‘Just mind your own interferences, wee one,’ was all she ever said. He didn’t understand why people pointed, and he didn’t understand the reply either. He was a typically easy-going little boy. He did not have much choice. No one ever told him anything anyway. He had asked his father what a ‘gangster’ was. The reaction told young Hughie that he had said something wrong.

‘Who telt ye about gangsters?’

‘This kid Davie in my class said you wiz a gangster. So, whit’s a gangster?’

‘Never you mind, Hughie son. Just you ignore them.’

‘But dad!’

‘Look Hughie, James Cagney was a gangster, OK?’

‘Sure dad, thanks.’

Hughie took it that the matter had been clarified. Certainly, the discussion was clearly at an end but he left wondering who on earth was James Cagney.

Two days after this conversation Hughie noticed that his schoolmate Davie was sporting a splendid black eye. Davie never spoke of gangsters again.

Hughie’s passion in life was football. He was small, quick and could juggle a ball as if it were on a piece of elastic. He was a typical example of that breed of Scottish footballer, the tanner ball player. His idol was Celtic winger ‘Jinky’ Jimmy Johnstone. At twelve he was picked for the local under-sixteen team. Like his idol, he played on the wing and delighted in taking the piss out of all would-be tacklers. Despite being a target for various hatchet men, Hughie could take hefty challenges and bounce straight back. He was tough as well. When he left school, to his father’s delight and his mother’s chagrin, he signed for Celtic.

In the early days of semi-retirement, Hugh was pleased with the way he saw the business being restructured. Kevin dealt with the day-to-day activities while Paul looked after the finances. By now the Boyles had an interest in various public houses and nightclubs while the moneylending side continued to flourish. Paul proved adept at the science of laundering money. To the outsider the brothers ran a small firm which bought and sold cars.

Hugh Senior sat back and enjoyed his role as overlord. Life was good. He would chortle as he read in the Daily Record of a mug getting twelve years for failing in an attempt to rob a security van. Drugs – filthy shit. Hugh had watched the rise of the drug trade and readily appreciated that it was a market with an enormous potential for profit. The sprawling housing-schemes of Glasgow were filled with willing and enthusiastic customers. He had a network which could easily have been used to distribute heroin, cocaine, cannabis or whatever the market required. Hugh Boyle would not do drugs.

He did not care if the punters shot themselves full of poison, if their veins rotted and they died in a state of abject misery. He was indifferent to the horror of drug abuse. Equally, he was indifferent to the profits being made by others.