Summer 1991

George McCaskill, more commonly known as Dod, was stoned. So far, so typical. Having discovered the myriad pleasures of weed at an early age, he'd made it his mission to spend his leisure hours, joint in hand and waxing lyrical on the world as he saw it.

Once, he'd agreed to let his best friend draw him, though he refused the whole being painted in the scud thing. Half-life was enough. He turned down the overalls, so he was naked from the waist up, sat back in the armchair, smoked and aired everything that was in his head.

Restful, you might say.

Luckily for Dod, he often found an audience for his musings. A lot of the time, they were equally as stoned, and it was debatable how much of each other's conversation they took in, but no, he didn't struggle to find someone who wanted to smoke too and would say 'aye' or 'naw' every so often.

He was due up in the morning at five am. The Fisher King's skipper had phoned his house earlier that day. They were meant to be going out the day after, but John Iredale wanted an earlier start. The weather forecast had changed, and there was a storm coming in. If they went out on Tuesday, they'd miss it. And there was another job to do, urgent like.

The phone rang again. Dod had the house to himself, seeing as his ma and paw had taken themselves off to his older sister's place in Dumfries, his ma desperate to see her wee granddaughter.

The person on the other end didn't bother to introduce himself. Folk ought tae know who he was just from an 'Awright?'.

Luckily, Dod did know. "Mick! What are ye doing here? Bored of the big smoke already?"

Mick had been working in Edinburgh for a couple of months, headhunted by some chef who saw the review of the Star Tavern in the Sunday Times. He'd told Dod he was welcome to visit him in the city anytime, but it turned out anytime was too difficult to arrange when one of you was working in a top-end restaurant and the other on fishing boats.

Plus, Dod wasnae really interested in the world beyond Dumfries and Galloway. In the world beyond Kirkcudbright, if he was honest. Everything he'd ever wanted was here—friends, a job, parties, a ready supply of soft drugs and a lassie he could lust after, even if she didn't feel the same.

Maybe she would one day.

It turned out Mick had a rare few days off, so he'd decided to come home. And now he wanted company, a drinking/smoking buddy.

Dod agreed, throwing in the usual proviso that he'd have to knock it off early-ish, seeing as he had to get up at four. Unfortunately, he wasn't always that good at sticking to the wee promises he made to himself. Mick would know that only too well.

They met in the Gordon Arms, the public bar quiet, seeing as it was a Monday. The new barmaid looked twice when they came in. Dod she was familiar with, but being an outsider, she'd never seen Mick before. He made a welcome change from the mournful, maroon-faced men with bulbous noses who came in night after night to drink pints with whisky chasers and moan that the world was going to hell in a handcart.

Dod was used to that kind of thing—where women's eyes would skim him and fasten instead on Mick or his best friend. Ach, it would be nice if sometimes they looked at him first, but it wasnae the end of the world. There was drinking to be done, and fun to be had. The night was young.

They batted off the usual folks drifting over to talk to them. An old school friend, someone who knew Mick's mum and wanted to know how she was doing. Dod could sense Mick's impatience. He must want to ask him something and do so alone.

Dod sighed. He had a feeling he knew where this was going.

The pub had quietened down. Even the hardened drinkers had drifted away. Mebbe it was too shameful to drink hard on a Monday, or to be seen doing it anyway.

"Gonnae sit outside?" Mick tipped his head towards the back door that led to the beer garden. It was still light enough and warm enough (just) for this to be okay. And on a quiet night like this, they'd be the only ones out there.

The Gordon Arms had a long, narrow space it optimistically called the 'beer garden'. There were a few tables and chairs, the parasols seldom needing put up as the building cast the garden in permanent shadow. Mick went for the wooden table at the back of the garden, its view hidden from the back door by the overgrown trees and bushes.

You could light up a joint there in relative peace and quiet. Mick took one out he'd rolled earlier, lit it, drew the smoke into his lungs and passed it to Dod.

"I spoke to Iredale earlier."

"Aye?"

