‘Aye, well, I was a few years ahead of her. Knew her as Maggie then, before she changed her name to Stella and she went intae all that acting stuff. Before she left the area . . . our families kind of knew each other.’

Doyle stared at her; she was rambling.

She stopped rambling, sat quietly, sipped her scalding coffee. Smiled.

‘You’re big Kenny Coughlin’s daughter.’

She blushed with pride, looked at the floor. ‘Aye, that’s ma da alright.’

‘How’s he doing?’

‘He’s doing okay, Mr Doyle.’

‘You see him often?’

‘Every week.’

‘When’s he getting out?’

‘Not for a while, good few years yet.’

‘Right.’ Doyle sipped his coffee. ‘So, you said on the phone you’ve got boyfriend trouble; is that right?’

‘It is.’

‘And your boyfriend’s Maurice Mason?’

‘Right again.’

‘Is he no a bit old for you, more your da’s age?’

‘Thought I’d go for the more mature man; turns out he’s an immature wee prick.’

‘That right?’

Lizzie removed her scarf. ‘Mason tried to kill me.’

Doyle was calm. ‘Nightmare. All the same, what’s it to do with me? Your da’s pals not help you out?’

‘Da’s clumsy – he’s only got one way of doing business.’

‘So I heard.’

‘Claw hammer.’

‘That’s it. Your da’s a traditionalist. Old school.’

‘Mason thinks he’s coming intae money.’

‘So?’

‘So I wondered where he thinks he’s going tae get it. Says he’s got a deal going with Tenant. I think it’s got tae be wee Stevie Tenant.’

Doyle’s eye darkened. ‘Has he now? What do you know about it?’

‘Nothing except he’s going to get some money soon and it’s because of a partnership with someone called Tenant. That’s about all I could make out. Mason wasn’t giving much away.’

‘So, Mason and Tenant are going intae a wee partnership together? You any ideas what the pair of them might be doing?’

Lizzie sat forward in her seat. ‘It’s got to be drugs, Mr Doyle. See, that’s where I thought you’d come in . . .’ She looked at him. Read the expression correctly. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘First off Lizzie, I don’t know what you’re on about. I run a respectable business.’

‘Sorry Mr Doyle, but I just thought if . . . He’s got off with loads. I gave him my best days . . . went up to the jail every week. Thinks he can just come out and dump me – well that’ll be shining bright. I know too much about him; I could get him banged up again.’

Doyle shook his head. ‘You watch too much telly, Lizzie. We’re not all gangsters, you know. Go home. Forget about Mason; you’re right, he sounds a prick. But he’s a useless prick.’ He gestured to her throat. ‘If he tries that again, get the polis involved.’

‘But—’

Doyle stared at her for a second.

‘Sorry, Mr Doyle.’ Lizzie crossed the room and closed the door quietly as she left.

Doyle dialled, waited. A few seconds passed before it was answered. ‘Weirdo, come over.’

Weirdo stood on the carpet, his purple Mohican damp from the rain. He had sprinted from the car and was panting quietly like a well-behaved dog. He waited patiently.

Finally Doyle spoke. ‘Got a visit from a lassie called Lizzie Coughlin.’

Weirdo waited.

‘You know her?’

Weirdo shook his head.

‘She’s big Kenny Coughlin’s daughter.’

Weirdo looked blank.

Doyle nodded. ‘Okay, not everyone’s a networker like me, and Kenny’s last week’s news. Been inside a long while. Big, clumsy man. No refinement. Old school. Likes the claw hammer. Disnae understand that things are getting more sophisticated.’

‘Lizzie causing you bother, Mr Doyle?’

Doyle shook his head. ‘No, but Maurice Mason’s her bloke and she’s pissed off with him. Any ideas what he’s up to?’

Weirdo shrugged. ‘Don’t know Mason myself but Sonny down at the Smuggler’s said he’d been in, looking jammy, like he’d hit the jackpot. Splashing the cash and gobbing about coming intae money.’

