Grass Read online

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  For Jessica Lee

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  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Also by Cathy MacPhail

  Imprint

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  1

  ‘Want a Mint Imperial?’ I handed over the bag of my favourite sweets to my mate, Sean.

  He pushed it back at me, and pulled a Mars bar from his pocket. ‘You know I hate them things, Leo. Gimme chocolate any day.’

  We were on the train heading home after the Saturday match. Our team had lost 3–0, but in our minds we had not been defeated. We usually lost by a lot more than that. Nearly all our friends supported Rangers or Celtic. But not me and Sean. We liked to be different. We were Barnhill men, like our dads before us. We supported our local team, Barnhill. Or, ‘Barnhill Nil’, as some rotten people liked to call them.

  We were well pleased that day as we headed home on the coastal railway line past Dumbarton Rock, watching the river sunset red and the whole town bathed in a pink glow.

  ‘We’re really lucky living in the best place in the world, with the best football team.’

  Sean laughed. He agreed with me. ‘When they were handing out luck, McCabe, God gave us an extra share.’

  That’s how me and Sean always were. We agreed about everything. We were best mates. Had been since Primary 1. We liked the same things . . . except when it came to Mint Imperials – but then you can’t have everything.

  We were just drawing into one of the stations when Sean pointed towards a wall surrounding one of the derelict factories. ‘Hey, look at that.’

  It would have been hard to miss what was written on that wall. Painted in giant whitewashed letters.

  SHARKEY IS A GRASS

  I hadn’t a clue who Sharkey was, but I knew one thing. ‘Sharkey’s a dead man,’ I said. ‘They should have added RIP – Rest in Peace.’

  ‘Or rest in pieces.’ Sean laughed. ‘’Cause they’ll probably cut him up and drop his body bit by bit into the Clyde.’

  Me and Sean are big C.S.I. fans and they’d had a storyline just like that only a couple of weeks ago.

  ‘I wonder who Sharkey grassed on?’ I said.

  ‘Could have been Nelis, or Armour, or McCrae.’

  Everyone knew the top gang leaders in the town. The drug dealers, the hard men, the bad men. Nelis had an evil reputation for doing the most awful things, and Armour was simply called ‘The Man’. As if there was no other. McCrae was vile. His name would always be linked to the Sheridan lassie. She’d come from a decent family but once she’d started running about with McCrae he’d got her on to drugs. Her life had spiralled downhill, and when she’d finally had the courage to leave him she’d been found shot dead not far from McCrae’s house. No one leaves McCrae. He had even been charged with her murder but managed to get off when two of his ‘friends’ had supplied him with an alibi. But no one doubted his guilt. Andy Sheridan, the girl’s dad, had sworn all kinds of vengeance on him for that.

  McCrae and the others always got off due to lack of evidence – or lack of surviving witnesses. No one ever grassed on them because once you did you’d be a dead man, like Sharkey would be soon.

  ‘He’s probably left town already,’ Sean said.

  But Sharkey, whoever he was, the drug dealers, the crime bosses, everything was forgotten by the time the train stopped at our station. We were going to Sean’s house. He had a new PlayStation game and we were dying to try it out.

  Sean lived in McCrae territory. Crazy, I know, that they claimed areas of the town as their own, but that was the way it was. Sean and me, we were streetwise enough to know that. But we kept back from any trouble. My dad and Sean’s would have gone spare if they’d caught us having dealings with anyone connected to McCrae or any of the others.

  And on the way to Sean’s house we did what we loved best. We explored.

  The area where Sean lived had so many boarded-up houses and derelict properties and shops, and me and Sean were experts at getting inside them. It was exciting and a bit dangerous as well. You never knew what you might find. It was about the only risky thing we did and it didn’t hurt anybody. We’d sneak inside, pretend we were SAS commandos searching out terrorists, or crime scene investigators looking for clues. Always the good guys, me and Sean.

  There was a new boarded-up shop to explore that night. Azam had finally had enough. He’d given up after all the hold-ups and break-ins and vandalism to his shop. He had closed up and decided to move to somewhere less dangerous. ‘Baghdad, I think,’ he had told Sean’s dad. ‘It’s a lot safer there.’

  ‘My dad says it was a blinkin’ shame,’ Sean said. ‘Azam was trying to give the people here a good corner-shop service. They never gave him a chance.’

  It sounded like something Sean’s dad would say. Like my dad, Sean’s was always complaining about how the town was run by those three gang bosses.

  ‘If Azam had paid McCrae protection money, he could have stayed,’ I said to Sean. And he agreed. Everyone knew it went on. McCrae would threaten the small shopkeepers with his gang of hard men, who would break up the shop or warn customers to stay away – shop somewhere else. In the end most of the shopkeepers would pay up just for the sake of peace. But after that they would be in McCrae’s pocket for ever.

