Truth Lies Waiting (Davy Johnson Series Book 1) (2 page)

A notice hangs on
the wall of the Volunteer Arms, a spit and sawdust pub halfway down Leith Walk,
reminding customers that ID may be required if they look under twenty five. But
Dougie, the landlord, has something more pressing to worry about: below the A4
sign is an acid burn.

I
nod at the barmaid, order a pint and look around the pub for somewhere quiet to
sit. I’ve enough money in my pocket to go home pissed and put off telling Mum
I’ve cocked up again.

‘She
let ye out then tonight then, did she?’ The barmaid jokes, not unkindly, and I
respond by rolling my eyes. When I was released I promised Mum that I’d keep my
head down, avoid my usual haunts and the people that frequented them. Getting
up for work each day gave me a purpose but now I’ve lost my job I’m back to
square one, in fact I’m back a few paces further now I have a loan repayment to
make on Friday and no way of raising the cash.

I’d
taken no more than two mouthfuls of lager when a black man with mini dreadlocks
strolls into the bar with a minder stuck so close to him he looks like a mean
looking Siamese twin. The landlord walks towards them, arms outstretched like
he’s welcoming long lost relatives.

‘Ye
money’s not worth anything here.’ He says, waving his hand at them despite the
fact no one has offered him money yet.

‘Kirsty,’
he calls to the barmaid who’d joked with me earlier, ‘Anything these gents want
– on the house.’ His generosity is rewarded by a nod. Then, all serious like,
he leans over the bar and pleads in a low voice: ‘No need for any trouble, eh
boys?’ he falters, pointing to the wall behind him, ‘The insurance won’t cover
me anymore.’ He wipes his hands down the front of his jeans, returning to his
rightful place at the side of the bar with his cronies.

The
man with the dreadlocks surveys the punters around the room, his eyes settling
on me as I swirl the remnants of my pint around the bottom of my glass. He
turns and whispers something to his companion, who looks over at me and nods.
There was a time when I was proud to be on nodding terms with these men, and
even now my chest inflates at being pointed out by one of them. It’s like being
mates with the school bully – you were safe as long as you played along, let
someone else take the brunt of their cruelty. I smile over at the men who are
still looking me over while continuing their private conversation. I’ve just
swallowed my last mouthful when the leader saunters over, sitting down on the
stool beside me without bothering to ask whether it’s taken.

I
nod a greeting. Marcus Dreyton doesn’t do small talk and the rule is you wait
until you are spoken to, and even then answering only the question you’ve been
asked.

‘Me
bin meanin’ to pay y’a visit.’ Marcus drawls. His accent is more West Lothian
than West Indian but he’s styled himself and his team on the Jamaican Yardies
that control Moss Side, a volatile scheme in the north of England. It doesn’t
do him any harm. I mean, it’s not like anyone’s going to take the piss out of
his accent.

‘Yi
kep’ your head down an’ did your time like a man,’ Marcus observes, ‘an’ me
don’ forget loyalty like dat.’ He looks down at my empty drink and gestures
over to the barmaid to bring a new one.

‘I
can’t buy ye one back.’ I say nervously, unsure which is the bigger crime -
speaking out of turn or not standing my round with the local gangster. Marcus
seems to study me for a moment, not in a hostile way exactly but still in a way
that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

‘No
matter.’ he replies before standing abruptly and returning to his cronies,
though not before instructing Kirsty to keep my drinks coming for the remainder
of the evening.

Walking
home half cut the pavement takes on a life of its own, like an overfull bouncy
castle. I stagger along the top road, eyeing the row of fast food shops like an
oasis in the desert. Thrusting my hands deep into my pockets my fingers close
around a couple of pound coins, enough for a tray of chips, and I allow myself
a smile, at least something is going my way today. A woman walks along the
pavement ahead of me, high heeled boots and mottled legs, a short pleated
skirt, Britney-style, beneath an imitation leather jacket. She pauses at the
street corner, checking her phone and glancing up and down the road. Bathed in
the neon light of the kebab shop behind her she resembles a modern day urban
angel. She turns to look at me as I get nearer, a fixed smile on bright red
lips. There’s a flicker of recognition that transforms her smile into a grin.
The face beneath the heavy fringe is lined and weary, and familiar.

