The Blade Artist Read online

  — You’ll appreciate this, being an artist, Frank, Tyrone says, with a self-styled raconteur’s delight, as he leads him through to a large drawing room, with a dining area to the rear, and two monumental, ornate chandeliers above. And there are more paintings. — One ay the biggest private collections of Pre-Raphaelite-influenced Scottish art. This one is a David Scott, and these two are by William Dyce. And I’ve got these original Murdo Mathieson Taits. He sweeps his hand over a wall festooned with several canvases of figures and landscapes. — No bad for a boy fae Niddrie Mains!

  — Dinnae really git art, Franco says dismissively.

  — But you’re an artist, man! Ye make your living by –

  — Ever listened tae Chinese Democracy, Guns n’ Roses?

  — What?

  — A lot ay people say it’s overproduced. That it cannae be spoken aboot in the same breath as the likes ay Appetite for Destruction. I think that’s shite. Frank Begbie looks challengingly at his old boss. — You have tae use the production values available at the time.

  — Dinnae ken that one, Tyrone says irritably.

  — Check it oot, Franco smiles. — It comes highly recommended, and he moves over to the dining table, running his hand along the polished sheen of its surface. — Nice. Mahogany?

  — Aye, Tyrone nods, gesturing at Frank to sit down, and he accordingly flops back into a well-upholstered couch. Tyrone then lowers his own bulk, with surprising daintiness, into the armchair opposite.

  Frank Begbie looks around for traces that might help him ascertain who else lives here. Tyrone had been married, with grown-up children, yet there is no evidence of any cohabitee in this grand room. — So how’s things? You still wi what’s-her-name? he fishes.

  The face on the man across from him barely registers anything, no indication that Franco has spoken, let alone that the subject is off-limits. Then Tyrone’s eyes suddenly narrow. — You know that your boy . . . Sean, he says, stretching out the word to make it sound like yawn, — Sean was mixed up with that wee cunt Anton Miller?

  — No.

  — And this bird, Frances, Frances Flanagan, they say that she was there on the night he got done.

  This is certainly news. Two new names. Anton Miller. Frances Flanagan. The police hadn’t confirmed anyone was with Sean, yet this makes sense; somebody had tipped off the ambulance, even if it was too late. Maybe the girl had been there, and had let in the murderer, not knowing what he was going to do, then panicked when he’d killed Sean, and perhaps ran away and called the police. Or maybe she’d set him up. Or even stabbed him herself. Yet Frank Begbie is suspicious. He’s heard this type of talk before, and it just isn’t in Davie Power’s nature to do good turns. — So why ye telling me this?

  — It’s no just about old times’ sake. Tyrone shakes his head slowly, then cracks a smile of genuine delight. — And I won’t insult ye by even pretending that’s the case. See, I owe several bad turns to that wee Miller cunt. In fact, I wish nothing but a shower of shite to come down on him. You do bad very well, Frank, Tyrone says, trying to gauge Frank Begbie’s reaction. — He’s a nasty little cunt. Shooters, the lot. Cowardly drive-by gun-downs in the street. That’s not on, he says, shaking his head again. — And he’s behind your laddie’s death, as sure as night follows day. Sean was serving up for him. Drugs. So we have a mutual interest, he contends, rising and heading to an opulent-looking marble cocktail bar built into a corner of the lounge.

  — If some wee cunt was bugging you that much, Franco says, watching him pick up a dimpled glass bottle of whisky from a shelf behind the bar, — you’d have done him by now. Aw they wide cunts that came through fae the schemes over the years, Pilton, Sighthill, Niddrie, Gilmerton . . . you’ve done them all, he says, thinking about an old mate of his, Donny Laing, who had publicly challenged Tyrone and had then vanished. — What’s different about this boy?

  — Miller is the epitome of cunning. Tyrone’s shaven dome bobs. — A whole new breed of schemie, a proper gangster instead of a mindless thug. He gazes at Franco a second too long. — He has brains and knows how tae play politics and build alliances. He’s united all the north Edinburgh mobs; Drylaw, Muirhoose, Pilton, Royston, Granton and even the new-build scheme part of Leith, doon by Newhaven, Tyrone explains, lowering the whisky bottle to the marble-topped bar.

