The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller) Read online

  Piper shook his head and returned the smile. “Don’t worry, they’re fine,” he said, then focused on my brother. “Mostly.”

  “It’s the mostly that worries me.”

  Piper showed off his perfect white teeth. “Honestly, pet. It’s fine.”

  The woman left the room, but it wasn’t willingly. She kept glancing back at us, biting her bottom lip. Piper shuffled in his seat and coughed, drawing our attention back to him. The smile had been replaced by a low-browed frown.

  “What the fuck are youse two cunts playing at?”

  “Not playing at owt,” I replied.

  “Really? Then whaddaya call that?”

  “Bad timing.”

  Piper rubbed at the five o’clock shadow on his chin. “Which is why I had the lad downstairs. Take it he wandered away from his post?”

  I hitched a thumb at my brother. “Not quite.”

  Piper let out a sigh of exasperation. He knew what I was getting at. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Badly?”

  “Well, he isn’t handsome anymore.”

  Piper white-knuckled the edge of the desk. “Where’s he now?”

  “What makes you think we’ve put him somwehere?”

  “‘Cause if he was where he’s supposed to be, Bethany woulda screamed the fuckin’ place down by now.”

  “He’s in one of the cupboards.”

  Piper looked up at the ceiling and counted down slowly from ten. Then he picked up the phone and said: “Tone, get John, and go into the hallway and open up the storeroom door… ‘Cause Mike’s in there… He’s having a fuckin’ nap is what he’s doing. Whaddaya think? He’s hurt… No, it’s nowt to worry about, just get him to the fuckin’ hospital… Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Just get him to hospital, now.”

  He put the phone down and looked at us long and hard. His fingers bashed out a military tattoo on the desk.

  “You two have no idea how pissed I am at youse, right now.”

  “Sorry about your man,” I replied. “He just got in our way.”

  “Take it he made the mistake of poking him,” he said, pointing at my brother.

  “Iron finger.”

  Piper shook his head in disgust. “Did he offer any resistance at all?”

  My brother smirked. “I’ve seen punching bags offer more fight.”

  “Then fuck him,” he said with finality. “Can’t imagine he’d offer much opposition to Bernie Burgess and his kid when they come back a second time.”

  “Whadda they want?” my brother asked.

  Piper pointed his finger. “You.” He shifted in his seat and pursed his lips in a manner that suggested he’d just eaten something unpleasant. “They came round the other day, promising to cut me in on the reward if I told them where you were. When I told ‘em I hadn’t seen you in yonks, they got all lairy and threatened to tear the pub apart. I let them search the place just to keep ‘em sweet. They’re the reason I was employing Mike.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You should be. Just being in the same room as them creeps me out. I wouldn’t give those two cunts the sweat off me ballsack.”

  I nodded in agreement, but knew things with Piper were always more complicated than how he described them. He was the kind of man who sniffed old cash in order to get aroused; Viagra alone would never do it for him. Money was only thing he understood. Piper probably did despise Bernie and his son, but that was only because they hadn’t offered him enough cash for our heads. Whatever they offered would never be enough. If the reward was high enough Piper would consider betrayal, but Bernie would always be too astute to offer up his entire bounty

  And that’s what it would cost him. Everything.

  Still, I’d have to gauge Piper’s moods carefully, just in case the mood for betrayal took hold. But for the moment he was the only chance we had of getting out of sight for a while.

  Piper leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. “They might’ve been the first to show up,” he said, “but they’re not gonna be the last. If were you, I’d get outta town while I still can.”

  “That’s not gonna happen.”

  He sat back with a smile and drummed the desk again. “Thought not,” he said. “So why’re you here?”

  “We need a favour.”

  Piper stopped drumming. “A favour? After what you’ve just done? Are you shitting me?”

  “You owe us your life, Alan. Now we’re calling in that debt.”

