Paying For It (14 page)

‘He’s not eaten yet. You could take him in some breakfast.’

‘Mam, I—’

‘Oh, never mind, son. It’s no matter. If he shouts though, go in.’

‘Does he know I’m here?’

‘Yes. I told him last night. He’s fair over the moon.’ She left, showering me with smiles.

What had I done? I’d no right to be playing with her emotions like this. I knew if I laid eyes on my old man – weak heart or not – I’d be liable to lamp him. I’d stored up a hail of misery for my mother by coming here and the thought wounded me.

I fired up a tab. The smoke filled the kitchen in an instant. I opened up a window, tried to encourage it out into the yard. As I leant over I caught sight of myself in the mirror. It had hung on the kitchen wall since I was too short to see into it. Now, I had to crouch to see myself. I looked rough as all guts. Red rings round my eyes, three days of growth. I needed serious attention.

‘Gus, just take a look at yourself.’ That’s what Debs had said to me. I looked, stared, but I saw nothing. Well, nothing I wanted to see.

‘Ella!’ I heard a roar from upstairs.

It had been years since I’d heard that roar, but it hadn’t changed much.

‘Ella. Ella.’

What was he calling for this time? Another drink? Helping off the floor? A pot to piss in?

‘Ella.’ The roar came again, followed by a thump on the floor. Then another. Three or four in quick succession.

‘Shut your hole …’ I said. I felt my voice trail off. I didn’t want to alert him to the fact I stood in his kitchen.

More thuds. ‘Ella! For the love of Christ, where are you woman?’

‘That’s it. I’m outta here.’

I stubbed my tab in the sink. Ran the tap to clear the ash down the plug hole, and dropped the dowp in the bin.

‘Ella. Ella.’ He roared from upstairs as I put on my jacket. I was doing up the buttons when my mother walked in.

‘Angus? Where are you going?’

‘I’m sorry, Mam.’

She stood open-mouthed, holding up a jar of Red Mountain. ‘But I’ve got your coffee.’

I wanted to go to her, curl her up in my arms. But I couldn’t.

‘
Ella
–
Ella
.’

‘I have to go.’

She put down the jar, got into a panic.

‘Your dad … have you been up to him?’

‘No, Mam. I can’t do that.’

She put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, son.’

‘I’m sorry, Mam. I have to go.’

I turned away, went for the door.

GRABBED THE
EVENING
News
. The front page splash was a police raid on a house full of illegal immigrants. I’d read the story a couple of times before it struck me why it seemed so unusual. They’d raided Marchmont. The price tags on houses there carry a long row of Bobby De Niros. I saw we were now talking big business in this racket.

I dipped into R.S. McColls, asked for a pack of Mayfair. Cheapest tabs on the shelf. Yellow-finger specials. I was on a Presbyterian guilt trip, aware I was the only smoker left in Scotland still buying fags from reputable retailers. Christ, what had become of this country? When Joe Public starts buying daily essentials like tabs on the black market, we’re in trouble. Was like the war years.

Sparked up outside. Wasn’t a bad smoke. But knew I’d wake up tomorrow reeking like pub curtains.

I felt a cold snap coming. Suited me fine, took the edge off the craving. And I needed my wits about me if I was gonna press Fitz the Crime for anything useful. Since Milo’s killing, I needed him more than ever.

I’d been besieged by nightmares. They played like this: I’m back at the Fallingdoon House, flames everywhere, and screams … young girls crying their hearts out. I burst through the door, hold out my hand.

‘Come on! Quick, give me your hand,’ I say.

The flames lap all around us, but the girls look like they did the night I saw them, pale-grey ghosts. Half starved, frightened. They recoil from me.

‘Come on! Give me your hand,’ I roar.

I rush into the room, flames lap at the walls, all around thick black smoke chokes us.

‘Christ, I’m not the enemy!’ I say. ‘I’m not the enemy.’

The girls run screaming, huddle in the corner, terrified.

Suddenly, I feel a tap on my shoulder and I turn. It’s Milo, but he’s changed. His face is battered to a bloody pulp. Two dark sockets sit where his eyes should be. As he begins to speak, I see flames creeping up his coat tails.

‘Milo, Milo you’re on fire!’ I call out.

I slap at the flames, try to push them back. The heat is intense now, the palms of my hands smoulder in agony.

‘Milo, move would you!’

The girls’ screaming increases in pitch. Everywhere there’s flames and fear. It’s the worst fear I’ve ever known.

