“Where’s the righteous one, ‘Fin’?”
Fin chased after him and Judith could hear doors opening and slamming shut.
“How did you get in the building?” the younger White brother demanded of the imposter.
“Ah, you can get in anywhere if you look the part…this one is it?”
“No! You can’t go in there!”
Judith got up and went over to the hallway where Fin and Bob were jostling for control of Danny’s bedroom door handle. Just then, the door was pulled open from the inside and a scrawny man, with wild curly hair and a bushy beard stood there, naked. Fin and Judith looked away out of embarrassment, but Bob milked the scene with a sly, lopsided grin on his face.
“Where is she Danny?”
“You’d better come in,”
Bob strode into the bedroom and Danny pushed the door shut behind them.
Back in the lounge, Fin went out onto the balcony to think, allowing the crisp, autumn evening into the apartment. Taking advantage of his distraction, Judith pretended to go to the bathroom, but eavesdropped at Danny’s door instead.
CHAPTER: 7
“I spent the fortnight consoling her.”
“Consoling?” Bob quizzed Danny aggressively.
“Yes. I’d like to have said we consoled one another, but the moment I needed some attention she abandoned me. I’d distracted myself from grief by attending to her problems, then, when I finally cracked and started expressing my own sorrow, she disappeared. I searched for her all week before learning that she’d been evicted from your apartment and gone back to Oxfordshire.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Her parents have a big place down there. Right, that’s all I wanted to know.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Go down there to fetch her of course.”
“Fetch her? Bob, you were unfaithful to her with prostitutes, one of whom you beat almost to death. You’ve publicly humiliated her, jeopardized her career and, worst of all, you’ve shattered her faith in human relationships. Isn’t it best you leave her alone to recover and start afresh?”
“Yes, if everything you said was true. As always though Danny, just as in your politics, you ignore those facts which inconvenience your bigotry, such as there was no evidence against me…such as I was implicated by a certified madman…a fan who, in my decency, I took pity on and allowed into my company. I’m not bitter though. I feel sorry for him, I really do. Like you, he’s basically a decent guy who just can’t fit into society. It’s a shame.”
Danny laughed sarcastically. “Would that be the same society I had to protect you from on the way home from your little private school that afternoon, when you were bullied for being a snobbish loner? When I had to take a kicking off the Ferguson brothers for standing between them and you, a complete stranger?”
Danny was referring to their first, fortuitous meeting at the age of thirteen, one spring afternoon on a double decker bus. He’d been larking about on the top deck with a ‘team’ from Possil when Bob had unwittingly boarded in his Glasgow Academy blazer. Crazy Ferguson — a neighbourhood psychopath who ended up in Carstairs State Hospital for the Criminally Insane — had taken blood curdling exception to “Little Lord Fauntleroy” and intended to torture him. “Can you believe it?” he’d said, “cheeky wee bastard’s got the audacity to travel home from a private school – on a council bus!”
With a tattooed hand round Bob’s throat, Crazy had been about to slash his cheek with a metal comb, when Danny ran down the aisle and leapt on his back, pulling him to the floor. The price of this heroism was paid several weeks later, though, when Crazy and his older brother, Buddy, had jumped him from behind outside the fish and chip shop, knocking him unconscious with a whisky bottle. At the time, Danny’s mother said it had served him right for defending “the enemy” against his own.
“What’s that got to do with the real world, here and now?” A nerve had obviously been struck, as Bob’s voice was quavering.
“Is that the real world which saw you speeding round the streets on your own in the brand new car your parents bought, while I was out and about in the city centre making acquaintances from the four corners of the Clyde, not least among them being a certain Mr. Alexander Addison and Billy McLean, who went on to form The Squeaky Kirk. I suppose you’ve forgotten me coming round and coaxing you out of your reclusive existence to meet them, because they needed a lyricist and I thought it might be an outlet for your writing…Jesus it was hard work getting past your ‘mammy’ at the front door! Nobody was good enough for her little angel were they? Do you remember how intimidated you used to be down town, outside the protection of your car? Is that the real world you mean Bobby? Eh? A world in which you could only communicate through songs; jealous of other people’s ability to interact. And it’s the same even now. There isn’t really anybody beneath those ridiculous clothes you’re wearing is there? Take away the designer suits, the sports car and a record deal — which allows you to be heard by thousands without ever having to interact with anybody — and what’s left? An anonymous, social inadequate, that’s what.”
“I haven’t got time for – your – bitter – abuse.”
Bob was almost crying.
Judith saw the bedroom door handle move and stepped back into the dark bathroom behind her. Before Bob could get out, though, Danny lit the blue touch paper.
“Not all the witnesses to what you did are clinically mad you know.”
“What?” Bob bit.
Judith heard the door being pushed to again and resumed her eavesdropping position at the threshold of the bathroom, where it met the bedroom door on a right angle.
“Do you know what the greatest part of driving a cab was for me? I was able to observe you and Ingrid without being spotted. Sad, I know, but such is the nature of obsession. I could park opposite the pub, or pass you half a dozen times in the street and you’d never suspect, because I was just another taxi. But I had a special incentive to follow your Audi TT around town.”
“That being?”
“Catching you out of course. That way I could disenchant Ingrid and win her back.”
“You bitter…bitter freak.”
“It was devastating when Herman turned up at your little Govan lair with Carina. I was petrified she’d give you something that could be passed on to Ingrid…so much that I actually ran up the stairs and banged on your door. But, what with the noise you were making arguing, you obviously never heard me. When Herman carried her out of there I was sat in the darkness, behind the banister on the stair above, watching everything.”
“So why didn’t you tell Ingrid?” Bob snapped.
“Informing her you were a prostitute beater was no good. She’d hate me more than you, for trying to capitalise on a tragedy. So I kept quiet and waited, hoping the police would eventually do the job for me and, thanks to the arrival of Judith, they did.”
“Oh. Her.”
“That was a little maneuver of mine I’m not too proud of, but as I say, obsession does these things.”
“Maneuver?”
“She jumped in the cab one night and I deliberately dropped her at Oran Mor where I knew you’d all be. Then I promised half-fares in future, to guarantee we maintained contact. Knowing how you’re always seeking an audience to witness your lifestyle — The Fitzgerald Dream — I was confident she’d be embraced by the gang. She was my eyes and ears without realizing and, the more I revealed about myself to her, it was inevitable she’d mention me to Ingrid and, hopefully, be the catalyst for a reunion. The rest, of course, is history — though I never imagined she’d also precipitate your downfall.”