Dumfries (67 page)

  “Look, it’s no whit ye think… ma silence, Ah mean,” Johnboy said hesitantly, still lost fur words.

  Silence.

  “Dae ye really want tae know where Ah wis the night Shaun Murphy disappeared?” he asked her, making her jump at the sound ae his voice, as she nodded her heid.  “Look, this is difficult, bit there isnae an easy way tae say it.  Ah wis in ma flat…wae Michele Hope,” he murmured, avoiding mentioning the bed part, bit noting her body stiffen at the mention ae the name.  “If Ah’m tae hiv any chance ae getting an appeal oot ae everything ye’ve come doon here tae tell me, Ah need tae get a signed, witnessed statement fae her, acknowledging that she wis…er…wae me that night.”

  “Wis that the night ae her eighteenth birthday?”

  “Aye.  It couldnae hiv been me that wis involved wae Shaun Murphy’s disappearance because Ah wis in her company aw night.  He wis last seen staggering alang Fountainwell Road, in tae Sighthill, efter knocking fuck oot ae some poor basturt ootside Sherry’s pub at the corner ae Auchintoshan Terrace and Springburn Road at hauf nine that night.  Seemingly, witnesses said they’d then clocked him, still staggering, alang Carlisle Street, efter coming across the wee bridge fae Sighthill, oan tae Keppochhill Road.  Whitever happens between you and me will become irrelevant, withoot a statement fae Michelle Hope, so whether she, or you, like it or no, she’s gonnae hiv tae be involved in ma life fur a good while yet.”

  “Dae ye…did ye, love her?”

  “You’re the only lassie Ah’ve ever loved.”

  “So, whit wis yer relationship then?”

Silence.

  “Sex,” he eventually admitted.

  “Sex?”

  “The thought ae, er, shagging that basturt PC Hope’s only daughter wis the main attraction.”

  Silence.

“That’s so sick,” Senga eventually said, clearly disgusted.

“Ah am whit Ah am,” Johnboy murmured, shrugging they shoulders ae is.

  “Naw, Johnboy, ye ur whit ye’ve become,” she snapped at him, wanting tae lean across and slap that face ae his.

  Silence.

  “His she ever written tae ye since ye’ve been sentenced?” Senga asked him, efter calming hersel doon.

  “Naw.”

  “Hiv ye ever written tae her?”

  “Naw.”

Silence.

  “Look, at some stage, Ah’ll hiv tae be in touch wae her…Ah mean as a witness, nothing mair.”

  “Ye still hivnae answered ma question,” she finally asked tersely, eyeballing him, strained defiance showing oan that lovely face ae hers.

  “Withoot an appeal and the unlikelihood ae somewan like me getting parole, ma earliest date ae liberation is the middle ae 1982.  Dae ye realise whit ye’d be committing yersel tae, if this aw goes pear-shaped?”

  “Johnboy, Ah’m no gonnae repeat ma offer,” she whispered quietly, looking at him.

  “Ah really don’t deserve whit ye’re offering.”

  “Given yer track record, Ah’m no sure ye’re the best wan tae be offering me advice or judging whit Ah should be daeing wae ma life.”

  Silence.

  “Senga, Ah’d never haud ye tae it…whit ye’ve jist offered me, Ah mean.  Ah’d be happy jist knowing that we wur friends efter ye left here the day and that ye knew that Ah’d gie ma life fur ye.  Whether ye want tae believe it or no, Ah’ve always loved ye, despite ye knocking back that good box ae expensive Maltesers Ah goat ye fur yer tenth, or wis it yer eleventh birthday?”

  “Tenth,” she replied, as a tear ran doon her cheek.

  “Well, despite the knockback, Ah swear oan ma mother’s grave, if Ah kin somehow get masel oot ae the mess Ah’ve goat masel intae, and if ye’re sure ye’re willing tae be patient and gie me a chance, Ah’d be extremely proud and honoured tae dae everything in ma power tae be gied another chance and show ye that ye hivnae been wasting yer time oan an eejit like me,” he said gently, surprising himsel aboot how solemn and genuine he sounded, given where he wis sitting.

  “Ah’ll take that as an ‘aye’ tae ma offer then, will Ah?” Senga asked him, as her stiff defiance melted intae a tearful smile.

  “His Johnboy said anything tae ye aboot him and Senga?” Frances asked Snappy.

  “Like whit?”

  “Anything.”

  “It’s like pulling teeth wae that wan, so it is. You probably know mair aboot whit’s gaun oan wae that pair than Ah dae.”

  “Senga seems tae be daeing an awful lot ae greeting,” she said, furtively glancing across at Johnboy’s table.

