by Tony Black
‘Whoa! Down, boy, down, down.’
‘Think he’s pleased to see you,’ said Mac.
I lifted the dog, put him on the ground. He jumped up again.
‘Holy crap… let me have some peace. Can’t a man get a pint?’
Mac lifted the dog away, placed him in a basket behind the bar.
‘What the hell’s that doing here?’ I said, pointing to the new addition to the Wall.
‘Where else is he gonna go? Vet said it was here or the pound.’
I shook my head. ‘So we’ve got a dog now?’
Mac smiled. ‘Aye, looks that way.’ He bent down, patted the pooch on the head. It licked his hand. ‘Friendly wee fella, isn’t he?’
‘After his last owners, guess we’re an improvement.’
A bark. Loud one.
‘I think he agrees.’
I wasn’t sure a dog was what we needed right now; I sure as hell wasn’t up for ownership. Mac could take him walkies. I’d always fancied a dog, a real mutt — man, they’re loyal. But something about the current state of my life told me any more responsibility was a bad idea. I sunk my Guinness, gave the glass to Mac, said, ‘Pint of the usual.’
‘Usual it is.’
The dog got out of his basket and came to sit at my feet. Put those big chocolate eyes on me again. I looked away.
‘What’s that on his side, Mac?’
‘Och, he’s still some stitches to come out. They need to stay in for a week or so.’
I looked at the dog, said, ‘Poor bastard.’
Mac laid my pint on the bar. Guinness spilled down the glass and onto the cardboard Tennent’s mat. ‘So, Sighthill… how did it go?’
I got started: ‘You know a guy called Sid, friend of Moosey’s?’
‘What’s he look like?’
I gave a brief description.
‘Sounds like Sid the Snake… Sid’s not his real name: he gets called that because he looks like that guy off Little and Large, Syd Little, has the glasses and the lot. Doesn’t like the handle, though, that’s why he’s got the ponytail.’
Fitted perfectly.
‘What’s his story?’
Mac went back to the Guinness, started to fill up the rest of the pint, said, ‘He’s a bookie.’
Hod butted in, tapping a finger on the bar. ‘I know this guy… I met some people at the casino, once or twice they put it my way to take a swatch at some bare-knuckle fights. I went but it wasn’t my scene, too savage. Anyway, you meet people, right, and these people talk… This Sid keeps a book on dog fights. Fucking sure it’s him.’
I was having one of my moments of clarity, said, ‘Moosey’s house was virtually a kennel, there’s dogs fucking running about all over the place. You think Sid and Moosey were running this caper for Rab Hart?’
Mac topped off my pint, handed it over. ‘Well, Sid’s one of Rab’s crew for sure. Has been for years.’
‘Rasher says the crew’s in bad shape since Rab went away, lot of tinpot hard men jostling for prominence… Could he have been caught in the crossfire?’
‘Maybe,’ Mac sneered, ‘maybe you’ll join him if you go there.’
I let that slide. ‘And those wee pricks on the hill, what about them? Think they might be part of the scene, or hangers-on?’
‘The flash, the wheels, the bling, the clobber… It’s as obvious as a donkey’s cock — they’re into the dog fights too.’ Mac’s voice was firm. ‘It’s a big-money racket now.’ He peered down at our own dog in his basket. ‘That’s what they were doing with him too — probably no use to them as a fighter.’
‘So, what, they just tortured him for sport?’ I said.
‘Looks likely.’
I hit my pint, strolled back to the other side of the bar. Raised a shot glass to the Grouse optic. ‘Hang about… the wee dog’s soft — not exactly fighting material.’
‘Practice!’ snapped Hod. ‘They rob dogs like that to give the fighters a bit of practice.’
I winced at the thought. Moosey had a house full of wee dogs. Were they all just there to be ripped apart to train the fight dogs?
My head dipped; I jerked it back. ‘I need to talk to some of our wee dog-torturing pals.’
Chapter 11
We had sunshine again, So I took a schlep through Holyrood Park, slugging on a bottle of scoosh. The place was awash with kites, cheapo tennis kits, and the worst — disposable barbecues. Knew I’d be wading through their remains for weeks to come. Although if they were going to get cleared up anywhere in the city it was within spitting distance of the queen’s bedroom.
