Laidlaw

by William McIlvanney

  ‘The thing is,’ the man with the scar said, sitting back down, ‘he probably thinks he wis unlucky getting flung oot.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Airchie Stanley said. ‘How about it?’

  ‘Behave yerself,’ the man with the scar said. ‘Ye’ve seen too many gangster pictures.’

  ‘But you know people, like. Ah know you know them.’

  ‘Whit dae ye mean by that?’

  ‘Now, now. Don’t take offence. Ah mean, Ah know you’ve got contacts.’

  ‘You know nothin’ about me,’ the man with the scar said. ‘Except that Ah mairrit yer cousin. An’ the way you’re talking, Ah’m beginnin’ tae think it wis a bad marriage.’

  The man seemed to be feeling a disproportionate amount of anger. His scar had been gettin whiter as he talked, becoming as livid as a lightning-flash. Bud Lawson sat between the two of them saying nothing. It had been Airchie Stanley’s idea. He left him with it.

  ‘Ye divert me,’ the man said. ‘Ye get me along here so that ye can talk like an American coamic. Dick Tracey or somethin’. Whit’s the gemme?’

  ‘Look,’ Airchie said. ‘Ah’ve explained the thing to ye. Fair an’ square. Ye know whit’s happened tae Bud’s lassie.’

  The man sipped his whisky.

  ‘Well. You’ve got an ear tae the ground. All Ah’m sayin’ is if ye heard a whisper, we’d appreciate it. Ah’d raither Bud got ’im than the polis. Fair enough?’

  The man stroked his scar.

  ‘Fair enough for therty year in the jile.’

  ‘Who needs tae know?’

  ‘Look behind ye,’ the man said quietly.

  Airchie looked round quickly. All he could see were the customers drinking and chatting. He looked back at the man.

  ‘All you dae,’ the man said, ‘is you pick a packed lounge tae set somebody up to get murdert. That’s how clever you are. Yer mooth’s that loose Ah’m surprised yer teeth stey in. Why no’ hire the tannoy in Central Station?’

  ‘Naebody can hear us.’

  ‘How many other people have ye telt?’

  ‘Not a wan. That’s the God’s truth. Ah telt the boays at Bud’s Ah wis jist takin’ ’im oot tae get some air.’

  ‘Anyway, that’s the least o’ it. How am Ah supposed tae find oot who did it an’ where he is? The polis’ll have a big enough job doin’ that.’

  ‘Yer connections.’

  ‘Listen! You know me. Ye’ve seen whit Ah can dae.’

  ‘You can handle yerself,’ Airchie said instantly and placatively.

  ‘Correct. But you know who Ah work for. An’ Ah’m no feart. But Ah know catchweights when Ah see it. A thing like this wid need his say-so. He could put the three o’ us in a bag an’ droon us like kittens. Ye don’t offend that big man.’

  ‘Fair enough. Ah jist thought Ah wid ask.’

  ‘Ye’ve asked then. An’ Ah’ve telt ye.’

  Airchie finished his drink. The man with the scar watched Bud Lawson. He hadn’t spoken, even when they were introduced. He impressed the man. He had sat staring at the table, very powerful-looking and utterly still – a stick of gelignite just waiting for a match.

  ‘Look, sur,’ the man said. ‘Ah can appreciate whit you must be feelin’ like. But this is a wild idea. Ah’ll tell ye whit. If Ah get any word – an’ it’s hundreds against – Ah’ll see aboot passin’ it on. That’s all Ah can say. Noo Ah think we should separate before this man gets the TV cameras in.’

  ‘Right, Bud.’ His friend was on his feet, signalling farewell. ‘That’s good enough fur us. Much appreciated. Be seein’ ye. Cheerio.’

  ‘Cheerio,’ the man said. ‘Watch ye don’t fa’ ower yer mooth goin’ oot the door.’

  Bud Lawson hadn’t touched his drink. The man lifted it. He might as well get something out of the conversation.

