‘ Now, you know what to do?’ I said.
Hod put up his collar, locked his jaw. ‘Course I do.’
‘No. You don’t, obviously.’ I turned down the collar, playfully slapped his chops, said, ‘Lose the roughhouse demeanour.’
He slouched, nearly dropped the tray of sandwiches, pies and coffee. ‘I just don’t do this nice thing too well, Gus.’
‘Look, you want to help out, right?’
‘I do, yeah.’
‘Well, this is test number one — you get this right, well, we’ll see.’
Mac appeared at my back. His face was set hard as granite. He had a donkey jacket on that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an Irish navvy of the seventies.
‘Dressing down?’
‘We’re going to Sighthill, Gus.’ He spat the words like bullets. As he stood before me he was transformed into the chib-man of old. Mac was ready for a pagger, I could see it in his eyes.
‘Now, you’ll behave yourself, won’t you?’
He didn’t answer; brushed past me and made for the door. He was a fearsome sight with the threat of violence upon him.
I caught Hod checking himself out in the Younger’s Tartan Special mirror that hung in the hallway. He seemed to be psyching himself up, but looked more like a learner driver waiting for the test examiner.
‘You cool with this?’ I asked.
‘Sure, aye… Aye.’ He straightened his back, showed teeth.
I nodded approval. ‘That’s the face you show them!’
‘ Gotcha.’
‘Then let’s do this.’
First out the door was Mac. He schlepped over to the red Golf. I saw plod following his every move. They never saw Hod approach and put a knock on the driver’s window.
‘Morning, chaps. How goes it today?’ he said.
The window was wound down; a head popped out.
‘I saw you sitting out here and I was thinking to myself, Poor buggers — bet they never even get a break for a bit of breckie.’
Hod passed in the tray. Hands went up. Heads went down. They checked out what the go was with all the smiling and the free scran. They never saw Mac creeping behind to pack the exhaust flange with a damp bar towel.
‘So, you’ll be the early shift?’ Hod said, his mock-bonhomie at full blast. ‘Beats the graveyard shift, eh?’
Plod took over the tray, seemed a bit conflicted. He said, ‘I can’t discuss that kind of thing… Look, who the hell are you?’
I started to hear whistling: if I wasn’t wrong, The Great Escape. Mac sauntered round to the front of the car. As he passed Hod he gave a little tap on his back. In no time at all, he was behind the wheel of the van, starting up. He had the side door open for me to dive in before plod rumbled.
We pulled out.
The red Golf revved high. Then cut out. Revved again. Cut out.
There was some serious burn from within the engine. Lots of smoke. Suddenly the Golf’s wheels screeched into the street, all of five yards, then the car stalled.
Hod smiled as I checked him in the rear-view. I said to Mac, ‘Nice work, fella.’
His short arms wrestled with the big steering wheel, wide turning circle playing havoc with the needle tickling sixty. ‘Turned out quite well, I thought.’
I grinned. ‘Tell me, the towel… where did you get that idea?’
‘Flash of genius, wasn’t it? Truth told, I snaffled it.’
‘From who?’
‘Eddie Murphy.’
I turned in my seat. Mac scrunched the gears, pulled out into traffic, said, ‘ Beverly Hills Cop… He used bananas, though. We were out of them, but the bar towel did the trick.’
I had to laugh. Put the Eddie Murphy eeh-eeh-eeh in there, said, ‘Get the fuck outta here!’
We snaked through traffic for a few minutes, working the bus lanes to get as far away from the Wall — and plod — as quickly as possible. We did well — Mac might have made a wheelman in another incarnation. I knew the bus route to Sighthill, but Mac was taking me — there’s a phrase — all around the houses.
‘You’re sure about this?’ he said.
‘Am I sure? Of course I’m sure.’ I wondered why Mac the Knife was asking me this. Had he changed his mind about what we were about to do? ‘Are you sure?’
He took his eyes off the road, turned to me. ‘Fucking right.’ He pointed me to a carrier bag at my feet. ‘Check that.’ Inside was a length of rope, tied at one end in a hangman’s noose.
