The first thing that occurred to me were pet stores and canary breeders. There are dozens of pet shops in the city, but I could hardly go into every single one or phone up and say, “Hey, did anybody come in and buy a canary for someone called Pete? Who is this Pete? Oh, he could be their son or just a pal, maybe a relative. I dunno. I’m just some nosey madwoman asking about a man and a bird.”
You don’t go around asking those types of questions in this city, unless you want strange looks and people circling their fingers around their ears.
Then I thought of canary-yellow, the color, and that didn’t sound right, unless they were doing some decorating and had extremely bad taste. The only things that look good yellow are Tweetie Pie and a duck.
It’s when I rip the piece of the paper off the wall, rolling it into a ball to make it easier to toss it into the trash, that something occurs to me. Maybe they weren’t talking about getting Pete a canary. Maybe they said they were meeting him at the Canary. Now that makes more sense.
Considering my state of mind, it was highly plausible that I could have misheard. When you’re bleeding out onto the floor, it tends to affect your concentration. One word or a word taken out of context could change the whole meaning.
Of course, I know it’s a long shot, but by this time, I’m desperate for sleep and grabbing at runaway balloons like a child in a funfair who doesn’t want to go home.
Going online, I type canary and Glasgow into the search engine. The predictive text keeps on trying to change it to cannery or to direct me to pet stores. Nothing comes up, so I widen the search to all over Scotland. No joy; there is no such place as the Canary.
Thinking about the name and the context in which it was used, I decide that it has to be a bar, club, or cafe. Where else would two Glasgow thugs go? Somehow, I couldn’t see them in a tearoom, sipping tea in fine china and eating dainty scones and cucumber sandwiches with a selection of homemade preserves.
So I do a narrower search using the word bar, club, and cafe after canary and come up with nada, even when I extend the search across the whole of the country and put in the names of different towns and cities. It’s a long shot, but I try Spain, Cyprus, and Portugal because there are so many Scots ex-pats out there. No luck.
It’s a strange name for any establishment, so it occurs to me that it might be a nickname, probably for a bar. There was one bar in Glasgow I knew of that was better known by its nickname, the Budgie. It would have been a shoe-in if they’d talked about meeting there, but that would have been too lucky and one thing I hadn’t been in a long while was lucky.
Looking up “bar/pub nicknames,” I come across an article someone had penned for a magazine, about their trip around every boozer in the city.
Bingo.
That’s how I came to be standing outside an ugly stone building, as the wind whipped at my ankles, wearing an Uma Thurman Pulp Fiction wig and Goth-style makeup, because there must be no chance of me being recognized if this is the right place. If it’s not, I don’t know what I’ll do, because I’m all out of straws.
At some point, someone must have tried to give the building a facelift by painting the outside canary-yellow. The name above the door might have said the Balloch Arms, but I knew that locals called it the Canary.
As bars in the less fashionable parts of the city went, the interior wasn’t too bad. It was the kind of place you could wander into straight from work, with your clothes caked in mud and brick dust and not worry about being turned away at the door or being hit with a “no trainers” ban to keep out the riffraff. Inside, it was all oak and red velvet fabric, and although it had seen better days (there were black-and-white pictures of two well-known celebrities from a decade ago on the wall) it was clean. Displayed on the oak paneling wall were classic pictures of various movie stars, I spot Monroe, Bacall, and Garbo.
The presence of those powerful women empowers me. None of them took any shit from anyone, and that’s my mantra from now on.
There are a handful of people in the bar, because it’s half-past two on a weekday. There’s no sign of my prey. I’m relieved about that. What would I do if came across one or both of them? I honestly don’t know.
“Can I help you?”
A pleasant-looking girl with rosy cheeks and a cheery voice asks what I want to drink. Right now, I’m so jittery at the thought that the men who attacked me could have stood where I’m standing, I could do with a right bucket load. Instead, I tell her I’m looking for bar work, and the girl nods in the direction of the bear of a man who is deep in conversation with a punter in a fluorescent jacket at the end of the bar.