  21. – Stanton

  PIPER LOOKED at us for a few seconds, then sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. He wore his thinking expression, brows knitting together, eyes narrowing to a squint. Middle-age spread and hard living had softened his matinee idol features. Flecks of grey dotted the hairs around his temples. The green eyes still twinkled mischievously, but an unhealthy helping of sun had formed a network of deep lines around them. A smile twisted his mouth, which after a few moments became a grin.

  In the movies, when the hero calls in a favour from the man he once saved it’s always a pivotal moment. The man sits back, looks flabbergasted for a moment and then says to the hero without hesitation: “What do you need?” What the man doesn’t do is break into peals of laughter and slap the desk to stop him from hyperventilating. But that’s what happened to us. When he finally stopped laughing, Piper wiped his eyes and said: “Gotta say, that’s the funniest fuckin’ laugh I’ve had all week.”

  “Wasn’t meant to be funny.”

  “That so?” he said. “‘Cause I really thought Billy Smart had sent in his clowns.”

  “We need a favour.”

  “I gathered that much.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “We saved your life.”

  Piper shrugged. “And that was a long time ago, lads. A lotta shit’s passed over the years. Youse don’t work for me any more. And if I remember correctly, I gave youse a lotta cushy jobs in the aftermath.”

  I leaned forward in my seat, body tense, sweat rolling down my back. “You told us to call you if we ever needed a favour. You told us,” I said, aware that my voice sounded whiny.

  He started scrabbling around on his desk, as if searching for something. He made a real show of it. “Shit. I know I left it around here somewhere. Where the hell is it? I don’t think it’s here.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Piper stopped searching and lifted his head, eyes cold.

  “My give a fuck.”

  “Funny.”

  Piper waved his hand dismissively and snorted. “We all say shite we don’t mean. Hell, I told Bethany that I’ll leave me missus for her. As if that’s ever gonna happen. The girl’s a fuck machine who could deep throat a python, but her brain’s not all that. She thinks the X-Factor and Pop Idol are like some barometer of actual greatness, rather than about how much money that worm-necked cunt Simon Cowell can squeeze outta the public. She thinks Big Brother’s mint, and that Jeremy Kyle’s funny as fuck. I mean, how can I possibly make a relationship with that?”

  My brother glanced at me and said, “Shoulda got a picture, like with Gupta.”

  I smiled briefly, but that was about all I could manage. We hadn’t asked Piper to grant us a favour, he’d done so willingly, and to withdraw it at the last seemed somehow unfair. I thought about beating the shit out of him and torturing my way to his safe combination, but the moment passed. Like it or not, we needed him. I tried to relax and hide my anger, but the tension had stiffened my muscles and made a hunch of my spine.

  “No need to justify your infidelities to us,” I said, grinning. “We understand.”

  Piper’s face darkened. “Play nice, boys,” he said, his tone serious, “and I’ll do likewise. You’ve already battered the fuck outta one of me lads, don’t start taking the piss, too.”

  We locked eyes, neither of us breaking contact, until Piper grinned and clapped his hands together. “However, if you’d let us finish me train of thought, I’da told youse how you did do summat recent
ly that amused me greatly.”

  I relaxed slightly. “Like what?”

  Piper started chuckling. “Like shooting that fat orange prick, Webber, through his fat fuckin’ sausage hand.” In the process of pulling off Rose’s robbery Don Webber had put us in the position where we had no choice but to make an example of him. I responded by shooting him through the hand. He didn’t take it very well.

  I knew why this had amused Piper.

  Webber and Piper were rivals in the loanshark business. Over the years, they’d made it their personal mission to annoy the other as often as possible – sometimes working the same buildings and estates or squeezing the same clients for moolah. This had culminated in a brief war that threatened to become something bigger and more prolonged. It only ended when Bob Owden told both men that they’d be buried together on the Yorkshire Moors if they didn’t settle the argument with a handshake. Nobody knew whether it was fear of Owden or the knowledge that they’d spend eternity sharing a hole in the ground that made them see sense. Whichever it was it worked, although when Owden’s eye wasn’t upon them they still liked to piss each other off, and loved feeding off the other’s misfortune.

