The Amateurs

by John Niven

  ‘Whit? Why? Where are ye? Whit’s going on?’

  ‘Lisa, please, hen, ye have to do whit ah’m telling ye.’

  ‘Aw God, aw my God, Lee,’ she was crying now, ‘whit have ye done? Whit have ye done now?’

  ‘Shhh, hen. It’s OK. It’ll be awright. Ah love ye, doll, so ah dae. And it’s no something I’ve done. It’s something I haven’t done.’

  And, as he said those words, for the first time since he ran from the Mastersons’ house into the woods in the early hours of that morning, Lee felt something other than shame, failure and fear. He felt relief. Almost pride.

  She’d been looking at him, her eyeballs bulging like mad, struggling against the duct tape, trying to speak. He’d said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then, just as his finger tensed on the trigger, an image and a short string of words came to him very clearly. He’d burst into tears, slumped down against the wall and cried for a long time, cried like he hadn’t done since he was a wee boy, big convulsing, racking sobs. Crying because of what he had come to, what he’d been about to do, yes, but also crying because he knew now he could never do it. And he’d be in big trouble. And they could have really used the money.

  With a trembling hand Lee had reached up and peeled the silver tape gently off her mouth. For some reason, something in her eyes, he knew she wasn’t going to scream now. Clearly, very calmly, she said, ‘It’s my husband, isn’t it?’

  They had talked for a while, the two of them, Lee sitting on the kitchen floor, Leanne still taped to the chair.

  ‘Shhh, hen, shhh,’ Lee said as Lisa sobbed steadily on the other end of the line. ‘It’ll be OK. Just get the weans ready and go. Ah’ll sort everything out and ah’ll come and get yese.’

  ‘Aw, Lee,’ Lisa sobbed, getting her breathing under control, ‘where are ye?’

  ‘Ah’m OK. Ah’m in Glasgow. At a hotel. Get going, hen. Ah’ll phone ye at May’s, right?’

  Lee hung up, feeling better, and lit another cigarette. He walked over to the window and pulled back the net curtain. Just visible over the slate rooftops was the River Clyde and the railway bridge that led into Glasgow from the south, from Ardgirvan.

  Lee remembered the family trip to Glasgow on the train, years ago when he and Gary were just wee boys. They’d walked all over the city that day, covering the great length of Sauchiehall Street, into the leafy streets that ran along the River Kelvin, taking turns riding up on their dad’s shoulders, squealing with delight as he unexpectedly jumped and jiggled them, or squeezed his strong thumbs into their fleshy calves. They’d gone to a fair in the Kelvin Hall and then ate the picnic they’d brought with them in the park, warm Vimto and the bread of the sandwiches wet from the tomatoes, the crusts dark and bitter. (‘Curls yer hair,’ their dad told them as he ate theirs.) Him and Gary play-fighting with their dad on the grass, climbing over him like he was a mountain. His parents kissing. Walking back to the station in the warm dusk they’d seen a beggar slouched over a grating outside some shops. He was filthy; a long straggly beard, his skin yellow with dirt under several layers of tattered clothing. He had a little tin next to him and a sign that said ‘Please Help Me’. It was the first time Lee and Gary had ever seen a beggar. You didn’t get them in Ardgirvan. (There was Benny, the town drunk, who famously shat his pants in Shorts the baker’s once, but that was different.) Their dad bent down and dropped the change from his pocket into the man’s tin. ‘Why did you give the man money, Daddy?’ Lee had asked him. His father took his hand and squeezed it and said, ‘There but for the grace of God go I, son.’

  It was those words and that image of his father that had come unbidden into Lee’s head as he stood over the Masterson woman in the kitchen of her big house last night. Those words and that image that had stopped him from doing what he’d been going to do.

  Lee tossed his cigarette end out the window and watched the glowing tip spiral five floors to the street below. He lay down on the bed, his head swimming.

  Just a wee nap.

  Alec Campbell, as angry as he’d ever been, drove fast and hard through the winding streets of his housing scheme, calling up the Beast’s number on his mobile as he went.

  ‘Frank? It’s Alec. Meet me at 15 Burns Crescent in ten minutes.’ Alec listened for a moment. ‘Good. And Frank? Bring yer kit.’