“That’s the owner, Sam. You can ask him.”
Sam has a bushy biker’s beard, a bald head, and a concern for me that I find quite touching.
“Why do you want to work here, love? You seem like a nice girl, and it can get kind of rough.”
“Who says I’m a nice girl?”
Cue a throaty chuckle from him and a beery snort from his pal in the fluorescent jacket.
These days, I’m no wallflower, so I buoy him along. “When can I start?”
Sam puts his bottom lip over the top one and I giggle; it makes him look like a child.
“Aw, I don’t know, hen. There are schedules to be consulted.” He makes a big play of racking his brains. Then he winks at me. “I take it you have experience?”
“Aye.” I nod. “I used to work in the Aussie bar in town.”
The chain of bars went bust a few months ago, so he won’t be able to check. And it’s not a complete lie. I have worked in a bar before, but it was when I was a student, and I hope I haven’t lost the knack.
“You can start tomorrow night. What did you say your name was again?”
“Amy.”
I’d read once that If you wanted to tell a believable lie, it should be close to the truth, and Amy’s my middle name.
“See you tomorrow night, then, Amy.”
With a wee wave, I’m out of there, one step closer to avenging myself and my parents.
That is, if this is the right place.
Chapter 14
Before my first shift, I was as twitchy as a shoeaholic in Carrie Bradshaw’s closet. I had to go to the toilet half a dozen times before I was ready to leave. My stomach was in knots as though someone’s hand was inside, gripping my intestines and twisting them.
Before I’d mustered the courage to move, I’d checked my appearance one final time. Gone was Nancy Kerr, replaced by the Goth queen. Even I’d have trouble recognizing me. Maybe I had a career in acting or as a bar slut who tried to ensnare married men in a honey trap.
My first shift passed without much happening. There was no sign of either man, and I trudged home feeling as if I’d taken a wrong turning on the highway to revenge. What was I thinking, getting a job there on such flimsy info? If they had met here once, it didn’t mean they’d meet here again.
I was no longer teetering on the edge of madness; I was having my mail delivered there. The one thing I had to go on could be a dead end.
On my next shift, Rosalie, who I’d met when I’d first come into the bar, was there. We chatted away all night about this and that and had a right laugh. For the first time in ages, I was hooting with laughter, and at one point I almost forgot why I was there, especially when Rosalie started telling me about the regulars and some of the weird things they got up to, like the guy she’d once caught urinating in the ice bucket. She also told me about the college course she was doing that she hoped would help her get a job as a legal secretary.
On the few occasions she asked me about myself, fib after fib tripped off my lips as I invented a new life for myself.
I felt guilty for lying to her, because she’s a nice girl, and when she laughs the apples in her cheeks get even redder. With her bouncy curls she reminds me of Frieda from the Peanuts comic strips.
On Saturday night, I was at the other end of the bar serving Old Joe, who was regaling me with his life story tha
t so far had involved thieving bookies, knobbled horses, and moaning women, when I heard a voice that made my arm shake, and I almost dropped the drink I was pouring at the time.
The last time I’d heard that voice I was dying.
Chapter 15
“Hey, Paul, how are you doing, pal?”
Looking down the bar, I see Sam chatting to a fat man in a leather bomber jacket and oil-slick hair. After one drink, he gets a call on his mobile phone and leaves.
As soon as I get the opportunity, I ask Sam who he was.
He tapped his nose. “It’s best not to ask too many questions, hen.”
I take a telling and don’t ask him again. But I knew who he was all right, the fat man, one of my attackers. Now I had him I wasn’t letting him go.
At the end of my shift, I offer Rosalie a lift back to her place. It’s not the best of areas she lives in, so she accepts.
On the way, we chat about this and that until Rosalie lowers her voice and says, “You were asking about one of our regulars.”
I try to sound disinterested. “Was I?”
