Danny, who was muttering insanely now, sounded like he was crying. “Oh-please-God-no! Please, please, please God - no!”

 “Oh grow up man! Surely you of all people must be aware that all money’s filth. Our city, the one you’re so passionate about, was built on tobacco and slavery. And now, your college is built on heroin. Just like the National Health Service is built through taxes imposed on smokers with lung cancer and drinkers with liver disease, not to mention the oil guzzling, kid killing car drivers for whom, as you never ceased banging on about, half of Glasgow was demolished to provide a motorway. It’s the great paradox of life Danny — happy birthday son!”

Danny made no response.

“Anyway, I have to be up early so I’ll bid you adieu.”

 The sound of Bob making his way upstairs to spend the night in Danny’s room, just across the landing, made Judith feel physically ill.

CHAPTER: 15

 The morning after Bob’s revelation, Judith woke to loud arguing. Running down to the kitchen in her nightshirt, she found the whole college standing over Hamish, who was lying unconscious on the flagstone floor, after trying to prevent Ryan from assaulting other students. Overnight, while they’d all been sleeping outside the byre, someone had taken the young author’s computer and the back-up discs containing his book, leaving him to suspect, accuse and then physically attack those closest.

Remembering that Danny had told a certain somebody about Ryan’s work, Judith rushed back upstairs and burst into the room where Bob was supposed to be staying, only to find an empty, undisturbed bed. Heart sunken, she put on a grey hooded sweat top and jeans, then jogged back downstairs, herding Danny and Ryan to the minibus, which she drove at high speed towards Glasgow. Virtually catatonic with depression from the previous night’s bombshell, Danny sat on the farthest back seat, saying not a word until they arrived five hours later and then only to mutter something about Bob’s parents living in Bearsden.

 Bearsden is an affluent, residential suburb on the northwest outskirts of the city, containing a significant number of million pound mansions along its leafy avenues. The Fitzgerald’s home, however, was a more modest affair — a whitewashed bungalow, beyond a low, granite stoned boundary wall and a small rectangle of lawn. The family had escaped here from the council tenements of Maryhill back in the nineteen-seventies, thanks to Mr. Fitzgerald’s earnings as a welder on the North Sea oil rigs. In accordance with her new middle class status — achieved by working class means — Mrs. Fitzgerald had sent her only child to Glasgow Academy, the city’s oldest public school, in the West End. Mixing among the real middle classes hadn’t come naturally to Bob though, and, despite achieving decent exam results, he’d grown into a self-absorbed teenager. But for meeting Danny, he’d probably still be hiding in his bedroom to this day, writing stories only for himself.

 Unfortunately, there was no sign of Bob’s car when they pulled up outside the bungalow, and Ryan’s frantic banging on the front door didn’t even get a response. While he investigated the back of the property, Judith stayed in the minibus, trying to elicit more information from Danny. .

 “Danny! You’ve got to think. Is there anywhere else that bastard might be?”

 “I don’t know!” he yelled back, at his wits end.

 On Ryan’s return, Judith drove aimlessly, suppressed tears of frustration twinkling in her eyes. She’d only gone about a mile, when she suddenly spotted a grey Datsun parked up ahead, outside a black, iron security gate. Either side of the gate was an eight-foot high, brick boundary wall overhung by sycamore trees, with CCTV cameras peeping out from steel poles among the foliage. Judith and Ryan jumped out the minibus, but before the former could press the buzzer on the intercom in the wall, Danny had caught up, snatching her hand away.

 “What the hell are you doing woman? This is Rex McLeod’s place.”

 “And? You’re quick enough to condemn others for not standing up to the capitalists. Well, here’s your opportunity to show us all how it’s done…oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, you’d rather paint his portrait wouldn’t you?”

 Just then, the intercom crackled and a whining, nasal, Glaswegian voice seeped out.

 “Tut. Tut. Tut. Is that you causing a song and dance outside my property Danny White?”

 “Aye Rex, it is.”

 “Ha, ha, ha,” McLeod had a surprisingly genial laugh. “You and your pals had best come on in.”

 The gate slid open with a humming noise, revealing a white, eight-bedroom mansion, set back beyond a small field of manicured front lawn. Across this bowling green, five barking Dobermans came bounding, before a middle aged blonde woman in a peppermint green, velvet jogging suit appeared, calling them back. Rex McLeod’s wife, Janine had heavily lined sun-bed orange skin and lank, peroxide hair, but she conveyed the arrogance of an aristocratic supermodel, surveying her visitors with disdain. In a dry, boozy voice she directed them to an oak panelled lounge where three men stood around a large granite-stone fireplace, drinking whisky beneath one of Danny’s portrait paintings of the gangster. To the left — as viewed by the visitors on entering — Fergus Baxter was in full tartan splendour, while on the right, a shaven headed Bob looked conspicuously uncomfortable in his shabby, navy-blue Adidas tracksuit. In the middle was a dumpy, pug faced, squinty eyed, smirking fellow in his late fifties. What remained of his grey hair was combed back over a red pate and his jowls were hanging either side of a triple chin. He wore a yellow Lyle and Scott polo T-shirt — tightly stretched like cling film round his paunch — brown trousers and matching golf shoes. Judith actually laughed when he introduced himself to her as Rex McLeod. She couldn’t believe it. The legendary ‘Big Man’ was even smaller than Fergus Baxter, who could only have been five-foot seven, if that.

 “So what can I do for you then folks?” the gangster asked, mockingly.

 Danny stepped forward from his position between Judith and Ryan.

 “As it happens, we’ve intruded upon you quite by accident. It’s Mr Fitzgerald we need to speak with.” He turned to face Bob. “Could I have a quick word in private please?”

 Bob smiled slyly. “There’s no need for that. Nothing you’re going to say will shock anybody here.”

 “Ok. In that case…err…how can I put this? Ryan here has lost a very important disc. You wouldn’t happen to know where that might…”

 “Just give us our things back you rat!” Judith exploded.

 At this moment McLeod stepped forward, placing a pacifying hand on her forearm.

 “It’s me you need to talk with about the disc darling. I own it now.”

 “Rex,” Danny implored, “the lad here has worked day and night on that book for the past two years. He’s only nineteen. It’s his way out – please don’t block him.”

 McLeod turned to face Danny. “Danny boy, if you’d come and asked for that disc two years ago, you’d already be walking out the door with it in your hand, and…and,” he pointed backwards over one shoulder with a thumb, towards Bob, “…that worm there would be eating out of a straw, for offending someone I respected.” He gulped the remainder of his scotch before continuing. “I actually liked you…worse, I trusted you…and I make it my business to trust nobody. I really enjoyed our little chats whenever I sat for you. We talked about Marx and Christianity, do you remember?” McLeod smiled nostalgically at this recollection. “I found you refreshingly naïve. I could see right through you, or so I thought, and there was absolutely nothing harmful there. I don’t think I could say that about a single other soul I’ve encountered. As a result, you became a little indulgence of mine…an escape from the cynical world I inhabit. That’s why I was always giving you painting jobs — so we could talk some more. So you can imagine how betrayed I felt, learning that you’re actually a scheming blackmailer.”