Chapter Sixteen

The silence in the streets was uncanny. It was already after eleven o’clock in the morning but there was hardly a soul about and all the shops, even wee corner dairies and newsagents, were shuttered and barred. Along the length of the Calcutta Road not a bus or tramcar was visible. Even at the road’s end the thoroughfares lay empty as far as the eye could see.

Night rain had washed the smoke away and over Glasgow as well as the Gorbals the sky was a clear liquid blue. But the gutters still ran with mud, back courts contained great dark spreading lakes and the eaves of old buildings dripped and dribbled, their sandstone walls puckered with moisture.

At the top of the tenement in Lilyburn Street there were no signs of the fire that had claimed three lives.

Polly had to push herself to enter the close and walk through to the backs to detect evidence of it. Even that was little enough, hardly more than another stain on the stained building, a sooty thumbprint high on the wall close to the roof. The kitchen window was not broken, merely cracked, and beneath the ledge, above the common lines of wash, was a salty sort of splash-mark left, perhaps, by the firemen’s hose.

Polly returned through the close, turned right and set out for Brock Street, her heels clicking on the rain-washed pavement, a little rat-a-tat echoing from each deserted close.

She felt tight and tense yet very clear-headed, unlike the majority of citizens who were sleeping off hangovers behind closed curtains and would not surface until dusk signalled the start of a second round of revelry, not in pubs and bars tonight but in the crowded, crumpled tenements where friends and families met to eat and drink, and drink some more.

She walked fast, very fast, breathlessly fast. She covered the mile between the Calcutta Road and Brock Street in less than a quarter of an hour.

So far she was the only one of the Conways who had heard about the fire.

When they had returned from the street party at Gorbals Cross, Polly had seen Babs and the Hallop boys safely into the Hallops’ house before going upstairs to bed. It had been two or half past by then but she had risen early, remarkably early, to visit the closet on the half-landing. On the stairs she had encountered Mr Gower, the Conways’ neighbour; surly Mr Gower, to whom ill-tidings were meat and drink. He had told her of the fire and that two wee weans and a man named Bonnar had been smothered to death by smoke. How he had come by this weight of information in the wee small hours of New Year’s Day was a mystery that he did not see fit to explain.

Polly’s first impulse had been to waken her mother. But Lizzie, with Rosie cuddled beside her, was fast asleep in the kitchen bed. And Babs, much the worse for having spent most of the night imbibing beer in the Hallops’ kitchen, was so stupefied that Polly could not rouse her at all. So she’d made toast and tea and smoked a cigarette and then, driven by a need to escape from Lavender Court, had dressed herself in her Sunday best and had gone out in search of more information.

She had encountered the constable at the corner of Keane Street. He had been hanging about aimlessly, trying to appear alert in the dead hours of a New Year’s morning. He had been surprised to see a pretty young woman out and about so early, had answered her questions willingly and told her all he knew concerning the incident; how emergency crews from the fire station and ambulance service had turned out, how policemen from Southern Division had cleared the tenement, and how, as soon as the bodies had been removed and the building had been declared safe, all the tenants had trooped back inside and resumed their celebrations as if nothing untoward had happened.

When the constable had asked if she had known the victims Polly had shaken her head. Managing a smile of sorts, she had wished him all the best and had gone on her way down Ferrier Street into the Calcutta Road, possessed by a need to see for herself where Tommy Bonnar had been murdered before she went to Brock Street to track down Patsy Walsh.

‘Wait, Polly, just hold your horses,’ Patsy said. ‘Nothin’ you’ve told me so far indicates that Tommy was murdered. Accidents do happen.’

‘Where’s the woman he lived with then?’

‘Maggie, his sister,’ Patsy said. ‘God knows!’

‘Perhaps she’s dead too.’

‘Nah, nah. She’ll be on the randan somewhere. She’ll turn up in her own good time.’

‘To find her brother an’ two of her children dead an’ her house boarded up?’ Polly paused, scowling. ‘Perhaps it’s no more than she deserves, leaving her bairns to fend for themselves on Hogmanay.’

‘Tommy was with them, wasn’t he?’

‘Fat lot of good that did the poor wee mites.’

‘Are you okay, Poll?’

‘No, I am not okay. Where were you last night?’

‘Right here.’

‘With your father?’

‘No, he went to bring in Ne’erday with his sister. Hasn’t come back yet.’

‘So you were on your own?’

‘Wait a bloody minute, Polly. I hope you’re not suggestin’ that I had anythin’ to do with this?’

