Blood City E-Book

Douglas Skelton

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Glasgow's mean streets just got meaner. Can Davie McCall survive? Meet Davie McCall. Beaten, bloody… brutal. Irrevocably damaged by the barbaric regime of an abusive father, and haunted by memories of his mother's murder, there is a darkness inside him. Enter Joe the Tailor. A sophisticated crimelord with morals, he might be the only man in the city Davie can trust. But then the bodies begin to mount…In 1980s Glasgow, the criminal underworld is about to splinter. Battle lines are drawn, and the gap between friend and enemy blurs as criminals and police alike are caught in a net of lies, murder and revenge that will change the city forever. Scotland's foremost true-crime author. THE SCOTSMAN The city's dark underbelly complete with knives, razors, guns and gangs... DAILY MAIL You follow the plot like an eager dog, nose turning this way and that, not catching every single clue but quivering as you lunge towards a blood-splattered denouement. DAILY EXPRESS The Glasgow of this period is a great, gritty setting for a crime story, and Skelton's non-fiction work stands him in good stead… he's taken well to fiction… the unexpected twists keep coming. THE HERALD

Leseprobe

DOUGLAS SKELTON is an established true crime author, penning eleven books including Glasgow’s Black Heart, Frightener and Dark Heart. He has appeared on a variety of documentaries and news programmes as an expert on Glasgow crime, most recently on STV’s In Search of Bible John. His 2005 book Indian Peter was later adapted for a BBC Scotland radio documentary which he presented. Blood City is his first foray into fiction.

http://bookbanter.co.uk/douglasskelton/

Blood City

Douglas Skelton

LuathPress Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

First published 2013

ISBN (print): 978-1-908373-71-1

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-909912-53-3

The author’s right to be identified as author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988has been asserted.

© Douglas Skelton

Table of Contents

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Epilogue

Enjoyed Blood City?

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to John Abernethy, who first suggested I go back to how these guys began. Also to my reading committee, Karin, Elizabeth and Gary. Kate and Joe Jackson provided some information, as did Big Stephen Wilkie. Anything I’ve got wrong was either intentional or my fault.

Thanks to Helena for the white suit and the Vauxhall Chevette. To my wife Margaret, who is still providing the cups of tea as I pound the keyboard.

Finally, huge thanks to Louise Hutcheson at Luath for spotting the manuscript as well as Gavin, Kirsten and the team for their help, support and confidence.

Prologue

OCTOBER 1977

...voices, floating...

...rising, falling...

...ebbing, flowing...

When Davie McCall bobbed to the surface of consciousness, he was aware of the voices drifting around him. Hushed voices, and he did not recognise any of them. His vision swam as he opened his eyes and he didn’t know at first where he was. There was a blue curtain around him, darker lines waving as if he was seeing them through water. And there were other sounds; the squeak of shoes on polished surfaces, sometimes the clink of cutlery on a plate and even, faintly, the harsh sound of laughter on a television. But then he would be dragged back down into the depths, unconsciousness washing over him and sweeping the sounds away once more.

And each time he was back in that dingy room where the firelight guttered and the stench of blood hung in the air. Back in that room with his father standing over him, the heavy poker wet and glistening in his hand, his face frozen in rage, his eyes cold, distant points of blue ice.

And Davie again felt the pain in his arm and the ache in his head, and tasted the blood from his scalp as it trickled down his face to his lips.

And he felt the fear as his father turned those dead blue eyes on him.

Then, mercifully, the deep claimed him again and he was carried away from that place with its pain, and its terror, and its blood. Not his blood, of course. It was not his blood that clung to the memory of that dark room. Not his blood. Not his.

