Free The Unquiet Heart by Gordon Ferris

glowering at me with a message in their eyes that I had just bought myself a heap of trouble. The wounded foreman was carted off moaning on a
stretcher, chest bound and face blanched.
    Eve caught the late edition with enough tantalising hooks to ensure that the main morning run would sell out in minutes. It painted a picture of a plucky night watchman – one Hamish
MacTavish – and a few doughty storemen besting an armed gang intent on plundering a treasure house piled high with exotic silks. She even hinted at having witnessed the shoot-out herself
after a tip-off by underground contacts. This fearless reporter scaled the warehouse river-wall just in time to see the tail-end of the tussle. She referred to Hamish as the ‘humble hero of
the waterfront’.
    The boys and me laughed about the first article that evening over a few drinks in the George. I’d come with their wages from Big Tommy. He’d been so pleased he’d added a bonus
tenner to each of us, and the way Midge and Stan were putting it away, they’d have nothing left in the morning except the mother and father of all hangovers.
    “I thought you was a fucking magician, Hamish, the way you drew that gun,” Stan was slurring. “A fucking magician. Didn’t even see you move.”
    Cyril butted in, slopping his pint over the already sodden table. His beard glistened with beer. “Then we saw it was the bint! Could hardly believe it. I know it was a pop gun. But
what’s she doing carrying it? And where did she learn to shoot like that? Have her in my unit any day, so I would.”
    We were in a little corner of the lounge bar, a bit away from other customers but the lads’ voices were getting louder with every round.
    “Keep it down, will you?”
    “What’s it matter, Danny?” asked Stan, who’d chosen the tallest seat at the table and managed to look like an elf on a kiddie’s high chair. He could have done with
a bib as well, the state of his shirt.
    “I just don’t want the world and his wife to know. You get names and photos splashed around and next thing the rozzers’ eyes are on you, or some prat decides to take you on to
prove he’s a big guy. Low profile, that’s best, then we can get more work. If you’re sober enough!”
    “What? Us? Don’ you worry your pretty head, Danny boy,” said Midge through his thickening tongue.
    I was suddenly aware of someone standing nearby. I turned. His shoulders were as thin as a rail and his spine humped under his shiny jacket. Sparse black hair was slicked down with too much
Brylcreem, and he kept passing a fag from one hand to the other taking a short suck in between. It was Fast Larry, a bookie’s runner of my acquaintance. When he saw I’d noticed him, he
smiled and edged a couple of feet closer. They can smell the money, these boys.
    “No nags tonight, Larry. We’re just having a quiet drink.” Quiet? I glanced round at the ever-louder trio. Fast Larry was shaking his head and was now within three feet. He
signalled with a finger to his lip and pointed at me. I let him come right up. He bent over. I could smell his sour breath. I turned my head.
    “The word’s out, Danny.”
    “What word is that, Larry?”
    “You and the boys, here. You done over the gang in the paper there.” He pointed at the evening version of the Trumpet soaking up the spillage.
    “Not us, mate.”
    Larry rubbed his oily nose. “Gamba put the word out.”
    My blood started running faster. “Gamba?”
    “Gambatti. Pauli Gambatti. He’s looking for you. Those were his boys you got nicked this morning. He’s not ’appy.”
    The underworld grapevine never ceased to impress me. I looked at Fast Larry and wondered why he was telling me this. Loyalty to his regulars? Larry was only as loyal as the last bet. Ordered to
by Gambatti? A strange instrument. Or just malicious? His eyes were flicking all round the room. He was one of life’s parasites. Always on the edge of a crowd looking in. Seen as a
go-between,