  Begbie nods. Leith has always been its own entity. The thought of it now being just an outpost, a territory owned by some young ned from a scheme, this dismays him much more than it should do.

  — He and his mob have ambition and a certain entrepreneurial zest. Miller commands a strong loyalty among them. If I move on him, they’d all be on me. There would be a war, which would be bad for business, and bad for the toon, Tyrone advances, and Frank Begbie nods in understanding. Tyrone has always nurtured a perverse sense of civic responsibility. Edinburgh’s old gangsters were historically so successful because they were able to evolve from that status, integrating themselves into the respectable business community, and minimising the theatrics of violence. They largely avoided the turf wars, shootings, and True Crime confessional and finger-pointing biographies, replete with Daily Record serialisations, that characterised their Glasgow neighbours. They were safe, ordered and long-established. They recruited the brightest talents from the schemes, but crushed the emergence of any genuine mobs from these peripheries, anyone who might have designs on city markets.

  Franco can see that a new firm who didn’t play by old rules would be a major headache to them.

  And there is pressure on Tyrone from another front. — This new Police Scotland bunch are Weedgie-run, it’s basically the auld Strathclyde polis, and they are coming down harder on us than Lothian’s finest ever did, God rest their souls, he explains, then faces Franco with a conspiratorial stare. — But an outsider . . . which you are now . . . well, I would make it worth your while. You’d be getting revenge for your son, helping me out, getting paid, and ridding your home town of a very malignant force. You sorted out Craig Liddel . . . Seeker . . . Tyrone corrects himself and smiles, — you can do Anton.

  — I also did big time for it. I’m done wi that shite.

  — Like the polis will give a fuck about anybody taking out Anton, Tyrone scoffs, lifting the whisky bottle.

  — I’m a reformed character, Franco says, his face as immobile as a block of stone.

  Tyrone, again, seems not to hear him. — This is a twenty-two-year-old malt, he explains, pouring two generous measures of the whisky into thick Edinburgh crystal glasses. At a miniature guillotine on the bar, he decapitates then lights up a couple of Havana cigars. He hands a glass and smoke to Franco, who looks at them, then at Tyrone. — You’ve still got a taste for violence, I can see it in your eyes. Drink up, Tyrone instructs, toasting him.

  Frank Begbie regards him with a cursory smile. — Like I said, reformed character, he repeats, dropping the cigar into the glass, hearing it hiss, and rising out of the couch.

  He watches Tyrone stare incredulously, first at the defilement of his hospitality, then right at him.

  — Ah kin see masel out, Franco says, lowering the glass to the coffee table, turning and leaving the room, aware that the neck of the man behind him is burning. Not many would turn their back on an angry David ‘Tyrone’ Power, but Francis Begbie just sucks in some air and smiles to himself as he walks down the hallway and out the front door.

  17

  THE UNCLE

  The rain has stopped and the sun comes blinking out from behind smoky clouds, like an old lag adjusting to freedom. A subsonic starting pistol seems to fire, its invisible pitch opening up new possibilities for Edinburgh’s rejuvenated citizenry. But for Frank Begbie, it is about closing old chapters; tomorrow they are to cremate his son. The funeral will be a big day; he senses that in the fractured grief- and alcohol-fuelled narratives that will besiege him, a certain truth and understanding might emerge. After rising early he decides to go for a run, starting off at a slow, ungainly trot, picking up speed, u
ntil his tight leg loosens up.

  Suddenly, he feels, then sees, the iPhone pop out of the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms, bounce on his thigh, and as he stops and turns, watches it hit the grille of a drain inlet, flip on its side and slide down into it. It seems to sink in slow motion into the filthy black water. Anger rises in Franco, and he grips the bars of the heavy iron drain cover. As it rises, the veins in his arm pop to the surface. But he can’t rummage in that filth, can he? One . . . two . . . three . . . it was fucked anyway . . . get a new one . . . He lets it fall back in place, shaking his hands to get rid of the muck, and moves forward, heading for a converted factory unit that houses an old friend’s boxing club.