  This time it was Piper’s turn to enjoy the warm glow of his rival’s pain.

  “Did he cry?”

  “Webber?”

  “No, the other fat man you shot through the hand. Yes, Webber.”

  “Didn’t cry so much as gurgle.”

  “Gurgle?”

  “Like a big orange baby.”

  Piper chuckled again. “What else?”

  “He pissed his pants,” I lied, before adding some truth. “And then fainted like a girl.”

  Piper threw back his head and cackled, his body rocking violently.

  “He acted tough right until I shot him.”

  Piper’s face turned red as he choked on his hysterics, coughing hard enough to loosen the lining of his lungs. Eventually he settled down and leaned back against the chair, saying: “Mebbe I should send him a card commiserating him on the loss of his wank hand?”

  “He might take that the wrong way, and think you wanna give him some help in that area.”

  Piper grimaced. “Good point. Fuck him.”

  He grabbed a cigar from a desk drawer and snipped it quickly and accurately with a cutter. It was done with the kind of precision you can only get by practicing on the fingers and thumbs of those poor souls who can’t or won’t pay the vig. He lighted the cigar with a personalised Zippo and took a few hefty puffs. A thick shroud of smoke gathered over our heads like storm clouds.

  “Okay, lads, you’ve amused us enough to listen to your favour. An’ if I can grant it I will.”

  “We need a place to stay.”

  Piper nodded. “Firstly, an’ gotta ask this, did youse slice up that little girl the other week?”

  I glared at him.

  He held up his hands. “I had to ask.”

  “In all the time you’ve known us, have we ever hurt a kid, or even a woman for that matter?”

  “No, I’ll grant you that ‘un, like, but there’s always a first time. I’ve got no stomach for people that hurt kiddies,” he said and took another drag of his cigar. “So who did it?”

  “Eddie Miles.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the robbery.”

  “Rose put you up to it?”

  I nodded. “Plus, she told us something personal about Eddie. Something he didn’t want known. Slicing the kid was just collateral.”

  “Some collateral,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “Must’ve been summat bad for him to react like that?”

  “She said he’s hung like a rodent,” my brother answered.

  Piper grinned through the cigar smoke.

  “That’d do it,” he said. “Guess that’s what happens when you hurt a psycho’s pride.”

  “Guess it is,” I replied.

  “So why is Rose blaming youse?”

  “‘Cause we have issues with her. And I set her up for her fall. Had no idea Eddie would also hit the kid, though.”

  “No idea?” Piper said, tapping ash into a fancy glass tray. “I’m surprised by that. I’ve spent enough time in a room with that bloke to know he’s a complete fuckin’ nut job.”

  “Still, there’s nut job, and then there’s that. And for that he’s gonna pay.”

  “Not like youse to get all sentimental about things.”

  “You just don’t slice up kids. Period.”

  I stood up and lifted my polo shirt. A fat, raised white scar made its way from one side of my stomach to the other, just above my navel. Piper stared at it and raised his eyes up to mine. He took another puff of cigar.

  “Broken bottle,” I said. “Dad decided one day that I was to blame for the lack of booze around the house. So he broke one of the empties and decided to have himself some fun at my expense. Sometimes there didn’t even need to be a reason – just too much booze and a bad mood. There’s more on the back in case you fancy a gander?”

  Piper blew smoke into the air. “Jesus!”

  “I know how that girl felt when Eddie cut her. The fear, the pain, the aftermath. I had enough years of it for me to go a little loopy when I hear about people picking on kids. And that cocksucker’s gonna feel some of that fear and pain, too, before we’re done.”

  Piper nodded silently. Then he got out the chair and meandered around the office like a lumbering old steam engine, leaving smoke plumes in his trail. “I gotta place just outside Yarm. Nobody but Bethany knows about it. I’ll put youse up for three nights.”