  14

  All of us at some time or other,’ the minister was saying, ‘have been to the seaside.’ It wasn’t exactly a riveting start. ‘The sea attracts us. Yet we hardly stop to think of it as the source of all life. For us it’s hardly more than a social amenity. Weather permitting – and that’s all too rare, I can hear you say, in Scotland – we fill the car with food and children and go down to the sea on trips. We play. We laugh. We splash water on one another. We eat our sandwiches. And it’s not until Wee Johnny finds himself in difficulties – or Wee Mary is caught in the current – or perhaps a stranger drowns – that we remember the awe-inspiring power of the sea. In some ways, the presence of God is like that.’

  Harkness was finding it hard to focus on who he was. He found it impossible to connect himself as he was with Mary’s mother offering him ‘a wee cup of tea’ and home-made ginger biscuits. He sat eating biscuits while the photograph of Jennifer Lawson weighed on him like the corpse, while Mary’s father sat watching Late Call on the telly as if it was news of Armageddon.

  The room seemed as unreal as a stage-set. They all seemed to know their parts. He watched Mary’s father, trying to catch a glimmer of dismissal of what he was hearing. There was nothing. Mary’s father stared solemnly at the set as if the minister was telling him something. Harkness began to worry about Mary’s father. He also began to worry about ministers who clasp their hands across their knees and talk about God as if they were His uncle, who seem to suggest that He’s not such a bad lad when you get to know Him and that whatever His past, He means well in the future. He also began to worry about Mary’s mother making ginger biscuits and about Mary. Harkness began to worry about everything.

  He felt bruised with contradictions. Where he had been was being mocked by where he was. Yet both were Glasgow. He had always liked the place, but he had never been more aware of it than tonight. Its force came to him in contradictions. Glasgow was home-made ginger biscuits and Jennifer Lawson dead in the park. It was the sententious niceness of the Commander and the threatened abrasiveness of Laidlaw. It was Milligan, insensitive as a mobile slab of cement, and Mrs Lawson, witless with hurt. It was the right hand knocking you down and the left hand picking you up, while the mouth alternated apology and threat.

  Tomorrow with Laidlaw he would no doubt see some of it he had never seen before. Jealous of his own affection for the place, he reminded himself that what he would see would only be a very small part of the whole.

  ‘Tonight let us reflect for a moment on this great mystery which surrounds us,’ the minister was saying.

  Harkness’s thoughts were a secular gloss on the minister’s words. He watched Mary’s father complacently watching television, her mother reading the Sunday Post, Mary herself putting papers in her briefcase for tomorrow’s teaching – each with a finger in the dyke of their own illusions. He decided, to his surprise, that he didn’t want to share their illusions. He wasn’t sure, as he had thought he was, that he and Mary would be getting engaged. The things which were happening outside, and which he didn’t know about, seemed more real to him than this room.

  15

  In another room, Matt Mason was enjoying the end of a nice Sunday. He had slept away the morning and in the afternoon had taken Billy Tate out from Helensburgh on the boat for a couple of hours. Now he was listening to two of his visitors insult each other familiarly and pleasantly.

  ‘You know,’ Roddy Stewart said. ‘I find it hard to recognise your father in the way you talk about him. Your picture doesn’t square with the fourteen stones of vibrant apathy I used to know and hate so well.’

  ‘At least he was coherent,’ Alice said. ‘Your father spoke English like a native. Bantu, I’d say.’

  The phone rang. As Matt Mason got up, he winked at Billy Tate.

  ‘End of the round, you two. You do the inter-round summaries till I get back, Billy.’

  The phone was in the hall. He closed the lounge door.

  ‘Matt Mason here.’

  ‘Hullo, Matt. This is Harry.’

  The name affected Mason like a spasm.

  ‘I’ve told you not to phone here,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
>
  ‘My God, Matt. I’m in terrible trouble. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘About one. I’ve got people here.’

  Mason let the silence stand, the way he might stare down a wino who begged for money in the street.

  ‘Listen. You know that girl who was found murdered today?’

  ‘Not personally, no.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Matt, listen to me. This is serious. There was a girl found murdered today. In Kelvingrove Park. The boy who did it is a – friend of mine. I know him well.’

