'Right,' he sighed, easing himself out of the chair. 'Let's see what you've got hidden away, Billy boy.'
The bedroom was the obvious place to begin. But whoever had been here before him had well and truly gone through every drawer and cabinet, emptying the contents onto the manky carpet.
The hit man wrinkled his nose. The whole place reeked of cannabis. He stopped for a minute, considering. There was no finesse in the search that had happened before his arrival. Just an angry rampage through the place, as though whoever had been here had scattered the stuff around in a furious temper. A drug fuelled temper, perhaps? Brogan was now a weaselly little Glasgow dealer, that much he knew from his enquiries about the man he remembered from the old days. And he'd obviously made himself some enemies. 'There's someone here who'll do more than throw your stuff, around, Billy Boy,' he promised the silent room.
Wearing these thick leather gloves to rake through all of this mess was a nuisance, but he did not dare leave his prints anywhere.
The hit man hunkered down and patiently sifted through every piece of discarded paper, turning each bit over and reading it as he made a neat pile on the space beside the overturned bedside cabinet.
There was a reporter's notebook, some pages ripped out and the rest blank, a plastic wallet full of old bank statements that made the man's eyebrows rise in surprise at the last paltry amount in credit. Still, the bloke was a dealer and dealers invariably used cash in their business transactions. Somewhere, Brogan was out there with ten grand of his, he reminded himself.
He'd given up finding anything of value when his hand slipped on the last few papers, making him lose his balance and fall sideways against the bed. It was then that he saw it: a small, black bound book lying amongst filthy clumps of dust under the top end of the bed.
Flattening his hand, the hit man reached for it, but the space was too narrow. Swearing softly to himself, he drew off the left hand glove and tried again. This time his fingertips reached the edge of the notebook and he felt its grainy surface under his fingernails.
Slowly and carefully he drew it out then sat up, resting his back on the side of Brogan's bed.
It was an old diary from a year back. The hit man flicked through it from front to back until he came to the section for addresses. None of the names meant a thing to him, but there were a few with telephone numbers against them so at least that would be a start.
What to do now? If he were to check into another hotel and Brogan came back, he might miss his chance of nailing the little bastard. On the other hand, if the dealer had had to scarper in a hurry, perhaps he had simply been unable to keep to the agreed rendezvous?
The man closed his eyes as he considered his options. He'd been in worse places. A flash of white hot desert came to mind, the heat beating down, sweat gluing his hair to his helmet. He opened his eyes again, seeing the dust motes thick in the air as a shaft of sunlight crept into the room, smelling the rank odour of spent joints. Aye, he'd been in hellholes worse than this crummy little pad that Brogan called home.
CHAPTER 8
The short, dark-skinned man in the ill-fitting leather jacket whistled a tune between his teeth. It was a sunny day here in the city and the long shadows reminded him of home. Just for a moment, though. Home was so very different from this place where total strangers might try to engage him in conversation, just to be friendly. It had taken Amit a long, long time to become accustomed to the 'y'all right, pal?' a passing workman might toss over his shoulder as Amit hesitated at the margin of some busy road. But now he was safe. His papers were in order, he had a legitimate reason to be here. The dark threat of deportation had gone and in its place was the prospect of a sunny future.
Amit rounded a corner and shrank back against the wall as two uniformed police officers strode towards him. It took all of his courage to continue walking, eyes cast downwards, praying that they would pass him.
Sudden memories came back as the pair drew nearer: the blows from the baton raining down upon his head; yells that were accompanied by kicks in the tender parts of his body until he held himself tightly, foetus-like on the ground.
When the police officers had passed him by and crossed at the traffic lights, Amit let out his breath and wiped the sweat from his palms onto his trouser legs, trembling uncontrollably. If they should find out…
So far Amit had been lucky. The Scottish p0is, as his friend Dhesi in the restaurant called them, were no' sae bad. But they were policemen and where Amit came from that meant fear and suffering, sudden visits in the night and brothers taken away, never to be seen again. He dragged his feet along the street that led to Glasgow Central station, the shadows from the railway bridge a comfort after the brightness of this summer sunlight. The Hielandman's Umbrella,' his friend had called it the first time they had walked together along this darkened stretch of road. 'Where all the Teuchters came to meet their pals when they'd come down from the Hielands; It seemed a strange sort of meeting place, this gloomy space below the massive railway overhead, but Amit supposed it had at least served to keep these Northerners dry. Hence its nickname.
Amit recalled days of monsoon rains when everybody laughed and danced to feel the warm drops cascading down, the welcoming waters breaking the thunderclouds that had built up such terrible tension for weeks on end.
Then the rivers of his homeland had run red with the blood of family and friends.
It was better to forget such a past if he could. Scotland was his home now. Some days Amit found himself welcoming the strange, fine mist that enveloped the city; and he had been here long enough now to find that the sunshine could break through at any time.
'Wait five minutes an' the weather'll change,' an old lady had cackled in his ear one day. This city was full of them, little old ladies who bustled about, crossing the busy roads fearlessly, too impatient to wait at the designated traffic lights. Amit always waited for the green figure before moving off the pavement, more afraid of drawing attention to himself than of the traffic that criss-crossed the city.
The station suddenly loomed ahead and Amit turned into its noisy, echoing entrance, eyes searching for the escalator that would take him up to the higher level above the street. Their agreed rendezvous was a better meeting place than that dingy street, a bustling coffee shop whose very anonymity Amit found reassuring. Strangers came for a time, drank coffee, their lives suspended between where they had been and where they were heading, coffee filling the gap. Was that what he had with Marianne? A gap between his past and his future? The sudden longing that came to him was tinged with a sense of hopelessness.
As he entered the coffee bar he could hear music being played in the background, the tune and lyrics masked by the barista banging coffee grounds into a bin and the hissing of steam as milk was frothed up for the waiting customers. In one corner a bald, bespectacled man carried on a one-way conversation with his mobile phone. Nobody cared any more about discretion, Amit thought, overhearing snatches of the man's words; business was regularly conducted in such public places.
She had arrived before him and was sitting with her back to the window. There was no mistaking that cascade of red hair tumbling down her back. Marianne looked up sharply as Amit approached her table. Her large black handbag had been placed on the seat next to her as if reserving a place for him and, as she removed it, he bent over to kiss her cheek.
'Hello, Marianne,' he murmured.
'Okay, that'll do. No need for any of that stuff, Amit,' she said.
But there was a smile upon her lips as she looked up at him. `How're you doin' anyway?'