Pilgrim Soul Read Online Free PDF

cigarette to light my own. As I puffed mine alight from his ember, I said quietly, ‘I’ve got a sure thing in the
three thirty.’
    ‘They a’ say that. An’ maistly they’re wrang. But it’s your dosh. Nummer twelve, the grocer’s shop. In the back. Don’t hing aboot.’
    ‘Thanks, pal.’
    The only gamble I was about to take was whether Sanny was still personally involved at the makeshift bookies. I needed his expertise and street knowhow. Duncan had told me that though he was
getting long in the tooth he was still very much a hands-on crook. He liked to keep a close eye on his wealth and how it was accruing. I was also gambling that I wouldn’t get my head kicked
in when I started asking him questions.
    As I walked towards the grocer’s I saw men like me entering and leaving. They left with lighter wallets but without evidence of purchase: no string bags of spuds and carrots. I pulled the
door open and walked in. A man in a suit stood admiring the tinned goods and keeping an eye on the door. He saw my paper and nodded me through a door by the counter.
    It was a bare room with a wooden table and a few chairs. A wireless whined off-tune in the background. On one wall a number of newspaper pages were tacked up displaying today’s fixtures at
Ayr. Four punters in caps and coats stood squinting at the form guides, the odds and the conditions, as though they had relevance. They sucked pencils and scribbled on their own newspapers or fag
packets, doing mental arithmetic to ensure they were picking winners. They might as well have been examining chicken entrails.
    But what interested me most was the group of three men round the table. Each wore a coat and a bunnet. Each was smoking. Two bruisers were pretending to read the paper. I knew it was pretence.
Their lips weren’t moving. Old Sanny sat in the middle staring at the punters through red, darting eyes. A big leather bag was perched in the front of him. The clockbag. Just as I stepped in,
one of the four men analysing form stepped forward to the table.
    ‘Florin each way, Constant Dreamer, two thirty.’
    Sanny pulled a little pad forward, scribbled the details and tore off the slip. He removed the carbon and tucked it into the next pairing. Then he handed the top copy to the punter and thrust
the carbon into the compartment on the clockbag for that race. He dropped the two coins into the open bag. Later, when the race was ‘off’, the clock would be locked. It was supposed to
give the punters confidence, but mostly it was to stop the bookie’s runners from making a little side money by taking a later bet – perfect forecasting – from a pal.
    Throughout, the old man’s eyes flicked his gaze between the bag, the punter and me. When the punter stepped away, I was left staring into Sanny Carmichael’s face. He raised an
eyebrow.
    ‘Ah heard you wuz back, Brodie. Kicking up trouble.’ His voice was a rasp going over wood, his face a lump of pumice, grey and pitted.
    ‘I don’t go looking for it. How’s it going, Sanny?’
    ‘No’ bad. Have you had a hot tip then? Want a few bob on the nose? I could make you good odds. Old times’ sake.’
    ‘I’d like a word, Sanny. Some friends of mine have been turned over.’
    ‘Oh aye? An’ who might these pals be?’
    ‘Let’s put it this way: they’re from the Garnethill area.’
    Sanny studied me for a while; then he looked either side at his cronies who’d long since put their papers down. ‘So these are
Sheeney
pals, ur they? Fuck’s sake,
Brodie, have ye lost the end of yer willie? Shot off by the Boche?’
    His pals sniggered at his great humour. Sanny stared at me, waiting for me to dig a bigger hole for myself.
    ‘Everything’s intact, Sanny, thanks for asking. But yes, the leaders of the Jewish community are my pals. Do you have a problem with that? I’m helping them run down a
thief.’
    ‘An’ what makes you think I’d know anything aboot thievery? A man could take