Truth Lies Waiting (Davy Johnson Series Book 1) (6 page)

My
head is reeling. I knew MacIntyre was a thug but I can’t believe what he’s just
forced Daz to do. I thought all he was guilty of was throwing his weight
around, but forcing himself on someone makes him sink to a whole new depth. And
the money, what the hell is that about?

How
is it possible to be disappointed in someone that hates you and you hate back?
Yet that’s how I feel. When someone has a go at you for as long as you have
known them, for being inferior, for being worthless, for being a general waste
of skin, there’s some part of you that believes the truth of it, that there
must be some flaw inside of you that others can see. And even though you hate
the way that makes you feel, you believe these people are better than you, that
even though they treat you like shite you deserve it. The teachers who wrote me
off at school were entitled to because they were educated. The bank managers
who’d refuse Mum an overdraft then fuck her on a Friday night could do so for
the very same reason. They were better than us. Bad teachers and horny bankers
were better than prozzies and needy kids, and the police, though heavy handed,
were on a continuum of good that justified what they did. Or so I’d thought.
But police on the take? Committing assault? No reason could ever justify that.

My
phone vibrates in my pocket and I realise I haven’t turned the sound back on
since finishing work – Tam doesn’t like my mobile going off when we’re serving
customers, not that my phone is a hot bed of communication, unless you count
recorded messages from legal firms asking if I’ve been miss-sold PPI. I look at
the screen and my heart does a little flip when I see that it’s Candy. ‘Hey’ I
practise before hitting the talk button, wanting to get the tone just right. I
want to convey keen not lonely, don’t want my voice to smack of desperation.

‘Hey’
I say again, deciding the pitch was a couple of octaves higher than I would
have liked, more Graham Norton than Vin Diesel. In the end I don’t need to
worry, for Candy doesn’t let me get a word in edgeways.

‘Davy,’
she sobs, and every nerve ending goes on alert as I wait for the axe to fall.
‘There’s been a robbery.’

The factory car
park is so full of cop cars it’s like a police officers’ convention. Cops of
all shapes and sizes mill about the forecourt as though that area alone
contains all the answers. I’ve never understood the public’s faith in the
police, for they never detect anything, just trample over people’s lives once a
crime has taken place.

One
of them must have been told to man the gate for he stands rigid between the
posts like some Third Division goalie. He’s a bit of a kid by the look of it,
probably not even started shaving, his skin is pale and free from razor bumps
and missed sections of stubble. As if on cue he steps back to let an armed
police unit drive out of the forecourt. Inside it a dozen men in dark clothing
give me filthy looks because they weren’t able to use their guns. Two community
cops, around MacIntyre’s age, are talking to members of staff seated on the
wooden benches I’d been sunning myself on a few days before. They were from the
shop floor: a man close to retirement age who operates the printing machine
that puts customers’ logos onto the boxes, two engineers and several workers
from packing. The kitchen staff are still in the canteen, I can see them
through the open window serving teas and coffees in polystyrene cups to a line
of officers. I can’t see Candy or any of the management but I know from the
frantic call she made to me that they are still inside being interviewed by
CID.

Today
was payday and Swanson’s paid their staff weekly in cash. It’s not that unusual
around here, what with the number of people working temporary contracts on the
increase and even more living a hand to mouth existence; waiting to get paid at
the end of the month would push most families to their financial limits. It was
one of the reasons I’d been placed there by my parole officer, otherwise she’d
have had to arrange a crisis loan to tide me over and she couldn’t be arsed
with the paperwork.

The
plod on the gate eyeballs me as I wait for Candy and with the niftiness that
only someone our age can muster he bounds over as though he’s seen my mug shot
on Interpol and is about to wrestle me to the ground.

‘Jog
on, Pal.’ He barks, which is a bit of an anti-climax given the energy he’d put
in making his approach.

I
stand my ground. ‘‘fraid I canny, Pal.’ I state pleasantly enough. He narrows
his eyes, squaring his shoulders and barrelling his chest in the identikit way
of his elders that makes me wonder if there is some identifiable gene in police
DNA that means no matter how decent they are when they start they all turn out
the same way.

‘Did
ye no’ hear me, Son?’ He’s sneering now, the curl of his lip letting me know
he’s talking to shite. I wouldn’t mind but he doesn’t even shave all his face
yet, by the look of him.

‘I
heard you perfectly well, Cunt Stubble.’ I inform him brightly enough, ‘Only
I’m here to take the boss’s PA home.’ I pause while he works out what the
initials stand for, ‘You wouldn’t want to add to her fright by telling her
you’d sent me away?’

He
looks fearful as though I’ve asked him a trick question and glances over at his
elders for help but they’re sipping tea and fiddling with the knobs on their
radios as though they’re already bored.

