Beggars Banquet

That time in Jack’s office, it had been a setup, neatly played by Jack and Halliwell to get me into a lineup, where Gayle Afflick could identify me. Jack wanted to see how I’d react, what I’d do. He had a good idea I’d want to talk to the witness afterwards.

It all fitted, as far as he was concerned. There were rumours around the court that Sophie Marshall had been seeing a married man. It figured that this man most probably knew her from her professional life. (She didn’t have much of a social one.) When Jack found that my car had been ticketed on a road near the Horseshoe Estate, a long way off my usual patch, he knew he was on to something.

So he’d had Gayle Afflick tailed, and had her wired up too, taking the whole thing carefully, nice and slow, because he knew how easy it would be to lose me. But he hadn’t lost me. He had it all now, the whole story. And he had me. He asked if I wanted a solicitor.

‘Of course I want a solicitor.’

‘I hear Tony Barraclough’s good,’ Jack said.

That smell was in my nostrils, that police station smell. There were, I decided suddenly, worse smells, far worse smells, in the wider scheme of things.

Unknown Pleasures

Nelly sat with his head in his hands. He could feel the sweat, except it was more viscous than sweat, more like a sheen of cooking oil. The tenement stairwell smelt of deep-fried tomcat, and the cold step beneath him was stained and scuffed. Over the years, thousands of pairs of feet must have pulled themselves up here, tired or drunk or ailing. But no one in the whole history of the tenement had ever come near to feeling as bad as he did right now. Eleven o’clock, an hour shy of the mille

So now he sat with his head in his hands. Soon as the pain got to him, he’d top himself, couldn’t see any other way. He’d leave a note grassing up Hunter: revenge from the grave and all that. There was nothing in his flat worth hawking, and nobody to hawk it to at this time of night, this night of all nights. Everyone was on the outside. Hunter and Sheila and Dickie and his mum and gran, part of the party that was Edinburgh, kissing strangers and wishing Happy New Years less than an hour from now. Should auld acquaintance be forgot.

His acquaintance was the big H, and no way was it letting him forget it.

Methadone was a joke. He sold his. Some chemists had started taking the junkies in ten at a time, shutting up shop while each dose was dispensed. Standing in a line like cub scouts or something. One wee plastic cup… With jellies hard to come by, what was the alternative?

There is no alternative, that’s what heroin would have said. It wasn’t true it would kill you. It was the crap they cut it with did that. Anybody who could afford a good, big habit of the nice stuff, they could go on for ever. Look at Keef. Learned to ski, used to whip Jagger at te

‘What’s the joke, Nelly?’

He stood up to let her past. She was getting her keys out of her bag. Big canvas bag with Las Vegas painted on the side in loopy red writing. Looked like big red veins to Nelly. He could see a newspaper and a library book and a purse.

‘Nothing really, Mrs McIver.’ A purse.

‘What’re you doing up here anyway?’

‘Thought I heard something. Wanted to check you were all right.’

‘You must be hearing things. I thought you’d be out on the town, night like this.’

‘I was just heading out.’ He stepped on to her landing. She had her key in the door. ‘Eh, Mrs McIver…?’

As she turned her head, his fist caught her on the cheek.

Joh

‘And it’s safe,’ he’d tell them. ‘Just follow the instructions on the box.’ And with a wink he’d be off, rearranging the lines of his Armani jacket, eyes open to the possibilities around him. Margo seemed to be cosying into him, maybe to get away from Panda, who was seated next to her. Panda was the scariest thing in the pub, which was the whole point of him. He was paid to be a deterrent, and also did the deals outside. The Hunter didn’t touch the goods if he could help it. The cops had come after him three times already this year, never enough for a prosecution. And now he had a pair of ears in the Drugs Squad: a hundred a week just for the odd phone call. Cheap insurance, Caldwell had agreed when Hunter had told him about it. Cheap for Caldwell, at any rate.

Hunter didn’t know how much Caldwell was making. Ten, fifteen grand a week, had to be. House down in the Borders apparently, more a castle than a house. Six cars, each one better than the Saab. Hunter wanted to be Caldwell. He knew he could be Caldwell. He was good enough. But Caldwell had the contacts… and the money… and the muscle. Caldwell had made people disappear. And if Hunter didn’t keep business moving, he might find himself on the wrong end of his boss. There were other dealers out there: younger, just as hungry, and edging on the desperate, which meant reckless. All of them would like Hunter’s power, and his clothes and car, his women and money. They all wanted his money. And now Nelly of all runts was giving him grief – just by his very existence. Caldwell’s goons making sure Hunter knew what had to be done, making him acknowledge just how low he was on the ladder.

‘It’ll be you takes the fall,’ one of them had said. ‘You or him, so make it clean.’

Oh, he’d make it clean, if that was what it took. He knew he’d no choice, much as he liked Nelly.

‘Are we clubbing or what?’

Billy Bones talking: ski

‘One more,’ Hunter said. The pub was heaving, table service impossible. There were a dozen empty glasses on the table. Hunter reached out an arm and swept them to the floor.