Liam McIlvanney - The Quaker

Luck, though. Luck wasn’t a word you associated with the Quaker case. Nothing about this case had been lucky.

He rose and crossed to the one long wall that was free of shelving. There were maps here with coloured push-pins marking the murder scenes. There were photographs of three women, the familiar before-and-after shots. You couldn’t look from the oblivious smiles to the sprawled bodies without your stomach dropping. Without feeling personally guilty.

He stopped in front of one of the smiles to acknowledge his own share of guilt. He had worked this one, the first one. Jacquilyn Keevins. Down on the South Side. In the spring of last year. A botch job, a case that was jiggered from the first. Mistakes. Dud intel. Sloppy direction. They’d wound the thing up after only two weeks. Then came Ann Ogilvie over in Bridgeton, and Marion Mercer out west in Scotstoun. That’s when they knew for sure they were dealing with a multiple. That’s when the legend started to form, the dark tales and rumours – a whole city in thrall to the arrogant, Bible-quoting strangler that the papers dubbed the Quaker.

And that’s when the Quaker Squad set up shop in the old Marine, the nearest station to the Mercer locus. And this is where they’d been ever since, as the weeks turned into months and the man from the Barrowland Ballroom refused to be caught.

And now, just to add to the fun and games, they had Detective Inspector Duncan McCormack on their backs. On secondment from the Flying Squad, McCormack was tasked with reviewing the Quaker investigation, learning lessons, making recommendations. Everyone knew what this meant. Scale the thing down. Scale it down before we squander more money. Get us all out of the mess we’ve made.

McCormack was turning from the photos on the wall when the telephone rang. A shrill, tinny jangle in the silent room. He looked at the door as though someone might burst in to answer the phone and then gingerly, frowningly, reached for the receiver.

‘Murder Room. McCormack.’

He felt like a butler in a play. Someone playing a part. There was a soft rasping sound, a kind of shadow-laughter, then the moist, masticating clicks of a man preparing to speak. ‘No nearer, are you?’

‘Say it again?’

‘You’re no nearer catching him. After all this time.’

The voice was local, Glasgow. Nicely spoken. Fifties, McCormack decided. Possibly older.

‘Can you tell me your name, sir?’

‘A year you’ve had. More than a year. Some people might view that as careless. Wasteful, even.’

‘Sir, do you have information you’d like to impart?’

‘Impart?’ The soft laugh. ‘I’ll impart all right, son. I’ll impart the name of the man who did it. How’s that?’

‘On you go, then.’

‘Michael Ferris. Michael Ferris is the bastard you want. F-E-R-R-I-S, 12 Dollar Terrace, Maryhill. Are you writing this down?’

‘Thank you for your help.’

McCormack put the phone down and turned to see a shape in the doorway, broad shoulders blocking the light. Big shaggy head of blond hair. Goldie was the detective’s name. McCormack had pegged him early as a loudmouth. Blowhard. Also, he thought he knew the guy from somewhere.

‘Christ, mate. I never heard you come in.’

Goldie rocked on his heels. ‘Michael Ferris?’

‘How did you know?’

Goldie shrugged. ‘It’s the same nutjob. Phones every three or four days.’

‘Right.’ McCormack nodded. He smiled his crooked smile. ‘Look, I don’t think we’ve met properly. I’m Duncan McCormack.’

‘You think we don’t know your name?’ Goldie didn’t appear to see the proffered hand. ‘You think we don’t know who you are?’

‘Should I take that as a compliment?’

‘Well, it’s the closest you’re gonnae get in this room, buddy.’

‘Fair enough. It’s fucked up, this whole situation. I get it. But look, mate. We all want the same thing here.’

‘Really?’ Goldie chewed his lip. His fists were plunged in the pockets of his raincoat and he spread his arms. ‘You want to get on with catching bad guys? Like, you know, proper police work? Because I thought you wanted something else.’

