#ChooseThePlot Page 3

  ‘I can root out an Englishman with one sniff.’

  ‘As an Englishwoman I consider that a racist remark. So you know that a Jake, in the common underworld parlance of this great city, is a person who is addicted to class A substances and has a poor quality of life as a consequence. Mr Finnegan has a spectacular history of prosecution for drugs offenses, yet he managed to raise the capital for Glasgow’s most expensive restaurant. Besides, when you’ve interviewed the cuckold, you owe it to them to do the same with the cuckolder.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand –’ Gilmore began.

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’ She pointed at the nearest keyboard. ‘See if you can get your fat little fingers working on that and tell me how many unsolved gun crimes we’ve had this year. It’d be interesting if it turned out that Ian McFarland wasn’t the only one enjoying the privileges of membership.’

  ‘Don’t leave the city without telling us or I’ll be chasing you naked down the street again,’ the DCI had told him, but Ian knew they would be back as soon their other leads failed. He had been conned again, and the possibility of going back to jail, this time for a much longer stretch, was starting to look like a probability. Unless he could find the card.

  The whole thing was a mess. As he walked down Salt-market toward the Clyde, he tried to recall the exact words of the phone call.

  ‘We could kill your wife.’

  An incredulous pause. And then him joking; ‘I think I’ll take you up on that, pal. I feel like strangling her meself.’ And the line going dead.

  The call had unsettled him. He’d have written it off as a prank set up by his army mates if it hadn’t been for the fact that the service being offered chimed uncomfortably with his darkest thoughts. Mandy had ruined his life. He had trusted her implicitly, and she had taken advantage of him. But there was a difference between fantasising and acting out those fantasies.

  The polis had taken his phone and would gain access to the call, but it still didn’t get him off the hook. He knew he should have kept the credit card instead of chucking it into the Clyde, but the damned thing had messed with his head. Now it was all that could prove his innocence.

  He thought about Mandy. She had behaved appallingly, but he would never hurt a woman. What had she done to get herself killed? She’d always had a mouth on her. He’d heard rumours about the boyfriend’s business partner, but he couldn’t afford to get involved. Actually, right now he couldn’t afford anything. He had no job and no savings, and although the flat was temporarily paid for, he didn’t have penny left over for the utilities. He headed back to the Over Easy Diner to pick up his last day’s wages.

  Golden wasn’t her real name, but nobody could pronounce it because she came from Vietnam and, in a moment of spectacular misjudgement, had married a Scotsman. She was the Over Easy’s only waitress, and made good tips from men who felt guilty about making a grab for her.

  ‘Ian, what are you doing back here?’ she hissed as he walked in, looking alarmed.

  ‘Came to collect my pay is all,’ he said, taking a stack of dirty plates and setting them down behind the counter from force of habit.

  ‘Someone’s been looking for you. A man in expensive clothes. Kind of creepy-looking.’ For Golden to think a man was creepy in this neighbourhood, he had to be very unpleasant indeed. ‘You’re not in any trouble, are you?’

  Ian looked at her. She was as beautiful as her name, and the less she got involved, the better. She seemed so innocent that he couldn’t help but worry. ‘Why, did he say something?’

  ‘He wants you to go and see him. He left a card. Hold on.’ Wiping her hands on her apron, she ducked into the kitchen and came back with it.

  Alessandro Ribisi – Glasgow Direct Holdings

  The card was black and silver, and exactly matched the credit card he had been sent. He knew at once it was Ribisi who had set him up, making him trot out a tall tale to incriminate himself. He knew a couple of other things about Ribisi, things his wife had told him: one, that he was a barely functioning crazy on anti-psychotic meds; two, that he was Mafia, down from Inverness and before that, Naples.

  With nothing to lose now, he headed to the address on the card.

  Glasgow Direct was out near the park and the old Shawfield Greyhound Stadium, in an anonymous two-floor 1970s office building that looked like the kind of place contractors pulled down after finding asbestos in the ceilings. He didn’t call first; on this occasion, he decided that the element of surprise would work in his favour.

  Except that it was lunchtime, and Ribisi was out. He wasn’t expected back today.

