Rab turned from the stone and gave Bobby a narrow-eyed stare. ‘Fuckin chair cost me seventy quid.’
‘You’d think for that money you’d be able to sit in it then. I’ve tried one cheek, then the other, then both cheeks at once, but it’s like sitting on a board here.’
Davie smiled as he sipped at an ice cold can of Coke Bernadette had brought to him. He still felt the touch of her fingertips on his own as she passed it over with a sunny smile. He had always thought Rab would end up with some hard-faced hairy from the schemes, not this soft-spoken, freckle-faced beauty with the soft Irish accent. Her eyes had lingered on his face just a touch longer than it should have and he was certain the brush of her fingers had been deliberate. He wasn’t too experienced in these matters, but he felt sure she was showing him more interest than he felt comfortable with.
Rab decided to ignore Bobby’s protestations. He stooped to stare at the chicken through the glass door of the oven, then sat in his chair at the table. Bobby watched how Rab positioned himself, trying to spot some sort of knack. He wriggled again.
Rab asked, ‘So what’s your da playing at, I wonder?’
‘Dunno, Rab,’ Davie replied. ‘He’s trying to goad me, I think, draw me out.’
Rab nodded thoughtfully as Bobby shifted his weight from one buttock to the other and asked, ‘What do you think will happen when you finally meet?’
Davie didn’t answer. The music in the living room changed to the Steve Miller Band and ‘The Joker’, which was right on the nose, for that was what his father was, some kind of joker, playing tricks. They would go up against each other someday, he knew that with a certainty he found disturbing. Him and me, he’d said to Audrey, but he was wrong. It’ll be him, or me, he thought.
He looked through the wide picture window to Rab’s spacious garden. It was a nice bit of ground, broad expanse of grass bordered by mature trees, illuminated by a series of lights set into the earth. It was warm indoors, but Davie felt something cold and dank wrap itself around him, as if there was some kind of threat out there in the gloom.
He became aware of Rab watching him intently. ‘What’s up, Davie? You’re sitting there like you’re ready to make a run for it.’
Davie realised he was perched on the edge of the chair, his hands gripping the Coke can tightly, denting the flimsy container’s sides. He forced himself to sit back, smile, shrug. He willed himself to relax.
‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘still not used to being out, that’s all.’
Rab glanced through the window, scanned the garden himself, saw nothing, then nodded. ‘It’ll take a while. It’s no easy.’
‘It’s these bloody chairs, Rab,’ said Bobby, still fidgeting. ‘They’re like something Vincent Price would invent.’
‘Quit your moaning, ya bastard,’ said Rab, smiling.
Bernadette appeared in the doorway and said. ‘Who’s moaning, and why?’
‘Bobby here cannae get comfy,’ said Rab as Bernadette moved behind him to lay both hands on his shoulders and stroke them. ‘Seventy quid a whack and his skinny arse cannae get comfy.’
Bernadette laughed, her eyes looking at Bobby then lighting on Davie, giving him another long look. Davie was certain some kind of signal was being given. Or maybe she was being friendly. Or maybe he was imagining it. He really wasn’t very good at this.
‘When’s this going to be ready?’ She asked. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Just about, doll,’ Rab replied. ‘Can’t rush it – it’s a skill.’
She laughed and kissed the top of his head, arms round his neck, flattening her breasts against his hair. Her laugh was almost musical, Davie noted. He watched the couple for a second, feeling like a peeping tom, then the chill returned to his flesh and he looked towards the garden once more, half expecting to see his father’s grinning face in the shadow of a tree.
‘Do us a favour, doll,’ Rab went on, jerking his head towards Bobby, ‘and get this eejit here a cushion to sit on. He’s giving me a pain in my arse…’
‘That’s nothing to the pain in the arse this chair’s giving me.’
Connie said from the doorway. ‘I’m going to have to fatten you up, snake hips, get some flesh about you. Gimme something to hang on to.’
Bobby laughed. ‘Cannae fatten a thoroughbred, darlin.’
Connie laughed too. ‘Aye, son, you keep telling yourself that. Thoroughbred, my fanny.’
