‘McNee, ya crazy bollocks!’ Robert reached over from the back seat to clap me on the shoulder. His long fingers wrapped round me. I thought of the film, Nosferatu. Tried not to shiver too hard. ‘Good to see you again.’
‘You too,’ I said, not bothering to sound like I meant it. Like he would give a toss. ‘Where’s the girl tonight?’
‘New night,’ he said.
‘New girl?’
‘You were young once, right?’
‘Still am.’
‘So maybe this one’s got a friend.’
‘Thought we had established boundaries,’ I said.
‘Aye, you’re not my friend.’
‘I’m not even here. I’m the invisible man.’
He settled back. Even in the rear view I could see that he’d been drinking. His eyes were glazed over. The night was young. A few hours, and he’d be wide-eyed and tripped out.
I drove us to the city centre, parked down on Brown Street near the old student halls of residence. Remembered being called out to them every so often as a uniform to investigate petty theft and the occasional recreational drugs charge.
I kept my pace slow, remaining a few feet behind Robert as he swaggered up towards the club. Jesus, he claimed to have come to the city to see his uncle, and all he did was go out and get high. Maybe half an eye on making the old man’s connections. After all, Burns wasn’t getting any younger and when he did eventually cark it there was going to be a power vacuum in the North East. Maybe wee Rabbie wasn’t as spaced out as I first suspected. Maybe he was smarter than he looked. Wouldn’t be too hard.
He met some folk in the queue. The way they acted, they knew each other well. I didn’t recognize them, but figured they were his crew over round these parts. Guys who liked hanging around with someone they thought was a bit dangerous. I kept my distance, but made sure I got in a word with the guys on the door. One of them knew me. We’d met at SIA conferences over the years. Got on well enough and we’d had some drinks at the bar, but our professional relationship existed only within the confines of anodyne hotel bars and overheated conference rooms.
‘Heard your licence got suspended.’
‘ABI,’ I said. ‘And it’s a temporary thing. I can still work as an investigator.’
‘Right.’
‘Come on, Brownlie. You know me.’
He gave a tip of the head that was noncommittal at best. His arms were folded. Showing off the black and white tats on his biceps. Even in the depths of winter, he wore short sleeves just so he could show off the ink.
‘I know you, alright’ he said. ‘You moody wee fuck.’
He had me on that score. We’d met during the dark days, when all I’d been interested in was burying myself in work, forgetting who I was. I hadn’t been looking to make friends, and I guess it had been more than obvious. You hadn’t needed to be Sherlock Holmes to work that one out.
‘Right-oh,’ he said. ‘They get in, you get in. I know how it is. Besides, what they’re saying about you, I figure I still have to go with my gut. Which says you’re all right.’
‘Even if I am a moody wee fuck?’
He shrugged. ‘But if they start something and you don’t shut it down …’
‘Sure, sure.’
‘Want a smoke?’
I laughed, shook my head.
‘You aren’t all bad, then? Fuck, you gone vegetarian, too?’
‘Not to say I wouldn’t kill for one some days.’
‘You’re only human.’
‘Right.’
Brownlie let us through without incident.
As before, I spent most of the night walking the floor, wishing I was anywhere else. Preferably somewhere with soundproofing.
Or a torture chamber. That might have been better. Relentless white noise blasted through headphones would have beaten the relentless boom-boom-boom that echoed through the crowd of dancers, vibrating their bodies and minds. The ones that had both.
About an hour or so into the evening, someone stood next to me. Arms folded. About as relaxed as a cat in a box full of angry dogs. Not looking at me, but making sure I knew she was there. The kind of pose only another copper would recognize.
‘DI Kellen,’ I shouted, bending down to yell into her ear over the thump-thump. ‘Nice to see you know how to enjoy yourself.’
‘Go to hell,’ she shouted back. Not looking at me. Watching the floor. Eyes on Robert and his friends. The grim determination you might associate with a bird of prey. There had always been something of the hawk in her features: a sharpness that made her seem alert and utterly focussed.
Her colleagues called her single minded. They meant it as a compliment.
‘So what are you drinking?’ I asked. Sarcasm high on the agenda.
‘Water. Otherwise I might be tempted to jump your bones.’
‘Not sure I’d resist.’
‘Except you’re a gentleman.’
‘Sure. There’s that.’
She shifted weight from foot to foot, deliberately out of time with the beat of the bass. ‘So why don’t we quit the flirting?’
‘Why not? The night’s not going to end with you cuffing me to the bedpost.’
‘It wouldn’t be the bedpost.’ Hard to tell in amid the flashing strobes whether she was smiling. ‘So, what, this is legitimate work for you?’
‘I’m a tax payer.’
‘Who’s been suspended from a professional body, accused of unlawful conduct.’
‘You don’t have a case to make.’
‘They took the case away from me.’
‘You sound paranoid.’
