55

Haggs drove his Jaguar along Nitshill Road for a mile before taking a right turn, which led him through narrow suburban streets. He marvelled at the tidiness of some lives. Blackhill, where he’d been born, was a squalid pit of tribal divisions and deprivation, of runny-nosed wee kids screaming in shite-soaked nappies that hadn’t been changed in days, of men standing on street corners and bemoaning the failures of their lives and the general lack of justice, of petty thieves and burglaries and drunkenness and casual acts of violence, the swift arc of a razor, the violent flick of a sharpened steel comb. It was a million fucking miles in his wake and he was never going back that way again, and if Twiddie and his brain-dead crumpet menaced his pleasant little world in any little way, they were history.

Eventually the streets thinned out and he entered an industrial estate, one that was clearly not thriving. FOR RENT signs hung outside hangar-sized buildings. Companies long defunct had had their names whited out but sometimes you could discern a spectral impression in faded paint of these former tenants, THOMAS BAILEY & SON, WELDERS. Or half a name might still survive in rust-coloured letters, like an enigma to be solved: GR SON EXP S D S V CE.

Haggs parked outside a small brick building that he owned for various purposes. A car he was obliged to stash, a shipment of this or that passing through. A meeting he wanted to hold in total privacy. The building was functional, the roof metal. The sign outside said GLENLORA RENTALS, although there was no indication of whatever might be available for rent. Haggs unlocked the door and went inside. He turned on the light because there were no windows. A sink was situated in a corner. There was a rudimentary crapper behind a partition. The air smelled dead. The space was hot with the day’s trapped warmth.

Haggs shut the door and walked to the middle of the room and stood with his hands in his pockets and thought of burning vans and amateur arsonists and diddies in general who endangered your way of life. And that fucking Jew was no dummy. You could practically hear him calculate. He couldn’t have Perlman strutting inside his golf club. He couldn’t live with that.

Haggs walked in circles. He jingled his car keys in his pocket. That bloody wallet. How could they have overlooked that? They hadn’t checked the van before they tried to torch it. It was elementary shite.

He heard a sound from outside. The slam of a car door.

He heard John Twiddie’s voice. Then Twiddie and the Bucket-Faced Girlfriend entered the building. Rita was all pins, jaggy protrusions, things like miniature knitting needles sticking out of her piled-up hair or dangling from her earlobes. There was some sharp object lanced through her lower lip and a shiny stud in an eyebrow. She wouldn’t want to be outdoors in an electric storm, Haggs thought. He listened to the way her black leather trousers creaked as she moved. Twiddie, besuited in his counterfeit couture, wore a white slim-jim tie and a black shirt, what he considered gangster chic.

Haggs said, ‘You’re wondering why you’re here.’

Rita said, ‘Aye. It’s a long way to come.’

‘Oh, you’re inconvenienced. I’m dead sorry. Note to self: do not inconvenience Rita in future.’

‘So, eh,’ Twiddie said. ‘What’s the score?’

Rita sniffed the air. ‘Stinks a bit in here.’

‘Only since you arrived,’ Haggs said.

‘Cheek,’ Rita said.

Twiddie smiled. He understood the insult, and saw the need to defend Rita, but Haggs was the boss, and even if you despised Long Roddy his money kept you in cigarettes and clothes and food. He wasn’t a man you crossed. So Twiddie’s dilemma was resolved in a pallid smile.

‘Fuck you grinning at, Twiddie?’

‘I don’t know,’ Twiddie said.

‘Fucking stupid grinning at nothing.’ Haggs tugged Twiddie’s tie out from his jacket and tossed the end of it over Twiddie’s shoulder.

‘Here,’ Twiddie said.

Rita said, ‘Leave him alone.’

‘Don’t you ever tell me what to do, bitch. Don’t you open your mouth unless you’re spoken to.’

‘Fuck you,’ Rita said.

Quickly, Haggs plucked a long needle from her hair and jabbed her face with it. He drew blood instantly. The girl yelped.

‘I’m wounded. You’ve wounded me, Haggs.’

Twiddie said, ‘You all right, love?’

Haggs said, ‘She’s not all right. You’re not all right. You’re both up shit creek. Pair of you. You couldn’t burn that fucking van. Which would be bad enough. But you go one better. You overlook the old bastard’s fucking wallet in the back of the fucking van.’

‘Wallet? We didn’t see the wallet,’ Twiddie said.

‘And your matches were damp as well, I suppose.’

‘Some fires don’t take,’ Rita said.

Haggs’s anger had the propulsion of a moon-shot. ‘I’ve built myself a life. I like it. I like it an awful lot. I can’t have it jeopardized by two completely worthless wankers like you pair. Do you understand that?’

‘So, eh, what do you, ah, propose?’ Twiddie said.

‘I’d dearly like to torture you for a while, maybe a day or two, and then snuff you out.’

Twiddie laughed. Rita didn’t. She said, ‘Talk’s cheap.’

Haggs cracked his knuckles. How in God’s name had he ever become associated with this couple? There were moments of pleasure at times, sure, driving the dark streets, the sheer buzz of hands-on brutality, dancing with menace. But when you had Perlman in your own clubhouse right in your bloody face, when you smelled a bad tide swirling in your direction, then it was time for serious changes.

‘You’ll leave Glasgow,’ he said.

‘Is zat so?’ Rita asked.

‘You’ll go to London. From London you’ll catch a train to Holland, Germany, wherever, I don’t give a fuck.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Rita said. ‘I like Glasgow. I don’t see why I should leave. My friends are here.’

Haggs said, ‘You’re not getting the picture, Rita. You don’t have a choice. Either you leave the country … or some more permanent location is found for you.’

‘You’re talking about …’ Twiddie paused.

‘I’m talking about closing time, Twiddie. You know, when the barman says drink up and leave, and he flicks the lights, and you’re out on the street? I’m talking about that kind of situation. Only there’s no tomorrow, see. You don’t go back to the pub next day because for you there is no next day.’

‘You’ve arranged this?’ Rita asked.

Haggs said, ‘It only takes one phone call.’

‘So we bugger off and live in poverty with a buncha krauts and you go on enjoying the good life. Fuck that for a lark.’

‘You’ll receive compensation,’ Haggs said. ‘Which is bloody generous of me, considering I have that other option I just mentioned.’

‘I want fifty grand, Haggs,’ Rita said.

Haggs said, ‘I split my sides.’

‘What’s your figure?’ she asked.

‘Five K each max. No haggling.’

‘Har,’ Twiddie said.

‘Take it, leave it.’ Haggs shrugged. ‘One way or another, you don’t live in this city any more. I want you gone by tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ Rita asked.

Twiddie said, ‘Can’t be done.’

‘No choice,’ Haggs said. ‘Life’s like that. In the immortal words of a certain M. Jagger, Twid, you can’t always get what you want. Remember that.’