The Quaker

by Liam McIlvanney

  Goldie’s daughter skated over just then, shushing to a halt with a neat little twist of her hips. The ice from her blades spattered the barrier. She stepped through a gap between the boards and stilted across in her skates, the blades knocking hollow on the planks. Goldie introduced her as Debbie and told her McCormack was a colleague from work and she plucked off her right mitten and shook McCormack’s hand. Her hand was warmer than he’d expected.

  She started tugging at her laces. ‘I’m going up to the café, Dad. Claire and Julie are there. Can you watch my skates?’

  She took a pair of black pumps from the pockets of her coat, stepped into them and hooked them on with a curled forefinger.

  ‘I’ll be up in ten minutes, love. You need any money?’

  ‘I’m fine, Dad. See you, Mr McCormack. Nice meeting you.’

  They watched her go. How much did you miss? How much of your own life passed by as you worked for the dead, performing these pointless fairytale labours, spinning a roomful of straw into gold or shifting by teaspoon a mountain of sand? McCormack looked at the skates where Debbie had left them, canted on their sides on the black plastic mat. At least he had no kids to neglect, no one to fail on that front.

  ‘What you working anyway? Anything good?’

  ‘Me? Nah, nothing.’ Goldie shook his head. ‘Stabbing in Partick. Break-ins up in Hyndland. Rubbish. I’ll tell you another thing, though.’ He was fitting the black plastic blade-covers on to his daughter’s skates. ‘If Paton’s been framed then one of the string’s involved, the Glendinnings crew. Has to be.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Aye, but does he?’

  McCormack shrugged. ‘Paton’s thrawn. He won’t give them up, Derek. That’s his bottom line. It’s this code of silence shite.’

  ‘Then it’s a short walk to the long drop, isn’t it? You need to make him see that, Duncan. He doesn’t give them up, you cannae save him. Nobody can.’

  The skaters carried on in their ragged ring, round the icy oval. The rink was marked for curling, four red-and-blue targets at either end like the RAF roundels the Mods stitched on the backs of their parkas.

  ‘Unless he knows something we don’t,’ McCormack said. ‘Unless he’s got friends higher up.’

  Driving home across the city, McCormack put himself in the shoes of Helen Thaney’s killer. If you make this killing look like the Quaker, and you frame Paton for it, then everything’s finished. Tied up with a bow. Paton’s the Quaker, all the murders are solved, and no one looks too closely at number four. No one sees that number four’s different. No one pays any attention to Helen Thaney. She’s another random victim, a woman who chose the wrong night to go dancing. You’re home and dry. But if number four was different, then Helen Thaney’s the key. Helen Thaney was murdered because she was Helen Thaney. Number four was personal.

  So what now? Dropping down the gears to tackle the slope of Gardner Street, McCormack set out his immediate tasks. He needed to prove that number four was a standalone, that it wasn’t the work of the Quaker. He needed to find out more about Helen Thaney. And he needed the name of whoever arranged Paton’s safe house. This was progress, McCormack reflected, as the Velox laboured up the hill. Then it struck him. Now it wasn’t one killer he was looking for but two: the Quaker and whoever murdered Helen Thaney. One step forward, two steps back.

  38

  ‘They got them, by the way. For the auctioneer’s thing.’

  Flett bumped his tray down on the table beside McCormack. He made a point of eating with his men, sharing the perils of the canteen food.

  ‘Who got them?’ McCormack was still addressing himself to a banknote-thin fillet of breaded fish, it took him a moment. ‘Glendinnings? You mean Central got them?’

  ‘Bertie King’s boys,’ Flett said. ‘The potting shed plods. Wonders never cease.’

  McCormack pictured the wooden police hut in Hutchesonstown. Single step up to the bare wooden door. The windowless gables, smell of creosote. It looked like someone had hung a POLICE sign on their garden shed. It was a joke posting, the place you did penance when you’d fucked something up.

  ‘Halliday still heading it up, sir?’

  ‘Adam Halliday? I would think so. Bertie King’s golden boy. Bronze.’

  McCormack phoned him that afternoon.

  ‘Adam? It’s Duncan McCormack.’

  ‘The Tartan Pimpernel. I wondered when we’d be hearing from you.’

