Welcome to the Heady Heights

by David F. Ross

  When her uncle Alec was found dead, at first Gail Proctor was confident that Scotland Yard would conduct a thorough investigation. But the post-mortem concluded that his death had occurred after significant blood loss from a self-inflicted knife wound. A substantial intake of aspirin, presumably to combat narrowing arteries, would’ve contributed to the speed of the death. However, no explanation was offered as to why a generally healthy man with no recorded history of cardiac complaints would slice into his veins outdoors and potentially in full view of a local school. Wasn’t this type of painless suicide always undertaken at home, and in a bath? Gail knew the post-mortem was flawed. And when any talk of a more thorough inquiry was hastily suppressed, she knew something was being deliberately hidden.

  Big Jamesie Campbell had moved back to Glasgow full-time just before Christmas. His new political initiative was building momentum, and his bulk was being witnessed everywhere – at public appearances at schools, hospitals and bingo halls across the East End. The man of the people, back to steal the ground out from under them. Hypnotising them – taunting her. She had to do something, if only for her own sanity.

  Gail left the cover of the tree belt before Big Jamesie Campbell left The Balgarth. She had more, and dramatic, material to add to her notes, but still no firm idea as to what it all meant. But she was excited and enthused. If her suspicions were correct – if the picture she was slowly making from the pieces she had gathered over these past few months was the real one – this would bring Campbell and his friends down. It would be a delicious irony if Big Jamesie’s downfall resulted from his unshakeable belief that he was above the law. Wasn’t that how all despots ultimately fell?

  Big Jamesie Campbell’s upcoming press conference offered her a slim chance of getting into the same room as him. Of asking a pointed question or two. Maybe get under his dimpled skin. She’d need a more convincing ID. A regular from The Press Bar could help. He had done before. The hardened hacks in there would do anything for a free slate.

  5

  March 1976

  For the first time in months, Archie had slept well. He felt confident that four unbroken hours had been achieved. He attributed them to a good evening spent with his dad. Earlier in the week, father and son had settled down in Stanley’s sparse new living room to watch their new favourite programme. It was an American cop show. It featured a son and his retired, truck-driving father, living together in a shiny, metal caravan overlooking the Pacific Ocean in California.

  ‘Turn the sound up, Archie son, will ye? An’ get us a wee Bakewell fae ben the press.’

  ‘Right da,’ Archie had said.

  Stanley turned sideways to speak directly to Rocky, the father from the show. And Archie did the same, but to the main character, Jim Rockford. It didn’t feel weird to Archie, it felt natural. It calmed his father. They both loved it.

  Maybe it’s better for you tae accept his new normal … rather than you always tryin’ to pull him back the way into yours. It had taken Archie a long time to fully understand what Cathy, the lovely young woman who looked in on his dad from time to time, had meant by this. But now he realised she was right. Stanley Blunt resembled an elaborate and complex charcoal drawing being erased a few lines at a time. Archie understood the immense value of celebrating the good times. He knew there would be less and less of them.

  ‘Know what’s good about this yin?’ said Stanley.

  ‘What’s that, da?’

  ‘Ah’m sick ae aw they cop shows where the main characters have tae have somethin’ wrong wi’ them.’

  Archie hadn’t given this much thought previously but his dad was right. There was Ironside and his wheelchair, Harry-O and his bad back, ‘…an’ Kojak wi’ the hair loss!’ Archie wasn’t sure Stanley’s diagnosis of Telly Savalas’s baldness as a medical flaw was accurate, but Jim Rockford did indeed seem different. He wasn’t a cop, or a detective admittedly, but he was far more identifiable to East End males: a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, jailed for something he didn’t do, and now simply trying to make a better life for himself. Many in Shettleston could surely identify with that.

  It had only been a few weeks, but Archie Blunt found himself speaking to Jim Rockford more often, and increasingly when he was alone. He had begun to find comfort in having someone to confide in; someone who understood the isolation that enforced suspension was putting him through. That his companion was a figment of his imagination was irrelevant. It made him feel connected to a part of his dad’s existence that had begun to seem increasingly blocked off. Cathy had been right; seeing reality from his dad’s skewed perspective had given them both a foothold. That was enough for Archie. He’d deal with the downward slope of Stanley’s diminishing capabilities one step at a time.

