by Les Wood
Boag had no idea how Boddice had found out about the incident, but he knew every detail. He may have heard it from the old man, though Boag could never remember discussing it.
And Boddice was delighted with the prospect. He seemed to think Boag had just the skills necessary to see his Plan through. Boag was less sure, but what Boddice proposed didn’t seem beyond his capabilities.
At least at first.
Now, sitting on the steps, he faltered. Boddice had given him the notebook to jot down the kind of materials he would require in order to set up the diversions and distractions the robbery was going to require. Boddice would make sure the supplies were obtained in good time. Boag hadn’t written a thing. His pen remained in his pocket. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to do. That part was easy.
But the others. The others were not going to like this.
Not one bit.
The Wilson Twins: Sartorial Eloquence
Boddice sprawled on the sofa in the back room of The Herdsman watching Campbell and John. They were perched on the stools in front of him blinking self-consciously and feeling conspicuous, vulnerable. Boddice was enjoying their discomfort. He sparked a match against the sole of his shoe and lit up a cigarillo, sent blue clouds of smoke rolling towards the ceiling. Boddice didn’t offer them a drink. Through the glass of the swing doors Campbell could see McLean waiting on the other side, in the main space of the pub, making sure no-one disturbed them.
John attempted to break the ice. ‘Nice jacket, Mr Boddice,’ he said.
Boddice held out his arms, inspected the sleeves. ‘I’m tempted to say ‘this old thing?”’ he laughed. ‘But that would hardly be truthful, seeing as I only got it yesterday. What do you think? Colour not too bright?’
Campbell had the urge to blurt out something about how puke-yellow really suited him, went with his eyes. Instead he said, ‘Well, it’s different. Not your usual style, if ye don’t mind me saying.’
‘I’m not sure of it myself,’ said Boddice. ‘It’s a designer original, very classy, very expensive of course. But I’m not sure this shade is the right sort of thing for a dreich winter’s day in Glasgow.’ He stretched, leaned back, put his hands behind his head. ‘Still, it brightens my mood a wee bit. That can only be a good thing can’t it?’
‘A good thing, aye,’ said John.
Boddice sucked in another drag from the cigarillo and took a sip from his whisky. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Are we ready? I see you have your envelopes prepared.’
Campbell tapped his envelope against his knee. He had a bad feeling about this. He felt he’d picked something John could manage without too much of a problem, but still enough to make it a bit of a challenge. He just hoped he hadn’t overestimated John’s abilities.
‘Who wants to go first?’ said Boddice, rubbing his hands. He was relishing the situation, looking forward to the outcome. ‘Remember,’ he said. ‘This has a serious purpose. If it doesn’t come off, the whole plan will have to be changed.’
John pre-empted any discussion by reaching out to Campbell and taking the envelope from his hand. ‘Ah’ll go,’ he said.
He ripped open the envelope, took out the piece of paper and studied it. He frowned and pointed to the sheet. ‘Ah can hardly read your writing Campbell, what the hell’s that word supposed to say?’
Campbell stood behind him, spotted the offending word. ‘Enrolled,’ he said.
‘Enrolled?’ said John. ‘Looks like ‘Brillo’ to me.’
Campbell was losing patience. ‘Well, it’s ‘enrolled’. Just get on with reading it.’
Campbell watched John scanning the paper, his lips moving as he read the words. He gave a little smirk and raised an eyebrow at Campbell. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘That seems doable.’
Boddice nodded, tapping ash onto the floor. ‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘I like your confidence. That’s just what we need.’
Confidence can be misplaced, thought Campbell. John’s task seemed straightforward enough at first glance – Campbell had put his name down for lessons for a Heavy Goods Vehicle licence, in fact had undergone the first two sessions himself, was quite enjoying it. It would be up to John to complete the ten-day course. The difficult bit came with the fact that Campbell hadn’t paid for the lessons yet. He’d persuaded the training school to let him pay in instalments and he’d so far failed to make a single payment. It would be up to John to sort out the melee that was surely about to follow.
John gave a self-satisfied grin, and handed his envelope to Campbell. ‘Hope you’re up for this one, brother!’ he said, a malicious glint in his eye.
