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  THE HARDER THEY FALL

  30TH JUNE 1982: 1:58PM

  The anticipated media bombardment of Almond Avenue hadn’t materialised. There may have been a few extraneous reasons for this. The national UK media had been encouraged to move on somewhat by a government determined not to seem triumphalist in the wake of criticism from Margaret Thatcher’s left-wing, loony opponents. The Scottish Sun had drawn local public opprobrium with a thinly veiled suggestion that Gary Cassidy wasn’t a hero, but actually a deserter who’d run in the face of the battle. High-profile figures, such as Roy Jenkins – the newly elected MP for Glasgow Hillhead – had poured such scorn on this that the paper backed off after the one ridiculous headline to concentrate on a week-long debate about what names Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer would eventually settle on for their first-born child.

  Harry also suspected that the higher-than-average police presence outside his door had something to do with Don McAllister. If that was his atonement for leaving Harry lying dazed in the car park of the Cochrane for the kitchen staff to come out and find, then frankly that was the least Harry would’ve expected. But he also hoped it would be the last event in a truly bizarre month-long game of cat-and-mouse, during which Harry sought at all costs to maintain the status quo for everyone’s sake, particularly Gary’s.

  Harry had cursed himself for the slip of the tongue that had alerted Don McAllister to the fact that he was Gary’s father. But, in more private moments, he had been astonished that it had never dawned on the copper before. Admittedly, his surreptitious dalliance with Ethel was brief. According to Ethel – and Harry had elected to believe her – they’d only slept together twice. Of course, Don wouldn’t have known that Harry and Ethel were sleeping in separate beds at that difficult time. The miscarriage of their first baby had hit Ethel very hard and Harry – never the most tactile of men – couldn’t give her the understanding and emotional comfort she needed. Don was a practised ladies’ man and saw the signs. Don knew he had taken advantage – Harry had been right about that – but his growing sense that he was untouchable in those days blinded him to the wider dangers. It was all too exciting, and therefore too tempting, for the young policeman. But it had proved to be a pivotal lesson for Don. In realising how close he had come to losing another wife, his resolve to change his ways had been genuine. Ethel had barely seen Don and her sister Mary since the day after Harry had caught them together. He hadn’t actually caught them in the act. Harry had come home early from work and Don had been in their living room, drinking tea with Ethel. But his police shirt was opened at the neck, and his police tie was still up in the bedroom. Ethel had burst into tears the minute she saw Harry walking up the path. It didn’t take too much detection on Harry’s part. As time passed, positions became entrenched and, for Ethel at least, it was simply less painful to re-open wounds that were more psychological than physical.

  As Harry walked up to the main entrance of the hospital where his wife had been admitted two days earlier, he reflected that, with Gary’s return, it was unlikely that Don’s attempts to contact him would stop. In fact, Harry was sure that they would intensify. Although he’d made a breakthrough in talking directly to Gary in ways that he’d never been able to before, this wasn’t something with which he could burden the boy over the phone, especially not now. Four of the five phone calls between them had been brief, and restricted to general updates about how Gary was feeling, how his family back home were coping and Gary’s concerned reports about his friend, Benny Lewis. The last call had been longer, though. It had taken place in the middle of the night for Harry, but he had been unable to sleep in any case. The older man had been surprised but pleased by the interruption.

  Harry hadn’t contributed much to the conversation, as it turned out. His role was to be that of a sympathetic ear. It suited him well that night. He sat in the darkness, whisky in hand, listening to his son – and at that moment he’d never felt so strongly that Gary was his son – confront his fears, his nightmares and his attempts to rationalise the traumatic, life-changing experience that he’d just come through. In the end, Gary had tearfully admitted that he’d only joined the Army in the first place to earn his his father’s respect. He didn’t mean to imply that if it hadn’t been for Harry, this mental torment that he was going through would have been avoided. But that’s how Harry interpreted it, and it made him feel loathsome. Harry was desperate to tell the boy that for almost twenty years, it was he who had craved Gary’s esteem. But the words didn’t come. They’d have to wait until they were face-to-face, and that wouldn’t be long.

  ‘Hello, Mr Cassidy.’

  ‘How is she today, nurse?’

  ‘She’s been comfortable. She hasn’t eaten anythin’ so she’s had to go back on the drip, but I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you.’

