One Hundred And Twelve Days

by Ian Todd

  “Ah’m sorry,” she’d stammered, before hurriedly grabbing her coat and shoulder bag through in the lobby, heidin fur the landing door.

  By the time she’d goat tae the bottom ae the stairs, her da hid caught up wae her.

  “It’s snowing. Ye cannae walk aw the way doon there in the dark,” he’d said, walking roond tae the driver’s side ae the car.

  Unfortunately, ‘Suite Judy Blue Eyes,’ hid wafted oot ae the radio fur maist ae the journey doon the road. The song hid been playing the last time she’d stayed o’er at Johnboy’s. He’d left the bedroom door open and the album oan the turntable, allowing the music tae reach oot tae them. They’d laid in each other’s erms efter making love, no talking, listening tae the lyrics. They’d seemed so appropriate at the time, bit hid noo set aff a chain reaction ae emotions, as she’d sat watching the aftermath ae the city planners’ vandalism, as the car drove past big expanses ae empty waste ground in and aroond the Coocaddens, where people and shoaps hid wance thrived. That look ae disappointment in the eyes ae her ma stayed wae her aw the way doon the road. She’d always reminded Senga how proud her and her da hid been at her chosen career, at her independence, at her no hivving weans in her teens like her and the other wummin growing up in the forties and fifties in the Toonheid hid. Senga understood her anger, at whit her ma saw as her apparent capitulation, ae running back tae somewan who’d cheated oan her in the past, and who wid noo treat her like a doormat every time somewan else caught his eye. It hid been the kind ae look only a ma could project in the space ae a second, seeing the train crash coming, bit no being able tae dae anything aboot it. Senga thought aboot her pals. Funny, caring, loyal, wae a fair dollop ae craziness thrown in amongst the mix. She wisnae like them. She’d always wanted something different. They wur prepared tae accept the shit that wis gaun oan roond aboot them, wae whit their men goat up tae. She’d telt her ma that even when she wis sleeping, he wis always oan her mind, when they wur daeing the breakfast dishes earlier. Wis turning up at Johnboy’s door an announcement tae him that she’d gied up? Her ma obviously thought so…that her life wid noo mirror that ae her pals, aw noo living in fancy flats, living aff the proceeds ae crime, wondering fearfully whit wis gonnae happen every time there wis a chap oan the door in the night? The last time she’d been roond at Jean and Peter’s, Jean hid spoken aboot her fears every time Peter left in the morning. She said that it wis worse at night, as she tossed and turned, wondering if he’d return in wan piece. Jean said that the only reason they hid a phone in the flat wis because ae her insistence. He never trusted phones…none ae The Mankys did. When she’d challenged Johnboy at no phoning her at hame, he’d jist mumbled that he didnae like them, that ye didnae know who wis lugging in. Wis this the life she wis running tae, wae her eyes wide open? Despite her mixed emotions and the overpowering love she still felt fur him, wis she really prepared tae sacrifice everything she’d ever wanted, by becoming like the rest ae her pals? Could she live a lie…fur love? Wid Johnboy want her tae be the person she clearly wisnae, efter everything she’d shared wae him aboot her dreams fur her, fur them, fur their future? Why the hell wis she staunin oan a stairheid landing oan a cauld Christmas day night. How could she expect him tae respect her, if she didnae respect hersel? Few ae the lassies hid been in touch or when they hid been, they’d never asked whit hid been gaun oan. Wis that because they didnae know? If she wis honest wae hersel, it hid suited her, as she hidnae wanted tae hiv tae explain, tae share her raw emotions wae the people she loved, bit didnae want tae become. Johnboy hid warned her aboot confronting Tony heid oan. She wondered how she’d cope the next time she saw Tony Gucci…knowing he’d won. She knew him well enough tae know he’d be gracious aboot her defeat and widnae rub salt in her wounds, bit his presence wid always cast a dark shadow in her life, so long as she stayed in Glesga. If she wis really honest wae hersel, she didnae know why she wis staunin ootside his flat when she could be somewhere else, wae somewan who respected and loved her. The problem wis, she hid tae know why. If she walked away withoot knowing why he’d cheated oan her, efter everything they’d been through, she knew that she’d never be able tae settle doon and get oan wae her life. She hesitated fur the umpteenth time, before taking a deep breath and chapped oan the door, quickly turning roond tae look doon the stairwell, as the sound ae the echo ae her knuckles connecting wae the wood, gied her a sudden fright. She listened fur any movement fae inside, before chapping again, only this time louder. Nothing. She wondered whit tae dae next. She could always nip roond tae Barrington Avenue tae get her key. Pat and Paula wur jist roond the corner as well, bit they’d probably be up at Paula’s ma and da’s. She bent doon and flipped open the letter box. She felt the hot air fae the flat gently sting her eyes as they focussed. The lobby light wis aff, bit the living room door wis staunin wide open. The cat that hid been watching her fae the windae wis noo sitting in the middle ae the opening, casting a shadow, silhouetted against the door, gieing her the illusion that she wis looking at two cats, under the warm glow ae the hidden table lamp opposite it. Behind it, further back intae the room, the flashing image ae Judy Garland’s face, singing ‘Over The Rainbow,’ the volume turned doon low, flickered aff the TV screen. She wondered if he’d jist nipped alang tae Sherbet and Maisa’s, who always opened the shoap oan Christmas and New Year’s Day.