  ‘You’ve got them then? Flett was telling me.’

  ‘The Glendinnings thing? Yeah, we got them.’ A little edge to the voice, as if to say why would you doubt us?

  ‘That’s a result, mate. Brand new. So what happened?’

  ‘They rented a holiday cottage up Loch Lomond way. Landlord saw them shooting up bottles in the woods. Supposed to be hikers but, you know; guns, city shoes. When the news came out he phoned it in.’

  ‘He ID them all?’

  ‘We got Stokes and Cursiter straight off from his description. Cursiter gave up the others. His love interest included.’

  ‘The insider. What about Paton?’

  A bark of laughter. ‘The man of the moment. Gets around, that boy. Anything else we can hang on him? Four murders. An armed robbery. What about cars? No stolen cars out your way? Domestics?’

  So Halliday felt it too. Everyone did. Too easy all round. Something not right.

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ McCormack said.

  ‘Well.’ You could hear the suspicion in Halliday’s voice. ‘There’s worries and worries. You got his dabs, didn’t you? Place him at the scene. It’ll stand up.’

  ‘On the door frame,’ McCormack said. ‘We got his dabs on the door frame. Not the room. And a bootprint, if you believe that. A bloody bootprint. It’s Send for Paul Temple, for Christ’s sake.’

  Halliday cleared his throat, said nothing.

  ‘Stokes?’ McCormack was thinking aloud. Billy Thomson had been right. ‘That’s Bobby Stokes, Maryhill? He’s McGlashan, isn’t he? What was the other name?’

  ‘Cursiter. Brian Cursiter. Big fucker. Muscle. And Stephen Dalziel. And a young boy called Campbell. Aye, they’re with McGlashan. Footsoldiers, but yeah.’

  Flett came into the squad room, eyes flicking, someone was about to get a bollocking. McCormack hunched over the handset, dropped an octave. ‘You ask them about it? Paton? The Quaker?’

  ‘You mean, did they know? No. They didn’t. I mean they can’t believe it’s true – they think we’re trying to put something over on them. But, no, they had no idea. Listen, you said a bootprint?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You busy right now?’

  ‘You got something I should see?’

  ‘I was you, I’d get round here. Sharpish.’

  Hutchesonstown Police Station was a five-minute drive. In the squad room Halliday picked a chunky A5 booklet off his desk and tossed it to McCormack. The booklet was soft with multiple creasings, its cover worked to the thinness of silk. Each page was divided into three sections horizontally. Different handwritings listed items, units and prices: ball-peen hammers, galvanized buckets, protective goggles, garden shears.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Receipt book. Southside Hardware. It’s an entry for July tenth you’ll want to look at.’

  McCormack riffled the pages, found June. Flicked forward, back. He found the entry. Items, sizes, prices, totals. A James Diamond had purchased five boiler suits. five donkey jackets. Six pairs of Irish Setter boots. A canvas holdall. Heavy-duty torch. Paid in cash.

  ‘It’s the Glendinnings string.’

  ‘It’s better than that. I spoke to the clerk. He remembers the buyer.’

  ‘Dazzle?’

  ‘Stokes. I took down some photos. He picked Bobby Stokes out straight off.’

  McCormack studied the columns, the handwriting in small, blockish capitals, the innocent blue biro. ‘Six pairs of boots?’

  ‘I know. And look at the sizes.’

/>   Various sizes, but two the same: two nine and a halfs.

  ‘Where is Stokes? The Bar-L?’

  ‘Naw. They split them up. Stokes is through in Saughton.’

  ‘I owe you, Adam. Can I take this with me?’

  ‘Long as you bring it back.’

  McCormack took the new motorway through to Edinburgh, reached Saughton at noon. He was shown into an interview cell. Ten minutes later Bobby Stokes was brought in. Stokes sat down at the table in the red-and-white striped shirt of the remand prisoner.

  An empty chair stood on the near side of the table. McCormack unbuttoned his jacket. He didn’t sit down.

  ‘Why’d you buy six pairs of boots, Bobby?’

