Peacock's Alibi

by Stuart David

  So I was determined to keep McFadgen off Vince’s trail as much as I was to get him off mine. I just, as yet, had no earthly idea how in hell I was going to achieve it.

  Anyway, McFadgen eventually deigned to bless us with his presence. He stood jerking at the café door for a minute, getting redder and redder in the face each time he pulled it towards himself, until he finally twigged that it was a push job and put a smidgeon too much weight behind it and came tumbling inside at a run.

  He looked a right mess. He was blissfully unaware of the fact that the one button he’d bothered to fasten on his suit jacket was coupled with the wrong buttonhole, and the suit itself was even more ill-fitting than the one he’d been wearing the day before. It seemed to be struggling to decide whether it was dark brown or dark blue, and whereas he could usually have passed for a bowling-club treasurer, he was getting into the area more commonly frequented by dim-witted local councillors this afternoon.

  It fair affected my self-esteem to realise a guy as sartorially challenged as McFadgen was causing me any kind of intellectual difficulty at all. How could somebody as immaculately turned out as myself possibly be in an inferior position to this vandalised scarecrow? It hardly bore thinking about.

  He clocked me early on, and made the same effort to avoid looking at his pals as they were making to avoid looking at each other. Then he just about deafened me scraping the chair opposite my own out from underneath the table, and sat down with a strange gloating grin on his face.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘I got held up.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ I told him. ‘Your pals kept me company.’

  He frowned and turned to look behind him. ‘What are you talking about? What pals? Are you on something, Johnson?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Christ knows what they’re doing here, but fair enough. So, how did the wife like the blazer you bought yesterday? Was she a fan?’

  His face fell somewhat. ‘I’ll have to take it back. She says it makes me look like somebody’s shoved a bicycle pump up my arse and inflated me. She hated it.’

  ‘She’s probably got a point,’ I said, and he shrugged and slowly let that weird gloating smile come back onto his face as he leant across the table towards me.

  ‘You’ve made a big mistake showing up here this afternoon,’ he said. ‘By the time we’re through here, I’ll have your balls gripped so tightly in my fist you’ll be singing “Pie Jesu” in a high soprano.’

  ‘What can I bring you?’ the waiter said quietly to McFadgen. He’d appeared at the side of the table without either of us noticing, and McFadgen straightened himself up with a jolt.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Aye. Eh, hand me that menu, Peacock. Let me see.’

  I told the boy to bring me another roll and sausage.

  He nodded, and McFadgen pushed the laminated list of options back across the table.

  ‘Just give me a black coffee,’ he said. ‘No sugar.’

  The boy sniffed, and as he wandered off McFadgen made what he thought was an unnoticeable hand signal to his back-up, who clocked it with what they hoped were undetectable glances. Then we were back to McFadgen’s leaning-across-the-table routine again.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘Something about you fondling my ball sack,’ I said, ‘if I’m remembering right.’

  He rapped his knuckles on the table a couple of times. ‘That night you were out for dinner with your wife. I’ve twigged to what all that losing-your-wallet nonsense was about. You were drawing attention to yourself, making sure the staff remembered you were there – and at what time. It’s amateur-hour stuff. You thought you were consolidating your alibi.’

  ‘So what? What’s that got to do with anything? I’m here to let you know who whipped that painting. After that, your conspiracy theories have got shag all to do with me – I’m off the hook.’

  He raised his eyebrows. Pulled a weird face. To be perfectly honest with you, the guy looked certifiably unhinged.

  ‘And that’s exactly where you’ve put yourself in the shit,’ he said. ‘You’ve played right into my hands. Because the very fact that you’ve turned up here this afternoon, with that purpose in mind, proves that it could only have been you that stole it.’