  ‘The Untouchables’, my dad called Nelis and Armour and McCrae. Because the law could never seem to touch them. They got off with everything. Verdicts not guilty, or not proven.

  So now Azam’s once brightly whitewashed shop was covered in graffiti – on the walls, on the door. Even on the steel panels that boarded up the windows. It was easy getting inside. Me and Sean were experts at finding a way. One of those steel panels was lying askew at the back door, and first me and then Sean squeezed through. First thing that hit us was the smell. Somebody had been using this place as a toilet.

  Sean started dancing about like a cat on a sizzling hob unit. ‘Hope I don’t put my feet on something yucky.’

  I was almost tempted to squeeze back through into the street, but my crime-busting instincts took over. I pulled out the pen-torch I carried with me (well, I did say we were always exploring) and flashed it across the ground. Just as well. Another few steps and Sean would have stepped on somethin
g yucky. The vandals had obviously been here already. It never took long for them to get inside any derelict properties. There was broken glass all over the floor, pipes had been ripped from the walls. There was graffiti on every empty space.

  ‘I hear something,’ Sean said.

  I could hear it too. A low moan from one of the dark corners. We were always hoping to find evidence of a crime or a robbery in progress, maybe stumble across the aftermath of mayhem – a dismembered body in black bin bags strewn across the floor. So far the only thing we’d ever come across was a gold watch. We took it to the police. Got a reward too. Didn’t I say we were always the good guys, me and Sean?

  But here in the dark, listening to that moaning coming from the shadows, it occurred to me that right at this minute I’d rather be at Sean’s playing his new Zombie computer game.

  Neither of us moved. The moan became a growl. I flashed my torch towards the sound.

  I thought at first it was a wild animal. All hair and teeth. It leapt at us. Me and Sean yelled and this time Sean didn’t miss the yucky stuff. He sank his foot right in it.

  The face became clear. It was an old man, a dosser. He was yelling like a beast.

  ‘Get oota my place! Ya wee . . .’ He threw something at us. We didn’t wait to find out what it was. We had never moved so fast, squeezing out of the door almost at the same time. It was only as we were running away that we started to laugh. Laugh until we couldn’t stop.

  ‘Oh, we would be brilliant crime scene investigators,’ I said. ‘One old weirdo and we’re off faster than a speeding bullet.’

  I made a whizzing sound, and it only made us laugh all the more.

  My dad picked me up later at Sean’s. My dad nearly always picked me up . . . or my mum did.

  ‘I’m not having my boy walking these streets late at night,’ they would both say.

  I had a great mum and dad. A great family and the best mate in the world. Sean.

  That night as my dad was driving me home and I was yattering on about the match – giving him a kick-by-kick description of the game – I was really happy. Life was good.

  Nothing was ever going to change that.

  g

  2

  Monday morning, and I came down for breakfast all ready to go to school. My dad’s face was clouded over, his mouth grim. I didn’t even have to ask the reason. I had spotted the scrunched-up letter that had been chucked in the corner. Another knock-back. Another job he didn’t get. He’d been trying so hard to get another job ever since the electronics factory he’d worked in had closed down and he’d been made redundant. I gave my mum a quick glance. She was at the cooker doing me my scrambled eggs on toast. She shook her head. ‘Don’t say a word,’ her look was telling me. So I didn’t.

  It was my wee brother, David, who finally brought a smile back to my dad’s face. David is five years old, just started school. He walked into the kitchen with a pair of blue boxer shorts on his head. My dad took one look at him and burst out laughing. ‘What’s the idea of that?’

  David climbed into his chair and said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, ‘I’m Mr Bean. Mr Bean wears his underpants on his head.’

  David was always playing at something. His games usually involved me. Me and him fighting aliens. Me and him being pirates. Me and him finding lost treasure. That morning his game was exactly what was needed to change the mood.

  ‘You’re five years old,’ my dad said. ‘You’re in school now. What would your girlfriend say if she saw you sitting here with your underpants on your head?’

  ‘Jessica’s not my girlfriend,’ David said, spluttering out a mouthful of Rice Krispies.

  Jessica sat beside him in class. He had been invited to her birthday party just last week. We were always winding him up about her.

  I snatched the underpants off his head and threw them across the kitchen. He immediately began to bawl. ‘Mum! Leo’s stealing my underpants.’

  In the end he had the whole family laughing again. Typical David.

  I had Sean laughing about it too when I met him at the school gates. I told Sean everything, even about my dad not getting the job. Sean understood. His dad had been in the same boat as mine. Made redundant from the same factory. But his dad had managed to get a job pretty quick. It was only stacking shelves in the supermarket, but he’d said he would take anything to get back to work.

