The Low Road Read Online Free PDF

reward, but it will be ‘considered a favor’ if newsof him is passed on.” Her voice went hard. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
    He understood. Sharing information went two ways, and she had done her share.
    â€œMaybe nothing, but . . . An old family friend, he came to see my mother, wanting my help. Seems his son might be involved in . . .” He couldn’t think how to phrase it without slighting his childhood friend. “Might be on the wrong side of the law.” He saw her eyebrows, eyebrows the shape of arched bows, raised in a what else question. “Mr. Dochery . . .”
    â€œGerry Dochery?”
    â€œThe father. Do you know him?” He was wondering if she had the second sight.
    â€œGerry Dochery, the son, is one of the hardest hard men in this city of hard men.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œRight. Oh. This calls for a drink.”
    Once again Mary Ballantyne surprised him. She led him not to the local journalists’ hangout but to a discreet cocktail bar in the square where the Stock Exchange building took up central position, roads on three sides, the outward, columned, moneyed facade looking towards George Square, the side opposite the bar facing the Athenaeum, home of the colleges of music and drama. The bar was in the basement of a grand early-Victorian building and was all soft lighting and soft seats. The clientele wore suits, and McAllister suspected that smoking black Sobranie cigarettes would not be out of place.
    â€œNo self-respecting journalist would be seen dead here,” she said as he brought the drinks—whisky with a dash of water for her, neat for him.
    Looking around, he agreed; it was all city types, moneyed, or intellectuals, definitely not moneyed, but with style.
    She took one of his proffered cigarettes, not noticing or not commenting on the sweetish taste of the tobacco. She started to speak without filling him in on the current state of the gang wars of Glasgow. He’s from Dennistoun, he will know , was her thinking.
    â€œThis past year it’s been more than tribal, religious stuff,” she said. “Only not everyone believes me. The police certainly don’t. Or, more likely, don’t want to know—easier to pass it off as the usual nutters. The name Gerry Dochery has been heard around for a while, but in this last year even more so. He has his own men, but he’s also an enforcer for hire. Only trouble is no one knows, or if they do know aren’t telling, who it is he’s enforcing for. I’ve been investigating for the past six months, and I’m no nearer finding the name of the head man of this particular gang than when I started. But whoever he is, he’s a right evil bastard.” She said all this without sipping her drink, without puffing her cigarette, without looking anywhere but straight at him.
    McAllister could feel the force of her concentration, hear her intellect and, yes, her courage; it was a brave or foolhardy person who mined the blackness for information on Glasgow’s criminal fraternity. Slashing a face open with a cutthroat razor was just for starters when someone was found asking too many questions, or even suspected of it.
    â€œWhat particular area are they working on?”
    â€œAll the contracts for the slum clearance, the new housing schemes, the rebuilding of the city.”
    â€œThat’s huge.”
    She nodded. “Aye, it is.” She looked at him. She’d shown hers, it was his turn. “So. What do you have on Gerry Dochery?”
    â€œMr. Dochery, the father, was my dad’s best friend. Wee Gerry . . .”
    She ignored the sobriquet, knowing “wee” meant either he was huge or the son, and in this case both.
    â€œWe grew up together. His dad and mine were firemen at the same station. We stood out, both being tall, and we sort of looked out for each other. Gerry’s mum