Laidlaw

by William McIlvanney

  Harkness was glad when Laidlaw suggested they go to his room. They went upstairs, padded along dim corridors, Harkness aware how hard it was to walk steadily on the shifting levels of the aged floorboards, like being on the deck of a tilting ship. The ghosts of old smells drifted at them as they went, unexorcised by Lysol.

  Room fifty-two was distinguished by nothing but a number. It looked as if it hadn’t so much been taken over as broken into – electric razor, towel, shirt on the bed, uncapped toothpaste in the sink, a suitcase disembowelled on a chair. Laidlaw lit a cigarette and sat on the bed. Harkness handed him the list from Milligan.

  ‘Rayburn’s workers,’ Laidlaw said. ‘That’s very neat. In alphabetical order, no less. Beginning at D and ending with T. It’s nice. But at the moment it’s about as handy as a telephone directory. Milligan’ll see them.’

  Laidlaw gave the sheet back to Harkness and concentrated on smoking. His mood was mufti. He wasn’t a policeman, just a tired man in a strange hotel room with somebody he’d only met that day. Harkness, with the expansiveness of spring still making him want to be other places, caught and shared the mood. It seemed that all they had in common was the futility of the day. At the Station Harkness had been struck by the busy purposefulness of what was going on. It had made him feel peripheral. To stop himself from blaming the feeling on Laidlaw, he tried to share it with him. He looked out of the window.

  ‘He’s out there somewhere,’ he said. ‘In the city. Maybe mixing with other people right now. Walking. Talking. But where?’

  Laidlaw got up and filled himself another drink. He took water from the tap.

  ‘Out of earshot of you, if he’s lucky,’ he said. ‘Don’t write your soap-operas in the firm’s time.’

  That was enough. Harkness was glad. His frustration had a focus. He was a fight just looking for a pretext. Laidlaw obliged.

  ‘Maybe Milligan’ll solve it,’ he said, ‘save us all the bother. And maybe power cranes can pick daisies.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave off Milligan?’ Harkness said.

  Laidlaw, sitting on the bed again, looked up at him.

  ‘I didn’t know you cared.’

  ‘Oh, piss off!’

  In the silence someone passed along the corridor.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to translate,’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘Yes, I would. I’m cheesed listening to you put the boot in Milligan.’

  ‘You’re hypersensitive.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I worked with the man for a year. I quite like him.’

  ‘Then you’re a slow learner.’

  ‘So teach me,’ Harkness said. ‘Maybe you could explain what it is you’ve got against Milligan.’

  Laidlaw took a drink and nodded.

  ‘Maybe I could,’ he said. ‘But for one reason only. To further your education. Not to justify myself to you. Your opinion of me at the moment worries me exactly as much as dandruff would a chopped-off head. I don’t have to justify myself to you. I’ve got to justify myself to me. And that’s a bloody sight harder. And the next time you feel a fit of self-righteous loyalty coming on, why don’t you have it some place else?’

  They looked at each other, about an eye-flicker away from fisticuffs.

  ‘Fine,’ Harkness said. ‘But you still haven’t said anything.’

  ‘Milligan has no doubt.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean if everybody could waken up tomorrow morning and have the courage of their doubts, not their convictions, the millennium would be here. I think false certainties are what destroy us. And Milligan’s full of them. He’s a walking absolute. What’s murder but a willed absolute, an invented certainty? An existential failure of nerve. What we shouldn’t do is compound the felony in our reaction to it. And that’s what people keep doing. Faced with the enormity, they lose their nerve, and where they should see a man, they make a monster. It’s a social industry. And Milligan’s one of its entrepreneurs. There’s plenty of them, but he’s the one that keeps crossing my vision. Like a big, fat, fucking mote.’

  ‘That’s a bit heavy for me.’

  ‘So that’s your problem,’ Laidlaw said. ‘You asked the question.’

  Harkness stood absorbing it. It was the same as had happened with the golf, he thought. You threw Laidlaw a question as casual as a snowball and he answered with an avalanche.

