The reunion was more awkward than either Dennis Boyd or his sister had imagined it would be. Annie was Boyd’s only relative. She loved him, no doubt about that, but they hadn’t lived under the same roof since they were teenagers, and the time he’d spent in prison hadn’t helped; they were strangers. With the best will in the world, building a relationship would be slow going and they both realised it.
Most men newly released from the Big House could expect a welcome home party. There was no celebration for Dennis Boyd. He didn’t want one. A party took people. Friends. Boyd had no friends.
He laid on the single bed in Annie’s spare room killing the hours until he could make an excuse to go. A framed charcoal drawing of a woman, done years ago, stared down at him: his sister. He’d captured her perfectly before life had had a chance to grind her down. Grind both of them down. Dennis wondered if she’d put it there to remind him who he’d been and could be again.
His surroundings were comfortable – beyond that, not so different from his cell. As soon as he’d done what he had to do, he’d be on his way. Annie would spout the usual stuff about there always being a place for him here, though she’d be pleased to see the back of him. Boyd didn’t blame her; he felt the same.
After dinner, they sat across from each other watching television, Boyd’s eyes straying to the clock on the wall every few minutes. Around eight-thirty, he put on his jacket and said he was going for a drink. Annie called a minicab to take him into town and settled to her programmes and her routine, already recognising the short-term future of having her brother live with her.
Boyd asked the taxi to let him off in St Vincent Street. Banged up in Barlinnie, he’d dreamed of being able to walk in anywhere he fancied and order a whisky and a pint. Now it was a reality, it didn’t feel as good as he’d imagined.
Half an hour and two pubs later, he was heading towards George Square. The Counting House was more to his taste. Big and busy, just as he remembered it. Dozens of people stood at the bar or clustered round tables, talking and drinking. Boyd guessed they were city workers who hadn’t made it home yet. He squeezed in between two middle-aged businessmen in suits, asked for a whisky and watched the crowd. After a while, he ordered again. The barman brought the drink and a slip of paper to him and went to serve the other side of the bar. Boyd read the message written in capital letters.
ELMBANK CAR PARK TOP LEVEL 10.30
He called the barman over. ‘Who gave you this?’
The man shrugged indifference. ‘Some guy.’
‘Point him out.’
‘He left.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Just a punter.’
‘What did he look like?’
The barman shrugged a second time. ‘A guy. Never seen him before. Assumed he was a friend of yours. Sorry, pal.’
Boyd pushed the whisky away. Whatever this was about, he’d need a clear head. It hadn’t taken somebody long to make a move. The speed of it was the biggest surprise. Or maybe not. Diane had said they’d know he was out. Of course, she was right. They wouldn’t hang around. He wondered which one of them would be waiting for him. Wilson was the favourite – a thug who assumed everybody was as gullible as himself. An obvious trap like this was exactly what Boyd expected from an idiot who lied for money.
He read the message again, picturing Hughie Wilson on the stand, the suit he’d been wearing and the shirt and tie not enough to disguise his true nature. To give the prosecution their due, they’d prepped him well and encouraged him to tell the story in his own words. Carefully chosen words sweated over for hours. The fabrication had come close to being undone when Wilson delivered his lines like an amateur, visibly toiling under cross examination. His testimony had liar plastered all over it. In the dock, Boyd had breathed a sigh of relief, convinced it was too pat to persuade a jury – none of them would believe this guy. Except they had. Wilson swore the defendant approached him and suggested there was a place for him in a robbery Boyd intended to commit. The target wasn’t identified – that would’ve been pushing credibility already stretched by the over-rehearsed numbskull’s performance – but, since Joe Franks was robbed and murdered shortly after the alleged conversation took place, it hadn’t been hard to join the dots.
With a straight face, Wilson admitted considering the offer before turning it down.
When asked to answer yes or no if he believed the jeweller was the intended victim, he answered yes. The judge sustained the defence counsel’s immediate objection, warned the prosecution against leading the witness to speculate, and instructed the jury to disregard what they’d heard.
Pointless and impossible.
Dennis Boyd realised whoever was behind it had to be smiling; they’d laid their plan well and it was working. He was going down for a crime he hadn’t committed.
On St Vincent Street, he checked his watch, turned his collar up, and started walking. The message said ten-thirty and it was already quarter past. Elmbank Gardens was a good ten minutes away; he quickened his step. At the top of the hill across from the Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson church, a monstrosity if ever there was one, he glanced at the time again: a few minutes to half past. Boyd turned right at the traffic lights at the bottom, then left into Elmbank Gardens. From inside the King’s Theatre the sound of the audience applauding filtered through to the street; the show was ending. In a minute, the place would be flooded with people. That thought reassured him. Responding to the message was a gut reaction, though it allowed whoever had sent it to set the rules. Hiding wasn’t an option. Tonight, for better or worse, he’d learn who he was dealing with. After that…
After that Boyd had no idea.
Diane’s offer would still be on the table – he guessed she was part of the deal. Not entirely unwelcome, except he’d be kidding himself to pretend it had a chance of working any better now. She was a woman who needed more than he was ever likely to be able to provide. In a straight choice between love or money, money would win every time. Fifteen years ago, circumstances were different. Joe had given her financial security; she’d needed something more. She’d needed sex. And it had been fun.
