The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy) by Malcolm Mackay Read Free Book Online

money, but not yet so big that he can’t be brought down. It’s someone credible. Someone credible enough to persuade Peter
Jamieson that immediate action must be taken. It’s worth the drastic option.
    He’s run out of things to do with his day, so Winter goes home. He doesn’t look like a man excited by his new business opportunity. He looks as though it’s all weighing him
down, like he isn’t convinced by any of it. Maybe he isn’t yet convinced of the potential rewards. Maybe he isn’t willing to believe that any of it is true, until nothing can
possibly go wrong. With his many failures behind him, that seems more likely. Understandably cautious. He goes home and disappears inside. Calum settles down outside, hoping to see the couple leave
the house in a couple of hours’ time. Please go out. Go get drunk. Make it a nightly occurrence. Be the kind of people who can only find fun in alcohol. That guarantees an easy hit.
    They don’t let him down. A taxi arrives at the house, later than the evening before. They come out of the house, both looking a little flustered. It looks like they’ve had a
disagreement. It looks as though the night out is a last-minute arrangement. Calum suspects it was Cope’s idea. Winter looks miserable. Same routine as the night before. He locks the door,
then hotfoots it down the path to open the taxi door for his woman. They both get in, the taxi drives away. Calum waits a few seconds, then follows at a distance. Same as the night before. Into the
city centre. The taxi drops them outside a nightclub, a different one from the night before. Not impossible to park nearby, but Calum decides not to bother. He goes back to the house to wait for
them.
    He’s hoping they’ll be alone. He taps the top of the steering wheel, thinking. What sort of party did they have at the house the night before with the young couple they brought back.
Sexual? Easy to control the situation if they all have their pants down. They were all so drunk the night before it’s hard to imagine such a sexual adventure being anything other than a
chaotic mess. Possible, though. People try all sorts of stupid things when they’re drunk. Drugs? Not likely. Maybe Cope, maybe the young couple, but there’s no word of Winter using his
own product. He wouldn’t have survived so long if he did. Most dealers that have a brain don’t touch what they sell. If you fall into the trap you lay for others, then you’re
going to fail. Alcohol is quite enough anyway.
    The taxi pulls up outside the house. Calum glances at the clock on the dashboard: twenty past midnight. Earlier than the night before. The taxi doors open, both Winter and Cope get out. Nobody
else. The doors close, the taxi drives away. The couple make their way up the garden path towards the door. She has her coat off. She looks attractive; it’s easy to see why her claws always
catch someone. There’s no laughter this night. Alone, they don’t make each other laugh; it takes others to introduce that into their relationship. They’re drunk, but not to the
extent of the night before. A shorter night, less drinking. Winter’s able to get the key out of his pocket easily enough, get it into the lock at the first thrust. They disappear into the
house. The downstairs lights are on for about ten minutes. Then an upstairs light. One of them has gone up, the other is still downstairs. The downstairs light goes off ten minutes later, then the
upstairs light goes off as well. This is a quiet night for them. Calum goes home.

11
    George Daly waits for the man to get back up. Rob something, that’s the other man’s name. Robert. He can’t remember the surname. Doesn’t matter.
    ‘You think it’s okay just to take money and not pay it back, Robert, is that it?’ George asks him. Keep voice calm, slow movements.
    When he had started doing this sort of work for Peter Jamieson he had tended to do what all newcomers do. You get excited. You let the