An ant-trail of tourists headed for Arthur’s Seat. Once was a time, on a day like today, I might have joined them, especially with a bottle in my pocket. But the place held bad memories for me now. Col had got me into this investigating business after his son had been murdered up there. That was the city I knew, pretty fucking far from the cobbled streets and sweeping spires in the brochures.
At the traffic lights, where the tourist route takes up the streams of walkers, I spotted an act of full-on nuttery in progress. A young couple, each pushing a child’s buggy, were about to attempt the hill. Okay, the buggies looked the business — mag wheels, brakes, the lot — but the path was fly-up-a-windowpane stuff. Maybe I’d missed something; it would be an exercise craze, no doubt.
I was strolling because I’d some time to kill before I had to meet Debs in the West End. I can’t say I was looking forward to it. With my ex-wife there always was, and always would be, an agenda. If Debs was calling me out to sit down over coffee, you could be assured there’d be a crisis, just past, or just looming. And in one way or another yours truly would have a part to play in it all.
My ex is one of the unfulfilled. Aren’t we all? But with Debs it has a realness about it you can touch. A quality of utter despair permeates her, day in, day out. Those books, the self-help jobs, they’d say there was some masochistic attraction, some denial on one or both of our parts that forced the usual ‘two negatives repel’ ruling to be ignored. Whatever, we were bad for each other, that was the deal. No matter how you dressed it up, no matter how much either of us had tried to make it work, it didn’t. End of story. That our past was the stuff of horror stories didn’t help.
I took the route through to the Grassmarket, along Holyrood Road. At the foot of St Mary’s Street there are two jakey dens. On a bad day, drivers at the crossroads get the added challenge of navigating Omega cider bottles. Today, it was all clear.
A new Holiday Inn was going up, another chrome-and-glass eyesore. This time in the grounds of St Patrick’s Church: let’s get that history put in place, tucked away. Concrete, can’t get enough of it round here.
I shuffled through the area we call the Pubic Triangle: skin bars and brassers all the way along to Lothian Road. For this neck of town, think Student Central. Have I a Paul Calf attitude to them? Have I ever. Day I see a student paying for a bag of chips with a cheque, I’ll dispense a lesson he won’t forget.
The walking bit wasn’t for me. I jumped in a Joe Baxi. Turned out I had my times wrong anyway; I was running about half an hour late. Hoped Debs would believe my ‘on the way’ text message and hang fire.
Taxi driver said, ‘You’ll get an on-the-spot fine if you don’t put on the seat belt.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the new law — fines for not wearing the belts.’
Was I in the mood for this? Clue: no. ‘City’s full of radge ideas.’
I saw eyes appear in the rear-view mirror. ‘Y’see, that’s what I get for trying to do you a favour — nothing but abuse!’
‘ Abuse? I only said-’
‘Yeah, well, don’t… or you’ll be fucking walking.’
It was a classic ‘It’s my ball and I’ll say who’s playing’ statement. Got my goat. ‘It’s your empire, pal. You make the rules.’
A screech of the brakes.
‘Do I look like I’m taking the fucking piss, boy? Always the same with you fuc
king winos.’
What was with this guy? He had the full-on kebab-meat complexion, about to tip me on the street for answering back. I felt my blood surge. ‘You sound like you’re full of shit, is what you sound like.. Why don’t you try throwing me out of your fucking cab?’
‘ You what?’
I fired a hand through the cash slot, grabbed his ear and pulled his head into the Perspex. The cab shook with the thud of it.
‘Hearing better now?’ I said.
He slunk back, cowered against the wheel, then grabbed up the radio.
I got out.
Had to catch the bus on the slow route. By the time I got to the caf in the West End, Debs seethed.
‘I’m sorry, I ran into some transport difficulties.’
She said nothing — always a bad sign. I ignored it, asked if we should order.
The waitress came. I said, ‘Two coffees.’
She asked, ‘What kind of coffee?’
‘Oh, Christ, this rigmarole… Brown ones.’