  Stokes had shaved that morning and he looked oddly innocent. His hair was neatly parted and he sat there in his starched shirt with his hands before him on the wooden table, fingers loosely knitted. He glanced up neutrally as if McCormack was a pigeon on a windowsill or a cat that had crossed his path and went back to looking at nothing in particular.

  McCormack took the receipt book and slammed it down on the table, open at the page.

  ‘We’ve got the receipt, Bobby.’

  Stokes didn’t look at the entry. He looked away at the clock on the far wall and spoke in a soft, bored sigh. ‘Got the cheque too, have you? The one with my name on it? My address on the back?’

  McCormack walked away to the far side of the room. When he came back he lifted the receipt book and slipped it back in his pocket. ‘You paid in cash, Bobby. You’re saying it wasn’t you? Paton’s already told us, we know it was you.’ That was a lie, but what did Stokes know? ‘What I can’t work out, though? You bought five boiler suits. Five donkey jackets. But you bought six pairs of boots. What is it, boots were on special that week?’

  Stokes’s cheek bunched in what might have been a smile. How easy it would be to hit him, bring your fist crashing into the side of his head. Take his hair in both hands, slam his punchable face straight into the table. Watch the blood pooling on the wood.

  McCormack walked to the far side of the room again, walked back. ‘Who got the boots, Bobby? Who got the extra pair?’

  ‘Never bought any boots.’

  ‘Was it Maitland, Bobby? Did you get the boots for Walter Maitland?’

  Stokes kept staring ahead, like the name of McGlashan’s enforcer meant nothing to him.

  ‘There was a sixth member of the string, Bobby. Who was it? Who got the boots? Was it McGlashan?’

  ‘Never bought any boots.’

  ‘Or was there no sixth man at all, Bobby? Eh? Was there some other reason for the extra pair? Now what could that be?’ McCormack tapped the table. ‘Two pairs of nine and a halfs, Bobby? What size do you suppose Alex Paton takes? Any idea?’

  ‘Never bought any boots.’

  McCormack had walked behind Stokes and now he stopped. He looked at Stokes’s forearms on the yellow table, the neatly folded cuffs of the shirt. You could tell from the back of Stokes’s head that he wasn’t worried. He could sit here all day giving the same answer, keeping his temper, watching the clock on the wall. Stokes wasn’t a hard man but he knew the score. This was a robbery. No one got hurt. Stokes was the driver, he didn’t even enter the building. With only one prior – a juvenile housebreaking in ’58 – he’d get five years max. He’d do three minus his time on remand. Be back on the streets in a couple of years, his rep enhanced, guy who did his bird, big man in the Royal Oak and the Saracen’s Head.

  McCormack took out his cigarettes. He sparked the match right behind Stokes’s head and watched the flinch, the little blackbird swivel of the head. He leaned down close to Stokes’s ear. ‘You scared, Bobby?’ McCormack could smell carbolic soap. He hoped his own sweat would be in Stokes’s nose, his own rank scent. ‘Cause you should be. But it’s me you should be scared of. Not the guy who got the boots. Me, Bobby. Know why? Because I don’t care where the money is, Bobby. I don’t give a fuck about the Glendinnings job. But this other thing? This is the Quaker. And if the guy who got the boots turns out to be the Quaker, then you’re an accomplice.’

  McCormack moved back into view. Stokes was watching him now, the black eyes tracking him as if he was a dog that might turn dangerous. McCormack stood on the other side of the table, behind the empty chair. He leaned across, his knuckles on the wood.

  ‘Accomplice to a sex killer. How do you like that? You can do three for robbery. Nae bother to the big man. Can you do ten, son? Twelve? Can you do a twelve-stretch as a nonce, with the heavy mob up in Peterheid? Think about that, son.’

  McCormack straightened up. He crushed his ciggie in the ashtray and crossed to the cell door, slapped it with his palm. The screw’s head appeared in the Judas hole and the bolts slid back. Glancing back as the door swung closed, McCormack saw Stokes lean forward to snatch the smouldering cigarette-end and bring it to his lips.

  39

  Saturday morning. McCormack stepped out on Caird Drive, heading east. A figure on the opposite side of the street slipped out of a closemouth, moving fast, a man in a brownish suit, who modulated smartly to a normal walk, failing all the while to cast the smallest glance at McCormack.

