Gutted (18 page)

In the last few years I had aged terribly. I’d managed to skip the whole bloated, pot-bellied, middle-age-spread deal and go straight to gaga decrepitude. I woke in agonies of aches running the length of my body. My back alone took an hour or so each morning to become usable. In the last few weeks I’d also started to suffer terrible blackouts. I’d had those before on the drink but my memory had always remained patchy throughout them. Now each blackout brought . . . nothingness.

Still, I liked to fool myself it was all a matter of signing off the sauce for a few weeks. A bit of healthy eating, taking up my five portions, maybe, dare I say it, exercise. If I could grab some rays while I was at it, surely that would be all I needed to fire myself back to the level of health I’d previously enjoyed.

Surely it would.

Like fuck it would.

I knew I’d played Russian roulette with my body and my mental well-being for so long that I was beyond saving. I was a washed-up wreck and no amount of denial was going to paper over those cracks.

I played a line from Blake: ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.’ Nice try, son.

I knew the real facts of the matter – the road of excess leads to the road of excess.

‘That’ll be six-fifty,’ said the barmaid.

I stared at my new buddy. He didn’t look like he’d eaten. I said, ‘You could do with some meat on those bones.’

‘No, no. I’m fine on the pint.’

I sensed he was being polite. I pushed the issue, ‘A bowl of soup?’

The barmaid backed me up, ‘It’s Scotch broth . . . and it comes with soda bread.’

Tupac put his face close to my own. His breath could turn milk, ‘Maybe a bowl of broth would be just the trick.’

I could tell this was all very embarrassing for him, but he had such an air of humanity that the barmaid didn’t even acknowledge his battered appearance, the rank smell coming from him. Truth told, she probably thought we were just another pair of jakes making the most of giro day.

She left us with a smile. Flash of bright blue eyes. She was a heartbreaker; I wanted to look out for her. God, you’re getting on when you look at eighteen-year-old girls and feel protective of them. I wondered about myself again.

‘This is really very good of you, sir,’ said Tupac.

‘Holy shit, don’t call me that!’

‘Och sorry. It’ll make you feel like your father, eh?’

If he’d done that, he’d have a sore face right now. There was little on this earth likely ever to make me feel like the late Cannis Dury.

I said, ‘Call me Gus – it’s my name.’

‘Are you a Fergus or an Angus?’

I rolled that one over, said, ‘Well, officially I’m an Angus . . . but only one person calls me that.’

‘That would be your mother.’

‘Spot on.’

‘Mothers are precious things. Mind her well.’

I knew what he meant; it put shards of ice in my veins. I’d been far from mindful of my mother since my father had passed. Sure, I never saw eye to eye with the man – he was a tyrant, the ogre of my boyhood – but my mother had given her life to him and now that he was gone, well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

Tupac’s eyes moistened. ‘I remember my own dear mother . . . sweet, sweet lady she was.’

‘We all have an affection for our mothers, us lads.’

The jakey crossed his fingers together, uncrossed them. Started to fiddle with an old watch strap on his arm. There was no watch to be seen. ‘My mother was an equestrian.’

The word shocked me, seemed to be too eloquent for him. ‘She was?’

He glowed as he remembered his mother. ‘She won prizes, rosettes.’ He smiled. ‘We had a room of the house full to the rafters with them, all colours they were – red, blue, yellow, green.’

His image stung me. My own father had medals and trophies galore. And what a price we’d all paid for them. My mam especially. She’d been hurting when I last spoke to her; I knew I’d neglected her since my father died. The thoughts mashed about my insides, forced black hurts into my mind. Jesus, Gus, what a terrible son you have been to her. A terrible son and husband both. I thanked the heavens I had never been a father as well.

The waitress brought the soup, laid it down on the table. A plate of bread, pan loaf, was sat beside it. The bread had been spread with margarine, nice and thick. ‘I’m so sorry, we’ve finished the soda bread,’ said the girl.

The old boy smiled, said, ‘Nae worries at all. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, love!’ As the girl blushed and retreated, Tupac rose from the table and blew her a kiss. ‘You bring a rare presence to a room, my dear,’ he announced.

She dropped her head, but her eyelids shot up.

‘Take it as a compliment,’ I said.

‘That’s how it’s meant, lass,’ said the old jakey, ‘that’s how it’s meant . . . It’s a blessed talent to move an old man’s heart by just being there.’

I though this fella was some character. He had a warmness and sociability that’s rare these days. I thought to pry, ask his name, his story. I knew it would only depress the shit out of me, though. He’d have some yarn about how he was once this or that and then
there
’d be a dreadful incident, a fall from grace. I’d heard it all before. It was too depressing to hear again. In this city, there are thousands of stories just like it.

He fired into the broth, tipping up the bowl. His thumb touched the rim, dipped in the soup.

‘Now, Angus, won’t you join me in a bowl of this fine broth?’

I shook my head, said, ‘No thanks.’

‘But you have the look of a man who has missed a few meals of late.’

Here we go, story of my life. People wanting to fatten me up. It would never happen. I have what they call a fast metabolism. The jeans I wore were thirty-twos . . . and loose. ‘I’m fine, really. I’ve got very little appetite.’

‘Your appetites are elsewhere.’

Now he had my number.

‘Look, eat the soup. Enjoy it. You have appetite enough for the two of us,’ I said.

That seemed to do the job. He slurped away, finished the lot, mopped it up with the bread.

‘A fine repast, my good son.’

When he called me ‘son’, my heart kicked in me. My own father never referred to me that way. When he used the word it appeared in the phrase
no son of mine
.

‘Are you still hungry?’

‘No, no. I am sated . . . but you, I believe, sir, are not.’