‘Milo, you must move. We
have
to get outside.’

At once, he tips his head down to face me. He begins to speak, and as he does so, the flames engulf his body. He cries and taps at his chest, then speaks but his words are in a language I don’t understand, except for one: ‘Latvia.’

Nadja’s revelation about Billy’s get rich quick plan had been unexpected. It gave me a few bargaining chips to tempt Fitz with. But he was filth, and unpredictable. I’d have to lay it out finely. Make it worth his while.

The bus was packed.

A young jakey barfed in the aisle as we drove down Leith Walk. On a bus full of Leithers, only one woman held her nose.

‘Out,’ roared the driver.

‘Och c’mon …’ said the jakey, ‘It’s pishing doon!’

‘Out now or it’s the polis!’

The driver stood up, tucked himself behind his perspex screen as the jakey pulled down his baseball cap and rolled off the bus. He kicked out at the doors as they closed behind him. Then fell on his arse in the wet street.

The bus pulled out from the kerb, but stopped suddenly in the middle of the road. ‘Just stay in your seats, please!’ said the driver as he opened the doors to let two cans of Omega white cider roll onto the street. After the cans, the jakey’s vomit followed down the aisle and slid over the steps.

I shook my head. Don’t know why, had seen this all a million times before. Somehow, today, things seemed that little bit more annoying. This place was riding on my nerves.

An old boy leaned into my space. He took off his cap, slapped it off my seat. ‘I’d bring back National Service for the likes of him,’ he said.

I turned, faced him, said, ‘I’d bring back hanging for the likes of him.’

I ORDERED UP a coffee.

‘Is that a latte or a mocha or—’ The waiter sounded Polish, one of the latest wave of legal migrants. They’d just about wiped out the Aussies in the bars, and now they staked a claim on the cafés.

‘Hold up,’ I cut in, ‘just make it black and strong.’

‘An Americano?’

Was I hearing things? This was Leith. Last bastion of old Edinburgh. There wasn’t a Continental-style piazza for at least 500 yards. The yuppies had redrawn the battle lines.

I waved the waiter off with the back of my hand, said, ‘Whatever.’

He eyeballed me as he went, probably to add some of his home-made gravy to my coffee.

In five minutes he came back, handed me a receipt on a little saucer, two white mints on top, ‘That will be two fifty, please.’

For that kind of poppy, I expected the best coffee of my life. Truth told, it sucked balls into a hernia. I loaded in the milk and sugar, tried to focus on why I was still sat here.

For a while now, I’d been rolling around a quote from Bowie: ‘It’s not really work, it’s just the power to charm.’

Sound advice. If I was going to get anything from Fitz – anything other than an introduction to Mr Nightstick – I’d have to suck shit. I’d probably been too forceful at our last meeting. I’d got him riled. In the past, way back, Fitz had been known as a hothead. He was quick with his fists, coulda been a contender, or so I’d heard.

I’d been on the end of one of Fitz’s kidney punches before, and I wasn’t keen to repeat it. If only for the reason that he could be very useful to me now. Getting him to believe I was doing him a favour would be the key.

Fitz appeared on time. Tearing down Leith Walk in a white heat.

‘Shit, he’s mad as hell,’ I said under my breath.

I stood up, waved a tenner in the air. ‘Waiter, a pot of tea please.’

As I saw Fitz approach the café door, he spotted me through the window and glowered. His face looked scarlet, anger shone out of every pore. If I had to pick his match, it was Yosemite Sam, guns blazing.

I got the door for him. ‘Fitz, glad to’ – he stormed past me – ‘see you.’

I watched him remove his coat and take a seat.

I bit down on my back teeth. It went against the grain to go crawling to plod. But, at this stage, what choice did I have? Without the file on Billy, I’d be bust.

‘Okay there, Fitz?’

‘Cut the shite, Dury.’

The waiter brought the tea. I handed over the cash without looking at the bill. Waited for him to leave, said, ‘Consider it cut.’

Fitz’s lower lip pointed at me, his grey teeth on show as he spoke, ‘Have you completely lost the fucking plot, boyo?’

‘Fitz.’

‘No, don’t you
Fitz
me – when I think about the ways, the thousands of ways, Dury, that I could hang you out to dry.’

I stopped him in his tracks, pointed a finger. ‘Cool the beans, Fitz.’

He poured his tea, looked around. ‘This place has gone to the dogs.’

‘Haven’t we all.’

I passed the milk and sugar. Watched him stir them in.

‘What’s your game, Dury?’

