Ирвин Уэлш - Dead Men's Trousers

— Yes, I believe so. Easy to verify. There will be phone calls, probably a withdrawal from the NatWest cashpoint at King’s Cross Station, which I visit regularly. And of course, there’s the sandwich bar on Pentonville Road. Tell your colleagues at the Metropolitan Police to ask for Milos. I’m a weel-kent face there, as you like to say back up here, he smiles, starting to enjoy himself. — I always travel by tube, my Oyster card transactions should show a confirming pattern, and of course, my fiancée would be with me… So, what happened to Victor Syme?

— Friend of yours, was he? Bad Cop tugs at his ratty beard.

— I wouldn’t say that.

— You’re on his calls list enough.

— We explored the possibility of doing business together, Simon Williamson declares, voice now set in the authoritative cast of the tetchy businessman having his time wasted by incompetent public servants. — I run a reputable dating agency, and I was talking to him about the possibility of expanding into Edinburgh.

Bad Cop, aware that Williamson is pointedly examining his facial ministrations, lowers his hands. — So you didn’t do business together?

Simon Williamson envisions him having eczema in his genital region and trying in vain to pass it off as an STD in the dressing room of the police football team. It amuses him to think of the flakes of skin nestling in the law enforcement officer’s pubes, sticking with sweat to the face of his wife as she grimly performs fellatio duties. — No.

— Why?

— To be quite frank, Syme’s operation struck me as very low-rent and sleazy, and the girls were obviously common prostitutes – not that I make moral judgements, he adds in haste, — just not what I was looking for as a business model. I’m focusing more on MBAs, the premium market.

Bad Cop says, — You do know that prostitution is illegal?

Williamson looks at Good Cop in faux amazement, then turns to his interrogator, speaking patiently to him as one would a child. — Of course. As I say, we’re an escort agency. Our girls, or partners as we call them, accompany executives to meetings and dinners, they host events and parties. This is the legal framework within which I operate.

— Since when? You’ve had two court appearances for living off immoral earnings.

— One was when I was a very young man, addicted to heroin. My girlfriend and I were extremely desperate, driven by the dictates of that horrible drug. The second one was related to an enterprise I had absolutely nothing to do with –

— The Skylark Hotel in Finsbury Park –

— The Skylark Hotel in Finsbury Park. I happened to be visiting those premises when they were being investigated by the Metropolitan Police vice squad. There was a lazy association and some nonsense, trumped-up charges, which I was proven innocent of. Totally exonerated. That was well over a decade ago.

— So you’re Mr Snow White, Bad Cop scoffs.

Simon Williamson allows himself a highly audible exhalation. — Look, I’m not going to insult your intelligence and claim that sort of thing doesn’t go on, but, as I say, we are an agency selling escort services. Prostitution is nothing to do with us, and if any of our partners get involved in that and we find out about it, they’re off the books straight away.

— Us?

— My fiancée is now a company director.

Good Cop comes in with a complete change of emphasis. — Do you know Daniel Murphy?

To avoid seeming wrong-footed, Simon Williamson attempts to think of the great injustices Spud visited on him; concentrating on his snowdropping of a much loved Fair Isle jersey from the concrete drying greens of the Banana Flats. But all he sees in his mind’s eye is the Oor Wullie smile on a younger Spud, and he feels something in his heart melt. — Yes, and may his soul rest in peace. An old friend.

Bad Cop is back in the chair. — Do you know how he died?

Shaking his head, Williamson composes himself. An expression of genuine grief would be a good reveal, don’t panic. I tried to save him . — Some sort of illness. Danny, God love him, well, he led a very marginal life, I’m afraid.

— Somebody ripped out his kidney. He died from complications resulting from that, Bad Cop snaps. The air in the room seems to lose half of its oxygen.

— I really think I need to wait till my lawyer gets here before answering any more questions, Williamson declares. — I’ve tried to cooperate as a concerned citizen, but –

— You can do that, Bad Cop cuts him off, — but you might find it’s to your advantage to cooperate with us informally if you don’t want to be charged with the murder of Victor Syme, and he takes a photo from the plastic file in front of him, throwing it under Simon Williamson’s nose. He examines the picture in morbid fascination. It shows Syme lying in a pool of blood, which seems to have come from multiple wounds, most of it a gash in his stomach.

Then Bad Cop shows him a closer image, and two maroon bean-shaped things seem to be sticking out the sockets where Syme’s eyes once were. It gives the impression of a comic Photoshopped set-up and Williamson laughs.

— Is this for real?

— Oh, it’s real alright. Those are his kidneys, Bad Cop says.

Williamson lowers the photograph. Feels his hand tremble. Knows Bad Cop has noticed it. — This isnae fucking well on, I know my rights –

— Yes, so you say, Bad Cop mocks. — Okay, come with us.

The officers rise and take him next door into an adjoining anteroom. On one side, through a one-way plate glass, Williamson can see the empty interview room they’ve just vacated. On the other side is an identical room. But there, at the table, sits his brother-in-law, Euan McCorkindale. The disgraced podiatrist seems beyond catatonic; it’s as if he’s been lobotomised.

— He’s basically told us about your part in the removal of Daniel Murphy’s kidney, Good Cop announces in sad compassion. He looks as if he’s genuinely going to burst into tears on Williamson’s behalf.

But Williamson remains composed. — Aw aye, he says disparagingly, — which was?

Good Cop nods in stagy reluctance to Bad Cop, who takes over. — That you removed it, under his supervision, with another man, in unsanitary conditions, at a location in Berlin.

Williamson hits back with a dismissive tirade so contemptuous, the police officers unprofessionally swither between visible anger and embarrassment. — Under his supervision ? Williamson thumbs at the man through the mirror. — Is he on fucking drugs? I’m not qualified to remove a kidney! Wouldn’t even know where to fucking find it! Do I look like a surgeon? Simon Williamson tosses his head back, openly revelling in his performance. Then he looks from one cop to the other, sensing their unease. He says softly, — He’s the doctor, and he points back to the glass again, — that fucking balloon there. So work it out for yourselves.

Good Cop slips back into the driving seat. — He said he was being blackmailed by Victor Syme, over a sex tape, into performing this surgery –

— That I can believe –

— But couldn’t go through with the removal of the kidney. He said that you took it out, assisted by a YouTube video and a man named Michael Forrester –

— Now we’re delving into the realms of fantasy, Williamson snorts.

— Are we, Simon? Are we really? Good Cop pleads.

— Mikey Forrester? YouTube kidney-removal videos? What the fuck are youse boys on? Simon Williamson laughs loudly, shaking his head. — That one will amuse the fuck out of the magistrates when this goes to court!

The cops look at each other. To Williamson they now give off the underlying desperation that they are grown men playing a silly child’s game they can no longer believe in. But then another sudden change of tack blindsides him, as Good Cop’s face takes on a cuntish hue. — Can you explain a deposit of ninety-one thousand pounds in cash into your bank account on the 6th of January?