'How d’you make that out?'
'All those bloody coppers on a police balls-out? Only a matter of time before one of them drops you in it.'
'I’d not thought of that.'
'No, well that’s why you’re schlepping around Krautland while I sit in a nice warm office with Mrs Pierce putting the kettle on.' He took another asthmatic pull at his cigarette.
'Speaking of Krautland, how’s the gig going?'
'Bloody awful.'
'Pull your finger out and sort it then. I’ve told you before, you need a bit of glamour. Fix yourself up with a nice Fraulein to saw in two and you’ll be laughing.'
'It’s just teething problems, you didn’t tell me the erotic nature of the club.'
Richard laughed.
'Didn’t I?'
'No you bloody didn’t.'
'Oh well, keep your hand on your ha’penny and you’ll be fine.'
'I’ll do my best.'
'That’s the boy.' I heard the quick tap of computer keys and knew the phone call was coming to an end. My agent’s voice took on a self-consciously compassionate tone. 'I’ll get Mrs P to find out when Sam’s funeral is and send along a nice wreath.'
'Thanks, Rich.'
'Don’t worry, son, it’s coming out your wages. Now you put all this from your mind and concentrate on making magic magical. OK?'
'OK.'
'Good boy.'
He hung up with his usual abruptness. I sat on the bed for a while, staring blankly at the wall, then tied the towel around my waist, went to the wardrobe, took my mobile phone from my jacket pocket and turned it on. The screen glowed lazily awake. Richard’s unanswered calls were logged like accusations. But slid in beside his familiar phone number was a number not featured on my address book, a British number I didn’t recognise. The mobile suddenly sprang back into life. I dropped it on the bed and stepped backwards, giving a small groan and looking at the tiny machine with all the horror I’d show a crawling, disembodied hand. My instincts were against it but on the third ring I reached out, pressed the call accept button and raised the phone to my ear.
A voice said, 'Hello?'
And I hung up. Almost immediately the mobile resumed its buzzing. I turned it off, went through to the en suite, filled the sink and dropped the phone into the water. Tiny bubbles rose from it, almost like the phone was breathing its last. I’d heard the police could trace locations through sim cards, but I had no idea if it worked overseas. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe Sam had done for Bill then killed himself. Maybe I was safe as houses in Berlin, and maybe it hadn’t been Inspector James Montgomery’s voice I’d just heard at the end of the line.
Glasgow
FOR ALL OF the warnings drink seemed a pretty slow killer. Not like a knife in the guts or a bullet through the head. Looking at the men that lived in the pubs around the Gallowgate it appeared you could reach sixty or seventy on a diet of whisky, beer and bile.
But perhaps the drinkers I took for pensionable were raddled thirty-somethings and it wouldn’t be long before I looked the same. I stared in the mirror and whispered, 'Bring it on.'
Already my waist had thickened; there was a scaliness between my fingers that itched more at night. My skin had the porridge pallor of a prisoner after a six-month stretch. I’d abandoned vanities like deodorant, cologne and contact lenses. My specs added three years, though they were a mite flash for my current circumstances. I wondered if I should get a new pair, ones that didn’t mark me out as a man who had known better days. My hair was longer too. I could go a full fortnight without showing it the shampoo. And there was no need for mousse or gel or any other crap. I just swept it back with my fingertips and left it as nature intended — which seemed to be a dirty brown flecked through with dandruff. Add to that the new old clothes I’d bought at Paddy’s Market and, all in all, I was managing my decline pretty well.
When I was a boy my heroes were two great escape artists, Harry Houdini and Jesse James. I borrowed library books about them, read up on their exploits and stared deep into black and white photographs of two men so skilled they could only be killed by cowards. In my fantasies I was the cowboy magician, no bonds could hold me and I was swift enough to sidestep a punch in the guts or any bullet in the back.
I jammed so many yales and mortises my father decided we were under siege and called the police. But in time my picking grew smooth. I freed tethered dogs, opened padlocks to sheds, gates and lockups. I released jangles of bicycle chains and liberated telephone dials from locks designed to frustrate teenage sisters. I bought a pair of trick handcuffs and taught myself to unfasten them with a dismantled hair clasp stolen from my mother. I hung about the locksmith’s shop, begged adults for old keys. My fingers were twitching to try their skill on a safe, but round our way there was nothing that worth securing, so I kept on the alert for a gang of thieves on the lookout for a nimble- fingered boy. They wouldn’t need to promise me lemonade streams or big rock-candy mountains; all I wanted was a chance to click that dial to the right combination. I’d be their creature and if we got caught, no great matter, I’d unlock the prison and set us free. But no wily crew ever spotted my talents and once mastered there was no drama in solitary achievements. Jesse had his pursuers, Houdini his audience. So of course I decided to organise my own great escape.
Ten-year-old boys have more access to padlocks and chains than adults might think. I invited the kids in my street to collect all they could find, and leave the keys behind. We met down by the railway line in an abandoned signal box that had once been boarded shut.
They came with dog leashes, belts and skipping ropes. They came with rusty iron links that had hung round gates for years. One boy brought a pair of handcuffs he said he’d found at the bottom of his parents’ wardrobe. I