Bernadette smiled. ‘I’ll get you something soft to sit on.’
‘Ach, if it’s something soft he needs, he can sit on my knee like one of those ventriloquist’s dummies. I’ll stick my hand up his arse and make him talk. Maybe we’ll get more sense out of him that way.’
‘Do that, hen, you’ll never get a word out him, cos he talks out his backside,’ said Rab with a smile and Connie smiled back, briefly bonding with him in a mutual need to have fun at Bobby’s expense.
Bobby gave her a smile. ‘I love you too, honey…’
Connie smirked. ‘Can’t blame you.’ Then she gave Davie a wink. That’s the kind of woman she was. Davie liked her.
Bernadette laughed as she and Connie left the kitchen again, just as the song switched to Sinead O’Connor telling the world ‘Nothing Compares To You’. Rab waited until he knew they were safely back in the living room before he said, ‘Going to Girvan to see that bastard Liam Mulvey tomorrow night. Want to come?’
It was Davie’s turn to shift in his chair. ‘I dunno, Rab…’
Rab gave him a sharp look. ‘What don’t you know?’
Davie inhaled then exhaled deeply before he answered. He knew this conversation would come sometime, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t be this soon. ‘Drugs, Rab. Don’t think it’s for me.’
Rab blinked at him, then sat back in the chair. He gave Bobby a brief glance as he took a sip of lager. ‘What do you mean, you don’t think it’s for you?’
Davie paused to consider his words. ‘Joe never wanted involved.’
Something flashed on Rab’s face then, irritation perhaps, maybe shame, Davie couldn’t tell which. ‘Joe’s no here, Davie.’
‘Okay. I don’t want involved.’
This time it was genuine irritation. ‘Fuck’s sake, Davie, it’s just business! Supply and demand, that’s all.’
‘Rab, look…’
‘We don’t force people to buy our stuff. We don’t sell to kids or nothing like that. Tell him, Bobby.’
Bobby raised a hand. ‘Leave me out of this, big man. I’m finished after tomorrow, remember?’
‘You don’t know where the stuff’s going, Rab,’ Davie said. ‘You punt to dealers, they sell to whoever they want.’
Rab’s jaw set hard. ‘Who you been talking to? That reporter bint?’ Davie felt something bristle inside him at Rab’s tone but he didn’t say anything. Rab went on, ‘Here’s the simple truth, Davie – if it wasn’t us, it’d be somebody else. Drugs are a fact of life now, no getting away from it. Joe would’ve woken up to it eventually, he’d’ve seen the money getting made, just as Luca and me have. You were there that night when Luca said it was going to happen no matter what, so we might as well be in control. Anyway, I’m no asking you to punt nothing. I’m asking you to come with me tomorrow night, to have my back. Like the old days.’
Davie stared back at his friend, unable to put into words why he did not like Rab’s business. As Bobby had said the day he got out, it’s not like the old days. It’s dirtier. Davie had witnessed that for himself in the Gorbals.
‘We’re no delivering nothing,’ Rab pressed. ‘We’re just collecting some dough and hearing what this boy’s got to say, that’s all. No drugs, nothing like that. I need you there, Davie. I mean, what you gonnae do, son? Get a job stacking shelves?’
Davie thought about it. Rab was a friend, even now. Davie had changed, but had he changed so much that he would desert a friend when he needed it? He also felt guilty about Bernadette and he didn’t know why. Then he thought about his visit to the labour exchange and the
guy’s expression as he noted his details. Stacking shelves was probably the best he could hope for, right enough. Nothing wrong with it, but it wasn’t for him. Davie knew the past was always with him. He could no more shake it off as he could his own shadow. The Life was his life. He knew it. He sighed and nodded. Rab’s face loosened into a smile. ‘That’s my boy. Knew you wouldn’t let me down.’
