‘Colvin looking for revenge?’
‘Someone’s going to have to pay. The pub where they found the body, it’s on Rhodes’s turf.’
‘I spotted him there not two hours ago,’ Laidlaw agreed, eliciting a look from Lilley.
‘Story is, Rhodes and the owner go back a ways. Guy had to get out of Belfast in a hurry and Rhodes lent a hand, maybe even got him the shipyard job. Then the guy scoops the pools and buys the Parlour, even after splitting the winnings with Rhodes as a thank you.’
‘So if Colvin goes ruffling feathers there...’ Laidlaw locked eyes with Lilley to make sure he understood the implications before turning his attention back to Adamson. ‘Why was he killed, though, Eck? That’s what we need to find out.’
‘Cherchez la femme, that’s what they say, Mr Laidlaw.’
‘And you wouldn’t have been paid a princely sum by anyone to lead us into that particular maze?’
Adamson managed to look insulted, even as he sank half of the fresh pint of Guinness. He wiped foam from his top lip as he shook his head.
‘Because if I find out you’ve been trying to play us,’ Laidlaw continued calmly, ‘it won’t be your balls I’ll be kicking into powder — it’ll be that shrivelled thing inside you that passes for a soul.’
11
Lilley offered him a lift home and Laidlaw decided not to refuse. But he did ask for a detour, giving the address in Bearsden, and when Lilley asked why, all he could do was shrug.
‘You saw John Rhodes,’ Lilley said. ‘When were you going to tell me that?’
‘I literally bumped into him as I was coming out of the Parlour, just after I’d walked in on Colvin’s goons giving the landlord some grief.’ Laidlaw paused, eyes on the passing scenery. ‘Lucky the two opposing forces didn’t meet.’
‘And this is your normal way of working?’
‘It’s the only way I know.’
‘Seems to me, every station you work at, that method only gets you so far before you’ve put everyone’s back up and have to be shunted elsewhere.’
‘What is it they say about a prophet in his own country?’
‘That he should start making allies, because one day he might just need them?’
‘Aye, something like that.’ Laidlaw reached down to switch on the radio. Dr Kissinger was talking about peace in Vietnam. ‘They’d be as well sending Dr Strangelove,’ Laidlaw commented.
‘You reckon Nixon’s going to beat McGovern next month?’
‘I could beat McGovern, Bob. Every time I think politics here can’t get any lower or more venal, I look across the pond and wonder if I’m staring into a crystal ball.’
‘Kissinger’s got a head on him, though.’
‘Aye, and if it gets any bigger he’ll have trouble squeezing through the doors of all those planes he seems to like taking. Say what you like about the Scots, we hate to see people get above themselves.’
‘We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns right enough.’
‘And what a bastard of a father he turned out to be...’
‘This’ll do,’ Laidlaw stated when they reached Bobby Carter’s street.
‘We going in?’
Laidlaw shook his head. The car had stopped one house shy of Carter’s. Time was, mourning meant the curtains would be drawn closed day and night until after the funeral, but he got the feeling the downstairs ones had been pulled to only because it had grown dark.
‘She’s a bit of a looker, the widow,’ Lilley stated. ‘Milligan has a photo up on the murder wall. I’d say he’s slightly smitten. Wonder how she ended up with a piece of pond life like Bobby Carter.’
Laidlaw drew in a deep breath. ‘When me or my brother were bad-mouthing someone, our mum always said the same thing — “Ach, he’s somebody’s rearing.” I suppose what she meant was, everyone’s loved by someone and we don’t always know the reason why.’
‘You’re telling me even arseholes have their good side and deserve some sort of justice?’
‘The law’s not about justice. It’s a system we’ve put in place because we can’t have justice.’
Lilley thought: the man speaks like the books on his desk, the lines honed by rehearsal. But did they mean much of anything?
Laidlaw was winding down the window, nodding towards the lamplit suburban street. ‘This is why we have to solve the case,’ he said. ‘On the surface everything appears much as it was, but one house has been hit by a bomb. They’re in there sifting through the rubble. Carter might have been a mobster outside the home, but here he was a husband and dad. That’s our client, Bob — Dr Jekyll rather than Mr Hyde.’
‘Wonder if the rest of the street knew how he came to afford a home here.’
They noticed movement at the living room window of the house opposite the Carters’ and caught a glimpse of an elderly face. Whoever was inside was pretending to adjust the curtains while actually wondering whose car had just arrived.
‘Nosy parker,’ Lilley stated.
‘The neighbourhood eyes and ears,’ Laidlaw agreed.
‘So we’re not going in and we’re not getting out?’
‘We’re travellers, Bob, that’s all.’
‘Aye, and some of us want to travel home. Others I’m not so sure about.’
‘Did you sign up thinking the job was nine to five?’
‘They told me ten till four with regular breaks.’
‘Maybe that’s my problem then — I should have joined the union as well as the lodge. But if you’re in a hurry, I’ve seen what I need to.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Another piece of the infinite jigsaw that makes Glasgow the second city of the Empire.’
Lilley was shaking his head slowly as he executed a three-point turn, wondering if working with Laidlaw was likely to get any easier.
Laidlaw himself started giving directions as they reached the outskirts of Simshill. His home was on a street between Linn Park and King’s Park. Lilley didn’t know the area and would probably have called it Cathcart rather than Simshill. Without being asked, he had informed Laidlaw that he and Margaret had lived in Dowanhill all their married lives and he couldn’t see them flitting any time soon.
‘I’ve brought you out of your way,’ Laidlaw said, almost apologetically.
‘Which means I can take you back, if you want me to wait.’
He shook his head. ‘Might take a bit of time to pack. I’ll be fine in a taxi.’
As they drew to a stop, the door of the semi-detached house opened, as if Ena had been waiting. When Laidlaw emerged from the car, Lilley got out too. He stood at the driver’s side and offered a smile in her direction, which she answered with a wave. She was a handsome woman but looked fatigued. Laidlaw’s shoulders were hunched as he walked up the path towards her. If the visit to Bearsden had energised him, that energy had now dissipated, though he revived when one of his children bounded past her mother and hurled herself into Laidlaw’s arms.
Lilley felt all of a sudden that he was intruding on a private moment, albeit one played out in public view. He dived back into the car and put it into gear. His last view was of Laidlaw’s back, the child’s thin arms clamped around his neck as both headed indoors. Ena had already left the stage.
It was ten by the time Laidlaw stepped out of the taxi at the Burleigh Hotel. The driver hadn’t felt much like chatting after Laidlaw had asked which of the city’s gangsters he ultimately worked for. Cabs, scrapyards, bouncers, knocking shops, betting offices — scratch the surface of any of those industries and you’d find a Rhodes, a Colvin or a Matt Mason. When he’d added a tip to the fare, there had been the most token grunt of gratitude, so much so that he’d almost asked for it back. Instead, he’d picked up his case and pushed open the door to the hotel, climbing the three steps to the reception desk, where Jan greeted him with a welcoming smile.