booksnew/source/Full Proof/C18.txt

     <p>They picked Donny up on the quayside and slammed him in the back of the white van. It hadn't been that difficult, because he was drunk at the time and while he'd put up a bit of a struggle, his co-ordination was well off. He had a hundred and twenty pounds in crumpled notes in his hip pocket, and an Irn Bru bottle half emptied of whisky in a haversack.</p>
     <p>He'd got very drunk and he'd been very stupid</p>
     <p>Cullen and Foley picked up the word late in the afternoon and that was easy to figure. There had been a steady drift of the layabouts and workshy down to the quayside where the Corrieside team hung about playing quoits and pitch and toss, waiting to sign on the dole, the sick, share a bottle of wine, or get a deal on any of a number of exotic substances to inhale, ingest or inject. </p>
     <p>Donny had sold three gallons to some of the happy lads at a fiver a pint and told them they were getting a bargain. He'd done his own decant and filled eighteen Iron Brew bottles and stacked them in two plastic crates. As soon as the wasters who hung about down the Riverside Quay got a taste for it, there was a rush on the market and business was brisk. Donny's trade made him the most popular man on the cobbles and there was always a scam going on down here where car radios had been replaced by CD players, transistor sets by mobile phones. Alloy wheels were a regular deal, along with fake designer jeans. A couple of months back, two Irish labourers had strolled out of Aitkenbar Distillery with ten feet of nine-inch drainage pipe slung between them and five gallons of  immature spirit sloshing about in the curve of the hose. It might have been clear as water and strong enough to bubble paint, but it had sold  like a drug on the market and nobody had asked any questions about where it came from. It only mattered that it was there, it could help blur the remainder of the day, and it was going cheap.</p>
     <p>Donny's enterprise elicited few questions, but one was enough. The trouble was that he had kept back a bottle for himself and was taking slugs from the bottle every time he did a deal, so by dinnertime he was half drunk and when the sun was over the old bridge upstream, with the whole crate gone, he was well over the line.</p>
     <p>"I hear it's good stuff," Cullen said.</p>
     <p>"You'd better go find out," Ferguson told him. "Anything that gets sold down here, I get to know about it. I don't remember giving anybody a franchise. Whoever's dealing pays double community tax."</p>
     <p>Cullen and Foley bumped into Franky Hennigan's drinking buddy Tig Graham who was in the shadow under the bridge and took the bottle off him, which was easier said than done, because any time Tig had a bottle of anything he held onto it with ferocious determination and it took a couple of dull ones on the ribs to make him loosen his grip. Seggs Cullen poured some into the empty can of coke, rather than put his lips to the neck of the same bottle Tig had been drinking out of.</p>
     <p>"That's the business," he said, while Tig struggled with Foley to get close and snatch it back. It was no contest. Wiggy Foley was slab-like and lived on beer and burgers, while for Tig, solid food was only an irregular necessity.</p>
     <p>"Where  did you get this?"</p>
     <p>"Bought it this morning. There was a rush on."</p>
     <p>"How much?"</p>
     <p>"What's it to you?"</p>
     <p>Cullen held the bottle out beyond the  walkway railing and poured a golden drizzle in to the deep fast current.</p>
     <p>"Okay, okay, I'll tell you. It cost me a five spot. It's class stuff."</p>
     <p>"How would you know, Tig? You'd drink watery shite out of my dirty boxers, wouldn't you?"</p>
     <p>"Come on guys. Away and buy your own. He's still down there at the end of the quay."</p>
     <p>"Who's dealing?"</p>
     <p>"Some young fella from Drymains. Forget his name. Ginger-headed lad. Come to think, he might be one of Skid Watson's boys."</p>
     <p>Cullen looked at Foley and Foley grinned back.</p>
     <p>"Bingo," he said. They jumped back in the van, sped round River Street and came down the Barley Cobble at the far end of the quay half a mile away near the river mouth. They picked up Donny Watson as he sat on an old worn capstan, with half a bottle of the moonshine still in his bag and a wad of notes in his hip pocket.</p>
     <p>"Where did you get this?"</p>
     <p>Donny had tried to fight them off, but he was no scrapper and his co-ordination left him swinging at fresh air. After the last beating down the lane he remembered the pain of the bruises and the cracked ribs and that recollection took the heart and fight out of him as much as anything else.</p>
     <p>Wiggy Foley dragged him into the back of the van and casually slapped him around while Cullen held him in a head-lock. After that Foley sat on him and the doors slammed and no matter how hard Donny tried, he couldn't move.</p>
