already counted past thirty.
So many people. It wouldn’t be long.
There was a rush through the mid-forties and a lull before a few more crossed my path. Not for the first time it struck me how many of the population of the dear green place came in only two colours, ash grey or sunbed orange. The browbeaten and UV beaten. Glasgow was all-sorts. All races, shapes and sizes and they kept coming past me. I tried to paint quick pen pictures of them in my mind but how could you tell the reasonably well-off from the struggling, the Protestant from the Catholic, the asylum seeker from Jock Tamson’s bairn, the Pole from the Partick boy? How did you differentiate the oppressed from the oppressor, the trodden down and those that trod on them, the deserving and those that deserved it?
I didn’t know and it didn’t matter. Maybe better that I didn’t know.
Past the queue at Greggs and past Paperino’s. Three to go and I had a definite feeling of how close it was. I itched for it. I wanted to look ahead but stopped myself.
Fifty-four, near the corner of Douglas Street, was a young bearded guy with a bag over his shoulder and a look of superior stupidity on his face. A student. A member of the most feckless, pampered bunch of idiots on the planet. Time was he’d have been planning a revolution or protesting against the occupation of Iraq. At the very least he’d have been tending his cannabis harvest. This guy was probably going to see his financial adviser or going home to watch Neighbours. Oh he’d have done.
Still he was only number fifty-four.
My heart was pounding. I told myself to be calm. Fifty-six would be here and nothing could stop it any more than worrying would hasten it.
Fifty-five was an old Chinese woman. She was maybe about 120 and seemed less than five foot but then she was bent near double, forced over by time and rain. Something about her reminded me of an old neighbour. I couldn’t think of her name but then I couldn’t think of much else but the next person that would walk past me. It could be anyone at all. It excited me, sickened me, slightly scared me. My pulse galloped.
I dragged my eyes along the pavement but saw no feet. There was no one in the three or four yards of me. Then I saw a pair of shoes. Small shoes.
I raised my eyes and saw a boy of about eleven or twelve. Fuck.
He had a mop of fair hair and a squint grin, scuffing his feet along Sauchiehall Street as he gazed half- heartedly into shop windows. Oh fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He seemed in a bit of a daydream, this kid without a care in the world. The tail of his shirt was hanging below his jumper in the way that boys liked to wear it. Faded jeans. That silly, quirky grin.
Rules. Number fifty-six.
I felt sick to my stomach. Rules. My rules.
The boy glanced up, curious. I must have been staring right at him. Of course I was. He was still walking and I willed him to stop. He wasn’t going to. He was nearly in front of me. Stop, you have to stop.
Two more steps and he would be number fifty-six.
Then, from somewhere off my radar, a shape pushed past the boy, barging into his shoulder and knocking him over. The shape charged past me.
I watched the boy pick himself up and offer a dirty look to the person that had shoved him.
I followed his gaze and saw a short, stocky guy in his mid-twenties barrelling back up the street, not mindful in the least of anyone around him. I was looking at the back of number fifty-six.
Or number three depending on how you looked at it.
CHAPTER 12
I followed him, this little guy who liked to push wee boys out of his way. Not just kids either. The squat, weaselly man didn’t have much care for anyone in his path. He barged past women, he got in the way of men bigger than him. He walked with the disregard of a bully and the confidence of someone twice his size.
I stayed ten and twenty feet back. I watched.
He was maybe five foot six, with short, spiky hair, weighing twelve stone or so. He turned a couple of times and I caught a bashed face that looked as if it had been in the wars. He looked like a dog with a bad temper.
He cut a path back up Sauchiehall Street. He had a strange confidence for such a wee guy. No fears. His strut reminded me of Carr. Little men, big egos, yet completely different.
I didn’t have time to think about Carr. This man was in front of me now. I might never see him again. The time was here and now. However risky, however long it took. If the chance came it would have to be taken or be lost. I knew it.
The little man passed people who recognized him. Two young guys in near-ned uniforms. They got close and they talked fast. Little Man looked around before shaking his head. He nodded towards the concert hall end of the street. They looked at each other and then they nodded too. They walked away from him.
Little Man had talked a lot with his hands. His eyes were going right and left, his mouth was tight and fast but his hands were working overtime. He moved on.
He hit the pedestrianized area and kept walking. When the road crossed with Renfield Street he jinked to the right, causing two girls to move out of his way, and entered a pub, Lauders.
This wasn’t good. I didn’t mean it to be like this. I chose Sauchiehall Street for my own reasons, but only to identify him. Or her. Not to do this.
Still…
I walked on past Lauders without breaking stride or looking back. I walked on to the shops under the concert hall, looked in the window of one and pretended to study whatever was there. I stood. A minute. A long minute. I shrugged and turned away. I walked back where I’d come from. I walked into Lauders.
I knew Little Man would be in there but I didn’t look for him. I went to the bar and asked for a pint of heavy.
The barman didn’t say anything but poured it. I didn’t say anything but paid him.
I looked in the mirror and caught myself. Me. Still me.
I sipped at my pint. I sipped again before I looked round.
Fat guy. Drunk guy. Old guy. Another drunk guy. Little Man. I gulped my pint and looked away.
He was sitting on a stool with the two near-neds standing beside him. They were still talking close, fast and quiet. Little Man’s hands were signing for the deaf. There were nods and shakes of the three heads. Little Man jumped off his stool. I was ready to move but he only went as far as the toilet.
One minute later, one of the near-neds followed him. The other stood looking around, standing guard from outside. I watched in the mirror.
Two minutes later, the near-ned and Little Man came out. I saw Little Man had a moustache of sorts. A streaky fair line above his lips. He looked like a ferret. A ferret that had eaten a mouse. I didn’t like Little Man.
I know, I know. I didn’t like Carr. Now I didn’t like Little Man. It didn’t matter. Coincidence. I wasn’t trying to convince myself or make it easier. I just didn’t like them. Little Man had a beaten dog face. Beaten and ready to bite. He had something funny about one of his eyes, a squint or something. He looked like someone you wouldn’t turn your back on but that was OK because I had no intention of doing so.
He was grinning all over his face, his mouse-eating grin. Little Man knocked back the last of his drink, a vodka and Red Bull, and called for another. He necked it in two seconds flat.
The near-neds disappeared, huddling close, leaving Little Man to look around the pub as voddie and RB number three or four arrived in front of him.
It was swallowed slower than the one before but was ended with a shrug and a final slug of vodka. Little Man was finished.
He got off his stool. Said his goodbyes to the barman and left.
I sat. Unsure. Unprepared. I needed to wait. I needed to follow. Couldn’t do both.
Shit.
I felt my heart racing again. I hated the indecision, the not knowing, the hesitancy of choice. Shit.