  Out in the damp, morning air, his initial vibrancy was wearing off. Archie’s shoes were letting in. A sole, repaired a few years ago, was working its way loose again. The metal segs that had protected it were gone. His left foot looked like a muddy version of Donald Duck’s flapping beak. An hour’s saturated plod through the wet open spaces of Tollcross Park then along the local back roads and Archie Blunt finally stood outside The Barrachnie Inn and breathed in its distinctive vapour. It was a stereotypical East End hardman’s place, dressed up as if it was preparing to host a shotgun wedding. A fraught Geordie McCartney – Archie’s union representative at the Corporation – had summoned him here. Archie wasn’t entirely sure why. Neither of them ever drank here. Such a pastime could be life-limiting.

  The rain had eased. Rays of sunlight had broken through thick heavy clouds that only ten minutes earlier seemed so low that you could’ve reached up and touched them. Fucking Glasgow weather; it could change its outlook faster than a pub argument. Archie looked either way along the street. A high level of caution was the default setting when entering places like The Barrachnie alone.

  He stepped through the arcane wooden-panelled doors. They swung back and hit him solidly, propelling him into the pub like a faded gunslinger in a comedy Western, the smattering of uninterested drinkers strategically placed extras. They looked up, and then looked away. Archie peered through the grey haze and saw his man. Geordie McCartney was positioned at the other end of the bar, in a dark corner. Even from this distance, he appeared unsteady and anxious. Archie assumed they were here to discuss his misconduct case. Geordie had said they needed a witness to support their case. All Archie’s faith had been placed in his friend’s judgement.

  The cigarette smoke cleared. Geordie had slumped forwards. His forehead was now on the bar.

  ‘Geordie.’

  There was no response to Archie’s whisper.

  Slightly louder: ‘Hey, McCartney.’

  The bald dome rose up only when Archie prodded the back of it.

  ‘Aye, ah’m up … wh’izzit?’ He had been dozing. Counter as a headboard. McEwan’s bar towel as a pillow.

  ‘Fuck sake, mate. Look at the nick ae you. Whit’s goin’ on?’

  ‘Well Arch, she’s went an’ done it!’ Despite the escaping peripheral drool, Geordie seemed calm.

  ‘Done what? Geordie, what’s the story?’

  ‘Ah’m fucked, man!’ Geordie laughed. Archie was beginning to sense that it was delirium and not alcohol that was responsible for Geordie’s diminished senses.

  ‘A couple ae nights ago,’ Geordie slurred. ‘Teresa.’ He giggled, but it was the type of nervy, impromptu laugh of a lunatic on death row, walking to the chamber. ‘Kicked us out, an’ then shot the craw!’ He stood up and yelled, ‘Fuck sake!’

  ‘Jesus. Lower yer voice, eh? An’ stop makin’ a tit ae yerself in here.’ Archie suspected that those who frequented The Barrachnie early on a Tuesday morning wouldn’t think twice about knee-capping a couple of low-level saps just for the ‘crime’ of some unwarranted sound pollution.

  ‘He’s just a bit upset, y’know what ah mean?’ Archie said to those now looking on sternly. ‘The budgie’s deid. Been wi’ him for years. He’s devastate
d … as ye’se can aw see.’

  Archie wrestled his pal back down and onto the bar stool. ‘Mate, what happened? Whit the fuck are ye goin’ on about?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Teresa’s left me. Threw ma stuff out in the front garden. Changed the locks, an’ buggered off.’ Geordie dabbed at his eyes.

  Jesus Christ, he’s greetin’ now!

  Geordie threw an arm around Archie’s waist. Now Archie felt certain that they’d both be picking their teeth out of the sawdust.

  ‘Aw my own fault,’ wailed Geordie. He reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. The words on it had been formed of newspaper letters, cut out and arranged like a ransom note.

  WEEKLy PAyMeNT INCReASE NOTiCE – Now UP TO Twenty POUnDS

  ‘Christ, Geordie … who wrote this, the fucken Black Panther?’

  ‘It was him, it must’ve been her man … that Susie yin!’

  ‘Who the fuck’s Susie, pal? Yer no’ makin’ any sense here, mate.’ Archie took the paper. He read the words carefully again, like he was a code-breaker from Bletchley Park. A realisation dawned. Geordie McCartney had been with a woman. Susie. That Susie. The coquettish clippie from Dennistoun. The one that always wore her Corporation green shirt unbuttoned and wide open, advertising a pale cleavage, as white and dramatic as an alpine ski run.