     <p>When the doors opened again he was in Whitehead's scrap yard. You could tell by the smell of rusty and oil and burning cable, and the sounds of hammers and wrenches and angle cutters on old metal. They were far down one of the lanes, bounded on either side by stacks of bent cars. Foley dragged him out the back and into the big shed. Cullen slammed the door shut.</p>
     <p>"I hear you're in business," Ferguson said.  He had his feet up on an old metal desk that bore a couple of battered biscuit tins and big black welding mask. The chair was tilted back. Over by the wall, a crumpled BMW stood up on bricks. Cullen had come in first before Foley had brought him out and the half-empty bottle from Donny's bag now stood on the surface beside the tins.</p>
     <p>"And it's class merchandise."</p>
     <p>Donny said nothing.</p>
     <p>"Not like you, Ginger, is it?  Most of the time you're running off at the mouth like a burst main, am I right?"</p>
     <p>"I got nothing to say to you, Ferguson."</p>
     <p>"Oh really. You really reckon?"</p>
     <p>Donny shook his head.</p>
     <p>"You're going to tell me what the fuck this is." He nudged the bottle with his foot. It teetered dangerously and then righted itself.</p>
     <p>"Piss off," Donny said. His eyes flicked left and right, trying to see a way out of this. He'd been down here often enough with Jed and Neil, looking for parts for the stock cars, to know he was at the far end of the yard. The chances of making it through the warren of aisles to the big gate were between zero and damn all, even if he could fight his way out of the shed. A trickle of sweat started between his shoulder blades and worked its way down.</p>
     <p>"Fighting talk," Ferguson said without even raising his voice. He sniggered. "You'll have met Mr Foley. He's just out of Barlinnie Jail, you'll have heard. Armed robbery and grievous bodily harm. He's trying to mend his ways, but it's never easy is it? And by the way, when I say grievous, I mean really fucking brutal, know what I'm saying? Desperate stuff."</p>
     <p>Ferguson looked at him, squat and weasel eyed. </p>
     <p>"Everybody wants to get into business these days. But, son, you know you can't go selling without a license, am I right? Anybody deals down the riverfront, they got to come and see me."</p>
     <p>"You don't own the place. I can do what I like."</p>
     <p>"You would think that, wouldn't you? But you still owe me one from the golf course."</p>
     <p><em>      "</em>Oh yeah, and I've got Deja Moo: I've heard all this bullshit before." Despite everything, Donny's mouth broke free and was off on its own.</p>
     <p>       "Don't try and get smart with me." Ferguson's eyes glinted with irritation.</p>
     <p><em>       </em>"Am I getting smart with you? ....How the hell would you know?</p>
     <p> Ferguson shook his head. He raised an eyebrow, let his eyes drift to Foley, lowered them. Foley hit Donny a fast one in right the kidney and the shock of pain dropped him like a sack. Ferguson waited until he'd slowly got back to his feet again, using the desk for leverage, gasping painfully for a  breath.</p>
     <p>"You would think you can do what you like and say what you want, but you better get real. You know the score and I know the score so you and me, we're going to stop fannying around. I don't have the time. So," he tapped the bottle again. "unless you want more of the same, let's try again. Here's you doing a brisk trade down on the quay, and we find out it's not the usual dregs that's been siphoned out of a barrel. I should know. They serve this at the golf club and they charge you less for Glen Grant and if you swirl it around it dries up before you even get a taste. And now you're selling it out of soda bottles and drinking it by the pint."</p>
     <p>He  took his feet off the old desk and let the chair fall forward.</p>
     <p>"Give him a spin," he said. Cullen put a meaty hand on Donny's back and slammed him forward over the  surface. He patted him down quickly and fished the notes from his pocket. Ferguson counted them, slipped off about half and chucked the rest back.</p>
     <p>"Don't say I'm unreasonable. You don't pay the tax, you get to pay double. But I'm an honest man, so you get to keep the rest."</p>
     <p>"Thanks a million," Donny grunted. He felt as if something had burst inside. He urgently needed to piss.</p>
     <p>"So where were we? Yes. You're doing a turn on hooch, and it's no fucking moonshine. Now what I want to know, is where did you get this?"</p>
     <p>"He works in the place," Cullen put in. Ferguson froze, slowly turned to face him and Cullen's eagerness vanished. Ferguson stared hard for an uncomfortable stretch.</p>
     <p>"I want to ask you, you'll hear me ask you, right?"</p>
