The Papers of Tony Veitch. William McIlvanney
than Haggs Castle. They didn’t know whether to bandage him or play a round on him. He’s been a dead man for days. They were just waiting for him to admit it. Last night he admitted it.’
‘You know who did it?’
‘No. But I will. I was with him a few times, but he never recovered consciousness. You know who he was?’
‘Paddy Collins.’
‘Aye. And Hitler was a housepainter. His name’s just Paddy Collins, but you know what his connection is? Cam Colvin’s brother-in-law. You know what that means?’
‘Paddy Collins might not be the only dead man.’
‘This could really be something big.’ Milligan’s blatant enthusiasm disconcerted Harkness, like someone offering guided tours of the mortuary. ‘Imagine it. I saw Cam’s sister at the hospital. She’s really into the grief-stricken widow routine. She’s had days to rehearse it. She’s getting good. Great, isn’t it? Her man’s always been a bigger shit than two tons of manure. Nasty to birds, nasty to blokes. Living off Cam Colvin’s reputation. Anybody who knew him would’ve voted him the man most worthy to be a corpse. But put him on a hospital bed and shove a tube up his nose, and it’s bring on the angel choirs. She’s going to make it seem like the end of the world. And Cam’s not going to like that. He’s going to want to give her a shroud to dry her tears. With somebody inside it. He can’t let it go.’
Harkness shook his head, absorbing the implications.
‘It makes Jack’s worry seem less than major,’ he said.
‘Who, Laidlaw? He still your neighbour? St Francis of Simshill. What’s he up to?’
‘I phoned my father there. Jack had been on the phone for me. Eck Adamson died in the Royal last night.’
‘That’s a worry? It’s about as sad as breaking a bottle of meths. He must’ve been pure alcohol by now. Of course, maybe to Laidlaw he was just another example of suffering humanity. Christ, we’ve all got our worries, right enough. Anyway, as a tout Eck was about as much good as a budgie. He could hardly repeat what you told him, never mind tell you anything else. But I’ve got a real tout. Remember Macey?’
Harkness nodded. When he worked with Milligan, he had met Benny Mason several times. Macey had been what policemen call ‘a good ned’ – professional, unviolent, prepared to play the percentages and take the odds the way they fell without complaint. He seemed to regard his transition to informer as a self-determined promotion. He wore it well, his nerves seemingly unaffected by the hazards of inhabiting that criminal limbo. Harkness had heard recently that on a break-in when an ill-informed policeman chased Macey and caught him, Macey had calmly explained, ‘Ye’re no’ supposed tae catch me. Ah telt ye about this job. Ah’m the one that jist manages tae get away.’ He did.
‘You’re still using him?’
‘Never to stop,’ Milligan said. ‘I’ve got his balls in a vice. He’s mine. He’s in with Hook Hawkins. I’ve told him he’s got to come up with something about Paddy Collins. I’m sure he can. He better.’
‘Just watch he doesn’t make it up.’
Milligan laughed.
‘Be like ordering his headstone. Nah. Macey’s not that simple. He’ll do me a wee turn. I’m seeing him tonight. Guess where?’
Harkness shrugged.
‘The Albany.’
‘The Albany? You’re kidding. That’s a helluva place to meet a tout.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Like asking him to advertise.’
‘Isn’t it? He was going to renege. Couldn’t believe it. Shouting down the phone. But I made him agree. I’ll bet he had to wade through his actual excrement to get out the phone-box.’
‘Why?’
‘I want him feeling vulnerable. As if he’s left his cover in the house.’ Milligan winked. ‘You in a hurry?’
‘Aye,’ Harkness said. ‘Jack wants me to meet up with him early.’
‘You going to get these dishes? I’ll get ready. I want to be busy-busy today. Listen. I’ll be in the Admiral late this afternoon, if you’ve the time. We could have a jar. If your guts have recovered.’
When they went down into the street, Harkness looked up at a sky like a dustbin-lid. It fitted his hangover. He was wishing he could share Milligan’s joviality, when a long-haired young man in jeans, looking back, bumped into Milligan. The young man looked at Milligan without apologising.
‘Fuck off before I step on you,’ Milligan said and started laughing.
Harkness remembered something Laidlaw had said about Milligan’s laughter – ‘It’s the sound of bones breaking.’
He settled for his hangover.
8
In the bar of the Gay Laddie, John Rhodes’ favourite pub in the Calton, the beginning – and some said the end – of the East End of Glasgow, there was what felt like a crowd. There was Macey and Dave McMaster and Hook Hawkins. The rest of them were John Rhodes.
In spite of his experience, Macey never failed to be awed by John. It was nothing specific. It wasn’t his size, which was considerable. It wasn’t just the crazy lightness of his eyes, blue as a brochure sea. There was no external you could finally attach the feeling to. Perhaps it had something to do with the sense of accumulated past violence John carried, bad places been to and come back from. The effect his presence had on Macey was of conveying danger, as if his life was a matter of juggling with liquid oxygen. And always the feeling found itself relegated to recurring mirage by his easy naturalness.
Looking at John now, pouring four mugs of tea from the pot that Dave had brewed in the back, Macey was freshly aware of the combustible contradictions that were John Rhodes. Their presence here was part of them. They were meeting in the pub because John would allow no intrusion from the violent ways he made his money to disturb the home where his wife and two daughters might as well have had a bank-manager as the breadwinner.
The thought of that strangeness was echoed by the strangeness of the place. It was about half-past nine in the morning and, slanting down from the high windows that were slits of glass reinforced with mesh, the shafts of light were constellated with motes and gave the still, quiet pub an incongruous solemnity, like a chapel with a gantry. The ritual of the tea completed, the high priest spoke.
‘Hook,’ he said. ‘Tell me the truth. You know whit Cam Colvin’s on about?’
Hook Hawkins appealed to the bar. His upturned head moved as if deliberately displaying the scar that ran down his left cheek and under his chin. Some said his nickname came from that, because it had been given to him by a man with a hook for a hand. Others said the name belonged to his brief career as a boxer.
Remembering his meeting tonight with Ernie Milligan, Macey had more reason than his natural curiosity for paying careful attention. He knew that Hook and Paddy Collins had once had a fall-out but he had never heard why. He wondered if it had been about something which wasn’t really over. But he found Hook’s performance convincing.
‘Honest to God. Ah don’t know whit it’s all about, John. Ah don’t know.’
‘Paddy Collins is dead,’ John said. ‘You don’t know anythin’ about that?’
‘We were mates.’
‘Ye weren’t always mates.’
‘That trouble was all finished, John.’
‘Maybe Cam doesny think so. This Sammy’s a friend of yours, Macey?’
‘Aye. Well, an acquaintance, John. A harmless boay.’
John