She raises her chin, and her eyes home in on mine. “Out of interest, why were you asking?”
I’m not sure if she’s being nosey or if it was more than that. These days I’m suspicious of everybody; even kids working their way through college.
“Just curious,” I say, keeping my tone light. “If I’m going to be working here, I want to get to know the regulars. Get some good tips.”
A few minutes pass as she eyes me with interest. “Oh. Just so you know, that was Paul Conlan, and he’s not the kind of man you want to know.”
It’s my turn to say, “Oh,” and look surprised. “Why’s that, then?”
Rosalie leans over towards the driver’s seat.
“I’ve heard people say that they’ve seen his girlfriend Alison with bruises, and they reckon Paul beats her.”
Now the floodgates are open, the words come tumbling out. Something in me tightens, but I try to hold back my rage as she tells me how Alison was at school when she met Conlan and got pregnant by him. She never got to go to college. He’d crushed that dream, saying women should stay at home with their kids whilst the men went out to work.
Rosalie is in full flow now. “He won’t even let her go anywhere without him. That’s what I heard. And, Morag, who’s a neighbor of hers, comes into the bar all the time, and she says that there are plenty of times that she goes to pick up her kids from school and Alison’s not there. Usually because Paul’s beaten her black and blue and she can’t show her face. Her mum Pauline picks up her little boy then, or she asks Morag to do it. It’s such a shame. She’s really nice, Alison, and she’s not much older than me. No wonder I’ve sworn off men. They play all nice at the start, then turn on you.”
She sounds like she’s had an experience like Alison’s.
“That’s terrible,” I say, tutting at all the right bits, all the time thinking that he was much worse than she’d ever know.
Rosalie’s animated now. “That’s not all. He gets some cheap spirits and cigarettes for Sam from knocked-off deliveries to the supermarkets. Bargain prices.”
That surprises me and it shows.
A smile brings out the roses in Rosalie’s cheeks. “Aye, Sam’s nice. But even he can’t say no to cheap booze.”
“Listen, Rosalie,” I say as she climbs out the car,” Paul Whatshisname doesn’t look like someone who’s top of the heap. Does he work for someone?”
There’s alarm in her pretty face.
I put on a relaxed air. “Just so I don’t put my foot in it. Say something daft.”
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know.” She gives me a quick wave as she opens the gate.
As I watch her go, I curse myself. Have I said too much?
There’s no longer a bounce in Rosalie’s step as she hurries up the steps to her apartment.
Chapter 16
Four weeks earlier…
Alison couldn’t bear to look at herself in the mirror. She hated her pale face and how she always managed to look ill, even when she’d spent ages putting on her makeup. There were gray bags under her eyes, and fine lines were starting to form under her eyes. Paul had gleefully pointed them out to her one night when he’d grabbed her face and pinched the skin so hard it hurt and she’d been left with a red mark.
When she’d burst into tears and told him not to say that, he’d pulled her backwards by her hair and smashed her head into the wall. Pain screamed through her brain, but the loss of consciousness she longed for didn’t come.
As she’d lain there dazed, he hissed that she was a whore and unzipped his trousers. Then he ordered her to “do the one thing you’re good at.”
She’d thought that she was going to choke, but she was too scared to struggle. It was always worse when she struggled.
Once he’d finished, she’d collapsed onto the bedroom floor, hugging herself and silently sobbing because the sound of her crying made him mad and he’d belt her again. One day, he would go too far and kill her; she knew that, but she couldn’t leave him. There were times when death didn’t seem so bad, but then she’d think of Ryan. What would happen to him if she were no longer around? Her mum couldn’t take him because her dad wouldn’t let her. He hated children and had all but disowned her when she’d moved in with Paul.
Once Paul was snoring drunkenly away on the bed, she’d crept into the living room to check on her son. He was still giggling away at his cartoons. He was a good boy who knew when to turn the telly up. Sometimes she thought having another baby would change things between her and Paul. At least when she was pregnant he wouldn’t hit her. He’d never laid a finger on her when she’d been pregnant with Ryan, and he’d been so nice to her, buying her presents and telling her how great she looked.
