Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  After an hour or so of fruitless enquiries at the golf club they had been back at the station only a few minutes when Miss Purvis telephoned to say that ‘that horrible boy Crosbie’ had come into the library and was gloating.

  ‘If he’s being a nuisance,’ said McLeod, ‘call the police.’

  ‘Aren’t you the police?’

  ‘We’re C.I.D. You want the uniformed branch, Miss Purvis.’

  ‘But you told me one of them might come back to gloat. Well, he’s gloating all right.’

  ‘Miss Purvis, if it was Crosbie that broke into the library and left that money-box behind then I’m the Loch Ness Monster.’

  ‘I still think you should come and question him. He’s weak-minded, isn’t he? It should be easy to get the truth out of him.’

  About as easy as getting milk out of a bull. Unless of course Crosbie felt like shopping someone.

  ‘Very well, Miss Purvis, we’ll be along shortly.’

  McLeod found Crosbie in the reading-room, gloating all right but it was over the big breasts of a young woman in a newspaper. A sniffy old man waited impatiently for his turn.

  ‘Hello, Johnny,’ whispered McLeod, into the not very clean ear. ‘How would you like to come out to my car for a minute or two?’

  ‘What for?’

  The old man became Crosbie’s ally. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Detective Sergeant McLeod of the C.I.D.’

  ‘If it’s against the law to look at these pictures it should be against the law to publish them. They’re just a temptation for the likes of young fellows like this. What do you want him for?’

  ‘I’m making some enquiries and I think he may be able to help.’

  ‘Take him away then.’ The old man seized the newspaper. The girl in the picture could have been his grand-daughter. He was already slavering over her.

  McLeod felt disgusted. He had no sympathy for the lechery of the old. Flora was amused. ‘Remember you’ll be old yourself one day, Angus.’

  They sat in the car, McLeod and Crosbie in the back, Black in front.

  ‘What were you doing in the library, Johnny?’ asked McLeod.

  ‘Looking at books. That’s what libraries are for, isn’t it?’

  ‘But you can’t read, Johnny.’

  Crosbie leered. ‘Who told you that? This is what I’m reading. It’s good. Would you like me to give it to you when I’m finished with it?’

  He had taken from his picket a paperback on the cover of which was depicted in gaudy colours an act of copulation, in the manner of animals, by a man and woman both naked.

  Black stretched forward to see it.

  ‘Filth,’ muttered McLeod. ‘Where did you get this?’ A few months ago he had succeeded in having a newsagent in the town fined fifty pounds for selling pornography like this. Mrs Porteous had congratulated him.

  ‘A pal gave it to me.’

  ‘Mick Dykes, you mean?’

  ‘Biggest dick in town,’ murmured Black.

  ‘You’re not often in the library on Saturday mornings, are you, Johnny?’ said McLeod.

  ‘It’s a free country. I can go where I want.’

  ‘When you broke into the library last night, you and Mick, why didn’t you take the money-box? Your finger-prints are all over it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  McLeod’s questioning was half-hearted. He was convinced that Crosbie for once was innocent. ‘Where is Dykes?’ he asked. ‘I thought you and him were inseparables.’

  ‘Maybe he’s paying Fat Annie a visit,’ said Black. ‘I don’t think Johnny’s welcome there.’

  McLeod frowned. He knew about young Dykes and Mrs Burnet – it was a joke at the station – but he did not find it funny like the others.

  ‘Who’s Fat Annie?’ asked Crosbie, slyly.

  McLeod opened the door. ‘Get out.’

  ‘What about giving me a lift home? For wasting my time.’

  ‘The talk is that Archie Cooper’s coming home on leave this week-end, Johnny,’ said Black. ‘With a mate.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘They say he’s going to get even with you for what you did to his sister Sally.’

  ‘I did nothing she didn’t want me to. It’s your job to protect me.’ With that he slammed the door shut and ran off.

  ‘Miserable creature,’ said McLeod, in pity and anger. ‘All the same it is our duty to protect him. I wonder if Sergeant Milne’s going to keep an eye on Cooper. For Cooper’s own sake, I mean. It would be very foolish of the young man to spoil his career in the Army because of a rascal like Crosbie.’

