In a drawer in the kitchen he found where she kept paperwork, electricity and phone bills, a building society passbook, a methadone script that she wouldn’t be using today and a letter from the council saying that communal roof repairs were required. There was also a note from one of the neighbours suggesting that the residents agree on a recently submitted estimate for regular cleaning of the stairs and hallway. Replies were to be submitted to Mrs Grieve (1F1) by Friday.
The small bedroom with its single wardrobe and dressing table yielded nothing but clothes and make-up despite Steven’s hopes being raised at the discovery of a small metal box on top of the wardrobe. When he opened it however, it only contained Christmas and birthday cards. None of them was recent. One read, Sweet Sixteen, and was inscribed, Love and kisses to our very own princess, Mum and Dad. Steven closed the box and reflected on the raw deal that some people ended up with in life. He noted that Tracy’s bed was a single one. The cover had Paddington Bear on it. She obviously hadn’t brought her clients here.
He returned to the kitchen and switched on the electric kettle. He didn’t think Tracy would grudge him a cup of tea. While he waited for it to boil, he stood on a chair to examine the tops of the kitchen cupboards but again without finding anything.
He was beginning to think that maybe Tracy hadn’t kept any ‘insurance’ here after all. It wasn’t the kind of property to boast a wall safe and he couldn’t really see her having lifted floorboards — although he did open the cupboard under the kitchen sink where floorboards were often loose but not in this case. He rinsed the grit off his hands under the tap and dropped a tea bag into a mug before adding some boiling water.
While it infused, he ran through a mental check of all the possible places, room by room, where Tracy might have hidden something. In the bathroom he remembered that he’d overlooked the bath panel so he went back and examined the screws securing the plastic panel to its frame. His interest was aroused when he saw that the heads were bright as if they’d recently come into contact with a screwdriver. He brought out his knife and undid them.
At first he thought there was nothing there when he reached in and swept his hand over the rough floorboards but when he stretched behind the bath, his fingers came up against something in the far left-hand corner, something that moved; a container. When he finally managed to extract it, he found that it was a large, tartan shortbread tin. It carried the maker’s name on it and the legend, ‘Frae Bonnie Scotland’ above the smiling face of a boy in a kilt.
Steven opened it and found three videos inside, along with a notebook and some loose sheets of paper with names and numbers on them. ‘Eureka,’ he murmured, taking the box and its contents through to a flat surface in the kitchen. He had just opened the notebook when he heard men’s voices outside on the landing and a key go into the lock on the front door.
Assuming that McClintock had been forced — probably by Santini — to send officers round, he prepared to greet them. The two thickest men who appeared in the kitchen doorway however, did not strike him as policemen. He didn’t know them but they knew him.
‘ Fuck me,’ said one.
‘ Well, well, well,’ muttered the other. ‘Seems like this bastard didn’t get enough last time… he’s come back for more.’
EIGHTEEN
Steven’s felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as he realised that these two were Verdi’s men, the bouncers from the sauna. His second thought as he saw the shorter of the two bring out a flick knife was that he had left his own knife lying on the bathroom floor. It was only a Swiss army knife but it would have been better than nothing.
Under normal circumstances he would have felt confident about taking on either of the men in front of him. They were the usual schemie hard men, the sort spawned by run-down council estates all over the country, young and heavily built but relying more on attitude than expertise. Watching Clint Eastwood movies didn’t make you Dirty Harry when you came up against those who had trained and fought with the best.
But these weren’t normal circumstances: he was a long way short of being fully fit and still hurting badly from his last encounter. There were two of them and the one with the knife was starting to come towards him.
‘ Verdi says he’s a doctor,’ said the other one.
‘ Is that a fact,’ hissed the knife-holder. ‘Well, ah’m the one who’s goin’ to be doin’ the operatin’ today an’ ah’m gonnae cut this bastard’s balls off.’
Steven’s back was already against one of the work surfaces: there was nowhere left for him to go. He searched with the flat of his hands over the surface, feeling for something he could use as a weapon but his eyes never left the knife in the yob’s hand. The only thing his fingers touched was a jar of marmalade. He snatched it up and raised it threateningly. The yob stopped then grinned, displaying bad teeth as he weighed the blade lightly in his hand and feinted moves to right and left as if daring Steven to try it.
Steven kept threatening to throw the jar until the yob made the mistake he had been hoping for. In anticipation of having to move his head and shoulders quickly to the left or right to avoid the jar, the yob planted both feet firmly on the ground. That was the mistake.
Instead of aiming the jar at his head or body as the yob was expecting, Steven threw the heavy jar down at the man’s feet with all the strength he could muster. It hit him squarely on his right instep before he had time to get out of the way. He screamed out in pain, dropped the knife and started hopping around in a circle, clutching at his foot with both hands. He had barely got out his first intelligible curse when Steven’s right foot swung into his crotch and he let out another scream. He fell to the floor where Steven unleashed yet another kick into the side of his head and the noise stopped abruptly.
It was all over so quickly that the other man seemed mesmerised by what had happened but he recovered in time to snatch up the knife that had spun across the floor in his direction.
‘ Got lucky, ya fucker, did ye?’ he murmured as he stepped over his unconscious companion. ‘Well, ah’ve got news fur ye, pal. Lightnin’s no gonna strike twice in the wan day. You’re a dead man. Ah’m goin tae put yer lights oot just like that silly bitch, Manson.’
‘ So you killed Tracy Manson?’ said Steven, again watching the knife rather than the man.
‘ Whit’s it tae you?’
‘ I’m putting you under arrest for the murder of Tracy Manson,’ said Steven with a calmness that he in no way felt.
‘ A fuckin’ comedian, eh? Just how do ye propose doin’ that?’
‘ Over a cup of tea,’ said Steven. He snatched up the mug of tea from the worktop and threw its contents into the advancing man’s face. The water in it was no longer boiling hot but it was still hot enough to make him yell out in pain. More importantly, it made him drop the knife. Steven kicked him hard in the stomach and he went down like his companion before him. Steven knelt down and whispered in the man’s ear. ‘At Hereford, sonny, we were taught to make our own luck.’
Steven stood up again and looked down at the sorry figure, hands held to his face, knees brought up to his chest like a large, ugly foetus.
‘ Fucking bastard,’ the yob gasped.
Inside Steven’s head a training sergeant from a time long ago yelled at him. ‘This is not a game, Dunbar. When they go down, make sure they stay down!’
Remembering the beating he’d suffered at the hands of these men and the fact that this was the trash who’d murdered Tracy Manson, Steven sent another vicious kick into him, this time into his face. It broke most of his teeth, which scattered across the floor like slimy, red and white buttons. Now, both men lay silent.