1

WHEN AT LAST Davie fully burst through the silky surface of consciousness, he knew immediately that he was in a hospital. His previous surges back to the world had been brief affairs, when he had registered the sounds but not the smells. Now he knew he was in a hospital ward, for not only did he recognise the squeak of nurses’ shoes on the floor and the muted conversation of the other patients on the ward, but also the smell of disinfectant and, for some reason, boiled cabbage. As he lay on his back he opened his eyes and saw the cracked plaster in the cream ceiling high above his bed. Pale, watery daylight leaked through a window to his left. Surrounding him he saw the light blue curtain with its ragged darker lines and finally the unmistakeable figure of Joe the Tailor beside his bed. Immaculate as always; the trademark deep navy coat, unbuttoned to reveal his blue suit, white shirt and dark red tie. Davie couldn’t see it but he knew the Tailor’s grey Homburg would not be far away. The old man sat straight-backed in the foldaway wooden chair, one knee crooked over the other, his perfectly manicured hands clasped on top. He might have been praying, but Davie knew he had given that up a long time ago. He also knew, without asking, that the man had been sitting there for a long time.

Joe Klein smiled gently when he saw the boy’s eyes snap open.

‘Glad to see you are returned,’ he said, his voice carrying the faint echoes of a Polish childhood. ‘You are in the Royal Infirmary. Do you know why?’ Davie tried to pull himself up, but found his body unwilling to obey. The Tailor reached out and placed a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘It is best that you remain as you are,’ he said. Davie looked at the hand, at the ring that sparkled on the pinkie, and beyond that his own right arm, encased in plaster. He raised his left hand to his forehead and felt the bandages encasing the top of his head.

‘We almost lost you,’ said Joe, settling back again. ‘Do you remember what happened?’

‘Yes.’ Davie’s voice rasped and for the first time he realised how dry his lips were. He tried to lick them but his tongue was cracked and barren of moisture. The Tailor nodded and leaned forward with a glass of amber fluid with a straw. He placed the straw between Davie’s lips and said, ‘You must drink. They have left water but this is better.’ The delicate scent of the old man’s cologne was comforting as Davie sucked on the straw and felt the fizzy liquid bite at his tongue and throat. ‘The Irn-Bru,’ said Joe, smiling again. ‘The bringer of life.’ Davie drained a strawfull. Joe replaced the glass on the cabinet and sat down again. He shook the folds of his coat until they hung correctly then draped his leg over his knee once more before letting his hands resume their clasped position.

‘Where is he?’ Joe didn’t need to ask who Davie meant, for he had expected the question.

‘They do not know,’ he replied. ‘He has vanished.’ Davie nodded, knowing instinctively that his father would not have allowed himself to be caught. ‘He came to me, after,’ said Joe. ‘I phoned the police myself. That kind of behaviour must not be tolerated. They will catch him, or we will, sooner or later.’ Davie knew the old man meant what he said, but doubted that his father would ever allow himself to be caught. He knew Danny McCall too well. A madman he may have been – Davie still recalled something not of this world glinting in his father’s eye that night – but Danny McCall would have been aware that he had crossed a line. It wasn’t just the Law that sought him now, but Joe ‘The Tailor’ Klein as well, for he had broken one of his cardinal rules.Thou Shalt Not Harm a Woman. There was enough of the father in the son to make him certain that Danny McCall would move heaven and hell to ensure he was not found. Joe Klein was a bad man to cross.

‘The police will wish to talk,’ said the Tailor. ‘You must assist them.’ This, Davie knew, was an order and there was no possibility of him not obeying. He nodded his agreement as the curtain behind the old man flipped back and the hulking form of Rab McClymont loomed over the bed, two small white cups of tea gripped in his big hands. He was only 21 – just six years older than Davie – but he looked far more mature, thanks to his size and the heavy beard darkening his cheeks. His wide jaw and shock of black hair made him look like a live action version of Desperate Dan.

‘This is the best I could do, boss,’ Rab offered before realising that Davie’s eyes were open. ‘Fuck – Sleeping Beauty has woken up!’

Joe frowned as he eased the cup from Rab’s hand. ‘You must moderate your language, Robert. You are not on the street now.’