  Inside, the gym buzzes with activity. Fighters go through their rituals under the supervision of coaches, three of the four rings full of sparring trios or duets working on pads. Around a cluster of heavy bags, office workers do boxing circuit training comprising bag work, sparring, and strength and conditioning exercises, to set them up for a desk-bound day.

  Franco nods to his old pal Mickey Hopkins, who sits behind the reception desk, talking into a mobile phone. He receives an acknowledging wink in exchange. Then he begins stretching out, before working up a nice, satisfying rhythm on the speedball. One . . . two . . . three . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . He feels the righteous eyes of strong men glaring in stoic approval, some of whom he knows have danced with the devil and stepped back from the edge of the cliff. There are such men in gyms all over the world, including his local one in California. He likes being around them; most of them have the sense to know that the wisest of human beings are students, forever learning how to deal with life, continuously readjusting in the face of the shifting opportunities and threats it presents.

  Frank Begbie wraps up his hands as Mickey Hopkins finishes his call, picking up some pads as he nods to the ring. The men climb through the ropes. It is all about breathing, and Franco draws in an even pull, expelling as he launches each punch combo, shouted out by Mickey, into the silver dot on the trainer’s pads. — Double jab, cross, left hook, double right hook, left uppercut, jab . . .

  Franco finds himself in that glorious tempo, which opens up into trancendence, as some onlookers stop their own activity to acknowledge the dance the men are undertaking. After the session he is sweating and blowing hard, and he lets his breathing slow, become regular. Sitting around with some of the boys, he is careful not to ask questions about Anton Miller, content to let people volunteer information. Whether they are Miller’s friends or foes, they have to live with him in this town. The overall impression he garners is of a genuine respect for the young man, as well as an obvious fear. These qualities would make him very dangerous to Tyrone.

  Mickey and some of the boys take him to lunch, roast chicken at a nearby cafe, and they catch up over old times. It strikes him that the men present around the table have been keeping him at arm’s length for years, and are now welcoming him into the ‘he used to be a bam but he’s alright now’ club. He realises that they all discovered how to obtain membership to that fraternity years ago, and, conversely, how long it has taken him. For the first time since he stepped off the plane, he feels at ease back in his home city.

  When he returns to Murrayfield later that afternoon, Frank picks up the phone on the sideboard and dials Melanie’s number. He longs to be in Santa Barbara with her, dawn sweeping through their bedroom windows, her sleeping naked on her stomach, hair magnesium in the sunlight, the room cooled by Pacific air. He feels a bit self-conscious as Elspeth is sitting on the couch drinking gin and watching daytime TV. It goes to voicemail, and Frank tries to explain the situation with the Tesco phone, before the beep goes, cutting off his message. Elspeth looks sour, and he wonders if he should have asked her first about making a long-distance call. Some folk could be funny about that sort of thing. So Franco sits in the chair opposite her, and they exchange some banalities. Then he looks at a picture of the boys on the sideboard, in their matching maroon Hearts tops. — Good lads, he offers.

  — Aye, never had any problems wi them at all . . . Elspeth says, then hesitates. Franco knows that she is thinking of his kids, perhaps realising it might not have been the best thing to say.

  He decides to keep it light. — How come ye brought them up tae be Jambos?

  Elspeth looks at him in mild dismay. — Greg’s dad takes them to Tynecastle.

  — Our family was eywis Hibs. Tradition, ay.

  Elspeth openly scoffs at him. — You can fuckin sit there wi a straight face and talk about our family? Aboot traditions? You, whae spent maist ay yir life in the jail, then just ran away tae California. She ramps up her anger. He looks at the glass in her hand. Wagers it isn’t the first of the day. — Where were you to take your nephews, or even your ain sons, where were you to take them anywhere? Elspeth’s bile spills from her. — Did their uncle Frank ever take them to Hibs?

  — Fair comment, Franco concedes, picking at a lace on his trainers. — I just thought that with us having a Hibs background you might have dug your heels in a bit, that’s aw.

  — What? Like ah gie a fuck about any ay that pish. She scowls at him. — I see what you’re daein, Frank. I see what you’ve become. You’re the same evil bastard but you’ve just learned to control your anger. I can see it in your eyes, the same murderous, selfish killer’s eyes –

  Breathe . . .