‘You’ve got my interest. Go on.’

‘Said he’d come into some merchandise which would give him a wee income. Said it could roll and roll.’

‘Merchandise?’

Weirdo nodded. ‘Aye but he never told Sonny what it was, said it was secret.’

Doyle sounded bored. ‘Right, well it’s probably got nothing to do with me or my business interests, but I need to be sure. You keep an eye out, speak to Sonny again. Tell him to find out what Mason’s up to.’

‘Okay, boss.’ Weirdo waited, then realised he’d been dismissed. Biker boots marched silently to the door.

Chapter 49

Rab stood outside the door of his house, his key in his hand, listening. He heard his mother’s voice, heard her curse her boyfriend. Heard the boyfriend curse her back, only he was louder and more aggressive. Heard the bottle smash against the wall. He knew where she would have been standing, in front of the television. Heard the pause, the seconds it took the boyfriend to cross the room, the sound of his mother’s head being rhythmically bounced off the living-room wall.

Better just leave them to it.

Rab zipped up his anorak, put his key back in his pocket and began walking to the bus stop. He huddled inside the deserted shelter, shifting from foot to foot, trying to keep warm. Somehow the air in the shelter seemed colder – he shivered, heard his stomach rumble. It had been four hours since he’d had the cheese sandwich at Alec’s house. Rab checked his pockets, came up with thirty pence, not even enough for a bag of chips. He glanced back at his home. At least there might be a packet of cheese and onion crisps in the kitchen. He wavered, thought of his mother and her boyfriend, decided against it. Saw the lights of the bus in the distance. Rab waited.

Twenty minutes later he jumped off the bus and began running. He heard his breath rasp into the cold, felt his muscles respond to his desire to quicken his pace, heard the sound of his trainers landing on concrete. Soon he would warm up, he would overcome the elements, he would succeed in conquering the hunger eating at his belly. Rab clenched his fists as he ran, thought about his last boxing match, how he had wanted to pulverise his opponent’s face. How Keely, his trainer, had forced him to stop. Later, Keely had told him to take some time out. Anger-management issues, he’d said. Rab smiled. He didn’t need boxing now. That had been his training as a child and an adolescent; it had kept him safe from bullies, including his mother and the succession of bastard boyfriends. Now he was old enough he would move out and his life would begin.

He turned into the allotments, raced through the deserted paths until finally he slowed his pace, stopping outside the hut, his hut, panting. He bent down, reached around to the side of the building for the plastic bag containing the torch, switched it on, flicked the beam around the area. Nothing. No one. He slipped the key from the pocket of his anorak and unlocked the padlock. Rab paused, listened. Other than the rain and the distant noise from traffic on the main road, there was nothing to suggest that there was another living soul in the area. The wooden door of the shed opened with a creak; the smell of damp and rotting vegetation clung to the air.

There had been another smell, one that had interested Rab much more than any of the others. He stepped into the damp space, closed his eyes and let the rush of adrenaline hold him, squeeze him until he could hardly breathe. He inhaled deeply, let the memory of the smell come to him, feel its way into his nostrils, snake its way to his heart. He could feel his heart quicken its beat in response. Rust and iron, the metallic smell of blood. Rab could almost have tasted it when the bloodied bat had first arrived. He’d been told to get rid of it. He shone the beam from the torch into the corner of the shed – it was still there; he couldn’t get rid of it. It lay hidden behind boxes. Rab closed his eyes and tried to imagine the night it had been used. In his mind a series of images began playing. He imagined the initial resistance a body would have to the bat, resistance which would evaporate as the force increased. He imagined the crack of wood against flesh, the sound of bone breaking. Imagined first curses, then screams, then the pleas which would have reverberated around the room. He imagined the heft of the bat and how the weight of it would increase the damper it had become, at its heaviest when it was coated with thick, sticky liquid. He wished that he’d been there to see Gilmore suffer. He wished he’d done it.