Free Random by Craig Robertson

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CHAPTER 13

    Daily Record . 28 September 2009. Page 2.
By Keith Imrie. A photograph of the crime scene.

    Police have launched a murder hunt after the body of a known criminal was found in wasteland in the Baillieston area of Glasgow after a suspected gangland slaying. Thomas Tierney was brutally stabbed to death shortly before midnight last night just minutes from his home in Rhindmuir Drive. A full-scale search of the area was being conducted into the early hours and was due to restart this morning .
    Tierney, known locally as Spud, was stabbed several times in what police are calling a vicious attack. As well as multiple wounds to his stomach, chest and abdomen, Tierney was slashed around the face and neck. His body was discovered soaked in blood by regulars from the nearby Brig Tavern on Easterhouse Road .
    One local man, who did not wish to be named, told the Daily Record that he came across Tierney’s body at closing time .
    ‘I’d just left the pub and was heading home. Me and a couple of the guys had only gone about 50 yards when we saw Spud lying there. We almost fell over him. He was covered in blood. Absolutely drenched in it. Somebody’s obviously shanked him.’
    The witness was reluctant to speculate on a motive for Tierney’s murder but it is believed he was the victim of a gangland hit .
    ‘The wee man never did anybody any harm,’ said the witness. ‘OK he was maybe a bit shady but that was it. This is bad. Someone will pay for it.’
    The man who found Tierney confirmed that he had been drinking for around half an hour in the Brig Tavern before leaving around 11.30. The other drinkers left the pub at midnight and it was then that they discovered Spud Tierney’s cut-up corpse .
    Murder squad detectives were on the scene within minutes and a security cordon was set up around the body. A detailed search of the area and door-to-door inquiries were carried out last night. Detective Sergeant Rachel Narey said that investigations were at an early stage but that she urged anyone with information to come forward .
    ‘Strathclyde Police were alerted at 00.10 that a body had been found on land adjoining Easterhouse Road in Baillieston. Detectives were quickly on the scene and found the body later identified as 26-year-old Thomas Tierney .’
    Police are appealing for anyone with information to the killing or Thomas Tierney’s whereabouts earlier that day to contact Baillieston police station or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. All calls will be treated in confidence and there may be a reward. Police sources last night confirmed that Spud Tierney was known to them and was thought to have been a drug dealer. He is said to have been an associate of well-known Glasgow businessman Alexander Kirkwood .
    I carefully placed the pinkie of the man I now knew to be Thomas Tierney in a padded envelope. I drove to the east end and posted it in a pillar box in Bridgeton.
    With that it was winging its way directly to the desk of Rachel Narey who was doubtless already waiting for the postman with bated breath and forensic scientist.
    Package posted, I turned around and drove to work.
    I did all that with the utmost certainty that things had just begun to go wrong.

 
CHAPTER 14

    I had a problem. Potentially a rather serious problem. The little man with the mouse-eating grin was named Thomas Tierney. Known, apparently, as Spud. The papers said so. They said he had been stabbed just minutes from his home. They said police were seeking witnesses to his last movements. They said he had been drinking in the Brig Tavern. They said he had been brutally murdered. They said it may have been a gangland killing.
    Yes. Gangland.
    They said Tierney was a known associate of Alexander Kirkwood. That was the problem. The papers said Kirkwood was a well-known Glasgow businessman. That meant gangster. That meant trouble. In Alec Kirkwood’s case, it meant trouble with a capital F.
    Glasgow is a village with a city within it.