Campbell took the envelope and sucked in a deep breath. He stole a look at Boddice, who was watching the two of them with barely-contained glee. He loves this, thought Campbell. He’s getting a real kick out of taking a rise out of us. They were used to being teased as twins of course, enduring the childhood taunts, the name-calling, the embarrassment of being dressed identically on a Sunday morning for church and the attendant oohs and aahs and cheek-pinching of ancient aunties and make-up-caked women in the street. It was all par for the course, it went with the territory. But as they grew older and began to develop their individual personalities, they became less tolerant of the jibes of the other kids, retaliated more often, got into more fights. Worked hard to make sure they won them too. Soon, the others realised it wasn’t worth it any more; not unless they wanted a sore face. Things settled down. But to Campbell, this scheme of Boddice’s didn’t seem much more than a return to the bad old days. It was clear Boddice just wanted to have a bit of fun at their expense. He couldn’t see how this plan depended so much on their pretending to be one person. He looked at John. He seemed to be enjoying himself as well. His face was split by a broad smile, and his eyes twinkled with amusement. Campbell ran his fingers over the envelope. Maybe he was being too sensitive. Maybe there wasn’t any harm in it. Better to just enter into the spirit of things, get it over and done with.
He slipped his finger under the sealed flap and ripped open the envelope. He took out the piece of paper. He almost laughed when he saw that John had used a page from an old school jotter. He shook his head. Why on earth did John hang on to things like that, relics from their schooldays?
‘Go on,’ said John. ‘Read it.’
Campbell unfolded the paper and read John’s block capital scrawl. This couldn’t be right. This had to be a joke, surely. He turned to Boddice, almost showed him what this idiot brother of his had written. Boddice held up his hand, shook his head. Campbell blinked furiously, willing the words to change, to transform into something realistic, anything, just not what was written here. He looked at John, his mouth beginning to twitch. ‘You cannot be serious,’ he said.
John blinked, sensing Campbell’s rising fury. ‘Aye, Ah am,’ he said. ‘Totally serious.’
‘This isn’t one of your daft fucking ideas of a sick joke?’ asked Campbell.
‘Naw,’ said John, flicking his eyes to the paper. ‘That’s your task. That’s what ye have—’
He didn’t get the chance to finish. Campbell launched himself at John. He toppled his brother from the stool, which smashed, the pieces clattering towards the fireplace. Campbell pinned John on the floor, pulled back his fist ready to pile into John’s face, feed him his fucking teeth. His arm was jerked back by McLean who, at the sound of the commotion, had burst into the back room. Campbell screamed at him, kicking and twisting in McLean’s grip. ‘Let me go ya bastard, let me fucking at him.’ McLean held him tight in a bearhug, lifted him off his feet and dragged him to the corner of the room. John picked himself up, backing away towards the sofa where Boddice sat with a face dark as a thunderhead.
‘Ease up, pal,’ said McLean, still wrestling with Campbell, who showed no sign of giving up the struggle. McLean pulled Campbell’s arms behind his back, hoisted them above his shoulders and forced him to his knees. ‘Ease up Ah said! Ah mean it!’
‘Okay, okay,’ Campbell said. ‘Ye’re hurting me. L
et go!’
‘Not till ye promise to settle down,’ said McLean.
‘Ah will, Ah promise,’ said Campbell.
McLean began to relax his grip, but sensed Campbell about to lunge again and reapplied the pressure.
‘Oyah!’ Campbell shouted. ‘That’s sore. Cut it out!’
‘Ah will,’ said McLean ‘As soon as ye calm down and stop yer carry on.’ Campbell relaxed and McLean released his hold. ‘What the fuck’s got into you?’ said McLean.
‘I was just about to ask the self-same question,’ said Boddice, rising from the sofa and moving into the centre of the room. He pulled the piece of paper from Campbell’s hand. ‘What the hell has your brother asked you to do that’s so bloody difficult?’ He started to unfold the paper.
‘No!’ shouted Campbell and John together.
John ran over, his face white. ‘No, don’t Mr Boddice,’ he said. ‘Don’t… don’t read it!’