That had all ended when Ryan was born and Paul had badly beaten her—all because he accused her of being too friendly with the man who ran their local newsagents. He hadn’t calmed down even when she’d pointed out that he was only being nice to her and besides he was old enough to be her dad, it hadn’t calmed him. This time she’d been forced to go to hospital.
Seeing her injuries, some busybody had called the police. She’d lied and told them she’d been mugged. How else could she explain four broken fingers and two cracked ribs? She knew the police hadn’t believed her, and they hadn’t been very nice. When they thought they were out of earshot, she’d heard one say she was “a stupid cow for wasting time” for not pressing charges.
This time her injuries weren’t as bad. Nothing was broken or cracked. She had a cut lip and bruised cheek, and when she lifted her bra strap, there were bloody welts from where he’d grabbed her. There was no way she’d be able to pick up her son from school for a while until her face healed. No amount of makeup could cover the damage, and she ached all over; even basic movements were a struggle, and she knew from experience that it would be much worse tomorrow.
She’d have to guzzle down some vodka and painkillers as she normally did because Paul didn’t want her going to doctors. He’d warned her that if he found out she’d gone behind his back, he’d break both her legs and her back. Then he’d leave her and take Ryan with him. She never doubted that he meant it.
***
Four weeks later...
Alison was waving goodbye to Ryan at the school gates when an unfamiliar voice amongst the parents made her jump.
“Aw, there they go.”
A woman with long blonde hair and striking green eyes beamed over at her.
“Eh?” She didn’t meet the woman’s gaze; she rarely made eye contact with anyone these days.
“Sorry, just speaking out loud,” said the woman, pointing at another wee boy who was in Ryan’s class. “My sister asked me to bring my nephew to school.”
She was going to walk away—Paul always phoned her to make sure she was at home at ten past nine on the dot—when the woman asked if she fancied going for a coffee.
“Sor
ry, I can’t,” she said, meeting the stranger’s gaze for the first time. “I’ve got so much housework to do. The house is a mess.”
The woman frowned. “That’s a pity. I’ve just moved here and I don’t know anyone. Oh well, maybe another time, then?”
Now Alison felt guilty. Most of the other mums ignored her, and it would be good to make a new friend. Finally, she’d have someone to talk to who wouldn’t judge her. She’d heard the other mums talking about her in whispers they thought she couldn’t hear. They thought they were so superior. Them and their perfect relationships.
Hope fluttered in her chest; it was a feeling she hadn’t had in such a long time, and it felt good. Her tight lips slackened. “Tell you what, why don’t you come to my place for one.” Then she added, so she wouldn’t come across as too clingy, “If you don’t mind a mess.”
Paul might not like it if he knew, but there was no way he could find out. Not when he wouldn’t be back until late. He’d some big job on. She didn’t know how he made his money, and she’d stopped asking. Questions tended to make Paul angry, and he’d respond with his fists and his feet.
The woman’s face brightened. “Oh, I don’t want to impose.”
Alison beamed. “You wouldn’t be. I could do with a chat.”
The woman held out her hand. “Smashing. I’m Siobhan, by the way.”
“Alison.”
She couldn’t stop smiling when Siobhan insisted they stop at the bakers for two chocolate éclairs. Paul didn’t let her eat cakes. He said they’d make her fat and that he hated “fat birds,” but there was no way he’d ever find out.
Chapter 17
Alison was an easy person to talk to. When her face was animated, you got a glimpse of the happy girl she must have been before she fell into Paul Conlan’s evil clutches. Sure, she was a victim and her chatter was littered with “I don’t know what Paul would say about that” and “Paul doesn’t like me to,” but I sensed that given the right encouragement (and her scumbag of a boyfriend disappearing), she could blossom.
Hell To Pay (Crime Files Book 1) Page 5
