Unfortunately, there was no sign of Bob’s car when they pulled up outside the bungalow, and Ryan’s frantic banging on the front door didn’t even get a response. While he investigated the back of the property, Judith stayed in the minibus, trying to elicit more information from Danny. .
“Danny! You’ve got to think. Is there anywhere else that bastard might be?”
“I don’t know!” he yelled back, at his wits end.
On Ryan’s return, Judith drove aimlessly, suppressed tears of frustration twinkling in her eyes. She’d only gone about a mile, when she suddenly spotted a grey Datsun parked up ahead, outside a black, iron security gate. Either side of the gate was an eight-foot high, brick boundary wall overhung by sycamore trees, with CCTV cameras peeping out from steel poles among the foliage. Judith and Ryan jumped out the minibus, but before the former could press the buzzer on the intercom in the wall, Danny had caught up, snatching her hand away.
“What the hell are you doing woman? This is Rex McLeod’s place.”
“And? You’re quick enough to condemn others for not standing up to the capitalists. Well, here’s your opportunity to show us all how it’s done…oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, you’d rather paint his portrait wouldn’t you?”
Just then, the intercom crackled and a whining, nasal, Glaswegian voice seeped out.
“Tut. Tut. Tut. Is that you causing a song and dance outside my property Danny White?”
“Aye Rex, it is.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” McLeod had a surprisingly genial laugh. “You and your pals had best come on in.”
The gate slid open with a humming noise, revealing a white, eight-bedroom mansion, set back beyond a small field of manicured front lawn. Across this bowling green, five barking Dobermans came bounding, before a middle aged blonde woman in a peppermint green, velvet jogging suit appeared, calling them back. Rex McLeod’s wife, Janine had heavily lined sun-bed orange skin and lank, peroxide hair, but she conveyed the arrogance of an aristocratic supermodel, surveying her visitors with disdain. In a dry, boozy voice she directed them to an oak panelled lounge where three men stood around a large granite-stone fireplace, drinking whisky beneath one of Danny’s portrait paintings of the gangster. To the left — as viewed by the visitors on entering — Fergus Baxter was in full tartan splendour, while on the right, a shaven headed Bob looked conspicuously uncomfortable in his shabby, navy-blue Adidas tracksuit. In the middle was a dumpy, pug faced, squinty eyed, smirking fellow in his late fifties. What remained of his grey hair was combed back over a red pate and his jowls were hanging either side of a triple chin. He wore a yellow Lyle and Scott polo T-shirt — tightly stretched like cling film round his paunch — brown trousers and matching golf shoes. Judith actually laughed when he introduced himself to her as Rex McLeod. She couldn’t believe it. The legendary ‘Big Man’ was even smaller than Fergus Baxter, who could only have been five-foot seven, if that.
“So what can I do for you then folks?” the gangster asked, mockingly.
Danny stepped forward from his position between Judith and Ryan.
“As it happens, we’ve intruded upon you quite by accident. It’s Mr Fitzgerald we need to speak with.” He turned to face Bob. “Could I have a quick word in private please?”
Bob smiled slyly. “There’s no need for that. Nothing you’re going to say will shock anybody here.”
“Ok. In that case…err…how can I put this? Ryan here has lost a very important disc. You wouldn’t happen to know where that might…”
“Just give us our things back you rat!” Judith exploded.
At this moment McLeod stepped forward, placing a pacifying hand on her forearm.
“It’s me you need to talk with about the disc darling. I own it now.”
“Rex,” Danny implored, “the lad here has worked day and night on that book for the past two years. He’s only nineteen. It’s his way out – please don’t block him.”
McLeod turned to face Danny. “Danny boy, if you’d come and asked for that disc two years ago, you’d already be walking out the door with it in your hand, and…and,” he pointed backwards over one shoulder with a thumb, towards Bob, “…that worm there would be eating out of a straw, for offending someone I respected.” He gulped the remainder of his scotch before continuing. “I actually liked you…worse, I trusted you…and I make it my business to trust nobody. I really enjoyed our little chats whenever I sat for you. We talked about Marx and Christianity, do you remember?” McLeod smiled nostalgically at this recollection. “I found you refreshingly naïve. I could see right through you, or so I thought, and there was absolutely nothing harmful there. I don’t think I could say that about a single other soul I’ve encountered. As a result, you became a little indulgence of mine…an escape from the cynical world I inhabit. That’s why I was always giving you painting jobs — so we could talk some more. So you can imagine how betrayed I felt, learning that you’re actually a scheming blackmailer.”
Flushing, Danny cast a quick glance at Ryan, who was oblivious to the dishonourable means by which Gairloch College had come about. Desperate to avert an adverse revelation, he interrupted McLeod.
“But this isn’t about me.”
“Oh but it is. Everything I do these days is influenced by you. Thanks to your sublime disingenuousness, I no longer have faith in my own judgement. Consequently, I have to be ruthless with everyone in order to feel secure. So let’s hear no more about this disc. It’s mine, OK.”
Judith erupted again. “This isn’t some crappy Squeaky Kirk album!” Bob raised his chin by forty-five degrees, head twitching indignantly. “It’s a really good book.”
McLeod turned to Ryan. “We need this book on the shelves as quick as possible. If you want to sign up with us for three-hundred quid a week, so be it. It’ll save us the bother of having to find a front man and an editor to change names and places.”
Judith was beside herself with rage now. “He’s got a London publisher ready to print — and you’re offering him three hundred quid a week!”
“Darlin, the lad’s a drop in the ocean down there. If he’s really, really lucky, he’ll get a ten-grand advance against royalties. No matter how good a yarn he’s written, though, he’ll be at the bottom of the pile when it comes to promotion. The celebrity biographers and Oxbridge in crowd will eat up the entire publicity budget, and no one will even know he existed. Deemed a liability, he’ll be sacked on his debut and never entertained by another publisher again. But if he comes with me, he’ll get every piece of work published, have a guaranteed fourteen grand a year coming in and the Scottish press eating out of his hand. Sometimes the best way to take London is indirectly. If he creates a ripple up here, your big publishers will come sniffing, don’t you worry…and they’ll treat him with the respect he deserves if he’s already a proven earner.” McLeod turned to Danny, who was standing with his arms folded, shaking his head dejectedly. “You shouldn’t be pulling faces. You should be encouraging the boy to do the right thing. How many folk do you know who’ve been published in London?”
“Quite a few,” Danny muttered.
“Aye and how many of them are wealthy as a result? Honestly now.”
“None that I know of.”