‘No, but I think somebody did,’ said Polly.

They were alone in the Walshes’ kitchen. A faded cotton curtain was still drawn over the window above the sink, though the sun had struggled out and there were planes of light on the wall above the grate and on the alcove bed which, Polly noted, was already made up. On a cork mat on the table were a single plate with egg stains upon it and a single teacup and saucer. It all looked normal, she had to admit.

Patsy was plainly not hung over. He had shaved and wore a clean turtleneck black wool sweater and black corduroy trousers. There was an air of ‘French’ about him, of apache, not ruffian but robber. He conversed without any of the didactic little flourishes that she had grown used to over the weeks.

‘I’ve been in Tommy’s place,’ he said. ‘It’s a tip, a dump. Beddin’ an’ filthy old clothes strewn all over the floor and enough grease on the walls to start the fire o’ London.’

‘It didn’t burn much,’ Polly said. ‘Smoke killed them, not flames.’

‘I thought you said one of the wee ones was still alive.’

‘That’s what the policeman told me.’ Polly nodded. ‘The baby, the smallest – they put her on a breathing machine and rushed her off to the Victoria Infirmary in an ambulance.’

‘She won’t be able to tell them much.’

‘Tell who?’ said Polly. ‘The police?’

‘The Procurator Fiscal,’ Patsy said. ‘The coppers will lay their evidence before him an’ he’ll conduct a fatal accident enquiry.’

‘Not a murder enquiry?’ said Polly.

‘If the Procurator finds enough proof, sure, it’ll be murder.’

‘Will he find proof?’

‘How the hell would I know?’ Patsy said. Then, ‘Probably not.’

‘Whoever did in Tommy Bonnar was clever enough to fake an accident,’ Polly said. ‘You and I both know why Tommy died last night.’

‘Come off it, Polly!’ Patsy said, patience wearing thin. ‘Chances are Tommy wasn’t murdered at all. He probably fell asleep with a ciggie in his mouth and set the bed on fire. Happens all the time. What with leaky gas pipes, blocked flues an’ open grates those old tenements are notorious fire traps.’

‘There wasn’t a fire,’ Polly said again. ‘At least not much of one.’

‘What happened to the other kiddies? Last I heard there were five or six stayin’ in Tommy’s house.’

‘Three were found out in the street.’

Polly had been a citizen of Glasgow and a dweller in the Gorbals far too long to be surprised. It was one of the strangest of all anomalies in the working-class character that children could be so loved and so neglected.

‘What’ll happen to them?’ Patsy said.

‘What do you care?’

‘For God’s sake, Polly, stop gettin’ at me,’ Patsy snapped. ‘I’d nothin’ to do with Tommy’s death.’

‘You helped,’ Polly said.

‘Because of the thing at the warehouse, you mean?’

‘You thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you?’

‘I thought nothin’ of the kind,’ said Patsy.

‘If Dominic Manone had one man and two children murdered in cold blood what makes you think he’ll balk at having you killed too?’

‘That isn’t the way the system works, Polly.’

‘The system!’ She got to her feet. ‘What system, what bloody system?’

‘At least you’re not in any danger from Manone.’

‘I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about you,’ Polly said. ‘As for your bloody system – that’s nothing but a myth. You might kid yourself that there are rules, some sort of order to it all, but there isn’t. The damned “system” didn’t choke Tommy Bonnar and those poor wee kiddies. Some guy went in there and did it. I’d like to know who it was and why.’

‘Easy, easy.’ Patsy rose. ‘No need to get so het up.’

He tried to put his arms about her. She would have none of it. She refused to have her rage demeaned, to be treated as if she were nothing but a ranting, hysterical female. If justice had been meted out to Tommy Bonnar then it was false justice, crude male justice, not a fact of nature or an act of God. Anger drained colour from her cheeks. She was as pale as milk, pursed lips pale too.

‘You don’t care, do you?’ she said. ‘You’re just as hopeless as all the rest of them. Hopeless in every sense of the word.’

‘Something went wrong, Polly, that’s all.’

‘Tell that to Tommy Bonnar’s kiddies.’

‘What can I do about it now?’

‘Get yourself out of here.’

‘With what? I haven’t any—’

‘Money?’ Polly said. ‘I told you, I can get you money. How much? Tell me again, how much?’

‘I won’t take Manone’s money.’

‘It isn’t Manone’s money. It’s my money. How much, Patsy?’ Polly said. ‘What will it cost to get you out of here?’