  Franco finds himself bristling, as a volcanic rage wells up in him. That same shite Tyrone had come out wi, the nonsense about ma eyes. One . . . two . . . three . . . — What are you talking about? He shakes his head, lets himself fall back into the chair. — Your eyes are your eyes! Relax and enjoy the joust. If you lose your cool first, you lose. — How can I change my eyes? Ye want me to wear zombie contact lenses or something?

  — You’re worse. Elspeth takes another sip of gin. — You’ve learned how tae be sneaky and manipulative. At least when you couldnae control that rage ye were honest.

  Frank Begbie draws in another deep breath and drops his voice. — So if I freak oot and smash the place up . . . he looks around the comfortable room, — . . . that would be me being honest? But if I try and talk things through with people, then I’m a psycho? You’re no making any sense, Elspeth, he snorts dismissively, pointing at her drink on the coffee table between them. — That’s a big glass ay gin, hen. Maybe you want tae ease up. Your old man’s daughter?

  Elspeth is stung by the remark. An awareness that you are drinking too much is one thing, but another party openly registering it is a different matter. She thinks about Greg, and wonders how much he has picked up on. Surely not the boys . . .

  She raises her head to see her brother looking at her, as if he’s read her thoughts. Franco might have been fearsome when he exploded but he was always scariest when he nursed his wrath, keeping his powder dry. That simmering incubation had never lasted long, it had always been beyond him to prevent his molten anger erupting, but now it seems to her that he’s mastered that art. In Elspeth’s mind this makes him even more dangerous. The air is thick with a veil of threat. She has never felt that directly from Frank before, despite witnessing him administering violence to other family members, notably Joe.

  Frank breaks the silence, gets to his feet, standing over her with a strange smile. — But then mibbe if your ain life was a wee bit more fulfilling you might no drink so much. Just putting that out there, he says, dissolving into unselfconscious American, and wandering through to his room.

  On the bedside cabinet, the Tesco phone is now displaying 100 per cent charge, but Franco finds that he can’t open it. — Unbelievable, he says to himself, drawing in a deep breath, and opting to relax by lying on the bed, reading A Clockwork Orange on his Kindle. He recalls seeing the movie of it in his youth. Reading is a struggle, but a rewarding one, as his mind works the pulsing symbols into sounds, then rhythms in his head. Don’t read books, sing them, was the breakthrough advice he’d been given by the specialist in prison.

  There is a kn
ock at the door, and Greg enters. It is obviously time for some reconciliation. — I heard that you and Elspeth . . . ehm, well, I think we’re all a bit nervous about the funeral tomorrow . . .

  — Aye.

  — The boys are at my mum’s. Will you come through and join us? We’re about to have some roast chicken I’ve cooked.

  — Sound, Franco says, rising. He doesn’t particularly want company, and a second helping of roast chicken didn’t excite, but he has burned a load of calories today and it would be sensible to eat again.

  The atmosphere around the table is tense. Franco looks up at Elspeth, knows she is drunk. A bottle of white wine has been opened. Greg will get one glass out of it, if he’s lucky. Suddenly his sister starts snivelling, pushing a hand up to her eyes. — Oh my God . . . she says softly.

  — Sweetheart . . . Greg puts his arm around her. — Are you alright?

  — No! Ah’m no awright! My nephew’s gone, wee Sean, Elspeth groans, sounding wrought with pain. Then she turns to Franco and says sadly, — I mind when I was a young lassie, I was so excited and proud when you and June brought him back to the house.

  Franco stays silent. He recalls that time, the irritating fuss Elspeth and his mother had made. The bairn this, the bairn that. The bitterly resented implication that his life was now over, that he would live by proxy through this child. And he realised that he’d been manipulated, that the pregnancy and the birth of the kid had represented a (forlorn) hope by June and his mother that he would change. Thinking of the latter, he wishes that he could have taken Val Begbie to Santa Barbara, had her meet his daughters. Shown her how it had worked out fine after all, like he’d always assured her it would, throughout those decades of midnight police raids, calls from the cells, court appearances, and grim, ritual trips to prisons. But all Val – by then in the advanced stages of cancer – got was a brief meeting with Mel, and some pictures of Grace as a newborn.