The Papers of Tony Veitch

by William McIlvanney

  ‘Jack! I don’t understand this.’

  Laidlaw turned.

  ‘What do you want? A genealogical table? Arse in top gear, Brian. And let’s go. Trust me.’

  ‘Jack!’

  Harkness was still standing. He pointed at Laidlaw.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Laidlaw grimaced.

  ‘Brian. Who’s sure? God must be having second thoughts. But if I had to bet, I wouldn’t be asking for change of a million.

  Come on!’

  Harkness followed him through the automatic glass doors that Laidlaw almost put the head on. Inside was normalcy and Harkness’s misgivings grew.

  They were in Glasgow Airport on a summer evening. They looked around downstairs, where the check-in counters were. They checked all around upstairs, where the cafeteria was like Chekhov done by MGM, redundant man in panavision. They studied the upstairs lounge, a busy place.

  They heard the rattle of the departure boards, as if all human destinations had a stutter. They saw a couple of groups of teenagers caught in their aggressive uncertainty, here to go nowhere but a Monday night. They saw a young family, parents and two daughters, who looked as if they were waiting to go on holiday and as if the father was wondering how he got here. They saw a woman staringly drinking a clear drink. They saw five men with travelling bags making more noise than a revolution and being harmless. They didn’t see Dave McMaster.

  They came back downstairs. Harkness was getting fidgety when Laidlaw touched his arm. He nodded towards the toilets at the end of the downstairs area. A man with carefully waved hair had emerged. Instead of going anywhere, he hung about, looking around. That was the first suspicious thing about him. The second was that Harkness slowly realised he recognised him. He had seen him with John Rhodes, during the Bryson case. Harkness followed Laidlaw across to the man.

  ‘Hullo there,’ Laidlaw said.

  The man had been pretending he didn’t see them coming. They became a casual fence around him, pinning him to the wall.

  ‘Where is he?’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘Ah beg yer pardon?’

  ‘Dave McMaster.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘We’re looking for Dave McMaster,’ Laidlaw said patiently.

  ‘Ah don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about,’ the man said.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ Laidlaw said. ‘You’re here with Dave McMaster. Waiting in case Mickey Ballater shows up. We’re looking for Dave McMaster.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Harkness was beginning to be convinced. The man looked utterly baffled. Harkness took out his police-card and showed it to the man, smiling reassuringly.

  ‘Ah’m sorry,’ the man said. ‘Ah don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about. Ah’m waitin’ for the wife to get back fae Majorca.’

  ‘I know,’ Laidlaw said. ‘I’m waiting for Partick Thistle to win the European Cup. In the meantime. Where’s Dave McMaster?’

  The man shrugged and smiled.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘And due to be sorrier,’ Laidlaw said.

  Harkness was about to restrain Laidlaw’s anger when he noticed the man’s eyes move subtly between them, seeing something. Harkness knew what it was before he turned. Before he turned, he felt Laidlaw start to run. Turning, he was surprised by the are of Laidlaw’s run. Then he understood. Dave McMaster was whirling, caught between Harkness and Laidlaw, with Laidlaw blocking off the outside doors. McMaster had two cans of lager in his right hand. With a mouth as wide as a cannon he fired one at Harkness. Harkness fended it with his left arm and thought his elbow was broken. Instinctively, he knew something. He turned in one predetermined movement and butted the man with the wavy hair straight in the mouth, where his smile had been. The man stopped in mid-rush and his head bulleted back against the wall and he slid, as if he weighed two times himself, to the floor. It was a lucky hit but it would do.

  Noise was what Harkness was aware of, cacophony. Screams, they were. He turned back. One scream was from a woman. Outside the moment, she might have been pretty. Her black hair was bouncing and her arms were outstretched. She was ready to spring. A tall man had dropped his case. It was falling over. He was reaching for her, to hold her back. He made it, pinned her to him. Another scream was from a boy. He looked about five, dark-haired. His legs were kicking. He was held in Dave McMaster’s left arm. A knife was at his throat. Other screams were from other people somewhere. One was from Laidlaw, backing off like a tiger behind a chair.

  ‘You bastard!’ Laidlaw was screaming. ‘That’s how you live. Fucking time up!’

