by Todd, Ian
Jimmy looked at his watch. He wis starting tae get worried. It wis twenty tae twelve. Susan Flaw hid jist come across and telt him that they’d be announcing the results in the next five tae ten minutes. The place wis heaving. Jimmy looked across at JP, who wis getting his haun shaken by that wee impartial snake, Father John, in amongst aw his campaign supporters…maistly men…aw looking grim. JP looked like death warmed up, while aw the wummin involved in Helen’s campaign, including aw the young wans, still done up in their fancy dress costumes, wur shouting, screaming and cackling thegither, as if the bells hid jist gaun aff fur the New Year. They wur aw cuddling, hugging and kissing each other. Jimmy saw that a lot ae the wummin wur in tears. It hid been a roller coaster ride fur them aw. Helen hid said that whitever the result, life wid never be the same efter this. The tension in the hall wis electric. Unfortunately, Soiled Sally wisnae in attendance because she’d hid tae pull oot at the last minute due tae wan ae her weans being no well.
“Ah bet Helen’s bloody well nipped in tae see if everything’s okay wae the wean. See that wife ae mine,” he muttered oot loud tae himsel, looking at his watch again.
There wis movement up at the front ae the stage. He looked across at Susan who wis oan the other side ae the barrier wae the other campaign managers and candidates. She wis mouthing ‘Where is Helen?’ tae him. Jimmy noticed JP and the other candidates moving towards the stage.
‘Ah’ll be back in a minute,’ he mouthed back tae Susan, and heided fur the door.
It wis starting tae drizzle as he heided back alang Gourlay Street in the dark towards Carlisle Street, hauf expecting tae bump intae Helen at any second. A party wis oan the go in wan ae the hooses in the tenement oan the opposite side ae the street. He could make oot the ootlines ae shadowy couples behind the curtains, dancing cheek tae cheek, tae wan ae Helen’s favourite songs, that wis being played loudly. He tried tae remember who the singer wis as the plaintive voice sang ‘Jist Wan Look.’ He’d jist come up wae the name ae Doris Troy, when he clocked somewan in the distance at the far end ae the street, stumbling towards him.
“Thank Christ fur that,” he said oot loud, as he quickened his step.
The dark shape wis definitely a wummin, bit he wis soon disappointed tae see that it wisnae Helen. He heard his name being shouted as the figure stumbled under the glow ae a street light. It wis Soiled Sally and she only hid wan shoe oan. He started tae run towards her. By the time he reached her, she wis bent o’er wheezing, wan haun oan the street lamp post tae steady hersel. A polis squad car suddenly skidded tae a halt beside the pavement.
“Sally! Sally, whit’s up? Whit’s up, hen?” Jimmy shouted, as the erm ae The Stalker reached doon tae help him haud her up.
“Jimmy, Jimmy, Oh ma God…Ah…don’t…don’t know. Ah think there might be…some…something wrang,” she spluttered and wheezed, through her matted hair, which wis soaked wae the drizzling rain.
“Slow doon, hen...take yer time. Whit’s the matter?” The Stalker asked her gently, bit firmly, as the sound ae the rain rattled aff his waterproof jaicket.
“Helen...Ah think…Ah think there might be something wrang,” Sally managed tae repeat, before blurting, “Ah heard a thump or a big crash. Ah tried tae get in tae see if she wis awright, b…bit…bit…the door wis locked fae the inside, so it wis.”
“The door? Locked? Bit the key should be hinging fae a bit ae string through the letterbox,” Jimmy squealed, looking aboot, feeling the panic welling up inside ae him, no sure whether he should leave Sally wae The Stalker, or whit.
“Look, let’s get her intae the back ae the car, Jimmy. We’ll get there quicker oan four wheels,” The Stalker said, taking command.
Wance they wur oan the road, blue light flashing, The Stalker radioed fur an ambulance tae go tae the tap flair hoose ae number 11 Carlisle Street, Springburn.
“Aye, it’s an bloody emergency,” he shouted intae the haundset.
