‘So you’re Gina.’
She nodded nervously.
‘I’m Mickey Ballater.’
Her eyes widened and she crossed her legs. The dressing-gown fell away and he let his eyes rest on her thigh.
‘Where’s Paddy Collins? He was supposed to meet me.’
She shrugged and looked at the ceiling. Mickey got up and walked across to her. Leaning over her carefully, he slapped her face very hard. She started to cry. He walked back and sat in his chair. He looked round the room while she composed herself.
‘Where’s Paddy Collins?’
‘He is in the hospital.’
‘How?’
‘He has been stabbed.’
‘How do you know?’
‘His brother-of-law is here yesterday. Very angry. He tells me Paddy is stabbed. Serious. He thinks he will die.’
It didn’t take long for the images of Paddy Collins that occurred to Mickey to convert from regret to energy, like old photographs thrown on a fire. If Paddy Collins died, the pay-off would be better for himself if he could find Tony Veitch. But there were problems.
‘His brother-in-law, Cam Colvin? You’re sure it was him?’
‘Mr Colvin.’
‘That’s all we need. How did he know about you?’
‘My address is in Paddy’s clothes.’
‘That’s handy. What did you tell him?’
‘How Paddy is lookin’ for Tony Veitch.’
‘It looks as if he found him. What else?’
‘Nothin’ else. I know nothin’ else.’
Mickey found the Scottish inflections in her Italian accent attractive. He began to notice her again.
‘Did you tell him about me?’
She shook her head.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Paddy said silence. Or.’
She made a throat-cutting gesture. Mickey almost laughed. It sounded like Paddy all right, good at frightening women and still following the script of an old Edward G. Robinson film.
‘What else did Paddy tell you?’
‘To do the things he says and be all right.’
That sounded convincing too. Paddy hadn’t told Mickey much that mattered either. All he could remember was that Veitch knew Hook Hawkins’ brother. And it looked as if Paddy was going to get even better at keeping a secret.
‘Where is Tony Veitch?’
‘Nobody knows still.’
‘Come on. Cam Colvin must have been at the hospital.’
‘He is in a com-combo?’
‘Jesus Christ. Hidin’ in a band?’
‘Como. Comma?’
Mickey stared at her.
‘Coma. You mean Paddy’s in a coma?’
‘He doesn’t speak.’
‘But you know Tony Veitch.’
‘Not since the trouble with Paddy. Since two weeks nobody can find him.’
‘Ach!’ Ballater’s eyes strafed the ceiling. He pointed at her. ‘Listen. Ah didny come up here for the view. Anything you know ye better tell me.’
‘Only you are to be my husband for Tony.’
He watched her carefully. She didn’t look hard, more like an amateur still slightly surprised to be getting paid for it. When Paddy had set her up for Veitch, the second stage of the ploy with himself appearing as a husband who had to be bought off must have taken her by surprise. She probably couldn’t help.
But time was short. If Veitch had done Paddy, buying a box of matches could be a foolishly long-term investment for him, unless he wanted to leave it in his will. Mickey would have to move fast but carefully. He knew this place well enough to know that he didn’t know it well enough any more. He remembered another couple of lines of the song:
They’re nice until they think that God has gone a bit too far
And you’ve got the macho chorus swelling out of every bar.
You don’t skip through minefields. He needed a bomb-detector. It came to him as a small inspiration that the obvious one was Cam Colvin himself.
‘What hospital is Paddy in?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Victoria Infirmary.’
A baby started to cry. He watched her stubbing out the cigarette, careful of her nails. She got up and he heard her feet on the floor of the hall, then those private noises a mother makes to a child, as if she knows the whole world’s against it but she’s telling it a secret that will see it through.
He went out of the room and found the phone in the empty bedroom, where the light was still on and the bed was mussed. The voice in the Victoria Infirmary told him that the relatives of Mr Collins were with him. He reckoned he still had a little time.
When he came back into the sitting-room she was standing uncertainly at the fire. She turned as he crossed towards her. She contracted slightly as if he was going to hit her. He pulled the belt of her dressing-gown and slipped the garment off to fall on the floor. He pointed towards the bedroom. As she stilted awkwardly ahead of him, he watched her flesh quiver.
‘Ye’re supposed to be ma wife,’ he said. ‘We might as well have the honeymoon.’
2
The phone-call seemed just a casual interruption, but then one stone can start an avalanche.
‘And then,’ Ena had been saying. ‘What do you think? The car conked out completely. Just died on me. In the middle of the Clyde Tunnel. And where was Jack? On a case, of course. In Morecambe!’
Laidlaw had heard the story before. He had once suggested to Ena that presumably everyone had heard it, with the possible exception of the North Vietnamese. His rancour came from understanding the bizarre meaning the story had come to assume for Ena: the failure of the internal combustion engine equals marital neglect.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should’ve been running after it. I just forgot.’
The remark was accepted by the others as being funny as a dirty joke at a funeral. Laidlaw could feel his sense of isolation grow aggressive. He was saved by the phone.
‘I’ll get that,’ he said.
He was careful to moderate the pace of his departure, in case he burned the carpet. The phone was in the hall.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is this the Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw? Doyen of the Crime Squad? Protector of the Poor? The Punters’ Choice?’
Laidlaw recognised first the style and then the voice. It was Eddie Devlin of the Glasgow Herald.
‘Christ, Eddie,’ he said. ‘Your copy’s getting worse. Could you not get your sub-editor to come on the phone with you?’
‘It’s all this giving the public what it wants. Listen, Jack. There’s somebody in casualty at the Royal who wants you to go in and see him.’
‘Tonight? Did they say whether I was to bring Maltesers