Free Gutted by Tony Black

already?’
    ‘No, Gus . . . you’re the first I’ve told.’
    I tried my coffee again. It burnt my mouth; I didn’t care. ‘I’m flattered, I think.’
    Debs leaned towards the table, picked up a teaspoon and started to swirl it around in the coffee. ‘It’s important to me that you’re cool with this.’
    ‘Cool with it. How could I be cool with it?’
    ‘I thought—’
    ‘Whoa, back up . . . Who is he?’
    ‘Does that matter?’
    ‘I think fucking so.’
    Cold eyes trained on me: ‘Don’t get any idea about starting, Gus, don’t get any idea about that.’
    I sighed. Felt the life drain out of me. ‘What’s his name?’
    ‘He’s . . . in the force, Gus.’
    ‘ What ?’ I couldn’t get my head around this at all. My ex-wife marrying filth. Had she lost it? This was call-the-madhouse time. ‘You jest, right? You, Deborah, marrying a cop. You’re off your fucking dial.’
    A loud scrape of chair on floor. ‘Right, that’s it. I knew this was a mistake.’
    I grabbed her arm. ‘Debs, please, I’m sorry . . . Sit down.’ I wiped my brow, ran my fingers through my hair. I knew I needed to batten down the anger, lock it away. ‘What’s his name, Debs?’
    ‘I think you might have met recently . . . Johnstone. Jonny Johnstone.’
    I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. ‘No fucking way!’
    Debs’s eyes widened. ‘Gus, your face – what’s the matter?’
    Everything was happening in a haze of shit. ‘Have you set a date?’
    ‘July fifteenth.’
    ‘Summer wedding – nice. We were winter, if I remember right.’
    ‘Well, there was reasons for that.’
    Those reasons were forbidden territory. Something we’d agreed not to discuss. Ever.
    ‘I beg your pardon.’
    Debs looked hurt; her lower lip trembled. ‘I’m not getting any younger, Gus, and . . . what we did—’
    ‘Stop. Stop right there. This I won’t touch.’
    ‘Gus, we should talk about it . . .’
    ‘You agreed, we both did, not ever to discuss that again. Never. I won’t.’
    ‘Gus, it’s not right to let it lie, just sweep it under the carpet . . . I was talking to Mac and—’
    ‘You spoke to Mac about that?’
    ‘No. No. Of course not . . . I spoke to Mac about you. He thinks you’re in a bad way, getting worse, and could do with help.’
    ‘Och, for fucksake.’
    Debs started to cry. ‘Gus, I am too . . . It’s on my mind, all the time.’
    I felt wounded, sore. I stood up, walked over to Debs and put an arm around her shoulders. She grabbed me tight. I felt my whole self healed in her arms; I wanted to cry as well. To let it all out. To stop raging at everyone and everything and admit, yes, I was wrong, we were wrong to do what we did. But that was back then, in the past. We could make it right. We had each other. Hadn’t we?
    I heard the cafe’s doorbell sound. Footsteps. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.
    ‘Dury?’
    I turned. The cafe was bathed in blue lights, flooding in from the street. Car tyres screeched to a halt. More lights. More police.
    ‘Are you Angus Dury?’
    I nodded, felt Debs loosen her grip on my hand. ‘Yeah, that’s me.’
    My arms were taken, turned up my back, cuffed. ‘You’re coming with us.’
    ‘ What ?’ I tried to rein in my fear. Mainly for Debs. She was too shocked. I saw her hide her head behind her hand as she ran out of the place and up the road without so much as a backwards glance.
    I was spun towards the meat wagon’s blacked-out windows. A twenty-something in a Hugo Boss suit got out the back door and smarmed before me, viper eyes shining as he said, ‘Hello again, Dury . . . Thanks for making yourself available for further questioning!’

Chapter 12
     
    THREE HOURS SITTING in a cell, without so much as a knock, will get you thinking. I’ve tried not to think about this stuff but it has a way of coming back, time and again. You get Debs forcing it into the frame, you can’t avoid it . . .
    It’s the words that do it for me: ‘Raise yourself, Dury,