"I've met some useful guys in Edinburgh. Bit further up the food chain than usual."

This was the downside of friendship with Mick. The Fisher King often brought back additions to its marine cargo. It had taken Dod several trips with the boat until the regular crew trusted him enough to let him know what they were doing. They didnae really have a choice, fishing boats being small, cramped places at the best of times. Picking up submerged, plastic wrapped sacks tangled around buoys, everyone needed to know what was going on.

It paid them well enough too.

Mick had always been good at finding avenues to get rid of what they brought back. It was small scale for the most part, and he and Dod smoked their way through the finders-keepers bit of it, but in the last year or so the Fisher King had started picking up cocaine.

"Iredale knows. Big prize waiting." He named the location, and Dod swore. They'd chosen an impossibly dangerous strait the officials recommended no vessel pass without local knowledge. Probably Iredale thought his sea know-how counted—he was an arrogant fucker—but Dod didn't fancy their chances against the swirl and roil of an angry tide.

"...and if I can get it up to them in Edinburgh, then they've got the market for it. Sewn up, I think. You wouldnae want to mess with those boys."

He put a hand into his leather jacket and pulled out an envelope, passing it across the table to Dod.

Dod opened it and stared at Mick, wide-eyed.

"That's just the deposit," Mick said. "I didnae want to give it to Iredale because his wife was nosing around. Pick the stuff up, bring it back and we'll get the rest of it. It's a lot of money. Even between seven of us."

He wasnae kidding. It was more money than Dod could imagine, despite his best-stoned state. Now, that trippy imagination started spending it. A fancy car, some cool clothes, a wee holiday...

Perhaps he could even book a trip for two to somewhere like Tenerife or the Costa del Sol, then surprise the lovely lassie with it. He could always go with his best friend if she turned him down.

Still, the Corryvrechan Strait. Better fishermen than him had gone up against it and lost. And there was the whole illegality of what they were doing. Fine, smuggling a bit of dope here and there. Cocaine, and in these quantities, was a whole different thing altogether.

He put the envelope down on the table.

"Ah don't know, Mick."

Mick grinned, that shit-eating smile that had gotten him too far in life. "It'll be worth it. Nae risk, nae reward."

Dod's stoned brain never worked all that quickly. He joked he wasnae that bright anyway. Ten years of schooling and no single exam pass to show for it. Now, though, he could feel thoughts pulsing through his brain. One would arise, another would bat it down, quick as you like.

It's a load o' money. It's buried in a place officials say vessels shouldnae go. Ah could dae a lot with that money. But ah cannae make it obvious, or people will know. This could be the one last job ah do. 'Course if we're caught wi' it, we'll end up in jail for a long time.

Mick's usin' me. Mick always has.

Mick stood up, extending a hand. Dod took it gratefully. He wasn't that steady on his feet, too many pints on top of a super-strong batch of weed had messed with his motor neuron skills. He held the hand and felt its callouses. They were a mirror of his own, his earned bathed in salt water and hauling in ropes, Mick's from gripping knifes and holding onto too hot trays and plates.

That calloused hand did something familiar now. It moved, the familiarity allowing Dod to trace its pattern. He could almost count this. One, the hand goes from mine, to around ma neck. Two, he presses against me, and ah feel his hard cock. Just in case I havenae got the message, he pushes up against me again.

At times like this, Dod always thought of his best friend and his sort-of girlfriend: Kippy and Katrina. They were like this lovely, pure pair—the one, the guy he'd grown up with, punched holes in other folks, a guy who didnae seem to want that much. The other, the gorgeous, gorgeous Katrina. Forever wearing a wee denim print dress and sneering at the world.

Oh, they smoked. They stole from time to time, they drove cars when they werenae supposed to. But, really? Aye, the wee innocents.

Mick's calloused hand gripped his cock, and he wished he was with Kippy and Katrina. Smoking a joint, all their heads touching, watching TV, and talking about what munchies they would make next.

Nevertheless, his cock stiffened. It always did.