  ‘How did ye get this?’

  ‘It was stuck in ma locker at the … up the depot,’ Geordie lied.

  ‘An’ did Teresa see it?’

  ‘Eh … naw. Ah don’t think so.’ Another lie.

  ‘An’ what does it mean by “increase”?’

  ‘There was another note, the first yin,’ Geordie admitted. ‘Ah just about managed the payments. Tre was none the wiser.’

  Large numbers of questions were forming in Archie’s mind, but he was struggling to put them in any logical order.

  ‘So… why’s Teresa left ye, then?’

  ‘Susie, ah helped her out,’ said Geordie, answering a question that Archie hadn’t actually asked yet.

  ‘Ae her knickers?’

  ‘Naw … well, aye … but she had some money troubles.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, what age are you?’

  ‘Ah’ve been duped, man!’ Geordie wailed, drawing more dark looks. ‘When ah got home, Teresa was holdin’ a brown envelope.’

  ‘What was in it?’

  ‘Ah don’t know. She didnae show me.’

  ‘So…’ Archie wasn’t sure what to ask next. Geordie filled the gaps.

  ‘Susie’s man had been round. Telt her ah’d been pumpin’ his missus.’

  ‘Cannae imagine that’d’ve been a first for him!’

  ‘Hey, enough!’

  Archie couldn’t believe his friend was jumping to defend the honour of a woman widely acknowledged to have ‘comforted’ more desperate and delusional men than Johnnie Walker.

  ‘He telt Teresa that ah’d been givin’ Susie money for sex. For tae shag her, like!’

  ‘An’ did ye?’

  ‘Naw. Well, it might’ve looked like that tae him, but ah swear, ah just liked the lassie. Thought she liked me tae.’

  ‘So, where’ve ye been the last two days?’

  ‘Slept in the motor.’

  Archie reread the note. He didn’t know Susie Mackintosh’s husband. Didn’t even know she had one. He did know several boys in the Corporation who had been with her though. And that – even accepting the bus-depot bravado – she was regularly the instigator.

  Archie knew there was yet more confessing to be done, but looking around he knew it couldn’t be done here. ‘We need tae get out ae here,’ stressed Archie. ‘An’ now!’

  Outside, Archie decided to head back to the comparative cover of the park. He dragged an exhausted Geordie like a ventriloquist with a bear-sized puppet. Archie was out of breath by the time they reached a secluded bench.

  ‘Right, fucken spill, George! What the fuck have you done?’

  Geordie looked down. He pulled his shoes in so that the soles touched; a child sitting in the headmaster’s office trying to compose a version of the truth that mitigated the worst judgement. He blew out his cheeks.

  ‘Ah was invited out … a couple ae months back. Ah got asked by a guy, tae stand in for a guy. Last minute, like. A union do, by all accounts,’ said Geordie, mournfully. ‘A few big wigs at the Corporation, know?’

  ‘Aye. Ah suppose.’

  ‘Big Jamesie Campbell, that Labour guy, was gonnae be speakin’, settin’ out his plans for that new fucken “free party” bollocks. It was a fundraiser. Tre says “Ach just go … it might help ye get on”. So, ah went. Didnae want tae, though. There wis a buffet … wee square bits ae cheese on cocktail sticks stuck intae a pineapple. Fucken bananas baked in ham, man. It was mental. Free bar, tae.’

  ‘So, what happened?’ asked Archie.

  Geordie looked left and right. An old couple strolled slowly up the path towards them. The old man tipped his cap. The old couple were fifty feet away before Geordie continued in a lowered voice.

  ‘We’re at The Balgarth…’

  ‘Haw, haud on … The fucken Balgarth?’ The Barrachnie was bad enough, but The Balgarth, with its ‘guns an’ gangsters’ reputation? That was ratcheting the fear up another notch altogether.

  ‘Well, aye. Didnae fucken know that’s where we were headed aforehand, did ah?’ Geordie was defensive. Somethin’ big tae hide, reckoned Archie.

  Geordie continued: ‘It’s well by midnight. There’s loads ae pished union guys droolin’ ower wee lassies servin’ them drink … an’ then a crowd ae these other guys turn up. Telly personalities, some ae them. In cahoots wi’ the big man Campbell an’ some other politicians. Ah recognised a couple ae them.’