  Harry thanked the young staff nurse and walked towards his wife’s single room.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Mr Cassidy,’ said the nurse. ‘I nearly forgot. Ethel’s sister came in to see her this morning. It wasn’t visiting time, but Doctor Shapoor said we could make a wee exception.’

  Harry was stunned.

  ‘Ethel got a wee bit of a shock and she was crying so we had to ask Mrs McAllister to come back later.’

  Harry didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden, he could feel himself gasping for breath. It was already too warm in the ward, but it seemed to be getting hotter. Harry felt like he was going to be sick. A burning pain was beginning – and rapidly developing – across Harry’s mid-chest and up towards his left shoulder. As it radiated into his left arm and up into his jaw, Harry knew what was happening. So did Nurse Mackintosh.

  ‘Margo, Margo!’ she shouted. ‘This man is having a heart attack.’ These were the last words Harry heard before collapsing to the linoleum, feeling as if a Clydesdale horse had just kicked him, full-force in his rib-cage.

  30TH JUNE 1982: 4:23PM

  ‘Ah told ye months ago, that if Grant ended up wi’ that fat bastard, after aw you’ve been through wi’ him, then you an’ me were finished.’ Senga stood in her kitchen. She was as calm as she could manage, determined not to prolong this or to allow her better nature to give the man she’d once loved a second chance.

  Hobnail, for his part, had already known it was over the minute he saw Grant at Fat Franny’s side. There was no possibility of appeal, no Joe Beltrami sitting in the wings waiting with a cast-iron alibi to get him off.

  ‘Ah don’t care if this is aw your doin’ or no …’

  ‘How’th could it be ma dain’th, Thenga?’ He knew he was on the way out but that didn’t mean he’d go meekly. ‘The fat bathdard fuckin’th thacked us yethderday!’

  ‘Aye, ah ken Bob. Disnae say much that ye couldnae even haud down a job wi’ the local gangster, does it? Or that ye were replaced by yer ain son!’ This was a bit underhand and a small part of Senga regretted saying it. But she’d lived a life of broken – and hidden – dreams, and since Grant had walked out on them ten days ago, saying he wouldn’t be back, Senga saw no point in continuing with this sham of a relationship any further. In a relatively short time they’d grown so far apart it was unbelieveable. She couldn’t now fathom how they’d stayed together for so long. It was a cultural expectation that people like her just put up and shut up. But Senga had changed much more than Bob had and, as a consequence, the action she was now taking was more opportunistic than last straw.

  ‘Ah want ye tae go, Bob. Ye canny say ye wurnae warned. We’ve talked about this afore. For the sake ae the weans ah dinnae want a fuss. Just pack a bag and go, eh?’

  ‘Go where, Thenga?’ pleaded Hobnail.

  ‘That’s no ma concern, now. Mates? Yer mam’s? No ma problem.’ Senga had her arms crossed and an impenetrable scowl that suggested even a Beltrami on-top-of-his-game would be wasting his time. Again, Senga knew she’d score a direct hit. Outside of Fat Franny’s crew, Hobnail had never had any mates; and as for his mother, he wasn’t even entirely sure she was still a
live, such was the length of time since he’d spoken a word to her.

  The door closed quietly behind him. Out with a whimper as opposed to a scream. That just totally summed up his life. It was a life of servitude to more charismatic people, and the only way of making his prescence felt was with his fists. Throwing his weight about – it was the only thing he knew, the only way to retaliate. As he walked aimlessly around the Onthank area, where he’d lived for the majority of his life, his mood worsened. He was utterly alone. Betrayed by his childhood friend and disposed of by a son he’d never even attempted to get to know. Hobnail knew he had major failings, but he wasn’t the only one.

  He wandered past the old Mount Carmel Chapel, pausing to stare at the large Christ nailed to the stone cross over the front door. He walked up Todhill Avenue and past the house where – as a man barely out of his teens – he’d administered a beating to a middle-aged man who owed Fat Franny a tenner. He walked on past the house in Amlaird Road where on Christmas Eve he’d taken a TV, a cooker and a collection of wrapped presents from a family whose repayments on a loan to the Fatman had been two weeks late. And on down into Onthank Drive, where he’d set fire to an ice-cream van because the old man inside wouldn’t pay the fat cunt thirty percent protection money. He kept walking. Senga was right. His life amounted to nothing. He kept walking. His kids didn’t know who he was. His wife didn’t want him. His only use was in battering people. Perhaps he should just accept this. And put it into practice one last time. He walked on. And on.