  ‘It’s an impressive charge,’ Harkness said. ‘But where’s the evidence?’

  ‘Here.’ Laidlaw pointed to his head. ‘You’ve known him a year. I’ve known him a lot longer. I’ve seen him splash through other people’s grief like a child in the shallows at the shore. Just to make a pinch. I’ve seen him question a sixteen-year-old tearaway in a darkened street. Rib by rib.’

  ‘That’s sometimes the only way.’

  ‘Maybe. But when you start to enjoy it, it’s all over bar “Nearer my God to Thee”.’

  ‘He’s not so bad.’

  ‘He should be cordoned off. He’s exhaling fallout.’

  Harkness sat down on the only chair, shaking his head, feeling the complexity of Laidlaw’s presence. He felt it was simpler than Laidlaw made it out to be, but he couldn’t prove it. They sat letting their mutual depression bleed into the silence.

  ‘Anyway,’ Laidlaw said at last. ‘Today’s proved one thing to my satisfaction. Whoever we’re looking for was known to Jennifer. And if she knew him, somebody else available to us must have known him. What did they say about Alan Whoever-he-is?’

  Harkness had to bring himself back from a distance.

  ‘They want us to get hold of him and bring him in for questioning.’

  ‘That’s fair enough. We’ll start with “The Muscular Arms”. I think you should do that on your own. That’s a kind of kinder-garten place, isn’t it? Pop music and pimples. If somebody my age goes in, they’ll think it’s a raid. But you’ll be all right. Especially now you’ve changed your gear. See what you can find out. There’s somebody else I want to try and see. I’ll meet you at the Gordon Street side of Central Station. Say an hour. All right?’

  Harkness nodded, wondering what Laidlaw would be like by then.

  ‘How will I recognise you?’ he said.

  Laidlaw shook his head and smiled ruefully at the floor.

  ‘I’ll be the one stopping folk in the street and asking them if they could direct me to the nearest murderer.’

  It wasn’t till Harkness was walking along the corridor that he realised Laidlaw hadn’t pulled rank throughout the argument. His anger began to turn again into liking for Laidlaw. He wasn’t sure that he was glad.

  In the room Laidlaw took another drink. He was thinking, not for the first time, how a given context precipitated definition. Arguments created an assurance you hadn’t known you had. Left alone with himself, the doubts invaded him. Harkness wasn’t too wrong. Milligan was more than Laidlaw allowed him. But his actions had to be opposed – a thing devised by the enemy.

  He sipped his drink. He wanted to phone, to find out how the children were. He wanted to hear their voices. But he would do it later. He couldn’t at the moment cope with the emotional traffic-jam involved in the simple act of phoning his wife. He was too sore.

  Instead, he washed and dressed, a therapy designed to convince him that he was fit to handle whatever happened. It worked again. Cleaned and knowing how good he looked, he went downstairs. He crossed to the reception-desk and winked. The wink was an act of preposterous bravado.

  ‘How long will you be?’ she said.

  ‘Jan,’ he said. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘My God, you’re corny.’

  ‘The secret of my charm.’

  ‘You do remember the room number?’

  He laughed. She smiled at his receding back.

  30

  Lennie was enjoying feeling deadly. He stood at the bar of the Burns Howff measuring the remainder of a man’s life with sips from his pint. For he was sure Matt Mason must be intending to get rid of the tenant of 17
Bridgegate. That meant Lennie at this moment held the power of life or death over another person.

  He was careful not to smile, keeping his face innocently straight, just another punter having a pint. He had been putting off giving Matt Mason the information. He had walked in the centre of the city, wondering how many of the people going past could guess. For once, their indifference didn’t bother him. He carried a secret like a million-pound note.

  The feeling made up for a lot. All the hard cases he had grown up with in Blackhill would have to think twice about him if they knew about this. The real tearaways had never taken him seriously. He remembered Mickey Doolan saying to him once, ‘Stick to yer granny’s gas-meter, Lennie. That’s your size.’ So look at him now.

