Gallowglass Read Free Page B

one-man show with unwitting audience participation. I only knew this strolling player by his nickname, Sticky.
    Sticky didn’t get his name from the adhesive quality of his manky donkey jacket and greasy bunnet. Brutally andinevitably, as per the mores of the streets, he was named for his most prominent feature: the loss of both legs above the knee in the Great War. A medal for courage under fire was scarcely fair exchange, but Sticky wore it proudly on his threadbare breast pocket. His chosen method of propulsion was a pair of sticks: cut-down brooms that kept the stubs of his thighs just a couple of inches above the pavement at the apogee of his swing and allowed their leather pads to take his weight as he rocked forward on to them. A human crankshaft.
    Sticky’s physical loss had made no dent in his humour or his enterprise. He made a living from his own form of green-grocering. He’d pester stallholders in the Barras until they filled his knapsack with their over-ripe, about-to-be-jettisoned produce and then Sticky would click and stump his way to wherever punters gathered. Today it was George Square at lunchtime.
    I heard him clacking towards me. He rocked past, pistoning away, and chose a sheltered spot by the Scott column. He settled down and produced an old rag from his inside pocket. He spread it carefully in front of him. Then he dug into his knapsack and laid out his wares on the suspect cloth, and waited. His eyes flicked across the passers-by until he spotted his prey. He went still. A middle-aged woman was hirpling towards him, carrying a string bag filled with her messages. Not too filled, Sticky would be hoping.
    ‘Hie, missus,’ he called out. ‘Has yer man still got his ain teeth?’
    The wee woman froze in her gait, alarmed by this seer’s insight. Sticky knew his clients, knew their afflictions.
    ‘Naw, he husnae a wan.’
    Sticky nodded in sympathy, carefully surveyed his cornucopia, and selected two squidgy handfuls.
    ‘Then, hen, these pears are for him.’
    His performance deserved applause but I knew Sticky would appreciate a more tangible tribute. I walked over to him.
    ‘Any apples left?’
    He squinted up at me. ‘I’ve been keeping one back. Just for you.’ He grinned and held out a mottled Granny Smith. I took it and gave him a florin. He began sifting through his small pile of coppers.
    ‘Naw, that’s fine.’ I smiled at him. He flung up a smart salute. I reciprocated, then left him to ply his trade.

THREE
    M y good humour lasted until I left the office at six, contributions to both world and local crime news fulfilled. Wullie hadn’t come in but I expected to find him in his new favourite perch in the Horseshoe Bar just round the corner. It was opening time and Wullie had nearly nine months to make up. I stepped into Mitchell Street. It was a dry bright evening and I thought briefly about skipping the pub and strolling home early with the chance of phoning Sam in her Edinburgh digs.
    She was summing up for the jury today and hoped to persuade them that her client was a lost soul, led astray by his poor choice of friends rather than the dyed-in-the-wool villain suggested by the Procurator Fiscal. It was an uphill job given that the well-known defendant had only been out of prison for three months and that his face had been plastered over the papers three years ago for the armed robbery of the very same post office. It confirmed my experience as a reporter and former copper that Glasgow criminals were creatures of habit and stilted imagination.
    As I turned to head up to Gordon Street I saw a man walking purposefully straight towards me. He wore a smart suit and carried a cap. His face was set and serious. As though he’d been waiting for me. We stopped and stared at each other some two yards apart. I waited, ready to throw a salute or a punch.
    ‘Mr Brodie?’
    ‘Yes?’
    He looked nervous, shifty. My brain ran through a selection of possibilities; something had happened to