  Brilliant, he thought. You should get a job as a private detective.

  There was one other place to try.

  ‘Five unsolved deaths this year,’ said DCI Serena Black, tapping at the map on her screen with the end of a breadstick. She was on a diet, and got through boxes of the things. ‘Six deaths if you count McFarland. Makes for quite interesting reading, this. Don’t show it around, they’ll all want to jump aboard.’

  ‘Not if it turns out to be a complete waste of time,’ said Gilmore gloomily.

  ‘A proper bespoke service. An Elimination Bureau.’ Serena scratched the back of her hand thoughtfully. ‘What do you do when you want to set up a new business? Go to where the punters are. You can see the possibilities.’

  ‘Finnegan’s running a goldmine in that restaurant. What would he want to jeopardise something like that for?’

  ‘Who said anything about Finnegan?’ she countered. ‘I’m talking about Ribisi.’

  ‘Okay, even if he’d set up something like this, you’d reckon knocking off his partner’s girlfriend might put a crimp in their business relationship.’

  ‘Not if Finnegan was the client. Find out where they are, will you? It’s time we paid a visit.’

  Although the police had finished with the Water House, it was still closed for business. The gate was locked and a police sign read Closed until further notice. Already, a pile of flyers and newspapers had blown behind the grille across the entrance, giving the darkened building a derelict air.

  Inside, the reservations hotline had been overloaded with unanswered complaints all morning, so Jake had summoned his partner to discuss what to do. He was always wary of meeting up with Alessandro because you could never tell what might happen, but right now he needed the Italian. As he entered the cocktail bar section of the ground floor, he flicked on the battery of lights behind the onyx-tiled serving counter and poured himself a rich Islay malt, leaving the bottle out.

  He didn’t realise that Ribisi had been sitting in the dark behind him, and jumped.

  ‘You shouldn’t be nervous,’ said Ribisi, raising his glass. ‘You should be worried.’

  ‘What about?’ Finnegan asked, waiting for his pulse to return to normal.

  ‘Losing money. Every day this place is shut. Get it open tomorrow.’ Even in the shadows of the lounge, his crocodile smile glowed.

  ‘I have no control over that,’ Finnegan replied.

  ‘You’re going to let some fat housewife tell you when you can open the place?’ Ribisi shook his head, tutting. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

  ‘No,’ said Finnegan, feeling the ever-present acid in his stomach starting to bubble. ‘If you do anything like that, you’re going to start a war.’

  ‘I’m not going to do it, you are.’ He released an explosion of laughter that made Finnegan jump again. Ribisi’s eyes glowed with madness.

  There was a peculiar scraping sound behind them.

  ‘Did you leave the back door open?’ Ribisi asked, slowly rising.

  ‘For you. I didn’t know you were already here,’ said Finnegan.

  Ian walked forward into the light. ‘What did she do?’ he asked. The source of the noise became apparent. He was dragging the 40 inch hand-forged Shirasaya sword that should have been on the wall in the hallway.

  Finnegan stared at him in amazement. Ribisi started laughing.

  ‘Wha
t did she do?’ Ian asked again, cocking his head on one side.

  Finnegan shrugged. ‘You were married to her. You know what she was like.’

  ‘I know that if she’d found out something bad about you, she would have told someone else. What, are you going to kill them as well?’

  ‘That’s the easy part,’ said Ribisi. ‘Expanding our operations base, that’s the hard part. You’ve tried the service, you know it works. I thought you might like to help us.’

  Ian stood there with the sword trailing on the concrete floor, staring at them. ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘We get you off the hook.’

  Ian smiled. It was the first decent job offer he’d had all year.

  ‘Of course, there would have to be a trial period,’ Ribisi continued. ‘You could do something for us, to prove your worth.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘We’ve sent a nice new credit card to the person your wife talked to. As soon as she calls us, she’ll need to be taken care of.’

  Finnegan proffered a glass of whisky, but Ian shook his head. ‘She? Who is it?’