  In a moment Harkness would never forget, because he could never have imagined it, a small, balding man, who looked as if he wouldn’t have the gall to argue about wrong change, came in the doors behind Dave McMaster and grabbed the arm that held the knife. The small man was pulled up off the ground, swung kicking like a monkey that has lost its balance. But he stayed where he was, as if the arm was a lifeline. He didn’t know how to give up his hold. He was cut on the cheek and he fell, but the knife came with him. Dave McMaster threw the boy away like an empty wrapper.

  He ran, with instinctive skill, up the upward escalator. But Laidlaw was tight as a shadow. Breasting the top of the escalator behind them, as if his lungs had the yieldingness of stone, Harkness understood, with a kind of compassion, how crazy panic had made Dave. He had run into the lounge-bar, the entrance of which was the exit. It was over.

  Like watching a match on television when you already know the score, Harkness was still fascinated to find out how it would happen. He watched it as calmly as a replay, knowing now there was only one way to bet.

  McMaster threaded the tables expertly and Laidlaw knocked over two. The beer from one went up like a small tidal wave. It was the table where the five noisy men had been sitting.

  ‘Jesus fuck!’ one of them said, and Harkness, in the doorway, smiled.

  He saw the woman with the clear drink stand up, staring. McMaster went to the far wall and turned. He knew, Harkness knew, Laidlaw knew it was the end of something. McMaster lifted an empty pint-dish from a table and threw it at Laidlaw. Laidlaw ducked. The pint-mug bounced off the bar. And Laidlaw moved in. It wasn’t a fair fight.

  McMaster had decided he was beaten. He knew he was trapped. He needed somebody to help him out of the impasse. Laidlaw obliged. He hit McMaster twice, with the left from fear, with the right from courtesy. McMaster went down. Harkness arrived in time to help to pull him up. All three became a conspiracy against the place they had found themselves in. McMaster needed assistance to get out of the pretence he had lived with for so long, and this room was full of it. Laidlaw and Harkness needed as little hassle as possible. The three of them thought they might make it.

  But the five jolly drinkers didn’t agree. They blocked their way.

  ‘What’s this about?’ one of them said.

  ‘You spilled ma beer,’ another said to Laidlaw.

  Laidlaw looked at him. Glancing at the look, Harkness realised that Laidlaw was still high on his own excitement. He felt as if he was going to have to get two heavies out of the bar.

  ‘We’re from the Salvation Army,’ Laidlaw said. ‘It’s part of a drive to make people drink less.’

  The aggression of it made Harkness grit his teeth.

  ‘Two tae wan’s no’ fair,’ another said.

  His face was on fire with drink but the eyes were calm. He was like a Guy Fawkes who hasn’t yet noticed he’s on fire.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘Well, make me understand.’

  ‘I don’t have the time to give you a head-transplant.’

  Harkness understood what Laidlaw was feeling. You didn’t have to understand specialisation. But you had to understand that it was there.

  ‘Listen,’ Laidlaw said. ‘I think the five of you should all go away and do something more sensible. Like putting the head on a wall. In unison. Okay?’

  Laidlaw looked round the five of them.
Harkness flipped out his card and showed them it. Among mutterings, they let them pass. Harkness was glad.

  At the top of the stairs, they found the mother and her son and the man who had saved him. They were the centre of a fair crowd. The mother was threatening to kill Dave McMaster. Laidlaw tried to calm her. He found out the small man’s name and address. While he was talking, the woman with the clear drink had come out, still holding it. Her expression hadn’t changed throughout the whole sequence of events. She just stood, staring at Laidlaw. At last he looked towards her.

  ‘What’s that you’re drinking, love?’ he said. ‘Gin and catatonic?’

  The puzzlement saw them out of the building. The wavy-haired man was nowhere. They took Laidlaw’s car. Harkness heard Laidlaw ask a strange question.

  ‘Were you in the lavvy?’

  Harkness moved the rear mirror so that he could see Dave McMaster’s face.

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Did you go into the lavatory when you were up to buy those cans of lager?’