  I have to admit, if there was any logic whatsoever behind his statement, it completely escaped me. As far as I was concerned, he seemed to have finally driven himself daft with his obsession to get me behind bars. But I was only half paying attention to what he was saying anyway. I was mainly in a total panic wondering how to hold up my end of the bargain, with Vince Cowie’s name being strictly off limits. I figured all I could do was play for time, hoping some bright moment of inspiration would materialise.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, McFadgen?’ I said. ‘Me turning up to tell you who stole a painting, out the goodness of my heart, proves that it was actually me that stole it? What are you on, man?’

  He was already leaning so far across the table I hadn’t thought it was possible for him to get any closer to me, but give the boy his due, he managed it. He came so close that our brows were just about touching. The edge of the table must have been fair cutting into his gut.

  ‘On the twenty-third of June,’ he said, ‘Dougie Dowds was on his way to tell me who stole the painting, but he never made it. Somebody went to extreme lengths to make sure he never made it. Then, yesterday afternoon, you tell me you’re going to meet me here to let me know who stole it. And I – you might be interested to hear – put the word out to that effect. I started a covert whispering campaign. My boys have got a whole network of contacts on your side of the fence, as you’re no doubt aware. So we spread the word far and wide. And yet, here you sit, as right as rain. Not even a moustache hair out of place. You see what I’m saying?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said, still waiting on that brainflash to occur.

  ‘If it wasn’t you that took that painting,’ he said, ‘you’d have met the same fate as Dougie Dowds. It stands to reason. You’d never have made it here. Somebody would have whacked you. Ergo, you’re busted.’

  ‘And that’s what your goons are here for?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe you’ll try and make a run for it, or maybe I’ll just need a hand to take you in. Either way.’

  I leant back in my seat to get further away from his sweaty brow, and I gave his proposition some consideration.

  ‘There’s one possibility you’ve overlooked in your scenario,’ I said eventually, ‘an obvious loophole you’ve missed.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  I nodded. ‘What if this name I’m about to give you belongs to a pal of mine –a lifelong pal, close as you like. In that instance, they’d hardly be likely to kill me.’

  The statement had only been a logical response to the hypothesis he was proposing. Just something that occurred to me while I was trying to work out if there was any flaw in his reasoning. But as soon as I said it, the floodgates opened. The gridlock in my grey matter evaporated, and a great wave of neural activity burst out across my synapses. I was on it. I had my solution. Vince Cowie was off the hook.

  It was just the simple act of thinking of my pals that had lit me up, so I had to hand it to McFadgen. Without his prompting, I might never have come up with my idea. McFadgen, alone, had shown me the way. The gorgeous moron.

  But his gloating look was back again. It had flickered for a second when I’d first rebuffed his claims, but only momentarily.

  ‘You’d never turn a pal in, though,’ he said. ‘So even that possibility fails to hold water.’

  He was probably right, but he didn’t have to know he was right – because the particular pal I had in mind was well out of harm’s way. At the exact moment the painting had been stolen, he was soaking up the sun in Magaluf. And he’d been there for a full week before it was lifted, and for another full week after that. Christ knows what genetic inheritance had given him the constitution to survive a jaunt like that, but what
ever it was, he had it. And even more conveniently, he was currently away for a few days with the Tartan Army to watch Scotland getting whipped in Malta, so it would take McFadgen those few days at least to work out he’d been given a bum steer, and by that time I was bound to have come up with a more coherent plan.

  ‘Not if I was desperate to get revenge on somebody in particular,’ I said. ‘And besides, he only stole a painting. Your whole theory about the person who stole the painting being the same person who bumped Dougie Dowds is pure fantasy. So what’s the worst that can happen to him? Just about enough for me to be satisfied I’ve got him back. Give or take six months to a year.’

  McFadgen shook his head. ‘You’re havering,’ he said. ‘It was you that stole the painting. It’s a stick-on.’

  ‘Not according to John Jack,’ I said, and that certainly ruffled his feathers. ‘When has John Jack ever been wrong about something like this?’

  Finally, he sat back in his seat. He put his hands on top of his head, fingers laced through their opposite numbers, and moved his scalp back and forward. At the same time, the waiter appeared with McFadgen’s coffee and my roll and sausage and laid them down on the table. I kind of regretted getting the second roll now – you know thon way? You’re well up for it when you’ve just finished the first one, but in the interim you’ve realised one was probably enough, and it’s just a case of your eyes having been bigger than your belly?