24
THE HAUNTING ECHO of Gary Moore’s blues guitar and the ache of his voice were in Davie’s head as he walked home. It seemed a fitting soundtrack to the night-time city, with the rain drilling the asphalt. Connie had moved in with Bobby in his semi-detached house on the Edinburgh Road, so that was where Davie got him to drop him off after the dinner. He was happy to make his own way back to Sword Street. Before he’d been jailed it had been his habit to take late night walks, latterly with Abe. He loved the city at night, loved the feeling of solitude. There was still noise – traffic, the occasional shout, people singing, for this was Glasgow and alcohol brought out the performer in many a drunk – but it was generally muted, as if the darkness had brought a thick blanket with it. There was little noise on this night, though, the icy rain slicing from the pitch black sky enough to keep people indoors.
Even though he had been away for ten years, Davie knew the streets and lanes between Edinburgh Road, Alexandra Parade and Duke Street intimately. He had never lost the map in his head and the street layout had not changed. It was pretty much a grid, still dominated by red and blonde sandstone buildings. Many of them had been cleaned up, he noticed, thanks to a programme of building refurbishment begun in the late seventies which had progressed into the eighties. New windows, stone sandblasted, doors replaced, mostly paid for out of the public purse. Rab told him he’d bought into a couple of companies who siphoned off some of the cash for themselves, selling the idea to tenement owners that they could have their building cleaned up at no cost by over-estimating the price. That way the council grants available paid for everything. He said they’d made a nice little profit out of it.
Davie was on Craigpark Street, its junction with Duke Street in sight, when he felt the chill again.
It started at the nape of his neck, as if something was breathing icy vapour towards him that had little to do with the weather. He felt eyes upon him. He stopped, looked behind him. The street was empty. He listened but heard nothing untoward. He remained still for a few seconds, every sense stretched, but saw, heard, felt nothing more. He shook his head, telling himself he was imagining things, that this thing with his father had him jumping at shadows.
And then he heard the whistling.
He couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from but he knew it was the same tune he’d heard at Sighthill. He recognised it now – ‘Streets of Laredo’, an old cowboy ballad his father used to sing to him. The song was about a young cowboy dying after being shot, calling on his friends to bury him. It was the only song to which Davie knew the words and one verse in particular jumped into his mind as the melody drifted through the rain,
Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly,
And play the dead march as you carry me along;
Take me to the valley, and lay the sod o’er me,
For I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong.
Davie always loved the song, always wanted to be a cowboy, but now, hearing the sad tune being whistled somewhere in the dark, it became threatening. He whirled around in the street, trying to locate the source, but the sound echoed from the tenement walls. He felt cold sweat trickle down his back and his fingers tightened into fists as he waited for an attack. But still he saw no-one, just heard the melancholy melody floating in the damp air.
Davie wanted to shout out Danny McCall’s name, tell him to show himself, but he resisted the impulse. He knew that was what his father wanted, a visible sign of fear. Cat and mouse, that’s what it was. Danny was playing with Davie, but Davie would not play by his rules. So he kept his mouth shut and waited it out. Let his father make the move.
Then the whistling stopped.
Somehow the silence was worse.
Davie started to walk again, slowly, muscles still tense, eyes probing shadows, searching for movement, every nerve on the alert for any sign of attack.
Then Davie saw him.
He stepped out of a lane about fifty feet away. He stood under a street light which cast a shadow on his face, but Davie knew it was him. He wore a dark, mid-length jacket, the collar turned up, and his hands were thrust into his pockets. He remained stock still, his breath clouding around him the only sign of life.
Watching.
Waiting.
Davie slowed to a halt and the father and son surveyed one another at a distance. Davie thought about closing the gap at speed then launching himself, bringing all this to an end. He knew Danny McCall was leading them towards something. Was this the time? Was this the place? Would he let his son dash across that fifty feet and let it happen?
Then, as if he knew what Davie was thinking, Danny McCall raised his right hand and waved. It was just a single pass of the hand, just as he had done outside the courtroom ten years before, and then it was back in his pocket. Davie began to move, just a few slow steps at first, then began to pick up the speed.
Danny remained where he was.
Davie was walking fast now, ready to break into a run.
Danny McCall waited.
