The Skin Game - 03 Read online

  "This is what my father found in the ruins of that French town."

  He handed me a belt, made of thick, coarse black hair. It felt dry and dusty in my hands. It had a buckle attached, silver clasps, cunningly wrought as wolf heads. The clasps linked together at the wolf's jaws.

  I examined it from all angles.

  "So what? What's the big deal?"

  Once more he poured himself a large whisky before answering. "It's a Lougrou belt. It allowed the French medieval sorcerer who fashioned it to turn himself into a werewolf."

  I almost knocked my whisky over...but I wasn't that astonished.

  He continued before I got a chance to question him.

  "The Nazis found it. They were just smart enough to know what it was...and just stupid enough to use it."

  "You mean these beasts your father writes about were werewolves?"

  He nodded.

  "The belt turns the sorcerer into some kind of Uber-wolf, a pack leader."

  "And the pack? Where do they come from?"

  "My father didn't know. But he suspected Black Magic."

  I watched him closely, but he kept a straight face.

  It was time for my token cynicism.

  "I'm sorry...I'm having trouble with that," I said.

  "What? With the cases you've been getting recently?" He gave me the shark's smile again. "You didn't think I chose you at random, did you? You've got form in this area."

  I put the belt on the arm of my chair and took my cigarettes from my pocket. I poured myself a large whisky and sat back down.

  "Word certainly gets around," I said. "But I thought it was only among the lower ranks."

  He laughed.

  "In this town, a lot of words get around. At all ranks."

  "So what exactly is it you want me to do?" I said, trying to look like I knew what I was doing.

  Collins rose.

  "Stay here tonight...protect the belt and see that nothing happens. And tomorrow, you can find out what you can about this Dubh Sithe."

  He lifted the hair belt and turned towards the cases.

  I flicked on my lighter. I bent my head to light a cigarette.

  The flame spluttered and flickered as a wind came, seemingly out of nowhere.

  Lord Collins turned back towards me...just as something took hold of him. He shuddered, shaking, as if an electric jolt ran through him.

  The belt fell to the floor...hitting it just a second before Collins' dead body.

  I got out of the chair, planning to head for Collins, although his dead eyes told me I was already too late. I bent down anyway...and the belt started to move away from me across the floor, moving in a series of small jerks.

  I reached out and grabbed it. I felt some resistance at first, then suddenly I lost balance and fell over backwards.

  Jock Clarke came running into the room. He took one look at the Lord on the floor, eyes bulging, and then stared at me, as I got up.

  He turned and ran.

  The alarm started ringing even as I pushed myself to my feet.

  I ran out of the house and onto the pavement.

  I still had the belt in my hand.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Twa Dugs

  I couldn't go home. The watchman would already be telling the cops how I murdered his employer. And I wouldn't be able to wriggle out easily this time. There was an eye-witness, my prints all over the scene...and I'd absconded with an antique.

  Even as I thought of it, the belt squirmed in my hand like a small, restless snake. I shoved it deep into my trouser pocket, and had to hold it there as the squirming got more violent, more insistent.

  It was a full minute before the belt became still, once more just a piece of plaited hair.

  Looks like we're back in the Twilight Zone, Derek.

  My only hope was to find the real killer.

  Yep...all you've got to do is find an invisible man.

  I pushed the thought away.

  The urge to run was growing in me. I had plenty of fifties in my pocket...enough to get me a long way away. But I had nobody to run to, no home to take me in.

  Besides, all I had to ask myself was one question.

  What would Bogey do?

  And there was only one answer to that.

  *****

  But first things first. I walked briskly along the road until I reached a phone box. A call to Partick CID got me in touch with Betty.

  She wasn't pleased to hear from me.

  "Where the hell have you been?" she said in a whispered shout. "I've been phoning you all week."

  If truth be told, I'd been purposefully avoiding her. Having a copper as a girlfriend had seemed a good idea at the time, but my custom had fallen off, and I'd heard whispers on the grapevine that I was a kept man.