I couldn’t deny it. ‘You know why I wanted to talk to you, Tupac?’

His narrow shoulders seemed to creep closer together as he pushed the plate away. He sat facing me like a gargoyle. ‘I have a fair assumption it’s about the murder.’

‘They had you down the station.’

‘Them bastards have had me down there more than once,’ he sparked up, rose from his seat again and hollered to the room, ‘the bastards! Bastards to a fucking man!’

I flagged him sit. He apologised.

‘Not a paid-up member of the constabulary’s fan club, then?’

‘They wanted me to perjure myself. I may have no respect for the bastards that enforce the law of the land, but I’ve a damn sight more respect for the law of this land.’

He scratched his palm, looked at his fingernails. They were black to a one. The Scots have a habit in this situation of blurting,
You could grow potatoes in there
. I resisted the training, said, ‘What did they ask you to do?’

He twisted in his chair. ‘They wanted me to finger you.’

I took up my pint, drained the last of it. I had a wee goldie waiting, I hit that too. ‘Did they now?’

‘I’d sooner cut my own fucking throat . . . I played them, though, by God I played them for a power of grog.’

I smiled, it was forced. His revelations weren’t exactly heart-warming. ‘Good on you.’ I gathered myself. ‘But you must have saw me there that night.’

‘That I did, but you showed long after the chaos.’

‘Chaos?’

His face lit up like a gas lamp, the one tooth sticking out over his lower lip. ‘I see things on that hill, y’know.’

‘Like what?’

He grew indignant. His jawline showed through the thick thatch of matted beard. ‘The fella what got killed . . . he’d been up the hill before, many times, digging out fucking badgers. They pit them against dogs, y’know.’

I’d been up there to catch them in the act myself, but it didn’t stop my insides churning at the thought.

‘Fucking flushed the poor creatures out with terriers, that bastard did. He hit them with a bastarding spade and caged them.’

I was sickened. But my voice trembled for other reasons; I couldn’t get away from the fact that the filth had tried to fit me up. My words didn’t come out smoothly, ‘Our victim, he wasn’t alone the times you saw him, was he, Tupac?’

Head shaking, vigorous. ‘No. He never was. Always had a gang of little shits with him.’

‘What about the night of the murder? Did you see him then?’

He lurched in his seat, slapped a palm on the table. ‘That I did!’

I felt my adrenaline spike. ‘Did you tell the police?’

Again, ‘That I did!’

Another spike, ‘What did you tell them?’

He seemed pleased with himself. ‘That I saw him up there with the gang of boys. They were all coming and going all the night in the car . . . what a commotion it was.’

I couldn’t take in what I was hearing, said, ‘Look, did you see the actual . . .’

His ardour dimmed, his mouth twisted. ‘No. I did not. I’ve seen so much carrying-on up there that I tire of it. I left them to their own devices.’

I’d been going for broke, but what he’d given me was enough. I’d established that I wasn’t the only witness to place the yobs on the hill. What I needed was Tupac to get me off the hook and there was still some hope he could do just that.

I pulled out my mobi, located the picture of Mark Crawford. ‘Did you see him on the night?’

Tupac squinted, held the phone in his hands like it was a delicate treasure. ‘I saw him. I saw him with the gang of little shits the night that fella was killed. I’m sure as eggs he was there; I’d know them wee bastards anywhere.’

As I put away the phone, Tupac spoke up again, ‘You know I told the police that I saw you come along later on. The commotion had long passed and I heard the car come back and then when I was out I saw you coming down the side of the hill like a great fucking stone falling.’

‘You told them all this?’

‘I told them you were the one that fell on the dead fella . . . that he was long gone when you came on the scene.’

I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or gutted. Tupac was my alibi, but the filth didn’t want to know.

I rose, handed him over a tenner, said, ‘Here, get yourself a pint.’

His eyes widened. ‘Thank you very much, Angus.’

I peeled off another tenner, then another, handed him a bunch of them. ‘And feed yourself up, get yourself a slot at the hostel for a few days. You might be better out of sight for a wee while.’

His eyes burned like candle wicks.

‘I . . . I . . . don’t know what to say.’

‘Say nothing – it’s all owed to you. Tupac, I want you to lay low for a few days, stay off the hill, and when you get yourself settled give me a call on this number.’ I scribbled down my mobi on a beer mat, handed it to him.

He looked at the piece of card, open-mouthed.

‘When you’re settled give me a call.’ My heart was pumping. I could see this all being exposed in a lengthy article for Rasher at some point down the track. ‘I’ll come and pick you up as soon as I get things sorted and we’ll go and make this statement to a lawyer . . . Okay?’

He nodded, stood up. As he walked out of the bar I saw the elbows poking from the sleeves of his jacket.

‘Hey, c’mere . . .’

He trudged back in a dream.

‘Take this.’

I gave him Hod’s Berghaus windcheater; like he’d miss it. I justified it to myself as wealth redistribution.

‘No, I can’t, I can’t take any more.’

I thrust it on him, said, ‘Of course you can.’

‘But . . .’

‘No buts. No arguing.’

He put it on, stuck his hands in the pockets. Pulled out a pack of Marlboro, red top.

‘Ah, my smokes.’

I took them from his hand. He watched me.

I said, ‘You smoke?’

A nod.

I handed back the pack.

Silence.

He turned for the door in a daze.

I called out, ‘Hey, what’s your real name, Tupac?’

A complete halt, stalled in the bar by the door, said, ‘It’s Kenneth.’

‘Just like the old king of Scotland!’

He smiled, weakly. ‘Do you mean MacAlpin . . . or Dalglish?’

It was my turn to smile, said, ‘Take your pick.’

He seemed to brighten. Then went through the door and back to the street.