“So what are you going to do now?”

 “Go down there to fetch her of course.”

 “Fetch her? Bob, you were unfaithful to her with prostitutes, one of whom you beat almost to death. You’ve publicly humiliated her, jeopardized her career and, worst of all, you’ve shattered her faith in human relationships. Isn’t it best you leave her alone to recover and start afresh?”

 “Yes, if everything you said was true. As always though Danny, just as in your politics, you ignore those facts which inconvenience your bigotry, such as there was no evidence against me…such as I was implicated by a certified madman…a fan who, in my decency, I took pity on and allowed into my company. I’m not bitter though. I feel sorry for him, I really do. Like you, he’s basically a decent guy who just can’t fit into society. It’s a shame.”

 Danny laughed sarcastically. “Would that be the same society I had to protect you from on the way home from your little private school that afternoon, when you were bullied for being a snobbish loner? When I had to take a kicking off the Ferguson brothers for standing between them and you, a complete stranger?”

 Danny was referring to their first, fortuitous meeting at the age of thirteen, one spring afternoon on a double decker bus. He’d been larking about on the top deck with a ‘team’ from Possil when Bob had unwittingly boarded in his Glasgow Academy blazer. Crazy Ferguson — a neighbourhood psychopath who ended up in Carstairs State Hospital for the Criminally Insane — had taken blood curdling exception to “Little Lord Fauntleroy” and intended to torture him. “Can you believe it?” he’d said, “cheeky wee bastard’s got the audacity to travel home from a private school – on a council bus!”

 With a tattooed hand round Bob’s throat, Crazy had been about to slash his cheek with a metal comb, when Danny ran down the aisle and leapt on his back, pulling him to the floor. The price of this heroism was paid several weeks later, though, when Crazy and his older brother, Buddy, had jumped him from behind outside the fish and chip shop, knocking him unconscious with a whisky bottle. At the time, Danny’s mother said it had served him right for defending “the enemy” against his own.

 “What’s that got to do with the real world, here and now?” A nerve had obviously been struck, as Bob’s voice was quavering.

 “Is that the real world which saw you speeding round the streets on your own in the brand new car your parents bought, while I was out and about in the city centre making acquaintances from the four corners of the Clyde, not least among them being a certain Mr. Alexander Addison and Billy McLean, who went on to form The Squeaky Kirk. I suppose you’ve forgotten me coming round and coaxing you out of your reclusive existence to meet them, because they needed a lyricist and I thought it might be an outlet for your writing…Jesus it was hard work getting past your ‘mammy’ at the front door! Nobody was good enough for her little angel were they? Do you remember how intimidated you used to be down town, outside the protection of your car? Is that the real world you mean Bobby? Eh? A world in which you could only communicate through songs; jealous of other people’s ability to interact. And it’s the same even now. There isn’t really anybody beneath those ridiculous clothes you’re wearing is there? Take away the designer suits, the sports car and a record deal — which allows you to be heard by thousands without ever having to interact with anybody — and what’s left? An anonymous, social inadequate, that’s what.”

 “I haven’t got time for – your – bitter – abuse.”

 Bob was almost crying.

 Judith saw the bedroom door handle move and stepped back into the dark bathroom behind her. Before Bob could get out, though, Danny lit the blue touch paper.

 “Not all the witnesses to what you did are clinically mad you know.”

 “What?” Bob bit.

 Judith heard the door being pushed to again and resumed her eavesdropping position at the threshold of the bathroom, where it met the bedroom door on a right angle.

 “Do you know what the greatest part of driving a cab was for me? I was able to observe you and Ingrid without being spotted. Sad, I know, but such is the nature of obsession. I could park opposite the pub, or pass you half a dozen times in the street and you’d never suspect, because I was just another taxi. But I had a special incentive to follow your Audi TT around town.”

 “That being?”

 “Catching you out of course. That way I could disenchant Ingrid and win her back.”

 “You bitter…bitter freak.”

 “It was devastating when Herman turned up at your little Govan lair with Carina. I was petrified she’d give you something that could be passed on to Ingrid…so much that I actually ran up the stairs and banged on your door. But, what with the noise you were making arguing, you obviously never heard me. When Herman carried her out of there I was sat in the darkness, behind the banister on the stair above, watching everything.”

 “So why didn’t you tell Ingrid?” Bob snapped.

 “Informing her you were a prostitute beater was no good. She’d hate me more than you, for trying to capitalise on a tragedy. So I kept quiet and waited, hoping the police would eventually do the job for me and, thanks to the arrival of Judith, they did.”

 “Oh. Her.”

 “That was a little maneuver of mine I’m not too proud of, but as I say, obsession does these things.”

 “Maneuver?”

 “She jumped in the cab one night and I deliberately dropped her at Oran Mor where I knew you’d all be. Then I promised half-fares in future, to guarantee we maintained contact. Knowing how you’re always seeking an audience to witness your lifestyle — The Fitzgerald Dream — I was confident she’d be embraced by the gang. She was my eyes and ears without realizing and, the more I revealed about myself to her, it was inevitable she’d mention me to Ingrid and, hopefully, be the catalyst for a reunion. The rest, of course, is history — though I never imagined she’d also precipitate your downfall.”

 Realizing that she’d been used as a pawn in their squalid feud, Judith felt sick.

 “Danny, you know me. I’d never deliberately hurt anyone,” Bob pleaded.

 “Yes Bob, I do know you and you’re a spiteful, jealous brat…Look what you did to me! You only noticed Ingrid because everybody else was raving about her beauty. Once you knew she was universally valued, like that gold ring on your finger, you had to have her and resented a poor man enjoying what you felt entitled to. If you could only get her on your arm, you thought, you’d be guaranteed more of the attention you craved but didn’t have the charisma to generate it yourself without going via people’s hi-fi systems. To you she was just another accessory, like all those ridiculous things you spend your money on. You’ve never been able to think for yourself, have you Bob? I used to think that the wrong people had all the cash, but now I’m not so sure. I think wealth is probably God’s compensation for people who have no imagination.”

 “Yes, like self-righteousness is God’s compensation for being poor.” Bob retorted.

 There was a hiatus before Danny chirped up again. “The point is I loved Ingrid as a person, not as an object. I loved her fresh, open mind. I connected with her like no one before or since.”

 “Crap! Ingrid was your opportunity to inflict on someone else what you’ve had done to you. What were you at the time, thirty one? She was the perfect disciple — just eighteen years old, intelligent and naïve. At Last, you had a captive audience to rehearse your mother’s brainwashing on…somebody to make you feel the big man.”

 “The way people who bought Squeaky Kirk records where a captive audience for your egotistical whining you mean?”

 “Yes.”

 Everything suddenly fell silent. It seemed that Danny had been fazed by Bob’s uncharacteristic humility.