Dead in the Water Read Online Free PDF Page A

arrived, had been quite such a good idea after all.
     
    As Tam MacNee and the other Warlocks from the Cutty Sark repaired to the bar of the Cross Keys in Ardhill to celebrate their darts victory over the local side, Tam thought how strange it was not to have the air thick with the familiar smell of smoke. He wasn’t sure he liked this new ruling by the Holyrood Samizdat; his wife Bunty had made him give up the weed a while back, but somehow clean air and a bar seemed sort of unnatural.
    The Cross Keys was full and there was a kind of edgy atmosphere, with Norrie the barman watching nervously to see whether he’d be called on to enforce the ban. When Tam had arrived with the team, Norrie had greeted him with special enthusiasm, but Tam’s response was brief: ‘I’m off duty, pal. You’re on your own.’
    Of course, you were never quite off duty. Even as Tam joined in the crack, he was looking across the bar at a group of men who’d come in together and weren’t speaking English.
    The Polish invasion had reached Kirkluce and the general reaction locally was favourable. These were skilled men, not afraid of hard work, who turned up when expected, didn’t take tea-breaks every half-hour and didn’t pad their bills.
    There was resentment in some quarters, though. It threatened the local tradesmen – oh, indeed it did! Used to saying, ‘I could maybe fit you in at the end of next month, Mr MacNee, and I can make it six hundred quid if you pay cash,’ it was natural enough they’d take exception to having their nice little racket spoiled.
    It was harder to see why the native layabouts should resent jobs they weren’t prepared to do being done by someone else, but they did. Tam could see a ripple of reaction from some local youths, bunched around the bar, as the Poles arrived.
    There was one older man among them, but the others were in their twenties and compared to the home-grown variety mainly looked clean-cut and wholesome. One had an earring and slightly long hair, but as far as Tam could see none of them had tattoos – one of his particular bugbears. Ardhill’s own neds – well, the less said about how they looked, the better.
    There were four or five of them and up till now they’d been leaving the bar to smoke meekly enough, forming a raucous group outside, but the noise level was rising and from experience Tam reckoned one or other of them would try it on before long. It was cold out there, they were out to enjoy their Friday night and they were getting lairy.
    Tam took a closer look as they all trooped back inside again. There was only one he knew: Kevin Docherty, skinny, in his early twenties, with a shaven head and a dotted line tattooed round his throat – a joke, presumably, though the man was tempting fate. He was bad news, Docherty, convicted of assault and only recently out on early release – something else Tam didn’t approve of.
    He’d said he was off duty, but it didn’t work like that. DS MacNee was replacing Tam already. He wouldn’t trust Docherty as far as the bowl of peanuts at the end of the bar. The assault had involved a knife; he’d be surprised if the man wasn’t carrying one, and from the way they were all nudging one another and laughing, trouble was brewing.
    As one of the Poles picked up his pint from the bar, Docherty gave him a dunt so that it slopped on his jeans. MacNee saw anger in the man’s face, then he tightened his lips, shrugged and moved away.
    There was a burst of laughter. Docherty said something to his mates, then to cries of ‘Go for it, Kev!’ he ostentatiously got out a pack of cigarettes, took one out and lit up.
    The barman saw him immediately. With a pleading glance at MacNee, he said, ‘Come on, Kev. You know it’s against the law now. Put it out, like a good lad.’
    Docherty’s unpleasant grin bared a snaggle of uneven teeth. ‘Gonnae make me, then? You and whose army? Come on, lads, get out the fags. If we’re all at it, what does he