Debs crossed her legs, smiled sweetly at the waitress, said, ‘Two lattes, please.’
The waitress left. There was a sign up in the shop, balloons either side of it read: HAPPY 21ST SHONA. I felt a pang of guilt for loading her with grief on her birthday. She looked a good kid. Cute. Might even have had class underneath the sunbed tan and the home-do streaks. Just knew that ten years from now she’d be living in a scheme, saddled with five kids of her own and a part-time husband who once had a Suzuki but now had nothing but convictions to his name.
Morbid? You bet. That’s how it is. I had no other way to see it. What else did these girls have to look forward to? Marrying the next Wayne Rooney? Christ, those ones I felt even more sorry for.
Debs wasn’t for thawing. ‘That’s some whisky breath you have.’
I felt sweat form on my top lip. Touched the bottle of scoosh stashed in my inside pocket. ‘Debs, look, I’m really sorry for keeping you waiting, but I don’t remember telling you I’d jacked the booze.’
‘I just thought you might, well… I saw your story and I thought you might be clean again.’
Not exactly the reaction I wanted, but what did I expect? Flags? Bunting? I held schtum.
The waitress brought the coffees, laid them down gently. I tried to smile, paper things over. With Debs too. ‘You look well.’
‘You look like shite.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘What?’
‘What I think?’
‘Not really. Maybe once it did.’
‘Gus, there are people who do care about you.’
The coffee was too hot; I put it down. ‘I know.’
‘Well, why do you keep throwing their concern back at them?’
‘I didn’t ask for their concern.’
Debs crossed her legs the other way, stared out into the street, said, ‘I’m getting married again.’
I felt my heart stop. My blood surged. ‘ What?’
‘I wanted you to hear it from me, not from Mac or Hod or whoever.’
My nerves shrieked; I didn’t know what to think. ‘They know already?’
‘No, Gus… you’re the first I’ve told.’
I tried my coffee again. It burnt my mouth; I didn’t care. ‘I’m flattered, I think.’
Debs leaned towards the table, picked up a teaspoon and started to swirl it around in the coffee. ‘It’s important to me that you’re cool with this.’
‘Cool with it. How could I be cool with it?’
‘I thought-’
‘Whoa, back up… Who is he?’
‘Does that matter?’
‘I think fucking so.’
Cold eyes trained on me: ‘Don’t get any idea about starting, Gus, don’t get any idea about that.’
I sighed. Felt the life drain out of me. ‘What’s his name?’
‘He’s… in the force, Gus.’
‘ What?’ I couldn’t get my head around this at all. My ex-wife marrying filth. Had she lost it? This was call-the-madhouse time. ‘You jest, right? You, Deborah, marrying a cop. You’re off your fucking dial.’
A loud scrape of chair on floor. ‘Right, that’s it. I knew this was a mistake.’
I grabbed her arm. ‘Debs, please, I’m sorry… Sit down.’ I wiped my brow, ran my fingers through my hair. I knew I needed to batten down the anger, lock it away. ‘What’s his name, Debs?’
‘I think you might have met recently… Johnstone. Jonny Johnstone.’
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. ‘No fucking way!’
Debs’s eyes widened. ‘Gus, your face — what’s the matter?’
Everything was happening in a haze of shit. ‘Have you set a date?’
‘July fifteenth.’
‘Summer wedding — nice. We were winter, if I remember right.’
‘Well, there was reasons for that.’
Those reasons were forbidden territory. Something we’d agreed not to discuss. Ever.
‘I beg your pardon.’
Debs looked hurt; her lower lip trembled. ‘I’m not getting any younger, Gus, and… what we did-’
‘Stop. Stop right there. This I won’t touch.’
‘Gus, we should talk about it…’
‘You agreed, we both did, not ever to discuss that again. Never. I won’t.’
‘Gus, it’s not right to let it lie, just sweep it under the carpet
… I was talking to Mac and-’
‘You spoke to Mac about that?’
‘No. No. Of course not… I spoke to Mac about you. He thinks you’re in a bad way, getting worse, and could do with help.’
‘Och, for fucksake.’
