Stealing God (8 page)

‘We could talk here, Bridie. I don't need a lift and it won't take long.'

‘You're getting a lift and it had better not take long. Where to?' Jimmy gave the name and address of a B&B. The car slid away across the car park and out onto the road.

‘Know the way, Norah?'

‘Where's it near?' The question was for Jimmy. She looked at him in the mirror.

‘The station.'

‘Which one?'

‘Is there more than one?'

Bridie turned round.

‘Stop fucking about. Which station?'

‘I don't know. I just got somewhere near the station when I came in from Edinburgh.' Norah nodded and Bridie turned away. Jimmy had felt uncomfortable about this meeting ever since he'd decided to arrange it. Now, with Bridie at close range, he knew he was right to be uncomfortable, in fact he was right to be bloody shit scared. Norah looked at him in the mirror again.

‘I'll take you to Queen Street station and drop you there.'

‘Queen Street. Fine.'

The car turned onto another, busier road and headed towards the city centre.

‘OK, Jimmy Costello, what do you want?'

Bridie didn't turn round when she spoke so Jimmy talked to the back of her head.

‘A factory out at Cumbernauld got a petrol bomb thrown through the window recently. It was an ice-cream factory owned by …'

‘Johnny Fabrizzi. I heard about it, a bunch of young hooligans pissing about. It was nothing.'

‘Maybe, maybe not, and if not I need to know where the idea originated.'

‘That's a fucking queer way of putting it. Why not just say you want to know who did it?'

‘Because I don't want to know who did it?'

‘No?'

‘No. I don't care who did it.'

Bridie paused for a moment.

‘OK, so now I know what you don't care about. What is it you do care about?'

‘Who wanted it done?'

‘Why do you care, are you trying to get whoever it is off Johnny Fabrizzi's back? Is that it?'

‘No. If Johnny Fabrizzi does business in this town he takes the chances that go with it same as everybody else. He'll have to look after himself as best he can. If somebody's putting the arm on him, let them get on with it. It's nothing to do with me.'

‘So what is to do with you?'

‘That's something new since my time, Bridie, something for nothing, free information. I didn't know the Freedom of Information Act applied to your kind of business.'

The driver looked in the mirror and Jimmy gave her his best smile. She looked away and would never know what that casual-looking smile had cost him in effort. Thank God he'd practised.

‘Still a smart fucker. No one knocked that out of you yet?'

‘Not yet. Look, I'm just calling in a favour. When I gave you Jamie to take home you told me to ask when I wanted something. Now I want something so I'm asking. Why I want it is my business.'

‘Like fuck I told you to ask.'

‘OK, a man in a pub said the actual words. But it was the same pub I used to let you know I'd got Jamie's body and it was the same pub that set up this meeting. As far as I'm concerned the words came from you. If I'm wrong stop the car and I'll get out and you won't see me again.'

‘I can make fucking sure I don't see you again any time I like.'

She wasn't joking and she wasn't boasting, she was stating the simple truth. Jimmy felt the knot of tension tighten in his stomach and knew he had to stop it creeping into his voice. If Bridie got a whiff of weakness he was dead. She didn't work with weaklings, she stamped on them. All the old fear was right back with him now. He remembered how he had ridden with her in her Mercedes those years ago in London, how he had got out and she'd told him to kneel down. Then her man Colin had shot him in the back of the head. This time, if the same thing happened, it really would be the gun at the back of his head that went off, not some other gun. This time he wouldn't wake up with only his trousers soiled. He wouldn't wake up at all because what would be left of his face would be on the floor in bits of his own brains.

‘Well, Bridie, what's it to be?' were the words he said, ‘Oh God of mercy keep my bloody voice calm,' was what he was praying. Bridie turned and looked at him.

‘I'll see what I can do. If I can do anything you'll have it tomorrow at the latest. What's your number?'

Jimmy gave it to her.

‘Want to write it down?'

She ignored him and turned to the driver.

‘What stall did Mrs Mac do last year?'