  ‘Your wife had nice nails. The Vietnamese do them better than anyone. There’s a girl everyone calls Golden…’

  It was a step too far. A moment later the sword was hoisted high, and a graceful scarlet arc appeared on one of the walls. There was the sound of something like a football filled with sand thudding to the floor and lolloping across it to a stop…

  DCI Black was too ambitious, Gilmore knew that. She wanted to make a name for herself in Glasgow, and if that involved not calling for back-up in what was obviously an incendiary situation, so be it. The pair were on the threshold of the curtained area leading to the Water House’s cocktail bar when they heard something that sounded like a melon being cut open. Gilmore wanted to haul her back and warn her, but before he could she flicked open the curtain and stepped inside. Gilmore froze, too scared to move.

  As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Serena began to pick out details. ‘Gilmore,’ she called finally. ‘Come in here before you’re put on report.’

  The DI stepped into the room and looked about, dreading what he’d find. Serena helped him out.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘one victim, separated from his head – it’s over there by the ice machine, staring at you – three whisky glasses. You’d better call this in after all.’

  That’s the situation. DCI Black and DI Gilmore have arrived at the Water House club. One of the three inside it has been decapitated. But the Elimination Bureau is to continue its sinister business, and two have got away to carry on its ‘work’ – whatever that is. What did Mandy find out? And can Golden avoid such terrible danger?

  The question for the reader, though, is a simple one – who died?

  If you think DCI Black and DI Gilmore found Jake’s headless body, head to Chapter 2.

  If you think Alessandro has met his bitter end, head to Chapter 5.

  2

  A Hard Offer to Refuse

  James Oswald

  He’d meant to kill him. He really had. Ian had raised the blade of the antique Japanese sword high over his head, ready to swing. Ready to part head from shoulders in a spurt of blood and get revenge for all the wrongs wrought upon him, all the frustration and anger that had been bubbling away in him for years. He’d meant to kill, and yet something stopped him.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Ian felt a grip on his wrist and turned too quickly. A man had appeared out of nowhere, tall, thin, his face surely that of a cadaver lying on the mortuary slab. He wore a black mask that covered only the area around his eyes – like Zorro, or maybe one of those superheroes Ian had read about in comics when he was a kid. One wiry hand wrapped around Ian’s, the other pressed something suspiciously gun-like into the small of his back.

  ‘Who the… Argh!’ Pressure on his wrist sent jabs of pain down Ian’s arm, into his shoulder and neck. He had no choice but to drop the sword. The strange man caught it expertly, swung the steel around with a swishing sound and then pushed him away.

  ‘What the?’ Jake Finnegan took two steps forward, then stopped. Ian had stumbled when pushed, falling to his knees. He looked up to see Finnegan’s expression change from annoyance to surprise. The sound came later, creeping up on him as if his ears hadn’t wanted to let it in. Something like the noise of a boiled egg being expertly opened, only wetter. And louder.

  Blood spilled from Jake’s neck first, then bubbled out through his nose and mouth as his knees buckled. His body fell one way, his head the other, and all the while his eyes stared at Ian, the expression in them unreadable. By the time it hit the floor and rolled away toward the ice machine, the cadaverous man was crouching by Ian, forcing something into his unresponsive hand.

  ‘Police are on their way,’ he said in a voice that was the cawing of crows. ‘Better run.’

  There was something about the words, the way they were spoken with no inflection, no emotion, which fired straight to the fear centres in Ian’s brain. He wasn’t a man easily frightened – he’d done two tours in Afghanistan, and grown up in the Barrowlands for goodness’ sake – and yet it was all he could do to make sure he didn’t wet himself. He scrabbled to his feet, staggering slightly as he avoided the crumpled body leaking dark blood onto the floor. It felt like he was staring down a tunnel, with only the back door behind the bar in focus. Details came in flashes he would only remember later: the black leather of the assassin’s gloves; the staring eyes of Finnegan’s severed head; the weight in his hand that he couldn’t bring himself to look at; the cackling, gleeful, mad laugh of Alessandro Ribisi. He burst out through the fire exit into the narrow alley around the back and doubled over, vomiting into the gutters. There was a car there, familiar from somewhere. He’d been in it recently. That woman, the cop, and her dour-faced sidekick. They were here and Finnegan was dead.