By the time the car skidded tae a halt at the closemooth, Jimmy wis awready oot the door and disappearing up the closemooth.
“Ladies and gen-tel-mennn! Kin Ah hiv a bit ae peace and quiet, please. As the returning officer fur the Keppochhill Springburn ward by-election, Ah noo hiv the results ae the votes cast oan this, Friday the 29th ae January, nineteen hunner and seventy two. If Ah kin hiv a bit ae wheesht, please!” Tam Burnett, The Corporation’s Democratic Election Officer frostily shushed the noisy wummin across in Helen’s corner, before continuing. “In nae particular order, the results ur as follows. Barking Bob, Sir, Liberals, three hunner and twenty three...”
“Helen? Helen? Ur ye there, hen? Open the door!” Jimmy wis screaming, banging oan the door, as The Stalker caught up wae him oan the tap flair landing.
“Dae ye hiv a key, Jimmy?” The Stalker shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders wae baith hauns.
“Naw, it’s usually hinging oan a string through the letter box,” Jimmy wailed back in full panic mode.
“Right, oot ae ma way,” The Stalker warned, pushing Jimmy tae the side, taking two steps backwards.
“McTavish, Balfron, Scottish Nationalist Party, two thousand and seventy five...”
The Stalker ran at the door, twisting slightly at the last moment, so as tae hit it wae his shoulder. There wis a massive crunch as the door flew aff ae its hinges and disappeared intae the lobby.
“Barr-Owen, Spicer, Colonel, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, wan hunner and twenty nine...”
The sight that confronted him and Jimmy Taylor wid remain wae The Stalker fur the rest ae his life. Helen Taylor wis lying flat oan her back, erms ootstretched, blood hivving gushed oot ae baith nostrils ae her grey, ashen face. Jimmy wis soon bent o’er her, her heid in his erms, screaming fur somewan tae help his wife.
“Donnelly, Peter, James, Independent ‘Labour Born and Bred,’ three thousand three hunner and fifty two...”
Two ambulance men arrived literally seconds efter the door hid landed oan the flair ae the lobby. The Stalker gently helped wan ae them tae prise Helen’s heid fae Jimmy’s erms, while the other wan swiftly moved doon tae try and resuscitate her. Efter a minute, he stood up. It wis clear that there wis nothing he could dae tae help or revive her.
“Ah’m so sorry, mister...Inspector…bit Ah’m afraid she’s gone. There’s nothing mair Ah kin dae. Ah think she might’ve hid a massive cerebral haemorrhage, so Ah dae. Ah’m nae expert, bit Ah’ve come across this mair than a few times before. The doctors up at the hospital will need tae confirm that though,” he said, looking shattered, as Jimmy Taylor drapped oan tae his knees, wae his erms hinging at his side, howling the place doon in grief.
“Taylor, Ferguson, Helen, Independent Community Candidate, fourteen thousand, nine hunner and sixty two. Ah noo declare Helen Ferguson Taylor the duly elected cooncillor fur the Keppochhill and Springburn Ward,” Tam Barnet announced, sick as a parrot, as the hall erupted with deafening cheers and Susan Flaw looked across tae the entrance ae the hall wae a puzzled frown spread across her face.
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Parly Road is the first book in The Glasgow Chronicles series by Ian Todd and is also available on Amazon Kindle:
It is the summer of 1965 and things are looking up for ten-year-old Johnboy Taylor in the Townhead district of Glasgow. Not only has he made two new pals, who have recently come to his school after being expelled from one of the local Catholic schools, but their dream of owning their own pigeon loft or ‘dookit’ and competing with the city’s grown-up ‘doo-men’ in the sport they love, could soon become a reality. The only problem is that The Mankys don’t have the dosh to pay for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Lady Luck begins to shine down on them when Pat Molloy, aka The Big Man, one of Glasgow’s top heavies asks them to do him a wee favour. The Mankys are soon embroiled in an adult world of gangsters, police corrup
tion, violence and crime.
Meanwhile, Johnboy’s mother, Helen Taylor is busy trying to keep one step ahead of the local Provi-cheque men and organising a group of local women to demonstrate against the Corporation’s Sheriff officer’s warrant sales.
