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For Ann, For Fiona

With thanks for the friendship

of the McLeish family

Contents

I asked for a price, Jesus Christ, I actually asked for a price.

There have been many low moments for sure but this one stands the test as one of the worst imaginable. Not that I thought this at the time; no, it all seemed reasonable, another transaction. The scary thing was that when I heard my voice making the enquiry it didn’t shock me, not at all, I listened to what I was saying and ploughed on regardless. Go down deeper. I was cool with it, cool with everything. Days later when I was a little less high and remembered what I had been asking for it made me feel sick enough to need to run to the bathroom. And when I got there I stared at myself in the mirror, wondering who was on the other side of the glass. I looked for a long long time. Half an hour, one hour? I tried and tried but didn’t have the time to find him.

Miguel and Torres ‘Tony’ Carcera didn’t look particularly shocked to hear it either, that’s when I realized they were the real thing. The only issue for them was how much, there was never going to be a set fee for this kind of deal, no; pitches like mine must have come along so rarely that every case had to be treated as a one-off.

Big Tony toyed with his drink, sticking a fat cigar-shaped finger into his glass to mop up the dregs of the froth left on its sides.

Miguel gave all the signs he was thinking it over. It was as simple a matter as just quoting a price and terms of payment; he was pondering the wider picture.

‘So this guy, it’s you or him, yeah?’

That was how he saw it, and I had to agree.

‘Well, we can help, but we need to know what happens when he’s gone, yeah?’

Miguel liked to know you were following him, that you were on the same level of understanding, that you were listening intently to the guttural drawl of his Catalan voice, following every word of wisdom that came out of him. He was a weedy-looking guy with thinning jet-black hair tied tight into a ponytail. You could tell that somewhere along the line Miguel had had it rough, maybe his childhood in the cockroach palace high-rises of the mainland, maybe prison in Barcelona, maybe a lifetime keeping the lid on his younger brother’s wilder enthusiasms. In years gone by he would have made a perfect extra in one of those spaghetti westerns, a pistol-toting desperado blown away by Clint Eastwood in the first reel. Miguel wanted a starring role though, one that meant he was around to stay.