Mac looked bored. There were no punters in. ‘Why are you still here, Hod?’ I said. A spin on the stool, eyes flared. ‘I’m, er, at a loose end.’ I spotted Mac. He scratched his palm nervously. ‘This better not be what I think it is.’ Mac let out a sigh, fiddled with the little stud earring in his ...
The temp' was up at 90-plus, but Christ, the humidity was the killer. Collar and tie weather it wasn't. Shit, you carry about a 55-inch chest in this — I was bench-pressing 500lbs and upping the reps daily — comfortable you ain't. My suit was linen. Navy blue, bought from Hugo Boss back in New Yo...
He cleared his throat as he approached the bus stop, spat fast onto the street. He raised his head to look over at the windows of the flat he shared with Angela; he didn’t want to return there but knew he had no choice. Crawley had fled, but he couldn’t have gone far; Henderson knew he wouldn’t h...
Knocked over a few empty stout tins as I reached for the phone, said, ‘Hello.’ ‘Gus, that you?’ I recognised the hardy voice at once. ‘Mr Bacon … yeah, it’s me.’ ‘Good, good … How you keeping?’ Was this a fucking social call … this early? ‘What?’ ‘Aye, small chat, eh, screw that. Just calling to ...
There had been a time when coming home was a welcome event, he’d visit his parents and visit his past, but those days were gone. There was nothing for him in Cumnock now. If he was being honest, and dispassionate, he would have said there was nothing in Cumnock at all now. There had been work, on...
I was sitting in a drinker at the foot of Leith Walk tanning Tennent's – roughly one hour out my stretch – and retelling the morning's main event. Trust me, after nine months in the pound, a thing like this was an event. 'So, I walks out the gates and goes into the first shop I sees, asks for a p...
I pointed him down. He sat, then lay on his stomach watching Mac and me as we readied ourselves. ‘Get that hammer under the front seat,’ I told him. He grabbed it off the dash, stashed it away. ‘The powder – get it over.’ He opened the glovebox, made space among the petrol receipts and empty Smin...
Got the impression the pug had a limited vocabulary. Probably expressed himself best with, on good days, a baseball bat, on bad ones, a crowbar. My bones twitched. Knees and shins especially. Wondered, would I be walking back this way again?Jean Cocteau said: ‘Life is a horizontal fall.’ Knew for...
His lips were pinched but he had ceased to whistle. As he stood, an arc of piss sprayed the urinal. The expression on his face was hard to analyse – somewhere between startled and slightly chuffed. He turned away, looked down, shook, then zipped up. He regained composure quickly, began whistling ...