Flushing, Danny cast a quick glance at Ryan, who was oblivious to the dishonourable means by which Gairloch College had come about. Desperate to avert an adverse revelation, he interrupted McLeod.

 “But this isn’t about me.”

 “Oh but it is. Everything I do these days is influenced by you. Thanks to your sublime disingenuousness, I no longer have faith in my own judgement. Consequently, I have to be ruthless with everyone in order to feel secure. So let’s hear no more about this disc. It’s mine, OK.”

 Judith erupted again. “This isn’t some crappy Squeaky Kirk album!” Bob raised his chin by forty-five degrees, head twitching indignantly. “It’s a really good book.”

 McLeod turned to Ryan. “We need this book on the shelves as quick as possible. If you want to sign up with us for three-hundred quid a week, so be it. It’ll save us the bother of having to find a front man and an editor to change names and places.”

 Judith was beside herself with rage now. “He’s got a London publisher ready to print — and you’re offering him three hundred quid a week!”

 “Darlin, the lad’s a drop in the ocean down there. If he’s really, really lucky, he’ll get a ten-grand advance against royalties. No matter how good a yarn he’s written, though, he’ll be at the bottom of the pile when it comes to promotion. The celebrity biographers and Oxbridge in crowd will eat up the entire publicity budget, and no one will even know he existed. Deemed a liability, he’ll be sacked on his debut and never entertained by another publisher again. But if he comes with me, he’ll get every piece of work published, have a guaranteed fourteen grand a year coming in and the Scottish press eating out of his hand. Sometimes the best way to take London is indirectly. If he creates a ripple up here, your big publishers will come sniffing, don’t you worry…and they’ll treat him with the respect he deserves if he’s already a proven earner.” McLeod turned to Danny, who was standing with his arms folded, shaking his head dejectedly. “You shouldn’t be pulling faces. You should be encouraging the boy to do the right thing. How many folk do you know who’ve been published in London?”

 “Quite a few,” Danny muttered.

 “Aye and how many of them are wealthy as a result? Honestly now.”

 “None that I know of.”

 “Exactly. They’re all doing shitty jobs during the day and then they’re too tired in the evenings to write anything decent. Ryan, on the other hand, will have a guaranteed income and all the time in the world to produce a masterpiece, if he wishes.” McLeod had grown quite passionate during this exposition. “Three hundred quid a week’s about a hundred pound more than this kid can ever hope to earn.” He turned to Ryan. “I’ll bet my balls you’ve got a criminal record, eh son?”

 “Aye, for assault when I was sixteen and two raps for shoplifting.”

 “Then you’re minimum wage, warehouse fodder till the day you die I’m afraid…just like I was at your age. No different to a black man in Apartheid South-Africa or an untouchable in India. I was forced to carve my own path, outside of the system.” He looked at Judith as if expecting admiration or sympathy, before returning his attention to Ryan, now nodding in accord with what was being said. “And remember, there’s nothing to stop you getting a day job if you wanted. You’d be on five hundred quid a week then, twenty-two, maybe twenty-three grand a year! When you walked in here you were underclass. I’m giving you the opportunity to leave middle class.”

 At this point Danny finally intervened. “Ryan, we have to have a word in private.”

 “Oh no,” McLeod interjected smugly, “there’ll be no whispering round corners. I like complete transparency when I do business, so if you’ve something to say, say it here.”

 “Complete transparency eh? In that case, he’s going to use you Ryan, as a vehicle to launder money…money from heroin dealing!”

 McLeod turned to Bob and glared, yellow teeth snarling like a rabid dog, eyes as dead as great white shark’s, before facing Ryan again and raising his voice impatiently.

 “Right son, it’s make your mind up time. If you’re interested Fergus will take you into town to sign the necessary documents. If not, get the hell out of here.”

 Ryan turned to Danny as if imploring his advice.

 “I’ve told you what I know,” Danny said, dejectedly. “Armed with such information, I personally wouldn’t get involved. But I can’t impose my principles on you…and I’m certainly in no position to judge.”

 Next, Ryan looked at Judith. She didn’t want to hurt Danny, but her maternal feelings towards the youngster won the day. Making sure he got credit and at least some reward for his work was her main concern, so she strained a smile of encouragement.

 “Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks sweetheart, just get on and do what’s right for you.”

 When Ryan agreed to accompany Baxter, Danny marched out, looking ashen. During the distraction, no one had noticed Bob slip away, escaping Rex McLeod’s wrath at his indiscretion over the money laundering scam. It transpired he’d received nothing for procuring Ryan’s book. His only reward had been the knowledge that he’d hurt Danny some more.

 After being escorted off McLeod’s property, Judith found the minibus gone, leaving her all alone in Glasgow. She booked into a hotel for the night then returned to Gairloch by public transport the following day. When she finally arrived, after an eight hour bus journey, the kids told her there’d been no sign of Danny and that Hamish had packed his bags and left with Angie, citing Ryan’s assault as the final straw.

 All week, Judith agonised over whether to stay, but, in the end, decided it was futile. She knew Danny would never return, and Ryan worked for Rex McLeod now anyway. So, realizing that Gairloch College was over, she left Fin with the students and drove back to England, where she’d soon be working as an assistant curator again, only this time at Birmingham’s City Art Gallery.

PART FOUR

CHAPTER: 16

 The following summer, Judith took a well-deserved walking holiday in Iceland. To get there though, she had to catch a plane from Glasgow, where she arrived by train the day before her flight. While queuing for a taxi outside Central Station with her luggage, she spotted a familiar face approaching, smoking a roll up, accompanied by a shell-suited, teenage brunette, pushing a baby in a pram. It was Dickens. He stopped to talk, telling her that he was living back at the Great Eastern Hotel, but would soon be moving, with his girlfriend and nine-month-old child, to a brand new housing association pad in Possil.

 “That’s were Danny used to live,” Judith exclaimed, smiling genially towards the skinny young mother, who was either nodding at everything Dickens said or laughing nervously.

 “I know, he’s told me all about the place,” Dickens declared proudly.

 Judith was taken aback by this statement. “When did you see Danny then?”

 “Didn’t you know? We’re next door neighbours over at the Great Eastern. I apologised to him for my behaviour that Christmas night up in the Highlands…he was really good about it.”

 “Yes, he’s like that. He’s a good man,” Judith said, trying to maintain a veneer of normality, but her veins were pulsating with shock at the news about Danny’s lowly accommodation. That aside, she was delighted to see Dickens so happy, but, knowing how sensitive and prone to violence he could be, worried about what might happen if his young girlfriend ever decided to leave him.

 After dropping her luggage at a bed and breakfast, Judith took a cab to the Great Eastern Hotel. Here, Danny lived in one of twenty-four white, wooden cubicles which faced one another along a narrow, chlorine smelling corridor. He was sitting on a bed wearing his blue overalls when she arrived, after being shown up to the fourth floor by a masculine looking female warden with tattooed forearms.