Of all the people I knew, Mac was the last one to go bottling it on me. I said, ‘This wee prick’s got something to hide; I can feel it in my bones.’
He crunched the gears, upped the speed as we took a steep hill with a curve to the left. ‘Well, if the Sid you saw is Sid the Snake, you can bet on that.’
‘I’m sure that Vera Fulton’s got more to give us as well, but this Sid fella was rattled, seriously rattled, when I went round there the last time.’
‘Well, we’ll give him a tug and see what’s what.’
I held on to the handle above the door as Mac tanked it into Sighthill.
‘What’s the Jackanory with him and Rab Hart?’ I said.
‘That’s a tricky one. We definitely don’t want to be pissing Rab off.’
‘Think they’re thick?’
Mac eyed me again. ‘Rab and Sid?… I’d fucking doubt it. Sid’s a bottom feeder. He’ll have been running some small-time racket for Rab. My guess, since Sid’s a bookie, it’ll be a book on the dog fighting… but hey, you can ask Rab yourself when you get up to the big hoose.’
‘You think that’s likely?’
‘Gus, you better get in and see him. He’ll only send someone for you if you don’t.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Gus, the pug he sent round wasn’t messing about… Rab wants to see you like fucking yesterday.’
As we arrived, the jungle bus was pulling in just ahead of us, dislodging a grim cargo of trackie-wearing neds and defeated old folk too afraid to lift their heads from the streets.
‘Look at the state of this,’ said Mac.
‘Tell me. It’s grim as death.’
An old man, so bloated he could hardly walk, was struggling with two Lidl carrier bags at the side of the road. As he waited for a gap in the traffic, two young yobs sneaked up behind him and pulled down his joggers. The bloke was exposed to the world, but too scared to put down his bags for fear they’d be stolen. He struggled to get both bags in one hand before struggling again to hitch up his joggers.
‘The wee bastards,’ said Mac.
The yobs stood at the side of the street laughing it up. Between them they were an advertisement for fluoridation of the water supply — hardly a good tooth in either head.
‘This place is a fucking nightmare.’
‘Think yourself lucky you’re not living here.’
It was on my mind to say ‘Maybe soon’, or perhaps ‘I could be facing worse’, but I let the thought pass without giving voice to it.
We pitched up outside Moosey’s home. The street was deserted, save a few half-starved mongrels that trotted about in packs, sniffing at bin bags and the litter and scraps that blew everywhere.
‘You think those dogs belong to anyone?’ I asked.
‘Aye,’ said Mac, ‘fucking everyone.’
‘What — they’re a feral pack?’
‘What else would you call them? They’re not looked after, that’s for sure…’ He sat upright behind the wheel. ‘Oh, hang on: show time.’
Voices came from Moosey’s house. A couple of young yobs emerged, spraffin’ away together and passing a bottle of Woodpecker between them.
‘Thought they’d be on the White Lightning,’ I said.
‘Did you check the clobber?’
‘Can hardly miss Tommy Hilfiger lettering a mile high.’
‘They’re wedged up, those wee bastards.’
‘No question.’
As the young crew schlepped down the street, Mac said, ‘Recognise any?’
‘Nah, not them. They’re about fifteen, sixteen… The pricks on the hill were older, eighteen at least. I’d clock them straight off too.’
In a minute, another figure appeared. Shuffling and hunched, leaning over a tab as if it was a life-support machine.
I clocked him straight away. It was Sid, though looking a little less sure of himself than on our last meeting.
‘That the Sid you know?’
Mac squinted over the steering wheel, peered down to the gate where Sid emerged onto the street. ‘That’s the Snake all right. No missing the slimy wee bastard.’
‘Let’s give him a tug.’
Mac took the keys out the ignition. ‘C’mon and boost.’
I climbed out the door, caught sight of Mac putting on a pair of black leather gloves. ‘What’s this? Anticipating bruised knuckles?’
A grunt: ‘Worse than that… much fucking worse.’