  Talk like that wasn't good for my image.

  But now I was going to need all the help I could get.

  "Sweetheart," I started, but that was as far as I got.

  "Don't you sweetheart me," she said. "You don't get to call me that. Tonight I'm nobody's sweetheart. I've got a good mind to..."

  "Betty...could you just shut the fuck up for a second? This is important."

  Finally I had her attention.

  "I'm in trouble," I said.

  "Tell me something I don't know," she said.

  "No. Real trouble," I said. "Just remember, when they ask, it wasn't me."

  "When who asks?" she said. "Derek? Who's going to ask...?"

  That was all I heard. As I put the phone back on its cradle, the belt moved in my pocket again, but it stopped when I gripped it, hard.

  Unfortunately, it meant that I was clutching at my groin as I turned and left the phone booth.

  A little old lady hit me with her umbrella. Hard.

  "Pervert!" she shouted. "Filthy, disgusting pervert!"

  A policeman further down the street started to pay attention.

  "Sorry," I said. "I wasn't..."

  She hit me again.

  "My taxes pay for those phone booths. I don't pay for you to have a wank in it!"

  I'm ashamed to say I couldn't stop myself from laughing as I ran off down the road to the taxi rank at the bottom of the hill.

  *****

  Three taxis sat idling at the rank, and I took the first one, getting in the back and sitting in the far corner so the driver wouldn't be able to see my face in his rear-view mirror.

  "Central Station pleez," I said in an outrageous French accent. "I 'av to catch a train in 'alf an 'our. Eet ees verry importaunt."

  The driver sucked his teeth.

  "That's a long haul, away over the other side of town," he said. "I was just away to get my tea."

  A police car entered the street a hundred yards away.

  I leaned forward and showed him a fifty.

  "Ees this ample?" I said.

  "Oh aye, guvnor," he said. "Nae bother. It's always a pleasure to help our foreign pals."

  He pulled away, and the police car slowed. My heart leapt in my throat, but the police pulled to one side and let us past.

  I'd made it clear...for now, anyway.

  "Have you been in town long, guvnor?" the cabbie asked.

  "Ah aam zo zorrry," I said. "I not speak ze English much."

  "That's all right, guv," he said. "You're in Scotland now, the Auld Alliance and all that happy shit. We don't speak English all that well, either. Just sit back. I'll have you at the station in no time."

  I sat back in the corner again and, for the first time in twenty minutes, began to relax enough to start thinking properly.

  I was in trouble. What I needed was an alibi. I needed to build a cover story, and I needed to do it fast. I knew the cops in this town. They'd be all over this case in minutes...and I didn't have a monopoly on the information that flowed in and out of the bars.

  I tried to think, but all that came to mind was the image of the Lord's dead, staring eyes looking up at me. I leaned back, closed my eyes, but in the movie playin
g behind my eyelids, Collins moved towards me. I snapped my eyes open, lit a cigarette and stared at the blackness beyond the car window, trying for calm.

  *****

  The cab driver drove like a demon. I could have asked him to slow, but I didn't trust that dodgy French accent over any length of time. I squeezed myself tight in the corner and gripped the overhead hand support so hard that my palm ached.

  "You're a French gentleman, then," the cabbie said as we approached the Town Centre.

  I didn't reply.

  "I only ask because of the accent," he said. "I had that Sacha Distel in the cab once. Do you know him?"

  I grunted in reply to stop myself laughing.

  "A nice polite gentleman," he carried on. "And a good tipper. Not that I'm wangling for a tip from you, sir. No, fifty pounds will come in very handy. It's the youngest bairn's birthday next week, and he wants a skateboard. When I was his age I..."

  I tuned him out. Cabbies don't expect to be listened to anyway.

  We sped into the town centre. Our progress was halted only by a queue of traffic at the off-ramp of the M8 motorway.

