Chapter 10
Devlin McArdle was sitting in the Wellington Cafe on London Road when the cabbies came in, asked for the television to go on. They saw McArdle and nodded, took some more nods from the bloke behind the counter and moved to sit at the rear of the premises where the dusty windows faced the street. The PVC seats squealed as the men lowered themselves down. The cabbies looked over the greasy, laminated menu and clawed at the new prices that had been stickered over the old; there was already a rim of sauce and crumb-dust ringing the white tabs. McArdle looked the other way, towards the television. He waited for the midweek football results to come on. He was only interested in the fortunes of Heart of Midlothian but in the absence of a fixture for his team, scanned the rest of the division. They were all losers to him — anyone not on the Deil’s side was a loser.
‘Can you believe the run United are having?’ said the bigger of the two cabbies.
‘Dundee United?’said McArdle. ‘Fucking Scum-dee… Who cares what kind of a run they’re having? Do they even have a stadium up there? Does the manager take the strips home for his missus to wash? There’s only one team: Hearts… The fucking glorious Jam Tarts!’ McArdle felt his face warming as he spoke. He knew his voice had risen because there was an old couple sitting at the front of the cafe who looked at him. They had to crane their necks over a rack of vinegar bottles to see him. Their effort bothered McArdle; he didn’t like being put on show. ‘What do you fucking want, Granny?’
The elderly couple turned away immediately, dropping gazes back to their fish teas. The cabbies laughed it up. The bigger one spoke: ‘Nice one, Deil… Showed them!’
‘Fucking pair of p-r-i-c-k-s-s-s…’ He stretched out the word for effect, savoured the sound of it on his tongue. For a moment he seemed satisfied within himself, but the expression soon changed. ‘Right, what you pair got for me?’
The cabbies dropped hands in their inside pockets, removed rolls of banknotes. They were mixed denominations, tightly bound and held by elastic bands.
‘These are a bit fucking light,’ said McArdle.
The thinner of the two, a stubbly chin and chalk-blue eyes, said, ‘No one’s got the money, big man.’
‘What do you fucking mean, no one?’ McArdle’s eyes widened. He showed his bottom row of teeth — they were yellowed, stubby.
‘It’s the recession an’ that,’ said the other man.
McArdle slammed his fist on the table. The elderly couple flinched; the woman dropped a knife. ‘Since when did schemies feel the pinch? They’re on the dole, on the rob.’
The pair looked at each other. McArdle knew he had them scared. He grabbed one by the shirt front. ‘Don’t you be coming to me for gear, taking the fucking gear, and then not selling it. I’m not a fucking charity, right?’
‘Yeah, I know… I know.’
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’
‘We’ll go back out.’ The cabbies turned to each other, nodded. ‘We’ll go back out. No bother.’
The old man and woman crossed to the counter to pay up. They hadn’t finished their meals. McArdle blared, ‘You’re fucking right you will. Get down to the Links and crack onto the brasses. There’s no recession for punters looking for blow jobs last time I heard. And if they’re not on it, get them on it… Right?’
The pair nodded. ‘Yeah, sure. Sure.’
McArdle stood up and the two men followed. As they did chairs scraped on the laminate flooring and put a scare on the old woman. She hurried towards the door. ‘Boo!’ yelled McArdle. The couple increased the speed of their steps and McArdle laughed as they fumbled with the door handle. ‘Night-night, you old p-r-i-c-k-s-s-s.’
As the door closed McArdle returned to the cabbies; his demeanour returned to assault mode. In a flash he fired out a fist. It caught the large man clean on the nose. His head shot back on contact and he stumbled into the orange plastic chair he’d just left. The back of his thighs caught the tabletop and stopped him from falling to the floor. He was dazed, his eyes rolling wildly in his head.
‘Take that as a taster,’ said McArdle. He held up a roll of cash. ‘You come back to me with a bundle like that again and it’ll not be your nose I’m bursting next, it’ll be your fucking head with one of those big cleavers out the kitchen.’
The man behind the counter laughed as he turned a dishtowel over his shoulder. The cabbies turned for the door, the bleeding one helped by the other.
McArdle raised a thumb to them. ‘What do you make of that pair of pussies?’
Shakes of head. ‘Can’t get the staff, eh?’
‘Hard times, I tell you… Hard times.’
McArdle sat back down and the waiter brought him over a mug of coffee. As he counted out the takings, separated it into denominations, then clear plastic money bags, McArdle glanced idly at the television. The football scores had finished and the Scottish news headlines were being read out by a pretty young girl in a red party dress.
It was the same old stories: job losses, strikes. Some eighty-year-old in the finals of a talent competition. None of it interested McArdle. He only liked the news when there were serious crimes reported. Then he would shout at the screen, blast the criminal’s idiocy. He knew better than most how to make crime pay. No one was ever going to put the Deil behind bars again. He’d spent the eighties in Bar-L, had a stint in the Nutcracker Suite. He’d learned all he needed to know in there about staying out and he’d put it into practice every day since.
The Scottish news turned into the local news and immediately McArdle’s interest was gripped. The top story was an eye-catcher.
The girl in the party dress said, ‘ The body of a young woman was found on an Edinburgh housing estate today.’
So what? thought McArdle.
She went on, ‘ Police have yet to identify the victim but witnesses confirmed the badly mutilated body was found in a communal bin in Muirhouse. Residents described being alerted to the grisly find by four young girls who stumbled across the body.’
The newsreader made the familiar tilt of the head that indicated the screen was about to change. Some new footage started up, fronted by a less-attractive male reporter at the housing scheme.
His piece to camera was backgrounded with some shots of police cars coming and going at the crime scene.
McArdle laughed out, ‘Fucking plod! Useless bastards.’
The reporter went on, ‘ Lothian and Borders Police are remaining tight-lipped about what is believed to be a brutal murder scene in the Muirhouse area. Of course, this locality has had more than its fair share of murders over the years but the teenage girls who stumbled upon the body revealed some particularly horrific details for me when I spoke to them earlier… I do warn viewers some of the comments they made to me are of a graphic nature and not for those of a delicate disposition.’
The camera angle changed again.
‘Hey, turn this up, mate,’ said McArdle, ‘sounds good, this.’
The four girls were huddled together in the front room of a small council flat. A picture of a crying Spanish orphan hung on the wall behind them. One of the girls had a cigarette in her hand, which trembled every time she brought it to her lips. The other three competed for the camera.
‘ It was pure nasty… Loads of blood an’ that,’ said the loudest, a small freckled girl who seemed to be wearing too much make-up.
McArdle sang out, ‘Wee fucking tramp!’
Another girl spoke: ‘ I saw her first, well, second likes, after Trish, but it was me that saw the arms were missing. They’d been pure sawn off so they had.’
McArdle chuckled to himself. ‘Christ, it’s a braw laugh seeing folk from the town on the telly.’
The screen changed again, the reporter handing over to the studio.
McArdle stood up, took the first sip of his coffee and put it back down. ‘Right, I’m off.’
The man behind the counter nodded.
‘Put that on the tab, eh.’
Another nod came.
On the street McArdle’s strides were full of purpose. The cash in his jacket wasn’t enough, takings had been
