The Last Godfather by Reg McKay

Author:Reg McKay
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845025229
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2012-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

19

DIRTY PICTURES

1985

Arthur Thompson was livid. Someone had set up his boy with heroin and no doubt. Arthur knew his elder son’s weaknesses better than anyone but now he regretted thinking he was paranoid. Fatboy had been absolutely right to suspect the cops were setting him up. Him being cooped up inside that jail was proof enough.

Even those who hated Fatboy Thompson sniffed a rat. The man was well known for never getting his mitts dirty, particularly with drugs. He behaved like some white settler in the days of the British Empire, swanning around, giving orders and never touching a grain himself. There was no way he would have a stack of tenner wraps in his car – especially when he already suspected the cops were on to him and planned to set him up. His father knew that more than anyone and he was going to have revenge.

Fatboy was charged along with Tam Bagan and a recent recruit called ‘Blind’ Jonah McKenzie. Jonah had lost an eye in one of many brawls as a young man and henceforth was called Blind Jonah. He had been the leader of one of the east-end teenage gangs for years and, even before he was old enough to leave school, had a formidable reputation as a street fighter. Small and slim, he didn’t look the part. But he was courageous and fearless and fast with a blade.

Blind Jonah had gone to work for another east-end player, Thomas ‘The Licensee’ McGraw. McGraw was called The Licensee because he was well known as a police informant, trading information and often innocent bodies in return for immunity from prosecution.

McGraw was never rated on the street but he had developed a fair reputation as a wire man, specialising in dismantling alarm systems. For a few years he had been part of the BarL Team, Scotland’s most successful and professional armed robbers of the 1970s and early 1980s. That crew planned their operations with military precision and discipline and never got caught as a group.

One of that gang, Vinnie Dickson, was caught in a farm, near Coatbridge, with a safe stolen from a pub in Clydebank. The safe still had around £30,000 locked in it and Dickson was for the high jump. Another member, TC Campbell, the youngest son of Bobby Campbell who had given Thompson his start in armed robbery, had been found guilty of killing the Doyle Family in a fire at their house in what was known as the Ice-Cream Wars. Everyone on the street knew that TC and Joe were innocent and the police should have been investigating The Licensee. Now that left a bad taste in most people’s mouths, including that of Blind Jonah who promptly left the gang and moved over to the employ of Arthur Thompson’s son Fatboy.

Fatboy instantly decided that Jonah’s flat would be used to cut and wrap all their smack. It was a big risk but one that Jonah took with a shrug of his shoulders. Earlier on the

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