‘Jesus
it’s you.’ The woman mutters, disappointment mingling with relief, as though
she’d made a bargain with herself to call it a night if she got one more
rejection.

‘Sorry
to disappoint ye.’ My words seem to run into one another and come out
shorrytodisspointye
instead. I’ll need to speak slowly if I want her to understand me. I try once
more: ‘Sorry. To. Dipassoint. Ye.’

The
woman laughs for some reason and links her arm into mine. Her front teeth are
missing but then I’ve never known her with them. ‘Hi Auntie Jude.’ I slur. The
women who work along this road are all similar in age to Mum with a shed load
of kids between them. Jude’s daughter had been taken into care years earlier
yet she’d been so kind to me when I was little I’d taken to calling her auntie
to make her feel better about herself.

‘Got
any money?’ Jude asks, then laughing at my face she nods towards the Turkish
cafe behind us and the hiss of the deep fat fryer. ‘I mean for scran, ye
muppet,’ she chides before confessing, ‘Not eaten since this morning.’

I
slip both pound coins and a handful of shrapnel across the counter and ask for
as many chips as my money can buy. The owner, Mo, is a decent sort and throws
in a couple of slices of curled up donner, his smile lingering on Jude far
longer than it needs to. ‘Aw, Jude,’ I groan as something dawns on me, ‘you’ve
not, have ye?’ sobering quickly at the thought of either of them having carnal
knowledge of each other; neither would see forty again.

‘Let’s
just say it’s all in good working order.’ Jude replies coyly, pumping her cheek
with her tongue as Mo brings two Styrofoam cups containing coffee over to our
chipped formica table, ‘on the house,’ he says magnanimously as though they are
fancy lattes instead of cheap, bitter as fuck instant.

Jude’s
face creases into a grin as I try to block out the mental image and she starts
laughing, her hilarity increasing until she is doubled over in the chair,
barking like a sea lion and wiping tears away. I smile reluctantly. She jabs my
knee and I start laughing too.

I
stir in a spoonful of sugar and raise my cup to my lips, blowing across the top
of it.

‘How’s
ye ma these days?’ Jude enquires, still smiling. ‘None of the girls see her
aboot the place anymair.’

‘She’s
gone online now,’ I say proudly, ‘Has her own Facebook page and everything.
Punters get their rocks off while she sends them dirty messages.’

‘She
was always good with words,’ Jude says wistfully.

‘She
got a webcam installed last month so she can do the ironing starkers. Gets her
money through Paypal.’

Jude
laps the news up while stabbing at greasy chips with a wooden fork.

‘Internet
wanking,’ she observes. ‘ye canny beat it for its simplicity.’

‘Not
sure how it’s going to work now I’m back home though,’ I admit, ‘She’ll have to
put a sign up on the kitchen door so I don’t walk in on her.’ I’m not sure
whether

the thought of my
old dear ironing my baw bags in the buff was making me feel sick or the shots
I’d sunk in the pub once Marcus had given me a tab but I shovel the strips of
congealing donner into my mouth anyway, my stomach needs a new lining.

‘It’s
safer mind,’ I say shyly. It’s a thin line between caring for someone and
patronising them and I don’t want Jude to think I’m guilty of the latter.

‘I
know,’ she says kindly, ‘but what would I do with my regulars? I canny let ‘em
down.’

Like
any of them give a toss who they bang just as long as they can, I think sourly,
but Jude won’t thank me for saying it. Maybe telling herself that her regulars
give a damn is what makes her get up each day. I suppose we all want to matter
to someone.

