Free Long Way Down (A Gus Dury crime thriller) by Tony Black

I was sitting in the laundrette on London Road,
just watching the wheels go round as Lennon said. Nowt much was occurring, hadn't
been for a while. You get in that frame of mind, things like Generation Wuss
telly and boy-band music start filling the gaps. My wet brain was already
looking like something Sponge Bob would take off his Square Pants for, so
another aperture was likely to set me dribbling at the mouth.
    I turned over a stray copy of The Hun — had The Times
tucked below, was thinking that's some heavyweight reading for the east-end of
Edinburgh but I let it go, turned it aside because I couldn't face the news,
for the first time in my life I didn't have the concentration for it. I couldn't
face the anti-independence stance on every page of the paper either — wondered
who in this whole country was falling for the 'Scottish edition' bullshit they'd
plastered on the front. There was a new vibe in town; Scots dreaming of having
a nation of their own will do that.
    The washer stopped, clicked off after a final
gut-bursting spin. I took out the pile of wet denim and captured the inevitable
stray sock before tipping the lot in the drier. I was fiddling with the
Elastoplast which held my crumbling iPod together, contemplating a track from
The Stagger Rats, when the temperature in the small enclosure of the laundrette
ramped up. I loosened a tab from my soft-pack of Camels and headed out for a
smoke. I was stood in the street, sparking up as a horn blared at me from a
passing car.
    'The fuck is that?' I mouthed, mid-gasp of the first
draw.
    A silver-grey Merc, big one — none of your shitty
A-Class — flicked on the blinkers and turned into Abbey Mount. The car was
parked up in the bus-stop as the driver's door flipped open and a squat,
open-shirted Cockney Wanker-lookalike got out. He was flagging and waving to
me, the wide-open shirt front wafting a breeze over the forest of chest hair as
he called out, 'Gus, lad ...'
    'Jesus Christ ...' It was Danny Murray. I hadn't seen
him in years but this was already too soon. The sight of him soured the taste
of my fag so I dowped it in the gutter.
    He was jogging, stuffing a Racing Post under his arm as
he approached. The search-light smile was the real sickner though. We've a
phrase in Scotland, what you after? ... seemed to fit the bill.
    'Alright, Gus my old son ...' he said. I could swear I'd
picked up an Eastenders inflection in there; the man was like a bad soap-opera
reject from the 80s. All Pete Beale with his tankard-behind-the-bar-bonhomie.
Worst of it was, the cunt was as Leith as me.
    'Danny Murray, you're coming up in the world.' I nodded
to the flash motor, that's when I clocked the private plate: D Man 109. Wanted
to laugh, but felt like crying when I weighed this joker's luck against my own.
    'Can't complain, Gus ... doing alright.'
    He was too. But not off his own graft, I'd heard he was
running for Boaby Stevens and say what you will about Shakey, he looks after
his crew.
    'You were always into everything bar a shit sandwich,
Dan.'
    He tipped back his head, laughed. I could see the
goose-bumps forming on his exposed arms as he shivered in the street. 'Fancy a
pint?'
    Now I thinned eyes. 'What?'
    'Jesus, it's brass-balls out here, Gus, come on ...' he
looked about, squinted down the street and over to the Artisan pub. 'I'll shout
you a bevvy.'
    I was averse, call me old-fashioned, but I tend to avoid
the company of cock-heads as a rule. I showed an open hand to the road, 'Lead
the way ...' I mean, there's principles and then there's choking for a drink
and being on the skint bones of your arse.
    Danny walked into the road, palms up to halt the
traffic, he got a hail of horns sent in his direction but it didn't stop him
beckoning me like the captain of an army advance. I let him weave his way
through the stalled cars and clouds of tyre-smoke and pressed the button on the
pedestrian crossing.
    The Artisan was an old-school Edinburgh drinker. Set me
in mind of