Hod pushed the hilux hard. I nearly ate my chips backwards as he tore through the gears. He amber-gambled on the lights and clipped a traffic cone at Waterloo Place. A ned in a Burberry cap, wankered on Buckie, held up the bottle in approval as we passed. I turned to Mac and laughed. There was no point slamming Hod’s driving — it was an expression of his masculinity that went way beyond criticism as far as he was concerned.
‘Look at that wee fannybaws in the hat,’ said Hod.
‘You look at the fucking road,’ Mac told him, ‘you’re gonna tip this motor.’
‘Bullshit. I’m rock… look at me!’ Hod took his hands off the steering wheel and held them in front of him. ‘Steady as the day is long.’
Mac lunged for the wheel. ‘Get them back, y’arsehole.’
I had to laugh. It was like Bill Murray in Stripes, taking the pictures of the old cow in the fur. ‘Mac, he’s pulling yer chain,’ I said. ‘Don’t play up to it.’
Mac leaned forward, took the bolt-cutters from the floor. ‘I’ll pull his fucking teeth!’ He was only half joking — I could see him having a go at it.
Hod fell into a throaty laugh. ‘You crack me up, Mac boy… This is gonna be fun, eh!’
Mac snapped the cutters at him, got so close he threatened to catch the tip of Hod’s tache. I thought they seemed a wee bit too hyped for what we had planned, but I let it slide; I was pumped for the job myself. The Czechs weren’t an outfit to mess with — I’d seen what they’d done to Andy Gregory and Ian Kerr — but if the filth weren’t digging them out, then somebody had to.
We got through Leith Street before the buses left the stops but got snagged on the roundabout at Picardy Place. Hod tried to change lanes. ‘Fucking tram works. Who wants shoogly cars anyway?… We’ll never get down the Walk.’ He pushed his way in front of a bloke in a white van, took pelters and a blast on the horn. I eyeballed the driver and he looked away. Thought: Wise back-down, fella. Testosterone shot about in the cab like electricity looking for an earth. First wido to cross us was likely to be fitted for a plaster-of-Paris jumpsuit.
On Broughton Street Hod cut a right and revved too high, sent the wheels spinning on the icy road. Mac had let up complaining, turned on the radio. Some talking head banged on about more casualties in the economy. So many retail chains were folding we’d soon have nothing but boarded-up shopfronts.
Hod sighed, ‘I didn’t see Woolies going under, that was a shocker.’
‘What about the old MFI?’ said Mac. ‘That’s gonna hit the doer-uppers.’
Hod scrunched his brows. ‘What you on about, doer-uppers? There’s no fucking housing market left. It’s ground to a halt.’
Mac barked, ‘That’s maybe why they went bust then, eh.’
The pair still sparred as I leaned over and turned up the volume to drown them out. Another gobshite had come on the airwaves, said, ‘It is time to end the workshy’s reliance on the state.’ I thought he was on about our government ministers until I sussed that he was one himself.
‘Och, fucksake… they’re slicing into the jammy roll now,’ I said.
Mac’s attention shifted: ‘The dole’s being cut?’
We listened to the political pigmy who had been fronted to deliver the news that, as the multi-billion packages to bail out banks had to be paid for somehow, there were going to be cutbacks in the dole.
‘That’s bad news,’ I said.
Mac riled up: ‘Says he wants a million folk off benefits whilst the country’s losing jobs left and right.’
‘This is going to end in anarchy… Watch this space: we’ll be stringing them from lamp posts.’
Hod joined in: ‘Put me down for some of that. I’ll even bring my own fucking rope.’
The temperature in the Hilux rose. I wound down the window a couple of inches but the air outside was too cold, had to close it again. I read the thermostat in the dash — it was four-below. As we drove past the banana flats, down to the waterfront, I saw frosted windscreens on every car parked along the side of the road. Some of the roofs had an inch or two of hardened snow on them. In the gutter, the night before’s beer tins lay trapped in the frozen puddles.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ I asked Hod.
