Truth Lies Waiting (Davy Johnson Series Book 1) (17 page)

Bossy
Tits turns to Overall Man, ‘I could murder a brew Lewis, fancy putting the
kettle on?’ She flashes a smile that I reckon must get her anything she wants
and Lewis scurries into the warehouse like a happy wee bunny. I hand the
clipboard back to her.

‘You
might want to check the second layer.’ She advises, stepping to the side of the
vehicle to give me some room. I move round until I can rummage in the crate
myself and I push back the top level of identical straighteners.

The
bottom of the crate is crammed with semi-automatic handguns and ammunition.

‘That’s
fine.’ I say in a voice that sounds nothing like me. I lift the crate and place
it in the boot of the Volvo while Bossy Tits removes the lid from the second
crate. Without Lewis observing we go through the motions on mute: I acknowledge
the hair products I’m shown and scribble on the same blank sheet before lifting
the second crate into the car on top of the other one.

‘The
top one’s clean.’ She whispers as I’m closing the boot lid, ‘So if you’re
stopped you’re OK if someone wants to take a look inside it.’ I nod my head,
climbing into the driver’s seat as slowly as I can muster given my gut reaction
is to slam the car door and put my foot down to get the hell out of the place.

‘Everything
OK?’ Brad asks as I buckle my seatbelt. I turn the key in the ignition,
glancing in my rear view mirror in time to see Lewis step back into the yard
with two steaming mugs and Bossy Tits marching back to the office block.

‘Just
fuckin’ peachy.’ I tell him.

The laundrette is
in a purpose-built concrete unit, no bigger than a council lock-up, flanked by
a betting shop on one side and an off-licence-cum-grocers on the other. The
pavement in front of it is narrow and littered with beer cans and dog turds. A
boy in a plastic Jason mask lurks beside a bull mastiff searching for somewhere
clean to squat. They may be some time.

‘S’not
even Halloween,’ Brad remarks when he clocks him.

‘So
what’s your excuse?’ I laugh.

‘Very
funny.’ he mutters into his chest.

We
sit quietly for a moment then Brad turns to me in the car, ‘Are ye sure it’s
here?’

‘Dunno,’
I shrug my shoulders, ‘It looks so ordinary.’

‘Told
ye to use the Sat Nav.’

‘Aye
and that’d go down well if the cops find the car and decide to check it.’ I
snipe.

‘Might
as well put a big sign on the fuckin’ door,
Guns R Us.
’

‘Fine,’
Brad retorts, ‘no need to go off on one.’

We’re
parked outside the address Barrington gave me back at the hideout. ‘Ye’d have
thought he’d have said if it was a launderette.’ I say aloud. ‘He could have
said “Take it to the launderette off Ferry Road”. I mean, it’s easy enough to
find when you know what you’re looking for.’

‘
If
this is what you’re looking for.’ Brad counters. ‘Why don’t ye call Marcus and

check?’

‘Are
you for real?’ I glance at Brad to see if he’s joking but his face is deadly
serious.

‘No
chance!’

Brad
shrugs his shoulders before turning to gawp at passers-by. I’m starting to get
twitchy though. Two scrotes in a Volvo are certain to start attracting unwanted
attention and the one thing I can’t afford at the moment is attention of any
kind. I make a decision.

‘I’ll
go and reccy the place.’ I tell Brad, climbing out of the car.

A
row of coin-operated machines line the wall floor to ceiling, dirty plastic
chairs sit in the corner of the room facing out. Two middle-aged women occupy
chairs furthest from the entrance, deep in conversation while staring at their
tumbling washing. Shapeless bras and skid marked pants burst into view to be
replaced by soiled sheets whose colours have long since run.

The
far wall contains a drinks machine and a contraption that spits out laundry
tokens if the correct money is inserted. A plump woman in a tunic looks up from
sorting a pile of dry cleaning.

‘Back
room, Son.’ She tells me as though she’s been waiting. I move through the

room
self-consciously, as though she and the women will start talking about me once
I’m out of earshot.

The
back room consists of a boarded up window, a small rectangular table and four
chairs. Sitting in one of those chairs is Les Mahago, one of Gus McEwan’s main
runners. I’ve never met him before but I’ve seen him about the town often
enough. He’s older than most of the people Gus has working for him. Rumour has
it they grew up together, but that’s as much as I know. He looks like he was
sporty once; a muscular body that is starting to sag, black rimmed glasses balancing
on a bent nose. His hair is grey and beginning to thin at the temples; a
silvery scar runs from his nose to his top lip. He’s wearing jeans and a faded
sweatshirt and brown trainer-style shoes that men his age like to wear.

He’s
drinking tea, but not from the drinks machine; a teapot and sugar bowl have
been set out on the table beside a carton of milk and a spoon. He holds a
steaming mug in his hand.