‘What
was it like inside, Davy?’ Jude ventures, all serious now, making me wonder
unkindly if Mum has put her up to it. Mebbe they’re more in cahoots than she’s
letting on.

I
shrug. ‘Grim.’

Jude
moves her hand cautiously across the table, placing it over mine. It’s her left
hand; her right hand she always jokes is for business use only. ‘Do ye still
have your nightmares?’

I
nod. ‘On the nights that I sleep, yeah.’ I admit.

‘Ye
should get help with that.’

‘Nah,’
I say briskly, ‘I’ll be fine. If I go tae the doctor he’ll feed me tablets and
put

on
my record that I’m mental. A mentalist who’s been inside, not the best
prospects in the world are they?’

‘You’re
a good looking boy, Davy.’ Jude says fiercely. ‘A good looking boy with a

kind
heart.’

Jude’s
not a good liar. Her voice goes up a notch when she’s telling porkies and it’s
pretty high pitch right now. The truth is I’m not much to write home about.
I’ve the kind of face only a mother can love; flat and round with sunken eyes
like I’ve been hit in the face with a frying pan. To add insult to injury my
ears are big too, like handles on a trophy, only a trophy no-one’s fussed about
winning. I grow my hair long so I can blow dry it forwards to cover them and I
would say that my hairstyle is my best feature - if shaved heads ever come back
in fashion I’ll be sunk. Jude’s being kind about my personality too: for kind
heart read gullible, all I ever want is for people to like me, even people I
shouldn’t give a toss about.

We
finish the remainder of the meal in companionable silence, accepting a top up
from Mo before I glance at my watch and realise I’m merely putting off the
inevitable.

‘C’mon
Jude, I’ll walk you home.’ I offer. The coffee and chips have sobered me and I
feel ready to face the music.

Jude
shares a mid-terraced house with a couple of working girls, Marcia and Lorella,
mixed race twins who’d come from the children’s home Jude’s daughter was first
moved into. At sixteen they’d found themselves cut loose from the care system
with a local authority grant for somewhere to live. They’d pooled their money
to buy a shared tenancy property from a local housing association, advertising
for a lodger to help with the rent. When Jude turned up they’d hit it off
straight away, the twins found in Jude the mother they’d never had, and in turn
Jude could have a laugh and a joke with the girls without being responsible for
them. Going on the game had been Jude’s idea, and they’d both taken to it like
ducks to the proverbial water.

The
back of the property can be accessed from a vennel that runs adjacent to the
high street. Jude turns into the vennel now, sidestepping dog shit smears and
broken bottles. As we walk along I tell her about my short lived job followed
by this afternoon’s arrest.

‘That’s
the filth for ye,’ she sympathises, ‘Once they take an interest you’ll never
shake ‘em off, like a horny teenager with birthday money.’ We laugh, our heads
touching as we fall into step. ‘Only this lot have the power to bang you up if
you don’t go along with what they want.’ She adds in disgust.

‘You
need to work smart and keep out of their way, Davy,’ Jude advises as we
approach the entrance to her back yard. ‘Mind how you go now, eh?’ she offers
as she pecks me on my cheek, the familiar smell of condoms and stale sex
engulfing me. I wait until she reaches the back door, fumbling in her bag as
though looking for something before lifting the doormat and retrieving a key.
She opens the door, replacing the key under the mat before stepping inside.

‘You
too, Auntie Jude,’ I whisper into the void.

By the time I
reach my front door I still haven’t worked out what I’m going to say; by
staying out late I’ve merely delayed the inevitable. Mum will be waiting up;
I’ve not stayed out this late since my release. She’ll be sat up worrying and
I’m going to have to tell her I’ve been arrested then sacked in the space of
one afternoon. I could kick myself for falling for MacIntyre’s goading. I let
myself into the maisonette quietly, hoping that maybe she’s fallen asleep in
front of the TV. Instead, the sound of a lone voice combined with the hiss of a
steam iron tells me she’s still in character so I give the kitchen a body
swerve and head for my room.