‘Why?’ asked Boddice. ‘What’s so terrible? What’s written here?’
‘It’s… it’s just that… it’s just that it would spoil the surprise. You know, when you ask us later how we got on,’ said John, his voice small and constricted, edged with panic.
Boddice hesitated, the piece of paper flapping in his hand. ‘I’m not so sure,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of you two lose the plot like that before. Quite impressive actually.’
‘No, he’s right,’ Campbell blurted. ‘Don’t read it yet. Wait till we’ve tried it. See if Ah can make it work.’ He bit his knuckles and scowled at John. ‘See if it’s, what was it you said, John, ‘do-able’?’
Boddice looked from one twin to the other. ‘There’s something not quite right here,’ he said. He tapped the paper against his teeth, continuing to eye each of them. ‘But, okay,’ he said eventually. ‘Let’s see how you get on with it.’
Campbell moved to take the piece of paper back, but Boddice drew it away, clenched it in his fist. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you taking this home and changing it into something easy.’ He went over to John and took his note too. He folded them both together and put them into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘No,’ he said, patting them in place. ‘They’ll stay right here till next week, when we find out how successful you’ve been.’
John winced. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t what he had counted on happening. Maybe he shouldn’t have picked something so difficult, so risky. But it was Campbell’s own fault. He’d told him to make sure it wasn’t too easy, to play the game properly. Obviously, Campbell didn’t share John’s interpretations of ‘easy’.
It was too late to do anything about it, now. Boddice had the fucking note; John’s set of instructions to Campbell.
The instructions that told Campbell about how John was having an affair with Boddice’s wife, how he had to turn up next weekend when Boddice was away on business, give his wife a seeing to.
John thought about it. Yes, he could see why Campbell might get a bit upset about that. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea after all. He flicked a glance at him. Campbell had his head down, rubbing his arms and glowering at the floor.
Boddice stood up from the table, smoothing his yellow jacket and stubbing his smoke in the ashtray. He eyed the twins suspiciously. ‘I don’t know what’s going on between you two,’ he said. ‘But calm your jets, alright? I don’t want any monkeying about after I’ve left. Understood?’ They nodded. ‘You’ve drawn enough attention to me today as it is.’ He opened the swing doors to the main bar. A few heads looked in their direction, before quickly returning to an intense study of half-finished pints. McLean went out first, clearing a path through the men crowding the bar. Boddice held the door open with his foot, turned back to the twins. ‘And I don’t want a mark on either of your faces. No bruises, no cuts. No fighting. Period.’ He let the doors swing shut, leaving Campbell simmering, hands balled into fists, while John stood sheepishly examining his fingernails.
As Boddice reached the exit, he heard Campbell’s roar from the back room, turning heads and raising a few eyebrows among the customers and the bar staff. A high, animal scream of rage, beyond mere words.
The Lexicon of Love
John was an idiot, a numpty, a bawheid, a stumor, an A-number-one moron, a cretin, a retard, an imbecile, a half-wit (no, make that a quarter-wit), a whole thesaurus-worth of stupidity, insanity, lunacy.
To Campbell, the very idea of even looking at Boddice’s wife the wrong way gave him the jitters. If he ever did find himself in the presence of Mrs Boddice he would keep his eyes fixed firmly on the floor. No leering, no sizing up, no… appreciating. Who knew how Boddice might react? Campbell didn’t want to think about it.
Which was, obviously, John’s problem – he hadn’t bothered to think about it. Or else he would never have got himself into the situation in the first place of not just looking at the boss’s wife, but fucking fucking her.
‘But she made me do it,’ John whined, when Campbell forced him to explain.
Campbell was unconvinced. But he listened to his brother’s story: Boddice’s wife comes in, says the big man sent her; she’s taken a notion, wants a tattoo on her arse, big man says this is the place to come, the Wilson boys are the best in town… blah, blah-de-blah. As luck, or fate, would have it, Campbell’s off somewhere else, stocking up on supplies, down the bookies, or having a swift one in the Swan, leaving only John to attend to her.
And attend to her he did. As soon as she was bent over that chair, her black thong riding up the crack of her arse, John got to work on the tattoo.