‘The bottle stall, remember? She helped Molly O'Dowd. It didn't make nearly as much as it usually does. Molly couldn't understand it, it seemed to go as well as she expected.'

Bridie laughed.

‘The devious young bugger. He wants her on my stall because he knows I'll spot her if she dips into the takings. Well, Norah, maybe our young Fr Leahy's not as green as he's cabbage-looking after all.'

‘What do you think, take her on and see what happens?'

‘No, what's the point? If she lifts some cash and I catch her he won't do anything. Her husband does the parish accounts so Fr Leahy can't risk offending him by accusing his wife of being a thief. And I can hardly have her legs broken, can I? No, if she's light-fingered let her get on with it somewhere else.'

‘If her husband's an accountant why does she do it? She can't need the money. Is it an illness, do you think?'

‘If stealing's an illness then Glasgow's been in an epidemic for as long as I can remember.'

They both laughed. Jimmy sat back and stopped listening as the two women continued discussing the forthcoming parish bazaar.

I'm no bloody good at this any more, he thought; it's got to be done properly or not all. A half-hard bastard is no bastard at all. If I get by with Bridie it will be on the back of what she remembers, the man I was, not the man I am now. I'm just too fucking old and tired. Who the hell does Ricci think I am, James bloody Bond? If his uncle's in trouble let him sort it out himself. I'm going to have my hands full just staying alive.

The car turned into George Square and pulled up in front of the station. Jimmy leaned forward.

‘I'll hear from you then?'

‘Fuck off.'

Jimmy got out and the car pulled away. He went into the first bar he came to and ordered a double whisky. He didn't like whisky but just now beer wouldn't do what was needed.

He drank the whisky as soon as it came, waited until the harshness had settled from his throat, then ordered another. With the second he took his time.

Why am I part of it? That was what made no sense. What sort of Alice in Wonderland scenario put a trainee priest, even one that used to be a copper, alongside the suspicious death of an archbishop?

If Bridie came across and it turned out the ice-cream factory got torched on someone's orders then … then what? He took another long sip. It had to be London. Or maybe it would turn out to be just some hooligans like Bridie said, nothing more than young tearaways trying their hand at extortion. Why not? Everyone has to begin somewhere. He finished the last drops of his drink, got off his stool, and left the bar.

Outside he felt better, the meeting with Bridie had gone well after all. Now it was time for a late breakfast. Jimmy headed to his hotel which was not so very near the B&B whose name and address he had given to Bridie. Yes, he'd managed to stay careful. Maybe he wasn't such a tired old has-been after all.

ELEVEN

It was about eight o'clock that night when the phone in his hotel room rang. Jimmy went across and picked it up. The message was brief and to the point, there was no introduction, no preamble of any sort.

‘It was ordered. They were told to fire-bomb the place then make the call. They were given the number and told what to say.'

‘So who ordered it?'

‘They don't know and they were asked thoroughly. The best they could come up with was that the man was English, fiftyish, and seemed official, like the police.'

‘The police?'

‘Like the police. Kids like that only know two kinds of people, their own and the police.'

‘What about the local force?'

‘What about them?'

‘Did they get involved?'

‘No, they wrote it off as hooligans.'

‘But it was an out-of-town job farmed to local nobodies.'

‘Yes, and that's it, that's all of it. Understood?'

Jimmy understood.

‘Yeah.'

Whoever it was rang off. Jimmy slowly put the phone down.

‘Shit.'

He'd suspected the fire was ordered and now he knew for certain. Ricci had been caught looking and the petrol bomb was London's way of telling him to take his nose out. That left his mate who'd suddenly been invited to America. They wouldn't have done both even if they had that sort of pull which he doubted. So who arranged that little stunt? Well, he'd done what he came to do. Ricci wasn't going to do any more digging into old files so his uncle would be left alone. The bad news was the call had come to the hotel, not the mobile number he'd given her. Did that matter? She'd come across with the information so maybe it didn't, but with Bridie you never could tell. He sat down heavily on his bed. He should have stayed in Rome. Ricci's family troubles weren't anything to do with him, he'd pretty much guessed what it was all about. He hadn't really needed to come and make certain. But he knew that wasn't the real reason he'd come, not all of it anyway. A petrol-bomb with a threatening call alongside his mate getting taken out of the frame had set his mind working like it used to and he'd liked the feeling it gave him. The idea of coming back and taking on Bridie had given him the old adrenaline rush. It was maybe a last chance to … Then the phone rang again.

