Tony Black - Loss

‘Bit… you know how it is.’

I didn’t like the sound of that. Hod, our mutual friend, had taken over the Holy Wall pub, once a going concern but truly junked after my efforts. ‘How’s the Wall looking?’

‘You not been in yet?’

‘Uh-uh.’ I couldn’t face it.

‘It’s a bit plush, but fur coat and nae knickers if you ask me.’

True Scots wisdom, defies logic.

‘Sounds… different.’

‘Well, he’s taken down your pictures of the dogs playing snooker, if that’s what you mean.’

‘The heathen.’

‘You’ll have to pay a visit.’

‘Yeah well, when I’m a bit more flush.’

‘You still looking for work?’

I gave him a look that said Isn’t everyone? ‘There’s nothing out there. My racket’s finished: they write newspapers with work experience and student interns these days.’

Mac followed a loose train of thought: ‘Still, you have this to be going on with.’

This wasn’t any kind of work either, deffo not anything I wanted to pursue, even if I had Debs’s approval for it — which I certainly didn’t.

As we reached the factory gates, the conversation shifted immediately — we weren’t alone.

‘What’s the filth doing here?’ said Mac.

I pulled up the car, yanked the handbrake on. ‘Mugging my hole.’

The dog got excited, prowled the length of the back seat, jumped up to the window and scratched at the glass. I pointed him down. He sat, then lay on his stomach watching Mac and me as we readied ourselves.

‘Get that hammer under the front seat,’ I told him.

He grabbed it off the dash, stashed it away. ‘The powder — get it over.’ He opened the glovebox, made space among the petrol receipts and empty Smints boxes Debs stored in there. I passed over the speed and gave him a nod of recognition.

We opened doors, got out and started to cross the road.

A cold haar blew off the sea — felt like we’d be encased in ice in seconds. I remembered Shir Shean’s advice from The Untouchables and stamped my feet: made no difference, but set Mac off.

‘What you doing?’

‘Stamping out the cold. It’s the haar.’

‘Hardy-haar… Don’t be daft, you look mental. Want us lifted?’

The smell of frying onions came wafting our way from a burger van. Bloke inside looked out and nodded. He was after the goss on the police visit, or maybe a quick sale. I fired him back a friendly wave: ‘Something smells good.’ A bloody lie, but thought he might be useful to me at some point.

I felt the speed racing through my veins now. I had a slight twitch on my upper lip but I was primed, ready for action. Fitz the Crime had let me think my brother’s murder was an open-and-shut case: coming down to Newhaven to turn over his business didn’t square with that.

As I reached the front doors I caught sight of two uniforms coming our way down the corridor: they were getting gloved up. At their backs was Fitz, kitted out in a chalk-stripe three-piece and a red tie. It was an outfit designed to make those he met feel underdressed. Well, he was mixing with the seriously wedged-up — can’t expect him to turn up in his baffies.

The doors eased open and the two uniforms passed by us without a nod. Mac eyed them up and down and got some stares, reminded the pair of shitheads to strut, shoulders back. Funny the effect Mac has on some people, I thought.

When Fitz reached us, Davie Prentice came into view behind him. He copped an eyeful of me and lunged for Fitz’s hand, a great sweeping shake that near raised him off the ground. ‘Well, if there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to get back in touch,’ said Davie.

I watched this scene, my gut fighting to keep its contents in.

As fat Davie dropped Fitz’s hand, I said, ‘I’d count those fingers now, if I were you.’

Silence.

Davie was first to gasp into action, a histrionic luvvie air shining from him. ‘Gus, I’m so sorry for your loss… Michael will be missed.’

I raised a hand, said, ‘Really?’

The tension jumped a notch. Fitz broke it, turned to Davie and thanked him for his help, then, ‘Dury, if I may…?’ He indicated the car park; a quiet confab was called for. A warning, perhaps?

Davie went inside and Fitz quickly turned me by the elbow, led me away. As he passed Mac he stopped, rocked on his shiny brogues and said, ‘I might have feckin’ known you’d be putting in an appearance. Slightest whiff of trouble, yer like a feckin’ dog with two dicks.’

Mac huffed, shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, rattled his change. It was a practised ‘bollocks to you’ look. Served him well.

I followed Fitz for a few steps then spun him. ‘What the fuck are you playing at, man?’

He was indignant, eyebrows shot up. ‘What am I playing at? Jaysus, Holy Mother of God… I told ye, Dury, to leave this investigation to the force.’

I squared my shoulders. ‘You told me it was a fucking mugging.’

‘Yes, yes… and all evidence points to that. This is procedure, Dury, procedure.’

He had no right to be so rattled. He hadn’t lost a brother. Where was this coming from?

I jutted my head forward. ‘What’s your angle here, Fitz?’

‘Y’what?’

‘You’re not coming down here’ — I flicked his lapels — ‘in the good bag of fruit to talk procedure with Davie Prentice.’

Fitz’s mouth drooped, a thin line of saliva stretched between upper and lower lips. He looked scoobied. ‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing.’

‘You want me to put it in writing?’ The drugs had me racing through the gears; I needed Fitz more than he needed me but I was too rattled. ‘Draw you a picture?… I dunno, interpretation through the medium of fucking dance?’

Fitz closed his jacket, fastened the buttons. ‘Go home, Dury.’

‘Fuck off… mate.’

His voice was low, flat. ‘I mean it, go home. Get some rest. We’ll talk another time.’

‘We will that.’ I pointed at him. ‘Mugging my arsehole.’

I watched him get in the car, drive away.

As I turned to the building I saw fat Davie at a window. He clocked me and ducked inside.

‘What d’ye make of that?’ I said to Mac.

Mac shrugged his shoulders, removed his hands from his pockets. ‘I never trust the filth, me. Asking the wrong bloke.’

‘But did you see the way he was with fat Davie… all pally?’

‘Aye, I got that impression — the auld pals act.’

I turned for the door, the speed ramping in me, stormed past Mac. ‘I’m gonna burst him.’

I got about two steps before I was grabbed. ‘Calm it, eh.’

‘Y’what?’

‘Gus, just turn it down a bit. You don’t want to be going in there guns blazing, you’ll get fuck all that way.’

I knew he was right, I needed to watch my mouth. I was getting agitated; the anger I felt was hard to control, though. ‘Okay. Okay. You lead the way.’

Davie had disappeared from the window. As we went through the front doors I was overcome by the shoddiness of the set-up. Cheap carpet tiles on the floor, budget emulsion on the walls, institutional magnolia at that. I’d always imagined the place my brother earned such a good living from to be a classier affair altogether. I was wrong. It was designed with a purpose in mind, and the purpose wasn’t comfort, it was graft.

A pretty blonde girl on the reception desk piped up. Polish or something, a definite Eastern European — there were still stacks in the city despite the papers insisting they were all headed home since the economy nosedived. I imagined the ones that were left got a pretty hard time from the native troglodytes — in the seventies they all shaved their heads and chanted jingoistic slogans; now they were harder to spot, but I’d bet no fewer in number.