‘Sorry, Joe,’ Rab sounded chastened but when he winked at Davie he seemed anything but. All Joe’s boys knew that the boss loathed foul language, but it never stopped Rab and Davie sometimes suspected he did it on purpose to goad the old man. ‘You’ve been out of it for days, Davie son. You want a cuppa tea?’

Davie shook his head. ‘Give us that glass down, though,’ he said.

‘Sure thing,’ said Rab and wrapped his fist around the glass. ‘What’s in it? Medicine?’

‘It is the amber nectar of the gods,’ said the Tailor with a smile.

‘That right?’ Rab raised the glass to his face and sucked on the straw. ‘Fuck me – it’s fuckin Irn-Bru!’

The old man winced. ‘Robert, you are incorrigible. Give the glass to David before he dies of thirst.’

‘Sorry, mate – here.’ Rab handed over the glass and Davie took it with his good hand. He struggled to sit up and Rab put his own cup on the cabinet top in order to give him surprisingly gentle assistance. Davie nodded his thanks before he drained some more of the liquid and looked at the Tailor.

‘Where do I go from here?’

‘You will remain here until the doctors say you are fit to leave,’ Joe answered. ‘Your arm is broken, your skull fractured.’

‘Aye, you’re well fucked up, Davie,’ said Rab, then turned to the old man who was glaring at him from the chair. ‘Sorry, Joe.’

‘And then...?’ Davie asked.

‘Your auntie – your mother’s sister. With her you will stay. But you are my responsibility now.’

Davie nodded, drank a little more and said, ‘When?’

‘A little while only. You must get better.’

Davie lay back on the pillows Rab had helped prop up and looked out of the window, its surface speckled with rain. The dark grey city stretched out beneath an iron sky. Cars moved down Castle Street towards High Street and further on he could see the top of the Tollbooth Steeple at Glasgow Cross. He stared at the serrated edge of the city skyline etched against the dark clouds. The Tailor had said he must get better, but Davie seriously doubted he ever would. At only 15 years old, Davie McCall knew there was darkness within him with which he would have to come to terms. And that prospect scared the hell out of him.

2

JANUARY 1978

Frank Donovan felt the cold seeping first through his black coat, then his thick uniform and finally his flesh to settle in his bones. They had only been here 15 minutes but already the Glasgow winter night was beginning to bite. Jack Frost wasn’t just nipping at his nose, he was bloody well gnawing. Donovan’s ears were burning, a phenomenon that had always struck him as rather strange. How could you be cold, but feel as if someone was holding a match to your ear? He would have pondered this conundrum further, but he was too damn frozen to bother. Behind him he could hear the dark waters of the canal lapping against the stone walls, but he knew the sub-zero air would soon choke the life from the sound and still the surface to ice. From where they stood beside the Forth and Clyde Canal they could look across the dark sprawl of Firhill and Maryhill. A thick frost floated over the city streets, making a white carpet of the tenement roofs and sparkling diamonds of the street lights. The grass at their feet was just beginning to whiten. But the girl lying on it was already white.

His eyes flicked involuntarily to the broken corpse lying just off the towpath. She lay on her back, her arms outstretched, one leg bent under the other. Her skirt was tucked up around her waist, the remnants of her ripped underwear lying beneath her. Her blouse had been torn open and her bra wrenched away to reveal her breasts. Donovan wanted to reach down and cover her, to preserve at least some of her dignity, but knew that would be a cardinal sin. Instead he looked away.

‘Fuck me, it’s freezing,’ said Jimmy Knight, stamping his feet on the cold-hardened pathway beside him. ‘When they gonnae get this show on the road?’

‘No be long,’ said Donovan.

‘Better fuckin no be, ‘cos soon they’ll have another two stiffs to work wi if they don’t get their arses in gear.’

PC Jimmy Knight stepped closer to the girl’s body, rubbing his gloved hands together to create some semblance of heat.

