10

Sitting at home, thinking. A well-earned and much-enjoyed night’s sleep, an hour at home before picking up the tail again. Think about what you saw. Consider every aspect of it. The first problem is obvious. Too many people. Last night was the victim plus three. Tonight could be the victim plus umpteen more. If they’re in the habit of having people back to the house, then the house becomes a much less enticing location for the hit. But where else? If it’s not the house, then it’s hard to know where else you can do it with any degree of control. Anywhere out in public and you’re not in control of the hit, not ever. You’re relying on too many intangibles. You’re relying on things leaving you alone.

The house. It has to be. So easy if they go drinking again. If it was just the two of them, easy to control. They come home drunk and it’s easy. Drunk people are unpredictable, but they’re weak. Judgement impaired. Physical ability destroyed. Very drunk, and they might not know what’s happening to them before it’s too late. You learn very quickly what a friend alcohol can be. An enemy too. It’s responsible for so many good people falling apart. In this industry. In this city. Curse of the gunman, they say. Long periods of inactivity between jobs. What do you do? People get bored. They fall into drink. Not Calum. Not yet. Winter’s drinking to keep up with Cope. That’s the vulnerability. That’s when you get him.

Calum knows the location. He knows – if nothing dramatic happens that day to change his mind – when he’ll carry it out. One more day tailing. One day resting, keeping his distance. Then, following night, the hit. The location, the time. The picture of the event is forming in his mind. It looks convincing, pleasingly simple. But for that one problem. If there are other people in the house, then he has to consider taking someone with him. Doesn’t need to be another gunman; he’ll still do the job. They only hit Winter. Never hit a target you don’t need to hit. Ever. One murder gets the police interested, two gets them excited. Take an extra pair of hands to keep the witnesses out of the way. Has to be someone he trusts. There are a few of them. Only a few. First impressions: easy, apart from that one little problem.

A second day tailing Winter. Much the same as the first. Nothing new to learn. Winter went and met one of the same junkies from the day before. He gave him something, more product to sell, probably. Then on to another meeting, this time with someone who looked a little more presentable. Probably a supplier. Small-time. They weren’t taking the precautions a big-time supplier would take. Calum doesn’t even know where Winter gets his supplies from. Not important, so long as it’s not someone who’ll miss him. Sometimes you get blowback you don’t expect. You kill someone who turns out to be more important than your employer realizes. They have connections to important people. The important person sees the attack on their man as an attack on them, and feels the need to retaliate. Doesn’t happen often. Most people know the connections in this business, but it does happen.

That brings back the memory of the meeting with Jamieson. The suggestion that Winter might have connections with bigger players in the pipeline. Kill him before the connections are finalized, and they probably won’t consider him important enough for revenge. Kill him when the connections are established, and they might consider it an attack on them. Whoever they are. Who are they? Who would most likely tie themselves to someone like Winter? Someone who couldn’t make connections with a more established and successful dealer. Someone either new to the trade or new to the area. Whichever one, it’s a relief to believe that. New to the trade and you’ll get little support. New to the area and you’ll get none at all.

Winter ate lunch away from home again. He could have gone home, he seemed to have all the time in the world, but he chose not to. Interesting. What does that say about his relationship with Cope? Too much of a good thing, perhaps. After eating at a cafe, it was on to a pub. Grotty place, real dive. Calum waiting outside. Winter wasn’t there to drink. He was there for a deal. Organizing something, cutting some sort of deal. Maybe with the landlord. Use the pub as a place to sell. Make sure he has exclusive use of the place. Maybe just making a deal with someone in the pub. He was in there for the best part of an hour. Hard talking. Trying to persuade someone that he was making a move up the way. That would be his biggest challenge – persuading people that he’s worth taking seriously.

Calum reflects, as Winter comes out of the pub, looking stone-cold sober, that this is happening rather suddenly. Someone turns up and gets Winter to step on Jamieson’s toes. Persuades Winter that big things are coming and that he can be a part of it. Persuades Jamieson that big things are coming and that he has to stop it. Why target Jamieson? Not yet one of the top dogs, that’s why. Already important and making a lot of money, but not yet so big that he can’t be brought down. It’s someone credible. Someone credible enough to persuade Peter Jamieson that immediate action must be taken. It’s worth the drastic option.

He’s run out of things to do with his day, so Winter goes home. He doesn’t look like a man excited by his new business opportunity. He looks as though it’s all weighing him down, like he isn’t convinced by any of it. Maybe he isn’t yet convinced of the potential rewards. Maybe he isn’t willing to believe that any of it is true, until nothing can possibly go wrong. With his many failures behind him, that seems more likely. Understandably cautious. He goes home and disappears inside. Calum settles down outside, hoping to see the couple leave the house in a couple of hours’ time. Please go out. Go get drunk. Make it a nightly occurrence. Be the kind of people who can only find fun in alcohol. That guarantees an easy hit.

They don’t let him down. A taxi arrives at the house, later than the evening before. They come out of the house, both looking a little flustered. It looks like they’ve had a disagreement. It looks as though the night out is a last-minute arrangement. Calum suspects it was Cope’s idea. Winter looks miserable. Same routine as the night before. He locks the door, then hotfoots it down the path to open the taxi door for his woman. They both get in, the taxi drives away. Calum waits a few seconds, then follows at a distance. Same as the night before. Into the city centre. The taxi drops them outside a nightclub, a different one from the night before. Not impossible to park nearby, but Calum decides not to bother. He goes back to the house to wait for them.

He’s hoping they’ll be alone. He taps the top of the steering wheel, thinking. What sort of party did they have at the house the night before with the young couple they brought back. Sexual? Easy to control the situation if they all have their pants down. They were all so drunk the night before it’s hard to imagine such a sexual adventure being anything other than a chaotic mess. Possible, though. People try all sorts of stupid things when they’re drunk. Drugs? Not likely. Maybe Cope, maybe the young couple, but there’s no word of Winter using his own product. He wouldn’t have survived so long if he did. Most dealers that have a brain don’t touch what they sell. If you fall into the trap you lay for others, then you’re going to fail. Alcohol is quite enough anyway.

The taxi pulls up outside the house. Calum glances at the clock on the dashboard: twenty past midnight. Earlier than the night before. The taxi doors open, both Winter and Cope get out. Nobody else. The doors close, the taxi drives away. The couple make their way up the garden path towards the door. She has her coat off. She looks attractive; it’s easy to see why her claws always catch someone. There’s no laughter this night. Alone, they don’t make each other laugh; it takes others to introduce that into their relationship. They’re drunk, but not to the extent of the night before. A shorter night, less drinking. Winter’s able to get the key out of his pocket easily enough, get it into the lock at the first thrust. They disappear into the house. The downstairs lights are on for about ten minutes. Then an upstairs light. One of them has gone up, the other is still downstairs. The downstairs light goes off ten minutes later, then the upstairs light goes off as well. This is a quiet night for them. Calum goes home.