  Dave nodded. Harkness turned the mirror so that he could see Laidlaw’s face. Laidlaw was nodding. He seemed satisfied. Harkness was amazed. Laidlaw had a mania to know as much as he could. Even when he had achieved what he set out to achieve, he still wanted to know how. Bob Lilley had described him accurately in the Top Spot. He would die trying to get it right. He was still trying.

  ‘Tony Veitch didn’t know what Paddy Collins had done to Lynsey Farren, did he? You told her you had told Tony, didn’t you? That way, you could make her believe Tony had killed Paddy. Is that how it was?’

  ‘How what was?’

  Laidlaw was looking at Dave, not without sympathy.

  ‘The jig’s up, son,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to admit more than you did that night in East Kilbride. You’re not going out for a fancy meal now. Not for a long time. Like a lot of people who’ve done bad things, I think you wanted to get caught. Know why?’

  Dave was staring carefully ahead.

  ‘That lounge-bar. I caught you just outside the lavvy door. There’s another exit from that lavvy into the rest of the building. Why didn’t you use it?’

  In his mirror Harkness saw Dave’s eyes thinking about that.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Laidlaw said. ‘We can save you the trouble. We’ve got a bottle of vintage paraquat with your prints on it.’

  Dave’s eyes softened for the first time into doubt.

  36

  Hanging about the main office, Bob Lilley was glad that he saw Harkness first. Harkness sent his eyes to the ceiling in admission of what they both knew would have to be acknowledged. Bob looked at his left lapel and took in enough breath to launch a zeppelin.

  ‘It’s what they say, is it?’ he said.

  Harkness nodded.

  ‘Has he burst yet?’

  ‘Aye,’ Harkness said. ‘He’s burst. His fingerprints were on the bottle. That’s what did it. He’s writing his memoirs now.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Bob said. ‘Old Jack gets it right now and again, though. Doesn’t he? Sometimes I wish he didn’t.’

  ‘No,’ Harkness said. ‘I’m glad he does. Sometimes I don’t like him. But people like that deserve to get it right.’

  Laidlaw came in with a paper cup of coffee, looking for sugar. He had no problem finding it, being popular for the moment. He stirred his coffee and looked at Bob.

  ‘Ernie Milligan’s not around, is he?’ Laidlaw said.

  The room winced. Laidlaw smiled at Bob.

  ‘Naw,’ he said. ‘I’m only kidding. He did it according to his lights. Which are about two-kilowatt.’

  Harkness was about to defend Milligan when Laidlaw looked at him. It was a hard look, as sore as your father finding you out in a lie at the age of seven. Harkness knew what was coming.

  ‘Brian. There’s something I better say. I’m disappointed in you. I like you but you’re a slow learner. So you gave Big Ernie the photo. Fair enough. But you should’ve said. That’s all. It was fair enough giving it to him, if that’s what you felt. But you should’ve said. I felt a bit betrayed. When Macey let that slip. He didn’t know what he was saying. But I did. Aw, Brian.’

  ‘I was going to tell you.’

  ‘Going to’s what they put on the headstone. Be quicker next time. Friends should share.’

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ Bob said. ‘Maybe friends should share. But did you share with Ernie?’

  ‘Friends? I don’t see Ernie Milligan as a friend. “A thing devised by the enemy.” That’s what he is.’

  Laidlaw was testing his coffee, put in more sugar. He lit a cigarette.

  ‘Jack,’ Bob said. ‘You’ve done well. Don’t crow.’

  ‘I’m not crowing. Because I didn’t do well enough. Tony Veitch is dead. This case was a failure. But it could’ve been a bigger one. That’s all. I want to admit the failure but I don’t want to flagellate myself with it. You know?’

  Bob was pushing back his shoulders and putting on his the-world’s-my-junior face.

  ‘I still say you should’ve told Big Er—’

  ‘Bob. Don’t say. You’ve had your say. I sat in the Top Spot and listened to you a long time. And apart from the Fenwick Fury here, you’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve got in this place. And I took it because I couldn’t prove otherwise. But now I can. I’ve just proved it. So don’t tell me again. That I should’ve told Big Ernie. Because I shouldn’t. You accused me of careerism. Bob. I’m still here because I think it’s where it really matters. But only if you do it right. This time I haven’t done that. I just came closer than some. That doesn’t mean much. But maybe it could exempt me from your advice for a wee while. Eh? As auld Eck used to say.’

