William McIlvanney - The Papers of Tony Veitch

Laidlaw felt small.

‘It’s a hard job,’ he said.

‘Oh, Ah know,’ Macey said. ‘Ah’m sorry for you.’

Laidlaw was walking away. He paused, turned back towards Macey.

‘There’s always a price,’ he said. ‘Imagine having to be felt sorry for. By somebody who’s forgotten what morality was .’

‘Come on, come on,’ Harkness was saying. ‘Some people have their work to go to.’

The elderly woman on the crossing smiled and nodded and mouthed ‘Thank you,’ and Harkness felt guilty. It occurred to him that the small shopping-trolley she was pulling, which had crossed his vision like a mote, was full of her way of life. Why should he object to the time it took her age to trail it across the road? He blamed Laidlaw, as he waved to her and drove on as if he was pulling out of the pits.

Lifting the phone had been like Frankenstein plugging into a generator. A dead day was suddenly crackling into life. The urgency in Laidlaw’s voice seemed to assume that his were the elemental concerns that nobody could deny. He had said, ‘Glasgow Airport’ like the loudspeaker in an old war film saying ‘Scramble!’

Harkness was scrambling, was being a bit subjective with the traffic-lights. He found himself also v-signing a couple of people who were inconsiderate enough to object. The Laidlaw syndrome, he reflected. When he was in the mood, that man could galvanise a cemetery. Harkness prayed that Laidlaw knew what he was doing because nobody else was likely to.

Dave McMaster? Harkness couldn’t work it out. They had seen him that once at Lynsey Farren’s. Maybe it was a joke. Getting out of his car in the car-park, Harkness thought it probably was. The glass frontage of the terminal building reflected a bland evening. As he crossed the walk-way over the shallow water, he saw the thrown pennies in their coats of verdigris. Life was small change.

Then Laidlaw appeared towards him at the front of the building, sounding taut as a violin tuned for a hard one.

‘You ready?’ Laidlaw was saying. ‘There’s bound to be two of them. That’s guaranteed. They’re here for Ballater. So they’re carrying. All right?’

‘Wait a minute,’ Harkness said. ‘My stomach’s still on the motorway. Who’s Ballater?’

‘Mickey Ballater. He’s done Hook Hawkins. They’re looking for him. Dave McMaster’s one. We’re going to get him.’

Laidlaw was starting to walk.

‘Jack! I don’t understand this.’

Laidlaw turned.

‘What do you want? A genealogical table? Arse in top gear, Brian. And let’s go. Trust me.’

‘Jack!’

Harkness was still standing. He pointed at Laidlaw.

‘Are you sure?’

Laidlaw grimaced.

‘Brian. Who’s sure? God must be having second thoughts. But if I had to bet, I wouldn’t be asking for change of a million.

Come on!’

Harkness followed him through the automatic glass doors that Laidlaw almost put the head on. Inside was normalcy and Harkness’s misgivings grew.

They were in Glasgow Airport on a summer evening. They looked around downstairs, where the check-in counters were. They checked all around upstairs, where the cafeteria was like Chekhov done by MGM, redundant man in panavision. They studied the upstairs lounge, a busy place.

They heard the rattle of the departure boards, as if all human destinations had a stutter. They saw a couple of groups of teenagers caught in their aggressive uncertainty, here to go nowhere but a Monday night. They saw a young family, parents and two daughters, who looked as if they were waiting to go on holiday and as if the father was wondering how he got here. They saw a woman staringly drinking a clear drink. They saw five men with travelling bags making more noise than a revolution and being harmless. They didn’t see Dave McMaster.

They came back downstairs. Harkness was getting fidgety when Laidlaw touched his arm. He nodded towards the toilets at the end of the downstairs area. A man with carefully waved hair had emerged. Instead of going anywhere, he hung about, looking around. That was the first suspicious thing about him. The second was that Harkness slowly realised he recognised him. He had seen him with John Rhodes, during the Bryson case. Harkness followed Laidlaw across to the man.

‘Hullo there,’ Laidlaw said.

The man had been pretending he didn’t see them coming. They became a casual fence around him, pinning him to the wall.

‘Where is he?’ Laidlaw said.

‘Ah beg yer pardon?’

‘Dave McMaster.’

‘Sorry?’

‘We’re looking for Dave McMaster,’ Laidlaw said patiently.

‘Ah don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about,’ the man said.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Laidlaw said. ‘You’re here with Dave McMaster. Waiting in case Mickey Ballater shows up. We’re looking for Dave McMaster.’

‘Sorry?’

Harkness was beginning to be convinced. The man looked utterly baffled. Harkness took out his police-card and showed it to the man, smiling reassuringly.

‘Ah’m sorry,’ the man said. ‘Ah don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about. Ah’m waitin’ for the wife to get back fae Majorca.’

‘I know,’ Laidlaw said. ‘I’m waiting for Partick Thistle to win the European Cup. In the meantime. Where’s Dave McMaster?’

The man shrugged and smiled.

‘Sorry?’

‘And due to be sorrier,’ Laidlaw said.

Harkness was about to restrain Laidlaw’s anger when he noticed the man’s eyes move subtly between them, seeing something. Harkness knew what it was before he turned. Before he turned, he felt Laidlaw start to run. Turning, he was surprised by the are of Laidlaw’s run. Then he understood. Dave McMaster was whirling, caught between Harkness and Laidlaw, with Laidlaw blocking off the outside doors. McMaster had two cans of lager in his right hand. With a mouth as wide as a cannon he fired one at Harkness. Harkness fended it with his left arm and thought his elbow was broken. Instinctively, he knew something. He turned in one predetermined movement and butted the man with the wavy hair straight in the mouth, where his smile had been. The man stopped in mid-rush and his head bulleted back against the wall and he slid, as if he weighed two times himself, to the floor. It was a lucky hit but it would do.

Noise was what Harkness was aware of, cacophony. Screams, they were. He turned back. One scream was from a woman. Outside the moment, she might have been pretty. Her black hair was bouncing and her arms were outstretched. She was ready to spring. A tall man had dropped his case. It was falling over. He was reaching for her, to hold her back. He made it, pinned her to him. Another scream was from a boy. He looked about five, dark-haired. His legs were kicking. He was held in Dave McMaster’s left arm. A knife was at his throat. Other screams were from other people somewhere. One was from Laidlaw, backing off like a tiger behind a chair.

‘You bastard!’ Laidlaw was screaming. ‘That’s how you live. Fucking time up!’

In a moment Harkness would never forget, because he could never have imagined it, a small, balding man, who looked as if he wouldn’t have the gall to argue about wrong change, came in the doors behind Dave McMaster and grabbed the arm that held the knife. The small man was pulled up off the ground, swung kicking like a monkey that has lost its balance. But he stayed where he was, as if the arm was a lifeline. He didn’t know how to give up his hold. He was cut on the cheek and he fell, but the knife came with him. Dave McMaster threw the boy away like an empty wrapper.

He ran, with instinctive skill, up the upward escalator. But Laidlaw was tight as a shadow. Breasting the top of the escalator behind them, as if his lungs had the yieldingness of stone, Harkness understood, with a kind of compassion, how crazy panic had made Dave. He had run into the lounge-bar, the entrance of which was the exit. It was over.