rutted field.
‘Norton!’ he shouted again, tried to make himself heard over the car engine. ‘Come back!’
McCoy watched as the car did a slow circle, headed for the gate and the dirt road back to the main road. Watched the lights until they disappeared round a hill. Sat there in the gathering darkness, Stewart’s blood drying on his face.