‘Mr McGarry, bullets were recovered from the scene of the shooting in Brown Street. These have been compared with the Browning found in your possession. Do you understand me?’

McAllister stared intently across the table. You’re struggling, you bastard. You’re beginning to panic. You are trying not to show it but your eyes tell me otherwise. I’ve got you and I know it. More to the point, you know it.

‘Mr McGarry, this is a serious matter. You do not have to answer my questions, as I have advised you. That is your legal right. However, it may be in your interests to do so. Ballistics experts have examined the Browning and the bullets from the shooting. They match. They match exactly. The bullets were fired by your gun. Now, do you have any comment to make, Mr McGarry?

‘Then I will ask you about another matter. You still do not have to answer but if you do your answers will be tape-recorded and may be given in evidence.

‘Ballistics experts have also carried out tests to compare the Browning found in your possession with cartridge cases found at the shooting of Kevin Boyle. Will you confirm that you knew Kevin Boyle? You were employed by him at the time of his death? You were his bodyguard, his minder? Why were you not with him when he was murdered, as one might have expected?

‘Mr McGarry, the bullets which killed Kevin Boyle were fired from the Browning, from your gun. Now, do you have anything to say?’

The two men stared at each other in silence. McAllister had decided he had said enough. It was time to wait – for as long as was necessary. He held McGarry’s stare.

Come on you bastard.

Come on!

Come on!

‘Switch the machine off.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Then take me back to my cell and you get fuck all. Now switch the machine off.’

Chapter Fourteen

Bill Scott sat forward at his desk listening intently to every word; occasionally shaking his head in disbelief he felt no need to interrupt.

‘That’s quite a story, Grant.’

‘Certainly, I thought I had seen and heard most things, but nothing to match this.’

‘Did you have any idea that he was the one intimidating Muirhead?’

‘I wondered, but only because of the Irish accent and because he had disappeared so soon after Boyle’s death. It seems the man tried to get the job done on the cheap and when that failed, he sent for McGarry. He was desperate for Gallagher to be convicted. Oddly enough, if he had just left things alone, there’s a fair chance that would have happened.’

‘And Clark?’