PRAISE FOR THE GRACE MACALLAN SERIES
‘A first-rate police procedural by someone who evidently knows what he’s talking about.’
– HANIA ALLEN, author of The Polish Detective
‘Audacious, Ritchie’s street talk sizzles with wit and invention. Cause of Death is engaging, eventful and original.’
– M.P. WRIGHT, author of the JT Ellington series
‘This is a fast, pacy tale that has all the realism and drama of a cracking police unit … This is an amazing start for the author and I can tell it’s going to be a “must have, must read and can’t wait for the next one” series.’
– TRACY SHEPHARD, Postcard Reviews
‘Without a doubt the best crime book I have read in a long while that has true to life police procedural know-ledge and great authenticity.’
– Love Books Group
‘This book is a must-read for any thriller fan! Action- packed, fast-paced and full of twists and turns … This is THE BEST thriller book I have read this year!’
– Orchard Book Club
‘This is a solid start to a new crime series; it kept me gripped from start to end and I look forward to seeing where book two takes DCI Grace Macallan.’
– Have Books, Will Read
‘This has been one of my favourite reads this year, I will be recommending this book to everyone. I really can’t wait to see what comes next.’
– Everywhere and Nowhere
Also by Peter Ritchie
Cause of Death
Shores of Death
First published 2018
by Black & White Publishing Ltd
Nautical House, 104 Commercial Street
Edinburgh EH6 6NF
www.blackandwhitepublishing.com
ISBN: 978 1 78530 199 5 in EPub format
ISBN: 978 1 78530 145 2 in paperback format
Copyright © Peter Ritchie 2018
The right of Peter Ritchie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook compilation by Iolaire, Newtonmore
Contents
Title Page
Acronyms & Jargon
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
Epilogue
Acronyms & Jargon
Bampot
nutter
Bizzies
CID
Brown
heroin
Burd
Scottish spelling of slang ‘bird’ i.e. a young woman/girlfriend
Burning
surveillance being compromised by the target
Cludgie
toilet
Cough
an admission from a suspect
Coupon
face
DS
detective sergeant
Eyeball
the surveillance officer who can actually see the target
Fast black
taxi
Goldie
whisky
Hearts
Heart of Midlothian Football Club
Hee haw
another way of saying ‘fuck all’
Hoops (the)
Celtic Football Club
Huns
Rangers supporters, or Protestants in general
Maze
the prison in Northern Ireland famous for its H-blocks containing legions of paramilitary prisoners from both sides of the conflict
Neds
non-educated delinquents (chavs)
Numpty
an idiot
OD
overdose
OP
observation post
Peelers
police (in Northern Ireland)
PIRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
Plot
the name for an active surveillance operation
Pokey
prison
Possession with intent to supply
dope dealing
Prod
Protestant
PSNI
Police Service of Northern Ireland
Rubber heels (squad)
anti-corruption team
RUC
Royal Ulster Constabulary
SB
Special Branch
Scoobie
idea
Snash
insolence
SOCO
Scenes of Crime Officer
SP
information (taken from starting price in horse racing)
Squeaks
informants
Steamie
where there is widespread gossip; historically, the local wash houses where women would exchange gossip
Suits
CID
Tabs
tablets (illegal)
Taigs
derogatory term for Catholics
Tail-end Charlie
the last car in a surveillance convoy
Tanning
robbing
Technicals
bugs, phone interception etc.
UDA
Ulster Defence Association
UDM
unidentified male
UVF
Ulster Volunteer Force
Weegies
anyone from Glasgow
1
Patrick ‘Bobo’ McCartney was a horrible wee shite, and even his mother said that she should have strangled him at birth. His old man was a professional pisshead and in his cups he often claimed that he was ashamed of his one and only child. To be fair, he couldn’t have worked out that Bobo was nothing to do with him, the boy having been given life against the back wall of a social club in the east end of Glasgow. Bobo’s mother could barely remember anything about the man the next day, other than that he’d told her she was a doll and had bought her enough drink for her to say thank you in the only way she knew how. The ‘accident’ as his mother liked to call him was raised in Easterhouse, though his parents basically gave up on him when he was old enough to walk. His character was formed on the streets with all the other kids whose families had been numbed by a cocktail of deprivation, cheap booze, drugs and boredom. At least Bobo had been left something in his genes that made him a bit harder, a bit more aggressive and slightly less thick than the rest of his gang. The downside was th
at it gave him serious delusions of grandeur.
