Authors: Gordon Brown
She never said a word. She reached into her purse and
took out a battered envelope and handed it to me. Then she was gone. I rammed
the envelope into my pocket before a guard could see it and, back in my cell,
took it out.
I opened it and inside there was a single sheet of
typed paper.
‘Hi Riko,
I bet you didn’t expect to hear from me. I’m sorry I
had to do what I had to do but things are not quite as they seem. I’ve no doubt
that you are planning some sort of revenge on Dupree and I don’t blame you but,
if I were you, I would leave it. Dupree is an evil fucker and fourteen years in
prison is small change to what he could do to you if he wanted.
When you get out why don’t you have a pint for old times
sake. I’ve left one behind the bar of our old haunt. If the pub is gone by the
time you get out I’ve asked Stevie to take care of things.
Stay safe.
Martin’
The letter is in the diary next to you.
Look at the time
eleven
fifty eight
and forty seconds. Time to
go. While I’m away, read the diary. It might help explain some things. I won’t
be long.
See you soon.
Dear Reader
Somehow Dear Reader sounds a bit naff but it will do.
What follows is a diary - of sorts. I have worked from the digital recordings
that I was given. As such the following is a transcription of conversations,
monologue and other assorted meanderings. It wasn’t the easiest task I have
ever performed and, at times some of the text may take a little license – all
in the interest of keeping the whole thing lucid.
I’ve marked it all up in diary fashion, as the
recordings frequently referred to the dates. As such it seemed logical to
display it in this form.
You are probably reading this and wondering what I am
gibbering on about but, hopefully, it will all make sense when you read the
‘diary’.
Enjoy.
Giles Taylor
I don’t know why I’m using this
thing. It has taken me a week just to work out how it operates. It’s a digital
recorder and I’ve never used one before but, after fourteen years in prison, the
world is a scary place and I need some order in my life.
It’s a tiny object and I’ve already
discovered that I can keep it in my top pocket and record conversations without
anybody knowing. I’m intending to keep an ‘aural’ record of the next few months
– if I can work the bloody thing.
I was given it on Christmas day by the hostel and told
it might help if I use it to note down my thoughts. It had been left by a well
wisher and, as the new boy, I was trusted to use it and not hock it for drink
money. I think the idea is a pile of crap but in a world of iPods, broadband,
HD TV and SEO I’m like a polar bear in the
Sahara
– wrong place and lost.
I have a hangover - my first New Year hangover in
nearly a decade and a half. A couple of the lads at the hostel managed to blag
a few bottles of Buckfast and a half bottle of Glen’s, and we celebrated the
birth of 2008.
I’m stunned at how little I have in the world. That
bastard Dupree took everything. He owns my homes; he raided my bank accounts
and even emptied my offshore account. When I stepped out of the prison gates I
had the clothes I stood in and one hundred and eight quid in my pocket (the
money I had on me when I was arrested).
I was given a bed in a hostel near Hammersmith for two
weeks. Two weeks that I spent trying to get back on the ladder that I had
fallen from - but it would seem that Dupree has ensured that the first rung is
so out of sight that I may as well try and climb
Mount Everest
in a pair of
slippers.
I door-stepped those of the gang who were still around
and got blanked. I tried those who had retired but was told my name was bad
news. I received eight kickings in as many days and the writing was on the
wall.
London
was not for me. I was so skint I had to hold up a
local corner store to get enough cash for a ticket back home.
Glasgow
was
little better. Everyone is drawing me a blank but the kicking ratio has fallen
– only three so far.
I’m sitting on the edge of a single bed in a room that
sleeps four. My room mates are all out looking for booze. It’s what they do
every night. I’m not there yet but a few more weeks and I might take to the
slippery slope with gusto.
Rachel’s letter is stuffed into my holdall. I’ve read
it so often I can tell you the spacing between letters in millimetres and could,
if asked, forge it to the point where a handwriting expert would struggle to
tell original from copy.
I’m planning a trip to the pub tomorrow. I’ve no idea
if it is still there or if Stevie is to be found. Not that I have a blind clue
as to who Stevie is.
My head hurts and I’m off to the front desk for some
painkillers.
The trip to the pub was a washout. The Lame Duck is no
more. A concrete shell with a faded wooden sign that some local wit has changed
to The Lame Fuck. There was no sign of life and no indication of who owns it
and how you could contact them. I tried a few of the nearby pubs but it was
early and the bar staff were clueless – mostly telling me to come back later
when the owner or manager was around.
I took myself up to the
West End
for a memory trip but I
wasn’t in the mood. Everything reminds me of what I used to have. If it wasn’t
the New Year break I would have ended up sitting in Victoria Park mixing with
the retired, unemployed and scum – sad to say that today I was probably the
only one that could lay claim to all three categories. The whole world was out
taking the air - trying to shake off the excesses of the New Year and it
made me feel crap.
I ate a Kit Kat but I wasn’t in need of the break – my
life is one big break. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try the council and find out who
used to hold the license at The Lame Duck.
