Truth Lies Waiting (Davy Johnson Series Book 1) (7 page)

‘Yi
seem fi forget I hask you sumtin’ firss.’

Candy’s
face and the ordeal she’s gone through spur me on. I want to find the fucker
who’s scared the shit out of her and…what exactly? My shoulders slump at the
truth of it: I want Marcus to find the fucker, but to do that I need to play to
his ego.

‘Marcus,’
I venture, ‘this is important.’ I’ve got his full attention now; I don’t think
anyone has ever spoken back to him before.

‘About
the robbery today at the packaging factory,’ I thought I’d use Mum’s technique
- assume he knows all about it. I pause, waiting for him to nod and say
“Yeah,
Davy, and what specifically would you like to know?”
Only it doesn’t quite
work like that. Marcus glares at me as though I’ve insulted his sister and his
mother in one fell swoop, then with the briefest of nods to Barrington - who’s
been monitoring the conversation in his rear view mirror - conveys a message
which I’m not party to, which presumably says ‘to The Wisp’. Perhaps they are
going to murder me then bury me after all.

The
vehicle lurches as Barrington carries out a U-turn forcing the van behind us to
slow. The van driver bangs on his car horn, staying close on our tail and
gesturing in case he hasn’t made his point.

‘Yi
see dat?!’ Barrington splutters as though he’s blameless. We all shrug
what
can you do?
to show our sympathy. There are temporary road works along this
stretch and as we approach them the traffic lights ahead start to change.
Barrington could have nudged the car through if he’d wanted to; instead he
slams his foot on the brakes, checking out the van behind us in his rear view
mirror. Unable to resist I take a look behind me; right enough the van driver
is doing his nut, banging on the horn again and yelling at the windscreen. His
passenger is gesturing with his hands:
wanker
and
dickhead
is the
gist of it.

It’s
at times like this Marcus must get a kick out of blacked-out windows, for
without a word being uttered between them he and his minions climb out of the
car, moving as one in the direction of the van and its occupants who’ve been
protesting so noisily. I don’t know whether it’s the sight of three angry black
men bearing down on them or the machete Devlin pulls out from his jacket but
the occupants of the van become silent.

The
driver even winds down his window: ‘Nae offence, Pal,’ he’s smiling now,
we’re
all mates here
. He looks to his companion for corroboration. They’re
builders by the look of it, muscle turned to fat but still capable of holding
their own under normal circumstances, only these circumstances are far from
normal.

‘Aye!’
agrees the driver’s mate, ‘Jist havin’ a laugh. Thought ye wiz some daft mare from
Morningside, lost her way.’ His hands are still moving, but in a placating
gesture,
easy now, let’s all just go hame and forget all about it
. The
lights have changed but none of the cars behind complain, each driver hoping
that whatever happens next won’t involve them.

Hear
no evil, see no evil, speak even less.

Marcus
and his men intimidate the traffic lane just by standing there and I know
they’ll not do anything because of what happened outside the army barracks in
London, the builders are just too thick to realise. Instead Devlin takes out
his mobile, takes a picture of the front of the van: the fat men inside it and
the vehicle registration. He walks up to the driver’s window, shows them the
image on the screen.

‘A
keepsake,’ he says merrily, ‘Means mi cyan get y’address any time mi like. In
case mi need fi come look fe yi.’ Marcus and Barrington walk back to the X5,
Devlin takes his time, enjoying the moment, turning to salute the vehicles
behind to thank them for their patience.

Once
back in the car we head out towards Salamander Road and the industrial estates
along the approach to Seafield. Gus McEwan owns a scrap yard along this stretch
of road, just before the turn off to Portobello, and Barrington turns into the
entrance for it, heading towards a couple of lock-ups at the arse end of a dirt
track. At that moment Marcus’s mobile starts to ring and he answers it with an
abrupt ‘What?’ He remains silent as he listens to the caller for a couple of
beats before snarling: ‘Why me juss hearin’ dis?’ I start to pity the other
person when Marcus ends the call and turns his full attention to me.

‘OK.
Tell me what you fuckin’ know.’

I
swallow. ‘Swanson’s was turned over today. They got away with ten grand.’

‘How
ye know dis?’ Marcus continues to stare.

‘My
girlfriend works there.’ I say simply. The word feels strange, although I’ve
never used Candy and girlfriend in the same sentence before it’s what I’m
hoping for. I only hope she feels the same.