  Instinct kicked in, and Ian ran.

  ‘Well this is a fine mess, isn’t it.’

  DCI Black leaned against the restaurant bar, resisting the urge to touch anything as hordes of forensic experts in white paper overalls swarmed over the crime scene. She wasn’t wearing anything other than the clothes she’d come in with, although Gilmore had donned some overboots. They’d both have to strip and hand over everything to be checked against any evidence found. That’d be fun.

  ‘Depends on your definition of mess.’ Gilmore nodded over towards the prone body of Jake Finnegan, surrounded by its crimson pool of sticky blood. The local pathologist had arrived not long after the crime had been called in, his glee at the horrible murder all too obvious. Now he was kneeling in the blood, peering at the stump of Finnegan’s neck with far too much enthusiasm.

  ‘Fair point. There’s one less scumbag in the world. We’re still going to have to find out who killed him though, even if he was doing us a favour.’ Black pointed at the bar, then to the low table and chairs nearby. ‘And you’re forgetting the glasses. Three of them. I don’t think Finnegan cut his own head off.’

  ‘Chief Inspector. I really think you should have a look at this.’ The pathologist turned towards her, waving her over with blood-smeared hands. His white overalls were covered in the stuff too. Just as well they were disposable.

  ‘Must I?’ Black asked no one in particular, shoving herself away from the bar. Approaching the body was hazardous. The blood might have been the worst thing, but the smell wasn’t exactly appealing either. Something they didn’t teach in cop school was the way a person’s bowels could relax and release even after death. Finnegan had been an absolute turd in life; now he smelled like one too.

  ‘What am I looking at, Doc?’ Black stopped just short of the tide line, leaning out over the rippled crimson sea as she peered at the headless body in its ruined suit. Doctor Flenser, the aptly named city pathologist, regarded her with the look of disappointment he kept for living subjects, then turned his attention back to his beloved corpse.

  ‘The blade connected with the victim’s neck o
n his right hand side, which would suggest the person wielding it was left handed. Lofted it so…’ He pulled his left hand up, a fleck of ichor flying off the tip of his finger and disappearing into the gloomy room. ‘Then brought it down and around thus.’ This time the drips of blood on his fingertips splattered against Finnegan’s neck.

  ‘Not sure there’s many other ways you can chop a man’s head off, really.’ Black hunkered down on her heels, the weight of leaning over not doing her back any favours.

  ‘On the contrary, Chief Inspector. There are hundreds of ways. This one was done with considerable skill though. Perhaps uncanny skill.’

  ‘Uncanny? How?’

  ‘See here?’ The pathologist grabbed Finnegan’s neck in one hand, poked at the red-smeared whiteness of his spinal column with the other. ‘The neck has been severed between the cervical vertebrae, C5 and C6. Whatever weapon was used to cut them was extremely sharp and extremely thin.

  Black thought back to her previous visit to the restaurant. There’d been a set of antique Japanese swords on display near the front desk.

  ‘Katana?’

  ‘Bless you.’

  ‘No, you idiot. Katana. The Japanese fighting sword. Might that have done the job?’

  Doctor Flenser smiled like a man who thinks he’s made a funny joke. ‘I know what a katana is, Chief Inspector. And yes, it’s possible that a fine blade might take a man’s head off in one blow. Perhaps something from the koto or shinto periods. When they made them properly. But it’s not enough to use a perfect blade. Your strike must be perfect too. There’s no chipping to the bones, you see. Not to C6 here, and not to C5 over there.’

  DCI Black followed the pathologist’s blood-smeared pointing finger over to where his assistant was kneeling beside the late Jake Finnegan’s head.

  ‘You’re saying whoever killed him was some kind of Samurai warrior?’

  ‘A left-handed Samurai warrior with almost superhuman skill, and a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life.’

  ‘Marvellous.’ Black levered herself back upright, knees popping in protest as she did so. The room swam in her vision for a moment as the blood ran out of her head. Then she felt a hand on her arm.