     <p>Cullen backed right off, two or three steps. Even Foley shifted his stance and Donny sensed the tension suddenly rack up tight. He began to sober up very fast. If Foley was scared of  Ferguson, that made Ferguson even worse than that lunatic. Outside, the angle grinder shrieked like a pig in the slaughterhouse. The smell of burning rubber and plastic was thick on the air. The money lay untouched in a crumpled heap. Ferguson lit a cheroot.</p>
     <p>"Just to recap, in case anybody forgot where we were, here's you selling some prime brew, and here's me wondering where you got three gallons of Grade A, single malt."</p>
     <p>He turned to Cullen and Foley. "You wouldn't recognise this because you've got no class and no style, but this is definitely the  bees knees. The real McCoy. You ever watch the fuckin news? Read the papers? Some team of hot-shot bandits just swiped a distillery load of the stuff that's been lying there since the seventies, since Noddy Holder was wearing platforms and Elton John still had his own head of hair. No offence Wiggy."</p>
     <p>Donny swallowed hard in a dry throat. Ferguson turned back to him.</p>
     <p>"Not that I think you've got half the brains or half the bottle, Skid, but I have to ask the fuckin question, don't I? Where the fuck did you get this?"</p>
     <p>"Fuck off, arsehole" Donny said, unable to stop his mouth spitting out the words. As soon as they were past the retrieval stage he felt a sudden clench of fear in his stomach. </p>
     <p>Ferguson flicked his cigarette at him. It whirred in the air and caught him just under the eye. Sparks flew and little needles of fire  stabbed at his skin.</p>
     <p>"Now, we can do this the hard way, or the <em>very</em> hard way. And after that we can do it in ways you don't fuckin' want to think about. Bobby Whitehead's got a fuckin' monster crusher out there. Put you in that old car and you're gone for good and we let his Alsatians lick up what leaks out."</p>
     <p>Donny's knees started to tremble and without warning the image of Jack and the others down at the boatyard swam into his memory. They had all stared him down when Jack had told them about the fish. </p>
     <p> <em>Bastard, Jack. You got me into this!</em></p>
     <p>"So I'll ask you one more time. Where the fuck did you get it?"</p>
     <p>"I found it," Donny's voice was shaky.</p>
     <p>"Sure you did. And I'm Mother fuckin' Theresa."  Ferguson heaved himself off the chair and turned away, bent and picked up a piece of equipment on the floor nearby. He held it up to Donny.</p>
     <p>"A sticky situation," he said. "That's what you're in. Just you watch this."</p>
     <p>He picked out big sixteen-mil bolt from a box on the table and rolled it across the surface. With the same hand, he lifted the welder's mask and slipped it on. He held the nozzle, pressed the little trigger and  touched the thin wand of the arc-welder to the bolt. Bright blue sparks fountained into the air in a hot sizzle and the bolt jerked across the desk as if it was alive. Donny pulled back to protect his eyes. Foley slammed him forward.</p>
     <p>"You get this stuck on your prick and you'll stick to anything." He grinned. "How would you like to be the Rolls Royce lady? I can weld your balls to the hood of that Beamer.</p>
     <p><em>Jack, you bastard. </em>Resentment and fear tussled for dominance. <em>Jesus, Jack I need you now.</em></p>
     <p>"Now what can you tell me?"</p>
     <p>"I found it. Honest."</p>
     <p>The wand touched the bolt. It was only inches away from Donny's groin. Foley kept him pressed forward. </p>
     <p>Ferguson hit the trigger and pressed it straight down, jamming the bolt against the metal surface. A volcano of sparks shot upwards and the hot air screeched. A shock of heat blasted through Donny's denims and he let out a strange high squeak.  Little metallic rivulets skittered silver across the surface.</p>
     <p>"How many inches can this get through?" Ferguson asked. Blinding afterimages danced in Donny's vision. The big bolt was white hot, all the rust cascading off like falling stars</p>
     <p>"Ever smell human flesh roast? It's like pork, they tell me. Long Pig<em>.</em>"</p>
     <p>He turned off the power.</p>
     <p>"You know how much it was worth? Three million, maybe four. And you know something else? Trust me Skidmark, for that kind of dough, I'd skin my old granny alive. You're going to tell me."</p>
     <p>And he did.</p>
     <p>Angus Baxter was quick on the uptake and he hauled Andy Kerr in for another session of questions and answers. It was all over town and when Jack heard it, he had to bite down hard on the surge of guilt. Andy's business was down the drain and  everybody was beginning to think he'd nicked his own tankers for the insurance. He was even greyer now than he had been when he'd called them all into the meeting.</p>
     <p>"He's like a dead man walking," Jed said. "Honest man, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes and tops himself."</p>