  “Hello, Pussycat. Come oan, darling, come and speak tae Senga,” she purred encouragingly, wriggling her fingers through the letter box tae attract its attention, as Mr Hopkins refused tae budge and jist sat, unblinking, staring alang the dark lobby at her.

  You can keep up to date with The Mankys and Johnboy Taylor on The Glasgow Chronicles’ website and Ian Todd’s Facebook page for The Glasgow Chronicles:

  www.theglasgowchronicles.com

  www.facebook.com/theglasgowchronicles

  Parly Road is the first book in The Glasgow Chronicles series by Ian Todd and is also available on Amazon:

  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 corruption, 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 is the second book in The Glasgow Chronicles series and is also available on Amazon:

  It is 1968 and The Mankys are back with a vengeance after 13-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.

  Elsewh
ere 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 is the third book in The Glasgow Chronicles series and is also available on Amazon:

  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 15th 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 10. 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 is the fourth book in The Glasgow Chronicles series and is also available on Amazon:

  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 set for the biggest showdown in Glasgow’s underworld history, when one of The Mankys is brutally stabbed to death outside The Princess Bingo Hall in Springburn’s Gourlay Street.

  With time running out, Tony Gucci has to find a way of contacting and luring 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.

  The Wummin is the fifth book in The Glasgow Chronicles series and is also available on Amazon:

  It is 1971 in Glasgow’s Springburn, and the stormy winds that are howling through the old tenement building closes and streets, leading up to the Christmas and New Year holidays, only adds to the misery that is swirling around the inhabitants of the north of the city.

  On the 17th December, Issie McManus’s only son, Joe, is stabbed to death on the steps of The Princes Bingo Hall, on the same evening that her man, Tam, gets lifted by the police and shipped up to Barlinnie for an unpaid fine. As her life crumbles round about her, Issie turns to her neighbour and friend, Helen Taylor, who gathers together a group of local women, who are the scourge of The Corporation’s sheriff officers Warrant Sales squad, to take command of the situation.

  Meanwhile, all the maj
or newspapers are speculating as to whether Alison Crawford, the wife of a prison governor, will survive the shooting that killed her lover, Tam Simpson, the leader of the notorious Simpsons’ Gang from Possilpark, whilst daily headlining the gory details of her supposed colourful love life as a senior social worker in Possilpark.

  Elsewhere in the district, Reverend Donald Flaw, who recently buried the sitting councillor, Dick Mulholland, is dismayed when he is informed that Councillor Mulholland’s election manager, the former disgraced Townhead councillor, JP Donnelly, has decided to throw his hat into the ring at the forthcoming by-election.

  As the demonstrations against warrant sales in the area continue over Christmas, bringing Helen Taylor’s gang of motley women back on to the streets, The Reverend Flaw and his wife, Susan, believe they have found the ideal candidate to prevent JP Donnelly’s resurrected political ambitions from bearing fruit. The only problem lies in whether the chosen one can be persuaded to stand against him.

  Still smarting from the headline in The Glasgow Echo, announcing that sales of The Laughing Policeman have topped 10,000 copies in Woolworth’s record department in Argyle Street, as a result of the weapon being used to kill Tam Simpson going missing, newly promoted Police Inspector Paddy ‘The Stalker’ McPhee, has been instructed to assist in the campaign to get JP Donnelly elected. Along with Father John, the local priest from St Teresa’s Chapel in Possilpark, an unholy alliance is formed that will go to any lengths to stop the opposition candidate from upsetting their political masters in George Square.

  The Wummin is a fast-paced political thriller, set in the north side of Glasgow. It will grip the reader, tear at their emotional heartstrings, whilst at the same time, evoke tears of laughter and shouts at the injustice of it all. It follows this group of Springburn ‘wummin’ in their fight against social injustice and their crusade for change, whilst the odds are stacked against them by an Establishment that will do everything in its power to maintain the status quo.