  ‘Let me know if you need anything else,’ the boy said as he wandered away, and I opened up my roll and squeezed some brown sauce onto it anyway.

  McFadgen took his hands down off his napper and pushed his coffee cup about the table. ‘So who was it?’ he said. ‘Who’s John Jack saying it was?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what, McFadgen,’ I said. ‘I’ve just realised you were quite willing for me to be killed just to try and prove one of your daft theories. Putting my name about like that was pretty much signing my death warrant if it hadn’t been a pal of mine who stole the painting. Am I wrong? You were willing to see me in a body bag, weren’t you?’

  He’d a kind of sickly leer on his face as he picked up his coffee. ‘I’d have felt a momentary pang of sadness if you’d been murdered,’ he said. ‘But I’d have been quite happy if somebody had badly fucked you up – kneecapped you or something like that.’

  ‘In which case,’ I said, ‘I’m no longer feeling inclined to give you the name, Duncan. And you know John Jack’s the last person in the world that’ll tell you.’

  That got him. That convinced him that what I had for him was gospel, and he suddenly wanted it badly.

  ‘I was joking,’ he said. ‘Obviously. I was a hundred per cent certain you took that painting. So, as far as I was concerned, you’d be right as rain.’

  I fought against my reluctance to down the second roll and sausage and got battered into it. To be entirely honest, once I’d started, it was perfectly pleasant. I wasn’t really sure what all the fuss had been about.

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘You’ve gone too far this time, McFadgen. Harassment and invasion of privacy’s one thing, putting me in mortal danger’s something else altogether. You’ve blown it, son. Forget it.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right, I admit it. The story of me putting your name about was just a fairytale. Satisfied? It never happened. I was trying to force the issue.’

  ‘Hand on heart?’

  ‘Straight up.’

  I’d had a suspicion that was probably the case, but it was a relief to have it confirmed. If it really was Chaz Anderson that had done for Dougie Dowds, and if he’d found out I was on my way to point McFadgen in his general direction, I could really have been in for a fair bit of bother.

  ‘And look at it this way,’ McFadgen said, ‘with that being the case, which it is, if you don’t give me a name now we’ll be right back to square one. And I’ll be all over you like a rash again. Night and day.’

  I made like I was badly put out. ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘You’re a prick, but fair enough. John Jack says it was Gordon Jenkins that liberated the canvas. Wee Jinky.’

  McFadgen looked beyond surprised. ‘Jinky?’ he said, and I nodded. ‘Really? I thought the two of you were joined at the hip. That must have been quite a number he did on you, for you to be grassing him up.’

  ‘Don’t even get me started,’ I said. ‘My blood’s boiling just thinking about the bastard.’

  The inspector stuck out his bottom lip and nodded slowly. ‘Understood,’ he said. Then he appeared to suffer the onset of a melancholic turn of mood. He picked his coffee up and stared into it, and it took him a good while to whack up the motivation to swallow a few gulps.

  ‘I’d better get out there and arrest him then,’ he said, without much enthusiasm for the task. ‘Where’s the best place to find him, you reckon? His flat?’

  I shrugged. ‘Should be,’ I said. ‘Like I told you, we’re somewhat estranged at the minute. I’m less than interested in his comings and goings.’

  McFadgen tapped the table a few times with his middle finger and then he suddenly brightened. I had the idea there was maybe a bit too much caffeine in his drink – it was a hell of a brisk turnaround. He even took another gulp at the stuff, without any humming and hawing beforehand this time.

  ‘Maybe you were right after all, Peacock,’ he said. ‘For once. Maybe it’s me that’s in the wrong this time. Maybe there really is no connection between the theft of that painting and Dougie Dowds’ murder. I’m starting to come round to your way of thinking.’

  I eyed him a touch suspiciously.

