No lights in any of the nearby windows; no signs of life anywhere. So the driver executed a three-point turn and made the approach again, this time pulling to a stop kerb-side.
‘Right then,’ he said unnecessarily, since the passenger was already pushing open the door, reaching down to pick up both bottles. Then he was gone. The driver rolled down his window, realising he should have thought of that before. The smell of petrol was going to linger. Not that it mattered. The car’s next destination would also be its final stop.
Scrapyard. Compactor. Gone.
The sky was turning orange as the two men drove away.
Day Four
19
The message next morning said to forget the briefing and rendezvous at the Gay Laddie. As Laidlaw approached on foot, he could smell charred wood and blistered paint. Bob Lilley was eating a buttered roll. He held out a paper bag.
‘Got you one,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’ Laidlaw took a bite and started chewing as he surveyed the damage. There wasn’t too much of it. The Gay Laddie was built like an atomic bunker. Its small windows were blackened, as was the area around the door.
‘Thing about that door,’ Lilley mused, ‘looks like wood but it’s actually steel. Not the sort of thing you can buy off the peg.’
‘And not cheap, either,’ Laidlaw agreed. ‘But worth it to somebody.’
‘That somebody being John Rhodes, I’d presume.’
‘Has he been for a look-see?’
‘Not that I’ve heard.’
Laidlaw approached the door. Shards of glass lay at his feet. The neck of the bottle was almost intact, strands of rag sticking to it.
‘Taking a leaf out of Ulster’s book,’ Lilley commented. ‘Two of Rhodes’s men got hit, too. One answered a knock at his door, only to be met by a sledgehammer. The other was jumped walking home from a party.’
‘Makes sense. Colvin’s a man down with another under suspicion. Means he looks weak to the opposition, like a wounded animal. He’s lashing out to try to slow them from coming for him.’
‘You reckon?’
Laidlaw took another bite of roll, wiping the dusting of flour from around his mouth. ‘Need tea or something to wash this down.’ There was a café across the street at the corner, so he headed there, Lilley a few steps behind. The tea was poured from an oversized, much-dented pewter pot, milk already added. A sugar bowl sat on the counter along with a used spoon. The place smelled of bacon fat, its cramped booths filled with people licking their wounds as they recovered from the night before. Laidlaw and Lilley stood at the counter as they drank.
‘Not so much a city as a hangover,’ Laidlaw commented quietly. ‘One nobody can remember ordering. The fun beforehand, that’s fine and dandy, but the consequences are always a shock to the system, and Glasgow’s all consequences, every day of the week.’
‘It’s a bit early for me, but don’t let that stop you nipping my head. Margaret says, can we bring flowers for Ena — would she like that?’
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘Or chocolates maybe?’
‘Bring a bottle of wine, any colour, any price. We’ve probably got a corkscrew.’ Laidlaw had disposed of the last remnants of roll and was brushing his fingers clean. ‘This tea’s putting hairs on my tongue,’ he complained. ‘Is doorstepping around Springburn Park really all the day has to offer?’
‘Milligan’s already got people talking to Rhodes’s walking wounded.’
‘It’s Rhodes himself he should be having a word with. The man’s duty-bound to retaliate, otherwise he’s the one who looks weak — weak or else guilty.’
‘You’re pretty sure he wasn’t behind Carter’s death, though?’
‘Doesn’t mean he’ll deny it to anyone who asks.’
‘Because some will see it as a gallus move?’ Lilley nodded his agreement with Laidlaw’s assessment. ‘He didn’t sanction it, but the fact it’s happened doesn’t exactly harm his reputation.’
‘I saw him again yesterday, by the way.’
‘Rhodes?’
‘Right there in the Gay Laddie. He gave me Chick McAllister, but McAllister didn’t have much to offer.’
‘So now can we mention McAllister to Ernie Milligan?’
‘That’s up to you, Bob.’
‘Playing down your role?’
‘To a bare minimum, if that.’ Laidlaw lit a cigarette.
‘Are you thinking of paying Rhodes another visit?’
‘Rhodes isn’t the one setting off firebombs.’
‘Cam Colvin, then?’
Laidlaw took in a lungful of smoke and offered a shrug. ‘This case is like one of those charm bracelets,’ he said as he exhaled. ‘New charms keep being added. They all mean something individually, even if they never quite meet on the bracelet itself.’
‘Is that how you’re going to talk tonight? It’s just that Margaret is more about knitting patterns, Woman’s Realm and Sacha Distel.’
Laidlaw thought for a moment. ‘Maybe bring two bottles of wine,’ he said.
20
Spanner Thomson locked the front door after him — two mortises as well as the Yale — and, as was his habit, looked to right and left as he walked down the narrow garden path. His car, an Austin Maxi, was parked at the kerb. He unlocked it and got in. When he turned the first corner, heading towards Springburn Road, a white Jaguar XJ6 pulled into the middle of the street, blocking the route. Thomson tensed, hands tightening on the steering wheel. The Jag’s rear door had opened, a figure emerging. John Rhodes walked towards the Maxi, yanked open the passenger-side door and got in.
‘This thing’s more skip than car,’ he complained, kicking aside some of the debris in the footwell.
‘I’d have had it hoovered if I’d known.’
The Jaguar had pulled in close to the pavement again. Rhodes pointed to the cleared roadway. ‘Don’t mind a bit of company, do you, Spanner? You can drop me long before you get to wherever you’re going. Colvin still holding his war councils at the Coronach? I hear the owner’s not happy that the tab never seems to get cleared.’
‘It wasn’t me, Mr Rhodes,’ Thomson said, his voice betraying only the slightest tremor as he pressed down on the accelerator. At the main road, he signalled to turn, something he seldom did. A pedestrian might have taken him for a pupil on his first driving lesson, even if the bulky figure filling the adjacent front seat looked nothing like an instructor.
‘What wasn’t you, Spanner?’ John Rhodes asked.
‘The Gay Laddie. That and your two boys.’
‘Grown men rather than boys. They should know how to defend themselves.’ Rhodes twisted his body to face Thomson. ‘But you’ve just told me that you do know about it, know it happened, I mean, and there’s been nothing in the papers or on the radio as yet.’
‘Bush telegraph, Mr Rhodes.’
‘You don’t even have a phone in your house, Spanner. A neighbour takes messages for you and her laddie passes them on. You slip her a few quid a week for services rendered. That tells me you’re not only cautious but you’ve got your wits about you, too.’
Thomson checked in his rear-view mirror. The Jaguar was right behind him.
‘Is there a message you want me to give to Mr Colvin?’
‘He’ll be hearing from me, but not through you. I’m here because Milligan pulled you in.’
‘A fishing expedition, that’s all.’
‘Conducted by a man who couldn’t catch crabs in a knocking shop. You think the knife was planted near your house on purpose?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘To put you in the frame.’