GUILT TRIPPER (10 page)

 “What about the six
hundred odd thousand sales reported in the press?”

 “Oh come on Danny! Do
you really think McLeod hasn’t got people working in the media, weaving illusions
for him and lending his scams credibility?”

 There was a pause,
during which Danny no doubt tried to digest the extent of the deception, before
interrogating Bob further.

 “So I take it he was
paying you a wage?”

 “Two hundred and
fifty quid a week plus touring expenses. The cars and suits were on credit and
Ingrid was able to fund most of our nights out, after she landed a well-paid TV
commercial when we returned from Italy. Stupid cow believed I was paying
thousands out a week on mortgages, and so thought she was getting the best end
of the deal. Not only did she think I was paying for the apartment and our
retreat up on the coast, but a couple of places I’d invented in St Tropez and
Mauritius too…what a friggin’ joke eh?”

 “How the hell did
you afford those houses then? And what about the little knocking shop over in
Govan?”

 “They all belong to
Rex. Of course, as soon as I attracted the attention of the police he kicked me
out. Do you know where I’ve been living this past year?”

 “Where?”

 “Herman’s.”

 “Friggin’ hell,
after all that’s gone on?”

 “One frosty night, I
was driving round Calton when I saw him with some church group, handing out
cups of hot soup to the hookers. I felt obliged to take him home…though I don’t
know why, not after all the harm he’s done me. When we got there, his house was
lit up like a bloody Christmas tree…there was a friggin’ party going on! There
must have been fifteen of the dirty rotten scumbags in the place — old winos
with beards and smack head louts, supping out of cans from cardboard crates,
neatly stacked up along the living room wall, all the way up to the ceiling.”

 “Jesus.”

 “He’d only been down
to the Great Eastern and invited everyone back to live with him. Said it was an
act of contrition, for what happened to that mouthy little bitch Curran. Also,
he was trying to emulate you.”

 “Me?”

 “Yes. I’m afraid
you’re his new hero. You’re all he ever talks about, ‘Danny this’ and ‘Danny
that’. He’s been trying to do with the down and outs what you’ve done with the
kids…it’s pathetic. At one stage he locked all the booze away until they sat
through his music appreciation classes in the kitchen.”

 Danny blew his
cheeks out, a little spooked at being Herman’s new obsession. “And you moved in
there, with all that lot?”

 “Well, I’d been
living in a bed and breakfast, so I thought, if I can just get rid of the
freeloaders, Herman’s pad could make a good springboard for the future. So I
did, while he was attending an appointment up at the loony bin. I got Rex’s
lad, Jimmy, to come round with a team and scare them off. In return they helped
themselves to some of Herman’s more valuable furniture. When he got back I just
told him the down and outs had robbed him and fled…stupid bastard was
devastated.”

 “So I take it you’re
still living there?”

 “I was, up until a
fortnight ago, when the prick stopped taking his medication and got detained
again. Some do-gooders came round wanting to know my connection to him. Unsatisfied
with my answers they returned next day with the police and had me evicted. For
the past fortnight I’ve been sleeping on the back seat of my car, in a lay-by
off the A82, between Glasgow and Dumbarton. It was while I was making the
return journey to town — to wash at the swimming baths — that I spotted Ingrid
and Francesca heading out here.” Bob stopped talking for a moment, as if suddenly
stunned by a vision of some sort, before announcing: “It’s all over Dan. I’m
gonna have to go back to my parents.”

 “Stay here with us.”