‘Not
so fast, buster.’ Mum’s voice booms from the kitchen and I wonder for a moment
if she is talking to a punter.

‘Davy!’
The door to the kitchen opens a fraction and a head peers out at me. ‘Give

me
five minutes,’ she instructs, ‘we need to talk.’ She has full war paint on with
big blonde curls framing her face, a satin robe hastily pulled around her
shoulders.

‘OK.’
I mutter, crossing the hall into the front room and flicking on the TV.

‘Now
then big boy,’ she coos as she turns back into the room, ‘where were we?’

Mum’s working
voice is breathy and quite different from how she speaks to me, thank God; I
turn up the volume to drown out the rest of the one-way conversation.

The
shopping channel is intent on selling electric toothbrushes to the pished; the
news channel is no better, interviewing sad faced victims of celebrity
paedophiles and the movie channels are paying homage to Matt Damon. By the time
Mum comes through he’s on the run from half the western world security
services, having picked up a feisty brunette on the way. Some guys have all the
luck.

‘Davy,’
Mum begins in the voice she’s been using since I was five years old and smashed
the kitchen window with my football. She’s removed her make-up and swapped her
kimono and kitten heels for a towelling bath robe and fake Ugg slippers, her
dark hair scraped back into a pony tail. She has a different wig for every day
of the week, from Miss Moneypenny business chic to pageboy dominatrix, so as a
result she pays little attention to her own hair, which is beginning to turn
grey. Only a couple of strands have started to appear, but enough to make her
tut when she looks in the mirror each morning.

‘Ye
probation officer called,’ she begins matter of factly. Over the years she’s
developed a knack of giving the impression she knows exactly what’s going on.
One cleverly worded comment and Dad’s latest scam would be rumbled. She uses
the same tactic on me and even though it’s tempting to call her bluff I never
do

‘So
ye heard I lost my job.’ I venture, testing the extent to which my probation
officer has breached my confidentiality.

‘I
heard one more fuck up and you’re back in clink.’ Mum hardly ever swears at me,
saving her potty mouth for her horny punters but this was her way of telling me
how much I’d let her down.

I
want to tell her that it’s not my fault but she’s taught me that ducking the
blame is a sign of weakness. It doesn’t matter that PC MacIntyre is a twat.

‘I’ll
start looking for another job tomorrow,’ I promise, trying to conjure up the
smile that always makes her go easy on me.

‘Just
be careful, though, eh?’ she pleads softly
.
I nod. I understand what she’s
saying loud and clear; I don’t need reminding. If that was our showdown I’ve
got off lightly and I peck her on the cheek as I pass her to go to my room,
grateful for small mercies.

This
morning I’ve been as good as my word. I borrowed Mum’s laptop first thing so
that I could register onto a couple of online jobsites, luckily they only need
a CV and the employment advisor in prison helped me put a decent one together.
I have no formal qualifications to speak of; in fourth year I started going
about with a gang who thought they were too cool for school; as a result I
managed to fail everything that required attendance at a final exam.
Consequently the only certificates I have are for
Enterprise
and
Customer
Care
which everyone was awarded as long as they attended more than forty
per cent of the course. Even so I’m reasonably articulate and can scrub up well
when I have to and surely that’s half the battle?

Mum’s
sitting at the kitchen table working on an assignment she’s been given by her
course tutor. She enrolled on a distance learning Psychology degree earlier in
the year as part of her exit strategy from being on the game. ‘My body won’t
hold out forever,’ she’d written on the university application form, ‘but after
twenty years of servicing men I’d say I’ve got a pretty good insight into half
the population.’ Needless to say she was given an unconditional offer.

‘We’re
out of milk.’ She mutters as I open the fridge door. Without tearing her eyes
from her textbooks she reaches over to the kitchen counter to lift down a jar
labelled ‘sugar’, removing the lid to retrieve a ten pound note which she hands
to me.