  "Bloody old women," the driver said.

  He waved his hand at the queue ahead of us crawling down to the off-ramp. "Do you know what this is? This is the bingo queue. Would you believe it? There's three hundred old women heading down here every night, driving for miles, just for the chance to win a few bob. Have you ever been to a bingo hall? No, I suppose over in your place they've got casinos and flash croupiers and hostesses with big tits and gold lame dresses? Over here we get modified picture houses, sweaty Betty the bike of Ballochmyle and a wee baldy man who thinks it's funny to flirt with women twice his age. If I had my way I'd..."

  I tried to tune him out again, but it was getting harder. I was almost on the point of getting out and walking when the traffic finally started to move.

  "About bloody time, too," the driver said. He slipped down the outside on the hard shoulder the first chance he got and jumped out onto the main road only six inches in front of a bus. The driver flashed his lights at us, but in ten seconds he was no more than just another light in the distance.

  Ten minutes later we screeched to a halt outside the Central Railway Station.

  I got out of the car and stood at the driver's window, making sure I kept my face out of his sight. I passed him the fifty, and it disappeared into his wallet before he spoke.

  "You're all right, Mr. Adams. Nobody followed us. I was checking," he said. He put his head out of the window and smiled at me, a grin that showed the gaps in his teeth. It was only then that I realized I knew him...his name was John, or maybe Jim...and he was a regular in the Byres Road bars.

  "You knew it was me all the time?"

  "Oh, aye," he said. "Here's a wee tip for you, Mr. Adams. If you're going to travel incognito, you need to disguise your walk. There's only one man in these parts that walks like John Wayne, and everybody knows it. Auld Willie in the Halt told us it was because you had piles from sitting on the fence all the time."

  I had to laugh.

  "If I catch up with the old man, it'll be him that's walking funny. John Wayne? I didn't know."

  "You never do. The missus used to tell me I looked like a film star. There I was imagining myself as Clint Eastwood or Michael Douglas. It was years before she told me she meant King Kong."

  We both laughed at that one.

  "And what was all that about Sacha Distel?"

  "Well it was either him or Jean Van Der Velde, and I didn't think you'd know the golfer," he said.

  "You'd have been right about that."

  "What now?" he said. "I can take you back the long way round, no extra charge?"

  I thought about it for a while.

  "No. It'll be best if I get myself seen up here," I said. "I need an alibi."

  "Well, if anybody asks me, I took a Frenchman to the airport," he said.

  "I owe you a beer," I said.

  "Make it two and I won't tell anybody who he walked like," he laughed again.

  I didn't get a chance of a comeback line. He was off and away into the night. The last I saw of him he went through a red light, accelerating.

  *****

  A row of cabs sat, engines idling, at the rank on the corner.

  "The Barrowlands," I said to the first man.

  "That's not much of a fare, is it?" he said. "It's less than a mile."

  "I'll make it worth your while," I said. I showed him a ten pound note. "You can keep the change."

  He was right. The journey was over almost before it started.

  "I need a receipt," I said. "And I need the time on it to say six-thirty."

  He never even blinked.

  "Righty-ho, sir," he said.

  Ten seconds later he dropped me off at the East End of Argyll Street. I pocketed the receipt and headed into town.

  *****

  I walked along the quiet street. The shoppers had long since gone, and the real drinkers were all inside the pubs by now. All that was left on the streets were teenagers with nothing better to do and students on their way to the pub.

  I spent a while looking for a newsagent or tobacconist. Only the big supermarket at the east-end was open. I went in, and set about building my alibi.

  I stood in the entrance to the store, pretending to check my pockets. I made sure I was in a well-lit spot, and made a point of looking straight at the CCTV camera...I only hoped today was one of the days they put a tape in.

  I wandered the aisles for a while, always stopping where a camera might be watching. After a while I drew the attention of a store detective.