 “No, I’ll stay the
night then it’s time to confront reality. It’s going to be hard, explaining
that their precious only child never really made it big after all… that he’s a
failure… a vulgar gangster’s ping pong ball…When I went to prison my mother
attempted suicide you know. Fortunately, I’ve managed to convince her I was the
innocent victim of a madman’s spite and she’s made an almost full recovery now.
God knows what this is going do to her.” He made another big sigh. “But for
that mouthy whore everything would be ticking along fine! The moment they
arrested me I became a liability in Rex’s eyes. You see, his boys used the
Govan stair my apartment was on for storing and chopping heroin. He’d put the whole
place under my name and turned it into apartments with non-existent tenants. That
way, if the police raided, they couldn’t pin anything on an individual. Luckily,
the latest cargo had been shipped out by the time they arrived to try and
gather evidence against me…not that they were gonna find much after I’d
repainted the place twice and repeatedly jet sprayed the stairs with bleach and
water.”

 “Hold on…heroin? Rex
Macleod doesn’t go near drugs, he bloody hates them!”

 With what sounded to
Judith like exasperation at Danny’s simplicity, Bob affected a sneering laugh. “What
was it Shakespeare wrote? ‘Methinks the lad doth protest too much.’ Macleod
hates drug dealers like Roy Cohn hated homosexuals. The anti-heroin persona? That
was just a smokescreen for one of Europe’s biggest drugs barons. The street
corner dealers he used to shop? They were actually banging out his gear, but
didn’t even know it — stupid wee bastards! Just like I never knew he was buying
all my records.”

 “So where did my
money come from?” There was a panic in Danny’s voice now.

 “Definitely not from
song royalties, put it that way. When you blackmailed me I begged Baxter to
help find a solution, but he deserted me as a Rex McLeod reject. Until, that
was, I explained the painting scam. He put it to the Big Man, who then lent me
seven hundred and sixty grand on the express understanding that he recouped a
million within twelve months, or else. Mercifully, my brainwave was a success,
otherwise I’d be couriering packages every other month and ending up in the
same prison cell the whole scheme was designed to keep me out of in the first
place.”

 “What do you mean,
painting scam?”

 “The kebab house man
who bought all your work at the exhibition I set up in London was in the loop. He
bought the paintings from me with money which Rex was already laundering
through his takeaway shop tills. Then, having established a phoney market for
your work, he sold them for real and got over a million quid, all of which went
straight back to the Big Man, netting him a handsome two-hundred and forty
grand profit on the original seven hundred and sixty he’d lent me in order to
pay you off. The rich get richer my friend, but then you already know that
better than anyone, after all, it’s pretty much all you’ve ever droned on about
these past twenty-five years”

 “You mean this
college is courtesy of the plague that’s ravaged our city? Oh please God…no! Kids
have died in their hundreds, been made homeless or lost limbs so that I can
play with paints and drink fine wine? You bastard! You knew what you were doing
all along didn’t you? You’ve deliberately made me complicit in that which I
despise…compromised my soul and will no doubt destroy my mind in the process. All
that crap about me having ‘won’, it’s just your bitter sarcasm. You’re the
winner. Now, till the day I die, I’ll be more miserable than you ever could
be.”

 “You’ve only
yourself to blame Danny. You relinquished the right to moralise once you
entered the world of blackmail. Besides, it’s your own vanity that’s making you
miserable…your romantic need to be perceived as ‘the good guy’. No one leaves
this world with a clean sheet Danny boy, so why the hell did you think you were
going to be any different?”

 “You should have
told me! You should have let me know you were broke! I’d never have shopped you
anyway!”

 “I couldn’t take
that chance…not with your friggin’ morals! I may have made the most of my
time-out in Barlinnie Prison to think, but I certainly had no intention of
going back there.”

 Danny, who was
muttering insanely now, sounded like he was crying. “Oh-please-God-no! Please,
please, please God - no!”

 “Oh grow up man! Surely
you of all people must be aware that all money’s filth. Our city, the one you’re
so passionate about, was built on tobacco and slavery. And now, your college is
built on heroin. Just like the National Health Service is built through taxes
imposed on smokers with lung cancer and drinkers with liver disease, not to
mention the oil guzzling, kid killing car drivers for whom, as you never ceased
banging on about, half of Glasgow was demolished to provide a motorway. It’s the
great paradox of life Danny — happy birthday son!”

