May God Forgive by Alan Parks (Canongate Books 2022)

 

Miss Drummond took a sip. ‘Did you know my brother?’ she asked. ‘Before yesterday I mean?’

‘Not well,’ said McCoy ‘But we ran into each other every now and again.’ Wondered if she knew what Ally did for a living.

‘At Paddy’s Market?’ she asked. Then smiled. ‘No need to be discreet, Mr McCoy. I was well aware of what Ally got up to.’ She stirred her tea. ‘I wish you had known him when he was younger. He was different then, vibrant, full of life.'

'What happened?’ asked McCoy before he could stop himself. ‘Sorry to be blunt.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Disappointment happened. My brother studied at Glasgow University, English Literature. Was very good at it, even got a first-class honours.’

The shock must have been written on McCoy’s face.

‘Not what you were expecting to hear, I imagine. He was a brilliant young man, Mr McCoy. Everyone had high expectations, thought he would become a lecturer at the university, but he didn’t want to do that. He spent the next two years writing a novel. Put all he had into it. Every publisher told him how brilliant it was but none of them would publish it.’ She smiled again. ‘These were the days before the Lady Chatterley trial. My brother’s book dealt in sexual obsession, pulled no punches. They asked him to amend it, tone it down a bit, but, ever the artist, he refused. Eventually he got it published by Olympia Press in Paris. Do you know them?’

McCoy shook his head.

‘They published the more controversial novels: Alexander Trocchi, Henry Miller, that sort of thing. They also published books with the sexual content but none of the art. Those ones financed the books they thought were of literary value. My brother’s was one of the artistic ones. The Love Chamber it was called.'

The April Dead by Alan Parks (Canongate Books 2021)

They turned into Old Shettleston Road, forge on the left, and Shettleston was revealed in all its glory. McCoy didn’t know if it was because of the forge but this bit of Glasgow always seemed dirty, tenements black with smoke and soot. Even the pavements looked grimy. They were firmly in the East End now, not McCoy’s normal stomping ground. Knew it a bit from his beat days. Walking up and down Shettleston Road on a Friday night wasn’t an experience he ever wanted to repeat. Could get wild here. Gangs, pubs on every second corner, gangsters defending their turf. Maybe he was just getting too soft in his old age. This was the Glasgow he started in, should be able to take what it threw at them.

Bobby March Will Live Forever by Alan Parks (Canongate Books 2020)

 

13th July 1973

The door to the Gents opened and the one person McCoy didn’t want to see came out, wiping his hands on a paper towel. Bernie Raeburn in all his portly glory. Raeburn was one of those men that took a bit too much care over what they looked like. Brylcreemed hair, neat moustache, silver tie pin, shoes shined. Probably thought he looked quite the thing. To McCoy, he just looked like what he was: a wide boy. Raeburn dropped the paper towel into a bin by one of the tables and peered over at McCoy. Didn’t look happy to see him. Didn’t look happy at all.

‘What you doing here?’ he asked.

‘Was at a call round the corner. Just came to see if there was anything I could do?’ said McCoy.

‘Did you now?’ said Raeburn, looking amused. ‘Think we’ll manage. Plenty of us boys here already.’

‘Okay.’ McCoy resisted the urge to tell Raeburn exactly where to shove his boys. 

'Any news?’

‘Getting there,’ said Raeburn. ‘Getting there . . .’

He held his finger up. Wait. Took his suit jacket off, smoothed down his pale blue shirt. Decided he was ready to speak.

‘Actually, McCoy, there is something you can do to help. Need you to go back to the shop, tell Billy on the front desk to start calling round. Want anyone who hasn’t already gone on their holidays back in, soon as. Need the manpower for the door-to-doors.’

McCoy nodded, kept his temper. Tried not to look at the row of new telephones on the bar.

'So the sooner the better, eh?’ added Raeburn, looking at the door.

McCoy stood there for a minute, trying to decide what to do. The pub had suddenly gone silent, could even hear the big black flies buzzing against the windows. Knew everyone was watching, waiting to see what would happen. Round twenty-odds in the continuing fight between Raeburn and McCoy. They’d even opened a book back at the shop: how long will it take before one lamps the other? Current best bet was about a week.

February's Son by Alan Parks (Canongate Books 2019)

 

10th February 1973

McCoy stopped for a minute, had to. He put his hands on his knees, bent over, tried to catch his breath. Could feel the sweat running down his back, shirt sticking to him under his jumper and coat. He looked up at the uniform. Another one of Murray’s rugby boys. Size of a house and no doubt thick as shit. Same as all the rest.

‘What floor is this now?’ he asked.

The big bastard wasn’t even breathing heavily, just standing there looking at him, raindrops shining on his woollen uniform.

‘Tenth, sir. Four more to go.’

‘Christ. You’re joking, aren’t you?  I’m half dead already.’

They were making their way up a temporary stairway. Just rope handrails strung between scaffolding poles, stairway itself a series of rough concrete slabs leading up and up to the top of the half-built office block.

‘Ready, sir?’

McCoy nodded reluctantly and they started off again. Maybe he’d be doing better if he hadn’t just finished two cans of Pale Ale and half a joint when the big bastard had come to get him. Him and Susan were laughing, dancing about like loonies, Rolling Stones on the radio, when the knock on the door came. Big shadow of the uniform behind the frosted glass. Panic stations. Susan trying to open the windows and fan the dope smell away with a dishtowel while he kept the uniform talking at the door for as long as he could. Just as well they’d decided against splitting the tab he’d found in his wallet.

Bloody January by Alan Parks (Canongate Books 2017)

 

1st January 1973

McCoy headed along the corridor towards the stairs, heels clicking on the metal walkway, breath clouding out in front of him. Never changed, Barlinnie. Freezing in the winter, boiling in the summer. The old Victorian building was on its last legs. Wasn’t built for the number of prisoners they had stuffed into it now. Three, sometimes four of them locked up in a cell made for two. No wonder the whole prison stank. The smell of overflowing slop buckets and stale sweat was so thick it caught in the back of your throat soon as the big doors opened; stuck to your clothes when you left.

He’d been coming up here since his first weeks on the beat. Only good thing about Barlinnie was that it saved you going anywhere else. The whole spectrum of Glasgow’s wrongdoers ended up in here. From rapists and murderers, nonces and kiddie fiddlers to bewildered old men caught coming out the Co-op with two tins of salmon stuffed up their jumpers and their wives not long in the ground. Barlinnie wasn’t fussy, it took them all in.

He leant over the balcony rail, peered through the netting and the fug of tobacco smoke at the rec hall below. Usual crowd milling about in their denims and white plimsolls. Couple of boys whose names he couldn’t remember playing ping-pong. Low-level troops from the gangs in the Milton gathered round the pool table, all long hair, moustaches and borstal tattoos. One of them pointed with his cue as Jack Thomson was wheeled in front of the TV, started sniggering. A year ago he would have been too scared to even look at someone like Thomson. Now the poor bastard had a dent in his head so deep it was visible from up here. That’s what happens when someone takes a sledgehammer to each knee and then gives you a few whacks on the head for luck. Can’t walk and your brain’s so scrambled you don’t even know where you are.

He buttoned up his trench coat, blew in his hands. Really was fucking freezing in here. A year ago he would have been too scared to even look at someone like Thomson. Now the poor bastard had a dent in his head so deep it was visible from up here. That’s what happens when someone takes a sledgehammer to each knee and then gives you a few whacks on the head for luck. Can’t walk and your brain’s so scrambled you don’t even know where you are.