‘This is a real, fucking, nuisance.’ Millar was furious. ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’
‘Absolutely, look at him!’ Ray showed Millar the picture on his phone.
‘He looks pretty dead,’ Millar admitted. Ray looked at him nervously. Millar was shaking with anger and he could see the tell-tale vein beating in his forehead.
‘Well, boss, we’re sorry,’ said Ray, ‘but it was that shit-head’s Chris’s fault. If he’d told us what he was up to, rather than try and take McDonald on his own…’
‘Aye, he was asking for trouble,’ put in Dougie.
They looked at Millar beseechingly. Millar pushed a huge hand through his thick black hair. Ray stared at it appraisingly; he wondered if he dyed it. It was suspiciously free of grey. But Millar was a law unto himself. There was a kind of electric force that surrounded the man; powerful, violent people often had it. An animal magnetism.
However, Millar was ageing now. Ray watched as Millar chopped a fat line of coke out on the glass top of the coffee table and then leaned forward and snorted it. Then he took a big mouthful of Scotch and reached into his coat and took out a small pill bottle and shook out a small tablet. Ray wondered how much more Millar’s body could take. As if to prove the point, Millar lit a cigarette.
The devil looks after his own, Ray thought. Millar would probably live to be a hundred.
‘Clonazepam,’ Millar said as he put the small, brown bottle away. ‘I’m under a lot of stress and do you know why I get so stressed?’ He glared at Dougie and Ray. Dougie dropped his gaze and looked at the floor. Ray met the look with a certain amount of equanimity. He’d known Millar for most of his life; Millar had worked for Ray’s dad, Gordon, when he was a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old, newly arrived in Glasgow.
‘The reason I get so stressed is because I am surrounded by fucking idiots.’ Millar glared at them. He stood up, Ray did too. He hoped this conversation was over and Millar would be leaving now.
‘Christ knows what Jordan was doing with McDonald in the first place, but he was the one in charge of moving product in Edinburgh, and after he died I told Chris to handle it. Well, needs must, and now he’s fucking gone.’
He took a deep drag on his cigarette and glared at Ray.
‘Do you know what?’ Millar continued, as if the thought had just struck him. ‘I just want McDonald dead. Is that such a big ask?’ He glared at them angrily. ‘It seems such a simple request.’
‘We’re sorry,’ said Ray, tactfully.
‘Anyway,’ Millar said, ‘you’ll have to pick up the slack, now that Chris isn’t around.’
‘So you’ll want us to stay around in Edinburgh?’ Ray asked.
Millar nodded. ‘I’ve got a good person who runs the dealers,’ he said. ‘They make sure that stock control is handled and they’re bright. I’ll introduce you once all this shit has settled.
‘Meanwhile, you can do something useful.’ He fiddled with his phone. ‘This is the warehouse of a shipping company out near Balerno. They’ve got five kilos of coke of mine. I want you to pick it up and take it round to the safe house where we keep the stock. I’ll send you the address.’
‘Sure, when do you want us to do that?’
Millar looked at his watch. ‘Right now would be fine.’ He frowned. ‘Oh, and one other thing…’
Ray nodded. ‘Yes, boss.’
There was nothing in Millar’s face to indicate what was coming next. Moving with incredible speed for such a big man, Millar slapped Ray across the cheek, hard, the weight of his upper body in it. Ray staggered with the force of the blow and Millar slammed a punch, which he didn’t see coming, into his gut. Ray doubled up in agony and slowly straightened up, supporting himself against the back of the sofa. Dougie sat completely motionless. Ray glanced over at him. Dougie was obviously wondering what the fuck was going on. If it had been someone else attacking him, Dougie would have waded in instantly. Their eyes met and Ray shook his head imperceptibly. He was terrified of Dougie trying to stop Millar. Millar would kill him.
The same thing but concerning himself was running through Ray’s mind too. He somehow knew that if Millar hit him just once more, he wouldn’t stop. But there was nothing he could do. He was too afraid of Millar to defend himself. Obedience to Millar was too ingrained.
‘You two…’ Millar’s face was scarlet with anger ‘… are seriously pissing me off. All you’ve done over the last few days is fuck things up… ARE YOU FUCKING LISTENING?’
‘Yes, boss,’ said Dougie. Ray nodded.
‘I told you scare that woman off, you didn’t. I told you to kill McDonald, you let him escape. I told you to find him, you let him escape again and this time… this time he killed Falkirk Chris. When’s this fuckery going to end, Ray?’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘YOU’RE sorry! You’re sorry – I’m beginning to be sorry I employed you two cretins to begin with.’ He shook his head angrily. ‘You used to be good, Ray, but look at you now, fucking useless. You got early onset dementia or something?’
‘We didn’t…’ Dougie tried to say something.
Oh, Jesus, Dougie, don’t say anything, thought Ray.
‘Did I ask you to speak?’ shouted Millar at Dougie. ‘And what were you doing, eh? Too busy sucking his fucking dick to do any work.’ His attention swung back to Ray. He lashed out with his foot into the glass coffee table. The reinforced glass surface, not designed for this punishment, shattered. The noise was like a gun going off.
‘That can be fucking remedied, Ray Downie, as well you fucking know!’ Millar’s arm was outstretched and he pointed an accusing finger at Ray. A vein throbbed ominously in Millar’s forehead.
‘Now,’ he said, his voice calmer, but dangerously so, as if he were restraining himself with a superhuman effort. ‘I’m going to give you, and numb-nuts over there, another chance.’
‘Thank you, boss,’ said Ray, breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief. He was well aware that Millar had come within a whisker of losing it and killing either him or Dougie and leaving the survivor to clean up the mess.
It was then that a thought that must have been growing for some time in his subconscious finally surfaced.
I’ve got to get out of this, a part of his brain cried out. I can’t take this any more.
‘That woman you beat up the other day,’ Millar said.
‘Aye. Hanlon.’
‘She didn’t listen.’
‘Yes…?’
‘Deal with her,’ Millar said sternly. ‘If she’s with anyone, deal with them too. People are beginning to think they can fuck with me, including you, it would seem. Time some lessons were learnt, Ray.’
‘Yes, boss – do you want me to hurt her?’
‘No, Ray.’ He shook his head, visibly counting to ten. ‘I don’t want you to hurt Hanlon. I want you to kill her…’ he stopped by the door and then turned and looked at them ‘… and you’d better not fuck up, Ray. I’m a patient man, but no more excuses, OK.’
Ray nodded. ‘Consider it done.’
Millar stood up and left the room; not long after they heard the front door slam behind him.
‘What are we going to do, Ray?’
Ray looked at Dougie.
‘Well, better do as he says.’ He looked at the broken coffee table. ‘You know something, Dougie?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t think the clonazepam’s working.’