Danny made no
response.

“Anyway, I have to be
up early so I’ll bid you adieu.”

 The sound of Bob
making his way upstairs to spend the night in Danny’s room, just across the
landing, made Judith feel physically ill.

CHAPTER:
15

 
The
morning after Bob’s revelation, Judith woke to loud arguing. Running down to
the kitchen in her nightshirt, she found the whole college standing over Hamish,
who was lying unconscious on the flagstone floor, after trying to prevent Ryan
from assaulting other students. Overnight, while they’d all been sleeping
outside the byre, someone had taken the young author’s computer and the back-up
discs containing his book, leaving him to suspect, accuse and then physically
attack those closest.

Remembering that
Danny had told a certain somebody about Ryan’s work, Judith rushed back upstairs
and burst into the room where Bob was supposed to be staying, only to find an
empty, undisturbed bed. Heart sunken, she put on a grey hooded sweat top and
jeans, then jogged back downstairs, herding Danny and Ryan to the minibus,
which she drove at high speed towards Glasgow. Virtually catatonic with
depression from the previous night’s bombshell, Danny sat on the farthest back
seat, saying not a word until they arrived five hours later and then only to
mutter something about Bob’s parents living in Bearsden.

 Bearsden is an
affluent, residential suburb on the northwest outskirts of the city, containing
a significant number of million pound mansions along its leafy avenues. The
Fitzgerald’s home, however, was a more modest affair — a whitewashed bungalow,
beyond a low, granite stoned boundary wall and a small rectangle of lawn. The
family had escaped here from the council tenements of Maryhill back in the
nineteen-seventies, thanks to Mr. Fitzgerald’s earnings as a welder on the
North Sea oil rigs. In accordance with her new middle class status — achieved
by working class means — Mrs. Fitzgerald had sent her only child to Glasgow
Academy, the city’s oldest public school, in the West End. Mixing among the
real middle classes hadn’t come naturally to Bob though, and, despite achieving
decent exam results, he’d grown into a self-absorbed teenager. But for meeting
Danny, he’d probably still be hiding in his bedroom to this day, writing
stories only for himself.

 Unfortunately, there
was no sign of Bob’s car when they pulled up outside the bungalow, and Ryan’s
frantic banging on the front door didn’t even get a response. While he
investigated the back of the property, Judith stayed in the minibus, trying to
elicit more information from Danny. .

 “Danny! You’ve got
to think. Is there anywhere else that bastard might be?”

 “I don’t know!” he
yelled back, at his wits end.

 On Ryan’s return,
Judith drove aimlessly, suppressed tears of frustration twinkling in her eyes. She’d
only gone about a mile, when she suddenly spotted a grey Datsun parked up
ahead, outside a black, iron security gate. Either side of the gate was an
eight-foot high, brick boundary wall overhung by sycamore trees, with CCTV
cameras peeping out from steel poles among the foliage. Judith and Ryan jumped
out the minibus, but before the former could press the buzzer on the intercom
in the wall, Danny had caught up, snatching her hand away.

 “What the hell are
you doing woman? This is Rex McLeod’s place.”

 “And? You’re quick
enough to condemn others for not standing up to the capitalists. Well, here’s
your opportunity to show us all how it’s done…oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, you’d
rather paint his portrait wouldn’t you?”

 Just then, the
intercom crackled and a whining, nasal, Glaswegian voice seeped out.

 “Tut. Tut. Tut. Is
that you causing a song and dance outside my property Danny White?”

 “Aye Rex, it is.”

 “Ha, ha, ha,” McLeod
had a surprisingly genial laugh. “You and your pals had best come on in.”