  41

  BY CHRIST, THE BOY WAS PLAYING WELL, RANTA thought. Gary had been at the eleventh when Ranta arrived, the fearsome par five known as ‘Railway’, on account of the train tracks that ran parallel to the hole. He’d made par there and all the way through to the sixteenth, which he birdied to go to eight under for the round–currently looking like the best round of the day–and level par for the tournament: safely within the projected cutline of one over par. (Gary’s playing partners had been less fortunate: a string of bogeys had taken Coffey to six over par and out of the tournament. Crawford Koon’s drive at the eleventh had been pushed too far right, clattering onto the train tracks. Koon triple-bogeyed the hole to go to four over and Goodnight Vienna.)

  When Gary’s putt dropped for birdie on the sixteenth Ranta was thinking hard, feeling that tingle between the shoulder blades. If he waited until he made the cut Ranta’s odds would be drastically reduced. However, if he made the bet now and Gary didn’t make the cut then he’d be out an awful lot of money in the time it took to play two holes of golf.

  Ranta called his bookie–Big Malky. He spelled Gary’s name out. ‘A hundred and eighty to one,’ Malky told him. Ranta thought about Masterson’s envelope still sitting in his desk drawer. Fuck it–it was found money anyway. There was a long, long pause after Ranta told Malky how much he wanted to bet. Even Malky, long used to Ranta’s extreme-danger betting was stunned. ‘Jesus fuck,’ Malky said. ‘Are you sure about this, Ranta?’ Ranta was sure. He hung up.

  ‘Just get it on the green somewhere,’ Stevie said, handing Gary the five-iron as they walked onto the seventeenth tee: a tough par three, 220-odd yards, wind freshening and coming off the right now. ‘Nothing fancy. Two pars and we’re done and dusted.’

  ‘Nae bother,’ Gary said, feeling as relaxed and confident as he’d ever felt.

  A few seconds later he was saying ‘Fuck’ and feeling his stomach collapsing as he watched his ball sailing horribly offline.

  Ranta fought his way back to the front of the ropes, tucking his mobile into his pocket as the crowd began to groan. ‘Whit happened?’ Ranta whispered to the girl next to him as he strained to catch sight of the ball.

  ‘He’s pulled it,’ April said.

  Ranta felt faint.

  Lisa packed quickly. The boys were out, playing at the skate park round the corner with their pals. Wee Amazon was out the back in her sandpit. Phone a taxi, finish packing and pick the boys up on the way to the station. She hurried across the bedroom, pulled open a drawer and started throwing underwear into her holdall. The thick roll of fifty-pound notes in the front pocket of her jeans felt hot.

  The slam of a car door made her look up and out of the bedroom window: a black jeep in front of the house and two men walking up the garden path.

  Alec Campbell.

  Jesus Christ, Alec Campbell at their front door. Behind him was a huge man with a deep scar running from one temple to his chin. Lisa swallowed and took a couple of deep breaths before she came running down the stairs as the doorbell started ringing.

  ‘Haud oan!’ Lisa said, trying to sound pissed off as she tugged the door open.

  ‘Aye?’ she said aggressively.

  ‘Lisa?’ Alec said, smiling.

  ‘Alec?’ Lisa said, squinting, pretending not to recognise him at first.

  ‘It’s been a few years, eh?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘We’re looking for Lee.’

  ‘You and me both.’

  Alec looked past her, into the hallway where the bag she’d packed for the kids lay. ‘Off somewhere?’ he asked. The other guy was just staring at her.

  ‘Och, ah wis just taking the weans oot
for the day.’

  Alec smiled. ‘Is that right?’ he said.

  He pushed past her into the house, the Beast following.

  ‘Hey, whit dae ye think yer–’ Lisa began, following them into the kitchen, where Alec took a seat at the little breakfast nook. The Beast stood at the back door, looking out into the garden, where Amazon was playing in her little sandpit.

  ‘Lisa hen,’ Alec said, ‘don’t be a fucking erse. Listen tae me now. Lee’s been a daft boy. He took a wee job on for me and my dad.’ Ranta. The mention of him was enough to make Lisa unsure of her legs. ‘And, well, let’s just say he’s let us down.’

  ‘Alec, ah swear, ah don’t know where he is. He didnae come home last night. Ah’ve been sick worrying about him. Ah–’ Alec held up a hand to silence her.

  ‘He went out last night then?’

  ‘Aye. About the back o’ nine. Said he’d be home aboot midnight.’

