His security was the insecurity of others. Like a lot of us, his security might be his weakness. He was a careful man. He had his family safely to one side. He helped Matt Mason but not so that you would notice him doing it. He opened doors. Others went through them to do whatever was to be done. You wouldn’t catch Eddie out on small things. But if Mason fell, you could maybe bury Eddie in the debris. I wondered if I could frighten him with that.
For perhaps Eddie had been too careful. He had never been in prison. He had never even stood trial. Elaborate security can be a trap. You can spend so much time making sure that others can’t get in, you may not realise that you can’t get out either. I didn’t think Eddie could survive outside the life he’d made for himself. He was habituated to its forms. Prison would destroy him. Conviction would destroy his family. I wondered how the very contemplation of such things might affect him. We would see.
He was there. I saw him through the window, seated at a table at the back, facing towards me. I paused beside the menucard and watched. He was framed in the O of Rico’s, like a photograph of father in the family album. He had his glasses on. He was reading the newspaper. I went in.
Rico’s is a café bar that opens early in the morning for breakfasts. It lets in a lot of light and it’s spacious. With the unpretentious metal-topped tables and the mosaic paintings on the wall and the bottles behind the bar, it imparts that civilising sense of being in a bistro. The rack of newspapers suggests you needn’t hurry. The place can give you the feeling that mornings are not a bad idea. It evidently gave Eddie Foley that feeling. This was where he regularly came for a late and leisurely breakfast.
He didn’t look up as I reached his table. He was halfway through a croissant and his coffee-cup was almost empty. The paper was the Daily Mail.
‘What’s the news, Eddie?’ I said.
He looked up over his glasses. Something that was perhaps caution came into his eyes and went. He smiled. He had a nice smile. He looked as if children would like him.
‘Jack,’ he said. ‘You going to join me?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Ah haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘Ah’m livin’ quiet.’
I had sat down opposite him and a dark-haired waitress came up to ask me if I wanted anything. She had such an attractive, unforced pleasantness, you felt your day had earned a bonus just by meeting her. I ordered coffee.
‘Yourself, Mr Foley?’ she said. ‘How are ye doin’?’
‘Ah could use a refill, Jennifer. Add this to mine.’ She took his bill-tab as she went. Eddie folded his paper with one hand and pushed it to the end of the table. He took off his glasses and stowed them carefully in a soft red leather case and put it in an inside pocket. He looked slightly less avuncular that way.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Ah heard about yer brother. Ah’m sorry. That was bad.’
‘Aye.’
It struck me suddenly that I had been thinking of Scott in a different way in the past few days. The obsession had subsumed the grief. That was one way to staunch your tears.
‘That was a waste.’
‘It was,’ I said. ‘But he hit the car more than the car hit him. Laidlaws can be careless people, Eddie.’
‘Not all of them.’
‘Listen. I don’t think I’m going to win any medals as an insurance-risk.’
Jennifer came with the coffees. I milked and sugared. Eddie took his as it was. He broke off a piece of croissant, began to chew.
‘You don’t want something to eat?’ he said.
‘I’ve eaten, thanks. So what’s the word of yourself, Eddie?’
‘Same as ever, Jack. Same as ever. But you know that, don’t you?’
‘Hm?’
‘Jack. When did Ah get on to your social calendar?’
‘This is true.’
‘So what’s this about?’
Jennifer was back with the amended slip. She laid it beside Eddie and went away. I reached across and lifted it to look. It was printed in that faint blue type that looks as if it’s dissolving. I could just about make it out. It said £5.50.
‘Ah’m gettin’ that, Jack,’ Eddie said.
‘Okay.’
He was watching me. I continued to hold the slip of paper in my hand, studying it.
‘This bill’s wrong, Eddie,’ I said.
He took it from me and looked at it. He had to get out his glasses. He counted his way through the small column of figures.
‘No, it’s right,’ he said.
‘The bill’s wrong.’
He looked at me over his glasses.
‘You owe a fuckin’ sight more than that, Eddie Foley,’ I said.
‘An’ ye’re gonny pay.’
His right hand took off his glasses in slow motion. He looked round Rico’s. He looked back at me. I nodded.
‘Time to divvy up,’ I said.
His hand slowly abandoned his glasses on the table.
‘What’s this about?’ he said.
‘It’s about the firm you work for is going to go out of business in the next few days. I’m the liquidator.’
He turned his head slightly sideways to look at me. He seemed to be trying to see past my words to the joke that must lie behind them.
‘Could I see your credentials, please?’ he said, smiling.
‘You’re seeing them. Me. Believe them or don’t. And don’t smile, Eddie. Don’t smile. Or I’ll arrange for you to lose your teeth.’
It was the strangeness of the threat that convinced him. We had never spoken to each other before except either in a friendly way or through an agreed ritual of jocular enmity. He knew that I had changed the terms on which we were meeting. I watched his eyes try to work out where he now was.
‘What’s happened?’ he said.
‘You know what’s happened. You always did. The difference is that now I know as well.’
His breathing wasn’t relaxed.
‘Like what?’ he said.
‘Your boss has lost it, Eddie. Talk about misjudging the market? He’s killed two people in the last three months. I think it’s called over-extending yourself. Who the hell does he think he is? Attila the Hun?’
‘Ah don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about.’
‘That’s fine. Just as long as I do.’
‘Ah don’t. Ah really don’t.’
‘Dan Scoular. Meece Rooney.’
‘Ah don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about.’
‘Hey! What d’ye think this is? A lavatory pan? Talk shite somewhere else.’
‘But Ah-’
‘Eddie!’
He froze. His eyes were nervous as a mouse along the wainscot where there is no exit.
‘Don’t do that. This is away past telling wee fibs to the polis. Stay quiet if ye want. But let’s not sit here saying what we both know is crap.’
He subsided gently, staring at the table.
‘Listen. I’m making an assumption about you. That you didn’t actually do the things. That you weren’t directly involved. That’s not what you do. If I’m wrong, then you’ll know I’m wrong. And when I go out this door, you better move fast and far. Because it’ll be you I’m looking for. But I don’t think you did.’
He had no impulse to talk now. He looked as if he was seeing his lawyer in his head.
‘Because I think I know what you’re like. Know what I think you’re like, Eddie? You’re like a maintenance worker at Dachau or somewhere. You might convert the showers to gas. You might make sure the doors lock properly. But you wouldn’t actually kill anybody. You’re nice that way. You do a practical job and go home and forget about it. Seems a few of them did that there. In those places. Go home and play with the kids. Forget about it.’
He was fingering his glasses.
‘Well, I’m here to remind you, Eddie. Time to stop playing at wee houses. You owe. Now there are two ways you can pay. Reluctantly or of your own free will. The first way will come dear. I’m going to get Matt Mason. I know he’s the head of what happened. Who the obedient bodies were, I don’t know. But I will. You stand in my way, you’re going, too. Everything goes. Your lifestyle. The way your family think of you. The lot. If you help, you get to keep your family’s sense of you. You stay out of jail. That’s it.’