  "Can I help you, sir?" he said. He had one of those officious little voices that I hated immediately. In another life he'd have made a perfect traffic warden.

  "I hope not," I said. "I'm looking for a woman."

  "Maybe I can help you, sir," he said, but from his tone it was obvious that help was the last thing he would offer me. "What does this woman look like?"

  "Oh, I don't know," I said. "Five-five, blonde, tits like Monroe, legs like Elle McPherson and the IQ of a gnat would be a start."

  I didn't even get a smile.

  "If sir would like to leave, we won't make a fuss," he said, taking my arm in a tight grip.

  I slipped away from him easily.

  "You mean this isn't singles night? I saw it on the telly. Some kind of special offer, wasn't it? Come to the store on a Monday night and meet the woman or man of your dreams, it said. Well, here I am. Bring her on."

  "It's not Monday, sir, and even if it was, I doubt we'd find anyone willing to take you."

  He tried to take my arm again.

  "I appreciate the offer," I said, "but you're not my type. Just show me where all the women are and I won't tell anybody."

  He went red.

  "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave."

  "And I'm afraid I'll have to go," I said. "I could have this shop under the Trades Descriptions Act, promising women and putting up homosexuals instead."

  "I'm not homosexual," he spluttered.

  I patted his arm and walked away.

  "Just keep telling yourself that. I'm sure you'll do fine."

  *****

  The second person I spoke to was the teenage girl behind the counter at the cigarette section. I asked for two packs of Camels, which was enough in itself to get me remembered as they're seen as an exotic brand in Scotland. Then I set about making myself memorable.

  "It's a tremendous place, isn't it?"

  She gave up chewing gum long enough to look at me. "What?"

  "Whatever happened to grace and good manners?" I said.

  "What?" she said again.

  "Ah. I see I'm in the company of one of the world's great conversationalists," I said. "I was merely saying that the public library in town here is a tremendous place. I've been up there all day."

  I spoke deliberately loudly, so that anyone else in earshot would be bound to hear me.

 
"It's full of books, you know?" I said. By now the girl was convinced I was a madman, and was looking around for help.

  She passed me the Camels quickly, as if I might be contagious, and I've never seen anyone make change faster than she did. She didn't bother counting it back to me, merely dropped it into my palm and looked away fast, hoping there would be another customer waiting.

  Unfortunately, luck wasn't on her side. She was stuck with me for a bit longer.

  "Do you ever visit the library yourself?" I asked. "You should you know. It's very educational."

  She looked around to make sure nobody was looking.

  "Listen, you pervert. You've got your fags. Now eff off or I'll call security."

  An old lady turned up at the far end of the counter, and the assistant scuttled away along the counter.

  "Okay, then. I'll be off," I shouted. "Don't forget what I told you about the library."

  "Is this man bothering you, hen?" the old woman said.

  "No," she said, but she didn't look at me. She would remember me, though, and I smiled as I left the store and lit up a Camel. I made sure I put the receipt in my wallet, finished off the cigarette, and headed to the nearest fish and chip shop.

  *****

  The West Coast of Scotland is generally thought to be the worst place in terms of diet, with huge swathes of the population falling to early death due to clogged arteries and congested hearts. Judging by the queue at the chip shop, the denizens of Glasgow were vying for the top honor. The line of people stretched for nearly twenty yards. I considered walking on, but my stomach rebelled at that. I latched on to the end and we inched forward slowly.

  A busker entertained the head of the queue...if you could call the noise coming from his harmonica entertainment. He was small, slightly portly, aged around fifty, with one of those noses you see on people that drink too much too often. His hair, combed over a bald patch, flew in the wind for six inches above his ear, but he didn't notice. The effort of playing the tune had got him completely lost in concentration, eyes screwed up, cheeks puffed. He danced a jig, surprisingly light on his feet, in time with a truly awful rendition of the sailor's hornpipe.