‘Billy! Billy!’ A loud female voice called through a doorway, above which was tacked a sign stating ‘Kitchen Staff Only’
The boy turned; then, as if he had heard nothing, continued his stacking. Now he speeded up as if he was in a competition, or racing against the clock. A few seconds later, a dumpy woman with dyed plum-coloured hair and a bust straining to escape from a purple and black tartan waistcoat, marched through the doorway, nodded at the two plain-clothes police officers and tapped the boy’s shoulder.
‘Billy, did you no’ hear me shoutin’ oan you?’
‘Em… no, Elsie,’ he answered her, a look of injured innocence on his face. He continued with his job, studiously ignoring the sceptical expressions directed at him. His lie sounded completely convincing.
‘Enjoyin’ yer work tae much, eh, son?’ she laughed good-naturedly. ‘You’ll need tae get oan an serve they customers, eh? Rab says aifter you’ve finished in here you’re tae come an’ help us in the kitchen. There’s a party of fifteen comin’ in fer bar lunches, an office outin’ or somethin’. You’ll be needed tae help wi’ makin’ the soup.’
The boy nodded, and pinching his cheek affectionately between her fingers and thumb, the woman bustled towards the doorway and disappeared once more.
‘So, Billy,’ Eric Manson said, ‘better help us out the now. Right now. We wouldn’t want to have to follow you about the place asking questions as you’re busy chopping the carrots up, eh? Might look a wee bit strange. I wonder if Elsie, or whatever she’s called, knows about you? Your record, I mean, your wee brushes with the law? I bet she’s not aware that you’re a thief, a druggie with a string of previous convictions long enough to hang your boxers on? Or that you’re handy with knives, too – but slicing up people, not veg.’
Recognising that he was beaten, Billy Wallace looked the Inspector in the face, folded his arms defensively across his narrow chest and said, in a low, desperate voice, ‘Naebody here kens, OK? So dae us a favour an’ make this quick.’
DI Manson smiled, stretched across the bar and took a bag of peanuts. He made no attempt to pay for them, opened them and then, in a leisurely fashion, trawled his fingers through the bag before picking up a handful and putting it into his mouth. Crunching noisily, he dipped in for more and slowly began feeding himself individual nuts.
Watching him, the boy looked frantic.
‘Where were you on Saturday night, Billy?’ Alice asked, taking pity on him.
‘Ma nicht aff, Saturdays,’ he answered immediately, sniffing loudly and wiping his nose with the side of his hand. ‘I’m always aff Saturday nichts.’
‘What did you do on your night off?’
‘A little light housebreaking, perhaps?’ Eric Manson interjected, his voice slurred with masticated peanuts. Ignoring the remark, the boy continued. ‘Eh… I wis in ma ain hoose, playin’ oan ma gameboy ’n’ that, then I watched a couple o’ DVDs.’
A man with glazed eyes and skin as dry as paper slumped onto the bar stool at Alice’s elbow, and crooked a nicotine-stained finger at Billy several times. Getting no response, he thumped the bar with his fist. As he did so, little snowflakes of dandruff sprinkled on his shoulders, a few cascading down his greasy, orange anorak and landing on his fleshless thighs.
‘Billy!’ he shouted ‘Shift yer airse. Ah’m wantin’ a drink ower here.’
First catching Alice’s eye, the boy moved along the bar until he was directly opposite the new customer and pulled him a pint of Tartan Special, then set it in front of him. No sooner had the glass made contact with the coaster than it was raised to the drinker’s mouth. Kissing its edge theatrically, he began to pour it down his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down rhythmically as he did so. As Billy turned back towards the police officers, his young face now contorted with anxiety, the man took a breath and said crossly, ‘An’ ma chaser son – mind ma chaser.’
Billy placed the measure of Bells next to the half-empty beer glass and the customer rose unsteadily from his stool, a drink in either hand, and set out for a table, drawn to an old copy of the Daily Record lying on it.
‘All evening – you spent the whole night in?’ Alice asked the boy.
‘Aye.’ He sniffed again.
‘On your own?’
‘Naw’
‘Who was with you?’
‘Ma girlfriend, Tracey.’
‘Tracey what? Where does she live?’
‘Wi’ me… in ma flat in Drylaw. She’s there the now. She wis washin’ her hair.’
‘Maybe that’s what she’ll say,’ Eric Manson cut in, shaking his head in disbelief, and adding in a loud voice, ‘she’ll say that you were with her. But know what I think? I think it’s all rubbish. I think you cannae kick the habit, that you’ve been up to your old tricks lately, Billy boy.’
Grinning now with false bonhomie, he helped himself to a stray bowl of last night’s Bombay mix and chewed a mouthful slowly, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the boy. Never shifting his gaze, he took another handful and inadvertently put a used matchstick into his mouth, crunched it, then grabbed a paper napkin and spat the mouthful onto it.
‘Naw, I’ve not,’ the boy answered, his face contorted with disgust at Manson’s eating habits, forgetting to pretend that he did not know what his old tricks might be.
‘I heard,’ the inspector continued, wiping saliva from the edge of his lips with the soiled napkin, ‘that you nipped into a flat in St Stephen’s Street a couple of weeks ago – you and one of your wee pals, maybe?’
‘Nah,’ the boy began, shaking his head. ‘I’m clean. I’ve a job now. I dinnae need tae knock oaf other folk’s stu…’ but he never completed his sentence, stopping the instant he caught sight of the manageress’s burly figure bearing down on him, a scowl on her face.
‘No’ finished in here yet, son?’ she asked. Then tipping her head in the direction of the two police officers, she added, ‘Who’re they? They pals of yours or somethin’? They’re no’ drinkin’. They holdin’ you up?’
Billy Wallace threw a pleading glance at the officers, begging them to remain silent. Eric Manson winked at him, as if to say he had got the message, then replied to the woman, ‘No, we’re not pals of his, dear. And we can’t take a drink… not whilst we’re on duty, you understand.’
In Wallace’s spotless council flat in Wester Drylaw Avenue, Tracey nodded her slick, black ponytail up and down and said: ‘He was wi’ me – like what he said.’
Having answered their question, she leaned back in the leather settee where a small, dark-featured man sat next to her, and returned her attention to her crisps and the television.
‘How do you know he told us that?’ Eric Manson demanded, a complacent smile playing on his lips as he stood, legs apart, towering over the seated girl.
‘Well… he would, wouldn’t he, if you’d asked him.’
‘But how d’you know we asked him anything?’ the inspector shot back. ‘He phoned you, eh? Told you we’d been round. Told you what to say and all.’
‘Funnily enough, “officer”, I didnae come up the Clyde oan a banana boat. Ye’re asking aboot him, aren’t ye? No me, really, no interested in me are ye? I am right aboot that, eh? So, ye’ll have asked him first. That’s how it works, how it aye works. An’ no, fer the record, like, he didnae phone me.’
‘All night? He was here, with you, all night?’ Alice asked, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of excited applause from the studio audience on the TV.
‘You were together all night?’ she repeated loudly.
‘Aye! What dae ye think I am? Think I’d sneak aff in the middle o’ the night tae sleep wi’ somebody else or somethin’? The fuckin’ cheek o’ it!’