Killing With Confidence Read Free Page A

exceptions to the rule. But it was more than
made up for with a thriving underworld scene. Ironically, it had
been covering this sparse showbiz scene where Connor had first made
his name. He was not afraid of ruffling feathers and he had
trampled over the cosy relationships the country’s actors and TV
personalities had enjoyed with his predecessors.
    As a kid he’d
voraciously read as many papers as he could get his hands on and
had come to understand the different tales favoured by certain
newspapers and their political leanings. He’d had no time for
school. He couldn’t be bothered learning the periodic table when he
was more interested in what was making the headlines that morning.
Although bright, his grades suffered as a result.
    Fortunately, he
wanted to be part of an industry where lack of qualifications was
never an inhibitor. His first editor Danny Brown had once laughed,
‘Qualifications? Kelvin MacKenzie was the most famous Fleet Street
editor of modern times and he only had one O-level. I’ve seen
young, so-called journalists qualify from universities top of their
class who wouldn’t know a good story if it came up and bit them on
the arse. Reporting isn’t something you can be taught. It’s an
instinct – and you’ve got it.’
    After four years
pricking giant-sized egos on the showbiz scene Connor was called in
to his editor’s office and told he would be replacing Badger on the
news desk. Russell ‘Badger’ Blackwood, the country’s
longest-serving and most legendary crime reporter, was about to
take an unwanted early retirement.
    ‘But Russell covers
crime,’ Connor protested.
    ‘I know that,’ barked
the editor, ‘but I need someone to replace him before he drinks
himself to death or strokes out on me. The change will do you good.
Add some strings to your bow.’
    So, Connor was placed
under the supervision of Badger, who had spent his entire career
crafting exclusives and his most distinguished feature, a large,
veiny, purple whisky-drinker’s nose. He had greeted Connor on his
first day with, ‘So, you’re the cunt after my job,’ but from then
on the pair miraculously hit it off. Badger’s job was to take
Connor round all his police and crime contacts to show him the
ropes.
    Basically, it was one
big booze-up that lasted for about three months. Badger would
arrange to meet Connor in pubs down Glasgow’s old Fruitmarket,
sometimes at seven in the morning, where they’d enjoy a ‘breakfast
pint’ with market workers and postmen at the end of their shifts,
all on the pretence of meeting some valuable underworld contact.
When the mysterious contact failed to show – presumably
because they were still in bed – they would try to source him
out, which meant drifting in and out of pubs in Glasgow’s East End
for the rest of the day.
    Occasionally, when
they did actually bump into some of the crime world’s hierarchy it
seemed to come as much as a shock to Badger as it did to Connor.
These occasions meant even more drink and late nights, with Badger
telling whoever would listen, ‘You can trust Elvis as if he was my
own fucking son,’ followed by Badger demanding a version of ‘Blue
Suede Shoes’.
    But at the end of the
initial binging, amazingly, Connor had actually made some huge
strides in his new field and managed to file some pretty impressive
page leads about ‘hits’ which had been ordered between rival gangs,
drug shipments which had been lost by the cops, and even his first
exclusive crime splash – front page – on an underworld
boss who was getting married to one of his fiercest rivals’
daughters. That had crime reporters in other papers desperately
scrambling around the day after for follow-ups, leaving Connor with
a smug, satisfied feeling inside.
    But he knew his old
mentor Badger was a dinosaur who was about to become extinct. In
Connor’s short career he could see how reporting had changed out of
all recognition in the last decade. The unions had