 The gate slid open
with a humming noise, revealing a white, eight-bedroom mansion, set back beyond
a small field of manicured front lawn. Across this bowling green, five barking
Dobermans came bounding, before a middle aged blonde woman in a peppermint
green, velvet jogging suit appeared, calling them back. Rex McLeod’s wife,
Janine had heavily lined sun-bed orange skin and lank, peroxide hair, but she
conveyed the arrogance of an aristocratic supermodel, surveying her visitors
with disdain. In a dry, boozy voice she directed them to an oak panelled lounge
where three men stood around a large granite-stone fireplace, drinking whisky
beneath one of Danny’s portrait paintings of the gangster. To the left — as
viewed by the visitors on entering — Fergus Baxter was in full tartan
splendour, while on the right, a shaven headed Bob looked conspicuously
uncomfortable in his shabby, navy-blue Adidas tracksuit. In the middle was a
dumpy, pug faced, squinty eyed, smirking fellow in his late fifties. What
remained of his grey hair was combed back over a red pate and his jowls were
hanging either side of a triple chin. He wore a yellow Lyle and Scott polo
T-shirt — tightly stretched like cling film round his paunch — brown trousers
and matching golf shoes. Judith actually laughed when he introduced himself to
her as Rex McLeod. She couldn’t believe it. The legendary ‘Big Man’ was even
smaller than Fergus Baxter, who could only have been five-foot seven, if that.

 “So what can I do
for you then folks?” the gangster asked, mockingly.

 Danny stepped
forward from his position between Judith and Ryan.

 “As it happens,
we’ve intruded upon you quite by accident. It’s Mr Fitzgerald we need to speak
with.” He turned to face Bob. “Could I have a quick word in private please?”

 Bob smiled slyly. “There’s
no need for that. Nothing you’re going to say will shock anybody here.”

 “Ok. In that
case…err…how can I put this? Ryan here has lost a very important disc. You
wouldn’t happen to know where that might…”

 “Just give us our
things back you rat!” Judith exploded.

 At this moment
McLeod stepped forward, placing a pacifying hand on her forearm.

 “It’s me you need to
talk with about the disc darling. I own it now.”

 “Rex,” Danny
implored, “the lad here has worked day and night on that book for the past two
years. He’s only nineteen. It’s his way out – please don’t block him.”

 McLeod turned to
face Danny. “Danny boy, if you’d come and asked for that disc two years ago,
you’d already be walking out the door with it in your hand, and…and,” he
pointed backwards over one shoulder with a thumb, towards Bob, “…that worm
there would be eating out of a straw, for offending someone I respected.” He
gulped the remainder of his scotch before continuing. “I actually liked
you…worse, I trusted you…and I make it my business to trust nobody. I really
enjoyed our little chats whenever I sat for you. We talked about Marx and
Christianity, do you remember?” McLeod smiled nostalgically at this
recollection. “I found you refreshingly naïve. I could see right through you,
or so I thought, and there was absolutely nothing harmful there. I don’t think
I could say that about a single other soul I’ve encountered. As a result, you
became a little indulgence of mine…an escape from the cynical world I inhabit. That’s
why I was always giving you painting jobs — so we could talk some more. So you
can imagine how betrayed I felt, learning that you’re actually a scheming
blackmailer.”

 Flushing, Danny cast
a quick glance at Ryan, who was oblivious to the dishonourable means by which
Gairloch College had come about. Desperate to avert an adverse revelation, he interrupted
McLeod.

 “But this isn’t
about me.”

 “Oh but it is. Everything
I do these days is influenced by you. Thanks to your sublime disingenuousness,
I no longer have faith in my own judgement. Consequently, I have to be ruthless
with everyone in order to feel secure. So let’s hear no more about this disc. It’s
mine, OK.”

 Judith erupted
again. “This isn’t some crappy Squeaky Kirk album!” Bob raised his chin by
forty-five degrees, head twitching indignantly. “It’s a really good book.”

 McLeod turned to
Ryan. “We need this book on the shelves as quick as possible. If you want to
sign up with us for three-hundred quid a week, so be it. It’ll save us the
bother of having to find a front man and an editor to change names and places.”

