LITMIR.BIZ

      This edition published in Great Britain in 2014 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

      First published in Great Britain in 1985 by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd

       Sceptre edition 1986

      Copyright © 1985 by William McIlvanney

      The moral right of the author has been asserted

      All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

      ISBN 978 1 78211 1955

       www.canongate.tv

      Contents

       One

       Two

       Three

       Four

       Five

       Six

       Seven

       Eight

      For Siobhàn

      What is a rebel? A man who

      says no: but whose refusal

      does not imply a renunciation.

      ALBERT CAMUS

ONE

      ‘Look,’ one of the three boys in a field said as the white Mercedes slid, silenced by distance, in and out of view along the road. The boy had bright red hair which the teachers at his school had learned to dread appearing in their classrooms for it meant mischief, a spark of social arson.

      ‘A shark. A great white.’

      His two companions looked where his finger pointed and caught the melodrama of the gesture. The one who was holding the greyhound said, ‘Kill, Craigie Boy, kill,’ and the big, brindled dog barked and lolloped on the leash. The red-haired boy started imitating the theme music from the film Jaws and the other two joined in. Their voices hurried to crescendo as they saw the car disappearing over the top of a hill.

      The car moved on under a sky where some cloud-racks looked like canyons leading to infinity and others were dissolving islands. There, floating in the air, were the dreams of some mad architect, wild, fantasticated structures that darkness would soon demolish. They were of a variousness you couldn’t number.

      ‘Five,’ the biggest man in the car said. He was called Billy Fleming. He spoke without expression. His face looked mean enough to grudge giving away a reaction.

      There was no immediate response from the other two. A boring journey had made reactions in the car sluggish. Each was in his own thoughts like a sleeping-bag.

      ‘Five what?’ the driver said after a time, thinking it wouldn’t be long until he needed the lights. His name was Eddie Foley.

      ‘Dead crows. That’s five Ah’ve counted. Two on the road. Three at the side of it. They should take out insurance. What are they? Deaf or daft? Always pickin’ on passin’ cars.’

      They came to a village called Blackbrae. The council houses at the edge of it, badly weathered but with well-kept gardens, led on to private houses lined briefly along each side of the street. These sat slightly further off the road, solidly and unelaborately built. Designed less to please the eye than persuade it to look elsewhere, they were squat fortresses of privacy. It was hard to imagine much vanity in possessing them. Yet the meticulous paintwork or the hanging plant in a doorway or the coach-lamp on the wall beside a recently added porch suggested a pleased possessiveness. The names, too, had a cosy complacency. There was Niaroo and Dunromin and, incredibly enough, Nirvana. A passer-by might have wondered at how modest the dreams had been that had found their fulfilment here.

      The street turned left towards a hill that climbed back into the countryside. Changing

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