had braked sharply. There was no doubt about it; this was the place.
“This is it, Bertie,” he said quietly. “This is where the car was. Right here.”
Stuart pointed to a place now occupied by a large green Mercedes-Benz. Bertie stepped forward and stared into the car, as if expecting to find some clue to the disappearance of their Volvo. And as he did so, they heard a door open in the house directly behind them and a voice call out:
“Yous! Whit chu doin lookin at Mr O’Connor’s motor?”
53. Lard O’Connor
Bertie sprang back guiltily from the green Mercedes-Benz. He had not so much as touched the glittering car, but the voice from behind him, more of a growl really, would have been enough to frighten anybody, let alone a six-year-old boy on his first trip to Glasgow.
Stuart was taken aback, too, by the accusatory tone of the voice. “My son hasn’t done anything,” he said. “We were just looking.”
The man who had appeared at the door of the house had strode down the path and was now facing Stuart, staring at him belligerently. “Looking for what?” he asked. “Yous never seen a Merc before, eh?”
“I’ve seen one,” said Bertie brightly. “Mrs Macdonald, who lives at the top of the stair, has got a custard-coloured one. She offered to take me for a ride in it.”
The man looked down at Bertie. “Whit you talking aboot, son?”
“He’s just saying . . .” began Stuart.
“Shut your gob, Jim,” said the man. “Whit’s this aboot custard?”
“Oh really!” said Stuart in exasperation. “This is quite ridiculous. Come, Bertie, let’s go.”
Lard O’Connor
175
The man suddenly leaned forward and grabbed Stuart by the arm. “Not so fast, pal. You’re coming in to have a word with Mr O’Connor. He disnae like people hanging aboot his street.
You can come in and explain yourself to the man hissel.”
The man’s grip on Stuart’s arm was too powerful to resist, and Stuart found himself being frog-marched up the garden path, followed by an anxious Bertie, his duffel coat flapping about his crushed-strawberry dungarees. Propelled by his captor, Stuart found himself in a sparsely-furnished hallway. “Through there,” said the man, nodding in the direction of a half-open door. “Mr O’Connor will see you now.”
Stuart glared at the man, but decided that the situation was too fragile for him to do anything but comply. He was concerned for the safety of Bertie, who was standing at his side, and he thought that the best thing to do would be to speak to this Mr O’Connor, whoever he was, and explain that they had had no intentions in relation to his car. Perhaps they had experienced vandalism in the past and had, quite unjustifiably, thought that he and Bertie were vandals.
They entered a large living room. The floor was covered with a tartan carpet and the walls were papered with red wall-paper. The room was dominated by a large television set, which was displaying a football game, but with the sound turned down.
On a chair in front of the television set was an extremely over-weight man, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal fleshy, tattooed forearms. As they entered the room, this man half turned round, glanced at them, and then flicked the remote controls of the television set. The football match died in a fading of light.
“So,” said the fat man. “So you’ve been looking at my motor.
You fancy it?”
“Not at all,” said Stuart. “We had no designs on it at all.”
The man smiled. “I should introduce myself,” he said, glancing at Bertie briefly and then returning his gaze to Stuart.
“I’m Aloysius O’Connor. But you may call me Lard O’Connor.
Everybody else does, don’t they, Gerry?”
Gerry, the man who had brought Stuart into the room, 176 Lard O’Connor
nodded. “Aye, they do, Lard. Nae respect these days. People have nae respect.”
Lard O’Connor raised an eyebrow. Turning to Bertie, he said:
“And you, young man. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Bertie,” said Bertie. “Bertie Pollock. I live in Edinburgh and I go to the Steiner School. And this is my daddy.
We live in Scotland Street. Do you know where that is, Mr O’Connor?”
“Could do,” said Lard. “Is that a nice street?”
“It’s very nice,” said Bertie. “It’s not far from where Mr Compton Mackenzie used to live. He wrote books, you know.”
Lard smiled. “You don’t say? Compton Mackenzie?”
“Yes,” said Bertie. “He wrote a book called Whisky Galore about some people who find a lot of whisky on the beach.”
“That sounds like a good story,” said Lard. He turned to Gerry. “You hear that, Gerry? Some people find whisky on the beach. Fallen aff a ferry mebbe!”
Gerry laughed politely. Lard then turned to Bertie again. “I must say I like your style, young man. I like a wean who speaks clearly and shows some respect. I like that.” He paused, and looked inquisitively at Stuart. “So what are you doing in these parts? Why have you come all the way from, where is it, Scotland Street, all the way over here? You sightseeing?”
“I left my car here,” said Stuart quickly. “I left it some time ago and now it seems to be gone.”
“Oh,” said Lard. “Walked?”
“So it would seem,” said Stuart dryly.
“Well, well,” said Lard, stroking the side of his chair. “Can you tell me what this motor of yours looked like? Model and all the rest. And the registration number.”
Stuart told him, and Lard signalled to Gerry, who wrote it down laboriously in a small notebook which he had picked up from the top of a display cabinet.
“Gerry,” said Lard. “You go and make inquiries about this matter and see what you can come up with. Know what I mean?”
He turned towards Bertie. “And you, young man, how about a game of cards while we’re waiting for Gerry? You and your dad A Game of Cards and a Cultural Trip 177
might like a game of cards. I’m very partial to a game of cards myself, you know. But I don’t always have company of the right intellectual level, know what I mean?” He nodded in the direction of Gerry, who was now leaving the room. “Good man, Gerry,” Lard went on. “But not exactly one of your Edinburgh intellectuals.”
“I like playing cards,” said Bertie. “What game would you like to play, Mr O’Connor?”
They decided on rummy, and Lard rose slowly from his chair to fetch a pack of cards from a drawer.
“You’re very big, Mr O’Connor,” said Bertie brightly, not seeing a frantic sign from his father. “Do you eat deep-fried Mars bars like other people in Glasgow?”
Lard stopped in his tracks. Without turning, he said: “Deep-fried Mars bars?”
Stuart looked frantically about the room. It would be possible to make a run for it now, he thought. Lard would be unable to run after them, with that bulk of his, but he had heard sounds out in the hall and he had assumed that there were other men, apart from Gerry, in the house. These gangsters rarely had just one side-kick, he remembered.
Then Lard spoke again. “Oh jings!” he said. “What I wouldn’t do for one of those right now!”
54. A Game of Cards and a Cultural Trip It was an interesting game of cards. Lard had started off making every concession to Bertie’s age, offering friendly advice on tactics and making one or two deliberate mistakes in order to give Bertie an advantage. But it soon became apparent that such gestures were entirely misplaced as Bertie succeeded in playing even his more mediocre hands with consummate skill. Lard had suggested playing for money, a proposition to which Stuart had agreed only because he felt that it would be impolitic to antagonise their host. He had given Bertie five pounds to start him off and had 178 A Game of Cards and a Cultural Trip explained that that would be his limit. But after an hour’s play, Bertie had won sixty-two pounds from Lard O’Connor and was now sitting behind a high pile of one-pound and two-pound coins.