Set against the backdrop of a condemned tenement slum area, the fate of which has already been decided upon as it stands in the way of the city’s new Inner Ring Road motorway development, the boys soon realise that to survive on the streets, they have to stay one step ahead of those in authority. The only problem for The Mankys is working out who’s really in charge.
Parly Road is full of the shadiest characters that 1960s Glasgow has to offer and takes the reader on a rollercoaster journey that has been described as irreverently hilarious, bad-assed, poignantly sad and difficult to put down.
Run Johnboy Run – The Glasgow Chronicles 2 is also available on Amazon Kindle:
It is 1968 and The Mankys are back with a vengeance after thirteen-year-old Johnboy Taylor is confronted by a ghost from his past. The only problem is, he’s just been sentenced to 3 years at Thistle Park Approved School, which houses Scotland’s wildest teen tearaways. Without his liberty, Johnboy is in no position to determine whether the devastating revelation is a figment of his vivid imagination or whether dark forces are conspiring against him.
Elsewhere in the city, Glasgow crime lord, Pat Molloy, aka The Big Man, is plotting to topple those who he believes were responsible for putting him out of the city’s thriving ‘Doo’ business three years earlier. Unfortunately for him, The Irish Brigade, a group of corrupt police inspectors, who rule the city with an iron fist, are not about to stand by and allow anyone to dip their fingers into their honey-pot, without a fight.
Meanwhile, Helen Taylor, Johnboy’s mother, has come up with a dangerous plan that she believes will finally overturn The City Corporation’s policy of selling their tenants’ household goods through humiliating public warrant sales. Reluctantly, she is forced to join forces with The Glasgow Echo’s sleazy top crime reporter, Sammy ‘The Rat’ Elliot, whose shadowy reputation of having more than one master makes him feared and reviled by the underworld and the establishment in equal measure.
Run Johnboy Run is an explosive tale of city crime in 1960s Glasgow, involving a heady mix of establishment leaders and gangsters, who will use anyone to keep control of the city’s lucrative underworld. The only problem is, can anyone really be trusted?
With more faces than the town clock, Run Johnboy Run dredges up the best scum the city has to offer and throws them into the wackiest free-for-all double-crossing battle that Glasgow has witnessed in a generation and The Mankys are never far from where the action is.
The Lost Boy And The Gardener’s Daughter – The Glasgow Chronicles 3 is also available on Amazon Kindle:
It is 1969 and 14-year-old Paul McBride is discharged from Lennox Castle Psychiatric Hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown whilst serving a 3-year sentence in St Ninian’s Approved School in Stirling. St Ninians has refused to take Paul back because of his disruptive behaviour. As a last resort, the authorities agree for Paul to recuperate in the foster care of an elderly couple, Innes and Whitey McKay, on a remote croft in the Kyle of Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands. They have also decided that if Paul can stay out of trouble for a few months, until his fifteenth birthday, he will be released from his sentence and can return home to Glasgow.
Unbeknown to the authorities, Innes McKay is one of the most notorious poachers in the Kyle, where his family has, for generations, been in conflict with Lord John MacDonald, the Duke of the Kyle of Sutherland, who resides in nearby Culrain Castle.
Innes is soon teaching his young charge the age-old skills of the Highland poacher. Inevitably, this leads to conflict between the street-wise youth from the tenements in Glasgow and the Duke’s estate keepers, George and Cameron Sellar, who are direct descendants of Patrick Sellar, reviled for his role in The Highland Clearances.
Meanwhile, in New York city, the Duke’s estranged wife orders their 14-year-old wild-child daughter, Lady Saba, back to spend the summer with her father, who Saba hasn’t had contact with since the age of ten. Saba arrives back at Culrain Castle under escort from the American Pinkerton Agency and soon starts plotting her escape, with the help of her old primary school chum and castle maid, Morven Gabriel. Saba plans to run off to her grandmother’s estate in Staffordshire to persuade her Dowager grandmother to help her return to America. After a few failed attempts, Lady Saba finally manages to disappear from the Kyle in the middle of the night and the local police report her disappearance as a routine teenage runaway case.
