Strange Loyalties jl-3

by William McIlvanney

  Brian smiled and took a piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it across. Brian had written on it Frankie’s name and address and telephone number. I looked up at him. He winked. I had to admit to myself, if not to him, that it was impressive.

  ‘You are dealing,’ he said, ‘with a finder-out of the highest calibre.’

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘Those who know know me.’ He read the remark like a lesson from scripture. ‘Those who know know that I know that they know. Those who know — ’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said.

  ‘Anyway,’ Brian said, ‘what use is it to you? What are you going to do? Phone him? You couldn’t get Frankie White to tell you the truth if you had him in the same room with you. Along with several thumb-screws. He lies for a living. And you’re going to get something out him on the phone? Be like guddling trout in a spate. And I assume your travels aren’t going to take you as far as Kentish Town. I’m not sure my car would, anyway. Though probably your head would, the way it’s working just now. And Frankie’s very unpopular up here just now. With a fella we’re interested in at this very moment, as it happens. Matt Mason. You won’t get Frankie to come up here for anything. Take his chances with Matt Mason? Better volunteering to be a mugger in Beirut. What you’ve got in your hand is a piece of waste paper. It would take more than the SAS to get Frankie White out of London.’

  One half of me could see what Brian was up to: discredit the information as he gave me it, so that I would be discouraged from pursuing it. The other half of me could see that he was probably right. I turned the paper over. The reverse side was empty.

  ‘You’re not that good,’ I said. ‘What about where he comes from?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Fast Frankie White.’

  ‘He lives in Kentish Town.’

  ‘That’s where he lives. But where does he come from?’

  ‘You want to know that as well? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Brian.’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘I specifically asked you. On the phone. To find that out.’

  ‘Me? No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! Ayrshire. I said it was Ayrshire. But I didn’t know where in Ayrshire. That was the main thing. Shit! Aw, naw.’

  Bob put his finger to his mouth, a man advising a small boy to be silent.

  ‘You’d better tell him, Brian,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, the wee chap is going to take a fit.’

  Brian smiled and produced another piece of paper.

  ‘I was just trying to save you from yourself,’ he said.

  The paper contained an address in Thornbank, which is a village a few miles from Graithnock.

  ‘It’s his mother’s house,’ Bob said.

  As soon as I knew I had the information, I relaxed. It struck me immediately that Frankie’s address in Thornbank was probably worthless, since he wouldn’t be there, and I couldn’t take the time to go to Kentish Town. Why then did it matter so much to me? I realised I was feeding a compulsion. It was the mere possibility of finding out more about what had happened to Scott that was keeping me going. I felt embarrassed about inflicting my mania so unashamedly on them.

  ‘Hey. Thanks, Brian,’ I said. ‘And, Bob. Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t go all nice and polite on us,’ Bob said. ‘That’s when I’ll really worry.’

  ‘I’m sorry about all that,’ I said.

  ‘Are you hell,’ Brian said.

  We started to laugh. I felt as if I had just arrived, belatedly, in their company. Before, I hadn’t been seeing them as themselves, just as a part of my preoccupation. Bob bought a round of drinks. We talked about how Brian’s car was doing and the vagaries of Morag’s car. Bob had recently won a cup at bowling. I asked him if he had ever played in Kelso. He looked puzzled but said he hadn’t. Morag was still threatening to have me at their house for a meal. We decided Bob and Margaret should come along, too.

  The room had widened for me. I was no longer seeing it through a tunnel. The bright warmth was soothing. The pub wasn’t busy but there was a group of four girls and two boys at a table across from us. Their laughter was a pleasant sound. Brian saw me looking over towards them.

  ‘Remember that?’ he said. ‘Real life?’

  ‘Aye, it’s good stuff,’ I said.

  ‘You should try it some time.’

  ‘I intend to. But not this week.’

  He bought another round. I became briefly so normal that I wasn’t the first to bring the talk back to business. Bob Lilley mentioned the name of Matt Mason. He was nominally a bookie. It was an occupation he wore like a fancy coat which had a lot of secret pockets. There were some bad things in the pockets, including possibly murder. If you fell out with him, emigration wasn’t a bad idea.