  Bob sculpted his face into impassiveness.

  ‘Okay, Jack. I was maybe out of order—’

  ‘Bob. I think you were definitely out of order.’

  ‘I was maybe out of order. But I don’t see any need to dig up Brian. He did what he thought was the right thing.’

  ‘Nobody’s digging up Brian. Brian. Am I digging you up?’

  ‘Well. I feel as if my second name was Pompeii.’

  ‘Ya bastard,’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘See what I mean, Jack?’ Bob said complacently. ‘You dig people up even when you don’t know you’re doing it.’

  ‘But I should’ve said,’ Harkness said.

  ‘Why?’ Bob said. ‘Jack would probably’ve needed tranquillizers if you had. I mean, what was wrong with telling Ernie?’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ Laidlaw said. ‘Because this thing isn’t finished yet. I’m sorry, Brian. But it’s what wee Frankie Millers sings: “You mighta brung brains to the show”. You know what you’ve done? Just by giving a photograph to Big Ernie. You’ve extended the problem.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Bob said. ‘Here we go again. Jack and his amazing crystal ball. Tell me, Jack. Why was that a problem?’

  ‘Because people like Ernie Milligan are dangerous. He knows this city, he says. Brian. You have to learn where to put your trust. He’s like a lot of policemen here. He knows the names of streets. He doesn’t know the city. Who does? Walk down a side-street on your own, you’re finding out again. Who ever knew a city? It’s a crazy claim. And those who make impossible claims are always going to cause more trouble than they solve.’

  ‘Aye, all right, Jack.’ Bob was trying to be patient. ‘But could you be more exact.’

  ‘Certainly. Somebody else is going to die. Like tomorrow or the next day.’

  ‘That’s a safe bet,’ Bob said. ‘In China, you mean?’

  ‘Brian. I’ll talk to you. Bob’s head’s on holiday. Milligan doesn’t solve bother. He manufactures it. Because he is a careerist. If trouble wasn’t there, he would invent it. He feeds on it, he needs it. You listened to Dave McMaster there. But did you hear him? He was telling us two things. He killed three people. And. There was Ballater. Hook Hawkins. John Rhodes. Cam Colvin. And Macey. You know what “volatile” means? That’s
what that mixture is. I mean, Cam and John. They don’t await the fullness of time. They’re looking for someone. Because they know this deal was gerrymandered. They may not know how. But they’re going to decide they do. Because they’re angry. And their kind of violence is just anger declaring independence from reason. That’s what Ernie Milligan’s helped to do. He puts his X into the equation and doesn’t give a shit how it affects the final calculation. Knows this city? He couldn’t get a bargain at the Barras.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, Jack,’ Bob said. ‘All that seeing into the future. You using Tarot cards?’

  ‘We’ll wait and see,’ Laidlaw said. ‘Anyway’ – he was staring into Harkness’s quietness – ‘what about more normal things? The stuff of life and that. How’s the women situation, Brian?’

  Harkness looked up at him, winked.

  ‘I’m getting engaged.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘Same from me. I think,’ Bob said. He looked at Laidlaw’s face. ‘Some bruise that. It’s a good thing Mickey Ballater was half-dead when you fought him.’

  ‘I know.’ Laidlaw was finishing his coffee, gruing at how sweet the dregs were. ‘My hands are lethal weapons. They could get me killed.’

  37

  Laidlaw’s usual problem with funerals was complicated this time. Always unable to bear the reduction of the dead individual’s complexity to a paint-by-numbers icon, his method was to clench as hard as he could on the sense of the person he remembered, like a rag for his mind to chew on. But all he had of Tony Veitch were the image of that grotesquely barbecued body and a few fragments of his writings like crazy paving that led nowhere.

  He wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what he was paying respect to. The minister seemed to be reading from the Book of Profound Platitudes. About as much as a stranger might have deduced about Tony Veitch was that he had eyes (‘a student not just of books but of life’s lessons’), a mouth (‘always anxious to discuss the world with his friends’) and that it had stopped breathing: ‘God took him to his bosom’ – some bosom, an embrace like kissing a shark.