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“What is it?” Betty demanded.
“You owe me money, old woman.” Callum negotiated Glasgow’s city centre traffic as he talked.
Betty cackled. “You heard about your porn movie, then. No, wait, they call them sex tapes now. All the B-list celebrities have them because they think showing their bits on the internet will make them more money.”
Callum let out a sigh and wondered yet again how he was going to pay Lake back for bringing Betty into his life.
“You’d better not have made any copies,” he said.
“Now, would I do that?”
“Bloody right you would.”
Her cackle was like nails on a blackboard.
“This is your only warning; I want all copies destroyed by the end of the week or I’m coming to see you.” He turned into a narrow street, flanked by tall red sandstone tenements. Young men loitering on the corner stared at him. Graffiti covered the boarded-up windows of the ground-floor spaces that used to be shops. It was a dump.
“And you’ll do what? I’m eighty-nine. Threats of violence don’t work on me, son. You’ll need to do better than that.”
“I wasn’t planning violence. I was planning on taking care of you. I hear there’s a really nice nursing home in Aberdeen that you might like. I’m willing to pay for you to move in there and live out the rest of your life in comfort. Sure, it’s far away from Invertary and they lock the residents in at night, but you’d be happy there. Okay, maybe not happy, but definitely contained. I have the paperwork all drawn up that says I’m your son and I have power of attorney over your health, seeing as you’re suffering from dementia and all.”
“You’d never get away with it.”
“Try me.” He hung up as he pulled the car up in front of the last close in the tenement.
There was a crowd of young men hanging around outside the entrance to the flats. They all looked undernourished and beady-eyed. Callum got out of the car. He’d worn his shoulder holster for this occasion, and made a show of putting his gun in it. Guns weren’t a common sight on Scotland’s streets, not even in areas like this, and Callum knew if the young men were armed, it would be with knives.
He strode towards them, making his way right through the middle of their group.
“The car stays in one piece,” he said.
“Or what?” A young punk stood in front of him. Callum grabbed him by the nape and smashed his face into the wall of the building. He heard his nose break and then the howl of pain and disbelief. Callum kept on walking without saying a word, confident his message had been heard.
The close was remarkably clean, considering the state of the street outside the building. Callum made his way up the concrete steps to the top floor, passing doors that remained firmly closed. When he turned into the last flight of stairs, he wasn’t surprised to find two men waiting for him. They were bigger and more muscled than the boys downstairs. One wore knuckle dusters; the other held a knife.
“Either of you boys called Ray?” Callum asked.
They shared a look. “No. Who are you?”
“I’m here to see Eddie.”
“Eddie’s no’ takin’ meetin’s.” The one with the knife pointed to the stairs. “Get oot of here while ye still can.”
Callum didn’t bother arguing. He jabbed the guy with the knife in the throat, disarmed him and threw his knife into the stairwell. The man fell to his knees, choking. The other guy threw a punch. Callum ducked, grabbed his arm and used his forward momentum to propel him down the stairs. He didn’t turn to see what state he was in. Instead, Callum strode forward, lifted his foot and kicked in the door to Eddie’s flat.
Inside, a woman screamed. Callum ignored it and headed down the hallway. A short, nasty-looking guy with heavy rings on all of his fingers and a gun in his hand stepped into the doorway at the end of the hall.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Ray?” Callum asked, striding towards him.
“Ray, who is it?” someone shouted from inside the room.
Callum nodded. “Then you’re Ray.”
This was the man who’d hit Isobel and threatened to rape her. Callum saw Ray lift the gun. He wasn’t fast enough. Callum grabbed the arm with the gun, bent back Ray’s hand and released the gun into his own hand. Ray tried to head-butt him, but Callum sidestepped it, pressed Ray’s gun to his thigh and pulled the trigger.
Ray squealed like a pig and crumpled to the floor. Callum pointed the gun into the room, aiming it at the two men sitting on the leather chairs with glasses of whisky in their hands.