‘D’you know what the tragedy of this is?’ Donovan remained silent, knowing his neighbour’s question was rhetorical. ‘D’you know what the cold, hard, heart-fuckin-wrenching tragedy of this is? It’s that she wasnae a bad bit of stuff, the lassie. I mean, if she was a pig it would be sad, but she’s no pig. That’s the tragedy of it.’ He bent lower over the corpse, studying her face. ‘How old, do you think? 17, 18?’

Donovan didn’t answer. What he wanted to say was that she was too young to die, but he knew it was best to keep his mouth shut. Jimmy Knight disdained sentiment; it was a feeble show of weakness. Jimmy Knight didn’t do sentiment and he didn’t do weakness.

‘Aye, she’s no a bad bit of stuff,’ Knight went on, his gaze crawling down the girl’s body. ‘Nice set of tits on her, so she has. Good pair o pins. Wouldnae’ve minded a wee go at her myself.’

‘You’ve got time now, Jimmy, if that’s what you want,’ Donovan said, a hint of irritation in his voice. ‘They’ll no be here for another ten minutes or so. I’ll turn away if you want some privacy.’

Knight straightened up and for a second Donovan actually believed he was considering it. Then he shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’ He turned back to Donovan and sniffed. ‘Don’t want to be guddlin about in another guy’s pond, know what I mean?’

Donovan looked away, the other man missing the disgust that flashed across his face. He hated being neighboured with Knight. God knows Donovan was no prude, but Knight was little more than an animal. Everyone knew there was a bit of sexual action on offer to uniforms, but Knight abused the privilege. He didn’t care if the offer came from a working lass, a suspect or a victim – if it was up for grabs, he was game. Donovan also had some concerns over the other man’s honesty, suspecting for some time that Knight was involved in darker stuff. He was a good cop, though; a cop’s cop – a cop who brought in the bodies, who notched up the arrests.

Then, as if to underline Donovan’s thoughts, Knight spoke. ‘Boy that did her’s got some marks on him, by the looks of it.’ He glanced back at Donovan and explained, ‘Blood on her fingers, round the nails. She’s been strangled, no visible wounds. She scratched the bastard during the struggle.’

Well done, hen, Donovan thought.

A movement on the towpath, just a slight shifting in the darkness, caught Donovan’s eye.

‘Jimmy,’ he said, and the other officer looked back towards him. Donovan nodded up the path and Knight followed his gaze, his eyes squinting against the gloom.

He murmured, ‘Someone up there?’

‘Looks like it,’ said Donovan, keeping his voice low.

‘Is it the murder team?’

‘No, just one person, he’s stopped dead still. Doesn’t want to be seen.’

‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers,’ said Knight and took a couple of steps along the path, his torch in his hand now. He clicked it on and swung the beam along the towpath, the light picking out the frost hanging in the air like mist. ‘Come on, pal, don’t be messin about. Let’s see ye.’

There was a slight pause before the figure stepped into the beam. A young man, still a teenager, his hair long and straggly, his body encased in a blue anorak and blue jeans. There was a white scarf at his throat to ward off the cold. He moved hesitantly towards them.

Knight asked, ‘What you doing here, pal?’

‘Just walking,’ said the youth, still moving towards them. ‘Then I saw you standing there and I thought there was something wrong.’

He was well-spoken and Donovan immediately pegged him as coming from the smarter part of the West End and not the immediate Maryhill vicinity – Kelvinside, Hyndland, maybe even Bearsden up the road. The question was, what the hell was he doing walking along the banks of the Forth and Clyde past midnight? The 200 year old waterway was not the place for a moonlight stroll.

‘Well, you thought right,’ said Knight. ‘What’s your name?’

The young man came to a halt about three feet away from them. He suddenly looked nervous. He glanced from one officer to the other, his eyes widening behind a pair of round, John Lennon glasses. There was a slight catch in his voice as he asked, ‘Why do you want to know my name?’