The memories had taken time to die because – whatever she said about him – Diane certainly hadn’t been a seven. Her second husband had nothing to fear from him; adultery was a young man’s game and Boyd was too old to be sneaking around.
A yellow sign flashed ‘No Spaces’. In a few minutes, that wouldn’t be true; the theatre crowd would arrive and head home. He took the lift to level five, ignoring the smell of piss and stale cigarette smoke – mild after the Bar-L – until it came to a shuddering stop. The doors opened and he walked into the open air, his eyes taking a moment to become used to the half-light. From the street below, the chatter of excited voices rose to meet him.
If it was a trap, this was when he expected whoever had sent the message to step from the shadows. His fists balled at his sides as adrenaline surged through him and his eyes narrowed, scanning the empty car park. The meeting had been a test to get his attention. Somewhere they’d be watching and had already learned something valuable about him: he could be played.
The door opened. Three women, all speaking at once, appeared and made their way to their car. On instinct, Boyd pressed himself against the nearest vehicle and stood still but they were preoccupied with each other and didn’t notice him. Soon there would be more. He took a final look round before retracing his steps.
Then he saw it: at the far end, a pile of rags dumped on the ground. Boyd edged cautiously towards it, hearing the hum of the lift. Two men and two women stepped out and hurried to a black Vauxhall. He fell to the concrete floor and scrambled towards the bundle, knowing it was the reason they’d wanted him here. Closer, it became the body of a man lying in a pool of blood. Boyd rolled it over to see the face and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Even without the horrific injuries, time hadn’t been kind to Hughie Wilson; he hadn’t aged well – having his head beaten to a pulp didn’t help. In the semi-darkness there was enough left of the thug who’d lied on the witness stand for Boyd to recognise him; shards of bone poked through the skin from the shattered nose below the temple caved in under the force of a tremendous blow. Wilson’s eyes were open, the right socket a milky white where the iris and pupil should’ve been. Boyd touched the cold concrete and felt scrapes of Christ-knew-what under his fingertips.
Nothing had prepared him for this. Less than twelve hours after his release from Barlinnie, one of the men who’d testified against him was dead. And suddenly, Dennis Boyd understood.
They’d framed him once and they were doing it again.
The hum of the lift returning snapped him into action. He ran across the car park, almost knocking down a middle-aged couple coming through the door. The man cursed and the woman cried out. Boyd didn’t stop to apologise. In the distance, a police siren cut through the night. He took the stairs to the bottom and ran out of the rear entrance. In Bath Street, he joined the last of the crowd spilling from the King’s Theatre and slowed to a walk so as not to attract attention to himself. Fifteen minutes later, he was standing in Central Station with little idea how he’d got there, or why.
Central was quiet. Boyd bought coffee from a Costa stand and sat on a seat under the huge notice board suspended above the gates to the platforms. Yards away, a teenage boy and girl draped their arms round each other and kissed for Scotland. Near them, a gang of young boys passed round a can of foreign beer he didn’t recognise and made obscene comments about the couple, while a homeless man in a grubby overcoat a couple of sizes too big for him scavenged a litter bin. If the tramp dug deep enough, he might come across the plan Boyd had had twelve hours earlier.
A train going to the coast caught his eye. For a second, he considered it.
Then what? Who did he know? Where would he go?
I may be the only friend you’ve got left in this town
He patted his jacket, unsure if he still had it, and was in luck – the beer mat was still there. Boyd threw the coffee away, walked to a bank of telephone booths at the far side of the station and dialled the number. When she answered, she sounded sleepy. He blurted out his relief at hearing her voice. ‘Diane? Diane, it’s me.’
‘Dennis?’
‘You were right.’
‘What do you mean? What’s happened?’
‘It’s a mess, Diane. A fucking mess.’
‘What is? Where are you?’
‘Central Station. Come and get me.’
Sean Rafferty grunted his dissatisfaction at the darkness beyond the empty conservatory overlooking the river. The fine weather had moved on and rain spattered the windowpanes in a steady drumbeat. He was ugly drunk and spoiling for a fight; there weren’t any takers. Kim was upstairs in bed – again – with the new door locked. Rosie was asleep. Rafferty’s fevered brain threw up a possibility he hadn’t considered: she had a lover. Kim was a great-looking woman, even if she was a pain in the arse. When they’d met, she’d been a model, flashing her tits for the cameras every chance she got. Would any guy be stupid enough to mess with his property? If somebody had the balls, God help them. Bryce Hunter’s son had tried and was lucky to still be able to walk.
But with his wife? Veins tightened like cords in his neck under the skin; he cracked his knuckles and grimaced. What a mistake that would be.
Rafferty wasn’t jealous. He didn’t love Kim. Apart from Rosie, he’d never loved anybody. Kim was a good mother, otherwise he’d have got rid of the bitch long since. There would be a queue round the block to take her place when he did pull the plug.
Rosie would always be okay – Sean Rafferty was her father.
He sloshed more whisky into the glass; some of it fell on the carpet. The redhead would be at home, curled up on the couch, watching television with her husband.
He mimicked the conversation. ‘How did it go today, darling? Anything to report?’
‘You mean, apart from Sean Rafferty fucking me? Not much. How about you, darling?’
Rafferty gave a harsh laugh and put the whisky to his lips, aroused, breathing heavily. Would he see her again? What was the point? He could get sex anywhere – anywhere but his own bed, apparently.