“Well,” said the policeman. “Perhaps you’d care to tell us about your car. Is it your car, or is it somebody else’s?”
“Well, really . . .” snorted Irene, only to be silenced by a warning look from the policeman.
Bertie Makes His Statement
97
“We used to have a car,” said Bertie. “Mummy and Daddy were always arguing about it.”
“Oh?” said the policeman. “Why was that? Was it anything to do with where it came from?”
“No,” said Bertie. “It wasn’t that. It was just that they used to forget where they parked it. Daddy left it in Tarbert once, and then he forgot that he had driven through to Glasgow and he came back by train.”
“Leaving the car in Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.
Bertie glanced at Stuart. “He didn’t mean to leave it there,”
he said. “He forgot. Maybe it’s because he’s forty. I think you begin to forget things when you’re forty.”
The two policemen exchanged a glance. Irene was staring at Bertie, as if she was willing him to stop, but Bertie had his eyes fixed on the buttons of the policeman’s jacket. It was easier talking to this policeman, he thought, than to Dr Fairbairn. Perhaps that was because this policeman was not mad, unlike Dr Fairbairn. It was hard to talk to mad people, thought Bertie. You had to be very careful about what you said. By contrast, you could tell policemen everything, because you knew you were safe.
He wondered whether the policeman knew Mr O’Connor.
He thought that the two of them would get on quite well if they met. In fact, he could just imagine the policeman and Mr O’Connor driving off together to the Burrell Collection in Mr O’Connor’s green Mercedes-Benz, talking about football, perhaps. Would they support the same football team? he wondered. Perhaps they would.
“So you went off to Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.
“Yes,” said Bertie. “Daddy and I went off to Glasgow together.” And for a moment he remembered; and recalled how he had been happy in the train with his father, with the ploughed fields unfolding so quickly past the window and the rocking motion of the train upon its rails, and the hiss of the wind. And they had talked about friends, and how important friends were, and he had not wanted the journey to end.
“And you found the car where Daddy had left it in Glasgow?”
asked the policeman.
98
Bertie Makes His Statement
Bertie shook his head. “No. Our car had gone. And that’s when Gerry invited us into Mr O’Connor’s house. And Mr O’Connor said . . .”
The policeman held up a hand. “Hold on,” he said. “This Mr O’Connor – can you tell me a wee bit about him?”
“He’s very fat,” said Bertie. “Fatter even than you. And he was no good at cards. I won lots of money off him. But then he told Gerry to go and find our car, and Gerry did. He came back with our car. But it wasn’t exactly the same car. It was another car just like ours, but a bit different.”
The policeman looked thoughtful. “And did Daddy know it wasn’t your car?”
Bertie hesitated. He was not sure about that. He knew that adults often knew things but tried to pretend that they did not, and he thought that this might be such a case. On the other hand, his father had asked him not to tell his mother, which suggested that he knew that the car was not theirs all along.
What should he say? He should not tell the policeman any fibs because that would be wrong, and, anyway, if you told lies it was well known that your pants went on fire. But his father had never actually said that he thought it was somebody else’s car; he had never actually said that.
“No,” said Bertie. “He didn’t know that it wasn’t our car. I was the only one who knew that. You see, the handles on the door . . .”
The policeman looked rather disappointed. Off the hook, he thought. It was typical. These types always get themselves off the hook. Reset – having stolen goods in one’s possession – was a difficult crime to prove. You had to establish that the person knew that the goods were stolen (or should have known, perhaps), and it would be difficult to get anything to stick in this case. But there was still this O’Connor character to deal with, and this might just be a very good chance to sort him out.
It was Lard O’Connor that this wee boy was talking about –
that was pretty clear. Lard O’Connor, also known as Porky Sullivan. That was him. Strathclyde Police would love to get Sirens and Shipwrecks
99
something on him, and they would be pretty sick if it came from Lothian and Borders! Hah!
“Well, Bertie,” said the policeman, snapping shut his notebook. “You’ve been very helpful. This Mr O’Connor character, I’m afraid, is not a very nice man. I fear that he might have given your Daddy a stolen car.”
Bertie swallowed. He liked Mr O’Connor and he was sure the policeman was wrong. It was Gerry who had stolen the car, not Lard. Surely if Mr O’Connor could be given the chance to explain then all would be made clear. Gerry is the fibber, thought Bertie. He’s the one whose pants will go on fire.
“I’ve got Mr O’Connor’s address,” said Bertie brightly. “I wrote it down. You can go and talk to him.”
The policeman reached out to shake Bertie’s hand. “Well done, son,” he said. “We’ll do just that.”
Stuart closed his eyes.
32. Sirens and Shipwrecks
Pat was worried. Her unnerving encounter with her flatmate Tessie – an encounter that had ended in a barely-veiled threat of dire consequences should Pat have anything to do with Wolf
– had left her speechless. The threat, in fact, was the last thing that Tessie uttered before she walked out of the room, lips pursed, her expression calculated to leave Pat in no doubt of the seriousness of her intent.
For a few minutes after Tessie had left, Pat had contemplated following her into her room and asking her precisely what she meant by the threat. Yet it had been unambiguous enough, and Tessie might well merely have repeated it. Perhaps, then, she should assure her that she had in no sense encouraged Wolf and that she had no intention of doing so. That would, no doubt, reassure the other girl, but it would also amount to a complete capitulation in the face of aggression. It was rather like giving in to blackmaiclass="underline" if you did that, then it would simply come back again and again.
100 Sirens and Shipwrecks
Her first instinct had been to telephone her father for advice.
But then she decided that she could not go running to him over every setback. He would be supportive, of course, and patient too, but she could not burden him with this. What would he think of her if she confessed to him that she was attracted to a boy called Wolf who already had a girlfriend, and that girlfriend was her own flatmate? She could explain that she had not actually set out to attract Wolf (well she had, really: she had waited by the notice-board at the end of the seminar purely because he would walk past her). No, it would be better to talk to somebody else – somebody more her own age who would understand; somebody she knew reasonably well, but not too well; somebody like . . . Matthew.
There were several good reasons why she should talk to Matthew, not the least of these being that she had been feeling guilty about misleading him over Wolf. She wanted to make a clean breast of that to Matthew, and she could take the opportunity to talk to him about the awkward situation that had arisen in the flat. Matthew was a good listener. He had always been kind to her and had, on occasion, come up with useful advice.
And if she told him the truth about Wolf, then she could also Sirens and Shipwrecks 101