The Bullet Trick

'I’m not talking about this place, shithole though it is. I thought I’d make the most of my time up here; take in some of the sights. No offence but it’s like going back fifty years.'

'No offence taken.'

The turns had ceased for a while and Dean Martin was belting out ‘Little Old Wine Drinker Me’ from the jukebox. He wasn’t as popular as the barmaid, but he was going down OK and a few diehards were joining in the chorus. Montgomery laughed and put his arm around me like a man enjoying a good joke and I felt something small and blunt press into my spine.

'Cumbernauld was the worst though. The conditions people live in there, especially the old folk, appalling. Quite frankly some of them’d be better off dead.'

My resolution to stay cool disappeared in a quick flash of heat. I hissed, 'You fucking go near my mother and you’ll not live long enough to get what you’re after.'

Montgomery wiped away a speck of spittle that had landed on his face.

'Touched a nerve did I?' He pressed a little further into my back. 'Must’ve done to make you start threatening a man who’s holding a gun to you.' He grinned. 'You can’t win, son.

Just hand over what’s mine and you never have to worry about me again.'

'I don’t have it on me.'

'Then let’s go and get it.' He smiled again. 'Shall I tell you a secret?'

'If you like.'

Montgomery put his face close to mine and whispered. 'Your mother isn’t all you have to worry about.' His smile was small and sweet as a cupid’s. 'I know all about your little German girlfriend.'

My voice was hoarse.

'How do you know?'

'Thirty-five years on the force has got to teach me something.'

My lips formed her name.

Sylvie.

'What do you know?'

Montgomery grinned.

'Oh, I know everything. What was her name again? Sylvie, that was it, wasn’t it? She was quite something in that hotel room, eh? Too good for you, that’s for sure.'

The sound of Sylvie’s name on the lips of a policeman hit me in a dizzying wave of dread and liberation. The bitter release of fear made flesh made me laugh. The worst had happened, but I wasn’t headed for a jail cell, not yet anyway. The balance of the deck had shifted. Up until now I’d wanted to free myself of guilt and Montgomery in one blow. But it seemed that he knew as much of my crime as I did of his. It was time for a reckoning and I was about to find out how far I was willing to go.

Most of the drinkers were too busy to notice Montgomery and me pressed together in the corner, but I’d spotted a squat man in a baseball cap staring at us. I threw him a look over the policeman’s shoulder and he leered towards us.

'You a pair of fucking poofs?'

'I’m not, mate,' I made my eyes wide and honest. 'But I think this English git is, he won’t leave me alone.'

The man raised his voice loud enough for the drinkers next to him to hear.

'That’s the trouble with fucking faggots, they want to shove it down everyone else’s throats.'

Montgomery twitched his wallet out of his pocket and flashed his ID, keeping a thumb pressed firmly over the part where it stated his name.

'I’m an inspector in the Metropolitan police force and this man is wanted on serious charges.'

'No problem, big man.' The punter took a step back. 'I was only asking.'

I said, 'Your instinct’s right enough though. He is a fucking poof, always up for Gay Pride duty, if you get my drift. Soon as we step outside he’ll be trying to stick it in my arse.'

Montgomery kicked his toecap into the back of my heel shooting a stab of pain through my tendon, making sure that any thoughts I’d had of flight were over.

The punter said, 'I’ve nothing against poofs myself, like. I mean some of them are a good laugh… Graham Norton… Kenneth Williams…'

He faltered and I added, 'Noël Coward.'

The punter looked confused.

'I’m just saying, live and let live eh?'

Montgomery pulled out a pair of handcuffs and clicked me to himself. Someone in the crowd said, 'Oooh, kinky.' But the rest of the bar was silent. A pathway to the door had magically opened in the jam around us.

'Right,' the policeman’s smile was grim. 'Let’s go for a little walk.'

Argyle Street was busy enough with swarms of Saturday shoppers for two men walking closely side by side to go unnoticed. My bruised tendon shortened my gait, but Montgomery paced himself to my limp and our progress became more of a stroll. A father and son heading home after a couple of pints.

Something caught my eye. A small square of cardboard tagged to a lamppost and painted with sunny clowns and smiling faces. Bright red letters announced the time and venue of Johnny’s benefit in a careful, childish hand. In the sign’s upper corner a moustachioed magician pulled a grinning rabbit from a top hat. I glanced at Montgomery, but his face was set straight, his eyes busy scanning the crowd. Homemade signs decorated with crayon, glitter and tinfoil shone from the rest of the lampposts leading to the Panopticon, my own version of the yellow brick road. There was nothing to do but hope that Montgomery wouldn’t notice.

Moving towards us with the slow, unstoppable assurance of a Sherman tank was an elderly lady being pushed along in a wheelchair by her ancient husband. The wheelchair was strung with bulging carrier bags. They’d been doing their weekly shop, though why they’d left it to the busiest day of the week was beyond me. Maybe they just liked crowds.

Montgomery stepped to the left of their path and I started to go with him, it was only at the last minute that I steered in the opposite direction, putting the wheelchair between us.

'Christ Almighty, can yous no watch where you’re going?'

The old man’s breath was sharp and rasping. His skin was the grey-green of the cancer ward and he was carrying just enough weight to qualify as a hunger artist. His wife giggled.

She had a pretty doll-like face plumped up with rouge and jolliness above a stack of quivering chins. Her legs were elephantine, the flesh cascading down into her unlaced sandshoes. Jack and Mrs Sprat. I wondered if they took turns in the chair. Her wobbling along his frailty one day, him struggling with her bulk the next. Love conquering all, except poverty, disease and death.

I ignored Montgomery’s jerk of the cuff and addressed myself to Jack.

'Sorry pal, it’s my stag do, old Monty here’s pinned me to him for a joke.'

'Aye,' the man’s face was turning from green to beetroot with annoyance and high blood pressure. 'Fucking hilarious.'

The old lady tutted at the bad language and Montgomery tried to catch me by the scruff of my neck. I ducked out of his grasp, down towards the woman in the chair.

'Have you got a kiss for a condemned man?'

She laughed and landed me a smacker on the cheek enveloping me in her brandy breath. 'You’re an awfy fella. I pity the poor lass that takes you on. You’ll be the death of her.'

I said, 'If only you knew.' And reached into my pocket, grabbing a tenner. 'Here, have a drink on me the pair of you. For luck.'

'Keep your money, son, you’ll need it yourself.'

The old woman shoved the note back, but Montgomery seized me and our bodies collided. This was my chance. The policeman had replaced his wallet in his inside pocket.

His suit hung lower on the right than it did on the left. I guessed that was where he kept his keys. I only hoped that the one to the handcuff’s padlock was amongst them. I dipped my fingers quickly, found the bunch and thrust them swiftly into my own pocket, uncertain whether I’d gained my release or merely access to the pale rooms far away where Sheila Montgomery had spent so many hours grieving for her lost sister Gloria.

The old lady shouted after us, 'Cheers son. And you mind and look after that lassie of yours now.'

The old man shook his head and started to steer her down towards the Gallowgate.

I could feel Montgomery’s unease growing as we climbed the Panopticon’s dilapidated back staircase.