  “Ach, he’s probably telling her no tae bother coming back doon tae visit him.  He’s weird that way, is Johnboy.  He’s wan ae these guys that jist wants tae dae his time withoot being distracted oan whit’s happening oot there oan Freedom Street.  It’s hard tae explain, bit some guys ur like that.”

  “Seemingly, she’s being gaun oot wae some sort ae auld doctor, so she his, although none ae us hiv met him,” she mused.

  “Aye, Ah heard.  Ye’re no gonnae believe it, bit he’s called Gory, Doctor Gory, wid ye believe?”

  “She always wis intae the weird wans, wisn’t she? Ah mean, look at her infatuation wae Johnboy o’er the years, ever since she wis a wee wean…her and that Pearl wan…no that Ah’m saying there’s anything wrang wae him, mind ye, bit let’s be honest, when is he ever gonnae see the light ae day?  And, as fur Dr Bloodlust?  Ah cannae see the wummin aw queuing up in the clinic, wanting him tae be joogling aboot doon there wae a scalpel in wan haun and a name like that in the other, kin you?” Frances asked him, shuddering.

  “Oh, in case Ah furget, Ah met somewan who knew ye last night who sends his regards and said if ye need anything, ye’ve tae gie him a shout.  Some guy named Jizz…says he’s John Paul Jerome’s nephew or something and that ye helped him oot when he wis up visiting John Paul in the toon.”

  “Aye, Ah remember. That fat prick, Bugle Bundy, punched him oan the mooth wan night in Dawson’s fur seemingly looking at him.  It wis obvious the wee guy wis fresh fae the sticks and didnae realise that ye’re no supposed tae look at guys in the pubs.  Ah never intended tae get involved, bit ended up hivving words wae Fatso fur taking a liberty and when he widnae shut the fuck up, Ah booted his baws aw o’er the bar in front ae his mates.  It wisnae a big deal or anything, even though John Paul sent me a bottle ae whisky and a good tip oan some dug that wis running across in the White City, tae ma flat the next morning, efter he’d heard whit hid happened.”

  “Well, he wants ye tae know that if ye want anything sent in, or he kin dae anything fur ye, ye’ve tae gie him a shout at The Lochmaben Garage.”

  “Which reminds me…a good set ae locks and a phone.

  “Locks and a phone?”

  “Aye, get Harper Harris doon tae change the locks oan Senga’s flat, as soon as ye get back intae the toon.  Tell him they’ve goat tae be top-notch quality wans.  If Wan-bob supplied the lassies wae the flat, he’ll hiv access tae the factor’s set ae keys.  Nae use making life easy fur the basturt when there’s nae need tae, eh?”

  “How am Ah gonnae explain tae Senga that she needs a phone?”

  “Ah’m sure ye’ll think ae something.  And in the future, kin ye no use something else, insteid ae Angelo Dundee?  The screws always think Ah’m taking the piss when Ah tell them whit the name ae ma visitor is when they’re filling oot ma visiting pass.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen?  It’s time tae wrap it up…that’s the visiting time o’er wae.  Could Ah ask aw the prisoners tae stay at their tables,” The Tormentor shouted, as hauf the visitors looked at the YO opposite them silently, clinging oan tae the few precious seconds left until the next month, while the other hauf gathered their coats, jaickets and bags thegither and stood up.

  “So?” Senga and Johnboy said in unison, smiling awkwardly, as they looked across the table at each other efter staunin up.

  “Whit happens noo?” Johnboy asked her.

  “Ah’ll speak tae Lizzie and Ah’ll get in touch wae Simon aboot seeing the lawyer.”

  “Naw, Ah meant aboot us?”

  “Well, until we kin get ye oot ae here, it looks like Ah’ll be daeing a lot ae writing in ma spare time.”

  “Aw the mail is opened and read, so it is.  So watch whit ye’re saying.”

  “Johnboy, Ah couldnae care less who knows Ah love ye.  If they want tae read that in ma letters, then let them…that’s fine wae me, so it is,” she shrugged, as the other visitors started making their way towards the door.

  “Am Ah allowed tae kiss ye?” he asked shyly.

  “In a sec,” she replied smiling, as she flicked a Polo mint fae the packet wae her fingernail, and popped it intae her mooth.

  Senga moved fae her side ae the table and put her erms roond his neck, as Fanny Flaw and Alison Crawford looked oan, smiling, fae the tea and juice table at the bottom end ae the hall.

  “Senga?” Johnboy shouted efter her, jist before she disappeared through the gym doors.

  “Aye?” she asked, wiping a tear aff ae her cheek, turning tae face him.

  “Whit’s the name ae that perfume ye’re wearing?” he asked her, still wondering whit she’d meant, when she’d telt him that he wis whit he’d become and no whit he wis.