  He looked round the pub, giving a private performance. He saw them all gesturing against the background of the plain brick of the walls, trying to talk above the noise of the Pony Express Disco. Some of them probably thought they knew about hardness. He had a marvellous sense of himself standing quietly at the bar, a professional among amateurs.

  But his time was up. He knew Matt would still be in the office but not for much longer. Lennie came out of the pub as quietly as he had gone in. He left a little of his pint in the glass. Some people had other things to do besides drink.

  Keeping to the same side, he went up West Regent Street. The shop was locked. When he knocked, it was Matt himself who let him in. They went through to the private office.

  Lennie told him, and was disappointed that Eddie wasn’t there to be impressed.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Ah’m sure. At least that’s where he wis the day. He could’ve moved, Ah suppose.’

  ‘No chance. The way Big Harry explained it, he’s nailed to the ground. Big Harry didn’t see you? You’re sure?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ Lennie said.

  ‘That’s very nice.’ He took out a wad and peeled off two fivers. ‘Here. Buy yourself some comics. In fact, buy yourself the Beano Annual. You did well.’

  Lennie was glad of the money but the anti-climax of the event depressed him. It wasn’t just the way Mason referred to him, although that felt as insulting as a secret agent being issued with a pop-gun. It was the inevitable way circumstances always seem to fall below the vividness of imagination.

  Then Mason said, ‘We’ve got the man for the job,’ and Lennie’s imagination was caught again. He could forgive events for making him just an extra because they were so exciting.

  ‘Who is it?’

  Mason let him wait for a moment. The pause was part of the circumspection by which Mason lived. For him walking was a simultaneous testing of the ground. All the corridors he constructed for himself had plenty of doors giving off them.

  He had already made a decision about Lennie but there was still time to change it, if instinct suggested. The decision was to use Lennie further in this. That had its risks. His approach to things had all the subtlety of a mugging. Eddie would be a more obvious choice. But Lennie must know already what was going to happen. Even he could add up two and two. The best way to keep somebody quiet about something was to involve him more deeply in it. Mason knew that Lennie’s lusting after fantasy violence was matched by his deep fear of it. To edge him just a little closer to the real thing might frighten him very effectively into silence about it. Besides, if that didn’t work, there were other ways to frighten him, like to death.

  ‘You know what the job is, Lennie, don’t you?’

  Lennie nodded, and realised from Mason’s reaction that he had found exactly the right response. Professionals didn’t need to spell things out.

  ‘You’re going to help. The man’s coming here tonight. I want him to meet you. And you can show him where the job is.’

  Mason watched Lennie feed his ego with importance. There was no point in telling him just now what the price might be. Let him enjoy it. Mason even decided generously to spice the experience for him with a little mystery.

  ‘Who is he, boss?’ Lennie asked.

  ‘You couldn’t guess.’

  Lennie spread his hands.

  ‘No. You could guess for a week and you wouldn’t be near it. That’s what makes it so good.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Minty McGregor.’

  He was pleased to see Lennie go cautiously round the name, looking for the joke.

  ‘But Minty wis never a hit man.’ Lennie had seen a picture about the Mafia.

  ‘It’s perfect, isn’t it? It puts it as far away from us as the moon. Who would ever think it was Minty McGregor? And if they get that far, who would ever connect him with us?’

  The difficulty Lennie was finding in connecting Minty with them made Mason’s point.

  ‘But Minty’s never done anything like this. He’s a brek-in man. Always has been. Why would he change now?’

  ‘He’s got cancer,’ Mason said, as if that explained everything.

  To Lennie it didn’t.

  ‘What’s that got to do wi’ it?’

  ‘There’s a point in everybody, Lennie, where if you reach it, you’ll do anything. Minty’s at his.’

  ‘How d’ye mean?’

  ‘He’s worried about his family. Right? They don’t have a great pension-scheme for house-breakers. We’re his insurance policy. And he’s ours. Because if they want to catch who did it, they’ll have to hurry. And even if they catch him, what’s he got to lose? No percentage for him in shopping us. Cast-iron investment. Think about it.’

  Lennie did. The thought of it awed him – a man who had nothing to lose and so could do anything.