Mick bent, unbuttoning Dod's jeans. Now, they did the 'you first', no you first' thing.

Dod turned. Conveniently, he faced a tree. Mick moved behind him, a move that was familiar. He spread his arms either side of the tree.

He never thought of himself as a poof. And Mick certainly didn't regard either of them that way. It was just this little thing they had tried out one night when they were both drunk. Katrina had refused to stay the night, and he and Mick watched a pirate copy of a porn film that had made them horny as hell.

It started with a blow job.

Now, it was something that happened from time to time, almost always initiated by Mick. The man had the most ferocious sex drive and wasnae fussy who he ended up inside of. There was also the thrill of the forbidden. If anyone ever caught them, they'd spend the rest of their lives defined as the perverted poofs someone had caught shagging in the back garden of the Gordon Arms.

The name of the person who caught them would be forgotten over time. Theirs never would.

Once, Dod had asked Mick to wear a condom, but Mick's lip had curled at that. "I don't have Aids," he said. "I'm no' a poof." Said without irony.

Something was gratifying in the brutality of it, a man behind you forcing his way in and the adjustment you made to the pain until it became bearable and then pleasurable. Mick was big too, and he moved that thing like a heat-seeking missile. He held Dod's cock in his hand, the callouses more distinguishable this way.

It was to be one of those rare occasions when they'd both come together, and it took only a couple of minutes.

Afterwards, dressed once more and another couple of pints in front of them, Mick outlined what he knew of what was to happen in the next couple of days. A Brazilian container ship would make the drop, and the Fisher King would pick it up not long afterwards. The boat wouldn't return to the town immediately, dropping anchor elsewhere away from nosey harbour officials. Men would be waiting, and the drugs would be off the crew's hands. They'd get the rest of the money then.

Easy-peasy.

Two weeks later

If there was one thing a funeral guaranteed, it was that the dead person's former home would be empty on the day.

Mick checked the street carefully, his ears cocked for the sound of any neighbours who might not have gone. He doubted it. If Dod wasn't popular enough, his ma and pa would make up for it. Besides, there were also the others who had gone down with the boat. The funeral, or memorial service seeing as there were only two bodies out of six to bury or burn, commemorated them all. Everyone in this street would have a connection to one of those men.

He climbed over the fence at the back and stuck his hand in the plant pot outside the back door, feeling for the spare key. Key located, he checked around him again. No-one in sight, so he let himself into the house as quietly as possible.

Again, he proceeded cautiously, just in case. But the house held its air of sombre silence, grief present in its very walls. Up the stairs quietly and into Dod's bedroom, the bed unmade and the clothes Dod had been wearing the night Mick had last seen him on the floor.

Apparently, Mrs McCaskill hadn't been able to face tidying the room up.

Good.

Crouching beside the bed, Mick lifted the mattress. Underneath it was a couple of porno mags. Usually, he'd have amused himself by flicking through them, maybe even having a wank, but there was no time. He shook both the magazines and was rewarded when an envelope fell out.

The envelope he'd given Dod the night before he went out to sea.

Officially, the boat should not have been in the Corryvreckan Strait. The pundits put it down to the storm washing them off course. It had hit early, before the Fisher King had been able to reach the buoy, and the boat had gone down with the loss of all hands.

He'd been horrified when he'd heard, but Mick also had his own life to protect. Fair enough, he might be able to explain extenuating circumstances to the Nevilles (and the drugs had been picked up later anyway), but he'd rather return the money to them.

Mick had counted on Dod not taking the money with him. Well, it wasn't as if the fishermen could spend it at sea, was it? No, he'd have told the others about it but left it somewhere safe.

And here it was, safe. Mick let out a breath that felt as if he'd been holding it ever since he'd heard about the boat going down.

Now, he could go to the memorial service and cry with the rest of them.

He slipped the envelope inside his jacket and made his way downstairs again. Returning the key to its outside hiding place, he wondered if the universe had just sent him a message loud and clear—this time you've escaped.

Next time, maybe not.