  ‘Serge, nobody in the town would believe Crosbie if he said it was Cooper that had blacked his eyes and bloodied his nose and mangled his privates.’

  ‘That’s enough, Harry. The boy may be a depraved beast but he has a mother who loves him.’

  ‘Yes, serge.’ Black managed not to smile. That evening though when he was telling Fiona he would roar with laughter. So would she.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  On Saturday evening Cooley was sitting on the sofa in Duffy’s living room, sullenly smoking, in her outdoor clothes, with her Singapore Airlines bag at her feet. She hadn’t been able to persuade him to give up the raid on the church, and if she didn’t take part in it herself she wasn’t to get the ten pounds he had promised her.

  Shit in itself didn’t scunner her: it was natural, like fallen leaves. She didn’t believe in God so hymn-books weren’t sacred to her. Anything that would disgust Mrs Porteous should have pleased her. For those reasons she should have been looking forward to the visit to the church, but on the contrary every time she thought of it she grued. This wasn’t because Mick Dykes and Johnny Crosbie were to take part. Well, it wasn’t altogether that. There was another reason that she felt like a pain in her mind but couldn’t put into words.

  Duffy had his eyes shut and his hands clasped, like a priest praying before a holy ceremony. He had been busy up to a short time ago making preparations. He had tried to keep these secret.

  They were waiting for Dykes and Crosbie.

  ‘You’re not human, Duffy,’ she said.

  She had said it to him before and he had regarded it as a compliment, but she could think of nothing that would express better what she felt about him.

  In spite of her own contempt for people she needed their company. It had been the loneliness at the coup more than the cold and discomfort that she had found hardest to bear, so much so that she had talked to the rats. The person she hated most was the one she would have most liked to be. She wanted what Mrs Porteous had, plenty of money, a big house, two cars, pearls, and expensive clothes.

  God knew what Duffy wanted.

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘everybody’s selfish, everybody’s a liar, and every bastard that’s got authority abuses it. I should know. But what about yourself, Duffy? Nobody could be more selfish than you. You’ve never given that much of yourself to anyone.’ She put two fingers so close together that there wasn’t room for a flea. ‘Maybe you don’t tell lies but you think them.’

  He opened his eyes and gave her another smile that chilled her blood. Could she imagine him using that kitchen knife on her if she provoked him too far? No, but she could almost imagine him getting Crosbie to do it for him.

  The door-bell rang.

  ‘Look, Duffy,’ he said, ‘if you’re really set on doing it we’ll do it ourselves, you and me. You don’t want to have anything more to do with that crummy pair.’

  It rang again.

  ‘Open the door, Helen,’ he said.

  Don’t call me Helen, she screamed within. Yet he wasn’t to call her Cooley either.

  Perhaps they had brought Molly with them. Wee Cathie too. They didn’t know yet about the job in the church. They probably hoped they were coming to a party, with drink, sex, and dancing.

  She went and opened the door.

  They stood grinning at her,
the big ape and the small rat. It was strange how grins could be so different and yet so alike. Mick’s was eager, friendly, and pathetic. Crosbie’s was sly, secretive, and pathetic.

  ‘We’re a bit late,’ said Mick. ‘Johnny had to come by all the quiet ways. Archie Cooper’s in town. Wee Cathie saw him and his mate going into a pub.’

  ‘I’m not frightened of them,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘He wants Duffy to hide him the way he’s been hiding you, Cooley.’

  ‘Duffy’s got another job for you.’

  ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘He’ll tell you himself. Don’t laugh. He wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Why should we laugh? Is he in a good mood?’

  Somehow the ordinary phrase ‘a good mood’ hardly applied to Duffy. ‘I don’t know what kind of mood he’s in,’ she said, tartly.

  They went into the living room. Dykes and Crosbie stood like soldiers awaiting orders. Duffy was now both general and priest.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, Duffy.’ They sat down on the sofa.

  Cooley snatched up her bag and retired to a chair in the background.

  ‘Can we smoke, Duffy?’ asked Dykes.

  Duffy nodded.

  Dykes and Crosbie lit up.