  “Fidji by Guy Laroche.  It’s an original bottle fae the first batch produced in 1966 that Ah goat aff ae Kim Sui as a present a while back,” she replied, smiling, before she disappeared through the door, jist two steps in front ae Simon Epstein’s
shadow.

  As Johnboy stood there in shock and grief, wondering if he wid ever see Senga Jackson alive again, Tony Gucci came towards him, followed by Silent Smith, Snappy Johnston and Pat McCabe and rested his haun oan his shoulder.

  “Listen, don’t ye worry aboot a thing, Johnboy.  If anywan back in the toon kin keep Senga and that flatmate ae hers alive, it’ll be oor Simon, Peter, Ben and Jake, so it will.  You mark ma words.”

  “
Good evening.  My name is John Turney and these are the news headlines in Scotland tonight.

  Police are continuing to appeal for witnesses to come forward after a nineteen-year-old nurse…the second in the city this year…was run over by a van that failed to stop as she crossed Castle Street just outside The Royal Infirmary’s casualty department late on Tuesday night as she finished her shift.  The pretty unnamed nurse…

  A well known nineteen-year-old cannabis dealer, Alan Small, was blasted in both legs by what appeared to be a shotgun as he opened the door of his ground floor flat in number 48 Petershill Road in Springburn this morning.  Police have called on anyone in the vicinity at the time to get in touch.  Doctors at The Royal Infirmary have confirmed that Mr Small has had to have a leg amputated but can’t confirm at this time if they will be able to save the other one…

  A thirty-two-year-old mechanic from Coatbridge was arrested during an undercover police operation codenamed ‘Arrow’ this afternoon on suspicion of being the driver of the 1930s Mercedes Benz Silver Arrow SSKL Racing car that has been thrilling members of the public for over a year now in Glasgow’s Great Western Road.  The driver of the car who has been reaching speeds in excess of over a hundred and seventy miles an hour has being condemned by police and politicians from all sides of the political divide. Police Traffic Superintendent John Bower confirmed that engine components associated with the rare Silver Arrow SSKL were removed from a garage apparently rented out by the accused.  Superintendent Bower later said that the police were confident that the person they have in custody is the driver of The Silver Arrow, as the man arrested failed to produce appropriate vehicle identification for the…

  The solicitor acting on behalf of schoolgirl killer, Robert Connor, condemned judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh today after they refused bail for his client, whilst awaiting the outcome of a possible appeals hearing.  Mr Silas Abraham said that Robert Connor is suffering at the hands of inmates in prison for a crime he did not commit, whilst his sick elderly mother is finding it difficult to cope at her isolated cottage just outside Cambusbarron in Stirlingshire…

  A nineteen-year-old youth had his plea of diminished responsibility accepted at the high court today, after claiming that he strangled his seventeen-year-old pregnant girlfriend by mistake, after she taunted him about not being the father of her unborn child.  Lord Campbell of Claremyle sentenced David McCallum to five years in a young offenders institution.  Helen Clark’s parents, Mary and Jim Clark, told reporters outside the court, that they were disgusted and devastated by the leniency of the sentence.  Mrs Clark claimed that David McCallum had a history of violence towards her daughter as well as to previous girlfriends and was shocked and devastated when that fact hadn’t been raised during the trial…

 
A seventy-year-old pensioner was sentenced to three months at The Marine Court today after he assaulted his invalid wife in their home.  John Mulligan plead guilty to his ninth conviction over a twenty-year period of assaulting his long suffering partner…”

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Johnboy Taylor - The Glasgow Chronicles

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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 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 – 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 crime lords, 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 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 – The Glasgow Chronicles 5 is also available on Amazon Kindle:

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 17
th
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 major 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.

The Silver Arrow – The Glasgow Chronicles 7 is also available on Amazon:-

The Silver Arrow follows on from Dumfries and completes the Johnboy Taylor series of books.

Whilst the residents of 1970s Glasgow are captivated by the antics of a mystery driver, who they’ve nicknamed The Silver Arrow, being pursued by police along Great Western Road in his 1930s sports car in the dead of night at weekends, a far more dangerous game of cat-and-mouse is being played out on the streets, below the radar of both the local police and Wan-bob Broon, Glasgow’s number one gangster.

  After visiting Johnboy Taylor, Scotland’s longest-serving young offender, in Dumfries Young Offenders Institution, Nurse Senga Jackson heads back to Glasgow, unaware of the mortal danger that she and her flatmate, Lizzie Mathieson are in after Lizzie unwittingly overhears the deathbed confession of a dying gangster to Inspector Paddy ‘The Stalker’ McPhee, who has threatened to expose the sordid sex-life of the doctor on duty, in order to access the intensive care unit of Stobhill General Hospital in the middle of the night.