‘Aye, I did a wee dry run last night.’
‘Any sign of life at the place?’
‘I didn’t stop, just drove by… Nice big hoose.’
Hod’s detour to miss the tram works on the Walk meant we had to snake back through the side streets, but the entire port was in disarray: building materials dumped in the roads, cables stacked up against dumper trucks, machinery waiting to be carted to the site of the main track work.
As we reached the Links, I checked the road for a black Pajero. Plenty of cars were parked up along the kerb, but I didn’t see a Pajero. Hod spied a space, pulled up. We sat opposite an old No Ball Games sign; a newer foreign-language one had gone up beside it.
‘The fuck’s that?’ said Hod.
‘Polish,’ I told him. I’d read in the paper that the city’s Polish community had been congregating on the Links in big numbers — there’d been some revelry. ‘Apparently, the toon cooncil has had complaints about some big-time Polish piss-ups… It’ll be a warning notice.’
‘Pish-ups on the Links, eh,’ said Mac, he started to snigger. ‘Whatever next.’
‘I know, it’s not like the place isn’t hoachin’ with brassers and our own home-grown jakeys.’ The double standards folk applied to migrants appalled me; the way our own country was going, we’d all be migrants ourselves soon enough.
Hod picked out the house for us. It was a large Georgian number, would have cost some poppy back in the boom but my guess was, current climate, no one would be able to shift it. The building sat over three storeys, with a basement level and, I’d guess, substantial extensions to the rear.
‘Looks empty,’ said Mac.
‘Uh-uh, check it.’ Hod pointed to the window in the second floor. A light was burning; a bloke in a white hoodie paced the floor.
I tried to get a deck at the fella. He was dark-haired and heavy, that was about all I could see. He passed the window another couple of times then disappeared. The light went out after him.
‘Think that’s our man?’ said Mac.
‘Our… Radek?’ said Hod. ‘Couldn’t tell.’
‘Well, let’s give the cunt a pull anyway,’ said Mac. He leaned forward in his seat, twisted. ‘Come on, Gus… get the door open.’
I put a hand on his chest, shoved him back down. ‘Just give it time.’
‘What do you mean, give it time?’ Mac scented blood: he was gantin’ to burst some heads, any he could get his hands to.
‘I want to see what the lie of the land is,’ I said. ‘Trust me, I have a game plan here.’
Mac sat back in his seat, mouthed off, ‘I thought we came here to go in, no’ just sit outside.’ He picked up the bolt-cutters, started to snap them.
I spoke over him: ‘Hod, tell me about this guy again.’
‘Radek’s a nut-job… seriously off his cake. I spoke to a few more boys off the sites — no one’s got a different opinion. Although there’s quite a bit of guesswork going on around town as to why he’s over here.’
‘Oh, aye…’
‘Rumour has it he’s a wanted man back home. You get that shite a lot on the sites when someone appears from elsewhere, but mostly it’s talk, someone biggin’ himself up. Nobody doubts it’s true in Radek’s case.’
Like this mattered now. But I was interested. ‘What do they say he’s wanted for?’
‘That’s the thing, nobody knows.’ Hod shrugged. ‘If it was just bullshit, folk would know all about it.’
Mac tapped on the dash. ‘Aye, aye.’ The door of the house eased open, our man in the white hoodie appeared. He spoke into a mobile phone as he locked the door. When he jumped down the steps we all saw that he fitted the description of Radek perfectly.
‘Right, let’s nash,’ said Hod. He opened his door.
‘Wait,’ I yelled. A black Pajero pulled up in front of the house. The bloke tugged the hoodie over his head as he jumped in the front. The driver gave a quick glance into the road and spun wheels.
‘Fucking hell, he’s on the move,’ said Mac.
Hod slammed his door, put the key back in the ignition, said, ‘We going after him, then?’