     <p>Jack had heard that Baxter had put two and two together and come up with four. If he hadn't heard, the news on Radio Clyde was fairly explicit.</p>
     <p><em>Police now believe that the two  tankers stolen from Levenford Dairy may have been used in the theft of the twenty five thousand gallons of Scotch whisky from Aitkenbar Distillery.</p>
     <p>It is now thought that a gang of professional thieves were involved in the daring, highly organised robbery.</p>
     <p>But CID sources reveal that inside accomplices are still being sought, and staff in both companies are being questioned.</em></p>
     <p>CID sources, Jack sneered. Just big Baxter putting out propaganda, trying to put the wind up. He'd know there had to be some local involvement.</p>
     <p>"I feel sorry for Andy," Jed said. They were on the boat again, five of them, down the end of the yard. Nobody could find Donny, and he wasn't at home. "The cops think he was involved and the dairy's down the tubes. He's going to lose it and we've dropped him in the shite."</p>
     <p>"He was going to lose it anyway. The finance company owned the tankers."</p>
     <p>"That's a bit callous," Jed countered. Neil agreed, but Ed and Tam said nothing. They knew they had come too far. There was nothing they could do for Andy Kerr, no matter what they thought.</p>
     <p>"What do you want me to say? What <em>can</em> I say? The tankers were no good to Andy. He told me that himself, said he was going to get second hand wheels and give these back. We just did it a day early, that's all."</p>
     <p>"I was just saying..." Jed started. Jack snapped at him.</p>
     <p>"Just don't say, all right? We've done this. Okay, sure, Andy's a good bloke. I know that. I'll fix it so nothing happens to him, but we just need a couple of days. There's been a delay."</p>
     <p>Neil pounced on that. "What delay?"</p>
     <p>Lars had contacted Jack on the mobile later in the day, about an hour before Ferguson's heavies picked Donny up on the quayside.</p>
     <p>"The screw, that they fix okay. Did good work too. But the engineer, he found in the testing, a bend on the shaft."</p>
     <p>"So what does that mean?"</p>
     <p>"It gives a vibration and metal fatigue.  After a while the heat causes the shaft to crack. They say they can take it out and replace. That's what they are doing just right now. But now I need four more days."</p>
     <p>"Four days? Lars, that's much too much. We were ready to roll."</p>
     <p>"I know <em>Yack.</em> Me too. But if the shaft goes out there on the North Sea, that is bad news."</p>
     <p>"Okay.  I'll have to think of something."</p>
     <p>Four days. Like Donny always said, every silver lining had a big grey cloud inside it. Four days would have been fine if it hadn't been for Donny's stupid bloody rainbow trout in a trickle of water, and the fact that big Angus Baxter spent any off duty hours fly fishing on the Endrick and the Fruin rivers. He knew what fish looked like. Because Donny had lost a piece of Kate's artwork from the tankers, Baxter had made the connection between them and the job, and that mean the whole of the force would be scouring the country for the big Fruehaufs.</p>
     <p>"Where's Donny?"</p>
     <p>"He's not home.  I checked Mac's and he's not there either."</p>
     <p>Jack had initially formed the idea that he'd give him a going over for the lost logo, but now he just wanted them all together, pulling together.</p>
     <p>"He took the huff with you," Neil said. </p>
     <p>"What for?"</p>
     <p>"You put him through the blender. He was well pissed off."</p>
     <p>Jack put his head in his hands. There were too many things to do than get bogged down in this.</p>
     <p>"Okay. Let's find the daft bugger and give him a big hug. I'll talk to him and make him feel better, right? It's not the end of the world."</p>
     <p>But Baxter knew about the tankers and the logo. Sooner or later he'd really start asking a lot of questions and they had to be well out of this town before he got some answers.</p>
     <p>"Keep your eye on the job and keep steady. The only thing that's going to kill us is if we lose our nerve now."</p>
     <p>He knew nothing about Gus Ferguson and what he was doing to Donny.</p>
     <p>The interdict was slapped on Aitkenbar Distillery at four thirty on the Friday afternoon and that left Sproat no time at all to counter it that weekend. He put a call in to Jamieson on the council and caught him just as he was leaving the chamber for a weekend break.</p>
     <p>"Who the hell are these people?"</p>
     <p>"Charter 1315? I told you, just a bunch of locals," Jameson Bell tried to assure him. </p>
     <p>"But I thought you said you had it sorted?"</p>
     <p>"How was I to know they'd interdict? I never thought they had the finances."</p>
     <p>"You've got a whole team of lawyers down there. Good god man, they say they own the whole damned river and they got that information from your damned library?"</p>
