To Die In June by Alan Parks

Author:Alan Parks [Alan Parks]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-TWO

It didn’t take McCoy as long to find Liam as he’d thought it would. He struck lucky; he was in the second place he looked. Found him queuing outside the Wayside club in Midland Street, waiting for a bowl of soup and a couple of slices of bread just like everyone else.

‘Found the murderer yet?’ he asked as McCoy approached.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Need you to help me.’

Liam looked up the queue. ‘Five minutes, and I’m all yours. I’m bloody starving.’

McCoy nodded, leant against the wall of the railway tunnel and lit up. He recognised at least half the people in the queue. Had seen them in the same places over the years. Outside here, outside the Sally Army, lying unconscious in the waste ground opposite the Squirrel in Gallowgate. Maybe some of them had got out, stopped drinking, found a better life. None that he knew though.

Liam had for a while, but it hadn’t lasted. His life was on the streets no matter how bad it was. On the streets he was someone, everyone knew him, asked for his help, trusted him. Living in the Great Northern and struggling to get work as a day labourer, he was just another nobody.

McCoy watched two women sit down on the kerb opposite, passing a bottle between them. He knew one of them, Annie Greene. Probably fortifying herself for going up to Blythswood later on to try to get enough money to start the whole thing over again tomorrow. Wondered how these women did it, kept going when they’d been dealt all the bad cards. Annie tipped the bottle of wine into her mouth and took a long drink. Too long for her pal; she tried to grab it back, but Annie batted her hand away, kept drinking. Same way his dad did, trying to fill a desperate need.

‘So what’s up, Harry?’ asked Liam, wandering over. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jumper, stuffed his last slice of bread into his mouth.

‘You know Callum Munroe?’

Liam nodded. ‘He’s a bit of a prick, to be honest.’

‘So people tell me,’ said McCoy. ‘But he’s dead now, and guess what? He died of methanol poisoning.’

Liam’s face lit up. ‘So Gerry was right?’

‘Not sure. Could be an accident or could be deliberate. Either way we need to warn people not to drink any hooch and that includes my dad. You seen him?’

‘Alec? Saw him a week or so ago.’

Familiar turn of the stomach he always got when he talked about his dad. ‘Where?’

‘Was staying in some abandoned flat in Townhead, near the hospital. Him and a couple of his pals.’

‘How was he?’

‘He wasn’t good, Harry. Was drinking red biddy.’

‘Christ. Meths and red wine? That’s brutal.’

‘And people don’t last long when they start on that. Three or four months maybe.’ Liam looked back at the Wayside. ‘I’ll go and spread the word.’

McCoy watched Liam go up and down the queue telling everyone not to drink any hooch. Most of them nodded, said they wouldn’t. Probably just doing that to be nice to Liam, but it was a start, at least.

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