Debs started to cry. ‘Gus, I am too… It’s on my mind, all the time.’
I felt wounded, sore. I stood up, walked over to Debs and put an arm around her shoulders. She grabbed me tight. I felt my whole self healed in her arms; I wanted to cry as well. To let it all out. To stop raging at everyone and everything and admit, yes, I was wrong, we were wrong to do what we did. But that was back then, in the past. We could make it right. We had each other. Hadn’t we?
I heard the cafe’s doorbell sound. Footsteps. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.
‘Dury?’
I turned. The cafe was bathed in blue lights, flooding in from the street. Car tyres screeched to a halt. More lights. More police.
‘Are you Angus Dury?’
I nodded, felt Debs loosen her grip on my hand. ‘Yeah, that’s me.’
My arms were taken, turned up my back, cuffed. ‘You’re coming with us.’
‘ What?’ I tried to rein in my fear. Mainly for Debs. She was too shocked. I saw her hide her head behind her hand as she ran out of the place and up the road without so much as a backwards glance.
I was spun towards the meat wagon’s blacked-out windows. A twenty-something in a Hugo Boss suit got out the back door and smarmed before me, viper eyes shining as he said, ‘Hello again, Dury… Thanks for making yourself available for further questioning!’
Chapter 12
Three hours sitting in a cell, without so much as a knock, will get you thinking. I’ve tried not to think about this stuff but it has a way of coming back, time and again. You get Debs forcing it into the frame, you can’t avoid it…
It’s the words that do it for me: ‘Raise yourself, Dury, and depart from the Lord’s house… The pair of you offend the congregation with your very presence.’
I’m gobsmacked. ‘You what? And how would we manage that?’
Father Eugene stoops. He seems nervous before us, his top lip twitching and sparkling with sweat. ‘Now, Dury, we need have no trouble from the likes of ye in front of these good people,’ he says.
The Irishman has nothing on me. I’m only here for Debs — she’s the Catholic. Sure, it means a lot to her that I go through the whole church thing, but I’m not having this from anyone.
‘“Good people”. “Good people”, is it
? There’s not one I would call “good” among that lot… Look at them. Every one of them’s had the knives out for us.’
Debs touches my arm but says nothing. She’s usually as fiery as me, the first to wag the finger and start shouting, but she’s done with the lot of them too. She’s more done than she deserves to be. I glance at her. She still looks beautiful, a knockout as they all say, but her face is hardened, no longer the image of a carefree young girl of seventeen. She’s a woman, searching for courage. ‘Come on, Gus,’ she says, ‘let’s just go.’
‘I will not. We have every right to be here,’ I blast out.
Father Eugene straightens his back and raises his voice. ‘Ye cannot seek forgiveness here, not now, not ever. Go, the pair of ye!’
Debs rises to leave and there’s a flutter of tongues about the place. I glance back and see her mother and father sat at the front of the church. Her mother flinches uncomfortably where she’s sat and turns towards Debs, but her ruddy-faced father lays a hand on her shoulder, jerks her round, eyes front, away from the daughter who isn’t fit to be looked at.
I run to Debs. She’s trembling as I place my arm around her.
‘And ye can stay away,’ shouts the priest at our backs, his voice emboldened. ‘The Holy Mother weeps at the sight of the likes of ye in the Lord’s house.’
I want to turn round, lamp him one in front of the entire church, but Debs grabs my arm. I want to shout, to show the blackness of their hearts, the falseness of their piety, but Debs leads me outside.
‘What did they want, us ruined?’ she says, her courage vanished now, the tears starting up. ‘Me barefoot and you begging to feed us?.. I can’t take it any more, Gus, I cannot.’
My heart sears in two. I know I’ve done this to her. I keep waiting, hoping her family will come out of the church, pick her up, take her home and tell her that’s an end to it, no more Gus Dury.
But it doesn’t happen. They leave Debs to me, abandon her to her fate. All I can do is hold her and hope the tears stop soon.
Chapter 13
It started with a show. Cell doors flung open in dramatic style. Boss Suit strutted in, touch of Pacino about him as he slapped down a folder with a flourish.