I shook my head. ‘That’s not going to happen. Everett shoots his shows on Saturdays and Sundays. Allow Friday afternoon for travelling sometimes: apart from that Mondays to Friday mornings are clear for my routine business.’
She looked at me, reassured but still questioning. ‘Where are these events?’ she asked.
‘All over the place. We’re in Newcastle on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday. The weekend following we tape both shows here in Glasgow, in the SECC, then after that we go to Barcelona.’
‘Oh yes? And what happens to the dear little woman while you’re off ring announcing and detecting?’
‘The dear little woman comes with me. . on expenses. That’s part of the deal. I know we were supposed to be going up to Fife on Saturday, but I’ve sorted that too. I’ve got tickets for Dad and the boys for the Newcastle Arena event. You’ll come with me, won’t you?’
At last, she grinned. ‘As long as I can go to the Metro Centre, it’s a deal. For this weekend at least. A couple of my clients have audits coming up soon, and that means extra work for me. We’ll play the other events by ear. Anyway, ace detective, you’ll probably crack the case inside a couple of days.
‘Have you told the boys yet?’
‘No. I’ll phone them later on tonight.’
‘Your dad’s going to love you for messing up any plans he might have had for the weekend.’
‘Ahh, he’s a big kid at heart.’
She glanced up at the clock, which showed quarter to six. ‘We having another?’
‘Why not?’ I stood up, and eased my way through the throng and up to the bar.
It’s a funny thing about city pubs; some of them have really odd names. Few come weirder than Babbity Bowser’s, in Glasgow’s Merchant City. I suppose that in every town with a courtroom there are pubs to which lawyers and journalists gravitate, to trade in the vital currency of information. In Edinburgh, it’s places like the Bank Hotel and O’Neill’s, but in the Second City of the Empire. . Glaswegians always did like to make big claims for themselves. . Babbity’s reigns supreme.
It isn’t all that big, and it certainly isn’t flashy, but like all pubs it’s made by the people it attracts. On this Tuesday night it was buzzing for sure. A big drugs-related trial, which had been running in the High Court for almost three weeks, had just ended with the conviction of all six accused. True to form in Scotland, the judge had sentenced the barons to a total of one hundred and seventeen years in jail.
Half of the Faculty of Advocates seemed to be in the place. The prosecution team from the Crown Office were sitting at a small table in the far corner of the bar, not even trying to keep the triumph from their faces. The various defence counsel and solicitors, and since there had been six defendants in the dock, that was quite a crowd, were gathered together fairly close to them. Only the youngest among them looked in the slightest upset by their defeat. The older ones had been there before, and knew the score. From the chat which had drifted over to our seats beside the door, I gathered that the consensus was that the judge had been ultra-careful in his charge to the jury, and that the only slim chance of success in an appeal was against the severity of his sentencing.
Finally, having been hailed on the way by a couple of advocates whom I knew, I made it to the bar and ordered a pint of lager for me and a gin and tonic for Jan. I paid for them, and was still wincing when the hand fell on my shoulder.
‘Well, well, well. Fancy running into you again, Oz. And in Glasgow too. What are you getting away with these days?’
The last time I had seen Detective Inspector Michael Dylan, his crest had been more than a little fallen. Time had obviously healed that wound; from the beam on his face he was back to being the bumptious big arsehole I had come to know in Edinburgh. He wasn’t perfect at the act though. In spite of all he did and said, I couldn’t help liking him, just a bit.
‘Hello, Mike,’ I said, glancing in the process at his suit. Hugo Boss, I guessed. Dylan was the sort of guy who would leave the designer’s label on the sleeve if he thought no one would laugh. ‘I see you’ve been to Slater’s again.’
Give him his due: he grinned. ‘Not this time. I’ve been giving evidence in the drugs trial. Star witness to the Edinburgh side of it. That was my swan song in the capital. I’ll be through in Glasgow for a while, on secondment to the Serious Crimes Squad.’
That’s bad news for us property-owners in the West, I thought. ‘That’s bad news for serious criminals in the West,’ I said.
‘So what brings you here, Ozzie?’ Dylan went on. ‘Last I heard you had fucked off to Spain and set up a business with that wee blonde bird of yours.’ He grinned. ‘Too hot for you, was it? Or was she?’
I shook my head. ‘It was okay while it lasted. I found out that I missed someone, though. We’re married now, and living through here, up behind Charing Cross.’ I held up my two drinks, and nodded towards the doorway, where Jan was gazing at me, frowning slightly as if trying to remember Dylan’s face. ‘Look, I’ve got to get these back to the table.’
His eyes followed mine. ‘That’s the wife, son?’ Dylan was in his early thirties, two or three years older than me. ‘I can see why you hurried back; she’s bloody gorgeous.
‘Here, I see you’ve got a couple of spare seats. We’ll join you.’
With a pint and a gin and tonic in my hands, I could barely say that we were just leaving.
‘Who’s he?’ Jan whispered as I sat down opposite her. ‘I know the face from somewhere.’
‘Mike Dylan, a copper from Edinburgh. He used to be Ricky Ross’s sidekick. He drinks in Whighams.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘I remember seeing him there: talking to you, in fact. He looks a bit full of himself.’
‘He’s okay, really. Try to be nice to him. He’s coming over.’ I had been wondering about Dylan’s ‘we’. I had my answer at once as he emerged from the throng at the bar, carrying two pints of dark beer and followed by a short girl, in an even shorter skirt and with frizzy red hair.
‘This is my girlfriend, Susie Gantry,’ he said as he laid the pints on the table.
I reached out a handshake. ‘Pleased to meet you, Susie. I’m Oz Blackstone, and this is my wife Jan.
‘Gantry, eh,’ I went on, idly. ‘Same name as the Lord Provost.’
‘He’s my father,’ said Susie, a touch apologetically, it seemed to me.
Christ, I thought to myself. Typical bloody Dylan. He’s hardly in town five minutes and he’s shagging the Lord Provost’s daughter.
‘And have you known PC Dylan long?’ I asked her.
‘Watch it, you,’ said Mike, as the girl, not yet attuned to my waspish humour, shot him a quick frown. ‘That’s Detective Inspector.’
‘Still?’ I laced my tone with all the incredulity I could muster.
‘Cheeky bastard, Blackstone. I shouldn’t be for much longer, since you’re interested. I’m expecting a promotion within the next few months.’
‘How come? Are all your gaffers due to go up in the same dodgy aircraft?’
Dylan smiled at my wife. ‘How did a sensible looking lady like you wind up with this?’ he asked. He’s the sort of bloke who can’t help chatting up every woman he meets, even when he has one on his arm.
‘Sunshine,’ she drawled, poker-faced. ‘I taught him everything he knows.’ She looked across at Susie Gantry, and smiled. ‘How about you? When did you draw this card?’
‘About two months ago,’ the red-haired girl replied, with an appraising glance at Dylan. ‘I’m still deciding whether to shove it back in the deck.’
For once in my life, I began to feel sorry for him. ‘How’s your old boss these days, Mike?’ I asked, by way of changing the subject.
‘Ricky, you mean? He’s off the force, and working as a security consultant to one of the big supermarkets. I saw him a few weeks ago.’ He paused. ‘Your name came up in conversation, in fact.’