  My dad would too. Though what he really wanted was to get back into the electronic business.

  ‘I hate to see him sitting there every day, Sean. My dad likes working.’ I shrugged. ‘The man’s daft. He could be living off my mum and benefits but instead he wants to work.’

  ‘And of course your mum earns so much at the hospital.’

  Mum was a nursing auxiliary, but she wasn’t full time, though she had applied for it.

  I had such a good life. If my dad could get a job everything would be perfect. I’d do anything to get my dad a job, I thought.

  ‘Something will turn up,’ Sean said. Then he changed the subject. We’d talked enough about the dark side of life. ‘Want to come to my place for your tea? I’ve got a great new game.’

  It was always better going to Sean’s. First of all there was no David to annoy us, trying to barge into the room. Even when we barricaded the door, he would find a way. Either that or he’d kick up such a fuss, my mum would insist we let him in. ‘I’ll be good,’ he would promise. He never was. Two seconds through the door and he was diving on us, bombarding us with pillows, wanting to play.

  And secondly, and more importantly, Sean’s mum didn’t ask too many questions when we went out. Just told us to be careful. Not get ourselves into any trouble.

  The lighter nights were coming in – late February – and after our tea we ran through the estate, checking out where we could explore next.

  Over the railway bridge at the edge of Sean’s estate there was a long line of empty tenement properties. Clyde Terrace. The council was planning to pull them down. They were going to build new houses here, in this prime spot that had a spectacular view right over the Clyde. But so far nothing had been done to them. They had been boarded up for months, with steel panels on the windows and doors. They looked impregnable. But that was only a challenge to me and Sean.

  ‘Let’s separate,’ Sean suggested. ‘You start over there.’ He nodded to the other end of the terrace. ‘I’ll start here. Text me when you find a way in.’

  I watched him go, crouching along the walls like an SAS commando on a mission. I had to smile.

  ‘Nobody can see you here, pal,’ I was thinking. Because the back of the properties only looked on to another line of derelict housing.

  It was such a waste, I thought, all those empty houses, when it could have been a great place for people to live.

  Or maybe not. Nelis had taken over this area with his band of moneylenders and thugs. Most people would take out a loan just to get out of here.

  I waited till Sean was out of my sight before I began to move just as stealthily towards the far end of the terrace. Every so often I stopped to tug at a steel panel to see if it might come loose. But every window, every entry was sealed tight. I was almost ready to give up – to text Sean that I was having no luck – when I spotted it. The steel corner over one of the windows was bent out as if someone had prised it open. Vandals probably – like me – trying to get in. I crouched closer and gave it a tug. It scraped across the sill, but with another pull it creaked a little wider. I could fit in there, I thought. Skinny little me? No problem. But maybe not Sean. A wee bit wider in the butt, was Sean.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket to text him I’d found a way and only then noticed I had no charge in my battery.

  I looked back along the line of tenements but there was no sign of my mate. Maybe he had found another way in, had
tried to text me and failed and had decided to go inside by himself.

  So would I then. I slipped my phone back in my pocket and took out my torch. Then I squeezed inside.

  The torch’s beam sent a long thin light across the floor. I moved it around and realised I was in an old kitchen. No graffiti. No pipes or wires pulled out. The vandals hadn’t been here yet.

  And for a split second – a micro-second – I wondered, why not? These houses had been lying derelict for months. Usually it only took days for the vandals to move in.

  But the thought was gone in an instant. I was the first one here, that was all. Boldly going where nobody had gone before. A pioneer explorer in a new land. I opened the door of the kitchen and stepped into the living room. Black as pitch. My torchlight caught a picture still hanging lopsided on a wall. I peered closer. A steamer coming into harbour, gulls flocking around it. It reminded me that this had been someone’s house – someone’s home once. I moved further into the room.

  The house was thick with silence. It seemed to me I was cut off from the world outside. Totally alone. I swept the light across the bare floorboards and immediately swept it back again.

  One of the floorboards was lying loose.

  I was down on my knees in an instant. Maybe, I was thinking, someone had left a box of money under those floorboards, their life savings, and had forgotten to take it with them. Or maybe a cache of stolen jewellery, or . . . my imagination went into overdrive.

  Or maybe a body.

  I sniffed the air. Wouldn’t I be able to smell a decomposing body?

  But there was nothing.

  This was a definite Mint Imperial moment. I sat back, pulled one from the bag in my pocket and flicked it into my mouth.

  That loose floorboard had to be significant. There had been no vandals in here, so why was the floorboard loose?

  My hand was almost touching it when I remembered Sean. Should I go back outside, find him, help him and his fat butt to squeeze inside so we could discover the secret under the floorboards together? Of all the times for my phone to have no battery!

  But on the other hand, maybe there would be nothing there at all.