  “A week?”

  “It’s non-negotiable.”

  “Furry muff.”

  “And consider it me debt paid in full.”

  He took a set of keys out of his pocket and threw them. It was a bad shot, but I leaned in my chair and managed to pluck them out of the air. They were on a fancy metallic key fob with a button on one side and a sensor on the other – an on-off key for a burglar alarm. When I looked up, I noticed Piper smirking.

  “I need somewhere away from the prying eyes of the missus.”

  “Can understand that.”

  “I love the woman, but she’s as sexless as a nun.” Both of these statements were lies and he knew it. Piper’s relationship with his wife was complicated.

  “What does she think of the place in Yarm?”

  “She doesn’t think anything of it. She’s never even seen the keys.”

  “And whaddaya want us to do with the keys when we’ve finished?”

  Piper gave me a million-dollar smile. “Put ‘em through the letterbox,” he said, shaking another set. “I’ve got more where they came from.”

  22. – Owden

  BOB PARKED his car opposite a modern three-storey flat block and turned off the engine. He looked up at the building and tried to remember if he owned the place. The glass fronted balconies and beige brickwork looked familiar, like a development he’d funded a decade ago using a consignment of stolen bricks and the cheapest builders that Eastern Europe could provide. He wasn’t certain if this was the place, or if it was another development over in Grove Hill. Then he remembered that he owned them both, and realised that he should keep better records of all his holdings.

  On the other side of the road was a row of postwar redbrick semis, all in various states of disrepair. Some had missing gates, others were missing roof tiles, a few had no front walls, and there were a couple of houses that had been boarded up with bright green metal covers. It wasn’t the kind of area that dripped with civic pride. Bob stared at a red doored house with a missing front gate and sighed through his nose.

  It had been six years since he’d last seen Albert ‘Frenchy’ Allen. Their association hadn’t ended on good terms. Bob was well aware that the situation was his fault, and that apologies would need to be made if he was to get Frenchy talking. Even then, he knew he’d need more than just kind words, which was why he had stopped at a cash machine along
the way. When in doubt, offer money.

  And if money didn’t seal the deal he could always offer to give him his old job back.

  Frenchy had once worked exclusively for Bob, patching up men who couldn’t go to a regular hospital because their wounds were of the kind that would cause troublesome questions. Gunshots, knife wounds, broken bones, internal bleeding, and all manner of traumas were treated at a small and expensively equipped operating theatre Frenchy managed at the back of a seemingly derelict building that Bob owned on a quiet industrial estate.

  All that changed in the aftermath of the Teesside Building Society job and the nightmare that followed. The robbery itself was as smooth as polished wood; the building society staff did what they were told, opened the safe without complaint, and handed over the money quickly, ensuring that the customers and other staff didn’t find themselves on the receiving end of a bullet. Even the customers behaved themselves: nobody tried to be a hero or alert the authorities. Everything went peachy until the robbers got outside.

  Then it all went to hell.

  The getaway driver had made a big mistake. Instead of parking on a side street near the bank, away from curious eyes, he’d arrogantly parked out front, figuring they would be done and dusted in five minutes.

  He was right about that, but what he hadn’t considered was the fact that he’d parked on double-yellows in a village where people liked to obey the rules. Somebody phoned the authorities and complained. They arrived just as the robbers were fleeing the building. In the chaos that followed, the driver forced the police car off the road and onto a pavement, where it struck a young woman and her child.

  The woman died straight away, but the child hung on for several days.

  The press talked of nothing else for a couple of weeks, which made everybody nervous.

  None more so than Frenchy.

  During the brief chase, the car struck a wall at speed. The impact was hard enough to break the driver’s nose, and for one of the robbers to fracture his arm.

  Frenchy realised who they were immediately, and wasn’t pleased about having to patch up the men responsible for the death of a young mother. Bob told him to shut up and get on with his job. He was being paid for his medical skills, not his sense of decency.