LITMIR.BIZ

      NINE

      A square battery, some wooden coat hangers, two well-thumbed copies of Parade, a naked Barbie and a shortbread tin with a picture of Ben Lomond on it. All of them arranged on a dirty blue blanket spread out on the wet cobbles.

      ‘Anything you fancy, son?’

      The old man standing on the other side of the blanket looked at him hopefully. McCoy shook his head.

      ‘Not today, pal.’

      The old man nodded, looked resigned, stuck his shaky hands back in his pockets. Another small defeat. One of many by the look of him.

      McCoy relented. ‘Tell you what, I’ll take the magazines. How much?’

      ‘Ten pence for the two. Good stuff in there, son.’

      McCoy handed the money over, stuffed the magazines in the pocket of his coat and made his way down the alley. He kept to the centre of the path, avoiding standing on the blankets and sheets laid out either side, each blanket covered in a variety of clothes, old shoes, broken toys, cutlery. Anything the people standing behind them had found to sell.

      Paddy’s Market was under the railway arches down by the Clyde. It was the market for people whose kids didn’t have shoes, who tea was bread and jam or a bag of chips if they were lucky. Glasgow was still full of them, no new high flats and colour TVs on the tick from DER for them. This is where they came every Friday to buy and sell broken biscuits in plastic bags, torn net curtains – anything. Paddy’s was like some warped department store; there was nothing it didn’t have, just nothing you’d want to buy.

      McCoy squeezed between a bloke with blood all over his face shouting at nobody and a man with a pram full of stolen firelighters and walked into the railway arches at the back, out of the rain. Back here was where the upmarket stuff got sold; back here people had to pay to pitch their stalls. Stolen tobacco, dead men’s suits reeking of sweat and mothballs, motorcycle parts, fur stoles stiff with age. Quality stuff. The divide was absolute. Under the arches and outside in the rain. Two different worlds.

      He ducked in and headed for the cafe at the back. It was hard to see through the gloom. There were no windows back here, just strings of anaemic-looking light bulbs hanging over each of the stalls, shaking on their wires as the trains rumbled overhead. He smelt the cafe before he got there, bacon grease and stewed tea mixing with the general fug of damp and old clothes. He bought a tea, sat down on one of the orange plastic chairs and took out his wee red jotter with a laurel wreath on it. Started a new one for each case, got them out of Woolies specially. He’d stuck the picture from last night’s Evening Times in it. Had drawn a question mark beside it. Next page was headed CONNECTIONS – BOY GIRL. List under it.

       Work?

       Punter?

       Boyfriend?

       Hired?

      Then he’d written

       Howie Nairn. How connected to the girl?

      He sighed, shut it, sipped at his rotten tea and tried to think. Found himself listening to the couple at the next table arguing about where they were going to for Christmas dinner next year. Not his mother’s again. Over her dead body seemed to be the gist of it.

      ‘Mr McCoy.’

      He looked up and Ally Jeffries was standing there. Bunnet and filthy car coat in place as usual. Dirty Ally by name and nature.

      ‘Thought I’d catch you here, Ally. Have a seat.’

      He looked pained. ‘I’ve no opened up yet, Mr McCoy, stall’s still sitting there.’

      McCoy just pointed at the seat. Ally sighed and sat. McCoy pushed the two copies of Parade across the table to him. ‘Got you a present.’

      Ally put a pair of smeary milk-bottle glasses on and started flicking through them. A professional’s eye. Dirty Ally’s stall at the back of the arches sold second-hand porno mags, dirty books, photo sets of middle-aged women lying spreadeagled on flowery bedspreads. No one knew where it was, but he’d a photo lab as well. He’d develop anything. The kind of stuff that you couldn’t give to Boots. Always printed off a few copies for himself as well, sold them on to special customers. That was the price you had to pay. He closed the magazines, took his glasses off.

      ‘Think I’ve seen these ones before. After a while all gash looks the same to me.’ Didn’t stop him slipping them into his pocket.

      ‘There’s a fiver in one of them. A favour. Need you to put the word out. Some clown’s broken into the Ben Duncan, stole something from Stevie Cooper. Something he wants back. Long as its back with him in the next couple of days he’s willing to go easy, no questions asked.’

      ‘That right?’ Ally grinned, revealing a row of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘You and the boy Cooper are getting awfy friendly these days. Thick as thieves, you two.’

      McCoy stood up. ‘Just get the word out, Ally. Get the stuff back to me and that’ll be another fiver in a wank mag for your collection. Money for old rope.’ He pointed over to a man in a raincoat and pulled-down trilby standing by Ally’s stall. ‘Better go, Ally. Think you’ve got a customer.’

      *

      ‘Where have you been?’

      Wattie had a face on him like a girl who’d been stood up on a Saturday night. Half ashamed and half angry. McCoy ignored him, took off his coat and sat down at his desk, but Wattie wasn’t giving up. ‘You and me are supposed to be doing everything together, that’s what you were told. Where were you this morning then? I’ve been sitting here like a right arse. Everyone looking at me asking where you are.’

      ‘I miss anything?’ he asked.

      Before Wattie could reply the battered wooden doors of the office swung open and Thomson appeared. Face lighting up when he saw McCoy.

      ‘Well, well, Harry Shagger McCoy, you’re a quiet one, right enough,’ he said, big grin splitting his face. He put his briefcase down on his desk and really got going. Started poking his finger into the hole he’d made with his other hand. ‘You dirty bugger. And that early in the morning as well. Hats off to you.’

      ‘Very good, Thomson. I was there seeing someone,’ he said patiently.

      ‘I bet you fucking were. Who was it? That wee blonde with the big—’

      ‘McCoy! And you too, Watson. Now!’

      Murray’s bull-like head had appeared round his office door. ‘What’s all this about?’ asked Wattie. ‘Why do I never know what’s bloody going on?’

      They stepped into the office. Murray was holding out a piece of paper with an address on it. ‘We got lucky for once. Someone’s recognised the boy from the paper.’