It was when Davie finally hit a run that the older man finally moved, whirling and darting back into the lane. Davie’s feet splashed on the concrete as he pushed himself forward, desperate to reach him before he vanished. But by the time he got to the mouth of the lane, Danny McCall was nowhere to be seen. Davie listened again, trying to track any footfalls, but there was nothing. Just the sound of a taxi whirring by on Duke Street, its tyres hissing on the wet surface.
Davie took a few steps into the dimly-lit lane, eyes roving from dirty red brick wall to dirty red brick wall, placing his feet carefully on the uneven, weed-covered ground. Wooden doorways set into the bare brick dotted the length of the alley, leading to the back courts of properties on either side, and as he reached each one he studied the shadows, always on guard for a dark-jacketed figure leaping towards him. But the lane was empty. Davie stood in the darkness for a few more moments, hoping his father would show himself, hoping he would not. He didn’t think he could have made it to the far end of the lane in time, so he must have either gone through one of the doorways into the rear of the buildings, or had shot over the wall. Either way, Davie knew he was gone. There was no whistling, no chill in his bones. Davie was alone in the lane – he knew it.
He retraced his steps towards the street, his body still on edge despite his certainty that any danger had passed. At the very end of the lane his eye was drawn to something fluttering in the breeze on the wall. He moved closer, saw it was an envelope taped to the brick. He peeled it off slowly, noting his hands were trembling. He closed his eyes, momentarily wondering what this one would contain. There had been two envelopes before – one with his mother’s picture, the other with shots of the dead girl in that room in Springburn. When he opened his eyes again he focussed on the two words, the ink smudged by raindrops but still legible on the front:
Be fast
Davie frowned – be fast for what? – and pulled the flap of the envelope open. He tipped the contents out, another Polaroid, this time showing the face of a badly beaten girl. A face he knew.
Vari.
He couldn’t tell whether she was alive or dead, not from the photograph. But the message seemed to suggest she was still alive. The problem was, he didn’t have her address. She could be anywhere. He looked towards Duke Street and saw a telephone box on the corner. He ran towards it, hauling the door open to be met by the stench of new booze and old urine. He dialled Bobby’s number and was greeted by a guarded, ‘Hello?’
‘Bobby, it’s me…’
Bobby must have caught the urgency in Davie’s voice for any leeriness ov
er his phone ringing after midnight morphed into concern. ‘Davie, what?’
‘Vari’s address, I need it.’
Davie heard a smile in Bobby’s voice then. ‘Fancy a wee bit, eh?’
Irritation flashed in Davie’s voice. ‘Bobby, just gimme the address.’
‘What’s up?’
‘She’s in trouble. Don’t have time to explain.’
‘Okay, okay, okay…’ Davie heard a drawer being opened and he visualised Bobby taking out an address book, rifling through pages. He rattled off an address on Alexandra Parade, but before he could ask another question, Davie hung up and darted out of the phone box.
Be fast, that was what his father written on the envelope.
Be fast…
* * *
The taxi dropped him off at the closemouth and he threw banknotes at the driver, knowing he had paid far too much but not caring, before shooting out. He took the stairs two at a time, only slowing as he approached the front door. It was lying open. He hesitated before pushing it open, listening for any sounds from above or below, but the close was quiet. He nudged the door with the back of his hand, pushing it fully back to reveal the hallway beyond. He heard the sound of the TV playing loudly. Vari’s flat was similar to his own, but only had one bedroom, through a door to his left. He glanced in, saw a neat little room, obviously a female’s, cosmetics on the dresser, soft toys on a chair in the corner. Another door to the right led to a bathroom, a second one further down to the kitchen. Both empty. He moved down the hallway and turned left into the living room.
There were no lights on but the room was illuminated by the flickering shadows of the TV screen on which he saw Vincent Price facing off against Boris Karloff. A coffee table lay on its side, magazines and a bowl of pot pourri strewn across the floor. Vari lay on her back just beyond the table on an old fireside rug, her matted hair plastered to her face, which was bloody and bruised. Her clothes were torn open to reveal her flesh, her skirt ripped and raised, her underwear torn off. There was blood streaming down her thighs.
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