  ‘He hasn’t phoned?’

  ‘Naw, Alec, ah swear tae ye. Ah swear oan ma weans’ life.’

  ‘Sure and that’s the second time we’ve heard that, eh, Frank?’ The Beast opened the kitchen door and walked out into the concrete backyard. ‘Christ, when was it I last saw you, Lisa?’ Alec went on pleasantly. ‘Doon the Metro or somewhere back in the day? Right wee raver back then, weren’t you? Loved yer pills.’ Lisa didn’t answer, she was looking at the Beast, standing over the sandpit talking to Amazon. ‘Big Suzie Donald and Karen Henderson you were pals wi, weren’t ye?’

  Lisa reached into her pocket and took the money out. She held it towards Alec. ‘Here, there’s nearly a thousand pound there, Alec. Ah don’t know how much ye gave him but we’ll pay it aw back.’

  Alec laughed as he took the money from her. ‘Oh aye, raid wan o’ yer Swiss bank accounts, will ye?’ he said, looking around the tiny, squalid kitchen. ‘Anyway, Lisa, it’s no even aboot the money any more. It’s a question o’ professional ethics. Ma family’s standing in the community and aw’ that.’

  The Beast came back in, carrying Amazon. He sat down opposite Alec with the child in his lap. ‘Yer wee lassie was showing me her sandcastles, weren’t ye, hen?’ he said.

  Amazon nodded proudly. ‘We’re going away on holiday!’ she said. ‘You can’t come!’ she added, pointing to Alec.

  ‘I’d love to sit here and chat about the old days, Lisa, ah really would.’ Alec, getting up now and coming over towards her, putting his hands on her shoulders. ‘But ah’ve got to sort this out. So, why don’t ye just tell us where he is, eh? And then we can all get on with our day and Frank here’ll no have to carve a pair o’ smiley faces into your wee lassie’s fucking cheeks.’

  Lisa started to cry, her head bowed down, hair covering her face. Over her shoulder Alec saw her mobile phone sitting on the counter next to the sink. He reached out and picked it up. Into ‘Received calls’ and there was a Glasgow number. Alec had dialled it before Lisa realised what he was doing. She made a grab for the phone, but Alec clamped her wrist with his free hand and easily held her away.

  ‘Mummy!’ Amazon said.

  ‘It’s OK, doll,’ the Beast said, restraining the child. ‘They’re just playing.’

  ‘Naw,’ Lisa sobbed.

  ‘Glasgow Radisson Hotel, Deborah sp—’ the girl said before Alec hung up.

  ‘Please, Alec,’ Lisa said through tears, ‘d-don’t hurt him.’

  ‘Cheer up, hen,’ Alec said, reaching out and cupping her face, ‘you’re still a good-looking lassie. Ye can do better than Lee Irvine. Now, ye don’t mind if ah leave Frank here for a wee while, do ye? Prevent ye from making any rash phone calls or anything like that.’

  The front door slammed behind Alec and Amazon ran over and wrapped her arms around Lisa’s leg while the Beast slipped his jacket off and hung it over the back of his chair. ‘Be a doll and stick the kettle oan,’ he said to Lisa, ‘ah’m gasping fur a cuppa tea so ah um.’

  42

  IT HADN’T BEEN THE WORST PULL IN THE WORLD; HE JUST came in a little heavily with the right hand, coming across it and tugging it a little to the left. However, with the prevailing right-to-left wind, it was enough to send the shot ten yards offline, where it smacked down into the left-hand greenside bunker.

  Worse was in store when they got up there. The ball had plugged under the lip, buried down in the fine sand. ‘Fuck,’ Stevie said.

  ‘Oh shit,’ April said, tiptoeing to get a look over the ropes and the heads of the other spectators.

  Ranta couldn’t believe it. The minute he puts his bet on the cunt makes the first bad swing he’s made in six fucking holes?

  Gary was thinking. There was no way to play the ball forward. No way back either. About the only shot open to him was to try and blast it out sideways. Get it out close to the green, get up and down for bogey and then try and make birdie down the last. If he…Gary stopped himself, derailing the thought process while it was happening.

  One shot at a time.