Knight shrugged. ‘Just routine, pal, nothing to worry about. You can see we’ve got a situation here...’ he gestured at the corpse of the girl, but the youth barely looked at her. Knight went on, ‘Now you come strolling along here like you’re out for a Sunday walk in the park. So what’s your name?’

‘William. William Lowry. Like the painter.’

‘Well, William Lowry like the painter, what you doing here at this time of night?’

‘I’m...’ he began, but paused, and Donovan knew there was a lie coming. ‘I’m going home after a party.’

‘Aye? And where’s home?’

‘Woodside.’

‘And where was the party?’

‘A flat on Maryhill Road. It’s a pal’s place but I’d really not like to get him involved in this.’

Donovan thought,involved in what? But he let Knight control the interview. He knew to let the other cop follow his own line of questioning.

Knight asked, ‘You a student, then?’

The boy nodded and pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. ‘Yes. The College of Art.’

‘So he’s really going to be like Lowry the painter,’ Knight smiled and turned to Donovan, his back momentarily to the boy so he could tap two fingers to his throat without being seen. Donovan nodded, looked back at the youth and saw what Knight had already noticed, a smear of blood just at the fold of the white scarf where it touched his neck.

‘You got some identification on you, son?’ Knight asked.

The boy shook his head.

‘Ok, that’s Ok, not everyone carries ID, do they? We need to check up on you, though, you know that, right?’

‘Why? I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘I know that, son, it’s just routine. I mean, after all, we’ve got a dead lassie here.’

Again, Knight nodded to the body and again Lowry refused to look at her. He kept his eyes between Knight and Donovan and barely seemed to notice the dead girl just a few feet away.

Knight asked, ‘D’you know her maybe?’

The boy shook his head, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

Knight said, ‘You’ve no even looked at her, so how do you know you don’t?’

‘I don’t know her.’

‘Never seen her before?’

‘No.’

‘She wasn’t at the party?’

‘There were a lot of people at the party. I couldn’t possibly remember everyone.’

‘Why don’t you look at her, maybe you’ll recognise her.’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘How no?’

‘I’m… well, I’d rather not.’

‘You squeamish?’

‘Something like that.’

‘It might help us, though. Might help us catch the guy who killed her. You’d want that, wouldn’t you?’

Lowry didn’t answer. He stared straight at Knight, his eyes still wide, his hands moving inside his pockets, the blood on his white scarf now reaching out to the police officers like a bad smell.

‘What about it, William Lowry like the painter?’ Knight said, moving slightly closer to the boy. ‘You want to assist the polis with their inquiries, or what? You want to take a quick peek at this lassie here, tell us if you’ve ever seen her before? Just a quick look, that’s all. It’ll be like looking at a picture. Then you can be on your way.’

The boy’s head was shaking from side to side and Donovan thought he could see the livid red marks of a recent wound on his neck, scratch marks that had left blood on his scarf. ‘No,’ said Lowry, ‘I don’t want to look!’

‘Come on, pal,’ coaxed Knight, now close enough to touch the youth. ‘Just a wee peek…’

Knight lunged, but the boy was quick, jumping back and whirling on his heels before breaking into a sprint back down the pathway.

‘Fuck it!’ Knight took off after him, yelling over his shoulder. ‘Blow it in, Frank – he’s the fucker we want.’

Donovan watched his partner vanish into the dark and leaned into the microphone clipped to his uniform collar. ‘C 1-3-2, C 1-3-2. C 1-0-8 in pursuit of male suspect on towpath of Forth and Clyde Canal, heading towards Firhill Basin. Request immediate assistance. Repeat, request immediate assistance. Suspect is white male, around 20 years of age, name of William Lowry.’

A voice crackled back, ‘Lowry? Like the painter?’

‘Affirmative.’