‘Like I said, a hundred and fifty would do nicely.’

‘So,’ Polly said, ‘if I give you a hundred and fifty pounds you’ll promise to clear out of Glasgow.’

‘Are you doin’ this because of Tommy, because of O’Hara, or because you want rid of me?’ Patsy said.

‘Because I want rid of you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Right.’

She had told him the truth – and he hadn’t believed her. He could not imagine that she would pay him to leave, that she was capable of purchasing her freedom from him. For all his supposed depth of character and claims to understand the world, he was still too much the male to perceive that she meant exactly what she said, that kissing, cuddling and sexual rehearsal had not been enough to deceive her.

‘Sunday night,’ Polly said. ‘I’ll bring it to you on Sunday night.’

‘Hey, you’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Perfectly serious,’ Polly said. ‘I’ll give you the money if you promise to steer clear of Glasgow until it’s safe to come back.’

‘When will that be?’ he said.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Polly.

He stared at her, unsure just what she expected in return. He wondered if the Italian was behind her offer, if the Italian had been behind everything right from the start, the Italian or the Italian’s money or the Italian’s pride. He wondered if he should take Polly Conway instead of the money, or if there was some clever way to play it so that he might wind up with everything, Polly and the money and revenge, all wrapped up in one neat big ball.

Even if the Italian was paying, it was too good an opportunity to turn down. He’d been more spooked than he cared to admit by news of Tommy Bonnar’s death. He doubted if Dominic Manone would endorse a plan that left the matter so unresolved, particularly if the point of killing Tommy had been to satisfy pride and reassert authority.

And the kiddies – he tried not to think about the kiddies.

‘Okay,’ he told her.

‘You promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘Where will you go? Paris again?’

‘Yeah, Paris,’ Patsy said. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’

And Polly, shaking her head, said, ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because my life’s here.’

‘An’ mine isn’t?’

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘Yours isn’t.’

*   *   *

At Guido’s insistence the Manones had brought in the year some forty miles down the coast from Glasgow.

For three or four years now Alberto Pirollo had invited them to a party in the Promenade Café and each year Dominic had found a polite reason to refuse. This year, however, Uncle Guido had put pressure on him to show his face at Pirollo’s New Year celebration, for the Manones were co-investors in the Promenade and, slump or not, the big new café-restaurant that overlooked the Firth of Clyde was proving to be a money-spinner.

In addition, Pirollo had his eye on two other sites in Ayrshire resorts where cafés on the grand scale might do well and he was keen to involve the Manones at an early stage in the planning. Dominic also knew that Guido had been sleeping on and off with Alberto’s younger sister who was – theoretically – married to an accountant of the non-Italian variety, and that she, the sister, had been putting pressure on Guido too.

Dominic was surprised, therefore, when Aunt Teresa was loaded into the Alfa, along with travelling rugs, overnight bags and a selection of expensive New Year gifts for Alberto and his family and Guido drove all three of them down the coastal road into Ayrshire.

Dinner and the dance that followed it were very lavish. Pirollo and his family proved to be genial hosts. Sixty people, almost all Italians, welcomed in the New Year in the reception area that backed the restaurant and Dominic danced with seven or eight pretty girls, including one of Pirollo’s daughters whom the indefatigable Aunt Teresa kept pushing in his direction. Dominic wasn’t interested in Lina Pirollo, though she was modest and young, as Scottish as he was, and pretty too in a dainty sort of way. He was polite and friendly towards her, however, for he had received a cable from his father telling him to enquire further about Pirollo’s expansion plans and not to antagonise the family, something that Dominic had no intention of doing anyway. About half past three o’clock Guido, Teresa and he retired to the rooms they had booked in the Isle of Arran Hotel, one of the best on the coast, and went to sleep.

Dominic was up and dressed by nine. He walked from the hotel to the Promenade via the back streets and enjoyed a private breakfast with Alberto and his eldest son – another Guido – at a table in the bay window. Wintry grey cloud covered the islands and the sea, alas, and the window was speckled with rain. Dominic concentrated on the plans that Pirollo had brought with him, together with a rough estimate of what Dominic’s involvement might be and what it would yield in profit. It was not a morning for definite decisions, though, and Alberto and his son were content to put their propositions before Dominic and learn that he was interested in principle.

