‘Won’t affect us, though. A tenner says subject is heading for the Apple shop.’
‘No bet,’ said Jasmine. ‘On this guy’s list of places worth visiting in Glasgow, that will be number one. There will not be a number two.’
‘He’s an artist, though,’ Martin replied. ‘Apple tech is for creative types, remember. It’s his creativity that draws him towards it. As opposed to, say, the fact that he’d be baffled by a mouse with more than one button on it.’
The mark was known, these days at least, by the name D-Blazer, a boyband refugee who had successfully reinvented himself as a rap star and was playing two nights at the SECC. In his lip-synch andchoreography days he had been plain old Darren Blake, trading on an Essex wideboy image to distinguish himself from his more clean-cut fellow recruits with whom he had been packaged together by a record label to form the wet and insipid Desire.
However, even plain old Darren Blake had been a calculated construct. D-Blazer’s real name was Darrien Hopscombe-Blanchard, and while it was true that he was an Essex boy, it was fair to say he was trading on certain misperceptions about what was, after all, one of the most prosperous areas of the UK. We weren’t talking Dagenham or Romford here. He had indeed grown up in the county of the three swords, but as his family had owned a substantial swathe of it for several centuries, this was hardly surprising. Martin had suggested that the Blazer in his rapper name referred to his father’s golf-club attire.
Jasmine followed his Maserati through the city, dropping back now and again to let someone else take point. If Darrien had punched the Apple shop’s address into his sat-nav he’d be in for a disappointment, as it was on a wholly pedestrianised thoroughfare.
His journey was taking him further north, past all the obvious routes towards Buchanan Street, before heading east.
They had picked him up at his hotel, the Crowne Plaza, which was just next to the exhibition centre. There was a tour bus parked at the venue, but that was only for the dancers, backing singers and those loser types who actually played musical instruments. D-Blazer preferred to take his own wheels on tour, partly because he liked the chance to drive his toyz around, and partly because he liked to be seen. This made him, as Martin had implied, a private investigator’s dream.
‘Subject proceeding right right right on to Renfrew Street,’ Andy relayed. ‘I should maybe have taken that bet.’
‘You’d be ten pounds down,’ Jasmine told him. ‘Concierge at the hotel will have told him to park at the Buchanan Galleries.’
The reason for Harry’s largesse and for Galt Linklater’s urgency was that D-Blazer was currently the subject of a paternity claim. A nineteen-year-old student from Chelmsford by the name of Nikki Ainsworth maintained that he had fathered her baby girl, Danielle,during a six-month affair that the twenty-seven-year-old rapper terminated once he discovered she was up the jaggy. D-Blazer, for his part, claimed that she had ‘flung herself at me but I hardly never went near her’, and that she was now ‘just vibing negs into my aura’, by which Jasmine interpreted him to mean that her claims were merely a nuisance act motivated by spite.
Nonetheless, for all he was trying to appear nonchalant in his dismissal, Mr Hopscombe-Blanchard was refusing to submit any DNA for a paternity test. In light of this, the word ‘hardly’ took on a quite pivotal significance within his previous utterance.
‘Foxtrot Five. Subject is a stop stop stop and park at Buchanan Galleries car park level five. I have eyeball and am proceeding on foot.’
Jasmine switched to her earpiece and climbed out of the van as Andy and Martin confirmed their own positions. They would be parked in a matter of seconds, then they would enter the mall at different levels, catching up to inconspicuously commence a three-way foot follow.
Jasmine was soon
‘No bet,’ said Jasmine. ‘On this guy’s list of places worth visiting in Glasgow, that will be number one. There will not be a number two.’
‘He’s an artist, though,’ Martin replied. ‘Apple tech is for creative types, remember. It’s his creativity that draws him towards it. As opposed to, say, the fact that he’d be baffled by a mouse with more than one button on it.’
The mark was known, these days at least, by the name D-Blazer, a boyband refugee who had successfully reinvented himself as a rap star and was playing two nights at the SECC. In his lip-synch andchoreography days he had been plain old Darren Blake, trading on an Essex wideboy image to distinguish himself from his more clean-cut fellow recruits with whom he had been packaged together by a record label to form the wet and insipid Desire.
However, even plain old Darren Blake had been a calculated construct. D-Blazer’s real name was Darrien Hopscombe-Blanchard, and while it was true that he was an Essex boy, it was fair to say he was trading on certain misperceptions about what was, after all, one of the most prosperous areas of the UK. We weren’t talking Dagenham or Romford here. He had indeed grown up in the county of the three swords, but as his family had owned a substantial swathe of it for several centuries, this was hardly surprising. Martin had suggested that the Blazer in his rapper name referred to his father’s golf-club attire.
Jasmine followed his Maserati through the city, dropping back now and again to let someone else take point. If Darrien had punched the Apple shop’s address into his sat-nav he’d be in for a disappointment, as it was on a wholly pedestrianised thoroughfare.
His journey was taking him further north, past all the obvious routes towards Buchanan Street, before heading east.
They had picked him up at his hotel, the Crowne Plaza, which was just next to the exhibition centre. There was a tour bus parked at the venue, but that was only for the dancers, backing singers and those loser types who actually played musical instruments. D-Blazer preferred to take his own wheels on tour, partly because he liked the chance to drive his toyz around, and partly because he liked to be seen. This made him, as Martin had implied, a private investigator’s dream.
‘Subject proceeding right right right on to Renfrew Street,’ Andy relayed. ‘I should maybe have taken that bet.’
‘You’d be ten pounds down,’ Jasmine told him. ‘Concierge at the hotel will have told him to park at the Buchanan Galleries.’
The reason for Harry’s largesse and for Galt Linklater’s urgency was that D-Blazer was currently the subject of a paternity claim. A nineteen-year-old student from Chelmsford by the name of Nikki Ainsworth maintained that he had fathered her baby girl, Danielle,during a six-month affair that the twenty-seven-year-old rapper terminated once he discovered she was up the jaggy. D-Blazer, for his part, claimed that she had ‘flung herself at me but I hardly never went near her’, and that she was now ‘just vibing negs into my aura’, by which Jasmine interpreted him to mean that her claims were merely a nuisance act motivated by spite.
Nonetheless, for all he was trying to appear nonchalant in his dismissal, Mr Hopscombe-Blanchard was refusing to submit any DNA for a paternity test. In light of this, the word ‘hardly’ took on a quite pivotal significance within his previous utterance.
‘Foxtrot Five. Subject is a stop stop stop and park at Buchanan Galleries car park level five. I have eyeball and am proceeding on foot.’
Jasmine switched to her earpiece and climbed out of the van as Andy and Martin confirmed their own positions. They would be parked in a matter of seconds, then they would enter the mall at different levels, catching up to inconspicuously commence a three-way foot follow.
Jasmine was soon
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