Free The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy) by Malcolm Mackay Page A

bogeymen, as much to the police as to the established crime organizations. The police, subconsciously or not, take a better-the-devil-you-know approach.
The outsiders become a priority. Takes the eye off the established order. Now and again the police would have a spurt of activity against established people, but they’re occasional. One of
the points of having a cop on the books was to boost the opportunity of knowing when the police’s interest had turned back towards the established. You try to prepare, do all that you can to
take yourself off the radar. You have a better chance with advance warning.
    Young carries on the conversation, asking numerous questions about things that don’t matter much to either of them. Higgins tells him about several crimes of significance that have
occurred in the last few weeks. A couple of murders, a drugs bust, a counterfeiting operation. Young has already heard of all of these things, probably knows more about them than the police, but he
nods along politely. Don’t let the cop know that you have more information than he does. Let him think he’s the one with the valuable knowledge. There’s no mention of Lewis
Winter. Young isn’t sure how long Calum will take to carry out that particular hit. He tends to take a little longer than most men in his profession. More careful.
    More ponderous. More successful. If it had happened, Higgins would have mentioned it. So he’s still waiting.
    ‘What do the police know about Hugh Francis?’
    Higgins blinks. ‘Shug Francis? A bit. Involved in a lot of car crime. Not so much these days, harder to steal cars than it used to be. A pest, but I don’t think he’s a
priority. Doesn’t use violence. Don’t think the public are aware of him. Last I heard he’d bought a racing car,’ Higgins is saying with a smile.
    ‘Track-day car, yeah,’ Young is nodding. He’s heard all the charming stories of Shug’s geeky adoration of cars. ‘You guys haven’t looked any deeper into his
work?’
    Higgins shrugs a little. ‘I heard someone say that they had looked into him a couple of years back. Not a lot to find. He’s a smart guy, y’know. Hides everything real well. I
think they looked at him to see if he had anything else going on, if he was using his car set-up to do other stuff. Don’t think he was, or we would have taken measures. Has a good legit
business to hide everything behind.’
    Young raises an eyebrow. He isn’t going to say anything else.
    ‘You think we should be looking at him?’
    Young thinks about it for a moment. ‘Might be worth it. Could soon be relevant. I can’t say more than that.’
    He can’t say more than that because he can’t be entirely sure. It annoys him so much, not to be sure. Someone is making moves against Jamieson and, despite the scepticism of some,
Young is sure it’s Shug Francis. He has the means. He’s smart enough to pick the right targets. Jamieson is the right target. If you want to come into the market, you need to take share
from someone. You steal market share from someone worth stealing from. You don’t steal share from someone so big they can stamp on you and wipe you out with ease. Jamieson is on the rise, so
he isn’t liked by the big players. Respected, yes. Feared, absolutely. Liked, no, because they recognize the threat he poses. Someone chipping away at him would not be loathed by the top
people in the business. One thing Shug Francis has always been good at is ingratiating himself with people who matter.
    They end the chat. Whether Higgins recognized the significance of Young mentioning Francis, Young can’t be sure. He seems to treat it as a normal meeting, doesn’t give any indication
that he understood the difference. Young doesn’t bring up specific cases. He doesn’t go asking for particular information. This time he has tried, and he isn’t sure it even
worked. By raising the name of Shug Francis he is making Higgins aware of his interest. He