But when he was finished he got to work on her too. ‘It wasn’t my fault. She started coming on to me man,’ he whinged. ‘Wriggling her bum at me, moaning, all that stuff. Ah couldn’t help myself. Before Ah knew it, one thing had led to another…’
Aye, right, Campbell had thought. You couldn’t help yourself.
Prick.
***
So now Campbell found himself on Boddice’s front doorstep, hoping for two things. Part of him (A pretty large fucking part, he had to admit) wanted the place to be deserted, everyone gone away for the weekend. He could turn around and get the hell away from here. But a tiny, trembling sliver of rationality hiding at the back of his mind knew if there was to be any way of saving the situation, he had to make sure his plan worked.
His plan – Christ, he’d had to think hard on that one: what could he possibly do that would salvage the situation? He’d tossed and turned at night, unable to find the oblivion of sleep, Boddice in his garish yellow jacket appearing every time he closed his eyes. He couldn’t shake the image.
And then it came to him. A solution. A way out.
A plan.
And the only way this plan would work was to go through with John’s task.
Campbell took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
He waited.
There was no sound from inside the house; no movement that he could see through the frosted glass panels to the side of the door. He stepped back from the vestibule and scanned the building; no signs of life at the upstairs windows. A crust of snow clung to the roof tiles in patches, looking like a map of some newly discovered planet. Only the cloud of condensation billowing from the boiler vent at the far corner of the house gave any indication the place was occupied.
He waited a few minutes. Still nothing. Campbell breathed a sigh of relief; there was no-one home. He turned and started to head down the driveway when he heard the door opening.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’
He spun round. The woman standing in the doorway was about fifty, maybe older, hair dyed jet black and pulled back into a pony tail. She was dressed to the nines in a classy cream suit and lots of jewellery. But the fake tan and heavy make-up gave her a severe, brittle edge.
‘I could see you on the intercom,’ she said, nodding towards the camera lens mounted above the door. ‘But the bloody thing’s broken; I couldn’t activate the buzzer to let you
in.’
‘That’s okay,’ Campbell said, a strange fluttering catch in his voice.
‘And I was on the phone to Norman, so I couldn’t come down right away. He’d forgotten his shaver, was driving back to get it.’
Campbell frowned. Norman? Who was Norman? Was he the… Oh, my God. Dear Jesus in heaven. Norman. She was talking about Boddice.
‘Mr Boddice!’ he yelped. ‘Is he…’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I persuaded him just to buy another one when he got there. He can just throw the old one away.’ She laughed. ‘He’s not coming back. My, the look on your face!’ She took him by the hand, led him into the house.
‘Ah’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just that…’
‘Don’t apologise,’ she said softly. ‘I’m just glad you decided to come back.’ She slid her hand behind his neck, drew him towards her. She kissed him. Her tongue, slipping between his teeth, had the dry, metallic taste of cigarettes and coffee.
She pulled back. ‘Why don’t you go on upstairs? I’ll join you in a minute. I just have a couple of things to attend to and then we can have a right good session.’
Campbell hesitated. ‘Eh, what room is it again? Ah wasn’t paying too much attention the last time.’
‘The last time?’ she said. ‘What are you talking about? Last time was in the living room. On the sofa. How could you forget?’
Bastard. Campbell was going to throttle John when he got a hold of him. ‘Oh aye, Ah know that, it’s just that Ah thought, ye know…’
‘Look, settle down,’ she said. ‘I appreciate you’re a bit nervous.’ She smiled. ‘Relax. Norman won’t be back until tomorrow. We’ll be just fine.’ She took him by the shoulders, steered him towards the stairs. ‘We’ll use one of the spare bedrooms this time. I’ve got it all sorted out. Up to the top landing, second door on the left. I’ll not be long.’ She sent him on his way with a squeeze of his buttocks.
Campbell climbed the stairs to the upper floor. He had never been in Boddice’s house before. Christ, he hadn’t even passed the front gate. This territory was strictly out-of-bounds. Not for the likes of him. Or his daft brother. Or any of Boddice’s team, for that matter.