Donovan took his finger off the button and looked back along the pathway. The sound of Jimmy Knight’s size tens had long since vanished and he was left once again with the lapping water behind him and the occasional engine on Maryhill Road. There was just him and the girl left now, waiting for the circus to arrive.

* * *

Knight could hear footfalls ahead of him, but he couldn’t see their source. He pounded after the sound, a smile on his lips. This was the part of the job he enjoyed, chasing a scroat, bringing him down. Lowry-like-the-painter was as guilty as Judas and Police Constable James Knight was going to be the man who brought him in. And that would not do his future any harm at all. No harm at all.

He imagined the boy running blindly through the darkness ahead, perhaps occasionally darting a look over his shoulder to see if the tall, dark-haired policeman was still on his tail.Don’t worry, son, I’m here. I’m right here – and I’m not giving up. You’re my ticket out of uniform and into plainclothes, where the real action is.

Lowry-like-the-painter had killed a lassie and made the mistake of returning to the scene of the crime. God knows what had been going on in his sick wee head, but he’d come back and walked more or less right into Knight’s arms. And Knight wasn’t about to let him slip away. He followed the sound of the boy’s feet, his mouth set in a tight, determined line.

Everything went quiet at Firhill Basin and Knight came to a halt to catch his breath. Once this had been a thriving sawmill but now it was silent, a derelict memorial to the canal’s bustling heyday where darkness hung heavily around the crumbling buildings and discarded lumber. The canal had fallen into disuse years before and its waters were so choked with weeds and rubbish that he’d heard it called the ‘filth and slime canal’.

Sometimes joy riders brought their stolen cars here and set fire to them, but not this night. Sometimes teenagers gathered here to drink and experiment with sex, but not this night. On this night there was only the darkness and somewhere in that darkness there was a frightened little killer. Knight strained his ears for any sound, but all he could hear was the faint gurgle of water to his right.

‘End of the road, son,’ he shouted. ‘Nowhere to go now.’

He paused and listened again, stepping carefully through the darkness, his feet crunching on the crisp ground. He slowly drew a wooden baton from his pocket, his hand slipping easily into the strap.

‘Come on, pal – this is a waste of time. We got a good look at you, me and my neighbour, a right good look. We’ve got your name and I think it’s your real name. It’s only a matter of time before we get you.’

Knight stopped and held his breath. He thought he’d heard something, just a faint sound, like a sob, coming from a burned-out shed ahead of him. He moved closer, the solid baton hidden in the folds of his coat.

‘I’ll bet she was asking for it, eh? The lassie. Prick teaser, was she? Leading you on? That what she was?’

He heard it again, another sob, and he smiled.There you are, you wee bastard. There you are.

‘I loved her!’

Knight stopped when he heard the distraught voice pierce the air to his right, where a skip filled with rotting timber stood.

‘So what happened?’

The boy didn’t answer. Knight took a couple of steps towards the hulking skip, placing his feet carefully to lessen the rasp of his sturdy boots on the frost. ‘Come on, son, we can’t help you if we don’t know what happened. She two-timing you, or what?’

‘She laughed at me,’ said the boy, his voice floating through the darkness, ‘when I told her how I felt, she laughed at me. I’ve loved her for months. She goes... she went to the Art College with me and I would see her every day. She’s beautiful. And tonight when I saw her at the party I had to tell her. It was now or never, you know? But all she did was laugh at me. So when she left with that guy, I followed her. He’s another student at the college. And when they came up here and they… well, they… she let him… I watched. I watched them rutting up against that wall over there.’

Bit cold for a kneetrembler, Knight thought,but hey – when the sap is rising there’s no holding it back.

Lowry said, ‘They didn’t see me or hear me, they were so bloody intent on what they were doing. They didn’t hear me or see me when I came up behind him and hit him with a rock.’

Oho, thought Knight as he crept forward,another body maybe. A double killer, this lad. All the better for me.