  ‘What does he have against Frankie White?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s vague,’ Bob said. ‘We think Frankie let him down in some way.’

  ‘Frankie’s let everybody down,’ I said. ‘It’s what he does.’

  ‘It’s not what he does to Matt Mason,’ Brian said. It’s not what anybody does to Matt Mason. Anyway, Frankie’s not involved in this one. At least, that’s what it looks like. He’s been away too long. That thing you said. About looking high up for the source. We think it could be Mason. He’s in drugs. Meece was dealing. We think Mason was his wholesaler. He’s the kind of business man who would cut off your franchise by the neck. He stops you dealing by stopping you breathing. Frankie has never been involved in anything as heavy as that.’

  ‘What about the woman?’

  ‘We’ve got a name,’ Bob said. ‘Melanie.’

  ‘That’s a good Glaswegian name.’

  ‘But that’s it. Melanie. No second name so far. We got the name from Meece’s brother. But he doesn’t know any more. Meece’s family didn’t mix with him too much. I don’t know why. He was a fine upstanding man, Meece. We think if we find Melanie we’ve got a good chance.’

  ‘Sounds like one she could have picked out of a book,’ I said. ‘If she was with Meece, she was using. Somebody clean with a junkie? Mixed marriages like that don’t work. If she’s using, she can’t hole up for too long at a time.’

  ‘We’ve thought about that,’ Brian said. ‘But maybe she’s holed up with another junkie. Who gets her the stuff. One of the problems is Meece seems to have been the unknown citizen. He hasn’t left too many traces. I mean, what else did he do? Besides stick needles in his arm?’

  ‘That tends to be a full time job,’ Bob said.

  ‘He used to be a good driver,’ I said. ‘He used to drive for people. He was good. He could’ve U-turned a Daimler on a footpath. Put him in a car, he thought he was superman.’

  ‘Melanie,’ Bob said. ‘Can’t be too many of them around.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Brian said. ‘Maybe in Hyndland there is.’

  We talked round it some more while I finished my soda and lime and they sipped their pints. I wanted to get back to Graithnock before it was much later. It was maybe a sign of how our conversation had helped to calm my fever that pursuing leads wasn’t my only reason for being eager to check in to the Bushfield. I was also very hungry. Before I left in the morning, Katie Samson had said she would have a meal ready for me when I got back.

  I offered to buy them another drink but they were moving on as well. I didn’t leave the bar with them because I wanted to use the pay-phone. Obviously, my fever wasn’t completely cured. If I’d needed any confirmation of that, Brian and Bob provided it. When I stayed behind, their tolerant head-shakings made them look like doctors who have done the best they can for a patient who just won’t take advice.

  I tried phoning Frankie’s number in Kentish Town. There was nobody in. The phone at the restaurant was engaged. I tried Jan’s home number. She didn’t use an answering machine, so that I couldn’t even talk to her by proxy.

  Nobody loved me. The way I was feeling about myself, I was in danger of agreeing with them.

  20

 
Staying in the Bushfield was beginning to feel like a way of life. Buster’s growl was becoming almost welcoming. Katie was annoyed that the food she had made for me and now had to reheat was going to be so dry. But I like it that way. I think it goes back to the time at school when I had an evening paper run and often ate after the others and acquired a taste for the overdone. I associate those meals with the warmth of home on cold nights. Katie didn’t realise that she was serving me comfort food, a brief holiday in the womb. I irrigated the pleasing dryness of the food with glasses of milk.

  ‘There’s a woman in to see you,’ Katie said.

  I looked at her. She was being arch.

  ‘It doesn’t take Jack Laidlaw long. Aha. Women queuing in the lounge. Well, two of them actually.’

  ‘Not much of a queue.’

  ‘Oho. It’s usually more than that, is it?’

  ‘Katie. I carry pocketfuls of stones to fend them off. A fella’s got to protect himself.’