I spent yesterday in the hostel. It might have been a
Thursday, a work day, and the other side of the traditional two day New Year
break in Scotland but that didn’t mean that the people I needed to see in the
council were back to work. Monday I was told on the phone. It cost me twenty
pence to find that out. I don’t have twenty pence to spare – how bad are things
when you can’t afford to make a 20p phone call.
One of my roommates - Charles - or ‘the Stink’ as he
is affectionately known - and I use the term ‘affectionately’ in the loosest
possible sense - told me to try the web.
I blanked this idea. I’m ashamed to say I must be the
least web literate person in the
UK
. For most of my time in prison there was no internet
access – the web revolution passed us all by. When they did install it, we were
restricted in where we could surf and I just couldn’t be arsed. I did try to
Google Dupree once but to no avail and never went back.
There is an internet terminal in the hostel and I’ve
asked one of the kids if they can find out who the owner of The Lame Duck is
but he wants a packet of fags for his trouble so I told him to piss off.
I’ll wait until Monday and do the physical thing and
visit the council.
A bad night last night. I went for a walk about
eight o’clock
to
clear my head. I met a few of my inmates on the steps of the hostel and they
were off to get slammed up in the Necroplolis – the soon to be dead drinking
with the long dead. I declined. Things are bad but not that bad - ‘the Stink’
offered me a bottle of meths two nights ago and the smell alone made me gag.
I’m determined to avoid that path but something in the back of my head tells me
that all paths lead that way.
The hostel sits just off
High St
in a
run down part of the city. Back in the eighteenth century this was the centre
of
Glasgow
and the area just across the road from where I sleep is known as
Merchant
City
- harking
back to a day when the city was king of the trading towns. I’m not a kick in
the arse away from where I first met Mr Read. They say what goes around comes
around.
On the other side of the hostel is the ‘Barras’ –
Glasgow
’s
perennial market – ‘If you can’t get it there – you can’t get it anywhere’ - a
direct quote from my old man. I decided to wander through the ramshackle maze
of buildings that make up the market – all closed up for the night. On the
edges a few pubs ply their trade but last night it was hard to imagine the buzz
that the area creates when it is in full flow.
As a kid I loved coming here. The men on the stalls
selling crockery at prices that seemed unreal. The smell of cooked sausage
smothered in tomato sauce. The sound of music through tinny speakers hung to an
outside wall by a length of clothes line.
There was a magic in the place that seemed to vanish
as I got older. Did the place just get seedier or did the cynicism that comes
with old age just see the place for what it really was?
I had stopped for a fag, one I had been saving since
tea time, next to one of the buildings that hosts the stalls. The shutters were
down all around and the street outside was deserted save for the rubbish that
the wind was playing football with.
I heard them before I saw them. The thumping bass
beat of dance music echoing from the windows and walls around me. There were
six of them. All hooded up and all on a mission. I was clearly the target from
the get go. They had no fear – music racked up - inviting attention. I’d been
that boy and knew what was coming, so I dropped the cigarette and moved away.
Three more appeared at the other end of the street and
I was caught in a classic pincer. I looked around for a way to escape but there
was nowhere to go.
Twenty five years ago I would have known these boys
and they would have known me. Now I was no more than a jakey ripe for a
beating. I tried to talk to them but the hoody with the beat box simply racked
up the volume. This wasn’t a time for a chat – it was a time to get down and
dirty on the tramp.
I didn’t take the beating lying down. I can still
handle myself when the need is on but sheer numbers were against me. Even so I
surprised the first three by decking them and decking them hard. It caused the
others to pause and reassess their strategy but numbers and booze-filled
bloodstreams gave them brave pills, and they laid into me.
I curled into a ball and tried to focus on when it
would be over.
The three I had laid out came to, joined in and, if it
hadn’t been for the distant wail of a police siren, I suspect I might have been
joining my mates in the Necropolis as a more permanent member of the area.
I lay for ten minutes after the assault squad ran off
and assessed the damage. I’d had enough kickings in my time to realise that a
few bones had been broken. My ribs hurt and my left hand was limp – one of the
bastards had dropped from a full six feet and crushed my wrist between his knee
and the ground. I staggered to my feet and headed for the Royal Infirmary. It
was less than a mile away but it still took me an hour to get there. Mostly
because I needed to stop to hack up blood.
They kept me in overnight, strapped my ribs and put a
plaster on my wrist. I had a restless night but it was free of the smell of
‘the Stink’ and breakfast in the morning was hot and free.
The hospital wanted me to report the attack to the
police but I declined. I might have been gone for a couple of decades but there
will still be some police who remember me from days gone by and I want to stay
out of their way until I figure the Lame Duck/Stevie thing out.
I was discharged with a supply of painkillers and an
appointment to come back in a week.
The strange thing about the whole affair was not the
beating. I’m more intrigued by the fact they knew my name.
Stevie is in sight. I worked my way through the black
hole that is local authority bureaucracy and discovered that the licensee for
The Lame Duck was one Stephen Mailer. He may or may not be the owner but there
was an address for him and I scraped enough to jump a bus and pay a visit.
He lives in Bishopbriggs on the north of the City. It
is a real two day camel ride by bus and when I got there he wasn’t in. His home
is a terraced house that doesn’t suggest he is a pub entrepreneur of note. I
hung around for an hour or so but to no avail.