‘What’s
your name?’ he asks grudgingly before stomping into the factory’s main entrance
like a toddler with a burst balloon. Five minutes later he returns, barely
looking in my direction. ‘Wait there.’ He instructs, as though it was his idea.

Candy
emerges from the factory’s main entrance supported by Derek Swanson, the
factory owner. I’d never met him but he’s recognisable from the framed
photographs dotted around reception, shaking hands with the great and the good
of Edinburgh. In each photograph he’s grinning, shiny white teeth exposed for
the camera, golf course tan. He isn’t grinning now; instead his mouth is set in
a grim line as he holds Candy like some fragile china doll. She’d told me on
the phone she’d been helping the book keeper make up the wage packets, counting
out bank notes to slip into the little brown envelopes when two armed robbers
had barged in.

‘Candy!’

I
wave my arms till she can see me by the gate, a look of relief flashing across
her drawn face. Her eyes are rimmed red and her make-up has run leaving dirty
streaks down her shirt. She tries to conjure a smile but it falters at the last
moment. I’ve seen enough. Pushing passed the kiddie cop I run to her side and I
can tell even her boss is pleased to see me.

‘I’ve
ordered a cab,’ he says, gratefully replacing his arm around her waist with
mine and I kick myself for not having thought of how I was going to get her
home. I accept his kindness with a nod, returning my attention to Candy as a
four door Skoda drives onto the forecourt, the driver ignoring the kiddie cop’s
raised hand with a trite ‘I’m here fe the big yin, son,’ which brooks no room
for discussion. The driver steps out and opens the passenger door, eyeing me
warily as I guide Candy onto the rear seat before climbing in beside her.

‘On
account please, Ken.’ Mr Swanson calls in our direction and the driver grunts
his acknowledgement.

Seeing
the armed officers made me realise that Candy had down-played what had happened
over the phone so that I didn’t go barging in shouting the odds. Given the
circumstances I guess she was right, but it irks.

‘Ye
didn’t tell me they had guns.’ I try to sound reasonable but that’s a far cry
from how I’m feeling. Jesus, she could have been seriously hurt. Or worse.

Her
large brown eyes look up at me, stung, her voice full of reproach. ‘I said they
were armed.’

‘But
I thought you meant knives!’ even as I say this I wonder what hairs I’m trying
to split and why. The cab driver turns his radio down and eyeballs me in his
rear-view mirror. His look seems to convey a warning to go easy, and I figure
he’s seen many a numpty over the years blow it over an ill thought comment,
though how many involved a row about weapons I can only guess at. I know I’m
being stupid; it’s just that guns can go off by accident, there’s more control
over a knife. I pinch my eyes shut in an attempt to calm down, collecting my
thoughts as I try to make sense of the alternative scenarios fighting for
attention in my brain.

‘Were
they young or old?’ I demand. I know she’ll have been through this with CID but
the police go through the motions of asking questions to justify their
existence. If the robbers get caught it’ll be because someone’s grassed, not
because they’ve been
detected
.

Candy
hesitates: ‘Young, I think.’

‘Whaddaye
mean,
think
?’

‘They
had masks on,’ she shrugs, ‘so it was hard to make anything out….one was bossing
the other around a lot. The bossy one sounded scary, you know, really hard, the
other one tended to do as he was told….he definitely sounded young.’

‘How
young?’

‘I
don’t know…’ another shrug.

‘My
age?’

‘I
don’t know Davy! Christ…..what is this?’

She
starts to sob, moving her head this way and that in frustration, combing her
fingers through her hair in an attempt to control it. Anger rises up inside me
like vomit, I want to lash out at whoever has frightened her so; I also want to
be sick.

‘When
I find out who’s fucking behind this, I’ll-’

‘What?’
Candy demands, ‘Do something that’ll put you back inside? Smart move.’

She’s
shaking her head like a wild woman, glaring at the interior of the cab as
though it’s her prison. I feel a cavern open up between us.

‘Candy,’
I say softly, ‘they could have killed ye.’ The words catch in my throat, I
slide my arm round Candy’s shoulders and hold her tight; it doesn’t seem like
much but she relaxes into me and slowly her shallow breaths become deeper, more
regular. I hold her like this for the remainder of our journey, brushing my
lips across the top of her head, rubbing her back gently as though she were a
child. My mind is on alert, processing thoughts that for the moment are better
left unsaid. We sit like this for several minutes, holding onto one another,
each afraid to let the other out of sight for very different reasons.

The
taxi pulls up outside a smart converted tenement block where Candy lives with
her father. ‘Shall I see you in?’ I ask, and as I speak the building’s main
door bursts open and a grey haired man hurries out, frown lines etched across
his brow. Before Candy can answer he’s yanked open the cab door, pulling her
out of my arms and into his own, his frown deepening when he takes in the state
of her.