  ‘In The Balgarth? Ye sure?’

  ‘Aye. Nae fear. Ah was three sheets myself, but ah could still see them. They came in, pressed the flesh a bit, an’ then headed through these big double doors tae roulette wheels in a back room. It felt a bit like a fucken high-class gentleman’s club!’

  Archie was struggling to align The Balgarth with an establishment that sounded like it should have been in Mayfair.

  ‘They’d been in there for over an hour, before ah spotted some ae them comin’ out an’ goin’ up the back stairs. Two ae the guys ah was wi’ were stocious … out for the count. So, ah staggers away lookin’ for the bogs, an’ ah takes the wrong turnin’ an’ ah’m shufflin’ along this corridor when ah hears these weird sounds. Moanin’ sounds, y’know?’

  Archie was enraptured, like he was listening to an X-rated Jackanory story.

  ‘Somebody sounds like they’re in serious bloody pain, so ah edges this door open a wee bit, an’ well … fuck me!’

  ‘What … fucken whit, Geordie?’

  Geordie gulps. ‘There’s five ae these cunts – the famous yins – haudin’ this kid down while another yin is stickin’ somethin’ up…’ Geordie pauses, as if acknowledging it out loud would implicate him in the act. ‘…Somethin’ up the kid’s arse!’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘Ah’m bloody tellin’ ye, Arch. Ah saw the bastarts doin’ it.’

  ‘A boy or a lassie?’

  ‘Eh? Aw … em, a boy.’

  ‘A wean?’

  ‘Naw, naw … dunno. Maybe a twenty-year-old. Ginger-haired kid. His skin was aw blue tae.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. You sure? Were ye pished at that point?’

  ‘Aye. But God’s honest truth, Archie. Oan the weans lives!’

  ‘Fuck. Did he see ye … the boy ah mean?’’

  ‘Naw, he had a blindfold on.’ Geordie wiped the saliva from the corners of his mouth. ‘The door creaked, an’ the rest ae them aw looked up.’ Geordie was teary again.

  ‘But did they clock it was you?’

  ‘Ah dinnae think so.’

  ‘But ye said they looked up.’

  ‘Aye … but we were aw wearin’ masks.’

  ‘Masks? What in the name ae the wee man for?’

  ‘
It was a fucken masked ball thing!’

  ‘Wis there any women there then?’ Geordie’s head slumped further. ‘Well?’

  ‘Aye. A few.’ Another pause, but Geordie had to say it. It was the very root of his predicament. ‘Susie Mackintosh. She was workin’ there. Servin’ drinks. Long story but ah got a blow-job off her when ah went in.’

  ‘Ach, Jesus Christ … ye couldnae have just asked for a ticket for yer coat?’

  ‘We were just sittin’. She came over. She didnae recognise me, wi’ the mask an’ that. But she starts greetin’, sayin’ how desperate her life is, that her man gives her nothin’ an’ takes aw her wages off her tae plough intae The Gartocher an’ the bookies.’ Geordie spat out some phlegm.

  ‘Yer no’ a bloody charity, mate.’ Archie sighed. ‘Can you no’ just say it wisnae you? Has he got any proof?’

  ‘He knows about the tattoo.’

  Geordie’s distinctive 1972 RFC tattoo was inked onto the right cheek of his ample buttock … just above Teresa’s name.

  ‘Susie’s obviously telt him about it.’

  ‘Fuck sake, Geordie.’ Archie sighed. He read again the note Geordie had given him earlier.

  ‘Ah mean … blackmail? Yer a bloody bus driver. Yer Geordie McCartney, no’ Paul!’

  ‘He sees me as an income-generator, Archie. Disnae give a shite about Teresa. This a payment demand … or a batterin’.’

  ‘How many times then, big man?’ Geordie looked down. Ashamed.

  ‘The Balgarth was the first.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Ah’ve shagged her three times since … naw, four!’

  ‘Christ on a bike!’

  ‘Look, Tre an’ me … it was never like you an’ Bet. We had tae get married. No’ a great kick-off when ye have tae put the registrar back two months because ae her waters burstin’, is it?’ Geordie sighed. ‘It’ll maybe be for the best, mate. There was nae love there, last few years. We were just goin’ through the motions, an’ that.’