Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney Read Free Book Online Page B

perpetrator. He was a fantasist who had decided to sublimate his fantasies in heroin. But if my brother’s dying was a sore thing, why not his? His death was someone’s mourning.
    â€˜He was dealing, you know,’ Brian said.
    The thumb went down. It’s one thing to find your own way to hell. But when you start directing the traffic there, it’s different.
    â€˜I’d lost touch with him,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know he was a dealer. It’s a natural progression, right enough. So what else have you got?’
    â€˜Not a lot so far. We traced him to a bedsit in Hyndland. He was supposed to be living there with a woman. By the way, the pathologist’s report shows he had a broken arm recently. The neighbours aren’t saying a lot. We don’t even have a name for her yet. But she seems to have been on the stuff as well. Only thing is, she’s not there any more. And her clothes aren’t either. But one of the unwashed cups has lipstick on it. And the remains of a coffee that hadn’t even hardened.’
    â€˜So you think she knows who did it?’
    â€˜It looks that way.’
    â€˜And evaporated for the good of her health.’
    â€˜You’re a genius.’
    â€˜I’m just thinking aloud. Don’t get smart-arsed.’
    â€˜You taught me,’ he said.
    â€˜No. That’s maybe what you learned but it’s not what I was teaching. But that’s interesting. At least it narrows the focus.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Well, with a junkie you’ve got problems, haven’t you? They’re good at keeping bad company. There’s a lot of that stuff out there. And their motivations are like mayflies. They can be born and die the same day. That can make a motive hard to trace.’
    â€˜Uh-huh.’
    â€˜But the way Meece died looks planned. Breaking fingers one by one doesn’t smack of spontaneity. It might mean questions were being asked. Or just some special rites of passage into death. Either way, Meece’s murder was arranged. And the vanishing woman confirms that. She maybe knew it was going to happen or that it had happened. And whoever did it frightened her out of her life. And into another one.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜So it’s a guess. But you’re looking to move towards official sources in their world. The big fear. What’s the biggest fear an addict has?’
    â€˜No more of the stuff.’
    â€˜Correct. Who’s god for those people?’
    â€˜The man who gives the goods.’
    â€˜I don’t think you’re looking for some lost soul who took a bad mood. I think you’re looking for more important people.’
    I didn’t know whether Brian’s silence meant awe at my forensic brilliance or just that he had fallen asleep.
    â€˜Well,’ he said. ‘Thanks for taking so long to tell us what we knew already.’
    We both laughed.
    â€˜You might just about get a pass-mark at detective school for that lot.’
    We talked some more but that was enough of that. Brian’s reaction had punctured my self-absorption. Other people’s problems seem so much simpler than our own. Maybe I had enjoyed playing at detectives with Meece Rooney’s death because I couldn’t begin to understand Scott’s. I had been like a man in a real war who finds relief in playing chess. I had become involved in a case that for me was purely abstract. I didn’t want to be. I had my own worries. What did Meece have to do with me just now? He was Brian and Bob’s problem. It could stay that way.
    â€˜Okay,’ Brian said. ‘Oh, by the way, Bob Lilley says when you’ve stopped taking the fits, we’d love to have you on this case with us.’
    â€˜Aye,’ I said. ‘Tell him if he could take the odd fit, it would be a hopeful sign. It might prove he was alive. Tell him he could live in Madame Tussaud’s and nobody would