They drank strong coffee, smoked and talked until almost one when Uncle Guido brought the Alfa prowling along the Promenade Road from the back of the Isle of Arran. Dominic shook hands with the Pirollos, hugged them, thanked them and promised to be in touch. Then he went down the carpeted stairs and out of the big front door of the restaurant.

The promenade was empty as far as his eye could see, sweeping away round by the headland, past quaint little old buildings at the harbour and out again into swirls of pearly rain that cloaked the hills to the south. There was a brisk little swell on the sea, the touch of a breeze and Dominic could taste the cold salt in his mouth. He experienced a surge of energy, an inclination to start out along the empty promenade and walk and walk and walk in the hope that somewhere along there, waiting for him, he would come across a girl, not just any girl, one in particular, and that they might walk together the whole length of the promenade and back again.

‘What is wrong with you?’ Uncle Guido said. ‘Did it not go well?’

‘It went fine,’ Dominic told him. ‘Fine. Everything is okay.’

‘You will make a deal with Pirollo?’

‘I’m prepared to think about it,’ Dominic said.

‘Then think about it inside the motorcar,’ Guido said. ‘I want to get home before it becomes dark.’

Dominic climbed into the Alfa and Uncle Guido drove back to Glasgow, back to Manor Park Avenue where, pacing up and down outside the gate, Tony Lombard waited to tell them the sad news.

*   *   *

One glass of Co-op sherry consumed at a minute after midnight could hardly have caused Bernard’s lethargy. Even so, he felt so lazy and relaxed next morning that he stayed in bed until midday and spent the early part of the afternoon dozing in an armchair by the living-room fire.

There had been a good deal of friendly traipsing between the cottages but at his mother’s insistence Bernard had put out the lights at half past midnight to deter callers. Mrs Peabody might be gregarious but she was also a wee bit of a snob who preferred the company of specially selected friends to that of mere neighbours who, like her, had been culled out of the riverside slums of Finnieston, Anderston and Partick. She was also – here Bernard sympathised – affected by a time of year when she could not help but recall her deceased sons and husband and regret that the passage of years carried them ever further from her. All she had left was Bernard – and she didn’t think much of him, even although he provided for her and never got into trouble.

On Friday the Women’s Guild would hold a sandwich lunch in the church hall, a high point of the season for Violet Peabody. She spent much of Thursday afternoon in the kitchen baking scones and cakes for this treat. It was after four o’clock before she appeared, still aproned and rather floury, gave Bernard a little dig to rouse him and placed two bowls of oxtail soup on the table.

Bernard had been busy weaving a lovely daydream and felt so benign that he ambled from the chair to the table and seated himself without a murmur of complaint at the lateness of the hour.

He regarded his mother fondly.

Less fondly, she looked up and said, ‘What are you grinnin’ at?’

Bernard said, ‘I’m thinking of getting married.’

Brown soup dribbled back into the bowl and one little droplet clung to his mother’s bottom lip. She stuck out her tongue, licked it away, then, after a two or three-second pause, said, ‘Not today you’re not.’

‘No, not today.’ Bernard laughed. ‘Soon, though. Before the year’s out.’

‘You can’t afford to get married.’

‘Oh, I reckon I can – just about.’

‘You can’t stay here,’ his mother told him. ‘I’m not sharin’ my kitchen.’

‘In that case I’ll apply for a house of my own.’

‘They’ll never give you a house, not at your age.’

‘They might,’ Bernard said. ‘Failing which I can always go an’ stay with my wife over in the Gorbals.’

Mrs Peabody put down her spoon, dabbed her lips with a napkin.

‘It’s her, isn’t it? The one who came here the other day?’

‘Lizzie, yes.’

‘I didn’t like her.’

‘I didn’t expect you would.’

‘She’s an old woman.’

‘Of course she isn’t an old woman,’ said Bernard. ‘She’s only a year or two older than I am.’

‘More like six or seven, I’d say.’

‘That hardly makes her Miss Haversham, does it?’

‘I thought her name was Conway.’

‘It is,’ said Bernard. ‘I was just making an … never mind.’

‘Don’t you take that tone with me, my lad.’

‘What tone?’ said Bernard.

‘I’ve seen a lot more of life than you have.’

Still relaxed and determined not to squabble, Bernard wondered if that was strictly true. He knew what the ladies of the Guild thought, how they took unto themselves the whole burden of suffering that the war had engendered, how they mocked their brothers and husbands and genuinely believed that a life devoted to cooking, keeping house, raising children and making ends meet was far more arduous than the lives their menfolk led. Men, after all, only laboured fifty hours a week in the belly of a ship in Browns or Fairfields, in the nauseating heat of Dixon’s Blazes or the Kingston Iron Works, underground in a coal pit or out on the North Sea in all weathers on the deck of a trawler.