His team competed in their share of street battles with other gangs, became combat hardened and earned just enough to buy dope cut so much it wouldn’t have put a bedbug under the influence. They got by running the odd packet of gear across the city for the next league up. That’s how it was on the ladder – Bobo’s level, the next level and the next, on up to the lazy bastards at the top who watched all those daft wee fuckers below them take the risks plus the time inside. There would be a form of stability for a time, and then one of the levels would get a bit of energy, decide it was time to move up. This tended to result in an ‘outbreak of gang-related violence’, as the constabulary liked to call it, and then it would all settle down again while the hospitals or the mortuary dealt with the wounded and the dead. Bobo’s team were in their late teens now, restless and wanting to move up a division or two.
They were just back from Celtic Park, where they’d watched the Hoops stuff Motherwell 3–1. They’d screamed at the enemy all through the match, singing songs about Ireland and a history they knew nothing about besides the sectarian slogans they’d been force-fed since birth. They invaded a boozer and calmed themselves on Tennent’s and analysing the game. Bobo wanted to talk some business but let them get a few pints in the blood first before discussing his master plan. It was a fucking beauty, and he was twitching with nerves and a couple of pills he’d slipped at the match with his Diet Coke. Bobo regarded himself as the brains in the team because he read every day, and that made him different. In fact he was obsessed with reading, but there was only one subject that interested him and that was crime and detection. He pored over everything he could get his hands on, and even when he watched the stolen telly in his bedroom it was all CSI or the spin-offs. He’d come to believe that he knew more than the bizzies did about detecting crime. To an extent he was right; where he got it wrong was that the police had to deal with the real world and people like him. Okay, he’d done his share of time in the Young Offenders’, but he’d studied his subject and was confident that barring accidents he knew what the suits at the local pig farm got up to in their investigations. He was ready for anything, and the only way was up – at least in his own mind.
He looked round at the faces making up his team, all dressed in the same designer shite with matching baseball hats and pallid skin decorated with pimples in various stages of development. They were a testament to chain-smoking since primary school and a diet based on fast-food chains. Their chosen mastermind subjects rarely strayed beyond Celtic, hatred of the Rangers, ‘burds’ and the next gang fight – or the last one.
‘Right, boys, I think it’s time we stepped up our game a bit,’ Bobo said. ‘We’ve been fightin’ the same people and shaggin’ the same burds for the last few years, and it’s time to make a move.’ He nodded at his boys. They were interested – pissed but definitely interested. ‘We’re hardly earnin’ enough to keep us in beer money while we take the risks runnin’ messages for the local fuckin’ mafia. Every man at this table is a violent headcase, am I right?’
His team agreed without a smile – he wasn’t fucking joking. They looked at Bobo, careful not to give the wrong response, but he could have proposed mass suicide and they’d still have nodded in agreement.
The youngest and smallest of the team, Danny ‘Danny Boy’ Walker, spoke up. ‘What’s the plan, Bobo? I’m up for it an’ tired o’ gettin’ fucked about for a few notes.’
Bobo smiled and punched the air. ‘Then we’re ready for some action! We need a big score, boys – something that’ll get us up the ladder a bit quicker. If we’re buying dope let’s get a decent deal. We’ll turn over a security van. Well, what I should say is that a van’ll be turned over by half of us’ – he paused for effect – ‘but not by all of us. What I want you to do is find us a grass. Feed him the story that half the boys that are sitting round this table plus me are going to do the Royal Bank in Morningside in Edinburgh. We’ll let the crime-squad guys follow us around for a few days, take a wee run to the capital city and while they’re concentrating on us doing fuck all, the rest of the boys will be tanning the van on the other side of the town. We’ll have a wee laugh at the polis, say fuck all and once it settles down we run down tae Liverpool and fill up on top-quality gear. What do you think, boys – brilliant or very fuckin’ brilliant?’
The boys looked convinced, but then disagreement with Bobo usually meant a punch in the coupon. In fact Danny Boy was definitely unconvinced, but more importantly he was only out and about because he’d agreed to feed the local CID, who’d let him walk after he was found with half an ounce of brown in his filthy little mitt.