Marcus
digests this information for a couple of minutes. He sits perfectly still as he
does this, whether wondering who might be behind it or contemplating world
peace I can’t be sure, but he settles back in his seat as though waiting for
his favourite song to start. I wonder if he’s been inside. There are no tell-tale
tattoos, and his dark skin is flawless save for the chib on his chin. Rumour
has it the dealer who inflicted it still takes his meals through a straw.
Marcus turns his head in my direction. ‘Wha’ ye wan’ me do?’ He smirks, as
though he already knows the answer to that and is just seeing if I have the
guts to spit it out.

‘They
could have killed her.’ I tell him. Not an answer, I know, but a statement of
fact.

‘Armed?’

I
nod. ‘Guns.’ I add quickly to avoid any confusion.

Marcus
rubs a finger along his scalp as though his dreads are too tight. He seems to
make up his mind. ‘Mi cyan get y’a name,’ he offers, ‘What we do affer dat,
well, is down to you.’ His grin makes the Cheshire Cat look morose, and I know
in that moment I’ve sold my soul, my granny and my first born to the devil,
that I no longer have to make a decision about whether I’ll do Marcus’s job,
the deal is in the subtext, loud and clear.

‘We’re
on.’ I say to him.

Marcus drops me at
the VA. I figure a swift one’ll do no harm, the way the day’s been shaping up.
Before I step inside I try Candy’s mobile but her father answers, informing me
that his daughter is asleep. Exactly like that.
My daughter is asleep.
His
voice is pained, as though it hurts even talking to me. I figure it’s pointless
texting her if he’s guarding her phone so I decide to leave it for now, I’ll
give it another try in a couple of hours. Two smokers step outside to stand in
the pub’s doorway, hands shielding their eyes as they emerge into the daylight
like rescued Chilean miners. I resist the urge to stand with them, they’re well
known faces, harmless enough but hard to shake off once back inside, experts on
everything with the drink inside them.

‘Usual,
Davy?’ Kirsty greets me as I enter the bar and I’m jolted back to earlier this
afternoon and her brother’s meeting with MacIntyre. I look around at the
punters; no sign of Daz.

‘Hear
about the robbery?’ She asks as she sets my pint in front of me. I mumble a yes
into the neck of the glass as I drink it down greedily. I’m guessing she
doesn’t know about Daz’s run in with MacIntyre, then remind myself that if this
happens frequently he’d be a dab hand at hiding tell-tale bruises. I should
know.

‘Got
away wi’ twenty grand.’ The know-alls are back at their regular space at the
bar, eager to embellish on the scarce facts already circulating. By the end of
the night the amount stolen will be closer to eighty so I don’t bother
correcting them.

Kirsty
settles herself opposite me, turning her back to the gob-shites so they can’t overhear:

‘Cops
came in earlier, spoke to Uncle Doug, told him to be on the lookout for anyone
splashing cash around.’ We laugh at the stupidity of it.

‘The
canny old bastard would take their money without a second glance, right
enough.’ She grins. The VA is well known for not asking questions; Marcus and
his fifty pound notes get the red carpet treatment whenever he comes in. After
here the police would visit the pawnbrokers up and down Leith Walk, asking them
to report anyone buying back expensive items they’d deposited in recent months:
watches, wedding rings, kids’ X-boxes. Ten grand wasn’t a fortune, split two
ways it wasn’t going to change anyone’s lives, but it would buy a bit of peace
from a loan shark.

‘Daz
been in?’ I try to keep my tone light.

‘Why’dy’a
ask?’ suspicious now.

‘Just
wonderin’. I shrug. ‘I know you were worried about him.’

‘Och,
‘s’a way o’ life with him as a brother.’ Kirsty picks up a filthy cloth and
wipes it half-heartedly across the counter between us. ‘I must admit…when I
first heard about the robbery…’

‘No
way!’ I say confidently. At least he was someone I didn’t have to suspect,
unless he’d mastered time travel. The robbery occurred at the very same time he
was being
mauled,
for want of a better word, by MacIntyre. ‘Why would
he?’ I ask her.

‘No,
you’re right.’ Then, ‘You know, sometimes I feel guilty misjudging him like

that,
I mean, if I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt, who will?’

I
grunt in sympathy. ‘He gets on alright with the polis though?’

Suspicious
again. ‘Why’d’ya ask, like?’

I
shrug. ‘Sometimes when you get a name for yourself it’s like you’ve got a big
target stuck on the back o’ ye every time ye go out.’

Kirsty
relaxes, ‘Och, I know, but with Daz it’s no’ really like that’. I mean, he’s
gets a ride tae the cells when they want to score some easy points, but other
than that they leave him alone.’

It’s
common knowledge that junkies help keep the arrest stats afloat: stop and
search a junkie or a stoner and hey presto you’ll find some substance which
will count as possession.