  The nonsense had a purpose. There was only one woman, besides Katie, who would know I was here. Ellie Mabon wouldn’t want to advertise. She had presumably brought a friend to be less conspicuous. If Katie knew the name, she would know the association with Scott. Remembering Ellie Mabon’s fixation that the world was full of nosy neighbours, I wanted to protect her privacy. I wondered if Katie suspected.

  ‘So don’t keep me in suspense,’ I said. ‘Who’s the woman?’

  ‘Ah don’t know. It was Mike she asked. Ye know him. He didn’t even ask her name. Mike’s the kinna man could leave a telegram lyin’ unopened for a week. Ah just saw them. Bonny women. The one that did the askin’, she looks like that Lee Remick in the pictures. Ah wouldn’t be standin’ beside her at the disco anyway. Who is she?’

  ‘How do I know, Katie?’

  ‘Liar.’

  But she left it at that. She went out of the kitchen. I finished eating and did my dishes, which is the only domestic chore I sometimes almost enjoy. I think I just like playing with water.

  Ellie Mabon’s friend was a woman called Mary Walters. She was attractive but tonight she was definitely playing the leading lady’s best friend. Ellie had not become any more difficult to look at in the last day. There were quite a lot of people in the lounge and several of them seemed to find their eyes attracted to her from time to time. When the introductions were over and I went to get them a drink (‘It’ll have to be a quick one, we’re just leaving’), a man at the bar spoke to me.

  ‘Do you want any help carrying those over?’ He widened his eyes and breathed out noisily. ‘I won’t even take a tip.’

  Conversation didn’t flow immediately at our table. We made some remarks about my soda and lime. Mary Walters was a teacher, too, and she had known Scott casually. We said nice things about him. There was no sign that Ellie, unlike Mary Walters, knew Scott beyond the man who had appeared at teachers’ conferences and on staff nights out. I was beginning to wonder why Ellie had come. If she had something to tell me, why did she bring her own gag? I was looking into her aquarium eyes and seeing nothing but the reflection of my own thoughts, not all of them as innocent as they might have been. Then Mary Walters went to the toilet. Ellie’s voice became as urgent as a telegram.

  ‘Mary doesn’t know about Scott and me,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t very well come here on my own.’

  ‘You’ve thought of something?’

  ‘You mentioned Dave Lyons.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘There was a party at his house. Scott was there. I spoke to a friend who was there as well. She told me.’

  I appreciated the effort Ellie had made. But I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. She was delivering yesterday’s newspaper.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘But do you know what happened?’

  ‘He threw a vase at the telly?’

  Her disappointment made a small girl of her.

  ‘I thought maybe you didn’t know. It seemed as if it might be important. It must have taken something special for Scott to do that.’

  ‘Your friend didn’t happen to say what was on television at the time?’

  Ellie’s reaction wasn’t much more reassuring than Dave Lyons’ had been.

  ‘Do you think that matters?’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘No. She wasn’t actually in the room at the time. She just said some people had been watching a video.’

  ‘A video?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Try to be exact about this, Ellie. Your friend said it was a video. It wasn’t just a television programme?’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘There’s a big difference.’

  Ellie considered it. ‘She said “video”. What she actually said, she said, “one of Dave’s videos”. I took her to mean something he had taped himself. Why?’

  ‘Dave Lyons says he doesn’t know what was on television when Scott had his brainstorm. But if it was a video, that seems less likely. Especially if it was something he had taped himself. It was maybe something he wanted his guests to see. It was at least something he would have to take out of the machine later. So he would know what they had been watching.’

  ‘So what does that prove?’

  ‘It proves he was lying. Why would you lie about something as trivial as that? Unless you had something to hide.’

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ Ellie said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘With something to hide.’

  I thought at first she meant herself. She seemed hesitant.

  ‘Anna,’ she said.

  ‘What about Anna?’

  ‘I didn’t mention it to you yesterday. But there was something that was troubling Scott. Anna had someone else.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure that he knew who it was.’

  ‘It wasn’t just a fantasy of his?’

  ‘I don’t know. But his conviction was real enough.’

  Mary Walters reappeared at the end of the lounge. Perhaps she knew more than Ellie thought. She had taken her time in the toilet, possibly to give us a chance to talk.

