The Fire (6 page)

The whole idea of surveillance is to follow your target unnoticed. This lot were failing miserably.

Our cab accelerated and swung right into Portland Street. The traffic was at a near standstill, but our driver was undeterred and drove down the centre of the road to blaring horns and shaking fists. The Golf didn't follow but, almost instantly, we were tagged by the motorcyclist. We powered past the Britannia Hotel and took a sharp right toward China Town. We flew past the famous Chinese archway and swung left into George Street.

The bike was still with us, but the cabbie spun his car a full three-sixty and set off back the way we'd come, the wrong way down the one way street. I started to fumble for my seatbelt as the cab driver seemed to warm to his task.

"My missus took me for fuckin' everything," he shouted over his shoulder. "Fuckin' cow even wants some of me earnings from me cab! She fucked off with this other mush...an' now she wants me to fuckin' pay for him!"

I suddenly sussed why he'd become so keen to outrun our 'private dick'.

The bike didn't follow, he was probably screaming into his comms to direct the Golf in our general direction.

Before we knew it, our cab was on Charlotte Street and heading toward The Village.

Rick leaned forward. "Drop us at the coach station, pal, well done, I owe you a pint!"

The driver screeched to a halt and we sprinted into the large grey concrete structure.

Two coaches were dropping passengers, and a veritable mix of young and old were wandering about the concourse, consulting maps and chomping on fast food from the nearby vendors. Rick was dragging me along by the hand until we reached a fire exit along the back wall. He kicked the door open and smashed the glass in the alarm with his elbow.

Sirens filled the station. People instantly ran about like headless chickens. The small number of staff on duty attempted to calm the passengers and usher them toward the large open area to the front of the building.

Seconds later we were out into the street, lost in the panicking crowd. Running hard, we stayed on Bloom Street until we hit the junction with Sackville where we dropped our pace to a stroll. I looked around us and the street was empty. Rick pushed open the door to Baa Bar.

He was the ultimate in cool.

"Drink?" he said.

Des Cogan's Story:

Buying a first class ticket was not my best idea. I'd figured it would be quieter than the main train for the two and a half hour ride to Glasgow; somewhere to get my head together. As it turned out, the three carriages were full of a big group of lads on a stag do. They'd started early; the kind of thing squaddies used to do when they got some leave.

I'd been frowned upon many a time by a ticket collector as I guzzled cans of Guinness at six in the morning on my way home.

Time was precious then...it always was really, I just didn't appreciate it.

I watched the young lads with something approaching contempt. How dared they flaunt their good fortune, without a care in the world, when my life had gone to shit?

As we pulled away from Piccadilly, my disdain dissolved into aching sadness and their raucous laughter faded along with the clatter of the train. My heart was broken and I heard nothing.

At just after seven in the morning, the dawn had yet to break and the train cut through the Lancashire countryside in pitch darkness. I studied my reflection in the window and touched the dark circles that had appeared under my eyes overnight.

What in God's name was I going to say to my wife? I mean, my ex-wife.

What was there left to say? Sorry? That wouldn't fuckin' cut it, eh? Sorry that you're going to die before your forty-sixth birthday? Sorry we never had any kids? Sorry I messed up?

I was so fuckin' angry. Angry that after all this time, I still felt a good old dose of Catholic guilt. Angry with myself for allowing her to simply pick up the phone, secure in the knowledge that I'd come running as I always had; but most of all, angry because I was about to lose her.... forever.

The train rocked rhythmically and I closed my eyes. Where had the time gone? Why had we wasted so much of it?

I was a snotty-nosed kid when I met her.

I went to St John's Infant School, smack bang in the middle of the Gorbals.

If you've never heard of it, you're lucky.

Slum housing is never pretty, but the place I called home, close to the centre of Glasgow was a complete shithole.

I went on to serve my country all over the world, but let me tell you, some of the African mud huts I've slept in were better equipped than our house.

My first 'educational facility' was built by the Glasgow School Board in 1905. It became known as the 'Truant School' and provided a few months of residential education for a hundred and sixty of the most persistent truants in the area. Even though I lived just yards from the place, this included my good self. It was a prison in everything but name. The idea was that, as you couldn't get out, you would get used to attending school and become a model of Scottish society.