‘I’ll
phone ye later,’ I call but already she’s disappeared, drawn into her father’s
orbit.

The
cab driver looks at me in his rear view mirror and asks where I want dropping
off. I’m about to tell him I’ll walk as I don’t have any money when I remember
Candy’s boss is paying. ‘De ye have tae log the address where ye drop me off?’
I enquire. The cabby’s eyes narrow as though weighing me up before answering.
‘Aye,’ he nods.

‘Drop
me at the waterfront then.’ I tell him. I’ll walk the rest of the way. The
cabby looks at me but says nothing as he manoeuvres the car back into the
stream of traffic. He offers me a smoke from the packet of fags he has beside
him on the passenger seat even though there are ‘No smoking’ stickers plastered
throughout the cab’s interior. He’s maybe just being friendly, but there’s a
caution in his eyes that tells me he’s shrewder than that.

‘I
can drop ye at the apartments, Son,’ he offers, ‘I’ll mark it up as Ocean
Terminal on the receipt.’ I nod but say nothing more; he’s on to me and is
happy for me to know it. Before I step out of the cab he passes me his business
card, saying: ‘I’m on call twenty-four-seven, like.’

I
smile gratefully; he’s keeping his options open no mistake. And so, for the
second time in a week I’m back at Leith’s harbour, only this time I’m standing
on the other side of the tracks.

Gus
McEwan lives at Platinum Point, occupying the penthouse suite of all places in
a
fuck you
gesture to Police Scotland or whatever Lothian and Borders
are calling themselves these days. He’s amassed his fortune trafficking drugs
through a string of legit businesses from designer furniture stores to
floristry. He sends his kids to boarding school in Perthshire, away from the
glare of publicity they’d attract if they went to a local private school;
weekends he can be found shouting from the rugby side-lines, head to foot in
Barbour.

Gus
is the original bad boy made respectable; surrounding himself with wealthy
friends and people in high places he’s a regular face at society fundraisers
and a patron of several charities if the local press reports are anything to go
by. Yet he hasn’t forgotten his roots, sponsoring several junior football teams
and donating a state of the art scanner to the Sick Kids’ hospital. It’s made
him a local hero of sorts, a man of the people, albeit people with short
memories who live nowhere near the junkie ghettos he’s created round the city.
Those ugly high rise flats, now listed thanks to someone’s warped sense of
humour in the council, are known locally as Trip Towers, but only by those
fortunate enough not to live in them.

Marcus
Dreyton works for Gus, so if I do the job Marcus has asked of me I’ll also be
in Gus’s collar. Now Gus doesn’t know me from the hole in his backside but I
know he keeps his minions close so Marcus won’t be that far away.

I
walk around the perimeter of the car park until I find Marcus’s black X5 and
set up camp on the pavement close to the car park’s exit. I had mates used to
work this car park: puncturing tyres then ‘coincidentally’ spotting the
frustrated drivers, offering to change their spare wheel so they could be on
their way. They were never given anything less than a twenty pound note for
their help, not bad for fifteen minutes work. The developers have installed
CCTV cameras now which means that it takes two to work the scam, one to slash
the tyres and scarper before the other one ambles along, but there’s still
money to be made. As long as you know which cars are fair game and which to
steer clear of, everyone’s a winner.

Marcus
runs a tight ship around Leith and nothing goes down without his say-so. The
men who robbed the factory had made off with just under ten grand, a small
fortune in my world, though it won’t register quite so highly in the big boy
world Marcus moves in. Even so, it happened on his territory which means that
as a matter of respect he’ll have been made aware of it. I can only hope he’s
willing to share this information.

The
X5’s light’s flash signalling its owner’s approach so I stand on the edge of
the kerb. Marcus wears shades but I know that he’s seen me. He says something
to Devlin, one of the two henchmen with him, who glances briefly in my
direction. Devlin opens the car’s rear passenger door, waiting while Marcus
climbs in before moving around to the other door, motioning for me to do the
same. I fasten my seatbelt (I like to play it safe) and nestle back into the
leather upholstery while Barrington, Marcus’s driver, starts the engine. The
car interior is pale leather, even the steering wheel, and I slip my hands
under my legs so I can feel how smooth the seat is.

‘Who
told you fi come here?’ Marcus’s drawl sounds casual but I know not to be taken
in by it.

‘No
one.’

Marcus
sucks air between his teeth. ‘Then why yi come?’

‘I
need to ask ye something.’

‘
Drive.
’
He barks at Barrington who had been waiting to see if I was to be thrown out
before moving off and I can only assume I’ve passed some kind of assessment.
Either that or they’re going to drive through Niddrie and bury me on the way
out to The Wisp. Ha ha.

Marcus
fixes me with a steely gaze which has an almost laxative effect.