Gutted (8 page)

She had me taped. What was I supposed to do? Call for chats, suggest a catch-up over a bottle of Pinot Grigio now and again? Not a chance.

‘Well, I’m glad you called anyway . . . It’s good to hear from you, Debs.’

‘You too, it’s good to hear your voice, even if it is a bit croaky!’

A laugh. Some throat-clearing.

‘Well, that would be cos I’m cutting back on the smokes.’

‘Oh, yeah? I believe you. Look, I won’t eat into your day, I just wanted to ask if you could, er, well, could we meet up?’

Mac had said she’d called. This made two calls inside a week. Something wasn’t right here. Far as I knew all the solicitors’ dealings were over; there was a decree absolute sitting at home to prove it.

‘What’s up, Debs?’

‘No, it’s nothing like that. Nothing’s up at all. Really.’ She was a bit too quick with her answer.

‘Debs, you can’t kid a kidder.’

Silence.

‘I just thought . . . Well, first off I forgot you were so suspiciousminded, Gus.’ Her voice started to tremble. ‘Look, if you don’t want to—’

I cut in: ‘Gimme a place, Debs – I’m there already.’

The bar was empty, save for Mac and Hod. For some reason Mac was all tarted up like a carnival, Fonzie-style leather jacket and a retro Scotland shirt, Argentina ’78 if I wasn’t mistaken. Had seen it on Archie Gemmell.

I slunk in unnoticed, to catch them taking down one of the pictures beside the snug – my favourite one, the dogs playing snooker. It was like an episode of
Chucklevision
minus the ‘To you, to me’ bit. What talk there was hit high on the intellectual scale.

‘See they caught that Naked Rambler guy again,’ said Hod.

‘You’re shitting me – wasn’t he just booked?’

‘Oh yeah, this was after, in the meat wagon coming from the court.’

Mac stopped in his tracks. ‘One minute. Let me get this straight: he’s been done umpteen times, and locked up, then gets out and strips off again?’

‘I dread to think how much of our taxes have been wasted on this.’

I laughed, moved towards the bar. ‘Fuck, I hope they never bring
Question Time
round this way.’

Mac turned. ‘It’s Indiana Jones . . . How was your trip to the badlands?’

‘Useful.’

I filled a glass with Jack Daniel’s, then threw it back. Mac came over, took a chair at the bar while I poured out a pint of Guinness. He looked pissed off; always did when we were short of punters.

‘Have you been at the Old Spice, Mac?’ I said.

‘It’s called making an effort, for the customers.’

I laughed.

‘Have you told him about the pub?’ said Hod.

‘About your rescue package?’ Hod had cash to spare; he wanted to help put the Holy Wall back on the map. I didn’t fancy the idea. I knew Hod’s plans would include a glass-topped bar, Bacardi Breezer promotions and, worse, atmospheric lighting.

Mac sneered. ‘Oh no . . . let’s see, about our plans to stock Regal as well as B&H.’

‘What’s on the table then? Apart from what looks like, if I’m not mistaken, a Jack Vettriano print to replace my dogs, which, for the record, ain’t happening. This is a drinking man’s pub, not some poncey George Street style bar.’

Hod stepped between us. ‘Gus, we’re gonna have to put our heads together on this one. The pub’s going down.’

This was a hurt. It was Col’s pub, in memory anyway. I supped my pint. ‘Later, eh. I’ve just escaped
Deliverance
territory and I’m mightily relieved not to have a length of hillbilly parked in my farter . . . The pub problems can wait.’

I took a stool at the bar and immediately wigged out. An almighty scuffle, then a blur of black came running across the floor to me.

‘
Fucking hell
!’

Mac laughed his heart out, spacehopper guttage going up and down, as the dog I’d rescued jumped into my lap and started to lick at my face.

‘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.’

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 fucking 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.’