  ‘How long are you staying here?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Maybe not after tonight.’

  ‘Give me your home number then. In case I need to get in touch.’

  As Mary Walters came towards us, I wrote my number on a beermat. As Mary Walters sat down, Ellie slipped the beermat into her handbag. We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes more and they finished their drinks and left.

  The friendly Dane was at the bar with some others. He waved to me. But I didn’t want one of those Bushfield nights that wander on into the morning. I had some more travelling to do tomorrow. Thornbank was one place on my itinerary. Troon was another. If Fast Frankie White wasn’t in Thornbank, there must be people there who knew him. It was worth trying. If Frankie did happen to be there, I fancied my chances of getting him to tell me what I wanted to know. Dave Lyons was a harder proposition.

  I recalled that image of him walking away from me in Cranston Castle House. I didn’t know too much more about the smaller versions of himself that were hiding behind the veneered exterior. But I had some ideas. If I hadn’t worked out yet how to unscrew the outermost Russian doll, I could maybe break it. I knew he was lying. I could prove it on the triviality about the television. I had the basis for one very strong suspicion: he was more than Anna’s landlord. Let’s see if the polish at least cracked. He had said he would be at home this week. That was the best place to see him. Liars are at their most vulnerable in their own house, because it’s where the truth can hurt them most.

  I finished my soda and lime, feeling such a clean-living man, and handed it in at the bar. The earliness of my departure evinced a chorus of disbelief and the suggestion that Katie should get my Horlicks ready. I promised I would bring them in some tracts on teetotalism tomorrow. Before going upstairs, I went across to the pay-phone in the hall.

  I rang Kentish Tow
n. Nobody answered. I rang the restaurant. I wished nobody had answered. It was Betsy, pleased to elocute precisely that Jan wasn’t there. I rang Jan’s flat. Standing lonely in a busy place, I thought how much I could have used a night with my friends. Where was Tom Docherty anyway? There are few sounds more forlorn than the phone of someone you love ringing out with no one to answer.

  FOUR

  21

  Someone’s death can be like a flare illumining where you are. You realise with a shock how far you have wandered from where you were intending to go, how strangely the terrain differs from where you had hoped to be. Driving to Thornbank, I was still held in the livid brightness of Scott’s dying. The landscape was more than a landscape. It was also a private ordnance map of questions and messages to me. The countryside and the villages I passed through seemed to make an innocent statement about the coexistence of people and nature but the subtext for me was the strangeness of what I had become.

  Outside of Graithnock, I drove past familiar fields where three of us had wandered a lot one summer. We would be fifteen, Davy, Jim and me. Jim’s father had greyhounds and we sometimes took them with us. I remembered the private club of our laughter and the grandiose folly of our expectations. Jim died at nineteen on a motorbike. I had met Davy by accident a few years ago. He was an architect who appeared to be drinking what was left of his dreams to death. I was a middle-aged detective who liked to try and read philosophy, like someone studying holiday brochures in the poorhouse.

  In the village of Holmford I passed a shabby council house I had known before they finished building it. I had been there with one of the first girls I took home from the dancing. I was seventeen and so was she. We missed her last bus and walked the few miles to Holmford. Seeing the doorless and windowless shell of the building, I carried her over the threshold. It wasn’t a long marriage. We stayed there maybe a couple of hours, away from the eyes of others. We could have done anything without being observed. What we did was kiss and touch each other in many places with endless gentleness and sing songs. We must have sung about twenty duets. No doubt my performance would have earned me disbarment from the mobile stag party that was male adolescence in Graithnock at that time. But I didn’t care. I acquired with my first interest in girls a conviction that whatever good things happen between two people looking for love are their own sweet secret and nobody else’s business. And, anyway, I enjoyed what we did. I think the songs were a kind of making love, a shared dreaming, a faith in what would be, even if it didn’t happen between us. Thinking of black-haired Mary and wondering how she was now, I wished her well. I wished her a good duet with someone kind. The house then, it seemed to me, was where I had been. The house now, I was afraid, was maybe where I was.