He considered it for a moment then breathed hard. ‘If it’s not grassing, we’ll call it helping and I’m fine with that. What’s the worst that can happen to me anyway? I’m well past halfway to dying, so they can bugger off. Pardon my French, lass. What do you need to know?’

‘Do you know a man called David McGlashan?’ ‘Davie McGlashan? Aye, I know him. Used to stay in the Rosewood till some bam beat him up for the sake of a packet of fags. He left the next morning and never came back. That’d be about . . . hell, I don’t know, all the days run into one after a while.’ ‘It would be about two months ago.’ Walter scratched at his head. ‘Aye, I reckon that would be about right. What about him?’

‘He died, Walter. Was he a friend of yours?’

Tears came to the old man’s eyes. ‘Jeez, hen. You’re kidding. Him as well? Me and big Davie got on just fine. I liked the guy. What the hell happened to him?’

‘We’re not certain yet. It looks like it might have been a heart attack. I’m sorry, Walter.’

The man aged in front of her eyes. Another friend lost and not many left. His pain hurt her too and she couldn’t help but think of her dad.

‘What can you tell me about Davie? Anything might help.’

He looked confused. ‘You said it was a heart attack. So what do you need to know?’

‘It’s probably nothing but I’m just checking everything out. It might help me find out what happened to Euan. To Brian.’

Walter shrugged and looked lost. ‘Davie was all right. A daft boy with a drink in him but they’re all the same. He wasn’t a fighter or a thief. Just a poor soul. Never much to bother anybody.’

‘So no one would have had reason to do him any harm?’

‘You think somebody did?’

‘I’m just making sure, Walter.’

‘Nobody that I know of, hen.’

‘Davie had been sleeping in an abandoned building, an old saw works in Anderston. Why’d you think he’d be in there?’

‘Was it warm and watertight? Nobody to bother him? As good a place as any then and better than most. Better than the one he left, that’s for sure. It’s no rocket science, Miss Narey. If Davie had found somewhere free, safe and dry then he’d be as happy as a pig in shit. Pardon my French.’

She took it in and nodded. It did make sense.

‘There was something else I wanted to talk to you about, Walter. I hope you don’t mind but I did some digging after I spoke to you last time.’

‘Oh?’ He didn’t look best pleased.

‘You said you’d had to leave the place you lived in. I got the impression you were forced to leave. Is that right?’

All she got was a non-committal shrug of the shoulders.

‘Well I made a call to social security and your last address was in Charleston Street in the East End. Except it isn’t there any more. There’s new housing in its place, mostly rentals. Rent probably about four times what you were paying.’

‘And the rest. Why are you interested though? It’s nothing to do with the laddie dying and what’s done is done. I’m in the Rosewood now and I’m no blaming anybody but maself.’

‘No, it’s nothing to do with the case I’m working but I get angry when people are treated badly. What happened? Did they make you move out?’

Walter squirmed uncomfortably and lifted his shoulders. ‘What could I have done, hen? No one was going to listen to me. I took some money to give up my lease and I left the place.’

‘Were you threatened, Walter?’

He looked away, not keen on letting her catch his eye.

‘Were you?’ she repeated.

‘Ach, listen, it’s not as simple as that. It’s not like I could prove anything. Not like they came straight out and said it. It was more how they said it.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Without putting it in so many words, if I stayed I might have found myself pretty unlucky. Like having my house burn down while I was still inside it. I didn’t fancy that much. Get paid off or get burned alive? It was a no-brainer.’

She could feel the anger rising in her.

‘Did you report it to the police?’ She knew it was stupid even as she said it.

He laughed. ‘Aye, right. No offence, hen, but just how was that going to work? Do you think your lot were going to listen to me? Even before I got put out on the street, I was a drinker. That housing mob just put enough money in my pocket to make me float in it. No, that’s no right, it was enough for me to drown in.’

‘Who were they, Walter? The ones that talked to you?’

‘No, lass. Forget it. Even if I remembered names, I wouldn’t want to tell you them. The ones that talked to me weren’t the ones that ran the show. They were just the thugs that did the dirty work. The kind that make the real money, they keep their hands clean.’

‘Okay, Walter. I understand. But I’m looking into this company anyway. I’ve got a friend in the insurance game. He’ll want to know what they’re up to. I’ll not drag you in though.’

He shrugged. ‘Up to you, hen. I can’t stop you. And if you can pin something on them then good luck to you. Why are you trying to help an old soak like me, anyway?’

She smiled and, as she did so, she knew how sad it looked. ‘Let’s just say you remind me of someone.’

They’d walked round in a circle and were back almost at the Rosewood. She tried to palm another twenty-pound note into the old man’s hand but he wasn’t having it.

‘No thanks, love. I’ll feel a lot less like a grass if I don’t take your money. Anyway, the way my head’s feeling you wouldn’t be doing me any favours.’

‘You could buy aspirin.’

He laughed loudly. ‘Aye, I could, hen. And I could be the next winner of The X Factor. It’s just as likely.’

As they approached the steps of the Rosewood, Narey saw a tall, broad man standing at the entrance. It was one of the dosshouse’s two owners, Thomas Kilgannon.

‘This is harassment. My lawyer will be making a complaint to your superiors.’

‘Be my guest, Mr Kilgannon. There’s plenty of them to choose from but I doubt you’ll find one that will agree with you.’

The man glared at her and did the same to Walter. The old man tipped his head towards Narey then slipped past Kilgannon and into the building. The owner watched him every step of the way.

‘A friend of yours, is he? He’d do well to remember who owns this place and puts a roof over his head.’

Narey walked right up to him and put her head close enough to his to smell the cheap aftershave that clung to his pores.

‘Listen carefully to me, Mr Kilgannon. You’d better take special care of that man. Because if he so much as cuts himself shaving then I’ll be coming after you. Do you understand? And I’ll be coming with everything I’ve got.’

Chapter 31

Thursday evening

Remy was nervous. Seven of them, assuming everyone turned up, were going to walk the length of the old line to the abandoned railway station at the Botanic Gardens in the West End. The afternoon had been dry but a wind had picked up now and there were brooding dark clouds threatening overhead. It suddenly didn’t seem a very good idea. Maybe it never had.

He couldn’t even swear that he knew what his idea was. He needed to know what had happened in the Molendinar and the Odeon. He needed some way of ridding himself of the sights and smells and fears that were constantly replaying in his head. And maybe in some deluded moments, he thought he might just be able to uncover a killer.

His message to them had been clear enough but there was a message to one of them in particular. Nothing too difficult, not the Molendinar or anything stellar like that, he’d written. It was bait and Remy’s biggest hope and fear was that someone would take it.