The nuns who ran the place gave us lessons in subjects such as writing and arithmetic, and twice a week Father Jonathan would visit, and give us practical instruction in skills like carpentry and gardening. Being one of seven, I was used to sharing a bed, never mind a room, so being a 'resident' was not so bad, especially as the 'school' had hot running water, something we didn't have at home. I did miss my mum's cooking though, and the great craic with my brothers.

We were loved, all seven of us boys, and my parents did their best. Looking back, I suppose I was a bit of a tearaway and a worry to them back then.

My family lived in the tenements on Norfolk Street but by the time I was in my teens the rotting buildings were being swept away in a tide of rebuilding to be replaced by modern tower blocks, the answer to all our working class dreams, eh?.

Everyone was fuckin' delighted, except my dad, who refused to move to the high-rise accommodation. By the winter of 1974 we were one of the few families remaining in the cold, damp, cramped housing that remained.

Stubborn bastard.

I'd had my fourteenth birthday that year. Just one school term was left before I was supposed to join my older brothers in the adult world of the Glasgow shipyards.

St John's, the place that had once been my prison, had been extended and refurbished and had become my Secondary Modern school.

It was home to the toughest and poorest kids in Glasgow. Having so many older brothers, I'd been well protected from harm until my fourth year. Unfortunately, my siblings had all left and were working their bollocks off at Camel Laird.

I was very much alone.

Tam McCullach was the hardest boy in my school, and for reasons that I no longer recall, I'd pissed him off.

To explain the difference between Tam and other boys in my year would be difficult. Just to say, he had a beard, where we mere mortals were hoping to discover bum fluff in the mirror.

"I'm gonna kick your fuckin' head in," he announced to virtually all the school as I shook uncontrollably in what was laughingly called the playground.

Thankfully, nobody actually had a fight in the concrete hole in the ground that was supposed to pass for a leisure area at St John's. The nuns, and in particular, Sister O'Shea, watched this particular shit tip like a hawk. Any behaviour she considered to be 'unacceptable' was punished by lashing you about the thighs with a rounder's bat. As the old bird was a good eighteen stone, she was easily capable of bringing the wooden implement to bear with the velocity of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

You did not fuck with the Sister.

No, Tam demanded that his revenge, for whatever misdemeanour I had committed, be avenged on the rubble-strewn spare ground close to my home on Norfolk Street where the slums once stood.

I remember I spent the whole afternoon, sitting in fuckin' triple History, petrified of what Tam was about to do to me. I went through all the possible scenarios in my mind's eye thousands of times. Each time, the outcome became more and more terrifying.

He was going to kill me. I just knew it. That... or even worse, I would lose my bottle and not show up, therefore confirming what the whole school already knew...that I was a soft bastard and scared of Tam.

The fact that every other boy in the place was terrified of the Neanderthal had nothing to do with it. They were so delighted that it wasn't them that he'd picked on that they instantly forgot what a twat he was.

Oh no....to a man, they were looking forward to my demise with an unhealthy Scottish relish.

Later in life, I learned that the actual event that is the source of your fear is rarely as bad as anything the human mind conjures up. Worrying has always been a pointless exercise; but at fourteen years old, faced with almost certain death, walking back to my tenement that day... I was shitting it.

I had a key for the back door on a piece of string around my neck. I needed this, as three days a week, my mum worked as a cleaner at some big posh offices in Glasgow centre till five o clock.

My eldest brother was home, but worked nights and would be asleep till supper time. My usual routine was to let myself in and quietly start some chores, careful not to disturb my brother. Nothing major, my mum was queen of her kitchen, but I was expected to peel a few potatoes and bring in any washing left out on the line to dry, that sort of thing.

Being close to a nervous breakdown, I couldn't bring myself to start any of my usual tasks. I recall I was shaking so much I'd probably have done myself an injury with the potato peeler.

Climbing the stairs to my bedroom, my legs wobbled and I felt weak as a kitten. The small room was completely filled with a double bed and two singles, leaving a miniscule strip of available floor-space to negotiate your way. My older brother snored quietly on his bed under the window.

On pain of death, our room was neat and tidy but it smelled like four teenage boys slept in it every night. The woodchip wallpaper was peeling off the ceiling due to the damp; the mixture of aromas was interesting at best.

Rooting under our Patrick's bed, I found what I was looking for; his steel toe capped work boots. He wouldn't need them for a few hours yet, and my need was greater than his. I hoped he'd never know they'd been missing.