‘Can
you do the honours?’ she asks, marking the line she’s reading with her finger
so she can look up at me briefly, ‘Get something in for breakfast too, we’re
low on cereal.’ She adds sheepishly.

In
the time I’ve been away she’s got used to shopping for one, preferring to snack
when hungry rather than make proper meals. Since I’ve come home she’s been
trying to break the habit by cooking us a meal in the evening but mornings are
still a case of every man for himself.

The
nearest shop to our house is back along the top road, beside the Turkish place
Jude and I ate in the night before. In the daylight the neon sign above the
shop looks gaudy, the place standing empty save for Mo having a sly fag while
he gets the fryer ready for the lunchtime trade. He raises a hand in greeting
and on impulse I step inside.

‘Don’t
suppose you’re looking to take someone on?’ I ask, ‘only you probably heard me
tell Jude last night how things have panned out?’ Mo nods solemnly. He came
over from Turkey twenty years ago with his father, deciding to stay on after
the old man died. He’d sent for his younger brother, worked shifts to put him
through college then, with some money their father left them they opened the
shop. ‘Better to be ze boss of my own small business,’ he was fond of saying
‘than be somebody else’s fool.’ I couldn’t argue with that.

‘Zere’s
not enough trade to take anyone else on,’ Mo replies truthfully, ‘My brozzer,
he is ze brains of ze family, does ze books and ze advertising, makes sure we
comply with food hygiene and environmental health. Me,’ he shrugs modestly, ‘I
buy ze meat from ze Cash and Carry and cook it.’

He
sympathises over my run-in with MacIntyre the day before. ‘I have my own
problems with your police force,’ he says bitterly, ‘Zey come in here expecting
to eat on ze house,’ he raises his arms in a gesture of helplessness. ‘and when
I refuse zey check ze tax disc on my car, or stop me when I’m driving and ask
to see my insurance papers.’

Mo
leans towards me, throwing his arms around animatedly. ‘Only I didn’t have any
bastard papers, did I? I meant to renew my policy but thought I’d shop around,
only forgot my certificate had expired and now I’ve lost my bastard licence.
OK,’ he concedes, ‘maybe technically I was in ze wrong but what makes me angry
is ze bastarding cop only stopped me because I’d made him pay for his food ze
night before. Bastard bloody well told me as much himself, took great
bastarding pleasure in it too.’

I
think for a minute Mo is going to offer me a job in an act of solidarity but he
shakes his head, ‘I need ze car to get deliveries from ze cash and carry so I
had to send for my cousin Ahmed. To make it worth his while he now does home
deliveries and helps prepare the food when we’re busy so I’m sorry, zere’s
nothing I can give you right now, or for a while come to think of it.’

I
shrug my shoulders in understanding and turn to leave. ‘I give zem their
bastard kebabs on ze house now,’ Mo sighs as though reading my mind, ‘only I go
in the back and scratch my balls before I prepare zem.’

As
I leave the corner shop with my groceries a car pulls up beside me on the kerb,
the rear passenger seat window lowers to reveal Mickey Preston, the local money
lender. His nickname is Mickey Plastic, not because of the line of credit he is
able to extend to anyone on the surrounding schemes, more the fact he’s
rearranged the faces of several of his debtors over the years, though it’s fair
to say never for the better.

‘Alright
Davy.’ Mickey greets me as though I’m the brother of someone he really fancies.
Aren’t you supposed to fear a psychopath more when they smile?

‘Mickey,’
I nod, stepping towards the passenger window. I kind of figure it’ll earn me
extra points if it don’t look as though I’m trying to avoid him. Besides, the
four wheel drive could mount the pavement and pin me against the shop wall in
seconds, if the driver was instructed to.

‘Yous
owe me two hundred quid.’ Mickey states matter of factly, like a bank cashier
reading out my balance.

‘I
don’t have it Mickey,’ I tell him, ‘I lost my job.’ I’m working on the basis
that honesty is the best policy here and that maybe we can re-work my payment
plan.

Yeah,
I really am.