  So did Cooley, though it was her third in the last hour. The more cigarette smoke there was in the room the more annoyed Duffy would be, and the more annoyed he was the more human he’d become. So she hoped, anyway.

  ‘Why didn’t you bring Molly, Mick?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s tomorrow night she’s to come. Isn’t it, Duffy? I told her. You never saw anybody more pleased, the silly cunt.’ The word was spoken fondly. ‘She really goes for you, Duffy. Cooley said you had a job for us. Whatever it is you’ll find us game. But Johnny’s got something to tell you first. Go on, Johnny, tell him.’

  ‘Tell him what?’ asked Cooley. ‘Have you killed another cat, Johnny?’

  ‘We’re not talking to you, Cooley,’ said Dykes. ‘We’re talking to Duffy.’

  ‘I went to the library this morning,’ muttered Crosbie.

  Though he cringed and tried to look ashamed he was really gleeful inside. Cooley wondered if Duffy saw that.

  ‘I told you he would,’ she said.

  Duffy was as patient as a priest.

  ‘I didn’t tell them anything, Duffy.’

  ‘Johnny would never shop you, Duffy,’ said Dykes. ‘He likes you.’

  They didn’t know the danger they were in, thought Cooley. They hadn’t seen those paintings.

  ‘Who’s them, Johnny?’ asked Duffy, quietly.

  ‘Teuchter and Flash Harry.’

  Cooley explained. ‘Detective Sergeant McLeod and Detective Constable Black. Friends of mine, I don’t think. Black’s called Flash Harry because he dresses like a dude.’

  ‘Teuchter came into the reading room and said he wanted to speak to me,’ said Crosbie.

  ‘What were you doing in the reading room, Johnny? You don’t usually go there on Saturday mornings, do you?’

  Crosbie leered. ‘I was looking at boobs in the newspaper. Bluenose wanted to throw me out but she didn’t.’

  ‘She was keeping you there till McLeod came,’ said Cooley.

  ‘Why did you go to the library, Johnny?’ asked Duffy.

  ‘I wanted to see Bluenose’s face. She’d been greeting. Her eyes were red.’

  ‘What did McLeod say to you?’

  ‘It’s all right, Duffy,’ said Dykes. ‘They know that if it had been Johnny who’d broken in he’d have taken the box with the money. That’s what you wanted them to think, wasn’t it? Smart thinking, Duffy.’

  Cooley had a curious feeling that there were two Duffies in the room, the one watching the other all the time. Perhaps she was thinking of the two faces in the paintings.

  ‘Did they say anything about the pages?’ asked Duffy.

  ‘They never mentioned them, Duffy.’

  ‘The bags are gone,’ said Mick. ‘The other garbage is still there but not the bags.’

  ‘Maybe Teuchter’s not so dumb,’ said Cooley. ‘You should have hidden them under the bushes, general. Anyway, what difference does it make?’

  She knew very well that Duffy would think it made a great difference. There would be no shocks for the readers of the books. They would not be suddenly jolted from the world of make-believe into the world of reality. They would not be forced to face the truth about themselves.

  She herself thought that was a load of crap.

  At any rate he should know better now than to trust a vicious clown like Crosbie.

  ‘Cooley said you’d another job for us, Duffy,’ said Mick. ‘Whatever it is Johnny and me are game.’

  Duffy hesitated. For a few seconds Cooley thought that he was thinking of abandoning his silly war.

  ‘Tonight,’ he said, slowly, ‘we are going to break into St Stephen’s church.’

  Mick Dykes was not only astounded, he was also greatly alarmed. Cooley remembered how superstitious he was.

  ‘What the fuck is there to steal in a church?’ he muttered.

  ‘We are not going to steal anything.’

  ‘Are we going to tear pages out of Bibles?’ asked Crosbie, sniggering.

  At least it was a better idea than Duffy’s. ‘Wouldn’t that be enough?’ asked Cooley.

  Duffy ignored her. ‘What we are going to do,’ he said, ‘is to put a spot of excrement on all the hymn-books in the first twelve rows.’

  Mick was like a dog confronted by a hedgehog. His mind reached out to consider the matter and then drew back, baffled. ‘Excrement?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Shit,’ said Cooley.