  When he stopped, he was at the very top of Redding Avenue, outside the black-metal gates of the Ponderosie. This gaudy temple of shite, and an example of the worst of Thatcher-driven capitalism. The fat bastard had forced out the next-door neighbour as if he was J.R. fucking Ewing. He’d ‘bought’ both semi-detached ex-council houses, bludgeoned them together without permission and then lorded it over every tenant in the street, forcing most to seek a move and the others to pay a small fee for the price of the security his residency would afford them. Hobnail figured he could take Fat Franny, no problem. But he was rarely alone, and if Hobnail was to succeed in taking him out, he’d almost certainly have to get through Wullie the Painter’s men, Wullie himself, Hobnail’s kin Des Brick and, most worringly of all, possibly even Grant.

  On this balmy Monday evening, though, there were no vehicles in the driveway. Maybe the fat prick was out. What should he do? Wait? Come back later? He’d psyched himself up over the last three hours of aimless wandering. Too late to go back now.

  ‘Oh, hullo, Andy, son. Come on in. Francis isnae here just now, but c’mon in, anyway. It’s lovely tae see ye. How’s yer mam keepin’?’

  ‘Eh … em … ah’m fine, Mithus Duncan.’

  The old woman walked away, talking to herself and leaving the door wide open. When she turned round, Hobnail could see her floral skirt was partly tucked inside the waistband of her worn, greying knickers. He felt instantly sorry for her, and knew that he should leave, that he shouldn’t be doing any of this. But then he caught sight of something intriguing. It was Fat Franny’s safe, visible through the two hallway doors and beyond, in the recently completed kitchen extension. Hobnail stepped in. Fat Franny’s mum had wandered away, but Hobnail could still hear her – in a wee contented world of her own, having conversations with people long dead. Hobnail envied her this insulation from such a brutal life.

  ‘Andy? Andy! C’mon back tae bed. It’s nearly midnight!’ The voice from the other room jolted Hobnail into action. Fat Franny couldn’t have gone out for long. He wouldn’t have left his dotty old mum alone for any length of time, and he certainly wouldn’t have left the safe exposed with the framed picture that had concealed it – a fucking horrible mawkish picture of a crying six-year-old – lying discarded on the worktop. Some emergency must have drawn him away in a real hurry. Hobnail stared at the safe’s central dial. He gave it a hopeful turn in one direction, then again clockwise and finally a small one counterclockwise. The safe door opened. He had no gloves on, but was Fat Franny really going to report this to the cops?

  ‘Andy! The bed’s gettin’ cold. Hurry up …’

  Stupid fat cunt, thought Hobnail. Stacks of pound notes sat in the hole in front of him. The number of times he’d listened to the fat bastard going on about that fucking Godfather film: ‘Dae ye ken the importance ae forward planning? Thinkin’ ahead? Well, let me tell ye this. When Coppola started shootin’ the part one, he asked fur eighty days. The studio gied him eighty-three. He did it in seventy-seven!’ Fat Franny had delivered this analogous tale so many times, those figures were ingrained in Hobnail’s memory. ‘An’ that goes tae prove the value ae making proper plans.’

  Serves ye right ya fat prick, thought Hobnail as he headed for the back door. He looked up at the pinboard on the wall next to the door, with its line of keys along the bottom edge. He took the set labelled ‘Metropolis’ – another wee problem sorted for later – and headed out the back way, over the fence and away across the fields.

  I THINK IT’S GOING TO BE A LONG, LONG TIME

  1ST JULY 1982: 3:52PM

  Fat Franny Duncan strode purposefully towards the ten-storey monolith that dominated his town’s skyline. He fucking hated that building. Hated the people that used it. Hated the stone aquaduct in front of it that carried the West Coast rail line to the South. Hated the whole fucking town. Somebody knew something. Had some information. Could point a finger. Fat Franny’s mind was racing. Was it someone in the Inner Circle? Was it one of the younger boys working on instruction? Was it a complete fucking stranger?