There was also the matter of the Great War, a conflict that had – some said – given women a little taste of freedom, though the cost in grief and hardship had been far too high for women as well. Even so, Bernard wondered what the ladies of the Guild really knew about hardship, if they would have been so scathing about the male of the species if they had been obliged to scurry like rats along a stinking trench or endure night after night of bombardment or, in a windless dawn, to slither over the top and charge headlong on to the guns – all for King and Country, Hearth and Home, for the Girls that were left Behind.

Bernard said, ‘I’ve no doubt you have, Mother, but it’s not a question of who’s suffered the most or who’s seen most of life. It’s really dead simple. I want to get married. I intend to get married.’

‘To this Conway woman.’

‘Yes.’

Nothing she could say or do would make his temper fray at the edges. He had never felt so thoroughly at ease before, as if he had been waiting out the time since the Armistice for just this moment, the moment when he could put all the emptiness, all the cowering, behind him by allowing himself to fall in love. He had been conservative and abstemious and patient. He had been dutiful and industrious and uncomplaining. He had been the perfect citizen, the perfect son for far too long. But now he was in love and he would bring to bear all the discipline and fortitude that the army and society had inculcated in him, all the courage, to get the woman he wanted and make her his wife.

‘She won’t be able to give you children.’

‘She might, if we decided…’

‘She has children. She’s got girls near your age.’

‘Nice girls,’ said Bernard. ‘One of them’s deaf.’

‘They can’t come here.’

‘I know that,’ Bernard said.

‘Have you – has she … Is this why you…’

‘No, Mother, no, no,’ said Bernard. ‘Nothing like that.’

‘But she has set her cap at you, a woman of her age.’

‘Aye, she’s set her cap at me,’ said Bernard. ‘What’s more, I like it.’

‘Gorbals,’ his mother said. ‘Gorbals – I never thought I’d see the day.’

Bernard broke bread into his cooling soup and supped with his spoon.

‘Anyway, I haven’t asked Lizzie yet and there’s a lot to be settled before I do,’ he said, between mouthfuls. ‘But I thought it only decent to let you know what’s on my mind so you’d be prepared for it.’

‘Decent isn’t the world I’d use.’

‘Mother, I’m in love with the woman.’

‘That won’t last.’

‘It might,’ said Bernard. ‘In any case I’m willin’ to take the chance.’

‘What about me? What’ll become of me?’

‘I’ll make sure you’re looked after,’ Bernard said. ‘I’m not desertin’ you. I’ll carry on payin’ your rent for one thing.’

‘But you won’t be here,’ Mrs Peabody said. ‘You’ll be with her.’

‘That’s true,’ said Bernard.

‘You won’t love me any more, Bernard, and – and you’re all I’ve got left.’

‘Of course I’ll still love you.’ Bernard put out his bandaged hand and patted the back of her wrist lightly, awkwardly. ‘Think of it this way, Mum, you won’t be losin’ a son, you’ll be gainin’ a daughter.’

‘An old woman, huh!’

‘A good woman,’ Bernard said.

‘That,’ said Mrs Peabody, grimly, ‘remains to be seen.’

*   *   *

Dusk came late to the valley of the Clyde. The sky had cleared and, by half past four o’clock, a frosty sharpness in the air caused Polly’s breath to cloud as she entered the avenue that bordered the park.

She had located Manor Park easily enough with the aid of a little brown-backed Glasgow atlas that she had filched from the Burgh Hall reference library several months ago but the trek from the Gorbals, added to the morning’s excursions, had left her leg-weary. She paused at the gate for a moment to catch her breath and screw up her courage before she walked up the gravel drive and, heart pounding, approached the Manones’ front door.

There were three men in the front parlour. Nobody had thought to close the curtains. From his position on the couch, Uncle Guido was first to spot the girl. He put down his coffee cup, craned his long neck and said, ‘Someone is coming to our door. A young woman, I believe.’

Dominic shot out of his armchair and swung round to face the window.

‘Well, well, well!’ he said. ‘It’s Polly Conway.’ All three men peered at the girl from the long window. Streetlamps bloomed yellow against the lavender sky and privet and laurel bushes loomed in the dark garden. ‘I had better let her in,’ said Dominic eagerly.

