‘It was a decision I made, that’s all.’
‘Aye, but why? Are you sure why, Jack? That was a dangerous decision. We’re dealing in people’s lives. It’s not a question of who gets the merit badges.’
‘Bob. It’s exactly because we’re dealing in lives that I didn’t pass it on. It’s exactly because I don’t care about making pinches for their own sake. Because I don’t want any mistakes. And I think that’s what happened. You can say I was wrong. But not for those shitty reasons.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘Anyway. Somebody sure enough passed it on.’
‘Thank Christ. It’s a good thing Ernie didn’t have to rely on you. I’m worried about you. I don’t want to think of you as jealous and I don’t want to think of you as mean. But it’s getting harder.’
‘Well, I’ll help by getting another drink.’
He collected their glasses.
‘Why not buy yourself something decent this time?’ Bob said. ‘That lime-juice and soda’s giving me the blues. Maybe it’s just alcohol-starvation that’s wrong with you.’
Laidlaw went along to the bar. The attractive waitress, who still hadn’t been discovered, looked at him quizzically as he went past but he ignored her. Bob sighed like a pair of bellows, his hands covering his face. The hands came down till they were over his mouth and he looked at Harkness, shaking his head. He smoothed back what was left of his hair, double-handed.
‘It’s a problem, Brian,’ he said. ‘I think you should watch him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he cracked up. Why can’t he leave anything alone? Look at him.’ Harkness looked up at Laidlaw standing bleak at the bar, like an undertaker at a wedding. ‘He’s doing the gantry stare.’ It was a phrase they shared to describe a recurring moment of bleak stillness that happened in Laidlaw’s eyes and appeared to mean some thing like, ‘This won’t do.’ The gantry was probably irrelevant to that mood. It was just that there was frequently one in front of him at the time. ‘He’s been knocked onto his horse on the road to Damascus again. Oh my Christ! You know that Paul Newman film? Cool Hand Luke? Well, I know who Jack is. He’s Cool Head Luke. Don’t let his anger kid you on. There’s always a few of the brain-cells in the deep-freeze. When they bury him, he’ll be watching how they do it. He’ll have peep-holes in the coffin. Probably shove the lid back and sit up. Say, “Wait a minute! Your grief looks a bit suspect. You can piss off. The rest of you, let’s try it again. Okay?” He’ll lie back down. A dozen times later, he won’t get up. And they can all go home.’
Harkness laughed.
‘No kidding, though, Brian. He’s in a dangerous frame of mind. Try not to let him blow his career. He could, you know. Anytime.’
Laidlaw returned with Bob’s whisky and Harkness’s lager. He had bought himself a double Antiquary.
‘No, Bob,’ he said.
‘Oh, Jack,’ Bob said. ‘Let’s talk about the weather. You know they’re going to alter this place? Call it “the Opera Bar”. You know, since the Scottish Opera took it over. How about that for a bit of fascinating chat?’
‘No, Bob. You’re wrong. I don’t grudge Ernie Milligan the case. So long as he got it right. But he didn’t. What seems to have happened isn’t what actually happened.’
Bob watered his whisky, sampled it and spoke to Laidlaw with an elaborate patience that suggested he was just keeping him humoured until the strait-jacket arrived.
‘Is that right, Jack? How do you make that out?’
‘Nothing he wrote suggests a murderer.’
‘Oh, Jack. Did Christie advertise? What do you want them to do? Leave signatures?’
‘On the bottle that killed Eck,’ Laidlaw said. ‘Two sets of fingerprints. One of them’s Eck’s. The other lot don’t belong to Tony Veitch.’
Bob was momentarily interested.
‘You’ve checked that off?’
Laidlaw nodded.
‘He gave a mate a drink,’ Bob said. ‘Didn’t he? They’re sharers, winos. Who wants his liver to die alone?’
‘They said he didn’t share. You remember that, Brian?’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ Harkness said.
‘That’s what some of them said,’ Bob said. ‘So maybe he had a special friend. Or somebody made a grab for the bottle. Thinner than a witch’s tit, Jack. To establish the value of that, you’d have to fingerprint every rummy in Glasgow.’
‘Oh, I think we could make a shorter leet than that. And what actually ties Tony Veitch to the killings?’
‘Only the knife that did Paddy Collins and a tin of paraquat.’
‘There were no prints on the paraquat tin.’
‘So he wiped them off.’
‘And kept the tin in his flat. What sense does that make?’
‘Enough.’
‘No. Not quite enough.’
‘His prints were on the knife all right.’
‘They could have been put there easily enough. Only his prints were found in the flat. But there were plenty of smudges consistent with the wearing of gloves.’
‘Pimples, Jack. They don’t alter the essential features of the case.’ Bob smiled, as if he had suddenly remembered how much he liked Laidlaw. ‘Tell us, O wise one, what really happened. Eh?’
Laidlaw neutralised the facetiousness by taking the question seriously.
‘It’s what didn’t happen I think we should start from. Tony Veitch didn’t commit suicide. At least, I don’t think he did. He was manic to talk to the world. Suicide tends to amputate your larynx. I know how thin that is, Bob. I’ve done this job long enough to know the kind of somersaults the head can take. I know we often express our most intense feelings by doing the opposite. The more desperate the talker, the more effectively he defines his own silence. The bit he knows he’ll never be able to say. So maybe Tony Veitch went in the huff with the world. Because it wouldn’t listen. Or killed himself just because of the distance between his ideals and the things he’d done. If he’d done them. It could’ve been like that. But I don’t think so. I think somebody did him and set it up to look like suicide. And I think I know who did it. But I don’t expect anybody else to agree with me.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Harkness said. ‘Who, though?’
‘Unfair to say. But I’m going to do a bit of scuffling myself today, Brian. Nothing too official, like.’
‘Jack. I’ll come with you.’
‘No. I think I’m going to need you later on. If I get what I’m looking for. And I’ll be in touch. But I’m going to hassle a few people first. And you shouldn’t be involved in that.’
Bob was staring at Laidlaw.
‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have gone on to the hard stuff. You seem to get pissed very quick. Maybe you’re not used to it now.’
Laidlaw smiled and drank the whisky.
‘You going to get me another one?’ he said to Bob,
‘I’ll do that,’ Harknes said and winked at Bob as he left.
‘Not for me, Brian,’ Bob said. ‘They must be spiking it. Come on, you,’ to Laidlaw. ‘You’ve been a mug. But you’re trying to graduate to being a loony too quick. What’s this you’re talking about?’
‘It’s what I’m going to do.’
‘Who you going to see?’
‘Some people.’
‘Stick the mystery up your arse, Jack. Tell me what you’re going to do. I may have to go bail.’
‘Forget it. I’ll stand by anything I do.’
‘Listen, bloody Robin Hood. You’ve got a career. If you do this, tomorrow you may not have.’
‘Naw. You listen. I’ve got a life. That’s more than any career. And I wouldn’t be able to spend it sitting beside myself if I let this pass. And this case isn’t right. Some bastard’s put it together like a Meccano-set. And I’m going to take it apart. Three people are dead. And their bodies are buried in lies. Not on! Not for me it’s not. That’s why I’m here, supposed to be. To arrive at whatever half-arsed version of the truth’s available. And that’s what I’m going to do. If I have to break in doors to do it.’