‘Can
I help ye, Son?’ He asks, but the fact he’s asking me politely rather than
telling me to get the fuck out confirms me he’s my contact.

‘I
hope ye can,’ I tell him, ‘otherwise I’ve been sent to the wrong place.’

‘Drive
down the cut-through at the side,’ he instructs, all business like, ‘My lad’ll
take your delivery.’

I
return to the Volvo and let myself in the driver’s side. ‘No good?’ Brad asks
as I start the engine.

‘They
want us round the back.’ I tell him. I pull onto the pavement and turn sharply
into the narrow access-only road that runs down the side of the launderette.
It’s a tight squeeze to park the Volvo beside the transit van waiting there but
I manage it. The company name is painted in large letters across both sides of
the van:
LM Domestics – all aspects of home cleaning and laundry undertaken
.
I climb out of the car as a guy a little older than me steps out of the van.
He’s wearing a uniform of black jeans with a polo-shirt that matches the van’s
logo. He looks like a younger version of the man I’ve just spoken to, only the
surgeon who worked on his cleft lip wasn’t so skilful. His top lip is puckered
in the centre exposing his front teeth even when he’s scowling, which by his
demeanour he does often. He catches me looking which seems to make him madder
and without a word being spoken he opens the van doors, stepping back while I
load both crates into it without offering any help.

‘Pleasure’s
all mine,’ I call out before returning to the Volvo.

‘That’s
Coll Mahago.’ Brad says when I climb into the car.

‘I
know, his Da’s in the back room.’

‘Jeezo,’
Brad sounds impressed.

‘He
was a coupla years above me in school,’ I tell him, ‘nasty bastard, right
enough.’

‘Surprised
he went.’

‘Nah,
it was Park View.’

Park
View is a residential school, a borstal, a place for kids needing alternative
education. It was selective right enough, in that you had to have been excluded
from a state school to get a place there. It opened afternoons only, as pupils
were unlikely to get out of their beds till mid-day. It wasn’t really a school,
more a holding pen for problem kids.

‘So
he knows ye then?’ Brad asks.

I
shake my head. ‘Won’t know me from the hole in his arse. I was a scrawny thing

back
then, the kind o’ kid he’d o’ picked on if he hadn’t already set his sights on
someone. He had it in for a few o’ the kids, like he was trying out different methods
of bullying, see which one worked best.’

‘Charming.’

‘Aye,
but with a Da like his how can ye blame him?’

‘I
heard Les put the chippy owner’s hand in the fryer for forgetting to put sauce
on his fish.’

‘Coll
tried something similar with one of the dinner ladies.’

‘Naw’,
Brad looks distraught, ‘Who’d hurt a dinner lady?’

‘Tell
me about it.’

‘So
what were you there for?’ Brad cocks an eyebrow as he readies himself to hear
about my fall from mainstream grace. I look down at my hands, tongue tied.

‘You
know what?’ I say aloud as the truth of it dawns on me, ‘I haven’t a fuckin’
clue.’

‘Aye,
right.’ Brad sneers, but one look at my face and he changes tack:

‘Were
you there long?’

I
shake my head, ‘About a year,’ I say absent-mindedly, glad this job was over
and to be getting the hell away. I’d fulfilled my part of the bargain and once
we get rid of the Volvo I’ll be on my way to see Marcus.

‘You
must’ve improved then.’ Brad says encouragingly.

‘Improved
from what?’ I ask glumly.

We
drive out to a scheme in Niddrie where burnt out cars are part of the
landscape. The tower blocks have been demolished in favour of low rise villas
but the tenants remain the same, out of their faces on smack or methadone,
depending on whether they’re getting high or getting clean. Either way they’ll
not give a damn about the view, assuming they’d notice in the first place. A
wiry man stands on a patch of grass in front of his house yelling at a group of
kids. He clutches a cat to his chest as though it were a baby, holding it close
while swearing at the gang. ‘Ye bastards, leave her the fuck alone. She’s
already on tablets from the vet for stress.’ I’m not sure what surprises me
most, that he’s trying to reason with them or that cats suffer from anxiety.

‘They’re
just bored.’ Brad observes, ‘an’ he’s givin’ them a reaction.’

The
kids pick up their bikes and gather by the roundabout when they see Brad
soaking the footwell of the car in petrol, hood up in case the CCTV from the
housing office car park is working for once. He throws a lighted match at the
car from the safety of a hedgerow while I slip the oldest of the gang a twenty
pound note to create a diversion. As the car ignites twelve boys with scarves
around their faces circle around it while Brad and I sprint across the road to
catch the next bus going into town. We keep our hoods up, playing on our phones
throughout the journey, careful not to let anyone see our faces.

‘Ye
gonna ring this girl now?’ Brad asks, referring to Candy.

‘No.’
I keep my head low as I explain: ‘I want to be able to tell her it’s safe to go
out.

