Doors Open

‘Are you sure about this?’ Alice asked. She experimented with a small sip of the champagne. It was chilled to perfection and sharp-tasting – the real thing.

Westie held his glass out towards her, and this time she did the clinking. All very hush-hush… She had to smile at that. Westie was terrible at keeping secrets. He would always blurt out the identity of her birthday and Christmas gifts before she had a chance to unwrap them. When he’d snogged a girl at a party once, a party Alice had missed because of work, he’d admitted everything to her over breakfast the next morning. She didn’t think he could lie to her, even if his life depended on it. She doubted she’d have any trouble finding out what the story really was.

Especially when she was so intrigued.

9

The last thing Chib Calloway ever expected to see squatting on his parked Beamer was a six-foot-three Hell’s Angel in a tailored double-breasted suit. The man wore polished black brogues on his feet and a crisp white shirt with a mauve silk tie. His long brown hair was tied back into a presentable ponytail, and he sported just the single studded earring (though with lobes pierced for plenty more). He had removed any other facial jewellery and was clean-shaven, cheeks glowing. When he raised his head there was a giveaway blue dotted line across his throat – a prison tattoo. As he scratched his hands down his face, Chib noted more tattoos on both sets of knuckles – HATE on the right, HATE on the left. Blue ink again, home-made. The guy sported laughter lines around his eyes, but the eyes themselves glowed with milky-blue malevolence.

Now this is more like it, Chib thought to himself. This I understand… sort of.

It wasn’t the most genteel part of town, nearer Granton than Leith and not yet part of any regeneration scheme. Leith itself had changed. There were more Michelin restaurants there than in the city centre. It made Chib wonder what the Trainspotting tours made of the place. The guy who did those tours, Chib had tried persuading him that he should feature one of Chib’s pool halls. Chib also owned a couple of neighbourhood bars, and had just been into one of them to do the weekly check. He was realistic enough to know that the staff would be skimming, but needed them to know that he knew. That way nobody got too greedy. And if temptation proved too much, leading to takings below the norm, Chib would get out the photos of Do

Exiting the bar, happy enough with its turnover, Chib had started gnawing his top lip. The place was run almost too well. The manager had come to Chib from a big pub-grub chain in the south; said he missed Edinburgh and wanted to come home. Overqualified for the job, but never complaining. It was making Chib wonder. Could the guy be a plant, some kind of grass or CID undercover thing? Joh

‘Hell’s going on?’

Joh

‘Better not have scratched the paint,’ Chib warned the man. ‘Respray could end up costing you an arm and a leg.’

The man eased himself off the bo

HATE and HATE.

‘You were not expecting me, Mr Calloway?’ The accent was foreign. Stood to reason. ‘I represent some people, Mr Calloway, people you should know better than to disappoint.’

By which he meant the Norwegians, the biker gang from Haugesund. Chib had known there’d be some trouble there.

‘You owe your friends for a shipment, Mr Calloway, and you have not been forthcoming.’

Joh

‘Repeatedly so, Mr Calloway, but it is hardly a sustainable bargaining position, is it?’

‘Chewed a bloody dictionary,’ Gle

The Hell’s Angel turned his face towards Gle

‘You don’t just come barging up to Mr Calloway!’ Gle

‘The same respect he has displayed towards my clients?’ The question sounded genuine.

‘You’re not part of the gang, then?’ Chib interrupted.

‘I am a collector of monies due, Mr Calloway.’

‘For a percentage?’

The man shook his head slowly. ‘I work for a straight fee, half of it in advance.’

‘Do you always collect the other half?’

‘So far.’

‘First time for everything,’ Joh

‘Tell them,’ Chib said, ‘the money’s coming. I’ve never let them down before and, frankly, I’m insulted they’ve sent you.’ He looked the stranger up and down. ‘A grocer’s boy ru

‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Calloway.’

Chib’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why not?’

The man offered a sliver of a smile. ‘Because by next week they’ll have had their money paid in full.’

Joh

‘Let him go,’ he said quietly.

The stranger held Chib’s gaze for a few more seconds and then pushed Joh

‘I’ll be sticking around,’ the man was saying. ‘I need to hear from you today; tomorrow at the latest. After that, the talking will all be over – do you understand?’

Joh

‘Hey!’ Chib called out to him. ‘What’s your name, big man?’