     <p>"It appears so," Bell said. "It's a public library. The documents go back centuries."</p>
     <p>"They can go back to the age of the fucking dinosaurs for all I care. What I want to know is what you are going to do about this."</p>
     <p>"There's not much I can do. They've hired Kerrigan Deane, and he's no slouch."</p>
     <p>"He's slapped an interdict on me. It prevents me reclaiming the river land."</p>
     <p>"And he's taking us to the court of Human Rights.  In Strasbourg for Christ's sake. They're  now demanding that we defend their rights under the Bruce Charter, and prevent you dumping the building into the river basin."</p>
     <p>"You can tell them to get stuffed." Sproat's voice was rising. He was losing his cool. Out in the vestibule, Marge Burns listened to the conversation with her hand over the mouthpiece.</p>
     <p>Bell sighed. "I really wish it were as easy as that."</p>
     <p>"What could be simpler? <EM>I</EM> fund your party and <em>you</em> make sure I don't get shafted. Which I am most definitely getting. Totally and completely."</p>
     <p>"Well, they seem to have got the public fired up about this. And there's an election coming up in three months time.  I can't just tell them to bugger off now, can I? It would be suicide."</p>
     <p>Sproat spluttered into the phone. The Charter 1315 protesters had somehow raised the money to get Kerrigan Deane to fight their corner and it would cost him an arm and a leg to get the interdict lifted.</p>
     <p>"So what are you telling me? You're going to back them?"</p>
     <p>"I might have no choice in the matter. Our legal people think they might have a case."</p>
     <p>"Nonsense. I told you, all this land and the river have been owned by my family for nearly two hundred years. I'll be damned if I let a bunch of unwashed hippies tell me what to do. And as for you, you damned spineless cretin, you better think of something.  If I can't infill the basin, I can't reclaim the land, and that means Trading Estates will pull out of the mall development. That happens and you can forget any funding forever. That happens and everybody gets to know about all of it, you got me? All the brown envelopes.  Let me give you a for instance, shall I?</p>
     <p>"I hear you," Bell said dryly. "I really think there's no need to make threats. I really don't see what I can do. There's not much I <em>can</em> do in the face of public opinion."</p>
     <p>"You just wait and see what opinion the public gets, you treacherous shit." Sproat was almost frothing at the mouth. "If you won't do it, I'll find someone who will. And believe me,  I'll break <em>you </em>into the bargain."</p>
     <p>He slammed the phone down and on the far side of the door, Marge Burns eased the receiver onto the cradle.</p>
     <p>"Marge," Sproat bawled, his voice strangely high and tight. He sounded as if something had burst in his throat. </p>
     <p>"Get me Michael Gabriel. I want to speak to that Italian client of his."</p>
     <p>"Mr D'Angeli?"</p>
     <p>"Him. Right away."</p>
     <p>Kate could hardly believe the letter from Kerrigan Deane. It had come in the post, right out of the blue on the Tuesday morning, addressed to her personally.</p>
     <p><em>Dear Miss Delaney</p>
     <p>We have been instructed to offer our services to the Bruce Charter 1315 organisation of which, we are reliably informed,  you are a key member.</p>
     <p>Our client, who wishes to preserve anonymity, has supplied us with a study and complete historical background to the protest and the ramifications of infilling the tidal basin in Levenford. Our client has financed such action as is necessary to counter these proposals by way of injunction or interdict against any and all parties involved, such funding being sufficient to cover our estimated legal and court costs.</p>
     <p>You have been nominated to us as representative of Charter 1315 and as such, we would require you to speedily obtain the consent of your organisation to enable us to immediately apply for interdict in the first instance and to prepare a legal case. </p>
     <p>              We eagerly await your instructions in this matter.</p>
     <p></em></p>
     <p>She stared at the letter for five minutes, letting her morning coffee grow cold, hardly able to comprehend what she had read. Finally she picked it up again, folded it carefully, and put it back in the envelope.</p>
     <p>"This is what we needed, Jack Lorne," she said aloud. "<em>Real </em>action."</p>
     <p>She pushed her chair back and found her summer jacket and stepped out into the sunshine. She would show him the letter that could help scupper Crichton and save the jobs at Aitkenbar</p>
     <p>
Chapter 18: Full Proof                                                                                                                                   Joe Donnelly




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