  Mason made a face as if he was going to be sick into the mouthpiece.

  ‘How well? You mean, very well?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘I think I know what that means in your case,’ Mason said.

  Memories bothered him like the foul breath of a drunk man. He looked round the hall, noticed the expensive coats on the table where the housekeeper had left them. The memories threatened this place. They didn’t belong here.

  ‘He’s holed up in a place. I need your help. I need it very badly.’

  In the lounge somebody was laughing. Mason decided to be cautious.

  ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘You will, will you? Make sure you do. I’m desperate.’

  ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow.’ Mason blocked the line very gently with his finger and said into the dead phone, ‘Fine then. And thanks for phoning.’

  He put down the phone and walked through a blizzard of implications, hoping none of them showed on his face when he opened the door.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that.’ Then he added in a mock English accent, ‘The pressures of big business, you know.’

  There was hardly any reaction from the others. Only Roddy’s eyes contracted for a second, looking at Matt to check if the call might involve his services, before returning his attention to Alice.

  ‘Anyway,’ she was saying. ‘He would have been even more successful if he hadn’t caught pleurisy when he did.’

  ‘Come on, Alice,’ Roddy said. ‘Your father didn’t just catch pleurisy. He seized it. With both lungs. Before it got away.’

  Billy laughed. Mason looked round the group. He was pressed with himself. Roddy was one of the sharpest lawyers in Scotland. Billy Tate had been one of the best inside-forwards in the history of Scottish football before he retired and bought his pub. It wasn’t a bad sign that they were the kind of people you could have dropping in on a Sunday for a drink. Their wives were no problem to have to look at, but Margaret was easily the best-looking woman in the room. She usually was. Mason looked and saw that it was good, too cosy to be spoiled by the kind of draught that had blown down the phone just now. That was one hole in his security that would have to be blocked up. He stood.

  ‘See when you two come,’ he said to Roddy and Alice. ‘I don’t feel like a host. I feel like a promoter. You fan them with a towel, Billy. I’ll get more drink.’

  Everybody smiled.

  16

  Ena lay in bed upstairs and listened to Laidlaw packing. His movements were so positive. He walked back and forth pacing out his purpose. In the silence of the house it was like someone doing sentry duty. It was a familiar event and she knew the ritual that he made of it, as if he was doing more than pack a suitcase. He was constructing a solution-kit – a tooth-brush missing and a crime might go unsolved. She hoped he was remembering to pack his migraine pills.

  She wondered how often he had filled that suitcase. At first she had hated when it happened. Now, although she might use it as an official ground of complaint, she wasn’t sure that she didn’t feel relief. They were, she had decided, probably what incompatible meant.

  He was so hard to live with. It was the demands he put on people that she found most difficult. Moral aggression, she called it to herself. It was as if his career as an amateur boxer had extended itself into his social life, though not on a physical basis. Seeing him walk into a room, she always thought: ‘Introducing in the red corner . . .’

  She heard Jackie whimper. Before she could rise, his father was coming up the stairs. She didn’t move. Jackie needed the lavatory. Jack took him and brought him back up to the small bedroom next to their own. As Jackie got back into bed, she heard him speak.

  ‘Was it a monster, Daddy?’

  ‘What are you talking about, son?’

  ‘The thing at the door when Margaret was in herself. Was it a monster?’

  Jack answered very seriously.

  ‘No chance. It was the girl from down the road. Coming to baby-sit. Margaret let her in and the electricity came on. And they had a very good night.’

  ‘Sandra said it would likely be a monster.’

  ‘That’s how clever she is. There are no monsters, Jackie. No monsters, son.’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘That’s good. I’m glad. I don’t like monsters, Daddy.’

  ‘You’re a sound judge, son. I wouldn’t fancy them myself if they were here. But there’s only people.’

  Ena knew that for Jackie the certainty in his father’s voice had burned the monsters out of his room for the night like a blow-torch.

  ‘Good night, Daddy.’

  ‘Good night, Jackie.’