  ‘I know what it is,’ he said, peevishly. It was its relevance in relation to hymn-books that puzzled him.

  ‘Who are the members of St Stephen’s?’ asked Duffy.

  ‘Mrs Porteous is one,’ said Mick.

  Once, in Dirty Chuck’s, braving many jeers, he had confessed that of all the women in Lightburn Mrs Porteous was the one he fancied most.

  ‘That’s the church big Milne goes to,’ said Crosbie, ‘him and his humphy-backed wife.’

  ‘Miss Purvis is a member,’ said Duffy. ‘So is Chief-Inspector Findlay. And Dr Telfer. All the people in Lightburn who think that you, Mick, and you, Johnny, and you, Cooley, and me are dirt beneath their feet.’

  Cooley had to agree with him, but to complicate things she thought Crosbie was dirt beneath her feet, and Mick too because of his treatment of Molly.

  ‘I see what Duffy’s getting at,’ said Crosbie. ‘They’re all snobs. He wants to show them that they’re as common as shit, like us. Is that it, Duffy?’

  ‘That’s it, Johnny.’

  There was no doubt about it. If Duffy gave the order this disciple of his would cut throats.

  Mick still had qualms. ‘I don’t like monkeying about in a church. It’s unlucky. We’d have to go through the graveyard.’

  ‘With all the corpses rising out of their graves and rattling their bones at you, Mick,’ said Cooley.

  ‘It’s not funny, Cooley.’ Seeking practical objections, he lowered his voice. ‘Where would you get all the stuff?’

  ‘Duffy’s got it ready, in a biscuit tin with a picture of Bonnie Prince Charlie on the lid.’

  ‘The arrangements have been made,’ said Duffy.

  ‘Is it worth it, Duffy? All that trouble? What would we get out of it?’

  ‘Mick’s right,’ said Cooley. ‘It might be worth it if we could be in church tomorrow to see their faces, but we can’t. Anyway, I’m catching the bus for Glasgow tonight.’

  ‘What will we put it on with?’ asked Mick, with a shudder.

  ‘Our fingers,’ said Crosbie, gleefully.

  ‘The arrangements have been made,’ repeated Duffy.

  Cooley could not resist saying, ‘We’ll let you do Mrs Porteous’s, Mick.’

  He cheered up. ‘I’d like that.’

  There were man
y queer ways of showing love, she thought, but surely none queerer than that.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  St Stephen’s church had been built in 1846, three years after the Great Disruption in the Church of Scotland, when the prosperous seceders of Lightburn, determined to prove the sincerity of their allegiance to Christ the King and at the same time to confound their opponents, had erected the most massive structure they could afford, of grey stone, with a soaring steeple and solid, dignified, though hardly comfortable interior furnishings. In time, as bigotry waned, stained glass windows and an organ had been installed. The kirkyard was like a small wood, with some full grown trees. The roots of these gave trouble to the gravediggers as did the leaves in autumn to the caretakers, but the congregation liked to think of their departed relatives and friends as lying snug beneath the spreading branches, sung to by birds. It was the custom on dry days for worshippers to chat reverently amidst the trees, but on cold dark nights in March the kirkyard was deserted, save for homeless cats or foraging owls or even a wandering fox.

  It was easy therefore for Duffy’s small army to creep through the gates and among the trees up to the back door without being seen. He carried the biscuit tin wrapped in airtight silver foil. In his pockets he had the rest of the equipment: four small wooden spoons, the kind used for supping ice-cream, and four plastic cups that had once contained assorted yoghurt.

  Gravestones came close to the back door. The nearest had an angel on top. Cooley slung her airbag over a wing. In the light from distant street lamps many other gravestones could be seen. Once or twice she thought they were moving towards her, but it was the effects of shadows.

  To her amusement her hand was gripped by Mick’s. His was cold and stiff, and his teeth were chittering.

  Duffy and Crosbie were trying to open a small window at the side of the door.

  ‘I don’t like it here,’ muttered Mick.

  ‘Why not? It’s nice and quiet and it’s out of the wind.’

  ‘It’s not lucky to disturb the dead.’