William McIlvanney - The Papers of Tony Veitch

He seemed to be checking for a murmur at the instincts, then nodded and sat down.

‘Ah’ll take a pint of heavy.’

‘No draught here, Macey,’ Milligan said.

‘A glass of export then.’

While Milligan told a waitress, Macey looked round in the blinky way he had, innocent as a tourist’s Kodak.

‘Whit’s these then?’

He was referring to the etchings and paintings of Norman Ackroyd that hung round the walls of the lounge like black holes in which whispers of light and shape were conspiring to survive.

‘Macey,’ Milligan said. ‘These is art. I like them.’

‘Uh-huh. Whit’s his secret? All the people I know get put in the jile for stealin’ money.’

Milligan laughed and Macey turned that naive face towards him as if he’d like to be included in the joke. Milligan wasn’t taken in but he appreciated the tradition in which Macey was working. Macey was a practitioner in the ancient Glaswegian art of the double-con. He was a master of the upturned palms and the kind of innocence that could pick anybody’s pockets of suspicions. A lot of the people he dealt with, Milligan thought, must have been home in bed before their self-congratulation went sour and they realised that Macey had been taking the mickey out the mickey they thought they were taking out of him. He was so simple he could have sold life-insurance in heaven.

‘Your export, Macey,’ Milligan said and paid.

Macey wet his lips with the beer. Unlike a lot of touts, he never used alcohol as a way of getting his mouth out of reach of his misgivings. If you bought him two drinks, one would have to be a carry-out.

‘Whit d’ye reckon tae Danny Lipton, Ernie?’

‘It’s porridge, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Unless Danny can prove that somebody broke into his house and dumped the stuff there. We found enough loot to keep the Barras going for a fortnight?

‘Dampt shame, intit?’

‘He was careless, Macey. You should always fix your depot before you move. You don’t bring it home like the Christmas shopping.’

‘Ah know that. So does Danny. The polis are at his hoose that often, ye’d think it wis a sub-station. But the chance comes up fur a wee job, ye’re in there, aren’t ye? Professional instinct, intit?’

‘No, it’s not. Professional instinct’s when you go three stops past your first thought and then walk back. Danny didn’t do that. He jumped off while the idea was still moving. Right into Barlinnie.’

‘The Bar-L.’ Macey shuddered. ‘Gads.’ He had only been in Glasgow’s prison once. He had no plans for going back. ‘Hellish, though. He’s sich a nice big fella.’

Macey was right. The only thing Danny Lipton had ever shown violence to was a window.

‘Ah wis speakin’ tae his wife the day,’ Macey said.

‘Big Sarah?’

‘She’ll miss ’im that much. Great relationship, ye know. Any time he’s no’ brekkin’ intae hooses, he’s doin’ up his own. ’S a fac’. Sarah aye says if Danny’s no’ in, she knows exactly where he is. No’ like some people’s men. She knows he’s just out screwin’.’

Macey meant houses.

‘Ye back wi’ the wife yet?’ Macey asked.

‘No. But I soon will be.’

Milligan recognised the tout’s pride in having an easy familiarity with the police. He supposed touting was a back door into the establishment, like the servant at the big house thinking he’s got the edge on all those who never even get in. The money often seemed secondary. But this was long enough to have been playing at equals.

‘Macey.’

Macey reluctantly confronted the changed tone. Milligan reached into his inside pocket and passed something across for Macey to look at.

‘Whit’s this?’

‘Promotion,’ Milligan said. ‘You’re looking at D.C.I. Milligan there.’

Baffled, Macey looked at a photograph of a young man the rawness of whose face was just about enough to make Macey look for the eggshell on his head. He was looking up from something he was reading and his expression suggested he had never seen a flashbulb before. Macey looked at Milligan from behind his own mask of innocence.

‘That must’ve been taken a few years back. Ye’re that young-lookin’, Ernie.’

‘Uh-huh. Tony Veitch, Macey. Tony Veitch.’

The name almost startled Macey out of his performance but, being less than a world war, not quite. Watching him, Milligan suspected there might have been a response in there somewhere.

‘You know him?’

Macey shook his head.

‘I’m looking for him. It’s my feeling that if he did what I think he did, I could be one of a crowd. Macey.’ Macey brought his eyes up from the photograph. Milligan indicated himself with his thumb. ‘I’m first. I don’t wait in queues. Follow?’

‘What’s it got to do wi’ me, Ernie?’

‘Macey. I had to take out a mortgage to buy you a drink in here. I don’t like wasting money. I know you’re in with the right people for this one. All you have to do is want to know. You better want. You drag your feet on this one, I’ll see you get plenty of time to drag them. You thought Barlinnie was bad, Macey? Barlinnie’s Butlin’s. Full of jolly redcoats. You want to try Peterhead? They’ve got a bit of that nick they just call the married quarters. You’re a nice-looking boy, Macey.’

‘Ah’ll do ma best, Ernie. What about money?’

‘C.O.D., Macey. C.O.D.’

‘There’s been talk about ’im. Ah don’t know the fella. But he’s disappeared, it seems.’

‘I know. All I’m asking is when they find him, I’m there first.’

Macey handed back the picture, a small transaction observed from further along the lounge, nearer the reception area. There Lynsey Farren was surprised to have her dignified entrance interrupted by Dave McMaster. He grabbed her elbow and turned her back the way they had come.

‘We’ll go up the side way,’ he said. ‘Get a drink at the table.’

‘Why?’ she asked, as he led her into the side passage that ran parallel to the lounge.

‘Ah’ve just clocked something very interesting,’ he said.

When you opened the street door to the Glasgow Press Club in West George Street you were confronted with an old, stone, curving staircase, an act of contrition steep enough to take the wind out of most pomposity. Once you negotiated the locked door at the top (in Harkness’s case by getting Eddie Devlin to sign him in), you came into a small place articulate with that Glaswegian instinct for finding the off-hand remark which freezes pretentiousness in its tracks. It was a de-briefing room for the spy network the press runs on celebrities.

Mainly, it was two places: the snooker room and the bar, which had a small, compact gantry and a scatter of tables. In either room, there was no problem finding someone to deflate you. Eddie Devlin was merely one of many always ready to oblige.

‘Uh-huh,’ he was saying. ‘Then we could run a society column for down-and-outs. Who’s getting off their mark with whom from the Salvation Army Mission. Have a series. Who was out of their mind with the bevvy on Custom House Quay last week. Which are the smart derelict buildings to be seen in these days. Hey. I could become the William Hickey of Caledonia Road. It’s a good idea, Jack.’

Harkness was glad he had a pint of pain-killer. He knew he had made a mistake coming in here and he sympathised with Eddie. It was a moment he recognised from a case like this, one of the lay-by times when there was nothing actively they could do and Laidlaw was left going over the thing obsessively in his head. He was still on the lime-juice and soda, which couldn’t be helping.

‘Come on,’ Laidlaw was saying, staring through Eddie’s ridicule. ‘Just give him a mention.’