A week later Bobo drove his old man’s car along the M8 and smiled as they passed the sign telling them they were in the city of Edinburgh. The car stank of the unwashed, but none of them noticed; they were keyed up for success. Bobo looked in his mirror, wondering which of the lines of traffic behind them were the surveillance team. He was pissed off that Danny Boy had called off with a bad gut.
‘Fuckin’ pussy, that Danny. When I see him he’s gettin’ a punch in the puss.’ Bobo’s answer to almost any problem was to punch it in the puss – man, woman, child, and on one occasion his dog: it didn’t matter.
His mind drifted back to the daft bizzies who’d be lined up somewhere behind them in the heavy traffic. ‘Wait tae ye see the look on their faces. They open the bags expecting some sawn-offs and what do they get, boys? Pork fuckin’ sausages! Fuckin’ lovely! Think they’ll see the irony?’
They all stayed quiet – they hadn’t a scoobie what he meant by irony. They’d fed the information through the biggest grass in the lawn and had made sure they were being followed. Bobo pulled the car up about two hundred yards from the Royal Bank doors and waited.
‘Just keep calm, boys. They might come at us a bit heavy, but we can piss in their faces when they open the bags. A couple of minutes and the boys should hit the van. We’ll get out the car at the same time, and remember to have the bags in your hands.’ Bobo finally noticed the smell of sweat and felt the tension in the car. ‘Steady, boys – it’s a fuckin’ walk in the park.’
Back in Glasgow, Danny Boy sat with his police handler wondering how the fuck he was going to explain the coincidence away. The detective couldn’t give one for Danny’s problem and gave him a half-hearted assurance. ‘Look, it’ll be a few years before the daft cunt sees the light of day again, and you never know – you might have won the lottery by then.’ He laughed at his original line in humour. Danny Boy just sweated.
At the opposite end of Edinburgh the other half of Bobo’s team were parked up in a side street in Portobello; they were tense but ready and knew Bobo had it covered. The security van should pull in to the supermarket dead on 3 p.m. and it would be a quick hit and away. The two sawn-offs should be enough to frighten the crap out of the guards – who wouldn’t give a fuck about their wages – and they’d be on their way. The driver was Bobo’s cousin, and he watched the van pull in slowly and stop.
‘Here we go, boys.’ He said it confidently to dampen the pre-match nerves.
But as they pulled on the balaclavas they realised something was blocking the light.
‘Armed police!’
There was a small army of six footers with very large guns all pointed at the car or, more accurately, the halfwits in the car. The driver was the only one who spoke: ‘Great plan, Bobo. Great fuckin’ plan.’
Bobo looked at his watch and imagined he was in the army. ‘That’s it; let’s give the boys in blue some tasty pork bangers.’ They all snorted in support of their leader and about the same time noticed two people, a man and a woman, walking casually towards the car.
‘They look like bizzies.’ Bobo couldn’t compute. He was waiting for, and expecting, the cavalry to rush them when they got out of the car. These two were bizzies, no doubt about it, but looked like they were going to stroll up to the car and put a fucking ticket on the windscreen.
D
etective Inspector Jimmy McGovern tapped the window and made the international sign for ‘roll down the glass, fucko!’
Bobo still couldn’t work it out but at least knew the job was not going according to plan. He did as he was asked, put on his best supercilious grin, and spoke with that annoying nasal intonation perfected by Glasgow neds. ‘Sorry, Constable, I hope we’re not parked on a double yellow or something.’ He sniggered and the boys joined in with him, but there was a lack of confidence in their synchronised attempt at sneering. Something was wrong – very fucking wrong as far as Bobo was concerned, and he knew these two strangers were about to let him in on their little secret.
McGovern put his face down towards Bobo and gave him a smile that confirmed that somehow or other they were fucked.
‘I’d like to introduce you to Superintendent Grace Macallan. You’ve probably never heard of her, but she’s just about to arrest you and your wee pals. You see that big van pulling in, Bobo – you don’t mind me calling you Bobo? Well there’s six large policemen inside with violent tendencies and guns.’ He waited for Bobo to reply but the boy was stuck for words. ‘You see it?’ Bobo nodded slowly. ‘Well, we’re going to put you in that van and take you to a very cold cell block where you can join the rest of your gang of criminal masterminds. That’s the easy way, but if you decide to take the hard way then we’ll collectively kick the shite out of you right here and now.’