‘Teresa will do it,’ Guido said.

‘What the hell does Frank Conway’s daughter want with us?’ Tony said.

‘I think she might want to trade,’ Dominic said, while, like an echo, the doorbell rang.

‘Trade? What does she have to trade with?’ said Tony.

‘That’s what we’ll have to find out,’ said Dominic and, ignoring his uncle’s warning growl, hurried out into the hall to greet his new recruit.

*   *   *

She was impressed and rather intimidated by the scale of the house and the size of the dining-room into which Dominic led her. It was not that she found it comfortable – far from it. The black marble fireplace was empty and the electric bulbs in the ceiling pendant shed a wan, unconcentrated light. The bulky table and sideboard were in dark stained wood and the tall chairs’ padded upholstery had a slightly musty smell that made Polly think of crypts and mausoleums.

The room was cold, though Dominic in his high-cut waistcoat and shirt-sleeves did not seem to notice. He wore sleeve garters like an Italian street trader and when he drew out a chair for her at the long polished table she noticed that his wrists were downed with dark hair, which somehow made him seem less boyish and more threatening.

She tried to recapture the anger that had brought her here, the hot, swelling temper that news of Tommy Bonnar’s death, and Patsy’s reaction to it, had roused in her. But it was gone, that rage; she was left with a fluttering sense of her own frailty and the knowledge that she had nothing with which to protect herself against this man except her ability to keeping him guessing.

Dominic seated himself at the head of the table, back to the uncurtained window. He leaned back, put his hand to his chin and studied her for a moment, then, without shifting position, said, ‘I think I know why you’re here. I assure you – I swear to you – I had nothing to do with what happened to your friend Bonnar.’

‘Tommy Bonnar wasn’t my friend,’ Polly said. ‘I hardly knew him.’

‘It is because of what happened last night that you are here, though?’

‘Yes,’ Polly said. She had to start somewhere. ‘What happened to Tommy Bonnar wasn’t an accident, was it?’

‘It may have been.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’ Polly’s tone was as chilly as the air in the dining-room. ‘I don’t think coincidence stretches that far.’

‘Coincidence?’ said Dominic.

She chose her words with care. ‘The last time we met, not that long ago, you asked me for information about the warehouse robbery.’

‘So?’

‘You were looking for the men responsible.’

‘That is true.’

‘When I asked you if you’d take revenge on them…’

‘You suggested that the robbery might have been a mistake.’

‘Yes, but now there are two “mistakes” to take into account,’ Polly said, ‘and I don’t believe in that much coincidence. You also assured me that you didn’t know that Alex O’Hara had called at our house and intimidated us.’

‘Which was the truth.’

‘Could setting fire to Tommy Bonnar’s house have been something else that O’Hara did without informing you first?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Why do you doubt it, Mr Manone?’

‘Alex would have used a blade.’

‘Did you tell him to use a blade?’ said Polly.

He looked at her, head to one side, still speculative but perhaps just a little amused, not by what she was saying but by her temerity in daring to say it at all. ‘Am I right in thinking that your mother doesn’t know you have come to see me today?’ Dominic said.

‘Our business has nothing to do with my mother; well, not much,’ Polly told him. ‘It’s a matter between you and me, Mr Manone, which is the reason I took the liberty of intruding on your privacy on New Year’s Day.’ She was unaware that her speech had begun to match his rhythm, his correctness. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘I did not tell O’Hara to do anything to Tommy Bonnar. After all, I had no reason to want Tommy hurt.’

‘Unless he was one of the men who tried to steal from you?’

‘I have been out of Glasgow for two days,’ Dominic said. ‘I only found out about Tommy a couple of hours ago. I don’t know what happened. I’ll have to wait for the result of the Fiscal’s report just like everyone else.’ He slid his hand from chin to mouth, covered his lips with his forefinger. ‘Did Tommy Bonnar steal from me?’

‘How would I know?’

‘I think you do,’ Dominic said. ‘I think that is why you are so upset about Tommy’s death.’

‘Doesn’t it bother you at all that two wee kiddies are dead an’ another one’s in the hospital?’ Polly said.

‘It bothers me,’ Dominic said. ‘It also bothers me that the mother of the children couldn’t be found at the time. That she left six small children to fend for themselves while she went out drinking and to pick up men.’

‘Perhaps she had to.’

‘She did not have to,’ Dominic said.

‘You know that for sure?’