  As he paced down the narrow Foregate, furtively looking right and left, Fat Franny couldn’t stop thinking that everyone was a potential suspect. Fat Franny had a simple code: Fuckin’ Ten Commandments? Ther’ wis only five in Kilmarnock and three of them involved no’ starin’ at yer mate’s burd! The two that really mattered were ‘Nae nickin’ fae the Boss’ and ‘Don’t shit wher’ ye sleep’. The Two Commandments had been broken and retribution was going to have to be swift and brutal.

  Fat Franny burst through the unpainted double-swing doors of The Metropolis, its entrance permanently in the shadow of the dense car-parking levels above.

  ‘Wullie! Wullie! Where the fuck are ye?’ He shouted into the semi-darkness. A torchlight’s focused beam came back and caught him full in the face. ‘Turn that fuckin’ thing aff, ya cunt!’ said Fat Franny, shielding his eyes. It took a few seconds for his vision to re-adjust.

  ‘Who ae ye callin’ a cunt, fatman?’ It wasn’t Wullie the Painter holding the torch. It was Mickey Martin.

  ‘Where’s the Painter?’ said Fat Franny.

  ‘Aye, ah’d like tae ken that as well,’ replied Mickey. Fat Franny was blindsided.

  ‘Ah’m tryin’ tae open this fuckin’ place at the weekend. Doesnae fuckin’ look likely at the minute, does it?’

  ‘We were down here last night wi’ your guy Denny. He was fuckin’ happy enough then.’

  ‘His name’s no ower the fuckin’ door is it? Plus we’ve lost another day wi’ that snidey wee cunt no’ turnin’ up. Ah’ve got fuckin’ partners an’ they’re aw kickin’ off about us missin’ the openin’ date.’

  ‘Look, ah’ve got ma ain fuckin’ problems here. Ah don’t ken where he is either. In fact, while we were down here yesterday, some bastard wis breakin’ intae the house.’

  ‘An’ whit the fuck does that have tae dae wi’ me? Ye implyin’ it was me that did ye ower?’

  ‘Did ah say that?’ Fat Franny was struggling to find a positive way out of this conversation. He could recognise that Mickey was holding all the aces, but his blood was boiling and paranoia was his primary driver. ‘Though it’s a wee bit ae a fuckin’ coincidence that we aw get shouted tae an emergency meeting here, that isnae really an emergency at aw. An’ at the same time the Ponderosie gets fuckin’ hit.’

  Mickey Martin laughed. He genuinely didn’t mean to but that stupid fucking name.

  ‘Think it’s funny? A
big fuckin’ laugh, eh?’ glowered Fat Franny.

  ‘Hey, watch yer tone, ya prick. Yer in ma’ fuckin house now.’

  Fat Franny turned to walk out.

  ‘An’ aye, ah dae think it’s fuckin’ funny. An’ whit’s funnier is you doin’ this work for fuck-all cos’ ye think yer gettin’ a gig here. Ya stupid bastard.’ This stopped Fat Franny in his tracks. ‘Why would ah hire a fat walloper like you ower they Heatwave boys?’

  Fat Franny turned and walked back towards Mickey Martin. Mickey stood impassively, a smug grin all over his face. Fat Franny was shaking. Mickey could see it. His reflexes were primed for avoiding a thrown punch. But Franny’s rage was not so blind as to obscure the consequences of raising fists against Mickey Martin, even with no witnesses.

  ‘Ah’ll no forget this, Doc. Ye might no’ care too much the now, but we’ll be havin’ this out in the near future.’ Fat Franny poked a stubby finger into Mickey’s chest. His stance was aggressive but he was holding back. ‘An’ when that happens, the fuckin’ boot’ll be on the other foot!’ Fat Franny turned and walked away towards the doors.

  ‘Ah ken ye’ll no forget. Elephants never fuckin’ dae!’ shouted Mickey as Franny disappeared through them into the pedestrianised precinct outside.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Doc. That was close. Just as well ah went tae the bog when ah did, eh?’

  ‘Just get on wi’ it, eh? Ah wisnae jokin’ when ah said that ah’m fucked if we don’t get this open for the weekend, so get yer tea down an’ get a fuckin’ shift on,’ said Mickey. ‘An’ Wullie?’

  ‘Whit?’

  ‘Don’t lose ma fuckin’ keys, an’ stay out ae his way for the next few days, eh?’

  2ND JULY 1982: 8:14AM