‘I am. Somebody up there likes you.’
‘And you don’t like that?’
‘Anyone assisted by divine intervention is suspicious, McNee.’
‘So you’re not a believer, then?’ She didn’t say anything. ‘I wouldn’t call it divine intervention, DI Kellen. More that someone saw sense.’ On the dance floor, Robert was throwing shapes. Dangerously big shapes to throw in a space where people were pressed so close together. ‘You never told me who set you on to me in the first place.’
‘I like lost causes,’ she said. ‘Catch the ones who got away.’ She thought about that for a second. ‘The ones who think they got away.’
‘And that’s me, is it?’
‘One among many.’
‘Nice to feel special.’
The whole time I had one eye on Robert. A moment’s distraction could result in serious trouble. First thing you learned about close protection was that your eye always had to be on the target. No matter what else was happening. And sure enough, some guy was giving Robert the look. The one that says, ‘stop being a dick.’ Robert was oblivious. His friends were whooping and hollering.
‘Never a quiet moment,’ Kellen said.
‘We’ll see.’ It wasn’t a situation yet. Just one guy shaking his head. Hardly a riot.
‘My problem with you,’ she said, ‘is not rumour. It’s the people you hang around with. Like you want us to look at you a certain way. Showing off your guilt. Flaunting it.’
On the dance floor, the man with the pissed-off face had finally got Robert’s attention. They were squaring up. The kind of swaggering confrontation most guys have after a few pints. Already a space had formed around them on the floor.
I tried not to sigh. At least, not obviously.
Didn’t stop Kellen laughing as I stepped forward.
She yelled something at me over the music. But I didn’t hear it. Didn’t need to. Whatever it was, it wasn’t exactly a compliment.
I ran down on to the floor. Robert was on his tiptoes. He and Mr Angry were forehead to chin, testosterone leaking like a nuclear reactor in meltdown. People were giving them a wide berth. A few lads on the edge were shouting encouragement. They wanted to see blood.
The main rule of any close protection gig is this: get between your target and any potential threat. Even if your target is the one causing the aggro in the first place.
The guy was big. I’d seen that from the other side of the room. But up close, he was a truly solid bastard. The kind of chest that came from pumping weights. The kind of arms that would make Schwarzenegger jealous. Not that it mattered. When it comes to a fight, it’s not always the big man who wins. Witness enough punters kicking off on a Saturday night, and you learn that lesson fast. Size is intimidating, but it’s not an indication of superiority.
The big guy said, ‘Who the fuck’re you?’
‘The one telling you to back off.’
‘You a bouncer?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Your friend was being a cunt.’
Again, I kept quiet. Stood my ground.
‘Aye, well, so … right … tell him he dances like a queer.’ The big man backed down. Hesitantly. I could sense disappointment from the spectators hoping for a rammie. It was a physical thing. an oppressive and disappointing sensation. Maybe enough to encourage one or the other of us to give it a go. But drunk as the big man was, he knew he’d been beaten. More, he knew that I wasn’t playing hard man. He was pissed, but not enough to get into a fight he couldn’t win.
Sometimes all it takes to win a fight is attitude.
‘Aye, run away, yah prick!’
And sometimes all it takes to pick a fight is an attitude.
Robert had barely finished yelling at the big man before he moved. Luckily drink made the big man sluggish. Like facing down a tank: he had size on his side, but no speed and no grace. I sidestepped him, brought my fist down low and into his balls. He doubled, stumbled, and collapsed.
A dirty move? Maybe, but it ended the situation fast. Brownlie could clear up the mess. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there as fast as I could.
I took advantage of the situation. Hustled Robert off the floor fast as I could. He was shouting over his shoulder the whole time. I got him out the fire exit, slammed him against a wall and pressed my hand over his face. ‘Shut the fuck up!’
I let go. We were out in an alley at the rear of the club. The night air was sharp. The kind of sharp that could slice open a vein. It got to Robert fast. He struggled to catch his breath, then doubled up and vomited. His sick was the kind of bright orange that you only get late at night. Spattered my shoes and the bottom of my jeans.
‘Jesus!’
‘Oh fuck me, I’m sorry, man. So fuckin’ sorry. I mean, fuck …’
He shuddered and then collapsed to his knees. Started to sob. Like a wee boy who’s suddenly realized the very real trouble that he’s in. There was an apologetic tone to his tears, a forced realization of his own idiocy.
The sad cry of the drunk.
And I fell for it. I’d been young and stupid once. And for all his swagger, all his trading off his uncle’s name, he was little more than a guy trying to have a good time, not really aware of the consequences of his own actions.
His friends, I noted, were nowhere to be seen.
‘Come on,’ I said, offering my hand down to him. ‘We’ll go back to yours, get some coffee on, forget about it. Aye?’
He took the hand offered. Let me haul him to his feet.