  He took the sand wedge from Stevie and dug his feet into the sparkling, powdery sand. Too hard and he might send it flying into the thick rough behind the green. Too soft and he might not clear the bunker. He took a couple of jerky, nervy practice swings, closing the clubface right down to get it to cut into the sand behind the ball. Just dig the fucker out. He hovered the club behind the ball and held his breath.

  ‘Come on, Gary,’ April whispered.

  An explosion of sand and he was brushing grains of it out of his face and hair, coughing as he squinted to see where the ball had gone, noticing how oddly silent the crowd were. Gary looked down. There it was–maybe half an inch from where it had been when he swung the club.

  ‘OK, come on,’ he whispered to himself as he retook his stance. He swung again. Another eruption of sand, launching the ball up and forward this time–where it caught the lip of the bunker and bounced back to land in almost exactly the same spot again.

  Ranta’s face was turning a very alarming colour.

  Silence as he swung the club for a third time–not even caring any more–and, incredibly, the ball hopped up and landed in the light rough around the edge of the green, about thirty yards from the hole.

  Gary put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground.

  There was that fizzing sensation in his skull.

  ‘Easy,’ Stevie said.

  ‘Grip. Hoor. Baws. Cunt,’ Gary said.

  Stevie handed Gary the eight-iron to play his pitch-and-run and tiptoed away from him towards the ropes. Cathy came up behind him. ‘Stevie son, is he all right?’ she whispered.

  ‘He’s fine. Just having a wee turn.’

  Gary growled and then made a strange bark.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Stevie said with a reassurance he did not feel.

  Lee Irvine–a real Ayrshireman, an unreconstructed product of the old school–was what his mother affection ately termed a ‘plain eater’. Which is to say that he was a thirty-five-year-old man with the palate of a fussy toddler. He would not eat anything in any kind of sauce. Apart from when it came soaked in fat-dripping batter, he had never knowingly eaten fish in his life. Other than potatoes he did not eat vegetables of any description. He liked his meat well done, his cheese orange, his bread white and he was as likely to be found munching on a substantial penis as he was eating a salad.

  Consequently, it was with a mixture of trepidation, revulsion and outright fury that he scanned the room-service menu at the Glasgow Radisson. His eyebrows dancing, his lips quivering, his pupils widening: he looked like a devout Muslim reading a very extreme S&M manual. Every dish, even when it contained a central ingredient Lee could tolerate–hamburger, beef, chicken–had been corrupted and perverted by some demonic addition: ‘black olives…lemon mayonnaise…garlic-and-herb crust…Jerusalem artichokes…fennel’. Whit in the name o’ fuck was fennel when it was at hame? Glossy photographs of the repulsive dishes–marooned in the middle of enormous white plates and brazenly oozing their luminous sauces–further taunted him. Fuck this. Lee
was starving. Hank. Fucking Hank Marvin. Lee Marvin.

  Lee was Lee.

  There was a chippy near the station. He’d seen it on the way here. Black-pudding supper. The auld darkie’s walloper and chips. Magic.

  He stepped out of the elevator and crossed the sunlit atrium towards the revolving glass doors that led to the street. Lost in hunger he realised too late who was coming swirling through the glass doors.

  ‘A’right, Lee?’ Alec Campbell said.

  As his knees buckled Lee sensed someone else moving up behind him, then something hard hidden beneath a coat was being pressed between his kidneys and then he was being led towards a car idling at the kerb.

  Suddenly he wasn’t hungry any more.

  The wind had really freshened now as Stevie and Gary walked in silence down the eighteenth fairway towards his drive, a decent strike considering he’d hit it in a numb daze. He’d managed to get up and down in two at the last hole, for a triple bogey six. Three over par. Even a birdie here would most likely leave him missing the cut by a single stroke. He fingered the indent in his temple, aware of the fizzing sensation, the sparkling lemonade in his skull intensifying. ‘Oh well,’ Stevie said as they reached his ball, ‘we gave it a good go, eh?’

  ‘Fudfannyflapsboot,’ Gary replied.

  They looked down the fairway to where the grandstands surrounded the eighteenth green. It looked like quite a crowd–people already reserving their places for when the likes of Linklater and Keel started to come rolling through in a couple of hours. Stevie consulted the yardage book.

  ‘You’ve got about 190 to the pin.’

  ‘Pishpishcuntpish,’ Gary said, plucking a tuft of grass and flicking it into the air above their heads. It blew straight over them and back down the fairway towards the tee.