‘Your lift to the airport is here, Mr Costello. I'm afraid I'll have to charge you for the two nights even though you'll not be staying after all. Your bill will be ready when you come down.'

‘Thanks, I'll be down in a few minutes.'

Jimmy began to gather his things and stuff them into his holdall. He hadn't ordered a car so it had to be Bridie's people waiting for him downstairs. There was no point in running. Even if he got past whoever was down there how long would he last in Glasgow with Bridie looking for him? It was her turf and she knew it like she knew the inside of her handbag. He finished pushing his stuff into the holdall. What choices had he got? The answer came at once, none. All the choices were Bridie's now, she was the one who'd decide if he'd finish up as a permanent Glasgow resident, maybe in the same cemetery as two of her sons, more probably dumped on some derelict site. He went to the door, switched the light out, and left.

Downstairs Bridie's driver from church was waiting, still wearing the same smart suit. Jimmy paid his bill and followed her out of the hotel to where the black Mercedes was parked. There was no one else in it. Jimmy looked around. What was there to see, why look? What's the point of being careful at the wrong time?

‘Get in.'

He threw his holdall onto the back seat and got in beside the driver. It wasn't a long journey and it wasn't to the airport. She took him to Queen Street Station.

‘I thought you were taking me to the airport?'

‘The airport's over thirty miles away. If you want to fly somewhere go to Edinburgh and fly from there. I'm not your taxi. I just deliver you to the station and give you a message.'

‘Why is it called Glasgow airport if it's bloody miles away from Glasgow?'

Jimmy was trying hard to hide his relief and not piss his pants, saying something, anything, helped. If the driver was annoyed at his stupid question she wasn't about to show it. Jimmy liked her, whatever it was she did besides driving Bridie he guessed she would be good at it.

‘Finished being funny?'

Outside the car were people and lights. Nothing was going to happen here. Now he knew he was safe the tension disappeared, he didn't need to hear his own voice to know he was still alive.

‘Yeah, finished.'

‘OK, here's your message. We don't like people who bring their London shite up here and cause trouble, especially when they've come to ask a favour. It's bad manners. Maybe somebody will teach you a lesson about that, it could get you into trouble, know what I mean?' Jimmy didn't answer. He guessed the question was rhetorical. ‘There's no more favours for you here, Costello, there's nothing here for you or your London friends, ever. Tomorrow morning if you're still in Scotland, anywhere in Scotland, you're dead and if you're stupid enough to come back you'll wind up like Jamie, and you know how Jamie wound up.' He knew. ‘Now get out.'

Jimmy did as he was told, watched the car pull away, then looked around but as the people flowed past him on their way in and out he asked himself, what the hell am I looking for? This is a railway station, who am I going to see? If Bridie had someone following him until he was clear of Glasgow he knew he wouldn't spot them unless they were attached to him by a rope. If someone was there then there was fuck all he could do about it so he went into the station, found the toilets, and gratefully relieved himself. Then he bought a ticket to Edinburgh Haymarket and headed for the platform.

While he sat in the train waiting for it to pull away he thought about Bridie. How the hell do you figure a woman like that? A violent, Mass-going biddy who runs serious crime and a stall at the parish bazaar stall. He wondered what she thought about it all, her life, her family, her business, and her Church. If she ever thought about it. He specially wondered why she went to Mass in the mornings. But then he thought, it's cost her two sons so I suppose she's got a lot to pray about, we all have. The train began to pull away from the station, out into the night, and Jimmy switched off his brain. Time to rest. Later on, back to Rome, he would do the thinking. He closed his eyes and tried to doze.