‘I know that for sure,’ Dominic said. ‘Incidentally, the sister turned up. She came back to Lilyburn of her own accord about one o’clock today. The police found her and took her into custody. She’ll be charged with neglect or some such thing and imprisoned for a little while. He other children, the survivors, have been taken into the care of the local authority and are billeted at Randolph House Children’s Home. The small child in hospital is not in danger.’

‘How do you know these things?’

‘I have a telephone.’

‘And friends in high places?’ said Polly.

‘And friends in high places,’ Dominic agreed. ‘If it was only concern for the children that brought you to me you may rest assured that they will be taken care of, that we will look after them.’

‘We?’

‘Tommy worked for us. We have an obligation to his family.’

‘Will you look after them the way you looked after us?’

‘The situations are not at all the same,’ Dominic said. ‘Tell me what really brings you here today? You want to trade, do you not?’

‘Trade?’

‘I think you have information. I think you have decided on a price for it.’

She pushed her chair back a little and turned towards him, crossing her legs under the pleats of her skirt. The last of the light had drained from the sky and all she could see in the glass was a reflection of herself floating in a cube of half-light that seemed to come from no definable source. Dominic rested so far back in the dining-room chair that she could see nothing of him in the mirrored cube and for a split second had the impression that she was entirely alone. She inscribed a little circle with her shoe, looking down at it, while Dominic, finger still pressed to his lips, waited politely.

‘I don’t want your money,’ Polly said.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want – I need a promise I can trust.’

‘What sort of promise?’

‘Not to – not to do anything else to anyone.’

He sat forward suddenly, a shrug of the shoulders, almost a lunge.

Polly started in spite of herself. He leaned his elbows on the table and thrust his face towards her; no boy now, no meek and uncertain adolescent. His expression altered when he smiled; it was not a smile of amusement but of anger, or near anger, as if she had tried his patience too far. Polly held herself still, the foot still, raised her shoulders and met his angry gaze without flinching.

‘All right,’ Dominic said. ‘Let’s stop beating around the bush, Miss Conway. I think that you have guessed that I have lost money. Do you know who stole from me?’

Polly nodded.

‘Do you know where my money is?’

Polly nodded again.

‘Did Walsh send you here to make a deal?’

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘He’d kill me if he even suspected I was talking to you.’ She gave a tiny sigh, blowing out her lips. ‘Patsy’s inclined to think I’m working for you as it is. If he knew I’d come here today…’

Dominic raised a hand, showed her the palm.

‘I can flatten Patsy Walsh if I choose to do so,’ he said. ‘But I do not operate in that way. Whatever you may have heard, Polly, I do not resort to such methods if I can avoid it.’ He placed his hand flat on the table, not violently, not slapping. ‘You’re about to tell me that the safe’s at the bottom of the river, aren’t you? You’re about to tell me that Tommy Bonnar set up the job and that your boyfriend Patsy Walsh pulled it off, or should I say did not pull it off, not properly. How much information are you willing to give me? Will you tell me that the Hallops are also involved? I figured that out long ago.

‘I also figured out that your sister Barbara told them where the safe was placed within the building. But’ – he raised his hand again, showed her the palm again – ‘I cannot prove any part of it. Sure, I could send O’Hara to scare the living daylights out of Jackie Hallop, and Jackie would probably blurt out the whole idiotic story. But then I would be forced to do something about it. I do not want that. I do not want to have to act upon a certainty. Do you understand?’

‘Because of the police?’

‘Because I’m in business, Polly.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ Polly said.

‘I do, absolutely I do.’

‘Taking money from innocent people is not business, it’s extortion.’

‘Innocent people?’ Dominic said. ‘I would be interested to hear how you define “innocent”. Let me put it to you this way: if it’s proved that Tommy Bonnar’s house was deliberately set on fire then that would be an act of murder, would it not?’

‘Of course.’

‘If the guilty party is found what would you have done to him?’

‘He should be hanged,’ Polly said.

‘Fine,’ Dominic said. ‘Let’s suppose the guy who carried out the act, who set the fire that killed Tommy and the children, was obeying instructions from another party; would that other party be equally guilty?’

‘More so,’ Polly said.

‘No matter what Tommy had done?’

‘Nothing Tommy did could justify killing him, never mind two innocent children. Surely you aren’t going to tell me that the kiddies were somehow to blame as well?’

‘No, the children were entirely innocent.’

‘You see,’ said Polly. ‘That’s my point.’

‘An eye for an eye?’

‘In this sort of case, yes.’

‘You would have the person, or persons, executed?’

