Free The Long Glasgow Kiss by Craig Russell

have thought it was riveting …’
    Davey either didn’t get or didn’t appreciate the gag and stared at his pint glumly. It was, I had noticed, a Scottish tradition. I sighed.
    ‘Listen, Davey, I can’t offer you a job because I don’t have a job to offer. I struggle to pay my own way at times. But here’s the deal … if anything comes up where I need an extra pair of eyes, or need any kind of help, I’ll give you a shout. Okay?’
    He looked up from his beer and beamed at me. ‘Anything, Mr Lennox. You can rely on me.’
    ‘Okay, Davey. Why don’t you finish your beer and get off home. Like I say, I’ll get in touch if I need anything.’
    I let him hang on my elbow till he finished his drink. After he was gone, Big Bob came back and poured me another Canadian Club.
    ‘You realize I only keep this pish in here for you,’ he said. ‘Why can’t you drink Scotch like everybody else?’
    I cast my gaze around the bar, trying to penetrate the bluegrey cigarette haze. A knot of older men in flat caps sat huddled around a table in the corner playing dominoes and smoking scrappy roll-up cigarettes. Swirled in cloud-like tobacco smoke, they paused from their game only to sip their whisky and laid their dominoes on the beer-ringed table top with the joyfulness of grim Titans toppling graveyard headstones. Glasgow at its most Goyaesque.
    ‘I don’t know, Bob,’ I said wistfully. ‘Maybe it’s a delight I’m saving myself for …’
    ‘Oh for fuck’s sake …’ Bob said, suddenly distracted and looking over my shoulder. I turned and saw that four young men had come in through the side door of the public bar.
    ‘Tommy … Jimmy …’ Bob called to the two other barmen and the three of them stepped out from behind the bar with a squared-up purposefulness and crossed to the young men. I noticed that the newcomers were dressed in rough work clothes; one wore a heavy leather armless tabard over his jacket and all four were wearing rubber boots. I noticed that their hair was longer than the usual and the guy with the tabard had thick, black, curling locks. They had the sunburned look of men who spent more time outdoors than in.
    ‘Fucking pikeys …’ Bob muttered under his breath as he passed me. ‘Okay you lot … fuck off out of it. I’ve told your mob before you’re not welcome here.’
    ‘All we want is a drink,’ said Curly, with a dull expression and a hint of Irish in his accent. It was clear he was accustomed to welcomes like the one Big Bob was offering. ‘Just a drink. Quiet like. No trouble.’
    ‘You’ll get no drink here. You lot don’t know how to have a quiet drink. I’ve had the place wrecked before by your kind. Now fuck off.’
    One of the others stared hard at Bob. He had the ready stance of someone thinking about kicking off. Curly put a hand on his shoulder and said something to him I couldn’t understand. The tension went from his frame and the three walked out silently, but not hurriedly.
    ‘Fucking pikeys …’ Bob repeated after they were gone.
    ‘Gypsies?’ I asked.
    ‘Irish tinkers. They’re over here for the Vinegarhill Fair in the Gallowgate. They’ve pitched up camp by the old vinegar works.’
    ‘They seemed reasonable enough to me,’ I said.
    Big Bob crossed his Popeye forearms across his massive chest. ‘Aye, they seem that way now, but a few drinks in them and they go fucking mental. By the end of the night I’d be picking the furniture up for firewood if I start letting knackers drink in here. Drink and fight, that’s all these bastards know.’
    ‘Yeah … drink and fight,’ I repeated, trying to work out how this fact distinguished them from the usual Glaswegian customer. ‘It’s funny, I was at a pikey fight the other night.’
    ‘Aye? I bet there was blood and snotters all over the place. Fucking mental.’ Bob shook his head in a way that reminded me of the awe Sneddon had displayed when talking about his tinker fighters.
    I got back to my digs