 Judith was beside
herself with rage now. “He’s got a London publisher ready to print — and you’re
offering him three hundred quid a week!”

 “Darlin, the lad’s a
drop in the ocean down there. If he’s really, really lucky, he’ll get a
ten-grand advance against royalties. No matter how good a yarn he’s written,
though, he’ll be at the bottom of the pile when it comes to promotion. The
celebrity biographers and Oxbridge in crowd will eat up the entire publicity
budget, and no one will even know he existed. Deemed a liability, he’ll be
sacked on his debut and never entertained by another publisher again. But if he
comes with me, he’ll get every piece of work published, have a guaranteed
fourteen grand a year coming in and the Scottish press eating out of his hand. Sometimes
the best way to take London is indirectly. If he creates a ripple up here, your
big publishers will come sniffing, don’t you worry…and they’ll treat him with
the respect he deserves if he’s already a proven earner.” McLeod turned to
Danny, who was standing with his arms folded, shaking his head dejectedly. “You
shouldn’t be pulling faces. You should be encouraging the boy to do the right
thing. How many folk do you know who’ve been published in London?”

 “Quite a few,” Danny
muttered.

 “Aye and how many of
them are wealthy as a result? Honestly now.”

 “None that I know
of.”

 “Exactly. They’re
all doing shitty jobs during the day and then they’re too tired in the evenings
to write anything decent. Ryan, on the other hand, will have a guaranteed
income and all the time in the world to produce a masterpiece, if he wishes.” McLeod
had grown quite passionate during this exposition. “Three hundred quid a week’s
about a hundred pound more than this kid can ever hope to earn.” He turned to
Ryan. “I’ll bet my balls you’ve got a criminal record, eh son?”

 “Aye, for assault
when I was sixteen and two raps for shoplifting.”

 “Then you’re minimum
wage, warehouse fodder till the day you die I’m afraid…just like I was at your
age. No different to a black man in Apartheid South-Africa or an untouchable in
India. I was forced to carve my own path, outside of the system.” He looked at
Judith as if expecting admiration or sympathy, before returning his attention
to Ryan, now nodding in accord with what was being said. “And remember, there’s
nothing to stop you getting a day job if you wanted. You’d be on five hundred
quid a week then, twenty-two, maybe twenty-three grand a year! When you walked
in here you were underclass. I’m giving you the opportunity to leave middle
class.”

 At this point Danny
finally intervened. “Ryan, we have to have a word in private.”

 “Oh no,” McLeod
interjected smugly, “there’ll be no whispering round corners. I like complete
transparency when I do business, so if you’ve something to say, say it here.”

 “Complete
transparency eh? In that case, he’s going to use you Ryan, as a vehicle to
launder money…money from heroin dealing!”

 McLeod turned to Bob
and glared, yellow teeth snarling like a rabid dog, eyes as dead as great white
shark’s, before facing Ryan again and raising his voice impatiently.

 “Right son, it’s
make your mind up time. If you’re interested Fergus will take you into town to
sign the necessary documents. If not, get the hell out of here.”

 Ryan turned to Danny
as if imploring his advice.

 “I’ve told you what
I know,” Danny said, dejectedly. “Armed with such information, I personally
wouldn’t get involved. But I can’t impose my principles on you…and I’m
certainly in no position to judge.”

 Next, Ryan looked at
Judith. She didn’t want to hurt Danny, but her maternal feelings towards the
youngster won the day. Making sure he got credit and at least some reward for
his work was her main concern, so she strained a smile of encouragement.

 “Don’t worry about
what anyone else thinks sweetheart, just get on and do what’s right for you.”

 When Ryan agreed to
accompany Baxter, Danny marched out, looking ashen. During the distraction, no
one had noticed Bob slip away, escaping Rex McLeod’s wrath at his indiscretion
over the money laundering scam. It transpired he’d received nothing for
procuring Ryan’s book. His only reward had been the knowledge that he’d hurt
Danny some more.