  ‘Look at it this way,’ he said. ‘If I’ve been barking up the wrong tree, then the fact that Gordon Jenkins nabbed that painting doesn’t necessarily mean that you never killed Dougie Dowds.’

  I groaned. ‘It does, however, mean that the only thing you’ve got against me is the fact that I’ve got an alibi for the time it happened,’ I said. ‘That’s your whack.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I’ve still got that. As well as the probability that you sent me a text from Dougie Dowds’ phone earlier in the evening.’

  ‘Dream on,’ I said.

  But it seemed to be enough to lift him out of his crushing despair and get him up onto his feet. You can hardly begrudge a man that, I suppose.

  He fished out a wallet and put a tenner down on the table. ‘Pay the bill with that,’ he said. ‘I’ll away and have a word with your Jinky, if I can find him. Then we’ll get back to the business of trying to put you in Barlinnie.’

  ‘If I as much as catch sight of you during the next fortnight I’ll be filing that complaint for harassment, McFadgen,’ I said. ‘I’ve done you a big favour here, getting you that data from John Jack. Keep up your end of the bargain.’

  He smiled – with the mouth, not with the eyes. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, and he turned round and gave the nod to his goons, who exchanged puzzled looks with each other. For a minute, they seemed at a loss as to what to do, then one of them got up and followed behind McFadgen at a distance as he made for the door. I gave the other two a wee wave, and they got up and followed in turn, befuddled chumps looking to each other for some kind of explanation.

  ‘What’s happening?’ one of them shouted after the bold detective, and then all four of them were gone.

  I sat on with the remains of my second roll and sausage. I was pretty confident McFadgen would be off my tail for a good few days now. Trying to locate the Jinkster without knowing he was tucked away in Malta would keep him fully occupied, and his crack about me still being in the frame for the Dougie Dowds affair was strictly for his own benefit, to ward off the crushing depression brought on by his failure to get me into the jail again.

  Still, it was clear that I wouldn’t be using the breathing space to start getting the fingerprint business ready to go: what really mattered was making sure Vince Cowie didn’t end up behind bars before he’d made his lifelong commitment to Wilma Caldwell. And that would need to be my prime objective fo
r the foreseeable future. Setting up premises and everything else would just have to wait. Otherwise there’d be no fucking business to set up.

  9

  The eastern mystics talk a lot about the advantages of a totally empty mind. I watched a documentary about that on the telly one night, amid the chaos of Bev hammering on about some bampot in her work who was planning to buy a caravan or something – and how the bampot’s husband was up in arms about it cause he hates having to shit in campsite toilets.

  Something like that.

  It made it a tad difficult to concentrate properly on the finer points of this documentary, but the general idea seemed to be that you have to remove as many distracting thoughts from your brain as you can before you’re able to see things clearly. There was a boy in it who lived up at the top of a mountain somewhere or other, and he claimed that if you just let your everyday thoughts drift in and out of your mind, without paying any real attention to them, your head can become as still as a calm pond, and then you can proceed to get in touch with the good stuff.

  When I got back to the flat, after my cosy one-on-one with McFadgen, it was still a couple of hours till Bev was due in from work. I’d knocked about in the town for a while, to give the detective plenty of time to shoot over here and find out that Jinky’s flat downstairs was empty, then I’d toddled home, determined to put what I’d heard in the aforementioned documentary into practice.

  I’ll tell you what, though, it’s a hell of a lot harder to empty your mind than the boy up the mountain made it sound.

  I sat at the kitchen table with a notebook in front of me, and a pen in my hand, just waiting for all the shite that was zipping about my napper to start settling down and give me a break.

  The way I saw it, there were two possible ways I could deal with McFadgen when he finally made contact with Jinky and worked out he’d been off on a wild goose chase. The first would be to give him the name of another thief, somebody else with a strong alibi, who would be just as difficult to track down as Jinky. And the second possibility was to come up with somebody else who might have had another good reason to chib Dougie Dowds, a reason unrelated to his intention to tell McFadgen who had whipped the painting.