‘I would.’

‘Even if the question weren’t hypothetical? Do you know what—’

‘Yes, I know what hypothetical means,’ said Polly. ‘I just don’t see what any of this has to do with me?’

‘It does have to do with you, Polly. It’s the sole reason you’re here. You believe in justice, in judicial revenge. You believe that a society should protect its own and seek retribution from those who offend against society,’ Dominic told her, ‘provided decisions are made and punishments meted out by someone else.’

‘That’s what courts are for, what judges are for?’

‘Certainly,’ Dominic said. ‘But if you were the judge…’

‘I’m not. I don’t know anything about the law.’

‘What law?’

‘The law of the land, of Scotland.’

‘Yet you would have this man, this murderer executed?’

‘If he was found guilty, yes.’

‘What if I told you that Patrick Walsh was responsible for Tommy Bonnar’s death and the deaths of the children: would that make a difference?’

‘I don’t believe you. Patsy wouldn’t…’

‘I’m not saying he did,’ Dominic told her. ‘But if he had, what then?’

‘He would have to be tried,’ Polly said.

‘And if he was guilty?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, you’re trying to make me say things I don’t mean.’

‘You would not have him executed? Because you know him, because you care for him, perhaps, you would bend the law just a little? You would plead extenuating circumstances, you would begin to dilute the notion of innocence, to water it down. No?’

There was more to it, Polly realised, than hypothesis, than mere debate. He was putting her on the spot and she felt again the precariousness of her position. These were matters that she hadn’t considered, matters to which Dominic Manone had obviously devoted much thought. He sounded plausible in his argument but she could not be sure that he was not trying to trap her, to wring from her an admission that she might later regret. Was he trying to tell her in a round-about way that Patsy Walsh was Tommy’s killer? Was he letting her down gently?

She said, ‘If a man’s guilty of murder he should be made to pay for it.’

‘Unequivocally?’

‘If he’s guilty I’d give the same answer, whoever he happened to be.’

‘It is, then, a principle with you?’

‘I suppose it is,’ said Polly.

‘I see,’ said Dominic. ‘I see. Now, tell me, do you still wish to trade?’

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘In any case, what do I have left to trade with? You already know all about it.’

‘Sure, but I can’t prove it,’ Dominic said.

Polly looked down at her shoes. ‘They didn’t get away with it. They didn’t get away with the safe or the money.’

‘Is that what they told you?’

‘Yes, and I believe them.’

Dominic gave a little huh of amusement. ‘Then where’s my cash?’

‘As you surmised,’ said Polly, ‘at the bottom of the river.’

‘I should probably go fishing for it then?’

‘That’s up to you.’ Polly placed her feet upon the carpet, a thin, hard carpet with a russet design. She stood, not hurriedly. ‘There would be no certainly that you would find it, of course.’

‘Ah!’

‘In fact,’ Polly said, ‘I doubt if you would find it.’

‘Because it isn’t there at all?’

‘How do I know? They may be lying. I can’t be certain.’

‘So’ – Dominic eased himself from the chair – ‘after all our talk no resolution is possible, at least in the matter of the warehouse robbery.’

‘That’s how it looks,’ said Polly.

He stood close to her, not tall enough to be intimidating. He was, in fact, almost the same height as she was, no more than an inch taller. Nothing she had said seemed to have offended him. He was smiling, not broadly but with a little twist of the lip that lifted his sallow cheek into something like a dimple. That, she felt, was wrong, all wrong; a man like Dominic Manone should not have a dimple. But then a man like Dominic Manone should not engage in rational and logical discussion, should not concern himself with justice or even fair trade.

He laid his hand on her sleeve. She felt herself shiver. It was something she could not control. There were no words that could excuse what she felt at that moment.

‘I regret what happened to the kiddies,’ he said. ‘I regret what happened to Tommy too, though he was not quite so innocent as you may imagine. There’s usually a trace, a hint of collusion somewhere if you look hard enough for it.’ He steered her towards the dining-room door. ‘I think we all collude in shaping our own destinies, don’t you?’

‘I – I don’t know.’

It was dark outside now, the last of the twilight gone.

He said, ‘I will drive you home.’

‘No, I can…’

‘It is the least I can do, Polly, after all you’ve done for me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In helping me make up my mind.’

‘To do what?’

‘To do nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing, that is, that will concern you.’

‘Or Patsy?’ Polly said, quickly.

‘Or Patsy,’ said Dominic Manone.