Crow Bait Read Free Page B

right they are. No that I’ll see much of it, right enough, once the publisher takes their chunk.’
    ‘Shouldn’t have taken such a big advance then, greedy sod.’
    The lift came to a halt and the doors slid open. Barc gave her a sideways glance as they walked out. ‘Who’s side you on?’
    She laughed as they headed for the exit onto Anderston Quay, where Audrey knew a black cab was waiting. Even though she knew he’d given up, she still half-expected him to light up as soon as he was in the open. He didn’t look right without a fag hanging from his lips.
    ‘You want a lift?’ she asked.
    ‘Where you headed?’
    ‘Gorbals, interview with a junkie.’
    He nodded. ‘Nice people you mix with.’
    ‘Present company excepted?’
    A smile. ‘No necessarily.’
    ‘Anyway, you taught me everything I know.’
    ‘And don’t you forget it.’ His eyes flicked to the taxi idling at the kerb. ‘Nah, thanks for the offer, hen – I’m headed up the West End. I’m keeping company with a lady of independent means in Kelvingrove now.’
    Audrey gave him a leer. ‘Keeping company? That what you young folks are calling it now?’
    Barc shot her a stern look. ‘Behave yourself, hen, no everything’s about sex. You’re no seeing this junkie alone, are you?’
    ‘No, meeting a snapper there.’
    ‘Good,’ Barc nodded, satisfied. Audrey smiled again, glad that he was still looking out for her. He turned away and she was about to step down to the waiting taxi when he swung back and moved close to her again.
    ‘I hear that guy you used to see is getting out tomorrow,’ he said, quietly. She halted in her tracks.
    ‘Davie?’
    ‘You didn’t know?’
    She shook her head. It was just like Barc to know something like that. That’s what made him the best, even now. ‘Well, I hope he behaves himself.’
    ‘Boys like him, they don’t know any better.’
    ‘I don’t know, Barc, I always told you Davie was different.’
    ‘That why a four year stretch turned into ten years then? ‘Cos he knew better, ‘cos he was different?’
    She looked down at the ground. ‘I’m not sure what happened there.’
    ‘He reverted to type, that’s what happened. You know it, hen – that’s why you ended it.’
    ‘I know,’ she said, feeling guilty about the way she had handled things, but something in her voice made the old reporter’s nose twitch. Barc stared at her, his eyes narrowing as he tried to read her. ‘Stay away from him, Audrey.’ Audrey, not hen . That meant he was serious.
    ‘Barc, don’t worry – I’m over all that, believe me.’ She kept her voice light and airy, holding up her left hand and wiggling her fingers. ‘Respectable married lady, remember?’
    He looked at the ring on her finger and nodded. ‘Aye, married maybe. No sure about the respectable…’
    He walked away and she watched him go. Davie McCall . She hadn’t thought of him for a long time. That hadn’t been an easy trick to pull off.
    *  *  *
    The man called the top flat of the high rise ‘The Crow’s Nest’, even though the tower block didn’t quite scrape the sky as much as others in the city. The Gorbals used to be known as Hell’s Hundred Acres, a tag Audrey always thought unfair. But then, she’d never seen the place when the dark tenement was king. Back in the ’60s, these flats had been hailed as the future, but now they were slated for demolition, though no-one knew when that would happen. From what she had seen, it was not before time. Audrey and Big George Gillan, the photographer, had passed a number of boarded up doorways as they walked to this one, the architect’s dream crumbling into a damp, crime-ridden hellhole.
    If it hadn’t been for the man sprawled on the couch under the window, the flat would have looked derelict. There was no carpet on the floor and the ratty old armchair in which she sat was ripped and stained with who knew what. She knew she was going to have her trousers cleaned immediately. Or