  ‘That’s terrific,’ he whispered.

  ‘It’s not bad,’ Mason admitted modestly.

  There was a tapping at the outside door.

  ‘That’ll be him now,’ Mason said. ‘Eddie’s bringing him to see me. Let them in.’

  Lennie hurried through the shop. In his haste to see Minty as if for the first time, he fumbled with the lock. But when he got the door open, all that came in with Eddie was a wake of cold air.

  ‘Where’s Minty?’

  ‘In ma inside pocket,’ Eddie said.

  Lennie followed him through to the office where Mason seemed to be counting them.

  ‘What’s the score?’ he asked.

  ‘Minty’s no’ comin’ out tae play the night,’ Eddie said.

  ‘So what’s the score?’

  ‘He’s got tae pace himself, he says. He’s on drugs or somethin’. He’ll be fine by the morra.’

  ‘Are you sure he’s fit for this?’

  ‘He’s got the badness. That’s all ye need for a job like this. A long time since Ah spoke tae a meaner man. The way he is the now, the cancer must be the healthiest thing about ’im. But ye can judge for yerself. He wants tae see ye the morra. In the “Ambassador”. He’s no’ known there. An’ neither are you. He says if the wages is right, he’ll do the job.’

  ‘The money’ll be right. You’re sure he’s on?’

  ‘Ah’d say he’s keen.’

  Mason nodded.

  ‘That’s it then. The night would’ve been better. I don’t like leaving that Laidlaw any room. But Minty can do the job tomorrow. Lennie here’s found the other half of the arrangement. That’s us set.’

  He took a bottle of Glenfiddich and two glasses out of the cupboard.

  ‘You’ll get a teacup through in the shop, Lennie.’

  When Lennie came back, they stood having a drink. It was a wake at which the corpse was missing. Hearing traffic pass unaware of them in the street above, Lennie felt like a member of a secret society. Tonight he would be having a drink with a couple of mates. He would have to be careful not to give anything away.

  31

  James Cagney and Van Johnson were in drag. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were, amazingly enough, dancing down a staircase. From the trunk of a tin tree, its sheets of metal nicely interleaved, there sprouted repetitious rainbows. On the ceiling the stars were permanently out. A girl was saying very
quietly to her friend, ‘Twice he did it. Twice. I nearly jumped out of my knickers. You couldn’t believe it. In the middle of the British Home Stores. Twice.’

  Although he knew and liked the Starlite Room of The Muscular Arms, Harkness felt disorientated in the place tonight. The cardboard cutouts of film stars depressed him like brochures of places he would never get to, especially Jane Russell in her spot above the Ladies. The snippet of conversation he had overheard seemed appropriately bizarre. The strangeness of things was assailing him.

  It was the Laidlaw effect, he decided. One day of him was enough to baffle your preconceptions and make you unfamiliar with yourself. He was such a complicated bastard and in trying to adjust to his complications you rediscovered your own. Harkness remembered something he had read or heard somewhere: ‘You never put your foot in the same river twice.’ Tonight he believed it.

  What it meant to him was that tonight he wasn’t the same policeman he had been yesterday. The job was different and so was he. He remembered hearing Milligan call Laidlaw an amateur. Harkness decided he knew now what Milligan meant though he didn’t agree with it. Milligan was a professional. He took wages for doing a difficult job as well as he knew how. He discounted Laidlaw because Laidlaw abjured some of the most obvious techniques of professionalism that people like Milligan depended on.

  But there are two basic kinds of professional, Harkness saw in a moment of self-congratulatory illumination. There’s the professionalism that does something well enough to earn a living from it. And there’s the professionalism that creates a commitment so intense that the earning of a living happens by the way. Its dynamic isn’t wages but the determination to do something as well as it can be done.

  Laidlaw was the second kind of professional. Harkness realised it was a very uncomfortable thing to be because, in their work, ‘well’ involved not just results but the morality by which you arrived at them. He thought of Laidlaw’s capacity to bring constant doubt to what he was doing and still try to do it. The pressure must be severe.