I
nod. It’s obvious Kirsty isn’t aware of her brother’s relationship, or whatever
you’d want to call it, with MacIntyre. But then who’d brag about being on
friendly terms with the police?

‘Does
he have many lucky days at the bookies, then?’ I venture.

Kirsty
rolls her eyes, ‘He loses more than he wins,’ she mutters, ‘which is why he
keeps in with Uncle Doug, so. He’s bailed him out more times than I can count.’
And then, more bitterly: ‘Which is why he keeps making the same fuckin’
mistakes.’

‘Sounds
decent of your uncle. Is he your Mum or Dad’s brother?’

‘Neither.’
Kirsty shrugs, ‘He shacked up with Mum when we were wee. Although it didn’t
work out between them he’s continued looking out for us. It’s why we call him
uncle.’

I
smiled, thinking of Jude. ‘I geddit.’

‘Now
if you’ve finished with the interrogation,’ Kirsty’s smiling but her eyes are
having none of it. ‘I’ll get on with some work.’

I
laugh, but I can feel my cheeks burning. Kirsty walks round to the other side
of the bar, starts collecting empty glasses and discarded packets of crisps.
Occasionally she glances over at me as though trying to fathom something. Her
uncle, who must’ve been sitting in the back room, pokes his head into the bar
as though weighing up whether he’s needed. In his late fifties, he has a year
round tan, courtesy of regular Spanish holidays and frequent visits to the
local Polish tanning salon during busy periods. The VA is as far from a
destination pub as you can get: sticky carpets and overflowing toilets, the
smell of strong disinfectant masking the odour of piss and vomit, yet during
the Festival unsuspecting tourists flock inside on their way to HMS Britannia
docked at Ocean Terminal. It’s worth calling in just to see the shock on the
visitors’ faces - folk that’ve paid good money to leave behind the
Mediterranean and come here.

It’s
relatively quiet at the start of the week and with a quick nod from Kirsty the
landlord retreats into the back once more. I’m nearing the end of my pint and
debating whether I can afford another and more importantly whether I want to
carry on drinking alone at the bar. The gob-shites several feet away have been
eyeing me up and I would swear they’ve been moving closer since their return
from their smoke half an hour ago. A few more inches and they’ll be in talking
distance and I’d rather poke my eyes out than become their bar buddy.

I
replace my pint glass on the top of the counter when I become aware of a lull
in the decibel level in the room. It’s a noticeable dip, the kind of hush
before a fight breaks out, but rather than glee there’s a palpable hostility
that can mean only one thing. I turn round to see several uniformed officers
standing in the pub’s doorway, surveying the bar like a bunch of newly landed
aliens. All around me I can hear the shifting of buttocks as those with a
guilty conscience toy with slipping out the back way and those with nothing to
fear jockey for a ring-side seat.

A
woman sitting at a small table by the window throws a jacket over the knock off
foot spa and electric blanket she’d been about to offload. A canny shoplifter
with the ability to steal to order, she carries around catalogues so ye can
pick out what ye want, a bit like a mobile Argos. Yet the police don’t give her
a second look. Instead, unless I’m being paranoid, they seem very pleased to
see
me
. I look from one to the other: most had been at Swanson’s factory
earlier in the day: the tea-drinkers and the kiddie cop, all looking at me like
I’m some long lost family member.

There’s
an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach which intensifies when MacIntyre
himself appears, pushing through his colleagues like the front man in a boy
band. Well, not so much boy band, more X-Factor rejects on a tour no one gives
a shit about. The point is that I know, even before he comes up to me and
shoves his big fat head in my face that it’s me they’re looking for. What I
can’t fathom is the reason.

‘Davy
Johnson,’ MacIntyre begins, the adrenaline making him bounce on the balls of
his feet like he’s Ricky fucking Hatton, ‘I am arresting you in connection with
the armed robbery carried out at…’

The
remainder of his words are drowned out as I realise the trouble I’m in. I feel
as though I’m swimming underwater, as though someone is deliberately holding my
head down so I can’t take in any air. ‘Anything you say may be…’

‘You’re
kidding, right?’ I look around the bar and hold the gaze of each one of the
punters around me. I feel their combined disappointment: not at my guilt but by
my capture. Already the two gob-shites are creating the epilogue to this story.
I only wish I knew how it’ll turn out myself. As far as the plods are concerned
I have the perfect motive: losing my job as a result of my arrest earlier in
the week. My shoulders sag as I realise it gets better than that: I don’t even
have an alibi. Not a credible one anyway. For at the time of the robbery I was
hiding in a toilet cubicle listening to MacIntyre get a blow-job from a doped-up
junkie, and how the hell can I tell them that?