  She heard Jack go back downstairs. She felt a brief longing for the way they had once been. But the questing intensity in him that had first attracted her was also what had separated them, because it had never stopped. She had thought it was looking for a destination of which she might be part. Now she felt convinced that the nearest he would get to a destination would be when they pulled his eyelids down. He worried everything into bone and then moved on.

  She heard him coming back upstairs, coming to bed. Knight errant of the Crime Squad, she reflected bitterly. The trouble was, it occurred to her, that with him you never knew whether you were the maiden or the dragon.

  17

  St Andrew’s Parish Church looked bleak, a big, dark oblong locked and shuttered, like a warehouse for a commodity gone out of fashion. Harkness wondered if it was still in use. Even the trees along both sides of it seemed at first dead. But staring at their branches shaking gently, he could see the first buds of spring, small fists of green.

  He was standing opposite the church in the green doorway of the police station – a red-brick building at the corner of St Andrew’s Street and Turnbull Street, housing Central Division and the Administrative HQ He had come outside to wait for Laidlaw because it was so pleasant, the kind of morning that made you want to take a holiday from who you were. It wasn’t a day for being a policeman, he decided. The air was a permit to do anything and it was valid for everybody.

  He crossed the street and walked round the church in the sunshine. Coming back to the front of it, he saw two men crossing the street towards him. One was tall and wearing glasses. The other was short and stocky, going grey. He wore a reefer jacket.

  ‘Excuse me. Ye got a match, Jimmy?’ the smaller one asked.

  Harkness noticed the unlit cigarettes in their mouths.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Sensible fella,’ the tall man said.

  The small man took the cigarette from his mouth. Harkness could see that his hand was shaking.

  ‘We jist got oot o’ that nick there,’ he said. ‘Dyin’ for a drag.’

  ‘There’s a café round the corner in the Saltmarket,’ Harkness said. ‘Get matches there.’

  ‘Aye. We should just about wrestle the price o’ one between us.’

  Harkness was wondering about offering them the price of a cup of tea but they had already walked away. They weren’t begging, just indulging in the Glaswegian pastime of giving strangers bulletins on your progress. Harkness was pleased with the small exchange because they hadn’t recognised him as a policeman. He must mention that, the next time his father got on to the subject of how he was getting to look more like a policeman every day.


  Turning away from them, he suddenly noticed something on the first small tree on the right-hand side of the church. It was a single red berry. His feeling of the moment took it as its coat of arms: secret growth to come. He was twenty-six. That wasn’t ninety. He rejected his father’s sense of him as somebody who had made a final choice. He thought of the somebody who had made a final choice. He thought of the atmosphere of assumptiveness that had oppressed him in Mary’s house yesterday. He wasn’t ready to be defined. He remembered the months he had spent in Spain and France when he was twenty, especially the long, lazy journey from Sitges to Paris.

  It had been a good time, a seemingly endless ante-room to an infinite future. Standing in St Andrew’s Square, he got back the feeling he had had then. Everything was still possible for him. Meanwhile, he would hold his commitment to what he was doing lightly. And then he saw Laidlaw.

  Laidlaw was walking up Turnbull Street towards the Station. Harkness had had Laidlaw pointed out to him, although they had never met. He recognised the deceptively tall figure, deceptive because the width of the shoulders acted against the height, making him seem smaller than he was, and the very positive features that gave the face clear definition even at a distance. The most striking thing about him was something Harkness had noticed every time he had seen him – preoccupation. You never came on him empty. You imagined that if a launch arrived to rescue him from a desert island, he would have something he had to finish before being taken off. It was hard to think of him walking casually, always towards definite destinations. Harkness remembered that he was one of them. Infinite possibilities would have to wait.

  He crossed the street and stopped in front of Laidlaw. They were outside the door of the station.

  ‘Detective Inspector Laidlaw, sir? D.C. Harkness. Reporting.’

  ‘Hullo,’ Laidlaw said. ‘It’s bad for your back standing like that. What’s your first name?’

  ‘Brian.’

  They shook hands.