‘She was really surprised when he went down. “I loved you,” I told her. “I loved you and all you could do was laugh.” And then I hit her. Not with the rock, just my hand. I would’ve hit her again, only that bastard moved and I looked away.’

Not dead then. Knight was disappointed.

‘She ran off down the path, and I gave the bastard another dose of the rock and went after her. I didn’t want to hurt her but she’d laughed at me, you see? I caught her where you found her and we struggled and then I …I …’

‘Then you killed her,’ said Knight softly and the boy, lost in the memory of recent events, looked up in surprise from his hiding place to see the big policeman standing over him. Knight gazed down at the youth crouched down behind the skip, his knees pulled up under his chin, his arms wrapped around them, eyes big and round behind his glasses, pale face creased with grief and fear and self-disgust. For a brief moment, Knight felt some sympathy for the young lad. There’d been many women he’d wanted to give a wee skelp. This lad had just taken it to the next level.

Lowry nodded and laid his face on his knees. ‘I didn’t mean to, it just happened. We were rolling around on the ground and my hands were round her throat and I think I just pressed too hard, that’s all.’

‘Aye,’ said Knight, and brought his baton crashing down on the back of the boy’s head. Regulations banned blows to the head, but Knight believed an unconscious prisoner was a perfect prisoner, and he knew just how hard to hit without causing permanent damage. If anyone raised an eyebrow he’d say Lowry-like-the-painter had come at him and he defended himself.

He jerked his handcuffs from his waist and chained the boy’s wrist to a rusting piece of pipe in the wall behind him. Then he looked back across to the deserted buildings where he was sure he had heard sobs earlier. Somewhere out there was a lad with his head bashed in – and if Knight couldn’t have his double murder, then he’d have to settle for saving the boy’s life – being the hero.

‘Talk about win-fucking-win situations,’ he muttered and, with a quick glance at Lowry to make sure he was out cold, he set off into the darkness again, his torch stabbing the frosty air.

3

MAY 1980

IF DAVIE McCALL EVER felt overwhelmed by Rab McClymont’s size, he never showed it. He was just average height himself, big enough for Glasgow, which had more than its share of ‘wee men’. But Rab was a giant. Davie was acutely aware of the height difference – when you constantly find yourself eye-level with a guy’s shoulder, you can’tnotbe aware – but unlike others, he never felt threatened by the big fellow. If anything, it was the other way around.

David McCall had carved himself a reputation far beyond his 18 years. If Danny McCall had left him one thing worth knowing, it was how to take care of himself. Davie seemed to have no fear, constantly inserting himself into situations that would make bigger men pause for thought. And once inserted, he displayed a propensity for violence that bordered on savagery. As soon as he was committed to a course of action, Davie McCall followed it with a cold-blooded efficiency that was rare even in the tough East End streets of a tough city. It was this skill, and a single-minded determination to be the last man standing, on which Joe the Tailor capitalised in his less-than-legitimate enterprises.

Davie, Rab and Bobby Newman stood together outside Luca’s Café on Duke Street, while Joe sat inside for a meeting. Small stores and family traders catering for mostly local customers lined both sides of the street, topped by red sandstone tenement flats. Here there were barbers, butchers, bakers and, this being Glasgow, bars. The exteriors of some of the pubs on Duke Street may have lacked allure, but it was not their intention to attract passing custom. They had their regulars. These were no wine bars or licensed restaurants. They weren’t even watering holes. They were pubs, pure and simple, and the men who spent their time in them came to smoke and to drink and to let the world outside spin on its merry way without them.