‘If
I’d known ye were coming back so soon I’d a put a reserved sign on the door.’

The
custody sergeant booking me in is trying to be funny but I no longer give a
shit. This is either an elaborate wind up or MacIntyre is hell bent on sticking
the boot in over and over. Even my parole officer has written me off, saying
perhaps I’ve been let out too soon and that different individuals take longer
to rehabilitate than others. The duty lawyer took one look at my arrest sheet
and patted out the creases in his shiny suit; seems robbery is a welcome
distraction from car twoking.

I
slump onto the hard bed in my cell and put my head in my hands. The air is warm
and stale as though the previous occupant has just vacated it though not before
farting several times in a row. I shift away from the skid marked blanket
folded beside me and close my eyes. I feel as though I’m on some Groundhog Day
loop where no matter what I do I always end up back in the same situation. The
only thing I can be certain of is that MacIntyre will return here sooner or
later to have another pop. Christ, I’d started the day needing time to think
about Marcus’s job offer, now I had all the time in the world.

Guns.
That’s what he wants me for. I’m to pick up a shipment of guns being smuggled
into Leith Docks and move them across town – I’ll only be given the location of
the drop on the day of the job. At first I couldn’t understand why Marcus wanted
me; there were other drivers he could use, others with more experience. It
didn’t make sense; till he explained I was to provide the transport.

‘You
mean I’ve got to nick the car too?’ I’d asked when he first sounded me out.

‘Jesus
Marcus, don’t ye think I’ve done enough fe ye?’ Marcus had been involved in the
garage scam which had resulted in my six month stretch. Motors stolen to order
– by his gang – were brought to the garage to get their VIN numbers and plates
changed before being shipped overseas. He didn’t own the garage, but the owner
was on his payroll, and Marcus was their only client.

This
time, I’d not only be providing the wheels I’d be transporting a crate load of
weapons, and in this current climate if I’m caught they’ll throw away the key.
Last year a squaddie from Redford Barracks had been killed on a night out –
shot in the back by a young Muslim chanting Jihadist propaganda. Even though
the killer had handed himself in the public perception of the threat from
terrorism went through the roof, with councillors promising more than they
should to keep the locals happy. There’d been armed officers on the streets for
months afterwards, right up until I’d gone inside. I don’t suppose they were
removed because the threat had gone, just the budget.

The
whole notion of the job horrifies me, especially after the armed robbery at
Candy’s workplace.

Guns
.

I
mean that’s serious shit. When I worked as a lookout for the dealers last year
I knew what I did carried some risk, that a gun would feature somewhere in the
scheme of things, whether packing one or staring down the barrel I couldn’t be
sure but it was one of the reasons I wanted out; there were simpler ways of
earning a living; only at the time I thought working in a dodgy garage was one
of them.

And
now not twenty four hours after my girlfriend is held at gunpoint I’ve agreed
to move a shipment of weapons across the city, even though that’s specifically
the reason that made me agree to it.

Rock,
meet Hardplace, he’s heard all bout ye.

The
cell door opens and MacIntyre swaggers in, gloating. I feel almost sorry for
him, that his life is so shit picking on someone like me makes it better.

‘Pleased
with yersel’?’ he enquires, folding his arms across his man boobs as he leans
against the door.

‘I’m
pleased that I rate so highly in your world that you feel the need to stalk
me.’ I tell him defiantly.

‘Someone’s
gotta keep an eye on ye.’ He throws back.

I
laugh. ‘Not well enough if I’ve managed to rob a fuckin’ factory under your
nose!’

‘Mebbes
I jist wannae give ye enough rope tae hang yersel’.’ His double chin wobbles as
he speaks and his face is wide and flat like a squashed marshmallow.

‘Come
on,’ I reason, ‘you know it wis’nae me.’

‘I
know you were sacked from there.’

‘Because
of you!’

‘Because
you haven’t learnt how to respect your betters.’

‘And
that’s you?’

MacIntyre
shrugs, spreading his fat arms wide. ‘It’s my job to keep shit off the
streets.’

‘Take
a look in the mirror next time ye go searching then!’

He’s
clutching at straws and he knows it. ‘Is that all ye got?’ I challenge.

MacIntyre
smiles. ‘You needed the money to keep your little drug sideline going…’

‘What?’

‘Mebbe
it’s an addiction, I don’t know, or maybe you just buy more than you need, sell
it on; Mebbe it’s in the genes…’ I ignore the bait about my Dad again.