Page 141 of Forever, Maybe
He exhaled, closed the laptop, and stood, moving to the curtainless window to gaze out at the street and the island of hawthorn bushes and sycamore trees in its centre.
Jennifer Frazer phoned. Twice. On the second attempt, he switched off his mobile and flung it across the room. It hit the wall with a dullclunk, bounced once, and landed face down on the floor. The screen was probably wrecked. Ah, well.
And all the while, Nell’s letter sat there. A persistent hum beneath everything, running like the ticker tape on a 24-hour news channel. It lay on the kitchen counter—lounge-stroke-kitchen, really—its edges glowing in his peripheral vision, radioactive with implications.
He should… what? Pick up the phone. Call her. Obviously. Explain.
Say,God in Govan, Nell, I wish you’d telt me years ago. I would’ve understood…
Even if he wasn’t sure that was true.
The following morning, stepping out of the flat, paranoia clung to him like a damp coat.
The guy with the buzzcut across the road whose face he recognised but name he couldn’t recall—did he hesitate before getting into his wee black Fiat, thinking,Is that Daniel Murray, the guy who took blood money from a gangster…?
The woman wrestling a twin buggy up the slope of the street—baby up top, toddler below—did she shoot him a look? A silent judgment:Men like you shouldn’t be driving top-of-the-range BMWs.
And then when he arrived at the office, a young man with a fancy camera loitered outside the St Vincent Street shop. Daniel’s heart jolted.Paparazzi?He almost turned on his heel—until he clocked the angle of the lens. Not aimed at him at all. The guy was just trying to get an arty shot of the Tron Church.
Martin took his time calling back.
Meanwhile, Daniel spent an unreasonable chunk of the morning reassuring Holly and Dennis that the business was fine, their jobs secure. Privately, with Holly dispatched to the Post Office with the day’s mail, he told Joe the truth. The real truth, this time.
No, he had no idea what this meant. Yes, he believed the shops, vans and outdoor catering side of the business would be safe. But the supermarket? That might be gone. Too much risk. Too many boardroom nerves.
Joe harrumphed.
Nicky was due in two weeks. Five kids (well, almost). A mortgage. A mate who might’ve just wrecked his job security.
Daniel’s chest tightened. “Joe, I’m so sorry.”
But Joe only screwed up his face and shook his head.
“Naw. I kent fine where Shane O’Malley’s money came fae too, mind? And I telt ye we should go for it. So I’m as—what’s that big word? Cul… culpable. That’s it.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, you paid it off years ago. They cannae pin anything onStuffed!”
Midday rolled around, and at last, Martin called back.
His message was much the same. Nothing to be done about the article—caveat,I am not a libel lawyer, and I would strongly advise you to seek clarification from someone who is. TheScottish Posthad been careful. While the piece insinuated, it didn’t explicitly state that the loan came from drug money, prostitution, or arms smuggling. Their legal team would have dissected every sentence, scoured every comma, ensuring there was nothing Shane or Daniel could sue over.
However, Martin had seen all the paperwork. The loan. The repayments. The van. The shop. All legally his. The Civil Recovery Unit couldn’t touch it.
Retribution—or karma, if you believed in that sort of thing—came later that afternoon, when Daniel was at the Hyndland shop, reassuring Liza that she had nothing to worry about.
The old-fashioned bell tinkled as he pushed open the door, and something about the sound stopped him cold.
This place would always be tied to Nell.
For a few seconds, he stood in the doorway, the present blurring into the past. He could almost see it as it was—the grimy floor tiles, the cloying smell of Febreze failing to mask old blood and meat, the whitewashed windows filtering in only the barest sliver of light.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, they always said.
Knowing what he did now, what would he change?
Take on the Hyndland shop, keep the sandwich vans, never bother expanding? Maybe.
Not marry Nell?