That
she won’t be passing guys in the street and wondering if it’s them that pointed
a gun at her.’

Brad
shifts in his seat to let someone with shopping bags move down the bus. ‘Why
not just call her now, ye know ye want to. Ye can do all the detective stuff
with Marcus later.’

‘I
know.’

It’s
hard for me to explain that I made a pact with myself when I took on this job.
That if I can put Candy’s mind at rest at least some good would have come out
of it.

‘Look
at it this way,’ I begin, ‘she may not know who robbed the factory that day but
they’ll fuckin’ know her. What’s to stop them coming after her, or worse still,
silencing her if they think she can identify them?’

‘Jeezo
Davy, they’re no’ gonnae do that.’ Brad sighs, ‘they’ll be long gone by now.

Glad
no one’s any the wiser.’

‘I’m
not convinced.’ I counter, ‘At least when I find out who they are I can let
them know I’m on to them.’

‘Put
the frighteners on them ye mean?’

‘Mebbe.
But better than that, they’ll know that Candy and her work mates are not the
only risk once they realise other people know it was them.’

‘C’mon,’
Brad says quickly, ‘Our stop.’

We
get off at The Bridges, caught up in a group of Spanish students on an exchange
trip by the look of it, their bright clothes and clear skin at odds with the
pasty Scottish faces around them. I wonder what it’s like to live in a country
where there’s so much sunshine, where people earn respect for the values they
hold rather than the amount of drink they can put away, or the fights they
start.

We
turn onto Princes Street where a fleet of Mercedes line up outside The Balmoral
Hotel. Each car is chauffeur driven, waiting to deposit its passenger on the
red carpet leading up the hotel steps. The concierge opens every car door
himself, greeting each guest and snapping orders to the junior staff hovering
by the hotel’s revolving door. As we draw level with the front car Gus McEwan
steps out of it, pausing just for a moment to wait for his wife, a hard faced
blonde in a designer dress, on nodding terms with Botox if her upper lip is
anything to go by. She takes Gus’s arm and they enter the hotel in unison.
Flash bulbs go off inside the hotel foyer where a politician I recognise from
the telly is waiting, arms outstretched as though welcoming long lost
relatives.

‘Reckon
he’s a terrorist then?’ I ask Brad once we are well out of earshot.

‘Cos
o’ the guns ye mean?’ Brad asks.

I
nod.

‘Nae
chance.’ Brad laughs. ‘He runs a loan scheme, that’s all. Makes a fortune
renting ‘em out by the day. Years ago if ye wanted a gun ye had to find someone
who’d sell ye one, which is daft if ye think about it ‘cos ye may only need it
for a one off job. They’re harder to come by now anyway, after the polis raids a
coupla’ years ago, more expensive too. This way you rent them and return them
the next day.’

A
bit like with Blockbuster before Lovefilm got in on the act, I suppose.

‘You
seem to know a lot about it.’

‘Aye,
well. I work in security; need to carry a piece from time to time.’

While
we wait at a pedestrian crossing I make a call to Marcus who agrees to come by
the flat after the meeting he’s at has finished. I smile at the term and
picture some business associate tied to a chair.

Brad
takes a call from a debtor he’s been chasing: they have a payment for him if he
picks it up now. He looks over at me for approval. ‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. He
gets ten per cent of the money he collects and he can’t afford to turn it down
because of me. ‘you go, don’t want to get a name for being unreliable.’ We
cross Princes Street together then Brad heads towards the cut-through behind
the St James’ Centre.

By
the time I reach York Place Marcus’s X5 is parked on double yellow lines, seemingly
invisible to the two parking attendants working their way along the road.
Marcus is sitting on the back seat and I wait for Barrington to nod his
permission before I open the rear door and climb in.

Marcus
greets me with a wide grin. ‘De delivery arrive’ on time.’ He says pleasantly,
as though he’s telling me something I don’t know. ‘Gus hassk me fi pass on ‘im
personal tanks. “Tell Davy,” ‘im say, “Tell Davy ‘im do a good job,”’ He hands
me an envelope which I open straight away and count: Inside is two grand in
twenty pound notes folded drug dealer style; there’s a couple of hundred more
than I was expecting, enough to settle this week’s payment to Mickey Plastic
and help me get away from here if I can’t clear my name.

‘Thanks,’
I tell Marcus, stuffing the envelope into my pocket. I wait a beat. ‘You were
going to tell me who robbed Swanson’s factory,’ I prompt him, ‘remember?’

Marcus
studies me then shrugs, ‘Me tort yi change yi min’.’ he informs me, though I
can’t think what I’ve done to make him think that. ‘Yi sure yi still wan’ to
know?’

‘I
need to know, Marcus.’ I say firmly.

Marcus
glances at Barrington as though it’s really him that calls the shots;
Barrington shrugs in a
fucked if I give a shit
kind of way.