Outside the door Valentine tapped on a broken buzzer, the glass from the cover was lying smashed on the concrete doorstep; he pressed it with the sole of his shoe. ‘You know what the problem here is, don’t you?’
‘Multiple deprived family units, constellated …’
Valentine cut her off. ‘Stop that now! It’s the state of this step. Look at it, my mother used to spend hours cleaning her front step. At around eleven o’clock every morning in the street I grew up in you could see women on their hands and knees scrubbing those steps, it was a point of real shame not to have a clean step.’
McCormack eased past the DI, pushed the door open. ‘Fortunately, some of us have managed to get off our knees, sir. Which is a good job for the likes of you – might have been stuck outside this door all day without my help.’
‘Fair play. I earned that.’
On the stairwell the detectives waded through discarded White Lightning bottles and cigarette ends. There was a strong smell of urine, a stronger smell of rotting refuse and a host of other smells that were largely unidentifiable but definitely not Chanel No. 5.
‘Right, here we are, number 12b … give him a knock,’ said Valentine.
Behind the door, with its chipped paint and exposed rot, came the sound of movement. Through the glass and the faded net curtain a dark shape of a slouching man was seen. He coughed, loudly, then cleared his throat. The next sound came from the letter box rattling, a hand was stuck through and a voice followed. ‘What do you want?’
‘Open up, Kyle, it’s the rozzers,’ said Valentine.
‘I’m opening for no one, how do I know you’re what you say you are? No, get lost.’
Valentine nodded towards McCormack, who removed her warrant card from her coat pocket and flashed it in front of the letter box. ‘Please open the door, Mr Brogan.’
‘Or it’ll have a size-ten-shaped hole in it soon,’ said Valentine.
A chain rattled, a key turned in the lock. As the rusty hinges cried out the door eased open. ‘What’s all this about?’ said Brogan. He was standing in chewing-gum-coloured vest and pants, eyes smarting at the flood of daylight he was forced to face.
‘Can you not get some bloody clothes on, man?’ said Valentine.
‘I wasn’t expecting visitors.’ He put a hand over his eyes.
‘Not this year, I see … When did you last change those Y-fronts?’
Brogan pointed a finger. ‘That could be classed as harassment.’
McCormack replied, ‘If I do it, will you call it sexual harassment?’
‘I might.’
‘Get inside, Mr Brogan. And don’t make me laugh with your fantasies.’
The detectives proceeded through to the lounge, a small room at the front of the house where the curtains were closed. A brown sofa and a teak coffee table were the only concessions to furniture. Brogan, now dressed in tracksuit pants, removed a half-burnt cigarette from the edge of the table and lit it with a plastic lighter.
‘What’s this all about?’ he said.
‘Not working today, Brogan?’ said Valentine.
‘Shut down, isn’t it? I’m a man of leisure, now.’
‘That’s very interesting, plenty of time to get into trouble.’ He turned to McCormack. ‘Show him the picture?’
She handed over a photograph of Niall Paton, the recent shot that his parents had supplied.
Brogan shrugged. ‘I don’t know him.’
‘That’s strange, your telly on the blink too?’
‘No.’ He indicated the television and flicked it on with the remote control.
‘That photo you’ve got there is of a boy who was murdered the other night. We found him in a field in Cumnock, he’d been dumped down a shallow pit but the rain flushed him out. He wasn’t a pretty sight.’
Brogan handed back the picture, he stood before them and folded his arms. ‘What the bloody hell’s that got to do with me?’
‘Can you account for your movements over the last forty-eight hours, Mr Brogan?’
‘I don’t need to, Christ, I’ve done nothing wrong.’ He drew heavily on the cigarette, it had gone out.
DS McCormack waved a hand at the sofa and invited Brogan to sit down again. ‘Come on, Mr Brogan. This is a double murder investigation, we need you to be on your best behaviour.’
‘Double murder. What? I mean, who else was done in?’
‘Big Jim Tulloch,’ said Valentine. ‘Oh, you recognise the name, I see.’
‘Only because I worked with him.’
‘That would be at the Meat Hangers.’
‘Aye, it was.’
‘Norrie Leask’s gone missing as well. Wonder if he’ll turn up in a field in Cumnock next, Brogan?’
‘I doubt it. Leask looks after himself, or has folk to do that.’ He started to rub at his arms, lit another cigarette end that had been hiding behind his ear.
‘Here, have one of mine,’ said McCormack. She removed a packet of Benson and Hedges and offered one to Brogan. He seemed to settle down once the cigarette was lit.
‘OK,’ said Valentine, ‘I can see you’re a little shaken up by all this unsettling news, never nice to hear a close friend’s passed away.’
‘Tulloch wasn’t a friend of mine,’ he spat the reply.
‘Oh, I thought you were best mates, worked at the Meat Hangers together didn’t you?’
‘Aye, we worked together, that doesn’t mean we were besties. Far bloody from it, mate. Big Tulloch was an arsehole, everyone will tell you that.’
‘Everyone?’ said McCormack. ‘What about Grant Finnie?’
‘Don’t tell me Fin’s dead as well …’
‘No. Not that we’re aware of. Friendlier with Finnie were you?’
‘Friendlier than Tulloch, aye.’
Valentine moved towards the sofa, put his foot on the cushion next to Brogan. ‘Now, if I was a right nosey bastard I’d be asking where all this animosity for our murder victim, James Tulloch, has come from. And then, I’d be asking why you’re so friendly with a man who has gone missing, Grant Finnie, who may or may not be involved in Tulloch’s demise.’
‘Now wait a minute, I never said I was friendly with either of them.’
‘Right now, Brogan, you’re the only link I have between the two of them and the blagging at the Meat Hangers. Oh, and did I mention that Norrie Leask has gone missing and also a substantial amount of cash?’
Brogan drew heavily on the cigarette butt. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Oh, no. I think you do. And what’s more, I don’t think I’m leaving here unless you tell me just exactly what you do know.’ Valentine sat down beside him on the sofa.
‘Now look, I’m not saying I know anything, all I can tell you is there was some kind of problem, I don’t know what you’d call it, a feud maybe, between Big Jim Tulloch and Fin.’
‘Go on.’
‘Tulloch was always needling him, Fin that is. I think it went way back, I’ve no idea what it was about but Tulloch was the one with the problem. See, Fin was there first and Tulloch got his job later, it was like he only took the job to stick it to Fin, on a daily basis like.’
‘And you say this went way back.’
‘I don’t know how far back, they were in the army together but you’ll know that.’
‘And how do you know the animosity went so far back, it could have just kicked off at the Meat Hangers, maybe Tulloch thought he should still have been Fin’s boss?’
‘No, it was an old wound. It was common knowledge after the punch-up.’
Valentine glanced at McCormack. ‘What punch-up?’ said the DI.
‘They went to blows one night, round the back of the club, it was a fair go as well, crates and barrels were flying.’ Brogan brightened at the memory. ‘It was stopped right enough, by Leask’s boy, that Joe fella with the gold chains and the leather jacket. Another big knuckle-dragger.’
‘And when was the fight?’ said McCormack.
‘Not long ago, month or so maybe.’
‘And there was no trouble after that?’
‘Nah, not really. They kept them apart, surprised they never got their jotters, mind.’
‘Why didn’t Leask sack them?’
‘You tell me, he’s never usually shy about throwing folk out the door.’ Brogan shot off the sofa, irritated. ‘Right, is that enough for you? Can I get on with my life now?’