The loud noise made by her husband as he clambered into the back seat, shuffling the bulging Mothercare bags along it with his hip, ended her musing. Glancing in the rear-view mirror she saw on his lap a cardboard box. It had tipped on its side, and his head and shoulders seemed to be disappearing inside it.
‘C’mon, back here, ye wee sod…’ he muttered, grasping at air, and then, pushing the box to one side, he bent over to look under the passenger seat, laughing uproariously to himself as he did so.
‘What you get?’ she asked idly, heading off into the traffic again and concentrating on her driving. He did not answer her, so she tried again ‘What d’you get? No’ another of they tortoise things?’
‘Naw,’ he replied. ‘Em, just a wee…’ he hesitated, breathless from being bent double, ‘em… just a wee… eh, snake.’
‘A snake! A snake! Fer fuck’s sake, Ally, tell me there’s no’ a snake loose in ma car?’
‘Naw,’ replied Ally. ‘Naw, hen – no’ loose, really. It’s gone an’ trapped itsel’ under the mat.’
‘Is it poisonous? A poisonous wan? ’Cause if it is, ah’m oot o’ here.’
When they got home, she pulled the handbrake on sharply and made to leave the car, but as she was doing so he shouted at her, his hands scrabbling wildly under the passenger’s seat. ‘Keep your bloody door shut, mind, or it’ll be oot an’ a’!’
‘Ally,’ she said, close to tears, ‘I’m no’ staying here, getting a snake’s fangs in ma ankle, just because you…’
‘Frankie, Frankie, it’s OK, Frankie. Honest, it’s OK,’ he interrupted her. ‘He’ll no’ bite ye, I promise. Armageddon’s a python – squeezes his prey tae death, and he cannae squeeze you tae death yet darlin’. He’s too sma’, he’s less than two foot long. We’ve tae feed him once we get home, then he’ll no’ be looking for prey anyway. He’s tae get his dinner on Mondays.’
‘But whit aboot the baby, Ally?’ she demanded, dully.
‘Whit aboot him?’ he answered, now fumbling under the driver’s seat.
‘Well, she’ll just be wee. Will Armadillo no’ be able to squeeze the life oot o’ her?’
‘Em…’ her husband said, playing for time. ‘Em… him, pet, the life oot o’ him. The bairn’s a him. But Armageddon’ll not…’
Their conversation ended abruptly with a loud knock on the driver’s steamed-up window. Frankie rolled it down slowly, to see herself beckoned out of the car by a couple of uniformed policemen. Standing by them was a young woman, and beside her was a middle-aged man in a beige raincoat, shouting loudly, ordering the constables around.
Sitting alone at the table in the interview room Ally Livingstone stroked his jaw up and down, up and down, feeling the springy stubble beneath his fingertips and listening to the rasping noise made by his fingers. Seeing a chewed biro at his left hand he picked it up, and absentmindedly put it into his mouth. He sucked on it, thinking things over as he did so. He reckoned he knew why they wanted to speak to him and he told himself he must try to concentrate, prepare himself to answer their questions.
The money that they had found on him, and any recently spent, could be explained away easily enough by a win on the horses. Frankie had fallen for that one after all, no bother. All he needed to do was multiply his actual stake twenty-fold, and that would account for his record winnings. ‘Whispering Wind’ had, genuinely, won the 2.30 at Doncaster. And if they could be fobbed off with that, then maybe he would be able to use the card again, please God, because the Parks Department paid only peanuts.
If they were after the card itself then he had an explanation for that, too, although they might not believe him. If he could just get another two hundred pounds or three hundred maybe, then they could buy the cot or the buggy and a couple of corn-snakes, or better yet, a baby African Grey parrot. He could teach it to speak along with the little one, when he arrived. They’d both learn to say, ‘Fuck off ye wee twat’ in unison.
Now deep in thought, he closed his jaws on the biro, accidentally biting into it and splitting its plastic casing into smithereens in his mouth. He tried to spit the tiny fragments out, but a few obstinate ones stuck to his tongue. As he attempted to remove them with his fingers, the young policewoman entered the room and sat down opposite him, catching him in the act. A couple of seconds later, the middle-aged man joined them, muttering gruffly as he sat down, ‘On you go, Alice, love…’
‘Can you tell me where you were from about six o’clock onwards last Saturday, the day before yesterday, Mr Livingstone?’ the woman asked, watching him as he wiped his sticky fingers on the shoulders of his leather jacket.
‘Eh?’ he answered, still trying to remove a stray splinter from his mouth and genuinely taken aback by the question. This was not one that he had expected, and he had no answer planned for it. She repeated it, her eyes on his fingers as he examined them for bits of pen.
‘Em… I was at home with ma wife, Frankie – I think.’ That would have to do for now.
‘Have you ever been to the house of a Mr Gavin Brodie in India Street?’
‘Naw.’
‘Have you ever met that man, Gavin Brodie?’
‘Naw.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Naw.’
‘Then can you tell me how you got hold of his Royal Bank card?’
At last the fight could begin, he thought, feeling the inside of his cheek with his tongue, unpleasantly aware of another piece of plastic. Then another thought crossed his mind – perhaps the biro had belonged to a junkie? Christ! He could get Aids from it!
‘I dinnae ken whit you’re oan about, hen… you’ve got the wrong man this time, hen,’ he said, spitting forcefully onto the floor and ridding his mouth of the final splinter.
‘Don’t do that!’ Inspector Manson said, shaking his head, his lips pursed in disdain.
‘And it’s Detective Sergeant Rice, Mr Livingstone, not “hen”, thanks,’ the woman corrected him, looking down at the gob of spittle. ‘We have CCTV footage of the ATM machine on Corstorphine Road, taken yesterday between 3 pm and 4 pm, and it quite clearly shows you using Mr Brodie’s card. You withdrew £200 from his account on that occasion, and I understand that today you drew out another £200.’
Fucking spies in the sky were everywhere nowadays, Ally Livingstone thought to himself, desperately trying to work out if there was a way out of this trap, or if, somehow, it could be avoided entirely. Well, the old ones were the best ones, he decided. So he scratched his head as if in puzzlement, and then said, ‘Em… no, miss, it disnae show me. It cannae show me. Must be somewan who looks like me, ken, but isnae me at a’. I was wi’ Frankie yesterday at Asdas, we were buyin’ stuff for the wee yin. Well, for when he’s born, like. It must be somebody else in the pictures. Somewan who looks like me but isnae me.’
He picked up the split biro and began twirling it between his fingers like a tiny baton, surreptitiously glancing up at the policewoman’s face to see how she was reacting to his story. Then, remembering that it might be contaminated, he dropped the pen. As he did so, their eyes met. Holding his gaze, she said, ‘I’ve now seen the footage myself, Mr Livingstone, and others have identified you from it personally. It was you. Gavin Brodie, the owner of the card, was murdered late on Saturday… as I’m sure you know.’
‘Eh?’ Ally Livingstone said, pushing the biro off the table, and noting in passing that his fingers were now stained blue with ink.
‘I said, the owner of…’
‘I heard you,’ he interrupted, ‘and I’ve nothing tae dae wi’ any o’ that, hen. I’ve no’ hurt nobody.’
‘Fine,’ she replied coolly. ‘Then, perhaps, you could explain to me how the murdered man’s bank card ended up in your hands?’
‘I wull, but you’ll no’ believe me. I found the caird, OK? In a wallet.’