I tried to clear the air. Played up to his ego. ‘Look, about that earlier stuff – just forget it. I was a bit …’

‘Pissed?’ He laughed at his own joke.

A wry smile. ‘Well … let’s leave it that I was wrong to abuse the friendship.’

He burst into uproarious guffaws. ‘Friends? You and me?’ The thought brought a tear to his eye.

I had him blindsided, hit him with: ‘Yeah. Who the fuck am I kidding? Let’s keep things on a business footing. I’ve something for you.’

He pushed aside his teacup, leant forward. ‘What’s this bollocks you’re talking, Dury?’

‘Now, now. Nothing for nothing.’

‘Fuck off.’

I went for the kill. ‘Fitz, I’m onto something here, something big.’

‘Billy Boy?’ I knew by the tone of his voice he’d already done his homework.

‘You know what I’m on about? For Chrissake, Fitz, he was tortured to death in a public place.’

‘So?’

‘So — these days, a wee lassie falls over and scrapes her knee and there’s cops running around kitted out like Dustin Hoffman from that
Outbreak
movie. But Billy’s taken out good style, and your lot sweep it under the carpet!’

He leant back, took a sip of his tea. Topped up the cup from the pot. I saw he was thinking things through.

‘What have you got?’

‘Uh-uh. First the file.’

‘Arrah, there’s no way. No way, Dury.’

‘Why not? You know I’m not messing about.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘Fitz, if you help me out, I could put you back on the K-ladder. This isn’t just about Billy, there’s been another murder, one of your countrymen as it happens.’

He took a slow sip of tea.

‘Think about it, Fitz. Do you want that DI’s badge back?’

He stood up, went for his coat. ‘Not in here.’

I followed him out. Lit up a Mayfair. It seemed to hit the spot.

‘Look, I can’t just remove a file. What world are you living in? It’s all computerised these days, a printout sends warning lights flashing. What exactly do you need to know?’

‘Who’s behind this?’

‘By the holy, Gus – is that something anyone would put on a file? All I can tell you is there’s a, shall we say, tacit agreement to lay off this one.’

‘From who?’

‘The top.’

‘Why? Do you know why?’

‘Let’s just say our Billy was dealing with some very unsavoury characters.’

‘Zalinskas.’

‘Vice are all over him.’

‘So, they hung Billy out to dry?’

‘Bigger fish to fry.’

I took my turn to deliver the goods. I told Fitz about the Latvians at Fallingdoon House. About Milo’s calls, and the fire. I left out Nadja’s involvement; she could still be useful to me.

‘That’s it? You wouldn’t be holding out on me here, Dury?’

‘Never. I get any more you’ll be the first to hear.’

‘I better be.’

‘But, Fitz, go back to that file. I’m not buying any of this.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘There’s more to it.’

‘Go way outta that.’

‘No, I mean it … someone’s feeding us a cover story. You need to find out who’s at the back of it.’

IF YOU FOLLOW the London Road out from Meadowbank, you come to Portobello. Not as glamorous as it sounds, but, like every other district of Edinburgh – on the up.

When I come to Porty now, I always think of George Galloway. He said that when he was a kid his father had wound him up about a trip to Portobello, thought he was off to the Italian coast the way the name sounded. Bet he felt disappointed when he hit the beach and got a waft of the sewage outflows. Still, you have to love Gorgeous George. Have to love anyone who sticks it to Bush and Blair in such a high old fashion.

In parts, beyond the Bedsitland-by-the-Sea fringe, Porty maintains a moneyed air of old Victorian mansions. Hod’s place, however, is new money. A top-floor apartment in one of the front’s eyesores. Plenty of chrome, plenty of glass. Not one ounce of class.

I pushed the buzzer on the front door. The factor was nowhere in sight so I scanned the residents’ names. Went for Clarke.

A woman’s voice, said, ‘Hello.’

She sounded posh, it threw me. I didn’t want to come over like I’d an eye to burgle the joint.

‘Hello, there. My name’s, Dury, I’m er …’

‘Oh, you must be here to look at my box!’

I spluttered, ‘Excuse me?’

‘The television thingie.’

Suddenly things began making sense.

‘Eh no, I’m staying with Hod – Mr Dunn.’

She said no more. Think I’d embarrassed her into opening the door.

My friend had offered to put me up for a while. The combination to his flat’s door had always been a simple one: 1745. For a rabid nationalist like Hod, it could be nothing other than the date of the Jacobite Rebellion.