‘Ye
lost ye job did ye say?’ All sympathy like.

‘Aye,
Mickey.’ I say hopefully, like a child telling Santa he’s been good all year.

Mickey pauses as
though taking my altered circumstances into account. ‘In that case,’ he says
slowly as though making his point, ‘I want two hundred quid by five o’clock
tonight or I’m going to put ye on crutches.’ He pauses, as though to let the
threat sink in. ‘That’ll no’ do ye job prospects much good, eh?’

It’s
the calmness of his threat that chills me, no menacing voice or gurning, just a
clear intention of what’ll happen if I don’t cough up in time. He must reckon
that since I’m not working I’ll be going on the rob to raise the money, and I
can do that any day of the week.

Mickey
nods at his driver and the car moves off, leaving me with no doubt he’ll follow
through if I don’t come up with the goods. Even if I find work in a bar or
kitchen that’ll pay me cash in hand, I’ll not make two hundred pounds by
tonight. I know Mum doesn’t have that kind of money, which is how I got into
this mess in the first place. I think of Jude, the nearest thing to family
after Mum.

I
send Jude a text saying I needed to see her and she responds straight away
telling me to come over to her flat. I ring the doorbell and wait for the tap
of high heels that always signals Jude’s approach.

‘Been
quiet all morning,’ she grumbles as she opens the door, ‘mornings used to be
good for expense account blow jobs, but with austerity measures an’ a’ that, the
suits are having to justify every penny. S’pose I canny be classed as
essential, right enough.’ She says good-naturedly.

I
follow her up the stairs to her room, ‘The twins are entertaining,’ she says
vaguely, nodding in the direction of the living room, where a deep voice can be
heard alongside schoolgirl-like giggling.

I
sit on the only chair, hard like it was meant to be in a kitchen but with a
blanket thrown over it. It’s been placed in the corner, angled so that it faces
the double bed, and I try not to think what sights have been witnessed from
this position over the years. Jude sits on the bed, listening as I tell her
about Mickey Preston’s loan and the ever increasing interest that means I have
to pay him two hundred pounds by the end of the day and what he’ll do to me if
I don’t.

She’s
shaking her head before I’ve even finished speaking.

‘What
possessed ye?’ she asks, shocked, ‘I always thought ye had a good head on your
shoulders.’

Her
words sting and I can see she regrets them, ‘Look,’ she begins again, softly
this time, ‘I’ve got some money put by. Not a fortune but enough to help ye
make this payment.’ She walks over to an old fashioned mahogany wardrobe and
opens its double doors. At the top of the wardrobe there’s a shelf containing
what looks like an array of rubber masks and Jude has to stand on tiptoe to
reach behind them to locate a small tin box, the kind tobacco is sold in.
Opening the tin lid she lifts out a bundle of cash and counts out two hundred
pounds which she hands to me.

‘It’s
not a gift Davy,’ she adds, solemnly, ‘I wish it was but I’ll need it back.’

I
nod and as I get to my feet I’m compelled to hug her.

‘What
was the money for?’ she enquires.

I
sit back down on the chair. ‘Mum needed a laptop so she could do her uni work,
I wanted to buy one for her birthday but didn’t have enough put by. I knew
Mickey would lend me the cash.’

‘He
lends everybody cash.’ She says wryly.

‘I
know,’ I mumble into my chest, ‘but she’d been talking about giving up the game
- using the internet at the library gave her the idea about creating her own
website.’

‘And
maybe if you weren’t worried about her safety the nightmares would stop?’ Jude
adds gently.

‘Something
like that.’ I admit.

A
look flickers across Jude’s face as though she’s about to say something but
thinks better of it. I look back at her puzzled, and am about to ask her what’s
wrong when Marcia pops her head around the bedroom door.

‘He’ll
pay extra for a threesome.’ She calls over to Jude and I quickly pocket the
cash she’s given me and get to my feet.

‘I’ll
get out of your way then.’ I say instead.