‘Remember that?’ he said. ‘Real life?’
‘Aye, it’s good stuff,’ I said.
‘You should try it some time.’
‘I intend to. But not this week.’
He bought another round. I became briefly so normal that I wasn’t the first to bring the talk back to business. Bob Lilley mentioned the name of Matt Mason. He was nominally a bookie. It was an occupation he wore like a fancy coat which had a lot of secret pockets. There were some bad things in the pockets, including possibly murder. If you fell out with him, emigration wasn’t a bad idea.
‘What does he have against Frankie White?’ I asked.
‘That’s vague,’ Bob said. ‘We think Frankie let him down in some way.’
‘Frankie’s let everybody down,’ I said. ‘It’s what he does.’
‘It’s not what he does to Matt Mason,’ Brian said. It’s not what anybody does to Matt Mason. Anyway, Frankie’s not involved in this one. At least, that’s what it looks like. He’s been away too long. That thing you said. About looking high up for the source. We think it could be Mason. He’s in drugs. Meece was dealing. We think Mason was his wholesaler. He’s the kind of business man who would cut off your franchise by the neck. He stops you dealing by stopping you breathing. Frankie has never been involved in anything as heavy as that.’
‘What about the woman?’
‘We’ve got a name,’ Bob said. ‘Melanie.’
‘That’s a good Glaswegian name.’
‘But that’s it. Melanie. No second name so far. We got the name from Meece’s brother. But he doesn’t know any more. Meece’s family didn’t mix with him too much. I don’t know why. He was a fine upstanding man, Meece. We think if we find Melanie we’ve got a good chance.’
‘Sounds like one she could have picked out of a book,’ I said. ‘If she was with Meece, she was using. Somebody clean with a junkie? Mixed marriages like that don’t work. If she’s using, she can’t hole up for too long at a time.’
‘We’ve thought about that,’ Brian said. ‘But maybe she’s holed up with another junkie. Who gets her the stuff. One of the problems is Meece seems to have been the unknown citizen. He hasn’t left too many traces. I mean, what else did he do? Besides stick needles in his arm?’
‘That tends to be a full time job,’ Bob said.
‘He used to be a good driver,’ I said. ‘He used to drive for people. He was good. He could’ve U-turned a Daimler on a footpath. Put him in a car, he thought he was superman.’
‘Melanie,’ Bob said. ‘Can’t be too many of them around.’
‘I don’t know,’ Brian said. ‘Maybe in Hyndland there is.’
We talked round it some more while I finished my soda and lime and they sipped their pints. I wanted to get back to Graithnock before it was much later. It was maybe a sign of how our conversation had helped to calm my fever that pursuing leads wasn’t my only reason for being eager to check in to the Bushfield. I was also very hungry. Before I left in the morning, Katie Samson had said she would have a meal ready for me when I got back.
I offered to buy them another drink but they were moving on as well. I didn’t leave the bar with them because I wanted to use the pay-phone. Obviously, my fever wasn’t completely cured. If I’d needed any confirmation of that, Brian and Bob provided it. When I stayed behind, their tolerant head-shakings made them look like doctors who have done the best they can for a patient who just won’t take advice.
I tried phoning Frankie’s number in Kentish Town. There was nobody in. The phone at the restaurant was engaged. I tried Jan’s home number. She didn’t use an answering machine, so that I couldn’t even talk to her by proxy.
Nobody loved me. The way I was feeling about myself, I was in danger of agreeing with them.
20
Staying in the Bushfield was beginning to feel like a way of life. Buster’s growl was becoming almost welcoming. Katie was annoyed that the food she had made for me and now had to reheat was going to be so dry. But I like it that way. I think it goes back to the time at school when I had an evening paper run and often ate after the others and acquired a taste for the overdone. I associate those meals with the warmth of home on cold nights. Katie didn’t realise that she was serving me comfort food, a brief holiday in the womb. I irrigated the pleasing dryness of the food with glasses of milk.
‘There’s a woman in to see you,’ Katie said.
I looked at her. She was being arch.
‘It doesn’t take Jack Laidlaw long. Aha. Women queuing in the lounge. Well, two of them actually.’
‘Not much of a queue.’
‘Oho. It’s usually more than that, is it?’
‘Katie. I carry pocketfuls of stones to fend them off. A fella’s got to protect himself.’
The nonsense had a purpose. There was only one woman, besides Katie, who would know I was here. Ellie Mabon wouldn’t want to advertise. She had presumably brought a friend to be less conspicuous. If Katie knew the name, she would know the association with Scott. Remembering Ellie Mabon’s fixation that the world was full of nosy neighbours, I wanted to protect her privacy. I wondered if Katie suspected.
‘So don’t keep me in suspense,’ I said. ‘Who’s the woman?’
‘Ah don’t know. It was Mike she asked. Ye know him. He didn’t even ask her name. Mike’s the kinna man could leave a telegram lyin’ unopened for a week. Ah just saw them. Bonny women. The one that did the askin’, she looks like that Lee Remick in the pictures. Ah wouldn’t be standin’ beside her at the disco anyway. Who is she?’
‘How do I know, Katie?’
‘Liar.’
But she left it at that. She went out of the kitchen. I finished eating and did my dishes, which is the only domestic chore I sometimes almost enjoy. I think I just like playing with water.
Ellie Mabon’s friend was a woman called Mary Walters. She was attractive but tonight she was definitely playing the leading lady’s best friend. Ellie had not become any more difficult to look at in the last day. There were quite a lot of people in the lounge and several of them seemed to find their eyes attracted to her from time to time. When the introductions were over and I went to get them a drink (‘It’ll have to be a quick one, we’re just leaving’), a man at the bar spoke to me.
‘Do you want any help carrying those over?’ He widened his eyes and breathed out noisily. ‘I won’t even take a tip.’
Conversation didn’t flow immediately at our table. We made some remarks about my soda and lime. Mary Walters was a teacher, too, and she had known Scott casually. We said nice things about him. There was no sign that Ellie, unlike Mary Walters, knew Scott beyond the man who had appeared at teachers’ conferences and on staff nights out. I was beginning to wonder why Ellie had come. If she had something to tell me, why did she bring her own gag? I was looking into her aquarium eyes and seeing nothing but the reflection of my own thoughts, not all of them as innocent as they might have been. Then Mary Walters went to the toilet. Ellie’s voice became as urgent as a telegram.
‘Mary doesn’t know about Scott and me,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t very well come here on my own.’
‘You’ve thought of something?’
‘You mentioned Dave Lyons.’
‘That’s right.’
‘There was a party at his house. Scott was there. I spoke to a friend who was there as well. She told me.’
I appreciated the effort Ellie had made. But I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. She was delivering yesterday’s newspaper.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘But do you know what happened?’
‘He threw a vase at the telly?’
Her disappointment made a small girl of her.
‘I thought maybe you didn’t know. It seemed as if it might be important. It must have taken something special for Scott to do that.’