The Bullet Trick

'Interesting?'

'It confirms what Mr Banks said. No job, no prospects, but reading between the lines I’d say you know your way around.'

'Only because I’ve been around for a long time.'

'Long enough to give a girl a guided tour?'

It was the kind of offer that only comes once or twice in a lifetime. She smiled and I saw how even her teeth were. A lot of book balancing had gone into making that perfect smile. I lifted the file, looked at my own grinning face clipped to the right-hand corner, slid the photo from the folder and put it in my pocket. If I ever came back to the office I’d replace it with one that looked like me.

I said, 'There’s a tour bus leaves Marble Arch every half-hour, I’ve heard they give a good commentary.'

And went out into the sunshine.

Back out in the street my phone beeped. I flipped it open and read the new text.

Gt yr arse up2 Glesga by 25 June you’ve got a wedding 2go2 — Johnny I texted back A OK and replaced the phone in my pocket. I wasn’t the best man but that was all right, when was I ever?

I caught the underground to Tottenham Court Road then walked into Soho. I was making a new life. That meant no avoided streets and no-go areas, and that meant facing up to the past.

Maybe I was half aware of the clatter of high heels and the scream of giggles gaining on me from behind as I approached my destination. But if I thought about it at all I probably imagined it was the sound of a couple of teenage shop-girls released from the prison of their counters and making the most of their lunch hour. Then someone hooked my left arm in theirs and an instant later a second person put an arm around my shoulder, hugging me into a squeeze. I jarred to a halt.

Shaz giggled.

'Remember us?'

It was a moment before I regained enough breath to reply.

'How could I forget?'

Jacque looked at me.

'Did we give you a fright?'

'Maybe a wee bit.'

The girls laughed. Jacque’s hair was cut short and streaked three different shades of blonde. Shaz’s dark curls were perhaps a trifle longer. But otherwise the Divines looked unchanged from when I’d seen them last, except of course that they had their clothes on.

'You’re both looking great.'

They chimed thanks. Nobody complimented me on my weight loss, but perhaps they hadn’t noticed.

Jacque let go of my arm.

'That was one weird night wasn’t it? You know Bill was shot?'

'Yeah, I heard.'

'Lucky we were well clear by that time.' Shaz shook her head. 'He always was an oddball.'

'Was he?'

'Oh for sure, way out in cuckoo land.'

Jacque giggled.

'He was off the cuckoo map.'

Shaz joined in.

'Way out in the cuckoo sea.'

'Without a cuckoo paddle.'

I broke in before they could stretch the fantasy further.

'It’s good to see you looking so well…'

Shaz cut me off.

'Ah no, you don’t escape us so easily.'

She caught hold of my left arm again and her girlfriend took my right.

'Come and have a drink.'

'I was heading somewhere.'

Jacque nipped my wrist.

'A couple of exotic dancers not good enough for you anymore?'

'It’s not that …'

'What then?'

I wanted to say I couldn’t be trusted around women, but the explanation would be too long and too strange so instead I smiled and said, 'OK, where do you fancy?'

Jacque giggled.

'That’s why we came chasing after you. There’s something you’ve got to see.'

Shaz looked at her watch.

'And if we’re quick we’ll just be in time.'

After Montgomery’s arrest I had expected to find myself back in the cells en route for extradition to a German jail, but Sylvie’s name was never mentioned. Eventually, during one of the long debriefing and drinking sessions that took place between Blunt and me, where some of the liberties we’d taken were edited out of our recollections, I steeled myself and said, 'Montgomery threatened my mother.'

'The guy was desperate and ruthless, not a good combination.'

'It got him pretty far up the police ranks.'

Blunt gave me a look.

'It doesn’t matter what line you’re in, the bosses generally feature a couple of successful psychopaths.'

'Is that right?'

He nodded.

'Makes sense when you think about it, explains why all bosses are cunts.'

I nodded and took a sip of my beer.

'He also threatened a lassie I was friendly with in Berlin. I wondered if he mentioned her?'

'Nah, he’s not going to drop himself in it is he? Was it nasty?'

I thought back to our encounter in the pub beneath the railway arches.

'He said, 'I know all about your little German girlfriend.''

'Typical con talk. He knew you had a girlfriend so he threatens her as a matter of course. Maybe he knows where she lives or works, maybe not. But he brings her up and you go into a panic. It’s an old trick.'

'I thought …'

'What?'

'I guess I didn’t think. I just reacted.'

Blunt snorted.

'Aye well, some women have that effect. Make you imagine all sorts of daft things.'

I’d nodded and downed the rest of my pint.

The trial filled the papers for weeks. Montgomery had admitted to helping dispose of Gloria Noon’s body, but still maintained her death had been an accident. Gloria and he had been having an affair for six months before Bill Noon had got wise and made a point of coming home early. Montgomery stuck to his story, maintaining that Noon had caught them together and Gloria had fallen down the stairs in the ensuing argument, hitting a fatal blow to her head. He’d panicked and he and Bill had disposed of the body, pooling their gangster/police expertise to ensure Gloria would never be found. It was their shared experience of crimes and villains that decided them to take the photograph as insurance.

Montgomery described their controlled fear, how he and Bill senior had become uneasy allies and hatched a plan, waited till dark then driven through the night before slipping Gloria’s weighted body into the country park lake. Then they’d kept on driving, forced to stick together until the shops opened and they were able to lodge the film in a distant quick-developing chemist’s. He and Bill had sat together in silence, deep beneath the earth in an underground car park, until the prints were ready. Then they’d taken a copy each and burnt the negative together.

The bond between them had been formed that night. Maybe it was a union forged in blood and taboo, or maybe they were simply greedy men who each found an ally on the other side. Because after that evening neither man seemed able to leave the other quite alone, and the jury heard how many of Bill senior’s scams and undertakings had benefited from Montgomery’s influence.

There was no one left to dispute Montgomery’s story. He admitted a lot in the hope that a show of honesty and contrition would validate his denial of involvement in Gloria’s death.

But the Crown charged him with murder and the jury agreed.

The evidence regarding Bill and Sam’s deaths was inconclusive. Montgomery was right, the scene had been a forensic man’s wet dream and now that they knew to look, his fingerprints and DNA were all over the place. But Montgomery had never denied being in Bill’s office when the shots were fired, though he vehemently refuted pulling the trigger. At the very least, he had watched the two men die and made no attempt to call for help. That was enough to convince the jury of his ruthlessness and he was found guilty on two more counts of murder, though Eilidh thought Montgomery’s defence might succeed in getting them overturned on appeal.

Whatever the truth, James Montgomery was going away for a very long time to a place where policemen were welcomed with a special kind of glee. There would be no family visits and no one waiting for him if he ever came out. It was justice of a sort, but I kept thinking of his fading wife and wondering if she could ever reconcile the price paid for discovering her sister’s fate.