No big department stores or nationwide chains here, they kept themselves to the city centre, but the street was nonetheless busy for a weekday. Old women with hats pulled over tight perms, wearing shapeless coats even on a warm May morning, trudged past carrying ancient leather bags or wheeling tartan shopping trolleys behind them like old and faithful dogs. Younger women moved faster, but those who pushed prams or dragged unwilling children at their heels could be a danger to other pedestrians. Young girls flitted singly or in pairs, their arms crossed over their breasts as they walked. Sallow-skinned and narrow-faced young men with watchful eyes scurried by, shoulders hunched as if to fend off the cold. They cupped lit cigarettes in their hand against the wind as they hurried to the pub or the bookies or wherever they went on a weekday while out of work. Occasionally one dodged the cars in order to cross the wide road, it being somehow unmanly to use the pedestrian crossing nearby. Sometimes, eyes darted to the café door and the pace would quicken as they recognised the trio standing there, guessing that whatever was going on inside was not something they wanted to be anything near, thank you very much, pal.

The man Joe was meeting was known to Davie and his pals, by reputation if not by acquaintance. Johnny Jones was a former safeblower and founding member of a crew the press liked to call The Backroom Boys, a tag they earned because one of their MOs was to hide in premises until they closed and then loot it six ways from Sunday. They were also known as Robbery Inc, a loose confederation of like-minded felons who came together only when there was a big blag on – hospital and factory payrolls, bank cash transfers, anywhere there was a big score. That Jones and the Tailor were together in the same room was something of a coup, even if it was just a wee café with no other customers. It was named after Luca Vizzini, a tousle-headed little Sicilian, but Joe owned the place, and any hungry or thirsty locals who Davie and his pals might have to turn away would be no real loss to turnover. Anyway, they’d be back.

The Tailor hadn’t revealed why he was meeting Johnny Jones, and Davie was unbearably curious. Joe wasn’t above using violence to get his way, Davie knew that first-hand, but Jones’ style was considerably more vicious. The old man felt that Johnny and others like him in the city were just a bit too ‘profligate with the chastisement’. Joe often used words like that, forcing the lads to seek out dictionaries to find out just what the hell he was talking about. Joe Klein had never hidden his distaste for the likes of Johnny Jones, so the two of them sharing a coffee was bound to raise an eyebrow or two.

Davie glanced through a window pitted with city grime and saw the Tailor’s familiar figure sitting back in a relaxed manner as Jones, a cadaverous drink of rancid water, leaned over the table top towards him. They made an odd couple. The Tailor was as immaculate as ever and looked as if he’d just been scrubbed with a wire brush, skin pink and fresh and his crop of white hair shining clean. Jones was dressed in an old denim jacket and jeans, a pair of trainers on his feet, his thin grey hair plastered to his skull. A good scrubbing with a wire brush would only reveal another layer of grey skin. He was talking, a long skinny finger stabbing in punctuation at the cracked formica on the table top. The old man occasionally shook his head. Davie wondered for the second time what they were talking about, but, sensing no threat in the room, turned away from the window.

Across the road a group of three young men lingered outside an off-licence. They were in their late teens, roughly the same age as him, for all intents and purposes the same as Davie and his pals. But there was something about them that appeared lifeless, even witless. They had nothing to do and nowhere to go do it, and Davie knew their presence outside an offie was no accident. Inside was cider, and maybe even Buckfast, the fortified wine with a killer kick, but they idled there with an almost studied nonchalance, talking among themselves as their gaze flicked down the road. Davie suspected they were waiting for their banker to arrive.

‘You got a match, Bobby?’ asked Rab. Bobby nodded, reaching into the jacket of his combat jacket to fetch a box of Bluebells. He was easily the best looking of the three, a thick head of blond hair and handsome features making many a local girl think of a young Robert Redford. There had been one or two guys who misguidedly looked at his long, golden locks and had come to the conclusion that Bobby was somewhat less than masculine. Bobby soon disabused of them that notion. He lacked the sheer power of Rab and the killer instinct of Davie, but Bobby Newman was more than capable of handling himself when the occasion called for it.

‘Ta, mate,’ said Rab, taking the small box and pushing open the drawer to peek inside. Then he said, ‘You got a fag to go wi them?’

Bobby sighed. ‘Jesus, Rab – you ever buy your own?’