  McCormack slowed his pace. It was just before ten and the street was quiet. He listened for the footsteps of the man in the brown suit and caught them falling between his own, faint, jazzy, a distant syncopation.

  At the corner with Hyndland Street McCormack stopped to light a cigarette and as he shook the match out he saw from the corner of his eye the man cross the street at an angle, swiftly, as if dodging an oncoming vehicle.

  The sun was strong. McCormack closed his eyes for a few steps as he walked down Hyndland Street, feeling the heat on his eyelids. How far could you go without opening your eyes? Could you make it right down to Dumbarton Road? But straight away his sole slurred on the sloping pavement and he snapped his eyes open, crossing the street to the shady side.

  It was a hazard of the job. Sometimes you saw a man coming towards you in the street or climbing up the subway stairs and you flinched, your fists clenched at your sides, till the man had passed. You had put away so many, over the years. There was always the thought that one of them had clocked you and was coming for revenge. This could be one of those. Some housebreaker or peterman, fresh out of Barlinnie. Some rancorous lag who’d got hold of your address.

  A late breakfast in one of the cafes on Dumbarton Road had been McCormack’s plan, but now he stepped smartly round an elderly woman weighed down with shopping bags and skipped up the steps of St Peter’s Church.

  The cool air was pleasant after the heat of the street. Early Mass was over and the pews were all but deserted: a handful of figures dotted here and there on the right-hand side of the aisle. McCormack walked to the left-hand aisle and made his way down to the front.

  As he dropped on one knee to genuflect, McCormack glanced back beneath his elbow to see the double doors open. The man in the brown suit took a seat at the back of the church.

  McCormack sat with his forearms resting on the back of the pew in front. He glanced to his left. He was sitting underneath the fifth station. Simon of Cyrene, in a blue-green tunic and a hat shaped like an Air Raid Warden’s helmet, was helping Jesus with the cross. Simon had on these ankle boots – like the Quaker, McCormack thought – and was caressing the long wooden shaft of the cross like he was cradling a baby. He didn’t seem to be taking that much of the weight. Jesus still had the beam across his shoulder and was bowed down under it, while Simon of Cyrene was prancing along on the balls of his feet.

  McCormack closed his eyes. The words of the Hail Mary started up in his head, repeating on a loop like piped Muzak while his mind drifted off to other things – the extra boots that Stokes had bought, the checked jacket on the back of Helen Thaney’s chair. Also, there was the good news from Goldie. After their talk at the ice-rink, Goldie had paid a visit to Barlinnie where he sat down with Alex Paton for half an hour, trying to bring home to him the gravity of his situation
and how it might be in his favour to tell them who set up the safe house. He showed Paton a list of the Glendinnings string and asked him to point at the name. Eventually Paton placed his index finger on Bobby Stokes’s name. No words spoken.

  Now and at the hour of our death. Amen. After five minutes McCormack shuffled along to the pew’s other end and set off up the central aisle, walking slowly. He was aware of the man in the brown suit jerking himself upright in his pew and then deliberately settling himself, dipping his head in a pastiche of prayer.

  McCormack held his stately pace as he drew level with the man. Then he suddenly lunged, his two fists clamping on the man’s lapels, and hauled him kicking from the pew, the brown arms flailing, and powered him through the double doors and down the church steps, the man’s arms still rowing as though he were falling from a building, and threw him down against the wall with the spiked railings on top.

  The man made to scramble up but then slumped back against the wall, his legs straight out in front of him. McCormack stood over him, worried a little that the man was badly hurt, he was grimacing in pain, but no, it was a smile, the man was smiling broadly, and now the head tipped back and a laugh came pealing out, a laugh like the cry of a jungle bird, that brought heads snapping round from the passers-by on Hyndland Street.

  McCormack stood over him, fists flashing open and closed, hissing at him to shut the fuck up.

  ‘I’m sorry’, the man said. He held up a hand. The laughter came again and a crackle of snot burst from his nose. The man drew the sleeve of his jacket across his face and started to subside, shoulders heaving.

  ‘The fuck are you laughing at?’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s you. Jesus Christ. You look so … in charge.’ The man shook his head. ‘You’ve no idea, do you. I could finish you with two words.’