May God Forgive

By Alan Parks

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Mccoy was almost at Wilson Street when he started to hear it. People shouting. The clatter of police horses’ hooves on the road. Car horns blaring. Then a chant, quiet at first. He couldn’t quite make it out to start with but it got louder and louder the closer he got to the court. And then he could hear exactly what the crowd were chanting. HANG THEM! HANG THEM HANG THEM! He turned onto Brunswick Street and stopped dead. The entrance to the Sheriff Court was surrounded by at least a couple of hundred people. So many that they’d started spilling off the pavement. The traffic was backed up both ways, taxi drivers half out their cabs to see what was going on, buses overheating, their engines steaming in the wet. He couldn’t see Murray anywhere. The crowd had totally blocked the street. He was going to have to try and make his way through, see if Murray was on the other side.

Mccoy decided discretion was the better part of valour, started mouthing HANG THEM! HANG THEM! along with everyone else and pushed his way through. The crowd was made up of all sorts. Had to squeeze his way past men, women, even little kids. Some of them were holding home-made signs on wooden poles, umbrellas or raincoats over their heads, all of them had the same face contorted with fury.

The chanting was building momentum and the crowd surged towards the court entrance. Mccoy felt himself being pulled along, wasn’t anything that he could do. He was squashed between a man in a denim jacket with a Zapata moustache and a middle-aged woman, the type you normally saw in the front row when you watched the wrestling on the telly, well used to screaming for blood.

The only thing keeping the crowd back from the court entrance was a line of twenty or so uniforms with interlocked arms and two mounted policemen using their horses to block the way. He caught the eye of one of the uniforms who recognised him.

‘This way, Mr Mccoy!’ he shouted. ‘Over here!’

Mccoy struggled forward, managed to get to the front of the crowd, and ducked under the uniform’s arm.

‘Thanks, Barr,’ he said, patting the man’s back. ‘Saved my life.’

Barr nodded, grimaced as a sign saying AN EYE FOR AN EYE knocked his cap off.

About the author

Alan Parks worked in the music industry for over twenty years before turning to crime writing. His debut novel Bloody January was shortlisted for the

Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and his last novelthe April Dead was shortlisted for the Mcilvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. He lives and works in Glasgow. May God Forgive is published by Canongate on 28 April, price £14.99