Meanwhile in Glasgow’s Townhead, Police intelligence reveals that members of a notorious local street gang, The Mankys, have suddenly disappeared off the radar. It also comes to the police’s attention that, Johnboy Taylor, a well-known member of The Mankys, has escaped from Oakbank Approved School in Aberdeen.
Back in Strath Oykel, the local bobby, Hamish McWhirter, discovers that Paul McBride has disappeared from the Kyle at the same time as Lady Saba.
When new intelligence surfaces in Glasgow that Pat Molloy, The Big Man, one of Glasgow’s top crimelords, has put the word out on the streets that he is offering £500 to whoever can lead him to the missing girl, the race is on and a nationwide manhunt is launched across Scotland’s police forces to catch Paul McBride before The Big Man’s henchmen do.
The Lost Boy and The Gardener’s Daughter is the third book in The Glasgow Chronicles series. True to form, the story introduces readers to some of the most outrageous and dodgy characters that 1960s Glasgow and the Highlands can come up with, as it follows in the footsteps of the most unlikely pair of road–trippers that the reader will ever come across. Fast-paced and with more twists and turns than a Highland poacher’s bootlace, The Lost Boy and The Gardener’s Daughter will have the readers laughing and crying from start to finish.
The Mattress – The Glasgow Chronicles 4 is also available on Amazon Kindle:
In this, the fourth book of The Glasgow Chronicles series, dark clouds are gathering over Springburn’s tenements, in the lead up to the Christmas holiday period of 1971. The Mankys, now one of Glasgow’s foremost up and coming young criminal gangs, are in trouble…big trouble…and there doesn’t seem to be anything that their charismatic leader, Tony Gucci, can do about it. For the past year, The Mankys have been under siege from Tam and Toby Simpson, notorious leaders of The Simpson gang from neighbouring Possilpark, who have had enough of The Mankys, and have decided to wipe them out, once and for all.
To make matters worse, Tony’s mentor, Pat Molloy, aka The Big Man and his chief lieutenant, Wan-bob Brown, have disappeared from the Glasgow underworld scene, resulting in Tony having to deal with Shaun Murphy, who has taken charge of The Big Man’s criminal empire in The Big Man’s absence. Everyone knows that Shaun Murphy hates The Mankys even more than The Simpsons do.
As if this isn’t bad enough, Johnboy Taylor and Silent Smith, two of the key Manky players, are currently languishing in solitary confinement in Polmont Borstal. As Johnboy awaits his release on Hogmanay, he has endless hours to contemplate how The Mankys have ended up in their current dilemma, whilst being unable to influence the feared conclusion that is unravelling back in Springburn.
Meanwhile, police sergeants Paddy McPhee, known as ‘The Stalker’ on the streets for reputedly always getting his man and his partner, Finbar ‘Bumper’ O’Callaghan, have been picking up rumours on the streets for some time that The Simpsons have been entering The Big Man’s territory of Springburn, behind Shaun Murphy’s back, in pursuit of The Mankys.
In this dark, gritty, fast-paced thriller of tit-for-tat violence, The Stalker soon realises that the stage is being set for the biggest showdown in Glasgow’s underworld history, when one of The Mankys is brutally stabbed to death outside The Princes Bingo Hall in Springburn’s Gourlay Street.
With time running out, Tony Gucci has to find a way of contacting and luri
ng The Big Man into becoming involved in the fight, without incurring the wrath of Shaun Murphy. To do this, Tony and The Mankys have to come up with a plan that will bring all the key players into the ring, whilst at the same time, allow The Mankys to avenge the murder of a friend.
Once again, some of Glasgow’s most notorious and shadiest ‘duckers and divers’ come together to provide this sometimes humorous, sometimes heart-wrenching and often violent tale of chaos and survival on the streets of 1970s Glasgow.
Still to be published by Ian Todd on Amazon Kindle:
Dumfries – The Glasgow Chronicles 6