They were way too big for me, but I pulled on two pairs of thick woollen socks and laced them as tightly as I could. When I stood, I felt like I'd just pulled on a pair of diving boots. I found it so difficult to walk that I almost changed my mind and pulled them off.

Standing in the parlour, watching the clock as the time of my demise drew ever nearer, tears pricked my eyes. As the big hand clicked onto ten to four, I took the deepest of breaths and let myself out of the back door.

It wasn't far to walk to the spare ground where Tam was already waiting for me. As I turned the corner, my heart was in my mouth. Tam stood amongst the rubble, stripped to the waist, his long red curly hair blowing in the wind with two of his regular lackeys, Jimmy Boyle and Thomas Vardy standing either side of him. One held his shirt and tie, the other his blazer.

In turn, they were surrounded by what looked like the whole school.

Over a hundred boys and girls had turned out to see young Cogan get his head staved in. The moment the crowd spotted me, a cheer went up that Celtic Park would have been proud of.

I wanted to turn and run. I was so scared, I felt sick; my heart pounded.

Tam's face was screwed up so tight he looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp. He screamed my name and the crowd bayed for my blood. The bastards even started to chant his name.

Fuckin' typical, eh?

I still don't quite know what came over me that instant. I think it may have been seeing Matty Flynn, my so called best mate, cheering fat Tam on as he strode toward me, ham fists clenched.

Whatever was to happen, I'd decided I wasn't going to stand there and let him come to me. I tucked my chin into my chest, the way my brothers had shown me and sprinted at him. I must have looked demented.

I think I screamed some kind of mad war cry. I'd seen
Zulu
at the pictures the week before and it had stuck in my mind.

Tam stopped his march and viewed me with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. A split second later I was in range of him. I drew back my right foot as if I was about to take a goal kick and thrust it upward as if my life depended on it.

I couldn't feel much, due to my brother's work boots being armour plated, but my leg stopped dead as I struck Tam a direct hit in the bollocks.

I was an instant winner.

Someone had definitely unplugged him. His knees buckled first, but then the rest of his limbs seemed to follow suit and he landed nastily on the broken bricks and shards of glass that covered his chosen arena.

The crowd let out a thunderous 'Ooooh' as he fell, followed by a split second of silence.

Tam started to scream in agony.

Chief lackey Jimmy Boyle ran up to me all aggressive like, looking to avenge his bestest buddy, but I could see in his eyes, he had no stomach for a fight. I just gave him the evils and he backed away.

That was the catalyst. Seeing Jimmy back down was a signal to the crowd that the king was dead.

They began to chant my name. 'Co-gan...Co-gan...Co-gan'.

I was so full of adrenaline that I shook uncontrollably. My feet were welded to the spot. Tam was being sick on Jimmy's shoes. Boys were patting me on the back.

It was mayhem.

Then I saw her.

She pushed her way through the crowd of boys and stood in front of me.

Of course I'd seen her before in school. I mean which boy hadn't seen Anne Margaret Mahoney? She just hadn't known of my existence. I was plant life to her.

I'd heard that she had a boyfriend who was much older, so old that he had a car...a Ford Capri...I mean, who could top that? No one in our neck of the woods, let me tell you.

She pulled her short black leather jacket around herself.

"Hi," she said. "It's cold, eh?"

I thought I was going to die for a whole different set of reasons. She was the most beautiful thing ever.

"Hello, Anne," I managed. "I suppose it is... yes."

She gestured toward the retching Tam, "You sure showed him a thing or two. I didn't realise you were such a hard man."

"Erm...I'm not...I mean erm...well yeah...thanks."

Then she delivered the bomb.

"You're a handsome boy, Desmond," she purred.

I'll never forget that look in her eyes. I knew I was supposed to come back with a reply; something clever, something cool. After all I had become the hero of the school.

Before you take the piss... remember I was fourteen.

"You look like Suzy Quattro," I said.

Arriving at Glasgow Central, I'd trawled through enough mental memorabilia to do myself permanent damage. For some fuckin' stupid reason, I'd spent the last six years believing that Anne would one day come to her senses and walk through my door with open arms. Everything was going to be fine...happy ever fuckin' after.

Now, it would never happen. She had lung cancer and had days left; maybe hours.