You could rise to it, McCormack thought. Or you could take a breath, see the job through, write your report and be done with this shit. File this fucker’s face for future reference. Make sure he gets what’s coming at some point down the line.

‘I want what we all want.’

‘Right. My mistake,’ Goldie was saying. ‘I thought you were here to grass us up. Do your wee spy number.’

McCormack smiled tightly. Do you know James Kane? he wanted to ask. James Arthur Kane, the man who ran Dennistoun for John McGlashan? The man who just landed a twelve-stretch at Peterhead? That James Kane? I put him away. I did the police work that nailed him. He’s the fourth of McGlashan’s boys that I’ve nailed in the past year, while you’ve been shuffling your lardy arse in this shitty room. Filing papers. Sticking pins in a corkboard.

But he said nothing and now Goldie was smiling. ‘You don’t even know, do you?’

McCormack tried to keep the tightness out of his voice. ‘Don’t know what, Detective?’

‘Where you know me from? Jesus Christ. We worked the first one together. Jacquilyn Keevins.’

‘Right. Right. Of course.’

It was true. That’s where he’d seen him. How had he missed it? McCormack cursed his own stupidity. It was as if one lapse of memory proved Goldie’s point – there was only one detective present.

Goldie jabbed himself in the chest with a stubby finger. ‘And I’m still working it. Me and the others. What are you doing?’

‘I’m doing my job, Detective. Police work. Same as you are.’

‘Naw, Inspector. Naw.’ Goldie’s teeth were bared in a sneer, eyes bright with scorn above the bunched cheeks. ‘Naw. See, you cannae be the brass’s nark and do good police work. Know why? Because good police work doesnae get done on its own. You need your neighbours to help you. And who’s gonnae help you after this?’

He was using ‘neighbours’ in the special polis sense, meaning your partners, the guys you shared a station with. McCormack watched as Goldie tugged his cigarettes and lighter from his raincoat pocket, tossed them on the desk. Goldie was whistling under his breath and fuck this, McCormack decided, enough was enough.

‘You know a guy called James Kane?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Goldie was hanging his raincoat on the hat-rack. ‘You put one of Glash’s soldiers away. And that gets you a pass? Maybe in your book. In mine, you need to turn up every day. Be a polis. Earn it all again.’

McCormack shook his head. Be a polis. The fuck would you know about that? McCormack had his finger raised to jab it at Goldie when he heard the smart rap of heels in the corridor.

‘What’s the score here?’ The boss, DCI George Cochrane, was on the threshold, tall and thin and oddly boyish in his belted gabardine. He read the battle stance of Goldie and McCormack. ‘The hell’s going on, DS Goldie?’

‘Friendly discussion, sir.’ Goldie smiled, still looking at McCormack. ‘We’re all friends here.’

‘Fine. Let’s keep it that way.’ Cochrane bustled through to his own office, spreading the cherry scent of pipe tobacco. At the ribbed glass door he paused. ‘And Goldie? We’ll be doing some parades with Nancy Scullion over the coming week. Drop by her flat this evening, would you? Check what times she’ll be free.’

‘Sir.’

Goldie took his seat. McCormack crossed to one of the big sash windows, unsnibbed it, hooked his fingers in the metal lifts and tugged it open. The smell of the river came in on the breeze; the Clyde met the Kelvin just south of the office. He thought about Nancy Scullion. He’d heard the name a lot around the office. If the Murder Room was a cult, its High Priestess, the Delphic Oracle of the Marine Police Station, was Nancy Scullion. Sister of the third victim, she had spent the evening of 25 January in Barrowland Ballroom with her sister and the killer. He sat between them in the taxi on the way back to Scotstoun, where the sisters lived just a few streets apart. Nancy was drunk, blootered, smashed on gin and Babycham, but she’d heard him banging on about caravan holidays in Irvine, growing up in a foster home, getting verses of the Bible off by heart.